Talk:Era: Difference between revisions - Grand Theft Wiki, the GTA wiki

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Now eras are creating problems. The concept of "era" was created to refer to several games that have a lot in common. GTA V has in common with GTA IV just as much as GTA San Andreas has with GTA Vice City, or GTA III. Therefore it seems illogical to make them belong to different eras. I hope you understand.--[[User:Loadingue|Loadingue]] ([[User talk:Loadingue|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Loadingue|edits]]) 18:10, 30 April 2013 (BST)

:Hi Loadingue. This has been discussed many times, and we did introduce a change because of it. However, we reached a conclusion and that is final for the forseeable future. This is the status:

:*An era is a group of games starting with each new numbered game.

::*Era is based entirely on the number of the game. Nothing else.

::*Helpfully, this groups games by release date, and all the games in each era (except 1) happen to be very closely related

::*For example, a single uniting story arc. There are no story arcs between eras.

:*A universe is where the games are canonically considered to exist in parallel in the same world.

::*There are only 3 universes (2D, 3D, HD) and all GTA games fit into these.

::*Games within the same universe might not be related at all (eg GTA 1 + GTA 2) but still co-exis

:We are ''not'' saying that two eras cannot be related. In fact, many things appear in multiple eras, like [[Sprunk]], many vehicles and most game features. It is very easy to group eras together, either into a universe or just by saying "the X and Y Eras".

:However, if we grouped separate games together into a single era, just because they shared a few vehicles, this would cause many problems. Whilst it might seem simpler for the few things that are shared, the problems appear in the non-shared things. For example, saying [[Niko Bellic]] is a character in the [[GTA IV Era]] is very straightforward, but saying he appears in only the first half of the "GTA IV and V Era" is much more difficult and less intuitive.

:The [[GTA IV Era]] has a single uniting storyline, a single location, and almost everything appears either in one game or in all the games. [[GTA V]] might be closely related - sharing many vehicles, business and some characters - but this is absolutely fine because they are part of the same universe. You can easily say that the Comet appears in the HD Universe, or give the list of eras, or even a list of games. This gives you a ''choice'' and you can pick the most accurate one.

:No system is perfect. Each game can change the canon slightly, and there can even be contradictions within the same game. This is considered to be the best-fit solution - it makes everything easy to talk about. However, calling GTA V part of the GTA IV era is wrong.

:We have had this discussion thousands of times, and since we introduced Universes as official terminology (alongside Eras) there has been no evidence for any further change.

:'''Yes, there are similarities and overlaps between the IV and V eras. That does not make them in the same era, it makes them part of the same Universe. '''

:Grouping all the HD Universe games into a single era means we have to put TONS of effort to explain which half of the era everything appears in. Because most of it doesn't overlap. We are not "making them belong to different eras" - we are not pretending they have nothing in common - we are listing them in two separate piles but the wiki can easy explain how lots of things appear in both piles. That is easy.

:I absolutely respect your opinion, but I don't believe that having two separate Eras damages the wiki in any way, as it is very each to talk about both eras together or the HD universe as a whole. I believe that grouping all existing and future IV and V era games into one package would cause problems. I'm sorry if there's something I'm missing here? [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 00:06, 1 May 2013 (BST)