Talk:Loading screen

Not sure, but I think the Training Arenas screen is for the Druid's Isle GH too. Can anyone confirm/deny? --- -- (s)talkpage  17:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Dunno, but HA uses the Underworld loading screen. Cress Arvein [[Image:Cress sig.JPG]] 18:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * What about FoW? Same as Underworld and HA, or same as Balthazar's statue in battle isles, since it's technically Balthazar's domain? RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 22:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Great Idea
I've always wanted a page like this. Nice work -- (Talk) (Contr.) 17:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm done for now
you can start improving --◄mendel► 19:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The best way to shoot them is to run (R key) through a portal with the interface off (Ctrl-Shift-H toggles it on and off) and hit the PrtScn key a few times as soon as the loading screen appears. Or have another player in the party, that gives you 10 seconds to Ctrl-Shift-H. Some images still need to be cropped at the top. --◄mendel► 19:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh, my loading times are so bad, I had plenty of time to cap them all.--[[Image:Marcopolo47 signature new.jpg]] (Talk) (Contr.) 22:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thing is the ones you get by shooting them IG are all upscales and I think, cut down versions of the ones in the dat if you have a 4:3 ratio one - they are widescreen and much smaller than what you see ig Jennalee 10:19, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That's what I was going to suggest - let me (or anyone else who knows how) pull them from Gw.dat so we can have them in their "native" resolution, instead of being scaled up. &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 05:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Just reupload them over the others - or, if you want to be perfect, correct the few misnomers. Since when does anyone have to "let you" improve the wiki? ;) --◄mendel► 06:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I was just sayin', why should you do all that work when I can do it better anyway? :P Unfortunately, there may be some problems with using the images in Gw.dat anyway.  The dimensions of raw texture files have to be powers of 2, so the loading screens are stored as 1024x512px, a 2:1 aspect ratio; however, when they are displayed in-game, they get resized.
 * The thumbnails to the right show the native versions of two loading screens - compare them to Image:Depths of Tyria loading screen.jpg, uploaded by Mendel at 1280x960 resolution (4:3), and Image:Charr Homelands loading screen.jpg, uploaded by MP47 at 1280x1024 resolution (5:4). A little bit of the image gets cut off either side when displayed in the narrower 5:4 aspect ratio, so it seems the images are resized to 4:3 for standard monitors.  We need to see a screenshot from someone with a widescreen monitor to know if it's different for them - I'd expect the image gets resized to 16:9 instead.
 * I'd recommend we keep the images at 1024x768, being the smallest distortion from the original size. &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 14:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, nice detective work. --◄mendel► 16:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Northern/Southern Shiverpeaks
Have exactly the same loading screen.-- (Talk) (Contr.) 20:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * And so does Sorrow's Furnace... Should we merge them all to one picture?--[[Image:Marcopolo47 signature new.jpg]] (Talk) (Contr.) 20:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Maguuma and Training Arenas have the same pic, too. Dunno what to do, but unmerged means it's still categorised by area. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage  21:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, this groups areas by loading screen, so the Shiverpeaks have to go together. Training Arenas goes to Maguuma because PvE is where the regions are. We assume the Zaishen train their beginners in the jungle. --◄mendel► 22:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Guild Halls
The Guild Hall loading screens seem somewhat buggy, in particular: --◄mendel► 22:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Isle of Meditation has Shing Jea environment and is listed with the Factions halls, but shows the Kryta loading screen
 * Isle of Wurms is clearly Nightfall's Desolation, but also shows Kryta
 * Isle of Solitude looks like Vabbi, but shows as Kourna.

