Talk:Main Page

What is a Spoiler ?

So I've been wondering where should we draw the line to what is a spoiler and what isn't ? I think it is a brilliant idea personally (perhaps I should mention here for future editors that I did not originally add the "by the developers it is desired, by the editors it is enforced"). To know that I can visit any article and not have significant spoilers about a creature, or area, or strategy for a boss etc.

On the other hand, let's face it everyone is sharing all those things in global chat already. And it could be argued that simply visiting a Wiki is looking for spoilers. Hmm.

• A middle line I'm considering is to documented whatever landmarks or creatures are in the main zone article, but in the main zone article say no more about them (just a simple listing). It is kind of a guide, or a teaser to content that's there. Or even just a reminder, that, yes, certain plants or animals are available in this zone. If the player wants to know more, they can follow the link.

• For puzzles and other locations that were intentionally made difficult to find should go in a Template:Spoiler.

• Medium spoilers for quest completion goes in a Template:Hint like this. Hint These can be used "inline" and make for nicer layout. Using the Template is recommended because later we can replace it with a fancy popup if needed.

• Likes/Dislikes, Quests and Services (Consignment, Storage) are revealed in the articles without Spoiler. It just makes the article layout too complicated. It also does not deprive the player of much, seeing as you soon understand that favor will unlock benefits, and you still have to work at them.

• Monster's Weaknesses or peculiarities that are normally earned through Anatomy I tend to put in a Template:Hint.

Of course that's just my preferences for now. Put it here for discussion once more editors show up.

--Gorgonzola (talk) 16:52, 25 September 2014 (CDT)

A little face lift

I hope by making the main page look a little nicer that it will encourage other players to contribute more often.

This format where links are side to side with a simple bullet separator may be easier to expand as well (though I kept the columns for skills which are easier to read).

Maybe Gameplay and Advanced could be merged in one vertical cell?

EDIT: I intended to add background images to the red boxes that look like the in game buttons fixed :)

--Gorgonzola (talk) 16:11, 17 September 2014 (CDT)

Regarding Skills that go on the Main Page

Recently I discovered a new skill in a dungeon and added it to the Main Page. Then, on further reflection, I removed it.

Should we list every possible skill on the front page? I don't think it's a good idea.

• When a player is new to the game, there is no need to overwhelm them with the vast array of skills (likely to increase with most major updates).
• Exposing skills that are acquired through special foes, dungeons, and advanced level areas is basically spoiling away part of the game. I think it's better to leave that deeper within the wiki, not on the front page.
• Besides, there is only so much space available on the Main Page for it to remain easy to use and clear.

TLDR My hunch so far is to cover all the basic, fairly common skills that show the rich content in the game, without spoilers. As a general rule of thumb: if the skill comes from a high level dungeon, requires slaying difficult foes, and what not.. I would link to it from within the parent article (the dungeon, zone, or NPC) but not on the front page. This gives some room for new players to explore and discover on their own. Once a player found such a skill of course, it's really easy to look it up either in game (/wiki) or via search here.

Missing description of game mechanics ?

Hello all, after playing the game for about a week now, I notice that I cannot find a wiki-description of certain game mechanics. Most notably for me is a description of levels. I intend to make a first draft on this later today. I intend to link to it from the mainpage under Basics. My question for now is, do you notice any other game mechanics that have no description ? Jackybah (talk) 04:15, 19 August 2015 (CDT)

Character Sheet / Persona Info?

I think it would be helpful for new players (such as myself) if there was a section on the main page that linked to a "character stats" section. Maybe it exists and I haven't found it yet? The "stats" section could organize and describe the different information found on the persona tab. I added a couple pages about community and peaceableness today because I wasn't sure what they were about, but I think it would make sense to have a brief description of all the "persona" stats that can be referenced or linked to other information on the wiki as needed. imo, general information pages like "stats" tend to evolve into something more useful over time as players add in more nuanced information. Ransel (talk) 11:18, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

Loot tables?

I've been trying to update loot tables a little at a time, but one thing I think is worth discussing is how to handle monsters that appear in multiple zones. My gut "feeling" is that monsters in different zones likely have different loot tables, especially if they are different levels. For example the Venom Spiders in Anagoge probably have a different loot table than the venom spiders in Serbule Crypt. Some monsters might share a loot table across zones, like the pigs in serbule probably have the same loot as the pigs in serbule hills if I had to guess.

