User talk:Tom Edwards

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[edit] Zombine article

I removed the bit about never finding dead zombine. The first one you ever see in game is a dead one! although you are right that you dont seem to see any after that. The old zombine pic was a picture of a dead one. Mostly Zen 16:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but you're talking to the wrong person. I merely cleaned the para up after an anonymous user [1]. --Tom Edwards 17:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image replace

Thanks for replacing my Image:HalfLife2_SourceDemo.jpg screenshot with one from an original game.

Don't get me wrong, though, I was loyal enough to flush out a fortune to buy an original, but my computer wasn't fast enough to run the game in maximum graphics capability and take screenshots, so dropping by in some cyber café computers was an alternative. While I am aware that certain cyber cafés from where I live are using pirate games, I had no knowledge this slight difference in the interface was a dead giveaway.

If screenshots of pirated games is not approvable in Wikipedia, perhaps it would be advisable to replace all Half-Life 2 screenshots that I have submitted. Feel free to do so; I have no objection. ╬╬ 25 ^{chatter ↔ grafitti} 4 July 2005 15:10 (UTC) ╬╬

[edit] cvg-stub

Stub tags belong at the very bottom of a stub article. Just wanted to let you know. Thunderbrand July 4, 2005 18:59 (UTC)

Thanks...but how come? I've been using another Wiki for a while and we always have them at the top. It's easier to see the article's status that way. --Tom Edwards 4 July 2005 19:23 (UTC)

It's just the way its used in Wikipedia. Nearly every stub article I run across has it at the bottom. Thunderbrand July 4, 2005 20:01 (UTC)

[edit] H-L links

Heh...could you explain to me a little better what you mean? When I read it, I don't really understand what exaclty you want me to do. Thunderbrand July 4, 2005 21:04 (UTC)

[edit] AAA games

I'm no expert on video games, but my impression was that "AAA" isn't an official category (the way it is for bonds or for minor-league baseball). I'm changing the AAA page to make it clear. Also, I think the list of specific games is too much detail for a disambiguation page. Would it be possible for you to explain the concept of AAA, with some examples if appropriate, in the Computer and video games article? JamesMLane 5 July 2005 21:32 (UTC)

It's about as official and A and B movies. There's not some registered term for it, it's just something everyone uses. I'll have a look at that article now. --Tom Edwards 6 July 2005 06:58 (UTC)

Actually, I quite like how it's set up now on AAA. --Tom Edwards 6 July 2005 07:08 (UTC)

I don't know if "full-budget" will be meaningful to people who aren't heavily into video games. I assume it means the ones that cost the most to produce, but does a lesser one get only part of its budget? Do the designers figure out what would be done to make a top-quality game, and then do only some of it because the rest would be too expensive? Maybe we should use a more general term like "premium" or "highest quality", and then explain the idea of "full-budget" in the video games article. Would one of those alternatives be accurate? JamesMLane 6 July 2005 10:30 (UTC)

You're right again. How about 'big budget'? --Tom Edwards 6 July 2005 19:24 (UTC)

[edit] London

I've not been deliberately removing information, but I have been fixing the duplication of the sections that's been happening. Any removed information is accidental, but please try not to edit it while it's in a duplicated state... thanks. Evercat 7 July 2005 12:09 (UTC)

Sorry - I actually don't know specifically what you're talking about. I've just been reverting to the last good version. Evercat 7 July 2005 12:13 (UTC)

You have a better idea? :-) Evercat 7 July 2005 12:16 (UTC)

[edit] videogame journalism-stub

In the future, would you please make a proposal to the Stub Sorting project before you create a new stub type. We've been trying to make and keep stub types both consistent with the naming guideines and of the approporiate size in terms of the number of stubs per stub type. Your stub doesn't follow the naming conventions and it may be too narrow a topic to warrant a stub type of its own. Caerwine 00:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] borderline soliciting

Regarding your recent revert concerning borderline soliciting here I am wondering that if you removed those specific links then maybe you should remove the link to your site, The Steam Review from the article Steam (content delivery). Don't get me wrong, I think your site is great, but I am concerned that the link to your site could fall under the same reason that you removed the previous links to mapcentralnetwork. Apologies if this is hard to understand, I know my wording isn't fantastic. --Film11 19:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The link isn't relevant to the page: Steam doesn't have anything to do with maps. Perhaps I should try to stop forcing things I remove into categories. ;-) --Tom Edwards 20:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] EVE Online ship types

Thanks for the split.

I was beginning to get a feeling like there's going to be too many for the main article.

Could also be the full list isn't really wikipedia worthy. There must be better lists somewhere out there to just link in.

There's however many similar articles that seem to like huge lists (see Wing Commander, Star Wars, Star Trek etc. etc.)

Also makes me wonder why there's links to EVE Online ship types in articles like Arbitration or Sacrilege.

159.51.236.194 14:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC) (Sorry no user for now)

[edit] Defcon Mac/Linux

Chris (lead developer) announced that there would be a Linux and Mac version of Defcon in IRC, so I see no reason not to have them listed. If you have no opposition, I'll readd them to the list.