--◄mendel► 05:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Warrior's Isle looks like Battle Isles, but shows as Kryta.
 * Wizard's Isle looks like Pre-Searing, but shows as Kryta
 * Isle of the Dead looks like the Catacombs in Pre-Searing, but shows the "Ring of Fire Islands" loading screen

Mission loading screens
The Factions cooperative missions seem to each have their own loading screen. (Vizahnuh local and foreign show Kaineng City). These loading screens show screenshots of the mission itself; they are not artistic renderings like the explorable and outpost loading screens. Do we want to put them on the page? I don't recall that happening in any other campaign? --◄mendel► 23:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually..This happens in several missions throughout the Prophecies campaign. [[Image:Rsz_PLSig.jpg‎]] 00:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure it happens in Nightfall, too. They shouldn't all go on this page, but should probably be on the individual mission pages (if we ever implement a MissionInfo template, they would be great for that) and have a note here stating such.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 02:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have confirmed it happens in the first few Prophecies missions as well. That makes any mission without a "screenshot" loading screen an exception, and these should definitely be listed here. The mission loading screens are screenshots computed "on the fly" as they are actually affected by your graphics settings; this raises the interesting question why we need to wait for the scene to load at all. Presumable the monsters need the time to take up their positions? (More likely the server needs to create the instance and transmit the "game mechanics" data to the client.) --◄mendel► 09:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I vote for having a separate Mission loading screen page, just like this one. So far, it seems like every mission has it's own unique screen (at least, every one that I have checked).  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 19:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't tried it with TexMod/3DRipper, but since those are affected by your graphics settings, it seems a reasonable assumption that those are actually rendered from the in-game camera in a specific position, so it might be impossible to simply extract them as a texture. If that is the case, then we would need someone with a widescreen monitor (to get the most content in the screen) to take clean (ctrl-shift-h) screenshots at a reasonable resolution - 1024px wide would be my recommendation, anything bigger would be overkill.
 * If I'm wrong and these can be extracted as textures (if the game takes the view from a specific camera position and converts it to a 2D texture (they don't exist in gw.dat)), then ignore all that. &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 19:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * And what's wrong with a high-res screenshot to begin with? :P If I feel like it later, I'll start doing them (my screen is 1280x1024, if that's ok, and I use Photoshop to save JPG's at better quality - what should be the max storage size limit?), feel free to get the page started. RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 20:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Do them 1024x768, the way we're planning to do the other loading screens, is my suggestion. You may see more on a wider shot, but then you can just go look for yourself in the mission; I assume that the loading screens were designed for a 3:4 monitor. You don't really need a page, catting them will make the cat page a sufficient gallery.
 * Personally, I've decided there's no point in having them, since each mission has it's own anyway (there is at least one exception, Vizunah). Well, unless we want to use them for the mission infoboxes. --◄mendel► 21:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Confirmed, mission loading screens are in-game renders of the actual environment. 3DRipper in "Capture all textures" mode did not get a texture of the loading screen (got all the individual terrain/etc. textures that appeared in the loading screen, of course).  Screenshots are the only way to go for these.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 23:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Signposts
The signpost types outside the locations seem to correlate with the loading screens. --◄mendel► 09:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The square pictures on the character selection screen might correspond with regions as well.
 * A simple way to grab loading screens with texmod inlogging mode is to press * on the Shift-Ctrl-H'ed loading screen, that should give you very few textures in the filtered set, one of which is the 1024x512 loading screen. --◄mendel► 16:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

stub
The article still lacks vital information. wikipedia:stub suggests that we use an "expand" template, which we don't have. So please don't remove the stub tag without indicating in some other way that the article is incomplete and needs help. We could liberally pepper it with "stub-section" tags, but I don't see how this would be an improvement. --◄mendel► 17:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

