Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Locations/Archive1

There's "location", and then there's "location"

One thing has been bugging me on GuildWiki the longest time, but I never managed to get anywhere with it. I figure I might as well see if I can get it straightened out on here.

My issue: on GuildWiki, Thunderhead Keep (Location) is NOT the actual location of the keep itself. The actual location of the keep is the place where you defend King Ironhammer in the end. There are a few other places with similar problems too. In this particular case the keep itself does not have its own article, though for some of the other cases they do, and there's no standard on GuildWiki on how to name those. I propose the following naming scheme:

• Thunderhead Keep (POI) stands for Point Of Interest
• Thunderhead Keep (Mission outpost)
• Thunderhead Keep (Mission)

Please comment. I'm open to other suggestions for the disambiguation syntax, but I strongly oppose using (Location) to represent the mission outpost. -PanSola 23:55, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I agree with not using the term "location" like that. --Rezyk 00:31, 23 February 2007 (EST)

One alternative is to not split them into separate articles. Have one article, with each as a separate section. Then we can really adhere to the "use game name" scheme, as well. --Rezyk 00:31, 23 February 2007 (EST)

I disagree with not separating the articles. The articles for outposts, missions and explorable areas document distinct entities and should not be combined. --Rainith 01:17, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Split them. I'm fine with the disambiguation names except POI. I've never liked Point of Interest. I'd rather Location be used or Landmark. "POI" just reminds me of the Apache Java library I use :p -- ab.er.rant 22:46, 23 February 2007 (EST)

I think it should be like things such as the Onyx Gate, in which it can get its own "landmark" type article, whilst typing in a mission name (ie: Thunderhead Keep) redirects to the mission, as most of the time most people looking up missions are here for information on the mission itself. Basically I'm in favor of us doing what we did with Guildwiki, with the addition of "landmark" articles on certain places when wanted. Eldin 19:05, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I'd prefer "Thunderhead Keep (Outpost)" to "Thunderhead Keep (Mission outpost)". The latter seems excessive, and I don't think there's ever going to be a mission outpost that shares a name with a non-mission outpost. -- Gordon Ecker 04:33, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Any changes?

⇒ moved from old talk page for outposts

The [GuildWiki:Style and formatting/Towns S&F on GuildWiki] were authored by Rainith, Fyren, and Aberrant80 (that is, me). The only non-GFDL contribution was a very minor edit. Are there any changes that people would like to see? I'm not sure I like the list of NPCs as it is, maybe further subdivide them into "Services" and "Others". Also, see the Template:Location infobox that I drafted for towns and outposts. The template has been added to all the towns of Prophecies as examples. -- ab.er.rant 23:17, 23 February 2007 (EST)

I like what we were able to come up with on GuildWiki, I may be a tad bit biased though. ;) I'm not saying that I don't want us to make changes to it, but we should make changes because they improve it, not just to be different from GuildWiki. --Rainith 02:37, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Yep, I know. Going with the new formatting guidelines, introductory text becomes necessary for location articles. Should the map description be the introductory section 0 text, or should we write up something else? -- ab.er.rant 19:40, 24 February 2007 (EST)

You mean the Description section on GWiki? I like having the in game descriptions like that in the article, makes sense to have it be one of the first things there.  :) --Rainith 02:33, 25 February 2007 (EST)

I meant getting rid of the "Description" header. And use the map description as the introductory text. Or would it be better to have some other descriptive text which explains a location? -- ab.er.rant 21:50, 25 February 2007 (EST)

I'm also thinking of swapping the NPC name and NPC type. Meaning we sort by type, then we list the names. It's being ordered that way anyway, so might as well list things in the ordering being used. -- ab.er.rant 09:24, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Merge the formatting

