GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Bestiary

Currently the Bestiary articles are very badly formatted. I would like to see them formatted like the article Fauul the Windburner (this is an arbitrary example, there could be better examples using this formatting). As far as maps go, I think they should be linked to from articles, but not included in articles themselves since maps are generally not uniform in their dimensions. 22:16, 28 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * How can I make a link to an internal image, so that it shows as a link not as an image on the page? --Geeman 00:55, 29 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * You precede the link with a colon, just like when you link to a category Image:Prince_Rurik.jpg produces Image:Prince_Rurik.jpg. Obviously you could replace that with some interesting text.
 * "You can find this boss in the Scary Place."
 * or something like that. 02:33, 29 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * Thanks, I think the format in Fauul the Windburner is great. So the Bestiary articles should contain the beast template and use this order in things: Description, Location, Skills used, Items dropped. And maps to Elite Skill Bosses locations should be like this Harn Coldstone. Maybe a differnet wording though? And you might also like to use some text to tell where the boss is (maybe not needed if an image is available) or how often etc. --Geeman 03:11, 29 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * I'd recommend an optional "Notes" section too as we have with skills for things like notes on monster behavior, useful tactics against them, etc. Another thing to consider with this is defining a set of categories to use for these as well. I know that corrected me on a few that I did a while back, so perhaps he could provide some additional insight into his thoughts around that. :) On second thought, maybe a Notes section isn't needed and Description can be used for everything. A couple of other problems to consider. Some bosses appear multiple times with the same name (see The Judge) and I've noticed several appear with no unique name at all (boss Snow Ettins that are just named "Snow Ettin" but are a higher level/have more skills). Any thoughts on representing those? MartinLightbringer 05:59, 30 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * As far as a 'notes' section goes I think this is a good idea. I think the best way to document multiple bosses with the same name would be to use disambiguation pages. If a monster boss is only ever one profession then we can just call the article Snow Ettin (Boss) otherwise we could say Snow Ettin (Warrior Boss). Does that sound reasonable? 08:12, 30 Jul 2005 (EST)

While Fauul's page looks nice, does anyone really care about the info that's in the description? No one will really ever look up non-elite bosses, and even then, I don't know if that info's of much use. There are also a lot of bosses considering only the ones with elites. --Fyren 06:39, 30 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * I don't think having the information there is any problem, although I agree it is probably a bit useless. I think we should prioritise those bosses with elite skills, and if there are some non-elite bosses missing then no one will worry too much :) If they do they can complain :P 08:12, 30 Jul 2005 (EST)

Boss Maps Thievery
Ok, we have had this request posted into Gravewit's talk page:

Hi :-)

I'm Xennon, the guy who made the www.xennon.co.uk/eliteskills/ listing. I was contacted a while ago about the use of my information on this site. I said the information itself may be used, however the maps were not to be used.

It was brought to my attention that the editor Ollj has been adding my maps under boss information without my permission (in fact, expressly against my wishes) so I was wondering if someone could get these removed :-)

e-mail me at chriscox@ntlworld.com if you wish to talk about this.

Cheers Xen

Retrieved from "http://www.zerolives.org/guildwars/index.php/User_talk:Gravewit"

Can we please rollback those image uploads altogether? --Karlos 05:23, 29 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * This has now been done. I recommend that any maps we use in the future be drawn by members of the GuildWiki. I also recommend we take the screenshots directly from the game and label them ourselves, since this reduces the chance of MOOMANiBE or whoever else's map we rip off from complaining. Just as a hint if you do this: The main map (M) has clouds travelling across it, which in some cases reduces the detail of certain areas. Rather than mess about trying to correct this in photoshop or something, I've found that it's easier to just take the screenshot using the mini-map (U). This also has the advantage or removing the city icons. The reason this is advantageous is that occasionally (especially with mission icons) they partially obscure certain areas of the map. 02:26, 30 Jul 2005 (EST)

Species
Please have a look at what I've done with Devourer.

I plan to go through all the species articles and restructure them accordingly, using the same structure:
 * 1) Appearance and Behaviour
 * 2) Strenghtes and Weaknesses
 * 3) Professions
 * 4) Items dropped
 * 5) Known Sub-Types

"Behaviour" kinda blends in with "Strenghtes and Weaknesses", so these might be merged. "Professions" is kinda redundant with "Known Sub-Types", so we might dump that paragraph. I know "Known Sub-Types" is somewhat redundant with the category, but since this is more than just an alphabetic list I think it is good to have list by region, including collector items.

