There is a lot of desire to see more consistent weapon pages, with more information and higher quality visuals. I say let's blow it out of the water with the best we can do. Another editor and I have waited for a reply from support regarding usage of youtube videos - and we got a response yesterday. I've put those details in the style guide. It means we can take the next step:
===============================================================================================
Compare:
to
Key differences:
- order and grouping of ToC sections based on the format of the rest of the wiki (acquisition at top, not using the word "vendors," etc.)
- addition of an elaborate "gallery" featuring attack, charge attack, news (if applicable), a tooltip rotation, and an inspect window view (the inspect window view seems redundant for most items, but it will be especially important for items like the tortofist that have comparatively weird tooltips).
-"template" page
===============================================================================================
Important format note:
charge attack pictures should always show the range of the charge attack. This might be difficult to keep consistent. Charge attacks should also always be demonstrated in an area with clearly visible tiles (this helps easily show range), as emphasized in OldWiki bomb radius format. This was previously done in the "lobby" of arcades. The game has changed a lot since then, and I feel that the Private Training Hall is the best option for various reasons (can use any time of the year without snow/other weather, easy to access for most players even if they are not in a guild, and usually pretty empty).
===============================================================================================
Primary concerns up for debate:
-Overtemplating, an issue we've hit a few times and when I tried, it didn't go well because it was too tied in to huge format changes. Instead, based on feedback, templated pages mimic the current format. Icytea did a good job making the GunnerHelm and Gunner Armor templates for the padded family, but these were very patterned and predictable items, so the context is a bit different. Check the page code of the sandbox for details. These are mostly open fields with a few specific parameters in the gallery section that I will document later if people are liking it. The non-page-template solution is to constantly enforce format fixes, which isn't a big deal really - this template is more for established editors being lazy, and isn't that friendly to new editors. But we know how those little inconsistencies accumulate.
-Gallery format. It's a template to force consistent naming of expected images on the page, like the infobox, every item will have these visual aspects displayed. I've recently had to battle with...battle sprite file naming issues, and they are fixed thanks to Clotho's help...and should stay fixed. Anyway, should the gallery template mimic "gallery" code or be a new "skwindow" field (with yellows/blues and headers/curves and all that). I am in favor of keeping it a gallery mimic, because then the focus is on the visuals within and is, yes, a mimic of "gallery," and it looks less cluttered on pages that are mostly visual, like accessory and costume pages. Others are in favor of that SKWindow type deal. Thoughts?
===============================================================================================
Before we can move forward, we need to agree on:
-Page format ToC order. Some other editors think that damage needs to be at the top (because it's the most "demanded," I don't think we have enough data to say either way, because I've heard that acquisition/path is most important...blahblah), the primary reason I disagree because having dmg at the top is not in sync with rest of wiki. Acquisition needs to be at top, this is in sync with our wiki and most other gaming wikis - the problem is that "recipe" and "alchemy path" are part of "acquisition" (or at least belong together), and this pushes damage criteria lower.
-That being said, having damage and attack descriptions flow seamlessly into the gallery demonstrations looks good, in my opinion. Notes should be at the bottom of the page somewhere - before or after gallery? I think before. Most notes sections are pretty small and won't interrupt the Combat flow into the gallery section (galleries need to be near bottoms of pages), and also lets pages like the accessory pages stay very consistent with other types of item pages.
-Gallery format. Should we have it be a gallery mimic? Are there other visuals we should include that are consistent with every weapon? (yes, there is a switch parameter in place regarding the nonexistant regular attacks of bombs and lack of news for most items, this will be clear in documentation once we settle on the content that will be in the weapon gallery). Ignore the squished image of the inspect window, that's not important, a Gremlin got into the works and it will work itself out.
-Tweaks on what makes a "Set" a "set" regarding weapons. The "List of sets" page might need minor tweaks in its "notes" and "about the list" section regarding weapons.
-Tweaks on infobox content. Should there be a "prismatic aspect" section right above the accessory slots? "Prismatic" seems to confuse a lot of people - and it is actually nice to know what would change for your knight if you're a different color than the visual in the infobox. This doesn't apply so much to weapons...so far. (I think the slime crushers are the only ones actually). This is more applicable to the Great and Amazing(ly) boring infobox project, which will be overhauled along with weapon pages, since the copypaste and mindset for the edits are very similar. Might as well multitask. If not in infobox, then in the notes section (IMO infoboxes should be limited to the tooltips that pop up in-game, but that's just me - though I do support set info in the infobox, so I'm not set in infoboxstone :P).
In general, I like these ToC format options. They seem to fuse seamlessly into one another.
-Basic Info (type, description)
-Acquisition (generalized and succinct)
-Usage (combat, or "how to use")
-Notes (history and tidbits)
-Gallery
-List (if applicable)
-External Links
-See Also
Or:
-Basic Info (type, description)
-Acquisition (recipe, alch path, or for items that are colored clones of each other with different acquisition methods (most accessories), this info is in the list instead)
-Usage
-Notes
-Gallery
-List
-See Also (external links nested under this, as long as it is in its own clear section, according to support, I think)
===============================================================================================
TL;DR - no. This is a big project, read it in detail. Hurray for huge projects! This one is REALLY big!
The new format looks somewhat better than the old format. Two small comments:
The CTR part of the info box is informative, but it might give readers the impression that this is something particular to Obsidian Edge, whereas it's really a general rule of the game, that applies to all weapons. I favor either removing this part, or adding a tiny amount of text along the lines of "like all weapons".
Is Obsidian Edge part of an official set? I'm focusing on the word "official" here. Indeed, is there any mechanism by which Three Rings officially designates sets? I'm probably being a bit too skeptical here, but I've seen wiki editors add crazy "sets" that are clearly just their opinion/fantasy.