User talk:Daddicus

Hi

You seem frustrated.

I can understand that; people think that because I'm a dick and/or because I finished WoC NM about 4.5 hours after it came out and/or because I'm an elitist, asocial jerk I don't get people's feelings, but I do understand frustration.

The best thing to do with frustration is to set it aside for a while. You've been frantically (or at least rapidly) posting on the WoC talk page about all sorts of things. That's a great way to give yourself hypertension, aneurysms, and whatnot, but not so great a way to get things done. From what I can see - and I think you'd agree - what you really want is to warn other people about the difficulty of the WoC areas (as opposed to the Factions areas; WoC areas are post-Factions areas, I guess). In your current state, you're not going to get that done; you're just going to get riled up at people and, possibly, make yourself look foolish by saying in anger something that you don't actually mean.

I recommend taking a couple days off from GW. Don't log on, don't visit the wiki, don't worry about your characters or the righteous need to warn people of perilous choices or anything like that. Spend time - a lot of time - with your SO (or, failing that, some close friends). Don't even talk GW with them. Just go out, be yourself, and have fun for a bit without GW. The world won't end, I promise you.

When you come back, the first thing you should do is recognize that not that many people actually read the wiki. Sure, it's a great resource - one of the best-developed game wikis I've ever seen - but that doesn't mean the community cares. When I tell people to read the wiki to find the answer to their question, a lot of the time I get back "nah I don't like wiki". Thusly, putting a warning on the wiki won't be as productive as you probably think it will be right now.

The next thing you should do is ask yourself how bad things really are. You're stuck at Rescue at Minister Cho's Estate on a four year old character; that's a problem, yeah. That doesn't mean the character is "done" - even if the game were bugged and WoC had level 50+ enemies for you and you alone, there's three other continents out there. And, thankfully, it's not so bugged - you can beat that quest. You can't beat it by throwing yourself endlessly against the first few mobs and farming DP, but you can beat it by analyzing strategies, trying new things, and using your brain to optimize your party. Think of it like a puzzle.

And, if you can't fit all the pieces together, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help. Smash your pride into the wall with a mighty "fuck you", because there are times when it just gets in the way of things. If you want my advice, it's there for whoever asks it - the only price is that you have to listen to it, and sometimes that's a bittersweet pill to swallow. There are many other wiki-goers who will do just the same thing.

I hope you understand when I say that I hope not to see you editing for a couple days.

Best,

-- Armond Warblade 06:40, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I may not have communicated clearly: I have two characters I mentioned. One is a four-year old with 21 titles maxed. I have not tried with him yet (and don't intend to until ANet completes WoC AND WoC is reset back to normal, similar to the way WiK worked at the end).

The other is a one-year old character that I use with my daughter. She wanted to go through it for the storyline. (She's going to be an actress some day, I swear! She plays nothing but mesmers, and for her ... it's obvious that what she "should" do (in her own mind).) THAT is the one that I consider ruined (unless things revert back after phase 3). However, she was perfectly happy with it all, that is until we couldn't advance any more due to being overmatched.

Documentation

I see you have some rather impassioned edits on the Winds of Change talk page. I'll offer you some advice:

• Rather than adding more words to the conversation (which seems to be getting over done), give an example. Users of the wiki have their own user space (GWW:USER).
  • To create a page in your user space for editing, you can create a red-link first, such as User:Daddicus/Winds of Change, and then edit that page to show what you would like.
  • Other contributors can then make comments about your suggestion on that page's talk-page (in this case User talk:Daddicus/Winds of Change).
• Though you are correct in your approach and understanding of the general policies which make this wiki tick, some people are inclined to taking offence at having it quoted to them (though others do need to be reminded of them from time to time).
• If you are having an issue with the wiki, its policies, its contributors, etc. and wish to contact someone about it, you can always take a look at GWW:ADMINS, where you can contact one of us via email. Personally I'm a tad behind, as I always seem to be, but we are there to hear from you if you have a concern.