I suggest we merge the formatting for outposts, explorables, and guild halls. Maybe regions even, although regions is more likely to stand on it own. This is in light of the proposed merging of the guidelines for NPC articles. This would provide a fresh start on things rather than having the idea of how GuildWiki does it stuck in our heads. -- ab.er.rant 22:58, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Well you already know how I feel about merging things :p If that's possible then go for it. I just noticed the infobox includes all the 'Services' in a town. That's quite the list for Droks for example + plus it gets repeated in the "NPCs" section. Needs some thinking in any case. --Erszebet 11:02, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Yea, I know it gets repeated, but I stopped after applying them to towns because I think we need parser functions to make it work better. I introduced the services the make it different from the GuildWiki style and provide sort of a at-a-glance services. Sometimes I just jump around outposts (to avoid towns) looking for a service I know I've seen before. So it might be useful. The idea was actually to introduce template parameters like "havemerchant", "haverunetrader", etc. and possibly make it auto-categorize too, so we have categories like "Category:Has merchants" and "Category:Has rune traders". Something like that. I do realise the redundancy for the NPCs section, but figure redundancy is fine, we could add the names, professions, and location explanations to the section. Or we could just dump the NPC name into the infobox directly. -- ab.er.rant 20:29, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Firstly, I appreciate the long list of services in the infobox - like Ab.er.rant, I'm often casting around for a town with a specific service, not just to visit it for its aesthetic appeal or the scintillating "WTS" chat in local channel LoL. The at-a-glance box lets me know if the service is there, and if it is and I want to dig deeper I can refer to the named NPC in the main article body. As for the adoption of GuildWiki's style... hm, well, maybe not the ideal talk page to say it, and no doubt it has been said elsewhere, but I think that sometimes we are tying ourselves up with trying to reinvent the wheel or design a better mousetrap. Sure, there are lots of lessons that can be learned from GuildWiki to avoid repeating mistakes, but we shouldn't shy away from doing something just because "that's the way they do it". I've given up twisting my brain to find ways of stating facts in a different way to them, facts is facts is facts. And this is an "encyclopaedic" collection of Guild Wars facts, prose takes a back seat. :) Fox 07:06, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

In-game description

Adopting the "articles should not begin with a header" rule, should the current location stubs be edited to have the In-game description header removed and the subsequent description left then as the article intro? I've been putting up location stubs, and followed an earlier lead as to style/format, but I will happily go back through all of the location articles created thus far and make this change. If that is the concensus/perceived wisdom, of course :) Fox 07:11, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I'd say no, we shouldn't do that, following my reasoning at: Guild Wars Wiki talk:Official content#Separate GFDL content from non-GFDL content. My preference to have some succinct user-created summary ("ArticleName is an explorable area in the Crystal Desert.") for the intro instead. --Rezyk 11:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

That makes sense. Fox 15:32, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Yep. Keep the "In-game description" header (or other similar ones) to separate out the content that were directly copied from the game/manual/website. The introductory text should always contain a user-written summary of what the article is about, while attempting to keep it spoiler-free. -- ab.er.rant 23:58, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

NPC services as categories

I'm wondering if it's a good idea to have categories for locations to include NPC services like merchants, storage, traders, and such. With parser functions now installed, we can make use of the infobox to list th npc services and automatically add the relevant categories. My concern is whether towns and major outposts would have too many categories. -- ab.er.rant 01:26, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

No one's interested? Then I'll probably start doing it while merging the infoboxes for the areas. -- ab.er.rant 22:37, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I don't like these kinds of categories. I think the information is better off in lists. --Rezyk 03:06, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

If only someone replied sooner... I've already started it. Oh well, while lists are fine, I'd say some lists are not necessary. Why use lists when you can just use the auto-generated categories? I see lists of a summary article, pulling in data from multiple articles and categories and then providing them as a table. If the whole purpose is just to create a page of lists of links, then I see categories as more suitable. But lists can still be created in any case. -- ab.er.rant 03:32, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Personally I prefer the categories myself. --Rainith 12:12, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, (just in case it's not clear) I'm just one voice and have no greater say than you in this. I just wanted you to know what my stance would probably be if/when it's time to finalize this. My basic reasons are for the flexibility of lists and to help keep other aspects of categories as useful as they could be. Lists aren't just simple lists, they can do a lot more. I'll work on some example when I have more time. --Rezyk 12:59, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I know what you mean. I'm not saying categories are better than the lists. I'm just saying that if the list is just a simple list, then it's not really useful, but the list and the categories complement each other if the list actually provides slightly more info than just a plain listing. :) -- ab.er.rant 13:06, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Single area regions

How do we handle single area regions like The Fissure of Woe, The Underworld and Sorrow's Furnace? Do they get two articles? One article with two infoboxes? One article split into region and area sections? -- Gordon Ecker 21:45, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Personally, I consider these places as one single explorable area, rather than a region. The region would probably be... err... "on some unknown plane of existence", or just "Beyond Tyria" or something. -- ab.er.rant 00:23, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Sorrow's Furnace would be an area in the Southern Shiverpeaks region, I think. Same with Urgoz's Warren being a mission in Echovald Forest and The Deep being in the Jade Sea.

