| [#38] |
So this is an issue I really feel needs sorting out, for consistency's sake. The matter of how we handle the REQ cards from Halo 5 and Blitz Cards from Halo Wars 2 on the site. Up until now, the strategy has simply been to just add them in the variants tab under the main page, with some exceptions such as Endgame and Flame Warthog. Personally, I do not feel this is good enough.
For a while, I've heard talk that Halopedia is too lore-focused, and that greater efforts should be made to increase the quality of information pertaining to the multiplayer side of things, where at the moment it feels more or less hidden out of the way and included because it has to be. Which is fine, most of the editor base is primarily story invested. Where I find issue with this however, is when this lore focus prevents articles from being made when necessary.
This is a subject I've brought up on the Discord before, and I'm bringing up here now to properly cement ideas and discuss things in a permanent fashion. Whenever the subject of making pages for Halo 5 REQ weapon variants or Halo Wars 2 Blitz vehicle variants has been brought up, the idea has usually been pushed aside due to a seeming lack of lore notability to base these subjects around. For example, I've been a proponent of making articles for the Tundra, Urban, Corp etc vehicle variants (such as outlined on my sandbox page) to further disseminate their info from clogging up the main article. To use, say Tundra Warthog as an example, this is the information that can be included;
- Differences from regular Warthog variants and other Warthogs
- Unique gameplay mechanics (more relevant to the ONI and Hannibal variants etc with unique guns)
- Stat differences
- Information about their acquisition and deployment in-game
- Lore information from their in-game REQ description
- Similarities to other vehicles such as the M864 Arctic Warthog
This helps de-clutter the main Warthog page by loosening it of the info mentioned there alongside all the associated images. This would allow us to get better and more images per-vehicle and (in the case of blitz units) start using in-game images too. This goes for Blitz units too, with articles like Goliath really deserving of their own page, alongside the general infantry unit variants. Do the Extractor Marines have any particular lore significance or even canoncity? Probably not, but they certainly have unique visuals and gameplay mechanics worthy of being properly addressed. To put this another way, at no point on this site have I been able to discern precisely what say, the Ironclad Hunter does differently to the regular Hunter unit in Halo Wars 2. Yet at the same time, we have articles on the various Warzone Bosses who all have similar-but-different mechanics and looks to their base counterparts. I don't see why one gets a special mention but the other doesn't.
Right now, Halopedia does a frankly *horrible* job of explaining how these very unique weapons and vehicles actually work in gameplay terms, and the reluctance of which to expand upon them seems to go against the sentiment of increasing the availability and quality of multiplayer-centric information on the site for a more well-rounded view overall. Frankly, I think relegating this info to just the *XYZ/Gameplay* page would only be a symptom of the underlying problem here, wherein this kind of info is essentially being brushed under the rug.
For relevance's sake, here are our current lists of REQ and Blitz cards, and a link to the similar Burn Cards on the Titanfall wiki to see how they handle things.
I'd very much like to hear the community's thoughts on this matter, as personally it's something I'm very much in favour of. With these weapons and vehicles only available through the online modes of their respective games, the information these pages would archive is at serious risk of permanently being inaccessible in the plausible future, when their games' respective online services are inevitably shut down or the games' population dwindles to the point of unplayability (more an issue with Blitz in particular than the req stuff thanks to Forge). As an administrator on the Titanfall Wiki, I'd rather not see a situation the same as what happened with the original Titanfall's campaign and its unique dialogue and setpieces if it can at all be avoided.
Edit: As a general aside, I would also say making pages for the unique leader abilities (when a lore article about said weapon cannot be directly made) should also fall under this umbrella. Stuff like the Enduring Conviction debris ability etc would be good to make mechanics-oriented pages for.
Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 28, 2019 at 23:46.
Edited by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 28, 2019 at 23:59. |
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I personally agree with this sentiment. We absolutely need more gameplay related pages and I think this is a good opportunity. A sizeable amount of lore and gameplay information does exist for quite a few of these Blitz/Warzone cards that could be forked into their own pages. A great example of this is the Sword Hog. Gameplay wise it diverges significantly from other Warthog variants and the lore surrounding it is tremendously unique enough to warrant its own page.
