User talk:Gordon Ecker

Hi, welcome to the GuildWiki, I've had a bit of a look over the Fireball Nuker article, along with a few others, you had Fire Attunement listed twice in the skill bar and we were trying to discern what skill it was supposed to be. Care to shed some light on it? :) Also I noticed you created Gordon Ecker which I'm pretty sure was an accident, you didn't know that your user page is located at User:Gordon Ecker, so I've made Gordon Ecker a candidate for deletion. --Xasxas256 05:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool, glad we got that sorted out :) Just one other thing, we normally sign our talk edits with ~ so it looks like Xasxas256 05:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC) ie with a timestamp. Also my user page says a few little tips and things like that, unlike pretty much everyone else who's says something about themselves and a bit about their characters, but I like mine how it is so you're welcome to have a gander at it! --Xasxas256 05:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yep, it was created by accident, and was about to mark it for deletion myself. As for the second Fire Attunement, it was probably the product of a copy / paste error when I shuffled around the skill bar when I was initially writing the article. The second copy of Fire Attunement left me under the false impression that there wasn't enough room for both Aura of Restoration and Troll Ungent, so I changed it to say one or the other instead of both. --Gordon Ecker 05:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Odd, my signature doesn't link to my user page for some reason. --Gordon Ecker 05:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * That is a strange problem, you're definitely writing 4 "~"? You could try which prints a link to your user page and then the time stamp, ie it's essentially the same as ~ . Are you definitely logged in as well? Maybe somebody with a bit more mediawiki knowledge will be able to help more.--Xasxas256 05:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The only thing that seems to work so far is user:, which I'm pasting in since it's pretty complicated. -- Gordon Ecker 05:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, welcome to the Wiki, Mr. Ecker! Shandy 05:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for moving the user page. =)  --Rainith 11:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Creature Categories
Hi Gordon! Welcome to the wiki, nice to have you aboard. One request from me: Please do not put all creatures into the main category Bestiary. Instead, if you know which one, put them only into the correct sub-category, for example Category:Ghosts. This will help us to keep the Bestiary "clean". -- 06:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * K, sorry about that. The Rider of Dhuum entries were mostly copied and pasted from the Banished Dream Rider article, which had the bestiary category tag. -- Gordon Ecker 09:41, 12 February 2006 (CST)

Chest Info
We decided when locked chests were introduced to not have a separate article for each chest but to consolidate all info into Chest and Key. I don't care one way or the other. But if you wish to change that or unfamiliar with it, then please lobby to change it in talk:Chest instead of redoing everything only to have it removed again.

On a side note, listing the drops that come out of a chest is not a bad idea, but you need to know that the chest will drop ANYTHING that may drop in the explorable area it is in. So, a Darkstone chest in Perdition Rock will drop weapons and Off-hands, but it will not drop salvage armor. The same Darkstone Chest in Abaddon's Mouth will drop Mursaat Garments with runes, and the very same chest will drop Titan Armor with runes in Hell's Precipice. So, to attach the drops to the chest is not accurate. We can simply state in the Chest article that chests drop the loot of the area they are in. --Karlos 07:40, 19 February 2006 (CST)


 * I saw that there was a chests category, and I checked Talk:Chest before I made the articles and didn't see any discussion, so I assumed that there were no articles because no one decided to make them. Is there some kind of Talk:Policy type page on the wiki that I haven't been able to find? Also, are you sure that they'll only drop the items available from the regular mobs in an area? I've heard rumours about people getting crystalline swords from chests in Mineral Springs, but I haven't heard anything about people getting them off of regular Mineral Springs mobs. If you're right and loot for locked chests is area-specific then what about a Chest Loot section at the bottom of the articles for areas? -- Gordon Ecker 07:54, 21 February 2006 (CST)


 * Also, I haven't seen a single piece of armor come out of a locked chest in Sorrow's Furnace, so if the chests in Hell's Precipice drop titan armor and the chests in Sorrow's Furnace don't drop dwarven armor then the obvious conclusion would be that chests will not drop every type of weapon, shield, focus and armor that mobs in the area can drop. -- Gordon Ecker 09:37, 21 February 2006 (CST)


 * You're right about the miner's chests.. and I have no explanation for that. :) My guess is that they are treated like FoW and UW chests and not as regular area drop chests. --Karlos 10:52, 21 February 2006 (CST)

