Forum:"Introduced in" standard (An Adventurer Feb 2009)

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I think we should make a standard for the "Introduced in" text that is displayed at the top of most pages. I think "Introduced in: [[??]]" used on creatures and possibly other page types should be phased out in favor of the "From the [[??]] quest introduced in the [[??]] event." standard used on items. Like items, if the creature is not from a quest, the first section is deleted and it just states "Introduced in the [[??]] event." Which brings up a request for Tlosk or anyone else that knows about templates: Can we make a template for this, that is able to display either the quest + patch or just the patch? For example: {{Intro|Frore|Sudden Season}} Would display as: From the Frore quest introduced in the Sudden Season event. and {{Intro|N/A|Sudden Season}} Would display as: Introduced in the Sudden Season event. Would that be possible? --An Adventurer 20:20, 1 February 2009 (CST) edit: I forgot about "updated in". Maybe the template would look more like {{Intro | Quest = | Patch = | Update = Patch1, Patch2 }} And perhaps it would be easier to create a template if it was displayed like this: From: [[Quest]]. Introduced in: [[Patch]]. Updated in: [[Patch]], [[Patch]]. --An Adventurer 20:36, 1 February 2009 (CST)

I've gone through a couple iterations while I was working on the Key Template over the weekend. Currently what I'm using is a little awkward but works for everything (noun agreement and modifiers always break on something when used) but it is grammatical. I moved updates to the Notes section so that a description of what was done in the update can also be included. The format is "From {{{Quest}}} introduced in {{{Patch}}}." I will change the format for creatures to do what you suggested. So where the quest field is blank or left out completely it will use Introduced in ... but when a quest is specified, for things like boss creatures that are strongly associated with a particular quest, it will use From .... introduced in .... --Tlosk 06:50, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: Tlosk I like the idea that An Adventurer had, however it might be good to change the formatting a bit, since everything is introduced but not everything has a qu--An Adventurer 12:58, 2 February 2009 (CST)est. For Example: {{Intro|Sudden Season|Frore}} Would display as: From the Frore quest, introduced in the Sudden Season event. And for items with no quest: {{Intro|Sudden Season}} Would display as: Introduced in the Sudden Season event. The other alternative is to ONLY list the introduction at the top, like Introduced in: Sudden Season, and then underneath it, have a comma separated list of related quests like this example of the Empyrean Golem Stone: {{Intro|Rekindling the Light|Crafting Golems, Diemos Flagging}} Would display as Introduced in: Rekindling the Light. Related Quests: Crafting Golems, Diemos Flagging. Any of those options would work, however it would be nice if we had a template that was designed to hold multiple quests. --Atarax 11:37, 2 February 2009 (CST)

I think having each piece of info a separate line like this might actually be a better format. And since it isn't trying to form the information into a sentence, we don't have to worry about the (Quest) at the end of quest names. I think if we go with this, we should still include the "Updated In" section at the top - this is a useful tool for navigation. For example, say you are trying to find a quest, and you know it was added in the patch that Branith's staff was updated. You search branith's staff and right at the top is the patch link you are looking for. --An Adventurer 12:58, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: An Adventurer My only concern is when quests are updated multiple times, which has happened a lot, especially recently with mana forge keys. Its always nice to see what was changed/updated in addition to when it was updated. This is why I propose that it be included in the notes setcion, or somewhere else on the page. If we add it to the top, it would have to be duplicated below if we want to describe what was updated in each patch. Maybe something like this would be useful? {{Updated|Patch Name|Added a [[Mana Forge Key]] to the rewards.}} {{Updated|Patch Name|Increased XP Reward}} Might show up as something like: Updated during Patch Name: Added a Mana Forge Key to the rewards. Updated during Patch Name: Increased XP Reward. Just an idea... Any direction we take is fine by me. --Atarax 13:19, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: Atarax Quest pages don't use the "introduced in" standard. They have intro and update patch info in the summary, with details of updates in the general section. Items and creatures are rarely updated multiple times, and certainly not in any ways that require explanation in notes sections. For example, when an item is updated we don't need to explain what was changed, we will include post- and pre-patch stats on the page, like the Crystal Sword. As for monsters - for the most part, updates to monsters is not worth mentioning. Knowing that a creature had a new trophy added, or got updated stats, isn't really useful information since only the current version of a creature can still exist in the game. The only time I can think of when a creature update would be useful is for big changes to bosses, like the various changes that happened to aerbax. If we do ever feel like including old stats of creatures (I have both the original and AC:DM strategy guides, I have lots of info on old stats), we could simply include them in a fashion similar to old stats of items - list them on the page, below notes. --An Adventurer 13:34, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: An Adventurer Sounds good to me. So it appears the answer is to have multiple lines. Introduced In:, Updated In:, and Related Quests:. Would we ever possibly want to add Related Topics to this? Should it be kept separate? It wouldn't happen very often I would imagine. --Atarax 13:52, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: Atarax, Tlosk I cannot see any instance where we would need to use the related topics template on an item or creature, and only rarely on NPCs. Related topics should be kept its own template, and always be displayed as the first line. For the intro template, I agree. The 3 line method looks like the best solution. As for the template itself. Tlosk has included the intro patch + quest as lines within the creature template and key template. I think that the intro template should be a separate wiki template - one that is placed at the top of Item, Creatuer, and NPC templates. This will make it easier to update if we decide to make changes, because we won't have to change the template code for npcs, creatures, armor, shields, jewelry, melee weapons, keys, and so on. There are a lot of page types that use the "introduced in" line, it would be much better to have it its own template. --An Adventurer 14:05, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: Atarax, An Adventurer I mocked up some options, see what you think: Sandbox Two. --Tlosk 16:54, 2 February 2009 (CST)

