Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Creatures

Under discussion

Not sure what kind of tag to slap on this, to make it say "This guideline has not been approved by the community yet", or something along those lines.

This is straight out of GuildWiki right now, making sure to not include anything that PanSola or other users that haven't subscribed to the GFDL have created.

Hope the decision to move this over was not premature. It's only here to give us something to work on, until we decide how we'll set up the Formatting guidelines for this wiki. If it is indeed premature and inappropriate, feel free to delete it. Basically, just trying to get some activity going. Eager to start adding content to the wiki. :) --Dirigible 11:43, 10 February 2007 (PST)

Hi again Dirigible :D hehe. I think there was a discussion somewhere as to whether {{beastinfo}} should be used for NPCs. I don't know where that was though. LordBiro 13:51, 10 February 2007 (PST)

Right here. Not adding anything till that mess is figured out, don't worry. :) --Dirigible 13:55, 10 February 2007 (PST)

Parser functions?

Does #if fall under parser functions? Is it installed? We need that if we want to lump NPCs under creatures, as certain info are important only for NPCs. --ab.er.rant 18:07, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Yes. No.  :/ --Rainith 19:59, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Coming soon ... see Guild_Wars_Wiki:Requests_for_technical_administration#Requests_pending_install. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:12, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Template "Skill icon"

From the history of Template:Skill Icon on Guild Wiki, I can't tell who the major contributors to that template have been, since the template was renamed from Template:Icon to Template:Skill Icon via copy/pasting the content, and not the Move button. Is there any way to check the old history? From the Talk page of that template it seems that Tetris was the one who made it, but not too sure. --Dirigible 20:11, 13 February 2007 (PST)

It looks like it is good to be brought over, here is the contributors of the original version of Template:Icon were Tetris L, Gem, Skuld and Barek. PanSola added only a move request and a depreciation notice. --Rainith 20:18, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Boss information

Do you think that it would be worthwhile having a boss template which extends the template which is on this page? Typically your boss article will have a bunch of stuff which is fairly common between boss articles and possibly worthy template information specifically unique, elite and a 'route to boss' map. (I acknowledge that this information isn't common for all bosses, particularly many of those found in the prophecies campaign). Having the image of the boss and a map would make the info box fairly hefty but would standardise formatting/location of the map across the various boss articles. --Aspectacle 22:27, 25 February 2007 (EST)

I think adding the elite skill that can be captured would be good idea too. -- ab.er.rant 22:55, 25 February 2007 (EST)

Elite skill can be found in the skills list, duplicating info is bad. The map should be an optional part of the creature infobox (if parserfuncions is even installed). --Rainith 22:57, 25 February 2007 (EST)

Acknowledged that it is duplication of information, but it does put information of most interest from the boss article to the template where it is easily viewed. Also as the information is relatively static (less than a handful of bosses have ever changed their elite skills or greens) duplication on this page is not particularly tedious to fix. As an aside, I think the info snippet that boss xyz has elite abc is probably one of the most duplicated bits of information in the wiki! I'm not particularly interested in arguing the point thou, I just hope they include those parser functions because including the map in the template could really improve the tidiness of the boss articles. --Aspectacle 23:14, 25 February 2007 (EST)

Similar in vein to the location infoboxes I drafted, I was mulling over the idea where infoboxes contains lots of info. Meaning you can just look at the infobox and get a good overview of things. (still trying to figure out a non-parserfunction way of adding quest requirements to the location box, but I digress). The article should be used for clarification, advice, and observations. If you ask me, I'd say throw the region and location of bosses into the infobox too. If there's a map, we can even skip the location section. As it is, the "infobox" isn't really informative. I don't really care what species it is, since I just wanna cap. I don't care what level it is, I kill it the same way. I don't care what profession it is, I just look at the skills list and I'd know. Adding more info would be a good thing rite? And I don't think that redundancy in a wiki being a bad thing... -- ab.er.rant 23:32, 25 February 2007 (EST)

