Forum:Operation: Revitalize

First came the overhaul. Next came the renewal. Then the reorganization...

Today marks the day that we bring you the (hopefully) largest operation to date...

Intro
I've thought about starting an operation on this wiki ever since I became an admin, but the motivation never came. That is, until now.

The current state of the wiki is occupied mostly by blog posts rather than editing. Not to say it isn't a bad thing, but this wiki has been around since February 2006. Being the definitive source of information for all things Battlefield next to DICE themselves, we certainly do not have as much information as we could on the earlier Battlefield titles, namely Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, and Battlefield 2 - as well as its console spin-off, Modern Combat. Even 1943 and Bad Company 1 could use some love. 2142 is mostly covered, however, thanks to Pedro and H2seasprite when they tanked through nearly everything.

And last I checked, this series didn't start at Bad Company 2, and certainly not at Battlefield 3. For many of us, it did, but those games are well enough covered save for a few areas, and of course the new stuff still being added to Battlefield 3.

There's a wealth of knowledge to be divulged from these games and we only have the tip of the iceberg for many of them. I once remember Bioware stating that the Mass Effect Wiki was the best source of information for the series. I know a sci-fi RPG series is much different from an FPS series, but wouldn't you guys want DICE to say the same for us?

I'll try to keep track of updates with ✅'s for things that are up to snuff, and 's with things that need work.

Games
Pages that could use an update: Battlefield: Bad Company, Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat are good examples of how the pages should look. BC2 could use a bit of trimming here and there, and MC could use more pictures, but they have all they need within them.
 * Battlefield 1942
 * Battlefield 1942: The Road To Rome
 * Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII
 * Battlefield Vietnam
 * And its World War 2 mod could use an official page since it's an actual DICE-made thing
 * Battlefield 2
 * Battlefield 2: Armored Fury
 * Battlefield 2: Euro Force
 * battlefield 2: Special Forces
 * Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam
 * Battlefield 3 (needs reorganizing, it's too cluttered)

As for the updates, the game articles should try to have information in all their sections rather than just a template. They should be along the lines of: Expansions and booster packs, as well as the WW2 mod will not have as much info, but Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike is a good example of what they should aspire to be, just more flushed out however.
 * intro talking about the game and when it was released
 * gameplay - singleplayer (if applicable) and then/or only multiplayer, with a link to main multiplayer page if singleplayer is involved
 * weapon, vehicle, faction navboxes and such
 * marketing/pre-release stuff like BC1's Find All Five or an alpha/beta/demo
 * other editions of the game like limited editions and complete editions
 * notable updates - in a separate page if there's too many
 * soundtrack - most games have an epic one; list the tracks, maybe provide a link to iTunes/Amazon for purchase and a Youtube video of the main theme only or just a picture of the album art
 * notable mods - save for the World War 2 Mod that I think should have an official page as DICE made it, this should just be a blip about some well-known mods for the games with external links to their download locations for those interested, nothing more
 * reception - how well the game did with the critics
 * video gallery of all the trailers - but not an image gallery; promotional screenshots like a first look should be melded within the article appropriately - BC2 does this well
 * trivia
 * references

Maps
I'll put the categories here to make it easier as listing each map would take too much space, but many of the maps need more to them from 1942 to BF2. Personally, I find maps the most annoying to edit and I like to think of Arica Harbor (just needs images), Fall of Berlin, and a few of the Vietnam maps to be some of the best and should be the basis.

The MC ones are about all we can do since the game went offline when OG XBL died. Most of these, however, just need info on the bases and images, but the core stuff is pretty much there.
 * Category:Battlefield 1942 maps
 * Category:Battlefield Vietnam Maps
 * Category:Maps of Battlefield 2
 * Category:Battlefield 2142 Maps
 * Category:Battlefield: Bad Company Maps
 * Category:Maps of Battlefield 3

The maps should follow a formula like this for consistency:
 * intro talking about where map takes place, what game, what war it's in
 * game mode 1 (usually conquest or Rush - whichever was available first in BC series case)
 * equipment for each side
 * bases
 * vehicles spawned in area (list) and pictures of area around base, like the flag/objectives and vehicle spawns
 * game mode 2
 * you get it...
 * game mode 3

Weapons
Some games need infoboxes, some need images, some need both. Many need detailed info on the guns. Modern Combat's weapons are in dire need of help, as are 1943 's weapons, and some from BF2 and Vietnam. Bad Company 1's weapons also need some work. Most have gunbox pictures, but some don't. Getting pictures of the weapons and their iron sights will be difficult for this game as well because the place to get one's images was removed quietly a while ago. A good capture card or HD game videos would be ideal at this point, but they're few and far between for BC1.

Vehicles
Vehicles are the same story as weapons, but the 1942 ones and Vietnam ones need work, as do the MC ones. Some of the BF2 ones could use an update as well, but they are generally good as most have been featured in a FB-era game.

Walkthroughs
I was planning on hitting BC2's walkthrough similar to how I did with BC1's last summer, but I never got around to it because I wanted to get Play4Free done first. That never happened because it was demoralizing to have to redo everything in that game because of its December 2011 update that changed everything, not to mention it constantly adds stuff, But I'll get to the P4F stuff later in this post.

