Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 11:33, 5 December 2015.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

 * Nominator(s): Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:17, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

This article is about one of the greatest RPG games of all time, featuring a level of choice and consequence rarely replicated, and with a loyal fan base that has added content to the game for over a decade. The article is as detailed as can be, with a beefy development section developed with some very generous help from producer David Mullich who corresponded with myself to help clarify things and even provide information in future interviews that I was then able to use as a reliable source! It's thoroughly sourced, well laid out with a bevy of images to compliment the prose, and I believe the article is close to as perfect as it can be.

Of course if you disagree, remember that "I'm a mighty thesaurus. Rawr" Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:17, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments from ProtoDrake

 * A general comment here: the lead is quite large, even compared to the size of the article itself and the lead for Bloodlines. It may be best to find a way of trimming it down.
 * The word "game" was used a lot in the lead's second paragraph. Maybe try cutting the usage down to about half.
 * "Troika's 32-member team began development of Bloodlines in November 2001, as an indirect sequel to the previous years Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption." - You're missing an apostrophe in the word "years".
 * "As of 2014, Bloodlines has been developed for ten years by its fans, who have supplied fixes and restored lost and deleted content." - Your definition in the Release section of it being "post-release support" as opposed to development. I think the lead section should be altered for consistency's sake.
 * "Bloodlines is a role-playing game optionally presented from the first- or third-person perspective." - I think you should specify that it's an action role-playing game as you did in the lead.
 * "Attributes represent physical..." - This sentence looked a little strange. Maybe consider rewriting as "Represented Attributes are physical...".
 * "...four areas of 21st-century Los Angeles: Santa Monica, downtown, Hollywood and Chinatown" - You should link these locations, and perhaps alter "downtown" to something a little more descriptive. The second thing is completely optional.
 * In the first paragraph of the "Setting" section uses an "idealist"-type word in reference to two different vampire clans. Is there a difference in their different idealist tenancies, or is it just a general phrase to describe them without further context being available?
 * Who is Nines?
 * The Honest Gamers review redirects. The live url needs updating.

That's everything I can see on a first pass. When these are addressed, I'll have another look through to find anything else. --ProtoDrake (talk) 11:25, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, always forget that it doesn't automatically add to my watchlist.
 * The lead overall seems fairly in line, but I trimmed the third paragraph which was by far the bulkiest and could survive without all the information present.
 * Changed to "action role playing game"
 * Added apostrophe to "year's"
 * Linked the locations, the game just calls that area "downtown" so I don't think I could link to anything else, it would just be guessing.
 * I'm not sure what you mean by who Nines is. He's introduced in the plot as an Anarch. What do you suggest or think needs adding?
 * Tried to tone down usage of "game" in second paragraph.
 * For use of idealist, this is the reference used as a source which uses the word for both. The difference I guess is that the Brujah are a clan and the source claims they are idealists who fought for change in life, while the Anarchs are a political group. But if that isn't explaining it properly let me know if it needs clarifying more in the article.
 * Changed development to post-release support for fan creations in lead.
 * Fixed HonestGamers link.
 * Changed "attributes represent physical" to "Attributes are represent by physical" Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:50, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Right. This article looks alright to me now (though other editors will probably find holes somewhere). I'll willingly Support its promotion to FA status. --ProtoDrake (talk) 09:36, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks . Are you happy with the Nines and Anarchs explanation or would you prefer I change that? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 16:15, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's fine. If it was there before, I think I must have missed that or something. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:20, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Tony1
Some nice writing, but it needs scrutiny. Just the start:
 * Hyphen issues ... 21st century Los Angeles. (And does LA need to be linked? There are some reader-valuable links hanging around that might be better off without the dilution, do you think? And "first and third-person perspectives"—needs a hanging hyphen after "first".
 * "The selection of clan affects how the player is perceived in the game world and which powers and abilities they possess, opening up different avenues of exploration, and methods of interacting with or manipulating other characters."—Quite a long sentence, and a few ands. I've tweaked. Is it better? "The selection of clan affects how the player is perceived in the game world, and which powers and abilities they possess; this opens up different avenues of exploration and methods of interacting with or manipulating other characters."
 * "Troika used Valve Corporation's then-in-development Source game engine which was being used to develop Valve's own Half-Life 2." See Chicago MOS for good advice about which and that. (Prefer that normally unless there's got to be a comma before it—previous is a subset, or not?) –> "Troika used Valve Corporation's Source game engine, then-in-development, which was being used to develop Valve's own Half-Life 2." Is that better? The triple-bunger was awkward. But there are still two "develops" (and a third a few secs later). I don't know how to fix this without more field knowledge.
 * "After three years in development with no end in sight and running over budget, Activision set a strict deadline for its release, and Bloodlines was released in an unfinished state on November 16, 2004."—"its" refers to the budget? "release(d)" twice. "and on [date], Bloodlines was released unfinished"—is that possible?
 * "eighty-thousand"—numerals, please, and in any case surely not hyphenated.
 * Serial comma after "choice" would make the list easier to parse.
 * " As of 2014, Bloodlines has received"—had.

