Dialogue Template on SacredWiki - A new toy to play with!

[Silver_fox 397]

Sorry, gogo, but I would have to ask you to read the question again. I do understand that your character's phrases get 'The Player' as caption, but what can be done about NPCs whose names in game do not match the names of respective wiki pages (happens with generic, repetative NPC names)?

 

The best illustration of what I ask about in this quest: Daemonic Rituals. It has three (!) different NPCs who are called 'Hermit' and that is how they are captioned in game. But they have three different NPC pages on the wiki. So the quest dialogues should be made to point to different pages while having the same caption.

 

On a side note, I found one more Star Wars easter egg while looking at those hermits (the first of them obviously quotes Obi-Wan Kenobi).

Edited February 8, 2014 by Silver_fox

[Flix 5,116]

Link to the texts

 

Any user who wants to fill in dialogues on the Wiki can copy the text from this .txt file.

 

The decoder/encoder itself is still internal but the decoded text shouldn't be a problem since it can't be used for anything besides a reference.

Edited February 9, 2014 by Flix

[Schot 407]

Thank you, gogo (both for restoration of my editing superpowers and for the warm welcome)!

 

Now I'll bring the topic back... well, to the topic. I decided to go through the quest pages I did before to apply this new template (and rid the wiki of some heavy PNG dialogues), and already ran into a small issue. The template leaves no opportunity to change the NPC name (it automatically assumes that the name in game matches the title of respective wiki page) which is a bit troublesome in case of side quest NPCs with generic names like Kobold or Soldier (and there are a whole lot of such guys). They all have their own NPC pages titled with location suffix (for example, right now I'm working with this one: Kobold Chieftain - Happy Cow Farm). So what should be put as the dialog caption? Writing it the way it is in game would result in either red or misleading link (with the example above it would link you to the random enemy). Writing it the way it is in the database is even worse... So can you please add the opportunity to use aliases for these NPC links, or suggest some workaround.

Quite the conundrum. How about a Hermit index page of all NPC's named Hermit which would list them all with a prefix or suffix and do the like for all other same named NPC's with regards to dialogues. Sound good?

 

Link to the texts

 

Any user who wants to fill in dialogues on the Wiki can copy the text from this .txt file.

 

The decoder/encoder itself is still internal but the decoded text shouldn't be a problem since it can't be used for anything besides a reference.

Excellent resource Flix. Thank you!

[Silver_fox 397]

How about a Hermit index page of all NPC's named Hermit which would list them all with a prefix or suffix and do the like for all other same named NPC's with regards to dialogues. Sound good?

 

I can't come up with a better solution, because removing a part of neatly wrapped up template to make people manually insert an NPC link does not sound all that nice, especially considering how much work went into making this template as neat as in is. So maybe we should have something like those 'disambiguation pages' Wikipedia has (the ones that begin with 'the thing you looked for can also mean:'). The one big problem of such solution is that the main reason for linking NPC pages is so that the reader can learn where this NPC is and what he/she looks like. With a big page listing characters of the same name that differ only by location, the reader has to know where and what this NPC is to be able to choose the one he/she needs. So, if a person is able to choose the correct Hermit from the list of all Hermits in Ancaria, this person already knows so much he doesn't need to see this NPC page. To add insult to ingury, when we made the quest template, we decided not to insert pictures of NPC locations into the walkthrough as they are already present on NPC pages (which IS a good decision, for inserting them all into the quest page would be just too much with lengthy quests). So, good navigation to NPC pages becomes essential. You can argue that before the Dialogue Template appered readers could find the NPC pages through context links and this method still works just as fine. The trouble is that these big, good-looking clickable Dialogues are so much easier to notice than some link lost inside a wall of text - the reader's attention is effectively drawn there. Geez, I know what I'm saying as not so long ago I actually tired to click on one of these Hermits to look up the exact name of his page (I was quoting him for Star Wars Easter Eggs). And one would think I should have known better...

Long story short - we would have more than a few readers ending up on these listing pages and unsure how to choose from the list. So if we don't want these readers to be lost, such a page should be not a simple list but a Comprehensive Guide to the Hermits of Ancaria.

