GuildWiki talk:New henchmen project

Unique henchmen
I noted on the table here which new henchmen have seemingly unique models. My wife is pretty well-versed in the imagery of Guild Wars and spotted quite a few (models as well as emotes) that I didn't immediately recognize. I did some dpl-generated image gallery searches for the ones she didn't know, and I found one that way, but the rest of these truly seem to be unique. If anyone else wants to go gallery-spelunking, here's a sample of the dpl I used (remove comments before use):

category=*Vabbi           <-- The * means to use this cat's subcats; ** means sub-subcats uses=Template:BeastInfo linksto=Human             <-- So we don't get heket and skree and everything else... include={BeastInfo}:image <-- Some pages don't use this parm since it defaults to .jpg, so we do miss a few images columns=5 format=,,,

Just preview that and look through the images, no need to save the page. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 21:19, November 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd call this "awesome," but that hardly does your work justice! Nicely done. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tennessee Ernie Ford (contribs).

Summary/QR page

 * So when you say "a sub page to compare the choices," do you mean a page listing all of their skill bars? That would be way too large to put directly on the outpost pages, even as a transclusion, I'd think.  Could we just list the henchmen on the HA/GH pages with a link to a QR page?  "Heroes' Ascent henchmen quick reference" for example, for anyone who wants do comparisons like that.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 03:43, November 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmmn &mdash; I think you are correct that the comparison ought not be on the HA/GH pages. I like your idea of HA and GH Quick reference articles. If we were clever, we could setup things so that the comparison article grabs the skillbars from the hench pages (therefore only needing to keep one article up-to-date; I'm sure ANet will tweak the pvp henchbars at some point before GW2).  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 04:21, November 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * I can try to whip up some dpl for that in the morning. This is the best I can get right now - a simple listing of the skills used by each henchman.

category=Henchmen (Core) nottitlematch=Zaishen% linksto=Guild Hall uses=Template:Skill icon include={skill icon}:1 format=::::{|class=stdt\n!henchman\n!skills\n|-,\n|%TITLE%,\n|-,\n|} secseparators=\n|,
 * I can't figure out if there's any way to insert formatting between the skill names, since they're taken from multiple calls of the same template. If they were different parameters of a template or different templates, I could turn it into a skill bar, but...
 * Maybe we should just put skill bars on the henchmen pages instead of a listing of skill icons. We'd have to make a special copy of Template:Skill bar that doesn't rely on #ifexist (and clean out a bunch of the other fancy stuff for dealing with empty or optional slots), otherwise we'd exceed the limit for expensive parser calls on the QR page (100, and there'd be 20*8 = 160).  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 05:31, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll get to work on that, see what I can do, though knowing nothing of dpl, I'll try a more conventional method --Gimmethegepgun 06:19, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, after some work, got a preliminary that uses an if statement only if you use a different row template because the bar has Faintheartedness on it. Good as far as I can tell, though someone may want to make it minutely prettier or something. Too tired/bored to finish up the list, so if anyone wants to and then move to main or something, go right ahead. Also, minor job to use bigger prof icons or just the name or both name and icon, idk, idc --Gimmethegepgun 07:58, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * That prelim looks purty darn good! I like the 'steel' background and the larger size for the text (at least it seems larger to me than other bars). Some of the skills seem to have emboldened lettering; I think the non-bold reads easier. Nice work!  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 08:19, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * "'Steel' background"? Also, no, the text size is exactly the same as it is in the skillbar template, as the spacing is exactly the same for everything (copied directly and trimmed to cut out parsers), and none of them are bold. So... I really have no idea about anything you commented on :P --Gimmethegepgun 08:34, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * Good work, but there are a couple problems. Making it only generate table cells (instead of a full table) would work fine for a summary page, like you have there, but the point here was to make it the same on the henchman pages and the summary page, and we need a complete skill bar table on the henchman pages.  Also, I don't think we need separate templates for with/without Faintheartedness, a simple #ifeq call is extremely cheap, and we shouldn't make this any more complex than it has to be anyway.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 15:03, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, the original had a #switch call instead of #ifeq since it also accounted for optional/empty/resurrect skills, but since #switch is normally interpreted as an if/then/else chain, it's not really any more expensive. I think I'll leave it like that but remove the optional/resurrect bits (and, of course, the #ifexists for the image), keeping the empty option, as to leave open the possibility of expanding the usage to other NPCs/monsters that don't have a full 8 skills.  Without further ado, I give you Template:Skill bar2.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 15:20, November 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * Tested on Pudash - it looks a bit odd at 1024x768 resolution, the skill bar gets placed below the end of the infobox, leaving a whitespace gap under the "Skills used" header. I don't think it's that bad, though, and we could scale down the image in the infobox to reduce the gap, if anyone feels it's necessary.
 * In any case, NOW I can do dpl to get the skill bars from all henchmen onto a summary page. I'll do a couple more to show how it will work.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 15:28, November 22, 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Alrighty, let's see then... category=Henchmen (Core) nottitlematch=Zaishen% linksto=Guild Hall uses=Template:Skill bar2 include={BeastInfo}.pvp henchman dpl,{skill bar2} table=class="stdt sortable",Henchman,Profession,Skills Whoo! The optimum ordering, I'm sure, is to have them grouped by primary profession. I have achieved this through the use of a phantom template that takes the "prof" parameter from the BeastInfo template, hides it in a non-displayed div, then translates it into small profession icons (they could be bigger, of course). This lets us display the icons for simplicity, but also allows the table to be sorted on that column to obtain the profession groupings. This looks good to me, but I don't know if anyone else had further plans for the QR page... &mdash;Dr Ishmael 16:00, November 22, 2009 (UTC)