I think that covers most of what I wanted to say. Have fun, and happy editing. G R E E N E R 07:15, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips! I'll consider that. However, my inclination is to continue on the main page. After all, a half dozen people already have quit talking in frustration at the stonewalling the "regulars" are giving the issue. SOME person needs to keep the discussion going until either ANet fixes the problem or a warning exists on the Wiki to address those concerns.

Apologies

I appreciate the time you have taken in the midst of your frustration to apologize to people for any remarks you made in the heat of conversation. I also accept. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:09, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! It's the least I can do; I should know better. 53 years should impart SOME wisdom. :) Daddicus 03:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Hehe, that last remark reminds me of the serenity quote. :-) Kaisha 03:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

FYI no trouble finding your feedback

I had no trouble finding your newly created Feedback page through any of a number of tools: Recent Changes (AKA RC), User contributions, among others. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Your feedback page has been put back to the proper form, with the proper templates. To create a suggestion, use the right-hand side text box on that page. G R E E N E R 01:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I should append your suggestion below. I did not see that you had re-added it. G R E E N E R 01:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

"Can we get one (or three) extra tabs on the party search window? If a tab were added for trades, that would allow places like ToA to have a less crowded display. Perhaps call it "Trades". Naturally, the "Trade" section of the current "Players" tab would be moved to the new tab, and the title taken away.

Optionally, if this can be done, add THREE tabs instead of one. Suggested names are "Trades - Selling", "Trades - Buying", andd "Trades - Swapping Goods". (These would correspond to the current "WTS", "WTB", and "WTT" acronyms which show up at the beginning of most trades now.

In lieu of the previous paragraph, having separated buy, sell, and trade sections would work, too (similar to the current mission, quest, hunting, guild, and trade are laid out now)."

Sorry, guys. I couldn't figure out what the heck I was doing. I finally figured it out (I think) after purging it and starting over.

(Crossing my fingers... :)) Daddicus 01:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Technical notes

1. Please remember to sign your comments by placing four tildes after you are done. (You seem to be forgetting this lately.)
2. You can shorten wiki links by removing http:⁄⁄wiki.guildwars.com/wiki and using the double-bracket syntax,
   e.g. Feedback:User/Daddicus/Make_WoC_able_to_be_abandoned or Abandon-to-restore-hope
   instead of [1] or http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:User/Daddicus/Make_WoC_able_to_be_abandoned.
   • There's no rule against the last two methods, but the first two make cleaner links and are easier for humans to parse when editing.
3. You seem to be using all sorts of indentation in your most recent comments and I, for one, am finding it harder to follow the thread of your posts as a result.
   • Generally, add a single colon (:) to indent one level relative to the previous post.
   • Only use * or # when you want a specific unordered or ordered list (and generally, those should be prefaced a number of colons consistent with the remainder of your comment).
   • If you post twice in quick succession, use the same number of indents (unless there's some specific reason for doing otherwise).
   • There are some important exceptions to the above, but many people never learn them and all is well.

I apologize in advance if you are already familiar with the conventions above. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little familiar with the conventions. Learning. The sig symbol, yes, I need to keep that. I've had to go back and add it several times. Regarding links, is it the pair of brackets ([) which do the trick? I've read that, but only now realize what was being said. Thanks!

The two quick posts were actually different subjects, but I posted them at once. I simply put my signature at the end of the paragraphs for the two people I was replying to. (It was all one click of "Save Page".) Daddicus 21:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Double square brackets are for "intrawiki" links (i.e. to another article) and single squares are used for external links (e.g. to Google). Intrawiki links use a pipe (|) to distinguish the article name from how you wish it to appear on the page, but the external links use a space. Finally, there are also interwiki links, for those sites for which we have defined shortcuts; they follow the intra-syntax, except that you prefix the article name with the shortcut. The most useful is probably Wikipedia, which uses a w: prefix (or even, wikipedia:) before the article name, e.g. [[w:Guild Wars|Guild Wars]] is the wikipedia article on Guild Wars.

Unless you've disabled it in your preferences, you should see a row of buttons useful for editing (mouse over them to see what they do). About half the things mentioned/used above have a button, included links, signature, and italics.

