From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Mortal Kombat:	edit · history · watch · refresh
Update all articles with latest Armageddon information (NEW) Proper citation of references for all articles Initial game article: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon Initial character article: Sub-Zero Rewriting List of Mortal Kombat arenas to avoid copyvio; see talk Expansion of the style guide to cover game articles

Welcome to the Mortal Kombat Wikiproject talk page. Here is where our members will converse, discussing what changes need to be made where. Feel free to offer up any suggestions you have as to how the quality of the MK pages can be improved!

Please Note: The WikiProject's talk page was recently reorganized. Now, new discussion is to be added to the bottom of the page; this is more in-line with standard Wikipedia procedure, but is new for this project.

Contents 1 New Member Introduction 2 General discussion 2.1 Shinnok's amulet 2.2 New project tag? 2.3 Template split 2.3.1 Split for sanity: A tangent about in-universe writing 2.3.2 Resolving the template issue 2.3.3 Template:Mortal Kombat characters 2.4 Proposed merger of updates 2.4.1 UMK3 and MKT into MK3 2.4.2 MK Gold into MK4 2.4.3 Unchained into Deception 2.5 Wikipedia Day Awards 2.6 cvgproj Tag 2.7 New MK8 article: delete or keep? 2.8 Some bios are out! 2.9 Any use for this image? 2.10 Epic Battles 2.11 Backwards compatibility 2.12 Character image consistency, part II 2.13 Mortal Kombat: Devastation 2.14 Dispute at Ermac article 2.15 Mortal Kombat dab page 2.16 Novel and Action Figures Articles 2.17 Video game navbox discussion 2.18 Mortal Kombat Newsletter

[edit] New Member Introduction

New members may introduce themselves here.

• It's me MotaroG0d from MKOnline. Let's drive back the liars! My display name is Jordan567 by the way.

• I've done an obnoxious amount of work on many MK related articles, so I might as well join in. Buzda 05:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• Wesborland here, I'm currently working on Mortal Kombat: Devastation and I'll get to work on some of the character's bios.

• Sup guys, Dekabreak101 here, I'm gladly could help you guys..--Dekabreak101 19:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Hi! This is Blackkrash. I am a big fan of Mortal Kombat and will be actively contributing to the various articles and talks when I can.

• Hi this is Onaga. i would love to become a member of this project, i am a massive fan of the mortal kombat series as you can probally see because of my name

• Howdy, this is MrDrak. I've done a lot of link fixing, so I might as well join in.

[edit] General discussion

[edit] Shinnok's amulet

There seems to be some misconception about Shinnok actually having his amulet back in MK4 and MKG and that the staff he uses houses it. So let me point some things:

1. Neither Shinnok's profile nor Ending even mentiones the amulet. Being something so important for him, the fact his game profiles have nothing about it is strange. The official comic that portrays the intro to the game also has no statement the plot has anything to do with the amulet.
2. Shinnok is never depicted having or using his amulet. Every ending in which he appears has no mention or comment about him using it. Again the comics also shows him without his amulet.
3. Quan Chi's ending shows he has it, but Shinnok is never seen holding or wearing the fake one (stolen in Mythologies mind you). Moreover, Quan Chi comments that he got Shinnok's once sacred amulet and that he made the switch long ago and not recently (thus he never really got it back).
4. If Shinnok would really got it, why then bother with Tanya's plot? Shinnok's amulet allow him to move between realms without being detected, so why he would have to disguise himself to enter Edenia?
5. I've read in some page that the amulet is the source of his power. Where is it stated? The amulet was created to mend the barriers, and Shinnok has existed before it. His powers comes from his status as an Elder God, much like how Raiden/Fujin's powers comes from their status as gods. And that Quan Chi lending the power to "make him believe" he has the real one is pure fan-fabrication, as it is not stated anywhere and Shinnok didn't have any amulet.
6. The amulet staff is just decoration both times. That picture in MK4 arcade demo is the only time the "amulet" appears, but since MK4 doesn't states anywhere he has the amulet, that can only be a decoration serving as his symbol. The Armageddon one is more probable the same, since he is clearly not in possession of the amulet: He's trapped in the Netherrealm (with the amulet he could break free) and he sends a doppelganger to assist Daegon (why not go himself if he can? Because he can't, since he doesn't have the amulet) as his ending states. The amulet is either still with Onaga or Quan Chi somehow got it back (though I believe it was just the lazy programmers who didn't bothered on modifying Quan's DA costume).

So, if there's no objection, I will make the proper changes to Shinnok's page and related ones to straight this confusion. Thank you for reading. 201.255.34.11 22:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Neither Shinnok's profile nor Ending even mentiones the amulet. Being something so important for him, the fact his game profiles have nothing about it is strange. The official comic that portrays the intro to the game also has no statement the plot has anything to do with the amulet.

This doesn't always mean that it's not present then, there are a lot of inconsistances in the MK universe (MKA especially), and so you have to look outside the box.

2. Shinnok is never depicted having or using his amulet. Every ending in which he appears has no mention or comment about him using it. Again the comics also shows him without his amulet.

True -- at this point I'd like to point out I'm not sure how much of the comics you can consider canon, I think some other people would know more then me. Again, even if you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

3. Quan Chi's ending shows he has it, but Shinnok is never seen holding or wearing the fake one (stolen in Mythologies mind you). Moreover, Quan Chi comments that he got Shinnok's once sacred amulet and that he made the switch long ago and not recently (thus he never really got it back).

Same as number 2, really.

4. If Shinnok would really got it, why then bother with Tanya's plot? Shinnok's amulet allow him to move between realms without being detected, so why he would have to disguise himself to enter Edenia?

Perhaps he needed Tanya for some other reason, because of her superior knowledge of Edenia maybe, or to use her expertise to distract the Edenian military?

5. I've read in some page that the amulet is the source of his power. Where is it stated? The amulet was created to mend the barriers, and Shinnok has existed before it. His powers comes from his status as an Elder God, much like how Raiden/Fujin's powers comes from their status as gods. And that Quan Chi lending the power to "make him believe" he has the real one is pure fan-fabrication, as it is not stated anywhere and Shinnok didn't have any amulet.

Yeah, you're completly right here. He used his own power to create it, so how can it be a source for his power? Yeah, you're right.

6. The amulet staff is just decoration both times. That picture in MK4 arcade demo is the only time the "amulet" appears, but since MK4 doesn't states anywhere he has the amulet, that can only be a decoration serving as his symbol. The Armageddon one is more probable the same, since he is clearly not in possession of the amulet: He's trapped in the Netherrealm (with the amulet he could break free) and he sends a doppelganger to assist Daegon (why not go himself if he can? Because he can't, since he doesn't have the amulet) as his ending states. The amulet is either still with Onaga or Quan Chi somehow got it back (though I believe it was just the lazy programmers who didn't bothered on modifying Quan's DA costume).

In MKG, what we see is a fake, and what he has in MKA also is probably a the same fake, or indeed a decoration, he probably realised it was fake after he was sent back to the Netherrealm by Liu Kang and he couldn't leave again

-- The Haunted Angel ^{(The Forest Whispers My Name)} 23:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The amulet could be there even if the in-game profiles doesn't state it, Tanya could have been used for another purpose. But is there any official proof of this? If there's no instance in the games itself nor any other source, can you say he has the amulet? Even if it just doesn't appear anywhere? Can you say Tanya has another purpose? Saying Tanya was used for another purpose not stated anywhere is just going for assumption, for which Wikipedia is not. What we know is that Tanya was Shinnok's way to leave the Netherrealm, nothing more. Anything else is fanon. Wikipedia is to put sourcable facts, and since the games themselves makes zero mention (as stated above) of Shinnok having the amulet, unless another official source (guides, comic books or the like) states otherwise, it should be fixed. I still think there's nothing to back Shinnok's plot has anything to do with the amulet, and that the articles pertaining should be rewritten to reflect this, a work I would do if there's no objection. Thanks for the answer. 201.255.34.11 23:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record, the comics widely considered canon are the MKI, II, and 4 ones produced by Midway The S 00:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New project tag?

