Talk: Community portal/Archive:February 2013

Abuse filters

In our ever constant battle against the spambots, we have implemented a couple of abuse filters. One against gibberbots, and the other against section removals by new users. These filters aren't 100%, and will continue to need monitoring, but I think the days of 50 gibber edits in an hour are over. --Wynthyst 06:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Title Pages

Why do we have a List_of_Available_Titles page and a Titles page? They need to be consolidated.

One is meant for being able to look at every title as it is displayed in the character title menu, and the other for more organization. They're both useful in their own way, for example as mentioned in the Titles page it states "Not sure what you're looking for? Check the List of Available Titles" and the organized Titles page could be used for users who wish to obtain multiple titles from a particular dungeon rather than do one at a time (You could use the list of titles page but that would be troublesome). --Ɛαmes - ταłκ 01:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Just seems kind of redundant to have 2 pages with the same information and therefore have to update 2 pages instead of one :P --Zawzew 18:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Well which one seems the least useful xD? --Ɛαmes - ταłκ 18:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

xD touche. Honestly, the Titles page is slightly confusing, and isn't a standard layout. The other page at least follows the general layout that most list-type pages follow. Also, the other page has a sortable "type" column anyways :P :P

The semester is almost over

The semester ends in a couple weeks and once it's done I'll probably crack down on some neglected things around here. Major plans include fixing up templates which have suffered since the conversion to 1.17 and the changing of the skin. Some of the templates have remnants of days when I joined a just over a year ago *points at purple headings and gray backgrounds* (Did the background plaid/checkerboard or is my memory skewed?). I've done some work towards mass icon retrieval. I intent to work on figuring out what icons go with what items/skills as soon as I finish my English paper and (ironically/conveniently) databases final project. While all of this sounds well and good winter break might also make me lazy again just when I feel like working on things T.T

Despite not playing the game much at all anymore I still enjoy working on the wiki for the learning experience in databases, web design and formatting, and to feel like I'm doing at least something relatively constructive from time to time. XD --Sigil Baram^talk 04:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Abbreviations/Glossary page

I would like to propose a page at Abbreviations that lists abbreviations commonly used at Vindictus (similar to what Europa Universalis III wiki has at its Abbreviations page) or Glossary (similar to what ActiveWiki, where I co-administrate, has at its Glossary page) that lists terms as well acronyms. It would be useful reference for anyone who sees all shorthands or terms used in chatting in Vindictus that are unfamiliar to them. Unfortunately, as I am relatively new to Vindictus, I can't be that much helpful in making one. Perhaps someone with knowledge can make one here? --The Duke of Rockford 19:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

This seems reasonable. I haven't played regularly in quite a while though, and when I was playing it was with a friend or a couple people I met in game and none of us used any such short hand. Shadowslicer777 and Masquerine might be more up to date on such things. I would recommend Glossary since it is more encompassing, allowing nicknames and such. --Sigil Baram^talk 19:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Clifford: Nickname for the Gnoll Cheiftain. That's about all I know haha --Sigil Baram^talk 19:53, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Done and Done. Page created at Glossary, new category Category: Terminology created to contain that page and for terms that deserves its own article besides mentions on the page, and I just put LOL as first word in that glossary because I couldn't think of anything right now. lol :P --The Duke of Rockford 20:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

If I am remembering right doing "lol" in chat will actually make your character laugh. There are a few emotes that are triggered by chat content and such. When I first noticed them everyone on the same channel in Colhen started spamming all sort of smilies and things to see which ones did stuff. I believe :) makes the character smile (kind of creepily at that), :( will frown, etc. I remember you had to format them a certain way. It might be :-) and :-(. --Sigil Baram^talk 20:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Removing Redundant Information

I tend to be overly wordy; I'll try to keep it short.

There's a lot of manually duplicated information on the wiki, which makes adding new content or updating old content a headache and prone to errors.

I'd like to do something about this.

