Talk:Suikoden/Archive 1

Information
The information "Shi, 2003" does not apply to the novel, which is hundreds of years old. Whatever it means, the text should be clarified. P0M 06:48, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Referencing
I just used MLA-style referencing to indicate an edition of the book, listed in the bibliography. MLA uses the publication date for the edition referenced. The publication history of *Shui Hu Zhuan* is convoluted, and I am not aware that any conclusive date has been established for the composition of the original version by Shi Nai'an himself. I would assume this is an issue for contributors to the *Outlaws of the Marsh* entry to address, but if I've transgressed some kind of Wikipedia convention, please let me know what it is, and advise me how I could have dealt with the referencing differently. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkhour (talk • contribs) 10:39, 13 June 2004

Citation
I've removed the citation (Shi, 2003) to the removed book reference because it's confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbritnell (talk • contribs) 21:07, 17 April 2005

Links
In accordance with Wikipedia conventions, links should be placed in alphabetical order. Please do not change them around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zamza (talk • contribs) 05:07, 14 May 2005

Meaning of "Genso Suikoden"
Does anybody know what Genso Suikoden actually means in English? I have always wanted to know - I played the first game when I was about eight and have finally realised how you pronounce it... the next step would be knowing its meaning... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragonfly888 (talk • contribs) 19:34, 22 July 2005
 * I have a weak grasp of Japanese (from one year of study in high school), but I did look up the characters in my kanji dictionary at some point. I came up with (very, very roughly) something like "the story of a sea-side town". I'll go back and look them up again and see if my understanding has improved at all since then... &mdash; HorsePunchKid &rarr; &#x9F9C; 20:50, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, I did some "research" and basically figured it out. I looked up &#24187; (gen) and &#24819; (sou) in my favorite online dictionary to come up with illusions for gensou. The suikoden part, &#27700;&#28408;&#20253;, actually comes from the classic Chinese literary work mentioned in the article (and apparently also in the first game), Water Margin. The last character is different in Chinese; in Japanese, I think it basically means The Water Margin Legend. So put those two together, and you get... well, something still a bit confusing. I would say, roughly, "Visions of the Water Margin Legend". Hope that helps! &mdash; HorsePunchKid &rarr; &#x9F9C;  21:09, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much mate - that's ended a fair bit of speculation after several years! BTW your signature kicks ass! Dragonfly888 22:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * "Fantasy Water Margin Legends" would probably be a more fitting title. I've also always thought that "Water Margin" is a bit terse of a translation for 水滸博 (Chinese spelling for "Suikoden"--Shui Hu Zhuan). "Tales of the Marshes" or "Lakeside Story" is probably a bit more discriptive as a translation.  Just put "Fantasy" in front of those and you'd get a translation. -- SARSadmin 02:48, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Changing names of characters
Please don't change names of characters based on weak research (especially for characters whos names are only known in Japan). Phonetic transliteration is the lowest form of translating names; historical and cultural clues must be utilized for a better translation. This is why "Tir McDohl" should not be "Tyr McDohl" (because Tir and McDohl are both Irish terms, while Tyr is Scandinavian).