Items Dropped
The only items to list on the monster pages are things that are specific to that creature/species/political grouping. i.e. Salvage Items, Collectable Drops, etc... No weapons (unless that monster is the only one to drop that weapon - Magmas Arm for the Titans). --Rainith 06:58, 22 February 2006 (CST)
 * So that excludes the standard wands, staves and foci (flame staff, cane, healing ankh et cetera), but what about rare spites for wands, staves and foci, and what about axes, swords, hammers, shields and bows? There's something like 10-20 of them per attribute with no distinction between the ones that only drop from certain montsers and the ones that drop everywhere on the main pages or the articles for the specific items, and without such a distinction. I could split up the lists in the axe, sword, hammer, shield and bow articles into common and uncommon sections or just asterisk the uncommon, but i'm not that familiar with warrior weapons, so i'd just put everything in the rare list by default unless I was absolutely sure it drops all over the place. Also, shouldn't the policy for drops be in the GuildWiki policy category, and, for that matter, shouldn't there be some introduction page for people new to the wiki? -- Gordon Ecker 10:04, 22 February 2006 (CST)
 * As for where it is stated: Style and formatting/Bestiary. As for the rare sprites/skins for items, that should probably be listed on the item's page itself, but I don't know that we have specific policy on that.  --Rainith 01:01, 23 February 2006 (CST)
 * There it is, thanks. I wouldn't consider Mursaat Ivory Bows, eye on a stick Flame Artifacts, chalice Divine Symbols or other rare skin / sprite items count as generic weapons / shields / foci. Anyway, there's still the question of which of the numerous swords, axes, hammers and shields count as generic. I could fight my way from Ascalon City to Lion's Arch, keep track of what items drop in all three regions and then update the Sword, Shield, Axe and Hammer articles to reflect the results when I'm done. -- Gordon Ecker 07:48, 23 February 2006 (CST)

Gifs = bad
Gordon, could you upload those staff pictures in jpg format please? The quality of the gif files is really bad. --Rainith 10:40, 13 March 2006 (CST)


 * Aye, agreed - they make my eyes bleed! .jpg is usually sufficient quality versus size for a format, and resizes well, non?  Evan The Cursed (Talk) 11:09, 13 March 2006 (CST)


 * K, replaced them with jpegs.-- Gordon Ecker 11:40, 13 March 2006 (CST)


 * Is there some kind of daily upload limit? I can't seem to upload the jpeg version of the serpent horn bow image. -- Gordon Ecker 14:23, 13 March 2006 (CST)


 * Nope, no limit. Are you getting am error message like the one found here: Software & Technical Issues/Bugs?  If so you just need to name the image something else.  i.e. if you're trying to upload Serpent Bow.jpg change the name to SerpentBow.jpg or Serpent bow.jpg or Serpent Bow.JPG.  If you're running into some other problem, I'm not sure what to tell you, post the message here or on the bug page.  --Rainith 15:01, 13 March 2006 (CST)

Fire Staff image
Do you want to make an image for the new Fire Staff also, for consistency? If you don't have one, we can arrange to meet in-game and I'll give you the one I have. &mdash; Stabber 11:51, 13 March 2006 (CST)


 * I think he already put up fire. I think only one he's missing is air.  Err... is there a new air skin?  Evan The Cursed (Talk) 12:14, 13 March 2006 (CST)


 * No, I put up the fire image. &mdash; Stabber 12:26, 13 March 2006 (CST)

Reference Table update
I'd hold off on editing it, as we're doing a vote here: GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Skills. The reference tables will be replaced by whichever format wins. - Evil_Greven 09:56, 15 March 2006 (CST)

You are correct..
It is Mourning not Morning. I misread it once and then copied and pasted it all over the wiki. Sorry about that. --Karlos 07:31, 31 March 2006 (CST)

Stop
We do not do articles about things with the same name in the way you are doing them. Please consider the wiki policies and traditions when addressing solutions to article situations. The information about the quests should go in separate articles from the infromation about the locations. I will revert and show you an example. --Karlos 08:02, 5 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Sorry, I was following the example of the Jade article, which has both a monster section and an item section. I didn't see anything about article naming conventions in Category:GuildWiki policy except the thing about capitolisation. -- Gordon Ecker 13:45, 6 April 2006 (CDT)

Blessings
I left the Blessing article "under construction" for far too long. Thanks for cleaning up the mess I made. Now all that's left to do is to add the blessings offered by the Luxon Priest and the Kurzick Priest. I'll take care of that, if you don't mind. -- 02:08, 19 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Sure, no problem. I really need to get around to transferring my drop notes to the weapon pages. -- Gordon Ecker 03:04, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

Name origin
Good work on the name origin's for NPC's. The info is very interesting, though remember that not all NPC's have to be a reference to someone/something :P