Tony  (talk)  07:58, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Changes made
 * "After three years in development with no end in sight and running over budget, Activision set a strict deadline for its release, and Bloodlines was released in an unfinished state on November 16, 2004."—"its" refers to the budget? "release(d)" twice. "and on [date], Bloodlines was released unfinished"—is that possible? - Any better? - "After three years in development with no end in sight and running over its budget, Activision set a strict deadline for Bloodlines completion, and it was released in an incomplete state on November 16, 2004."
 * I'm not clear if you mean that "21st century Los Angeles" needs a hyphen in it?
 * Thanks for your input! Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 16:15, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * "no end in sight and running over budget, Activision set a strict deadline for completion, and Bloodlines was released incomplete on"
 * It does need a hyphen. There's one further down for the same expression.
 * Are you auditing the whole thing for sentence length (and within that, good rhythm from commas)? Can you pick up any possilbe grammatical simplifications, throughout? Tony   (talk)  08:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Changed the first sentence.
 * Added the hyphen.
 * It's been copyedited by the guild if that's what you mean? I've just gone through it to try and find missing serial commas as well.Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Cirt
Comments (having stumbled here from my FAC)

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 02:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Thank you very much for your efforts to contribute to Quality improvement on Wikipedia, it's really most appreciated !!!
 * 2) NOTE: Please respond, below entire set of comments, and not interspersed throughout, thanks!
 * 3) Copyvio Detector - https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/?lang=en&project=wikipedia&title=Vampire%3A+The+Masquerade+%E2%80%93+Bloodlines&oldid=&action=search&use_engine=0&use_links=1 -- perhaps try cutting down quoted material from source www.rockpapershotgun.com
 * 4) It divided critics at the time; although they praised the game's writing, full-voice acting, scale of choice, and influence on the game world, they criticized its technical flaws. - sentence seems a little long and overusage of commas. Perhaps break in two here.
 * 5) Checklinks tool - http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webchecklinks.py?page=Vampire:_The_Masquerade_%E2%80%93_Bloodlines shows one issue with www.maximumpc.com - what's going on there?
 * 6) I agree that per WP:LEAD, the lede intro sect size could be trimmed down just a tad bit, perhaps to no more than 4 paragraphs at 4 sentences per paragraph.
 * 7) Image review: I reviewed all the images used in the article. The fair use images have very good fair use rationale on their image pages. The free-use images all check out upon my image inspection of them at Wikimedia Commons. Good to go here.
 * 8) Three instances of word "However", could these be removed or phased out for better writing style?
 * 9) Eleven (11) uses of word "also", this is way too much and these should be trimmed to improve writing quality.
 * 10) Thirty-one (31) instances of word "but", again, too much use of this, try to improve writing quality and flow for reader by removing these somehow.
 * 11) I spot-checked cited sources 45, 84, and 93, all check out alright.
 * 12) Recognition -- suggest change sect name to Accolades.
 * 13) Surely there was some mention of how Kindred: The Embraced had an impact and influence ?
 * 14) Plot -- suggest change sect name to Plot synopsis.
 * 15) Suggest changing Setting to its own two-level sect, and changing Plot to Plot synopsis, and making that its own two-level sect.
 * 16) Great job on the Setting sect -- I really like how you ground the reader with some background info here, well done !
 * 17) Development - recommend putting the first material in that sect under a daughter sect, so all material in that sect is under one of its three-level daughter sects. Ideas for names of sects can be found at WP:MOSFILM.
 * 18) Gameplay -- we're dealing with several large sects here for a large article. Perhaps a couple three-level daughter sects, under this sect? Just an idea?
 * 19) References -- recommend make sect name of the daughter sect below Bibliography, and make that its own two-level sect.
 * 20) Summary: Quite high-quality article, most impressive work overall, just a few minor tidbits holding it up, IMHO.
 * 21) NOTE: Please respond, below entire set of comments, and not interspersed throughout, thanks!
 * You're welcome
 * N/A
 * I reduced the quote slightly but I think it's a really important quote for the article.
 * Trimmed the sentence.
 * Fixed the link
 * Trimmed the lead, 4 or less sentences per paragprah.
 * N/A
 * See Below
 * See Below
 * Tried to use alternative words to but, however, and also.
 * N/A
 * Done
 * No research I came across mentioned "Kindred: The Embraced" or it having any influence on the gmame, I didn't know it existed til you posted it here. If such evidence exists I'd be happy to add it
 * "plot" as a title is in line with my other Featured Articles.
 * If I understand this correctly you mean to basically make Setting and Plot their own individual top level sections rather than subsections of "Synopsis"? I'd rather now, it would be unnecessary and look terrible from a layout perspective.
 * Thank you
 * I added some headers and rearranged the section to accommodate them.
 * It's such a relatively small section that breaking it up into subsections seems counter productive, plus there just isn't much unique information to dedicate a subsection towards.
 * Changed to "bibliography", but again like plot synopsis, I think you are saying to create two top level sections? For 3 book listings this seems unnecessary.
 * N/a Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much, most appreciated. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. I can now Support. Thanks very much to for the impressive Quality improvement effort to this article. Thanks for providing such admirable and high-quality contributions to Wikipedia on this topic. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot Cirt! 22:51, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments from PresN

