Talk:Boss (video games)/Archive 1

message: I have gone through and restructured the article to make it a bit more readable. Comments?
--Cornflake pirate 04:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Restructuring

message: Hmm... isn't the name of that boss "Dobkeratops", though? - Fredrik (talk) 23:54, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Google says it has several names, but Doppelganger is the only one I've heard. Spottedowl 01:34, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Dobkeratops seems to give more relevant matches, and it's the name I read today in Super PLAY magazine. Fredrik (talk) 01:38, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It only gives more relevant matches because it's a unique name, whereas Doppelganger is also a German word. I don't know... we could list both, or maybe put it to a vote. If we can find enough people interested in R-Type, anyway. ;) Spottedowl 08:08, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Dobkeratops sounds more badass :P It also makes for an unambiguous article name. - Fredrik (talk) 14:30, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt anyone's going to write an article on it. It might be famous but it's not particularly significant. And anyway, Wikipedia is about facts, not badassity. ;p I'd say just change it if you want and see if anyone objects. Spottedowl 16:03, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  R-Type boss name 

message: What does the "versus" in this line mean?
:In versus fighting games such as Street Fighter II ...
::"Versus," the colloquial term meaning "one-on-one," as opposed to "scrolling" fighters like Final Fight.
Also, this image caption says "flashing in red" but I don't see any red in the picture. Should this be "magenta"?
:Baxter Stockman, the boss of the first level of Turtles in Time. Note that he is flashing red, indicating that he is close to defeat.
::He is indeed flashing red - it's just a little bit difficult to see because (a) it is not actually flashing in the picture and (b) Baxter's non-flashing color mixed with the red (as the "flashing" works in most games) makes it seem a little more magenta-like. Ian Pugh 03:53, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  clarify small items -- or possibly typos 

message: Someone put a history section in the article stating that some Americans invented bosses in the 70s.  I corrected it to identify that boss has Japanese roots, not American.  But the bit I wrote needs editing. 57.66.10.36 18:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section

message: I think we should take the lists of "noteworthy" bosses and superbosses and put them in a seperate article, then have no more than 5 examples of each in this article. And the bosses that get listed should be varied; like no filling it up with classic Nintendo bosses (Bowser OR Ganon NOT Both), or Final Fantasy bosses (Kefka OR Sephiroth NOT Both). -- VederJuda 15:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I heartily agree. Some parts of the article really look like everyone wanted to add their favourite boss of the type concerned, kind of non-encycopaedic. -- Bakabaka 14:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hear Hear!  I've added my two cents in this talk page here.  —Metamorf 15:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split the article 

message: The lists of Trick and Unbeatable bosses are starting to get awfully long again...Time to give them their own articles with just a few listed here, perhaps? Hrimfaxi 10:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed both lists; the sheer size of them was getting ridiculous, the article just doesn't need twenty or thirty different examples of a particular type of boss. If anyone wants to take the old version and add the lists in their own category to List of video game bosses they can be my guest, but what we need here is to pick out a few good examples by consensus and keep to them. Hrimfaxi 08:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you might have cut out some useful information from the Unbeatable Boss section when you simply cut out the lists. I agree that the lsits had to go, they were seemingly pointless as different people came in and dropped in their favorite boss without consideration of how bloated the article was becoming; "example creep" if you will. I'm going to read it again and see if it warrants a second (short) paragraph. -- VederJuda 12:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I don't doubt it, but the thing needs to be totally re-written because it represents an amazingly large page section on just one thing. Personally, I'd point to the classic Trick Boss [the mirror image in Prince of Persia, which the player couldn't defeat in combat because it would mirror any hits to itself against the player; you could only beat it by sheathing your sword and walking into it, whereupon it vanished] and point to something like Nemesis or the Shagohod on the runway as an unbeatable boss, though I know there's a better example than those in there. I'd say a maximum of three bosses of any particular type, with each one significantly different in some way [ie, the Mirror Image, Psycho Mantis and one of the various 'heal the boss to death' encounters from the Final Fantasy games as trick bosses, since they use substantially different tricks and are from three genres]. Hrimfaxi 06:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hm...

message: I mean, there are quite a few spoilers on this page, a spoiler warning would be perfectly logical. --68.79.114.187 23:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I will be bold, and drop it on. --87.112.90.216 10:01, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Shouln't there be a spoiler tag?

