Talk:Dance

I hope that this page fits the standards of quality of GuildWiki and is not deemed "frivolous". I felt that this is a legitimate description of a very real part of the game, and a resource I for one would have liked to have had as a novice (after all, the dances are funny, but it can take a long time to see all 12 of them just randomly around town).

Of course, it's not perfect. I honestly don't believe I've ever seen a female ranger dance, so I'd appreciate it if someone could fix that... and I'm almost positive that the Warrior dances, both male and female, were not created by ANet, but I can't remember where they are originally from, so if anyone could add to that, that would be helpful. A few more of the descriptions are a bit spartan (the female elementalist leaps to mind), so if anyone feels they can do a better job, please do.

Another thing which would help is if someone happened to have pictures of the characters performing these dances, and could include them in the article. Certainly a still picture cannot capture the essence of a dance, but it never hurts to have a visual, especially when describing such an intensely visual experience as a dance. 149.169.88.9 05:09, 28 October 2005 (EST)

The elementalist dance isn't taken from Shakira, it's a traditionnal middle-eastern dance which Shakira just happen to have reused. 83.159.9.78 12:18, 10 September 2006 (CDT)


 * It's an aspect of the game as trivial as I may think it is. :) --Karlos 07:39, 28 October 2005 (EST)

If the mesmer is playing Dance Dance Revolution, I need to rethink how I do PARANOiA Survivor :P --Kenthar 13:08, 28 October 2005 (EST)

It's a bellydance Fngkestrel, believe me. :) --Karlos 19:37, 1 November 2005 (EST)

Why am I not suprised that all female dances have pictures by now, but only 1 male dance? =P --Xeeron 23:01, 8 March 2006 (CST)


 * Cause when I was capping the dances, my W and Ele were in cool armor but my monk was wearing pajamas. I'll get on it one day and cap Male Monk and Male Necro. :) everyone else has female characters . :) --Karlos 23:21, 8 March 2006 (CST)

New Classes
Awesome! The male assassin has a break dance and im not sure what kind of dance the female ritualist has, but check it out anyway... Assassin Ritualist | Chuiu 06:34, 11 March 2006 (CST)

Dancing and moving at the same time
I saw that once. Someone was dancing and moving at the same time. How is that possible?
 * Some dances have inherent movement. --Kingrames 21:09, 6 June 2006 (CDT)
 * You can slide while doing any emote at Marhan's Grotto due to Icy Ground if you know the trick. This is probably what he was asking for. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 15:40, 28 August 2006 (CDT)

Mesmer dance
An anon removed the section saying "It has been said that there are too many inconsistencies to call this dance a true Irish Step Dance or Riverdance, and more than anything it resembles the mesmer playing Dance Dance Revolution. The jump made at the end of each dance "cycle" is often cited as evidence of this." The change was reverted, and the anon was tagged with a ban request. Perhaps I've been spending too much time on Wikipedia lately; but I can see an argument that saying "It has been suggested..." without providing documentation of factual comparisons would be a case of using weasel words. If we stick to the practice of providing factual content, then I think it's reasonable to provide links that show examples supporting this comment, or else remove it. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:40, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * i flagged the ban, i saw a blank of two paragraphs plus an image, with no explinations; looked maligned to me. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 15:44, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I had been willing to give benefit of the doubt especially as it's a first offense, and because the wording of that text would be a red flag for users who have experience on other wikis. But I hadn't noticed that an image had been removed as well - that increases the questionable nature of the edit - I'll keep an eye on that IP.
 * But back to the wording as it exists now for the Mesmer - it is somewhat weasel-ish; saying something has been suggested with no back-up in the talk pages or links from the articles. Saying a particular dance isn't an exact real version of the particular dance could tie back to several of the professions, so to me that line could be removed. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:02, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I'll mark this here instead of just removing it from the article directly, but can I please request that the comparison to Dance Dance Revolution be removed? I play DDR and seen many other people play it, and have a male mesmer that I have watched dance, and I have never seen anyone look even remolely like the male mesmer dance while playing. --Colonel Popcorn 14:56, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Trust me, I'm a seasoned DDR/ITG player and that has NOTHING to do with dance games. I'm removing the note now. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 15:42, 28 August 2006 (CDT)

