Quest Bestiary - enemies that are part of quests should go here

[gogoblender 3,071]

Hey guys!

I just saw that the mutated black bear page got created. I just wanted to point out that there is a unique enemies quest bestiary in the wiki. I'll post again what I posted in another topic just a few minutes ago:

I just checked the quest bestiary with schot, this page here in the quest bestiary is where the new page created for Mutated Black Bear should go:

 

http://www.sacredwik...t_Quest_Enemies

 

 

gogo

 

Reason I'm posting this topic, is because it's possible to link quest enemies to the normal bestiary, when in fact, their inclusion in a quest makes them a unique enemy. Because of this, it's important to link them to the Quest Bestiary instead of the normal bestiary. In the case of the Mutated Black Bear, it's easy to see how that page can be associated with the normal t energy mutants page in bestiary. But because that bear is actually an enemy in a quest, he has to be associated with the Quest Bestiary instead.

 

Probably a good strategy is, if making a new quest guide, to first check the quest bestiary to see if that unique enemy has been created already. And if not, the path is clear to create a new Quest Enemy that is a part of the Quest Bestiary.

 

The new Mutated Black Bear is perfect in it's place in the Quest Bestiary, thanks Silverfox for this page!

 

Cheers

 

 

gogo

[Silver_fox 397]

Actually, I'm afraid that I initially didn't link the poor bear to any bestiary. I simply didn't know what to do in order to categorize the page. Now when you explained me where this page belongs, I promise to never repeat this silly mistake. I hope the bear finally got its respectable place. It also helped me to understand what to do with the characters who are NPCs and enemies at the same time. I'm pretty sure those guys are now properly categorized as NPCs and Quest High Elf Enemies: Aristocratic Spy (aka High Nobility Spy), Inquisitor Ortlewyn, Officer of the Inquisition Guard (aka Special Forces Officer). Since many of the quest enemies also offer you a dialog or even a quest, I consider such a double categorizing quite appropriate for some of them.

[Knuckles 904]

Just looked at the mutated bear and it looks good

 

And you are right some NPC's are quest enemies and some enemies are NPC's. So I agree that they be categorized in each section. You will find some quest NPC's that you have to 'defeat' but you don't actually kill. You need to subdue them in order for them to continue the quest dialogue. When I was running thru quests looking for quest enemies, I did not include these types in the bestiary since I could not get a stat page and other than a pic it really wouldn't help anyone with that quest.

 

You may have encountered a quest like this already. The one called Unexpected News has an NPC named Meliondor. He first fights you and then joins you for the final leg of journey

[Silver_fox 397]

Yes, this guy is the first to come in mind. There are also several quests where you end up killing a quest giver. Like Brutus Platocratio or the guys from the Dragon Cult. They are NPCs until the very last moment. It's not good when a user, while trying to find more about the quest giver would suddenly get a page with only an enemy stats on it. Also those guys I mentioned before are NPCs for the Shadow charas and enemies for the Lights ones. Or vice versa. While you are on the other side, you'd never know them as an enemy. So getting just an enemy page would be strange.

 

Actually I even think that all the guys that would become agressive only after you do something are actually a mix of an NPC and an enemy. And one more thing. How about extending an enemy template for the quest enemies. Unlike the usual mobs who are just... mobs, the quest enemies have a story to tell. Maybe we should write a little description for them. Though some of them have not much to tell about.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Silver_fox

[Knuckles 904]

Are you also making (or already made) a separate NPC page for Brutus?

 

If so the easiest way would be to make a Notes section on the quest enemy page with a link to his NPC page. Something like this maybe,

 

Notes:Brutus is actually the quest giver for the Escaped Slaves quest. He will turn into an enemy at the end of the quest. For more info please visit his NPC page or the Quest page.

 

Not really written well but I think you'll get what I'm trying to say. Just a brief sentence about him being a Quest Enemy and NPC with links to the other relevant pages. What do you think?

 

 

Edit: I typed one in for Brutus. Figure we'll make this guy our test subject. I'd like to see the notes part aligned with the other text but I think I need Schot to alter the template for that. Hopefully I can get gogo or Schot to take a look today and let us know what they think about it

[Silver_fox 397]

Sorry for being so-o-o slo-o-ow to reply. That is the third time I type my answer to you. My Internet connection is worse than awful today.

