Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 12

This page is an archive. The contents have been moved from another page for reference purposes only, and should be preserved in their current form. Discussion or voting on this page is not current. Any additions you make will probably not be read.
The current version of this page can be found at Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Community portal.

Property:Has ingredient changes

Hi, I've made some changes to Property:Has ingredient - notably adding an index property - so that we can keep track of individual ingredients which basically means if a recipe contains two of the same item separately, then we can display that correctly, previously it was broken and would only display the first instance. I've noted this in the sitenotice because there are an enormous number of pages temporarily showing "(content temporarily disabled)". These changes were discussed at Template talk:Recipe beforehand.

Templates affected by this change:

Anything reporting recipe ingredients, e.g. {{recipe list}}.

I'm waiting for the changes made to Template:Recipe to work through the job queue before I edit the templates that query the ingredients to their final form. Apologies for the mess it makes in the meantime, it should only be <24 hours though. -Chieftain Alex 11:23, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The job queue is slowly going down (not as fast as I had hoped), so it might be tomorrow morning (14 hours from now) before I restore recipe read functionality to recipe list. -Chieftain Alex

17:03, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, hadn't noticed any complaints yet, so I think we're in the clear. Looks neat too. —Ventriloquist 17:04, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok I think I've changed everything necessary. Now to consider the TP total widget. -Chieftain Alex

18:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Raid Walkthroughs

Right now, we don't have a walkthrough for the complete Spirit Vale wing, just for the bosses. And the walkthroughs of each boss are not in the Spirit Vale page but in each boss page. I'm asking this because in each dungeon page, we have the complete walkthrough including the bosses and not in each boss like in raids. This makes 2 different ways to "format" the content. Should we keep it like that or merge into the Spirit Vale walkthought? Or write the Spirit Vale walkthrough with the links for each boss page? - Raikiri 17:40, 07 February 2016 (UTC)

Raid wing articles (e.g., Spirit Vale) should get their own full walkthrough. The bosses should not get any - if its expected folks will go to the boss page for a walkthrough then there should be a {{main|Spirit Vale#Walkthrough}} slapped in the walkthrough's place.

Was typing this but Konig was faster. Basically the raid instance takes priority over boss pages. —Ventriloquist 17:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

That's why i asked. Why were we doing different from dungeons and didn't make sense. I will start moving and write some of it - Raikiri 17:50, 07 February 2016 (UTC)

Skill damage

Could a template be made to automatically calculate skill damage based off of the coefficient? My personal testing in-game has found that tooltip damage is equal to (Weapon Strength * Coefficient * Power / 2597) and is rounded to the nearest number. If such a template is made, should it use PvP weapon strength (lvl 78 exo), level 80 exo, or level 80 ascended?

I'm asking this because I've seen so many skills where the damage hasn't been updated because of it being such a chore to do so after every single balance patch. Coefficients are much easier to get, but the damage requires equipping a level 80 exo in PvE with no +power on it and stripping yourself naked. Towelcat (talk) 05:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

We display the damage formula in the skill tooltip.--Relyk ~ talk < 12:00, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

While true, this still doesn't fix the issue with the damage values being pretty meaningless if they're not all uniform and properly displayed. Why have them if they're not correct? Towelcat (talk) 00:18, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

You need weapon type to look up the weapon strength to derive the damage for weapon skills. That requires looking up the weapon type with two query calls, but shouldn't have much of a performance issue. Utility and elite skills can assume the level 80 value. The problem is with bundle and transform skills because we don't track internal weapon strengths and can't maintain a lookup table for all bundles and transforms in the game.

I would add the damage value manually for both as only the bundles and transforms available to professions will change and are relatively few. The other complication is transforms scale differently with power, may provide the might boon, and provide multipliers on base stats, calculating that isn't feasible.--Relyk ~ talk < 03:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

UrlGet extension for dynamic forms and preloading API data

Semantic Forms cannot be parameterized and we can't parse the values being pass to the templates. This limits forms in a lot of useful ways, especially with our query forms. Pass values to a form in order to dynamically change its content suggests using the UrlGet extension to pass parameters to the forms. An example would be listing all the recipes available for an item on Form:Base ingredients query. The other issue it may resolve is parameter names with spaces in RunQuery URL links, as this forces us to change the template rather than the form. It's a significant drawback in using query forms because many of our templates have spaces in the parameter names. :/

For #forminput and page creation, this allows us to an id, context Property:Has context), and other information to format the form correctly. An easy way to look up item information from the API would be to have a widget that does the item search like gw2itemsearch and generate the parameters to pass to the form. We can use all the existing features in Semantic Forms. Our goal would be to look like event creation example.

