Talk:Advance Wars

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Contents

[edit] AW fan sites

I don't know why Norvy has taken out two of the most popular AW sites' links, but I'm putting them back on. Lawrence Hall 4 July 2005 15:56 (UTC)

There are two links in question:
  • http://www.awbunker.com Advance Wars Bunker: "The largest, most active, Advance Wars community on the web" Right now, the site is "undergoing a major redesign," and unavailable. I would not oppose it being re-added when (and if) the site comes back up.
  • http://s9.invisionfree.com/AW2_Debate_and_CCO/index.php? Advance Wars Custom CO and Debate Board "A board dedicated for fan made CO creation and debating about the game." I don't see a forum here for Advance Wars, but I do see them for Advance Wars 2 and Advance Wars DS, so would not oppose linking in those articles. Advance Wars has no capability to create custom COs, so I don't understand why it's relevant. -- Norvy (talk) 4 July 2005 16:52 (UTC)
You seem to be forgetting the important link to the AWB forums on AWB's main site. The forums there are still very active, and therefore a link to the site serves a proper purpose. Lawrence Hall 4 July 2005 17:41 (UTC)
In a related note, the newest external link, http://www.advancewarsx.com/ Advance Wars X seems to contain no real content that the other sites don't already have, and essentially just be an advertisment for the site. Remove? --Tjstrf 06:07, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, do. -- A Link to the Past 15:01, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
Done. I'll do the same for the AW2 page. --Tjstrf 08:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Is there a reason for the outright removal of all external links to Advance Wars communities from corresponding pages here? They lead readers to relevant places where they can learn more about the game and discuss it, don't they? Is that not the point of an External Link section? Forgive me if I'm missing the rationale, but reasons such as "DIE LINKSPAM" are not very explanatory. Flare777 19:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Social networking sites should generally be avoided. If the sites in question have any additional information not present in the article, consider adding it and leave a reference. Vic Vipr TC 12:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advance Wars indepth walkthroughs

Not to say that we should involve these, but I seem to recall walkthroughs that tell you basically everything to do in the level, and shows you images of how it should look. Do you think we should put that under External Links (assuming we can find it)? -- A Link to the Past 20:43, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

>.> How embarrassing, I completely overlooked AW Arrival. I guess the sleep-deprived have no place on Wikipedia. -- A Link to the Past 20:45, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

Anyone who is qualified, might you delete the character list and actually delve into the characters as opposed to how they perform? -- A Link to the Past 16:50, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Agh. I knew I should have read the discussion page before giving the CO table a makeover. Your idea is probably a good one; I think something along the lines of "List of COs in the Advance Wars Series" would make for a good article, and keep the articles on the actual games nice and concise. I'd be happy to write it. So, everybody - do you think such an article is in order? — Prizm 20-8-05 18:57 CDT
Take a look at List of Advance Wars COs, which I'm pretty pleased with. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 04:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More info on units?

It might be helpful to list the various units, their costs, movement types, etc. It would really help to illustrate the gameplay. --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 14:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


I did find an external link. It seems Advance wars web has a nice collection of them. The site is http://awbw.amarriner.com/units.php -I am new to posting links, so i cannot do a clickable link yet :(

