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August 2009

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)

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:

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)

July 2009

Thug Events

Please see Talk:Old Ghosts --An Adventurer 23:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Spells

To: Tlosk
Nice work with the spells and the new design. Some questions about it:

I noticed all spells are being created as links. But if the previous spell system is going to be used, all of those links will just be redirects to the main spell page. Do you have plans to bring back individual spell pages, and merely place a link to the main spell page on individual spells?

Foci components are not listed, and old comps are only base comps with none of the tapers (even non-personal) included. I understand that due to page width only so much info can be displayed, but I do think this info should still be available somewhere.

One major thing I noticed is that there is no learnable/not learnable column. I think this is very important to have.

My overall suggestions would be:

  • Replace "Base Components" with "Learnable"
  • Eventually, create individual pages for all spells, where full comp listings and correct spell words can be listed for non-standard spells.

--An Adventurer 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

To: An Adventurer
This is the first of three stages, where I get the bulk of the data in place using tools. The second will be editing individual spell pages, most will be redirects categorized as creature spell, unlearnable spell, etc. Some will have their own page when they have additional information that's important (related quests, etc). Ones with their own page will have a prominent link to the list page for stacking info. Also in the second stage I'll be deleting the generic Cantrip pages (all spells of a given effect are now listed on the same list page, and the individual spell redirects will be themselves categorized at cantrip, this way they will show up individually by name on the category page).

After initially including tapers, I discovered that there are discrepancies in game and in fact there aren't nonpersonal tapers (colors in the supposedly fixed taper position that differ from those given in the portal.dat info). Those can be added if anyone wants to though (the {{Spell Formula}} template allows you to just insert tapers or empty spaces as desired). Since it's no longer possible to enter component information to learn a new spell though it's not something that I'll be doing myself.

The learnable information will be added in the third stage (this data is metadata so will have to be done by hand for each spell), I'm toying with the idea of linking to scrolls (with the respective icon) for those, and making special icons for monster only, item only, or quest learned that would each link to something appropriate for that particular spell.

There's about 5000 spells so I should be done in another day or two. The tables and rows are templates to make adjustments as painless as possible so if you think of any more suggestions let me know. --Tlosk 15:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Also we'll need to overhaul the Spells page once this is all done and I was thinking of making a prominent section there about focii and prismatic formulas instead of repeating them on every single spell. --Tlosk 15:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I should add that I have no objection to having individual pages for each spell, but at least for the interim we'll have all spells link to something that gives a description. I primarily made them links to aid in making the redirects, so there are links to spells that do have pages, and because I thought it looked nicer. --Tlosk 15:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

To: Tlosk
I have a suggestion, although it would not need to be done right now. Part of the reason I added (Spell) to every spell listing was because there were also cantrips to list on a different page. Now that cantrips and spells are listing on the same page, that distinction is no longer needed. Now - there are still cases where we need some form of disambiguation, for Example strength is a spell and an attribute. I would suggest that, for every spell, we replace (Spell) with Spells or Spell Category. So Strength (Spell) becomes Strength Spells or Strength Spell Category.

Another idea would be to keep (Spell) only on pages that require the disambiguation (like attribs), and drop it from every other one. Sword Mastery, for example, does not need the (Spell) since it already has the Mastery word to distinguish itself from the skill and the weapons. --An Adventurer 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I like Spells for a suffix, makes it more general and reflective of the diverse spells in some categories. And gets away from the title ending with parentheses issues. Although having the parenthetical suffix does make it come up first in the autosuggest drop down when searching. I'd be fine with either. If we decide to change them I can move the pages one by one while doing the redirects/categorizations. --Tlosk 16:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Another suggestion. On each page there is currently the following code used to display the TOC and an image: 

 {|cellpadding=5
 |-valign=top
 |
 __ToC__
 | [[File:0x0600115D.png]]
 |}

I would suggest that we convert this into a wiki template, and create one template for each school. Each school would use a different image. Along with the image and TOC, the template could contain a [[Category:Spell]] and [[Category:<School> Spell]] so that all spells will be categorized. EDIT: Templates named {{Creature Enchantment Spell}}, {{Item Enchantment Spell}}, {{Life Magic Spell}}, and {{War Magic Spell}}.

I'd suggest the following images:

Creature - Item - Life - War

--An Adventurer 00:26, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

To: An Adventurer
That's a good idea, I made a single template with a school switch, {{Spell List Header}}. Edit: I added icons to indicate whether the spell is learnable, creature only, item only, or retired also. Willpower (Spell) and Feeblemind (Spell) show the changes. --Tlosk 16:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

New Version of Wiki Swiss Tool

Version 1.05 is now available for download of the Wiki Swiss Tool. Although it was mostly finished back in January I was waiting until we'd finished updating the templates to release it. It also now has the ability to easily update templates to the current versions on the wiki anytime by copying the text at Wiki Swiss Tool/Page Templates and using the update button on the tools tab.

If anything doesn't work as you expect it to, or you think of something else you'd like to see it able to do, just post here or on the talk page. --Tlosk 17:59, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

creature/NPC pages and lore

I've been wondering if we should handle pages for lore and in-game information differently. Currently the rule is that if for example an NPC/Monster is also a notable lore character, the lore character description would go on the same page as the in-game stats. I think this might be better if the main page is a disambiguation.

For Example, the Lady Aerfalle would look like this:

See:

There would be similar pages for other notable characters like Asheron, Borelean, Elysa, Nummy, Rytheran, etc.

I also think it could be useful to split creature class pages up into stats and lore. While some creatures may not have a lot of lore, others like Shadow, Virindi, Tumerok, Lugian, Burun, and Undead have tons of information, and certainly deserve their own "Heritage" page, like those I've been working on for Isparians and Empyeans (see: Sho and Falatacot)

As for how to split up creature class pages, I would suggest leaving the current ones in place as the stat page since they are linked to the most, and the first place someone would search for when looking for stats. On those pages we would place a link to the lore page. It could be something simple like Drudge Lore or Drudge Bestiary Entry.

Thoughts?

--An Adventurer 16:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that'd be a good way to handle creatures with multiple versions. For the creature class pages, I'd suggest that since an abundance of lore is the exception, we keep the layout as is, however for those few types with more than 2 or 3 paragraphs of lore, to have 2-3 paragraphs of abbreviated lore on the class page with a link to an additional page where the lore is expanded as you suggest. My preference would be with [[<Creature Class> Lore]]. Besides the frequency issue (maybe 10 of the 70+ classes have lots of lore available) it's also because of layout concerns, the ToC and image would cramp the table without the text there. --Tlosk 17:59, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I've completed the Aerfalle changes. Please see Lady Aerfalle. Feedback anyone? --An Adventurer 20:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)



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