Talk:Dye Trader (NPC)

I disagree with the move, because there are NPCs who, although their name is not actually "Dye Trader", are usually referred to as dye traders. That is to say, if you know what a dye trader is, "Dye Trader [NPC]" reads as redundant to the other page, "Dye trader". | 72 | 15:13, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to wonder if there's any purpose served in even having a separate page for the guild hall NPC. -- Hong 15:36, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Good point... | 72 |

What a group of NPCs do is different from the NPC itself. That itself makes this page not redundant as they're documenting two different things. Konig/talk 19:38, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Then we should make Guild hall link to all the guild hall versions while we're at it | 72 | 01:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Most do, and those that don't (looking at it, this is: Rare Material Trader, Merchant, Weaponsmith, Festival Hat Keeper, and Guild Emblemer) should. Konig/talk 02:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Now it's just the festival hat maker and guild emblemer - as those don't have NPC articles. Konig/talk 02:22, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Konig: From a developer's point of view, or maybe a philosophical one, there's a difference, but for practical purposes most people would just conflate the two. I'm saying that this is a completely generic NPC, doing nothing more than the service that's in its name. It's not a plot-critical NPC, or one with significant screen time or dialogue or anything. All the relevant information on this page could be moved to the Dye trader page (or heck, to the Dye page itself), and I'd bet money that most users wouldn't notice.

I'm basically not seeing any added value in having a separate page for this guy. In fact there may even be negative value, because the information is now spread across multiple pages, necessitating multiple clicks to view it all.

I don't know whether it's worth changing now, since the wiki's been going for several years and these design decisions tend to be pretty hard to shift. Something to think about, though. -- Hong 09:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Would you say the same to Rune Trader (Great Temple of Balthazar)? It's a generically named NPC with nothing but the generic options of the service. Or how about the fact that the NPC has a model. If that's added to dye trader, then it'll cause nothing but confusion - some people will believe that all dye traders have the same model, which is simply not true. Yes, I agree that there's little information to it. But its an individual NPC. Generically named or not. There are many NPCs named "Merchant" and multiple NPCs named "Rune Trader." You can't even create a consistency with your argument due too Crafting Material Trader. The fact that it's different "From a developer's point of view" is more than enough reason to separate the two, imo.

You're talking about combining a single NPC with what multiple NPCs do. No matter what the name is, or the fact that it does nothing but what the service is, is imo irrelevant. It's a separate thing altogether. And I fail to see how this page is a negative value. The information is spread across multiple pages? It's two different things! And technically speaking, a shit-load of things are spread across multiple pages already, and they're more reasonable to merge than this. For instance Guild hall services and its information is spread across dozens of articles.

This isn't a case like Gwen or Sarah where there's multiple articles talk about the same thing or where information is so minutely different that it's silly to have separate pages (for reference: Gwen was previously split into 3 articles and Sarah in 2). One article is about what all dye traders do, the other (this one) is about a particular NPC who has a generic name, a model, the same service as other dye traders, but also has its own location, its own cost to be added to the guild hall, a creature type, a level and so forth. Not all dye traders look like old Canthan men, nor are they all humans, nor are they all without affiliations nor are they all level 20, nor are they all costing 50k to use the services of. To merge this into dye trader is to imply that all dye traders are just like this one.

In short: They are different. They do not even remotely hold the same thing. The singular and sole shared case is the name. Nothing more. Konig/talk 18:29, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would say the same thing about the rune trader (and the crafting material trader; the quote "All of his functions are the same as the generic material trader" should be a hint). Honestly, the number of people who aren't programming for the game and actually care about such generic, unnamed NPCs could probably be counted on two hands. These NPCs exist for the sole purpose of providing a service, and as such, they should be documented as part of that service. Platonic distinctions between the service and the provider are fine and good from a philosophical point of view, but irrelevant for most practical purposes.

As for the argument that some people might believe that all dye traders have the same model -- so? The model is not something that the vast majority of the playing population cares about. If they want to find a dye trader, they just click on whoever has "dye trader" underneath. It's not like searching for a particular model is a great way of finding an NPC, given the variety of weird and fantastical figures to be seen wandering outposts these days. Not to mention that we have pages like Canthan Peasant where the one NPC type might have two or more models.

And as for the Guild hall services page, a practical reason to keep it as-is is because putting all the services on one page would become too unwieldy. You'll note that this is a practical reason, not one driven by philosophising. But if you prefer philosophical reasons, one might be that it's basically a list page, and lists are allowed to link to articles rather than including them. -- Hong 09:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

After reading a disturbingly large amount of text for this little bit, I'm gonna say for my part that it's not worth having a separate page. True, this guy is a specific dye trader, whose name only happens to be Dye Trader. But speaking practically, the page doesn't tell you anything more than Guild hall services does, or if does, it should be put on that page. After all, there are actually a whole lot of these guys -- one for each hall, technically distinct! | 72 | 13:57, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

@Hong: For your Canthan Peasant argument, take note we document every single model used, so your argument is void there as that's an NPC article which documents all of the models - dye trader isn't an NPC article and merging it with an NPC article is, imo, silly. Also, it'd cause a huge issue in the categories (lack of documentation and/or improper/confusing documentation). Likewise, your statement on the guild hall services page is void because that entire page is transcluded into guild hall and Guild Lord - effectively, you have the same exact word for word information documented 3 times. This is, of course, not including non-main space articles.

@72: The different NPCs in each hall is no more distinct than the various times we see Evennia, as every guild hall NPC has the same model, price, level, etc.

That all said, I don't care enough to keep an argument going. However, before anything is done, I suggest getting more than just 3 people's opinions. Konig/talk 23:21, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Rename revisited

I think we should move this to Dye Trader (guild hall) in order to make all articles for generically named guild hall NPCs consistent.

There are currently three articles with similar names that have move suggestions

Service	Current name (too long)	Move suggestion (inconsistent for GH NPCs)	TEF's recommendation (consistent)
Dye Trader	Dye Trader (guild hall NPC)	→ Dye Trader (NPC)	Dye Trader (guild hall)
Merchant	Merchant (guild hall NPC)	→ Merchant (guild hall)	Merchant (guild hall)
Rare Material Trader	Rare Material Trader (guild hall NPC)	→ Rare Material Trader (NPC)	Rare Material Trader (guild hall)

In this case, we have named NPCs that are tagged with each of the above services, generically named NPCs that appear in various locations, and the individual services. Our typical convention is appending (NPC) after a generic title, to distinguish it from the service/quest/etc.

However, in this case, depending on where they are found, merchants can offer different goods. (Even those in Embark Beach don't have the same store window.) That forces Merchant (guild hall) instead of Merchant (NPC). Rather than be consistent with the (NPC) tag, let's be consistent by using a (guild hall) tag on all NPCs located in the GH (that require a rename from their primary title/role). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:41, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I dare say I think you're confused on why merchant (NPC) is not available for move. There are (iirc) three NPCs called "Merchant" and thus to be consistent with the wiki we must differentiate them because they are too different to merge. It has nothing to do with what is sold, since two of the three NPCs named "Merchant" don't even sell anything (worst merchants ever).

Granted, however, we can simply move the guild hall merchant to Merchant (NPC) and simply use the otheruses tag on that, since the guild hall NPC is seen more than an NPC from a mission or quest, so that is an alternative... And a more consistent one at that. Konig/talk 02:15, 11 October 2011 (UTC)