Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Projects/Cartography/Archive 3

Categories

Well, the discussion is two years old now we have a Project Cartography, let's rediscuss this issue. So how do we categorize locations? The area infobox currently does it by type, but Konig said he thinks that's a bad idea. - Yandere 09:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

While yes it's an old discussion, but regarding location "level" (e.g., zone, area, etc.) we know just as much then as we know now. So I believe it still pertains today. Nothing really has changed except new people. And quite frankly, I want to avoid any chance we have of repeating past mistakes (I'm probably sounding annoying with constantly linking that, but hey, it's my reason).

Allow me to explain why it's a bad idea. Currently there are 717 Points of Interest counting to map completion - that is to say, not including dungeon PoI which will also get their own pages (I suspect there's between 5 and 15 PoI per dungeon, averaging to, let's just say 100 - thus about 815 PoI total). Atop of this, Category:Areas is currently at 336 and I don't think half of the areas have infoboxes - if an article at all. There's roughly 25 areas per zone/city, and about 15 per dungeon I think, and let's not forget WvW/PvP areas as well! That'd get us... a lot, I'd suspect off the top of my head about 400-500 areas. Those are some pretty big categories all on their own.

Now, consider the future. If a single expansion pack adds 5 zones - that's roughly 250 areas and 300 PoI, not including any new dungeons. Roughly. With each new expansion pack, we're going to want to create sub-categories in the type categories for per release. Thus we have a return of gw1:Category:Continents (what the current-minus-types categories was loosely based off of), gw1:Category:Regions, gw1:Category:Explorable areas, and so forth. Each was a category by "type" that was thus divided into campaigns. What made those categories truly horrendous were the gw1:Category:Prophecies locations and similar ones, where the locations were placed in both the general category and the campaign-specific sub-category, as well as being in 2 or so other category trees - all within gww:Category:Locations. Though the risk of redundancy in categorizing is there with having to alter the auto-categorizing in the future to compensate for the new releases (that is, if you don't count the current redundancies a redundancy already).

In short, I think it's a bad idea because we're repeating past mistakes. It's the same exact route. And I want to avoid that. There's little help in a category holding 700+ entries anyways, that's why Category:ArenaNet concept art gets sub-categories - because the main one, which someone dictated long ago must contain all concept art images (due to licensing or some such I believe), is too damn large. So I fail to see the original usefulness in the incorrectly named "Category:Points of interest" from the very beginning, let alone seeing the horrors that is the future of that category.

I'm just thinking of things in the long run - apparently, I am the only one, or one of very few, doing so with all the edits I've seen. Konig/talk 10:50, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I've not done anything with categories for these locations but I'll tell you what I'd like to see Category:Locations --> Category:<Zone Name> --> Category: <Area Name> --> POI pages, Skill challenges pages Event pages etc. The only thing I don't know where to categories are the Zone pages and Area pages. Area pages could go in Category:<Zone Name> and Zone pages in Category:Locations OR Area pages could go in Category:<Area Name> and zone pages in Category:<Zone Name> [edit] Also someone seems to have added the Category:Areas to the template which caused all the pages typed "Areas" to go into that category, flooding it. — Andrealinia 11:09, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

IMO, events, skill challenges, and hearts should not be categorized under any subcategory of Category:Locations. They are not places. With that in mind, area categories are pointless due to the small size. And even if we were to include events and the rest - there are hearts and events (yes hearts too) that affect more than one area. Do they go into multiple area categories? isn't that a bit redundant, don't you think, if so?

And yes, the addition of those auto-categorizations is what caused this debate, through an IP claiming that the previous area infobox didn't clarify what kind of location type it is (despite very clearly stating it in the infobox) simply because it wasn't color coded and thus for some reason adding them to a category for the type would somehow make it clear even though categories only show up on the bottom - yeah, logical...). Konig/talk 11:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

They're not places but they do need to be categorised some way. But you are right, especially with them taking up multiple locations. In that case, scrap the Area category and just leave all the area pages under the Category:<Zone Name> as for pois and things, they could be categorised under Category:<Type> --> Category:<Zone Name> (though obv it's going to need a different name to distinguish from the location one) I don't see the point of 'area' because, like you said, some take place over multiple areas but I don't believe any span multiple zones. — Andrealinia 11:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

