Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 22

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Enemy Locations

Gonna write it here as well so we wouldnt forget. The whole idea is to not write the same information multiple times and ofcorse having it accurate. Using templates like Template:NPC location and Template:NPC location list. The conversation can be found here. We are already using this kind of template for nodes as well so I dont see any reason why to not use it on enemies as well . But the decision is up to admins. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DiegoDeLaHouska (talk • contribs) at 17:11, 2 January 2021‎ (UTC).

Decision is up to the community. —Kvothe (talk) 21:13, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Community or players or community of admins here ? Also sorry that I forgot to sign myself. Mostly I dont forget that =( --DiegoDeLaHouska (talk) 21:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Told it once already, will tell it again. Templating part of this wouldn't be that hard, we have most of it done already. However there are several major problems.

We'd need to check the data of every or almost every NPC to confirm where it actually is, because often the NPC is listed on the area page but the area is not mentioned on the NPC page, or vice versa.
My other problem is inclusivity towards new editors. Adding a location as some template parameter will make it unable for new editors participate in what I'd consider one of the easiest things to start with.
NPCs with unusual spawn conditions. While i think we could eventually find a way how to work around all of them, there are so many edge cases that we would have to spend extreme amount of time either finding a way to generalize, or hardcoding it into the templates anyways.

DJemba (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

First one sure every page can be random so bot or scrips might not work right. We would still need to do it manualy or check later manualy. Third point, well dont know how many difernet conditions you mean but if you mean "during events" and so on, we can still write it into notes and it would work. It would even work if you write another template into the notes. But the secound point I still dont understand. We are not here to pull new editors but to provide accurate information for players. Even now some of the experienced editors doesnt have time to be here anymore. They have lives and other games they want to try. Noone will be here forever So the less work there will be for the future generations the better. You are scared that it would scare new potentional editors if they would see template ? Really ? Every new patch you can see people just copy and paste from previous pages anyway . Even the more experienced editors do that anyway. New editors doesnt need to understand what is that template , why its there or how to write it. They will just copy it as always. The secound argument has no logic for me what so ever and you are focusing on a direction you shouldnt be focusing in a first place. But again that is just my oppinion. That is why we are talking about it for now. --DiegoDeLaHouska (talk) 00:21, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

There are some NPCs that only appear during events. Both allied and enemy. Problem is, we don't have event only NPCs on area pages, so they wouldn't be able to use those templates. There's also some NPCs that moved locations, those original locations wouldn't be able to use the template since they're no longer there. Then there's historical NPCs, which nope can't use it because they're no longer in those areas. That's not including NPCs that can be in a location or not based on time of day or the meta. Also you are wrong, we do want to attract new editors, and having a template to simply add an NPC to an area can be very off putting and is a great way to scare people off, which we don't want. I for one do not want to scare off new editors, and there's so many inconsistency, coupled with the fact it would probably take years to even attempt to get, and even then I'm not sure it could be done properly, that I'd rather say no and put our effort into something else more productive.

However...I will say, I think these templates could be perfect if repurposed for story NPCs since those are pretty unchanging and would be a great way to make sure all story NPC have their story instance listed on their pages. I think is much more feasible to do and could even possibly be a bot task. - Do_odleplex 01:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Something I have found out. I was refearing before to gathering node template. But as I was looking even that one isnt done for every zone/node. So that one would be also to do while we would be at it. Shall I begin ? Or should I wait for the decision of our Elder Admins ? --DiegoDeLaHouska (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Example for where gathering node template isn't used? -Chieftain Alex

21:48, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm really not crazy about the Node location being used the way it's being used. There's no notation if a node is festival or not and historical locations are getting nuked. Not to mention a lot of really helpful information is getting removed. This is kind of the reverse of helpful, DiegoDeLaHouska can you hold up please? - Do_odleplex 00:27, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Every information is usefull to somebody. If to you usefull information is having location of rich nodes been writen on normal size node pages sure go ahead and write it everywhere. About nodes in home instances or "festival maps" that can be easily done by adding information in the template based on the zones and maps. One of the reasons why I didnt changed Dragon Pinatas or Candy nodes. Those might be a bitmore dofficult. Information how to farm these nodes or how to get to them should be on Node farm. The last is historical which Ive been trying to keep as Sime asked for. If I missed some and deleted it somewhere then Im sorry.. Ive just missed it. The last node I want to look at is Toxic Seedling then Im done anyway --DiegoDeLaHouska (talk) 00:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Seeing how "gathering node" turns out at the moment I am against implementatino of NPC location. —Kvothe (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

NPC location has |notes. You are more free with what you want to write there. Gathering nodes doesnt have that option so you cant really do much about it. The "template" even tho its just a list of nodes .. needs a bit more work. Im not against it even tho it looks aweful. The idea as whole is lovely just the way to get there could be better. But you need to start somewhere. It would need the note option so we could add text behind it with better description. We would need to change the template so it would be a bit more automatic. It would need to pick up every future reasorce nodes without anyone adding it into the template manualy. And me personaly .. I dont like having such a long list of zones. Mithril list is so long. Maybe hidding it somehow so players could just open it themselfs.. the specific region they are looking over. --DiegoDeLaHouska (talk) 21:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Inconsistencies in Achievements

There has been some discussion on how the wiki handles achievements (in particular see "Handling achievements on wiki") and having gone through a vast number of achievements for a project, there are a lot of inconsistencies throughout. Here are some inconsistencies I've found so far (and I also propose some proposals on how to unify for some).

