Unreleased Work Page Cleanup (Speculation, Spoilers, ZCE etc.)

The Character page stuff has already been commented out. YMMV had its first addition done by Storygirl 000 on December 16 and a second one from Celestial Seraph on December 17. Trivia was added by Naijal on December 20, who came back two days later to add more detail

I don't recall any of those tropers being problematic with leaks before; it's just a case where a few people jumped the gun.

Went and commented out all the entries regarding the Scarlet/Violet epilogue DLC.

Skull & Bones has a release date of February 13th, 2024 (for the Premium Edition, at least; the Standard Edition will release three days after that), yet it still has a Vaporware entry. This Troubled Production example could also do with a rewrite since the situation evidently isn't as dire as it was at the time of the article's publishing. At the moment, the example has a defeatist tone that isn't necessary anymore:

• According to a Kotaku expose, almost no progress has been made on the Skull & Bones during its eight years in development. With the core premise of the game changing at least four times and development costs stated to already have hit $120 million, the end is still considered to be nowhere in sight.
  • Development began in 2013, originally as a multiplayer expansion for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag; before it expanded into a full online game. Development is currently headed by Ubisoft Singapore, known for working as a support studio on multiple games, as well as having created the free-to-play shooter Ghost Recon Phantoms.
  • The central reason as to why development has taken so long is that beyond being a multiplayer pirate game with ships, the developers cannot decide what kind of game Skull and Bones is meant to be. Does the player play as an individual pirate captain; or as the entire ship? Is there a large overworld similar to the Assassins Creed games; or does the game use individual sessions? Can the player do missions on land? Are crafting mechanics involved? Fundamental and foundational design like these were constantly being opened, closed and reopened, with no end in sight.
  • Part of this is due to the revolving door of senior developers. Three creative directors have taken the position, and each time a change occurred, the new managers would try and change and shift the design in their own manner.
  • Conditions at Ubisoft Singapore were also described as being poor, with management often described as being surrounded by yes-men who refused to listen to developer feedback and try to sell the Paris headquarters a vision of the game that was impractical. Many developers grew fed up with the dysfunction and lack of progress; jumping ship for better paying jobs elsewhere.
  • In normal circumstances, the game would have been cancelled outright long ago. However, Ubisoft has a special arrangement with the Singaporean Government in which the studio would have significant tax credits in the country, so long as original IP games are being made there. In effect, Skull and Bones is too big to fail.

As usual for the franchise, WMG.Doctor Who Series 14 appears to contain unmarked leaks for future episodes.

The no-leaks rule still applies to WMG, correct?

It does, and I've already added a comment saying that to the page. I think any examples can get an 'ignored comment' notifier if they're newer than that, too.

So regarding the page for Ultimate Spider-Man (2024). Any further troping will have to be put on hold until the first issue officially drops, right?

Like, we should hold off on even adding a caption for the page's image? Or adding "Peter Parker, you are not getting any younger." is fine because that was on the preview?

As long as we can cite a source, we can keep troping. But it's out in some parts of the world in just over 12 hours, so I can't see it becoming a major issue...

I'm already seeing reaction vids on Twitter calling it peak (not surprised), but I guess I can wait a little longer.

So this was added to Film.Abigail 2024:

I known they mentioned the Dracula’s Daughter thing, but I dunno if it’s part of the Dark Universe, or if it’s even a thing anymore. I’m not even sure that should be a spoiler.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Jan 12th 2024 at 8:28:46 AM

As far as I'm aware, that's very, very wrong. Only The Mummy was ever explicitly part of the Dark Universe. Dracula Untold was originally supposed to be but they backpedaled on that when it wasn't successful enough. The Dark Universe was shelved after The Mummy flopped; while Invisible Man and maybe Renfield may have behind-the-scenes ties to movies that were originally planned to be part of the dark universe, the movies we actually got weren't. There's a lot of weird speculation out there, but no reason to assume a movie is part of a shared universe unless there's actually evidence to say so, and there's none here.

Going back to the "What counts as a release?" question, my understanding is that:

• A release in any country counts as a release. If the UK gets it a month before the US, that's a release. If Nauru gets it a week before the rest of the world, that's still a release.

I believe that's settled policy - TVT is an international site and we don't prioritise any particular market for the work.