 * "sold fewer than 80 thousand copies" - I think this would read better as "sold fewer than 80,000 copies"
 * "but receive bonuses for intelligence and computer skills which access more information" - unclear; "which" is adjacent to skills, but might also be referring to bonuses
 * "More physical vampires can enhance themselves to become fast and lethal killers or summon spirit allies to attack their foes; others can mentally dominate their targets to force their cooperation or render themselves invisible to hide from detection,[2] and others can boil their opponent's blood from afar." - you split up the three clauses with one semicolon and one comma.
 * The clan descriptions in Setting are slightly-expanded repeats of the same thing in Gameplay; you shouldn't be repeating the information
 * "Each ending has Jack watching from afar with the mummy taken from the coffin, and the enigmatic taxi driver who transports the fledgling between locations who says "The blood of Caine controls our fate... Farewell, vampire"." -> "Each ending has Jack watching from afar with the mummy taken from the coffin and the enigmatic taxi driver who transports the fledgling between locations, who says "The blood of Caine controls our fate... Farewell, vampire.""
 * "In accordance with a suggestion by fellow writer Chad Moore[37] the Malkavian player character has a dialog script distinct from that of the other eight clans, Mitsoda said it was one of the simpler aspects of the development cycle." - should be a semicolon, not a comma
 * "Activision considered that there was insufficient test time, and removing it was a more stable option" - Activision "felt"; considered doesn't work in that context as they're making a decision, not thinking about an option
 * "During the nearly four years of development, he estimated that the team did not work overtime for only two months.[35]" -> "During the nearly four years of development, he estimated that the team worked overtime for all but two months.[35]"
 * "In February 2004, the game was scheduled for release in spring 2005, partially to avoid competing with Half-Life 2 and the competitive Christmas period." - awkward, since you just got finished saying how it was released in February; it would help to throw on the end something like "...Christmas period, before Activision moved up the release date."
 * "The relative failure of Bloodlines‍'​ release contributed to the demise of Troika Games" - at this point in the article, you haven't actually said that the release was a failure, though you were clearly leading up to it and implied it with the Mitsoda quote in the prior paragraph. Maybe "Bloodlines‍'​ release was a relative failure, and contributed to the demise of Troika Games", though you also need to explain what you mean by "relative failure".
 * "Unofficial patches have been created by the game's fans to develop Bloodlines." - to develop Bloodlines? Maybe "to fix problems with Bloodlines and restore missing content."
 * There's not a lot of grammar problems for the length: there's just a general vagueness on occasion- like Tony mentioned, you use "which" sometimes in ways that are slightly off and make it hard to link to the correct subject (look out for those, I've probably missed a couple), and sometimes you have sentences that are not actually wrong but certainly involve a lot of commas, making the sentence a bit tiring to get through
 * Now that I've gone through Reception, the line in the lead "Contemporary criticism has recognised it as one of the greatest games ever made." is completely overblown. A cult classic or a flawed masterpiece, sure, but placing in the 80s or 90s in a few polls doesn't support calling it "one of the greatest ever".
 * Refs look fine, good job on the archives
 * The biggest issue with the article- and it's more a style thing/personal preference- is pretty unfixable at this point, and that is the exhaustive length: it's taken the crown from Anachronox as the longest FA/FAC. It's a lot of detail for a single game, especially without a spinout "Development of" article. It is what it is, though, and its certainly well-done at any length. -- Pres N  21:01, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I had this on my watchlist but didn't notice these comments. Will address them immediately, thanks for commenting. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Changed
 * "but receive bonuses to their intelligence and computer skills, which enables access to more information."? Does that make it better? I don't think I quite understood.
 * Changed the "'" to a ";"
 * I get what you're saying but this is a struggle for me. Stylistically and from a reading perspective I think the setting section does a solid job of providing sufficient and concrete information about the scenario of the game and I want to keep that altogether, so I've tried to give a very broad "type" to the clans in the gameplay just to address that there are different clans (since I discuss differing powersets and such) while using the setting one for a bit of expanded detail. I'm not sure how to rectify that.
 * Changed
 * Changed
 * Changed
 * Changed
 * "In February 2004, the game was scheduled for release in spring 2005, partially to avoid competing with Half-Life 2 and the competitive Christmas period, before Activision moved the date to November 2004."?
 * Ok so I have moved the sales information from the "REception" section to this part about Bloodlines relative failure. It's a bit too much content to post here so I will add a link at the bottom showing all the changes I've made based on your input in a single edit.
 * "Unofficial patches have been created by the game's fans to address Bloodlines' technical problems, and restore missing and incomplete content."?
 * Fair enough, I will take another look through. (This will be after this current pass im doing for you now as I don't have enough time tonight to complete it)
 * Changed
 * Thanks
 * Fair enough, I feel bad it's kinda short tbh and I wish there was more I could add about it. I definitely like to use up that 60kb limit.
 * LINK TO CHANGES Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:10, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - I'm satisfied with your changes. -- Pres N  20:03, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Sources review
I've checked out about 50 per cent of the links and they all worked. I'm prepared to accept that the other 50% will, too. The formats look constant throughout. I have a few queries:
 * I'm not well-informed enough to judge whether all the sources cited here are high quality/reliable per FA criteria. On the face of it most look pretty sound. But I'm a bit dubious about a few:
 * Ref 37, "Plot is Gameplay's Bitch".
 * Ref 48, "Tea Leaves"
 * Ref 56, "Destructoid"
 * Ref 79, "HonestGamer"
 * On what basis are these held to be reliable sources?