Strictly speaking, it's not been announced that Defcon will run on Windows :P

Darksun 02:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Steam & No-Steam

Hello. I am not a warez kiddie. I am an observer of 2 communauty: legit and cracked. I am trying to help Wikipedia by adding some information from cracked communauty because Valve lie sometime. But i don't speak english very well (i am french ...) So if you think I am going to far from the legal, please correct me ... 84.119.114.125 18:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The main problem with your contributions is that they are current. Wikipedia policy is to not talk about how to exploit holes, how to use the software the does so, or how that software works. When the hole is closed it's less of an issue (and with Steam, none), so for now, I'm going to keep the details out of the article. When the holes are fixed, we'll see about putting it back in. :-) --Tom Edwards 19:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Can I add screenshots of errors ( VAC2 error, ticket expired, no steam logon, etc ...) showed when the servers is not cracked ? Or detail for ppatcher's (first and now fixed security hole in steam) time ? 84.119.114.125 19:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how the images would add to the article, and I doubt ppatcher details would enhance it much either. Very few people are going to be interested in the detailed specifics of these things - in fact I fully expect the security section to cycle through recent holes over time rather than list every single one. --Tom Edwards 19:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PEGI

Just to let you know, I've reverted the list on PEGI to 25. I realise that part of their site is out of date. If you want proof (as I said on the talk page) just search (on pegi.info) for a title that came out quite recently, for example Perfect Dark Zero, and you'll see the 25-list in the results. - ^R_H^e_o^d_t 14:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] <cite>

Hi. I'm curious as to why "<cite>" tags are used around titles for computer games, as opposed to double apostrophes. Is there anything in particular that requires its use? Thanks in advance. ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 17:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC) ╫

It's semantics. It's pretty pointless to be frank, at least until someone makes a tool that extracts the data, or Wikipedia starts paying attention to them, but I've got the bug. ;-)--Tom Edwards 19:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See also on Episode One

I am curious to why you reverted my changes. A template gets rid of the "See also" section found at the bottom of many articles, so now it looks silly with it in place. The only article not in the template is SiN Episodes, which is why I left it. Half-Life 2, Episode Two, and Steam are already linked in the article, and with the "See also" section, now there is over-linking. Thunderbrand 14:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I've always thought of the two as subtly different. One is like a reference for people researching, while the other is a focused recommendation for anyone who wants to know more about the themes and topics in the specific article. --Tom Edwards 15:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for Shadowgrounds cleanup

I know [2] was over a month ago, but I only just saw it. Thanks in particular for changing the phrasing of the statement about the enemies and the weapons into what it should've been in the first place. --Kizor 17:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, any time. :-) --Tom Edwards 17:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Hl2ep2teaser ministrider3.jpg

Hey, please leave this as it is (a screen of the old trailer/teaser). I've uploaded a "new" Hunter as seen in the second trailer several days ago at "Episode2-huntercloseup.jpg". I'd like to keep the old one for comparison, as seen in the HL2:Ep2 article. Thanks --midkay 01:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3D Lighting Preview

Hey. I saw your addition of "Adds a 3D lighting preview feature to Hammer" under "Known abilities of the new lighting and shadowing system" in Source engine. I removed it since (a) this has been there since before the large SDK update, according to Source SDK forum members (b) this was never confirmed by Valve at all, and (c) it's never been tied to the new lighting and shadowing system. Can you provide any other reference that this is linked to the new system than a changelog saying "removed a broken feature"? :) Thanks. --midkay 12:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

No, that's all there is. I do contend that its existence and removal is pretty damn strong evidence that it is part of the future lighting model however - menu items are not a naturally occuring substance! ;-) --Tom Edwards 12:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, quite possible.. don't get me wrong, I'd really *love* to have something like that. :) --midkay 02:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Real-time tactics

Hi! Thanks for editing the real-time tactics page! With cooperation I think we can improve on it further!

I have reviewed your edits and I approve of most of them. What I did change from the last batch (I must call them that, or perhaps sprays...) was that I restered the focus on military realism in the first paragraph of the characteristics section - that is the most important aspect of RTT games and all other characteristics really follows from it.

I have also tried to tone down the comparisons with RTS games to avoid the article turning into an instrument of the debate. That is, I have tried to make them NPOV while not neutering them. I also made a few more NPOV improvements to the text.

I moved the real-time characteristic to the second paragraph --it is rather central-- and expanded and clarified on related genres.

I changed the bullets into text: it looks better, flows better and is more encyclopaedic. I also restored some of the discussion on creating affinity to units in one's army and especially the examples: it is a good discussion and a fine point --thanks for that btw!-- and the examples brnig them home. All in all I think the overall layout and contents of the characteristics section is quite fine now! (Although some syntactic and semantic fixes might be needed).

I have alos tried to change all abbreviateions (RTT, RTS) into their expanded sources, which is the encyclopaedic convention. In fact, I was against doing that at first, but after having had my face rubbed in it, it does make the text flow a bit better and it looks better.

Looking forward to chatting and working with you more!