[edit] External Links need trimming

I'm afraid that the External Links section needs trimming. There are four links to fan sites, all of which have pretty much the same information. As External Links can only link to sites that have information not included in the article, three of them have to be deleted, or all of them. I'll leave it to a vote to decide which ones get deleted. Wolf ODonnell 14:17, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Best to get ReyBrujo's input on this one. I notice he had removed the only fansite link from the external links sections of the other two Advance Wars game articles. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Donate) 18:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Hold on there... Listen if you're going to link to ANY of the AW fansites you need to link to all of them. I don't know if any of you actually visit these sites, but if you have you'd know about the intense rivalry. There are (if I had to guess) 10 advance wars sites in our community that all have huge followings. The ones you are linking to currently are perfectly good, but as a member of two of the ones you removed I believe that's unfair. I know this isn't supposed to be fair but if they all offer the same info, let's just link to one, K? Also you deleted two links that contained fangames. Custom Wars and Advance Wars By Web are fan games which I believe should be mentioned. Again link to both or neither, and I lean towards both. Sincerely, Freelance.FreeLance FoX 01:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
You make my point exactly. If we include one link to a fansite, then it opens the floodgates and soon pretty much the entire article is full of external links. And as for the fangames, they're not what the article is about. The article is about Advance Wars, not its fangames. Like you said, if we linked to one, then we'd need to link to the next, and then the next, and so on. While the external link guidelines are not set in stone or policy (that's why there called guidelines), they're there for a reason. As Terry Pratchett once wrote, 'Rules are there to make you think before you break them.' Veinor (talk to me) 01:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Fine, I really don't see the need to link to fangames here, but I hope you realize how wikipedia treats us. There have been articles made about these fangames, which were promptly deleted. I truly believe that these games deserve to be recognized. If the other wiki users wouldn't jump down my throat, I would create a section under one of the advance wars pages listing all of the fan sites and projects. Would that solve our problems? FreeLance FoX 01:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, no. Because then every single person with a fansite or project (which will number in the thousands for such a popular game) would add their own, and Wikipedia is not a collection of external links. And the reason the fangame articles are deleted is simply that they aren't notable enough for Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, it is an encyclopedia. There are certain criteria for inclusion, and apparently the fangames didn't meet it. Veinor (talk to me) 02:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I very well know the rules of wikipedia. It is by no means a collection of links but I believe, as you said, that the fansites of Advance Wars ARE notable. For a game to have an online following is not uncommon, but a movement this large deserves some acknowledgement. No matter how many times the links are deleted, people will come back to add them. The only plausible way to keep the unwanted links negotiated is to keep them in one spot. We don't even have to create a new article. A small section at the bottom of the main Advance Wars article would be more than enough. I agree with you that people will come out of the woodwork, but I really don't think there are any undeserving AW sites out there. Almost every Advance Wars fansite has a large number of members. AWN, one of the largest, has a couple thousand members! That is worth recognizing, and there are thousands of members of the Advance Wars community who agree. FreeLance FoX 02:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
And no matter how many times the links are re-added, people will remove them. And keeping them in one spot doesn't work; even if the section started small, it'd quickly grow very large. And I don't really believe that all the AW sites are deserving of a Wikipedia link. And you'd be surprised at the number of fansites that only 3-5 people ever visit. Obviously, they probably won't show up on your google search, but they're there. Veinor (talk to me) 02:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how many members there are. If it doesn't provide any further information, then you cannot include it. As I said, each site provides practically the same information.
There is another way around this and that is to use the sites as references. However, to do this, you must use the proper reference tags (see the article's Development section, to see how I did it) and link directly to the page where the information is contained.
This page is currently at Start-Status because none of the information is properly referenced. For all a layman knows, we could have pulled these facts out of our rear ends. We need to reference all important information, and these sites may be useful in doing so. However, most of hte information in these sites is not even mentioned in the article, so I don't know how to go about that.
Wolf ODonnell 10:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AI

Shouldn't there being a section discussing the problems with the AI? it would show how the series developed (like how it cheats with fog of war of AW1's obsession with APC's

Romanista 16:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone find an appropriate source for the following. As players, we all know it's true, but to meet WP guidelines it does need a source.

"Although [fog of war] should affect all sides, only units hidden in reefs and woods are hidden from computer players. All other locations are plainly visible to the computer players, as their units habitually attack units they shouldn't be able to see."

It was taken out recently, but if someone finds a source it can go back in. Alex9788 10:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] online

and a link to advance wars by web may be interesting, as it allows online play http://awbw.amarriner.com/ (didn't add it myself because of the earlier link discussion Romanista 16:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC) or maybe a mention pf stuart campbell's article about gameboy advance emulation, discussing how you can use advance wars for play by maiil Romanista 16:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC) both this suggestion and the AI would in my opinion expand the article from a simple game lemma to an interesting article about the series giving more information than the official info.. http://www.excellentcontent.com/emuzone/ez131.htm

[edit] Japanese release date October 2001?

