Forum:Organization for TS4 timeline

Hi,

I am the founder of the french Sims Wiki and I wanted to discuss and know how The Sims Wiki will organize its pages (especially Sims and families pages), if you already thought about this, for the new timeline added by The Sims 4.

For those who do not know, The Sims 4 will introduce a new timeline (not following the TS3-TS1-TS2 timeline), an alternate universe for the pre-created Sims (from SimGuruSarah).

If it is still true for the final game, we have to know how we will organize the sections of pages about pre-created Sims and families. Currently, the sections are in a chronological order like : Bella Goth

TS2
But now, with TS4?

Are you going to just put a new section for TS4 following the others? Or maybe creating two sections for each timeline : Bella Goth

TS4
Thank you. --Aster09 12:01, June 22, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
I heard somewhere that TS4's storyline takes place in between TS3 and TS1 (which makes no sense to me at all). So it would look a bit like this:

TS3
Blah blah blah

TS4
Blah blah blah

TS1
Blah blah blah

TS2
Blah blah blah

--k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 12:07, June 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * This means it would've been affected to the next sequels after TS4. Yeah, it would've been makes much sense with the Timeline 1 and Timeline 2, So that it would've not lost the tracks, since TS4, IMO is a new beginning of the new timeline.  .ThePeculiarMe  |  (talk to me)  |  (my mistakes)  12:14, June 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * k6ka, it was believed that TS4's storyline will take place between TS3 and TS1 because Mortimer and Bella are (young?) adults and we did not see Cassandra for the moment, suggesting that she might not be in the game. But now we know that it is not true, TS4 will take place in an alternate universe, it is a new storyline, confirmed by SimGuruSarah. --Aster09 13:08, June 22, 2014 (UTC)
 * If TS4 will be in alternate timeline, why not create separate articles for premade Sims that do appear in this alternate continuity? Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 15:35, June 22, 2014 (UTC)
 * Having a Bella Goth (The Sims 4)... would be somewhat tedious and redundant, wouldn't it. But then again, if EA messed up the storyline so badly that keeping everything in one article would be twice the confusion, then we may as well.


 * Just something I wanted to bring up - I've gone through this process on my other wiki as well. Basically, it split all the pages up according to game, with one "overview" page that served as the "parent" page, linking to the "child" pages. Alternatively, we could use subpages, though I think that's reserved for Onomatology and the discontinued Theory pages. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 15:58, June 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * The link you provided seems to be broken. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 16:00, June 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * @Auror Andrachome: If you mean the "Bella Goth (The Sims 4)", yes, that was deliberate, to show the page hasn't been created yet. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 16:06, June 22, 2014 (UTC)

We could set up subpages for each Sim according to the games they appear in. This would involve quite a bit of work, but the end result would be pages that are much more organized. Think of it like how we organize List of Moodlets, where each separate list is maintained on its own separate page. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 19:01, June 22, 2014 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of subpages. To K6ka, I mean the link to your wiki is not working. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 22:52, June 28, 2014 (UTC)
 * @Auror: Huh? The link is working for me. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 23:11, June 28, 2014 (UTC)

1 week later
I like the idea of creating subpages for Sims that appear in multiple games. That would definitely solve the crisis of particularly long articles such as Mortimer Goth. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 21:57, July 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, for the parent article, I suggest we have a short introduction of some sort, separated by game, and then add Article name at the top. That might work very nicely. It might also work for some of the other articles that can get VERY long, like the chair page. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 17:04, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

My idea is to have subpages of the main page, all "contained" within the article by the use of the tabber feature, similar to the List of Moodlets page. I've mocked up a very very rough idea of what I think this would look like for a common, prolific Sim, accessible at User:LostInRiverview/Bella Goth. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 18:09, July 7, 2014 (UTC)


 * If we're lucky, the Goths are the only returning family in this series. If EA wants to mess around with the story, we're messed too. I don't know how much the tabber can be reliable in a situation like this. For Bella and Mortimer, it's fine because they're considerably very long articles, but what if EA decided to include Sims like Christopher Steel for example? Would it be worth the tabbers?


 * Adding tabbers makes the article a little messed, I think. It leaves a huge blank space in The Sims tabber, but clearly the content for The Sims 2 is longer than the infoboxes. Technical stuff like the table of content and references won't work well either. I'm thinking about making the section to be in the order of the series instead of timeline, i.e.:

TS4

 * But it's not the best solution either. The contents will make the readers confused, and I have no idea how to integrate it with console games (should all console games be at the bottom or correspond to the series?).  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  16:40, July 11, 2014 (UTC)


 * I think there will be more returning families that'll appear in TS4. I don't know if I'm wrong nor right but they created the Pleasant couples using the CAS demo.  .ThePeculiarMe  |  (talk to me)  |  (my mistakes)  00:20, July 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * The main issue with keeping all the content on one page is, if the developers make changes to the Sims or families in TS4 which is contrary to that in the earlier games. For example, what if Mortimer and Bella didn't have Cassandra in The Sims 4, but had a completely different child? How would we reconcile this on the infobox or in the lead section of the articles on Bella and Mortimer? The developers have already shown that they aren't particularly careful about how they adjust the timeline, so it wouldn't surprise me if they chose to rework some of the returning Sims or families in the game. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 09:09, July 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * Additionally, I'd like to emphasize again that my example was a very very very very rough design of what I'm suggesting. And while I would agree that it's somewhat ugly to see an infobox that is much longer than the article content, I would counter that this is actually very common on some Sim pages, especially for Sims that aren't particularly well-known, like the aforementioned Christopher Steel. So the blank space issue that Nikel mentions is one that we already contend with. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 09:09, July 12, 2014 (UTC)