An option for preloading API data is using the 'sfEditFormPreloadText' hook mentioned in mw:Extension:Semantic_Forms/Linking_to_forms#Preloading_data. I have no idea how to do so and don't think it's an option. A possible option without the extension for dynamic forms would be to have a widget on forms directly, but the form changing constantly and the widget would have to handle hooking onto Semantic Forms directly instead of having the wiki do so on its behalf. It would also be impossible for people making forms (me?) ensure compatibility with the widget.--Relyk ~ talk < 23:38, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

That extension only runs when the page loads, can we really not display certain bits of a form based on the input URL parameters without it? -81.135.73.149 09:46, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean by input URL parameters?--Relyk ~ talk < 22:28, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Acronym redirects

Have these been suggested/attempted before? What are the thoughts on them? Being able to type /wiki SYG to get the page for "Stand Your Ground!" would be great. Towelcat (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This is already done for common things, e.g. AC, CM, HotW, FotM. Whether a redirect makes sense depends a bit on how likely that acronym is. So if “SYG” is really a common thing to write when meaning "Stand Your Ground!", then you may create a redirect to it. poke | talk 15:33, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Icons for items added to the items api in the 19th April patch

Hey guys, I thought I'd make finding the icons a tiny bit easier by uploading all of the icons from the API (starting at item ID #78117) to a zipped folder on my google drive. link. I've saved them sorted by item name (removed duplicates). -Chieftain Alex 20:03, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

July 26th Patch Notes

Many of the skill changes from the recent patch notes have not yet been added to the wiki. I've been picking through them slowly myself, but do we not have anyone actively working on this? I don't want to do it all by myself pls help :(

I'm fine with doing any skill damage changes because I'm incredibly familiar with the game's formula by now, but when it comes to cooldowns, base healing/heal scaling, skill descriptions, etc. I would really appreciate some assistance :B Towelcat (talk) 02:40, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I'll start working on it while waiting for my PvP queues to pop. —Ventriloquist 10:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I went through all of the changes in the patch notes related to professions, so everything should be up-to-date now. —Ventriloquist 13:31, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm currently going through each skill+trait (from bottom to top) to make sure description and facts are up-to-date. --BryghtShadow (talk)

Reached finished rev. I'll resume from ranger later. --BryghtShadow (talk) 16:38, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

You guys are absolute machines. Bryght, does that include damage facts too? (coefficient & dmg) Towelcat (talk) 17:21, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

SMW for recipes with same name that teach distinct disciplines

As an example, Recipe: Superior Sigil of Torment are 3 recipe sheets with the same name that each teach a recipe for 1 discipline (i.e. Artificer, Huntsman, Weaponsmith).

The TP has different prices (at time of writing, Artificer 5g70s, Huntsman 1g44s, Weaponsmith 1g55s).
The Pact Supply Network Agent occasionally sells the sheets.
"Consuming one only opens the recipe for one discipline so choose carefully when buying".

(item#48912) is for weaponsmith, therefore I expect "Weaponsmith" when I write:

{{#ask:[[Learned from recipe sheet::{{#ask:[[Has game id::48912]]|link=none}}]]
| ?Requires discipline
| mainlabel = -
| headers = hide
| link = none}}

In reality, it returns 3:

I would really like a way to separate all sheets that are distinct. I don't want to "just hardcode it" whenever I wish to use SMW. --BryghtShadow (talk) 07:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Although far from a solution I'll point something out in case it was forgotten. I believe that 2 weeks ago (maybe more?) Recipes were made account wide. So prior to that it was important that those recipes be kept separate (from an IG perspective); but at this point they are all equivalent. Statement invalid; see further comments -Darqam (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Does unlocking the Weaponsmith recipe unlock it for Artificer/Huntsman now as well? I was just under the impression that if you unlocked the Weaponsmith one that it would unlock that recipe for all of your weaponsmiths. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Towelcat (talk • contribs) at 18:21, 9 August 2016‎ (UTC).

The recipes were made account-wide unlock in the July 26, 2016 update. However, the recipe sheets only teach for the discipline listed in the tooltip. So, if you buy the Huntsman-only recipe (~1g55s buyout on TP at time of writing), it won't teach all your artificers the recipe (~5g55s buyout on TP at time of writing). Even though they produce the same result using the same ingredients, they are still "separate" enough. --BryghtShadow (talk) 19:27, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh ok; apologies for the confusion. -Darqam (talk) 19:44, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

ArenaNet Q&A

Hey peeps, I had a conversation with our main man Stephane last night about a bunch of lore- and mechanic-related questions Doodleplex emailed him last month that he passed around the ArenaNet office. He has now posted the answers to those questions to the wiki so we can cite them in articles, and he's also offered to make it a regular feature wherein we'd collect questions and submit them to him to try and get answers for, perhaps once a month. Now obviously these questions should be related to content that we can't easily discern in-game and that we can use to improve the wiki, not just out of idle curiosity. This is a great opportunity to, for instance, flesh out more threadbare content or clear up speculated and disputed info, so I think it goes without saying that we should take him up on it. The question, then, is how we should collect (and select?) questions and how we should present the answers we get back. I have some vague ideas about both that I'll write up later, but for now I'd welcome any ideas and suggestions. - Felix Omni 16:05, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The first thing that comes to mind is to make a dedicated community page and have it behave like a talk page. People can propose a subject, and debate over details during the month. Once the month is over, it gets thrown in an archive. This would allow people to potentially figure out an answer without going to anet. Maybe have a red "X" beside the unresolved questions, and a green checkmark if we end up resolving them ourselves. After the time is up, Stephan can take a look at the page, and determine for himself which ones are appropriate or not and move on with those.