So, how could this be handled in a somewhat organized manner? One possible way to sort this out would be to disambiguate the pages and make a page for each zone. Ie.. Venom Spider (Anagoge) or Venom Spider (Serbule Crypt), and have the main page "Venom Spider" act as a general landing page with information on the creature and then links to the different pages?

Another possible way to organize the pages would be to spoiler all the information for one zone underneath general information about the monster. Ie.. the venom spider serbule loot table and stats could all go under one spoiler, and the same for all other zones, then a wiki browser could expand the information they were interested in.

There are probably other things that could work also, I'm just starting to notice that pages could get cluttered with all the loot tables in one place without any sort of spoiler. Ransel (talk) 18:36, 5 August 2021 (EDT)

One thing to keep in mind, is that we may have a way to automate or at least semi-automate loot tables in the future. https://discord.com/channels/592041654677012480/592049120097599519/834793847468326973

“

there is actually a JSON file that's supposed to help with that. It's sources_items.json and it's not in the index because it's still quite buggy. (For instance it lists all quest IDs as 0.) But it's something I'm hoping to make usable soon. It may make it possible to auto-generate item sources

— Citan

--Alleryn (talk) 05:33, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

That's great news alleryn and I hope it becomes functional some day. I wanted to add a little bit of loot here and there to make the wiki pages not feel so barebones and also provide clues to what other loot might drop from monsters. Like if a monster page lists that it drops some types of cooking ingredients then it might also be a good thing to kill for other ingredients not listed. I'd have no hard feelings if my efforts got overwritten tomorrow by a better system, or if it is overwritten in a few years time either.

So, I guess the question can be reworded as "how to temporarily handle the loot tables for monsters that appear in multiple zones?" If the JSON file can be used to verify the loot tables are the same, it'd simplify the question. If the tables are the same, then just make a single loot table. If the loot tables are different for some of the monsters, then the question for how to handle those pages remains. Using a spoiler for each zone loot table is probably ideal in a situation where a future overwrite of information is possibly/probable. I might try to do a test page on something here in the next few days to see what your thoughts are. Thanks for the new information ^^ Ransel (talk) 12:26, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

Didn't mean to detract from your efforts in any way, just wanted to pass along that info. I'm not sure which approach is best. I would lean toward separate pages for mobs in different zones (the disambiguation approach) as a desired outcome, but this also seems like considerably more work, so its a trade-off in my opinion. I would support whatever approach you'd choose to implement.

Right now the JSON file is not very useful for figuring out the general loot tables. For starters, it uses "internal names" like "Hippo" and "Hippo6" for the various mobs that i don't think anyone has attempted to map out to figure out which mob is which.

One more possible strategy that i don't think you mentioned is to do something like:

• A section for general loot that shows items dropped by all versions of the mob
• Followed by separate sections for each zone that show items dropped only by the mob in that zone.

I'm not trying to suggest this is superior to other approaches, but might be one more way to consider doing it. --Alleryn (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

While monsters that appear in more than one zone do have different loot tables, they're not dramatically different. Usually, if the mob drops Ingredients and Equipment, the Equipment changes if the monster is in a zone outside of the equipment level range.Deinonychus are a good example. Their ingredient loot drops are identical in every zone, but their equipment differs. At lower levels, they drop jewelry like

 

Amulet of Max Armor +20

, but

 

Amulet of Max Armor +50

in higher level zones. (A few types of non-equipment items can also change by zone, like scrolls, coin purses, and research ingredients).

I would advise not turning mobs into disambiguation pages. The wiki would end up with 9+ nearly-identical pages for some monsters, and 2-4 pages for most monsters. Disambiguating mobs by zone would also interfere with existing dpl tables across the wiki. I support Alleryn's suggestion of a section for general loot + separate sections for each zone (Plus this system already exists on a handful of pages). If necessary, loot information could be transferred to sub-pages and transcluded back to their parent page. This will likely have to happen for easier implementation of json-generated lists anyways. BetaNotus (talk) 17:07, 6 August 2021 (EDT)

Sounds good BetaNotus, I'll use Alleryn's suggestion and try to split the loot tables into equipment and such that are specific to one zone in one loot table, stuff that likely drops from all the monsters in the other table. Will try this in the next few days. Cheers! Ransel (talk) 12:52, 7 August 2021 (EDT)

I tried out the suggestion on the Venom Spider page and it looks a lot cleaner. It might make sense to spoiler the zone specific loot also. I think the zone specific loot tables might have to be transcluded as BetaNotus mentioned. I'm not sure the spoiler tags would work with the loot table otherwise. I tried out what spoilers would look like on my sandbox page here User:Ransel/Sandbox. It'd probably look a little cleaner with a bolded spoiler title, but a flag could possibly be added to the spoiler template if the spoilered approach is chosen.