Inconsistency 1 - Linking

Taking a story journal achievement as an example, sometimes an achievement will link directly to the story journal and other times it will link directly to the achievements section of the story journal. For example, if we had the following achievement:

{{Achievement table row
| id = 5275
| name = Fast Purrsuit
| page = Turnabout
| description = End the pursuit within the time limit.
| flavor = Story Instance: Turnabout<br><br>Where do you think you're going?
| tiers = Ended the Pursuit within 40 Seconds;3
| effect = eligibility
| reward = Cache Key
| quantity = 3
}}

In some achievements the title "Fast Purrsuit" is linked to Turnabout whereas in other achievements it's linked to Turnabout#Achievements

After thinking about it, I think it should link directly to the achievement on the story journal page. In other words, it should go to Turnabout#achievement5275 as the user will generally click on the link of the achievement to find information for a particular achievement. And so it makes most sense to link directly there. This also addresses a second issue which I talk about next.

Inconsistency 2 - Hints/guides

Currently hints/guides are in one of 2 places. For most story journal achievements, these are found on the story journal page. In other cases it's listed at the bottom of the achievements page itself (see see Weapon Master as an example). As a user it's very confusing to know whether I should scroll to the bottom of the page for hints/guides or click on a title to get more information. (In some cases the information appears in both locations!)

My personal opinion is to have *all* guides be on their own page (or on the story journal page). This is in-line with what Eowin had said before, but with the slight difference that we don't necessarily need one for every achievement, but if there are any notes, guides, hints, pictures, ideas, etc, it should have its own page (again, other than cases such as story journal where it makes sense to group them together in a certain way). This also lines up with Inconsistency 1 by having us always link the title of an achievement to information on the achievement itself.

Inconsistency 3 - Story Journal Linking

I noticed that for story journal achievement boxes, the story instance itself was linked in the flavor text. Considering my suggestion in Inconsistency 1, I think it would make sense to add a link in the achievement box to the story journal itself. This would look like this:

{{Achievement table row
| id = 5275
| name = Fast Purrsuit
| page = Turnabout#achievement5275
| description = End the pursuit within the time limit.
| flavor = Story Instance: [[Turnabout]]<br><br>Where do you think you're going?
| tiers = Ended the Pursuit within 40 Seconds;3
| effect = eligibility
| reward = Cache Key
| quantity = 3
}}

Inconsistency 4 - Achievements and Walk-throughs

This is technically handled by the Story formatting guide.

Sometimes achievements are a part of the walkthrough and other times they are not. As examples Destroying Destroyers has achievements after walkthrough whereas Frozen Out has them contained inside. Personally I prefer having achievements inside the walkthrough as you are doing them during the instance, but I also understand making them their own thing. If there's no real preference, I'd suggest "inside" mainly because most of them are already like this.

Inconsistency 5 - Completion Achievements

On some story journal pages, the "Complete story journal" achievement is not present. (I've been adding them as I go along, so I can't think of one off the top of my head.)

Inconsistency 6 - Information on Achievements on Story Pages

As this is technically handled by Story formatting guide, I would like to propose we change this slightly to leave room for longer achievement guides. I propose the following:

=== Achievements ===
{{achievement box|<achievement name>}}
* <short guide for achievement>
<long guide for achievement>

to replace:

=== Achievements ===
{{achievement box|<achievement name>}}
* <guide for achievement>

The following is handled by Story formatting guide.

In some cases, information about an achievement appears in many different ways:

after the achievement using bullets (see "Where's_Balthazar"#Achievements)
after achievements as just plain text (see Dragon_Vigil#Achievements)
there are "titles" for achievements (see The_World_Summit#Achievements)
before the achievement as text with titles (see City_of_Hope#Achievements)
before the achievement as text without titles (see Prized_Possessions#Achievements)

It's confusing to have the format change between different story journals. I would propose we have titles, keep bullets for quick info and we have text for more information. I propose titles as it helps differentiate the different achievements better in my opinion. I propose having a bullet under the box for *short* information (such as "Complete story journal."). I propose any guide/hint/advice that is longer than 1-2 sentences would not have bullets. Here is an example where I have the same thing duplicated twice to show what it would look visually.

Fast Purrsuit

Fast Purrsuit	No Quarter	3
End the pursuit within the time limit.Story Instance: Turnabout Where do you think you're going? Reward: Cache Key (3)	Ended the Pursuit within 40 Seconds	3

Achievement qualification may be tracked via the eligibility: Fast Purrsuit effect.

If we want more of a guide, we would write it under here. And this guide would be epic, but also not tell the entire story because we want the users to enjoy doing the achievement themselves. But sometimes they need some help, so we help them because we are fun like that. We might even consider using spoilers?

Inconsistency 7 - Achievement Tables

In some achievement tables, the achievements are broken up by types. (see War Eternal (achievements))

Mastery achievements - those that count for mastery
Other - Anything else
Big groups - Things that are similar/chain together/etc.

In others, this is not the case (see The Head of the Snake (achievements) - the mastery requires 28 achievements, but there are 41 achievements altogether in the table).

