User:Soetermans/Sandbox


 * Comment. Let me start by saying that I respect your opinion Uzee, but please do keep your assumptions about me to yourself. Whether or not I have any knowledge about GTA or about video games in general shouldn't matter at all, but it happens to be that I am a huge gamer. It is because of my love for the medium that the vast majority of my edits on Wikipedia are on video game related articles. So it wasn't like I stumbled upon this template and thought, 'hey, let's get rid of this'. Futher more, I explicitly stated that my nomination came after a discussion on WT:VG, where consensus was reached. Unlike video game series like Metal Gear or Assassin's Creed, GTA doesn't have a clear chronology, let alone continuity. If you want to break it down, sure, let's do that.
 * What I understand from the note on the template page, Rockstar said "The “universes” are the worlds interpreted at different definitions, 2d, 3d and high definition, so we felt brands and radio / background characters would exist in both, but three dimensional characters would not." (said here). Based upon technical abilities first, characters second. And why should Wikipedia follow suit what a developer intends with its franchise? This is an encyclopedia after all, not a detailed game guide. That we actually have to look up Rockstar's website (a forum, no less) also shows that the chronology of GTA isn't that obvious.
 * Could you please elaborate on the continuity of the original 2D universe? Grand Theft Auto states that "These three cities would later become the settings used in the Grand Theft Auto III and IV games to follow, but not in the Grand Theft Auto: London, 1969 and Grand Theft Auto: London, 1961 mission packs nor in Grand Theft Auto 2". Grand Theft Auto 2's setting: "GTA 2 is set in an unspecified time in a retrofuturistic metropolis referred to only as "Anywhere, USA"." To me, that sounds there isn't any kind of chronology.
 * I do not agree that the power struggle of the Forellis and Leones are somehow the 3D universe's greater story. If it would be, wouldn't the names Leone and Forelli appear more often in articles? Forelli is mentioned once in Vice City Stories, nine times in Vice City, Leone is mentioned sixteen times in Liberty City Stories and five times in Grand Theft Auto III. Neither is mentioned in San Andreas and GTA Advance states that "although it is not revealed which Mafia family it is; the game's place in the GTA timeline suggests it is either the Forellis, or more likely the Leones". To give you the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure that in the games gangsters from different families pop up more than once. But apparently it isn't important enough to mention in articles. How should the average reader gather from this template the supposed relationship between all games and between its universes?
 * Sure, GTAIV, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony are more involved than other games. But they are still different stories with different characters. That the stories are interwoven is something that the template can't communicate either, so the reader would always have to read the article body. Chronology isn't something that is crystal clear, so to me this template is redundant, with a GTA template on every article. --Soetermans. T / C 07:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)