Discussion/archive5
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Choice Adventure template
Currently all adventures, when listed on location pages, use {{combat}} or {{adventure}}; combat adventures and non-combat adventures specifically. Choice adventures currently use {{adventure}}, but they lookk klunky and may need a template of their own, for example: --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:34, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
| Ouch! You bump into a door! | |
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- Buy a magic lamp (lose 50 meat, magic lamp).
- Buy what appears to be some sort of cloak (lose 5,000 meat, fight a mimic). The dead mimic is a one time drop.
- If you beat the mimic, the store will not reoccur. If you lose, the store will become unavailable until after rollover.
- Leave without buying anything.
Wouldn't something listing the choices be more appropriate? --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:34, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
| Ouch! You bump into a door! | |
|
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- If you beat the mimic, the store will not reoccur. If you lose, the store will become unavailable until after rollover.
Parameters could look like ...choice1name=CHOICENAME|choice1=CHOICERESULT|choice2name...etc. I don't think any have more than 4 choices, and parser functions could omit choice2name/3/4 if they are not present. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:34, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- Generally speaking, I like it. This is a difficult example, as it would be nice to also see the {{combat}} data for the mimic. On something of a digression, it might be nice to set up something specifically for challenges, like for some of the The Daily Dungeon and Fernswarthy's Basement adventures, the haiku challenges in the The Haiku Dungeon, *etc. --Gymnosophist 23:06, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- I've started {{Choice}}, It should be adaptable. I'll try if with a few more different types of choices before I start using it. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 23:02, 8 September 2006 (CDT)
Something somewhat like this would help make the summary of The Bonerdagon look less clunky.--Dehstil (t|c) 23:29, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
On a side note: I added {{button}} which:
| Does This! |
- it might be useful, if it's not, well it's not. Choice adventure pages may look nice with them, maybe...--JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 23:45, 8 September 2006 (CDT)
- I like it. --Quietust 23:47, 8 September 2006 (CDT)
I started trying out these templates on The Spooky Forest page (before I take the time to go through all of' em), and all choice adventures (3 or 4 ish) spawning from the spooky forest. I like to see what other people think. I always feel like things needs a little sumpin', but I can never figure out what it is. ;-) --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 20:52, 12 September 2006 (CDT)
- I generally like it. The individual adventure pages, both the "master" page (A Three-Tined Fork) and the "sub" pages (Footprints, etc.) all look good just as they are. On The Spooky Forest page, it looks good, but it's hard to distinguish the the "sub" adventures from the regular adventures. Maybe we can indent the "sub" adventures and somehow eliminate the horizontal separator lines between Fork and Footprints, between Footprints and Craters, and between Craters and Road Less Visible. This should make it more apparent that these four adventures are actually part of a single whole.--Gymnosophist 22:51, 12 September 2006 (CDT)
- JRSiebz, you went ahead and implemented the choice templating without addressing the issue raised above with regard to listing the "sub" adventures on the location page. The Spooky Gravy Barrow, The Dungeons of Doom, as well as the The Spooky Forest now all have problematic adventures. We need to do something about this. --Gymnosophist 15:59, 15 September 2006 (CDT)
- I dunno if they look better indented, or with/without lines, erg. It makes The Spooky Gravy Barrow look odd. I almost like them in line like they were before. Stupid nested adventures. ;-) --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 17:11, 15 September 2006 (CDT)
- I'm not sure either - it stills look sorta odd. Perhaps it will look better without separator lines, although the indenting and separator lines were just a suggestion. Do you have some alternative thoughts? I'm just really dissatisfied with the original look - you can't tell that these are "sub" adventures without reading the fine print. There should be some sort of visual cue that tells you that. And, should it come to it, we shouldn't feel that we are bound to use a template for these "sub" adventures. Templates should serve to help with standardization and ease of editing, but should not serve as a straightjacket. Looking forward to your thoughts. --Gymnosophist 19:21, 15 September 2006 (CDT)
- "Do you have some alternative thoughts?" - No, not really. Must be wiki-block. I think the sub-adventures should be there on the location pages so that you can see all outcomes of a "nested" adventure without cramming all the information into one adventure'ss combat/adventure/choice template, but I have no half decent idea on how it should be there or what it should look like. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 19:32, 16 September 2006 (CDT)
- I did a manual cram-all-the-information-into-one-adventure approach for the The Haunted Billiards Room adventure Minnesota Incorporeals (just the location page - I didn't touch the adventure page). What do you think of this sort of approach? While, this approach doesn't show the "sub" adventure names (Broken, A Hustle Here, a Hustle There), I'm OK with that. To me, this approach gives a complete breakdown of all the choices that is both logical and functional, while not confusing the user as to what is a "main" adventure and what is a "sub" adventure. This approach could easily be adopted by the The Spooky Gravy Barrow choice adventure Heart of Very, Very Dark Darkness. You would lose the "sub" adventure names, but again, I think that's fine - they're easly sacrificed in the name of functionality. You would also lose the "hand" image in the How Depressing "sub" adventure, but I'm OK with that as well - the function of the location pages is to provide a stripped down version of the adventure page that is easily understandable, and shouldn't sacrifice clarity for the sake of showing details you can find on the actual adventure pages. With regard to the The Dungeons of Doom adventure Ouch! You bump into a door!, I think a little tweaking would get rid of the "sub" adventure confusion. For the Buy what appears... choice, follow it with "Fight a mimic (see details below)". The mimic would be immediately below the Ouch, but titled "Ouch! You bump into a door!: Buy what appears to be some sort of cloak: mimic, and there is no separator bar. What do you think? --Gymnosophist 05:10, 21 September 2006 (CDT)
- I also did The Haunted Library adventure Take a Look, it's in a Book!. It's sprawling, but very compact and understandable when compared to using the individual "sub" approach. --Gymnosophist 11:08, 21 September 2006 (CDT)
- Ye Gods, that'll take some getting used to. --Jonrock 11:18, 21 September 2006 (CDT)
- I like your format, Gymnosophist, but you've gone through a lot of trouble to do manually what you can do fairly easily with the Choice template. For example, here's my code for Minnesota Incorporeals:
- I dunno if they look better indented, or with/without lines, erg. It makes The Spooky Gravy Barrow look odd. I almost like them in line like they were before. Stupid nested adventures. ;-) --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 17:11, 15 September 2006 (CDT)
- JRSiebz, you went ahead and implemented the choice templating without addressing the issue raised above with regard to listing the "sub" adventures on the location page. The Spooky Gravy Barrow, The Dungeons of Doom, as well as the The Spooky Forest now all have problematic adventures. We need to do something about this. --Gymnosophist 15:59, 15 September 2006 (CDT)
{{Choice|name=Minnesota Incorporeals|image=pooltable.gif
|choice1name=Break
|choice1=You gain 50 {{Moxie}}.
|choice2name=Let the Ghost Break
|choice2=<br />
:*'''Go for a solid:'''
::*'''Go for the 8-ball:'''
:::*'''With [[Chalky Hand]]:''' Acquire...
:::*'''Without [[Chalky Hand]]:''' You lose.
::*'''Play defensively:''' You gain 50 {{Mysticality}}.
::*'''Chicken out:''' Leave, no adventure loss.
:*'''Go for a stripe:''' You gain 50 {{Muscle}}.