Note that the examples given are just the first two I found. There are mixes of things everywhere in between.

Personally, I think it should just be one big table and if there are big groups/sections that chain together, they should have their own page as an "achievement guide". This continues to line up with the idea that you should link through a title to find more information about that particular achievement.

Inconsistency 8 - Event Achievement linking

This is similar to Inconsistency 1, but requires something a little different. For some achievements, the achievement is asasociated to an event. For example:

Mushroom Musterer	Dragon's Stand	1 1
Raise a mushroom army for the skritt.You helped grow the skritt a mushroom army!	Raised Mushroom Army in Dragon's Stand	1

Currently, if you click on the title you get sent to the page. The achievement itself is sometimes written as a "related achievement" on the bottom of the event. The title link will sometimes link to the event itself and at other times it will like to the "Related achievements" section at the bottom.

For this one I have less of a proposal as I really don't know how to handle it. When it does link to the "Related achievements" section, I find I must constantly scroll up to see what event it's even talking about. I think in these cases, we should link directly to the event rather than the achievement on the bottom. (What would be even better is if we can alter the achievement box so that the description links to the event, or we can add "related event" or something and then the title itself can link to the "Related achievements" as above, but I don't know how to do that).

I think that's pretty much all for now. Hopefully I didn't miss any, but I think it's at least a good start. I've had a few people state that looking through achievements on the wiki is a little troublesome and I'm hoping that by making things consistent, that it will be easier to navigate and find the information people want. --Thecaligarmo (talk) 16:33, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

As I said on discord, inconsistencies number 4 + 6 are "solved" in the Story formatting guideline, so the true inconsistency there is just people not following them. ~Sime 16:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

So for 4 and 6 I'll fix achievements as I go along. For those who want, the story formatting guidelines can be found here since it took me a while to find them. --Thecaligarmo (talk)

I just addded another inconsistency as I had forgotten one. Also, considering Sime's solution above, I'm altering #4 and #6 to state that these are basically "handled", in addition to submitting a request to change the guide for Story formatting for #6. --Thecaligarmo (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

#1 (Linking) - There's not a whole lot of difference here, between linking to #number and #name, but I suggest it links to [[<story journal episode>#<achievement name>|<achievement name>]]. There's no reason to link to the achievement id as each occurrence of {{achievement table row}} has a hidden anchor element to allow use of the name.

#2 (Hints/guides) - I don't feel very strongly about this one at all. I would really prefer not to have separate one-line achievement guides if we can avoid it.

#3 (Story Journal Linking) - yes I agree we should always link the story article if there's a newline stating "Story Instance:".

#4 (Achievements and Walk-throughs) - These are supposed to be using 3 header level per the formatting guide. We can probably bot-fix all of those. Stick a request on GW2W:BOTS please.

#5 (Completion Achievements) - I can do a check for these (maybe tomorrow) but yes they're supposed to be there.

#6 (Information on Achievements on Story Pages) - Since the template has the achievement name baked into it, it seems stupid to have the list the title out above the template. I don't like using bullets for the walkthroughs, and really hate a mixture of bullets and plaintext - I propose we use plain paragraph text for all achievement section guides. I think we should then consider increasing the margin between each occurrence of {{achievement table row}} (possibly 20px vs default 10px) to emphasise which guide goes with what achievement name. I can sandbox this if you want to see an example.

#7 (Achievement Tables) - I think I am probably the originator of splitting tables, where I started with All or Nothing (achievements) which ended up too split up for my liking. All achievement pages should just use one table in the majority of cases, with notable exceptions for extremely long collections (chasing tales, skyscales). Afaik this is how it's been done already and I can't immediately see an issue with a couple of pages being done slightly different.

#8 (Event Achievement linking) - This is really stupid if we're actually using the "page" parameter to identify a "useful" page, but then the target page doesn't have ANYTHING about the achievement except for see also. Please name and shame these articles. If you're using the "page" parameter, I expect to find either a walkthrough or some description of why the achievement is relevant. Just using the "see also" isn't enough. Since most event pages are allowed to have a walkthrough section, why not represent the information the same on event page as we do on story articles?

-Chieftain Alex

23:32, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

(Reset indent)

#1 (Linking) On story journals we use {{achievement box}} Do those have an anchor to the name too? If so, then I don't mind it being that instead.

#6 (Information on Achievements on Story Pages) That sounds like it could be a good alternative.

#7 (Achievement Tables) - It's not that big of an issue in the sense that you can ctrl+f any achievement. It does cause frustration though if you're expecting things in alphabetic order in the first table and suddenly it's not there because on this one page it's different.

#8 (Event Achievement linking) - I think usually in these cases it's something where the achievement is dependent on the event. So in the example above, it makes sense to link to the event because you won't get that achievement until you do the event. But to avoid one line guides, for event's it's normally listed in the bottom as "Related achievements". So for me it's not necessarily stupid as it is worthwile information. But it sounds more like you're suggesting just changing the format? So that we replicate what we're doing for story pages and use them for event pages? (Add a walk through section which contains an achievements subsection where we would put the {{achievement box}} information and link exactly like we do for story achievements?)

