Weapons

So, recently the subject of weapons in Star Wars: The Old Republic has come up, and whether or not we should continue to allow articles on them.

Now, the original idea was to only give articles to weapons that had a unique alphanumerical designation, such as E-80 sniper rifle or A-201 Rancor-X Saboteur. However, I've come to notice something&mdash;these so-called "unique" weapons are not unique at all. The weapons in TOR use a set number of game models that are repeated by various weapons, with little or no changes to the color schemes, and the only palpable differences are gameplay ones&mdash;i.e. different stats and levels. For example, compare the B-200 Pulse-Wave Needler with the C-30 Renegade Blaster, the DC-17 blaster pistol with the C-20 Projection Blaster, and the X-215 Marksman Disruptor with the D-203 micro-pulse blaster.

Some weapons, in fact, have the same name but look radically different: here's two different versions of the E-80 sniper rifle (click on the View in 3D button). In addition, you can see on the second linked page that even the numerically-designated weapons are subject to the random modifiers, where the name of a random company is applied at the front of the article in order to add variety. Even the use of "pulse-wave", "sonic", "disruptor", and other established weapon terms in these names is window-dressing; none of the weapons do anything different than the others. The so-called "sonic pistols" and "sonic shriekers" fire blaster bolts that can changed with a color crystal, not a sonic blast like actual sonic pistols are supposed to do.

So, what I am suggesting is that we cease to cover usable weapons from TOR, disregarding those weapons that are referenced or appear in the plot, like the ALT-25 (from the Smuggler companion storyline) or R-6000 blaster rifle (from the Czerka Flashpoints). This only refers to the usable weapons that one can purchase or otherwise acquire and equip to their characters. The complete list of such non-notable weapons can be found here.

Now, before some of you bring up that we have articles on the items from Knights of the Old Republic and Galaxies, I'd like to point out that those items had descriptions that more often than not expanded on the weapon's history or provided additional canon content. TOR, by its nature as a large-scale MMO, requires cannon fodder in both its enemies and other aspects of the game where the developers don't have time to generate the more in-depth content that KOTOR had in its weapons. An examination of the Galaxies weapons is likely in order, but that's a discussion for another time.

Vote 1
This first vote is on the subject of our coverage of these game-mechanics weapons and whether or not articles on them should be allowed. Vote support if you agree that we should not have articles on these weapons, and oppose if you feel otherwise.

Vote 2
This second vote is a matter of convenience, and is dependent on the first vote's passing. As there are 655 weapon articles currently on the site, and they're all equally due for deletion under the proposed policy, I propose the permission of a mass TC so that we don't have to sit through 66 smaller TCs covering 10 at a time or however it would be broken up.