Ether way, nice work and I look forward to seeing more trivia. &mdash; Poki#3 07:54, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Minor Edits
Can you please mark your "removed stat0 to fix table border error" edits as "minor" so we can filter them in recent changes? Thanks! -- 02:48, 1 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Sure. Sorry about that, I thought fixing the display bug qualified as a major edit, but I'll mark the rest as minor. -- Gordon Ecker 02:52, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Smite, AP, and Strength
You mentioned a confirmation. Can you point me to it? This is the first time ever I heard about it. - 23:22, 1 August 2006 (CDT)
 * It's from talk:Strength, and it's just been tested and refuted. -- Gordon Ecker 23:40, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Caster
Thank you for your work on the article caster, since the august 1st update (specifically Assassin's Promise skill update) I was thinking of updating it, but I seen you've already done a good job of it. --Jamie  06:04, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

archived discussion
If you wish to reopen an archived discussion, please do so in the article's main talk page, and not in the archive... Plus, I'm confused by your comment. At first you said "it shouldn't", but your followup sentence imply you agree with my literal interpretation. - 02:57, 9 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Sorry, I didn't notice I was editing the archive. I'll revert and move the relevant parts to the appropriate talk page. -- Gordon Ecker 03:06, 9 August 2006 (CDT)

weapon spell images
I just want to say, those images look amazing. I thought you deserved some notice and congratulatory remarks. The weapons themselves look very interesting, especially axe, hammer, and staff. The axe looks like it's Spirit Light Weapon. --Vortexsam 04:12, 12 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks. -- Gordon Ecker 19:49, 15 August 2006 (CDT)

Delete tags and redirects
Hi, could you put delete tags above the redirect code in future, anything below that doesn't show up on the screen and the redirect functions as normal! Thanks :) &mdash; Skuld 11:50, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Really? The redirect didn't show up right in preview when it was below the delete tag. I guess that's just a bug with preview. -- Gordon Ecker 18:01, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I'll just highjack this section! I've added del tags to W/D Primal Scythe‎ and Talk:W/D Primal Scythe‎ for you, just letting you know. --Xasxas256 22:53, 29 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks, I was about to tag them after I de-tagged the moved versions. -- Gordon Ecker 02:36, 30 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Wierd, when I put the tag over the redirect it just treats the redirect as a numbered list. -- Gordon Ecker 21:27, 30 August 2006 (CDT)
 * That's how it's supposed to be, in other words it shouldn't redirect any more and you see the delete tag ;) Oh and remember to click "check if anything links here" and fix up any article that point to the old name, I Just fixed Status effect it still linked to Status effects. ;) --Xasxas256 21:45, 30 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Odd, I checked 'what links here' and I thought I got everything. I had the same problem when I tried to replace all instances of with  . -- Gordon Ecker 22:31, 30 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Sure ya did :P Nah I dunno, I didn't realise there were any problems with the "what links here" fuction, I haven't noticed any but then again maybe it's just that nobody has pulled me up. --Xasxas256 22:56, 30 August 2006 (CDT)

Mo/Me PvE WoH Healer
I went ahead and mixed up the two skill bars, and changed the build to Multi-campaign, since the two skill bars weren't too different than eacher. I added your preferences under "Variants". Just wanted to know if that was ok, if not, feel free to change it back. Thanks. :) &mdash; Rapta   (talk|contribs) 22:59, 30 August 2006 (CDT)

Section edits
It doesn't really matter, but do you never use section edit links? Do you have them turned off in your preferences? I just noticed your edit summaries never have the section title in them that the wiki will put there automatically. (Or maybe you're removing it, heh.) --Fyren 23:42, 3 September 2006 (CDT)

Weapon modifier
I wasn't planning on adding values until I was sure (or near sure) of the value ranges. I don't trust the old values for minimums since weapon quality was increased a while back. Unfortunately, hardcore farming drives me insane, and even while farming I don't get enough blues or purples to proceed at a decent rate. If you want to see what I've gotten so far, just let me know. -Savio 16:32, 20 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Sorry, I did the cleanup in an internal text editer, so I didn't get the edit conflict notification. -- Gordon Ecker 19:49, 20 September 2006 (CDT)

Skills S&F
Please use the subheading "Notes" and lower case "Related skills", thanks! &mdash; Skuld 21:18, 20 September 2006 (CDT)

Skill icons
Please make them 64x64. --Fyren 03:27, 26 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Done. Unfortunately I forgot to take a screenshot of the Remedy Signet icon, so the only image I can get of it is from the skillbars in my other screenshots. -- Gordon Ecker 03:42, 26 September 2006 (CDT)