Copyright violation tag

This article is currently tagged with {{copyvio}}, but it appears that all the major content copied from GuildWiki is available under GFDL (as claimed above). Since no other violation details are specified, I'm removing the tag. --Rezyk 15:39, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Actually I believe that the style itself is the violation. The GuildWiki article was first written up in September '05, after that had become the accepted style for the bestiary entries on GuildWiki. --Rainith 16:16, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Oh, good point. I withdraw any of my opposition to the {{copyvio}} tag here. --Rezyk 16:53, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the style itself is the violation", Rainith. The infobox being used is Template:Creature infobox, which has been created here on GWW. All the prose is GFDL safe, checked every contribution. What remains? The order in which the information is served (infobox, description, location, skills, items, notes, categories)? Can the order in which something is presented be copyrighted...? Confused. --Dirigible 17:46, 26 February 2007 (EST)

For the most part, the information presented in the bestiary articles cannot be copyrighted, the skills used, items dropped and locations are facts and can be copied over w/o a problem. The way in which they are presented though can be copyrighted. AFAIK 84-175 did not come up with the formatting himself, but wrote up the page based on the way contributors (including 84-175 possibly, you'd have to ask him) were presenting it already. The Style and Formatting page, which this page is essentially copied from, was written up after that "style" became the default used style on GuildWiki for formatting bestiary articles. --Rainith 21:50, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I'm inspired to try something new now. :) - BeXoR 21:56, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I am glad to hear someone say that. I would like to see us try new things here. I very much like the way things are done/presented on GuildWiki, but this is not GuildWiki, and I would like us to come up with our own style for the articles here. That said, after working on GuildWiki for more than 18 months, I do not know that I am creative enough to come up with things that are anything but a re-hash of the same old stuff.  :( --Rainith 22:22, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I hear your pain. Stylva and I spent months reworking the armor stuff back at gwiki, and then bringing it here we wanted to be a bit different but its really difficult to get out of that frame of mind. What we did there was our attempt at the best way to present the information and now we have to top that. Argh! Sometimes it's just unavoidable though. :/ The sad thing is, even when you come up with something different, people don't want it because they are so used to the way gwiki does things. It makes those who have tried wish they hadn't. - BeXoR 22:31, 26 February 2007 (EST)

(Response to Rainith) That is basically correct. Back when I wrote the Style&Formatting on Guildwiki, the bestiary was in a very desolate shape. But mostly the article reflected the de-facto standard on how bestiary articles were already done (simply putting it into written form and actually making a standard out of it). The only major change there was the introduction of the then new "BeastInfo" template (which was designed by Karlos). --84-175 (talk) 03:14, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Tweaking ideas

I have some ideas for tweaking the sections for creatures. I know an original design would be better, but I too am having trouble getting the GWiki style out of my head. Anyway, How about removing the "description" header altogether and just leave whatever's there as introductory text? It's not really "description" anyway, more like "General information". Also, for "items dropped", I suggest splitting it into "Collectible items", "Salvage items", and "Materials", so as to further reduce the number of anon edits that throw in keys, weapons, and dyes. -- ab.er.rant 23:14, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I was thinking getting rid of the description altogether, as someone once said, a picture is worth 1000 words. Also, Karlos at one time suggested something like Generic drops which would be in all the items dropped sections and would describe the standard drops of gold, weapons, keys, scrolls, etc... --Rainith 23:22, 26 February 2007 (EST)

It's always a good idea to start off an article with some text, instead of a heading. And heading is just redundant there anyway, because it's almost always an introduction or some general information. Generic drops sounds like a good thing to have. - BeXoR 23:25, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I was hoping we could get a more complete base template to start with. I guess it starts with how you interpret 'Creature' and 'NPC'. To me, a 'creature' is an NPC, just like Heroes and Henchmen are. I suggest we only make type-specific templates if absolutely necessary. Right now, I only think Heroes/Henchmen need 1. I quickly made a merged template (just curious how it would look) - see my sandbox. Major problem with this is the correct use of sub-headers. I've also made a table with all the sections used in the separate templates (how it was done on GuildWiki). There're some (like 'Skills used' and 'Default skills') that cover the same thing, just named differently. At least merge those into 1, otherwise it gets hard to see the forest through the trees. --Erszebet 09:58, 27 February 2007 (EST)

