Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Quests

Requirements
The 'preceeded by' information in the infobox includes duplicated and sometimes incomplete information.

The 'Requires' section should tell all the requirements for starting a quest, including any quests that need to have been completed before the quest can be started. Quests needed to be completed in order to complete the pre-requisite quest should not be included directly. Max 2
 * I disagree. The information, which is very useful for quick navigation along a quest chain, is already present in the infobox. I do not believe it should be placed in the requirements section. -- FreedomBound [[Image:User_Freedom_Bound_Sig.png|19px]] 17:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I also disagree. Quest chains are very common, so that is why it is in the infobox. And duplicating it just makes the page more cluttered. --JonTheMon 17:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think it adds clutter. I think people will expect all specific requirements under the requirements header, and in fact that came up as a problem recently in my alliance because a pre-requisite quest wasn't. -- pling User Pling sig.png 17:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict) For my part, I prefer that information not be duplicated. The existing system works reasonably well, and has the advantage of being picked up by the DPL in, e.g. List of Prophecies quests.  --DryHumour 17:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * There is that some quests for a chain in the meaning the are meant to happen sequentially in a story arc, but technically, there is no req you have done the quests in order. Backsword 17:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think the infobox info would be taken out, the quest info would be added to the main body. To be honest, I don't mind either way, but I can see positives to adding quests under the req section. -- pling User Pling sig.png 17:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Right now I do think it's a little unclear as to what's the requirement if they don't look at the infobox. A lot of people just seem to look at the requirements section and go with that instead of looking at the info box.  A lot of times the quest pages don't  even have a requirements section and assume that there is no requirements or pre-req quests. For us wikiveterans it's clear as daylight, but looks like it's not the case with 'some' people who use it only as a reference.-- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 17:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The infobox is useful for quick navigation. ALL preceeding quests belong in the infobox entry. However that does not mean the immediate preceeding quest does not belong in the 'Requirements' section. In fact, it would make sense to include a parameter in template:Standard prerequisites containing that information. --Max 2 18:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree with including all preceding quests in the "preceding quest" box, unless there are multiple quests you must do in order to start whatever quest (i.e. quests A, B, and C need to be completed in order to star quest D, but can be completed in no particular order). My disagreement stems from aesthetics, as I think including multiple quests would break the box (though I am not going to check right now). -- R i ddle 17:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The Cipher of Kormir Backsword 18:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) (Edit conflict) I'm certainly not adamantly opposed to adding an immediate prerequisite to the section (although duplication of information can lead to mismatches and other similar maintenance problems). However, I am not at all keen on including indirect prerequisites to the infobox: that will adversely affect the readability and usability of the DPL lists (e.g. List of Prophecies quests). --DryHumour 17:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Minimal info and clutter needed to 'clearly' convey that there are requirements are fine. For chain quests adding just the preceding quest in the req section would work okay IMO.  The box has little space as it is, so referring to the req section when there is a large list of reqs probably would work? And Mtew, please sign your comments with ~ pretty please? -- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 17:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * On a related note, I would suggest that there is little point in listing quests which are not prerequisites (e.g. Warrior's Challenge). --DryHumour 17:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Why would anyone want to/need to do that? Unless I hear a good reason as to why, I'm reverting it if it already haven't been. -- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 18:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I used my 1RV already; note ditto Unnatural Growths. In fairness to all concerned, perhaps it would be best to wait until a final consensus has been reached?  For example, if we are going to add prerequisites to the section, it is certainly worth exploring whether Standard prerequisites would be the right place to do it.  --DryHumour 18:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Would people be satisfied if there was a way to make the preceding quests portion of the infobox stand out more? --JonTheMon 18:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be annoying when reading the box for any other info. Backsword 18:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What if it was a star or something to the left of the Preceding Quests section? --JonTheMon 18:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Lania: Sorry, I'll try to do better...
 * Personally, I think you have a point about the indirect prerequisites in the infobox, but there is tradition behind it. If the immediate prerequisites were template:Standard prerequisites parameters, they could be included automatically in the infobox results using DPL, or maybe subst:DPL would be better, but I suspect that could cause performance problems. (I'd like a chance to play with doing that, but that's not 'on' at the moment.)
 * DH: The note about requirements that are not present is on a number of quests in pre-searing. Specifically it is on tests that give additional skills but do not introduce secondary professions. I was simply adding a few such notes were they were missing. The note acts as a flag when hunting for skill enhancement quests.
 * Jon: No on additional emphasis. The 'preceeded by' section is messed up enough as it is, but the 'star' would help. --Max 2 18:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Uh, the star would be "additional emphasis", so I'm not sure if you agree or not. --JonTheMon 18:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) (Edit conflict) I'm not aware of any tradition of indirect prerequisites in infoboxes (not that there aren't any, just that I don't know of them), but they should probably be removed rather than new ones added. For the non-prerequisites, I suspect that the usage is too subtle to be useful &mdash; but that is just my opinion. I don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other except to say that if it is kept it should probably be absorbed into Standard prerequisites as another possible value to the test= parameter. --DryHumour 18:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Jon: If you mean immediate pre-requisites should be stared, fine. I thought you were talking about putting more emphasis on the entire 'preceeded by' block.
 * DH: I was thinking about adding the needed code to the template. It might not even need a special test= value. I was going to survey the templates usage before I did that though. --Max 2 18:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I meant a star/something to the left of the entire preceeded by box. so it'd be like * | Preceded by | Quest |   --JonTheMon 18:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You did mean in template:quest infobox. I think that would be a bad idea. Better would be to add '*' before the immediate prerequisite quests in the infobox invocation. --Max 2 19:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that JonTheMon is simply trying to draw attention to the infobox prerequisites as a means of compromise which does not necessitate their addition to the requirements section proper. Note too that if there are no indirect prerequisites in the infobox, which is the current proposal, stars would be almost meaningless as they would appear on every entry.  Note too that whatever appears in the template parameter is going to get transcluded verbatim into the DPL lists: lots of stars probably isn't going to help comprehension there.  --DryHumour 19:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with that. It's not a problem of seeing it, it's a problem of the language IMO.  People who are used to using guildwiki see preceding quests in the requirements section and when they use the GWW the same requirements only appear in the infobox with preceded by.  I think it's the difference in the language that confuses some people. -- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 19:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps turning the problem around would help? We could modify Standard prerequisites just to output some standard boilerplate ("See also infobox at right" or something). --DryHumour 19:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * To be explicitly clear, this is what I was thinking of. --JonTheMon 20:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