Nightmare
Why the move? The edit about Kryta is wrong, I think those are Fog Nightmares, so we shouldn't need a move (unless I'm missing something obvious). --Rainith 22:15, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * The nightmares encountered during the Graven Images quest are just called Nightmares, I just did the quest. -- Gordon Ecker 22:20, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Ok, I'd suggest moving the RoF Nightmares back to just Nightmare then, with the note pointing to the Kryta version. Since the Kryta version just appear during the quest and at no other times.  99.9% of the time people are going to be looking for the RoF version.  The other split articles (Hydra, Minotaur and Grawl) all have creatures that will always appear in certain regions, irregardless of quests.  --Rainith 22:26, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Hydra, Minotaur and Grawl are also species names, and Style and formatting isn't clear about the issue of monster vs species naming conflicts. And Ring of Fire Nightmares are only in one mission like the level 0 Corsairs. -- Gordon Ecker 22:41, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * A creature always has name precidence over a species (since the first "xxx (Species)" article created (the now gone Worm (Species) article). And while the RoF ones are only in one mission, they are always in that mission, every time you enter it.  Once you finish the mission you can go back and they're still there.  The Kryta ones are there only during the quest.  Really if they are the same as Fog Nightmares in all but name, we could just make the article a redirect to the Fog ones with the right categories in it.  --Rainith 22:50, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I still think that most of the people looking for Corsair are looking for the species rather than the level 0 ranger mob, and the monster gets priority precedent seems to contradict the most common or generic meaning gets priority precedent used for green weapons that share the names of regular weapons. I'll tag Nightmare (Ring of Fire Islands), Corsair and Corsair (Monster) and leave it to others to resolve the issue. -- Gordon Ecker 23:17, 27 September 2006 (CDT)

Moving and deletion
You can make the bludgeoner article a redirect to the "(weapon)" article and then it'll let you move it over. --Fyren 23:29, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Wierd, it's not letting me move it. -- Gordon Ecker 23:32, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Maybe I'm missing something about the moving rules. I'll just delete it, then.  --Fyren 23:34, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Ah, it only lets you move something over a redirect if the redirect has no history (as in, only one revision in the history page). --Fyren 23:38, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks. -- Gordon Ecker 23:42, 1 October 2006 (CDT)

Monster Skill Details
I meant to ask this earlier, but somehow I forgot. I've noticed some time ago that you added details like energy cost and the like to a couple of monster skills. Not that I would doubt the accuracy of that data, I assume that you have confirmed it somehow, but I am particularly curious: How do you find out the exact energy cost of a monster only skill? --84-175 (talk) 12:35, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Mouseover when they are using it. A recent update allowed you to see the stats of foes skills &mdash; Skuld 12:44, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
 * D'oh! I have Blind on me! 8-) --84-175 (talk) 12:57, 2 October 2006 (CDT)

Master of Magic trivia
I'm interested in finding out how you made the connection from a skill with a broad name like Master of Magic to a specific game (when not only are there countless games by that name, but there are books, probably movies, etc. etc.). Did the image give it away, or are you taking a stab in the dark? Seems a bit of a stretch to me. -Auron  00:39, 7 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Nothing specific about the skill, I assumed it was named after the game because they're other skills that are apparently named after games and I wasn't aware of anything else with the name. -- Gordon Ecker 00:43, 7 October 2006 (CDT)
 * You can keep it in the trivia. The '94 game seems to be the most popular, so it seems you had it right. -Auron [[Image:Elit Druin.jpg|||My Talk]] 20:49, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

Out of curiousity
Why are you lowercasing the Cs in category links? It makes no difference whatsoever. --Fyren 03:13, 19 October 2006 (CDT)


 * It's just an old habit. -- Gordon Ecker 03:26, 19 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I suppose it's the same reason you lowercase the "I" in "Image" and the "U" in "User"? It'll be a neverending conflict between us then :D I tend to uppercase them out of habit :P lol -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 23:37, 14 November 2006 (CST)

Special skills
At the moment, you can just use the normal template and set nocats = yes and set all the categories in the article. I'm not sure if the special skills should be mixed into the normal skill categories at all. It might just be best to only put them into Category:Special skills or one of its subcategories. --Fyren 23:30, 19 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Yeah, I wasn't aware of the nocats = yes option, I think it'd be best to just use that and put in categories manually. -- Gordon Ecker 23:33, 19 October 2006 (CDT)

Make me a list of templates for special skills that need to be converted to the new parameters and I'll do it with my bot. --Fyren 05:12, 22 October 2006 (CDT)


