Quality Guide

This is still a work in progress definition, which aspects of a game should be included into an article. Currently the list looks like this:

• Game info
  • type of game (RTS, FPS, etc.)
  • specialties about the game
  • Capabilities
    • LAN play (can the game be played via LAN, or maybe even via VPN?)
    • Coop (can the game be played strictly human players vs. computer opponent, so no human player has to lose in order for another human to win? See Coop definition on this topic.)
    • Internet play (can the game be played directly via internet (not meant: via VPN!))
    • Hotseat or Split Screen (multiple players playing on the same computer)
    • Single Player Campaign (does the game have some sort of campaign or at least the means to play alone against computer opponents)
    • Direct IP connection (does the game support using an IP address explicitly to connect to another server?)
    • Lobby search (does the game utilize some sort of automatic match search?)
    • GameRanger (can the game be played by means of GameRanger?)
• Setting it up
  • Especially for older games: how to set it up
  • Cracks, Patch orders, file sources for installer and patches, etc.
• System Requirements
• Trouble shooting: How can certain problems be overcome?

• Game surroundings:
  • Name
  • Platform
  • Publisher (don't forget to at least register new publishers on this page)
  • Development team (don't forget to at least register new Development Teams on this page)
  • Release date
  • History, e. g. game series, game universe
  • Where to get (Steam, GOG, Epic Store, https://www.archive.org/ etc.)
  • Is it free 2 play?
• Mods, Maps, other game-internal resources
• How to get it working on LAN, via Internet or VPN
• A few in-game screen shots, showing the principle looks of the game
• Different versions of the game, that do not give enough material for an entire own article (like: Warlords 1 Version 1.01 and Warlords 1 Version 2.0, not Warlords 1 Version ? and Warlords 2 Version ?)
• Patches
• Copy Protection(s) used.

Note also: Very long articles tend to become particularly problematic when it comes to anchor links in combination with images. As the images take a moment to load and render for the browser, it happens quite frequently, that the jump to the proper section of the article fails, as the jump is completed but then the images are loaded afterwards, which in turn move the currently shown section within the browser window. So in essence, you end up somewhere completely different than what the #-link target was supposed to get you to. So avoid very long articles with many images in it. If necessary, split up articles in thematically self-contained articles and link to them instead. This not only helps to omit this problem but also shortens download time for the page. After all, it is likely, not everybody will require all of it always.

• Links to further pages as resources, also outside the wiki
  • Videos of How-Tos, Play Throughs, etc.
  • Detail Information on aspects of the game like unit stats, explanatory images on game content.
• technical information, like cvars, setting up a server
• Cheats, walkthroughs, tricks
• Cracks

First of all, there are two things, the textual depiction of article titles, and the technical. They may match, but for some cases this is not recommended or simply not possible. The technical name is the name the article has for the wiki itself, similar to a file name. The contents or referencing links however, are a different matter. Therefore here are some rules for naming articles:

It is desired to use the official name of the game. Many games are well known for/by their abbreviations, such as CS or EF. Do not use those abbreviations as titles. Use their full name, as it was released by the publisher. This is not always possible for the technical names, but for the main headline and referencing Links, use the official name, at least when referencing them the first time in an article.

The colon is used as a technical separator for folders inside this Wiki. So you cannot use it in article names such as Star Trek: Elite Force II. But as this example shows, the convention is to replace the colon with » - « in the technical names and use its colon in the depiction text.

Many games are part of a game series or at least have a second title such as the above example. Do not use the Roman representation of the number for the technical names. It is quite right, to use the Roman number depiction for the textual title, when the official title uses this representation. But do not use it for the technical names. Always use Arabic numbers for technical names, instead of the Roman ones.

Means, either game series, like the Counter-Strike series, or game universe groups, e. g. Star Trek Games.

• Should have a clear, thematic limitation, like all games from a publisher or all games from the games playing in a certain universe
• Should contain the release dates of the games, and their game type, if there are more than one.

Some articles are not about a game in particular, not a game series, but about games surrounding topics, such as technical stuff or simply covering a topic, that may be of interest in conjunction with games. Examples are Publishers, VPN or Nexuiz CTF Strategy. Your are encouraged to do such articles as well. But please always keep in mind, that it is related to the topic “games”. So an article on how to set up a game's server on Linux is quite OK. But describing how to set up a Linux server itself is not. Please reference outside resources on such related topics and limit yourself to the content, that actually has a bearing on the matter gaming. This is not the Wikipedia itself.

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