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September 2009

Returning Players

With the upcoming 10th anniversary patch we will be seeing a lot of returning players. So I'd like to initiate a review of the pages most likely to be of use to these players and beef them up to be as complete as possible. I've listed below as many as I can think of (add any others you can think of to the list, and over the next few weeks if you have some free time take a look at a few to see what you can add. --Tlosk 00:07, 6 September 2009 (UTC) New Player Guide Returning Player Guide Plugins Story Arcs XP Quests (Also you can go to Special:MultiCategorySearch and search for Quest and Stub to find quests that need filling out. Leveling Guide Housing Kit Armor Weapons Mana Forge

I started a topic already for the leveling guide, you can see it at Forum#Leveling Guides, which links to Talk:Leveling Guide. Story arcs I can probably handle. The only issue there is that for each patch I have to look over all the quests, the TC rumors, and read the internet lore to make a good summary. And this takes some time. I've saved a bit of time by archiving A Brief History for Travelers, but this is not a permanent solution. I want to beef up some of the main lore areas like the cultural pages. I've started this with Yalain, Falatacot, and Sho. I also want to redesign the List of Texts page with a cleaner look and if possible, its own wiki table template like the ones for vendors and such. I've started work on this on User:An Adventurer/Sandbox 4.

Wiki Relocation

Unfortunately continued growth and bandwidth/overhead demands are requiring we move to a new host again. Most of the larger gaming wikis have faced this same transition point in their history where the costs to operate become prohibitive and they have moved to the professional wiki hosting site Wikia.com. Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, Chairman Emeritus and Advisory Board chair respectively of the Wikimedia Foundation which is responsible for both Wikipedia and Mediawiki (the wiki software that we use to run this site). I will try to list as openly as I can the pros and cons of this move below and we will only reach a final decision once everyone has had an opportunity to weigh in, this wiki was made by players of Asheron's Call for the benefit of other players and our primary goal is to ensure the long term availability of the hard work and countless hours of the many contributors. We recognize that the wiki's popularity rests firmly on how useful and broad the wiki has become because of their work. valign=top Pros Cons Hosting would be provided free, meaning the longterm viability of the wiki would no longer be dependent on forces we may not be able to control. Time spent contributing to the wiki would not be in danger of being lost or unavailable. Editorial control will remain with us, we will continue to decide what the wiki will be and what it won't be. We would share the same host as the largest wikis for games like World of Warcraft, Guildwars, Diablo, Everquest II, Final Fantasy and nongame wikis like Lostpedia, Wookieepedia and others. Mediawiki software upgrades, weekly backups, outages, etc are all handled by a full time team of engineers employed by Wikia and we would no longer be dependent on one or two people that aren't always available. Wikia will not own the content, it will remain under the Creative Commons open license which means people are free to use submitted data on their own sites or build upon it as they see fit. Unlike other corporately owned fansites (as well as all private sites that I have personally contacted in the past) that severely restrict how information on their sites can be used, the wiki ethos is to make information as widely and as conveniently available as possible. Towards this end Wikia makes weekly data dumps that contain all the wiki's pages. This dump is readily downloadable. This was a goal we have always had ourselves but due to the complexity of remote administration and the size of the dumps it hasn't been practical for us to do. This also protects the data by allowing multiple copies across many people and locations, rather than in just one or two places as is now the case. Wikia engineers have created lots of widgets and templates that can be used to improve the site so players can focus on game content instead of spending that time on wiki plumbing. A lack of advertising is a common complaint by players that wish Turbine could devote more resources to game exposure. Because of our size we will benefit from visibility on Wikia which will mean Asheron's Call will gain visibility, which hopefully might get some players to return that otherwise wouldn't have. While Wikia will have ads, because of the increased costs of running the wiki ads would almost certainly be required going forward no matter what we do. However there would be no guarantee they would cover our costs and we would also require players to take time to administrate this. Wikia on the other hand would handle all aspects of this on our behalf. While the style/layout of the wiki as it currently exists can be maintained by adjusting personal preferences (using the monobook skin), it will not be the default skin. Users that do not change their skin preference or users that are not logged in will see pages that differ in appearance. Usernames are wikia wide, not just specific to our wiki, as a result there is the possibility some users won't be able to use the exact same name after the move. Ads will appear on most pages (the number of ads are reduced when logged in and on pages other than the main page). We will not have direct control over what ads appear, though there is a mechanism to report inappropriate ads. Players will not be the final arbiter of what material remains on the wiki. Wikia reserves the right to remove information for any reason. However the history of the other large gaming wikis shows that this has little to no real world impact. Wikia is a for profit entity, which means that if ad revenue is greater than the costs to host the wiki, those profits go to Wikia shareholders. Many popular services operate in the same way, like Google Search, Gmail, IGN, Warcry CoD, Hulu, Broadcast Television and Radio, etc. The ads allow the companies to offer services for free to the endusers. With the move to Wikia there is the potential for a fork (the creation of another wiki using the same base material but with each wiki then taking their own path with their own set of contributors). Technically this is possible already, however the potential increases if there are people that are unhappy with the move. We would like to allow time for any of our contributors or readers who might have concerns to be able to voice them now so they can be addressed to their satisfaction before a move is made. --Tlosk 23:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