:*'''Go for a walk:''' Leave, no adventure loss.
|choice3name=Run Away
|choice3=Leave, no adventure loss.}}
*This adventure will not occur unless you are adventuring...
*The [[Spookyraven library key]] is required in order to...
You can see the results at The Haunted Billiards Room. It looks the same as before. —Dentarthurdent(T,C) 16:39, 28 September 2006 (CDT)
- I (still) dunno. I don't like how in the "crazy tree" ;-) you lose the links to the "sub-adventure" pages (which are now at least all created now). I blame this whole discussion on myself, for wanting to create Choice Adventures by Number, and making {{button}}, and then trying to figure out a way to make them all look the same ;-) I do think that the combat adventures which are a result of a sub adventure should be on the main location page (via {{combat}} with all the other combat encounters in a particular location. Well at least the Violet Fog and Louvre It or Leave It are formatted the same way. Now just it's really just the multi-tiered choice adventures (and their children) causing the problems/inconsistancies (Heart of Very, Very Dark Darkness, A Three-Tined Fork, Minnesota Incorporeals, Take a Look, it's in a Book! (Rise), and Take a Look, it's in a Book! (Fall)). Can you nest templates (easily, without need to use {{!}} a lot)? --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 21:13, 29 September 2006 (CDT)
- Don't blame yourself - it's clearly Jick's fault! As for {{button}}, you deserve a medal for that, or at least a lapel pin - or maybe even a button! Actually the timing of all this was excellent - we were grappling with the choice adventure issue just as the Manor and it's many complex choice adventures opened. I completely agree with you about showing choice combat adventures on the main location page. I'm not sure that nesting templates is necessarily the answer here, perhaps just a minor tweak to the Combat template to add an optional variable that surpresses the top separator would be all that is needed. On the multi-tiered choice adventures, I added subadventure links to the "crazy tree" (I like it!) in The Haunted Library Take a Look, it's in a Book! adventures and also tweaked the "Occurs" text of their subadventures. Hopefully these tweaks will serve as a palliative for any remaining reservations about the "crazy tree" approach. In any event, I think it's probably time to decide on a single approach for multi-tiered choice adventures: the "crazy tree" approach illustrated by The Haunted Library's Take a Look, it's in a Book! adventures, or the "subadventure list" approach illustrated by The Spooky Gravy Barrow's Heart of Very, Very Dark Darkness/Darker Than Dark/How Depressing/On the Verge of a Dirge/Felonia, Queen of the Spooky Gravy Fairies. Personally, I'm a definite proponent of the "crazy tree" approach.
- "an optional variable that surpresses the top separator" - noline=anything will do that in {{Combat}}, {{Adventure}}, and {{Choice}}, I usually use "noline=yes". All 3 of those templates also have a (hardly used) variable called "nest", which I temp added to test easy indenting on the barrow page (which i recently removed). It is the same "amount" as what a colon (:) adds (2em, if i remember right), so "nest=2" would added the equiv margin of two :'s., it just "indents" the table 2n ems, n bing the value of nest. I made {{Combat}}and {{Adventure}} all "look the same", internal template code-wise, when I started {{Choice}}, so they all "work" the same. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 00:40, 30 September 2006 (CDT)
- I have come to believe that Jick regularly browses the wiki to determine what game features would cause the most editing headache, and targets those for development. --Jonrock 01:31, 30 September 2006 (CDT)
- JRSiebz, thanks for the noline and nest info. I hadn't looked at those templates very closely, so I didn't know about them. I've used them to tweak The Haunted Gallery choice sub-adventures. I think they look pretty good now - what do you think? On the "crazy tree" approach vs. the "subadventure list" approach, we seem to be at loggerheads on the matter, as your edits to The Haunted Gallery and The Spooky Gravy Barrow continue to use the "subadventure list" approach. What do we need to do in order to achieve a consensus on this? --Gymnosophist 20:36, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
- Hmmm - 10 days later and nary a peep from anyone. Before too long, based on the lack of interest expressed here, I'll just have to assume that no one really cares for the "subadventure list" approach and implement the "crazy tree" approach accordingly. There wasn't any feedback on the The Haunted Gallery indenting with no separator approach either. Here again, before too long I'll simply have to assume that this approach meets with approval, or at the least, no one cares to support the no indenting with separator approach. Barring further discussion, I plan on to implementing the no indenting with separator approach with The Spooky Forest, The Dungeons of Doom and The Spooky Gravy Barrow, doing the same plus implementing the "crazy tree" approach with The Haunted Bedroom and The Haunted Ballroom, and implementing the "crazy tree" approach with The Haunted Gallery. --Gymnosophist 21:02, 12 October 2006 (CDT)
- Maybe we are the only two who cared ;-) As long as the tree somewhere contains links to (and maybe also the names of?)the subadventure pages and that all possible combat/monster encounters are listed on the location page (specifically so all possible monster stats [level, resistance, element, hp, etc.]) so that they are easily all listed on one place for a location for easier references, it's fine to me. I just went with the simiplist (the "best" I could think of at the time, as I knew that chances are it was not final) way as I went through making sure all choice adventures were present on the wiki, and that all messy, mashed pages were split up. I'm not really passionate at all about either, just that to two things I mentioned first are present. I wish more wiki novices or KoL casual players would chime in, since my point-of-view is always skewed, since sometimes I feel like because of working with the wiki, I seem to have most of the game committed to memory, and so do not use the wiki for the same reasons and dont need things shown/organized the way "normal" people do/would. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:28, 12 October 2006 (CDT)
- Maybe we are the only two who cared ;-) All too often it feels that way! I agree, I often wish that the discussion page was more active. But back to the choice adventures, it was a messy issue, but I'm glad you tackled it. I'll make the changes, making sure they reflect the points you mentioned above. I might nt get to it for a bit though - I'm in the middle of a vacation and am working from a dial-up (!) connection. Yep, "normal" just doesn't quite cover it... :) --Gymnosophist 04:49, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
- Hi, I lost track of which style was which, so I couldn't contribute right away. I think I've figured out what you're talking about and I've decided I like "crazy tree" better, because it makes it more clear, in a very visual way, which subadventures are completely avoidable (or forceable, if you do want them) if you make the right choices. (It turns out that my feeling of "that'll take some getting used to", above, didn't take very long.) --Jonrock 15:51, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
- The way I started with was showing all subadventures on the location page, for example on The Spooky Gravy Barrow, all the subadventures starting with "Heart of Very, Very Dark Darkness" leading to Felonia are all on one page, with "Only occurs as a choice of ..." notes. Of course any of these can be indented (nested) or the dividing lines could be removed, but I was never quite satisfied with it no matter what I tried. The other tree way is like on The Haunted Billiards Room, where all the choices are listed in an outline/tree form. I have no problem with the tree as long (as like I said before [above]), that subadventure names are mentioned and linkified [so one can visit the page, maybe for references/more detail, or for the sheer joy of it ;-)] and that all combats in an area are on the location page. For example in The Haunted Gallery the two Knights are listed on the page. It's nice to have all possible monsters info for a location (choice results or not) there on one page (easier to reference). So more or less, look at The Spooky Gravy Barrow, The Haunted Billiards Room, The Haunted Gallery, and say which one(s) you like best (and maybe look at the adventure/subadventure pages too), and how you would tweak there appearance (indenting, dividing lines, bullets, etc.). I hope this comment can help sum up and catch up everyone else ;-) --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:31, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
- JRSiebz, thanks for the noline and nest info. I hadn't looked at those templates very closely, so I didn't know about them. I've used them to tweak The Haunted Gallery choice sub-adventures. I think they look pretty good now - what do you think? On the "crazy tree" approach vs. the "subadventure list" approach, we seem to be at loggerheads on the matter, as your edits to The Haunted Gallery and The Spooky Gravy Barrow continue to use the "subadventure list" approach. What do we need to do in order to achieve a consensus on this? --Gymnosophist 20:36, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
- Don't blame yourself - it's clearly Jick's fault! As for {{button}}, you deserve a medal for that, or at least a lapel pin - or maybe even a button! Actually the timing of all this was excellent - we were grappling with the choice adventure issue just as the Manor and it's many complex choice adventures opened. I completely agree with you about showing choice combat adventures on the main location page. I'm not sure that nesting templates is necessarily the answer here, perhaps just a minor tweak to the Combat template to add an optional variable that surpresses the top separator would be all that is needed. On the multi-tiered choice adventures, I added subadventure links to the "crazy tree" (I like it!) in The Haunted Library Take a Look, it's in a Book! adventures and also tweaked the "Occurs" text of their subadventures. Hopefully these tweaks will serve as a palliative for any remaining reservations about the "crazy tree" approach. In any event, I think it's probably time to decide on a single approach for multi-tiered choice adventures: the "crazy tree" approach illustrated by The Haunted Library's Take a Look, it's in a Book! adventures, or the "subadventure list" approach illustrated by The Spooky Gravy Barrow's Heart of Very, Very Dark Darkness/Darker Than Dark/How Depressing/On the Verge of a Dirge/Felonia, Queen of the Spooky Gravy Fairies. Personally, I'm a definite proponent of the "crazy tree" approach.