A 'completed' parameter and associated documentation can be added to template:Standard prerequisites now. It will not change anything on the wiki until someone actually provides that parameter someplace. --Max 2 00:42, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Until it is agreed that it is needed, there is no reason to change the template. I suggest that you create an example of what you are proposing in a sandbox rather than modifying the mainspace.  --204.225.249.99 02:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This whole wiki is 'not needed'. There are several other people who agree that it could be USEFUL. --Max 2 12:58, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Would you please stop editing things before full consensus was reached? There is "barely" any level of consensus here, Jon wants to put a star, I want to put the quest req in the req section which was echoed by pling and somewhat by Dry Humor, others don't want the info to be duplicated, and practically everyone except Max2 didn't want additional chain quests listed as reqs. Is there some kind of consensus here that I'm missing here? -- Lania Elderfire 02:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * To be clear, and for the record, my (mild) preference is not to list prerequisites in the requirements section &mdash; only in the infobox. --DryHumour 02:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Scuse, but I read the consensus as the locking could be documented in the requirements section, and that you and Pling agreed with Jon holding out for an emphasizer in the infobox. I've noted that the information in the infobox section is slightly different than the information that should go in the requirements. It's been a while and the old phrasing did not reflect the new consensus, so I've revised it. --Max 2 03:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Requirements (again)
The quests and missions listed in the infobox 'Preceded by' section includes quests that become unavailable when a quest is completed as well as quests that must be completed in order to be able to start the quest. For example 'Message from a Friend' at the very beginning of Prophecies becomes unavailable when 'War Preparations' is completed, but is not required in order to start 'War Preparations'. While this kind of dependency is not common, it makes the list in 'Preceded by' differ from a list of quests that are needed to unlock a particular quest.