 

Actually I already had some 'guinea pigs'. Those three elves (Aristocratic Spy (aka High Nobility Spy), Inquisitor Ortlewyn, Officer of the Inquisition Guard (aka Special Forces Officer)) were my experiment on trying to describe a quest-enemy-NPC thingy. It's no good to multiply the wiki instances of the same person, so I tried to create the page that would describe an enemy and NPC at the same time by combining both templates in one page. Check them out and tell me, what you think of this idea.

 

And no, I did nothing with Brutus, he just was the first one of this type that came in mind. His NPC page is still red, which allows to do anything we want to him. Though I'd really prefer to make a one page per person, that would combine all the possible info about this person.

[Knuckles 904]

just looked at the Spy page.

 

My only concern is someone looking through the bestiary for the Spy and not finding him under high elf quest enemies. Let me talk with gogo on it and see if we can come up with a solution

[Silver_fox 397]

He IS in a bestiary. I just named him 'High Nobility Spy' there because this is what his enemy stats say. The same is with Ortlewyn and officer. I won't suggest this way if I didn't have a proof that it would really work. Spent some time on it yesterday, but it is all correct now. If you click the 'High Nobility Spy' link above his stats in the bestiary, you'd get to the page I linked you to.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Silver_fox

[Knuckles 904]

Sorry I assumed his name was Aristocratic Spy too in the Bestiary

 

My fault for not reading thoroughly. If it was up to me I'd say it looks really good and the formatting works for me. In fact I like it a lot better than what my suggestion was

[Silver_fox 397]

Well, those double names are a bit confusing, yet I didn't want to entitle it 'Aristocratic Spy' in the bestiary while the screenshot right below it reads 'High Nobility Spy'. According to the story and the place it clearly is the same spy, yet he is named differently. That officer is the same, yet she was initially created as an enemy, so the page title is the same as the bestiary title. Yet in the quest she gives she was mentioned as [[sacred 2:Officer of the Inquisition Guard|Special Forces Officer]].

 

But the rest of the enemy-NPCs I remember are less confusing. At least they would have the same name everywhere.

[Knuckles 904]

You did it the correct way...if he's named that on the stat page then that is what he is called on the bestiary page

[Ysne58 236]

Well, those double names are a bit confusing, yet I didn't want to entitle it 'Aristocratic Spy' in the bestiary while the screenshot right below it reads 'High Nobility Spy'. According to the story and the place it clearly is the same spy, yet he is named differently. That officer is the same, yet she was initially created as an enemy, so the page title is the same as the bestiary title. Yet in the quest she gives she was mentioned as [[sacred 2:Officer of the Inquisition Guard|Special Forces Officer]].

 

But the rest of the enemy-NPCs I remember are less confusing. At least they would have the same name everywhere.

 

When you go through the Powers in Noriath's Corner chain, that officer is called Special Forces Officer. It is the same NPC, just different names in the two different chain quests. I think making notes in the two separate quests about that officer being the same would clarify any confusion, if that hasn't been done already.

 

The light version of the chain calls her Officer of the Inquisition and that was what I found in the quest beastiary. You did a really good job on those pages Silver.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Ysne58

[Ysne58 236]

This is the first one I ran into when I started going through the quests.

 

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacred_2:Abbess_Wilgyrien.

 

Silver if she needs to be changed to fit into your framework, go ahead and do so. I set this one up with suggestions from Schot and Gogo but that was before we encountered the issues in Noriath Temple. You have done a lot of work on that type of page since then.

 

Is it possible to add a link to the NPC pages on the wiki side menu?

Edited January 8, 2011 by Ysne58

[gogoblender 3,071]

just looked at the Spy page.

 

My only concern is someone looking through the bestiary for the Spy and not finding him under high elf quest enemies. Let me talk with gogo on it and see if we can come up with a solution

 

I'm talking about this to Schot now, we'll have have a look and post again here in just a wee bit.

 

 

gogo

[Ysne58 236]

I must say, you guys are right about that spy and that inquisition officer being confusing. It is possible that a note in each quest might not be enough.

[Silver_fox 397]

just looked at the Spy page.

 

My only concern is someone looking through the bestiary for the Spy and not finding him under high elf quest enemies. Let me talk with gogo on it and see if we can come up with a solution

 

I'm talking about this to Schot now, we'll have have a look and post again here in just a wee bit.

 

 

gogo

 

Hey guys, have you noticed the next two posts:

 

He IS in a bestiary. I just named him 'High Nobility Spy' there because this is what his enemy stats say. The same is with Ortlewyn and officer. I won't suggest this way if I didn't have a proof that it would really work. Spent some time on it yesterday, but it is all correct now. If you click the 'High Nobility Spy' link above his stats in the bestiary, you'd get to the page I linked you to.

