GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Locations

Proposed S&F guide and split
Ok, although most of the location articles follow roughly the same format, we currently have nothing official as to how they should be. I've put my spin on it here (my test page). Take a look at it and let me know what you think. Note that this is for towns / outposts / mission locations only. The second part of this is that I think we should split the S&F article to Style and formatting/Explorable locations and Style and formatting/Urban locations. Now I know those probably aren't the best names but they get the idea accross. Hopefully some people will look at this and give feedback. :) --Rainith 00:40, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks good, just name it "towns" for short. Also, should have a Notes/Features section where stuff like statues of gods and/or monuments of significance can be mentioned. --Karlos 01:03, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks good :) I like the sound of location boxes! &mdash; Skuld  01:53, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Hubs vs Instances? Still get the idea across (i hope) and much shorter.- 02:36, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks good. Are we going to see an example, or is there one allready? --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 04:32, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Seems ok to me, I added "Getting There" to the example (which was left off for some reason). In the location box do we need to have an attribute to say it's Luxon or Kurzick controlled town (for those that this applies to) or will this be integrated into an existing attribute (presumably either parent = Region or type=Town or Outpost) ? --Xasxas256 08:18, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * There is no value to saying that the town is Luxon or Kurzick. We could add a line (or tag or marker or graphic) that says this town is an "alliance controllable" town. Because technically, if the Kurzick/Luxon border moves far enough, Luxons can take over HzH and Kurzicks can take over Cavalon. Those towns that are controllable should also have a note that they have an exclusive area and then the exclusive area can have one, two or three NPCs. --Karlos 08:49, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

Ok, good responses. :) My responses to the responses: --Rainith 10:56, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * 1) There is a notes section at the bottom. All misc info can go in there IMO.  Things like Statues of the Gods, exclusive areas, etc...
 * 2) Naming the S&F articles, I tried for a long time to come up with names that would not lead to possible confusion (Cities/Towns) or be so essoteric that many people might not understand them (Hubs/Instances). I'm not saying that what I came up with was good either, I just think that there is no good way of describing these town/outpost/mission location areas.  I am fully open to suggestion on this.
 * 3) I don't have an example made up using this, but I drew a lot of my work from the Seitung Harbor article (first place I saw PanSola's awesome location box) and from the Ascalon City (Post-Searing) article. (I'll make an example tonight after I get home.)
 * 4) I'm uncertain how helpful a "Getting There" section is. For much of the Prophecies areas this is moot, you can get to most of these by exploring the world and ignoring missions/quests/etc...  In Factions it makes more sense.  If we do have this section, I think if there is no barrier to entering the city (Lion's Arch for example) then the section should be left out completely as this info can be gotten by working back thru the linked areas in the location box.


 * I agree with "Getting There" section being like the "Notes" section (not needed, not added). I like the syntax, its very well organized and to the point. Got two questions I would like to ask.


 * Is alphabetizing an issue in any part of it, say henchman or crafters?


 * Will the profession symbols be used for the henchmen?


 * For the S&Fs for other parts, just use what the game calls them, e.g. Explorable locations = Explorable areas. Everything looks good to me and it seems very general and could be used for any campaign, the present ones and for future expansions. --Gares Redstorm 19:36, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I think Rainith meant to hve "Explorable locations" meant to encompass explorable areas and "(Mission)"s. At least that's my assumption when I proposed using the term "Instances" instead. - 19:38, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I must have read over your Hub/Instance line. Gotcha now. --Gares Redstorm 19:54, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

I think that seperating Locations into Explorable areas and Outposts makes a lot of sense. They are, after all, very different kinds of location.

My only concern at the moment is that the location box seems to use a table inside every cell. Not only does that mean that the box looks different to other boxes used on the GuildWiki (an extra border), but it also means more redundant html in the template. I'd really like to see the extra tables removed.