- Ok, my current version for the adventure (soon to be named noncombat) template, {{test/adventure}}, has three different ways to show a set of choice adventures. The first one indents, which looks ok, but is the more subtle of the three for displaying the hierarchy. Second, shows the adventure blocks nested (we could probably play around with the spacing, etc.) and third shows them as a crazy bulleted tree. They all take almost the same amount of space etc etc. Which do you guys think is the most visually appealing/least confusing/most useful/most clear?--Dehstil (t|c) 19:47, 23 January 2007 (CST)
- I'm not sure exactly why, but I've always liked choice adventures listed in the tree form (example 3). I guess it just seems the most intuitive to me. Especially now that we're officially separating "choice to combat". It's just nice to see all the results of adventure in a nice compact area. I mean if you're going to use the location page for reference of an area you're most likely going to use it from the highest level choice adventure. Spreading them out more just complicates thing (although I agree that they should have their own page as discussed elsewhere). Oh, one other thing, was it your intention that the bottom border of the template for conditional adventures to show up solid? Personally I think it would look better if all sides (other than left) were dashed. --TheDotGamer 20:40, 23 January 2007 (CST)
- I'd like to see what the 2nd one looks like with just the borders on the right, b/c having too many borders kind of distracts me... ooh a butterfly... ummm... Is simple better? On, the 3rd one (tree) the subadventures don't really stand out, their links seem the same as all the other ones and seem ignored as they blend in to obscurity, and you loose their pics, but for quick reference, it may be easier for some to read, but it doesn't seem as complete...Hmm. The pic you're using to distinguish choice, clover, etc., instead of it being after the adventure name, I wonder how it would look before it, or maybe if it was used like a bullet indenting the whole adventure? Of course using any of these ideas come with the risk of making it look worse, buyer beware ;-) Just trying to use what's left of my imagination today. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 21:06, 23 January 2007 (CST)
- Play around with it and see what you might like, maybe you'll think of even more things to try out while editing. I'm done for today.
Edit: Also, I'm in favor of number two also if the borders were tweaked in some way; it actually allows incorporation of all sorts of data, like fight stats if that choice results in a monster. The border on the bottom actually makes a string of normal (uncolored unbordered) adventures look good, which would be the majority of adventures displayed, without it..eh you could see for yourself.--Dehstil (t|c) 22:25, 23 January 2007 (CST) - I was under the impression that you agreed with me that choice adventures which result in a monster combat should be listed with the rest of the combat adventures? Surely you're not suggesting to list the exact same info twice? I agree that the subadventures don't stand out enough on the Example 3 but with some modifications (more complication) I think it would look fine. I don't know what I was thinking of, but maybe scaling the subadventure pictures down to 25% or something and making the text bold or something. Who knows? Anyway, I'll try to play with the template when I get a little more time. Oh, the other thing, is it non-combat or noncombat. There's some inconsistency but it mostly seems to be non-combat, so maybe that should be used assuming the dash doesn't cause problems with templates. --TheDotGamer 11:00, 25 January 2007 (CST)
- That was before we were able to actually nest the adventure blocks. Now we can which would take precedence over alphabetization for the order of adventures, since readers (well readers like me at least) would not be looking up adventures by name but with other factors in mind. If the result of a choice adventure only occurs as a part of another adventure, it would probably be better to organize said information together rather than disregard that important relation. As for any other relations between adventures (if any, we've already discussed some new section etc), I'd say save that for later since those groupings probably won't need special templating attention. Also, I'd say use the dash. Todo: After we choose a choice adventure scheme, add a superlikely flag.--Dehstil (t|c) 17:00, 25 January 2007 (CST)
- I don't know how you did it, but you convinced me that the nested look is better. Probably because I went ahead and tried putting pictures in there. I don't think it looks that bad but still. Anyway, in the defense of my previous proposal though, the fact that it only occurs as the result of a choice adventure would surely be noted and linked to. I didn't really mess with the template but I think that if it's nested the inner ones should probably have their left border the same as the other ones. Or thinner. Or something just not so solid. --TheDotGamer 09:26, 26 January 2007 (CST)
- Well, the nested blocks look a bit nicer without the thick borders. I was thinking about doing something with css to indicate the level of nesting for a block to make it easier to read, much like the way nested bullets are distinguished, thoughts? By the way, most of the complex parserfunctions in it will be replaced upon rollout.--Dehstil (t|c) 15:41, 26 January 2007 (CST)
- So, who prefers what method of presenting choice adventures, and if we are all in agreement on that, does the overall template along with the proposals below need revising or is it all good to go? As of now, I say do nested along with what my second to last post in Adventure Sort Order said, which pretty much mirrors theDotGamer's proposal except for the sorting thing he mentioned in "2.1" since the function of an alternate sorting order can now be achieved with coloring. Readers and editors less familiar with the wiki would only be confused by this convention if they do not know it, unless it were explicit (by labeling each subtype with its own ===third level section=== or something) which would not work, especially when the types overlap repeatedly on the same page.--Dehstil (t|c) 22:22, 30 January 2007 (CST)
I RESURRECT THIS DISCUSSION! I'm going through and cleaning up all the location pages with the note fields, and I'm not sure how to handle The Haunted Billiards Room and The Haunted Gallery. Every other area that has choice adventures leading to combat or other choice adventures has them listed as a separate entry with a note such as "Only occurs as a choice in (so-and-so)". Should I change them over to that format? Seems this conversation just fell by the wayside last time. --TechSmurf 18:34, 29 July 2007 (CDT)
- Re-resurrecting... I like the tree method. It wins in clarity, as Jonrock (and probably others... too much text to do other than skim) pointed out above, though it loses in ease of coding. --Bagatelle 21:35, 18 August 2007 (CDT)
Adventure Sort Order
On something of a digression, this is perhaps as good a time and place to discuss the adventure sort order within the location pages. It used to be that all adventures were alpha sorted irrespective of their type (except for ultra rares, which were on the bottom). It appears that when the Combat template was rolled out some 4 or 5 months ago a new sort order was introduced, an order that sorted adventures first by type (combat or adventure), and then by alpha sort. I'm not sure what discussion might have taken place with respect to this change, but the change never made it to the Established Standards. You might say that it's all water under the bridge, but now we have a third type of adventure, the choice type. Should we continue to adhere to the "by type then by alpha" methodology, or should we revert back to the once and future alpha sort methodology? I personally like the pure alpha sort approach - I'm always looking for an adventure, not finding it, and then realizing that, unintuitively, it's further down the page. To make matters worse, there's not even a section header or other identifier that tells you that there are multiple sections within the main adventure listing (not that there should be, IMHO). I'd like to propose that we return to the Established Standard and sort all adventures alphabetically. --Gymnosophist 22:51, 12 September 2006 (CDT)
- I definitely prefer sorting by type. I look at a location page when I'm looking for (a) the general combat difficulty of an area, so I want to see the combat adventures together, or (b) how to handle the choice adventures, so I want to see all of the choice adventures together. (Although I also admit: (c) when I've looked at an individual adventure page and realize it doesn't tell me everything about the adventure and I have to go back out to the location page to get the rest of the stats, but I submit that that's a bug not a feature.) --Jonrock 17:19, 15 September 2006 (CDT)