Hi there, I borrowed some source code from another template and modified the Mortal Kombat project tag, but I don't wanna change the current one until I have your approval, what do you whink? The first tag is the original as it is now. --Wesborland 18:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This article, template, or image is part of WikiProject Mortal Kombat, an attempt to structure and organize all Mortal Kombat-related information on Wikipedia, placing emphasis on canonicity. If you wish to help, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. NA This article has been rated as NA-Class on its quality.

This article, template, or image is part of WikiProject Mortal Kombat, an attempt to structure and organize all Mortal Kombat-related information on Wikipedia, placing emphasis on canonicity. If you wish to help, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. NA This article has been rated as NA-Class on its quality.

Adding assessments to the MK articles is a goal of mine, but there needs to be a bit more work done than just making a change to the template. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I was just asking if you agreed we should start rating the quality of all MK-related articles. That way it's easier for everyone to know which articles need more attention. --Wesborland 20:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a good thing to do, but I don't think you should be handing out ratings until we've actually reviewed the articles here. Unless, of course, you default all of them to Start-class, since they can only improve from there. Virog^{It's not}_{my fault!} 03:27, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template split

Starting a conversation here after User:Igordebraga unilaterally split off the characters from the main template: IMO, while the character section is really large, splitting off the template isn't the right way to approach it - if someone knows how to put a hide tag into specific sections, my vote would go for that. Virog^{It's not}_{my fault!} 14:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed; I'm reverting the edit, since the character table hasn't been linked to anywhere, effectively removing any way of navigating between characters.

I really wish that people would discuss major changes like this before arbitrarily changing things. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Correction; some of the characters have been updated. However, I still feel that this is a sub-par way of doing things, and would have preferred some discussion. I'm making {{Mortal Kombat series characters}} redirect to {{Mortal Kombat series}} for now (that way, if we do split off the characters, we have fewer edits to make). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There was some discussion on the CVG Project about big templates, and nowadays a lot of "template neurotics" (one in special) take huge templates like this from Mortal Kombat and reduce it to "basics" (see Template: Metal Gear series before and after the discussion). I only split the characters so that when they obligate the main template to shrink, there will be a navigation for the Kombatants. igordebraga ≠ 19:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the existing template is the shrunk one; compare before and after. The arguement for Metal Gear's trimming doesn't quite apply for Mortal Kombat, where the individual characters are a major component of the game (in Metal Gear you play, at most, as four or five different characters over the course of the franchise, versus Mortal Kombat's 60+), not to mention that the Mortal Kombat franchise is about ten times the size of the Metal Gear franchise. My point is that a template that covers "just the facts" for Mortal Kombat will inevitably be larger than one for Metal Gear (not comparing the two in a "this game is better than that one" sort of way; it's just a fact). So, while I certainly appreciate the concern (and the desire to keep us in line with CVG discussions), I think the template is fine as-is. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to give an example closer to MK: Template:Street Fighter series was also trimmed(before after). Consider later the split of characters (there are such templates for Sonic, SF, Resident Evil, Mario, Zelda...) igordebraga ≠ 13:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Oy vey, the Street Fighter template was craptacular. However, looking at the diff, none of the cited complaints apply to the MK template ("Multiple links to same page; redundant character section, character template already exists; references to tangentally related games"). Seriously, I think that the current template is as good as it is going to get without sacrificing usability and navigation, which shouldn't be sacrificed, regardless of what the CVG determines. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The primciple applies. Navboxes need to link to a tightly linked series of articles; every single link needs to be useful from every single article. Linking Mokap's article isn't very useful in Mortal Kombat II, for example. Plus, don't we have an exhaustive list of characters AND an exhaustive category for characters? This is redundancy in triplicate. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, all of the principles of cutting down the SF template apply. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was linked twice and another game was linked twice, the character section is redundant to both the list and category, the character template was added, and many of the games have nothing in common with the others but a shared name and a couple shared characters. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Advance are not the same game. The Advance info was merged into the UMK3 article, but in terms of similarities, it's basically black and white. Also, Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition (A Game Boy Advance game) is hardly the same as Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (a next-gen console game). The info for MK:TE was merged to the Deadly Alliance article, but again, they're not the same game. I'm probably going to revert your change to the template for this reason.

As for your example with Mokap and MKII, well that's one of the exceptions rather than the rule. Mokap happens to be the one character that was written into the games simply on the basis that he has nothing to do with any of the games. If you look at a character like Liu Kang or Scorpion or Sub-Zero, however, than you'll have a vastly different situation. Also, each game is vitally linked to the previous in the series in terms of story. In fact, you simply cannot have one of the MK sequels represented without the previous game also being included (For example, Deadly Alliance and Deception have a heck of a lot more in common than just "a couple shared characters").

Anyway, I am in favor of the previous template due to its ease of navigation. In my opinion, functionality rules over everything else. Mortal Kombat is a series that, in about a decade, has spanned over ten video games, two theatrical films with another in the works, two television series, a fairly big line of comics, at least two card games, a live action tour, and a quite well known soundtrack. It's no surprise that the navigation template would probably be bigger than something like the Metal Gear series (Which, although has been around longer, hasn't become quite as mainstream). MarphyBlack 07:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care if they're the same game. If someone thought they were similar enough to merge, they're similar enough that they don't need to be linked twice from a dozen or so pages.

I could come up with more examples, regarding characters. For one, no need to see the character page for Smoke while reading the MK1 article. Plenty of characters aren't in MK4 or MKDA, and all of the MKDA new characters aren't relelvant to the earlier games at all. Basically, the relevant characters are already linked from the body of the article; the irrelevant characters need no links whatsoever.

I'm referring to the largely unsuccessful, unrelated spinoffs, when I speak of tangentially-related games. (Note that I didn't remove any, mind.) Navigation probably wouldn't be impaired if the various minor action-game spinoffs were omitted.

Mortal Kombat is indeed a huge series. All the more reason not to cram every single article related to it into one huge, oversize and overcluttered navbox. The basic principle of making sure that the articles in a navbox are a tightly-integrated article series is more important when you're talking about a broad subject, not less. (Plus, the Metal Gear navbox no longer links to every single article in Category:Metal Gear.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone actually have anything to say about this? I've been reverted, but with no talk comment or response. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I do, but I'm about to head off to bed. :-) I'll try to actually work up a worthwhile response tomorrow (assuming I'm not doing much at work, that is...). EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I've had a look at the proposal, and I have only one problem with the aesthetic changes if they were applied to the MK template. I would use "MKII • MK3 • MK4" (abbreviations from our style guide) instead of "II • 3 • 4". Who cares if it's "unprofessional" (who said that, anyway?). They're easier to highlight and click.

I have concerns about the ease of navigation. First, the proposed navbox is intended for computer games exclusively, but the franchise that this project covers isn't just computer games. So links to the films, TV series, comics, etc. would be useful for those that wish to explore other areas of the franchise.

Second, I don't see anything wrong with linking to story elements in the template. A person reading an article on a game or fictional character would probably expect some discussion of storyline. The story of the games and characters has many links over the course of the series, even if some of those characters were not actual fighters in a particular game. The story of Blaze has some ties to MKII, Liu Kang has ties to Deadly Alliance, and so on.

I would prefer it if every character was listed in the template, because they are integral to the story. But if this is too much, then I'd appreciate a link to the character list or the category. A link to the canon storyline would also be good. I don't have any firm opinions on other story-related links, so I won't debate that point further. RobWill80 22:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Acronyms like that that haven't enterted common written use are slang or jargon, which is best avoided in formal writing. (Hit a copy of Strunk & White for this one.) A large part of the efforts of WP:CVG are to make Wikipedia less of a fanpage, and avoiding informal style and language is part of that.