 

On a side note, I saw that Flix already uploaded english version of decoded global.res, so I don't have to do it. But is anyone interested in the other languages? Can be useful if you suddenly run into a page with Spanish screenshots (like I did with Finally Rich (Shadow) - by the way, am I the only one who thinks that this page doesn't match the naming standart?) or if you want to make translated version of the wiki. Not much chances for either situation though.

Edited February 9, 2014 by Silver_fox

[Schot 407]

Why do you have to make such well thought out and effective points Silver. You're really making it difficult for me to be lazy. I was looking at the template earlier with this problem in mind and two other options did occur to me that we could try. I'm loathe to alter the delicately written template but there is a chance I could toss in an additional variable with a default that would maintain the existing dialogues we've added to pages. Not sure but I think I know what to do. The other thought was to write a new template that would accomodate this situation of same named NPC's.

 

Side note: Not a bad idea for German, French and Spanish I think. May not get used right away but handy to have. As for naming standard. Yeah. It's not pretty... Leftovers from our early days.

[Silver_fox 397]

Here is the link to localized texts if you need them:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_TBVBAeWVRnSlZWNUFJNDRxSXc/edit?usp=sharing

 

They are not THE very last version, as I collected all localizations for previous versions of CM patch, but not for the current one. So these files are patched to v120 or v130 (can't recall which one exactly). On other hand, all vanilla texts are there, and CM texts are still work in progress and subject to change anyway.

[Schot 407]

Thanx Silver. That will be a useful resource for editors of those languages.

 

As for the Hermit problem I think I would prefer either a same-named NPC list page. We could put small images of corresponding NPC body shots to help readers make the correct association. With regards to the template I think less options is better in this case for the less savvy among editors.

[Silver_fox 397]

I understand your point here. Though the real trouble is not even the Hermits. If you look at The Farm Owner quest (yes, the same one we used to test the quest template on), there is a Kobold Chieftain there. Of course, his dialogues are captioned "Kobold Chieftain". Except that this page actually exists and is a bestiary entry for a random enemy of the same name. When the links are red, a page can be created, but what to do when the links are obviously misleading?

 

And after all that, I would still request one tweak to the template. Please, add an opportunity to include buttons into the quest dialogues. Take a look at the Ancient Secrets quest to understand why - this one makes good use of custom button captions. If the dialogues are pictured without buttons, some flavor would be lost.

[Schot 407]

Ok ok. I surrender! lol

 

Good points. I think it's important to note that these points are probably rare exceptions. And on that note we have to at some point decide just how detailed we need to be. Personally I'm a perfectionist and when doing little tasks on my own I like my work to be a replica of what I'm trying to represent about the game via the wiki. I've learned though that this level of detail isn't always practical.

 

That said. I think rather than editing the existing template, I'll create a new one for these special cases. For Sacred 3 I'll try to design a single all inclusive template.

 

I'm not sure how I'll be able to set up the buttons yet so that will take some time and creativity... Before I get going, is there anything else that needs to be built in?

[Silver_fox 397]

That said. I think rather than editing the existing template, I'll create a new one for these special cases. For Sacred 3 I'll try to design a single all inclusive template.

That would be a perfect solution. I thought about suggesting it too, but of course you came up with this idea without any hints. Many editing programs have two versions of the interface - simple and advanced. Maybe the wiki should have a simple version of template that is suitable for most cases and easily accessible from toolbar, and an advanced one for those who know what they are doing.

 

As for how much of exception these cases are - they are not a big percent, but considering the amount of quests in Sacred 2, the number of dialogues that require advanced template would be several dozens. Aside from the Kobolds, there are unnamed quest orcs, and if I'm not mistaken some overlapping with playable character classes too. The Hermit case - the red link that would otherwise require a listing page, is very common. Custom button captions are quite rare, but there are about 10 quests that have them. Maybe more, there being so many of them it's hard to remember for sure.

I'm not sure how I'll be able to set up the buttons yet so that will take some time and creativity... Before I get going, is there anything else that needs to be built in?

