User talk:Spaceeinstein


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See the archive for old discussions.


Archiving talk page

Good to see you back! Just a quick note on archiving pages (such as your talk page). It's best to move the page, then make a fresh talk page; rather than copying the contents. This is so that it maintains the edit history and we can easily see who did what, rather than having to dig through a huuuge history where most of the stuff has been wiped since. Could you move your talk page instead? Or I can do that for you? Gboyers 19:24, 10 October 2010 (BST)

Sorry, I can't find a way to move pages. I added a link in the archive that will direct to the last revision made instead.--spaceeinstein 19:29, 10 October 2010 (BST)

Sorry - that's because I hadn't upgraded you back to staff yet. Fixed - Gboyers 20:30, 10 October 2010 (BST)

Thanks for sorting that out, helps us keep everything in order. What do you think of the new place? Gboyers 22:54, 10 October 2010 (BST)
I like the resemblance to Wikipedia, much more sleeker. It's very good to not have those ads that obstruct the view and not relate to gaming. The option to style the wiki to anything we want is much better than having to follow a set template from a corporation.--spaceeinstein 00:21, 11 October 2010 (BST)

Glad you like it! I'm glad we moved, but we don't have a choice now that we've been banned from Wikia. Gboyers 00:31, 11 October 2010 (BST)

Galleries

Do you know why the images aren't rendering correctly in the galleries? I tried re-uploading the images and it doesn't work. --Gta-mysteries Talk 08:00, 21 October 2010 (BST)

Are you talking about this issue?--spaceeinstein 08:03, 21 October 2010 (BST)
I think so. Even with the "file", and "image" prefixes they won't show up. --Gta-mysteries Talk 08:10, 21 October 2010 (BST)
Which pages are you having trouble? If the images do not exist, they need to be reuploaded.--spaceeinstein 08:15, 21 October 2010 (BST)
I started with ones on the Kaufman Cabs page. I think they didn't exist, though after I re-uploaded some of the missing ones, they appeared. --Gta-mysteries Talk 08:17, 21 October 2010 (BST)

Preview

Preview does work, but now it shows up below the edit box. If you go to Special:Preferences > Editing and enable "Enable side-by-side preview" at the bottom, you get a preview button above that lets you preview it without having to reload the page. I'll try and make this default. Gboyers 14:44, 27 October 2010 (BST)

Oh, somehow the "Show preview before edit box" was unchecked. Checking that makes the preview work again. The side-by-side preview doesn't seem to work for me. It will always show a loading message.--spaceeinstein 18:25, 27 October 2010 (BST)

Staff Roles

Hi, could you please fill out your section of the table at Grand Theft Wiki:Staff/Roles? That page explains the reasons, but we're just trying to assign staff some responsibility and ownership of their own sections, and give you a bit more room to do what you want to do. Thanks - Gboyers 00:38, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The Dodo in Grand Theft Auto III

Does the Dodo in Grand Theft Auto III fit two people or does it only fit the pilot? PK2PK2 22:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

GTA Wiki

no that you have moved from wikia what about the old site are you the admin because there is not any staff around I don't mind taking it over as a caretaker but I don't want to be an admin --Owen1983 21:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

"GTA Era" categorization

We need to talk about this (and maybe a few other guidelines Gboyers set up). It may sound crazy, but I came up with the "Era" categorization years back at Wikipedia when I was working on the navbox for the GTA series; I didn't imagine people would take that as official terminology. In time I just felt it's really fanspeak-ish to refer to a generation of GTA games as an "Era"; if any, it projects too much (unwarranted) self-importance on something as trivial as canons. Wikipedia itself has now abandoned the "Era" term and categorizes the series based on the game that pioneered a canon (GTA 1, GTA 2, GTA III and GTA IV). - ZS 09:12, 12 April 2011 (BST)