Currently, I'm looking at how to consolidate recipes to only one editable location. My work can be seen here. The reason I am opening this discussion is because

Due to lack of a loop extension, in order to keep the code manageable I'm working with a few templates from other wikis. They are huge. (User:Basdeth/Template:Test3 / User:Basdeth/Template:Test4)
It seems like a rather fundamental change to how the wiki works to me, and if I'm not told to stop, I'd like to continue expanding this endeavor to remove as much redundant information as I can.
I've come to a crossroads in how I can get this to work:

Currently, crafting recipes and expertise recipes are both located on the item page and both use Template:Material. In order to pass their information on separately, I'd either need to export the recipes to their own pages, or change one of them to use a modified version of Template:Material.

I'm leaning toward exporting them to their own separate pages (ITEM/Craft, ITEM/Expertise?). I've been exporting npc craft and shops to their own pages, and I think it's turning out very tidy and nice (Aislinn).

That about sums it up. If anyone has any opinions, advice, objections, speak now. I try to act quickly :) Basdeth 23:06, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

This kind of thing was originally planned but was not done for one reason or another. There at least used to be a few Recipe:<items> pages floating around if I remember right but they have probably been deleted by now. Like you I would suggest subpages. The Recipe: prefix thing might be useful if we implement namespaces for the prefixes but otherwise they aren't good form and further clutter the main namespace. The prefix would potentially allow us to add tabs at the top of the page, though, but unless there is a way to limit this to item pages it might confuse people.

I think there is a way to make incremental variables that are processed in a loop, ie var1 var2 var3.... varn, but I can't remember for sure. I'll take a look at this when I get home tonight as I have been meaning to get back into stuff that challenges me/helps me learn. I've been alternating between too busy and being lazy for the past few months >.< (crazy end of last semester lead to summer vacation plus working more hours, etc). --Sigil Baram^talk 21:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh hey neat hi! was just working on this stuff, came to update the topic, and there was you!

I think I've got it mostly working now. If you see any way it can be improved or places it won't work, or even if you think it should be completely changed, let me know. I've seen your work around the wiki, and you seem pretty good at this stuff.

The method I'm using is a combination of varpull templates (to prevent accidental transclusion of expensive parser functions) and variables (where varpull templates would be too clunky).

With what I have now, the location of the recipes isn't a problem. Either nested in the template, or located in a separate page, it can still work. I'm actually leaning toward having them nested in the template now, to make it easier for the average editor. I don't think tabs at the top would be a good idea, as people don't look there for that sort of content.

There isn't a loop extension installed in this wiki, hence why I pulled an external template (For loop). If there's a way to do loops without an extension or template, I'd love to hear it. I don't really know wikis that well, this is all new to me.

You can see the summation of what I have at my sandbox, and a search of my namespace will show all the pages I've been creating to get this working and tested. I look forward to hearing your feedback. Basdeth 22:34, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks good. I like the new boarders and cleaning up you did with the rest of the template too. Unfortunately I never got around to finishing the tweaking of the template after the last time the skin was changed so it was a bit sloppy... (bot find and replacing doesn't have that fine touch haha). I love how you moved the recipes over into that horrible empty space on the right that has been plaguing us. The boarder around the icon is also very snazzy. Overall it looks much cleaner.

Just a minor aesthetic observation ~~because I'm mildly OCD~~. It sort feels like we should either widen the boxes to fill the width of the page (minus margins) or center the boxes. The gap was gaping before now it kinda feels like we almost filled it but not quite. Or maybe it is because it is almost, but not quite, symmetrical? It feels better with the recipe box floated to the right instead of the left.... Or it could just be OCD... >.<

Also of minor concern is that there are 16 expensive parser functions on your template vs the 11 on the original Deathwind Armor page. Two of these are probably from transcluding the subpages which won't be part of the equation if you put it right in the main page like you said you were thinking. That leaves 3 new ones. This only MIGHT be an issue on list pages depending on what the specific list template is like, the size of the lists, etc. Just something to watch out for since I'm guessing all of this is intended so that the recipes are accessible in list pages(?).

And you seem pretty good with these things yourself. I had stopped in a couple times to make sure the place wasn't falling apart or whatnot (mainly to make sure someone was still patrolling so we didn't become a spam pool) and saw some of the work you had been doing. I'll probably spend some time floating between various wikis I worked on or ment to work on (including here) before life got crazy and check up on things, fix things I've been meaning to fix, etc. Speaking of which... looking at your template I noticed there is still gray in Template:Set Information.... I really slacked off. XD --Sigil Baram^talk 02:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the aesthetics, I'm not completely sold on how I have it set up myself. Do you think you could make some mockups?