Feel free to add any movies or comics that you feel are as important as the games; basically, articles integral to understanding of the article series as a whole. That would probably be the first movie (and maybe the second), probably not the mainly-promotional comic and the somewhat obscure TV series. Then again, I'm not a participant in the project; if one of those is more important than I think, go right ahead and add it. (See {{Resident Evil series}}, which includes the movies but not the obscure-even-in-Japan Biohazard 4D movie.)

The story elements and character articles are child articles of the game articles (one hopes; we are striving for an real-world perspective, not a perspective from inside the fictional universe). They're going to be linked in the body of the article already where they are relevant, and when they aren't relevant they don't need to be linked.

That said, another template might be appropriate: one guiding readers to the parent topics for the fictional universe, the ones that give the basic understanding and link to the child articles about the fictional universe. This would be best organized like a topic template, such as {{Fascism}}, but before doing that someone's going to have to do a lot of hard consideration about which articles are plot summary being used to support real-world content and which articles are nothing but plot summary in the form of personal interpretation of the primary works. The latter need to be merged, redirected, and deleted, but that's a discussion for another day. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

First and foremost, I'd like to point everyone to {{Mortal Kombat series/sandbox}}, where I've put the original and AMiB's versions of the template. The hope is that we can start crafting a compromise template without reverting the main template back and forth ad nauseam (as much fun as that is).

Secondly, here's a summary of the complaints:

1. Too broad of a template.
2. Visually unappealing.

The second one I'm much more willing to back down on; my biggest beef with this whole fiasco is the functionality of the template being reduced, not so much with the color scheme (which I think is bland, but nevermind).

The first issue, though, is severely debatable. Just because there isn't a direct correlation between articles doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a link in the template, and there's plenty of precedent for going with the "more encompassing" route than the "slim and sassy" approach. For example, see {{Matrix}} or {{Davematthewsband}}. The same argument about "You don't need a link to Article X on Article Y" could apply to practically anything. Hell, check out {{Tennessee}} (or any other state template); do I honestly need a link to Unicoi when I'm looking up the 'boro? No, of course not, but navigation tables aren't supposed to be a "second guess what exactly the reader needs"; they are supposed to display a collection of closely related articles in a reader-friendly manner (albeit with some measure of cut-off; there's no way every little town in TN could be added to that template... hell, some of the county seats aren't even on that template).

Usability should be what we're working for here, which doesn't always mean that we trim the template so that it is as small as possible. Simply tossing the games in a box doesn't help readers (especially since there are two distinct MK game types, between the fighting games and the action games). Even merely linking to the categories is not particularly reader-friendly (though it is a necessary evil in this case; we used to have a lot more in the MK template until we pared it back some).

Can the template be organized a bit better? Quite possibly, and I'm not suggesting we not consider that, but it could very well involve more than just stripping down the template (reorganizing the structure of some of the articles, for example). EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

{{Matrix}} is the enemy. It's everything in Category:Matrix and everything in its subcategories, has an ugly titlebar, and is utterly useless to anyone who hasn't already identified the parent articles by some other method and read them first. It links to the soundtracks even though they don't really need more than a sentence and a link in the articles for the parent works, it links to articles that only mention Matrix in passing (Cyberpunk? Really?). It takes up half a page on the screen. Let's not get into {{Davematthewsband}} (2/3 of the screen and it's at least 20% whitespace, augh).

Linking all of the counties in Tenessee is a useful, narrow topic for a navbox, although it's so large a group that a list (which can have commentary!) or a category (which is automatically maintained and not nearly so intrusive on the screen) might be a better idea. It's a group of like objects, in a clearly-defined group.

You start running into problems when you cram unlike things into the template; either you increase the size, sometimes significantly, distinguishing between the unlike things, or you make a cluttered pile of links useless to anyone who doesn't already know what links are important.

Additionally, exhaustive lists are almost always better handled with list articles, due to the opportunity for commentary. Lin Kuei and Raiden and Shao Khan are very important to the Mortal Kombat series as a whole. Mokap and Ermac are not. How can an uninitiated user tell between them without commentary? A bare list, crammed everywhere, is as useless to this user as it is to the user who already knows the difference.

Video games offer clearly-defined, strongly-related, usually-limited groups of articles: games in a series. That's not every article related to a game series, but rather a series of individual games. The latter is easy to keep under control and almost always tightly integrated. The former can grow quite large and cluttered, while doing a bad job of helping new users and providing only marginal utility to experienced ones. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

For a moment, I'm just going to backtrack to AMiB's response to my earlier comments. The Elements of Style (Strunk & White) isn't the only text referenced in Wikipedia's Manual of Style, but that doesn't matter. Both texts advise that abbreviations can be dealt with by spelling out the full phrase first, followed by the abbreviation. The Manual of Style says that this should prepare readers for further uses of the term. I'd say that readers should have "got their bearings" (as The Elements of Style describe it) by the time they reach a navbox, presuming that they have actually read the page that the navbox is on. No mention is made of how common the term should be. No problems there. The template proposal says that the shortest common name should be used (a form of abbreviating), except if that name is an abbreviation (huh?), but a number can be used if space is at a premium (an uncommon name and an abbreviation). Total rubbish. If using "MKII • MK3 • MK4" is such a problem, then first use "Mortal Kombat (MK) series" as the title of the navbox.

Moving on, EVula has done a better job than I could of voicing my own concerns about navigation. So, I have nothing new to add (but I thought that The Boro were a football team... :) ). AMiB's arguments for shrinking the template haven't changed my opinion, because I still think the current template has more benefits than faults. It should provide some flexibility in covering different aspects of the series. Having to search for a particular link by other means can be unhelpful, ambiguous, and/or very annoying. Using organised, clearly labelled links in the navbox (and sub-headings, if needed) should cause no problems to unfamiliar users (reading the page that the navbox is attached to should help, or the "umbrella" article linked in the navbox title). RobWill80 03:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Unhelpful, ambiguous, or annoying for whom? This sort of template serves only those who least need a navigation template: readers who are already familiar with the series, the same readers who can simply go directly to the article they want with the Search box. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you seriously expect me to answer that? It's obvious that I was speaking from my own perspective. Think about it. There are so many ways to search for and navigate to numerous pages, done by users of different types, with various levels of knowledge and experience. Each situation is different. I'm not qualified to give an opinion on behalf of "everybody". Also, I don't see how you are qualified to debate the other side of that argument. So far, all that I've seen from you is your own point of view.

We have had over a week to reassess this, and during that time, I have taken a number of considerations into account, including: what I think of different search and navigation methods; what I did when I was new to this site; what I do with regards to familiar and unfamiliar subjects; comments made by other users; the means by which this project and other users can improve and maintain related pages; and plain common sense.

There are more, but I don't feel the need to spell out each case for you. This would take a long time, and I don't think that your proposal is worth the time and the effort. RobWill80 16:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Haha, yeah, okay, so shame on me for mentioning {{Matrix}}. :-) However, there are still other templates that fail miserably your "I don't need Article X on Article Y" argument. Do I always need to read about Hurricane Ioke when I'm on Typhoon Shanshan (2006) ({{2006 Pacific typhoon season buttons}})? What about The Autumn of the Patriarch, when all I'm interested in is Living to Tell the Tale ({{Gabriel García Márquez}})? The Sound Pattern of English, please, all I care about is Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land ({{Noam Chomsky}}). Do I really need to read about The Hellbound Heart when I'm only interested in Hellraiser: Deader ({{Hellraiser}})?

I'm not suggesting we cover everything in a particular area, like {{GoldenAge}}, but other templates have no problem with covering a wide variety of topics without getting too bat-shit crazy on the encompassing front ({{Superman}}).

Considering the Search box to be an adequate replacement for template-based navigation is laughable. In the vein of "what if?" scenarios, what if someone is reading up on Mortal Kombat 3, and says to themselves "what about that guy who threw a harpoon? Scorpion?". Plug Scorpion into the box, and you get Scorpion (what a shock, I know...). From there, you have to go to Scorpion (disambiguation). At the very end of the article (not even on the first screen on my monitor, which is set to 1680x1050), there's finally a link to Scorpion (Mortal Kombat). So instead of just using the template at the bottom of the page, a user has to go through two unrelated pages to get what to what they're looking for... I'm sorry, but I simply can't see how that is anything other than a sub-optimal method of navigation.