We could also have the admins/mods/invested users play a semi-moderator role and cut out the evidently un-fitting questions. -Darqam (talk) 16:12, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The ability to clear-house is important, yes. While we may want answers, there will be times when silence is all Anet can reasonably give us. Time-frame for clearing-house and who would be in charge? *shrug*

I'd also like to note that a lore Q&A thread opened up on the forums to cover many wonderful questions. To that point, I would argue that if the wiki is going to dive into this style, I'd like it to be more self-serving; "...related to content that we can't easily discern in-game and that we can use to improve the wiki, not just out of idle curiosity." puts it nicely. I'm hesitant to go so far as to say that the need for a question should cite a wiki article, but the intended payoff should be to wiki growth/clarification/accuracy. G R E E N E R 16:42, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The first thing that comes to mind is the {{verify}} tag, maybe poking through there and pulling questions from there that players cannot find the answer to easily in game? - Do_odleplex 18:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I kind of imagined this the way Darq described it - basically a list of (reasonable) questions that the users have related to the game that we ourselves cannot 'answer'. Maybe I'll finally get my answer as to where Farmer Niklas disappeared to... —Ventriloquist 21:17, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there are enough wiki-related questions to be monthly; maybe bi-monthly or after a Living World release.--Relyk ~ talk < 02:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

That might end up being the case but I wouldn't assume it going in. We could consider alternate timings, like "submit when we have 10 questions" or something, but that's probably premature. - Felix Omni 15:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Minor detail, but if things need to be cited, the wiki is better than the forums, as I've discovered a few dead GW2 forum links today. - Do_odleplex 06:14, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I hope nobody minds that I went ahead on this, but I made a project page along the lines of the "Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Reporting wiki bugs" page/similar to Darqam's idea. This way people can ask questions, Stephane can come in and answer, and it can be archived later. I already put up some questions I've been pondering about. Feel free to poke it if you think it needs to be tweaked in terms of layout or what have you. - Do_odleplex 18:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Odd interwikis

We've got some odd interwikis in Special:Interwiki, specifically:

commons
dictionary
google
mediazilla
metawikipedia
wikia
wikiquote
wikisource
wikt
wiktionary

Google obviously is not a wiki and should not be there at all, the others are stuff that wikipedia would use but I don't think that we do. Can I remove these? -Chieftain Alex 16:36, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

That’s fine with me. Are we sure those are not used though? poke | talk 07:04, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Pretty sure wiktionary is used in some places. I have never seen any others used. The only other one I would keep is commons.--Relyk ~ talk < 02:41, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Decoration Images with Pumpkins

A lot of the decoration images have something else included in them for reference, most often it seems to be pumpkins. I was wondering if these are a good idea or not, as I feel like while helpful perhaps, not all of the decorations images do have a pumpkin, and it's kind of inconsistent to have some with it and some without. Not to mention sometimes it would also be a tad impracticable to have a pumpkin for some of the ridiculously large decorations like Globe of Whispers or Super King Frog, though it might be slightly hysterical. - Do_odleplex 23:05, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not really a fan of them. I personally feel that most of the decorations scale pretty obviously; the size can also be estimated on most screenshots when comparing the decoration to the surrounding environment. —Ventriloquist 23:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

So our lack of banana decorations means we use pumpkins for scale? Konig 00:58, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

NO SOUP FOR YOU! *smacks*

And that's a pretty valid point. If nobody else chirps up by Friday, I'll photoshop the pumpkins out _{and then make pumpkin pie}. - Do_odleplex 02:29, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

are you going to share this pie? thank you in advance cus im stealin a slice (also this page should probably be archived soon, it's longer than the previous archive) Towelcat (talk) 07:52, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The pumpkin scale (probably maybe) began with my guild, because I (probably maybe) suggested "I think we need something for scale".
If/when they are removed, they will be missed. Rest In Pieces Eternally, Pumpkins-For-Scale, 2016–2016. --BryghtShadow (talk) 11:22, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I've came across at least two decoration picture where the player used themselves as measurement, others with random objects, and then there was the pumpkins hence the initial question of "is it a good idea to have something in the picture for scale?" because it was just so inconsistent(not to mention players shouldn't be in wiki pictures as objects of scale). If people strongly prefer pumpkins per scale objects(okay I just wanted to make a tongue twister there), a second gallery image can be used to have the decoration with a pumpkin but the primary image should be the decoration by itself. *works on pumpkin pie for wiki* - Do_odleplex 20:37, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I uploaded many of these images with pumpkins for scale. They are a far more relatable scale than player height. Even if the pumpkin images aren't used as primary images, I still believe that they serve an important function in these articles, like to demonstrate how surprisingly small a Mists Dolyak Statue is. Doodleplex, instead of photoshopping existing images, you're welcome to retake them; I can send you an invite to my three-person guild where I made one of every decoration (except some trophies) for my guild hall decorations catalog. -- Dashface

23:20, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Like I said, if you think they need an image for scale, feel free to add a second image, but I do I agree with Ventriloquist that the surrounding environment is usually a pretty good idea of how big or small something is. And it's much quicker to do a quick crop than retake photos(though some do need to be retaken because the guy put a snow maker behind them). - Do_odleplex 23:42, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I can't think of any surrounding environment that would be suitable, especially for size context. I'd image that the ideal background is as plain as possible. -- Dashface

23:52, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

These image changes are vexing. Effort is being expended to make the decoration articles less helpful. -- Dashface

00:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I never said you couldn't add the second image of the object with a pumpkin for scale, nor did anybody say that. You can add in the second image if you want of something as a scale reference (stairs might be a good object to use) using "| gallery2 = image with thing for scale.jpg". My main issue was that the main decoration pictures were inconsistent, some had no item, some had people, some had chairs, some had pumpkins, candles, quaggans(okay no quaggans but...) it was alllll over the place. Not to mention really the main image of the article should show the decoration/object by itself simple and clean. - Do_odleplex 00:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Why not rename the existing images to +"with Pumpkin for scale" instead of uploading over them? -- Dashface

