Forum:Temporary forums/Legacy validity
Opening this discussion is a bit of a memory lane for me, as a Doctor Who: Legacy validity Thread/Forum was one of the reason that drew me into Tardis, all the way back in 2014/15. Back then, I was one of the most regular editors of the game's wiki, and later became one of its admin. So, when I say I have a broad knowledge of the games in-and-outs, please do believe me :p
I used to follow newsletter, AdiposeTV lives, was on top of new updates to the game, and followed closely the edits made and preserved to this day on the wiki. But all of this is not a vanity post on how I'm an expert to the game; instead, its a bit of context on why I propose overturning the previous decision(s) on invalidating this game, even if we don't have access to the actual discussions right now. Here's my recollection on the most-often-used arguments to keep Legacy invalid, and why I think these should be disregarded:
"We already have a wiki covering this game, so why should we?"
Clean and simple, there are not one but two reasons why:
- The Doctor Who: Legacy Wiki and Tardis Wiki have two completely different approaches of coverage. DWLW delves into the gameplay mechanics, character statistics, and level breakdowns. Tardis is an attempt at a "in-universe biography" of the characters of the DWU. Notice how they're not in direct confrontation? In fact, by validating Legacy, we'd be complementing the coverage of the game
- "Sister wikis" have, historically, been a failure. There's simply not enough of a community to maintain the level of traffic that Tardis has (see the wikis for SJA, Vienna and Faction Paradox for further examples). Not only that, the game is now out of the stores (and I'll elaborate on that later), meaning Wiki traffic has dropped from... a handful of people (there were only ever around.... 6-10 regular editors at a time) to zero. By allowing Tardis editors to tackle on Legacy, we're allowing it to be properly documented by a reachable audience.
"The narrative of the game is branching! Branching narratives are invalid by default!"
... it's not. Plain and simple, it's not. This misconception is born (somewhat understandably) from the fact that the play is allowed to build a team of Doctor + 5 allies to play each level. However, as I tried explaining time and time again, this is a gameplay aspect, not a narrative/story aspect of the game. If you play the games a hundred times with a hundred different combinations of teams, you will ALWAYS experience the same cutscenes, said by the same characters, in the same order, every. single. time.
"But gameplay and cutscenes can't be separated, they're one integral thing!"
Well, of course it can, and that is the very intent of the game designers. If they wanted them to be one single thing, they'd have designed the game to display the cutscenes with the characters you selected to play the level. Since they didn't, it's more than clear that the story is meant to be the same for every player.
"But then the story doesn't match the gameplay. How are the Eleventh Doctor and Amy on the cutscene while you're playing with the Tenth Doctor and Martha?"
Simple: because, within the story game, all of these characters are meant to be together travelling in the TARDIS together. It's a massive, long-spanning, Multi-Doctor Event. Think The Day of the Doctor (TV story), multiply it by The Five Doctors (TV story) and elevate it to The Power of the Doctor (TV story) (sorry, sorry, this math pun was just waiting to be made). But seriously, the very narrative of this game is that a massive paradox is threatening to destroy the universe, and only by uniting all of the Doctors and their allies they'll be able to stop the threats. So, if you see 11 on a cutscene and you're playing with 10, it's because the narrative allows for it
And, even if you go back to play a level with 10 before he joins the story: this is the nature of a videogame like this, we can't discount how a video game plays when playing OR covering it!!
The elephant in the room: the game is no longer available to download
Now, I won't be bitter about our choices of the past, but briefly: this is only a problem because we refused to cover this game while it was still available. Still, not all is lost! Remember how I mentioned the DWL Wiki thrived on having the level breakdowns? All of the game's dialogue was transcripted by one of the wiki's most regular users/later-admins, User:Felicityk (well, amongst other people, I suppose, but I remember this was one of the activities she did quite often when new level dropped). Anyway, she and I kept our eyes open to ensure the dialogue was being properly transcribed without typos/vandlism tarnishing it.
This mean that, while the game is not playable, it's still possible to wikify it using a trustable source! This is almost our novelisation/audio releases equivalent for the missing episodes.