- I like the way it is now. I propose that we just add section headers for clarity. On another note entirely, we really should display stat/resistance information on the actual pages instead of forcing the user to go back to the location page....something which is not at all intuitive.--SomeStranger (t|c) 22:37, 12 October 2006 (CDT)
- What is "the way it is now"? Again, we now have a third type of adventure, the choice adventure. These choice adventures are sometimes segregated at the bottom (The Obligatory Pirate's Cove), sometimes at the top (A Battlefield), and sometimes sprinkled throughout the noncombat adventures (The Spooky Forest). Additionally, some choice adventures have combat adventures imbedded in them (like Out in the Garden in The Haunted Gallery). We seem to have agreed that the combats be embedded as a part of the choice adventures, an approach which doesn't lend itself to the sorting-by-type approach. Further, we have more than just the three types of adventures discussed above - there are also clover, one-time and retired (or obsolete/deimplemented, etc. - did that discussion ever arrive at any conclusion?), all of which are accorded special sort treatment. Should we have separate sections for all six types of adventures? --Gymnosophist 03:57, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
- It seems clear to me that the de facto ordering is "combat", "noncombat (choice collected at end)", "clover", "retired". A choice adventure that has an embedded combat is still a noncombat adventure for +/- noncombat adventure effects, if I understand correctly, so it should stay with the choice adventures. "one-time" is not a type, it's just a note. "superlikely" IS it's own thing, because it ignores +/- noncombat, but I think that can be indicated by a note as well, rather than arguing about giving it special position. There don't need to be special sections for each type--the template style is sufficient to tell where combat adventures end and noncombats begin. The current sections of "Adventures" (combat, noncombat, clover), "In Disguise" (combat, noncombat, clover), and "Retired Adventures" suffice. (In case it wasn't clear, I've really grown to like "retired" as the answer to that discussion.) I'm aware that The Spooky Forest doesn't follow this scheme, I've just been avoiding cleaning it up until the choice adventure formatting was resolved. --Jonrock 15:47, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
- Well, it seems like the sort-by-type approach is the popular one, so let's go with it. Given this, there are now four issues to be reviewed in detail: 1) The sort order of various types. 2) What should be considered a type for sorting purposes. 3) What types should receive section headers. 4) What the section headers should be called. On sort order (1), I'm so not sure that there is such a thing as a de facto ordering, but an ordering of combat, noncombat (single outcome), noncombat (choice), one-time, clover, ultra-rare, in-disguise, retired works for me, as well as matching the majority of existing sort orders. I forgot about about disguise adventures, but they complicate matters. Actually, we need a two tiered sort heirarchy as follows: 1) Sort by active no-disguise, active in-disguise, retired. 2) Sort by combat, combat, noncombat (single outcome), noncombat (choice), one-time, clover, ultra-rare. On elgible types (2), one-time adventures have been given special sort treatment, and are usually listed torwards the bottom of the active adventures (Outskirts of Cobb's Knob, etc.). I forgot about about ultra-rare adventures, but they're usually at the bottom of the active adventures (Camp Logging Camp, etc.). On section headers (3), I think we should have an all-or-nothing approach. My original complaint was that I couldn't find adventures because they weren't in their "natural" alpha sort order. Upon taking a closer look, it's clear that there was (usually) a sort order in place that depended on the adventure type. What wasn't clear was how to easily find the adventure I was looking for. The implementation of formal section headers for each type (and a TOC) would help matters significently. I don't think you should make users figure out an undocumentated sort order and then make them read the "fine print" of the template type to figure out where the sections are separated. It's a lousy system - I can't put it any more plainly than that. Finally, I think the two-tiered sort heirachy needs to be reflected in the headers. In other words, there should be a primary "Active Adventures (No Disguise)" header with secondary sections for "Combat", etc. --Gymnosophist 17:04, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
- I'm anxious to get some response on this as it has some bearing on the Infobox Discussion. So please, let's get some feedback. Thanks. --Gymnosophist 00:30, 18 October 2006 (CDT)
- I have to say I would vastly prefer having (In Disguise) adventures on a separate page; currently such pages are a bit hard to quickly reference. I don't feel as strongly about adventure sort order, but I think having all choice adventures next to each other makes it easier for me to find them. There's absolutely no point in not clearly marking the order in some way, but it shouldn't break up the page too much.--Starwed 16:12, 10 November 2006 (CST)
- I think that having disguise adventures on a separate page would actually be less convenient than is having them in a properly organized page with a TOC. To get to the disguise adventures, you would presumably first search for the location, then find and click the link to the disguise adventures. It's easier to simply use the TOC or scroll down. Additionally, there isn't too much of a rationale for doing this. You could make a case for creating separate locations for the two mining-in-disguise locations as well as the Laboratory, as all three of these locations show a different location image when you visit there with the appropriate disguise. But for the cases you're more concerned with, A Battlefield, The Hippy Camp, Orcish Frat House, and The Obligatory Pirate's Cove, I can't see any reason or rationale for splitting them. If the reason for splitting them is that these adventures don't occur unless a certain precondition is fulfilled (the wearing of a disguise), then, by the same logic, we should create a separate "location" for just about every clover adventure, as well as separate "locations" for such adventures as Minnesota Incorporeals, Skelter Butleton, the Butler Skeleton, Polo Tombstone, How Depressing, Rotting Matilda, etc. --Gymnosophist 20:44, 12 November 2006 (CST)
- It's not so much that "these adventures don't occur unless a certain precondition" that is the distinction. The distinction is more modal; I want to be able to keep one page open while I'm in a particular adventuring mode, and not be bothered by stuff which has no relevance while in that mode. If I'm adventuring in the bugbear pens, it's either pre- or post- beating Felonia, and I'm never going to switch back and forth. So at any point in time, about half the page is going to be useless to me, making it harder to get the information I need. Same to a lesser extent with the outfit affected zones; chances are I"m going to be burning a whole string of adventures in one mode or the other, and I'll only need information about the mode I'm currently in. --Starwed 01:17, 13 November 2006 (CST)
- You have a point on The Bugbear Pens (and The Misspelled Cemetary, which you mentioned earlier), especially as we've already split up The Typical Tavern, which has exactly the same issue. On the disguise adventures, I still have to disagree here. There are strong structural and procedural reasons for keeping all the adventures on one page. On the advocated two-page approach, I'll say again that I think that it would actually be less convenient than is having them in a properly organized page with a TOC (one page load plus a TOC click is easier and faster than loading a page, finding and clicking the disguise link and then loading a second page). The useless half a page doesn't really matter, as the TOC click takes you directly to where you want to be. --Gymnosophist 09:25, 13 November 2006 (CST)
- Why would more pages make it easier? I'd rather scroll to "switch modes" rather than have two pages on the same thing (but examining slightly dissimilar aspects of it). The separate page scheme is hazard in that it seems single out certain conditions for separate pages with no clear and logical heuristic. Why should disguise versions of a location page exist and not others?