01:20, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think you're getting it. Main image = decoration.jpg should be decoration by itself, clean and simple. That's how it is for all images of things, and that's how it has been as far as I can tell. If extra images are needed, we use gallery2 = image.jpg. If you want pictures for scale, it should be a second image probably "Decoration (scale).jpg" Now if you need me, I'm making pie lol. - Doodleplex

Do we need scale references in the first place? Images are pretty bad for showing scale and difficult for users to produce. Ideally, we would get in-game renders scaled against a human model render.--Relyk ~ talk < 02:18, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The scale of many of these decorations is simply not obvious without context. And the whole point of having these images is for people to preview them before crafting. How large is a human? How large is a pumpkin? How large is a stair? Only one of these is a generally consistent and relatable size. -- Dashface

02:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

"And the whole point of having these images is for people to preview them before crafting"

Exactly, which is why the mainspace image should show only the object, and nothing else. Additional images, such as other decorations for scaling or maybe details of the decoration itself can be added to the 'other images' tab via Filename size comparison.jpg. —Ventriloquist 17:41, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Why not rename the existing images to +"with Pumpkin for scale" instead of uploading over them? -- Dashface

01:20, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

In retrospect, Doodle starting this 'project' without thinking she'll need to 'save' the pumpkin images, which is why she uploaded over them, and didn't think to move them. —Ventriloquist 18:19, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

(Reset indent) It's pretty easy re-save the old images, and re-upload them as a new file, but I'm kinda leaning towards using stairs instead of pumpkins. Reason: stairs actually do have a standard set size set height both in the real world and in game and both guilds have stairs, so if somebody wanted to upload a picture for scale they wouldn't have to worry about having a pumpkin. Also, I don't mind re-shooting the decorations with/on/by stairs for scale either by the way, for a "scale" image. - Do_odleplex 18:37, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

If the consensus is stairs, I can go along with that. So long as the frame of reference is consistent, players can compare images to get a feel for comparative sizes. For instance, how tiny the Mists Dolyak Statue is. And there's a 50% chance they'll have the guild hall where the screenshots were taken. I lead a three-person guild in which I crafted every craftable decoration (except some difficult Silver/Gold boss trophies), and I would be happy to send you an invite so that you could take reference screenshots of these in whichever setting you'd like, Doodleplex. -- Dashface

18:49, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm all full on guilds sadly. =( Your pictures were fine, just upload the new scale pictures as "Decoration (scale).jpg" or "Decoration (height).jpg" and all will be well. =) - Do_odleplex 18:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

disambig: guild storage items

I'm going through the various Guild Storage items, and was looking at the blueprints. Scribes can make a Guild Flame Ram Blueprint (schematic), which deposits a Guild Flame Ram Blueprint (guild storage) into the guild storage, which can be activated to produce a Guild Flame Ram Blueprints (correct name is singular, btw). Should the item be the primary article, since that's what people would probably be looking for? --BryghtShadow (talk) 10:44, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Getting Chat Codes - how does that work?

How do you get chat codes or item IDs for things?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Katubug (talk • contribs) at 00:49, 22 September 2016 (UTC).

Heya, most ids are found in one of two ways. Either you go in game, type in your chat box "/wiki " and then shift+click the item/trait/effect/whatever to link the item. When you hit enter your default browser will open this wiki while it searches for the item. After about 2-3 seconds the wiki page will show you the id number of the object you "pinged".

An alternate method is to navigate through the API via websites such as gw2itemsearch or dulfy database. -Darqam (talk) 01:03, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Latest Talk Pages Discussion Log

It'd be beneficial to have a log of the latest discussions available on the Recent Changes page, like the one over on the German wiki. Currently, discussions are easily missed due to the amount of edits, particularly minor edits, happening. A log would allow us to keep track of ongoing and/or new discussions and aid in improving the visibility and response rate. Thoughts? talk 15:01, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the RC can get flooded at times *whistles*. That's a cool log, and it looks like they've had it for many years. I couldn't find an equivalent in the Special namespace. I've relied on using this search in the recent changes, but it keeps the edits split if they're on different days, rather than bundling them up like that log does. G R E E N E R 15:58, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Fancy. Too bad it misses user talk and special page discussions. Aside from this, splitting the discussions up per day seems nice though as it looks cleaner.

talk 16:04, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Oooo! I didn't notice the German version grabbed from all namespaces (blaming coffee which I still haven't made). Now I'm very much a fan of getting a log like that. G R E E N E R 16:24, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

{{#dpl:
| namespace=Talk¦User_talk¦Template_talk¦API_talk¦Guild_Wars_2_Wiki_talk
| ordermethod=lastedit
| count=40
| order=descending
| addeditdate = true
| addlasteditor = true
| userdateformat = d. M Y, H:i
| format = ,\n* ,%DATE%: [[%PAGE%]] . . [[Benutzer:%USER%¦%USER%]] <small>{ %EDITSUMMARY% }</small>,
| allowcachedresults = true
}}

Don't know why they disabled caching. I use the newsletter to highlight major discussions.--Relyk ~ talk < 20:33, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

And Alex already put this in the sandbox. I don't know if I'd include Help, Category, or File cause the little activity there tends to be trivial.--Relyk ~ talk < 20:38, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

It takes ages to load, which makes me think that it is quite an intensive query (possibly a bad thing). They will have disabled caching because they'll want the most recent 40 conversations and to avoid pressing purge every time they visit the page to refresh the data. -Chieftain Alex

20:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

lastedit/addlasteditor completely kills the query, probably parsing every page and sorting every page before filtering by date. We can cache if we're showing the past week or month. If it's a single day, we can try a RecentChanges API widget.--Relyk ~ talk < 05:06, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

It seems that if wiki code exists in the edit summary (e.g ~~an assignment to a category~~ <pre>), the list can get interrupted. I was able to "fix" it by adding a <nowki> around the edit summary, but of course that stops the summary from working. G R E E N E R 21:49, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

NPCs named in dialogue only

I've found two NPC pages of NPCs that are "named" in dialogue only: Vimma and Yotta. "Vimma" is simply named "Pedestrian" overhead and has no dialogue nor interaction, and the only reference to the npc having a name is the ambient dialogue, and the second one "Yotta" (of which I'm half convinced is an asura diss lol) is also from ambient dialogue/has no interaction dialogue, but the over head name is just "Progeny" or sometimes "Tiny Progeny" if the event before it gets a tad buggy and some of the npcs stay tiny. A bunch of pages link to "Yotta" at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it's random which of the Progeny in the area is "Yotta". Also these NPCs are regular generic NPCs like Citizen or Worker and if they really need their own pages(it kinda feels like dejavu from Ande's pet rabbits having pages but they had no overhead names and really had no reason to have pages), how should the pages actually be named? - Do_odleplex 06:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

In GWW, we did make articles for NPCs that appeared in dialogue only if they were of significance to the lore in some degree, even a small degree. We often put them into their own category: GWW:Category:Unseen NPCs. I do think we can do the same here, we do at least for the significant NPCs. In the situation of pet animals I see no point, but for Vimma and Yotta I don't see why not. They are unique NPCs, just not with a unique name. Just slap a note at the bottom saying "in-game, they are called <insert generic name here>". Konig (talk) 13:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Article for upscaling mechanic

The upscaling mechanic is pretty big in the game, part of both story instances and open world events. There is no article for it directly, does it ever get mentioned elsewhere with an explanation to how it functions in both general and more specific situations? And if there isn't, should there be? Konig (talk) 13:40, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Dynamic level adjustment. Please feel free to create as many redirects to it as you wish. -Chieftain Alex

18:14, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

That article doesn't cover what I am referring to at all. I refer to the foe NPCs being upscaled (increased rank, level, and number of foes) and event objectives requiring more of the objective to be completed (whether this is foes killed, objects destroyed, etc.) and champion bosses (if not regular foes too) having increased health and damage without increased rank/level. The article only talks about the effects on the player characters.

So then my question becomes: should we talk about both in that article, or create a separate article for it? Konig (talk) 18:22, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Separate articles, "Dynamic level adjustment" is a pretty vague term because it can mean either in the general sense. The term is dedicated to player upscaling and downscaling for the game though. I would stick the section on NPC for now. They are closely related as both take place in the same space and players should know how they interact together.--Relyk ~ talk < 19:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

A link to that seperate article and "Dynamic level adjustment" wouldn't hurt, either. Maybe have a small paragraph on it with a {{main}}. —Ventriloquist 21:05, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Carp, I got the wrong end of the wiki again. -Chieftain Alex

22:10, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. The topic is ultimately related to three things: dynamic event, NPC, and Story Journal. The latter already needs a rewrite IMO and is something I plan to get around to sometime. I think ultimately the topic will need its own page, but a "preview" section on those three and Dyanmic level adjustment with a {{main}} wouldn't hurt. I think a main article at "Upscale" is best, since there is no downscaling of the NPCs (except going back towards the norm). I'll get to making such when I get some sleep (been up too long for large stuff atm). Konig (talk) 23:03, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

No I would call it that, upscaling and downscaling of NPCs both occur at spawn time based on the number of players. The norm or baseline is no players. We only care about upscaling portion in reality.--Relyk ~ talk < 23:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Ambient Dialogue Placement

Swamplost Haven and Godslost Swamp have the same dialogue on both pages, however the ambient dialogue would only be heard if you were in Swamplost Haven, so should it be on both places, or removed from the area page as it's really dialogue linked to the haven, no?

Also Stonetwist Paths is a bit of an issue as well, because if I were to list alllllll of the dialogue for Stonetwist Paths, it would probably be as much fun scrolling the List of pet locations page. Yes there is regular ambient dialogue, that's not too much of a problem, but then there is dialogue that appears in the chat box given by Chief Engineer Timblin, Master-at-Arms Neary, and Doctor Elly, all of whom stand directly on top of the Shaded Spring point of interest, that gets really long, and their dialogue is only triggers/only occurs once based on what event is occurring in the meta, even though they are usually no where near the event. I'm wondering then if the dialogue between those three could be put else so the page doesn't become a scrolling nightmare. My first thought was, since it is triggered by events in the Outpost: Pact Encampment meta event maybe put it on that page, but if there's a reason it shouldn't be there, maybe could it be put on the Shaded Springs PoI page because they are, like I said, directly on top of it.

Or tl/dr; How do you know when to put dialogue on a PoI(and occasionally a landmark) page instead of the area page, or should that not be a thing? & HoT documentation is still a pain in the butt to figure out where to put stuff, what do? - Do_odleplex 20:39, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

"their dialogue is only triggers/only occurs once based on what event is occurring in the meta" In this particular case, I would say that dialogue belongs on the event page (not the meta event, but the actual events - meta events should only have dialogue that is not tied to a specific event but instead the event chain as a whole, such as the Mouth of Mordremoth's banter). Whenever spoke dialogue is triggered by the prelude of, current activity of, or recent completion of an event that dialogue belongs on the respective event articles. Same with when spoken dialogue is triggered by a dialogue box option that should go on the NPC article.