--Thecaligarmo (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

#1 (Linking) "| page = <story>#<achievement name>" works

#2 (Hints/guides) Added TOC so users should see right at the top, that there are more sections. This seems to be an edge case where every achievement would be linked to the same page, so I don't see the benefit of creating a separate page just to link all there when it can be below.

#3 (Story Journal Linking) Yes, page parameter makes sense - probably just overlooked sometimes.

#4 (Achievements and Walk-throughs) Prefer achievements to be split to thier section (like the current Story formatting guide)

#5 (Completion Achievements) yes

#6 (Information on Achievements on Story Pages) @Alex I guess you mean {{Achievement box}}, I am in favor of dropping the bullet point and using a plain paragraph instead - making it length independent.

#7 (Achievement Tables) The Head of the Snake (achievements) 41 total, you need 28, 39 count towards the meta achievement - maybe it would make sense to display the total number of objectives/collection items. Chasing Tales and Skyscale Collection I think are good to split off, for Jormag Rising (achievements) and No Quarter (achievements) I am not sure if it is really needed.

#8 (Event Achievement linking) Linking to Related achievements directly makes no sense to me, since normally there is no explaination to be found. (It is in place to make finding the achievement page from the event page easy.)

—Kvothe (talk) 21:06, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

#1 (Linking) - Sounds like there is consensus on this and I'll stick to using those.

#2 (Hints/guides) I think Slayer is very similar to Weapon Master, and in Slayer we have a separate page which has a guide to all the achievements. Although we can put achievement guides on the bottom like on Weapon Master, I think it makes more sense to have a uniform way of doing things. So either we should always try and have achievement guides at the bottom of the achievement page for each section, or they should always be on some other page. The wiki is supposed to make finding information easier. Having to look in multiple places (Did wiki people put the info on the bottom of the page or on a different page?) makes things confusing. The whole point of me bringing these topics up is to help make things more consistent and not "all over the place".

#3 (Story journal linking) - Sounds like there is consensus on this and I'll update these as I see them.

#4 (Achievements and Walk-throughs) - This has already been completed

#5 (Completion Achievements) - Sounds like there is consensus on this and I'll update these as I see them (I think there are only a couple left now).

#6 (Information on Achievements on Story Pages) - Sounds like we'll just use a paragraph format from here on out? Chieftain Alex, did you end up sandboxing a new version? (Once that's done and we agree for format I can start working on updating pages to the new format. We'll also want to update the Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Story formatting page so that it is not showing a bullet after the achievement box)

#7 (Achievement Tables) - Sounds like there is consensus on this. I think War Eternal might be the only one that has an "Other Achievements" table. I'll integrate these tables into the main ones if I ever run across them.

#8 (Event Achievement linking) - Sounds like there is consensus in that the title should not be linking to the event, but we're ok with some other text within the achievement box linking to the event. (aka, the titles should only link to guides. Any other helpful links should be elsewhere.)

I probably won't make any changes until #2 and #6 as I want to go one achievement area at a time so I don't miss anything. So if I'm saying we have consensus to soon and/or if I'm wrong (I don't actually know how long we normally wait and/or what is required?) there's still time. --Thecaligarmo (talk) 19:57, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding #8, the title should absolutely link to the event if it is an event related achievement. The page missing description how to obtain it is a different matter. ~Sime 20:06, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

#8 Rereading my comment I was not clear enough. I agree with Sime. Link to the event but not the "Related achievements" section. Use | page = <event page> not | page = <event page>#Related achievements. —Kvothe (talk) 20:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

#6 (Information on Achievements on Story Pages) - I forgot, but i've done it now. here you go: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=User%3AChieftain_Alex%2Fsandbox3&diff=2217397 --Chieftain Alex

23:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

(Reset indent) If I'm understanding Chieftan Alex, he'd prefer the titles not link to the event page? As an alternative, I'm saying to do something like the following: sandbox example. So the title itself doesn't link to the event, but we still link to the event in the description. Would that be ok or is the preference to keep it in the title? (Personally, I think moving it into description is better as then it keeps the idea of "title points to guide") --Thecaligarmo (talk) 20:59, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I like the formatting for the boxes Chieftan Alex =D It definitely helps show the text refers to the box above instead of below. --Thecaligarmo (talk) 21:52, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Description often has plenty of links so finding the correct one could take a bit/be confusing, so I still stand behind linking the event from the title. There hasn't been any problem with it in the past for hundreds of achievements and other articles to be linked, no reason it should be a problem now. ~Sime 21:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Caligarmo, I don't think I suggested removing the page parameter or moving the links per se, I just think any page using the "page" parameter should at least mention the achievement or how to get it. -Chieftain Alex

23:19, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sime I'm ok with that. =) @Chieftain, I think a lot of the event achievements just link to the event without there being a guide nor any substantial mention of the achievement (other than a link back to all of the achievements) which is why I thought you suggested to remove the links. Sorry for the confusion ._. --Thecaligarmo (talk) 00:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I hope this edit removes some confusion: I removed the achievement title link overload from the {{achievement box}} and {{achievement list}}. Previously, the achievement title would link to the individual achievement page, if there exists one and if the template wasn't used on this page. This resulted in different template behaviours for one and the same achievement (with an individual page!), namely:

used on individual achievement page: the achievement title linked to the subobject anchor on the achievement category page.
used on any other page: the achievement title linked to the individual achievement page.