So then... you want to categorize it the way it's been done for months? That is, PoI and areas both going under the zone's category (e.g., Category:Brisban Wildlands)? Which in turn are all sub-categories of their regions, which are sub-categories of Category:Locations. As for hearts and the like, why don't Category:Skill challenges and Category:Renown hearts (which could then divided by region and zone similar to locations, which imo would be a good idea) work for them? :P Konig/talk 11:55, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Haha, yes, apparently I do :P Some of the hearts have been categorised into that Brisban Wildlands category. So really, the only categories we need (and this covers POIs, Hearts, Skill Challenges, Areas and Zones) are Category: Locations (with the zone pages in it?) and Category:<Zone Name> with everything else for that zone in it. This makes the corresponding Zone, Poi and Hearts categories redundant. Or did I misread somewhere? — Andrealinia 12:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

So Cat:Location -> Cat:<Region> -> Cat:<Zone> and there are all POIs, Areas, Hearts and Skill Challanges. Did I got this right? I actually have no strong opinion on that, I just want a consistent autocats, and just started with what I found :P- Yandere 12:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I got from this discussion (just realised I kept missing out region) — Andrealinia 12:23, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

(mostly @Konig here) I still don't understand what is wrong with categorizing things by type, that's the most logical categorization there is. So what if the category has 1,000+ members? It's still logical. Areas go in Cat:Areas, PoIs go in Cat:Points of interest (I also don't know what is "incorrect" about that category name anyway, that's the proper plural), etc. We can use DPL/SMW to create specific lists by category intersection, e.g Cat:Points of interest × Cat:Brisban Wildlands.

Why is re-categorizing by "campaign" a necessary evolution of this? I don't follow that logic. Categorize by type and by parent zone, and that's all we should need. —Dr Ishmael 12:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the issue isn't that they're categorised by type but that the category doesn't give you anything. I mean, with the amount of pois there are you couldn't find what you were looking for by going into the category, I think (and I may be wrong) Konig's saying what's the point of even having the category since you can't find anything? — Andrealinia 13:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Bah, whatever. I've said before that I don't really care about categories, so I don't know why I'm even bothering to participate in this discussion. SMW will basically make categories obsolete, so it doesn't really matter what happens here. —Dr Ishmael 14:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

This is mainly just my OCD acting in, but I'd avoid putting hearts, events, and skill challenges in the same category - especially with locations. They function differently (Areas, PoI, and waypoints you just have to go to; skill challenges, hearts, and events you have to participate in; vistas you just have to click one after getting there). But again, this is just my personal opinion on the matter because I feel they are different enough to mandate a separate category (it also allows searching via category to be easier).

@Ishy: The illogicalness is the purpose of categories. They're around for two purposes, as far as I'm aware: to, obviously, categorize articles and (more importantly imo) to allow people a means of searching without having to wade through article after article. As such, huge lists distract and bother people searching - this is the reason why, in the above discussion, people preferred tables over list for the locations (the difference of my standpoint is the size of the lists - 50 entries (locations) versus 700+ entries is vastly different).

As to why we would have to re-categorize by release. Technically, it isn't, but if we want some form of order to the categories' entries (which since people use categories to search articles, people will undoubtably want), then having 1000+ sized categories is an unwanted element. And the means to reduce that is to create sub-categories. And how do you think those categories will come about? By zone? By region - technically, we do that already - we just mix in areas with the PoI. Thus the next logical step would be division by release.

@Andrealinia: That is one of my points yes. My others is just to simplify the amount of categories (this is why we settled for Category:Bestiary instead of following GWW's gw1:Category:Species and gw1:Category:Creature type and gw1:Category:NPCs by type system). Konig/talk 17:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm agreeing with everything you're saying for the categories but I'm having trouble discerning exactly what you mean, can you write it out exactly the situation you're proposing? — Andrealinia 18:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The deletion of "Category:Points of interest", Category:Areas, and "Category:Explorable zones" and in turn the autocategorization that's on {{Location infobox}}. I wouldn't mind seeing Category:Dungeons disappear too, but that's so small it's not much of an issue and it's so unique that it's far more viable in of itself than the others. Zones is also viable in of itself, but less so imo. Konig/talk 18:38, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