Time the dances?
I don't know what possible use this could have, but we could time (from start to repeat) each dance (male ele excluded). Since this article already has such useless information as what each dance is, maybe their lengths could be included. So far I found the female monk to take 17.5 seconds (about). --Curse You 0:56, 23 August 2006 (CDT)


 * No offense, but this sounds like textbook yak shaving to me. gr3g 15:03, 28 August 2006 (CDT)


 * gr3g, you are TOO serious. Relax a bit. This soinds like a fun and good idea, which might be helpfull to people who are designing GW music videos or something. I took some times with a second timer. Monk female 17,5 sec, Warrior female 16,2 sec, Elementalist female 11,2 sec, Ranger female 13,5 sec, Mesmer female 8,7 sec, Necromancer female 21 sec. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 15:10, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
 * More times: Assassin female 17,4 sec, Assassin male 26,6 sec, Ritualist female 30,5 sec, Ritualist male 29,6 sec. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 15:22, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Comments on the above times: Some of the dances have a little intro at the beginning which is not looped after the first time. This is not calculated with in the time. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 15:28, 28 August 2006 (CDT)


 * What's with using a comma as a decimal place both here and in the article? Is it intentional? -- Dashface [[Image:Dashface.png]] 07:09, 24 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Not everyone is a native speaker of English. --Fyren 07:32, 24 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Sorry. That's how we do it in Finland. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 07:36, 24 September 2006 (CDT)

New Animated Images Proposal
I created a couple animated GIFs of some of the dances and was wonder if they would look good in this article. The only real problem with them is the large file sizes. Image:Female Monk Dance.gif 182KB, Image:Male Ritualist Dance.gif 333KB. I'll create the rest if we will use them. I can compress them down further but they might look ugly. What do you guys think? --Smurf 21:47, 20 September 2006 (CDT)


 * These look lovely. The question is, can you produce them for all professions? I would like us to do all of them together. Thanks. --Karlos 22:34, 20 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I'll create the rest of them then. It may take about a week. --Smurf [[Image:User_Smurf.gif]] 23:24, 20 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Oh forgot to mention, I don't have the collectors edition of Factions so I can't do the dances with the backup dancers --Smurf [[Image:User_Smurf.gif]] 23:38, 20 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Fantabulous! LordBiro now has some competition atop the graphical throne of the wiki. :) --Karlos 00:38, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Whoa. Cool, nice work. --Ryard 22:48, 20 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Agreed with, wholeheartedly. Zyxomma100 23:54, 20 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Wow, Smurf, these are pretty cool! How did you make them?  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 04:18, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Unless there has been a significant advance in graphics program since I used to use them, I would say he did it the old fashioned way. Screen cap a bunch of frames (probably with a background that was easy to filter out) then make all the frames transparent/white background then animate them. Of course, it could be that there is some tool that could take an AVI/video and turn it into an animated GIF. Hoever, I understand that animated GIFs are a dying breed now, so I don't know who would bother make such a tool. --Karlos 07:55, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Converting an AVI video to animated GIF is pretty much a standard feature of most animation software. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 08:30, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, I was mainly wondering about making the background of the whole clip transparent. That seems a bit out of the scope of most AVI to GIF transformations. --Karlos 09:20, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Summon Greater Icon and Arcane Echo it does wonders :). Seriously I used Fraps, ImageReady and a little directx modifying to get a white background. --Smurf [[Image:User_Smurf.gif]] 16:18, 21 September 2006 (CDT)

Great job! If you want the collectors edition dances, I could provide the characters as I have a Factions CE storage account with one of each of the types. (Ie male rit, male ass, female rit, female ass) However, I can't affect their looks as they are PvP characters with full inventories. -- (talk) 04:30, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Do have a factions CE account as well (and free PvP character slots) so if you need help, feel free to ask. --Xeeron 08:21, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * The videos look phantastic! Well done! But I'm afraight GuildWiki isn't a good place to host them. We're mostly a resource for information and facts, not eye-teasers. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 08:30, 21 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, we are maintaining an article on what the different dances are and whatthey look like. I would prefer having the animations as an extra detail. Ofcourse the animations shouldn't be on the page, but there should be a link to the animations. There is no reason to not have them. They don't take up much space in the database and they don't disturb anyone. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 14:04, 21 September 2006 (CDT)