Since the 'Preceded by' list is different from the unlock list. having the unlock list included in 'Requirements' is not redundant, even if the two lists will sometimes be the same, I propose that 'may' be changed to 'should' in this guideline. The alternative is a fairly extensive re-examination of this guideline. --Max 2 16:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * My questions would be... What's the fill list of quests with the same behavior? Cause I seriously can't think of any other quests that does the same thing other than activating Ascalon Academy mini mission. -- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 17:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

When to note the absence of a requirement.
In most cases, the absence of of a particular quest or mission as a requirement for another quest can and should be taken for granted. There are a few exceptions. Quests that can be taken immediately by new characters are of special interest and noting them is helpful for new players (or old players who have not started new characters that recently).

The Prophecies Pre-searing skill acquisition quests are a special situation. For characters of the correct primary profession, there are no pre-requisites for the additional skills quests. (The introductory skill quest is different and requires the primary profession test be passed.) For all other primary professions, the tests are only available if the required profession has been chosen as the secondary profession. Choosing a secondary profession requires the primary profession test be completed first. This makes the additional skills quests for the primary profession noteworthy.

--Max 2 13:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I have an example here. I intend to move it the main space Monday. --Max 2 00:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * So what did you change, and how does it benefit things? --JonTheMon 00:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * See the example with 'profession = monk' and 'test = n'... --Max 2 05:07, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * How would this be different in application to Standard prerequisites, which appears to be in use right now?.--Fighterdoken 05:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If you look at the example, you will see that it is intended as a replacement for Standard prerequisites. --Max 2 06:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You mean to modify it? I see no reason to replace it with a whole new template... Obvious things are usually obvious :D - J.P.[[Image:User J.P. sigicon.png| ]] Talk  06:55, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "For characters of the correct primary profession, there are no pre-requisites for the additional skills quests. [...] Choosing a secondary profession requires the primary profession test be completed first. This makes the additional skills quests for the primary profession noteworthy." – actually this sounds more like that the requirement for secondary quests is noteworthy. That could be merged with the profession requirement for those skills: "X as primary profession, or as secondary profession after completing the primary profession test". Or something like that. poke | talk 08:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

J.P.: It IS the Standard prerequisites template with one bullet added under the correct combination of parameters. Sheesh. I get told to build a modified template in a sandbox and then you guys land on me with both feet when I do that. That sucks the smelly hairy root big time, and you wonder why I get pissy.

Poke: Whatever. Under the circumstances specified, there are no preceeding quest requirements and no level requirements. As such, it is noteworthy. The exact phrasing is not something I'm up-tight about. If you can word-smith it and make it easier to understand, have at it by all means! --Max 2 11:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I don't see the need for this change. From what I understand, for these quests, all you need is to have that profession set as your primary or secondary. That's it. Granted, to get your secondary, you have to complete the primary test, then pick your secondary, but those are steps to the final status of "Having X as your primary/secondary profession". --JonTheMon 13:52, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Did you read the introduction to this section? Do you insist that no one would find the note instructive or otherwise useful? And please stop insisting on 'need' as the criteria. If you are going to insist on that, this whole wiki is not needed even though it is nice and chock full of useful information. --Max 2 16:03, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The thing is, wiki articles are not intended to be "all inclusive". That is what links are used for.
 * When listing requeriments, we only list those that are one tier above the quest in question. We don't list the "pre-requisites for the pre-requisites" because we would end having in one page the whole wiki (which in my opinion makes things harder to understand instead of easier). If people wants to know how to attain a secondary profession on pre-searing, by example, we can provide them with the respective link to the page where it explains how you get the secondary professions, instead of listing the quests that may be required for that, and then listing the quests that may be required for acquiring those quests, and so and so.--Fighterdoken 21:50, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Funny that when talking about a requirements section you don't want to talk about what is needed. If you noticed in my argument I distilled your supposed requirement down to a much simpler result that isn't redundant. --JonTheMon 21:55, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * FD: And this note indicates that there are no pre-requests under the specified condition for these particular quests. Did you even bother to read the intro to this section?