Cheers! Ransel (talk) 11:46, 9 August 2021 (EDT)

I'm a little confused about the Venom Spider example. It looks like (in its present version: [1]) that all the versions of the spider are producing the same loot. Why are the items that all the spiders drop in the zone-specific sections? I was envisioning only items that one zone's spider drops but another zone's doesn't would go in that part. Could you explain your plan? --Alleryn (talk) 14:16, 9 August 2021 (EDT)

Hi Alleryn, I haven't been able to go through and verify what specific equipment drops from each variant of the spiders, so I just copy/pasted it and can update as time goes by. For example, I'm 99% certain the Serbule Crypt variant drops Comfortable versions of the ancient gear at a higher percentage rate than the Anagoge variant. Having separated loot tables eventually allows for percentage rates to be added based on player log files. I could clear out the equipment sections if you'd prefer then go back and verify what equipment drops that way. With all the loot tables being blended together, the options are to leave them all the same for the specific variants of monsters and update / delete items as things are figured out. The other option is to erase it all and add back items as chat logs are examined. Or ideally, get that automatic system working at some point. Venom spiders are probably a bit closer in loot tables than some of the other monsters, but I had to start somewhere. Ransel (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2021 (EDT)

Ah, okay. Have you found people who have volunteered to contribute chat logs/data? I guess i feel like if we don't know if we'll get around to data collection it might be better to leave things without multiple copies of the same info until data starts rolling in. Maybe just start separating out sections for monsters you've verified have differing loot per zone?

I guess my feeling is it would make more sense to collect the data first outside of the wiki and then once we know what we're dealing with then we could make the formatting change, but i suppose if you want to put the work in, it's ok by me. --Alleryn (talk) 15:48, 9 August 2021 (EDT)

I would prefer empty sections (maybe with the existing loot table as a guess where it might be correct, like for Venom Spider i guess the one we already have is probably the one for Anagoge?) to one loot table with presumably wrong info for many of the zones repeated over and over. --Alleryn (talk) 15:52, 9 August 2021 (EDT)

Verifying the loot tables using an additive method is likely easier than using a subtractive method. I agree that it's better to delete the data and add it back. I just wasn't sure about the communities feelings on the matter. This is why I'm taking an iterative approach to this task instead of trying to make everything perfect in one go. The drop rate percentage discussion is a big discussion and this talk page is already starting to get a bit long, and I'm not ready to implement anything at the moment. Most gaming communities I've been in have been more than happy to flood you with data/chat logs and I'm not concerned about the data collection aspect personally. I've seen various approaches to this over the years, but the ones that I've seen work the best allow the community to visit specific wiki pages and input their drop rate data directly into the wiki. This can happen via a script of some sort that reads the log file and updates the drop rates automatically or the script can strip the log files down to the needed information and give people numbers to input manually. There are many ways to go about it, but it's not a project I'm going to have time for in the short term, but I think its something that could be easily implemented with time.

I'll continue to do some updates on the loot table format a little at a time and I might make a category soon that collects all the monsters who appear in multiple zones so it's easier to monitor and maintain those pages. Cheers! Ransel (talk) 12:06, 10 August 2021 (EDT)

Thank you Ransel; I hope i didn't rain on your parade too much. I do have one last idea i'd like to leave here for the future, which would be something like this:

• Section called Old Loot Data where we could just cut and paste the data as it is now (for monster pages that don't have any zonal-differentiated info yet, which is most of them)
• Followed by (empty) zone-by-zone sections like you had. This would give people a place to enter any data they have for each particular zone, which i understand was your goal (and i think a very positive one) to begin with.

This would have the benefit of retaining all the old info while starting the transition to the new style for anyone who wants to enter data. I know this contradicts what i said above that i thought it would be preferable to gather the info outside of the wiki. That was motivated by wanting to avoid too much clutter/duplication of info on the pages, but hopefully this new(ish, i guess it's similar to some of the suggestions above) suggestion is an improvement, for whenever we decide to get the ball rolling on this. On my end, I'm fairly sure i can help with some of this, probably even automate the transition to this style if desired, at some point in the future, but right now i'm unable to devote the time unfortunately.

In any case, thank you for taking the initiative on this matter. I think it is a worthy endeavor that would remove a lot of ambiguity from hunting for items.--Alleryn (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2021 (EDT)