That would leave us with Category:Locations, Category:<Region> and Category:<Zone>. What were you meaning about not wanting to include the pois etc. in with the locations? Putting them in another category etc. Category:<Zone> Points of Interest, Category:<Zone> Hearts? — Andrealinia 19:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I think you're confused. What I want is to retain only the older categorization. In Category:Locations are the various regions, in those are the various zone categories which contains areas and PoIs (and the zone article itself with |*). What I don't want to include with locations are renown hearts, skill challenges, and events. So I guess I want two things: Deleted the categories I pointed out in my previous edit (Cat: PoI, Area, Explorable Zone), and remove hearts, skill challenges, and events from the Category:<zone> categories, as imo they should have their own category trees. Konig/talk 20:16, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Ok, now I understand what you mean but I do not think that is a good categorisation. Main main problem is this.
What do you find on a map: Hearts, Skill challanges, POIs, Vistas, Waypoints, Dungeons and Jumping Puzzles. Waypoints is no problem, because those do not get pages, and dungeons are kind of excluded because of their prominent role in the game The other things are equal imo because they are things you find on a map. So I would have no problem to put all of them in their respective zone categorie, or have sepateted categoriesation for all of them, but excluding points of interest seam extremly weird to be because I honestly can't see why POIs should be treated diffrent than Vistas or Hearts.
The you see areas as something diffrent and want to categorize these in their zone. Yeah that is something I can see. But POIs shoudl be treated the same as Vistas, Hearts, Skills and Puzzles.
And t more I think about it, would really like to see the Cat:Location -> Cat:<Region> -> Cat:<Zone> solution, because it keeps the categories relativly small and is easy to follow, having two separate categorisation systems one by zone and the other by type is something that would be very confusing for someone who wasn't in this discussion and just wants to find something. - Yandere 00:52, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Vistas aren't a problem since they, too, don't have pages (details on them are best left to their area's article.

Dungeons get their own category inside a zone category, since they act as an instanced zone in a way.

Jumping puzzles are a tricky subject, but not really an important aspect atm I think. They are not like PoI or the rest for two reasons - they are considered a mini-dungeon, and they do not count to map completion. They are more akin to areas at best. It's probably best to discuss how to handle these in their own topic.

I consider PoI different from hearts and skill challenges because they function differently, as I said. Think of it like this: uncovering waypoints and points of interest is a passive action (done automatically by going to an area), whereas the others are active actions (you have to proactively work to the goal of the heart/skill challenge/vista). So while they mechanically count to the same thing (map completion), how they function is completely different.

The Cat:Location->Cat:<region>->Cat:<zone> isn't a solution, that's what's in place already and has been. It seems that we're all in agreement except for how to treat hearts and the like. Honestly, while I disagree with placing them in the location categories because it feels like putting gw1:quest articles into a location category, I do not find it that large of an issue to prevent such. However, I do believe that adding them - especially with events on top - will only add to the size of the zone categories and thus reduce the efficiency they were creating. Along with this, at the moment all hearts, skill challenges, and events are already in their own unique categories but only some are in the zone categories (something easily fixed mind you). At least I believe that's the case.

Important note: Am I to understand that there's a consensus for removing "Category:Points of interest", Category:Areas, and "Category:Explorable areas"? If so, I will remove the auto-categorization from {{Location infobox}}. Konig/talk 03:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there's a consensus for removing those.

As for the hearts and things. I do think they should stay in the Category:<Zone> page - at least for now. There are only a limited number in each zone and they are all things needed for map completion, hence I would expect to find them in the Zone category. I do not think events should be included in this. Events, I believe, should be treated different. They are not for map completion. It is possible to have Category:<Zone> Events, ie Category:Caledon Forest -> "Category: Caledon Forest Events". There are so many events per zone that I believe the events would flood the zone categories. This layout I just proposed for events could also be done for the hearts, skills and pois (e.g. "Category: Caledon Forest Skill Challenges" — Andrealinia 14:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I removed the type autocats from the area infobox, I just kept the explorable zone and city * autocategortisation, there is still the within autocat which should basiclly put all areas and POIs in the the zone category. There is a heart infobox, is there also a skill challenge infobox? - Yandere 21:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I also just cleaned up Category:Areas, "Category:Explorable zones" there is nothing in those cats anymore. I would like to keep Points of interest a while longer because the articles in there had the categorisatione done from hand, So I would like to delete this thing when we edit all articles and the cat is empty. - Yandere 21:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so the POIs which e left in the POI categorie are missing an area infobox, is is actually a nice to do list. Putting an infobox in the and removing the categories in the artcle, but notoday. - Yandere 21:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok I just thought about it. We have:

List of hearts in <zone>

List of skill challenges in <zone>

List of vistas in <zone>

And perhaps se other list-of things that I currently missed. If we categories those article in their respective zone perhaps under *. We would have the complete information in the zone cat without cluttering the cat to much. I think that would be a good solution. That you can hind everthing in the zone cat, but you could also have a vista cat for those how try to activlly find a Vista. - Yandere 10:28, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that is those pages are probably going to be deleted, since they're not needed any more. — Andrealinia 11:44, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

My issue isn't so much in category clutter - as adding the hearts and skill challenge pages will only be making them ~100 entries total - is that they're not locations. Some skill challenges are, literally, using a consumable. That is in no way a location, regardless of its association with map completion. They're vastly different things, and I do not ever want to see Tasty Meat placed in Category:Diessa Plateau. Konig/talk 12:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Well the tasty meat example made me chuckle. But hat would be a consumeble the Skill challenge would be "Eat the tasty meat!". What about making categories like: Reknown Hearts in <zone> which we than put in cat:Reknown Heart and in cat:<zone> so you could get there by browsing both cat trees. - Yandere 12:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I was actually thinking of that earlier (just Cat:<zone> renown hearts - e.g., Category:Diessa Plateau renown hearts), however that'd only be the solution if the issue was size, which again isn't the problem (unless we started adding in events too). The issue is that these are not locations, they're activities. As I think I said above, it'd be like going to GWW and putting gw1:Category:Factions quests into gw1:Category:Factions locations. It just doesn't make sense because they're not the same thing. Why can't we just have "Category:Locations" "Category:Events" "Category:Renown hearts" and "Category:Skill challenges" all on par to each other - rather than trying to cram hearts and skill challenges to be not only on par to, but in the same organizing of PoI. If we must do the latter, then we can create a Category:Activities to place the latter three prior categories (events, hearts, skill challenges - and hell, even jumping puzzles cuz those aren't locations either) in. Just because they count to map completion does not make them locations. It's like calling a cat a fish. Konig/talk 14:42, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Categories of "X in Y" will be made completely obsolete by SMW. Assuming we annotate pages with Property:Located in, all you have to do is {{#ask:[[Category:X]][[Located in::Y]]}} to get the list of "X in Y" (although we're not using intuitive categorization-by-type, so we'd have to also annotate Property:Has type and do {{#ask:[[Has type::X]][[Located in::Y]]). I don't see any need to create an additional 25 categories each for hearts, skill challenges, PoIs, NPCs, etc. —Dr Ishmael 14:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

So basiclly the solution is wait until SMW is installed? - Yandere 14:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Hearts, Skill challenges, Vistas etc. are not only activities, they are loctions, because they have a marker on the map and are therefor prominent landmarks. - Yandere 14:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Going on a bit of a tangent here, but technically, "Category:Queensdale" is a poor category name. Going by the name alone (and ignoring what parent categories it is in), one would assume that everything related to Queensdale would go in there, including hearts and challenges. "Category:Locations in Queensdale" would be a much better category name and would obviously exclude non-locations. But that gets into the "X in Y" scheme, which as I said above is redundant with SMW. However, I'm running out of steam on this issue, so whatever you guys decide is fine. —Dr Ishmael 15:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I am basiclly with the doc here I would assume everything in Queensdale goes there, so I would put everything there. - Yandere 17:06, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

A marker does not make something a location. It has a location, a placement, but that doesn't make it a place. It's like stating a flag on a hill makes the flag a location.

As to the category name, that can be fixed - easily now that {{Location infobox}} is autocategorized (huh, I guess that can come in handy), though I'd dislike "Locations in Queensdale" and would prefer "Queensdale locations." I was actually going to use that when I initially started up that category tree but at the time it didn't seem like a problem and preferred more simplistic namestyles. Guess I was wrong. Konig/talk 22:53, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

(Reset) Queensdale location etc. is fine by me.
As I said I have no deep interest in how the categories are set together, I just want people to find this stuff, so it should be halfway constitent. When you say you don't like Heart Quests in a location cat I can live with that.
But imo is everything in this game with a marker on the map a place of interest aka a landmark. I often read something in the zone chat like: "Where are you?" "A bit north from the Vista on the very left." It is a accurate and pretty normal description of place, based on a prominent landmark on the map: the "Vista on the very left". A place where a heart quest NPC stands is defined by the NPC and becomes a place because the NPC stands exactly there. He is nothing more than a place where you can meet up with someone. I do this actually very often. If something has a place, it is place, at least in a video game. Again I can live with most things but I don't follow your logic. - Yandere 03:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Landmarks