As for the question of PoI over area, as I see it there are three viable options: 1) have it only on the area article, 2) have it on both, or 3) have it on the PoI article with a link to it from the area article. Personally I am in favor of the second option. The third option is a bit ugly, IMHO, with all the {{main}} linkages. And the first option leaves the PoI articles largely barren. Konig (talk) 20:51, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I thought we had a discussion before about repeating dialogue on more than one page? I prefer #3, tbh. —Ventriloquist 21:17, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we'll ever put ambient dialogue on a PoI. That makes it impossible for users to track down ambient dialogue in an area or decide if the ambient dialogue is close enough to PoI to add there.--Relyk ~ talk < 21:30, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Was pondering for a bit, but Relyk's right, it starts getting too tricky to know if it should go to the PoI or the area page, so it probably should just be on area pages, but use ";Dialogue by X PoI"(something along those lines) above the dialogue where it applies. I'm still none to sure about the event triggered dialogue and putting it on the event page though, only because it doesn't refer to the events themselves, or at least what I have doesn't. I do think the dialogue triggered by who arrives at the camp in first/second/third is meta dialogue/belongs on the meta event page, but the rest... *ponders* After Halloween is passed, I'm gonna stake that place out to get all the dialogue as that should help, hopefully, figure it all out nice 'n pretty. - Do_odleplex 22:36, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

HTML Code

Any reason why & mdash ;(well, that without the spaces, as for some reason neither <pre> nore <code> worked to show it) is used sometimes instead of just "—"? If it's for cross browser compatibility, I should think the latter should work all over the place by now, unless there's something I don't know about. - Do_odleplex 19:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Personally I replace mdash // rarr with the equivalent symbol whenever possible. Anything complex like ndash or wingdings I'd go for the ampersand version. It doesn't matter and they are the same and have always been the same. -Chieftain Alex

20:00, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I hate when people do that personally. I prefer things I can type on my keyboard for editing and can't confuse with other characters.--Relyk ~ talk < 20:02, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't like either, and since there seems to be no reason anymore to use that HTML code, I'll be replacing it when I find it. Yay! - Do_odleplex 20:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I meant using characters instead of HTML codes, so yeah...--Relyk ~ talk < 21:43, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

NPC event template

Was pondering, what if instead of manually putting in every event an NPC is involved in, a template was made to automatically pull every event it's in and put it on the NPC's page, similar to how area pages have a template that pull events that are located in it and displays it on the page? Might save a lot of time looking up and copy pasting events to NPC pages. - Do_odleplex 01:18, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Alex and others would know more for sure but IIRC, that pulls from information put in the event infobox, which related NPCs are not. I suppose it might be possible to run a query that compares the What links here to articles with event infoboxes though... If possible, might even be worth doing the same for location and story/heart involvement? Doubt it is though. Konig (talk) 01:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Even if we did, it's relatively static information and there isn't many ways I can think of for it to be useful outside of simply pointed out the relation. I don't think it's feasible for the wiki.--Relyk ~ talk < 04:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

What if we made a template to put all the npcs onto the event sematic page. This template would display the allies/foes in the same layout we have currently. Then it can be queried from the NPCs page. For example:

{{Event npc| allies = Agent Zildi, B.O.X., Bongo the One-Eyed| foes = Mouth of Mordremoth}}

J.Tesla (talk) 20:14, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Like I said, there is no reason for semanticizing it. We can consider enemies that spawn or are nearby the event as related, but that's trivial information. No one looking at an NPC page cares that a Fire Elemental NPC spawns during 10 different events. I don't know how we can make that useful to people. People can typically find that information by the proximity of the area for the NPC and event.--Relyk ~ talk < 20:48, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

The information is already being written onto the NPCs page manually so this would save editors time. An edit would only be made to the event page and all the NPC pages would be updated automatically.J.Tesla (talk) 21:07, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

That's not a reason for SMW and ignored everything I said. Editing is easy, can be automated, and only needs to be done once. The overhead you add with SMW, the fact the relation is relatively static, that we have no use cases, and the introduced complexity is much more significant.--Relyk ~ talk < 21:36, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Renown Heart Task area

So, I've been going through the renown heart NPCs fixing dialogue formatting, adding locations, little stuff mostly, along with adding interwiki links to both the NPC and their task if needed. I've noticed something in the process which is, the NPC is sometimes in one location, but the actual area where you can complete the renown heart is sometimes in a different area from the NPC. For example, Help Sentinel Liharn disrupt the Inquest, the renown heart NPC is in Relliatus Canyon, but the area of influence is right next door in InGenium Research Facility. Should the area for the Renown Heart task listed on it's page be where the renown heart NPC is, or where the area(s) it can be completed? - Do_odleplex 22:34, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm gonna go with active area. —Ventriloquist 11:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Skill Names with Periods

Was wondering if perhaps similar to how we don't use periods in event titles, if people would be up for dropping it from skills as well. For example "Plant a brown thorny turret seed." and "You can not use this skill right now." just looks a tad weird to me. - Do_odleplex 04:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Navigation Templates

I’d like to start a discussion about the use of Navigation Templates. I’d like to know the general opinion of them and if we can make better use of them. We have over 150 navigation templates and double that if we include all of weapon/armour navs.

