Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Projects/Preview play day

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Probable Preview Play Day on August 29

Hi,

There'll very probably be a Preview Play Day on August 29, although it's possible that it'll fall through since we're still sorting out a few important details. I'll let you know more if possible but wanted you to know as early as possible so that a representative can be chosen. It may be time to select someone different? (just a suggestion) As usual, let me know if you have questions.

Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stephane Lo Presti (talk • contribs) at 02:00, 17 August 2013‎ (UTC).

“It may be time to select someone different” – We always did that so far :P

So, Yandere will probably not be back in time; and we still have both Captain Combat and Lacky open from the last round. Lacky mentioned having exams somewhere around that date, so can you make it? If both of your are available please decide on your own who wants to go first :) poke | talk 01:47, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm still available, and will likely be for the next one as well. However if Lacky wants to go first, I'm fine with that. —Captain Combat 03:13, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Just double checking if this is September 29 or August 29, because if it's September 29, than I am free. My exams are next week, namely 27 & 28 of August. 29th August I'll probably need a day recovery so it just depends on what the go is. I should be fine, however. :)

EDIT: Judging by the above topic from Stephane in regards to there being "no preview play day next week", I am assuming September 29 is correct, in which case than I am free. -- Lacky 05:56, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I just noticed the September; and I think it’s wrong. They skipped the preview for Queen's Speech so this is probably about the one coming after, which will be on September 3rd, so the preview on August 29th is likely. Also September 29th is a Sunday, so not that likely :P poke | talk 11:40, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

If it is August 19, than I shall step aside and let Captain Combat take this one. :) -- Lacky 22:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Made a mistake, it's not September 29 but August 29, next week! Very sorry about that :/ --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:09, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

So given Lackey's comment above (I assume he meant August 29th, why are dates so hard), it looks like this week's likely candidate will be Captain Combat. 19:39, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Apologies, I posted the wrong date. Yes, I shall step aside this time. :) -- Lacky 01:21, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to reconfirmed (now that we figured out the date, lol) that I am still available for this weeks preview. I'll be sure to get into contact with Stephane and get things rolling —Captain Combat 21:08, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Alright, that’s good to hear! Good luck for it :) poke | talk 21:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I don’t want to sound mean or anything, I’m just wondering: Did you actually get any content out of the preview? poke | talk 11:29, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes and no. When attending the stream, they were having a lot of technical difficulties, and it was hard to understand the developer, so I'm not sure if I missed anything important, but a lot of content that was shown (that I did see) was already listed on the GW2 website, and/or on the wiki, since most of the mechanics and functions have already been listed from the last SAB. —Captain Combat 22:31, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

A Volunteer

Hey,

I'm a new editor here in GW2 wiki,I only edited the GW1 wiki.I was constantly updating GW1wiki with the new content updates since the begining of 2010. I stopped when GW2 come out. I saw this project a few days ago and since this is something I really enjoy it to do I decided to volunteer myself just to give all the help to GW2 players right after the game being officialy updated and to give an extra-help to the editors if needed. Regards,

White Wolf - 95.94.40.61 19:13, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I'm very confused about your message White Wolf: can you please email me at community@arena.net? Thanks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok, sorry about that. I will send a message right now. - White Wolf 95.94.40.61 19:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I edited my message to be more simple and convenient. W.Wolf (talk) 02:41, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I believe he just wants to point out he is enthusiastic about this project and nominated himself :) --Landon144 (talk) 22:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's what Landon said. Thank you Landon =) W.Wolf (talk) 23:04, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, we always want more people to be willing and available for this project. The more the merrier! 16:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

New format requires new practices

We've been through 4 preview play days now. The first two were fully interactive experiences where our representatives were able to play the upcoming patch on a non-public server. This was great for us because it gave us depth of information necessary for creating full-fledged wiki articles. Vahkris and Relyk, both experienced editors, absolutely killed those previews. Then the preview play day format switched to a non-interactive streaming video, which provides only breadth of information and very little depth. This type of overview makes sense for other fansites, which don't aim to provide the same level of information that we do, but it makes it very difficult for us to create wiki articles that aren't just "This is a thing that will be in the game soon, I would show you screenshots but I'm not allowed." I think Aquadrizzt and Captain Combat can both attest to this, though as a veteran editor Aqua was more capable of making do with what he was given. Queen's Jubilee also had more new content, whereas much of SAB was already documented.