On GuildWiki it started with just Bestiary, then NPC was derived from it. Then heroes and collectors from NPC. All of the sections should be in lowercase for this wiki. Also, you missed listing the additional sections for the other NPCs types: "Weapons offered", "Rare crafting materials offered", "Skills offered", etc. But I see no problems with treating a "Creature" as the base definition, and will have no objections to a merged template if it's clearly mentioned which section applies to which subtype. -- ab.er.rant 20:42, 27 February 2007 (EST)

I'll see if I can come up with something more usable, with all the sections in it. About the lowercase: first word still starts with capital, right ? Also, just to make sure, I favor 'NPC' as base definition instead of 'Creature' because NPC can be practically anything. --Erszebet 12:09, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Ok, I merged all I could find into one page. You can find it on this temporary page because it has copyright violation written all over it (probably). I was just trying to get all the needed basic content into 1 page. Feel free to adjust, improve or whatever you think is necessary...Well, anything but blanking :) --Erszebet 18:12, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Erszebet, on your development version, I suggest moving the map image to immediately after the "NPCInfo" box, with no blank lines in-between. Placing the map image anywhere else tends to force blocks of empty space into the article. Note: If you do insert a blank row in the code between the NPCInfo box and the image, then the output will show large amounts of blank space. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:46, 1 March 2007 (EST)

In regards to the map image, I'd like to incorporate an optional map image into the infobox once ParserFunctions are installed. Until that happens though it would be too difficult to work in. --Rainith 18:49, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I fully support that idea - although if we do it, then we should have an allowance for map1, map2, & map3 (I think three should be enough for all bosses), as some are known to spawn in more than one zone. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:22, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Erszebet, one of the reasons why the NPC S&F guide was split was because it was getting too long. From GWiki experience, most users don't bother reading below the template, if they even look at it in the first place; so length is a factor. But before discussing content, here's the very first question: Do we want to merge the formatting for Creatures and NPCs and call it NPCs? -- ab.er.rant 23:36, 1 March 2007 (EST)

About the S&F guide & length: I don't think this is the right place to discuss the use and meaning of S&F guides, I know we had some talk about a welcome message for new users, with links to important sections like policies and formatting and stuff. Make sure (new) users can't ignore the articles and I'm sure if they want to be good editors they'll eventually read the stuff - long or not.

Still, if the article length is a problem we can create a main article with the template and basic info on how to use it, and create an "example page" with more details for people who are in doubt. That'll reduce the length somewhat. I also think that the <special sections> for merchants, skill trainers etc. deserve their own page.

"..., here's the very first question: Do we want to merge the formatting for Creatures and NPCs and call it NPCs?"

About the name: kinda like I said in my first post; we all know that in gaming an NPC is usually refered to as 'non-hostile human character'. Technically: an NPC can be anything except the player itself. The name doesn't really matter that much to me, I just think 'NPC' covers the whole package (human, monster, plant etc...).

About merging: my major concern is general consistency in articles. Small example: on GWiki we have 'Skills used' (lvl2 header - Bestiary); 'Skills Used' (lvl3 header - NPCs) and 'Default Skills' (lvl2 - Heroes). I just like the thought of having it all sync'ed as much as possible.

If you compare GWiki formatting for creatures (Beastiary) and NPCs: 'Description/General' are being replaced with intro text; 'Location', 'Skills used', 'Notes' & 'Trivia' are used in both; 'Items dropped', 'Quests Given/involved in' are type-specific, although some creatures (bosses) only spawn during a certain quest. Can you give an example or reason why we shouldn't at least try and merge it all ? --Erszebet 19:09, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Guess not. I wasn't really opposed, because I started with a rather lengthy version of the NPC S&F that got some feedback as being bloated. So I just tried to reduce the length. But I agree with you that those who want to be good editors will read a long formatting guide. I guess I can accept it as it is now then (*goes to check if there's anything that needs to be changed*). -- ab.er.rant 22:04, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Everyone should look at Erszebet's proposal here: User:Erszebet/NPCs. I've started some stuff for discussion here: User talk:Erszebet/NPCs. -- ab.er.rant 22:32, 2 March 2007 (EST)

