Silver_fox
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Posts posted by Silver_fox
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Big russian holidays are over now, so I might be a bit less active. But anyway, I'm going to add more NPCs today.
I'm going to make an enemy-NPC mixed pages for the arch-mage from the HE's campaign and Inquisition Guard from Seraphim's singleplayer beginning. So it would be easy for me to take care of the student too. I'd do it now.
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On that page you might see a link called "Upload a new version of this file". If you do then click on it and upload your revised image version to overwrite the present version.
Of course I tried to go to the pic page before. Sadly, this link is admin-only. Normal users can see only 'Edit with exteernal application' link. I tried this thing, yet it appears to be not all that easy.
Your thoughts were spot on Silver. Forgive me if I tend to be overly detailed. I'm always writing with readers who might be unfamiliar with our project in mind. I like your suggested definition. We'll go with that. My mention of a no name enemy was a bad example. My basic example was a much better one. "NPC's that have a dialogue box with their name when spoken to...".
Well, looks like I'm not the only one who tends to be overly detailed. It's completely OK for me, don't need to be sorry. But after some time I understood that actually NPC definition may be simpler: 'punctuation is a must'. In other words, if a character can be pictured with a kind of '?', '!' or '?!' above his/her head, then this chara offers a dialog and therefore is an NPC. If we've already decided that the punctuation must be pictured, no need to specify more. If you can't picture a chara with his/her respective punctuation, then he/she is not an NPC.
I wonder what to do with the guest and landlord now. For now I'd only remove them from the NPC category. Actually I don't have an intention to remove all the additional information I provided them with (at least for now). After all their bestiary entries look OK anyway, and I'm not sure it would hurt to have more information on the page.
I think the name scheme Knuckles and Ysne talked about will take care of that nasty problem.
Actually I've already discussed this problem with gogo while doing pages for this soldiers, so the naming system is OK (but these two are not named exactly like it is needed, maybe I should move their pages). I just wanted to say that even a quest giving NPCs sometimes don't have a name of their own.
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Sorry, I forgot to mention that this new NPC template can now be considered introduced to the wiki. Today I modified 18 NPC pages(including this two ones that are actually enemies) to much it + completely redid one on the same purpose (since there was nothing but a screenshot on this page).
Now adjusting all the NPCs I've done earlier to the new template is finished, so I can make some new pages.
By the way, is there a way to delete an image from the wiki? I changed some portraits so they could match the height conditions better, so there are some unused portraits in the wiki now. Is there a way to delete them?
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And by the way, there are several NPCs with the same name 'High Elf Soldier' in game. Yet they ARE NPCs since they talk to you and offer you several quests (check Hunting Highwaymen for example).
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I'll probably split this off in a bit but for now I'd like to jump in on the Landlord and Guest in the Conspiracies quest. Those two should only be Quest Enemies. Great opportunity to create the rule of thumb though. I guess it's safe to say that if a character in question does not have a name then it is not an NPC and should not be classified as one. I'll add that to the template and the top of this topic. Cheers for catching that Silver.
In the strictest sense of the definition of NPC ALL creatures in the game are NPC. Basically any friend or foe that has an active role in the game is an NPC. NPC meaning Non Playable Character. So in that sense Zeno was correct but did not mean to imply that those enemies should be categorized as NPC's. Many gamers, and particularly SacredWiki, uses NPC to more or less define allies and by allies we mean game characters that are in some way helpful be it by giving quests or simply offering information. NPC's that have a dialogue box with their name when spoken to are a basic example.
So for now we're only documenting NPC's as those who at some point have either the ? or ! symbols above their heads.
P.s.
I'll post my thoughts about your interest in the Quest template in a bit. Gotta pace myself. ^^
Well, when I was asked to do NPC pages for them, I'd been surprised too. Yet I was only starting to write wiki articles back then, so I thought that somebody that unexperienced was not the one to complain. I asked you because I was thinking that considering them NPCs wasn't right.
As for the soldiers and others... If you press 'Alt', you'd see the names of all the creatures around you. If you press this button in that soldier camp, you won't see any tags on all the soldiers. That particular soldier is an exception. You can read 'Soldier' on his tag. So he is not an unnamed soldier, but a creature named 'Soldier'.
