Talk:BZFlag

Point Blank

The PointBlank manpage states that PointBlank is the successor to BZ (Presumed BZFlag):

DESCRIPTION
    Pointblank is the successor to BZ(6D). It is a combat game allowing users
    to play against several players in a networked environment.  Much of the
    game play characteristics of BZ(6D) have been preserved while adding new
    elements of game play such as three-dimensional terrain, buildings, and
    flying vehicles.

Anyone know what happened to this game?

The page you link to and quote has a link to "BZ(6D)". I had never heard BZFlag reffered to in this way and followed the link. Clearly they talk about a different game which, while similar, is certainly not the BZFlag that this page is about. - CBG 18:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

BZ is not bzflag, but another similar unrelated 3d tank game for the SGI, called simply "BZ" by Chris Fouts. = Jeff Myers 22:10, 9 April 2007 (PST)

League Section

I totally rewrote the League section as I felt the existing information was very out of date and misleading. I did however have a problem in making a link read "[phagozytose]", the < nowiki > and < pre > tags did not help so for now I have just dropped the [] brackets from the team name. Please fix this if you know how. CBG 23:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, It's interesting to see that Lan56 edited the section. He removed links to two leagues because they are "too new" even though they were both created before the OpenLeague that he did not remove. It's also interesting that he says this is not a place to "advertise" the leagues? In that case, why is there a league section at all? Surely ALL the links in the section should be removed, at the very least. I find it odd that we can advertise 4 leagues, but not two others, when there is nothing obvious that is different about those two, compared to the 4 that were not removed. I have reverted back to the previous version because whatever Lan56 says about those leagues, they are leagues, so why can't they be listed? </rant> - CBG 13:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Originally, the 5 leagues that were listed (as of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=BZFlag&oldid=56131725) were placed with the idea to not make the section complex and filled with specific names of leagues, but to provide a small handful of examples just to give the uneducated reader a feel for what is around. Because the teams that were originally listed had been around virtually since BZFlag transferred to SF.net (save HoW), which was a landmark move into its current modern era, or shortly after. Therefore, I had felt that they were good examples for their historical significance. Perhaps other teams had been around a lot longer than even the oldest listed, such as TLZ. In that case, a correction could have been made. However, it has now turned into a hierarchy and more advanced list of leagues, all of different social, historical, and statistical diversity. Frankly, I feel it has gotten out of hand. I eliminated the two bottoms one because they were captioned, "Some other leagues you might want to look into are:", which provides no real explanation as to why they are significant enough to remain on the page, and are rather out of place. In general, what I am trying to say is that it has turned into more of a detailed list of teams rather than a small handful of examples to give an uneducated reader a feel for what exists, which is what it was originally. Therefore, I don't see the educational value and the maintaining of a NPOV by adding even more teams and making it a complex list, like what has happened. You say that "Surely ALL the links in the section should be removed, at the very least," I feel this would be best at this point to avoid any disagreement on what deserves mentioning and what doesn't. A section without names and examples sounds like a good deal to keep debates like this from happening. --Lan56 23:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My comment on removing all the links was totally sarcastic. What on earth is the point of a League section that says "BZFlag has some leagues where players join teams and match." ? That's just stupid, as far as I can see.

In the old link you provided, there were 5 teams of the original ducat league mentioned. I felt that the GU and Open leagues deserved the same treatment as they are far more active than ducati at the moment. Pillbox is pretty much the same as Ducati in the terms of activity, so they deserve it too. The other two leageus are up and running, but not as active as the others. Surely they deserve a link at least, since they are BZFlag Leagues. Why should they not be included? Besides, surely the more inactive leagues need the link more than the others? - CBG 21:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You are correct, a nameless section is a bit stupid and doesn't provide much educational value through the use of examples. I had mentioned it only as "quick fix" sort of because I thought you had meant it seriously.

Mentioning the leagues you mentioned for the reasons you said above (i.e., Pillbox because it is equal in activity as Ducati, GU and Open Leagues because they are more active) sounds good to me. However, I feel the problem comes in when specific teams are mentioned. Because competition can get understandably highly heated between teams, in or out of a league, rather than the league itself, I felt that mentioning specific teams, not all having anything legendary or of significant value is an endorsement of the team, leading to the question that can be asked, especially by members of a certain team, "How come team XXX was mentioned and mine wasn't? XXX hasn't done anything absolutely remarkable." I feel perhaps mentioning only the leagues and no teams is a good compromise.

You said that the two leagues I had deleted should remain because despite them being of less activity than the others mentioned, and "since they are BZFlag Leagues". However, that is the very reason I had felt it reasonable to delete them in the first place. Your comment how "surely the more inactive leagues need the link more than the others?" isn't valid. Being of less notability isn't more deservant of being an example to the uneducated reader. In fact, it is less. Needing the link and deserving the link aren't the same. George W. Bush needs some help in his approval ratings, but that isn't a valid reason to gain mentioning in many places.

All in all, I feel keeping the league names as they are now, save the bottom two, but removing the specific team names is a good solution. It provides quality examples of the popular leagues, without the selectivity and therefore competition of naming specific teams and excluding others, which can bring in POVs. --Lan56 03:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

There were teams listed already, I am just carrying that 'tradition' on and into new, more-active leagues.

Also, you say that the two bottom leagues don't deserve to be mentioned because they are not active enough. I argue that they are still leagues, they are active, no matter how active or inactive they are. I don't see that I should discriminate against those leagues. This is the LEAGUE section, they are LEAGUES. They don't "need" links - but neither do any of the other leagues or the teams. Should we remove all the links and just have a totally boring section saying "There are some leagues, but you will have to fund them yourself. Har har har."?