All this tells me we need to do two things:

1. Rethink the way we document the preview play days
2. Make it easier for less experienced editors to use the information from the preview play days in a meaningful way

It's likely that action toward #1 will help us with #2 as well. Here's an idea to get us started.

Felix's idea: Have the representatives write about the preview in a more journalistic and less encyclopedic style. Instead of trying to cobble together a bunch of wiki articles, they can first focus on writing a single article that covers their own thoughts and impressions of the preview. This article would be linked from the main page, like a featured blog post kind of thing. The representative could then think of the preview in a more narrative sense. As they review their post, they can create stub articles which would be linked from the post and filled in by other editors after the patch goes live.

I know Stephane Lo Presti has some ideas as well, but I'm going to let (make) him post them himself. I also expect to see a gazillion suggestions from all the other creative minds on this wiki. These preview play days can be a valuable opportunity for us, we just need to figure out how to best use them. So let's get brainstorming, people! 14:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you've stifled discussion by having the best idea (clearly). But really, that is a good way to deal with the play-less previews, since there isn't really any good content to document yet. And having it prominent on the main page would get the information out to players. And since it's on the wiki, any existing information is just a link away. --JonTheMon (talk) 20:03, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Greetings from the German wiki. We share your concerns and aren't happy with the new style of the "preview watchday" either. In addition we got the language barrier, wich makes it impossible to document new content with the correct terms (although Stephane helped out with a few terms). WE would be happy, if the playday returns to its old style. I am awaiting an official statement every day, since it was announcd to test the streams two times and decide about the future style afterwards. I am looking forward to read your ideas (and Stephane's) to do the best thing with it in the case the streams will remain. Greetings from Germany -- 12:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

@Jon: Oops.

@Grinhorn: Hello Germany! :) I think I understand the reasons they switched from open play to a controlled stream (certain fansites were ruining the updates by having complete walkthroughs of the events before they were even live), and I'm not certain I'd want to go back to that even though it's better for us personally. That being said, I also understand that having just an English language live stream must make it very hard for the non-English wikis and fansites to participate. Maybe there's some way we can collaborate in the future to get more out of the preview for all of the official wikis. 15:42, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

The release page acts as the single article, but a written article on the release is an easy way to cover all the content from the release on one page. It is also more pleasing than austerely creating articles for all the content.--Relyk ~ talk < 15:52, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

We have a preview this week, and if there are no objections I would like to ask the representative to try out this new system. Once we get a representative, that is. 20:06, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean "journalistic"? MithTalk 17:31, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

It means no raw objective information, but more subjective optinions on features. So basically it's still watch instead of play, but now the representative is supposed to write some kind of review and post it on the wiki? I'm sure I can handle that, and I'm available next Friday, if it fits in my time scheme (after 14:00 UTC) I'm up for it. --Landon144 (talk) 17:41, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I really don't have nothing to say about this new way, only that will be less easier to editors to make a new article. Felix clearly had the best possible idea. A less encyclopedic article, do want it to be like an IGN, Massively, mmorpg article? I have some concerns about this streaming: for example, if something goes wrong to my router/internet for some reason and shut downs during the stream, will I have a link for the video or to download a video file or not? I just want to know how this works. Anyway, I'm available at that time for the preview this week.W.Wolf (talk) 17:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

From what I've heard, the wiki representative is able to rewatch the live stream again. --Landon144 (talk) 18:04, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The format would be pretty similar to an article you'd find on a gaming news website, yes. The difference would be that while you're writing it you might create some stub articles and link to them from your post. For example, if you were writing something like "But what I really liked about the update was the new Yakslapper Sword," and then you'd create a quick article for that sword that other editors could improve on after the update is playable. Of course this is uncharted ground and we'd be relying on the representatives to figure out what works best for them. It'll be a learning process for us.