Uh oh, it seems that the Goths aren't the only ones returning in the series. At least Nancy Landgraab, Dina Caliente, and Don Lothario (and probably the Pleasants as ThePeculiarMe pointed out earlier) will return in completely different appearances. Who is that even Katrina Caliente? How are we going to relate it with the Simbio-start template that lists close familial relationships with the Sim? If Katrina is Dina's sister, will we add her there? But Katrina is supposed to be a sister from an alternate universe...  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  05:09, July 20, 2014 (UTC)


 * Katrina looks older than Dina, though. What if she's their mother? (Even though her mother's name was Nighat in the TS2-verse, but whatever) but Dina seems to be a teen and Katrina an Adult\middleaged. She could still be their older sister, though. (Actually, this "Katrina" and the Nighat in TS2 look a lot alike, so i guess that, maybe in the TS4-verse her name just was Katrina instead of Nighat.) 


 * Maybe we could have an article named Nighat Caliente (TS2)\Katrina Caliente (TS4). Or maybe we could link both as Dina\Nina's mother using the same tags used for what object is in each expansion pack. 78.15.35.105 (talk) 06:02, July 20, 2014 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to get rid of Simbio-start? I mean, the information in that part of the biography could be transferred to the individual game bio templates, right? This would be good for when/if Maxis chooses to screw up relationships between Sims. It would also work for Sims that appear in the first three games; take for example Mortimer Goth, who in TS3 is unmarried with living parents, in TS1 has a wife, a daughter, and living parents, and in TS3 has a missing wife, two children and deceased parents. Each bio template would have game-accurate familial relationship information. Really, is there much in Simbio-start that couldn't be put into the other templates? -  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 06:40, July 20, 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking the same way too. Simbio-start reflects inaccurate relationships. For example, it's very confusing what to put up on Titania Summerdream's relationship to Oberon Summerdream since she's married to him in TS3 (prequel) but unmarried in TS2 (sequel). This is the developer's oversight, but I'm pretty sure there'll be more like this.


 * I'm starting to think that using the tabview like LiR suggested. We should get rid of Simbio templates and replace them with the regular Sim templates. Inside each subpage is the infobox template, biography, and Simology information, while outside the tabview, we could write the overview of the Sim (on the top), trivia, and gallery (on the bottom).


 * I also think that it doesn't matter whether a subpage is lengthy or not anymore, so disregard my earlier opinion. I believe most characters in MySims wiki are organized this way; the same character reappears in different games, so they split them into subpages.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  06:39, July 21, 2014 (UTC)


 * Just a side note, it has been confirmed that the Caliente sisters' mother is going to be Katrina Caliente. So long, Nighat. EA is taking this alternate universe to the next level, so we're gonna need... a rather non-minor overhaul for the Sim and family pages.


 * I don't get it. If EA doesn't want to keep the integrity of returning characters, what's the point of them returning at all? What's the fuss of creating all new characters with similar personalities and backstories? SMH.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  16:53, July 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh brother! EA mucked up the storyline so badly I think everyone's better off just making up their own stories. Making things a parallel universe was easily the least intelligent thing they could've done, especially if they crammed all previous Sims into it. Why can't they just make a continuation of the main series, like what happens after The Sims 2, or before The Sims 3? Or why didn't they just go with a blank, clean slate? Just... what... this is more work for us as well! --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 19:11, July 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps they felt (possibly correctly) that some players would be upset if their favorite Sims (i.e. these guys) didn't appear in the game. I think the alternate universe is the best thing they could've done while still keeping the established characters, but I personally wouldn't have minded saying good-bye to the Goths and the other tired-out old families. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 18:21, July 28, 2014 (UTC)

I still feel like the tabbing feature (as shown on List of Moodlets) is the best way to go about separating Sims based on the games they appeared in. Alternate timeline mucks up the canon, yo. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 01:31, July 31, 2014 (UTC)


 * I only have two concerns with the tabbing feature:


 * 1. We might jump the node count limit, especially if we use too many templates. An example of a page that broke the node count limit here. The tabbers won't solve this issue, in fact it might just make it worse.


 * 2. Page loading times. Tabbers don't exactly solve that. And I'm not sure how tabbers work in mobile view either - I seldom go on Wikia on my phone, that's probably why.


 * --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 01:54, July 31, 2014 (UTC)
 * Interesting thing; tabbers don't appear at all on my mobile browser. So forgoing the tabbers option, what would be the next best thing? Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 02:06, July 31, 2014 (UTC)


 * Subpages! Subpages! *chants* Subpages! Subpages! Like I did with Fireplace. I jumped the node count limit, so I had to split the page up. All of The Sims fireplaces got into one page, all of The Sims 2 fireplaces into another, and all of The Sims 3 fireplaces into the third. I found this to be a very effective solution, especially in reducing page load and saving times, which well exceeded the load and save times one would get in a CC-loaded game. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 02:09, July 31, 2014 (UTC)