Would I be alright with adding a section for "Key Characters" so that it was perhaps a bit more navigable for newbies? Sure, that could work; {{Mortal Kombat series/sandbox}} is still there so we can hash out a compromise.

I also think there's a key difference in your take on the template and our take on it; you're treating it as a video game-only template, while we're treating it as a franchise template. There are plenty of things, outside of the games themselves, that are worthy of a new user's attention, aside from just the games. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right. There are many, many uselessly broad nav templates on Wikipedia. I don't see how that's an argument to make this one uselessly large. {{Superman}} is horribly designed and a hopeless jumble (and seems to get redesigned into another equally bad design about monthly), because it's not a clearly identifiable group of like things. This is, so there's no reason to repeat those sins.

As for the MK3 guy, said guy gets two different tools to track down Scorpion with the version I proposed. First, Mortal Kombat 3 already mentions Scorpion (and should probably link the character article). Plus, the template version I proposed had a link to List of Mortal Kombat characters, which not only has Scorpion mentioned by name, but also describes the character in case said user can't remember the name, but just remembers the spear and "GET OVER HERE!"

This is what umbrella articles are good for; they help guide people who don't know exactly what they're looking for, but know in general what they need. They serve the same purpose a list of important characters would, guiding readers to the important content, but they don't exclude the less important content (which heads off the inevitable edit war when someone swears that Mokap is absolutely crucial to the series as a whole). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Plus, the template version I proposed had a link to List of Mortal Kombat characters, which not only has Scorpion mentioned by name, but also describes the character in case said user can't remember the name, but just remembers the spear and "GET OVER HERE!"

Or, it would if List of Mortal Kombat characters was actually a list of characters with brief descriptions, instead of a hue GameFAQs-esque set of tables. -_- - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to make some small adjustments to the design, to see if I can get some of AMiB's proposal to work with the current template. I've added them to the sandbox, if anyone wants to take a look.

The first template uses a few of AMiB's changes. Since I like this particular design, I've added a colour scheme that I like better. One thing that I think definitely has to stay is the sub-sections. Otherwise, the template would have a severe lack of organisation in covering the franchise. Also, I've organised the fighting games into a single sequence. Apart from UMK3 and MKT, a separate updates section doesn't hint at which games received an update. There should be enough room to reinsert the links to the other ports (the merging/merged articles), if they're really needed. On my screen, this table is only one pixel taller than the original.

The second template has a few more changes, which I'm not really comfortable with. The characters have been moved to a separate navbox (the same as Igordebraga's edits), and a link to the character list has been added to the main navbox (from AMiB's suggestion).

These templates may not be any good (I have very limited experience in drawing them), but they may help the discussion. So, any comments are welcome. RobWill80 18:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping that someone would've commented on the changes, but never mind. I gave it a try. :) RobWill80 19:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem with sections is that it's too much of a temptation to make the template comprehensive. Comprehensive lists are not what we need in templates; we need tightly linked, narrowly-construed lists. Including a short-lived live tour, lists of random stuff from the games (species? arenas? non-playable characters?), one of the four licensed Mortal Kombat card games, and the most egregious abuse of WP:WAF ever is not anything close to tightly linked or narrowly construed.

Also, white text on dark background is almost always a bad idea, for aesthetic and legibility reasons. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll answer your last point first. The colour scheme was more for my benefit than anything else. Since I was working on two designs, I didn't want to look at an all-white-and-blue screen, and I didn't think anyone else would want to look at that either (that's if anyone else has seen them...). So I decided to add a colour scheme that I liked better. A small point, but I don't see how you can argue about the aesthetics and legibility of white text on a black or coloured background, as it is used many times in electronic and broadcast media.

Next, I don't know what other editors think about each link in those bottom two rows, so I included all of them. If necessary, each link could be worked on from there.

Finally, I can only repeat what has already been said to you: this template covers a franchise, not just video games. So it needs some form of organisation. Your template already has problems, because virtually no attempt is made to identify how the games are organised. RobWill80 18:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split for sanity: A tangent about in-universe writing

Then cover the franchise in Mortal Kombat. Heck, linking the movies and the TV series is even appropriate. It's just not necessary to licensed novels, short-lived card games, one-off stage shows, and all of the fictional universe articles in every single Mortal Kombat article. If this is such a large franchise, then that's an argument to have multiple focused templates, not one omnibus template. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as those specific franchise elements are concerned, I'll agree with you (except for the bit about the comics - licensed novels?). Okay, I suppose that I'd be willing to give the new template a try (as long as the films, TV series and comics are included). But I'm still concerned about the way that your template is organised. Group titles would be helpful, but I'll try to use my game organisation method in your template, and I'll add it to the sandbox shortly. Let me know if it's acceptable to you. RobWill80 03:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I gotta go with AMIB here. We don't need an overly bloated navigation box covering every related articles. It's ridiculous. That's what categories and lists are for. It's ridiculous to cover every piece of fictional entity in the series or every piece of merchandise produced. If we want, we could create a seperate infobox for the characters.

In addition alot of these articles need to be clean up. We don't need fictional biographies about the characters, but straight-to-facts real world history about them.Jonny2x4 05:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Featured articles on video games characters, such as Link, Bulbasaur, Torchic, and so on, all feature fictional "biographies", or more appropriately labeled, fictional "storylines"/"roles in the overall plot" for said characters. On a similar note, featured articles on other fictional entities, such as Jabba the Hutt, also include an overview of the character's storyline in whatever series they may be a part of. Additionally, the storylines of each Mortal Kombat characters are indeed real world facts on the characters since the information is sourced from their in-game biographies, endings screens, some in-game dialogue here and there, published manuals and strategy guides, and so on. There's no elaborate conspiracy to write a massive user-created fan fiction about the Mortal Kombat universe on Wikipedia, if what's what you're implying. And besides, the storylines for fictional characters are well within the boundaries of encyclopedic material. In fact, they would seem to be absolutely vital in order to provide a context at all for these characters. How you could write about Superman without describing that he's a krypton-allergic otherwordly orphaned alien superhero thing who poses as a mild-mannered reporter, or write about Frodo Baggins without mentioning that he was on some sort of quest to throw some ring into a volcano, I don't know. MarphyBlack 08:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

That's not entirely what I meant. There's a huge difference between Jabba the Hutt and Sub-Zero (Mortal Kombat), and that is the fact that the Jabba article covers the article from a real-world order and perspective, mentioning retcons as they occur during the stories, whereas the Sub-Zero doesn't even try to do that. It just mentions the in-game storyline of the series with only a marginalized attempt to cover the character from a real world perspective.

I'm pretty sure Noob Saibot wasn't conceived to be Sub-Zero's older brother back when Mortal Kombat II was made. That was only an idea the designers introduced in Mortal Kombat: Deception. The Noob Saibot article should try to reflect that, rather than attempting to be a fan-site and cover the article like he was the older Sub-Zero all along. Jonny2x4 13:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's what the still-being-developed "Character development" sections are for (Quite akin to the "Concept and creation " part from the Jabba article). I will admit, though, that the storyline sections for each MK character don't do the best job of keeping the out-of-universe perspective going (i.e. not even mentioning what game bio or ending that particular part of the storyline came from). However, there are 60+ articles to be concerned about here, and it's quite difficult to keep them all consistent and tidy as well as trying to massively overhaul every single one in order to make them better fit Wikipedia's guidelines and policies. I'd love to do it all myself, as I've become acquainted with what needs to be done quite well, but that's no easy task. I have yet to even touch either the Sub-Zero or Noob Saibot articles. Please don't think that nothing is being done, because something is. It's just not going to happen that quickly. If you want to see a MK character article that I believe does a decent enough job of covering the "real world" facts from a "real world" perspective, check out Reiko (Mortal Kombat). It's clean, straight forward, and there's just the smidgen of the beginnings of actual sourcing and referencing of the information. I'll even do a little editing to it right now just to give an idea of how I think the out-of-universe could be applied a bit more.