I left a lot of talk page notes so I'd like to wait until later today to see who else is available before we choose the representative. Ideally the candidates would discuss amongst themselves who wants to go first (because there will be many more previews). As a hypothetical example, if W. wolf could attend this week's preview but not the next one in two weeks, but Landon could do both, it might make sense to let wolf go first. 18:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Subjective? Most people that visit the wiki comes to learn "what is new", "when it's added" and "where to find it", and for certain things that are a bit harder or trickier also "how to do it". How can you make any of that subjective? If they want subjective opinions, they'll talk with friends about the content or check out some site they like that usually has previews. What you suggest fits better some sort of community site or something like The Scribe than what a wiki does. A wiki will give impersonal data about the game and mirror some official site writings. Why not just bringing the Scribe back instead as some sort of "order of scribes" in which a different "scribe" writes each time? You could give them the article, and they'll put it on the official site with a background similar to the Scribe's papyrus background, then the wiki could mirror it. MithTalk 18:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

That would be awesome, maybe we could make it work. I'll talk to Stephane about it. On the subject of subjectivity though, the problem is that the preview as it stands now doesn't give us an objective view of the content in the first place. 18:43, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, so the thing would be essentially a “preview from the perspective of a wiki user”. If you can fit some objective descriptions in it: Great! But if you just want to share what you learned from the preview and explain what we have to expect for the update, that’s good enough. The alternative would be to have either rather empty wiki articles, or no more previews at all. But if we have the chance to participate in the preview, we should make sure that we make the best out of it. And with a limited preview presentation, a journalistic summary and review is probably the best thing we can do.

As a rule of thumb: If your article is full of red links to wiki articles about things in the update, and all those red links are blue a week later, then you did a great job! ;) Or in other words: Write a good text, people would like to read because it contains both information and impressions, but don’t forget the wiki aspect and try making it so that it still fits into the wiki environment, and is still interesting to read once the update is out :) poke | talk 18:59, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Reading everyone's thoughts here makes me think: the wiki could also try to get the "best of both worlds"? Create a release page with red links and at the top link to a scribe-like preview impressions from wiki editors (since I'm going to put the representative of all 4 wikis in touch, this can potentially end up being a shared effort). Just my few .2 cents. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 22:53, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like a fantastic idea! Really hit the nail on the head with this one. :) -- Lacky 18:24, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

September 27th

Happy to help! not sure if this is the right place to agree but yeah! Indigo121 (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Ill follow suit and reply here, Sadly 9am is impossible for me to play this preview day, as I have work. Hopefully ill be able to participate another day! loki1300 (talk) 04:28, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me, guys. Loki, if you have a regular 9-5 job like me, you might be out of luck- so far the stream previews have all been during regular business hours. Not much we can do about that, I'm afraid. ):

Indeed I do have a 9-5 (7:30-4:30) I am sad to learn I will likely never be able to help out on preview days, such is life. Guess ill continue to edit the wiki every once in a while when I see spots to fix :)

(Reset indent) Now, normally I wouldn't do this nor do I particularly want to do this, but since this preview came on very short notice and we need a representative today, I've had to make an executive decision. Landon144 will be representing the wiki at this week's preview play day. W.Wolf and Indigo121 will be the representatives for the next two previews after that, assuming they are available on those days. In the future we will be getting earlier notice about upcoming previews (a week minimum), so we'll have more time to discuss who should represent the wiki and when, which is the generally preferred course of action on a wiki. 18:41, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pushing this forward Felix. I'd suggest creating a table so that people can start sharing their availabilities with the project. We usually end up doing this Preview Play Day on Thursdays or possibly Fridays, around the start of business hours at Pacific Time. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:51, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for not responding to this sooner (see my talk page for more details). Glad that somebody was available for this and that there is more notice for the next two representatives. I am still happy, willing and able to provide my services for this the next time I am needed as well, provided earlier notice is given (thank you for the future week or two in advance notices, Felix!) as I can then sort it out with my work schedule. :) -- Lacky 08:21, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Oops! Where do we put it?