I just don't see the issue, it's one extra line to the section. It is relevant, it is accurate. - CBG 10:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

But it isn't a league section dedicated to listing leagues and teams. t is rather for explaining the concept of leagues to give an understanding of the game and its community. Also, while there were teams listed before your edits, those teams had historical and/or legendary significance and were good examples of the league and team idea to the uneducated reader. Therefore, to list one team, such as "Teh Pwners," is capable of reasonably asking "How come team XXX wasn't listed?", as I have stated above in previous posts. It can create competition to be listed on the page, since there apparently is no discrimination with the current list, and provide no distinction between good and bad examples. However, again, as I have said, since the leagues, rather than the teams contained inside each league, generally lack competition and are fewer in number, I feel to keep good examples in the section without the threat of competition and POV, keeping league names without mentioning team names would be best. --Lan56 00:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

People can read about "leagues" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League - no?

As for the 'significance' of the teams listed before, I didn't see it. It seemed to be a random list to me. Whatever the significance was of those teams, they were not mentioned at all, so whether or not they were significant is irrelevant as it was not stated for any team. Therefore, listing teams as they are now, is no different to the previous rendition of the section. - CBG 01:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The previously listed teams certainly were not random. TLZ has been around since 2002-06-03 [1], The Moles since 2002-05-28 [2], Fortix since June 2003 [3], Vitamin BZ since 2002-09-16 [4], and HoW since 2002-12-21 [5]. Perhaps even then it was flawed, with other teams more older or of higher ranks that weren't listed, but it still had discrimination of listing only a handful of examples, rather than a complex list, which were of historical notability. It has only become worse now with a more complex list of teams, with not all of them being of any notable status. Like I have said, currently there is no discrimination as to the list of teams on the page, and you don't favor adding any discrimination as to what can be listed. Overall, it isn't the place to list each and every team, so no picking and choosing can lead to an unlimited list and, again, a new battle between teams to get listed.

The Wikipedia guidelines for lists state to list entries that have qualifications that can be verified (which both the current and old revisions do), be of clear, neutral, and unambiguous criteria, and to lack value judgements and opinions [6]. The original list of the 5 teams stated the well discriminating qualifications of the list (it stated they were of a famous nature, which they were having been around for many years and having well known status) to achieve only the most noteworthy examples, and therefore lacked POV, and therefore was protected from being an "all-inclusive" list. Currently, there is no requirement to be of notable status, as any team/league can be listed, and it can lead to POV or eventually an extremely long list. For example, take the two bottom teams under the heading "Some other leagues you might want to look into are." What is the need to list even more leagues in addition to the list above those two? At least the list shows organization, showcasing the hierarchy BZFlag teams are organized by. Those two are placed randomly and of no unusual notability. Perhaps we should exclude lists entirely and avoid examples of any kind but leave the explanation of the concept of players creating leagues/teams, but without the names. It can settle any disputes as to what is good to list and what is not, such as this one. --Lan56 03:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S: It is already happening that more teams are being added to the list for no added educational value and with no reason other than an advertisement: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=BZFlag&diff=60843917&oldid=58702878 --Lan56 05:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Me again... Taking out team names and such is fine... I'm giving up arguing over that. However, I fell pretty strongly about the existing list of leagues. Is there a reason why some are listed and some are not? Is this not what you were trying to avoid with the team names? Certainly seems highly hypocritical to me... CBG 01:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I had left the leagues there because I felt that leagues are significantly less competitive than individual teams, therefore competition to be listed would be nearly non-existant. However, if this isn't the case, then it oughta be removed as well. --Lan56 03:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think listing the leagues is fine, but only if ALL are listed... - CBG 22:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Screenshots and quality

The screenshot in the article seems to be the low quality version of the game. Perhaps someone should state that it is ...the low quality version to avoid confusion with the high-quality version. Squash 02:10, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• • I added the quality bit. Thanks for the tip! --Lan56 02:50, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Languages

Hi, i started to translate this article to german, replacing the very short article. WTH are the languages "Leet" and "Redneck"?

Ezhik

Reply: They are both humorous language entries. see Leet and Redneck.

I see that there are many dates or word like "December" that are linked. Is it normal? (Could it be a bot or something like that?)
(besides, i am translating this nice article to french) --Jean-Louis Grall 21:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Plugins

I was reading the article and noticed that there was no mention whatsoever of the plugins for BZFlag. I was just wondering if anyone could write a section about them. (I don't know very much about them myself) Mrpizzaj 02:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

AI

The AI section needs a total rewrite. ~-F.S-~(Talk,Contribs,Online?) 13:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Rewriting

I've taken out large chunks of the text; some of it because of the video game article guidelines (WP:VG/GL), some of it due to a lack of reliable, third-party sources (WP:V). Currently, the article has no such sources and doesn't appear to meet the notability guidelines, so any expansion would be helpful. Marasmusine (talk) 10:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Removing the list of good and bad flags has made the article much less useful. Fortunately I was able to find the list by looking through the page history. just-emery (talk) 01:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Status as of 2015?

Reading this article, I cannot tell if as of 2015 there are still servers that allow multiplayer play, or whether the game is usable as a standalone if there are no severs. Are the servers open-soucre, so that anyone can set one up? --Dalek Supreme X (talk) 17:21, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Restoration to featured article

I'm looking for a collaboration to improve this article back to featured status.

A good amount of this article is outdated and needs to be brought up to date. Some of the screenshots need replacement due to age and improvements in graphics. If anyone is interested in a collaboration to improve this article back to good article or featured article standards please leave a reply here or on my talk page.

FockeWulf FW 190 (talk) 16:54, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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