I don't think there can be something else. The quest dialogue basically consists of three parts - an NPC name, the main text, and the buttons. The first and the last were already mentioned, the main text is already a fully editable wiki text, so I see nothing that can go wrong with it.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Silver_fox

[Schot 407]

Alrighty. Hopefully this will be a painless process, heh. Any suggestions on what to name this new template?

S2a Dialogue?

[Schot 407]

Guess it won't be too painful after all. The initial work is done. I think I may be able to integrate this into the original template so don't start using this yet.

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Template:S2a_Dialogue

 

Should I make all dialogues have an "Ok" button by default?

[Silver_fox 397]

It looks very good, and not really more complicated than the original. If these additional fields would be optional and have default values, as you are trying to do, I guess it would be just as easy to use. And yes, a default OK button is a good idea, as most of the dialogues have it this way. The Accept/Decline are only for starting dialogues, and not even all of them. OK ones are much more multiple.

[Schot 407]

Cheers Silver. The update bits are more or less complete. Just fine tuning to be done. I'm not sure how to resolve the way the wiki is interpreting line breaks within these dialogues. The most reliable way it seems is to use the line break button . Using that results in a nice clean well spaced line break.

 

Feedback is always welcome!

Sacred 2 Dialogue Template

[Silver_fox 397]

It looks wonderful. The template is still very neat and easy to use, but now it uncludes all situations possible in game: generic NPC names, custom captions, quests you are unable to decline - everything. If it's ready to be used in practice, I'll go through some pages I remember and apply these new options.

 

As for the breaks - if you copy from global.res, there is no need to worry about the line breaks. Being a simple HTML, global.res text already has all necessary formatting. It uses double <br> code just as you do in sample dialogs. Though if you prefer using some other way to start a new line, I'll gladly try it.

[gogoblender 3,070]

Cheers Silver. The update bits are more or less complete. Just fine tuning to be done. I'm not sure how to resolve the way the wiki is interpreting line breaks within these dialogues. The most reliable way it seems is to use the line break button newline.JPG. Using that results in a nice clean well spaced line break.

 

Feedback is always welcome!

Sacred 2 Dialogue Template

 

 

Good job Brad!

u just keep making time!

 

 

gogo

[Schot 407]

Thanx gogo!

 

It looks wonderful. The template is still very neat and easy to use, but now it uncludes all situations possible in game: generic NPC names, custom captions, quests you are unable to decline - everything. If it's ready to be used in practice, I'll go through some pages I remember and apply these new options.

 

Cheers Silver. After some last minute changes today I'm now happy with what we have. Feel free to give it a test!

 

As for the breaks - if you copy from global.res, there is no need to worry about the line breaks. Being a simple HTML, global.res text already has all necessary formatting. It uses double <br> code just as you do in sample dialogs. Though if you prefer using some other way to start a new line, I'll gladly try it.

 

At long last this problem is finally gone. You can type out the dialogue as you normally would. We have a new extension to manage line spacing within the template now. Unfortunately, this means I'll have to go back and check on old templates to see if they need correcting. Doh!

[Flix 5,116]

It looked great before, now it looks phenomenal. Total pro work there!

[Schot 407]

Thanx Flix! I sure hope we get a chance to use it in Sacred 3.

 

EDIT: There's just one little thing I didn't manage to work out. To do a single line break it looks like we'll still have to use the <br> tag.

[Schot 407]

Link to the texts

 

Any user who wants to fill in dialogues on the Wiki can copy the text from this .txt file.

 

The decoder/encoder itself is still internal but the decoded text shouldn't be a problem since it can't be used for anything besides a reference.

 

 

Here is the link to localized texts if you need them:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_TBVBAeWVRnSlZWNUFJNDRxSXc/edit?usp=sharing

 

They are not THE very last version, as I collected all localizations for previous versions of CM patch, but not for the current one. So these files are patched to v120 or v130 (can't recall which one exactly). On other hand, all vanilla texts are there, and CM texts are still work in progress and subject to change anyway.

 

I just made use of txt files now and wow. Thank you both very much. This simplifies things immensely. No more typing long dialogues. Woohoo!

[Ysne58 236]

That will be helpful.