message: I've just gone and been bold-as-brass and made a massive copy-edit of this article. As it stood before, reading it was utterly headache-inducing with paragraph-long sentences and examples packed ad-nauseum into said paragraphs.  I've cleaned up the entire section "Types of Bosses", giving it clearer sentence structure and organising examples into bullet lists or separate paragraphs.  Content should have remained the same (if you feel that I compromised it in any way, that wasn't my intention).
There's still one thing that bugs me with this article:
: It's... just... too... bloody... long!
Given the nature of this article, having 2000 examples to illustrate each point is just nuts.  I believe we need to discuss paring back the number of examples to an exemplary few for each Boss type. —Metamorf 14:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive copy-edit 

message: This article is exceedingly long and several redundant examples seem to be added as mere fancruft. We should get this thing severely cleaned up. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 02:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article length 

message: I've cut back the vast tracts of 'hidden boss' examples. They added nothing to the article, contained game guide info and were excessively spoilerific.--Nydas 16:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hidden Bosses 

message: I have had it with these motherfarking bosses in this motherfarking article! I'm calling for a rewrite. Here are my thoughts. 
Examples for each section should be kept to 3 at best, up to 5 if absolutely necessary. Each example should also state (briefly!) WHY that particular boss is an exemplary specimen of that particular boss type. (Bowser, for example, is one of, if not THE most famous final boss in the video game world. The necessity of including Bowser is obvious. On the other hand, can your average gamer tell you who Sardius, of Super Ghosts n' Ghouls is? No. His inclusion is pointless.) Anything (be it the boss or worse, the game iself) with a redlink should be removed without mercy. Concerning the many supposed boss types: we need to trim those down, badly. SEVENTEEN boss types is a little excessive. Let's aim for fifteen. Even ten. 
My suggestions for trimming the categories are as follows: 
#Grunt Bosses can be briefly mentioned under Mini-Bosses. 
#Non-Antagonist Boss isn't even really a boss, take it out. 
#Rename Stylish Boss "Quick Boss" and put an example of a boss that players have to race. (After all, just because you're quick doesn't make you stylish; and who defines stylish anyway? Quick is less subjective.) 
#Combine Trick Boss and Puzzle Boss, call it...oh, I don't know. Keep the name Trick Boss. Most Puzzle Bosses involve some kind of trick anyway, as opposed to a serious puzzle. (For example, the bosses in Ocarina of Time. One has to utilize some kind of trick [like an item found earlier in the dungeon] to defeat them. That's not a puzzle, you just have to know the trick to defeat them.)
#Combo Boss...I'm not sure. I think it could be merged out somewhere, or even deleted outright. It's not THAT notable.
#Multi-Stage Boss? Merge to Final Boss. Multi-stagers are almost exclusively final bosses.
I'm going to try to work up a presentable draft, sometime within the next few days. Until then, leave feedback, please! ♠PMC♠ 08:58, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it. This article is a nightmare. I suggest booting 'strong' and 'stylish' bosses as original research. Look at the sentence for the 'strong boss': "This boss is difficult to defeat because it has a lot of energy and/or deals a large amount of damage." Sounds like a typical boss to me. The 'stylish boss' has very weak examples. I would also get rid of the 'trick boss', and instead discuss the idea of 'boss vulnerability' in a seperate section, noting that some bosses may have quirky weaknesses which go beyond what is normal, and sometimes this may be the only way to beat them.--Nydas 19:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

text: It's a reasonable idea, although I can see a couple of problems. The first is that a boss's popularity may be based on their characteristics as a fictional antagonist, rather than on their... erm... 'bossness'. The second is that going simply on popularity may skew the examples away from certain genres, for example scrolling shoot 'em ups.--Nydas 12:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bosses whose vulnerability changes with time could be discussed in a single sentence. Same with peer bosses. 'Peer boss' is quite a good name... but we can't promote original terms on Wikipedia. I still think it's better to have a section on boss vulnerability rather than lots of vague, overlapping categories. They just attract mountains of 'examples'. Now we have 'Odd couple bosses' - presumably we could have 'Immobile bosses', 'Flying bosses', 'Background bosses', 'Segmented bosses', 'Screen-filling bosses' etc. It's endless.--Nydas 19:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Keep all the categories, and redirect them to thier own articles.  --Luigifan 20:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't do that. Many of these terms are not in common usage, and creating articles on them would be original research or unencylopedic. I could see an article on final bosses working, but that's about it.--Nydas 12:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  That is IT! 

message: I'm going to remove some of the worst orginal research and neologisms that have appeared recently. But this article remains awful. As I've said before, the entire structure is questionable, consisting of listy 'types' and 'examples'. It's barely encyclopedic, and completely impenetrable to non-gamers.--Nydas 23:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is still a horrible mess 

message: Shouldn't there be at least a small section regarding that?--Marhawkman 11:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: bosses that give you stuff

message: I've culled these two boss types from the article. The terms 'strong boss' and 'stylish boss' are not commonly used gaming terms, with these specific meanings. "This boss is difficult to defeat because it has a lot of energy and/or deals a large amount of damage" simply applies to almost any sort of boss. It's not remotely informative and it's basically original research as well. It's not Wikipedia's job to invent new words for things. The examples given are very weak as well.--Nydas(Talk) 18:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed 'Strong' and 'Stylish' boss types

message: it might be harsh but a lot of this article consists of original research and again I hope someone care to remove the obviously personal segment stating that bosses are not used/needed any more in video games.
 