We've been very fortunate to have our current free hosting (Thanks Mav!), but I don't think we're going to find a better solution than Wikia. Wikia provides exactly what we need, and since they host other gaming wikis with much larger communities, we shouldn't have to worry about capacity. I understand that advertising is necessary, but blinking, flashing, animated advertisements are so distracting that I either block them, or don't visit those sites anymore. I see there is one such ad on the main page of the lotro wiki, though the other four ads aren't a problem. It's reassuring that they do make site content available for download -- so much effort has been put into the wiki already that I'd hate to see it lost. I already have an account at Wikia. If we moved there, can my ACC Wiki account/username/contributions be merged/associated with my existing Wikia account? By the way, it might be worth starting a thread on the Turbine forums, to hear what people there think. --Widgeon 09:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If there are two accounts with the same name, then email addresses are compared. If they match, that name is set as one account. If there are two accounts and the email addresses don't match, then a prefix would be added to the new (merging) account. If you have accounts of the same name on ACCWiki and on Wikia, make sure your email address is the same on both accounts. To do this, go to your preferences page, make sure the "email" field is correct, and authenticate your email by clicking the link in the email sent to you. If you have accounts of different names on ACCWiki and Wikia, and you would like them merged, there will be a talk page where you can request they be merged into a single account. (If the emails don't match and someone ends up with a prefixed name, it will be possible to merge them after the fact after verifying both accounts belong to the same person, or a name change to a nonprefixed, unique name if desired if you don't own the wikia account of the same name). --Tlosk 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that answers my question. I've updated my email address, and that's all I should need to do. --Widgeon 22:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd never thought of the fact that wikia advertises their other wikis. That is a real nice benefit. However, on the point about user names- if names are universal, that means anyone from any wikia wiki can edit any other wiki? That sounds like it has the potential for harassment. Has this ever been an issue? Also, you said we remain in editorial control. Do we still keep the ability to ban/block bad users, or is that something wikia does? --An Adventurer 16:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Any registered user with Wikia would be able to login to edit our wiki, as we could theirs. All of our admins will still be able to block any user from our wiki, also Wikia staff can put in place a global block for users that are vandalizing/spamming more than one wiki. Looking through the Special:BlockList for several of the larger wikis they don't have large numbers of blocks per month so it doesn't seem that vandalism/spamming is much of an issue. Also on a related side note, we didn't move our old chat forums during the last hosting relocation because of the spam problems and server overhead concerns, but we can have a true forum again if we wish after the move. --Tlosk 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Leveling Guides

See Talk:Leveling Guide --An Adventurer 17:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

August 2009

Item Lists

I added two additional templates, {{Item Table Three}} and {{Item Table Two}} that are the same as {{Item Table}} only instead of four items wide they are three and two items wide respectively. This provides more flexibility if you need to put an item list alongside something else (such as in a quest writeup when there's little info before the items section, like Defeating Vaeshok) or when it improves the layout (such as when sets of items are grouped in 3s, like Asheron's_Departure#Items). As a side note, normally I'd just add a parameter to specify the width and make it one template however because the table formatting changes completely and you have up to 32 items it made it too unwieldy for a single template. --Tlosk 12:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Creature Template

I have created a possible new look for the Creature Template. It is based upon the cleaner looking NPC Template. You can view it here: User:An Adventurer/Sandbox 3 Notes: I have kept all the variables from the current {{Creature}} wiki template, in order for it to be compatible with all creatures currently using the template. I have moved Trophies, Weaknesses, Common Attacks, Melee Defense, Melee Attack, Missile Defense, Missile Attack, Magic Defense, & Magic Attack from within the "Assessment Panel" area to the side, where the TOC was displayed on the NPC template. the notes section has not changed at all. My idea is that, if possible, the information on the side for attack/defense skills will only be displayed if there is information entered into the template. If no defense or attack skills are listed (which is pretty common), none of those bullet points will be displayed. If however, no information is entered for the Weaknesses, Attacks, or Trophies variables, I think it would be more useful for "Unknown" to be displayed. If one wants to specifically state that a creature has no weaknesses or trophies, "None" will have to be entered. Thoughts? --An Adventurer 18:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I know you've mentioned previously that your browser is full screen on a wide screen display. A fair number of people, including myself, have AC open in a window and the browser open to the side. The third panel isn't visible at all at that size unfortunately (or for people on a 15" display or many laptops). Also I think the spaces are a nice prompt for the info, indicating it needs to be added still.--Tlosk 01:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I initially wanted to move the trophies, weaknesses, attacks/defenses, etc into the notes section, but I was not sure if that would be possible to have the {{Creature}} template place its variables in the notes section, without that section being a part of the template. And I wanted to avoid having all creatures having two notes sections if possible. What are your thoughts on changing the template at all? The creature template has more or less stayed the same since page templates were created. I feel it would look better to have it more closely resemble the in game appraisal panel, just like what we have done for items and NPCs. --An Adventurer 01:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately neither is possible, the content of a template can't span more than a single section. Part of the reason for updating the NPC template was frequently there wasn't much information which caused a large gap when put alongside the image and showing the stats allowed getting rid of the gap. I suppose part of the problem is that there's a lot of info that isn't readily visible with an ID panel that's still important.--Tlosk 14:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I see. I have altered the new look example in my sandbox once more. Let me know if you think this style could work. User:An Adventurer/Sandbox 3 --An Adventurer 15:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