My only change would be dealing with the slightly different but similar enough variants, like the camouflaged Warthog/Mongoose/Scorpion variants introduced in Halo 5 (Urban, Woodland, Tundra). These appear to be different enough from their base versions to warrant a separate page. But they are similar enough (and possibly only different in visuals) to warrant grouping together on a page. For example, we have the base M12B/M290/M820 pages, then the improved-camo'ed M12B/M290/M820 pages, then all the other blitz/REQ card pages.
| Posted by CMDR RileySV (administrator) on July 29, 2019 at 00:40. |
| I agree, personally. I tend to view the Tundra etc upgrades as "upgrade packages" to the base M12B chassis, so to speak (similar to how IRL Humvee stuff is done), so having those be talked about in generalities and mention the ability to attach a chaingun, gauss gun or rocket pod (in the case of the hog).
Personally I think we should keep tundra/ urban/ woodland/ corp separate for this reason, alongside rhe fact each has their own flavour text.
| Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 29, 2019 at 00:45. |
| Oh shit did I never explain what an Ironclad Hunter does? D:
Make a new example page on your sandbox so I can see that and I'll probably be game.
| Posted by Sith Venator (administrator) on July 29, 2019 at 02:12. |
| I was more using Ironclad Hunter as an example; if the info is on the wiki, it's buried pretty deep rather than readily presentable IMO. But yeah, I'll knock together an example page later on.
| Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 29, 2019 at 10:59. |
| Here's an example page I made for the Tundra Warthog. Number values and stuff are just ripped from the M12B page or made up for the purposes of example. An actual page would be properly cited of course.
https://www.halopedia.org/User:BaconShelf/Sandbox2
Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 29, 2019 at 11:19.
Edited by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 29, 2019 at 11:21. |
| Having been working on REQ pages and the Scout Warthog page recently, I've been doing more thinking in specifics to how we can handle the Warthogs. I'd say we should take a page out of how Humvee variants are organised (wikipedia link). The Bnet Reach Project page describes Warthog variants more as configurations of the same base model than entirely different vehicles (something that should make sense anyway), and the Woodland Scout hog REQ description mentions that warthog guns can be removed pretty easily.
With this in mind, I propose a structure for Warthog pages.
- Warthog (hub page for hogs in general)
- M12 Warthog Force Application Vehicle (Info about the M12 chassis primarily pertaining to the one found in Halos CE-Reach)
- M862 Arctic (M12 variant)**
- M864 Arctic (M12 variant)
- M914 Recovery (M12 Variant)**
- M868 Tropic (M12 Variant)**
- Fireball (M12)
- M12B Warthog Force Application Vehicle (Info pertaining to the M12B chassis upgrade and post-war variants)
- Corp Warthog (M12B)
- Tundra Warthog (M12B)
- Woodland Warthog (M12B)
- Urban Warthog (M12B)
- ONI Warthog (M12B)
- Armored Warthog (M12B)
- Guard Warthog (M12B)
The reasoning for this ordering stands that the M12B seems to be a general chassis/ equipment refit for the M12 akin to what you'd see on the M1 Abrams -> M1A2 Abrams. However, the environmental variants are simply small modifications on top of this for equipment unique to said environment, and more like variants of the M12/ M12B than new Warthog "series" models as a whole. That a Tundra Warthog, for example, is an M12B chassis but may be given the designation of (for examples sake) M866 Tundra similar to the M862 and M864 already existing.
Then, we'd also have separate pages for the different configurations of Warthog we've seen so far. These being the Scout, Troop Transport, LRV, Gauss, Flame, and Rocket variants. The reasoning here generally follows that with the ease at which turrets can be removed and swapped out, it's likely Warthog weaponised functions exist as mission loadouts and configs that can and are changed when necessary. In this respect, a Gauss Warthog page would simply talk about the general practice of how and when Gauss Hogs are employed (see that page for an example of this I've already wrote up).