Another example is Nash Latkje. His last name did not have an official English translation for years. Fan translation varied, such as "Ratokie" or "Latokiae." However, the translator who evaluated the name as being a common Japanese romanization of the Slavic "Latkje" came out a winner when Konami opened it's English Suikogaiden site, where Nash's last name was spelled as "Latkje." Thus, make sure you correlate your translation with the etymological history of the name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.213.8.28 (talk • contribs) 21:28, 1 November 2005
 * Tir and McDohl are "Irish terms"? They must be really obscure, then, because I've never heard of either outside of Suikoden. Regardless, I didn't make the changes to the article, I just felt the need to respond to your claim that they were Irish, when in fact, they're either extremely obscure, poor romanizations, or not actually Irish names. --Serph 15:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Blue Moon Rune
Some people seem to be under the impression that "Moon Rune" is the correct name for this True Rune, but the Suikoden 2 108 characters guide confirms that "Blue Moon Rune" is the long form for this particular rune. Please don't edit that portion of the true rune information.-- SARSadmin 4 Oct 2005
 * Although I know you have asked that this not be done, the fact that the games are now using the term "Moon Rune", the entries need to be editted to reflect that. I have done this in the most updated version of the True Runes list, as it's clear that the Suikoden 2 translations no longer hold 100%.--Alkazar 07:10, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That's an arbitrary criteria that I disagree with. However, because you insist that old info should be considered obsolete, I will go ahead and remove "Rune of Life and Death" as well as references to the "Rune of Change" because "Rune of Life and Death" has only been called "Souleater" in recent publications, and "Rune of Change" was only mentioned once in the very same publication that called the Moon Rune as "Blue Moon Rune. -- SARSadmin 23 March 2006
 * I have recently edited some of the entries of the True rune pages. In my edit for the Blue Moon Rune, i changed the naming of the rune to be Moon Rune(Blue Moon) while adding a line describing the inconsistency in its naming. Hopefully this will be reasonable enough... --Lendl(aka Kobold)
 * Funny enough, Moon Rune never called Blue Moon Rune in game itself. Moon Rune mentioned twice, in Suikoden 2 and 3, but never Blue Moon Rune in any game. We get the name Blue Moon from other publications, sorry one publication exactly. So IMHO, that publication misunderstood the Blue Moon Village with Moon Rune. Because it was at first Moon Rune of The Blue Moon Village. See? Not Blue Moon Rune of Blue Moon Village or Blue Moon Rune of Moon Village (?). :) 28 August 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.163.86.100 (talk) 06:03, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Eightfold Rune
Pesmerga has never been associated with the Eightfold rune as far as official information goes, thus, it would be inaccurate to list him as being a "partial bearer" of the rune. This is fan speculation at best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.57.159 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 29 October 2005
 * Speculation that I've never even heard of at that. The usual theory (which is still speculation and doesn't belong on the list) is that he would have a "Ninefold Rune". I think it's based off the Eightfold being a Buddhist reference and the notion that Yuber & Pesmerga are counterparts of some sort. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.47.234.131 (talk • contribs) 09:18, 6 January 2006

Re-organise this article?
There is a lot of good information here, and much of it is well-cited. However, parts of the article read like a massive list of links that may be daunting to the uninitiated reader, then some very in-depth information (e.g. the section on Geography; again, great info here but not very well planned out) that seemingly jumps around.

Admittedly it's difficult to organise this article effectively because so much of the geography and timeline jumps around between games, but surely this article can be better. This is just a very basic idea for organisation, but how about:
 * Introduction: what Suikoden is in this context - namely, a gaming series by Konami that's loosely based on an ancient Chinese story. Much of the Characteristics section can be incorporated here.
 * List of games: this section is OK.
 * The World of Suikoden: I propsoe that the 27 True Runes be given their own page, as well as pages for each of the main characters. This world can briefly summarise that the runes are the lifeblood of the Suikoden universe, and briefly mention each of the main charcters fro mthe main games. These can then be expanded upon in their own pages. Right now, there is a huge, daunting list of runes that will make no sense to anyone who hasn't played the games (and little sense to anyone who hasn't played all of them, since some of the runes are only mentioned in the manual of the early games, or not at all, not to mention the confusion about Stallion's rune in the first game).
 * Geography: This section is full of great info, but could perhaps be shortened a bit. Much of it is already covered in the individual game pages. Perhaps I'm the wrong way round on this, and it should be kept lengthy so the game pages don't have to rehash information. Either way, it's a subcategory of the World. Geography in the games should be removed entirely and left to the article on each game.
 * Adaptations and Non-Gaming material: An important aspect of the series, this can be summarised here.

The section on the development team can be incorporated into the Introduction, I think; just mention the few major influences (e.g. Yoshitaka Murayama) or constant influences on the series, and let each individual game's article hold information on its staff.

These are just my ideas to clean this up a bit. I don't want to play down the good work already done on this article, but it can be so much better. Suikoden was once a very major part of my life and is still very important to me, so I'd be interesting in hearing not only from avid Wikipedia editors but fellow Suikoden addicts. Nach0king 23:46, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Reorganisation started
I have reorganised the article in line with my above suggestions. Nobody's contribution has been deleted from Wikipedia, as I'd rather have a critique of the organisation before i make wholesale changes like that. There is a new page on Geography in the Suikoden series, which replaces the old Geography in the Games section (this may be temporary; it might make more sense to provide the setting merely in the game articles themselves) and the 27 True Runes page continues to be a link from here. The info on the Runes on both pages was exactly the same; for the time being, I've left the first section on the runes here but left the rune page itself the same. It might be better just to provide a brief summary here and then work on the Runes page.