Sorry I assumed his name was Aristocratic Spy too in the Bestiary

 

My fault for not reading thoroughly. If it was up to me I'd say it looks really good and the formatting works for me. In fact I like it a lot better than what my suggestion was

 

Once more: all the links are correct. This pointed-eared guy just was renamed for the bestiary in order not to confuse the readers with different names in the title and in the stats.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Silver_fox

[Schot 407]

Hey guys. I'm playing catch up at the moment while I read everything here and get an understanding of the goal. Nothing to add yet except with regards to pictures. Could everyone keep the "in content" picture sizes down to a max of 200px in width please and use the S2frame? To do that you would embed the pic like this:

 

{{S2frame|[[image:Officer of the inquisition minimap.jpg|200px]]|left}}

<br clear="left" />

 

 

Just need to add the orange frame code, red bars, the blue part that sets the size and the br thing on the next line. Keep in mind the br thing only applies to this particular template. I left the Officer of the Inquisition Guard page unchanged so that someone could try out the code above.

 

 

Ok, gonna wrap my head around the goal here and come back with feedback!

[Silver_fox 397]

OK. I got your point about the pictures. Yet to tell you the truth, I can't completely agree with you. Little 200px maps are UNINFORMATIVE by themselves. It is impossible to understand a thing on it without clicking on it. Which means - to load another page with the map only and no quest/NPC description. And as a user I really-really want to compare the map with the subject this map shows. I know how to resize pics. After experimenting with different sizes I just felt that anything smaller that 300px is completely unreadable. That results in me opening another window in my browser only to have an access to the map and the text at the same time. As for NPC pages... Well they looked just empty. There is not much text to place on this pages, I prefer to see a readable map, that won't force me to click on it to understand what it is all about, than just an empty space. Leaving the screen half-blank is really no good.

 

I think I'd shut up now. You are an admin here, so I'd have to obey. And don't worry, I would. I just wanted to tell you my point here.

[Schot 407]

Ok, as far as an NPC/Enemy with two names it's very important that both names exist on the wiki for the sake of search ability and indexing by google as well as so that players who search for either one of the named versions of the NPC/Enemy will find what they are looking for at the top of their search results when using search.

 

gogo and I talked about it for a while and it makes sense to have both pages with their independent and related content. The special attention that we'll need to provide on these special case pages is to immediately connect the one version with the other. I would suggest doing this by making the very first line read something like...

 

The Aristocratic Spy will later become High Nobility Spy during the Protecting Noriath's Corner quest.

 

This way the pages will immediately link to eachother AND they'll both appear in the Bestiary via both names making the information about the two versions highly accessible. Ultimately, we're looking to clear any possible confusion within the pages on the very first line and explain these rarities right from the get go.

 

Our angle is kinda like a Dictionary. There can be several words that mean the same thing and although it would seem to be efficient to lump them all under one entry we need to create separate entry for all variations in order to cover as many search criteria as possible. Thus making it easy for players to find info.

 

 

Granted, I really did like your Template idea Silver Fox. It was quite tidy and informative. No doubt there are plenty of opportunities for a fresh template within the wiki.

[Schot 407]

OK. I got your point about the pictures. Yet to tell you the truth, I can't completely agree with you. Little 200px maps are UNINFORMATIVE by themselves. It is impossible to understand a thing on it without clicking on it. Which means - to load another page with the map only and no quest/NPC description. And as a user I really-really want to compare the map with the subject this map shows. I know how to resize pics. After experimenting with different sizes I just felt that anything smaller that 300px is completely unreadable. That results in me opening another window in my browser only to have an access to the map and the text at the same time. As for NPC pages... Well they looked just empty. There is not much text to place on this pages, I prefer to see a readable map, that won't force me to click on it to understand what it is all about, than just an empty space. Leaving the screen half-blank is really no good.

 

I think I'd shut up now. You are an admin here, so I'd have to obey. And don't worry, I would. I just wanted to tell you my point here.

 

 

Sorry Silver. I was in the middle of writing my above post so didn't see this one of yours. No need to get too excited about the picture thing. ^^ I see your point. Let me see if I can find a compromise for us. I have an idea... I'll get back to this later today.