Yet I wanted to suggest another definition for Sacred NPCs that should be described: If this creature offers you a dialog that you can read in a special window, than it is an NPC. Otherwise it is an enemy or a civilian. How about that?
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Maybe they do. But it's up to Schot and gogo to decide whether or not they want to alter the quest template at all, and whether or not to start a thread for it. After all, we discussed the NPC template in other topics until it was created too.
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Well, looks like today I'm going to adjust my old NPC pages to a new template.
...and some of them are an exception from the template. These two: Landlord, Guest lack their punctuation. Because they are actually a quest enemies rather then NPCs. Yet Zeno, while making a page for The Sleepy Badger, stated them as an NPCs so initially I made them NPC pages. I modified them into the enemy-NPC mixes, yet I can't get them a portraits with punctuation, since they never appear with '?!' in game. Well, I'm going to just let them be. After all the kind of a page they have now is more informative than a simple enemy page.
Speaking of the templates, I continue experimenting with quest pages. I'm not yet about to suggest a whole new template for them, yet I happen to like this kind of a header more than an old one:
{|
|WIDTH="10%" VALIGN="TOP"|__TOC__
|WIDTH="35%" VALIGN="TOP"|
* '''Quest Objective:'''
* '''Quest Difficulty:'''
* '''Quest Giver:''' [[sacred 2:Quest Giver|Quest Giver]]
* '''Location(s):''' [[sacred 2:Quest Location|Quest Location]]
* '''Prerequisite Quest:'''
* '''Next Quest:'''
* '''Reward:'''
|WIDTH="55%" VALIGN="TOP"| {{S2frame|[[image:the 'M' map|300px]][[image:the 'Tab' map|300px]]|left}}
|}
Not a really different one. I just altered the percentage and stated a double-map instead of a random picture. Looks like this: All or Nothing.
That's just a suggestion though. After all, from what I saw this far, all the quest pages look differently, especially the old ones. So they should be modified somehow. Whether or not we'd adjust them to a current template or to a new one isn't really important (the amount of work would be the same).
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I just wanted so say, that this golden seraphim's armor is now a part of a new set named 'Virtues of the Seraphim'. There is also a sword and a shield in this set. The whole thing looks like this:
This picture is from the CM-team's bugtracker. So if you found some items from this set in game, feel free to add them to the wiki, since there is no description for this set this far.
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Tried the new template with my next attempt on a enemy-NPC mix. The result is here: Geodric. His bestiary place is reserved too.
I don't know how exactly you planned that template to work, yet 'press the second NPC button-press the preview button-copy and paste the template text you see on your screen-fill the template' was the scheme that worked for me. I can't call it uncomfortable. After all Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V is much faster than waiting for the page to save and then opening the edit tab again.
The only thing I maybe wanted to add to template is that generic 'See exact location below:' phrase. Both you and me add it to the pages after all. Yet maybe this thing is just a habit of mine that doesn't need to be in the template. It's up to you to decide.
EDIT
By the way, why the enemy template isn't in the menu?
/EDIT
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As for the question/exclamaton mark, the reason I kept it was their COLOR. You may not read the information about the NPC, yet you'd immediately understand what kind of quest this NPC offers. It also may be useful for newbies who want to recognize NPCs. Character-specific quests are marked with the blue question mark on the map, yet 'in reality' they are coloured differently (it is the most noticeable with the Inquisitor's quests, since they are red). One more thing is that there are quite a few types of the NPCs' appearance in game. So without their respectible signs they are hard to distinct from the ordinary citizens.
That still is my opinion. Due to a limited amount of models in game, the NPCs faces are little help, when it comes to distincting them from the crowd. The Sacred NPC is much more defined by his/her place on the map and the quest type (aka the punctuation color).
Funny as it seems, without a punctuation you won't be able to distinct Informant Rohit, who offers Inquisitor's own quest from Aristocratic Spy who fights the Inquisition (his eyepatch is optional, you can see it on the Light path spy only).