What information should be in a nav? Would that information be better displayed in the infobox?
Is it better to use the category system instead of navs in some cases? Which ones?
How should navs be formatted? Should they have icons, - or •, small text, full names or abbreviations?
If a page has two different navs which should come first?
Most of these navs are static and unchanging but some would benefit from being re-written to dynamically add links using SMW. The {{Creature nav}} does this but it could be used for the armour and weapon navs among others. Those 200 armour/weapon templates could be cut down to 2 if done properly. Would there be any serious overhead on the server by doing this?

J.Tesla (talk) 22:25, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

“Those 200 armour/weapon templates could be cut down to 2 if done properly.” – What would be the benefit though to get rid of 200 static and simple templates in order to replace them by a very complicated logic that only very few people will be able to maintain? I’m not against dynamic solutions, but the work is already done and it works nicely, is easily maintainable, and can be copied quickly for new armor/weapon sets. poke | talk 07:35, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, dynamic lists have a place, but not in navs. If you use a static template for weapon pages then you're creating helpful red links for other users to create the remaining weapons. Other points: one nav per page with very few exceptions, with bullet separators and no icons, infoboxes are for information about the item, they are not for "18 other pages you might also like". -Chieftain Alex

07:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Complicated logic can be annotated. If red links are useful they can be added by default and turned off with a property. Using the weapon navs was a bad example since the work has already been done but if a new nav needed to be created with 100 variations would it not be easier to start with a dynamic nav? I’m not suggesting that every nav be dynamic, just in the rare occasions that there are variations in the nav depending on which page it is on. Could a nav have icons if the items listed follow a logical structured pattern like the {{Common crafting materials nav}}? J.Tesla (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Navs don't change often enough that it's necessary. I don't know any navs that require 100 variations, and if it did, we can have a bot add them. Alex has done that kind of stuff before.--Relyk ~ talk < 01:21, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Here is my template for a dynamic nav to generate a list of items for each collection depending on which page it is pasted onto. There are 232 collections with 4004 unique items. Some items are a part of multiple collections. The most complex part was removing the dots at the end of the lines. I started this topic because I wasn’t sure if I should even be making navs or if using SMW would put too much strain on the server. There is no agreed upon standard for using SMW or Navs and I was hoping to make some guidelines for the navs after this. I don’t want to have to rely on Alex or other bot users to do something that I can do with the tools available. If there was a problem with the collection template I’d either have to wait for a bot user or get started on all 232 static templates or fix 1 dynamic template. J.Tesla (talk) 03:00, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

HoT content, a Proper When and How To tag it

I'd like to clear up things for both myself and others. First, the when: for the most part, this is somewhat obvious, but stuff from LWS 3 is getting tagged as being HoT, and the template says "content specific to the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns expansion". While you do have to have HoT to be able to get it(probably because of the mechanics, ie gliders), Living World Season 3 isn't specific to the expansion, it's a release and a continuation of the entire story of Tyria. Also categorizing it separately shouldn't be too strange of an idea, we have a whole category for releases, so if anything stuff from LWS 3 can have it's own category, but the category headers can say "Content only available with Heart of Thorns" or something. So that way it can still be notated as "you need to have HoT to have" but that way nothing gets confused as to what was part of the expansion and what was part of the LWS3 releases. Somewhat related, can you only buy glider skins if you have HoT from the Gem store, or do they not show up? If you can buy them without HoT, glider skins should probably stop being tagged as HoT, as that's more gem store content than anything else.

Next the how: we have currently have two ways of tagging things as being Heart of Thorns content: the infobox status and {{Heart of Thorns content}}. To be blunt, tagging it via the infobox status should be removed as an option, as on the infobox pages it says that status is "Optional. Status of content. Only set if not currently obtainable ingame, displays relevant notice. Available options: "historical", "future", and "unimplemented"." I'm guessing HoT as a status was to mark stuff as being HoT before it got released, but HoT has been released so that being an option really needs to be removed, because HoT content is no longer "obtainable ingame" or "future or unimplemented" and we have {{Heart of Thorns content}}. Yes, it's not as easy to type, but it is correct as it frees up stuff to be marked as historical via the status line in the infobox if needed, and I think it's a tad redundant to have two ways to tag something instead of just one. As for the removing it (as per Relyk's "And still needs to be removed!"), I already have my bot ready to go to do the change. - Do_odleplex 19:20, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I can add "expansion = <whatever>" to the infoboxes to free up "status". There will be more expansions in the future so we may as well prepare for it. I think Living World Season 2 Complete Pack may fall under this tag too since it's paid content. Or it can get it's own "release =" tag. J.Tesla (talk) 11:10, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

TBH, having it in the infobox is just simply cleaner and easier for both new and veteran editors. I do suggest tying stuff to required purchase, whatever the parameter name is, as we've got S2-only and S3-only content already in addition to HoT-only content and eventually expansion 2-only content. The template should remain, to be used only when infoboxes are non-existent such as on Central Tyria mastery tracks. Konig (talk) 17:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed completely with Konig. Putting status = hot is easier than having to paste {{Heart of Thorns content}} at the bottom of every article. —Ventriloquist 17:24, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Alright, any suggestions on what the parameter should be called? If I get no reply I’ll go with “expansion” but an argument could be made for “release” or “requires”. J.Tesla (talk) 00:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I like release, as that way releases could be easily categorized without it being put manually on the page's bottom. Only trick, if we do that, should the {{Heart of Thorns content}} template be removed since it would be somewhat pointless and redundant then? - Do_odleplex 00:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