[Ysne58 236]

The Abbess Wylgerian may going to need the same treatment. She is not named in the Strenghting Elixir quest.

[Silver_fox 397]

Sorry Silver. I was in the middle of writing my above post so didn't see this one of yours. No need to get too excited about the picture thing. ^^ I see your point. Let me see if I can find a compromise for us. I have an idea... I'll get back to this later today.

Sorry. I really got carried away. That's my professional issues. Some things about building user interfaces (and a web page is a user interface of sorts) tend to annoy me.

 

By the way, both names for double-named persons really are on the wiki pages. For example, searching for 'High Nobility Spy' would get you to the bestiary, while searching for 'Aristocratic Spy' would get you to the NPC page. Thanks to [[ | ]].

 

That's one of the first rules of a database-building: You should never have two physical instances of the same entity. If you need to name one entity differently, you should create one physical instance and just use it with various aliases (in our case the link's caption can be considered an alias of an actual page).

 

I'm not trying to say that my initial idea was the best. I'm pretty sure, in the end, we'd come up with a better thing.

 

Sorry. Looks like I got carried away again.

[Schot 407]

The Abbess Wylgerian may going to need the same treatment. She is not named in the Strenghting Elixir quest.

 

Definitely! I noticed that an image was broken on that page earlier today so did a bit of tinkering and it's certainly going to need a treatment.

 

 

Sorry Silver. I was in the middle of writing my above post so didn't see this one of yours. No need to get too excited about the picture thing. ^^ I see your point. Let me see if I can find a compromise for us. I have an idea... I'll get back to this later today.

Sorry. I really got carried away. That's my professional issues. Some things about building user interfaces (and a web page is a user interface of sorts) tend to annoy me.

 

By the way, both names for double-named persons really are on the wiki pages. For example, searching for 'High Nobility Spy' would get you to the bestiary, while searching for 'Aristocratic Spy' would get you to the NPC page. Thanks to [[ | ]].

 

That's one of the first rules of a database-building: You should never have two physical instances of the same entity. If you need to name one entity differently, you should create one physical instance and just use it with various aliases (in our case the link's caption can be considered an alias of an actual page).

 

I'm not trying to say that my initial idea was the best. I'm pretty sure, in the end, we'd come up with a better thing.

 

Sorry. Looks like I got carried away again.

 

I just tried a search for High Nobility Spy and I get this. Unfortunately I don't see a link to High Nobility Spy with regards to the bestiary anywhere. It's a great source of info but we'd like to do even better and get right to the point of interest. In addition if try to find it via my address bar which I sometimes do I will get this.

 

In terms of our database that is something I have much experience I can say with certainty that the mediawiki database layout is quite an efficient one. So much so that it simply wouldn't allow us to have duplicates. Not only does each page have dozens of markers such as timestamps they are conveniently ID'd numerically so no need to worry about corruption there. Interestingly enough, while passing through our database I came across another page called Aristrocratic Spy which I've deleted. In the case of NPC's we want to provide exactly what the searcher expects. A page about the NPC they are looking for with as little cause for confusion as possible.

 

For the record I do very much like the work you've done Silver. Your descriptions are a treat to read.

 

 

 

After spending quite a bit of time in the realm of NPC I've noticed that there is a great deal of difference in layout from one NPC page to another. We started off with fairly small portatraits which have taken several shapes over time now so I think this is a brilliant time to develop a standard to follow. As you might have guessed by now I'm a stickler for pixels, lol. Though not without reason in my defense! There's just a couple things which I'll talk about tomorrow.

 

Time for dodo!

[wolfie2kX 528]

OK. I got your point about the pictures. Yet to tell you the truth, I can't completely agree with you. Little 200px maps are UNINFORMATIVE by themselves. It is impossible to understand a thing on it without clicking on it. Which means - to load another page with the map only and no quest/NPC description. And as a user I really-really want to compare the map with the subject this map shows. I know how to resize pics. After experimenting with different sizes I just felt that anything smaller that 300px is completely unreadable. That results in me opening another window in my browser only to have an access to the map and the text at the same time. As for NPC pages... Well they looked just empty. There is not much text to place on this pages, I prefer to see a readable map, that won't force me to click on it to understand what it is all about, than just an empty space. Leaving the screen half-blank is really no good.

 

I think I'd shut up now. You are an admin here, so I'd have to obey. And don't worry, I would. I just wanted to tell you my point here.

 

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.

[Silver_fox 397]

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.

Edited January 9, 2011 by Silver_fox