Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/NPCs/Archive 1

Section 0

After going through the whole thing in detail, I have several things I'd like to point out (from the current version and old GuildWiki issues) and be discussed (each in a separate section below): -- ab.er.rant 22:31, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I'll do some minor changes (template only) to match the discussion below. --Erszebet 08:52, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Did some minor updates + re-wrote categories section. --Erszebet 07:15, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

If no one has any more objections or suggestions, then I'll remove the under construction tag somewhere next Saturday. --Erszebet 20:53, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Ok, I modified the NPC infobox as much as possible - using div- and span-tags - I think it's ready now. If anyone notices layout problems with it please let me know so I can change it to the table-version. I tested it with IE6, FF 1.5.0.11 and Opera 9.10. I'll move this to formatting now. --Erszebet 09:04, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

NPC infobox is pretty broken for me right now. Screenshot. --Dirigible 09:24, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, changed to the table-version again, it should be working now (it is on my PC anyway). --Erszebet 11:22, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Multiple versions

Multiple versions of the same NPC. How should this be treated? In the GuildWiki style of splitting into multiple primary sections? That actually sucked, as evidenced by Devona and group, which I subsequently rewrote. It was causing alot of confusion for players when they kept adding things to the section for the wrong campaign. I'm wondering if it's viable to just merge all the different versions and have each subsection indicate any differences, such as skill set as an ally with skills set as an enemy, and dialogue as henchman with other dialogue. -- ab.er.rant 22:31, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I don't like the GWiki-splitting either and was practically thinking the same way as you. I've taken Devona's page from GWiki and re-worked it to see what it would look like. As always: empty sections are removed. See: Devona (merged). This looks like the way to go to me. --Erszebet

I'm thinking the introductory is too long, but... should be all right I guess, since having a "Lore" section or "Official description" doesn't seem very elegant. -- ab.er.rant 22:11, 4 March 2007 (EST)

Missions and quests

Can I suggest that "Missions and quests" be removed if we're going to use the same template for all? Reason being it'll look ugly and be unintuitive for most NPCs, since the huge majority of them are purely either involved in a quest, or offers a quest only. So we'll just have "Missions involved in", "Quests involved in", and "Quests given" all as level 2 headers. The whole "required or not" sup tag was meant to indicate which hero is required in which, mainly because it was requested. I suppose that won't apply to the other NPCs given they are never in the part. -- ab.er.rant 22:31, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I copied 'missions and quests' just to keep those grouped, but now I favor 'Missions' and 'Quests' as separate sections, with 'Quests given/inv. in' as level 0-separators (so no header, just bold or italic text as done in the Devona 'Skills' example), or use a table for multiple campaigns (more a formatting thing). Headers or not, either way is fine by me.

The sub tag: Hero requirement is also mentioned (or should be anyway) in the quest article pages, maybe remove the sup tag altogether ? --Erszebet

I guess it could be removed, but it was kinda nice to note which are the missions/quests that a hero is required in. How about merging quest NPCs and quest givers? Does it really make it more helpful to split them? But it does reduce the size of the categories though. -- ab.er.rant 22:11, 4 March 2007 (EST)

I still think there's a clear difference between giving a quest and being involved in ? It's debatable I guess. --Erszebet

Thought of something yesterday: NPCs that only appear in mission(s) or quest(s) don't really need a "locations"-section. I went ahead and changed the article - I hope it's understandable this way ? Examples are: Elite Scout Zusoh and Warmaster Casana. We can have both sections but it's just saying the same thing twice. Also, some people used "Borlis Pass (Mission)" as 1 link - others "Borlis Pass (mission)" (mission outside link); or hided information (using "|" in wiki-link). This eliminates that small issue. --Erszebet 10:05, 7 March 2007 (EST)

What about NPCs that only appear after a particular quest, or NPCs that disappear after a quest? Also, given how mission NPCs are mostly involved in just one or two missions (with only a very few exceptions), is it really necessary to group by region? -- ab.er.rant 10:14, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Special cases like that can have an explanation next to the quest, or just state in the intro text I guess. Group by region isn't overly redundant or anything imo, no matter the amount of missions they're in, so I though it'd be good to have ? --Erszebet 15:55, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Guess it's no big deal for the grouping then. -- ab.er.rant 02:33, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Quotes

Quotes section. Is that a typo or did u basically merge the level 3 "Idle quotes" as part of "Quotes" and then a separate subsection for "battle quotes"? What about situations where there are only battle quotes and no idle quotes? There were complaints that dialogue and quotes are very trivial and shouldn't be documented. And also that they're rather disruptive and lengthens the page unnecessarily. Plus, some of them have spoilers. -- ab.er.rant 22:31, 2 March 2007 (EST)

No typo, I merged them because I don't see the difference between 'idle quotes' and just 'quotes' so you'll have to enlighten me there :p. Instead of using a separate header for Battle quotes, we could use the same level 0-method as described in Missions and quests above. As why to have 'em or not: you could say that they're trivial, but on the other hand they can add extra info on a character's background or..uhm..character :p (i.e. Devona's quotes about her father, or Mhenlo's quotes about Cynn) + they are part of the game. I actually like to read that kinda stuff and I know I'm not the only one. As always, spoilers should be indicated with the spoiler tag, no different from any other article on this wiki.

I do realise they add length to the page + finding the right formatting is not that easy. I tried to start a discussion about it here, but as you can see... More feedback on this is really needed. --Erszebet

So quotes are considered idle by default, and then we add a little Battle quotes notes? Hmm... could work. I split the quotes into idle and battle to make the separation more obvious for hero articles, due to the obviously long section of the idle quotes. I just think it looked better to have subsections for the large amount of quotes. -- ab.er.rant 22:11, 4 March 2007 (EST)

I said we could use the level 0-method, not that we should ;) It was just another possibility. A sub-header for battle quotes is fine by me 'cause it does help with large quote amounts. I just thought about Prince Rurik's battle quotes - they change when his health drops below 50%, so I'm putting a 'group by situation'-note in the template. --Erszebet

Categories

Do we want to keep the current GuildWiki category scheme? It's currently totally separate from the normal Bestiary categories, as a means to separate the hostile and the non-hostile. There's also special rules regarding the location. There's an older category guidelines that also include categories for species and professions as well. And the old way ignored location categories for henchmen and xunlai agents, since there just too many. The important thing to figure out is what would be useful to categorize and not just categorize for the sake of categorizing. -- ab.er.rant 22:31, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I must admit I haven't looked at categorizing that much. Since this proposal should eliminate the hostile / non-hostile approach, categorization should be more 'general' as well, is that what you meant ?

After a quick look I think most of the rules still apply; no location categories for henchmen/xunlai agents; species only when profession/org. unknown. Type seems to be the same as profession ?

Useful categories (when applicable): location(s), organization, profession(s), species...

Example 1: White Mantle Knight:

• General NPCs (Prophecies) - appears throughout several locations in storyline
• White Mantle - organization
• Warriors - prof.
• (species omitted->covered through organization)

Example 2: Leighton Cranford:

• North Kryta Province - location
• Collectors (Prophecies) - profession
• (organization & species omitted -> prof. known, org. n/a)

Example 3: Markis:

• The Wilds, Iron Mines of Moladune - location
• White Mantle bosses, Shining Blade - org.
• Ranger bosses - prof.
• (species omitted)

Species could be used for something like Grawl Ulodyte, but someone should take a closer look to make sure we have it all covered. --Erszebet 13:18, 4 March 2007 (EST)

Actually, for hostile creatures, species and profession are both mandatory. Organization is optional. For creatures, organizations like White Mantle and Luxon are considered subspecies as well. It's only in the NPC articles (non-hostile) are they really considered organizations. For your examples, "White Mantle" and "White Mantle bosses" are actually considered the species category. For Markis, "White Mantle bosses" (species category) apply because of the Bestiary S&F, but the "Shining Blade" (organization category) applied because of NPC S&F. "Collectors (Prophecies)" is a type category.

NPC articles ignore species and professions because they're don't really matter. It helps to slightly reduce the number of categories on NPC articles. As for locations, NPCs don't always have locations unless that NPC is permanently/usually found in that location. The type of an NPC is just their type, so they have a type category. Their type is listed in the infobox as profession because it reused the BeastInfo template. -- ab.er.rant 22:11, 4 March 2007 (EST)

Well the article needs re-writing of course, so it seems less like 'hostile' vs 'non-hostile'.

It does look like we use the same terms, but different definitions. To me, Collectors (Prophecies), or Profession Changers (Factions) are not types, they're professions. Examples of types are (imo): Quest givers; Quest NPCs...

I guess the definition of 'Profession' started out as 'in-game profession' (w, r, mo...), while I like to think of 'Merchant' as a profession as well (like in real-life). Except we don't have an icon for it ATM :p Maybe someone could make a 'Miscellaneous prof.'-icon, or is all of this too far-fetched ?

I don't understand why 'White Mantle' is species for one, and 'Shining Blade' organization for the other though. They're both organizations (like Am Fah, Corsair etc...). I'm guessing WM is considered species because all members of the WM-organization are human ? that's why I said species. should only be used when no profession / organization is known.

Anyway,I was just brainstorming, right now it's only you and me talking here, I'll see if I can get other people involved before we go any further. --Erszebet 08:52, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I understand your definitions. But I'd rather restrict the use of "Profession" to the actual definition of it in the game (meaning the "classes", Warrior, Ranger, etc.). Types are all those in the types category, or jobs, or functions, or services, if you prefer. A Collector isn't really a "profession" or job, some of the collector dialogues made that clear.