 * The celestial skills templates weren't made until after the update to template:skill box, and I manually updated the spirit attacks a few days ago. If you're talking about the nocats = yes then only the snow fighting and dragon arena skills in category:common skills need updating. If you're talking about how the old format cost, activation and recharge don't display then most of the templated monster skills need updating. -- Gordon Ecker 05:29, 22 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, the costs and such. If you can tell me which categories to go through, I can generate a list of category members pretty easily and then go through those (which is probably easier than you listing all the skills, if there's a lot).  --Fyren 05:43, 22 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I think it's just category:snow fighting skills, category:monster skills and their subcategories, although a lot of the monster skills don't have templates yet. -- Gordon Ecker 05:55, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

Margonite refutation
I don't understand your note about "removed explanation refuted by new evidence in talk:Abaddon". I saw nothing in Talk:Abaddon that would've refuted the line you removed. In fact, out of the original 3 explainations, I still find the one you removed to be the most likely explaination in light of what is revealed in Talk:Abaddon and the History of Tyria. - 11:02, 23 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Well the note as written (specifically, the 'five gods' part) was implausible. I've put it back in and edited it to reflect recent evidence. -- Gordon Ecker 19:29, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Unique Weapon Legends
Hi Gordon. I carried out a bit of a tidy up on the caster unique weapons prior to Nightfall coming out, so I've got them all on my watchlist. I've noticed you're updating the legends for staves to include the line "Halves skill recharge of spells (Chance: 20%)", but are you absolutly sure that's true for all unique staves from all campaigns (for example, have Gorrel's Staff, Villnar's Staff and Brohn's Staff been changed to include that mod as well)? The legend gets used on every reference so it's important it is accurate for all the greens in the game, not just the Nightfall ones - it'd be better to have a load of duplication in the table than a misleading legend. I was thinking of something along the lines of:

but unfortunately I don't have the time to do it at the moment. --NieA7 05:06, 13 November 2006 (CST)


 * Sorry, I forgot about the three green staves without HSR mods. I'll revert the legends and add notes to the Nightfall quick refs. -- Gordon Ecker 05:48, 13 November 2006 (CST)


 * Thanks for doing that :) Hopefully the green drop weekend will allow the individual lists to be completed so the overall profession tables can be finished off too. --NieA7 03:36, 15 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks
I just wanted to stop by to thank you for the enormous amount of work you've been putting into the wiki recently and for a long time. There isn't a single day I check the recent changes and I do not see a few dozen edits from you. I especially like the fact that you do a lot of the "dirty" maintenance work. You, Sir, are a frickin' one-man-wiki-army!

Disclaimer: This is not meant to depreciate the work of any other contributor. Remember: GW:YAV! :)

Okay, enough brown-nosing, nothing to see here, move on. ;) -- 05:01, 17 November 2006 (CST)


 * Thanks. -- Gordon Ecker 05:07, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Category to category
I just have a small question, why are you changing category linkings from Stylva  03:07, 25 November 2006 (CST)


 * Funny, cause I was coming here to ask the same thing. It does nothing to the category listing, but it boggles my mind why you would go against S&F and the standard way categories are written. &mdash; Gares 12:01, 28 November 2006 (CST)


 * GW:ulc implies that lower case is usually preferred, and I can't find anything in style and formatting that contradicts it. -- Gordon Ecker 16:55, 28 November 2006 (CST)


 * Can't find anything there that says that categories should begin with lower case, just that lower case is preferred inside texts. I still think Category looks better than category. My new hate is the categories named differently. As Category:Standard armor and Category:Luxon Armor. >< What are the rules on that case? &mdash; Stylva  18:39, 28 November 2006 (CST)


 * My point with S&F is the syntax. Show me one with a category in lower case. It was capitalized because it was preferred and looks more professional. And Stylva is right, GW:ulc has nothing to do with you changing C to c. Basically, you are the only one that's changing them and have already been asked before what you are doing. If there's a good reason why you are changing C to c in articles on a whim, please enlightened us, else I'll have to keep wasting my time keeping the standard by reverting your c to C. &mdash; Gares 21:44, 28 November 2006 (CST)


 * GW:ulc says "Use normal English capitalization rules. Read them here if you are not familiar with them.". It then lists exceptions, such as terms capitolised in-game. "Category" isn't a proper noun, the start of a sentence or part of a title. I guess there may be some obscure grammatical rule I'm missing, as they also capitolise category on Wikipedia. Anyway, when I clean up spelling, grammar and capitolisation in the future I'll try to avoid altering the categories. -- Gordon Ecker 22:52, 28 November 2006 (CST)


 * MediaWiki also renders it as "Category:Name of category", and there is a strong argument in favour of casing it how MediaWiki renders it for the sake of consistancy. -- Gordon Ecker 23:14, 28 November 2006 (CST)