I was initially going to wait until everything else is more or less situated and documented, but while changing Gendarran Fields to the above layout agreed upon, I saw that someone made pages for all uniquely named waypoints - none of which were PoI. As such, I've been turning them into landmarks rather than tagging for deletion (some places have lore, some may have lore, I'm not entirely sure 100%, and certain ones are going to be searched I'm sure since they're places to go to for personal story (e.g., Applenook Hamlet is somewhere you go during the Order of Whispers storyline). However, the issue is that I'm effectively turning them all into orphaned articles once I finish the zone's reformatting - something I'd rather not do - until someone goes around and adds them to the area articles. So down to the point of this: do we wish to document them on zone articles, and if so how? Naturally, if we do they'd go under the Locations section in the table, though a question becomes if we want to use an icon for them too (and if so, what icon?). Konig/talk 09:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't include Landmarks in the table. I think Landmarks should get it's separate listing like Pets, because sometimes you have to discribe how to find it, or want to present some additonal informations, why this is an interesting place, etc. The table just presents bare-bone information, which is ok, because all the things have an ingame functionallity. Landmarks on the other hand does not have a functunallity. They can be exeptional pretty or have some lore attached to them, so the bare-bone information wouldn't cut it imo. With an own listing you also wouldn't need an own icon. I hope I just got accross what I wanted to say. - Yandere 10:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

"because sometimes you have to describe how to find it" No you don't? We don't need such information for points of interest and landmarks are pretty much the same thing except not related to map completion and has no map icon. Landmarks all have their own individual pages (e.g., Wizard's Tower, Dragonbrand, Applenook Hamlet), so all that extra information you mentioned? Lore, location, reason it's important? Goes on their pages. Just like with points of interest and areas. Konig/talk 10:46, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think I see that a bit diffrent from you. The Wizard's Tower and the Dragonbrand are very good examples for your point, I have seen those and I could immediately remember them. Applenook Hamlet on the other hand, I just read the article and I still don't have a clue where on the map Applenook Hamlet is located and that is exactly the problem with landmarks. Since there is no in-game functionality attached to them some people might classify certain places as landmarks others don't. A friend of my poited out how silly one of the POIs is because it is more or less just a pile of snow, some of the POIs in The Grove are not really interesting, but they stand out because they have the in-game functunality to be POIs. Landmarks do not have this luxury. Some might find that Applenook Hamlet is something to be called a landmark others don't and that is fine. So they always need a sentence that justifies them as landmarks. Yeah they have an own wiki page, yes you can read up everything there. But since everything and nothing can be a landmark, I think it is not a good idea to put them in the table.

Don't get me wrong. I think landmarks are a great idea, but I also see some problems attached to them. - Yandere 11:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

But if they want to learn more about the landmark, they can very easily click the link and - ohey, there's a "Getting there" section (just an example as that's how GWW structured that information), and lore on what it is, what makes it special, and so forth. Applenook Hamlet, among probably about 85% of all area, PoI, and now-landmark articles are incomplete, but they should all end up with a "Getting there" section (perhaps even zones should too).

I also disagree with "since everything and nothing can be a landmark" - landmarks are only those places of particular interest or purpose in the game. Something that stands out, has unique specific-to-that-small-spot lore, and so forth. Applenook Hamlet I would only consider to be a landmark because it is the one and only non-human-centric village/town in Gendarran Fields. But things like First Haven which were given an article for who knows what reason and I just slapped "landmark" in favor of slapping the delete tag? They're not what I'd call a real landmark.

Though arguably, those which aren't very important (Wizard's Tower) are landmarks because they have a waypoint named after them (e.g., Applenook Hamlet Waypoint in Cornucopian Fields), so those do have an "in-game functionality attached to them". Konig/talk 11:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm on the fence with this. In on one hand I would love to have them in the table because it beings everything together - on the other hand, the only people interested in those will be the fans of Guild Wars that want to see everything with their character. There's no achievement, chest or map completion associated with them to drive the casual player to them. It's not the ideal solution but we could add a column to the table called "Landmarks" in which these types of things can be added. The other issue with putting them in the current table under "map completion" is that there isn't an icon for them and they'd look a little out of place. I'm not too phased either way. Like I said, they'd be nice to have but I'm just not sure on how to add them to the zone pages.