Another useful tool is the Watchlist (linked in your upper-right navbar). I'll stop there so as not to offer too many things at once; let me know if you want any more. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I always like learning, but at my age I can only handle so many things at once. If I get too many, the CPU goes bonkers and I start mispsellnig thangs. Daddicus 06:14, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Daddicus. Just as a quick note, it can also be quite useful to go check random pages and edit them (but don't actually change anything!). This makes it real easy to pick up the syntax of certain obscure but important things just by reading the edited code. Most of the stuff you can just copy/paste and change the numbers or words; I've done this on a skill rebalancing page.

As far as user pages go (should you be inclined to make one) yours is already created at Daddicus thanks to redlinks. I recommend checking out Gordon Ecker's page for some basic ideas of what to put on your user page, and working from there. Hope this helps! Cheez Whiz F T W 22:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

categories

youa dd them by added by adding [[Category:blah]] on the appropriate page, you can also do [[Category:blah|x]] and that tells it what bullet to put it under, it's most useful for [[Category:blah|*]] to make an explanatory page show up first in the cateogyr, and you link to a cateogry with [[:Category:blah]] e.g. Category:Contains steel 24.130.140.36 20:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is that the auto-categorisation mechanism is really picky. If something says "[[steel ingot]]" it won't work, but it will work if it's "[[steel ingot]]s". I don't think anyone has ever bothered to go through all the pages with salvage and fix this problem...although, I think there are some people trying to work on the template itself so that it will not be so specific. 76.78.119.108 20:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Very good! Thanks for that!

I will check the other four I've run into and make minor edits if that seems to be the problem with those as well. But, rest assured I'll be previewing them, since doing it wrong might leave it in worse shape than it is now. Daddicus 21:50, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I found another issue: The "category contains ..." for a couple of pages doesn't include "monstrous eye" (in the case I'm looking at now). So, I added a line. Note that the line I had to add was in the "evil eye staff" page, not the "category contains" page. So, previewing didn't help, because the "categories" section at the bottom doesn't show up in preview.

What I did to compensate for that is make the change and save it, but then immediately go to the "category contains" page and refresh it. Sure enough, the item showed up there after the correction. I would have undone the change if that didn't work. Daddicus 22:06, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I remember you now

Still stuck on Haiju Lagoon or something like that? That kinds sucks. If you'd like and if you can convince your daughter to go along with it, I'll help you out on my sin (you can tell her it's hired help, since, you know, assassin). There's a couple catches, though; for one, my sin hasn't started WoC at all. Secondly, I currently have a broken wrist; while dagger spam is pretty faceroll, I haven't tried it since my fall and I may somewhat suck at it. Finally, I'm going to ask you to join me on vent for our expeditions, both for better coordination and for learning experience. (If you don't want your daughter on vent with a strange man, I'll respect that.) Primarily, I want to be on vent so we can watch out for each others' mistakes and correct each other; it's also a lot faster than typing one-handed.

Let me know what you think, either on wiki or via email.

-- Armond Warblade 09:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Duplicitous

regarding this edit to Talk:Winds of Change/Walkthrough.

Duplicitous is never used neutrally; it has a decidedly pejorative connotation of deceptive or dishonest. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:49, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Definition 4 of "duplicity" from dictionary.com is what I quoted. Even so, if you were offended, I apologize. It was my intent to draw attention, not offend. Daddicus 21:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Pleased?

Are you pleased with the mechanics of Memories of Purity? Do you know if they fixed the bug that causes baby Factions toons paired with WoC-toons to suffer their tougher mobs? Or do we have to use this as a work-around? – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I haven't actually had the chance to try yet. I suspect this is a workaround, but if we never take the reward, I imagine we can go back and forth. However, if we DO take the reward, are we then prevented from ever doing WoC again? I'm not sure. Jim Daddicus 21:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I haven't tried playing with it yet. I finished nm with one toon and took Memories on another that had gotten part way through. I plan to have each visit various explorables to compare spawns (along with a third toon that never started). I'll let you know what I discover.

