Talk:Password (video games)

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Starting

I kind of just threw something out there as a starting point. I don't know if this is what everyone who voted it as the WP:GCOTW had in mind or not. K1Bond007 17:49, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Looks good enough to me...by the way, this is the first time I've helped in a collaboration, please let me know if I do something wrong. :) ADeveria 18:24, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure you'll do fine, ADeveria. Welcome to the group! :) --pie4all88 21:03, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good job to start, already made a significant push in the article. There's still a lot to add, but can't pin-point what, precisely. Titus Interactive passwords, list of notable games that did not used any save at all and clean-up my edit a bit are the ones that pop to mind --^wS 21:10, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It wouldnt hurt to mention e-Reader --Zarutian 04:25, 28. april 2005 (UTC)

Password as part of save - Yura87 (talk) 06:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Peter Molyneux's "Populous" (1 and 2) had save files made up of portrait parts statement, name and a password. Though both passwords and full saves existed beforehand, those games sort of merged the two.

Requested move 23 March 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 18:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Password (video gaming) → Password save – Per WP:NATURAL, this name also makes sense and supplants the need for disambiguation. Was page's original title before it was moved 10 odd years ago. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 06:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom and WP:NATURAL. Paintspot Infez (talk) 21:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom Red Slash 23:11, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, as there is probably a reason why it was renamed years ago. The concept was a predecessor to the contemporary game save feature, but strictly speaking it wasn't actually a "save" as such, as no gamestate was stored. In addition, the proposed title gives no mention to the fact this is very specific to video gaming (passwords can be "saved" in an entirely different way outside VG). I don't see any benefit to rename, but can see ambiguity caused as a result. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:30, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- You will notice that it's called "password save" rather than "saved password", so the grammar of the title makes it clear that the password itself is a save. I believe that it could be classified as a save, as it records the player's progress in the game. There is much more ambiguity with the current title, which may refer to ingame passwords or copy protection passwords rather than the ones that let you save your game._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 23:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I just think that to "save" is the act of sending/storing variable data, whereas the article is not about this concept. It's more about "skipping" to a certain point in a game based on a pre-defined, hard-coded state that is static no matter when it is loaded. Thus, nothing is truely being saved, as it's more about retrieval. You may think that's pedantic, but the title has to be relevant afterall. The title Password restore would be more relevant to the article's purpose for instance, but that is also potentially too generic. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:25, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bungle: I think you're mistaken. In many simpler games, what you say is true: each password statically corresponds to one level or savepoint in the game. But there are also games where passwords are dynamically generated and encode lots of game-state information and a checksum, for example in Metroid "The remaining 116 bits are used to store data about the game. This data includes how many missiles Samus is carrying, what equipment Samus has in her inventory (Long Beam, Maru Mari, etc), which missile containers Samus has picked up, which energy tanks Samus has collected, how long the game has been played, which red and yellow doors have been opened [...]". More examples here: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/104566

These can legitimately be called "game saves". I think the simpler case where each savepoint has a static password is simply a subset of that -- the information to be encoded is just one variable: the savepoint number.

I also agree with Zxcvbnm that when I read the current title "Password (video gaming)", the first thing that pops into my mind is the password for some online gaming account. While "password save" is not a perfect title, I think it's better than the current one. -- intgr [talk] 16:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by my view that having "save" in the title, when there are instances when nothing is being saved, makes less sense than the current title. You also concede intgr that the proposed title is "not a perfect title", which supposedly is also true for the current one (based on the presence of this discussion), so I personally see no point with a rename when it'd wouldn't be wholly true to the article's purpose or serve to satisfy all scenerios. Why not Game password or Game passcode or Password in gaming or Gaming passcode etc? All fairly generic, whilst relating to video gaming without being specific to a certain scenerio/type. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:26, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose original proposal per Bungle. Moreover, no matter how "natural" or commonly used it is, "password save" can look ambiguous. Per WP:COMMONNAMES, ambiguous names are to be avoided, regardless of the title's commonality. No opinion on which other title is suitable for this topic. --George Ho (talk) 09:32, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.