About FoW and UW, I'd classify those both as areas in the region of The Mists. --Dirigible 16:13, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

The Mists works for me, i definetly don't think they should be classified as regions in their own right. --Lemming64 16:49, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

The Mists sounds good. -- ab.er.rant 19:21, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I just remembered that the Underworld also includes most of the Heroes' Ascent maps and the first two "Nightfallen Tomb" zones. -- Gordon Ecker 21:42, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

O or o for outpost?

⇒ moved from old talk page for outposts

I have noticed that there is no continuity in this at the moment, some mission outposts have a capital and some do not, whilst it is a small point should they all be the same? --Lemming64 21:34, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

As the naming convention currently stands, it's "o". -- ab.er.rant 06:54, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Ok I will move the articles with the incorrect format. thanks --Lemming64 08:39, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

In a similar context whilst outpost is a common noun, in the theme of guild wars do we count Kurzick and Luxon like this? As some of the towns etc in factions have these tags on to distinguish different areas. --Lemming64 09:02, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Are you referring to names like "The Jade Quarry (Luxon)" and "Fort Aspenwood (Kurzick)"? Those are in-game names, so we use them as they are. Since those names do not need disambiguation, there won't be any identifiers attached to them. If there really is such a need, then something like "Fort Aspenwood (Kurzick) (outpost)" will have to do I suppose. -- ab.er.rant 23:59, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes I meant for example the luxon in jade quarry, I will leave them as they are then :) --Lemming64 10:32, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

reset indent I missed this - sorry, guys :) Earlier today I went ahead with a disambig page for "Unwaking Waters (outpost)" and just used either (Kurzick) or (Luxon) Fox 10:38, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Well the only page that links to that disambig is the mission article because of the mission location template at the top, really for that kind of mission we need a separate template that lists both the Luxon and Kurzick versions of the location. As for the disambig I think it is more likely that someone will search for just unwaking waters rather than with (outpost) tagged on the end. --Lemming64 10:41, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, you're right; I've tagged the disambig for deletion, having checked nothing else linked there Fox 10:55, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Maybe we could just duplicate {{Otheruses}} and just increase it by one parameter to support 2 links. But 2 should be the max I think, any more than 2 should then link to a disambiguation page. -- ab.er.rant 21:19, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Well I already created {{Faction_info}} for the 3 articles it applies too. didn't take very long. --Lemming64 21:23, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

First draft

I drafted up the syntax/template for regions and other locations based on the existing articles. I have two concerns:

• Should there be an attempt to merge the guidelines and regions and locations? While drafting it, it seems that is are only a small number of common sections.
• Should we compress the towns, outposts, missions, etc sections on regions? They seem unnecessarily stretched (height-wise). Maybe multiple columns? Same thing with the NPCs section for locations.

I repeat, the draft is based on existing pages. Feel free to come up with a better style and we'll revamp the guidelines accordingly. -- ab.er.rant 01:22, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Where do I find the draft template to take a look at it? Should we continue to use this page to discuss this or the discussion page of the draft? Banaticus 21:49, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

This talk page and the talk page of the draft template are both the same thing. :) The draft Aberrant is talking about is Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Locations. --Dirigible 22:22, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

Use Informative Pictures

The main picture on a page should be both informative and topical. In the case of an NPC, the picture should be a picture of that NPC. In the case of areas, the picture should be an informative picture of that area. The picture displayed when an area loads is not informative -- it tells a person nothing about that actual area. Rather, a picture of the actual area should be used whenever possible. Take, for instance, the Realm_of_Torment page. The previous scenic picture, which appears to be from the guildwars.com Nightfall gallery, is a nice picture but it conveys no information about the Realm of Torment. Every town/outpost has some sort of a map that can be used to give at least a general sense of scale. Simply press "u" while in the town/outpost. Banaticus 21:41, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