Anyway, let me know if this is a good start. I think the page is a lot more accessible for the beginner now. Next stop: pictures! Nach0king 18:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course I should add that the page is nowhere near finished! There is LOTS more to be added to this page and its subpages. This is merely an attempt to keep introductory info on this page, making it easier for people to learn about this great game series. Nach0king 18:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

European release added
I added the September 1st official date for Suikoden V. Konami confirmed it, so it should be there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vertius (talk • contribs) 21:47, 6 June 2006

Harmonia entry added
I've added an entry for the Holy Kingdom of Harmonia to the site. Vertius 18:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

States of Suikoden-related articles
I've noticed going through numerous articles for the games and characters in them that there are a considerable amount of technical/grammatical errors throughout them. I've attempted to fix what I could easily notice but I have a feeling there are even more than I have seen. I ask that those of you who watch over these articles and have the time, go back and read through them checking for consistency. I appreciate the work done on them thus far and I hope that they can become even better than they are now. 75.2.25.31 23:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Suikoden World Map
The link is dead (403 Forbidden) :( --Poki#3 12:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Suikoden tags?
Are there any Suikoden tags, like if you look at someones profile it says user is a fan of... and etc are there anything like that for suikoden??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotspot (talk • contribs) 02:50, 9 September 2006

The water margin
Let's not overlook the fact that Suikoden was based off an old Chinese legend called "The Water Margin" with a VERY different ending from the game. You can still get old reprints of the story from bookstores or Amazon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.0.105 (talk • contribs) 7 October 2006

Re-work of article
This article does need a lot of work. For a start there's no references and forum linking isn't technically allowed. Personally I feel the article may need more than a re-organisation perhaps a complete overhaul in regards to policy, unless there's a policy exempting this article from the general consensus? I'm sure with a bit of fishing about on Google and Suikosource this page will explode with information and references though but that's my only gripe at the moment (I just don't see the point of expanding without a proper core in place...) RBlowes 18:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Forum links
What function do the links to specific forum topics serve in the article? --GargoyleMT 17:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Relevancy of related games
How are these games related to Suikoden at all, aside from that they are also RPGs? I propose this section be completely removed. There are a lot of RPGs out there and there's no reason to name these (or anything) as "related" games. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.79.5.81 (talk • contribs) 00:10, November 19, 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, this section lacks relevancy, and the games listed are hardly "similar" to Suikoden. I will remove it, and if anyone objects, they can post why here. --Serph 15:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Theirstar.com references changed
Since Theirstar has opened a new domain, DueFiumi.com, I changed the external source and the link to the Maps. Vertius 14:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Link to Norwegian page
Suikoden has a good norwegian counterpart, can somebody link it to the norwegian wikipedia of suikoden. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.203.213.171 (talk • contribs) 08:58, January 4, 2007 (UTC)
 * There's an existing article in Dutch about Suikoden? It doesn't seem to be titled "Suikoden," so if you know the title, add it at the bottom, in the syntax of the existing language links (see Interlanguage links). --GargoyleMT 17:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Norwegian, Norway has a good counter-part, not Nederlands.....
 * You just insulted 5 million people :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.203.213.171 (talk • contribs) 08:39, January 5, 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry for my mistake. It happens from time to time; I'll see what I can do about it.  --GargoyleMT 22:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No need, i've learned it now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Killiansen (talk • contribs) 19:33, January 5, 2007 (UTC)