The other alternative is to just leave them for now and as we add them to area pages, remove them from the zone page/wherever they're stored. — Andrealinia 11:51, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

An extra coloum... I am not really sure if I would want that. But IF we make something like that I would argue that things like Asura gates, Jumping Puzzles, Dungeons, etc. would also get there since they are also not required for map completion.

@Konig: When I think about it again, I think you are mostly right with your arguementation. But I kind of have this fear that just plain uninteresting landmarks will be added to the table and we will constaly have to re-edit and argue about is ts worthy to be called a landmark or not to prevent the table from being cluttered. And I actually don't want to think about stuff like "On this hill the Awesome Guild was founded which constantly dominates sPvP on its home server." I know this isn't 100% rational, and as I said I would defintly want to see Landmarks in this wiki, just beacause the visuals in this game are awesome an I am a natural explorer, but I also fear that this will be a constant clean-up. - Yandere 12:26, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Well that example wouldn't fly, no ifs ands or buts about that since it's community based and wouldn't actually be true. But from what I've seen there isn't a huge amount of things that can be considered as a landmark because most stuff that would be are Points of Interest - the most arbitruary stuff I can think of would be little more than an image with a caption on an area page (the most arbitruary thing that comes to mind is a stone face one can find in Wychmire Swamp in Caledon Forest with no lore behind it). I think it's important to note what a landmark is - which is what landmark is for - and that it's meant to be a place of particular interest or background and not just some odd rock formation.

To the new column idea... if we were to use it for dungeons, asura gates, and jumping puzzles as well then certainly. Another option would be to not call it "map completion" since it's already not only containing stuff for map completion. But separating the two is probably the better option. The only issue I see would be width and if it poses a problem with the infobox/mail message being on the right side (if it's too wide, it'll get put underneath the above - though I guess moving mail messages to the left side again would solve this). Konig/talk 12:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

So I tested it out just to see how it looks and I don't think it stretches the table too much, (see User:Andrealinia/Sandbox) I did two version, one with landmarks at the end and one with the hearts at the end. I don't really have a preference with them but then neither am I 100% sold that it works. — Andrealinia 17:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The Landmark coloum is a bit empty, so we are at the much white space issue again. I am not sure if that is a good idea. - Yandere 17:08, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

On my screen, at least, the table is pushed underneath the letter, so it is stretched out too much. And yeah, white space is an issue - part of the reason why I initially wanted to keep landmarks with the rest was that since if we do just landmarks it'd be even more whitespace. However, if we were to create a landmark article for each uniquely named waypoint, I think this would be different - I altered that sandbox to show what I mean. Issue is would be if each one, while having lore and the like - would they have enough to validate them other than being an article that someone might search due to hearing mention of or seeing the waypoint named after it and wondering "huh, I wonder what that is?"? There's still a bit of white space, but less so at least. I think Caledon Forest is one of those with the minimal amounts of what'd constitute as a landmark, though. Konig/talk 23:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The more I think about this, I wouldn't make a second coloum. It kind of defeats the design goal of the current consensus. I also think that we could just add landmarks to the table and see what happens. If my fear comes true, they just fly out of the table and get an extra section, If everything is hunky dory we have pretty much a gold standard.

Only thing is what kind of icon are we using as landmark icon. A map where an x marks the spot: http://www.clker.com/clipart-65918.html?- Yandere 08:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

like this one? Konig/talk 12:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

You can read my mind O_O - Yandere 14:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

(reset) As I played this icon showed up on my mini map. I seriously had no clue how it got the but the tooltip said it was a personal waypoint or something like that. I think this is the closest thing for a in-game landmark icon as you can get. So yeah, i think this would be a good icon when we start to list landmarks. - Yandere 21:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

That's a personal waypoint that you create via alt+click on the map. Basically the same as a personal story waypoint starburst but gray. If you're in a party and they make one, it becomes blue and shows up as <character name>'s Waypoint. Not opposed to using that for a landmark but it's far from what it's about. :p Konig/talk 21:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Some NPCs can place a personal waypoint when you talk to them. I don't remember the NPC's name, but there was a quaggan in Orsippus (Frostgorge Sound) who told me that the Quaggan Games were about to start in Zuckermaloo and proceeded to mark it on my map for me. —Dr Ishmael 21:42, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah ok, you learn something new every day. I think it is a nice touch that we place these icons on the map to tell people about interesting landmarks. I guess this somehow pleases my RP mentality. - Yandere 10:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Never heard them being made by NPCs in zones, though I do know that direction NPCs in cities place them on your map (e.g., "where is the merchant district" gets one placed over the largest merchant section of the city). Konig/talk 10:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Resources and Services