As for organization categories, it's not that "White Mantle" is not an organization, that exact wording is just used for the species category under the Bestiary S&F guidelines. Whereas "Shining Blade" has no hostile members, hence it wasn't used for the species category, but it is used for the organization category under the NPCs S&F. The White Mantle organization category is actually "White Mantle NPCs", to keep hostile and non-hostile separate. Yeah, I know, as I'm explaining it, it seems needlessly confusing. -- ab.er.rant 20:28, 5 March 2007 (EST)

The main thing I dislike is having location categories like "Category:North Kryta Province" on creature articles. I see this as overcategorization -- a "list of creatures" within the North Kryta Province article serves all the same purposes, and in a better manner. If we do keep those categories, I'd at least like to see them renamed to something more accurate like "Category:Creatures in North Kryta Province". --Rezyk 22:13, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I'd go with something even broader, like "Category:Foes (Kryta)" or "Category:NPCs (The Jade Sea)", since the area-specific categories are redundant with the area articles. -- Gordon Ecker 22:31, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I may be wrong, but I think Rezyk forgets or is unaware that in an area article, beast listings are almost always incomplete, due to the fact that many users just place the locations of NPCs directly in their articles and not list them in the area article. The Category:Creatures in North Kryta Province mentioned is far too long for area categorization. Using the article Oni as a starting point to suggest ideas would be the best course of action, as the category listing is complete with that article.

Also, I believe Rezyk and Gordon, although goodwilled and good suggestions, are forgetting that a NPC article has a location section within it's article, though I may be wrong. So speaking in terms of redundacy, the categories, location section in the NPC article, and the region listings(if complete) are all redundant with each other. In the context put forth regarding redundancy, you could also omit the profession and species categories as they are found in the article's beastbox and in the region article. Sometimes redundancy is needed for a more user-friendly environment. I believe this is one of those cases.

However, if broader categorization is the concensus, I will agree that Category:Foes (Region) for monsters and Category:NPCs (Region) for non-monster NPCs would be the best option for this conversation. — Gares 09:26, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Be careful in using names, this articles states "NPCs" as both hostile and non-hostile. If you're gonna use "NPCs" for categorizing non-hostile characters it's only going to be confusing. I suggest naming it "Allies (region)".

On another note, after reading Ab.er.rant's explanation: I don't think we should use the "type as profession" on collector/merchant/.. pages. Keep profession as "in-game" profession and use type for categorizing only. The CreatureInfo box defaults prof. to "Not specified" anyway.

Gares, about that location section: I just made a change that causes some NPCs to not have a location section (see "Missions and quests" above). It doesn't realy affect the Oni-example, unless I'm forgetting something (god I hope not :p ) --Erszebet 10:26, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Yeah, the way it is looks good to me and is how I would expect it to be, though for ease of reading, under Type and Organization, spaces between paragraphs or bullets would look better, but that's just a personal preference. — Gares 11:32, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Thanks for the response, Gares, but I have to say you are indeed wrong with respect to my thinking. =) It was, at least, not that simple. I'll try to elaborate:

• Incomplete lists/categories was one of my worries -- but a straightforward way to attack this problem is to reduce redundancy. Instead of dividing effort between updating lists and updating categories, having a single system would focus the work to be done.
• I'd call the redundancy you speak of as "redundant with respect to data content", and agree that many of our systems fall into that. What I tried to consider was "redundancy with respect to viewer utility", including how the information is presented (for example, in a single page versus boxes on multiple pages). I feel that location categores are mostly redundant in this respect while things like profession categories are not. However, I also admit that this score can be pretty subjective; if you all see enough added viewer utility past what the lists provide, I think I can understand it (though not agree with it).
• My main reason for disliking the categories is because I'm generally against what I see as overcategorization. The issue of redundancy is me saying "I don't get what value it adds" and pushes me to neutral; this aspect is where I say "I feel it hurts the wiki (albeit minorly)" and pushes me to oppose. There are tons of things we could categorize by, but at some point, too many will detract from the category system as a whole. Even with the Oni example you give, I honestly feel that the extra categories detract slightly from the category system there. To me, "Categories: Oni | Assassins" would be more user-friendly than that line of 17 categories. My current personal working threshold is to generally accept accurate nouns and reject modifying phrases as appropriate for category names.

Anyways, as far as consensus goes: I still oppose them, but accept that consensus is currently against eliminating all location categories. I like Gorden Ecker's idea of making them broader. Thanks for hearing me out. --Rezyk 16:50, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Thanks Rezyk for elaborating. I was not sure if you were aware of the incompleteness that occurs when listing in different articles. But you are correct, it applies to categories as well as the location sections in bestiary articles and area articles. I actually enjoy syncing locations and categories and did it for a lot of species. Half the locations and almost all the location categories for the Oni article was one of my contributions, which is why I choose it as an example. It represents an article with an above average amount of location categories, as an article with a low amount would not convey what some of the larger categorized articles would look like. I won't say I agree with this being over categorization as that is each individual's view. However, Regional categories would lessen the amount of categories, in the case of Oni, from 17 location categories to 3. I'm still for area categories, but I won't disagree with changing it to regional. — Gares 14:42, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Now that I think about it, I'm actually in favor of using regions instead of areas for location categories. Less messy. -- ab.er.rant 22:38, 8 March 2007 (EST)

I'm still getting up to speed about categorization, but I don't agree with using regions for location cats. It feels like giving false information on purpose. Like the Oni example; if you use "Shing Jea Island" as location cat, one would think he appears all over the island, except he doesn't (only Haiju Lagoon & Jaya Bluffs). At this moment I'm still in favor of using the "as specific possible" method. And if you think that's messy then you should see my hair in the morning :p --Erszebet 09:18, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

I also don't feel comfortable using regions for location categories. It makes browsing the categories themselves far less practical. It also result in a loss of information; having Onis in Category:Shing Jea Island, as opposed to Category:Haiju Lagoon is a generalization that goes against the purpose of categories, which is to have the information structured in a taxonomic hierarchy. Having a 3 lines long category section? Big deal, it's at the end of the page anyway. Having far less useful Categories, whether for browsing them or for gleaning information from them, is much worse in my opinion. Is there any chance we can change this? --Dirigible 12:14, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Currently the category but is suggesting you list npc's directly in the region categories, however these categories are really for locations. Some new categories would be needed for npc's --Lemming64 11:54, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Having the NPCs listed in their respective location categories instead of regions would solve this issue. Category:Campaign --> Category:Region --> Category:Location --> Everything that's in that location. -Dirigible 12:25, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Bump. Any other thoughts on the matter? Should I go ahead and turn regional categories into specific area ones? --Dirigible 09:28, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree the location based categories would be better than regions, or the region ones will be huge --Lemming64 09:59, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Yeah I wasn't too happy about it either. I think the pros of having location-based categorization are obvious (in terms of info), not so sure about region categorization. Since there's slightly more people agreeing on "location" I'm gonna change it back. Also, do we really want "Campaign" in categorization as well ?

Probably not, I think. It's already in the infobox, and having each creature in the campaign category doesn't really add anything. And as the rule goes, it's better to not have the same item both in a parent and child category. So, I vote nay for Category:Campaign. --Dirigible 16:09, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Just checked the history, apparently it slipped through during the whole re-writing so I removed it. Oh, and if anybody feels the urge to re-arrange whole sections without discussing it here first I suggest they take a long walk off a short pier first :-( I don't consider it to be a minor adjustment plus the whole layout of the article was approved like weeks ago so don't just change it because you feel like it. --Erszebet 16:42, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

I'd prefer regional categorization over area-based categorization. I also think that profession categories are too broad, and should be split up into subcategories. -- Gordon Ecker 20:45, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Quick question on categories

Alright, I'm lost. WTB help, I pay in ectos. How exactly are boss categories supposed to be? Category:Afflicted bosses or Category: Afflicted (Bosses)? This suggests the former, this suggests the latter. --Dirigible 16:21, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Afflicted bosses. - BeXoR 02:41, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

I revamped the section here to conform/defer to Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Categories (many of the other rules were being repeated there anyways). --Rezyk 05:20, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Aannd corrected it :) It seems not everyone is used to the idea of NPCs being everything living or moving in the game :P --Erszebet 07:40, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

GuildWiki syndrome ;) -- ab.er.rant 07:47, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

cant think of a subject

I had a very quick read through. The only NPC articles I was involved in on gwiki were the collector ones. I cleaned up a lot of them and wrote the style and formatting guide. As it is, your section on it looks fine, apart from one point. Instead of /CollectorArmor I would prefer it if the subpages were /Collector armor. And as for the armor crafters, that is something I am working on, so I'll let you know when I have an example of what they will look like soon. But other than that, it looks good to me. I'm better with looking at examples though, rather than a guide. - BeXoR 10:14, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Banoit. I didn't really know what to put as the general text so it's a bit lame at the moment. Note that the armor is listed alphabetically. I really hope that anyone who decides to do these articles doesn't copy the information from Guildwiki because there's so much of the armor information there that is incomplete or incorrect. I'm personally going to do each one and check each crafter, as long as I have a character that can get to it, so you shouldn't have too many deviations in style. - BeXoR 00:35, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Why not just create a template? The table wikicode isn't really that much more arcane then a template with properly-named parameters right? -- ab.er.rant 03:24, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Cause there wont be much use for it once I'm finished. - BeXoR 03:36, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Comments

After a quick review, I only have a few comments.