(My impression so far is that the WoC orientation is kludgey: the quests appear in different parts of the log; unless you have a quest active, it's hard to know if WoC is active or not; the new Imperial Guide is cryptic (she doesn't actually know where you are in the quest sequence, e.g. there's no way to tell if you need to see Miku to start The Rescue Attempt or to begin Finding Jinnai) ). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) You'll see this in the mainspace, but I wanted to update you w/details (since I credit you with helping ANet to adjust stuff):

• Your toon has to complete Cleansing Morostav Trail in order to be eligible for Memories.
• The mechanic is straightforward: take the Q to restore spawns; drop it to go back. (No storyline interruption.)
• They didn't do anything about newbie toons getting screwed if a WoC toon was in the party: the toon farthest along in the story determines the spawns. However, once you get to CMT, you get work-around the issue by taking Memories.

I tested out the spawns with/without WoC-toons and at various steps along the way to determine the pre-req quest. Since ANet made this somewhat convoluted (and it's hard to tell where you are in the storyline sometimes), I can't promise that there aren't other exceptions...but my primary testing toon was only part way through the HM version of cleansing quests, but only had to go through NM sequence to be eligible.

I hope the above saves you from having to test much yourself...or getting unnecessarily stuck with an unexpected spawn. Good luck. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but I wasn't going to get burned. My plan was to wait until it was WELL played-through and fully understood before even doing the items in the memories quest.

I'm really glad they included it, though. Restored my faith in them half way, anyhow (still mad about the lack of concern about the botting in JQ :)).

I'm betting in a week we know a LOT more of the details in the mechanics. Hopefully, memories is repeatable. That would prevent any really big issues.

Thanks! Daddicus 06:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I haven't cleared up confusion around Memories: once you meet the prereq, it's always available; take it whenever you want Factions spawns, drop it whenever you want during or post-WoC spawns. I wouldn't use the word "repeatable" to describe it because you can never "complete" it; you have to abandon it to remove it from your log.

The one thing I didn't test was what happened if you had Memories in the log and you had a WoC quest giver send you into a special zone for a quest; presumably, it shouldn't have any effect. (On the other hand, I accidentally took a friend through quest n+1 in WoC even though he hadn't completed quest n nor placed n+1 in his log — in other words, I'm not sure that ANet tested all the obvious boundary cases, never mind the weird ones.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 09:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Ahhhh. That's excellent.

Regarding their debugging, I wouldn't count on it, but it's safe to assume they TRIED to iron out all of the wrinkles. But, if they missed one, I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it. At least they tried. :) Daddicus 23:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

My apologies. I didn't mean to suggest that it bothered me that ANet missed every possible bug. In fact, I think they've done a tremendous job given their limited resources, i.e. they did more than try — by and large, they succeeded. As long as something isn't a show-stopper, I'm okay with minor work-arounds. (I offered an example merely to point out that we shouldn't assume that they had time to cover it all.)

(The one that annoys me is that, for a time, you couldn't combine baby toons with WoC toons, unlike in WiK, where you could.)

On the main topic: yes, Memories is an excellent addition to the campaign. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:42, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Logged out of the wiki?

A couple things to check about why you might be getting logged off the wiki:

• The wiki keeps track via ordinary cookies; make sure you aren't clearing yours (some plug-ins will do this periodically as a privacy/security measure).
• The wiki requires you to reauthenticate periodically. I'm not sure of the delay. → You can work around this by logging out/logging in if you've been AFK for any significant length of time.
• When you logon, make sure you check the option to have your computer remember you (or again, get in the habit of logging in more often).

This doesn't usually come up for me because I've set a custom background for the wiki and a preview copiously before pressing [Save], so I have a visual cue if I'm logged out or in (regardless of browser settings or the local computer). You can set your own up at

User:Daddicus/monobook.css (substitute the name of the skin checked in your prefs, if it's not monobook).

see also: my settings (not perhaps the most attractive, but works for me).

Good luck. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:22, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!!! Daddicus 23:37, 22 March 2012 (UTC)