Talk:Dinobots Strike Back

I know it's kinda futile to say "HAY SOMEBODY BESIDES ME SHOULD COME MAKE THIS PAGE", but this and the other multi-path books really need a lot of work. We should really write up every possible path, maybe using discussion offset formatting to distinguish or something. I'd take it on, but man, I still got a ton of G1 episodes to get through. -- Repowers 12:19, 29 November 2009 (EST)

The Cybertronian Alliance web page seems to have gone boom, which limits the number of people who can work on it to those who have the books. No different to most articles of course, but I'm just saying. --abates 14:02, 29 November 2009 (EST)

Actually, all is not lost Abates. Steve-O is hosting Derik's scans of Dinobots Strike Back and scans of Decepticon Poison [1][2], Attack of the Insecticons is at Insecticons.com [3], Earthquake is still at Prime's Watercloset [4] (May not have pictures), an older version of Crazysteve's site has parts of Desert Flight [5], and since I own The Invisibility Factor, I can write it up once I get a chance, and/or make scans for someone else to do it. That leaves Battle Drive, Project Brain Drain and parts of Desert Flight to account for. --Tigerpaw28 21:46, 29 November 2009 (EST)

I've just received this book in the mail, and have every single other multi-path adventure book (including the Transformers Animated ones) on the way. It'll take a little time, but I plan on completing all these articles. --Ascendron (talk) 19:46, 26 June 2014 (EDT)

Synopsis Formatting

I've done up a rough draft for formatting a synopsis section for a multipath adventure using The Invisibility Factor as the book of choice. There are 28 total paths in this particular book. I've plugged in what I've written so far, and framed out the rest of the first main branch. I'm fairly happy with it as is, but I'm open to any suggestions anyone may have about either the format or my writing. There's two things in particular I'm thinking could be tweaked:

1. How many, if any, of the sub-branches should be anchored?

2. Should the headings of the sub-branches be changed from page numbers to the different decisions or maybe Decision A, Decision B, etc?

Am I on the right path or should I come up with something else? --Tigerpaw28 17:54, 13 January 2010 (EST)

Over three years and no responses? Well, here's my sandbox for Dinobots Strike Back.

I tried your draft out Tigerpaw28, and I hate to say it, but I kept getting lost. It was a great first try though. I mean, I seriously NEVER would have even considered trying this if I hadn't seen what you did. I think the problem was dividing it up into branches with new labels. That would make sense with a visual flow chart, but that's probably not happening on this wiki. So my approach was to make use of the actual page numbers to the point of redundancy, starting every chunk by restating what choice and page it came from so readers can find their way back. The only big problem is that two different paths converge on page 10, necessitating going almost back up to the top. It should be possible to rearrange things, if it would actually help. The only order I used was top choice first, then backtrack down.

So anyone reading this, please try both our sandboxes out, and post any feedback on this page! My plan is to post my summary as the synopsis for Dinobots Strike Back in one week, hopefully having any glaring problems pointed out to me by then. I have the next 5 Find Your Fate books in my box set, and they'll follow in the same format soon. These books aren't properly covered anywhere else online that I can find, so the wiki needs to fill this gap, and I'll gladly do the first six. Bumblevivisector 22:21, 1 May 2013 (EDT)

There's one concern I have about the "no copyrighted material" rule. Summarizing some of these chunks meant actually quoting a few sentences word for word in the synopsis, but I didn't really put quote marks around any of them. Should I go back through and do that? Bear in mind that FYF books, more than most TF fiction, are stories that probably produce blurrier memories than most, with sections that fans likely vividly remember but can't quite attribute to any particular story, especially some of the traumatic "bad" endings, so I wanted to preserve some memorable turns of phrase that would likely stick in with you. But that's less than 10 sentences, in this whole summary. Bumblevivisector 14:10, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

The only reason I haven't deleted the old synopsis at the top is I need to mine it for links, but I don't feel up to that right now. Bumblevivisector 14:12, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

Honestly it seems a bit like overkill - when I got my hands on four of the Adventure Game Books I wrote those up with a synopsis of the "main" path and then a list of all the other possible endings. I don't think we really need this level of detail for each step of the way. --Emvee 16:02, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

That's what I was worried about, and any path in this book that doesn't get to Dolphin's Bay seems to be ending before the plot gets going, but declaring one path the "main" one seems too much like fanon or opinion if we have to treat it all as canon. I'll wait on doing the others for a few weeks until I see about trimming this down a bit. Thanks for the feedback! Bumblevivisector 16:12, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

I appreciate what you're trying to do, and don't really have much in the way of constructive suggestions, but I agree that this is just too much. The article basically makes you play the whole book to get through it, and while that would be a great gimmick for a FYF main page, it makes the individual book pages very cumbersome. In the interests of trying to include everything, I suspect you'll find most people reading nothing. -LV 18:26, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

Thing is, are there any sites that properly cover all of these books? Not saying these pages should bend the wiki's rules because of that, but too much is better than nothing, which is all I could find out there last I checked (with a few exceptions). Trimming out extraneous bits, I already reduced its length by a good quarter. I'll study the non-FYF multipath entries and look at revising this in a week or so. I knew I wouldn't get this right on the first try.Bumblevivisector 22:20, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

I was wondering if sticking some anchors in and then having each >>PAGE_NUM>> be a link to the appropriate anchor would help. --abates 22:46, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, Tigerpaw28 suggested that too, but if I tried that anytime soon, it'd be a train wreck (if it isn't already). Those numbers are the one thing I won't mess with in my editing, so if anyone else feels like giving that a shot, no objections from me. But then if I were to use the same numbering system in future summaries, could wires get crossed?Bumblevivisector 23:18, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

It shouldn't affect any other pages. I've put the necessary anchors and links in so that you can read through the synopsis fairly easily without having to hunt for the number you're supposed to go to. Not sure if it helps! --abates 03:21, 3 May 2013 (EDT)

Thanks Abates! I'm starting to think this could really work! I'll try condensing it a bit more in few days, but first I'd better add to the individual character pages while this is still fresh in my mind. That's why there's still so many details about who shot who. Also, should I strike Ravage from the character roster? Optimus worries about him spying for one sentence (now cut from the synopsis), but he never "appears" despite the name drop, and I'm not sure where one draws the line prose stories. Warpath and Thrust are actually there, but likewise just for one sentence each. Bumblevivisector 19:00, 3 May 2013 (EDT)

I'd take him out of the appearances list, but maybe add a note that he's referred to. --abates 19:27, 3 May 2013 (EDT)