Hence, when starting e.g. on an item page in the section Acquisition, this resulted in the awkward link chain 1. individual achievement page -> 2. achievement subobject achievement category page to reach the achievement subobject rather than allowing the user to choose which page they want to access.

Now the achievement title always links to the achievement subobject, furthermore if an individual achievement page exists and the template is used on any other page (not the individual achievement page), then there will be a suffix (related page) that links to the related individual achievement page.

Note that I don't changed the behaviour of {{achievement table row}}, as in my opinion the linking there is straight forward.

I think this edit should somehow make the link usage more consistent. --Tolkyria (talk) 10:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I understand why you did it this way around, but as you said it is still inconsistent with "achievement table row". An option would be to have the achievement category link above the tier description link to the achievement id (on the category page). —Kvothe (talk) 15:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, and what if we add the (related page) link (could be renamed to related achievement page, etc...) in the same way to {{achievement table row}}, i.e. removing the link from the achievement title.

Or following your suggestion, remove the achievement title link if there is no individual achievement page and enhance the category link to the achievement subobject.

Otherwise idk, but this previous behaviour was so terrible in my opinion, e.g. landing (by clicking the link) on the top of individual achievement page where no achievement box is in sight and hence having no way to easily reach the achievement subobject on the achievement category page. --Tolkyria (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Whilst we're rearranging the achievement templates (applies to all of: achievement table row, achievement list and achievement box), how about removing the chest icon to the left of the achievement name? Whilst the chest icon is shown ingame when on the overview page, it does not also show the rewards below it too. Imo its an excess of icons to display the chest icon too. When you view the achievement detail panel, it does show the rewards and does not show the chest icon.

I'm also wondering if the achievement list + achievement box templates end up with too many links along the header of each achievement if we link the (1) named section of the category page, (2) related page + (3) category page separately. Could we unlink 1 (keep it as black plaintext), keep 2, and link (3) to the named section but keep its appearance too? -Chieftain Alex

20:59, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tolkyria I agree the previous behavior felt inconsistent. I don't like the bloat that "(related page)" introduced. —Kvothe (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Given an achievement box on a random page, I think the wiki users should be able to access the following pages/entries directly (which I somehow tried to improve with my edit):

the exact {{achievement table row}} entry on the achievement category page
the individual achievement page (currently as accessed via "related page" link), providing some walkthrough information
the achievement category, at least indicate in which achievement category the achievement is contained in

So I can't really see which of the three links could be removed. Sure, link 1 and link 3 end up on the same page (with link 1 having the suffix #achievement<id> and link 3 pointing at the top of the achievement category page), and thus the achievement title could link to the individual page only, otherwise plaintext (same behaviour as {{achievement table row}}). But is it obivous for wiki users that the achievement category on the right will link to the achievement entry (after adjusting it)? Also, this would remove the "(related page)" suffix, pleasing Kvothe, correctly stating that this is unnecessarily bloating the achievement box header.

Honestly, idk, in the end neither the previously used link overload, nor my "(related page)" suffix are appealing to me. --Tolkyria (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

User:Chieftain Alex/sandbox2 - this is a visual representation of what I was talking about (no more links to the top of the achievement category page, just link to subobject, and a link to the achievement help page if it exists) -Chieftain Alex

17:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Quoting myself from my last post: "But is it obivous for wiki users that the achievement category on the right will link to the achievement entry?" If we are able to answer this question with yes, then sure, go for it.

So you also removed the chest icon, indeed the main idea (linking to the rewarded item) isn't really applicable anymore since we now have multiple tier rewards and the popups are suppressing the hovering text. On the other hand, the chest icon, together with the title icon, allows the wiki users to quickly sum up the gained rewards without going into detail. Furthermore, you introduced one additional icon: the achievement catgory icon vs "Imo its an excess of icons to display the chest icon too". But I guess removing two icons while adding only one is still a reduction. --Tolkyria (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually I'd prefer if it didn't have a category icon, maybe I just misinterpreted what parameter 14 did in Template:Achievement box result format? -Chieftain Alex

19:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Since the relevant row on the achievement category page is exactly reproduced by the achievement list/box template anyway, is there any point in linking to that achievement's row on the category page at all? -Chieftain Alex

19:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

see this + found the cause. -Chieftain Alex

20:00, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Wow regarding the icon, broken all the time. So in your sandbox you actually restored the intended idea.

For {{achievement list|reward=<item>}} the category on the right is useful if the item is obtained from different achievements in different categories, e.g. Ascended Armor Chest. Having no link to the corresponding achievement category and hence not being able at all to quickly access the achievement entry feels super wierd to me.

I would like to add the link adjustment first, and then probably in a next step remove the icons (I'm not really convinced yet about the icon removal). --Tolkyria (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Apologies not sure if I've expressed myself clearly. I'm ok with having one link to the category page -I agree if theres multiple achievements listed then linking to the category is useful- just proposing that the link on the right goes to the category page anchor for the current achievement, and that the left bit either links to specific achievement advice OR goes nowhere and is plaintext. -Chieftain Alex

21:04, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Added your/our link suggestion. I think we all have somehow the same idea, but with all this different terms we might be confusing ourselfs. --Tolkyria (talk) 21:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Seems we were all on the same page. Really like the outcome at the moment. Not sure either about the achievement category icon - lets keep it for 2 week then decide? —Kvothe (talk) 23:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Given that nobody commented on it being missing for 2.3 years I will be very happy to remove the category icon again. Happy to wait a fortnight beforehand though.