 * Ref 40: Among sentences cited to this source are:
 * "The Santa Monica Pier area was to feature playable versions of Activision arcade games such as Pitfall!, though the idea was abandoned due to time constraints"
 * "The licensed tracks were chosen by Activision without input from Troika."
 * Can you indicate where this information is found in the source?

Subject to the above, sources look OK. Brianboulton (talk) 22:16, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ref 37 is a blog written by Tom Jubert who has written for several video games (mostly the Penumbra series) and interviewing Brian Mitsoda
 * I'm not sure that this qualifies it as a high-quality reliable source. It should be replaced. Brianboulton (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ref 48, the interview content itself seemed legitimate and I thought that that kind of thing was allowed.
 * Above comment applies here, too. Brianboulton (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ref 56 is Destructoid, which is an award winning site.
 * OK Brianboulton (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ref 79 has an ethics policy here, and the review in question is written by Lewis Denby who writes for sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
 * OK Brianboulton (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Per Ref 40, the Santa Monica Pier point is in the fourth question down the page, the licensed track part is in the sixth.
 * The fourth Q and A doesn't match the statement in the article. The wording is very general, and doesn't mention the Santa Monica Pier area. You should reword the statement accordingly. Sixth QandA OK. Brianboulton (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me know your thoughts and I'll try to find replacements where possible. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 00:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me know your thoughts and I'll try to find replacements where possible. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 00:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Images review

 * File:Vampire - The Masquerade – Bloodlines Coverart.png - fair use, cover image; FUR present, size < 100k pixels - Good
 * File:Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines - Gameplay.jpg - fair use, gameplay shot; FUR present but could be more specific about the purpose of use; license template should be, size < 100k pixels - Good with modifications needed
 * File:Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines - Changes.png - fair use, gameplay shots; FUR present but could be more specific about the purpose of use; license template should be, size < 100k pixels - This one is a little dicier since it's two images combined and there's already a gameplay shot, but it is illustrating a specific concept that's discussed in the text and it'd be hard to describe the changes in just words. Good, with modifications needed.
 * File:Troika Games' Founders (left to right) Jason D. Anderson, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky.jpg - Free use, Commons; OTRS intact - Great
 * File:Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines - Character Sheet.jpg - fair use, game shot; FUR present but could be more specific about the purpose of use; license template should be, size > 100k pixels - I'm not sold on this one. It adds little to the article other than "the stats are complicated", which is already stated in the text. It's too big, but you already can't read the text at this size, and since it's the stats page being illegible removes even more of the point of having it. Given that you already have 2.5 gameplay images in the article, and this one adds so little, I don't think it should be included.
 * File:Bloodlines E3 2003.jpg - Free use, Commons - a bit decorative rather than informative, but since it's free use no worries

Conclusion: adjust the FUR templates and expand the purpose of use a bit on the two gameplay images, and cut the menu screenshot. -- Pres N  16:09, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've beefed up the explanations of File:Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines - Gameplay.jpg and File:Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines - Changes.png and added the appropriate licensing tags. I have removed the Character Sheet image. Thanks for taking the time to review the images. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Excellent- Image review: Pass -- Pres N  19:47, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 11:33, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.