Other than this 1 minor issue I think this is a great idea, good work Rainith, PanSola and everyone else above :)  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 10:04, 16 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I beleive Skill and Armor boxes also nest tables. As for the extra borders that only show up for hte location box, blame Skuld d-:. - 08:52, 16 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I can't really comment on the other skill boxes, I haven't taken a look at the wiki code for some time, but I imagine you are right PanSola. My main concern is that nested tables have only been used to achieve this extra border. If that's not the case and the nested tables are still needed, fine, but I do think it's important that skill boxes have a similar look across the site.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 10:04, 16 June 2006 (CDT)

Ok, for those wanting to see this in action, please see the Seitung Harbor article, as that one needed the least tweaking to make it conform to this standard, I used it. I've got a bit of a headache at the moment, but if it doesn't get any worse, I'll try to modify a town and mission location article too so we can see what those will look like.

As for Gares' questions, the answer to both is "I don't know." Does anyone else have opinions on those? Should we alphabetize the NPCs in their groups? Should we use profession symbols for the henchmen? And I'll ask one of my own, should we create articles for the henchmen types and then link those? Shock Henchman, Deadly Henchman, etc... Or maybe just link those to the profession pages? --Rainith 21:36, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Examples can be found in the articles: Henge of Denravi (town example), Seitung Harbor (outpost example), and Fort Ranik (Location) (mission location example). Please post any comments/complaints/etc... below.  --Rainith 22:30, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks good. A minor thing: Align the text in the 'neighbours' box to the center. It would look a bit nicer. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 04:16, 18 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I am very please with this box, good work. I have center aligned the neighbours box and I think it looks better. Does anyone disagree?  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 06:12, 18 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Looking at the template in use, it seems the different cells have different alignments. I am going to try and remedy this.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 06:14, 18 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks Biro. I didn't create the box, I just saw it in an article around the time I was thinking we should standardize this and loved it.  I'm not against minor changes to it to fix formatting of the cells.  --Rainith 14:48, 18 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Mission locations should include the full breifing from the NPC. Such as Thirsty River (Location) (feel free to change how the breifing is formatted). - 02:43, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I disagree, I think that info should go with the NPC themselves. If we want to note these NPCs with a mark (Mission NPCs) or something that's fine with me, but I'd rather keep dialogues on the NPC pages not the location pages.  --Rainith 10:32, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Sorry for not replying earlier. I've been /afw for a few days. Rainith's S&F draft for towns/outposts looks near perfect to me, and I have very little to add. One might use a slightly different tree structure for the NPCs, for example by using the generic term vendor as the root for all crafters, merchants, traders and such. Also, "Quest NPCs" might be used for all quest related NPCs. And I remember I've used the term "Guild Services" for emblemers, registrars and other guild related NPCs at least once. But such things are really minor and shouldn't stop us from making Rainith's draft official asap! -- 01:58, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Rainith, about my questions, I still do not want to say either way about the profession icons, but I do think alphabetizing NPCs in each category might make it look organized. We already "abc" skills, items, and such. As far as the articles are concerned (Shock Henchman, Deadly Henchmen, etc.), I haven't paid that much attention to the correlation between the name and the skills used. Maybe it's just a naming scheme ANet came up with, without any real intent, or maybe it does have a purpose, I don't know. I do know that each different naming scheme in each profession uses different skills, so there could be something to it. I'll wait for an agreement of some sorts before I go cowboy. ;) --Gares Redstorm 12:12, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I have an idea for the order of NPCs that is not quite ABC based, I'll post it when I get home (assuming I don't fall asleep as soon as I walk in the door). --Rainith 12:51, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Ok, I was way too tired yesterday and crashed almost as soon as I got home from work, but today I'm ok, so I updated the test page with what I'm calling a class based alphabetization scheme. It wasn't quite so easy to put into words, what I intended, but if it is any consolation (which I know it won't be), it makes perfect sense to me.  Essentially I alphabetized based on the classes in parenthesis after the name, then if there were multiple NPCs with the same class (or with no class) those were alphabetized based on the first letter of their first "name" ("Bob" would go before "Lady Anne" for example).  The only exceptions I made were to put Merchants first in the "Merchants and Traders" group and to group the Henchmen in GuildWiki standard order (and to change from henchmen titles to profession icons).  I also updated the 3 articles Henge of Denravi, Fort Ranik and Seitung Harbor with this altered design.  To me this way looks "cleanest", most aestetically pleasing I guess.  Others may not agree, please, as always let me know.  I'd like to finalize this relatively soon, so we can put it into action, and I can move on to the first draft for the Explorable Areas.  --Rainith 21:41, 20 June 2006 (CDT)