---

This is a small thing, but the "Campaign" option in the beast info box makes no sense. --Karlos 14:32, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I agree with you there old friend, but we may be out numbered. --Rainith 14:58, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Makes sense to me. If it's unecessary here, for whatever reason, then I suspect the same reasoning could be used on any other infobox. - BeXoR 15:20, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Heh, haven't even noticed this wasn't in the info boxes on GWiki. Now that I think about it: this does make sense to have for people who don't have all campaigns for instance. Anyway I guess it wouldn't hurt to leave it there. --Erszebet 17:16, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I don't see why it makes no sense, unless you're referring to the possibility of a creature appearing in multiple campaigns? Could you guys at least explain a bit more? -- ab.er.rant 20:13, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Well, as far as I understand it, if a creature exists in a certain location then the campaign information is redundant. It's not like skills, which are coupled to a campaign. LordBiro 05:03, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Location and campaign aren't the same thing. Having both in an article isn't redundant. - BeXoR 06:29, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Damage Susceptibility

On gwiki, some creature pages list if the monster is particularly susceptable to certain types of damage (such as Ice Golems). I would like to standardize this with a template to be included at the bottom of the page. I have a mock-up at User:Lord Ehzed/sandbox. Please have a look and let me know what you think. - Lord Ehzed 10:21, 9 March 2007 (EST)

I like your idea, but I think your table is too big. I would rather have a very small note using only small icons for the kind of damage we know that enemy is weak against (images with this size: ). Also keep in mind that some damage susceptibilities go beyond the obvious (Ice Golems are weak against Fire Damage, but Stone Summit Wardens are weak against Fire Damage as well). Unless we tested each enemy with each kind of damage, I would rather list only the susceptibilities, saying nothing about what the enemy is not susceptible to. Erasculio 10:41, 9 March 2007 (EST)

I agree that this is overkill. The idea appeals to me, but I would rather see something more simplistic. LordBiro 19:37, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Thanks for the feedback. I've made a smaller version at User:Lord Ehzed/damage. Please feel free to modify it as you see fit. I didn't go with any images because there aren't any that are obvious what they mean, though we could develop some (possibly based on the colour of the projectile for spellcasting ones at least). Parser functions could be used to hide the ones that are unknown, but I don't know how to do that (and they're not installed yet as I understand). I wanted to list everything so you can see what is effective, ineffective, and what still has to be tested. For instance, has anyone tested if Kournan Scribes are vulnerable to piercing damage? It would be easy to see if there is a question mark listed. Just some thoughts.... -- Lord Ehzed 23:57, 9 March 2007 (EST)

If a foe is only susceptible to one or two kinds of damage then I still feel that having any sort of table is unnecessary. Can't we just say "Susceptible to X, Y and Z damage" in the notes? Or could this be included as part of the creature infobox? LordBiro 03:26, 10 March 2007 (EST)

What about these skill icons: Cold , Earth , Fire , Lightning , Blunt , Piercing , Slashing , Holy , Shadow ? One problem is that there's no Chaos, Dark or Light damage skills to provide icons. Another problem is that right now, typeless and shadow damage are literally impossible to test because all typeless and shadow damage skills skip the armor step of damage calculations. -- Gordon Ecker 04:16, 10 March 2007 (EST)

I'm very fond of those icons (good work, Gordon : ) I believe that, instead of a table, we could simply say "Susceptibilities: ", period. As far as I know, there's nothing weak against Chaos damage, and everything that's weak against Holy damage is weak against Light damage (not counting one of the necromancer armors, but that's for PCs anyway), so we could use the icons Gordon made, with the one for Shadow damage being used for Dark damage (as currently everything that does Shadow damage ignores armor anyway). Erasculio 09:24, 10 March 2007 (EST)

