Talk: Tex Murphy Wiki

Use this page to discuss design and content changes to the main page. For general wiki discussion, please visit the Community Portal or Forums.

Discussions

The Tex Murphy Wiki community is growing! That's great news. But it also means that the contributors needs to communicate in some way. I guess the best way is to use the talk pages on the different pages, but if anyone has any suggestions please leave them here. ^{--MrMamen (talk) 13:36, July 16, 2014 (UTC)}

Timelines

As you may be aware of there is currently three Tex Murphy Timelines. The series kind of rebooted when Under a Killing Moon were released, and especially events in Mean Streets were different when remade into Overseer. The question is, do we need three different timelines or should them be merged? Especially the novels-timeline seems to be pretty much the same as the new revised one. Both are created by Aaron Connors. I think it is important to put in references, but is it important to have all three? What do you think? ^{--MrMamen (talk) 13:36, July 16, 2014 (UTC)}

Infoboxes

We currently have one infobox for characters. Anyone may edit this one, but it is a bit technical, I can help out if you have any suggestions. Right now I am wondering if death-should be expanded (like how/where a character died), and possible splitting family into mother/father/children, but not sure if it is worth it. Also should we do something about game/appearances, for example split them into actual game appearences, mentions, appearance in novels, etc? What do you think? I kind of like the style of the infobox, but it is copied from the bioshock wiki. If anyone would like to update the colors/fonts/appearance I could help out. Also feel free to suggest new infoboxes. ^{--MrMamen (talk) 13:36, July 16, 2014 (UTC)}

Actually, there's also Template:Infobox location, which currently looks out of place. The character infobox looks okay, but the location seems to be disjunted as if it was taken directly from another wiki without checking if it made sense. --Sigma 7 (talk) 20:39, July 17, 2014 (UTC)

Well observed! There are indeed several infoboxes on the wiki as seen here Category:Infobox_templates, but most of these were auto-generated when the wiki was created, therefore it has a different look. I could delete them, but I've never bothered. Some of them seems useful. If anyone starts using them, I might give them an visual overhaul. The CSS rules are already defined. (Again, stolen from bioshock-wiki.) If anyone would bother making some adjustments I can help out. ^{MrMamen (talk) 21:07, July 17, 2014 (UTC)}

Navboxes

There is one navbox at the bottom of all franchise pages, such as Plan 10 from Outer Space. As with infoboxes, feel free to redesign, or suggest improvements. Anyone got any ideas for new navboxes? For example we could have the most important characters in a navbox, or most important topics per game. ^{--MrMamen (talk) 13:36, July 16, 2014 (UTC)}

Icons for categories

Some wikis have icons so that it is easy to identify what game/media the article originates from. Is there any value adding a special icon/link on each page? This could either be per game, or per topic basis. (Such as object, character, etc.) ^{--MrMamen (talk) 13:36, July 16, 2014 (UTC)}

Styles for pages

We currently have no style guidelines. How should we group information from articles spanning several games (or other medias)? Should each page have headings for each game, or should they flow more natural. And what about events that happens "between" games? Some wikis tries to give an spoiler free introduction at the top. Should spoilers be marked in any way, or could we take it for granted that all information on this wiki contains spoilers? ^{--MrMamen (talk) 13:36, July 16, 2014 (UTC)}

Here are some ideas up for discussion.

The plot Summary of each game should have a brief summary of the game ie where it is set,when it set,any framind devices or what structure it takes and anything that has happened sinve the events of the ptrvious game ie the sort of dtuff youd see on the back of the game box or in the game manual.Each game should in a storyline which in detail reveals each majr plot point and major conversation and item collected as well as major puzzles.They should also have a sub section devoted to the multiple endings present,how to get them and agian major events that occur.They should also have two youtube videos:One containg the whole game in its entirity ie a longplay that has the whole game in one video and secondly in the endings section one video detailing all of the endings and how to get them.The videos compliment the storyline.The storyline also acts a referecne for the other pages ie characters,building,items etc so one can check the storyline for information to add to the other pages.If you want to fill a page on a topic go to the page of the games it/they appear in and then use Ctrl + F to open the find box to find all references to a term.