For the expensive parser call increase: Most of those come from the fact that I'm using more mats than the real deathwind armor page for testing purposes. There is a real increase of 1 (soon to be 2). This comes from checking the number of the pages in the item's respective "crafted with" category, so that Template:ICW is called automatically if needed, rather than needing to be placed manually on each page. These additional expensive parser calls should not affect lists.

I'm not actually a fan of lists. It's easy to forget about them, and it's tedious to have to add new items in multiple new places. As such, they are often outdated. I prefer categories myself. I doubt many people agree with me though. In any case, the changes I've been working on so far are for set pages, npc crafting pages, and the expertise pages. I don't currently intend to do much with list pages due to my own lack of interest. Basdeth 04:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Coming up with new designs isn't something I'm the best at >.< I mostly tweak existing designs or adapt some other design that looks like it would work in place of the existing one. Not that there are that many iterations of boxes on a webpage though I suppose.... I'll tinker around some after class I guess.

I agree about the whole list maintenance being a pain thing though. I think there is an extension we might be able to ask for that automatically gets all the pages in category x and applies a template to them. That would allow the list pages to be filled dynamically and we wouldn't have to look at them ever again. Problem is I can't seem to remember what it was called or find it... Another option would be to look into a bot script that uses the categories to build the list pages. --Sigil Baram^talk 18:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, it's just that you provided some design suggestions, so I simply meant if you could make mock ups of those. If you want to do more you can of course.

That extension sounds amazing. I want it *o* Anything bot related is solely up to you, as the other bot owners don't use the wiki. (Actually, when this is all done could you make a bot to remove the ICW template from item pages?).

And here's an idea for removing more redundant information that could use some thinking: pulling items out from drop lists to place them in a item dropped from category, and making a ICW like template to stick that category on the item pages. That way changes to drop lists would be automatically reflected on item pages. The tricky part comes from the fact that there is sometimes information in drop lists that aren't drops. I've been thinking a little about it, and this one's a puzzler to me. Would you be interested in tackling it? Basdeth 19:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Just did some googling. Is this what you were thinking of? [1] Basdeth 19:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah right I can probably mock those up once I have a few minutes. Might be later since I have a few things I need to finish up (paperwork *gag*).

If you think making drops work like ICW would make things easier then sure. I would just wonder how to handle things like when a mob is in different places and drops different things depending on location or difficulty or whatnot. Using what we use with ICW would make it harder to put comments about stuff like that. And sure, once you are ready for the ICW template to be removed just let me know and I can sick my bot on it.

Yeah that looks like the extension I was thinking. Sounds right now that I have a name but I almost feel like there might have been a reason we never had it installed? Can't remember for sure though, was a while ago. If there was a reason it is also possible whatever it was may have been fixed in the mean time as well. --Sigil Baram^talk 00:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Drops are already divided into difficulty mode, so it would be easy enough to have categories separated as well (enemies that drop ITEM, enemies that drop ITEM hero). But yeah, I can't think of a way to preserve information about monsters that have different droplists depending on location. However, I feel that it is an acceptable price to pay in exchange for unified drop information. There are very, very few cases of monsters with multiple droplists, and there are many, many cases where an item drop is listed only on a droplist or only on an item page. When someone edits in a drop, almost never do they edit more than one page (typically they edit the droplist).

Actually, I'm pretty sure in every case that there are multiple drop lists for one enemy, the multiple droplists really belong to two separate, though similar, enemies. (such as Kakrish - though he has the same name in both locations, he has different attack styles, different stats, is listed as two different enemies in the game files). It may not be a bad idea to separate the enemies, and their droplists, into separate pages.