Thank you for this template. I hope that 200 pixels in width x 504 pixels in height is OK too (That was the size of the last pic I uploaded).
If you are interested how this layout works, you can check these guys: Gemblik, Fellow Student, Captain and aforementioned Informant Rohit.
And this one is special: Orphas the Dragon. His portrait size is 400x444 since I wanted to fit at least half of him into this picture. (a little poor DM is the corner is suitable for size comparison, so I let him be).
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Thank you for fixing this page so quickly. I was trying the new NPC template with the NPCs on the Dragon Mage Island, and while I was doing the second one, the proper link was up already. These guys are up and running (or flying) now. So if you want to see how the new template works, you may check them.
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Thank you very much. And thanks for proof-reading, Ysne. I seem to make a lot of typos today.
By the way, I just noticed a new page for the Multiplayer Island. It looks good. And it makes you think that it is always possible to find something interesting even in the smallest place.
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Here goes my first attempt on a page from the 'Places' section, the Dragon Mage Island. If you can critique me, do it please. I'd better learn now. And... I wanted the main image to show that it is an island, something about dragons and DM himself (after all this place is named after him).
One more thing to note. Some time ago, when I had to create an NPC page for the unnamed capitan from this island. I named it Captain - The Dragon Mage. The name for this place was uncertain those days, so I named this NPC after the quest he takes part in. Is it OK?
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It's OK, please take your time. I hope your injury isn't a really bad one. After all, wiki offers plenty of work, so we won't get bored while waiting for the new templates.
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I hope there are still some dishes left in your house...
By the way, there is one more trouble about this template. As usual there is an exception to every rule... In other words, there are some guys who don't want to fit into the standart banner-like vertical portrait. Like Dryad Shaman Nelyas and Orphas. There are quite a few of them, yet they exist.
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The template is still under discussion. Mine derived from the original one that you can get by pressing the 'NPC' button on the toolbar. I made my own standarts for the pics, since there were nothing about it in the original template. But anyway, the new one is under construction now. Let's wait for it to get ready.
And don't worry, I remember about the Abbess. I'd edit her page as soon as I adjust the once I made before to a new template.
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As for the question/exclamaton mark, the reason I kept it was their COLOR. You may not read the information about the NPC, yet you'd immediately understand what kind of quest this NPC offers. It also may be useful for newbies who want to recognize NPCs. Character-specific quests are marked with the blue question mark on the map, yet 'in reality' they are coloured differently (it is the most noticeable with the Inquisitor's quests, since they are red). One more thing is that there are quite a few types of the NPCs' appearance in game. So without their respectible signs they are hard to distinct from the ordinary citizens.
I thought about the screen-size too. I tried it with several resolutions too. And I have to say that I like that new template more than my old one. Both fits the screen (at least the 1280x800 one), yet this one looks more neat.
As for the maps, I started my work with the quest pages. And the first thought I had was about the fact that 'I want to see all the guide at the same time' to check it while playing, for example (I have 2 computers and usually Sacred and Internet are running at the same time). It is less noticeable with NPCs, yet I still want to see the description and the map at the same time.
Does your post mean that the template is settled? Do you want to discuss it once more?
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lol at the air horn! Yet maybe you'd let him sleep. After all working with those pages at 4am is not all that easy.
So it's around 12am in your time zone now... That explaines why I didn't notice the new page layout. I wasn't in the Internet when these changes happen. Now it's 10pm here where I live. I wonder how long I'd last today. And I sincerely hope that even at 2am I won't become a grumpy idiot again! I really want to know what you'd decide, since I want to work tomorrow while you would most probably be sleeping (so I won't have an opportunity to ask you).
By the way, I modified one pure NPC page I made some time ago to this template. Here it is: Ranger Mekeliel
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If this new template really is a solid one, than I'd have to spent some time correcting the NPC pages I created. But I have to be sure that the template won't change again and I won't have to redo this work once again.
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I prefer the multi posts now, because all of us are pretty fast posters, so... when we want to add more info, the added part of it going to another post signals attention instead of just updating an earlier post which may never get seen. A few times yesterday I thought I was responding to the post above me, but someone had already cut me to the post in front of mine!
gogo
Due to the fact that I live in a very different time zone, I often happen to post here while no one is around. I just thought that maybe seing three posts from me in a line may be a bit annoying for you. But actually I just got worried because multi-posting is prohibited in some of the russian forums (just like spam).
