How popular is too popular for HG101?

[zzz]

If somebody is writing something for this site should they just ask if not certain, or is there a general rule?

For example, is Double Dragon off limits for this site?

(There was a second question. Forget it, it was stupid.)

[kal]

I believe nothing is off limits..ask if not certain but I'm fairly sure you can right about whatever However if something is well know or well covered then writing something *different* about it is usually required.

Not sure on the second.

[Malroth]

For example, I don't think an article on Chrono Trigger would be appropriate for this site. Everyone knows what it is. It's incredibly popular, and you can find dozens of fansites dedicated to it.

I would also mention Final Fantasy as being too popular, but Kurt wrote an article about that. So...guess some things are in the grey area.

[ninjarygar]

Even though Double Dragon is a house-hold name and a legendary beat-em-up... I'd say an article is still appropriate because of how confusing the SERIES is. Nobody has to explain the NES game, but an article that puts together details about the sequels, fighters, and licencing drama would probably be appreciated by many. Then you've got an animated series and a live action movie to go along with it. That is the nature of this site.

A Chrono Trigger article isn't neccessary because it would be more praising and gushing... the series itself (not the story, but the history of the series) is simple. You had a SNES game, and a PSX sequel. That's about it (far as I know... I'm no expert). So you could throw in a paragraph about a cameo here, or maybe something about some bizzare japanese collectable here, but it's not something that isn't easy to track down.

So how popular is too popular? I think the answer lies in that fact that these things aren't always measured by popularity. You've got articles for DOA, Guilty gear, and Pheonix Wright... not because the series are unpopular, but because the series may have a history not many know about... and would like to learn about. You see what I'm saying.

[jameseightbitstar]

ninjarygar said:

Then you've got an animated series and a live action movie to go along with it. That is the nature of this site.

Don't forget the comic book.

[kyouki]

I would think Double Dragon would be off limit for an article, because there's an awesome website devoted to the series in English:

doubledragon.classicgaming.gamespy.com/

I don't see how any article could go into more detail that the DDD.

[Discoalucard]

The Double Dragon Dojo is awesome, which is why any article on it would be totally redundant.

The rule I use is this: try to look at all of the over coverage on the Internet. If there's some already there, can you do it better? Is there something you could add to it that's not done elsewhere? If you can, then that's probably an OK topic for an article.

The Final Fantasy stuff is more stuff that I've done on my own time - it's not part of the site proper, but may be one day. Phoenix Wright is popular now, but was pretty underground when I started. Dead or Alive I mostly wanted to do because there weren't any articles detailing the different costumes for the first few games, at least at the time. Guilty Gear helps explain the minor differences between all of the releases, plus has a bunch of music.

Right now I'm polishing up a Metal Slug article - and while there's already a big Metal Slug site I know of, it's kinda...lacking? Like it's not bad, but like a lot of fan sites, it's more of a collection of resources than a collection of writings - which is pretty useless if you're just getting into a series.

There's no strict rules - in the beginning, most of the site covered whatever I happened to be playing at the moment. Even something on Chrono Trigger would be okay, as long as it did something that wasn't done elsewhere. (Which would be pretty difficult, given the fanbase.)

[zzz]

METAL SLUG DATABASE!

I am a freaking Metal Slug fanatic. I will assume that is the site that you are talking about. It is VERY lacking. Other than fanart and a message board it is really not good for anything.

Double Dragon was merely a example. I chose it because it is obviously on the fence. DD has about 15-20 ports. DD2 has 10 ports. DD3 and DD5 have about 5 ports. Then there are three other games. So it would be overwhelming to emulate all those versions to write about the thing. I have always believed that Technos is the most influencial developer in the evolution of close quaters combat in video games, and if I were to write about the series I would focus mostly on it from that perspective. Like I said I was never planning on it anyway and having been introduced to DDD it seems pointless.

[dire51]

zzz said:

METAL SLUG DATABASE!

I am a freaking Metal Slug fanatic. I will assume that is the site that you are talking about. It is VERY lacking. Other than fanart and a message board it is really not good for anything.

The guy that runs it is who I gave my old MS fansite to. I had a lot of interesting stuff on it; why he's never included it in the MSDB I never found out and remains a mystery to me.

Back on topic, you all know I run West Mansion, and even though it's THE online resource for Splatterhouse, I still felt the need to contribute a SH article to HG101.

And maybe I'll work on the G'NG article soon too. Maybe. I recently resurrected the Ghoul Realm, so why not?

[savagepencil]

What sort of Metal Slug stuff did you have on your old site? Maybe it would warrant an article, if you focused on the differences between each game, and perhaps some of the trivia behind them.

[dire51]

IIRC, I had a decent Trivia section, did a bit on the differences between the various ports and whatnot. The site was still fairly new when I shut it down and gave it to enomosiki, so I didn't get to go as indepth as I wanted to with a lot of things. I shut it down sometime in '04, so whatever I had there is hopelessly out of date now.

Unfortunately it's one of the only sites that I made which I didn't archive.

[Discoalucard]

Well, there is this:

web.archive.org/web/20021122112921/http://www.geocities.com/metalslugicih/

While I'm doing a lot of the Metal Slug article, a good chunk was originally written by Neo Rasa, who is immensely enthusiastic in his love for SNK, and definitely makes it more interesting to read than the Wikipedia article. It's actually pretty close to done, I just need to cover the portable games. I want to do some extra stuff like the R-Type article, showcasing the coolest boss battles in the games and highlighting all of the appearances of Sgt. Allen O'Neill, that crazy machine gun dude.

I'd still love you for you to do a GnG article, Rob. I'm glad to hear the Ghoul Realm is back too!

[ReyVGM]

dire51 said:

zzz said:

METAL SLUG DATABASE!

I am a freaking Metal Slug fanatic. I will assume that is the site that you are talking about. It is VERY lacking. Other than fanart and a message board it is really not good for anything.

The guy that runs it is who I gave my old MS fansite to. I had a lot of interesting stuff on it; why he's never included it in the MSDB I never found out and remains a mystery to me.

Back on topic, you all know I run West Mansion, and even though it's THE online resource for Splatterhouse, I still felt the need to contribute a SH article to HG101.

And maybe I'll work on the G'NG article soon too. Maybe. I recently resurrected the Ghoul Realm, so why not?

Which Ghoul Realm?
The really good original one or the crappy one it was passed over to?

[Sturat]

Maybe there could be a feature listing games that would be on HG101 if they weren't already covered elsewhere. For each series, you could link to one or two sites with information that meets or exceeds the expectations for pages on this site.

[zaciroth]

I think maybe its how much of a cult following it has. Because some of these games aren't popular in America or UK but in Japan they are huge. Like Shin megami for instance.