Perhaps there should be a section listing resources that appear in each zone? Some zones have 2 or 3 different tiers of nodes and it would help to know what tools to bring. I'd also suggest that any Node farms and Rich veins in the zone be included in this section. Some zones already have a section for cooking materials (e.g. Bloodtide Coast), we can simply expand those. I just noticed pets are in the box summary, we could similarly list resources there in the same way. Some zones have Finally, things like Merchants, Equipment Repairs NPCs, Crafting stations and Trading Posts should have a section as well. The basic idea is that each explorable zone page should provide a comprehensive reference of what can be found in that zone and where in the zone to find them. Voidphoenix 03:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

There is one already for resources, I believe. Some zones may not have them listed yet due to being incomplete though. As to services - just about every zone has merchants, repair, TP, and so forth NPCs. Only services of note would be trait and crafting NPCs - these two are the only kinds of service NPCs I could see viable for being in a zone article rather than an area article (where the others are, rightfully, placed). The issue with having a "comprehensive reference" to what can be found in the zone is that the zones contain so much information that if we were to do that then we'd have huge pages. That's why we put the more general and area-specific information on those articles. Konig/talk 03:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Still, it would be nice to see some indication of services from the zone article, especially for a general-goods merchant (salvage kits/gather tools) because they don't have distinct icons on the map. Maybe just add "General Store" to your "services of note". —Dr Ishmael 04:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If you look at Caledon Forest there's a section for crafting resources. We could always just keep the same layout, renaming "Crafting Resources" to "Resources" and create a subheader for "Merchants" and "Trainers" — Andrealinia 06:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I am all in for Andrealinia's suggestion. I think a "what can I get there?" section is the best solution. - Yandere 08:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Still opposed to listing merchants (far too long), though I see the purpose behind non-standard vendors - but most of those merchants are event tied so, imo, there's little point in listing them on the zone article. Every zone holds dozens of merchants and listing them all is outright silly - and since non-standard merchants (read: those who don't sell salvage kits and gathering tools) are mostly event tied, listing them on there would either get messy (having to specify when they're around, as well as, perhaps, what they sell) or potentially confusing - if not both. No opposition to listing trainer and crafting stations. Konig/talk 09:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I, too, agree that listing merchants is too much. I believe most area have a merchant so it would be easier to just go to the area you're in and find the merchant there. If there isn't one, click through to a connecting area and you'd find out. — Andrealinia 10:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

In the higher-level zones, most areas do not have a merchant, and there may only be 2 or 3 general-goods merchants in the entire zone. If I run out of mining picks, I'd like to be able to see from the zone article where I need to go to get more, so I don't have to a) waste time running around to all the merchants that only sell dumb consumables and then b) waste money traveling back to a city to get them. I never said list all merchants, only the general-goods merchants. —Dr Ishmael 13:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Might this only be worth applying to the higher zone pages then? — Andrealinia 13:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If that's the case then it should indeed only apply to the Orr zones (as I am pretty sure there's several standard merchants in Frostgorge). Konig/talk 14:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I still think it would be worth listing them at the zone level because they can't be identified on the map. Just last night, my wife and I started exploring Sparkfly Fen, and she shortly used up her mining picks. We ran all over the north end of the area looking for a merchant where she could buy more, but they were all crap merchants. She finally gave up and traveled to Lion's Arch to get them, only to find that the very next merchant we would have gone to was a general-goods merchant. If the zone article had listed where to find these general-goods merchants, she could've saved 4 silver (yes, that is still a lot of money to us).

Trainers and crafting stations have unique icons that make them very obvious on the map, so I don't understand why they should be listed on the zone article without listing the standard merchants. —Dr Ishmael 14:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh! I finally get what you're on about. You're on about only listing merchants that sell the picks, scythes and axes so that they can be identified from the normal merchants because they all use that weird coin symbol. We could always try listing them and if, on the early zones, it gets to be too much we can remove it the early zones and just leave it in the later zones. — Andrealinia 14:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Except that in the earlier zones they are, literally, all over the place. I think it's only when you get to lvl 50+ zones that they become a little bit more sparse, increasingly so as you get closer to Orr (in fact, I think it's only in and around Orr that they're scarce, but I haven't been through much of Fireheart Rise so not sure there), but it's primarily those around Orr that are scarce, I believe. Konig/talk 16:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Jumping Puzzles

So I think this needs to be sorted, if it's not being done so somewhere else (I couldn't find it if so).