• If it's only released to an invited audience, or in some other context that means the general public has no opportunity to access the work yet (e.g. Cannes Film Festival showings or other premieres), I don't believe that counts as a release.
• If it's possible for anyone to to pay extra or pre-order for early access (as with many video games), I think that does count as a release.
• If there is 'early access' but only for Kickstarter or equivalent backers, as part of some sort of funding campaign, and it's not yet possible for anyone who's not part of that campaign to purchase it... I don't think that's a release, at least not in our terms.

That last point is because if you miss the Kickstarter, there's no way to get access later — and because the gap between a 'first look' for backers and a general sale (if it ever goes on sale) can be months or years.

Some of the same issues may apply to an early access game - I think we've had a few that were withdrawn after users found issues? - but most early access is days or weeks, and general release date is usually annoujced by then, so we have a lot more confidence that it will get released in that scenario.

Does that sound reasonable? The hope is that we can get a formal consensus on these via Crowner, then update the Administrivia page.

Re: Unreleased Works

Is it okay if I move the Star Wars (The Living Force and The Glass Abyss) and Star Trek (Picard - Firewall and Pliable Truths) novels listed on the third folder to the first folder? I've searched all four novels up and we have some sufficiently published material, cover art included, and some details about their plots.

Also on the Literature section, The Spider Queen was apparently supposed to be released in 2023, but not only did that obviously not happen, I couldn't find ANY information (cover art, the writer/publisher, if it's a part of another franchise or not) about the book in on itself, to the point that I thought it was an Unpublished Work.

The first two episodes of Hazbin Hotel are available early by payment, but I'm assuming that we're waiting for the public release (on the 19th) for this one.

If anyone can get it now for $6.99, I'm inclined to say that counts as a release.

The fact it'll be free on Prime later doesn't change that.

Edit: That seems to be a wider consensus in the mod team, too. Once you can simply buy it, it's released.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jan 15th 2024 at 6:43:55 PM

Bumping. ^note Sorry, I was supposed to leave it in draft but I ended up posting it instead.

Edit: Forgot to add the third arrow...

Edited by ToonAbby on Jan 15th 2024 at 6:04:56 AM

Judging from a quick look, all seem fine. Go ahead.

Okay. Also a quick update on Spider Queen: Turns out, the book IS an actual thing, released on June 1, 2023, written by Austin McConnell and Elizabeth McIvor, and is a self-contained story. I guess we should keep the sandbox up to date, since there have been a lot of works listed here that have been released already but were not removed/moved from the third folder after their dates have passed.

Okay.

Edited by ToonAbby on Jan 16th 2024 at 7:00:39 AM

Put a draft of the "what counts as a release?" write-up on the Outdated Administrivia pages thread. If everyone's comfortable with this, we can put it straight onto the page, as I think it's all been stated as policy before.

Alternatively, we can always run a crowner to formalise it?

The elements that had a clear consensus have been added to the page, the last couple can be taken to Crowner.

One new point that was flagged - releases don't have to be English, which sometimes causes confusion.

Any concerns about adding this to the bullets on the page:

• This is an English-language wiki, but it covers works in many languages. We don't have to wait for an official (or fan) translation if a work isn't initially released in English — it still counts as a release.

I'm fine with that, I would also ask for a transcript / quote / timestamp of the relevant dialogue / text so people know what to translate and search for so we can easily fact check.

Good timing! I was gonna ask how troping fan translations would work, but if non-English releases are fine, then I can just quote the source!

Revisiting the Administrivia proposals. This is my second attempt to lay out some principles for Kickstarter and similar limited-group backing:

If a game ran a funding campaign in early 2022 and a beta or finished version is made available to backers in Jan 2024, ahead of a full launch in April 2024:

• If the only people who can access it in January 2024 are those original 2022 backers, that's not a release.
• If it's available to the 2022 backers in January 2024 and anyone who didn't sign up in 2022 can still pay later to get it ahead of the official release date, that's just a variation on Early Access, so it is a release.

Edit: rephrased a little

Edited by Mrph1 on Feb 3rd 2024 at 4:26:10 PM

I don't think there's enough tropable material released for Sonic The Hedgehog 3. All that we got is a title/logo reveal and a release date.

I mean it objectively doesn't have enough tropable material because it doesn't have 3 tropes, so it can't stay.

Edited by Amonimus on Feb 2nd 2024 at 2:33:07 PM