I agree that we should use informative images (obviously), but a scenic picture of what the area looks like can be informative to someone who hasn't been there yet. It gives a general idea of what the setting is of that location. Before I ever reached the jade sea I thought it was gonna be just a normal lake from what I could tell of the map. -Smurf 22:41, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

I disagree with you, Banaticus, I'd find it far more appropriate for the scenic picture to be the main image, rather than a map. Three reasons:

• First and most important, I challenge you to show me how this statement is true: " In the case of areas, the picture should be an informative picture of that area. The picture displayed when an area loads is not informative -- it tells a person nothing about that actual area". I think it actually does tell me something very important; the scenic picture tells me what the area in question looks like. When I first walk outside of Ascalon City I see this Image:Old Ascalon.jpg; it's only when I press U to open the minimap that I see this Image:Old Ascalon map.jpg. The first picture shows me what Old Ascalon looks like, the second picture shows me what the minimap looks like when in Old Ascalon.
• Aesthetics. Articles about towns/outposts/areas of interest usually won't have a map picture at all, so it makes sense to have the image which will always be there at the top, while the optional stuff trails below the infobox. Why won't they have a map picture at all? Because most of the time it would be utterly and completely useless. Here's a picture of Saint Anjeka's Shrine map. How lovely and informative, eh? :)
• More practical. For explorable areas, usually there will be at least two maps, a clean area of the explorable, and a map of the boss locations (see Drazach Thicket for an example); sometimes there will be even extra maps, such as for bounties, collectors, etc. Two options, either you're going to separate the maps from each other, some at the top of the infobox and some at the bottom, or you're going to keep them all together at the top of the infobox. Both of those alternatives don't make much sense to me; I'd like the maps to be grouped together, and I'd like the infobox information (such as type, region, surrounding areas/outposts, etc) to be before the maps themselves (maps are more useful if you have an idea of just what they are a map of).

For these reasons together, I think that the scenic picture should remain at the top, then the main infobox, with the maps trailing at the bottom. --Dirigible 22:48, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

I'd rather have a nice looking scenic image that sets the theme of the region than a screenshot map of the region. I look at that map each time I press "M", so I'd rather see something else on the wiki. Are you just concerned about region articles Banaticus? If you are, then it's a simple matter to change the {{region infobox}} and throw in a parameter for map. -- ab.er.rant 23:30, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

"...show me how this statement is true..." That the initial image should be informative is self evident -- I noticed that you didn't argue against that all. Rather than throw about blanket statements, try to calmly respond to what you find objectionable, rather than implicitly agreeing with parts while explicitly objecting to the whole thing. Of course "maps are more useful if you have an idea of just what they are a map of", but how did the previous picture give any indication of what the actual region was about, from the point of view of someone actually playing the game?

"When I first walk outside of Ascalon City I see this..." No, you don't. That is not what is seen when a person walks out of Ascalon City, facing the location where Prince Rurik is. Even if a person turns around, that is not what one sees. Even if one walks around, looking for a place that looks like that, with the graphical settings in game set to the highest possible values, that is not what one sees.

As to the little tiny map that you gave, is that an informative picture? Does it tell you anything about the area? No, it's not informative and tells you nothing about the area. Thus it wouldn't fit under a "Use Informative Pictures" policy. The current picture of the shrine, assuming that it is indeed an actual picture taken from the shrine and not some ideazlixed picture taken from an ArenaNet artist's rendering of what he wanted the area to look like before its polygon count was reduced so as to lower load times, then it's a good informative picture. All MMORPG companies have a history of releasing "screenshots" that don't have very much connection with what is actually seen in game. That doesn't mean that such screenshots have a place in an informative wiki article other than as meaningless eye candy.

