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Marioface5

Automatically adding links to How Long To Beat using the infobox.

How Long to Beat  

9 members have voted

  1. 1. Should "How Long to Beat" links be added to the PCGamingWiki infobox? This process would be automated by the Steam AppID system we already have in place.

    • Yes
      4
    • No
      5


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After seeing me manually add links to How Long To Beat for various games in their "General Information" sections, Nicereddy messaged me suggesting that adding the links could be automated using the infobox since each page has a SteamID attached according to him. I don't know anything about doing that, so as he also suggested I'm making this thread for it.

How Long To Beat is a website where people can submit their completion times for games, and includes multiple levels of completion for each game, such as "Main Story", "Main Story + Extras", and "Completionists". The averages are then used to determine how long each level of completion should take, and other information is also available such as how many people have been polled for each level of completion and the median, fastest, and longest times for each level of completion. This information is also given for all playstyles put together. This is a particularly useful site when handling a backlog, and I think that links to these pages would be good to have on PC Gaming Wiki. If someone knows how to automate this and would be willing to do so, I would greatly appreciate it. If not, or if it turns out that for some reason it can't be automated, then I will go back to adding the links manually. Thank you for any help!

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I can't really see a downside to doing this, as many people may find this a useful resource. It doesn't include reviews, just play times, so it's fairly unbiased. The Steam Enhancement extension links to How Long to Beat pages, so I believe there is already a system in place for each page having a SteamID.

 

If anyone has experience with how we've hooked-in other services through SteamIDs, it'd be appreciated if you could take a look at how this works. I believe that would either be up to Soeb or Garrett, as I'm not experienced with this kind of thing.

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While this seems like a great resource I fail to see the relevance or benefit of including it. The wiki's primary goal is focusing on fixes, this completely goes against that and just includes an arbitrary number relating to how long a game takes to complete, not to mention it's also for all platforms so isn't directly relevant. This doesn't help someone fix or improve their game and doesn't really provide anything useful in the long run - it's personally something I would never use, even though it does seem useful in it's concept I just don't believe it's all too relevant.

 

General information is clogged enough, and this isn't actually relevant to the game itself. The only thing that should be included in general information is resources that would aid a user in some way such as a forum as listed in the sample article or wiki - not a completion time statistics website. Regarding it being included in the infobox, I'm not totally against that despite what I previously said about it's relevance as some people may find it useful and it's something we can easily cater for. Just as long as it doesn't get out of hand or begin to get clogged by other similar websites that seem relevant but are limited in scope I won't have an issue with it. I will however strongly be against clogging up general information.

 

This should be decided with a vote. Please refrain from adding any more links in general information until a verdict has been reached as I may at some point roll them back regardless of the outcome due to what I previously said about it being clogged enough without adding this on top of it as a supposed, unofficial standard.

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I agree that we shouldn't add it to the general information section, that should be reserved for more relevant resources. I'm not sure if this would be a slippery slope thing that would cause more sites in the infobox than necessary, but we should be aware of the potential for that to happen and avoid it. If, in the future, we find that we're running out of space for whatever reason it'd be easy enough to simply remove this feature from the infoboxes.

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It's true that this doesn't relate to fixing games, and like you said that's the primary goal of the wiki so I guess the links really shouldn't be there. I had thought that expanding the scope of the wiki to include more information would be a good thing, but it is true that doing so could easily lead to it being clogged with unnecessary or unwanted information. I do think that How Long To Beat is a very useful resource, especially to PC gamers since we're known to end up having rather extensive backlogs, but of course being useful and being relevant are entirely different things. If the decision is ever made to broaden the scope of PC Gaming Wiki then I think that How Long To Beat would be a good thing to add, but as long as the focus is on fixing games then I would rather help with that than add information that doesn't belong.

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HLTB is useful site, but I wouldn't put it into General information. But i wouldn't mind another small icon in the infobox, better yet if it can be generated automatically from Steam appID and therefore disabled at anytime.

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It is pointless to link HLTB to PCGW pages because HLTB does nothing to enhance the experience of a PC game. If we're going to start linking to HLTB we might as well start linking to reviews. What makes a game good isn't its longevity but how much are you going to enjoy the experience. If, say, you look at the Dragon Age: Origins page of HLTB you'll see it's actually a relatively long game. But what if you don't enjoy the game? You just wasted your money on 80h of boring. Then, you look at a page of Hotline Miami and you'll see it's a pretty short game. So, you don't buy it, but what if you would actually like it and you are missing out? Basically, we shouldn't dictate games on how long they are, but on how much we enjoy them. Now, don't get me wrong, I think HLTB is a pretty good idea for a website to see how long games are in average, but I don't think it should be linked on PCGW, because it doesn't contain fixes or anything to enhance the experience, it just tells us how long it might be, and that is not what PCGW is for.

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It is pointless to link HLTB to PCGW pages because HLTB does nothing to enhance the experience of a PC game. If we're going to start linking to HLTB we might as well start linking to reviews. What makes a game good isn't its longevity but how much are you going to enjoy the experience. If, say, you look at the Dragon Age: Origins page of HLTB you'll see it's actually a relatively long game. But what if you don't enjoy the game? You just wasted your money on 80h of boring.

21h 20min of boring - Yup, I almost forgot I had an account in there, as well.

 

Either way, I think HLTB is actually a good idea. Sometimes, I look at these shooters and games on sales and I think - it would be cool to play something new, but I just don't happen to have much time or... it's holidays and I have plenty of time, so I'm looking for a long experience. HLTB provides a decent information on how much time it's required to beat a game... without it being depended on - what some consider - biased critics. It definitely doesn't deserve a spot in Key Points, but a small icon in Infobox? Sure, why not.

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I've added a poll to the topic, since there's some amount of division between users currently. Please vote if you haven't. If you have no opinion, it would be preferable that you refrain from voting.

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I vote no, because it has no relation to getting a game to run.

 

If we wanna keep around a page somewhere on the wiki of cool sites then I could see it having a place there, but it in no way aids in getting a game to run, or run better.

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"No" is currently (and has consistently been) winning and it looks like, even if it's a tie, it'd be a close one. I don't want to create a division amongst the community, so I think we'll give up on this feature at the moment.

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[Automated] This discussion has concluded and a verdict has been reached. If this is not the case and there are still matters left undiscussed please contact a member of staff to get the topic reinstated.

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