• First, the "Quests" and "Quests given" sections seem like they could be merged - list the quests, and add a symbol next to those given by the NPC.
• The image size in the NPCInfo box - the 128px appears to be brought over from GuildWiki. As was pointed out to me this weekend, the info box is normally wider than this already, so making the image wider should be acceptable. I would suggect some testing to see the max image size that can be used without widening the box (using an NPC profession of Elementalist or Necromancer, as those long names will determine the natural widest text-width for the boxes). My guess is that 148 or 164 should fit quite easilly.
• The "Evaluation" section has me concerned, as this section will be the hardest to break out objectively and to get concensus of other contributors. The tips on defeating alone could grow exceedingly long as people will want to add options for each profession. Also, while pros and cons are frequently self evident - there are times when a pro in one particular quest/area may be a con in others. And general NPC behavior really needs to be defined as to what to list (for example, for some henchmen, I could see contributors exagerating problematic behavior). At the very least, the "Evaluation" section needs to be better defined, and I would say moved lower on the page, maybe just before the "notes" section or even merged into the notes section.

That's it for now. This is just from a quick pass over, and I didn't have time to look at prior comments yet - will review those later today. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:54, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I kinda like the idea of merging the two quest sections and using icons to represent the "Quests given". We could do the same thing for the required missions and quests for a hero. -- ab.er.rant 20:21, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I've got three suggestions.

• Keys should be included, but only if they are not the standard keys for the region (such as Forbidden Keys from Shiro'ken in Kaineng City and The Jade Sea, Margonite Keys from Margonites and Torment creatures in Vabbi and the Desolation, Ancient Elonian keys from Graven Monoliths in the Realm of Torment).
• I think the style guide should explicitly state that creatures with a level range should be presumed to have different skill sets. GuildWiki still doesn't have complete skill info for the Afflicted.
• I think that template:monster skill icon should only be used for monster skills that don't have their own icon.

-- Gordon Ecker 03:38, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Actually, the key section should be reworded to also omit those situations you mentioned. The only reason that those NPCs drop those keys in those areas is that those keys are attached to the NPC's item droplist, thus it will drop the same types of items in any area it is in. — Gares 09:12, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Had the same thought as Gares about the keys. About the skill sets: I tend to follow 'General formatting', so no speculative or unknown information. Agree with you on the monster skill icon template, I'll add a note about it.

@Barek: infobox width can change by other values as seen in Devona (Merged). I suppose we can have location maps included in the infobox once ParserFunctions are installed ? --Erszebet 11:38, 6 March 2007 (EST)

In the example Devona (Merged) - that is, to me, an argument to require a <br/> between multiple text entries in an infobox - in this case, between each campaign - but the same could apply between each location, profession (very rare), etc. So that the deciding factor on box width should be the longest single text entry - usually profession.

I think that maps should be easy to add once ParserFunctions are installed ... I'm just starting to wonder how long until they install the various extensions we've requested. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:15, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Yes, as a matter of fact I've already used the <br/>-tag on GWiki where there're more than 2 input values. --Erszebet 17:00, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I don't know what Gares is suggesting about keys. As for skills, I'd prefer it if we sort skills by profession first and alphabetically second. A Resurrection Signet or monster skill in the middle of a group of other skill icons which share the same color scheme looks messy. I also think that attributes should be listed, if known. Maybe something like this.

Skills and Attributes

• Domination Magic 10, Illusion Magic 12, Inspiration Magic 8 <!-- confirmed attributes only -->
• Giant Stomp (monster skill)
• Resurrection Signet
• Clumsiness
• Empathy
• Spirit Shackles

-- Gordon Ecker 22:13, 8 March 2007 (EST)

From your example, if would appear that you're suggesting a sort by attribute, then by alphabet, with non-profession-related skills always being sorted last together with any monster skill. What about no-attribute skills like Arcane Echo? Sorted before Empathy? After Spirit Shackles but before Giant Stomp? -- ab.er.rant 03:22, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Actually I just put Clumsiness before Empathy by mistake. I don't have a problem with sorting it by profession, then by attribute, then alphabetically though. -- Gordon Ecker 06:06, 9 March 2007 (EST)

(reset indent) The profession ordering is ok, attribute not. You can't seriously expect people to go and look for each skill to know what attribute it belongs too ? Let's just keep it profession -> alphabet.
Gordon: about the keys: every creature has a small chance of dropping a key. The type of key they drop isn't connected to the area the creature is in, it's connected to the creature's "region of origin". See this for example...Unless the creatures you mentioned drop different types of keys, but that would be something new for me :)
I'm not that sure attribute points should be mentioned, for me it's not going to change the way I'm gonna kill the beast. But if more people see value in having it, it can be added of course. How are we going to make sure the data we collect on this will be 100% correct ? --Erszebet 07:15, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Yeah, key drops appear to be based on the region of origin. I still think that including key drops for multi-region creatures would be simpler than including "region of origin" info, which is not always intuitive (Margonites and Graven Monoliths are both roughly as common in the Desolation as they are in the Realm of Torment, but the former drop Margonite Keys, while the latter drop Ancient Elonian Keys). -- Gordon Ecker 20:32, 9 March 2007 (EST)

And the general formatting guide now says that common and non-profession stuff both go first. -- Gordon Ecker 03:25, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

So does anyone have an opinion on where we should put attribute info? -- Gordon Ecker 00:57, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

How about just adding another section called "Attributes" above the "Skills" section? But an additional section is not really a good idea... hmmm... I think your example up there is fine, except remove the bullet for the attribute line, and omit the specific mention of "and Attributes" in the section header. -- ab.er.rant 03:07, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Evaluation section

Barek had some valid remarks about the Evaluation-section. I was thinking of making it similar like the 'Recommended skills'-section in Formatting/Missions.
Anyway, if you place it just before the "notes"-section it doesn't have added purpose and should be merged with "notes" altogether.
Possible restrictions are:

• no entire biographies (KISS)
• don't state the obvious (i.e. Healer monk: "Heals party members")
• no personal opinions
• on defeating a foe: try giving skill suggestions by skill function, no whole profession-specific skill listings
• no archiving, if it's removed from the game (through AI updates etc...), don't add it
• nothing that can be mentioned in other sections

Additionally, we can make it a hench/heroes-section only ? --Erszebet 11:40, 6 March 2007 (EST)

The evaluation section should only be for henchies and heroes and not any NPCs. Likewise, Items Dropped should not be in NPC articles. --Karlos 14:35, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Items dropped not in NPC articles ? May I ask why, 'cause I didn't think somebody would be against it ?

I'm getting more in favor to keep "Evaluation" for hench/heroes as well (mmmaybe bosses too), but with restrictions 'cause the Healer Monk example came from Alesia's page on GWiki - I mean, really... :p --Erszebet 16:55, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Karlos probably hasn't seen the part where NPC = hostile + non-hostile. Items dropped only for hostile NPCs. Evaluation only for henchies and heroes. For bosses and special enemies, they might warrant an evaluation section, but notes might cover them just as nicely I guess. -- ab.er.rant

Move ?

Can this article be moved to Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/NPCs ? I noticed user Greyshade created an NPC formatting article like we had on GWiki. It's best to avoid people doing duplicate work of course. --Erszebet 10:35, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Support the move. -- ab.er.rant 22:33, 8 March 2007 (EST)

NOTOC?

Why not? Are you forgetting that certain NPCs have long pages? Like the henchmen and heroes and storyline bosses. -- ab.er.rant 00:16, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Dear lord, did anyone even read the article's text or do you think I'm that simple ? NOTOC is optional, as in place it when not needed. That's why I placed it in the template. I'll add a comment next to it. Don't forget that these formatting articles aren't policies (and probably never will be), so always use common sense. --Erszebet 14:18, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm sure you can forgive Aberrant for misunderstanding. LordBiro 15:08, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I can forgive anyone for misunderstanding, it's just that my impatience is getting to me. I didn't expect to explain/discuss changes that are covered in the article page itself. I would realy like to know if this will ever get approved or not ? I do appologize to Aberrant if my words were a bit harsh, don't want to upset anyone. --Erszebet 19:54, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Actually, coming back to this, I'd like to mention that this is similar to the argument regarding "TOCright" the last time. This is essentially causing the page to render in a non-default manner, a primary reason why ppl were against "TOCright". -- ab.er.rant 12:27, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

(Hero Specific) NPC Template

I'm a very visual person and I literally wanted to see what everyone was talking about, so I tried to put this together, based on what's been discussed here and the template on project page. I also used the same idea of moving the Hero's armor gallery to the subpage in order to deal with Dialouge and Quotes. I had a number of reasons for doing this - possible new formats as well as the "in-game content" use issue have still not been resolved, to my knowledge, so I didn't want to fiddle with them myself. And really, I think this looks far more streamline. If I type anymore, I'll start babbling, so here is what I've been working on. - Katscratched 00:41, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, well...I wanted to create an example for myself anyway, so I took GWiki's article on Prince Rurik and re-worked it using the merged template. Here is the result. The only remark I have is the use of "sup-tags", which creates extra space between lines.

@Katscratched: I suggest you rework your example with the correct template this time, to see what it would look like. After that we can discuss further improvements. --Erszebet 14:58, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

After a little clarification from Erszebet, I redid my 'example' with the dialouge/quotes inline, as well as adhering to several other things from the template that had gotten a bit mixed up. This includes, the Template:NPCInfo, which doesn't seem, but otherwise I think everything is square now. That is currently in my Sandbox, and the revised version has been moved to here, complete with page name typo >_<. I still have no clue what kind of evaluation can be given to a Hero, so I'll add meaningful text into that category if I figure it out.- Katscratched 03:18, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

I think it's supposed to be notes on general behaviour, commentary about the strengths and weaknesses of the AI and, for henchmen, the skill sets. -- Gordon Ecker 05:00, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, the NPCInfo-box doesn't exist (yet?). It's the same as the current CreatureInfo box. If this proposal gets approved then I suggest the "CreatureInfo" box will be renamed to "NPCInfo" - the two are connected to each other.