I will point out, though, that Noob Saibot is probably the biggest retcon of a character's identity (or lack thereof) throughout any of the games, so his situation happens to be an exception rather than the rule. Attempting to cover his character from a real world perspective while trying to keep the information coherent and organized would be a tricky undertaking. His article is probably not the most representative of the quality of all the MK articles because of this. MarphyBlack 19:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually if you just cover Noob from the stance of each game one by one you'd be able to show that the character went through several changes and retcons and offer a much more informative article. Instead as it stands the article is one massive, contrived mess that paints him as if the retcon applies straight from the getgo. I agree with Jonny here, a lot of these artciles need some serious overhauling.--Kung Fu Man 23:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I'm wandering into this a little late, but here's an idea that was floating around in my head for a while (actually, I may have mentioned part of it earlier). The articles really ought to have an "Appearances" section which describes how the character appeared/evolved/was developed between games, per the WP:FICT rules (perhaps "History" ought to be a better title). This is the section where a lot of the origin trivia should go. Then the "history" of the character would be relabeled as "storyline" and shortened if appropriate (rewriting isn't necessary as long as it functions more as a plot summary than a detailed description of their contributions to the storyline), with any remarks relevant to retcons going in here. Virog^{It's not}_{my fault!} 06:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Resolving the template issue

Template:Mortal Kombat series/sandbox#RobWill80's second adjustments is acceptible to me, although I'd probably make some cosmetic adjustments (like doing something about the abbreviations). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought we had got over that flawed abbreviation guideline. Besides, whoever maintains the Grand Theft Auto templates appears to think that it's fine to use them, and MK and GTA are used in more or less the same way (e.g. extensive in-game use; also used as logos for some of their titles). RobWill80 00:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I was planning to expand the abbreviation. Is that acceptable? (Also, we can go ahead with the current version, as far as I'm concerned, while we discuss this.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind if you expand the abbreviations, but I don't think it's necessary. I suppose you can use the templates now, as long as no-one else objects. RobWill80 20:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Master Spider 17:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Mortal Kombat characters

Because many franchises such as Street Fighter also have their own separate character templates, I just created Template:Mortal Kombat characters for use in character pages, and now adding it to all character pages. If it is legitimate, can we add this template to template section of project? Waiting for your opinions also. Master Spider 16:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This template is entirely redundant with Category:Mortal Kombat characters. Why do we need it at all? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was part of my template design, which you said was acceptable. Considering how often you've mentioned navboxes containing "tightly linked" articles (which describes this one), I'd ask you what makes you think we need any navboxes at all, let alone a proposed navbox guideline, if connected articles on any subject could be placed in categories? RobWill80 01:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh. I wasn't commenting on that, when commenting above.

Navboxes can be useful for linking small, tightly linked groups of articles. Every single character, major or minor, to appear in a series of eight games, isn't small or tightly linked. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

There are no minor characters listed in this template. All those currently included have been featured as major fighters with storylines and all throughout the main fighting series of MK games. There is an article covering the minor MK characters which is not included in this template, however. (Although it's understandable that you'd miss this article since the template has since been horribly mangled from its previous form, thus effectively destroying any sort of cohesive navigation. I've had quite a bit of trouble finding it myself.) MarphyBlack 03:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Horribly mangled? I know that I didn't do a very good job of it, but you didn't have to be that harsh! :D

Jokes aside, only AMiB provided feedback when I was trying to create a "middle-ground" template, so what else did I have to go on? Anyway, if the series navbox isn't as good as it needs to be, then there's nothing that says that it can't be changed back... RobWill80 02:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that anything is wrong with your efforts. I'm just still a bit annoyed that a change had to be made at all to the template. However, this is apparently came about due to some guideline somewhere, so of course there's nothing of your fault (I doubt a middle ground could have been agreed upon, incidentally). Regardless, even I'm finding it more difficult to figure out how to get from one article to another with this new method, and I know precisely where every article actually is. I would not agree to cutting down the navboxes any more than they already have been. One template for the game series and one for the characters is just barely enough to meet the minimum for any sort of useable navigation. MarphyBlack 04:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Since when is Mokap a major character?

This list isn't particularly narrow or tightly linked. It's the perfect kind of thing to use a category for (or a list, since it can have commentary and a short description). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This template is NOT redundant. There is a character list anyway, but it is detailed, showing characters' game appearances and such. Why shouldn't we have a template for very quick navigation? Also, if it is redundant, then why Fatal Fury and King of Fighters articles both has a game and a character template (Template:Fatal Fury and Template:King of Fighters Characters), or Street Fighter and Final Fight (Template:Major Street Fighter Characters), or even such a franchise like Darkstalkers, which has not many characters unlike others (Template:Darkstalkers characters)? So, it is certainly not redundant.

And yes, Mokap is a major character, because he appeared in two major MK fighting games. Also, calling Mokap minor means defining half of the entire video game characters as minor, I think.

By the way, you're right, RobWill80, it is your design, sorry for stealing it. :D Master Spider 09:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It's entirely redundant with the category, and largely redundant with the list.

The Fatal Fury, KOF, Street Fighter, etc. character templates are equally useless for the same reasons; ideally, you all would agree with me (heh) and we'd bundle them all up for TFD to deal with in one fell swoop. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a problem anyway, only you are thinking that this template (along with other templates) is redundant. They are not redundant, and definitely not useless (personally, while making edits on MK character articles, I find it very useful). Why do you think these templates have been created? If they are redundant, that means all of the CVG character templates are redundant. They are created in the same style of other navigation templates, so that makes all templates useless... Are you planning to delete all templates in Wikipedia or such? Master Spider 09:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This template is a bare list of names, arranged in alphabetical order and linked in each article. The category is a bare list of names, arranged in alphabetical order and linked in each article. How are they not entirely redundant? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've kicked it to TFD. This sort of indiscriminate linking to a broad group of vaguely-associated articles isn't what templates are for; it's what categories are for. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Categories are just for article classifications, while templates are for easier and quicker navigations. Loading category pages over the net also may took long time sometimes, but if we have a template in each character page, it would be quicker and easier, as I said above. They are way to small (as filesize, I mean), which makes them easier to load on the page. You can try it yourself also: try to reach a character page from a category and from a template. Finding a character article from a template costs less time, which makes up for Wikipedia's overall usefulness. For short, templates allows you quick access, while categories are only for classifications. The thing you've done is not that it should be. Master Spider 10:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree; categories are there for classification purposes, but shouldn't replace good ol' fashioned in-article navigation (and any web developer worth his salt will tell you that yes, one more click is a problem). I liked having the characters in with the main template, but I think having them split is a fine compromise. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And it's deleted... Great. Master Spider 15:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The template has been recreated under mysterious circumstances and is now being added back into the individual character articles. Clearly there is no real consensus over what should be done with this template (Which I believe means that we simply default to "Keep" :P). Anyway, since it hasn't been mentioned in this area of the discussion yet, the offending category that was supposedly completely identical this template, and therefore made this template redundant and/or unnecessary, is up at CfD to be merged and is due to be closed soon. Should this merge occur, that would make this template no longer identical to anything, and therefore would make its existence even more justified than before. MarphyBlack 23:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. However, as I see, there are no such differences between the old category and the new category. A Man In Black may point out that again, and may put the template to TfD again. It is also noticeable that he seems to have a problem with us, because no other similar franchise character templates are deleted, nor they were put up to TfD... Anyway, the new category still keeps the main characters, and there aren't any minor characters such as Conquest characters (only Great Kung Lao and User:MarphyBlack/sandbox are additions), which means that there aren't so much differences, as I mentioned.Master Spider 17:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, my sandbox shouldn't be there. Anyway, List of minor Mortal Kombat characters and One Being were both added to the category. As for the other character templates from other game franchises, I would add them to TfD myself together in one big group since apparantly A Man in Black is citing some rule somewhere stating that these templates should not exist, but I'm sure I'd be accused of WP:POINT since I have already previously voted to keep the MK character template.
Regardless of all that, however, I believe that Template:Mortal Kombat series should be added back into each individual character article now that this character template is gone. MarphyBlack 21:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of putting a few templates up for deletion, after the TfD for the MK character template. That doesn't matter now, but I think AMiB's behaviour is a serious problem. He appears to treat that template guideline as if it were policy. Since it isn't policy, the manner of his template edits and reverts leads me to think of some control issues. Also, I think he himself was causing a disruption to prove a point, because he needed to be informed repeatedly to discuss his changes here before he made them. His nomination of the MK character template would appear to support that, as he nominated it after he "didn't get his own way" with his arguments here. I don't know if this could be investigated further, so providing that he doesn't cause any more disruption here, I'll leave the matter alone.