- I think that having disguise adventures on a separate page would actually be less convenient than is having them in a properly organized page with a TOC. To get to the disguise adventures, you would presumably first search for the location, then find and click the link to the disguise adventures. It's easier to simply use the TOC or scroll down. Additionally, there isn't too much of a rationale for doing this. You could make a case for creating separate locations for the two mining-in-disguise locations as well as the Laboratory, as all three of these locations show a different location image when you visit there with the appropriate disguise. But for the cases you're more concerned with, A Battlefield, The Hippy Camp, Orcish Frat House, and The Obligatory Pirate's Cove, I can't see any reason or rationale for splitting them. If the reason for splitting them is that these adventures don't occur unless a certain precondition is fulfilled (the wearing of a disguise), then, by the same logic, we should create a separate "location" for just about every clover adventure, as well as separate "locations" for such adventures as Minnesota Incorporeals, Skelter Butleton, the Butler Skeleton, Polo Tombstone, How Depressing, Rotting Matilda, etc. --Gymnosophist 20:44, 12 November 2006 (CST)
- I have to say I would vastly prefer having (In Disguise) adventures on a separate page; currently such pages are a bit hard to quickly reference. I don't feel as strongly about adventure sort order, but I think having all choice adventures next to each other makes it easier for me to find them. There's absolutely no point in not clearly marking the order in some way, but it shouldn't break up the page too much.--Starwed 16:12, 10 November 2006 (CST)
- It seems clear to me that the de facto ordering is "combat", "noncombat (choice collected at end)", "clover", "retired". A choice adventure that has an embedded combat is still a noncombat adventure for +/- noncombat adventure effects, if I understand correctly, so it should stay with the choice adventures. "one-time" is not a type, it's just a note. "superlikely" IS it's own thing, because it ignores +/- noncombat, but I think that can be indicated by a note as well, rather than arguing about giving it special position. There don't need to be special sections for each type--the template style is sufficient to tell where combat adventures end and noncombats begin. The current sections of "Adventures" (combat, noncombat, clover), "In Disguise" (combat, noncombat, clover), and "Retired Adventures" suffice. (In case it wasn't clear, I've really grown to like "retired" as the answer to that discussion.) I'm aware that The Spooky Forest doesn't follow this scheme, I've just been avoiding cleaning it up until the choice adventure formatting was resolved. --Jonrock 15:47, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
- What is "the way it is now"? Again, we now have a third type of adventure, the choice adventure. These choice adventures are sometimes segregated at the bottom (The Obligatory Pirate's Cove), sometimes at the top (A Battlefield), and sometimes sprinkled throughout the noncombat adventures (The Spooky Forest). Additionally, some choice adventures have combat adventures imbedded in them (like Out in the Garden in The Haunted Gallery). We seem to have agreed that the combats be embedded as a part of the choice adventures, an approach which doesn't lend itself to the sorting-by-type approach. Further, we have more than just the three types of adventures discussed above - there are also clover, one-time and retired (or obsolete/deimplemented, etc. - did that discussion ever arrive at any conclusion?), all of which are accorded special sort treatment. Should we have separate sections for all six types of adventures? --Gymnosophist 03:57, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
- I like the way it is now. I propose that we just add section headers for clarity. On another note entirely, we really should display stat/resistance information on the actual pages instead of forcing the user to go back to the location page....something which is not at all intuitive.--SomeStranger (t|c) 22:37, 12 October 2006 (CDT)
<Location>
/ \
<Normal Page> <Disguise Page>
/ \ / \
<Normal Section> <Other Condition Section> <Normal Section> <Other Condition Section>
vs.
<Location>
/ \
<Normal Page> <Other Condition Page>
/ \ / \
<Normal Section> <Disguise Section> <Normal Section> <Disguise Section>
--Dehstil (t|c) 23:00, 13 November 2006 (CST)
- I'd say there's a pretty clearcut distinction between a condition which triggers one adventure (like carrying a clover) vs. a condition which branches off into a completely different set of adventures. The Bugbear Pens provide a good example of this; here the split would not be into a seperate disguise page, because that only triggers one adventure. Rather, it would be the pre/post felonia distinction. Maybe it would be nontrivial to write a script which can tell the difference, but I don't think that means that a logical distinction isn't there.