FoW
I would suggest moving the Fissure of Woe from Prophecies->Ring of Fire to the core areas. It's ok to have the RoF loading screen twice, as this is not a common occurence and would not cause clutter. Otherwise, you look at the Core section and scratch your head "Where the hell is FoW?" It's not very intuitive for most people to look for it in RoF. You can still leave FoW as explorable in the RoF section (I bolded it) - what are the three extra words gonna hurt? But I do think it should be duplicated in the Core. Any objections? RoseOfKali 19:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Put a footnote in the Core section?
 * I'm a bit miffed that you reconverted this to location lists; we already have these (click on the "location" link), and I can actually discern the area less clearly with those big lists. What was your reason? --◄mendel► 21:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Some were done like that (Shing Jea, for once), other's weren't, and only had boundaries of East/West/etc, and others had nothing at all (is Basalt Grotto really the only outpost with that screen? O_o). I just decided on ONE way to do them all.  What do you suggest instead?  I just like thinks to be complete and uniform, but the definition of completeness varies, so we just need to decide what it is in this case.  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 21:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm probably a minimalist, but I really liked it before when it was just he pictures and the name of that location. I'm fine with adding the guild halls, since those are rather random, but otherwise the areas should be self-explanatory. --JonTheMon 21:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * By this logic, why do we have all the keys here? I somehow doubt it's a perfect match with the screens (think of FoW, for one).  The key article describes very well which key goes where, and they don't really have anything to do with the loading screens, other than possible shared location... RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 21:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * From my talkpage:

 Loading screen and keys 

Hey, just out of curiosity, why did you add keys to the loading screens page? It seems.... quite unrelated. --JonTheMon 14:17, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's something to know the regions by, and the space was empty anyhow. Maybe in the future we can replace the key images with the region specific "door signs" or signposts. --◄mendel► 15:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * --◄mendel► 21:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(reset indent) I put Basalt Grotto in there because it's the last Vabbi outpost towards the desolation, I think all that was missing was to write it up to say "everything in Vabbi from Vehtendi ??? to Basalt Grotto" (Wehhan Terraces is Kourna, by the loading screen, amazingly). I think we can thumb the loading screens into the location lists if we want to (although I haven't quite understood their structure yet); like Jon says below this page looks nice when it's focused on the graphics, and having the heavy lists spoils it.

I thought we could try making the complete lists small (with a reduction in lineheight as well) to fix that, if the location lists are there to stay, but if all you're going for is uniformity, the rules I was going by with the other format are: Have I missed anything? --◄mendel► 21:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * List a capital city for the region if possible
 * We assume the region around the capital has the loading screen, so we name merely the "outermost" explorables or outposts (whatever the case may be) towards the other regions, giving compass directions for rough orientation. We don't need to list an outpost or explorable if the map ends there anyway just to have the compass direction. In other words, assume the reader has a map and knows how to use it; just give him/her the info how big exactly teh loading screen region is.
 * Name other explorables/outposts not in the region (e.g. FoW).
 * Name any missions that have one the artictic loading screens (e.g. Vizunah).
 * Name the guildhalls that use the screen. (That was one of my original motivations for this page, if you're a new player, you see the loading screen for your GH and wonder where in Tyria that is supposed to be)
 * Name the PvP maps that use it
 * You missed the keys and... CSS region pictures? Anyway, certainly there's no reason for the keys to go there. This is the loading screen article, not the "everything vaguely related to the region" article. And I'm not quote so annoyed by the "CSS" pictures, but I don't see their purpose either.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  21:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see why the CSS pictures are there now, but I still don't think they belong on this article.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  21:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The CSS pictures align exactly with the loadig screen regions, I believe (and if not, this page is the one where we'll notice if they don't), so if you want to put a loading screen image on another article and need something not quite as big, you can use the CSS one. Anyway, I think having a separate CSS page that lists the exact same regions isn't a good idea, so it's better to put them on here. The CSS pics are all there (thanks Ishy!) so a rule for them is no longer needed. The keys are there because there was white space, if you have another idea to use the space, good riddance to them. --◄mendel► 22:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

what belongs in this article
To get this out of the FOW section... (Also Edit conflicted with Entrea, and I totally agree with her him on the CSS)

How about something like this:

Shiverpeak Mountains
Towns: Droknar's Forge

This loading screen is shared by outposts and explorable areas in the Northern and Southern Shiverpeaks. This region neighbors with Ascalon East of Traveler's Vale, Kryta West of Griffon's Mouth, and extends as far as Witman's Folly in the South.

