Guild Wars Wiki talk:Projects/Skill history

Archive

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• 2007 - 2011

Date of Sacrifice x Health removed from skill descriptions?

When was the actual text description of Sacrifice x Health removed from all relevant skill descriptions? Did it coincide with the introduction of concise descriptions, or had it come about before? Thanks. Azasuke1988 17:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 was when both icons were introduced and text was removed. (different to Game updates/20080313 when the concise updates were added!) File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 10:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Update notes for skill histories

After noticing a recent spate of skill history updates quoting 2007 versions of skills as "originals" (1-2 years after skill releases), I'm thinking it might be easiest if we just created a page listing all of the skill updates in one place, and just used the find function in our browsers ("ctrl + f" usually) to find the skill name on the page. (Evidently we'd have to use guildwiki to find the earliest version of the skill) File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 13:24, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Most skill updates have a corresponding developer update note (http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/ has the ones as early as 2009, while Feedback:Developer updates has the ones as far as 2007). Gamependium (which is also listed on Guild Wars Wiki:Projects/Skill history#Guidance) can also be used to narrow down the date of the skill updates (e.g. Blinding Surge). --Silver Edge 21:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I misunderstood what you meant, but after seeing the update pages by year (e.g. Game updates:2005), I see we can just create a page that lists the content of every single update page on this wiki. --Silver Edge 22:22, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Note that the find function won't work if the skill name was misspelled in the game update notes by ArenaNet and copied verbatim onto the wiki, e.g. the Ritualist skills listed at Feedback:Game updates/20120105#Ritualist/http://eu.guildwars.com/support/article/update_january_5_2012. --Silver Edge 21:05, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

For future reference

All trading cards ArenaNet made way back when with the values and descriptions of that time. All professions, up to EotN. Some skill icons that haven't made it into the game, too, such as Nonsensical Spear (Maiming Spear). - Infinite - talk 20:47, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Adding a conditional navigation feature to skills with skill history?

IIRC, Skills used to have their change history saved in the main page of the skill. It was hard to find actual changes, but they were present. Now that they appear to be templated, the UI made it a bit tricky to find where to do skill history research -- that is, until this project began adding Trivia at the bottom of the page. I propose adding a change to top of the page in the navigation or under the skill details one skills with skill history, as per below:

• Option 1:
  • 
• Option 2:
  • 

--Curin Derwin (talk) 22:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I second this proposal and after discussing it on the Discord so do others. I was envisioning Option 2, but I think your Option 1 would be more elegant. Stexe (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Option 2 would be fairly easy to implement, but should this occur, it would be best to remove the note from the trivia section before/concurrently. Option 1 would require sysop/anet involvement to implement and maintain, and is IMO not a feasible choice. horrible | contribs 15:52, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

These mock-ups are a HTML mark-up. I'm thinking we go with Option 1 and can run an "if" to see if FULLPAGENAME/Skill_history exists on any skill and, if so, show the "Skill History" section. This will prevent it from showing on Skill History pages while only showing it on skills with a Skill History.

As far as the Trivia

I still think there is a manual checklist to be worked, but only for linked skill revision history pages. I'd restart at the top and work down to clean out the past on the skill pages themselves. A template will do half of the work for us by automatically linking the skill revision page to the skill, if it exists.

Additionally

One thing I'd consider preserving are the helpful tidbits and notes about skills that are good for returning players or flavor.

For example, on Signet of Binding (https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_Binding#Trivia): "Prior to the November 12th 2010 update, this skill was tied to Communing and could target any non-allied spirit." That's interesting knowledge, especially for returning players. But where does that belong in the wiki? In the Trivia section down below the skill? Or the skill history? Curin Derwin (talk) 23:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Option 1 cannot be done with a template by itself, and would require changes to the wiki's layout. Because of this, it would require significantly more overhead to implement or modify, and would likely require the assistance of arenanet staff. I'm opposed to it on these grounds. horrible | contribs 23:53, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) (Reset indent) Before we make a change that will impact hundreds of pages, we need to actually discuss it. There are several issues that come to mind immediately that have been glossed over:

1. Shadowsong_(attack)/Skill_history - Blank / Unchanged skill histories exist and will be automatically linked, despite adding nothing of value to the infobox.
2. Mist Form#Trivia vs Mark of Subversion#Trivia - Lots of pages (though not all) have a heading under the Trivia Section
3. Lightning Orb (PvP) - a historial version of the skill that will not be added by a simple search for /Skill History subpages.

I would like to see these issues (and any others people notice) resolved or at least assessed before we make a change of this scale. horrible | contribs 23:50, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed on discussion. Is there a wiki sandbox to work in to test new code? Why does #1 occur? How does #2 affect this project? Great point on #3. The existing code for skill animation seems to perform a redirect on the file page, which we could do with skill history pages or an "IF" that truncates the PvP. What are your suggestions to resolve these? Curin Derwin (talk) 00:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• As a part of this project, skills with no changes since release were to be created like that: "Skill history of a skill that has not changed should be marked with {{unchanged skill history}}, and a link from the skill page is not required."
• I'm of the opinion that we should remove the skill history note from the trivia section on pages where it exists, if we are adding it to the infobox. Otherwise, if we are to keep the note, we should make an effort to finish adding it to all pages that have a skill history.
• I haven't given much thought to the exact logic for determining which pages to include. Outside of [Skill/Skill History] and [Skill (PvP)] with {{historical content}} there may be other things to consider. horrible | contribs 00:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• We can exclude Unchanged skill histories via a flag as part of the project, much like we are doing now. Skill History true of false. This is not the most programmatic way of solving this issue, but it preserves the existing work effort. Other suggestions, such as a code-method that can detect a subpages category are welcome. If something like detecting Category:Unchanged_skill_histories on a subpage is possible, it seems like a no-brainer.
• On point #2, I agree, but there are cases where more information exists in the Trivia Section in a new bullet, such as with Signet of Binding. To preserve this kind of knowledge, we can move that to the Trivia section in the Skill History or keep the added knowledge without the templated top bullet.
• Do you have an idea on how we can group items to address for others to contribute to and is there a bar for us to know when we have covered further considerations that affects this many pages? Curin Derwin (talk) 00:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)