...too many character pages...
Is it just me, or have the character pages in Suikoden gotten way out of hand? I understand that individual character pages are needed for important characters in video games, but isn't it a bit silly to have a separate page for every single obtainable character for a game like Suikoden? It'd probably make more sense to just create a list of characters for each game and then detailed pages for the most important ones... KojieroSaske 02:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Mmm, I agree to a good extent. The characters about whom little "out of game" info is available, and who only have a bit-part in the games, do not need their own pages, IMO. Maybe someone could reorganise a list of characters page accordingly? Nach0king 11:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * They did something like that with the chrono cross characters see List of Chrono Cross characters, and i did something like that with List of characters in kya dark lineage and list of characters in Malice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotspot (talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 January 2007
 * Interesting timing. I actually completed a listification of S3 a few days earlier; check out List of Suikoden III characters.  Basically, the rule I used was "if a character appeared in multiple games of the series, they probably deserve their own article."  A list by game wouldn't be able to adequately cover the whole character, so their own article is valid.  Interestingly enough, very little information was lost in the merger, and a whole bunch of minor characters at least got a sentence or two thanks to not having to have an article.  The only thing that we lost was the succession boxes for the Star of Destiny slots, because they screwed up the image formatting and didn't work well with the minor characters.  But whatever, the information is still at the SoD list article.  I proposed over at Talk:Minor characters in Suikoden that the article be moved to List of Suikoden characters and have most of the S1 character articles merged into it.  Also, User:Mark272 said on my talk page that he might be up for listifying List of Suikoden II characters.
 * Also, I'll add that it used to be not nearly so "silly" to have a separate page for each character. In the old version of the software, redirects to an anchor didn't work- so Chris Lightfellow would always kick you to the top of the list page, not to her entry.  This made linking to other characters a pain in lists, because you'd have to use long, annoying links like List of Suikoden III characters every time you wanted to mention her.  Now, anchors do work, so you can link to characters in the natural way (just Geddoe ), and have it actually go to the right spot in the article.
 * As another comment, I recently expanded and cleaned up the main Suikoden III article as well. I stole from the various featured gaming articles for ideas on how to lay it out, so it might be worth looking at it if you want some ideas on how to expand the other Suiko-articles.  SnowFire 04:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The only thing is, is if we put any of the characters from the list of characters, if we put any of them on a disambiguation page they might take it down because its not an article for only that character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotspot (talk • contribs) 15:46, 28 February 2007
 * What about listing them by their respective star --Noctrine (talk) 12:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Suiko
The word "suiko" redirects here with no disambiguation page at all. Why is this? Does she not deserve her own page? She was just the empress of japan, whose regent was one of the most famous figures in japanese history. He was on money for god sake! --168.105.116.157 02:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It used to redirect to the proper spot, actually. That change was made by a former sockpuppet of User:LionheartX, a user with a long and colorful block history. Thanks for fixing it. SnowFire 02:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Links with no article
Does someone have a fetish involving red text? What's the point of the links going nowhere? I fixed all that stuff earlier, and someone reverted it. Please explain yourself. Andy Marchbanks 05:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's explained in my edit summary: Build the web. Wikipedia may well have articles on at least some of these people in the future, and the fact that it doesn't yet is no problem.  In fact, there's even a list at Most wanted articles based off of redlinks to a page.  So, for instance, an actor who gets redlinked by 10+ films would be noticed by this page, and may prompt someone to write at least a stub for them.  Now, obviously, some of these people may be non-notable and never worthy of pages, but it seems you just removed them all indiscriminately.  If you consider redlinks such a problem, I would recommend researching the linked people and creating stubs instead.  (See Featured article candidates/Cameroon for an example of this issue in featured articles; someone there removed all the redlinks in an attempt to improve the article, but was reverted based off of "these SHOULD be bluelinks, and Wikipedia is not on a deadline.  If redlinks are okay for a featured article, then they're okay for over here.) SnowFire 06:05, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I understand the reasoning, although I do not agree with it. This line of logic implies that all proper nouns should be linked (whether the page exists or not), but they are not. Should this be fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy Marchbanks (talk • contribs) 06:36, 22 July 2007
 * No, because they're not relevant links. Rest assured I also remove pointless redlinks when I see them; Only make links that are relevant to the context also covers this in more detail (sorry to keep quoting policy, but it's easier than reiterating things).  Linking to random words is not advised because we assume readers understand English; however, linking to related topics or things like producers, actors, designers, and composers is usually fine.  As another featured example, take a look at "She Shoulda Said 'No'!".  To be honest, there probably a few links in the text that I'm not sure are needed (like tagline), but I support the links (both red and blue) for all the actors, staff, and so on. SnowFire 16:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, I understand that the whole article shouldn't be red. However, I said proper nouns, not all nouns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy Marchbanks (talk • contribs) 01:23, 23 July 2007
 * Oops. Well, same answer, though.  Sure, many proper nouns should be linked, at least the first time they're mentioned, but they should still be relevant...  an article on Bob the mathematician might say something like "Bob and his wife Alice were at the Springfield McDonald's when he first sketched out his proof."  If his wife Alice has no article, then she shouldn't be linked, and it's highly doubtful that McDonald's is a relevant link in that context.  For something like "the soundtrack was arranged by...," though, that seems relevant.  Also, I don't think it's as important for really general ones like "Japan," though others seem to disagree with me there.
 * Also, the | on the Suikoden category was intentional. That sorts this article by the space character thus bumping it to the top of the Suikoden category, where it should be. SnowFire 16:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories
On a related note... a minor issue, but the reason I removed "Konami games" was because this was more an article on the franchise as a whole, not a specific game. The Suikoden cat is already a franchise of Category:Konami franchises. That said, not a huge issue, and I suspect there's a lot of inconsistency here anyway. SnowFire 06:05, 22 July 2007 (UTC)