Thanks Tolkyria for switching the link around.

I've gone ahead with the CSS to increase spacing between "Template:Achievement box" and blocks of text (either p or ul elements). -Chieftain Alex

23:37, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

You wrote [[Template:Achievement list]] in the documentation instead of box, see here, you might want to fix it to not confuse us in the future. Or should template use this class?

Note that {{achievement box}} uses style="display:table" which removes some vertical space (margin:10px 0; set in .table) above and below the table while providing increased horizontal useability (properly handling infobox clashes which style="display:inline-box" wouldn't, if I'm correct). However, I'm not sure what to do with this information. --Tolkyria (talk) 23:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Just took a week - I'm in favor of removing the achievement category icon from box and list result format. —Kvothe (talk) 17:52, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Please reduce in Mediawiki:Common.css

p + .achievementbox, ul + .achievementbox {
  margin-top: 3em;
}

to

p + .achievementbox, ul + .achievementbox {
  margin-top: 1em; <!-- (I would say at most 1.2 em) -->
}

The 3em space looks kinda awkward and definitely out of place, as someone used double line break.

For example:

--Tolkyria (talk) 16:31, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with the first usage example you've given at all so I've actually removed the template from that page. Second page looks fine imo + the decently generous margin is entirely intentional to emphasise and separate the different achievements. -Chieftain Alex

21:52, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

So you removed it from one effect page, while there are several more effect pages (I counted 28) that still have this wierd format, not to mention any other random page that uses {{achievement box}} in a paragraph setting! 3em is way too much, please reduce it to an acceptable vertical space that indicates a clear separation but doesn't cause so much interferences. Simply adding a 3em space without even knowing where the template is used, just because it fits on one specific setting (well in my opinion even there it doesn't) but not on all others is just bad style.

In general, I think, anything that looks like a double line break should be strictly avoided, it simply doesn't look professional at all. --Tolkyria (talk) 23:10, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

More examples, beside the effect pages:

Before you start fixing those again, please note that this are be no means all occurrences, I'm posting those to show what can happen, what is currently happening and what will happen in the future.

Thus, the only option is to have a proper template (here: proper css) that handles all cases (here: by reducing the vertical space). --Tolkyria (talk) 23:28, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

A template should fit all its occurrences which here it clearly doesn't. Given how style-breaking this, namely introducing a 3em space in front of it while used in a paragraph setting (this is basically the same as a double line break which we immediately remove without any discussion), given the gate-keeping of this edit, given the attempt of "fixing this problem" by only removing the template usage in the one example I posted but ignoring the other 25+ usages, given that it can always happen again in the future, I'm removing the css class "achievementbox" from {{achievement box}}.

Again, repeating myself, such a style-breaking attempt

should either be applied manually via a template parameter on specific pages rather than added everywhere in general without knowing how it looks like
or should add a reasonable vertical space (not a double line break) that fits in all settings.

--Tolkyria (talk) 09:47, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

So basically because you and I cannot reach an agreement on something as simple as spacing, you've removed all the spacing altogether, and we're back to the drawing board on #6 above. -Chieftain Alex

10:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I asked to reduce it to a reasonable vertical space (again, 3em is like a double line break, that we automatically remove if we encounter it).
I suggested to add a template parameter that allows to add the vertical space manually on pages where it's needed.
You introduced a 3em vertical space without anyone able to edit it.
You introduced a 3em vertical space without knowing to which pages it applies to, only having story pages in mind but ignoring all other pages that might use it or will use.
You introduced a 3em vertical space without the ability to disable it on certain pages (due to css).

So yes, I removed the css class.

As the 3em vertical space is no longer visible on the wiki, see these examples how style-breaking it looked like.

--Tolkyria (talk) 10:43, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Having edited/reviewed formatting on all 1090 pages affected by the styling they are compatible. I have reverted your change, and I have also reduced the 3em to 2em. sub 2em is unacceptable as the emphasis is completely lost. -Chieftain Alex

21:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

And anything above 2em looks like a double line break. --Tolkyria (talk) 09:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

(Reset indent)

To not open a can of worms again, but first, sorry for being MIA on this. Personal life issues stopped me for a little bit. I'm slowly getting back in though. It seems like there were a few changes that were made in the past 4 months in particular Tolkyria changed {{achievement box}} and {{achievement list}}. Additionally, Chieftain Alex added the padding after each achievement box (which apparently caused a little bit of excitement). Just to review, from my original 8 inconsistencies, I think here is basically what was decided.

#1 (Linking) These titles should link to [[<story journal episode>#<achievement name>|<achievement name>]].

#2 (Hints/guides) - I don't think any clear consensus was made on this.

#3 (Story journal linking) - Always link to story instance whenever possible

#4 (Achievements/walk-throughs) - Already done

#5 (Completion achievements) - Include "Complete story journal" achievement on story pages whenever not present.

#6 (Information on Achievements on Story Pages) Chieftan Alex has already added padding after each achievement section. The consensus is to change the guidelines so that after an achievement, we use plain text instead of a singular bullet.