As for "evaluation": originally this was only included in henchmen articles. For heroes it's a bit more complicated. I know there're some skills or combinations that work very well with heroes, while others don't. For example: I noticed on my Ranger hero (Ac. Jin) that she always casts "Fertile Season" when you enter an expl. area. That's good if you have foes nearby, not so good if foes are out of range of the spirit. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have an evaluation section, but simply omit it if you don't know what to say :) --Erszebet 07:02, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Heroes, no matter which one, lay spirits rather "whilly nilly." The issue I have with the evaluation section for them, if its meant to describe their behavior, is that they all seem to behave the same way, in my experience. The differences occur when you equip them with skills/weapons and assign them their battle position. So, really, their behavior is based on their function, not their profession or character model. Of course, I could be wrong. Then again, there is the matter of Olias clapping when he casts a spirit, though I doubt that would merit a proper evaluation :P - Katscratched 23:24, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

In that case it's probably more appropriate for henchmen articles. I'm not sure about where we should put information on hero behaviour. -- Gordon Ecker 01:12, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Do heroes really need the default skills category? Those things usually stay on the bar for about 3 seconds and don't seem very useful. -Warskull 12:02, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Maps as part of the infobox

Not sure if this is the right place to mention this, but ... can we add the maps as part of the infobox? To make it more obvious what I'm asking for, example page of a boss with 1 map, multiple maps, where the maps are part of the infobox. Looks way more tidy and organized than disconnected maps, (example 1, 2). Any objections? --Dirigible 07:14, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Already discussed in Creature infobox talk page I think. Of course it will be added. We were waiting for Parser Functions for that, I'm waiting for consensus on moving "CreatureInfo" to "NPCInfo" before removing the "under construction" tag on this article. After that all the sync'ing can be done. --Erszebet 08:08, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Note: since the Creature infobox here doesn't seem to work properly, I'm copy-pasting some of the code from the old template into the NPCInfo box. It will normally be ready next Saturday. --Erszebet 20:58, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

What's not working about it? You can have up to 5 maps now. - BeXoR 00:08, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I know, that's not what I meant. I was talking about NPCs with multiple professions (icons) or those that appear in multiple campaigns and stuff - in combination with auto-linking. I tried fiddling with my test version all day but something kept screwing up the table layout (#if and "|" - don't mix well :-/ ) Can't we use variables, arrays or string editing functions ?...Or maybe change to div and span instead of a table ? --Erszebet 18:42, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I think aberrant said he was going to start converting the infoboxes to divs and spans, but I think he's waiting for LordBiro's skill box revamp to match the current style of the other userboxes to use as an example. Maybe enquire on their talk pages to push things along. I'd do it myself but I have no idea about all those things. :P - BeXoR 18:47, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Um... yea, about that... I err... couldn't seem to get it to work as nicely as a table so... I uh... kinda didn't bothered and just stuck to tables... :p -- ab.er.rant 19:40, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I can't get it to work either :-( This is as far as I get. I can get the table-look in it, but then I loose the spacings between the 'rows' (species, prof, type...) or I can't assign a proper width for the cells without using a fixed width for the whole box...It never ends, the one solution brings back another problem :-/ --Erszebet 15:45, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Just noticed another annoying thing: code execution is not only browser-specific, it's also site specific. I managed to get the box to look exactly like the Creature box but now using the span and div-tags. Problem is it only looks like that offline and in IE6. FF and Opera messes things up. I copy-pasted the code to here (see testbox I linked to above), now all three browsers mess up. --Erszebet 17:39, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

EDIT: I got it 'working' by using a fixed width. Make it anything smaller and Opera/FF starts screwing things up...--Erszebet 19:17, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

The order of the Locations, Missions and Quests sections

For many bosses the Missions or Quests section will be their only available location. Shouldn't those be right below the Locations section? Would kind of really suck if I had to scroll up and down a page just to figure out where the location section for that boss can be found. It'd look something like this:

Description 

Locations
*[[Kaineng City]]
**[[Bukdek Byway]]

Missions
*[[Kaineng City]]
**[[Vizunah Square (mission)]]

Quests
*[[Kaineng City]]
**[[The Afflicted Guard]]

Skills

Whatever else

Categories

This way when a user opens a page to find where a creature can be found, it's consistently in the same place. --Dirigible 16:39, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Take a boss like The Afflicted Hakaru. Having those sections split like that would mean that one of his locations would be above the Skills section, the other location would be beneath the Skills section. --Dirigible 16:44, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

That idea has crossed my mind, although I don't think there're that many bosses (or NPCs for that matter) where you'll have to scroll to look at the whole article. Anyway, I placed "locations" on top because every single NPC has at least 1 location, but not every NPC is involved in a mission/quest. Technically, "quests" and "missions" aren't locations but they can serve as one. Originally, the group-by-region wasn't included in the template. I added it to "missions" first so that "locations" could be omitted for mission-only NPCs. The same thing can be done for quest-only NPCS I guess. Your example is another way of doing things, not particularly "better" or "worse" than the current solution, just a different way of seeing things. If more people think it should be done this way than that's ok, but no one really objected to the way it's done now. --Erszebet 17:29, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Putting locations, missions, and quests together might seem more logical, as they all relate to where you can encounter the NPC. Same thing with skills and evaluation, since those basically details what the NPC can do. So I'd go with Dirigible and move Missions and Quests to right below Locations. And possible move Armor above Skills. -- ab.er.rant 00:11, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I actually think that my example is most definitely better than the way this currently is, Erszebet. It makes zero sense why for a boss that spawns in an explorable I'll find that location in one area of the page, and for a boss that spawns in a mission I'll find his location in another area of the page. And if he spawns both in a mission and an explorable I need to look in two different areas of the same page... Seriously, how's this acceptable? If having the missions and quests sections down there is needed for some other reason I'm not getting (heroes? henchies? dunno), then I'd rather we split this article in two separate and more specific ones, if that's what it takes to keep both types of pages sane. --Dirigible 00:29, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Reading this it occurred to me that since BeXoR produced a list of colours for infoboxes could we use these colours to give readers a visual clue? If the list of missions were in the same colour box as the infobox for missions then the user might learn to look for the right colour to find the right information.

I think this would greatly improve the usability of the NPC articles. Here is Dirigible's example coloured:

Locations

• Kaineng City
  • Bukdek Byway

Missions

• Kaineng City
  • Vizunah Square (mission)

Quests

• Kaineng City
  • The Afflicted Guard

This might be a bit over the top, but there are other options that could be used, i.e. just colouring the header, so please don't rule this out just because it looks unprofessional at present ;) LordBiro 06:10, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

What about

Locations	Missions	Quests
Kaineng City Bukdek Byway	Kaineng City Vizunah Square (mission)	Kaineng City The Afflicted Guard

? - BeXoR

Oooo... shiny... o_O Me likes! --Dirigible 10:37, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

After posting mine the first thing that I thought was "that would look better if it were side-by-side", so I like this :) LordBiro 14:09, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I know :) Look at Devona and gang on GuildWiki. The problem with this is when you have conditions/notes/subtext to those locations, then you'd need to add those superscript numbers. It all depends on whether complex wikicode is acceptable for these info. -- ab.er.rant 22:57, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

You could also mirror the infobox layout and add a third column for notes. And I'm sure the table can be converted to divs. - BeXoR 03:18, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Skill Trainers

Any formatting rules for these so far? — Rapta (talk|contribs) 18:32, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm following the normal rules for Tohn, but changed the skills section to skills taught. —Ebany Salmonderiel 15:03, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Boss map locations

Need some kind of formatting for this, I think we need to look into the following:

1. Images should keep the format "<Explorable Area name> bosses map.jpg"
2. edit the images to include links to the bosses, pretty much identical to the Boss locations section of the explorable area.
3. Categories these images

Image:Marga Coast bosses map.jpg is a really nice example of the sort of image which should be standard, once edited to include the prior points. any thoughts? --Jamie 09:31, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

This probably belongs in Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/NPCs. --Rainith 17:04, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

1. I've done the boss maps for Nightfall and Factions explorable areas with those filenames, Jamie, and I doubt anyone will bother to do the Prophecies ones before me, so I don't think there really needs to be a formatting guideline set on that.
2. About the links to the bosses in each image's description, it might be a bit redundant, I think, considering each explorable area page already has them. I won't make a fuss about it either way though, since having the links there for easy clickage would undoubtly be more practical.
3. I thought about categorising these images as well. Maybe some subcategory of Maps --> Bosses maps? Sounds like an appealing idea to me.

I'll take opportunity of you bringing up those maps to ask whether you guys think this map is better or this map? The difference being the size of the icons and text. I personally sorta like the small version more, but you're the second person to comment favourably on the large-font version, Jamie, so I'm not sure. Right now most of the Nightfall maps are large, while the Factions one are the small version. I can easil re-do either group of maps so that they're consistent, so it's just a matter of picking the best looking one. --Dirigible 17:28, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

I prefer the second map you linked (the Gyala Hatchery one). Both are very good though. --Rainith 22:47, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

I think the smaller font is better. - BeXoR 22:50, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Location categories for NPCs

NPC location categories

Wasn't sure whether this belonged here or in Formatting/Categories, but seemed a bit more at home here.

Anyway, in his wiki-wide category fix spree, Rezyk also did change a few location categories, like this one. Basically, NPC location categories changing from Category:Location to Category:Location creatures, (f.i. Category:Diessa Lowlands creatures). Rezyk only changed 4 of these, but I'm wondering if we should go ahead and make this categorisation part of the formatting guide.