I'm open for suggestions. Please comment. --Tetris L 08:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I was going to the page thinking.. "What is up with him and Devoureres?" :) This looks great! I like it very much. I have one suggestion:
 * Combine Professions with Known Sub-types and call it: "Types and Habitats" Then in the table, you have the region, and in each region you have the subspecies and next to each subspecies the profession icon. I think that's a more solid layout. Great idea! --Karlos 17:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll get rid of the "Professions" paragraph, since it is already covered by the other praragraphes. I'll stick with the old "Known Sub-Types" heading though. That the table is sorted by region and also lists the drops doesn't have to be mentioned in the heading IMHO. We may decide to add even more info to the table later, and the heading could get quite lengthy.
 * One last thing: I think we might use modules for the "Kown Sub-Types". This would allow us to use them in a bestiary overview list article which would be far better than the bestiary category. --Tetris L 09:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Sigh* A category and a listing are not mutually exclusive. Even if you made an "uber-list" of monsters that was quite useful and readable, it will still not replace categories, nor will categories replace it.
 * I am against this module. We do not make modules simply because it is cool or because we like to modularize everything. We make modules when the data redundancy is needed. Right now, I cannot think of one page that uses this "known subtypes" list other than the species page. I am not even sure how useful a super large article with all species in the game is going to be. It even goes against the wiki's guidelines. On the flip side, it does make editing the page more complex. It's not without cost. --Karlos 10:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * For testing purpose I created the module and added it to Creatures so that we can see what it might look like.
 * I still think having a large overview list of all mobs could be useful, especially since this list would be an overview of all Collector Items at the same time. The discussion in Category talk:Collector Items showed that there is a demand for such a list, and as you agreed yourself in that discussion, categories are a bad solution when it comes to searching and quick referencing. --Tetris L 10:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * And a list of all species in the game with all sub-types per-region is NOT a good collector items list. Take Charr, for example. All Charr drop Hides and Carvings. End of story. All Devourers in Ascalon drop Fetid Carapaces. Simple. Replace that with two pages of scrollable text just to say the same thing and it doesn't sound too intuitive, does it? --Karlos 12:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Tetris, I like it, good work :) Two comments which IMO would make the page easier to read:
 * I am not sure it is necessary to list the type of item - I think "Carapaces (see below), Shells, Half-Eaten Mass" would be enough.
 * I am also not sure it is necessary to mention that Devourers are alive, poisonable, knockable and so on, as most creatures are. I would only mention such features in two cases:
 * For creatures that do not behave like the general case (example: undead cannot be poisoned, giants cannot be knocked down).
 * When you would expect another behaviour (example: Executers usually appear with undead, but they are not undead themselves and can therefore be poisoned, can bleed etc). --SDC 18:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Side note. Executioners are undead. They take double damage from Holy attacks. The exception with executioners is that they are undead AND "fleshy." --Karlos 17:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Skill listing
I have been keeping a private list (sortable Excel table) of all boss skills in GW. I'm updating this list constantly. First I started out adding the information at the skill description entries under heading "Capture". But someone told me, that you had decided against that earlier in guildwiki history. Instead I should be updating skill entries I was told.

I have now visited several skill entries. And I have observed, that in some of them, the skills are listed in (for me) arbitrarly order (i.e. not sorted). Shouldn't they be sorted alphabetically?

Please excuse me, if this is not the right place for this comment - and please inform me of where to put it, if it is not the right place.
 * Yes please do sort them in alphabetical order when you come across them (-: I believe for boss articles, we want to know all the skills they got.  However, for skill articles, if a skill is available from trainer/quest in an earlier region, then capture information for a later region is not of interest (at least that seems to be the decision).  Welcome! -PanSola 10:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

"Items Dropped"
I have made the mistake before, and I see other new comer make the same mistake, and it's easy to see how, if nothing is done about the issue, more people will make the same mistake in the future.

I propose to rename the "Items Dropped" section to "Special Items Dropped" or something, as a preventative measure of people making future mistakes. I won't bother with a crusade, will just slowly phase this in as I happen to edit articles. Comments? -PanSola 02:49, 20 February 2006 (CST)


 * No need to do that, we just correct people as they do it. It has been like this since the beginning and there are not that many issues.  --Rainith 09:33, 20 February 2006 (CST)
 * Well, is there any downside for changing the name of the section? If there's one I'll weigh it, but otherwise I perfer preventative solutions than post-patchings. -PanSola 11:48, 20 February 2006 (CST)


 * You stated the downside yourself. You don't want to do a crusade (because of the sheer number of articles).  Then we end up with battling formats and confusion.  Mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together, etc...  --Rainith 11:55, 20 February 2006 (CST)
 * Also I doubt that would solve the problem, even if you took the time to define "Special Items" people would still occasionally post that Fire Imps drop Water Wands (which has always really confused me, as I get a lot from them). --Rainith 11:58, 20 February 2006 (CST)
 * Speaking of defining special items, I think Sword, Axe, Hammer and Shield need to indicate which weapons and shields are common drops. I'd go with the assumption that common = dropped by X+1 monster species in at least half of the game's regions, with X being the greatest number of species that are confirmed to drop a known 'special item' (probably Obsidian Shard or Glob of Ectoplasm, since each is dropped by about half a dozen species). -- Gordon Ecker 17:11, 23 February 2006 (CST)
 * Hey, I *WANT* dogs and cats living together. And rabbits and carrots too! -PanSola 01:41, 21 February 2006 (CST)