Forum:In-universe style or strategy guide style?

Forums: Index >

Compare these articles: Alien Grunt and Houndeye. You'll notice that the alien grunt is done in a totally "in-universe" style, while the Houndeye article mentions which games it is in, the "Panthereye" enemy that was cut from the game, and information from the Raising the Bar book about how Houndeyes were supposed to appear and behave in Half-Life 2 before Valve cut them.

I think we should establish a consistant style. When I was writing articles for the Planet Half-Life wiki, I decided to write the first part of an article in-universe style in normal text, and then write any out-of-universe comments about gameplay or game development history in italics. If necessary to refer to a particular game or out-of-universe concept within the main text of the article, I put it in brackets and italics.

For example, here is the article on Barney Calhoun I did for the Planet Half-Life Wiki: http://phlad.planethalflife.gamespy.com/wiki/index.php/Barney_Calhoun It describes Barney as if he were a real person in the real world, like the biography of a real person on wikipedia, but underneath in italics it explains which games the character appears in, and the fact that the other random security guards are also known as Barney. Compare that to the Barney Calhoun article here on Combine Overwiki, a copy of Wikipedia's article, which mixes in-universe style and out-of-universe game information all over the place. On wikipedia that makes sense as there are strict rules about keeping everything grounded in a real-world context and making sure it is obvious that a character is fictional, but here on Combine Overwiki we don't need to keep reminding people that we are talking about computer games.

I copied this style from the old Star Trek Encyclopedia. For example, an article about a certain character that appears in a certain episode might look something like this:

Alien Babe (Jane Doe, TNG Explosions in Space)
 * Alien babe was an attractive woman with green skin that seduced Captain Picard and then blew up a planet using an antimatter toothbrush.
 * Jane Doe was coated in three pints of green paint to turn her into the green-skinned Alien Babe. The Alien Babe character was supposed to return in the TNG episode More Explosions in Space but Jane Doe had other commitments.

It's quite a good system that lets readers immerse themselves in the world of Half-Life (or world of Star Trek, or whatever) without plot details being interrupted by gameplay tactics or behind-the-scenes trivia. Your evil twin 13:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)