Talk:Family

Move proposal

I'm opposed to moving this article. "Creature type" is ambiguous, it could refer to army, family, mob name or other groupings such as fleshiness and boss status. -- Gordon Ecker 05:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't the same argument apply to "skill type"? As something that could refer to profession, cost, special-ness or other groupings such as PvE-only and elite status? --Rezyk 05:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

But skill type is an official term which is used as a sort option in the Skills and Attributes panel, giving it an unambiguous definition within the context of the game. If "skill type" was an unofficial term chosen by players, it would be no better or worse and no more or less ambiguous than alternatives such as "skill class", "skill family" or "skill group". -- Gordon Ecker 07:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with taking Edge of Extinction as similarly ruling out those other interpretations of creature type? --Rezyk 07:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The Disease description uses "kind" rather than "type", so neither term is used consistantly in-game, and the Prophecies manual uses "type" as a synonym for "mob name". -- Gordon Ecker 05:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you want family/army if it wasn't used by ArenaNet internally? --Rezyk 22:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

In that case I'd prefer the internal terms, if known. In the absence of known internal terms, I would prefer whichever terms are used consistantly or semi-consistantly in-game. In the absence of either, I'd probably prefer some cladistic term (species, genus or family) for family and affiliation or creature group for army. -- Gordon Ecker 00:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Why weigh internal terminology so highly?

For me, it feels very "ugh" to put any significant weight on internal terminology because that directly stretches past the official/canon layer into behind-the-scenes stuff. And the feeling that we and ArenaNet both would not have independently chosen any of these "family/army/world" terms for this interface to players just adds to that ugh-ness. (Can you understand that, even if you don't agree with it?) --Rezyk 01:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Family is also used in the Factions strategy guide, which I think should be considered a low-tier official source, I support the internal term because it's used consistantly. If Disease and Edge of Extinction both used "kind", "type", "species", "class" or something odd like "flavor" or "aspect" then I'd support that term instead. As for army, it's used in the Prophecies manual and on the official website. -- Gordon Ecker 02:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

To me, family and army are consistently used in other senses. Family tends to follow the common usage of groups with close blood relations. Army is used in the sense of a military force, and though it has some of the right delineations, it only applies to certain groups (like species does). --Rezyk 00:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

The army discussion is over at talk:army. As for family, it can also refer to groups of similar things, such as languages, elements, medications or animals, and the Dragon Quest series uses it in the same context as Guild Wars. -- Gordon Ecker 00:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I meant that Guild Wars' consistent use of them follows the stuff I mentioned rather than this classification system. --Rezyk 05:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say move it and have a redirect. — ク Eloc 貢 20:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Data points:

• Type&Affiliation are internal too; they are used by Emily.
• Skill Miasma uses 'kind'.

Backsword 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no point in discussing this. 'Family' is the term used by developers. And family is not exaclt species, or race, or type... it's an 'internal' denominator for a property of monsters. Since we have been give the proper name, the name used internally, there is no need to make up another one. Sometimes the devs use terms created by players, and sometimes we use terms created by them, this case is one of the latter ones. MithTalk 16:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been dragging on so long I don't particularly care which term is used. I just want to see some standardization between the article title and the label used in the infobox. As a compromise, let's just remove all the redirects and put in explanations for both, and have them refer to each other. That'll satisfy both sides such that neither is a redirect term. -- ab.er.rant 08:54, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Is the new Family and Creature type acceptable? If so, we can apply the same treatment to army and affiliation. Or must we have one redirect to the other and just hope that the other side gives up? -- ab.er.rant 09:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The duplication of effort grates, but if that's what it takes, I'm fine with it. Backsword 13:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Skale Missing?

Where are the skales in this table? They seem to be their own kind/family --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Artisan Archer (talk).

Added. -- Gordon Ecker 08:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)