That looks really good, I'll get a mockup in Template:Sandbox later today and the we can test it with a few pages and see if it needs any more tweaks.--Tlosk 16:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There were some tricky bits but I have a working example now in Template:Sandbox with three usage examples at User:Tlosk/Test. Because of the implicit tree arrangement I moved all the attack values underneath common attacks and the three defensive values underneath weaknesses. I removed the beveled border so the lower panel better integrates with the block and added a subtemplate {{Creature Trophy List}} that can handle displaying icons. Plain text or plain links can continue to be used in the trophy parameter which avoids breaking anything currently in use. Try it out with a couple creatures (remember to use Sandbox instead of Creature for the template) and see if anything can be improved. --Tlosk 15:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

They look good. Some observations: I made the tables below the stats/pic section 620px wide because of the beveled border. Now with the bevel removed the table is wider than the stats and image. It is especially noticable on the Obsidian Golem. The border color on the boxes is pretty light with no bevel border. I think it should be changed to match the color of the border on the into box. I think it looks good without the bevel, but we should probably update the NPC template to the same style. --An Adventurer 22:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The borders have been darkened. I'd reduced the width some, but it was still off 2 or 3 pixels, it lines up correctly now when using a standard size image (300x400) however the size renders differently when the image has to be resized. This is parser engine behavior which we don't have direct control over. I might be able to workaround by using nested tables, I'll try some things out. --Tlosk 23:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks better with the darker border. I hate to suggest this since it adds another level of templates, but perhaps we should make general ACCW Table style template, like how we have a {{Creature Stat Table Format}} template. There are a LOT of our templates with tables that use a single style (border color, width, and bg color), but now this creature template uses a new one. I think it would make sense for all the light grey, outlined in darker grey tables to use the same shades, and it would certainly be a time saver if we had a single template that controlled that. What do you think? --An Adventurer 00:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I added a {{format}} template that can store as many specific formats as we use (instead of a template for each format, you just pass the name as the parameter). That'll make it easier, to have them all in one place, if you can't remember the name of the one you want to use. --Tlosk 20:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The nesting worked and the panels square up consistently now regardless of the image used. Well at least for Firefox anyways, I'm looking into IE (along with some other issues with the most recent version of IE 8 that aren't rendering right on other parts of the site) and I hope to get workarounds for them soon. Also because the structure is more rigid, a vertical layout option is no longer available. Templates currently set to vertical will still display ok, just with a smaller image to the right. --Tlosk 19:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Asheron's Call on other wikis

There are pages on Asheron's Call on various other wikis. I was thinking that it would be good to list these somewhere, but I'm not sure where. I don't want to clutter up the top of the Related Links page with all these links, but maybe that would be best. Here are the links: Wikipedia Wikia Gaming (Page does not exist yet, but dead link is listed under MMOs) Strategy Wiki - Asheron's Call Strategy Wiki - AC:ToD (stub) Wikia listing of Asheron's Call Asheron's Call Wikia wiki (no content) Wiki Index entry for ACCW

Wilderness/Generic Merchants

I have noticed during my explorations that there are really only a few types of generic merchants, and these types are all identical. For example, while there are varying types of generic Peddlers, all the Female Sho Peddlers are exactly the same (see Peddler (42.4N, 32.2E) & Peddler (27.8S, 68.3E)). I propose that instead of creating a unique page for every generic merchant, we instead create one page per specific type, and on that page list the locations where they are found. I would suggest naming them in this fashion: Peddler (Female Sho), Healer (Male Aluvian), etc. Gender may not be needed - I'd have to scout out what all the types are before doing any changes. On a related topic: Crafters and collectors. The same is true of them - there are a handful of varying types. We saw this was taken advantage of in the Assassin's Roost Quest where we had to bring items to a specific type of collector - an Aluvian Collector, a Gharu'ndim Stone Collector, and a Sho Wing Collector. I would suggest that we break the various collectors up in a similar way as I propose we do to generic merchants. --An Adventurer 15:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. --Tlosk 16:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