(sorry to butt in) I really like the term 'era' - it's a nice short, simple way of grouping everything, and it does the job. The games in each era are very similar; they share characters, storylines, locations; and are visibly different to other eras. "Generation" and "Series" are equally valid terms, but it would be silly to go around replacing every instance of Era with those. I think we have a neat little way of describing everything, I think everyone understands it, and I've not heard anyone complain. I don't see any reason to copy Wikipedia on this - what do you see the problem being? Gboyers 10:33, 12 April 2011 (BST)
I don't like the term "era" but it's the way the term is used on this website so I just stick to it. I prefer "series" because era means time period and series means the games are connected with each other, which makes more sense to me. I think saying series could clear up major confusions about the discontinuity of the storyline between the GTA III series to the GTA IV series. Era sounds like one era should follow another era, in time and in story.--spaceeinstein 16:58, 12 April 2011 (BST)
You have a good point. At the moment, I don't think it's worth changing everything. I think 'era' is nice, particularly since it has a single meaning on this entire wiki, whilst the word 'series' could mean multiple things (the whole GTA series, an era, or just a group of things). Definitely something we should discuss more publicly (before taking any action). Gboyers 19:28, 12 April 2011 (BST)
This only raises other questions. Why the aversion towards using disambiguation, especially bracketed ones? We could categorize a topic just as easily by the game that established a canon (i.e. Liberty City (GTA 1), Liberty City (GTA III), Liberty City (GTA IV)), or, as an alternative, the game it debuts in full form (Vice City (GTA Vice City) as an alternate title for Vice City (GTA III)). They're a little more complicated to type out, yeah, but a lot of gaming wikis do this these days, and it's a pretty solid system.

Secondly, why capitalize all article titles? The reason capitalization is used is to indicate that it is an official name, especially if it's capitalized in the game itself (Luis' Apartment, Rocket Launcher, Tow Truck...). Otherwise, any terminology that is informally invented by fans is meant to be written in lower case; using capitalization on informal names (i.e. Tattoo Parlors, Vending Machines, Spray Shop...) implies it's an official term, especially when these article names are used in wiki links. It's even worse for article names which were created because a bracketed disambiguation (which would have been appropriate) wasn't favored (as is the case with Police Buffalo, SWAT Tank and Love Fist Limo). If we rendered "era" in lower case, it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb, and I wouldn't had been that bothered about using the term (that is not to say I'll support using "era" in an altered form).

The reason people don't complain about the use of "era" here (or the GTA Wikia for that matter) or other abovementioned problems is because the general demographics of their readers tend to slant towards those who are unable to comprehend accuracy in a wiki, often unquestionably accepting information on these wikis, no matter how informally coined or inaccurate they are. Wikipedia's users on the other hand tend to be a little bit more aggressive; editors of the GTA series' article seem to be better acknowledging problems and attempt to work out solutions for the sake of accuracy; while I'm not implying we should be strictly adherent to the way Wikipedia works (I don't like Wikipedia all too much myself), we can still learn a thing or two by the way they function.

If any, we're long overdue for a little reassessment of naming convention (the use of "era" is just as old as GTW's history); the longer we put it off, the harder it is to fix when it does become a big pain in the butt. We should have bots ready to do this, and readers will get used to the changes anyway. We just need to sit down and talk about how to go about it. - ZS 03:43, 13 April 2011 (BST)