From the Nintendo Wars article:

Advance Wars, known in Japan as Game Boy Wars Advance, was not released in Japan before the Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 compilation (consequently, neither was its sequel, Game Boy Wars Advance 2). The English version was released in North America on September 9th, 2001.

Other places seem to verify this. From IGN:

Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2
Release: 11.25.04
The first two Advance Wars games at last arrive to Japan in one bundle pack.

I know we can generally trust places like GameFAQs for release dates, but it seems to me this one just came out of nowhere, and Advance Wars doesn't seem to exist in Japan outside of the compilation with the second game (find me the box art, I dare you). Notice how there ISN'T a release date for the second game, and I very much doubt they'd release AW1, then AW1+2. I think it's safe to say October 10th was just made up.

So if anyone has any objections to me removing this, please voice them :p --Cyberdude93 04:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, you're right. Japan didn't get AW until November 2004, packaged along with AW2. Pretty amusing considering it wasn't even planned for release outside of Japan at first.Geoff B 05:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] the resemblance of the units

the bleu fighter jet looks more like the Mirage 2000 than like any russian warjet i find.


[edit] Turn this to series article.

You seriously need to turn this to series article. Because, first of all. AW started as Nintendo Wars on NES so yeah..you should.

[edit] List of AW units

There's a list of COs, is it worth creating one of units? I'll do it, just checking it would be supported to avoid an AfD. Comments? Alex9788 10:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a scratchpad Wikia for the Nintendo Wars as well as Nectaris. Go here. It's under construction, but you can help. --Juigi Kario (Charge! * My crusades) 05:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Some of the unit information on there is impressively detailed, but I was thinking of just creating a list of all the units with basic info. When the scratchpad is complete and uploaded onto wikipedia, links from the list page could be made to the individual articles on each unit. What do you reckon? Alex9788 17:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Short answer: No. Long answer: WP:NOT#GUIDE, WP:NOT#INFO, scope guidelines. A list of COs could even be said to violate one of those policies depending on what you put in it. For this reason, I'm going to be editing the units section and merging it into Gameplay. Ong elvin 13:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAO JetLover

Being an expert on planes, you may recognise that the so-called "fighters" do not resemble real life fighters, and are a much closer match to the A-10 Thunderbolt II. However, please be assured that in this game, that graphic corresponds to a fighter, a unit that fights other air units and is most certainly not "a twin-engine jet aircraft to provide close air support of ground forces by attacking tanks, armored vehicles, and other ground targets". Quite to the contrary, this unit is entirely restricted to attacking other air units. Your attempt to make the article more accurate is appreciated, but please accept that Geoff B, who may or may not have inferior knowledge to you regarding planes, has more experience with the game and is in this particular case correct. Thank you, Alex9788 11:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. It should be noted that they are clearly based off the A-10. Cheers,JetLover 20:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I reverted your changes because they're not A-10s. They're fighters. Their graphical design may very well be based on the A-10 Warthog, but that's got nothing to do with their role in the context of the game. And you'd probably need a citation to say their design is based on the A-10 anyway, otherwise it owuld be original research. Geoff B 20:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. If you're really determined to include this in the article, find a source and add a sentence such as "The graphical design of the Orange Star fighter is based on the A-10 Thunderbolt II". If it had a source I suppose I would be ok with leaving that info in the article, but in my personal opinion it's not actually particularly important or relevant so it's not worth looking for a source anyway (if there even is one). If it matters to you, go ahead. Alex9788 21:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are the two pics:

The A-10
The game.
The game.