I've just deleted huge tracts of what are obviously neologisms and original research. Harsh, I know, but I don't think we were ever going to find references for this terminology. I believe the way forward is for us to reference-up the history and common critical responses (positive and negative) to the presence of bosses in games, and then ensure anything else added is referenced and absolutely not original research. The article currently has multiple spoilers for multiple different games. I'd like to find an alternative to that if possible. Sockatume 18:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To pre-empt any wikipouting, I'd like to point out that some time ago I was responsible for paragraphs of the "bosses in game structure" and "criticism" sections, both heavy with original research. I'm deleting some of my own writing on videogames here. Sockatume 18:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An IP restored the blob. I've removed it again, and would invite further discussion here before replacing it. I've kept the 'Bosses in game structure' section. It's still horrible, but at least it's prose rather than a list, and it makes the article slightly more meaningful to non-gamers.--Nydas(Talk) 08:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Original research does seem to be a large problem in this article. I made a small edit to improve some prose earlier, but a closer look at the whole article indicates that nothing in the article is properly sourced. Given how far the video game industry has come, it's possible that someone reputable has written a professional article or discussion of the history of bosses. Finding something like this should be the first priority before any other changes are made, and then the article would have to be re-written to focus on the sources found. I realise I'm new, and probably don't have a large amount of "pull" at Wikipedia :), but I want to help, so please don't take my comments as arrogance or insolence. Leebo86 21:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ideally, I wouldn't want to think that any editor has any more 'pull' than anyone else. Regarding the article, the main problem is that most articles about bosses aren't written in a way which can be easily adapted into a complete encyclopedic article. Usually they're in the style of 'the top 20 most kickass bosses ever' and suchlike. Nothing comprehensible to non-gamers is likely to come from such sources. What would be good are discussions of bosses from game design textbooks.--Nydas(Talk) 19:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Massive removal

message: Would someone like to incorporate non-fighting bosses, such as the mysterious character in Half-Life, into the article? I don't play video games of this sort enough to do so, but it seems this belongs here, too. ProhibitOnions (T) 14:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is he even a 'boss', or simply a fictional antagonist/mystery figure? I think we should avoid classifying bosses according to their fictional role, because that's already covered elsewhere.--Nydas(Talk) 18:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Half-Life "boss" and others who don't fight

message: There's this little article, load bearing boss. I saw it when a friend posted it and said "look what I made!" It was uncited, completely orphaned, and had out of context links, but I fixed that. I kinda expected it to grow, but apparently he's lost interest. It could probably be made into a paragraph in 'types of bosses,' ya know? Spriteless 14:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be because I'm an inclusionist, but I like this article. If it ever gets merged, I hope this becomes a redirect that leads straight to the blurb on the main "boss" page. Siyavash 15:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Why not just delete it? It's not a widely used concept in gaming, somebody's just made it up.--Nydas(Talk) 09:54, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Load bearing boss 

message: An IP reinstated the vast listy blob of 'bosses by type'; I've removed it. It was almost pure original research without any references or even the possibility of them. Most of the terms were neologisms without any hint of widespread use. Who has said that "Ugh-Zan III from Serious Sam is classified as a puzzle, giant, strong, final and unbeatable boss"? Nobody. If I were to come along and say that he's actually classified as a ultra, final, intermittently-vulnerable, projectile-using, ground-shaking boss, how could we ever decide who was right?--Nydas(Talk) 13:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed it again.--Nydas(Talk) 07:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive removal 2 

message: "Most games with bosses often have one as the last obstacle in the way of victory. This "final" or "last" boss is often the most difficult enemy in the game. A notable exception is the Gradius and Grandia series, where the last bosses don't defend themselves and are defeated quite effortlessly."
Haven't played those games. Is this true, or just someone complaining about how easy certain bosses are? I mean, Final Fantasy X-2's last boss was a joke, but I don't think they made him weak on purpose. Master Deusoma 00:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  They give up? 

message: Should mention the concept in RPGs of The Foozle, which is usually used in a derogatory way. JAF1970 19:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Foozle