While I see your point, I don't like series. I think the general assumption would be that series would refer to the GTA series; every game. JFletcherTalk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 02:11, 13 April 2011 (BST)
Personally, I've always liked the word "era". It ties the games into neat groups and allows canon discussions focusing on these particular groups to be easier to understand. The use of "Era" is not just used on wikis. I see it all the time on GTA Forums (who divide their sidebar into "Era" sections) as well as on other GTA Fansites, so we are not the only ones. As for "Series", much like JF said, it is a word that can be used in a broarder perspective and might confuse various users who will most likley think that "Series" referes to the GTA series, which it does. The game eras are not different series. They are all part of one, which shows that this solution would not work. Chimpso (Talk) 04:23, 13 April 2011 (BST)
I understand that Vice City in GTA III Era is a bit silly, but at least it actually describes what it's about: Vice City in the GTA III era. The old title, Vice City in GTA Vice City, made it easy to overlook VCS, and we ended up with a separate article: Vice City in GTA Vice City Stories. As for title capitalisation, I personally just think it looks nicer, and it's actually one of the policies that makes me prefer being a part of this wiki over others. I understand your concerns, particularly the one about links in sentences, but this why I make use of redirects; To link to Police Car for example, I would simply type police car, and it wouldn't make the link look formal (although I know that A-Dust and Gta-mysteries seem to be against linking to redirects). [[police car]] is also easier to type than [[Police (car)|Police]] for example, which is useful for users not familiar with complex naming policies, for both linking and searching. JFletcherTalk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 06:13, 13 April 2011 (BST) EDIT: Redirects can also be used with the eras. When referring to an era within a sentence, it actually makes sense to type XYZ is a company in the GTA IV era, which will redirect to the appropriate article. JFletcherTalk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 06:18, 13 April 2011 (BST)
ZS - I'm not sure why you suggest Wikipedia having aggressive editors is a good thing. Having people who care a lot about detail and organisation is really, really useful (you and A-Dust being the two here), but if everyone was like that, nothing would get done. On this wiki, we decide things by consensus. As I said, I'd like to hold a discussion (not just with staff) to decide the best way for us to proceed. Either most of us agree, or someone eventually has to make a decision, but that's a long way off. If people have a problem, it is easier for them to complain here, because they won't get their head bitten off! I really don't think we should model ourselves on Wikipedia, for two main reasons. Firstly, they cover a lot more than GTA, so their naming and conventions were not made specifically to suit a wiki about GTA. For example, because they use "series" for every other TV show, film series and game series, they use it for GTA games too; when it might not be the best term. Secondly, we got a LOT of users who don't like the way Wikipedia does things, particularly how the administrators treat the newer users. So yes, take inspiration, but we certainly shouldn't use the fact that they do it as justification for doing it here. I don't think anyone here thinks we should just copy them.
So let's look at our options and figure out what the best overall solution is for this wiki (rather than just the correct one, the current one, the easy one, the pretty one or the Wikipedia one).
If we just used 'GTA III' to sometimes mean the era and sometimes mean the game, that would get VERY messy. This is why we use "GTA 1" which is not technically correct (the game was simply called 'Grand Theft Auto'). I don't believe that the best way to do things is to be technically correct, then disambiguate with brackets, such as "Grand Theft Auto III (series)" and "Grand Theft Auto III (game)". I find that very ugly, and very difficult for new users to use, and awkward for everyone else to use. At the moment, everyone knows exactly where a link to GTA III is going to go, and everyone can use it easily. If we adopted the Wikipedia approach, it would not be clear. It would be harder to use, less clear to new users, more awkward for old users, and would require a LOT of cleaning up when people got it wrong. I don't want everyone to go to a disambiguation page 90% of the time. One bad example is the Musewiki, where *EVERY* page has a disambiguation of brackets. It's horrible to use, and with no redirects (and correct punctuation required), it can be impossible. For example Futurism reveals nothing, but Futurism (song) and Futurism (tablature) do. I appreciate my "Police Car" names aren't 100% accepted, but "Police (car)" and "Police (force)" are just ugly and not nice to use, and it stops us grouping similar vehicles with different names together (like Limo). I really like our sensible way of doing things, it feels more like natural speech "oh I drove the police car in GTA 1" not "I drove the Police (by which I mean the vehicle not a man with a moustache) in Grand Theft Auto (by which I mean the first game in the first series of the Grand Theft Auto series, rather than the entire series of series)" and I think it makes us stand out.
Also, "Vehicles in GTA III" could mean the era or the game, and we'd need to disambiguate EVERY page which has anything to do with with I, 2, III, IV and V games and eras. Whereas currently "Vehicles in GTA III Era" is very clear and everyone knows what to expect, and everyone knows how to find it when they want something regarding an era. Same goes for "Vice City in GTA III Era" refers to the whole era, allowing for "Vice City in GTA Vice City" to be a sort-of sub-page.
If we used 'GTA III Series' that wouldn't have most of the above problems. It is also probably the most technically-correct term. However, I don't think it's as unique as 'era', and this may cause confusion. At the moment, we use 'series' to refer to the whole GTA series of games, just like the Halo series or Red Dead series. We don't use it to mean a specific era or "season" (like how a long-running TV series is broken up into seasons, each containing lots of episodes). Whilst these problems could be overcome, it's a lot of effort, and it will still confuse people. I'm not sure about international people, but I think most English-speaking people would be able to understand 'era' and then recognise it every time it was used on the entire wiki (with no exceptions). I appreciate that 'era' implies time (when it's not all about that) but I don't think that could confuse anyone or make life difficult on this wiki.
Additionally, we use 'Title Case in Titles' because (imo) they are titles, not sentences. I appreciate that most of the Internet is changing to using 'Sentence case in titles' as if they are a first line of an article, which is sometimes appropriate, but not for us. Sentence titles tell a story, like "Man escapes from mental hospital and eats his dog"; title case titles are names of pages "List of Famous People". Everything on GTW fits into the latter category, so it seems logical to use title case for our titles. I appreciate it's not the same as Wikipedia or some other sites, but I think it works for us. Again, I'm open to discussion on this.
I think both of these issues are too important to get wrong, and it's fundamental to how we run this wiki. As you all know, I'm a big fan of making things simple and easy, even if it's not *technically* the proper way. I think 'era' is a nice, simple, easy and consistent way to refer to eras throughout this entire wiki; using series would be okay if we always had, but factoring the change of thousands of pages makes it really unattractive as an option, using disambiguations is messy and awkward (even if it's the Wikipedia way, or more technically-correct). Those are my thoughts - but I'm open to discussion here, and we'll agree by consensus. Gboyers 11:03, 13 April 2011 (BST)