AC2

See Talk:Asheron's Call 2 --An Adventurer 16:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Wiki project pages

Would it be possible or useful to move the various pages on the wiki about the wiki to wiki project pages? For example, moving Naming Conventions to Asheron's Call Community Wiki:Naming Conventions. Or moving the various pages under Help:Contents to be under the [[Help:<Page>]] name. Basically, I'm suggesting we separate pages about the wiki and its use from pages actually about the game. --An Adventurer 16:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It's possible yes, but for a couple of reasons would not be a good idea for this particular wiki I believe. By default searches only include the main name space. The concept of name spaces isn't something commonly understood outside the programming community which means neophytes trying to find information have a high probability of being unable to find them if they are outside the Main name space. The primary reason for namespaces is to avoid naming conflicts. For a project like Wikipedia that covers essentially everything this is vital. For our wiki this need is almost nonexistant. Naming issues, articles outside the main space have (especially in our case with our long site name) an awkward prefix which can also make it harder to find a known article by simply typing the name of the article into the search box. For these reasons moving articles to other name spaces solves no problems (article name conflicts) and creates problems that don't now exist (search difficulties and lengthening article names). Keeping as much as possible in the main name space is ideal for specialized wikis. --Tlosk 19:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I recently changed the Lady Aerfalle entry to reflect the discussion here in July 2009 > creature/NPC pages and lore. Each creature and NPC version of Aerfalle, along with the lore character, now have individual pages. The way I disambiguated the creatures was to add (<level> Creature) at the end. The NPCs were both the same level, so I included the quest name in the page title. I believe we need to update the Naming Conventions page to reflect this change. But before we do, I wanted to discuss the way we should go about naming disambiguation pages, and the possibility of extending this beyond the Creature/NPC/Character category. On how to name the pages: I am open for suggestions. I named the Aerfalle pages the in the first way I could come up with that allowed for unique pages. But certainly adding (<level> Creature) to the end of creatures that require disambiguation won't always work. I do not believe there will be one single page naming system that will work for all the Creature/NPC/Character disambiguation situations that will come up in AC. However, I think we could come up with a list of acceptable suffixes that editors should try to use first. On extending disambiguation: I was thinking we may want to extend this to items, and possibly other page types as well. My reason for items is because of categories and spell enchantments. The Sword of Lost Light, for example, has many different versions. These have varying spells and special properties. If you are looking through the retired category, Sword of Lost Light is listed there, even though only the original version is retired. If you are looking at what links to Blood Drinker VI, the Sword of Lost Light will be listed, even though 2 versions do not have the spell. Another reason for disambiguating weapons/armors with multiple versions is to get a more accurate count on the category pages. For example, all 3 versions of the Crest of Kings can exist in game, but they are counting only as 1 shield in the category. Thoughts? --An Adventurer 16:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Kill Tasks & Titles

A while ago we discussed titles at Talk:Quests. It was decided that, whenever possible, a title should redirect to the quest it is from. While most have not been doing this for quests (since we never added it to the page template or anywhere else), I have been doing it and still think it is a good idea. This brings me to kill tasks. I think that we should consider naming kill tasks by their titles. I thought about this when I saw the Hunter Quest (Elementals) page. This is not a very good name as turbine could add more elemental tasks at any time. While the titles themselves may not always be very descriptive (for example, tumerok gladiator task title is Dryreach Militia), it would give killtasks a unique name. To help with locating kill tasks, I would suggest that we create redirect pages tagged as kill tasks. For example, The page Dryreach Militia would be the guide, and the pages Hunter Quest (Tumerok Gladiator) and Tumerok Gladiator Kill Task would redirect to it. For the few kill tasks without titles (paradox olthoi nypmphs/grubs, possibly others) we would use <Creature/Group of Creatures> Kill Task as the name. Same for kill tasks with multiple title rewards, like the coral golem and caul rift tasks. The multiple titles would then redirect to the guide. For kill tasks with multiple creatures, I would suggest creating Hunter Quest (<Creature>) and <Creature> Kill Task pages for every creature on the list that redirect to the guide. This would be useful in the Elemental Eradicator guide and the 3 tasks from Belinda du Loc. The reason for creating a redirect page for each creature on the list is that if you are flagged for the task but do not remember it, it only tells you, for example "You have killed 3 Caustics! You must kill 25 to complete your task". This can be confusing when trying to look up the task, since there is no Caustic Kill Task. --An Adventurer 16:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Archived Forum Posts

See Talk:Forum