Silver, I sent you a note regarding what I think is a new template Schot was working on early this morning around 4 am , did you see?
http://www.sacredwik...ristocratic_Spy
Loox pretty solid so far!
gogo
I haven't seen this one before. This page looked differently the last time I checked it. This template looks quite nice. This double 300px map looks quite informative ever while it is only a thumbnail. How about this thing for the quest pages too? I tried here. I'm not sure, whether or not you'd like it though. But it takes the same amount of space as two 150px maps placed one above the other, yet looks a bit more informative.
And I agree about 200px for the NPC portrait. My own standart was 250px (I resized the screenshots to this size), but 200px seems to work really good.
In other words, I see nothing to argue about in this page. If you like it too, I'd modify all the pages I created earlier to this standart. I also wanted to ask you to create a template that can be inserted into a newly created page.
Thank you for paying attention to this thing, and please forgive me if I insulted you yesterday.
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I just wanted to apologise once more. I really-really don't want to insult any of you, since you are awesome people, who are doing interesting work. Sometimes I just can't find the right words to say the things I'm worried about.
And one little question to admins. This one is about this forum. Is there a time limit for the post to be edited? After some time I get error messages while pressing the 'edit' button. It's something along the lines of 'you don't have permission to edit this post'. Multi-posting is quite an annoying thing, yet I have to do it sometimes, since editing is impossible.
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How do you think, whether or not it'd be a good idea to list all the items that were added in CM, at least in red links. I just thought that their names are well-known to the CM-team, so it is possible to list them all even before they would be found in game.
That sounds great dude. I'll try to make those red links blue
If you want to know more about those sets, search Mantis for issues #250, #264, #265 and #266. The whole-set pictures may be found in these issues. I'm pretty sure that you've already seen the item names in the translation issues. Item stats are yet to find.
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Sorry, I'm idle for now. Since the templates I'm using are questioned now, I'd rather wait for a new standart to be developed than to make more mistakes.
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Sorry, Schot. I'm really sorry. Looks like I get grumpy while sitting next to my laptop at 2am with a terrible headache. I just want to make wiki better, and if I feel that something is not right... Forgive me please.
As for the NPC pages, many of them have nothing but a dialog this NPC offers. Many of the NPC pages were created by Ysne who couldn't take an NPC pic and therefore used images from the quest description. Ysne told me that such a pages should be edited, and I agree with that.
Developing a standart is necessary. For now I'm sitting here doing nothing. I'm waiting for the standart for the NPC pages to be developed. After that I'd be happy to continue working on wiki.
You can choose any template you like, but please remember that there won't be a lot of text on an NPC page. And big blank spaces are not the most pleasant thing to see. The reason I went for a big banner-like portrait on the right is that without it the ad banner on the left side of the page seems to be the most noticeable thing on the page. More to come, the ad defies page size, so if I didn't fill the screen with NPC-themed things it'd look empty and underdeveloped. A lot of older pages give that feeling.
As for the 'Aristrocratic Spy', I asked you to delete this page here three days ago. That page was my mistake, yet I fixed it immediately and asked you to delete the mistyped page. If you didn't notice it back then, I'm not the one to blame.
The thing is - 200 px is more than enough for a thumbnail.. Once you've got the thumb in, you can always right-click on the pic and select Open in a New Window or New Tab. At that point, you can view it in all of it's full sized glory.
That's exactly what I do. And I can tell you it is annoying.
Quest Bestiary - enemies that are part of quests should go here
in Sacred Wiki General Discussion
Posted
Found out that the archmage is not shown as the 'Last opponent', since he died after the fight. So there is no way to get his stats and describe him as a proper enemy. At the same time, the student seems to be just an enemy to me. You have to fight him in both campaigns. The only difference is that in the light one the script doesn't allow him to die (probably makes him invincible). I won't make him into the pure enemy, yet I don't see the NPC description for him.