 * Jon: You keep insisting on talking about what is 'needed' when the question is 'would this be helpful'. The direct answer to your 'needed' question will ALWAYS be no. In other words, you just do not want to allow anything to change. I consider that to be very dishonest in spite of your exclamation to the contrary.


 * And while your 'distillation' is simpler than the explanation at the top of this section (largely because it leaves the explanation of why this might be a good idea out), the actual text generated is much less complicated. --Max 2 23:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You really like your emphasis, don't you. Well, I have a slightly higher criteria for the worthiness of information on a page, so I use the word "need" to indicate that information beyond that tends to be redundant. Hence, simplified, distilled information. Do the players need to know why they can suddenly choose a quest based on other quests taken before it? Not if they're only told "you have to choose this profession as your primary or secondary". There. Simple, understandable by newbs and easy for returning-to-Pre veterans. --JonTheMon 04:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In other words 'The hell with new players. I do not need this note, so they can do without it too.' Fucking nice attitude. --Max 2 07:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Wtf? First off, if you're a new player, you should probably do the quests in the order they point out. Second, how does "understandable by newbs" turn into "The hell with new players"? --JonTheMon 13:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, right. Translation: 'If I already know about it, the newbies should either do as they are told, or figure it out without help.' --Max 2 17:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Straw man. - Tanetris 18:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