What is the theme of the region; what does a person see in game? What would be the most informative picture which actually reflects that? Is this wiki meant to be a series of informative articles that are highlighted by eye candy or is it meant to be a series of informative articles which get right to the point and explains how things are and how things work? Banaticus 14:36, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

I like how you took half of my first argument, mixed it with half of my last argument which had nothing to do with the first, and called it a flawed argument. :P Of course I wasn't disagreeing with the first sentence, that the picture should be informative. I was disagreeing with the second, that the scenic picture isn't informative. That's what I argued about in that paragraph, and that's why I didn't argue against "this picture should be informative" at all, as you correctly noted. :)

When you ask for a picture of what Paris looks like and someone gives you a map of Paris, are you satisfied? Even an aerial picture of the Eiffel tower satisfies that request far better. True, most people will never get to see Paris from that point of view, but how does that matter? It's supposed to be a representative picture. There's two possible ways to have a representative picture, 1) an image which shows a landmark of some kind, something unique to that area, and 2) something which shows what the average environment of that area looks like. Both of which are perfectly acceptable options for us here, I think.

As for eye-candy dev pictures often being useless for this purpose, I agree, and so does the image use policy. From GWW:IMAGE: "Images should be taken from the game when possible and not from concept art as the image in the game is the one which people will see when playing the game." Which means you're more than welcome to go ahead and replace it with a good ingame picture if you are so inclined, no one's stopping you. :) --Dirigible 15:13, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

If we were doing a wiki on Paris, I'd use the Eiffel Tower as an image on the Eiffel Tower page and the Louvre as a picture on its page, but for the whole of Paris, I'd put in a map of Paris. If I was making a webpage and not a wiki of it, I'd make it a clickable map that would take a person to individual pages of interest. We used to be able to make maps like that on Wikipedia, but the Click template was abused and it's now a Wikipedia policy to not hotlink images like that. So perhaps non-map images would be the most informative images for many locations. Anyway, I don't think we have a quarrel anymore so I'm just going to stop talking. :) Banaticus 20:44, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

Ascalon disambiguation

What should we call the two versions of the region of Ascalon? This pertains to what shows up in many article infoboxes and category names.

1. pre-Searing Ascalon, post-Searing Ascalon
2. Ascalon, Ruins of Ascalon
3. pre-Searing Ascalon, Ascalon

It seems like we started with #1, and then started switching to #2 (from discussion at Talk:Ruins of Ascalon?). Now I've started seeing #3 being adopted in various places, but can't find the discussion that decided that. It seems like something that should be discussed and written out within this guideline. --Rezyk 13:42, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

Hehe, just noticed that Ascalon is about the Post-Searing version, while Talk:Ascalon redirects to the Pre-Searing version. Messy. :)

I don't think there was really a discussion for settling on #3. It was a decision taken by Aberrant, with the rest of us just following suit, since it made sense to have it like this. The name Ascalon should be connected to the post-Searing version, since it's probably what most users will be looking for (everyone in-game calls it Ascalon, and the Pre-Searing version is just "Pre"). On the other hand, I'm not too sure whether we should be using Ascalon or Ruins of Ascalon as the actual region name, with just a redirect there from the other one (right now we're using Ascalon with a redirect from Ruins of Ascalon). I wouldn't mind either way. --Dirigible 14:56, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

Dirigible pretty much explained my stand on this. My order of preference is 3, 2, 1. Ascalon should refer to one version, and not just a disambiguation page pointing to both. I actually have a big rewrite idea for this guideline in mind but haven't found the time to actually write it down yet. -- ab.er.rant 00:15, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Region Templates

Do regions like Realm of Torment or Southern Shiverpeaks should include their own Region Template? I saw both and was a bit bemused. Poke 08:56, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Not sure whether we're supposed to or not, but I probably would include the template in those articles, even if simply because it makes those pages more useful ("Welcome to Ascalon! Choose your destination"). Not too sure about this tho. --Dirigible 17:08, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Hard mode

I'd prefer to include the levels of creatures in hard mode in brackets after the normal mode levels. -- Gordon Ecker 00:28, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm not sure I'd like the indentation that it would cause, but since all creatures have a hard mode level... I guess it should be ok. -- ab.er.rant 13:09, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Explorable areas

Why is there no explanation on how to format an explorable area article? Is it just that no one have had time to do it? I want to know what headings to put there and in which way things should be listed, and so on, instead of going ahead and add stuff and have to redo it later. :) - Anja (talk) 02:37, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Because no one has gotten around to it :) -- ab.er.rant 08:24, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Ok! Thanks for answering :) I might think up a proposal for it soon then. - Anja (talk) 08:27, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I've been adding NPCs following a format similar to the mission format. I figured having information in some format is more useful than no information at all. Sargon LL 13:42, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm confused -- isn't it included in this article? At the beginning, it says it applies to "ports, towns, outposts, mission outposts, and explorable areas". --Rezyk 14:30, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