IRC

Hey, could you join Special:WebChat if you're around? There's something I think you might be interested in discussing! Gboyers 10:57, 18 April 2011 (BST)

Article questions

Hello. I'm new here. I know you're an administrator so I decided to ask this to you. Can I add mission appearances sections to place articles? You know, those missions on which the location plays an important role (the place where the mission takes place, a place you have to go during a mission). I think this could fill up some place articles. --TheHomer 21:38, 26 April 2011 (BST)

Re:Template capitalization

Sorry I hadn't actually seen that conversation and wasn't aware of that. The GTA games should also be listed as GTA Vice City not GTA: Vice City, which was why I was editing the pages. But do you think we should be typing out the descriptions for images/files in full? A-Dust 20:07, 18 June 2011 (BST)

I did mean type the game name in full but to add as much description as possible, so for example if an image is facing south or north-east and things like this. Just an idea I've had to try and make GTW look more professional. A-Dust 20:26, 18 June 2011 (BST)
The directions was an example but I was also thinking of images/files of neighbourhoods and districts to give people a better idea of where the image is taken from. We could also use more description for individual places (for example locations for businesses and the mission for character images/files). A-Dust 20:46, 18 June 2011 (BST)

Just to jump on the bandwagon here, I think categorisation would be good for this too. We can go one step beyond Category:Screenshots of GTA San Andreas and have Category:Screenshots of Los Santos (or just use Category:Los Santos), also for the more rural areas (Category:Screenshots of Red County) and also things like Category:Skyscrapers, Category:Beaches etc. Descriptions should be better, but not hugely detailed. I'd say an ideal one is something like "A screenshot of the landscape of Red County in GTA San Andreas, looking South from Fern Ridge overlooking XYZ. San Fierro can be seen in the distance. In this screenshot is a Tractor, Coach and BF-400." That gives a description, the location, a position/direction (if relevant), and quick overview of the subjects (if anyone is interested). There's no point having location descriptions for vehicle screenshots or anything, and there's no point putting north/south/east/west unless it's relevant (IE if the direction is obvious, like a building only has one visible side; or if the direction is irrelevant). Hopefully that's not too hard, but I'm more bothered about categorisation and the {{screenshot}} tags than lengthy descriptions. Make sense? Also, I think we should start using specific "screenshot" categories so that we can empty out main categories - this should not be used for images IMO. Gboyers 04:13, 19 June 2011 (BST)

Wouldn't that be too cumbersome to navigate around, having two separate categories for the same topic? It makes sense to place them there.--spaceeinstein 10:46, 19 June 2011 (BST)
I don't think it's cumbersome to have Category:Vehicles in GTA San Andreas, then the first link in there be to Screenshots of Vehicles in GTA SA, which itself would also be in Category:Vehicle Screenshots - that gives two ways to find it, and makes it easier to navigate 200 images at a time (rather than intertwined with the text), and it makes the link-only main category easier to navigate. I can quickly set this up and try it for GTASA? Gboyers 13:51, 19 June 2011 (BST)
I don't like this idea but I checked other wikis and they did something similar to this. I like to see inputs from more people first.--spaceeinstein 02:48, 20 June 2011 (BST)

I can see both sides of this: I agree that it seems more logical to use a single category, Category:Vehicles in GTA San Andreas, for all types of media related to that subject, but I can also see the point of splitting them up making navigation easier. One of the great things about this wiki (and not Wikia) is that we prioritise usability over being "technically correct", so I would probably go for the latter. JFletcherTalk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 03:34, 20 June 2011 (BST)