Character pages will ideally have infoboxes with a photo preferably a mugshot with all relevant data filled in.The page should have the characters history,their relationship to Tex,role in the game as well as how they help or hinder Tex ie what leads or information they give to him that later helps as well as if possible the fates of the character.The mugshot should the most up to date shot of the person from the latest game.Ideally this would mean that characters from both Mean Streets and Overlord should have their Overlord pic/actor as it is more accurate and the mean street photos can be in slideshows. If any revealing twist is revealed in the course of the series then it should be present and also be in its chronological place ie(Spoilers ahead) Chelsee true parentage should be at the start saying she was left by her mother Margarot Leonard to live with mutants and so during the course of her time there in Chandler Avenue people believed she was mutant but dindt understand how since she had no visible mutations,Major and plot relevant supporting characters that appear more than say twice should have slideshows which allows for alot of pictures to be arranged in the page neatly.The pictures in the slideshows show the progression of the character of the series of games they appear in with plot relavent events sorted chronologically.The slideshows of the characters also contain at the end pictures of important plot relevant items such as photos,business cards linked to them.However if the photo was taken before the events of the game then it must be at the begging following chronological order

Places and buildings can be done as follwing areas can be summarised with history who lives there and what buildings are located there.A map of the area should be in the top corner and a slideshow showing the exteriors of buildings and pictures of the streets from UKAM,Pandora and Tesla effect.Buildings pages should have a history of the building,when it appeared in each game ,what relevance to plot ie who was met there,what was found there und there,where in relation to other buildings is it located and a slideshow containg not only a different exterior shot if possible and several interior shots of important rooms

Groups and organisations should also have a history,relevance to plot and a slideshow showing important members,logos,buildings etc.

Plot relevant items should have an infobox with picture detailing  when it was found,what game it was found in ,location of its discovery and location of rediscovery if lost or stolen and also if its destroyed.The page should have a detailed summary of this 

With regards to these i have the storyline done for all FMV games and videos for Tesla Effect and UAKM.Am in the process of arrangging videos for Pandora and Overseer.When i come back they will be uploaded and then ill do the same for Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum

In regards to characters Regan is done(any comments) and Chelsee is half done with regards to her slideshow and Tex needs to be done alongside Taylor,Archie,Ariel,Mason,the Colonel

Anyone else got ideas and wanna discusss these

Carlowplayer (talk) 23:03, July 17, 2014 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of information should be present at the game pages, but the specific pages should always contain more details. It is also important to link important characters, events, items, etc to their pages. Also if the page doesn't exist yet.

I think that character pictures should be the images that are most relevant, which in most cases would be from the latest game. But in cases where a character only makes a cameo, like Chelsee Bando in Tesla Effect, a previous image should be used. More images could be used in an article if (and only if) the article is long enough, so that they tie in with the text. I agree that the rest could be put in a slideshow. The articles should start with the general description of the character, then the backstory, before they reveal what happens in the games.

Also all pages should be put in categories. See Special:Categories for categories that exist so far. It is allowed to create more. Reference lists should be used when contributing rare or contradicting facts.

I think we should aim most pages to say "in-universe", meaning that should not mention things from the real world, or the game itself, except for in trivia-parts. Of course there are some exceptions: Articles about real-world topics like actors, games, novels, game designer, etc. Due to the nature of games, player choice (and pathing) can lead to different outcomes, and should be explained. Except for this I think we should design the articles so that it would make sense as a source of information inside the games. (Let's pretend Tex can read this information on his Smart Alex.) ^{MrMamen (talk) 22:32, July 18, 2014 (UTC)}

So am going to take a short break now am a bit tired so gonna take at least a week off maybe even ten days in that time you could finish off the characters that need to be done with the guidelines stated above( check regans,Emily's,gordon fitzpatricks pages for example of what needs to be done Louie laMintz, Zak Williams, Sonny fletcher, Greg call, Jorge valdez, Robert knott, J saint Gideon, Dalton, Holly graham, Saffyre, Thompson ault, Smart Alex , Most of those won't take long either because they don't appear that often ( even one or two a day is feasible)and i would appreciate having them out of the way when I get back with pictures etc well get the characters from the fmv games done with completly then the mean street and Martian memorandum gmes done before turning our attention to building and items Ciao (Carlowplayer (talk) 14:08, July 19, 2014 (UTC))