And that's one of maybe two places in the whole article that mentions it :P Nothing about how to list foes and bosses and what to put in the description part and what else should be included etc. At least not simple enough for me to understand. - Anja (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

Bear in mind that what's written on the page is only a draft based on what's currently on the location pages, so it's not very complete. I mentioned this several sections above but apparently no one was interested in a discussion on the formatting at that time. -- ab.er.rant 21:34, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

Should there also be a section for Shrines/Bounties? Everything else in the draft looks fine. Sargon LL 18:38, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

Navbars

A lot of different types of navbars for locations have been created. This looks like the best place to talk about all of them. Am I the only who thinks that they look very bloated? Especially when there are two of them. Like Blacktide Den. -- ab.er.rant 10:28, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

You're not the only one. Sure the navigation is nice, but they are huge... - Anja (talk) 10:53, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Everyone else thinks it's fine? Sigh. I have 2 main gripes with them. One is that I feel the left-hand column of labels should not be there. Two is the vertical bar separator that was used; I believe the normal dot looks better. Having a column of labels makes it feel more like a menu rather than a helpful navbar.

My suggestion? How about we just cut it down to a navbar for a particular type? So we would have "Template:Ascalon explorable areas", "Template:Ascalon missions", "Template:Ascalon outposts", etc. Hmm... actually... not very useful. I'll think of something else. Bottomline is, I'd just like some alternatives because I just feel the existing ones are not very elegant. -- ab.er.rant 05:20, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

Since GWW is also using separate articles for missions vs outposts, it makes no sense for the location nav bar to be in the mission articles. That's a start to make things less bloated. -User:PanSola (talk to the File:Follower of Lyssa.png) 07:18, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

And maybe the Location navbar should primarly link to the outpost, and keep the mission link in brackets instead (Like Chahbek Village (Mission) ). The mission articles doesn't describe locations, so why have a location navbar. - anja (talk) 07:22, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

I'd go as far as saying the Location navbar should NOT link to missions at all d-: -User:PanSola (talk to the File:Follower of Lyssa.png) 07:25, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

I don't mind :P If you want the mission you can easily find it in the location disambig anyway. - anja (talk) 07:27, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

Look at some samples I quickly whipped up. Most could still do with some improvement but at least it's a start. -- ab.er.rant 22:23, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

I like those "second" choices, the more compact with italic text. - anja (talk) 03:09, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

"I'm using resurrect on this topic". Could we maybe even split the navs into Explorable nav, mission nav, town and outpost nav and point of interest nav. That way we would have quite slimmed navbars, but still useful imo. - anja (contribs) 09:31, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

So... each location article would have at least 3 navbars at the bottom? -- ab.er.rant 00:03, 14 May 2007 (EDT)

No.. nono. Each location article would have one. Shing Jea Monastery would have the "Towns and outposts in Shing Jea Island nav" and Sunqua Vale would have the "Explorable areas in Shing Jea Island" etc. Just a thought, maybe they would lose their functionality if split that much.. - anja (contribs) 02:10, 14 May 2007 (EDT)

Hmm... since all the information is listed on the region page, why not we take your idea and then just add another row which actually links back to the region article? Kinda like an exporable area nav bar, with an additional row that has "towns and outposts", "missions", "points of interest" that all actually just link to different sections on the region page. -- ab.er.rant 21:36, 14 May 2007 (EDT)

That was what I was thinking :D But I just thought of linking to the region by it's name, but your proposal was better, then it's more obvious why we link to the region and it's more useful :) - anja (contribs) 04:10, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Maybe something like this? - anja (contribs) 04:58, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Ok, so how do these new ones look? I can't decide on what the navbar title should be.

• Explorable areas in/of Kourna?
• Kourna/Kournan explorable areas?
• Kourna - E/explorable areas?
• Kourna (E/explorable areas)?