Masquerine deals with the droplists more than anyone else on the wiki, I'll alert them to this discussion to see what they think. Basdeth 03:29, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right about the multiple enemies for drops. The game uses different boss stats in these cases like the example of Kakrish (Lost Road and The Last Fragment) but his name doesn't change. That's why the item drops and information about him was located on the same page. It would probably be better to have him as Kakrish (Lost Road) and Kakrish (The Last Fragment), so his skills can be broken up and the drop lists organized better. So the plan is to use something like the ICW to pull the information from the item page itself? Just let me know what I'd need to do to fill things in when you're ready, or anything you need to know about items dropped by bosses. --Masq^talk 15:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The plan would be to pull the information out of the enemy page, if I'm correct in that it tends to get edited more often and so has more complete and accurate information? And ideally, if this can be pulled off, hardly anything should have to be changed. Basdeth 19:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I've gone ahead and pushed out some of the changes. If anything is broken let me know. All of the recipes currently on item/equipment pages need to be changed to be inside Template:Recipe and in craft or expertise parameters. A whole ton of recipes changed or were removed in the ignition update, so that can be done at the same time.

I have a favor to ask. Could people please load User:Basdeth/Template:Set and User:Basdeth/Deathwind_Set and tell me how the load times are? In comparison to Template:Set and Deathwind_Set. When editing them, the load times are sloooow. I can't figure out if the load times are only affected during editing, or at all times, or maybe just the first time a person views the page. If load times for regular viewers are going to be affected, I don't think I should continue with my plan of automatic calculating for the set pages. Basdeth 19:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Enemy Types

Quite a few enemies currently have their types listed as types made up by editors (for example - Deity for Glas, Alchemy Experiment for Doppelgangers). The reason I say these types are made up, is that enemies have an actual type in the game files (Glas is Glas, Doppelgangers are Mankind). In some cases, this matters (for example, enemy types with titles attached to them - gnolls, toads, wisps, etc), or common attack patterns found throughout a type. In some cases, the type an enemy is listed under doesn't seem to mean much. But the developers themselves are the ones that placed the type there. It is real. It is actual information found in the game files. I am of the opinion that the types the developers say an enemy is should be used under all circumstances, and that the editor made up types should be removed from use, no matter if a fictional type may seem more fitting than a real type. Basdeth 20:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

So if you're saying we should go by what the developer's chose as the enemy type, does that mean Keaghan is a Keaghan, and was never a human or a demon? Glas would be a Glas. Ingkells is an Ingkells. Hellish Handmaidens are a Lady. Statues would then be called Protectee or Destroyee and not statues or constructions. Mana Pistols are now Turrets. Leader Gnoll Junior is a Player Ally, and not a Gnoll. Christmas Knoll Warrior would not be a Gnoll, it would be a Runner. I think some of these types lead to more confusion, if I'm understanding you correctly on this. --Masq^talk 21:23, 03 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that about sums it up. Keaghan is a Keaghan type enemy. Killing a Christmas Knoll Warrior with kicks increases no title counts, as it is not a Gnoll type enemy. Leader Gnoll Junior is a Player Ally. When there is factual information available, I dislike falling back to opinions and lore. Opinions are fuzzy and lore is often open to interpretation (Keaghan is listed as a Demon - I thought he was a God? What is the definition of a God or Demon? Such a debate would rely almost entirely on player opinion).

Perhaps an optional lore section could be placed into the enemy template? And I can see the benefit of having things like the Gnoll allies and Knoll Warrior listed in the gnoll category - perhaps for npcs such as these, they can be placed into enemy lore subcategories (Category:Gnoll (Lore)?) in addition to their type categories. The lore subcategories could be categorized under the normal type categories. That would work for Krunk too.

I think a Player Ally section would be good to have. The gnolls from the recent event aren't the only Player Allies.

For Enemies that are their own category, they could possibly be placed into a "unique" category (though I think their display type should be as it actually is - Ingkells, Keaghan, etc).

Basdeth 21:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Having a lore type would clear up the confusion. If someone looks at an enemy page and sees Keaghan listed as a Keaghan without knowing that the 'type' is referring to what the game considers it to be, they would change it to something more descriptive because they would of thought it was an editing mistake. In Fate and Destiny, the game considers Keaghan as Keaghan, but players would say Keaghan is a Demon. Demon is used when humans have turned into monsters, like Ingkells, Succubus, or the Ortel mobs (not golem). Keaghan as an NPC was human. After Fate and Destiny, Keaghan transforms into Cichol. Cichol's lore type would be Deity, and his title would be God of Fomors. We don't know what Cichol's game type would be yet, as he doesn't actually appear outside of a cutscene yet (and probably won't until season 3, as season 2 is an entirely different storyline). I'd wager and say he'd be called a Cichol.