Guild Hall: Frozen Isle

Arenas: Shiverpeak Arena

I think we should keep "Towns" instead of "Capital" since it is called "Town" in game, and Capital is not an in-game term. So, only list Towns, Guild Halls, and Arenas/PvP maps, and name neighboring areas and what explorables they are adjacent to. Witman's was notable in this case since it is quite far south from the other neighboring areas and provides a nice boundary.
 * Also, the CSS images seem kind of out of place, since it does not state what they are, they are tiny, and seem just kind of there.
 * Agreed with Entrea, get rid of the keys... Especially since they're not always a perfect match (FoW?).
 * Last but not least, keep the "out of area things" like FoW, and missions like Vizuhan. RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 22:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sounds good, "Towns" is perfect. it does not state what they are means we state it at the top of the page and that'll be that: "If you log out while in this area, the character selection screen will show the small image behind the head of your character." --◄mendel► 22:17, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I agree with Mendel about keeping the CSS images (=Character Select Screen, dunno if you were still confused about that...), think of them as miniature or thumbnail versions of the loading screens. &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 22:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's kind of expectable that we both are arguing for keeping them; we're the ones who uploaded them, after all. ;-) (If we hadn't thought it was a good idea, we wouldn't have done it.) --◄mendel► 22:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I never said to get rid of the CSS images, I just meant that something had to be done about clarifying what they are, and no, I didn't realize it stood for Character Selection Screen until now, which is exactly my point on clarification (I figured out they were the "little thumbnail thingy behind your character" because I recognized them, but didn't know what the heck CSS stood for).  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 22:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * One thing I just noticed - no region has more than 1 Town, so that notation should be in the singular. Also, it makes more sense to me to have the "This loading screen is..." note at the top of the section instead of the Town.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 22:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * *completely off topic* I was laughing my ass off when I opened recent changes and saw -666 by Rose on the article :P -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]   Isk8   (T/C) 22:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * ^^Lol. Anyway, I noticed the plural/singular inconsistencies too, and decided I'll fix those in one swoop after I'm done with the major changes to each section, same with putting the description before the town. Also, can we come up with an icon for the "Maps?"  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 23:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey! Who are you calling "her" up there? (It's OK, I forgive you. Anonymity can be so annoying sometimes.) Entrea    [Talk]  01:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry? :$ It's baby-blue and ends is "ea?" And last time I saw your userpage it was a 17-year old wall... ^_^; I guess there aren't many females out there with mostly-male characters, it only works the other way. :P RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 02:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I did all I could to organize and complete this article. Any comments? Did I miss or screw up anything? If not, can we unstub it? RoseOfKali 03:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

And thanks to Ishy for rewording Tarnished Coast. I didn't know the name for the Sea of Sorrows, and at that point my brain was starting to burn out and could barely handle the scattered areas, so I just named things off without much organization. :P RoseOfKali 03:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ^^Looking at the article's edit history, I'm surprised I didn't get a single Edit conflict. :P On a side note: Is there an easy way to get the correct image when you click the edit links on the region sections? It looks fine on the page, and there should be no reason to edit the images, but it just kind of bugs me that each section includes the images from the next, not its own...  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 03:34, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That's due to how the tables are arranged - the images come first in the row, then the header, so that the wiki considers that header's section to go from that point until the next header, which is after the next images. There probably is a way to reformat the tables so that the headers are first, but I can't think of it offhand.  Bot ishmael 04:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I know WHY it is how it is, but I like how it looks on the page, so I guess there isn't an easy way to change the code and keep the formatting. It's fine, anyway, like I said before, there's no need to change the images, so it doesn't matter that you get the wrong ones when you edit section.  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 07:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Underworld CSS image
Heroes' Ascent is an outpost you can be in and log out, and Auron tells me the CSS image is different from what we already haev, so I assume it's the Underworld one.