Anyways, the way I did the BC1 articles was more of a synoptic walkthrough as I thought of it, playing the game at the same time as writing how to go through it, as well as noting the conversations between squadmates throughout, save for standard shootout chatter. It worked wonderfully and, except for images because I don't have an HD capture card or knew of an HD playthrough on YouTube at the time, they need them. I did find an HD playthrough thanks to DEathgod later on though.

BC2 and BF3 are luckily on PC and Fraps can make screenshots for articles a breeze. Categories for easier linkage:
 * Category:Singleplayer Levels of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
 * There were also singleplayer challenges in this game that need documentation - they don't have anything though
 * Category:Battlefield: Bad Company Levels (only images)
 * Category:Bad Company 2 Levels
 * Category:Singleplayer Levels of Battlefield 3

Characters
I'm not sure what to really do with these... I looked to other wikis for inspiration, but what I started with Preston Marlowe's page seemed like I would just be re-summarizing the game's plot, and same for his squadmates' pages when I'd have gotten to them.

BF3 is a little easier as the characters aren't as focused as they were in the Bad Company games. The book only brings about more questions about how we should handle these guys, but I'll get to that in a moment. MC is even easier as there were five named characters: the two reportes, the two colonels, and Commander 31. Everyone else was a nameless soldier. They should have as much as we can gather about them though.

Factions/countries
We've talked about these but nobody's actually gone through with them. The factions need revamps and the countries that these games take place in (BC2, I'm looking at you) should have minor articles that explain a bit about them and then talk about how they fit in to the series, like what maps are within them, where a campaign goes through them, etc.

Images
This one's another big one. I've touched base with it a few times already, but its easier to have everything in a dedicated section to check progress. But I'll just list image groups we need to make this easier:
 * weapon images, both for gunbox and of weapon held and aimed
 * vehicle images, both for vehiclebox and of views from seats and front/rear views
 * map images - huge one, as we'll need a bunch
 * control point/objectives
 * vehicle spawns
 * overviews for mapbox - either satellite/birds-eye view or a overlook/in-game preview pic
 * overviews with boundaries of multiple sizes
 * character images - some pivotal points of where characters were in a game for their pages
 * any promotional art (try to find those without watermarks) released before/after games came out - scour the interwebs

The Russian
I made a post about this one a while ago because if any of you read through this book like me and wish it was BF3's story instead of what we got, you'll know that the book tells pretty much a completely different story for BF3.

Essentially our gameplan for this is to mark anything from the book as semi-canon as the game takes precedence as DICE wrote the game, not the book. I recently redid the spoiler template to allow for spoilers within sections so a bit of copypasta will allow for me to make a template for semi-canon within the book. I'll update this once its done and link the template here for use. But as for the book's story, we need a synopsis of it on the book's page, or split up by chapter through subpages, as well as related new characters and templates.

Mobile games
They need just about everything and should have their own separate pages/sections ans such. Can't say much about something next to nonexistent on here, lol.

The Play4Free games...
I left these as a separate section as they are a doozy. I try to keep up to date with Battlefield Play4Free, but Battlefield Heroes is a whole different story since we should still be keeping up with our partner wiki, Battlefield Heroes Wiki and we haven't. These games need to be dealt with too. Pretty much in the same fashion, but it's just more difficult since they keep adding stuff. We should have a few of us keeping track of them and more of us getting what's already there now.

And then there's Battlefield Online... Anyone speak Korean? Deciphering from Google translations can only get so far, but we should try to cover it as well.

Why now
Sheesh, this feels more like a blog post at this point...

Anyways, most of you probably are wondering why I'm starting this at the end of the summer rather than at the beginning. I know it probably wan't the best idea, but I feel like I'll be able to have time to work on stuff this year as there aren't many games that will occupy me save for Borderlands 2. But my main reason is that I'm not sure how much more I can continue editing here on Wikia.

Now, I'm not resigning my post as a b'crat per-say, but I'm going in to my third year of college and I need to begin focusing on my career IRL, which hopefully will be in Civil Engineering like what I'm studying for (y'know, cuz the economy and all). I've been here for a solid two or so years and have made an impact here, but I want to leave this place a legacy. I made it a goal to try and have this place be the number one source of information on this awesome series. Unfortunately, many things have gotten in the way of that (most of them being long gaming sessions), but I want to fix that before I leave.

So that's why I want to start this now. I may stay around if we finish this thing, but I just don't know for sure. All of this may seem daunting, but if we come together, we'll make it work.

Updates
I'll try to follow along as best I can but if someone completes a section without me noticing, feel free to change the clock to a tick (by typing  in its place) in its section and make note of it here starting with five tildes for the UTC time. Just recordkeeping and all...
 * 03:51, August 24, 2012 (UTC) - Project started.

Discussion
LET'S DO THIS! Also, if anyone thinks there's something I missed or would like added on, bring it up here. 03:51, August 24, 2012 (UTC)