Take the following example: Loreclaw Expanse is an area, however it is also the name of the jumping puzzle. At the moment the link takes you to "Loreclaw Expanse/solution" but that feels wrong. Surely, if it's going to be done with these subheaders, the page Loreclaw Expanse would have a reference at the top to the jumping puzzle and the link under jumping puzzle would take you to the page Loreclaw Expanse (jumping puzzle) - this page would have the solution integrated onto it, through the use of {{:Loreclaw Expanse (jumping puzzle)/solution}}, like I did a while back at Troll's End. I know the solutions can be spoilers but, really, you're not looking up the actual jumping puzzle unless you're looking up how to do it and it seems silly to have to go through an extra link to get to the /solution page (it also seems silly to even have a /solution page). — Andrealinia 11:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to transclude the solution page like that, then it doesn't need to be a separate page at all - just move it onto the primary article. Personally, I often look up a puzzle to see how to find the entrance to it (since a lot of them are well-hidden), but I don't want to see the full solution. We can wrap the solution portion with {{spoilers}} for people like me. —Dr Ishmael 12:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

But wouldn't the entrance be on the area page? Never mind, just realised you might be looking up a specific one for the achievement, etc. But I do think spoiler tags would be better than having a separate page. — Andrealinia 13:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I initiated the /solution subpage a while back for those who wanted only entrance information and not to be spoiled with how to do the puzzle. The original idea, when all known jumping puzzles shared names of areas, was to have the information of the area and the entrance to the jumping puzzle on the base page, with the solution on the subpage. Issue is, only a few of them share names with areas while most do not (yet for some reason are using the area infobox and have | type = Area on them...). With more pages being solely about the entrance, then Ishy's suggestion works better - and for those 5 or so that share names, they get moved to (jumping puzzle) pages.

P.S. I really do not see the constant love with transcribing articles. It's unnecessary and creates more work, but feels like so many folks want to do that whenever possible (e.g., the original zone article format). Konig/talk 13:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• {{User:Relyk/Template:Jumping puzzle infobox}}
• User:Relyk/Jumping puzzle format
• User:Relyk/Jumping puzzle format/example

^acceptable for now? I simply avoided reading the walkthrough and click on the image when I did the puzzles, hide the walkthrough if others aren't that talented.--Relyk 20:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Pretty good, might want to actually put the walkthrough in the spoiler header though, so that people have to open it to read it? :) — Andrealinia 21:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Erm, that template looks like an exact copy of {{Location infobox}} with the exception of the icon placement and the removal of | type = while using the currently PoI-only | area = parameter. In other words, the template's pointless. As to the page format itself - getting there sounds like it'd be step 1 of the walkthrough. No need to name the gallery "Image Walkthrough" - simply "gallery", perhaps as a third level section header (===) would do. The note about the achievement on your example page is true for every jumping puzzle, unnecessary. No other complaints. Though perhaps using {{spoilers}} instead of {{spoiler}} to hide the walkthrough and images - however, if doing that, best separate the getting there from the walkthrough itself. Konig/talk 21:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with your stance on "Getting there" - that's the one part that people like myself want to see, apart from the walkthrough of the puzzle itself. I don't want to have the puzzle spoiled unless I really, really can't figure something out; on the other hand, I would only go to that page if I need help finding the entrance, so having that part visible doesn't spoil anything. When will I learn to read things completely before commenting? Yes, I agree with the last part of what you said, leave "Getting there" a separate section and hide the walkthrough with the spoilers template. —Dr Ishmael 23:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course, it's copypasted. If you want to put it in the area infobox, you can. Jumping puzzles aren't part of the definition for area so I don't think it's appropriate.--Relyk 23:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That infobox is already used for a lot of things that aren't areas, so I don't see the problem. —Dr Ishmael 00:23, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Though called "area infobox" it technically is a location infobox. Used for regions, zones, areas, dungeons, instances, landmarks, and points of interest. Jumping puzzle can easily be added among them, especially since all jumping puzzle pages uses it already, though incorrectly denote the type as "area" rather than "jumping puzzle" (or alternatively, "mini-dungeon" which would be more encompassing). Konig/talk 00:32, 3 October 2012 (UTC)