Right now all these NPCs are found in subcategories of Category:Locations, which I don't think makes much sense at all. Maybe Category:NPCs --> Category:NPCs by location/campaign would be better? --Dirigible 18:03, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

You caught me early. =) I've generally been trying to do only a few edits for any new scheme at first, and then ramp up the edits in the following days if it doesn't seem to be an issue. (i.e. 4 edits the first day, 10 edits the second and finish everything on the third)

So, in this case I started two major shifts. I actually did not start the exact switch you explained, but would like to. Note that Category:Arborstone (mission) is not yet Category:Arborstone creatures. (This is with the terminology that regions are not locations.) I started:

• moving Category:<region> out of Category:Regions and into Category:<campaign> locations (this move has been completed)
• moving Category:<location> out of Category:<region> and into Category:<region> creatures (only did 4 so far)

I did this because the scheme was even wierder before; locations and creatures are not regions, but they were both getting put under subcategories of Category:Regions. If I finish up the steps here, we'll get both under their appropriate ancestor categories, but the subcategory names themselves are still a bit ambiguous. I'd like to go even farther in making the names unambiguous, having branches as:

• Category:NPCs -- Category:<campaign> creatures -- Category:<region> creatures -- Category:<location> creatures -- <creature>
• Category:Locations -- Category:<campaign> locations -- Category:<region> locations -- <location>

and maybe expand to topical categorization (although this might require amending Formatting/Categories) like:

• "Category:<campaign> -- Category:<region> -- Category:<region> creatures"
• "Category:<campaign> -- Category:<region> -- Category:<region> locations"

How do those look?

Also, I tend to prefer not having very defined category structures coded into the guidelines for now...I'd rather see them develop more freely. (Just my personal opinion)

--Rezyk 19:19, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Doesn't really matter much to me whether it's in the guidelines or not, as long as it's written somewhere (like you just did), so that we're all on the same page and not making things more difficult for each other. Not everyone mass-checks diffs like I do. :P

The structure you outlined above sounds ideal to me from a usability point of view. Makes the category tree much more sensible and easy to navigate. --Dirigible 19:31, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

I don't understand what you're explaining. Maybe you're trying to explain too much? :P First, you mentioned regions are defined as not locations, yet you moved Category:<region> into Category:<campaign> locations? Are you changing the definition of a location? Next, Category:<location> into Category:<region> creatures? I thought it was better to categorize location by area and not by region? And what do you mean by "expanding to topical categorization"? Is your "--" a subcategory marker or a rename indicator? Sorry, I'm just confused, it would help to have a little tree-like bullet point list :) -- ab.er.rant 22:14, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

"Location" in the sense used by Rezyk above means explorable areas, mission outposts and towns. Basically, the smallest place element you can get in GuildWars. He moved Category:<region> into the Category:<campaign> locations, because that's what that category is supposed to contain, <campaign> locations. It's like saying, "this is Category:Box Full of Cookies (top level) which has two piles in it, Category:Plain Cookies and Category:Chocolate Chip Cookies (regions), and each of those piles is made out of... Category:Cookies! (locations)". Hopefully that made a bit more sense. :D

Here's my attempt at a tree list what the final category hierarchy would look like.

• Category:Locations
  • Category:Prophecies locations
    • Category:Maguuma Jungle locations
      • Mamnoon Lagoon <--- (element, not a subcategory)

And for creatures we'd have:

• Category:NPCs
  • Category:Nightfall creatures
    • Category:The Desolation creatures
      • Category:The Shattered Ravines creatures <--- (subcategory, not an element)
        • Carven Effigy

Is that any clearer? If not, let me know and I'll draw a diagram in Paint! I'll use fancy colours and stuff like that. :) --Dirigible 23:31, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Ahhhhh, thanks, much clearer :D I guess I was misreading the <region> into <campaign> location thingy. I just kinda thought it meant that regional categories are being moved into location categories. Ok, question time:

• Does the "creatures" suffix apply to non-hostile NPCs? So every NPC in, say, Lion's Arch, would need to bear the "Category:Lion's Arch creatures"? Or is "creatures" restricted to hostile NPCs and we'd have "Category:Lion's Arch NPCs"?
• Are we applying location categories to Xunlai Agents and henchmen?
• Do we apply location categories to NPCs that only appear in a particular location during a quest or mission only?

I'm thinking "creatures" apply to all, yes, and yes. -- ab.er.rant 04:43, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for clearing it up, Dirigible. =) I guess we should be applying "NPCs instead of creatures" here? So the tree should look like this instead (and include allies & enemies):

• Category:NPCs
  • Category:Nightfall NPCs
    • Category:The Desolation NPCs
      • Category:The Shattered Ravines NPCs
        • Carven Effigy

I'll leave your second and third question-points up to others. --Rezyk 16:04, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Creatures reads better than NPCs. =\ Ah well.

"All, yes and yes" sounds about right for me as well, Ab. --Dirigible 07:05, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Category:NPCs tree restructuring

(ri) One more thing, guys. Mind if we organize the direct subcats of Category:NPCs a bit better? Right now it's starting to get a bit messy there. Maybe something like this would work:

• Category:NPCs
  • Category:NPCs by species
    • Category:Centaurs
    • Category:Humans
  • Category:NPCs by profession
    • Category:Mesmers
    • Category:Warriors
  • Category:NPCs by campaign
    • Category:Nightfall NPCs
    • Category:Prophecies NPCs
  • Category:NPCs by type
    • Category:Heroes
    • Category:Bosses

  And maybe have also a:

  • Category:Special NPCs
    • Wintersday 2006 NPCs

How does that look? --Dirigible 04:46, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, I've always been against any sort of Category:___ by ___ organizations, but I'm already willing to accept that consensus is probably against me there (and they're most appropriate for this category, if any). Some things I would still change, though, are:

• Category:NPCs by campaign instead named Category:NPCs by location or Category:NPCs by area (the first level subcats are campaigns, but the main subcategories here are mostly locations...maybe we should also consider Category:Factions NPCs renamed to Category:Cantha NPCs?)
• Category:Special NPCs instead named Category:NPCs by event (or holiday, or holiday event, or special event)
• NPCs by type is a lot less intuitive than the rest...would we have a type for enemies in general? Maybe it'd be better to omit this added category level for now?

--Rezyk 15:40, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I have no idea why I said Category:NPCs by campaign, it of course should be Category:NPCs by location.

I'm not sure about the Category:<campaign> NPCs to Category:<continent> NPCs change. I'm thinking of the Realm of Torment specifically here, which isn't in Elona, but in the Mists, which is itself a Core location. So, while having RoT as part of the Category:The Mists NPCs would be technically correct, I think most everyone would expect to find it in the Elona/Nightfall category, instead of grouped with FoW and UW and HoH. So I'm not too sure about that one.

As for NPCs by type, alright I think. Lets omit it for now till we see what the final tree looks like and then we can do something about it if needed. --Dirigible 16:03, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Sounds good. Let's stick with <campaign> NPCs instead of <continent> NPCs for now, and see. Also, how about Category:Special event NPCs? --Rezyk 16:41, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, the Realm of Torment isn't part of Elona, and significant partions of Eye of the North will take place in Tyria. -- Gordon Ecker 21:11, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

What happens with Category:Zen Daijun (mission) NPCs? Does that one go under Category:Shing Jea Island NPCs? Seems more practical like that, but on the other hand it violates the definition of location; a mission area is not a location. Thoughts? --Dirigible 02:05, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

What the..? Mission areas aren't locations? Do you know if there's particular reason we can't just count them as locations? --Rezyk 02:19, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

No idea. I blame Aberrant! It's possible that he just forgot to add it to that list though. I'm adding it for the moment, until Abe gets a chance to reply to this. --Dirigible 02:34, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Yea, so I missed it :P I'm wondering about the name though. How would you name the mission area NPCs? How about "Category:Zen Daijun mission NPCs"? As for, campaign vs. continent, campaign is more suitable. And I support "Category:NPCs by special event", since Dirigible's suggestion above placed it on the same level as the other "____ by ____" categories. As for type, a type is simply a function of the NPC. Call it "NPCs by function" if you wish. So types include all the NPC services. And since we're lumping hostile creatures as NPCs, I suppose we need a type for "Bosses" and ... maybe "Creatures"? Or "Hostile creatures"? -- ab.er.rant 23:00, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Hm, I've been using Category:Zen Daijun (mission) NPCs so far, but maybe losing the brackets is more practical? Not sure, either way works for me.