- The reason I'm arguing this point is that the greater the information density on a particular webpage, the harder it will be to find any particular bit of data on that page. In such situations where there's a modal distinction between two types of adventures, it presents the opportunity to lower the information density by splitting it up. You might, if you ended up on the wrong page, have to click on an extra link. But the page you're on will be easier to use, and I think that's a trade-off worth making. --Starwed 08:33, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- Well, what you're saying would be true if the page contents were just an undifferentiated mass of information. But what I keep saying, apparently without being clear enough, is that clicking the TOC will take you right to where you want to go! Once you're there, all the information you want is in it's own section! Another way of looking at the matter is to consider how Wikipedia generally deals with organizing data. You'll note, for example, that Wikipedia:Kingdom of Loathing has a total of 17 sections and subsections. The article hasn't been atomized into 17 separate pages. This is because the information for each of the 17 sections belongs in the main page. Similiarly, the location page The Hippy Camp should have all the possible adventures that occur there. This has been a fundamental principle of location pages - they should contain all of the information about that location. The Bugbear Pens might very well be considered two separate locations and might should be split up for that reason (as was The Typical Tavern), but The Hippy Camp is a single location in which different things happen based on what you equip (just as The Haunted Billiards Room is a single location that has something different happen when you adventure there with a pool cue). Not to cut the disguise discussion short, but I'm also interested in hearing if there are any more comments regarding the two tiered sort heirarchy discussed above in my 17:04, 15 October 2006 post. --Gymnosophist 13:14, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- "Once you're there, all the information you want is in it's own section!" Which would be fine if it all fit onto one screen. But you have to scroll around to find the adventure you're looking for. And (at least for me) having all the adventures on one page makes this harder than it needs to be. I mean, it's possible that this is just my personal problem. ^_^ But I'm relating a difficulty I actually have, not just conjecturing about a possible difficulty others might have. I mean, either way it's not going to be rocket science to find what you're looking for; I just think one way is more "user friendly." (Of course its always a bad idea to decide what most users want based on your own needs, which is pretty much what I"m doing here. ^_^)--Starwed 13:51, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- If you ask me, I think each distinct in-game zone should have its own page, meaning all areas with distinct "in disguise" zones (hippy camp, pirate cove, frat house, cola battlefield) should have their own page (but be linked with the main page, of course). Itznotyerzitz Mine and the Knob Shaft don't really have in-disguise adventures since the Mining Outfit simply replaces the zone with the special 'mining' page. Pre/post-Cyrpt Cemetary would also get split, but the Bugbear Pens are somewhat of a technicality since the game doesn't appear to actually redirect you to a new zone after Felonia is defeated. --Quietust (t|c) 16:47, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- Yes, I'm asking you! :) Historically, the gold standard that we use for determining what a location is and what it's name is is the text incorporated into the location image, not the "zone". That's why, for example, The Casino is called "The Casino" rather than "The Thatch-Roofed Casino" (the name that appears once you go "inside" the casino). We've bent this standard somewhat in order to split up The Typical Tavern and, for reasons of both logic and consistency, should probably do the same for both the pre/post-Cyrpt Cemetary and the Bugbear Pens (regardless of it's "zone" designation). I'm not actually clear on what is meant by "zone" - is it the same as Areas by Number? Itznotyerzitz Mine and the Knob Shaft actually have different images displayed when wearing the mining gear and therefore probably qualify as separate locations. All the disguise locations, hippy camp, pirate cove, frat house, cola battlefield seem to me to be fundamentally a single individual location. I may be wrong in this, but I think we need a pretty clear consensus to change it. --Gymnosophist 18:28, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- Meh, if you ask me, it's still easier for me to scroll than to follow a link to a separate page when it comes to disguises partly because I can switch back and forth all the time. I guess it's ok for locations that change completely and irrevocably until next ascension because, once the location changes, I won't need the information for the old location for a long time.--Dehstil (t|c) 20:12, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- If you ask me, I think each distinct in-game zone should have its own page, meaning all areas with distinct "in disguise" zones (hippy camp, pirate cove, frat house, cola battlefield) should have their own page (but be linked with the main page, of course). Itznotyerzitz Mine and the Knob Shaft don't really have in-disguise adventures since the Mining Outfit simply replaces the zone with the special 'mining' page. Pre/post-Cyrpt Cemetary would also get split, but the Bugbear Pens are somewhat of a technicality since the game doesn't appear to actually redirect you to a new zone after Felonia is defeated. --Quietust (t|c) 16:47, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- "Once you're there, all the information you want is in it's own section!" Which would be fine if it all fit onto one screen. But you have to scroll around to find the adventure you're looking for. And (at least for me) having all the adventures on one page makes this harder than it needs to be. I mean, it's possible that this is just my personal problem. ^_^ But I'm relating a difficulty I actually have, not just conjecturing about a possible difficulty others might have. I mean, either way it's not going to be rocket science to find what you're looking for; I just think one way is more "user friendly." (Of course its always a bad idea to decide what most users want based on your own needs, which is pretty much what I"m doing here. ^_^)--Starwed 13:51, 14 November 2006 (CST)
- Hmm, I hate to reply to an issue over two months old but it appears to me that it never got resolved. After reading over most of the comments above it appears that sorting by type of adventure has been established. Here are the issues I see (most of which have brought up) and my views on them:
- (1) Page break up. Do locations with different adventure types or conditions get separate pages?
- (1.1) The Misspelled Cemetary
- (1.2) The Bugbear Pens
- (1.3) In Disguise zones (A Battlefield (x2), The Hippy Camp, The Obligatory Pirate's Cove, and The Orcish Frat House)
- (1.4) Other
- (2) Sections. (Combat, Non-combat, Choice, One Time, Clover, Ultra Rare, In Disguise, Obsolete.)
- (2.1) Headers. Should sections be separated with headers?
- (2.2) Table of Contents.
My views follow:
- (1) Upon first thinking about, I thought that each area should only have one page, but while studying The Misspelled Cemetary, it changed my mind. I now hold the view that each zone in Areas by Number should have it's own page, besides the formerly, test zones, and in disguise areas.
- (1.1) I feel The Misspelled Cemetary should be split into The Misspelled Cemetary (Pre-Cyrpt) and The Misspelled Cemetary (Post-Cyrpt) with The Misspelled Cemetary becoming a disambiguation page for the two. Since you'll always only have access to one or the other this makes the most sense to me. Especially since it would be nice to see (on a single page) all of the combat adventures that take place at the cemetary post-cyrpt. Apparently it's been confirmed that Count Bakula occurs both pre-cyrpt and post-cyrpt.
- (1.2) Of course, then there's also The Bugbear Pens issue. Has it been confirmed that Pre-Felonia and Post-Felonia have the same area number? Either way, it's not possible to switch back and forth between the two on demand, but my views to split this page are nowhere near as strong as to split The Misspelled Cemetary. If we do do section headers based on combat/non-combat it would probably be easier to split the page though.
- (1.3) I think, as you can see in my following comments, that Disguised Adventures should stay on the same page, as it is possible to switch back and forth on demand. With a table of contents it is easy to navigate anyway, and currently (although it may change in the future) all disguised adventures are non-combat, so that wouldn't even have to be said.
- (1.4) The only other area with different types of adventures is Crimbo Town Toy Factory which had a different area if Unionize The Elves sign was equipped. Obviously this area isn't of much concern since is obsolete but still deserves some discussion. Personally, I feel that this zone should stay on one page, since 1) It's rather short the way it is, 2) It's (likely) never going to be used as reference for adventuring again, and most importantly 3) It was possible to switch back and forth between the two.
- (2) I agree mostly with what Gymnosophist suggested. That is to start with the combat adventures, followed by non-combat adventures (which is what pretty much all pages have already been adopted to do anyway, I believe). The only issue is for when a combat results in from the choice of a non-combat (such as in The Haunted Ballroom, The Spooky Gravy Barrow, or The Dungeons of Doom).
- (2.1) I think that the sections Combat Adventures, Non-combat Adventures, In Disguise, and Obsolete Adventures should have headers (in that order) and all be alphabetized within their category with the following exceptions:
- One time adventures should be at the end of Non-combat Adventures.
- "Choice to combat" (including one time) adventures should be listed at end of combat adventures.
- Clover adventures should be after the one time adventures of the section Non-combat Adventures (after one time adventures, assuming they are non-combat... this could change in the future).
- Ultra rare adventures should be at the end of Combat Adventures (after "choice to combat"). This is currently not the way that most are listed but I think it makes the most sense, especially if the sections are labeled.
- Oh, and not really an exception, but choice adventures should be mixed in with non-combat.
- (2.2) So that's four sections maximum. As for the table of contents I think it should exist on all locations with more than one section. I don't know if it's best to use the wiki one, or make a custom one though, or even where to put it.