What this comes down to is giving each type of Warthog its own room to "breathe", so to speak. The general sentiment I infer from the presentation of the variants is that it's totally possible an M864 Arctic warthog could equip an M41 LAAG and be designated a Warthog LRV, but it could equally equip an M79 Rocket Turret and become a Rocket Warthog. In universe, I'd even suggest that they do have a crazy amount of numerical designations (see linked wikipedia article for real world reference) such as one for the Arctic Hog with a chaingun and one for the Arctic hog with a Gauss turret etc. There might be M12B Troop Transport or M12B Halo CE rocket hogs out there, just as there might be a Guard Warthog equipped with a Gauss Turret etc.
But focusing back on the original point, make each page specific to that type of vehicle. The "Warthog" page focuses on the vehicle as a whole, with the M12 and M12B chassis pages focusing on those two chassis types individually, while the chassis variants further specify on what makes them unique and their unique gameplay (where appropriate). The weaponised Warthog pages then just focus on talking about the M12 Warthog LRV (for example) as a whole, and mention which chassis' support the LRV platform. An ONI Warthog page would focus on discussing all four ONI Warthogs as a whole, and a Corp Warthog page would discuss the generalities of Liang-Dortmund's Warthog usage (see my Tundra Warthog page mock-up inthe post above for an example of this)
Does all this make so far? Good, it should do. We're nearly done and the worst is behind us now. The last port of call is the Civilian Warthogs and other "Unique" versions. The Hog, the M12S, HOGSTICKER, the #550 etc etc Rally Warthogs from H5 REQs, the Warthog APC and the Vespin/ Sword Needle Warthogs and Forge's Warthog. In turn, I'll propose solutions for each of these.
- The first four can be grouped under civilian vehicles, with the Hog having its upgrade from M12 to M12B noted ofc on the page. The #550 Scuderia StarSpeed M-12R I would give its own page as its own vehicle, and use it to discuss its unique lore and both the LRV and Scout's unique gameplay attributes.
- Warthog APC I would say definitely deserves to be in the "other" category
- Vespin and Sword Needle Warthogs as unique REQs and with their unique place in the lore I would say deserve their own pages to class under other warthogs or M12B chassis'
- Forge's Warthog I think deserves its own page for discussing its gameplay stuff in HW2 as well as just the fact that John Forge maintained and upgraded his own personal vehicle. It's unique.
Ok so that's that pretty much done. Personally, I think this is a much better way of organising things but I'm open to suggestions. Thanks for reading, let me know if you need anything clarifying. Hopefully the Scorpion or Mantis sets of pages will be much, much simpler.
** - Using the cut halo 2 models as a basis for this. FWIW, Ground Command was gonna have M862 Arctic treads to be swapped out on the Warthog models.
Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 30, 2019 at 22:00.
Edited by BaconShelf (administrator) on July 30, 2019 at 23:00. |
| Talking templates for a moment.
Do you think the "Template" could be organised to suit the M12 and M12B and unknown? Tbh it may be nice? But hey something to think about.
| Posted by CIA391 (administrator) on August 3, 2019 at 21:43. |
| Yeah, actually. This is something I did think about addressing in my initial proposal but it was lengthy as-is, so figured I'd keep it out for the time being.
I figured I'd organise it with a similar system to above.
Row1: M12 variants (Such as the Fireball or Arctic warthog)
Row2: M12B variants (tundra/ woodland/ etc)
Row3: Combat loadouts (Scout/ LRV/ Gauss/ Rocket/ Missile/ Flame - this could also be row 1 too)
Row4: Civilian warthogs
Row5: Individual/ unique vehicles (John Forge's Warthog, Sword Needler Warthog, any Warthog that's custom/ unique)
Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on August 3, 2019 at 21:48.
Edited by BaconShelf (administrator) on August 3, 2019 at 21:58. |
| In the interest of further consideration, I stumbled upon a great Sandbox page created by Nighthammer which seems to be a mockup of an overall Warthog article, which would be useful for creating a general Warthog page.
Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on August 4, 2019 at 11:04.
Edited by BaconShelf (administrator) on August 4, 2019 at 11:28. |
| Let me try to update it more this weekend as well to make it align with the new plan.
| Posted by NightHammer on August 4, 2019 at 13:07. |
| Will do. I'm focusing on creating the variant pages first off, so then I can collate all their info on the overall Warthog pages.
| Posted by BaconShelf (administrator) on August 4, 2019 at 13:27. |
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