As for the "NPCs by function/type", I'm all for it, but maybe we could simply omit general hostile creatures from that category? Not sure what the practical advantages of having them there would be. If we do need want them there as well though, using the "monster" label could work, it's almost equivalent to "creatures" but also sounds somewhat more hostile, so we could avoid having to use that on merchants/traders/etc. --Dirigible 00:07, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

I'd prefer it without the "(mission)" but would guess that people will want NPCs in the mission separate from NPCs in the mission outpost. I dislike "NPCs by function/type" because at this point it just makes the categories harder to navigate, with little/no real benefit... --Rezyk 02:51, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

On set categories and topic categories

Dirigible suggested that I drop by to chime in, so here I am. Just thought I'd stir the waters a bit, and add a little more mud.
There's a funny thing about Categories: they can work in two completely different ways, which may also relate to how one plays the game - as a gamer racing through the rules to come out on top, or as a more casual player who likes to take time to sightsee as well as whack the bad guys.
Categories are useful for categorizing things - go figure - which tends to be how I don't think about them. They are also useful as catchalls, which is how I do use them. This is kind of a Wiki-specific way of handling information. Since Wiki content comes from all possible directions and is handled in all kinds of unruly different ways, I like Categories that aggregate content, as well as Categories that sort it.
Example: Let's say I'm finishing up in Dragon's Gullet, since that was what I was working on today. It's a remote spot, and I'm not likely to go back there outside of quests, even though it has excellent scenery and I enjoyed exploring it. So I might come to the Wiki, read up on the section, and then check that I'm not missing anything by clicking on Category: Dragon's Gullet.
I'd be happy to see everything pertinent to the section in my results, from quests to drops to NPCs to monsters (I can see why folks would want to class foes and NPCs together, but is it going to be obvious or useful to casual users? That's what's happening, right? I don't know, just wondering out loud; it seems counterintuitive to me).
As it happens, Dragon's Gullet is more interesting than some other areas will be. It has wildlife that is pretty much unique to the region (Abominations and Tar Behemoths), a quest with bosses that I haven't played yet, two collectors who appear to be brothers, a unique collectable drop (Gruesome Ribcage) and a nearly unique collectable drop {Scar Behemoth Jaw). Plus Hydra and Charr and Storm Riders. I'm not sure I need to know about Charr and Storm Riders, but I can see where others would want them included. (Certainly "humans" would get boring fast as a sort category.) Other sections would be more sparse.
I tend to favor bottom-up use of Wiki features in general; a Wiki is most useful for me when it works in both specific and general ways. My thinking seems to run against the general flow here, which is fine. But I thought I'd chime in. A response like this from the Guildwiki is closer to what I'd expect to see; while a separate NPC/monster category is useful, certainly, I'm not sure I understand the functional benefit of removing the catchall bottom-level.
No biggie for me either way - just my two cents. - Sundown Solstice 20:08, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

Yay! Someone else who thinks that hostile and non-hostile should be kept separate! :p I think I get your idea, but not 100%. Are you saying that "Category:Dragon's Gullet" should contain everything that can be found in Dragon's Gullet? Including potential drops and points of interest and such? Wouldn't that make a large category that just looks messy? Or are you saying we should actually create categories like "Category:Dragon's Gullet drops", "Category:Dragon's Gullet quests", "Category:Dragon's Gullet NPCs", etc.? -- ab.er.rant 23:23, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

I wouldn't say your thinking is against the general flow; it just hasn't been really discussed yet (as far as I know). Sure, the recently discussed changes have set up Category:Dragon's Gullet for deletion, but this is really just a rename to Category:Dragon's Gullet NPCs rather than opposition to your idea (note that the old description in Category:Dragon's Gullet identified it as a category for creatures instead of generally related articles). It was clearly being used as a set category (a category representing a named set) and then appropriately renamed as one. I'd call what you want topic categories (a category for stuff enclosed by a particular topic) and claim that the recent changes actually set things up for those to be added more easily and cleanly. Consider: If/when we want to set up a topic category Category:Echovald Forest for the region, we can just add these set categories as its subcategories and be halfway done: Category:Echovald Forest NPCs, Category:Echovald Forest quests, Category:Echovald Forest locations, Category:Echovald Forest unique items (if we have that). The same can be done for campaigns and locations. This avoids a messy large category (that Ab.er.rant noted) during such a transition and makes the relation between topic categories and set categories more intuitive. Anyways, that's the gist of what I've been planning (see the end of my first response in this section) but haven't gotten around to yet because of:

• lack of time for getting the concept of topic categories written out, discussed, understood, and agreed to
• easier to explain/demonstrate once set categories have gelled up some more
• worry that topic categories will be used in ways that make the whole category system much less structured. IMO they should only be used for easily delineated hierarchies of topics and not to build a web of related topics in themselves (the articles themselves should build the web of relations).

The main thing I don't get is your reference to GuildWiki's Dragon's Gullet category. That seems to be essentially no different than our Category:Dragon's Gullet NPCs. It's not a catchall category (creatures only) and even combines hostiles with non-hostiles. It just has a name that sounds like a topic category.

--Rezyk 03:29, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

Any hints on what and how a topic category should be Rezyk? -- ab.er.rant 04:22, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

I'll try giving some quick thoughts of my idea of them; I'd need to put in a lot of time and thought before I could give a decently thorough explanation.

Set categories are what we generally have now. Plural form. Represents a named set. A set subcategory of a set category represents a named proper subset.

A topic category generally...

• ...is a category for anything enclosed by a particular topic.
• ...is named just like an article on the topic (singular form).
• ...can directly contain articles, set categories, and other topic categories.
• ...is not a subcategory of any set category (because it doesn't represent a proper subset), but can be a subcategory of another topic category (if it represents a proper subtopic).

Some things that might point to a topic making for a good topic category:

• Commonly used in limiting the scope of lists/categories(!) (prefix modifiers like List of Nightfall skill trainers)
• Only comes in singular form (maybe because it's a proper noun or general subject)
• Organizes well into a pure topic tree
• Lots of articles in various set categories have a direct relation to it.

Examples of possible topic categories and topic category trees (followed by some of their set category subcategories):

• Factions (Factions quests, Factions skills, Factions-related lists)
  • Echovald Forest (Echovald Forest quests, Echovald Forest NPCs, Echovald Forest locations)
    • Ferndale (Ferndale NPCs, Ferndale quests)
• Canthan New Year 2007 (Canthan New Year 2007 NPCs, Canthan New Year 2007 items, Canthan New Year 2007 quests)
• PvP (PvP guides, PvP maps, PvP NPCs)
• Warrior (Warrior skills, Warrior-related lists, Warrior items, Warriors)
  • Strength (Strength skills, Strength items)

Set categories are italicized; topic categories are non-italicized. In this notation, both indenting and parenthesis means subcategory. Articles can also go in the trees but are omitted here (these are all categories).

--Rezyk 05:29, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

Location categories for mission NPCs

How do we name the categories for appearances in missions? -- ab.er.rant 22:48, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Hmm, Category:The Great Northern Wall NPCs, so it's consistent with the actual mission article name? That'd prolly be my first choice. Category:The Great Northern Wall mission NPCs isn't that bad either, if we decide we want to have that part. --Dirigible 01:17, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

What if we just put all the NPCs in the mission and the mission outpost into Category:The Great Northern Wall NPCs? Does anyone feel a need to keep them in separate categories? --Rezyk 01:49, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

The name is certainly much more elegant. Doesn't really matter whether we split them or not I suppose. I guess this applies to the explorable area as well? -- ab.er.rant 04:02, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, including the explorables too could get messy. =\ Think of the Factions locations, missions there also have an outpost and explorable by the same name, and often the explorable also has different creatures from the mission, (Afflicted in the Unwaking, Eternal, Gyala missions, Am Fah in the Sunjiang explorable, Celestials and Avicara during Nahpui mission vs Jade Brotherhood and Am Fah in the Nahpui explorable, etc). --Dirigible 12:10, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

Zzz, Aberrant has already started merging the explorable, outpost and mission content in one category, Category:Arborstone NPCs. :P

As I said in the paragraph above, I disagree with that happening. Explorable vs mission can have completely different creatures, why merge them into one? It's the same reason we disagreed with using region location categories, shoving everything in one place is unnecessary, it makes that category less useful to use. --Dirigible 07:24, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

I only started on a few, to set things off and see how it goes. I can go with either splitting them up or merging them. So you would rather it be like "Arborstone outpost NPCs", "Arborstone mission NPCs", and "Arborstone explorable area NPCs"?. Should we have a default "Arborstone NPCs"? Thoughts Rezyk? -- ab.er.rant 20:35, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

*scratches head* How about.. we agree not to make the decision now, but start using the suggested template method, with {{NPC location|Arborstone|(explorable area)}} creating a link to Arborstone (explorable area) but categorizing under Category:Arborstone NPCs (i.e. ab.er.rant's categorization scheme)? With a better idea of exactly how monstrous the non-disambiguated categories will be, some might change their mind (in either direction), and switching schemes wouldn't be as much work. (Although I don't think mine would change -- if you really want my simple opinion at this point, I prefer: no location categorization over region categorization, over non-disambiguated location categorization, over disambiguated location categorization). --Rezyk 23:19, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, with auto-categorization changes can easily be made later. -- Gordon Ecker 23:26, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Ok, I've "official-ised" it and updated {{NPC infobox}}. Everything except images will autolink, and it'll auto-categorise by profession or profession boss, e.g. autocat "Warriors" or "Warrior bosses". No autocat for location or species yet. I'm trying to see if there's a way that requires minimal maintenance to get Crimson Skulls (example) translated to Humans.

Anyway, primary changes:

• Mark bosses with "boss = y"
• Preferably replace the full profession name with the shorthand, i.e. w, r, mo, etc.
• icon is no longer needed
• Multiple professions use profession2 and profession3
• Multiple campaigns use campaign2, campaign3, and campaign4
• The autocat also implies that manual profession and profession boss categories can be removed.