For the others like Leader Gnoll Junior the game type would be Player Ally, but lore would be Gnoll (as it looks and behaves like a gnoll). A Player Ally category would be a good addition. Should probably add a note to the enemy template to explain the type difference. To sum it up, having 'Game Type' and 'Lore Type' is a good idea. Irukul's game type would be bear, and his lore would be boar. Everyone's happy, yeah? --Masq^talk 22:39, 03 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking it sounds like you'd like to make much more liberal use of lore types than I think is a good idea. For creatures such as the Knoll, where it clearly looks and behaves as a Gnoll (an already established enemy type), a lore type seems prudent. But why does Irukul have to be a boar? His game type is a bear. Anyone looking at him can tell he's not a bear, sure. But he's clearly not a boar either. He's a fictional monster. He's never called a boar in game, and boar is not an existing enemy type. I'd rather Keaghan not be placed in a Demon lore category either. Demon is not an existing creature type. I could argue whether he is or is not a demon lore wise, but I've already stated I consider such a debate pointless as it is based almost entirely on opinion. I proposed the addition of a lore section in the enemy template for cases such as these. I see no reason for enemies to be categorized under lore types that have no basis in existing enemy types, but I would see no harm in displaying such things on the enemy pages. The categories just seem unnecessary.

On a tangent, regardless of when or if we come to an agreement, I would like to wait a few days before taking any action in the off chance that someone else would like to weigh in on the discussion. Basdeth 23:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, the only thing we didn't agree on is how much use the lore type should get. I'm not going to be terribly picky about it in use. I went ahead and added the lore and lore type parameters to the enemy template. As always, nothing is set in stone, and if anyone is unhappy changes can always be made. Basdeth 05:37, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Ignition is here!

So NA finally got Ignition, which changes many, many things about the game. I don't even know where to begin on modifying the wiki pages for this, there's so much. Skill ranks uncapped, new skills, new skill abilities, HP buffed, new items, old items with new features, crafting recipes changed, jumping, boss HP buff, damage numbers showing, item slots increased...and so much more. Squee! Where do we start? --Masq^talk 00:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Haha I dunno either. Huge update is huge. I made a notice template to stick on the affected pages so that people can find the changes easier (once we make the changes). Template is here. I think an update page with patch notes/unlisted updates would be helpful. I pointed the template to a non existent page if someone wants to make it (or if someone thinks it should be at a different page name, change the template). Basdeth 19:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Basdeth out!

Well folks, I want to stop editing the wiki. I might still submit screenshots, as it is simple easy and quick to do, but I'm stopping everything else. Template editing, policy discussions, mass editing and creation of pages.

I know the templates I've edited my be hard for some people to edit (some of the templates are hard for me to edit), so if anyone has any final template requests for me, I'll be willing to take them. I also have a couple suggestions for edits I can make that should make things easier for future editors. If noone asks me to act on the suggestions I won't though.

I strongly suggest that stat variations be removed from the enemy template. Almost always, when there is a stat variation, there is something else different about the enemy as well. Droplists, attack patterns, places they're found, etc. And editing the stat variations in the templates is a horrible headache.

I also suggest that the appearance tabs be consolidated to Male/Female/Karok. Akumo suggested this way back when. I think he was right. With Vella coming out soon, there will be three females that equipment looks the same on. More characters are likely to come in the future that share the same body builds as the current characters as well. An individual tab for each character doesn't seem practical or sustainable. My reasons for not doing it initially were poorly founded and largely selfish.

Anyway, that's about it. Just thought I should let people know. Don't want to leave too big of a mess behind me. Basdeth 18:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Change of plans. I'm never contributing to this wiki again in any form, or any other wiki run by curse. I find it very insulting that they decided to thank the admins the day after I resigned. What a waste of time this all was. Basdeth 22:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)