Mikademus 12:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I can see what you're doing here. I do feel that having military tactics as a top-level characteristic is misleading though. It might be very common, but unlike fixed forces it isn't a requirement (vis the futuristic games). I'm going to reorder the first line to make that distinction clearer now.

While I understand your removal of RTS comparisons, we should be careful not to isolate the article. RTT exists in a little-observed continuum: arcade RTS, RTT, Squad-based tactics (Rainbox Six), First-person tactics (Red Orchestra), all the way over to arcade FPS. Perhaps the article doesn't need the distinction today, but as awareness grows (and I'm working on this in a much wider sense than just Wikipedia) we'll need to start introducing context.

--Tom Edwards 12:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, you never got back on Talk:Real-time tactics#Merging_Historical_settings... --Tom Edwards 12:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, missed your replies in the article's talk page - remidied that :) I fully agree with you on the isolationist issue, and have in fact nothing against comparisons; I'm only concerned with the page getting caught in a RTS/RTT flame/revert war. It almost happened before, which forced me to compose and elaborate in the "genre classification debate" section. So as long as comparisons can be made in a meaningful, illustrative and NPOV way they do indeed belong - the more the merrier! Finally, about realism, I persist in that realism is the most significant aspect of RTTs. MechCommander and Ground Control are very realistic given that they are speculations about possible futures. Assuredly, calling anything contrafactual "realistic" is problematic, but I trust you see my point. Where RTS games are often mere phantasms concocted together without any thought about coherency or realism, even obviously speculative RTTs share in the ideal of realism. Mikademus 17:12, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I do actually agree with you on the realism thing - all the article neede was a distinction between realistic representations (which implies that RTT has to be based on something in existence) and believable representations (which encompasses everything).

Even given that though, it's entirely possible for an RTT to follow a stylised RTS-alike route (Joint Task Force's demo places it in this category). It probably wouldn't be as entertaining, but equally could well still be recognisable as RTT. --Tom Edwards 18:36, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GOLDSRC Engine Games

In relation to the Steam section: Hmm, I see. That is a good point, so would that be better fitted under Counter-Strike instead? Hassan Bellinger 10:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Better still, GoldSrc. It would have to be re-written with a new slant first, of course. --Tom Edwards 10:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source Lighting/shadowing 2 feature

Hey again. :)

I recently put "Allow shadows to dynamically react to point (e.g. light bulb) light sources" into the "expected" category versus the "known to" category, and you switched it back to "known", citing TF2's pyro as an example. I have to point out that the TF2's flamethrower makes use of a dynamic light and although there is zero dispute that dynamic lights cast shadows of their own (the flashlight for another example), dynamic lights are not "point lights such as lightbulbs" which would refer to lights that were compiled into a map. In fact there's currently evidence *against* this being a current known feature; check out gameplay video 1 - at the beginning the player fights a few antlions and all of their shadows drop straight down onto the ground, as does the Vortigaunt's, even though there's a bright cage light right on the wall.

So I'd like to move this back to an 'expected' feature rather than a 'known' one, since not only is it not known or confirmed, but it's currently clearly unimplemented.

Thanks. --midkay 17:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Right, sorry. My mistake. --Tom Edwards 18:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Not a problem. :) I'd actually like to rework this section of the article a bit.. *messes around* --midkay 18:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright problems with Image:Victoria memorial water.jpg

— Indon (reply) — 20:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the original uploader, so I can't really comment on this. Unfortunately I didn't think to record who the original uploader was either. However, I did copy over all of the information from the original image's description. --Tom Edwards 21:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, then sorry for that. I only looked at the history of the image. So let's leave the image for admin to delete it, if it is copyvio. Cheers. — Indon (reply) — 21:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned fair use image (Image:Tf2 2forts.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:Tf2 2forts.jpg. I notice the 'image' page currently specifies that the image is unlicensed for use on Wikipedia and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable under fair use (see our fair use policy).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 23:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black Meda Incident

Hello, you added a {{db-reason}} tag to Black Mesa Incident. Looking at your edit summary "(deletion vote)", I think you got the wrong template (easy to do when there are so many to pick from). The one you added is a "speedy deletion" tag and is quite limited in scope (see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion for a list of things covered). I suspect you wanted either a {{prod}} tag, or to send the article to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, in which case you want to add {{afd1}} and follow the instructions on the bottom of the template on screen. Hope this helps, if not Wikipedia:Deletion policy might help. Let me know if it is still not clear. Best regards, Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seven Hour War

Hi, I have removed the speedy tag from Seven Hour War and I want to explain why. To be speedy deleted an article needs to meet one of the criteria in WP:CSD and the reason given, fancruft, is not one of those. Original research, another possible ground, is also excluded from speedy deletion. To test the water, I have put a PROD on the article. If, as seems likely, that PROD is also lifted then an AfD is the way to go. TerriersFan 03:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Whoops. Thanks to you both. --Tom Edwards 09:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re: steam technical

See the ongoing discussion at Template_talk:Half-Life_series#Splitting_up_the_template:_Redux ... --froth^T 19:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)