Please do highlight any problems. -- ab.er.rant 05:36, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

{{NPC location}} is also up. --Dirigible 10:56, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

spoiler tag

Why do we have a spoiler tag? Couldn't everything in this wiki be seen as a spoiler? Well, perhaps not the skill descriptions or the update/preview notes. Should we tag every quest page with this tag? It seems rather, hmm, I'm not sure what word to use, redundant? Banaticus 01:53, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Not redundant. It's primarily used to mark articles or article sections that contain storyline spoilers. Given the nature of missions and quests, it's pretty obvious that if you go and read about missions and quests, you know you'll get spoiled (unless we adopt a system of hints). The places where it's appropriate are like the storyline articles, sections on important NPCs like Mhenlo, Master Togo, and Kormir. When you start a campaign, you'll likely have no idea how those NPCs might turn out. But you go there anyway just to check them out (like their skills, or quests involved). Then we always try to organise those articles in a manner where spoilers are always kept in a section near the bottom, so users know to avoid reading them. -- ab.er.rant 23:10, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Master Togo is an NPC I would HATE to have spoiled! - BeXoR 23:28, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Redundant?! You can explain to someone how to complete a mission without telling them what's going to happen in it. Some people, however, would like to know the story. Personally, I hate having the story spoiled. And considering I work on this wiki and GuildWiki very often, I still haven't had the plot of Nightfall spoiled for me, which is thanks to the spoiler tag. LordBiro 04:48, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

GWEN IS THE LICH! --Dirigible 05:19, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Sections and sectiontubs

Should empty sections still be included in the articles? And what's the policy on use of section-stubs? Personally I dislike them, a general npc-stub is enough. - Anja Astor (talk) 05:54, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

a) Omit empty sections rather than leave them blank, I'd say. b) No idea. c) Ditto. --Dirigible 06:25, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

Omit is best. -- ab.er.rant 02:26, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Creatures with multiple levels and skillsets

How should we handle foes with multiple levels and skillsets? I think the Kournan Guard article is a good example for formatting in these situations, does anyone else have other suggestions? -- Gordon Ecker 20:41, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

If it were up to me I'd make that page a disambig and then split the article into their different professions with (warrior) etc as an identifier in the name. - BeX 00:59, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

(Added note) They drop different items, so that's enough difference that they should have different articles, IMO. - BeX 01:00, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

What about versions of henchmen with different levles and skillsets? -- Gordon Ecker 22:49, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, I'd say because they are about an "individual", not a type of npc, then it should all go in the same article. - BeX 23:16, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Examples

• Armorer - see any Armorer except Mehinu. Take note that instead of armor crafter, the term armorer is being used.
• Artisan - see Artisan Daved.
  

I will be finishing the armorer articles and the artisan articles tomorrow, but feel free to chip in (if I notice you make a mistakes I'll tear my hair out, so make sure you're being accurate :P ) - BeX 13:05, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

Grouping by continent?

If an NPC appears on multiple campaigns, do we group by continents? Let's take the Kormir. Would continent be a logical super-grouping of regions? Would grouping by campaign be more appropriate given that certain regions (like Realm of Torment) and areas like the Underworld aren't exactly on continents. -- ab.er.rant 02:30, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm in favour of grouping them by campaign. If we were to group them by continents, we'd have the Realm of Torment as a part of the Mists instead of Elona. But a user looking for RoT would instinctively expect to find it with the rest of the Nightfall content, and not with UW/FoW. Likewise, the Eye of the North story is going to happen in new regions of the Tyria continent, and I think it'd be very confusing mixing together like that the content of two different campaigns, Prophecies and EotN. So, I support grouping them by campaign personally. --Dirigible 02:38, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Hard mode

With hard mode already upon us, can we quickly decide how to add in the additional information? I've done Fanged Iboga and Stormseed Jacaranda but I'm sure it could be improved. Things to consider:

1. Additional "Skills" subsections for hard mode.
2. Does "Locations" need to change to reflect the different levels that appear in different locations?
3. How about a "Hard mode" section describing normal mode level-change into hard mode?
4. How to mention that certain "Items dropped" for hard mode is the same as the normal mode? Things like collectibles and such.

-- ab.er.rant 23:52, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

I'd say make a sub-section "Hard mode" for every applicable section (skills & items dropped ?). The npc-box could use an extra parameter for HM level as well. --Erszebet 07:37, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Currently, I'm putting hard mode levels in parentheses after the normal mode levels. The problem with the infobox is that labels like "Normal mode level" and "Hard mode level" is very long and inelegant when added to the infobox. More talk about this here.

As for skills, I've added subsections to the "Skills" section grouped by their mode and levels. And drops... I don't think there's any changes for drops except the universal ones like skill tomes. -- ab.er.rant 08:44, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

This guideline still does not address hard mode skills appropriately. If we're sticking with the current format of dividing skill sets by level, then the section header needs to mention the mode as well. It is certainly possible that the hard mode level of a lower-level version of a creature is equal to a more powerful normal mode version, and it is possible that they may have different skill sets. -- ab.er.rant 09:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Conditional skills

When an NPC only uses skills under certain conditions, for example during a quest, shouldnt that be listed? - BeX 22:08, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

I would say yes, with the condition in parenthesis. Much like how we write quest-dependant locations. -- ab.er.rant 04:39, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Collectors

Today I have been correcting the style and formatting of all the current Category:Prophecies collectors. One thing that I have noticed about them is that the location is no longer included in the subpage, but only in the NPC article, as per the current style and formatting. This is kind of annoying when including the subpage on the trophy pages, because the reader will have to visit the collector's article to find out their location. Can we have the location back on the subpage? - BeX 01:12, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

Agreed. It's more useful to have the location repeated there. -- ab.er.rant 01:34, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

I've finished the Prophecies collectors s&f, but I will move the location for all of them when I get home. - BeX 01:36, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

Service

I've seen several articles where service = quest. Is this an acceptable parameter? There are so many NPCs that offer a service as well as quests that I think it would be a bit silly to have to add that to so many. Should any instances be removed? - BeX 03:46, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Merchants

Must we have the pictures for goods offered in the table on the merchant pages? The artisan articles don't need the pictures of the rare materials. The collectors don't need icons of their collector rewards. This article really needs a better guide on different service npcs than "go look at an existing one" because all of the existing ones are either different or unsatisfactory. - BeX 21:41, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

Only the merchant used to have icons because someone made a standard template for merchants. The artisans and collectors never had that kind of loving attention ;) But are you for or against icons? Me, I don't mind either way, but I generally find icon tables like a merchant table as not very useful. -- ab.er.rant 23:14, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

I don't see any standard template for merchants anywhere? Do you mean at gwiki? I just want all the NPC articles to have consistency. Personally I don't think the icons are necessary - they often make the page look awful because they are all mis-sized. But if people really must have the little pictures then I'll make sure it doesn't look as shoddy as it did before...

It really looks to me like people copy and pasted them from gwiki, and have been adding a location subheading to the page under that heading, which is stupid because it's 2 headings above already...

I just copied your artisan template for the merchants, so that whatever gets decided on can easily be changed by editing the templates, rather than the hundreds or merchant pages. - BeX 23:28, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

Location categories revisited

Ok, I think I'm convinced that location categories on NPCs are not required. Why? I just finished cleaning up Afflicted Ritualist and they categories at the bottom look really ugly. -- ab.er.rant 07:04, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

...Said the man who used to promote Content Over Presentation in a not-so-distant past (j/k ;) ) I think we decided that the uglyness doesn't weigh up to the loss of detailed information. Maybe you can give a more 'regular' example 'cause I don't think categories at the bottom of a page look that ugly (generally speaking). --Erszebet 12:46, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

I myself don't find them "ugly" at all, to be honest. On the other hand, I do appreciate the usefulness of checking out Category:The Eternal Grove NPCs and finding Afflicted Ritualist in there. Very much in favour of keeping the location cats. --Dirigible 20:53, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Not ugly? :( Oh well, I just find them so... compact. As for "content over presentation", well, this isn't exactly content. The content is under the "Locations" section ^-^, categories are a navigation and uh... a categorisation tool :D I'm just thinking it might get longer when more locations are added. Ok then, then let's revisit another similar question:

Any new thoughts on categorising all the outpost/mission/explorable into one single category? For example, the Afflicted only appears in the Eternal Grove mission, but the category won't indicate that. Are we keeping it this way? Someone got good names for these disambiguation? -- ab.er.rant 21:35, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Aye, I had that same worry in our discussion above and, aye, I still think we should keep them separated.

Maybe Category:The Eternal Grove NPCs (for the mission), Category:The Eternal Grove explorable NPCs and Category:The Eternal Grove outpost NPCs ? Or, if making Category:Echovald Forest NPCs too crowded is an issue (I personally still don't think it is), we could maybe fit the three of them under a parent category, Category:The Eternal Grove NPCs. --Dirigible 21:59, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm in agreement with not having the location categories, but am not sure that it's worth doing the spiel again at this time. =) --Rezyk 23:25, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Like Dirigible said, but without "NPCs". Everything is an NPC, no need to repeat it. So Category:The Eternal Grove mission, Category:The Eternal Grove (for explorable, or use this for mission and add 'explorable' here) and Category:The Eternal Grove outpost --Erszebet 03:24, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

"Mission" currently always takes priority over explorable or outpost. I'd say "NPCs" is necessary. Having a descriptive suffix is better than broad name. You may think that Category:The Eternal Grove mission is fine. But that's because you currently know that it contains NPCs. It's for consistency up, down, and across hierarchies (Category:Echovald Forest NPCs, Category:Echovald Forest locations, etc.). -- ab.er.rant 03:45, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Skill bars on NPC pages

Is it an idea to use a skill bar for the NPCs instead of a listing? Skill bars are nice and clear, the template is already there ({{Skill bar}}) and it would condens the NPC page a bit. I've made an example to signify when a skill on a page is only used in HM:

For multiple NPC levels, the HM can be changed into the correct level number. (I think this is possible using CSS.) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 14:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with changing it into a skill bar. But why not just use multiple skill bars rather than bothering with tinkering with css to achieve that effect? It might make the template more unnecesarily complex to use. And just another point, the majority of NPC articles are quite short, so vertical space isn't really that big a problem. -- ab.er.rant 08:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