- (2.1) I think that the sections Combat Adventures, Non-combat Adventures, In Disguise, and Obsolete Adventures should have headers (in that order) and all be alphabetized within their category with the following exceptions:
- So yeah, that's my opinion on the matter. What does anybody else have to say? Does anybody even use this page anymore?
--TheDotGamer 07:10, 18 January 2007 (CST)
- Your proposal sounds good to me. I think it would be nice if some color-coding were added to distinguish different types of adventures, in addition to the section headers, but I'm not sure how to make that look nice. --Starwed 15:04, 18 January 2007 (CST)
- Upon further thinking about it, it makes much more sense to "expand" clover adventures into "conditional adventures". I'm not sure if it would deserve a heading (probably not as it would usually only have one or two adventures). Anyway, basically they are adventures that you have some control over. All ten-leaf clovers obviously, but then also That's your cue, and the new adventures that require the Eau D'tortue effect. Probably more too. Since they're (I think) all non-combat they would go after the other non-combats but before the one-time adventures. That way when you're looking at the list you'd see the non-combat adventures that you'll most likely encounter all at one spot. Almost all one-time adventures could be argued as being "conditional" (usually a quest needs to be completed) but I think that order should be: all of the time, some of the time, one time. --TheDotGamer 11:36, 19 January 2007 (CST)
- Excellent and well thought out. Colors or styling would actually help distinguish things immensely, along with actually going along with the guidelines listed above.--Dehstil (t|c) 16:24, 19 January 2007 (CST)
Here's my styling proposal, which accounts for the various overlaps in adventure types:
In reverse order of precedence (each bullet is overridden by any applicable bullets below it):
- Section Location (Main Modal Type)
- Combat
- Non-combat
- In Disguise
- Obsolete
- Border Color (Subtype)
- Blue: Choice Template:Click
- Green: Clover Template:Click (is modal, but not a major category, so no section of its own)
- Purple: Quest Template:Click
- Red: Ultra-Rare Template:Click
- Border Style (Occurrence Rate)
- Dashed: Conditional
- Solid: One-time
- Double: Rare
If colored, an adventure's left border is always styled as medium and solid.
Example:
| Forward to the Past Template:Click | |
|
|
Also, I added a little bumper sticker (mini-button, whatever) to identify the adventure. Forced TOCs would be great because these sections tend to be longer than the typical sections, requiring much more scrolling.--Dehstil (t|c) 17:20, 19 January 2007 (CST)
- I think that actually looks very good. I have no objections to your styling proposal. Also, are you saying to force the TOC if there are only two sections like I suggested? --TheDotGamer 12:17, 21 January 2007 (CST)
- Yes, exactly, a forced TOC. After playing around with a few billion spacing/logic/etc schemes, I've come up with {{test/adventure}} feel free to suggest ways to make it even more visually appealing and whatnot.--Dehstil (t|c) 19:43, 21 January 2007 (CST)
- A minor point about TOC and section headers; I think the sections denoting combat, noncombat, etc. should be subsections of an "Adventures" section, to seperate them more cleanly from Notes and References. --Starwed 12:57, 20 February 2007 (CST)
- That's fine, but I'm actually indifferent towards this; does anyone else have an opinion?--Dehstil (t|c) 23:08, 20 February 2007 (CST)
- I too am indifferent in regards to this. I mean, "Notes" and "References" are much shorter than "Combat Adventures", "Non-combat Adventures", and "Obsolete Adventures" so I feel they would be easily distinguished. See The Sleazy Back Alley for example now. But then again, it might look a little better the other way. So, yeah. --TheDotGamer 09:44, 27 February 2007 (CST)
- A minor point about TOC and section headers; I think the sections denoting combat, noncombat, etc. should be subsections of an "Adventures" section, to seperate them more cleanly from Notes and References. --Starwed 12:57, 20 February 2007 (CST)
- Is there really any objection to splitting the page The Misspelled Cemetary into The Misspelled Cemetary (Pre-Cyrpt) and The Misspelled Cemetary (Post-Cyrpt)? It seems that the benefits would certainly outweigh the consequences. As was mentioned, The Typical Tavern has been split some time ago. Splitting the cemetary page would allow a more clear listing of adventure that occur pre-quest and post-quest. By viewing Talk:The Misspelled Cemetary it appears that people are sort of confused when not seeing item drops on the current page. --TheDotGamer 20:46, 26 March 2007 (CDT)
- Well, it's done now. Except for "a few" remaining links. I took care of most of important ones already. --TheDotGamer 12:00, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
RandomlySelect
- We need something like
{{#rand:2|5}}which would generate numbers 2, 3, 4, 5 randomly to replace<RandomlySelect>2|3|4|5</RandomlySelect>which currently breaks when used in links or when templating its parameters. Anyone?--Dehstil (t|c) 17:31, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
Tuesday Updates
- The "Tuesday" page has proven to be a handy sandbox for spading out the effects of updates, and a 'first draft' of kol-history to boot. However, as is obvious, not all important updates occur on Tuesday. I think we should rename the page "Updates" and redirect Tuesday there, or just agree to land updates on that page regardless of day.--DirkDiggler 18:19, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- When I first created the page, the aim, if I remember correctly, was to create a quick way for people to glance at what exactly any new content is in as concise a form as possible. Whether the monster queue change is to be considered new content that people care about or an insignificant triviality that doesn't matter remains to be seen. As for page title, I like Tuesday. It gives the page a touch of humanity. --Alpaca (T/C) 18:38, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- Just to be clear, I also like the name, and think that all updates that change game mechanics or otherwise deserve spading should appear on the Tuesday page... My inclination would be to make Updates redirect to Tuesday and allow significant game changes on that page regardless of date.--DirkDiggler 20:54, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- I don't care about the name, but we do need a place to keep track of updates. I can't imagine that having non-tuesday updates on the page would annoy anyone. Not having a place for non-tuesday updates, though, is a real problem. Let's put them all together. Now - sensible name or slightly quirky name? It doesn't matter to me. --Shadowless
- We already have a place to keep track of updates..the recent updates list in-game which is actually copied each day to the kolwiki (what happened this day). If you want up-to-date info on exactly what happened you can head over to the forums. There are not really enough updates (and by updates I mean updates that do not require spading) on days besides tuesday to justify its own page. If something comes along then we can make accomodations for it specifically. (The forums are a very reliable source for everything else considering most info for newest content on the wiki is copied straight from the forums)--SomeStranger (t|c) 21:19, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- A comprehensive list of updates, announcements, and events can be found at History of Loathing. Sure KoL "updates" can happen anytime, but "Tuesday Updates" were started a few month(s?) back, and this page seems to stay concerned with those "regular" updates. Even though Tuesday updates are usually trivial (adding a few recipes, items, etc.), they do help keep things fresh on a regular basis. IMO ;-) At least when nothing else new is added to KoL, there are the Tuesday updates to look forward to ;-). --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 21:24, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- Currently, the History of Loathing is just a copy of the words that are in the updates, whereas Tuesday section can and does contain information pertaining to that event. One particularly pointed example is the September 6th event, which probably should be added somewhere to the game mechanics section, but hasn't been... Also, let me point out that I think the recent updates list is a very poor way for players to keep up with new events in the kingdom, because those new events are frequently hard to find amongst the myriad mundane changes and spelling fixes that are made every day. Also, it can be very difficult to ascertain what has changed over a longer period of time using the recent changes list. I think that Tuesday should be used for the cataloguing of and provision of information relevant to KOL updates. --Shadowless