-- ab.er.rant 05:03, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

I like them, maybe the title could be sliightly bigger, looks tiny now. And also something to separate the links to the other types of articles (link to missions, explorables etc on Towns and outposts nav) more, then blend in with the rest too well imo.
And I prefer the "Towns and outposts in Kourna" version. :) - anja (contribs) 05:46, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Tweaked. I'm gonna go post this on GWW:DISC to see if ppl might object. -- ab.er.rant 21:49, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Looks fine. Much smaller than previous navboxes. I wonder wether it could be helpfull to stronger emphasize the mission types in mission navbox. - MSorglos 03:12, 17 May 2007 (EDT)

I've tried bold, and bold+italic, but I didn't like the bold as it too eye-catching compared to the rest of the links. I actually omitted the "Cooperative" initially. Is it ok to assume that people would know that the main missions are all cooperative missions and only specifically label the "Challenge", "Competitive", and "Elite" missions on the second row? -- ab.er.rant 03:04, 18 May 2007 (EDT)

In my opinion omitting "Cooperative" is ok. As that are the main missions, everybody should know that these are cooperative. If somebody does not know, he will see it in the mission description. - MSorglos 03:11, 18 May 2007 (EDT)

Abberant's alternate design looks good. -- Gordon Ecker 03:04, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

So are we done here?

There hasn't been an edit here for 9 days, so I assume we're all finished here? --Santax (talk · contribs) 06:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You mean the guidelines? There hasn't been any serious discussion on it at all, much less an edit. The draft I wrote was meant to start a discussion, but so far, nobody's tackling location formatting yet. -- ab.er.rant 07:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, there should prbably be a section for shrines and blessings in explorable areas. I can't think of anything else, though. Sargon LL 23:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Shrines can go into ... maybe a subsection of landmarks? I have other problems with it as it currently is:

1. Talk:Species has not been resolved regarding creature species. We probably won't even have a subtype.
2. Do we really need to put the unique item in the boss section? I can't help feeling that with normal mode level, hard mode level, name, profession, elite skill... it makes the line unnecessarily long and not useful, because it makes it more difficult to locate the names of the elites at-a-glance, due to all the uneven indentation from the differing name lengths.
3. Are we confirmed to only add levels to creatures in the foes section? I've seen people adding levels to all friendly NPCs as well. What about pets? Where do they go?
4. Is the large number of section headers fine? I'm thinking it'll just make for a rather unsightly table of contents.
5. What's the formatting for in-game description? Indent? Italics? None? I've seen a lot of combinations.
6. Should the quest section be above NPCs? Given that it contains NPC links, shouldn't we introduce the NPCs first before telling them about the quests?
7. Should it be specifically stated that "these are quests that can be obtained here"? To prevent people from adding related quests.
8. Do we really need to indicate "(primary quest)"? Because that just kinda implies that we should also indicate skill quests, repeatable quests, hero quests, attribute quests, cross-campaign quests, etc...

Hopefully, this will bring in more discussion. -- ab.er.rant 16:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps a bit belated, but here's "more discussion." To weigh in on ab.er.rant's talking points:

I don't think it is necessary to include resurrection shrines in the article. There isn't really any useful information to provide about them. Blessings... probably appropriate for a landmark.

Also:

1. I just took a look at Talk:Species and my whole life flashed before my eyes. And it was pitiful. For my part, I think that for the purpose of categorization, organizations such as the White Mantle, Stone Summit, and Jade Brotherhood should indeed be considered subspecies, especially when you consider how many variations of each there are (White Mantle Sycophants, Justicars, Ritualists, etc.). The game seems to treat them as a subspecies, so we may as well too. I do think that subspecies categories can be useful, both in keeping a page easier to read and making it easier to research a particular organization.
2. I think the unique item could be omitted. Anybody looking for the item in question won't be browsing explorable areas to find it, they'll be checking the article on the item itself.
3. Levels are only relevant in the foes section, so that's the only place they should be. If someone wants to know the level or profession of a particular allied NPC, they can click on that NPC. When it comes to allied NPCs who fight alongside you, their levels and professions are noted in both the relevant mission/quest article and the NPC's own article. As for pets, I think that rather than a separate section, we could just put a parenthetical note after the animal (i.e.2 Wolf (pet) or (animal companion)). To round this out, there should be a category for animal companions.
4. I'm fine with the number of section headings. It may make for an unattractive TOC, but perfectly readable, and you'll be glad it's there when you find an area with many different types of NPCs.
5. I like indented italics in quotes, just like the dialogue heading in NPC articles. The quotes should be mandatory at the very least, since you are actually quoting in-game material.
6. I could go either way on this. If I was quest-hunting, I suppose I'd like the quests near the top. Usually I just scroll past them to get to what I want though. Introducing the NPCs before listing the quests makes a certain amount of sense, except that we don't actually introduce NPCs, we just list who they are and what they're good for. Yeah, I think I favor putting the quests below the NPCs after all. It's just more natural to get the setting before the plot. Either way, it might be worth considering listing the quests in alphabetical order, with a parenthetical note after each one containing the NPC who gives the quest (i.e. Into the Breach (Warmaster Grast)). It would take up less space, and be more useful to quest-seekers, but is probably less attractive and doesn't demonstrate any progression through the quests.
7. Has this actually been a problem? I think it would be fine to add a comment to the formatting guide to specify "Only include quests that can actually be obtained here" or some such.
8. I think that indicating primary quests is good, because these are the quests that take the player where he/she needs to go if he/she wants to make forward progress through the game. Other than that, I could make a case for indicating skill quests (this would be nice for skill hunters), but other types of quests probably don't need to be indicated here.

And now a few ideas of my own (apart from the ones mentioned above):

1. Bounty NPCs should be listed under the "other services" subheading, along with what the bounty is being offered for (i.e. Bounty: Wandering Priest (Insects).
2. Storage should be shown as provided by the Xunlai Chest. The Xunlai Agent should be for storage upgrades. Nitpicky, I know, but accurate. I've already seen a few locations changed to reflect that anyway, so...
3. Decide whether the "partysize" field in the infobox should stay or go (personally, I say keep it) and include it in the formatting guide.
4. For places where the name could indicate both a mission or an outpost (like Fort Ranik), the outpost should be the default article instead of the mission. After all, you can't start the mission without visiting the outpost first, and the mission contains spoilers a player might not want.
5. We should take care not to include spoilers in the articles pertaining to pre-Searing Ascalon. I've seen a few articles that talk about pre-searing locations in the past tense, sometimes implying or directly stating the ruin to come. Also, we should take care that our links from pre-searing locations go to other pre-searing locations (like Regent Valley (pre-Searing)) instead of just Regent Valley). After all, anyone who clicks on the Regent Valley link from the Lakeside County article is looking for the pre-searing version. It's bad enough that anyone who reads the wiki can't help but learn that there's something called the Searing that changes everything (just about every pre-searing article mentions it, at least in the title), but we can mitigate the spoilers with a little care. Pre-searing articles should be written in the present tense, and links should go to pre-searing pages while hiding the (pre-searing) tag. The biggest spoiler should be the warning that accompanies The Path to Glory.

How's that for discussion? :) Rangerjherek 04:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Rangerjherek above on pretty much everything, with one exception: I like how the Bounties are currently being displayed, such as in the Jahai Bluffs article (ideally we would have a map showing them, but that would take way too long). However, there's something I would like to discuss: some pages have an "Exits" section that I think is mostly redundant, given the Exits part of the Infobox. However, some of said "Exits" sections list where is each exit located at (see the Jahai Bluffs article for an example, again), something that is not on the Infobox. My idea would be to simply delete the "Exits" section and leave the article without the location of each exit, but I'm not sure that's the best way to deal with this... Erasculio 16:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the "exits" section needs to go. It's not even in the formatting guide we have been using, and it appears to be simply a bad habit brought here from GuildWiki contributors, along with a few other (typically minor) blunders.

I've changed my mind about bounties too. The best way to do this is with a "Blessings" section, maybe with a "Bounties" subheading. That subheading might look something like this:

Bounties

• Sunspear promotion points
  • Insects
    • Wandering Priest (northwest shrine)
    • Wandering Priest (south shrine)
  • Corsairs
    • Wandering Priest (east shrine)
• Lightbringer promotion points
  • Elementals
    • Whispers Informant (southeast shrine)

It's not perfect, but it is consistent with the formatting of other sections and articles.--Rangerjherek 22:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)