While I like the idea, I can't support the use of skill icons as damage type icons. Imagine if a user who is unfamiliar with the wiki sees "Susceptible to " and clicks on the image. As I'm sure you can appreciate, the result is confusing for the reader. LordBiro 13:49, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Let's reupload the same images with different names, then : D Have them called "Dark Damage", "Water Damage" and so on. Seriously, I think using icons is better than writting, and that using GW icons is better than making new icons just for this purpose. The name as it is is rather confusing, but I believe that reuploading those (given how small they are) just to have a copy with a different name would not be a problem. Erasculio 19:37, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Lol, I didn't make any of those icons. -- Gordon Ecker 20:16, 10 March 2007 (EST)

I just made some crude icons, but unfortunately it's not letting me upload SVGs. I can't think of any intuitive icons for the other damage types, but I'm not awary of any creatures with an AL bonus or penalty against them. -- Gordon Ecker 00:04, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

I recommend a general ==Research== section (when available, like Notes) that lists whatever finding are KNOWN (not a big table with only two cells filled in) and that has a note that readers can find research proof in the talk page (or a sub-article of the main article, like Ice Golem/Research). --Karlos 04:58, 10 March 2007 (EST)March 2007 (EST)

I think that's a good idea Karlos. I'm not opposed to using icons or whatever, but this would be a much better system than having a table. LordBiro 05:11, 10 March 2007 (EST)

No description heading for bosses

I would like something to be done to the description section. I would probably like to se it removed from boss pages completely. In GuildWiki many boss articles stayed as stubs because no one cared to write a description. The description also rarely included any information which wasn't found in the monster box or somewhere else on the monster page, so it was effectively redundant information. Anything special should be placed under the notes section anyway, so this section has no real use. -- (gem / talk) 21:13, 10 March 2007 (EST)

The decription heading should be removed entirely. Articles shouldn't begin with a heading. - BeXoR 01:13, 11 March 2007 (EST)

I also meant the content, not just the heading. I wouldn't like to see any general piece of text at the start of the boss articles. -- (gem / talk) 06:48, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I'd really like for headings to be removed in small articles. There's not much point in having a TOC when theres half a page of information at best. - BeXoR 06:56, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

See this page - creature/NPC articles can start with intro text, no header. If someone would pleeeaaase move that page already (*sigh*). Although I do think that most boss pages on GWiki are stubs because they don't have a map...remember the stub-section tag incident Gem ? --Erszebet 07:03, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Well yeh, maps are a problem with the Prophecies bosses, but not really with the others. Still, I wouldn't want to see the description kind of intro text as it just duplicates information which is in the monster box/skills section/notes section. The notes section should be used for anything relevant which doesn't fit the other places. -- (gem / talk) 07:11, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I would like to see a map box added to the bottom of the creature info box, once parser functions are in. And Erszebet, you're allowed to move the article yourself you know. :P - BeXoR 07:16, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

The map in the box will be added, no doubt :). And no, I can't move the page, because "Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/NPCs." already exists. Just tried it and now it's moved to "Formatting NPCs" - aarggh. I'm gonna leave it there before I make things more messy :-( --Erszebet 07:27, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Just overwrite it with copy and paste then. :) - BeXoR 09:11, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I disagree Gem. Description is THE place for lore and other such interesting info, such as "The Hunter is an agent of the Lich Lord that stalks players through out the Realm of Torment..." This IS who the Hunter is. --Karlos 07:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Hmm.. That's true. Well, that sort of stuf should probably be there, but I do not want to see "X is a forgotten monk boss who spawns at Y". no duplicate information should be in the description. -- (gem / talk) 08:21, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Even if the information is repeated, that's fine, to an extent. A lead line in an article is meant to be a brief summary of what the rest of the article contains anyway. - BeXoR 09:11, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I like Gem's example, though. I think repeating those specific bits of information (race, profession and location) is not necessary, given how that information is mentioned in great details elsewhere (such as in the list of skills, the map, etc). I do like the idea of keeping the description for the lore stuff, even if most bosses do not have lore about them (unfortunately). Erasculio 09:22, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

No lore about a particular boss equals no introductory text. I too would rather not see redundant sentences. -- ab.er.rant 00:23, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Someone add this to the article? -- (gem / talk) 06:25, 20 March 2007 (EDT)