- Hrm, would this page be a good replacement to TheKolWiki:Current events, which is currently removed from the sidebar for usefulness?--Dehstil (t|c) 23:27, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
- There seems to not have been any consensus here, although at least the Tuesday page now reflects an "official" position of Tuesday updates only. I'd personally vote for the Tuesday page to contain all updates which affect gameplay. --Starwed 06:41, 11 December 2006 (CST)
Player Hit Messages
Might as well get this started. But this will probably have so much stuff that it will need it's own page. So here it is: Talk:Player Hit Messages. Use this for all research and discussion on "The old, boring "You hit for X damage" messages in monster fights have been augmented with more specific messages based on your weapon and the monster you're fighting.". --Gymnosophist 00:18, 13 September 2006 (CDT)
- Discussion of how to implement the new weapon messages into the Wiki has now begun here. --Gymnosophist 04:01, 14 September 2006 (CDT)
Reference List
I have recently had the idea of maybe setting up a comprehensive list of references in the game. I don't know much about setting up Wiki pages, however. Does anyone have any thoughts on the idea, or want to start a coalition of anal retentive people to seek out and compendiate the references? My idea would be to organize the references by zone, and not actually detailing out the references, but just naming them and having a link to the zone/monster/adventure that contains that reference. Thoughts? Comments? Assasinations? - Pigthecow 09:56, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
Game Mechanics, Bonuses from Effects
In the various Game Mechanics pages (such as Combat Initiative), equipment, skills, and effects are all listed as giving various bonuses. Equipment is listed by its type ("Weapon", "Pants", "Hat", "Accessory", etc.), skills are listed by class (abbreviated) and type ("combat", "noncombat", "buff", "passive"), yet effects granted by items are listed simply as "Item". The problem is, they aren't actually items - they're effects granted by items (where the item name itself is sometimes listed over in the Notes column). Personally, I think it would make more sense to label them as "Item Effect" and indicate the source item in the "Cost" column (rather than simply "Item Loss", say which item is lost) unless there is more than one item. --Quietust 08:50, 29 September 2006 (CDT)
- Perfectionism, it's a lovely sight. Yeah, it bugged me too. On it, starting with combat initiative. anyone got any other pages need changing like this? --Shokwave 08:57, 29 September 2006 (CDT)
- It's a reasonable point, and one that I think this was originally discussed in the now-deleted forums when the game mechanics pages were first being set up. The short answer is a stylistic one: the game mechanics tables weren't intended to provide exhaustive detail - that's what the source links are for. Further, the game mechanics tables were intentionally set up to be as uncluttered and as streamlined as possible; that's also why the various source types (hats, etc.) aren't linkified, nor are the various notes such as "Mafia prize", etc. That being said, the suggestion of changing the source type from "Item" to "Item Effect" is a good one and should be implemented. On the suggestion of putting a single source item in the "Cost" column instead of "Item "Loss", let's implement this as well, but instead of adding the item to the "Cost" column, let's add the unlinked item to the "Notes" (in part so that the tables remain as compact as possible). The "Item Loss" Cost should be retained. For multi-source effects such as Sugar Rush, lets add "Obtained from multiple items" in the Notes. --Gymnosophist 12:12, 29 September 2006 (CDT)
Breath Skills
I'm puzzled by a couple of things about the suite of Breath skills granted by the hi meins (Cold Breath (skill), etc. from cold hi mein, etc.). Firstly, the skill pages all say that "When calculating damage, the duration is effectively capped at 10". The meins have a fullness of 5, you could eat 3 (or 4) of these, giving you an effect duration of 15 (or 20). Does "effectively capped at 10" mean that there is a hard cap in the calculation? Secondly, there are several notes in the skill pages that indicate that eating a hi mein gives free Moxious Maneuvers to Moxie classes (Sleazy Breath (skill), Talk:Sleazy Breath (skill), Spooky Breath (skill), Hot Breath (skill), Talk:Hot Breath (skill)). Later notes don't confirm this (Talk:Spooky Breath (skill)). Was this changed? Does this work erratically? Does this work different ways for different elemental Breaths? Is it all just a pipe dream? I did some digging around elsewhere but couldn't come up with anything on this. --Gymnosophist 00:00, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
Elemental Item Enchantments
Why is it that of all the various types of elemental item enchantments, the only one that gets colored and linkified is physical damage? If one type is linkified, they all should be (or none of them). Hot Resistance (asbestos helmet turtle), +X to Hot Spells (ram-battering staff), All Spells Cast Are Hot (Codex of Capsaicin Conjuration), etc. should be treated just the same as +X Hot Damage (flaming talons). And the 5-ball just looks... silly. --Gymnosophist 01:39, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
New Trophy Page
I just ran across an interesting discussion over at Talk:Trophy# Page Redesign?. As the discussion seems to have died on the vine (which seems to happen all too often around here), I thought I'd try to revive it by bringing it up here. Basically, it's been suggested that the existing Trophy page isn't very useful as it simply lists the trophies in their numerical order (with acquisition details). A proposal was made, complete with an example, whereby trophy information would:
- Include sublists by the type of trophy:
- Familiar weight
- Collecting things
- Consuming things
- Permanent skills
- Specific day/event things (most of which are no longer available)
- Possibly a section on sign/skill dependent?
- etc.
- Confirmed trophies that must be bought:
- Before freeing the King
- Before ascending
- Ascension-independent
Somehow, things got bogged down right after it was seemingly decided that there should be two pages, one a detailed trophy page, and the other a Trophys by number page. Let's un-bog this and get it implemented - it sounds like a good idea to me. --Gymnosophist 14:05, 3 October 2006 (CDT)
- My vague wish, way down the list and mostly unrelated to this, is for a page of Trophies By Image so that I can look up what other people have without having to know how they got it in the first place. --Jonrock 15:51, 3 October 2006 (CDT)
- Sounds cool. Also, I don't see why the image name can't be listed right next to the trophy on trophies by number. The actual summaries as to how to get each one should probably only be on the list that sorts it by type, if this is done, since that's where it'd be relevant.--Dehstil (t|c) 16:01, 3 October 2006 (CDT)
- Yep, images are a must. Not sure if this turns trophies into a two page deal or a three pager. The filenames should definitely go with the images, but not sure about adding them to the trophies-by-number page - all the other X-by-number pages are short and sweet - just a bare bones listing. BTW, I just added Outfit images to the table on the Outfit page - it looks good (IMHO). Not sure if trying to squeeze in the tattoo images into the Outfit table is advisable, or even doable. Might be nice though. --Gymnosophist 22:39, 3 October 2006 (CDT)
- Sounds cool. Also, I don't see why the image name can't be listed right next to the trophy on trophies by number. The actual summaries as to how to get each one should probably only be on the list that sorts it by type, if this is done, since that's where it'd be relevant.--Dehstil (t|c) 16:01, 3 October 2006 (CDT)
- Looks like I forgot to mention here that I did this a couple weeks ago, and it seems to be working out. I skipped over implementing a detailed "type of trophy" property, but you can mostly get that by sorting on the "Requirement" column, assuming I used the same verb for each of the same type of trophy. Enjoy! --Jonrock 21:48, 30 June 2007 (CDT)