+1 tanetris. Seriously, this is one of the most idiotic ideas I've heard in a long time. Max2/Mtew, you aren't making any sense and your arguments for adding this type of useless info is as Tanetris said. It's useless, it adds clutter, and it's silly. Please stop the discussion here as I highly doubt it will go anywhere useful or civil. -- Lania Elderfire 18:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. More directly:
 * Note: Monks do not have to take the Monk Test to start this quest.
 * is the text presented. It is a simple and direct statement that can be derived from what Jon said, but may not be obvious to someone not familiar with the quest structure of Pre-Searing. It 'distills' the additional primary/secondary profession skills quest structure there to a simple negative statement. Similar statements apply to the additional skills quests of other professions. It could be added to a Notes section, but it is specific to the requirements for these quests and is also very useful in the Requirements section. Jon's argument is that this is so obvious that it need not be stated. While arguably correct as stated, his insistance that it is obvious shows a disrespect for other people that I find very objectionable. --Max 2 19:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * So instead of
 * Note: Monks do not have to take the Monk Test to start this quest.
 * Why not have
 * or
 * That doesn't seem very ambiguous, and it's a lot less cluttered. --JonTheMon 19:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Still seems redundant as assumes primary or secondary.  Where as [[File:Monk-tango-icon-20.png]] primary doesn't and is more specific.  Still that probably is a bit clearer for the new people. -- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 20:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That fails to note that the primary profession test is not needed if the primary profession is 'monk'. As I noted, this is known to someone familiar with pre-searing, but is not obvious without that familiarity. The 'or ...' is redundant and is much to cryptic an indicator to be useful. I also disagree with the use of the words 'a lot'. --Max 2 20:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're a monk you meet all the requirements. How is that not clear? --JonTheMon 20:33, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The fact that the primary profession test is not needed isn't all that clear. As noted in the introduction to this section, quests that can be taken immediatly by new characters may be noteworthy. --Max 2 20:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * So, the short statement of "must have monk as your primary or secondary" is technically correct and isn't too difficult for a new player to understand. I don't see a reason to say more than that. If they want to skip the primary profession test, that's their prerogative. And so they can look here and see "oh, I only need to be a monk". --JonTheMon 20:54, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason is to call attention to quests that can be taken immediatly by new characters. You seem to be opposed to the idea and say that such a call out is 'unnecessary', You have not answered the question 'will some players find this useful.' I believe the answer to that question is 'yes' and I find your attitude disrespectful of those that would find it useful. --Max 2 22:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I haven't heard of anyone other than you that would think that it would be useful. I don't think it would be useful, and Jon definitely seems opposed to it.  Just because you disagree doesn't mean that you have to concoct a fantasy user base that would find it useful. -- Lania Elderfire [[Image:User Lania Elderfire pinkribbon.jpg]] 23:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Useful does not exclude redundant or cluttered. It has a very minor level of usefulness, which is outweighed by the cons of having it. --JonTheMon 23:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Useful does not exclude redundant or cluttered. It has a very minor level of usefulness, which is outweighed by the cons of having it. --JonTheMon 23:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I have also not seen anybody other than you two object to having the information presented. You won't even let it stay up long enough to let other people react. As for 'clutter', this is 18 bullet items added to the entire wiki, so you are exaggerating at best. And again, why do you insist on removing derivative information. It requires (an admittedly small) synthesis to get the information I am attempting to add from the basic information, so it is not totally 'redundant'. --Max 2 23:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, wiki articles are not all-inclusive. It's enough to link the specific requeriments for something; if those requeriments have other requeriments, or there are other thing asociated but not directly related to the quest, use the notes section. Otherwise, you risk confusing readers instead of making the information more clear.--Fighterdoken 00:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * (For some reason, despite a watch on this page I didn't get any notifications for any of this debate, so my apologies for arriving late.) I also believe that the proposed changes are unnecessary and do not serve to clarify the information already present, or to improve the user experience.  --DryHumour 00:18, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW, there was considerable discussion here (and laterally on LOCATIONS) concerning symbology ( et al.) at the time I first proposed the templates. From the discussion and the proposed examples, the net result of the debate at that time was what you see now:
 * (for primary only)
 * (for primary only and no secondary allowed)
 * (for primary or secondary)
 * (The case of "secondary only" does not arise in the game.) That being said, there's obviously no harm in revisiting the debate, if there are new considerations. --DryHumour 00:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) (I have been asked by Max 2 to comment directly on the first two paragraphs of this section.) My opinion is that the existing indication,, adequately conveys the profession prerequisite for the skill acquisition tests. In general, I feel that listing anti-requisites is not particularly useful. I believe that most users will visit a quest page to answer a question like "Why can't I take this quest?" and not "Why was I able to take this quest?". However, there may well be situations where such information is useful (neither obvious nor redundant, and is enlightening to the reader), but I suspect they are few. --DryHumour 00:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm. New question: Would a list of 'new character' quests be worth doing, and if so, how should it be placed so that people who might want the information can fined it easily. --Max 2 03:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well "easily" is a subjective term, but speaking for myself, I've found the various lists of quests (e.g. List of Prophecies quests) to be very useful. --DryHumour 03:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Only Fair. I tried sorting by profession and 'Preceded by' which should have isolated the new character quests, but it fails to note the requirements for the primary profession test. Also, it should include more information, like minimum and maximum level requirements. --Max 2 04:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said, "easily" is subjective. For a true beginner's guide, you will probably have to roll your own.  Perhaps added to something off of the main page, like Guide to PvE or similar?  Or a dedicated purpose page with a table meeting your particular criteria (DPL or otherwise)?  --DryHumour 07:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that makes sense. A discussion of that does not belong on this page. Where? --Max 2 16:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Another thing that I have noticed is VERY subjective is if something is useful or not. It seems some people presume because they don't see the usefulness right off, than someone else can't find it useful, and so shouldn't be there.  69.182.134.81 05:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

requirements (third) possibly conflicting info
Under "Syntax and Examples" it says:

===Requirements=== Anything which you need before you can perform the quest. Do not list prerequisite quests or missions.

Then, under Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Quests it says

This may include the quest or mission that must be completed in order to unlock this quest. Note that the infobox 'Preceded by' section includes quests blocked by this quest in addition to this unlocking information.

Now does that mean that I should include preceding quests in the requirement section or not? I would say not, because it makes no sense to have that info twice. Roland of Gilead talk 15:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If it's a requirement, it should be there in my opinion. I think anything that is needed/required should be in that section. Kaisha  User Kaisha Sig.png 17:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that the consensus, or an open question? User RolandOfGilead sig.png Roland of Gilead talk 15:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)