1024x768 PS2 emulation resolution

I'm not sure if we should be using a resolution that high for screenshots of PS2 emulations because the PS2's native resolution for both GTALCS and GTAVCS is only 640x480 pixels. Could we try something a little smaller like 800x600? It strikes a more fair balance between appearing large enough to be presentable, but small enough that the pixelation of the screenshots is not very jarring. - ZS 03:32, 5 August 2011 (BST)

Alright.--spaceeinstein 17:10, 5 August 2011 (BST)
Sorry, don't mean to stick my nose in, but how do you emulate PS2? I've been trying, but I didn't think it was possible to do that very well. --Andreaz1 17:15, 5 August 2011 (BST)
PCSX2 can emulate games well. You have to change some settings to get the game running and to look correct.--spaceeinstein 19:27, 5 August 2011 (BST)
Thanks. You're doing great with those screenshots btw, but where did you learn how to inject those trainer cheats into the games? - ZS 20:38, 5 August 2011 (BST)
I use a memory editing program called ArtMoney. I had experience memory editing VC and SA, and editing the contents in garages is the easiest to do. I use the search feature to search for the model ID of the car in a garage. Then I switch the car to a different car and use the filter feature to search for the new model ID of the car. I repeat until I get one result. I am free to change that value to any vehicle in the game.--spaceeinstein 23:10, 5 August 2011 (BST)
Yeah, I knew about PCSX2, I just never managed to get it working properly. Thanks anyway and sorry for the late reply. --Andreaz1 00:37, 9 August 2011 (BST)

Grand Theft Mods

Hey, could I have your feedback on the status of our upcoming Grand Theft Mods site? If you can't access our forum, let me know. Thanks - gboyers talk 07:33, 15 August 2011 (BST)

Ragdoll vs Euphoria

I'm not sure it's true that ragdoll physics only applies to dead NPCs, whilst Euphoria is used for live ones. Ragdoll is a general term which means that each part of the body is loose but attached - whilst it was originally used for dead/floppy characters, it's now used in more advanced ways for live characters too. Euphoria is an engine that uses advanced (non-floppy) ragdoll physics combined with the physics of all other objects in the game, meaning it can react realistically. When Niko bumps into a car or another person and he flinches, that is Euphoria's physics showing his reaction. When he crashes and flies through the windscreen, that's Euphoria's physics too. Can you confirm or contest this so we can update the various articles? Thanks - gboyers talk 11:25, 21 September 2011 (BST)

Ragdoll can be used for live characters for other games, but for GTA games under RAGE that includes Euphoria, I generalized ragdoll applying to dead characters and Euphoria applying to live characters. I don't think Euphoria is advanced ragdoll at all. I see Euphoria as advanced procedural animation different from ragdoll. Ragdoll causes characters to limp while Euphoria causes characters to react to more environmental events and with some self-preservation. When characters are alive, they are aware of their environment and react appropriately with Euphoria. When they are dead, they can't react so ragdoll takes over and make the characters limp.--spaceeinstein 23:14, 21 September 2011 (BST)

Incorrect info.

Before I remove this, can you please tell me if this is vandal? Here is the link http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Antagonist

Look under the Ray Bulgarin (TBoGT section), and you will find a part that says "like acquiring a hockey team and infiltrating a police station", if my memory from playing the game several time serves me correct, that was never in the game. Or am I missing something? Thanks, --Fairnick68 (talk) 01:08, 23 October 2011 (BST)

Mount Chiliad

Hi. It was assumed, seeing as Vinewood was back I figured maybe the most prominent landmarks would remain the same. We'll see when the trailers reveal more. Grand Theft AJ (talk) 02:33, 3 November 2011 (GMT)

News articles

In reply to News articles

I've always felt that everything should have its own article simply because this wiki is about the GTA series and nothing else. I've never believed in the merging of articles on wikis that are about one particular topic or about the need for it to be significant enough. Sorry about the delay in response. A-Dust 10:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Re:Attribution

Whoops, sorry about that. BTW, as for mods being compatible in the mobile ports, will there be any updates to the existing toolsets? Blakegripling ph (talk) 08:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I doubt there will be updates to existing tools because very few tools are open-sourced, and most who have the source aren't active anymore. Gamerzworld is knowledgeable in creating tools so his progress is promising.--spaceeinstein 08:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Still from what GW did it does look promising; too bad I don't have an Android phone that's good enough to run the game. Blakegripling ph (talk) 08:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)