I am happy that you're doing the descriptions so well; I am much too tired and to weary of ec to help, I'm sorry to say. --◄mendel► 23:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. :) That's why this is a community website, eh? RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 23:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Really? *takes Takashi to Heroes' Ascent and logs out*  Ah-HAH!  So that's what that image was for.  I had pulled out all the 128x128 CSS pictures a couple months ago and matched them up to their regions, but had this one that didn't match to anything... now I know.  *uploads*  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 00:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Good job & bounties
Of course I checked this article (almost) first thing this morning, and I've got to say it looks really good now. All it seems to really lack now is information on the PvP maps, including The Vault and Hall of Heroes. Maybe there are other missions that don't have their own loading screen?

I am a bit surprised to see that Rose added information about the GW:EN bounties, after so vehemently opposing the keys. To make it sound less technical, maybe we can rephrase to "This is Norn territory." (or link to the reputation points?) Otherwise, somebody's bound to add the Nightfall and Factions bounties at some point in the future, and that's just pointless.

Another thing that sounds unfortunate is the repetition of "This loading screen is shared by outposts and explorable areas in ...". Would "Extent:" do, along with some clarification at the top that this means outposts and explorables? --◄mendel► 09:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's logical to include the EotN bounties here because they correspond directly to the regions and could be considered an identifying feature of the region (in fact, it was one of the main arguments for including Verdant Cascades in the Tarnished Coast region). The Nightfall bounties don't, they cover multiple regions and overlap each other, so like the keys, it doesn't make sense to include them here.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 13:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * What Ishy said^. EOTN bounties are the distinguishing feature of the whole region.  Simply saying "this is Norn territory" is pointless - what do you mean by "Norn territory?"  Well, that's what the Norn bounty does, it defines the Norn territory.  Not even close to the nightfall bounties.  Also, what was the point of removing lesser towns and leaving the explorable areas as the definition of the Asuran areas in ?  If nothing else, the town is much more notable than an explorable area, since it's a portal of sorts TO that area.  About the "This loadin screen... bla bla" repetition, feel free to change that to something shorter.  I was just copy-pasting to make the descriptions uniform through the article, and I agree it's kind of long, it was just precisely describing what it is.  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 17:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What do I mean by "Norn territory?" -- well, I hoped that would become clear as the user moused over "Norn" and saw the link. For the GW:EN edits, you'll have to ask Jon. I've added a description to the introduction, so I'm going to think about shortening the descriptions, but not now. --◄mendel► 00:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

experimental new design
--◄mendel► 14:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Ishy's idea
This puts the header above the entire content for that region, eliminates the whitespace under the CSS image, and puts the description and list of locations side-by-side to save vertical space. It might look a little cluttered, though. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 15:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I respect both ideas, but I don't like how it throws all the "small" stuff to the right and has the long description in the middle of it... Looks kind of odd. I prefer how it is now for the most part, unless you want to more the region header above everything, but keep the rest how it is. RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 17:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You can't really judge the region header idea until you see it in action - the big drawback is that it breaks the left column that is a clean stack of images right now. Cluttered is what Jon said, too, so I guess we'd better drop the idea. --◄mendel► 00:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Upload concept art ?
I am hesitating to upload the concept art files in question because of their size. Thoughts? Should they replace the loading screen images where that is possible? --◄mendel► 21:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * All the loading screens themselves are concept art..? --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage  21:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This article is about the loading screens as they appear in-game. The original concept art should be uploaded separately and could be linked to as just that, the "original" works that the loading screens are derived from.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 22:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In the cases where I didn't write "modified", the loading screens are lower-resolution versions of the concept art in question, so it's basically the same picture at a different size. Viper, yes, it seems safe to assume so. --◄mendel► 22:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It was a rhetorical question. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage  14:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)