To: Tlosk I like 1 and 6 the best, but would change "Quests" to "Related Quests". I think 1 would work best, because most entries are not updated, and only from 1 quest, so with 6 you would have these two little bits of info spread all the way across the page. But with 1 they are closer together. --An Adventurer 17:19, 2 February 2009 (CST)

I added a 7th example to Sandbox Two that combines 1 and 6, the full width box for uniformity and left justification for the text (couldn't figure that out before) and have a more typical text (1 quest and no updates) for comparison. If there's one variable with an arbitrary number of parameters you can have the formatting in the template, but with more than one it isn't practical so the bracketing will need to be done manually the same as is done for trophies with creatures. For example: {{Intro | Patch Introduced = [[Sins of the Fathers]] | Related Quests = [[Hidden Presents]], [[Pets]] | Updated = [[Shifting Tactics]], [[Ancient Enemies]] }} --Tlosk 03:15, 3 February 2009 (CST)

To: Tlosk 7 looks very nice. It has my approval to be the basis for the intro template. --An Adventurer 09:44, 3 February 2009 (CST)

To: Tlosk Yes, I like 7 as well. I actually enjoyed the Icons in #3, but they were too hard to read for someone unfamiliar with what they represent. Lets go with 7 and move on, I assume we could always adjust them in the future if we wanted to. --Atarax 10:21, 3 February 2009 (CST)

To: An Adventurer, Tlosk I'm thinking it may be a good idea to create an extended, large, or vertical version of the intro template fragment for articles that contain a lot of quest references. For example I was looking at the Empowered Armor of Perfect Light Sets article that An Adventurer is working on, and honestly, the intro template does not work well here. There are so many "related" quests, that the top of the page is completely smashed, even on 1024x768. It would look decent for pages like this if the Related Quests portion was on its own line below the Introduced and Updated lines. Any thoughts on this? --Atarax 14:02, 4 February 2009 (CST)

To: Atarax I think that the Empowereed Armor of Perfect Light will be a rare exception. First, it is really two sets combined in one page. Since they were introduced at different patches I had to show that. And three of the quest names and one of the patch names happens to be very long. The intro template is going to be used on creatures, NPCs, and all types of items. For the majority of these entries, there will only be "introduced in" and "related quest" links. A few will have updates, and fewer will have multiple quests. I don't think we need to modify the template to work with these more rare occurrences. I'll just edit the PL armor page with shortened link names, or maybe make a Quiddity Seed Quest disambiguation page similar to the burun kings page. --An Adventurer 14:17, 4 February 2009 (CST)

To: An Adventurer Works for me. /signed --Atarax 14:42, 4 February 2009 (CST)

I hadn't mentioned this, but I also had in the back of my head to have a section either on the template's page itself or on its talk page for a box of nontemplate code, that is all the code you'd use to produce the page without using any templates, this would allow you to manually tweak things for those exception pages where you want to deviate from the template. (Also it would help serve as a reference as the template code is just about unintelligible the first time you look at it.) --Tlosk 16:27, 4 February 2009 (CST)