They are pretty clearly based off each other. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 23:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, the policy is verifiability, not truth. Geoff B 00:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
But it's so obvious, why have a cite? And besides, I don't see where I'm going to find a cite for such a small piece of information. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 00:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)






I know, it can be very frustrating, see my post above in the AI section. To me that's clearly obvious, but unfortunately it's unsourced so I can't put it in the article. Rules are rules. On the other hand, look at this paragraph:

Depending on which CO the player chooses, some unit map-sprites and most battle animation sprites will reflect the country that CO represents. A Yellow Comet CO's forces have a WWII-era Japanese feel (down to the use of Zeroes as the fighter design), a Blue Moon CO's forces are vaguely Russian, a Green Earth CO's units have a Germanic design to them, an Orange Star CO's units resemble American forces, and Black Hole COs' units have a distinctly robotic appearance. The designs (but not the colors) are consistent across army assignments: for example, a Blue Moon CO assigned to an Orange Star "slot" in a battle will have orange-colored Blue Moon styled units. These country-specific sprite differences have no effect on unit performance.

There's no source for the bit about Zeroes, and no-one's challenged that, so maybe this could go in unsourced (I'd say this paragraph would be as appropriate a place as any). I'm quite sure JetLover would be in favour of that, interested as to what Geoff B's opinion is? Alex9788 08:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Not really bothered if JetLover wants to include a sentence mentioning the design is A-10 derived. As long as he doesn't try stating that they're A-10s (they're not, they're fighters), there'sno reason not to if similar stuff is already in the article. Geoff B 11:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah I agree. If it were me I would probably comment on the fact that the graphic of OS fighters is based on the A-10, though the A-10 is not actually a fighter. Alex9788 20:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

You can all stop arguing this point. I've killed the picture because it's no longer necessary. See the section I added below (Article Cropping) for some more details. Ong elvin 13:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Main reason I killed the picture was because it's really just showing a battle, which is in reality just another screenshot of gameplay. The screen of the field does a better job of that. Ong elvin 14:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I mentioned this in Article Cropping, but I want to make sure you folks get this in case you're not watching that thread.. I'll let the picture stay. If you wanna argue about whether the Fighter sprite is based on the A-10, go ahead. But that minutiae is irrelevant to a an encyclopaedia article, Wiki or printed, so don't put it in the article. If you persist, I'll change the screenshot to one that shows different units in battle. Either way, no A-10 references. Cheers. Ong elvin 13:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Cropping

I've cropped a bunch of information from the article. Sure it's all true and might be considered useful, but Wikipedia is not a game guide. Likewise, it is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and should not include information that is only relevant to gamers. Ong elvin 13:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

On another note, I really must commend the brief and to-the-point story section you've got. Gaming articles tend to err on the side of way too long when it comes to the story, taking sometimes three or four pages to say what should only take one page. Ong elvin 13:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Acknowledged, and on the whole it was a good edit, but I think you were a little excessive with the cropping in places. For example, I think that picture was appropriate, and some information should have been summarised rather than deleted. Please see my last edits, I haven't added much. If you disagree with any of what I did please edit that bit particularly rather than revert the whole thing. Thanks, Alex9788 17:01, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I like how you've moved the Story higher. The picture, okay, maybe that can stay, but change the units involved. That argument on whether they're A-10s or whatever is stupid, so if we change the units, there won't be any need for the arguing. Ong elvin 05:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorta changed my mind. The picture can stay, but if someone wants to argue about them being based on A-10s again I'll just change the units being showcased. Ong elvin 13:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you, in fact I thought about taking it out when I put the picture back in anyway, but didn't want to irritate JetLover. But yes, it's not relevant to an encyclopedia article. Change the picture if you want, but I think that that one's ok as long as people agree the caption is sufficient without noting the origin of the graphic. Alex9788 15:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genre confusion?

Nintendo Wars lists the series as turn-based strategy, as does the Video game genres page, but on all the game pages, they're called turn-based tactics games. Why is this? Is it because of the games' focus solely on combat, despite the economic management component and generation of new units in almost all scenarios (whereas in TBT games "players [...] complete their tasks using only the combat forces provided to them")? 128.54.228.80 06:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

That'd be it I think. Strategy is an overarching plan for the entire field of combat. Tactics is the short-term plan you implement to achieve an immediate goal. Strategy is long-term, Tactics is short term. Ong elvin 07:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Mak-sturm4a.png

Image:Mak-sturm4a.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 15:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)