Anyway, back to the point. I agree that the MK series template should re-introduced to the character articles. RobWill80 00:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how sending a template I wanted deleted to TFD is disruption for the sake of making a point. What point was I trying to make? In fact, before sending it to the normal place for deletion discussions, I discussed it at length here. I made the case that it was redundant with an existing category, found no argument to the contrary particularly convincing, and sent it to TFD, where the community consensus turned out to be to delete the template. No obscure rules, no ownership, just the way things are supposed to work on Wikipedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the "community consensus" wasn't exactly a consensus by any wide margin. In fact, in the words of the closing admin, it was "delete by a nose." Heck, I wouldn't even classify this as a consensus at all. Your side just happened to have won by a hair (By my count, one vote, maybe two). There was no clear or obvious agreement, and the template was even recreated mere days later by someone completely uninvolved and unrelated to this whole discussion and TfD business. If you really want to press the issue against these kinds of templates so vehemently, I see no reason why you, personally, should not simply make a blanket TfD that covers all other similar and applicable character video game templates right now, and I'm sure there are many more templates of the same variety spanning across other media aside from games that could be included as well. As I said before, I'd do it myself, but I'm sure I'd be accused of WP:POINT since I supported this type of template which got deleted in this particular case. MarphyBlack 05:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This isn't the first time I've sent a template like this to TFD, mind. If I recall correctly, it's the third. It's just that TFD is kind of a pain in the butt, and some of these might not have accompanying categories. (I need to check.)

Don't get me wrong, though, my point is that things worked exactly the way they're supposed to, and they would have whether the template was deleted or kept. TFD is where you go if you have a disagreement about where a template should be deleted or not, and clearly we had a disagreement. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

AMiB, if you actually read what I wrote, I said that your TfD nomination supported my concerns about your behaviour. It's not the primary reason for them. I've been keeping an eye on a few of the other game franchise templates on Wikipedia, and what I've seen can hardly be described as constructive behaviour on your part. There seems to be a consensus with the regular contributors of a few franchises that disagrees with your guideline. I'll have to say it again: it isn't a policy, it's a recommended course of action which doesn't have to be followed. Yet you've been actively going around and reverted anyone who changed those templates for whatever reason, which means that you are claiming some form of ownership over them, and causing disruption by going against one of Wikipedia's main principles - that anyone is free to edit this encyclopedia. Also, you were causing disruption here by continually restoring your changes to the series template, even though you were told to discuss it. After that, you dismissed any contradictory opinions completely. And the truth is this - whether you found a convincing argument or not, there was a consensus here that went against your "better judgment". In my mind, your TfD nomination was a severe case of sour grapes, and nothing more. RobWill80 11:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Please learn to depersonalize style discussions in the future. I don't have any other comments to make on this subject. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If you've taken what I said personally, then that's your decision. I haven't taken your actions personally, but I don't believe you are acting in the best interests of this project or this encyclopedia. It's that simple. RobWill80 20:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Disagreement? Yes. You against the whole WikiProject. It could be called a "disagreement", if more than one person disagreed with template, but there was (and still is) only you who disagreed. We don't have a disagreement-it wasn't a disagreement, you just did what you wanted. This is my opinion.

Well, what did you do? You edited the whole template without asking (yes, we discussed this, but you didn't notice us at talk page, first you edited it, then you noticed us, and it is not such a discussion). Later? You nominated the character template to TfD, and it is deleted thanks to your comments that catalyses people. And, there are many similar character templates, most of them takes more screenspace, and guess what? They aren't nominateed for TfD even for once. Do you have a problem with us, seriously? If you have, tell us what it is. If you don't have, then treat the other character templates in the same way too. Master Spider 16:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger of updates

User Jonny2x4 has suggested that the following articles be merged:

• Ultimate MK3 and MK Trilogy into MK3.
• MK Gold into MK4.
• MK: Unchained into MK: Deception.

Since each case covers similar ground, I've redirected all the merge tags to this topic for discussion. RobWill80 04:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that enough time has passed for everyone to have their say. So, if there are no objections, I'll start making appropriate changes shortly. There was no support for merging MK Trilogy into MK3, and there were no objections to merging Unchained into Deception, so I'll sort those out now. RobWill80 18:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UMK3 and MKT into MK3

• Do not merge – I highly disagree with both of these particular propositions. Although UMK3 spawned from MK3, and MKT from UMK3, each are more than separate enough to warrant their own articles. In the case of UMK3, its existence is almost to entirely replace the role of its predecessor. Although seemingly a simple upgrade with a few new characters and stages, it has grown to become its own complete entity. That is why UMK3 is currently being made available on Xbox Live and included with the special editions of Armageddon and not the original MK3. As for MKT, this is even more farfetched than the UMK3 proposal. As its name implies, it is indeed a compilation of content from all the games in the trilogy. Almost all of the new content is taken straight from MKII and the original MK (While it has exclusive Johnny Cage sprites, this is a character absent from both MK3 and UMK3). While some may view the game as UMK3 just with past game content, the two are still far from comparable. MKT is the first MK game to primarily be a console/home system only game rather than anything arcade based. And if nothing else, it would be fairly absurd to merge both UMK3 and MKT into MK3's article. There is simply far too much information on each individual title, and they would all eventually have to split into three articles once again. MarphyBlack 05:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• These two games are basically just extensions of Mortal Kombat 3, rather than entirely new titles, with MKT basically being UMK3 but with characters and backgrounds lifted from MK1 and MK2 plus one new character. To cite other popular gaming franchises, Subsistence an updated version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, features several enhancements, including a new camera system that was received favorably over the original by reviewers and an entire online game mode with new playable characters. However, it is covered in the original game's article rather than treated as a separate game. If we could reduce and trim down all the redundant text and info, they would be merge ready. I mean look at the Mortal Kombat Trilogy article. Two entire sections of the articles is dedicated to reiterating the story and cast of the game already covered in Mortal Kombat 3 (and the only new actors hired for the game are the one for Johnny Cage). Jonny2x4 06:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Simply declaring that UMK3 and MKT is MK3 with new characters and backgrounds is far oversimplifying the situation. As I mentioned before, looking at UMK3's role, it was made not simply to be an update to MK3, but to completely replace it. There is almost no trace left of the original MK3 around today, and indeed even Midway is continuing this trend by choosing to repackage and release UMK3 on modern consoles (Armageddon and Xbox Live) rather than its predecessor. Between the two games, any sort of serious competitive or tournament play is done solely on UMK3. Also, if you check the UMK3 article, you'll see that info on another game, MK Advance, has already been merged into that article. If this merge were to happen, then Advance would be included as well, so it would be like including three very separate and individual games in only one article (And that's not even considering MKT yet). Again, UMK3 has become far more than, if not entirely superceded, MK3.
Then there's the case of MKT. Right now, the proposal is to merge it with MK3. However, it has very little to do with MK3 in comparison to its more direct relation with UMK3 (And if the latter was decided not to be merged, it would make little sense to merge MKT into the former). Despite this, I would not believe that MKT should be merged into UMK3 either. The two have little in common. How is this, you ask? Well, looking at all this from a general viewpoint, these are all fighting games first and foremost. Their main aspects are to provide a level field of competition between two players. In this respect, when looking at the fighters and gameplay in terms of being balanced and fair, MKT is the total laughing stock of the series. It is notorious for being glitch-laden, bug filled, and "broken" (Example: view this page and look for the word "broken" and see what it is most commonly applied to). MKT's similarities to MK3 and UMK3 are mostly superficial. Gameplay-wise, while the mechanics are similar, MKT is in a league of its own. It is simply not comparable to either MK3 or UMK3, and certainly it is not taken seriously on a competitive level, although it is only one step up from the game that is. MKT was not meant to be a simple extension from a previous title; it is the anthology that is supposed to include "everything" at the fair expense of balanced gameplay. MarphyBlack 17:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Well in that case, I'll say leave Mortal Kombat Trilogy alone for the time being. However, I don't see your reasoning that UMK3, being an upgrade of MK3 designed to replace it, should be covered separately. If anything, it adds to my argument. Most upgraded versions of games are usually meant to be superimpose/replace the originals with their added features instead of merely supplement them. Hence, companies try to avoid redundancy by promoting the upgraded versions of their games rather than the originals. From what I understood, Mortal Kombat Advance is just another name for UMK3 than a separate game (in the same way Final Fight One is a GBA port of Final Fight), since it's just the SNES UMK3 ported to GBA. Eliminating the MKA infobox and completely merging the info with the text seems downright preferable Jonny2x4 19:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Do not merge - I agree with MarphyBlack's assessment of this. RobWill80 21:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Do not merge The gameplay varies significantly between MK3 and UMK3. In MK3 players will rarely leave the ground because there are very few combo possibilities. When Ultimate MK3 added in the Jump Punch to ground comobo linkers, it added combos that lead to over 50%. Also, some characters had very abuseable moves. Jax could shoot his fireballs right after each other trapping the other player with very few options. If some were to watch a match video from each, these differences would be very blatent. MK3 and UMK3 are different games. 71.98.81.49 03:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)anonymous (check IP)