Hey guys, it occurred to me that we really haven't talked about how we're going to display the new format of preview coverage. Now obviously we want it to be visible, and prominently so. Sitenotice maybe, but not just sitenotice. Main page integration somehow- maybe a section similar to the featured article? How else can we draw attention to the article? 16:00, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

speaking of which, shouldn't we update the "main page" to rename the "featured article" to "living world"? -2.217.99.112 16:44, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Well strictly speaking it's still a featured article, it's just that we only feature living world articles anymore. 16:51, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

To repeat my idea from before: I’d make an article at <Release name>/preview and then put an intro text in the featured living world box on the main part. Similar to how we originally made those texts on GWW by citing the first few sentences and then with a “… Read more” link to the article.

The release page then also would receive some more prominent box at the top that would link to the preview article, probably with the same excerpt too. poke | talk 10:30, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Alright, that's what we'll go with for now then. 14:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Regarding preview text

→ moved from Talk:Twilight Assault

"Preview: Landon144 was one of the first to witness this new content, you can read his impressions here"

I'm sorry what is this garbage? Needs to be removed. The wiki is not metacritic or something similar. 124.191.60.179 08:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

That line is part of our promotion for the preview play day. poke | talk 09:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't really like the wording: "one of the first to witness" sounds a bit pretentious. Can we just say "previewed the content for the wiki" or something like that? —Dr Ishmael 12:47, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The wording is certainly open for discussion. 14:13, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Could the wording be axed? The history tab exists for a reason. At most it should have a heading mentioning preview play days, but... not individual users. -Auron 15:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

People won't care who did the preview or the article itself after the first couple days. We can leave the tag for the first week and then move the link to the preview to the bottom.--Relyk ~ talk < 16:14, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

If it means users will be more motivated to step up to the plate with the previews, I don't mind letting them have their name on the article. The whole point of the new approach to previews is to make them more personal, because the streams don't provide enough information to make solid wiki content. 16:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

What Felix said. Unlike every other article, the preview articles are not supposed to be a community work, so highlighting the individual author is just fine, especially as its written from his or her perspective. poke | talk 17:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Highlighting the individual author on the preview page is fine. Highlighting one person on an article that links to the preview article is different, especially since the text will remain long after the importance of the preview is gone. I'd like to see different wording. "For the first impressions of one wiki author, see the preview page. (If you want to represent the wiki at one of these previews, click here.)" That accomplishes the goal of highlighting the program better, without making the wiki seem like just another fansite. 75.37.16.252 18:24, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that's a reasonable suggestion. I do want to make it clear that the preview was available before the content was, though- otherwise it just seems kind of silly after the update is out. 22:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I think it looks tacky being above the text of the featured article. Can it be moved to the bottom?- Zesbeer 22:53, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

@Zesbeer: I think that with the way poke created the template, with the line along the bottom, it would not look good below the featured article- there would be no divider. Maybe you could try moving the line in a sandbox version of the template and see how it looks.

@Everybody else: Fire and forget messages really don't do much to facilitate change on a wiki. If people don't like the current wording of the template, we need to choose something else. 14:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Well the discussion kinda veered off from the wording into whether it should exist/should mention the author at all, so I didn't feel like continuing my line of argument until that more basic issue was resolved. My suggestion still stands, however. —Dr Ishmael 14:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Preview: User:Example previewed the content for the wiki as part of the Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Preview play day. You can read their impressions here.

I kinda like having the username prefixed by "User:" -Chieftain Alex 15:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@Felix I already have and it looks better.- Zesbeer 20:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you do it on the wiki somewhere so we can see it too? 20:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Tried to put the one I did above in, but it was way too long. test (perma link to old version) - it doesn't mention the users name atm. -Chieftain Alex 21:57, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@Felix I just did what Chieftain Alex did but had the template above Featured pages project ▪ Previously featured articles

@Chieftain Alex what if you got rid of 'preview:' (because its redundant) and just had 'you can read the early impressions of User:Example's wiki preview play day here."- Zesbeer 22:08, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the positioning and slight redesign in Alex's example are good, we can use that. 18:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Was that directed at the current version or the old permalink one I had linked to above? User:Chieftain Alex/sandbox8 -Chieftain Alex 18:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Current one, but I'm not including the wording in that- calling it <User>'s wiki preview play day is kind of odd. 19:35, 10 October 2013 (UTC)