#7 (Achievement Tables) - Fix War Eternal (achievements) by moving "Other achievements" into the normal section. Keep all others as is.

#8 (Event Achievement linking) - Title should be linked directly to the event page and not to "Related achievements" on the bottom.

Since #2 has no clear consensus, what I plan on doing is leaving it alone for now. While making the above changes, I'll start making a personal list which helps show the inconsistency in #2 so that we can better make a judgement call. Let me know if I'm missing anything or if anything above is wrong as in a couple weeks I plan on starting to implement the above changes.

-- Thecaligarmo (talk) 23:36, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Temporary watchlists?

I recently noticed that Wikipedia now has a temporary setting for watchlists, where you can choose to watch a page for 1 week / 1-3-6 months / permanently. Would it be feasible to introduce such a feature on this wiki? I feel like it would be helpful, so I wouldn't need to wrangle a watchlist of hundreds of pages, nor miss important updates made to my edits. -- kazerniel (talk | contribs) 16:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

See mw:Help:Watchlist#Watchlist Expiry. We have to wait until we get MW 1.35, see Special:Version for our current version (MW 1.34.4). --Tolkyria (talk) 16:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! -- kazerniel (talk | contribs) 16:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Just checked the version again, and it seems we are on MW 1.35.1 now, but I still can't see the Watchlist expiry option. Does ANet/admins need to change some configuration to enable it? -- kazerniel (talk | contribs) 13:17, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks like there's a server configuration setting. I've brought it up on the tech request talk page. - Tanetris (talk) 17:41, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I've enabled watchlist expiry on the dev wikis for those of you with access to those wikis. The purge rate is set to 0 since I'll set up a nightly automated process to clean up expired watchlist entries. Let me know if you have any questions or comments about the setup and once it's been tested to your satisfaction, I can deploy it to live. Justin Lloyd (talk) 13:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock

So recently with Sime and Tolkyria's help I was able to get the armor skins for the Wardrobe Unlock page up to date(as best as we know) and fixed it up to go to the skin pages(see here). As a our biggest complaint is "too much clicking", your average reader more than likely won't know they can get the skin for the item from the wardrobe unlock and don't necessarily need to get the item itself unless they go to the skin page for the item. I'd like to put a note on all related pages as a result, preferably as a template similar to the exotic weapon text, but would like to make sure that everyone is okay with the page being on every page the skin can be obtained from. If not every page, I'd like to know what kind of usage would be preferred. - Do_odleplex 21:28, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

So you want to add a note for a consumable which unlocks a skin, onto an item page?

Seems odd to me, particularly as the skin page should already have the guaranteed generic/armor/weapon unlock from skin list. Also sounds really annoying to bot edit. -Chieftain Alex

22:08, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Correct. Originally the item pages had the wardrobe unlock, but with the switch to the skin page, they don't anymore, so essentially the information has vanished. For example, the Deathly Mantle Skin is discontinued and very expensive, but the skin can be unlocked via the Wardrobe Unlock, yet that bit of information is no where on the page. I'd like to add it as I think it would be helpful information to add. Additionally, we've added information about item's skins on the item page before, it's not that crazy of an idea. - Do_odleplex 22:24, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm against this. The wardrobe unlock is random so there's only a slim chance to get any specific skin, and it feels like a slippery slope to start including skin sources on an item page. For example, Rogue Coat (skin) has many sources and it would be dumb to only mention the wardrobe unlock and redundant to mention all of them. ----BuffsEverywhere (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Vector skin is now dark

Hi folks. My basic idea for april fools 2021 was "this year's been shitty, you guys don't deserve pranks, here's a new dark theme that you guys have been bugging me for years to obtain".

If you want to enable dark wiki theme, you will need to register a wiki account first.
When logged in, navigate to Special:Preferences.
Pick "Appearance" at the top.
The first section is titled "Skin". By default, your skin will be "MonoBook".
Select the radio option for "Vector".
Make sure the "use legacy vector" tickbox beneath that section is ticked (I haven't had time to develop a whole new skin with non-legacy mode since the upgrade earlier this week)
Scroll to the bottom of the preferences page and press save.

Keen to hear any feedback you have and if any more templates need reworking to support this dark theme.

To set your settings back to light mode:

When logged in, navigate to Special:Preferences.
Pick "Appearance" at the top.
Pick "Monobook" from the skin radio list.
Scroll to the bottom and press save.

-Chieftain Alex 10:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Did you mean "Vector"? Monobook was already selected for me, and only vector is dark. Daddicus (talk) 02:18, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Not sure you read the post in its entirety. It states 'Vector' for dark mode, and 'Monobook' to return to light mode. Inculpatus cedo (talk) 02:27, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I meant the bulleted list. the instructions themselves were fine. It was only one bullet that was off. Sorry for the confusion. Daddicus (talk) 06:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I like it :) One thing I noticed is that the checkbox section in the advanced search is totally unreadable. Also, red links on things like tabs (e.g. for a non-existing “discussion” page) or in {{notice}} text are pretty low-contrast, as are the blue-on-blue links in Template:Achievement nav. Lastly, should Basic ({{rarity|basic}}) not rather be gray instead of black in the dark theme? That’s all that I came across for now. Nice work! <3 --Purrince Charrming (talk) 09:31, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Achievement nav subtext was something I'd missed in my last pass through that template, that ons is fixed.