• Merge UMK3 and MK3, do not merge MKT. UMK3 did have some noticeable cosmetic changes from MK3 (plus extra moves/combos and whatnot), but I think these could be well reflected in a merged article without adding undue length. MKT is different enough to not merge. Virog^{It's not}_{my fault!} 16:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Do not merge. Tsumng 06:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Do not merge. If UMK3 and MKT were simply re-releases of MK3, this move would be more acceptable, but there's more to them than a few new characters (as stated by previous editors). Besides, if we were to merge all three of them, we would end up with one painfully long article. Sonicrazy 21:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MK Gold into MK4

• Do not merge – This is a peculiar case. While Gold seems identical to MK4 in all aspects except for some new characters and stages, MK4 (including the home console ports) received all around positive reviews, while Gold was torn apart by just about every media outlet and received uniformly negative reviews. Along with Special Forces and the GBA game MK Advance, Gold has gained a reputation for being one of the biggest embarrassments in the entire game franchise. Also, like MKT, it is one of the last console-exclusive games before Midway abandoned the arcade market entirely. I believe that there is enough scrutiny surrounding this title (including the mysterious Belokk, the misprinted strategy guide bios, the not-yet-mentioned little known version 2.0 revision of the game [1]) to make it worthy of its own article. MarphyBlack 05:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think some proper research going into the MK Gold article would probably render the merge proposal moot. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• See my arguments from above. Try to expand the article a bit first and research things about. But ultimately the game is based on Mortal Kombat 4. A subsection in that article citing differences and critical reception is probably preferred over a redundant article reiterates the gameplay of the game. Jonny2x4 06:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Merge - I don't mind either way, but I personally view MK Gold in the same regard as MK: Unchained. RobWill80 21:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Do not merge. Tsumng 06:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I have updated and revised the Mortal Kombat Gold article fairly significantly (Before, After). Although much of the content is still the same, it now looks a lot less like an unorganized stub and a bit more like a full-fledged game article. A bunch of references have also been added where appropriate. MarphyBlack 22:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unchained into Deception

• May as well Merge this one – This is the only merge proposal that I can agree with. Unchained is literally nothing more than Deception with three characters taken straight out of Deadly Alliance included (Completely unaltered, hence lacking hara-kiris, second fatalities, etc) and one new game mode added in. MarphyBlack 05:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Correction, Marphy. Four characters taken straight out of Deadly Alliance (Frost, Jax, Kitana, and Blaze) The S 20:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• No argument here. Jonny2x4 06:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, as per our decision about the other hand-held ports (specifically, Tournament Edition and Advance), this should have already been merged. The only reason it wasn't done with the others was because it hadn't been released at that time. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Merge - As per our previous discussion. RobWill80 21:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Merge per EVula. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Virogtheconq (talk • contribs).

• Merge Triple-Quadruple 02:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Merge. Tsumng 06:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Merge. The S 22:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cvgproj Tag

Hi, I notice you've been tagging your articles with the WikiProject Mortal Kombat talk page template. Please ensure to also tag them with {{cvgproj}}, since we're trying to index every single video game article on Wikipedia, including Mortal Kombat ones. Cheers, JACOPLANE • 2007-01-2 18:43

Also, if you're having trouble implementing the rating system, you could just use the cvgproj tag and we could add a rating system on there, something like this:

	This article is part of WikiProject Computer and video games, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to video games on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
A	This article has been rated as A-Class on the assessment scale.
Low	This article is on a subject of low-importance within gaming for inclusion in Wikipedia 1.0.
	High	This article is supported by and is of high-importance to Wikiproject The Legend of Zelda series .
	Mid	This article is supported by and is of mid-importance to WikiProject Nintendo.
CVG To-do: edit  Gaming Collaboration of the week: Kirby Super Star Expand: New CVG Articles, Normality, Pac-Man World 2, Operation Flashpoint: Elite, Call of Juarez, Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar, Ford Street Racing, Betrayal at Krondor CVG Peer Review: List of F-Zero titles, Kya: Dark Lineage, Wii Remote, Dynasty Warriors 4, The Sims 2, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Kirby's Dream Land, Electronic sports, Fire Emblem, Dante (Devil May Cry), The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Final Fantasy XII, Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit), Classes in World of Warcraft Cleanup: Age of Mythology, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Betrayal at Krondor, List of Nintendo trademarks Merge: Deletions / Essential articles / Magazines Assess and Prioritise articles (Log)

If you want something like that it's best to raise it on the WPCVG discussion page. Cheers, JACOPLANE • 2007-01-2 18:46

[edit] New MK8 article: delete or keep?

A new stub article called Mortal Kombat: 8 was created a few days ago, and a link was added to the navbox template [2]. The link was removed a short time later [3], but the article hasn't been nominated for deletion.

I was going to nominate the article myself, but I thought that I should ask first. There may be a good reason why it wasn't nominated, and it looks like it was created in good faith. Personally, I think that it's too early for an article or a stub. Any thoughts? RobWill80 18:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit: I've only just noticed that the article has been linked to Mortal Kombat (series) for the past 30 minutes. RobWill80 19:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be deleted (in my opinion). Nothing but love for its creation, but there simply isn't a single development about MK8, and Wikipedia is not a crystal ball (which I'm almost sure will be mentioned in its eventual AfD). EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I've nominated it for deletion (here), so we'll see how it goes. RobWill80 02:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh my god again? How many MK8 articles have been created so far?--Wesborland 15:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

There are five that I'm aware of: this one, as well as MK8:reunion, MK8, Mortal Kombat: Destroyer and Mortal Kombat: Destruction. RobWill80 16:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some bios are out!