(Reset indent) status = hot can be replaced with "expansion" or whatever else. We need to identify pages that are expansion content and require the expansion to access. That's going to be true for expansions in the future. We can do that with {{expansion|Heart of Thorns}}. You can't call it "release" because releases are also restricted to expansion content. The Living World content don't require purchase as you can obtain gems in-game, we can address that case although it's not really necessary.--Relyk ~ talk < 01:12, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Heart of thorns can also be purchased ingame with gems: Gem_Store#Upgrades. Restricting this to only expansions gives the impression that buying HoT unlocks everything but people have bought HoT and can't access LWS2 because they weren't there for the free update. They will have to make an additional purchase to access it. J.Tesla (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Uhhh, that's to upgrade your edition of HoT...--Relyk ~ talk < 01:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

So it is, my mistake. Regardless, here is the template I've put together following the example of {{infobox status}}: {{infobox release}} (I'd already named it before seeing your comment). I want to make a simple and consistent way of marking a page as requiring certain purchases in order to access the content. It doesn't have to be called "release" but LW is so similar to the expansions that there's no reason not to use the same parameter for them both. This was to stop half of pages having "status = hot" and the other half having "{{Heart of Thorns content}}" since "status" is used for historical content and the whole template is too long to type. J.Tesla (talk) 01:55, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I think release works well enough, since you cannot access Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, or Bitterfrost without Season 3's respective episodes, and you cannot enter the story instances (or obtain certain items/meet certain NPCs) without Season 2's respective episodes. And those are all releases. We'd just keep it to Core (default), Season 2, Heart of Thorns, Season 3 and whatever future releases/seasons will be. Could probably do a Season 1 as well but that's all historical and free so I doubt it matters. Konig (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Just so I understand as to not make a fool of myself when the next release comes, we are now stopping to add the HoT template when it comes to Living Season 3 content, correct? If so, are we going the way of putting it within the infobox with the addition of the "release" section or the way of adding the template at the bottom of the page? || Louise || 04:15, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I have updated all the infoboxes to use the "release" parameter. From now on it should be "release = hot" instead of "status = hot". There are options for Living World with "release = lws2" or "release = lws3". Multiple releases can be separated by a comma EG:“release = hot,lws3”. Some pages will still require {{Heart of Thorns content}} at the bottom of the page if there is no infobox. There is now a {{Living World Season 2 content}} and {{Living World Season 3 content}} template that match the style of the HoT content template. If anyone has a better image for the living world seasons feel free to change it. Right now I’m using File:Living World logo.png for both seasons. If anyone has a bot handy, there are 7152 pages of HoT content that may need changing. Many will have “status = hot” other will have the template at the bottom of the page. All guild upgrades will need the “release = hot” added because the HoT content template was imbedded into the infobox. See {{infobox release}} for documentation. J.Tesla (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't really know in what situation it would be appropriate to put both HoT and LWS3 in the releases but I guess I can always evaluate it when the time comes. || Louise || 17:43, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

How to browse the GW2API more effectively

Hey guys, just a quick question on how you browse the API. Recently, I've just been browsing by typing the URL manually. I know there are tools out there, but I'm having difficulty getting them to run. The current one I've been trying to get working is gwentoo. If anyone has some tips or recommendations for a better explorer, I'm all ears. Sythe 05:38, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I use the links in the examples on our API pages and browse manually :( And smiley search for items since it has API links.--Relyk ~ talk < 07:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yea, same. That website is pretty cool, however I'm trying to look for something that covers anything and everything that might be added with a new patch. As well as shows when new items that I may not have seen because they have been added to the api by someone acquiring them. Sythe 08:01, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I use GW2Treasures for new items, since it has a neat interface. —Ventriloquist 09:09, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

There are a few extensions for chrome [1], [2]. I personally prefer the first, but in the end almost never use it. Is that what you are looking for? -Darqam 15:19, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

edit: firefox equivalent: [3] -Darqam 15:21, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the recommendations guys! I'll try out that extension for chrome and see how it goes. That website is also pretty cool. Edit: SO I've played around with the extension you recommended, but I'm having difficulty trying to loop through to get return more than one GET request. Is it possible to do that with this extension or would I have to program something like that myself? Sythe 16:27, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't really know those extensions at all, I just know ofthem. But if all you want is multiple entries, couldn't you just use the ids paramter? for example: "api.guildwars2.com/v2/items?ids=1234,4567" ? Or did you want to have queries from 2 endpoints at the same time? If it's the later... no idea. -Darqam 16:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Yea, I tried to do that but unfortunately the extension considers it part of the url and ends up just getting a 404 error. Also tried entering a second key with a different value but it just overrides the first one. As well, I guess the search is still on. Sythe 16:57, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I'm not too sure about the chrome extension, but using the firefox one, you can specify parameters (and then delete them) quite easily. Other than those simple behaviors, if you want something more complex, you might need to create a navigator of your own (which would be somewhat of a pain I believe). -Darqam 17:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

The extensions are fine for exploring the API and for seeing the structure. If I want to start feeding the results of an endpoint into another, I write a python or bash script.--Relyk ~ talk < 23:00, 17 December 2016 (UTC)