Advanced search is something I don't use much, also fixed.

New link color made lighter + stronger hue.

As always you'll probably need a CTRL+F5 to pickup the changes immediately, or wait 24hr for your local css cache to clear.

Rarity template probably needs tweaking to use css colours instead of inline styles, I will look into that next. -Chieftain Alex

11:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Template:Rarity color updates added. -Chieftain Alex

15:03, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I like the vector skin, but is there some way to get the search bar on the left side like the other ones? Imho it is very inconveniently placed at the top right corner. Thanks! -- Ongalabongala (talk) 20:33, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Probably one of the few things I cannot actually adjust sorry. I guess part of what I've been upto is making content compatible with dark themes at widgets+template level. If you felt motivated to do so, you could therefore probably come up with a monobook equivalent dark skin ruleset. Chieftain Alex

20:41, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Cool ty, now my eyeballs wont melt ;-) Justice (talk) 10:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Little update

I've setup the non-legacy appearance now, so ticking the checkbox is optional. Due to the non-square logo, I've taken the opportunity to somewhat copy the layout of ArenaNet's website/forum/support links. -Chieftain Alex 01:29, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Figured i'd add some example links for previewing of how the skin looks, to facilitate ease of previewing of how the skin would look like with an account, without having to create an account for it first to be able to see how it looks like. (At least this is how pages would look like with the legacy option checked/enabled/set. If the legacy option is not checked/enabled/set then at least the top will look different from how it looks like when using the preview links below.):

How...
...looks with the vector skin with the legacy option checked/enabled/set.

Alternatively, to preview any specific page on this wiki with the legacy vector skin one can construct a URL of the following form https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/<pagename>?useskin=vector and replace <pagename> with the name of the article one wishes to view with the skin.

Note to logged in users: While logged in the links above seem to show the legacy option not checked/enabled/set version instead. (Unless set different for the vector skin in the appearance preference settings i'm guessing.) Nightsky (talk) 23:22, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

High level armor overview pages

Issue initially brought up by Sime on discord, could do with some discussion to figure out what (if anything) we want to do with these various pages.

Relevant pages of interest:

Armor - functions as a launchpad to the armor gallery pages, describes the armor slots, mechanics of appearance/dye/skins, defense ratings for level 80, attributes for level 80, upgrade slots, repairs, concept art - this page is imo actually ok
Armor set - another launchpad to armor gallery pages, has sets split by acquisition method (much like the heavy/medium/light armor pages). Easily outdated + overlaps with List of armor sets
- Heavy armor - states which profession can use it, mentions armorsmith as primary source, has links to heavy certain sets and also some skins. Easily becomes outdated. Why are we splitting this out from the armor page? Rewritten into single sentence statement.
- Medium armor - ~~... as above but for medium. Really shouldn't bother splitting this ...~~ Rewritten into single sentence statement.
- Light armor - ~~... just stop.~~ Rewritten into single sentence statement.
List of armor sets - ~~ok table with filters. We're pretty good at updating this one~~ I've cut and paste this content into Armor set, and redirected it.
- List of non-set armor pieces - Grouped by acquisition. Other than gemstore pieces which have been outsourced to another page, I think this page is still useful. Seems upto date. Originally named Standalone armor.
~~[[List of level 80 exotic armor]] - This page is pointless vs Equipment query, propose deleting this one (just tagged it).~~ Now deleted.
World vs World armor - in its own category, lacks any armor set links apart from the gallery ones I just dropped in there... maybe i just unintentionally removed the individual med/light/heavy links the page needed. I suggest this page is turned into a disambiguation with a bullet point list of the sets available through WvW. I have added some bullet links to each set under each section. Think this article is OK now.
Cultural armor - I fixed this one in 2017, I think it's ok as it is.
Dungeon armor - ~~Hilariously has no links to the armor pages at the moment, I will amend it to include those. Probably can make it similar to the cultural armor page.~~ Now updated. Sime pointed out that an IP had removed the links last year with a rewrite in 2020.

I would appreciate other people's input on the above, particularly which pages you'd nuke, which ones to rewrite etc. -Chieftain Alex 16:13, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Want to add to the "easily becomes outdated" pages that they are indeed already outdated, missing most of the armors introduced since PoF. (Armor set + armor weight pages). I will also wait for some more people's input, but personally I would definitely nuke the three weight pages (make a redirect out of them and relevant info move to one main page). The main Armor set page should be either somehow merged with the List, or it will require a heavy rewrite/overhaul, because it is messy, missing important info (not talking about missing armor sets) and overall hard to navigate. ~Sime 16:24, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I hadn't actually noticed all these different pages existed until you pointed it out; since I tend to navigate via Equipment query + find the prefixes I want.

Might be worth updating Template:Armor nav to point at whichever overview pages we decide to keep - currently that template seems to function as gallery overview.

Updated dungeon armor and wvw armor above post-rewrite/update. -Chieftain Alex

17:43, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Delinked light/medium/heavy pages from a few more templates. Will eventually see what is leftover. -Chieftain Alex

18:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Changed light/medium/heavy pages into single sentence overviews linking out to other articles. -Chieftain Alex

17:46, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Moved the quick-reference table from List of armor sets to Armor set. -Chieftain Alex

18:23, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 22

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