User talk:Farlo/Sandbox

Initial feedback

First: great idea! I'm glad someone is putting this together. (It always bothered me that we have so many great maps that (a) have no context and (b) aren't interactive.) Second: consider something other than red for the PvP outposts; it's hard for me to read and I'm not even colorblind ;-). Third: are things setup so that the font can be changed easily? There's something not quite ideal about the current one, but I'd hate to slow things down for something that we can adjust later.

Fourth: with this many colors, there's not much room for including landmarks or important other points of interest (perhaps the non-interactive parts of the map). Other possibilities include large font size for zone names or different emphasis (italics, bold, related font from same family, ...).

It's good stuff! — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:15, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank god! Some feedback!

Yeah, the colors are more just trial and for my own benefit figuring this whole thing out, although I do like the outposts being a blue-ish color. I was looking at it, and it doesn't really seem like there are as many PoIs as I initial thought, so that's almost a non-issue unless it's something really special.

Fonts are controlled at the "image label" template level, so it should be pretty easy to change them around, that was just default. I asked on the World Map page as to what the font GW itself uses, cause I think it'd be cool to have them match (perhaps even text locations matching the in-game map? I tried to get the actual icons in the right spot with at least some accuracy).

And since I'm trying not to create as many pages, I skipped a very nice step. Wikipedia has the image and it's tags placed in another template, so all that would appear in the article's coding it {{Template:Locations_Ascalon}} or something like that. ~Farlo Talk 04:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

On the regional pages, sure, there might not be that many points of interest. But wouldn't this also be valuable for quest, dungeon, mission, and explorable area maps? — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks pretty good to me, though as stated on the page's discussion, the map is a little dominating. The interactivity is really well done though. As for getting the font used in the game, Im afraid your going to run into a wall there. ArenaNet hasn't released the fonts they used, nor do they plan to. Your probably going to have to use one of the fonts available to the wiki. Id suggest something common, as the more stylish and less-used fonts, like the one in my signature for instance, isn't guaranteed to be installed on most people's PCs. Also, there is no problem in making a page have inclusions from other subpages. Just make sure that you keep an eye on them all to keep vandals under check.—Neithan Diniem 04:56, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I hadn't thought of using them for that (yet)! If we could setup a project to get a bunch of high quality blank maps of every zone, and had a few people working on it, I think it'd be easily possible to get them rolled out for almost anything in-game. Interactive boss markers, paths, hidden treasures, etc, that would be sweet. I wonder if enough people are even active here to get something like this rolling? I'm definitely game if you are :D

Aww, that sucks, why won't they let us use it? :( I guess we can figure out the closest/best looking from the ones the wiki supports broadly. Is there by chance a list of those somewhere? ~Farlo Talk 05:02, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Well you could look on the main wiki (THE main wiki, not GWWiki) and look for fonts they use. I THINK thats how I found the font I used for my signature, but I can't remember exactly how or what I did to get to the list. Might have just googled "Wiki fonts" or something like that. As for the official GW fonts, I think its a security thing. If anyone could use the official fonts, who knows how many fake sites or scams might be made using them to look more "official." I remember seeing something they posted on their site about the official fonts and why they weren't released, but I cant remember where that is anymore either.

Also, I'm sure you could probably find plenty of blank maps around to use for a project like that, though not so sure on people. It would be a lot of work, but if setting up a map isnt too terribly hard, it shouldn't take all that long for 4 or 5 people, maybe even less. Just look in the Maps category to see if there are suitable images for the project. If not, then look in the zones' pages. Theres sure to be map images there you could use. Im even pretty sure that most have blank versions, or mostly blank. Nothing a in-game screenshot couldn't fix, just use a good resolution for the pic and remove the map icons/text (I think hiding the UI also hides text on the map, and there are plenty of mods that remove the map's clouds and stuff to help clear up the image a lot). Lots of people have Legendary Cartographer by now (me included), so finding someone with all the zones mapped shouldn't be a problem.

If anything, Id say you should certainly use this idea in the GW2 wiki. The sooner you start the project there (once the game releases), the faster it might get used as the standard! —Neithan Diniem 05:58, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I should look at the fonts, although I don't have a fairly good sense of design or style, haha. I'm probably going to move over to the GW2W fairly soon, this one is somewhat dormant except for the yearly content patch. I was thinking of the GW2W when starting this, and I thought I'd start here, and see how it worked with... well... stuff to work with. The GW2W has like 4 maps, lol. Hopefully, once Betas and stuff start coming up, it will kick into high gear. As for this Wiki, I guess I can start another project for maps, and if you'd like to help, we can start compiling images we need and get cracking on at least the major zones for now. Tomorrow (too strung out on Minecraft tonight), I'll make the project page and start organizing. I really hope we can get a few people to move this forward. ~Farlo Talk 07:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a great idea indeed. Reminds me of how Wikipedia uses svg base maps with cities pinned on after. Notes: it's disturbingly easy, but Times New Roman at the right size and colour resembles the in-game map font (no, seriously, compare it now). Also, as on the printed maps in special editions, you could enlarge the portals by overlaying an image. The borders between areas would also end up more detectable. | 72 | 14:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly where I got the idea :P. On the Arhipelagos map and the project page, we do put click-able portals that are a bit bigger then the ones in-game, although maybe they could be bigger?. I'll have to check out the fonts, but my biggest issue right now is colors, there's a section in the talk page of the project, and I'm not sure what the next step would be. ~Farlo Talk 17:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)