Midway has released some Official bios for the kombatants in MKA; linking the storyline between MKD and MKA. here ^---SilentRAGE! 02:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Should we rewrite those before using them? I believe Wikipedia has a policy against copyvio--Wesborland 15:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Most definitely. Both bios (Kenshi and Sareena) were reworded before being added. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I vote we wait until someone's bio is out until we add Armageddon bio info to their page (I.E. no adding Armageddon bio info to Raiden, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, or Johnny Cage's pages despite the four of them being mentioned in Fujin's bio) The S 17:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, I didn't realize Fujin (Mortal Kombat)'s was out as well. At any rate, I agree; any piecing we may try to do on the bio front will just be speculation. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with The S. Just to avoid any confusion and possible contradictions in storyline. I bet that there may be some, as Vogel (or whomever) is writing up 60+ bios. ^---SilentRAGE! 10:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Any use for this image?

Image:Sektor.JPG is currently orphaned, and will get axed in a few days. Sektor seems to be doing just fine on images without this particular one; is there anywhere else that it might be useful? EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:03, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say there is little use for it. I mean, before Armageddon came out, it was treated as gold dust as a screenshot from the upcoming game and our first look at Sektor. Now we have pictures that are of so much better quality and don't have part of the character select screen cut into it. Compared to other pictures across the MK pages, it looks pretty ugly, and, as you said, the Sektor article doesn't really need it, and I can't possibly think of another use for it over the MK articles. ≈ The Haunted Angel ^{(The Forest Whispers My Name)} 18:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Epic Battles

Should a link to this card game be added to The Mortal Kombat Universe sandbox since it heavily features Mortal Kombat characters and settings? Seth0708 22:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backwards compatibility

I recently noticed that Deception and Armageddon were both relisted on the 360's backwards compatibility list - last I'd heard (which was way before Armageddon was released), the emulation for Deception was almost unplayable due to numerous graphical glitches. Anyone have any news (firsthand or otherwise) as to if the games actually play on the 360? I'm debating if I should pick up the PS2 or XBox version... Virog^{It's not}_{my fault!} 18:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Midway released the information as official and soon after Xbox had as well. This was after the petition concerning the topic, we were glad the petition was successful. ≈ Kombat Krave ~ 16:58, 07 March, 2007 (CT)

[edit] Character image consistency, part II

I don't know if anyone has seen this post at Midway Boards, but in brief, the webmaster of Total Mortal Kombat has managed to get most of the character portraits used on the ladder screen in Armageddon. Only Chameleon's portrait is missing, and Reptile's portrait is slightly different to the one used in the game. The available images are on this page at TMK. I've mentioned this because of the previous discussion on here about standards for images in character articles. I was thinking that these portraits might be suitable enough to use in the character infoboxes. Any thoughts? RobWill80 12:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have the same problems with these images that I had with the character images included on the official Armageddon site: they're simply lower quality versions of previously released character art. In this case, they're very small and cropped headshots (Liu Kang is looking particularly pixelated). Since we have the original and complete full-body shots, I don't see any urgent reason why we should replace them, at least as of yet. While I'm certainly concerned with keeping all the images here consistent and uniform, I'm also more concerned with how useful they may be to the reader. Obviously these characters were designed to be uniquely distinct from one another in more ways than just their faces. Their costumes/species/clans/full appearances can't be suitably represented with nothing more than the character select screen image (Which, incidentally, all have cheesy backgrounds for whatever reason). Aside from the new ones introduced in the game, Midway is still continuing to reuse the old artwork for all the characters for Armageddon, albeit in not as high quality forms, so I think given the limitations of the resources we have (i.e. not everyone received a fancy Shaolin Monks render), we are still keeping consistent within the current character designs. Although I suppose these character select screen images could be placed in the infobox while a full body shot is included somewhere in the article, I think that this would be inflating the image count per article somewhat needlessly. MarphyBlack 06:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Good points. I was mostly concerned about using completely uniform images in the infoboxes (as opposed to the image "groups" that we have now), and using the old images somewhere else in the articles. But I suppose there would be too many, and the quality of some of the portraits isn't too good (especially Liu Kang). Ah, well... It seemed like a good idea to me at the time! :) RobWill80 14:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mortal Kombat: Devastation

Codemonkey (talk • contribs) has deleted pretty much everything in the article about Mortal Kombat: Devastation claiming that it didn't have any reliable sources and that unless it is re-written from scratch within a week he'll put it on AfD. I don't want to start an edit war on that article again so I thought I should let you know about it. --Wesborland 17:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Update The Devastation article has been deleted, but I've restored its full history and moved it to User:EVula/MK: Devastation. Good times. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute at Ermac article

There is currently a dispute occurring at Ermac's character article over the following sentence in the character development section:

This is the only instance in the history of Mortal Kombat where a rumor led to the creation of an actual character.^{[citation needed]}

User Iamstillhiro1112 disagrees with this statement, claiming that Blaze was also created from a fanmade rumor. Apparently the situation has become so bad that I have been listed at the Administrators' noticeboard and the Conflicts of Interest page as well (Don't quite get the latter, but anyway). I think this situation could definitely use some outside consideration on the issue from a few other voices. Please see the talk page for the full discussion so far. MarphyBlack 03:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Found out about this via GameFAQs at this message board post. Forgive my use of the word "unfortunately", I was merely making conversation. Not sure how he's become confused between a character who was created based on rumour and falsehood and a character who was expanded upon from being a five-frame animation who the fans never really talked about. If you ask me, they were more interested in finding Hornbuckle since the in-game hints did fuel rumour, though that's neither here nor there. --L T Dangerous 16:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mortal Kombat dab page

I really see no compelling reason to have Mortal Kombat redirect to Mortal Kombat (series). There are clearly a number of other valid uses of the term, such as referring to the films or that documentary thing. I say MK should model itself after the Resident Evil series - whose main page is also a disambiguation rather than redirecting to Resident Evil (series). Hbdragon88 01:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

On another note, does "MK" overwhelmingly refer to Mortal Kombat? I mean, when I think MK, I think Mario Kart...have never played the fighting series (except to kick my friend's butt on the Genesis version by button mashing and doing super advanced combos as the hat guy). Hbdragon88 01:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I would not have any problem with making Mortal Kombat a disambig page. However, aside from the main series article that it currently redirects to, only two other other pages really use this "Mortal Kombat" name: the arcade game and the first movie. I doubt that anyone searching for the documentary Moral Kombat would actually search using the term "Mortal Kombat", hence I'm fairly dubious on even leaving the footnote in the article head there.

As for the acronym, I can't say if MK is more commonly used to refer to Mortal Kombat or Mario Kart, but I do know that the MK developers use this abbreviated version of the title quite frequently, even in official sources. I'm not sure if Nintendo is ever this informal with Mario Kart's title, or if that's mainly just a fan-created convenience thing. A Google search of the term "MK" seems to mainly bring up Mortal Kombat-related sites first. Searching for the acronym "MK" with the term "Mortal Kombat" added to narrow down the results more elicits 2,760,000 hits. "MK" plus "Mario Kart" elicits 673,000 hits. Still, I suppose MK could be made into a disambig page as well that mentions both Mortal Kombat and Mario Kart. Edit: I just noticed that there is an Mk (disambiguation) page, although the completely capitalized version of the acronym "MK" did not redirect here. Seems that this is a recent edit which an anon ip made without any reason. I have reverted it back to the original redirect. MarphyBlack 01:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Novel and Action Figures Articles

I have the preperations required to proceed with both article's creations, lest I have searched for the qualifications of forming articles. I have yet to comprehend exactly how to create articles and ask for assistance as well I ask permission to create both and add them as links beside the 'comics' link in the lower menu of the main article. ~ Kombat Krave 17:14, 07 March, 2007 (CT)

[edit] Video game navbox discussion

A centralized discussion is relevant to the appearance of many of this project's guidelines. Anyone interested is invited to participate. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mortal Kombat Newsletter

Is anyone interested in starting a newsletter for the project? Sign below. --~ ~ James Hetfield (previously Wesborland) ~ ~ 00:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

1. James Hetfield (talk • contribs)