When it comes to builds and such, big skills bar are a good choice, but for NPC skills, alfabetically ordered smaller ones are a must. Why? Because we don't know the order in wich they are in heir 'bars' putting them in a ficticious bar would be like that; like saying we know something we don't. Alas, there are NPC with more differences in skills bar than simple Hard-Normal modes... putting them all in one is just impossible. I'll stick with the current formatting. MithranArkanere 09:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The ordering of the skill bars hardly matters at all. There is absolutely no difference whatsoever between putting the Rez sig in the first slot and the rez sig in the last slot. Excluding hero skill bars perhaps. -- ab.er.rant 09:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, that's the point. ORder only mattes in players and heres, not in NPCs, but skillbars states order. And tha's something we don't know. We can't state something we don't know. MithranArkanere 09:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple problems with that reasoning. First, it doesn't matter if we get the order wrong. Second, even if we didn't put it in a skillbar template, we'd have to put them in some sort of order (so that's no reason not to go with the skillbar format). Unless you wanted to make them all go around the outside of a circle or something. Though, of course, I have to admit that would be kind of cool... MisterPepe talk 09:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The current order is alphabetical. It's the default order that Guild Wars lists skills in the skills and attributes panel. What's the problem with that order? It's the best if you don't know the real order. MithranArkanere 09:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A skill bar doesn't state the order. It's basically just ordering the skills (most likely alphabetically) from left to right, there's no numbering of 1-8. Similarly, a list basically orders the skills from top to bottom. Even if you're just saying that ordering could be implied, it still doesn't matter. Does it really matter if we ordered the skills of Mhenlo incorrectly? And no, the current ordering of the skills is not entirely alphabetical. -- ab.er.rant 09:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like it, if we keep the HM and NM tags to a minimum. If more than, say, 50% of the skills require a tag for explanation, I would rather have two skill bars. - anja (contribs) 09:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yet skill bar template still makes names wrap and be harder to read, and hundred of unnecesary changes would have to be made... I'm not against new things... But not everyone lists skills in icon view, many list them in lists view... so, the best choice would be to have an option or something to choose how people want them to be shown... but I don't think that being possible with wikicode... so if something is not broken, there's no need to fix it. MithranArkanere 10:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

(ri)Harder to read just doesn't fly with me. So what if the skill name wraps? Everything in life wraps. Even this talk page. And no, it is not harder to read due to that, is it?

I agree with Anja regarding the tags and perhaps it is an overtly complicated suggestion of putting tags on the pictures using CSS. I thought it looked kind of nice. I also don't have a problem with getting multiple skill bars on a page. As long as there are skill bars. :) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 10:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it. A skill bar for each variant (Hard Mode, Normal Mode, as an ally, etc.) would be nice. Order won't make a difference. The only _real_ drawbacks I see from this are 1) time and effort to change them to skill bars, and 2) those with slower connections would have slower load times as they then have to wait for more pictures to load. Regardless, I still like the idea and think it will look good on the pages. Perhaps Lord Biro could even pretty it up like he has with all those nice icons he's been working on? --File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Mithran, the work required to put this in place would indeed be a lot. I'm also not too sure how it might impact contributors who are unfamiliar with templates. And it's not the wrapping I'm worried about, but the fact that skill bars prioritize the icon over the text, so the text is smaller. Making the text bigger will screw up the "nice-ness" of the skill bar. Also, Vallen has an important point. Skill bar icons is bigger than the icons in skill icon template. Even if we ignore the loading times and the bandwidth, there's still the problem of the skill bar attacting too much attention. Hmmm.... now that I think about it, I don't like it. I'm opposed to it. The skills isn't the most important thing in an NPC article. But by using the skill bar, and having large skill icons, it essentially draws attention to it and kinda lessens the other sections. To me all the sections in an NPC article are important - the missions, the quests, the locations, heck even the dialogue and quotes. As all of them as mostly just short lines of text, I don't like the idea that there is one section that stands out so much. -- ab.er.rant 13:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You are aware of the "size" parameter I hope? That makes the icons smaller, but not the text.. Sure, the icons aren't as small as in the {{skill icon}} but they can be made smaller without much effort. I like both ways and I don't mind changing, but I don't mind keeping our current design either. - anja (contribs) 13:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Mantra of Recovery

Diversion

Power Drain

Guilt

Signet of Humility

Resurrection Signet

I agree, this looks kind of silly, but the point is: the images are exactly the same filesize as the ones used for {{skill icon}}. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 13:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for shortened pages, but I don't think this is an improvement. - BeX 13:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Smaller images do not have the same filesize as the bigger ones. Wikimedia generates multiple sizes for the images to save bandwidth. This ist the 25px version of Diversion and this is the fullsize image. Another thing - and there you can really feel a difference to lists - is that the complete skillbar is a big and complex template. Beside the evaluation of every parameters you also have to load a table (instead of a unordered list which is much faster).

In my opinion we should continue using lists on npc pages. Skill bars are nice but they do not fit into the npc articles and with smaller images or bigger text it look is destroyed. poke | talk 17:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to say. A skill bar just don't fit the NPC articles... for heroes they may, since you absolutely know they skills and what you'll see them in the skillbar, but all the other skills monsters use against you are seen in the 'target is casting' panel and the 'damage monitor' panels... and there those skills are not seen in big icons, but small ones. With the current appearence you'll see in NPC pages things that are much more alike the way the game shows them to the player. The purpose of the skills lists in NPC pages are being aware of what monsters will bring, and using similar appearances, players will be able to recognice them fasters, with a 'familiar' feeling. The most importatn thing is not if it is cool or looks better, but if it is really needed and will give users really more information. MithranArkanere 18:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

What about using the "mini skill bar" that is used on Guildwiki? The format is much easier to enter (like this: {{mini skill bar|skill name|skill name|etc.}} )It wouldn't show the names unless you hover the mouse though (see here but scroll down a little and on the right I have several mini skill bars as an example). Another idea to help that would be to add in that icon descriptin pop-up that shows up when you hover your mouse like PvXwiki has (see here for an example - just hover your mouse pointer over a skill icon) and you can use the "mini skill bar" with it making it smaller, better organized, and an added description without clicking the name or icon. Just some ideas. --File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 18:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The onmouseover popup has been discussed before but I'll be darned if I can find where it was. Don't know if there was some resolution to it. As for the mini skill bar, it won't work. There are two types of people when it comes to reading skills. It was what lead to the skill icon template being used in GuildWiki. One type recognises skills more easily by their icons. The other type recognise skills more easily by their names. I'm one of the latter. That's why the skill icon template shows both icon and name, to cater for both kinds of people. -- ab.er.rant 07:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find the discussion on the mouseover pop up either. But, the name of the skill pops up (along with all the details) when hovered over too. I guess it isn't a big deal either way you look at it but I was liking the idea of making this wiki's pages look different from other wiki pages in some way. Yes, the format and recent style changes have made it look mighty pretty but it's still the same stuff and overall look and organization. I thought a skillbar addition would change this and I still kinda like the original skill bar with names underneath to be honest. Those pop-ups never worked quite right for me as they cut off the energy cost info for me. --File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that things like mouseover information windows are too much JavaScript for really needed information. If someone has disabled javascript he can see the information he wants. He just pass on extra but not necessary functionality (like show/hide toggles etc.). But when we use onmouseover-information windows these people don't get the information from the windows. So the information has to be in clear html. As I said before I would keep at the skill icon-lists. poke | talk 11:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Do not forget that not all browsers pop up the 'title' or 'alt' tag attributes, FireFox, Opera and IE do, though. MithranArkanere 12:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Offtopic:

• GWW:RfTA#Mouse-over ← talk about mouse-overs.
• GWW:FORMAT/Builds#gwBBcode ← more talk about mouse-overs.
• Discussion on GWiki
• More discussion
• GWW:RfTA/Resolved#Nav popups ← Lupin's script also uses popups.

Ontopic: I guess consensus is leaning more to keeping it the way we display it at the moment? Then we'll do that. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 13:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Boss-like foes

How should we handle foes with Boss-like properties (such as providing a morale boost, being resistant to hexes and conditions, inflicting double damage or dropping unique items)? I think we should come up with a term for them, such as special foes, Boss-like foes or pseudo-Bosses. -- Gordon Ecker 00:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need to? I'm thinking they will be fine in either the description or the notes section. -- ab.er.rant 00:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

We already have the notes section for that. Glint, Rotscale, Focus of Hanaku... there are not many of them... The notes section is enough. Many users are already used to ready the notes. MithranArkanere 19:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I think they should be categorized. One category should be enough, since there aren't that many of them. -- Gordon Ecker 20:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, I plan on putting them in Category:Boss-like creatures later this week if no one objects. -- Gordon Ecker 01:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It's done, they're categorized in Category:Boss-like foes. -- Gordon Ecker 01:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Acceptable sources for species names

Should we use the Prima guides as sources for species names if there's no more recent official sources? Some of the information, such as the categorization of the "Stone ..." monsters as earth elementals and the categorization of the "Essence of ..." monsters as outsiders looks reasonable, but there are some obvious alpha artifacts, such as Blood Drinkers' classification as spiders, and the Seaguards being called Skyguards. Should "family" be considered the official term for "species"? -- Gordon Ecker 02:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Better to discuss that at Talk:Species. As for family names, they're more organisation than species. -- ab.er.rant 07:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Items dropped

Do we want to make a note from what point forward previously friendly NPCs will drop stuff? (See Justiciar Hablion for an example of a friendly NPC turning hostile and then dropping loot.) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 21:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's not necessary. It should already be known that NPCs don't drop loot unless they're enemies. But even so, given you can't actually kill an NPC directly, it should be understandable that any drops wouldn't be assigned to the party anyway. -- ab.er.rant 01:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)