Emotes
I added a column to the tables noting the number of emotes that I saw each of them using. Most of the HA henchmen have 2, while some have 3, and the GH henchmen are split between 0, 1, and 2. I didn't notice the emotes until HA, even though I did the GH ones first, because the HA ones perform theirs much more often than the GH ones. Thus, it's not guaranteed that I saw all the emotes that the GH henchmen actually have, as I don't feel like staring at NPCs for 5 minutes at a time (I usually gave up after 30 seconds). It seems odd to me that they would go to the trouble of setting the HA ones up with 2 emotes, then leave most of the GH ones with 1 or 0, but who knows.

Also, it appears that they all have a chance of doing the "NPC talking-with-hands" emote when you speak to them. Since this isn't a "real" emote, and since I saw nearly all of them do it, I didn't bother noting it. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 05:09, November 23, 2009 (UTC)

Are we done yet?
This project might be complete &mdash; the only to-do tasks are semi-optional. Could someone review the whether they think we need to update GvG and/or HA (mish) pages? (if not, those can be crossed off the list). Also: are there any other pages that we should update before we feel that the wiki has essentially been updated to reflect the new henchies? Thanks!

PS Big kudos to Doctor Ishmael who did most of the heavy lifting getting the new NPCs into this wiki, cleanly and consistently. &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:37, December 2, 2009 (UTC)


 * I just thought of a page that needed it - Henchman (specifically the subpage Henchmen (Core)), and did it.
 * I don't know whether GvG and HA mission need it or not, thus the ???. It's possible that someone looking at those pages might prefer the listing to be immediately available there, but I don't know.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 22:15, December 2, 2009 (UTC)


 * I've added in-text links and updated some text. (I'll also add more direct links in see also, in case peeps want an easier-to-find reference.) So, I think GWiki has successfully incorporated the new hench. Unless anyone objects, I'll close the project as successfully completed by Doc Ish and a cast of several.


 * Note: We still seem to have a ways to go to completely absorb the changes from that massive update & mdash; I think some of the GvG and HA advice/mechanics is no longer correct.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 23:26, December 2, 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't do GvG or HA, unfortunately. Can't help with that.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 00:11, December 3, 2009 (UTC)