I agree, we should have an animated images since it looks nicer than unmovable pictures but it should either be on the actual article of the page and replacing the current images there or have a link of the .gif file on the page to see the more detailed version of the dances.--Bane of Worlds 15:24, 24 September 2006 (CDT)

Well I got the GIFs done except for the /dancenew background dancers. You can currently see them at User:Smurf/Sandbox. I added Gem and Xeeron to my friends list and will pm whoever I see first to get the rest. --Smurf 03:20, 26 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I added links to the gifs into the article. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 08:02, 26 September 2006 (CDT)

Nightfall
Videos of two of the Nightfall dances are here at the bottom of the page. -- Gordon Ecker 06:30, 21 September 2006 (CDT)
 * The male paragon dance is clearly inspired by Michael Jackson, especially the video of Beat It. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 07:43, 21 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Great job finding that vid! The dance is most definitely inspired by that vid. They are just too similiar. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 14:12, 21 September 2006 (CDT)

Based on the variation in the movements, the female Dervish dance looks to me to be more inspired by an ice-skating routine rather than the traditional dance as shown in the linked example. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:55, 26 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm sorry, but I couldn't find a better vid on google search. It's true that they have added some speed to the dance, but the real dance can get fast too. I'm not opposing mention of ice skating/whatever thou. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 00:28, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I seriously thought you were talking about ITG the first time I read your post Gem!!! It's ok I can rest easy :P --Xasxas256 00:35, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * : D --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 01:37, 27 September 2006 (CDT)

Bandwidth warning?
While I love the new animated gifs, I propose that we put some sort of bandwidth warning on the top of the page, considering that the page totals at about 6 Megabyte. ;) --84-175 (talk) 04:37, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * This is why I wanted the dance animations behind links. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 05:58, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * There is nothing in the article beyond showing the dances, for the most part. And the text descriptions were a bit too much and subject to constant editing. I think seeing it as an animation beats five pages of text. A bandwidth warning at the top of the page would be good as it would load first. --Karlos 06:00, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * 6MB is quite a lot. This may put a strain on the users' bandwidth as well as the server's. I think we should get approval from Gravewit/Nunix. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 06:03, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmmm, that it a valid point, but it;s not like we have a lot of pages like this. I guess a work around between the plain link and the full image would be a still frame that has the link under it. In no way are we re-instating those big JPEGs with the stills of the different poses of the dance. Those were quite large themselves. --Karlos 06:16, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Maybe make Dance a disambiguation page with a link to "Dance (images)" and "Dance (animations)". I'm not sure I like the idea of someone searching for Dance and being transported directly to a 6meg page. --Xasxas256 06:28, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Negative. Dance (images) is a page that is no less cumbersome than Dance (video) if it's going to entail all that junk we had there. The question is, what do we want to have as content?
 * a) describe the dances... Nothing does that better than the video.
 * b) info about the origin of the dances.
 * c) other stuff (like lenght of cycle and repeatability and so forth.
 * Having those wacky narrations of what the dance looks like is no longer necessary and was never a good idea. Having 8 stills of the dance into one 100k jpeg is also not that much better than the videos. Therefore, we need to establish that we only want the videos on that page.
 * Once there, we need to work around the bandidth issue. I think displaying a still (the first frame) that leads to the rest of the animation is a fair solution. The still (especially in low res GIF) wouldn't even be 20k. --Karlos 17:20, 1 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree with the idea of having a single still image for each dance in the article that are links to the individual full animated gif images. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:54, 2 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Yes, that sounds like a good idea. I wouldn't mind having no images at all on this article and just prominent links to each animation, but one still per dance sure wouldn't hurt. Other than that, I would keep the content just as it is now (just "technical details" and info about origin for each dance). Thinking about it again... Wow, 6MB in one article. How long does that take for a 56k user to download? About 20 minutes I think? :o) --84-175 (talk) 12:05, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
 * If the single still image were done as a jpeg, I would expect the improved compression to also help reduce the file size - even with two images per profession. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:20, 2 October 2006 (CDT)