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<font color=darkgreen><b>NOTE: This is the location of our old Forum and this page has been locked. All content has been moved to our new threads based [[Forum:General|Forum]]. Please go there to make new posts.</b></font>


The Forum is a central location for discussions that would be of general interest to other [[Related Links|contributors]]. This also includes putting a link here to very specific discussions that are carried out on the talk pages of articles. The general idea is having one place to check for recent contributor discussions. The wiki is growing and there are now many contributors helping cover more topics than ever. The forum should help avoid missing reading and participating in discussions about standards and practices as the wiki continues to evolve.  
The Forum is a central location for discussions that would be of general interest to other [[Related Links|contributors]]. This also includes putting a link here to very specific discussions that are carried out on the talk pages of articles. The general idea is having one place to check for recent contributor discussions. The wiki is growing and there are now many contributors helping cover more topics than ever. The forum should help avoid missing reading and participating in discussions about standards and practices as the wiki continues to evolve.  
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== October 2009 ==
== July 2009 ==
=== Skins & home page design ===
=== Spells ===
{{Post
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  | To = Tlosk
  | To =  
  | Text = Nice work with the spells and the new design. Some questions about it:
  | Text = With the move to Wikia there are several Monaco skin colors along with the Monobook skin. I've done some editing to the [[MediaWiki:Monaco-toolbox]] and [[MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar]] (may need to clear history and refresh to see them). With these changes, the Monaco skin has pretty much all the same links, menus, and tools that were previously found on asheron.info's sidebar and drop down menu. This will hopefully help make the site easier for those not signed in, as Monaco is the default.
<br><br>On the topic of skins - is it possible to change the default to Monobook, so the site would look more familiar to those not logged in? And if it is possible, do we want even want to make this change, or should we embrace and expand on the Monaco skin?
<br><br>A related topic - the home page. I think that we should consider a serious overhaul of the layout. The major changes I would like to see would be to move AC News & Wiki News to somewhere on the homepage, where they would get much more attention. I'd also consider merging the two into 'news'. I also think we could make some major revisions to the whole topic section, especially since the monaco sidebar menu can cover much of it.
<br><br>At the very least, the welcome and Getting Started sections should probably be edited or rewritten. And I think we could try changing the style of the boxes - from their current rounded edges to something more resembling our recent template changes.


I noticed all spells are being created as links. But if the previous spell system is going to be used, all of those links will just be redirects to the main spell page. Do you have plans to bring back individual spell pages, and merely place a link to the main spell page on individual spells?
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 17:37, September 25, 2009 (UTC)
 
Foci components are not listed, and old comps are only base comps with none of the tapers (even non-personal) included. I understand that due to page width only so much info can be displayed, but I do think this info should still be available somewhere.
 
One major thing I noticed is that there is no learnable/not learnable column. I think this is very important to have.
 
My overall suggestions would be:
* Replace "Base Components" with "Learnable"
* Eventually, create individual pages for all spells, where full comp listings and correct spell words can be listed for non-standard spells.
 
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
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  | Text = This is the first of three stages, where I get the bulk of the data in place using tools. The second will be editing individual spell pages, most will be redirects categorized as creature spell, unlearnable spell, etc. Some will have their own page when they have additional information that's important (related quests, etc). Ones with their own page will have a prominent link to the list page for stacking info. Also in the second stage I'll be deleting the generic Cantrip pages (all spells of a given effect are now listed on the same list page, and the individual spell redirects will be themselves categorized at cantrip, this way they will show up individually by name on the category page).
  | Text = Nice work with the menus on the sidebars.--{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 22:47, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
 
}}
After initially including tapers, I discovered that there are discrepancies in game and in fact there aren't nonpersonal tapers (colors in the supposedly fixed taper position that differ from those given in the portal.dat info). Those can be added if anyone wants to though (the {{tl|Spell Formula}} template allows you to just insert tapers or empty spaces as desired). Since it's no longer possible to enter component information to learn a new spell though it's not something that I'll be doing myself.
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The learnable information will be added in the third stage (this data is metadata so will have to be done by hand for each spell), I'm toying with the idea of linking to scrolls (with the respective icon) for those, and making special icons for monster only, item only, or quest learned that would each link to something appropriate for that particular spell.
| To =
 
| Text = See: [[User:An Adventurer/Sandbox]] for a more clear example of my idea for updating the home page.
There's about 5000 spells so I should be done in another day or two. The tables and rows are templates to make adjustments as painless as possible so if you think of any more suggestions let me know. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 15:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


:Also we'll need to overhaul the [[Spells]] page once this is all done and I was thinking of making a prominent section there about focii and prismatic formulas instead of repeating them on every single spell. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 15:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 18:02, September 25, 2009 (UTC)
 
::I should add that I have no objection to having individual pages for each spell, but at least for the interim we'll have all spells link to something that gives a description. I primarily made them links to aid in making the redirects, so there are links to spells that do have pages, and because I thought it looked nicer. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 15:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
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{{Post
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  | Text = I have a suggestion, although it would not need to be done right now. Part of the reason I added (Spell) to every spell listing was because there were also cantrips to list on a different page. Now that cantrips and spells are listing on the same page, that distinction is no longer needed. Now - there are still cases where we need some form of disambiguation, for Example strength is a spell and an attribute. I would suggest that, for every spell, we replace (Spell) with Spells or Spell Category. So Strength (Spell) becomes Strength Spells or Strength Spell Category.
  | Text = I have added some more detail to my sandbox linked above. It's not by any means a final design though. I have designed this with the thought that by default, visitors will be in the new monaco skin and will thus be using the sidebar, which I added a lot to. And hopefully we can get the drop-down menu added back to the monobook skin, and that drop down menu can mirror the links and levels of the monaco sidebar menu.
<br><br>I'd like to hear some people's thoughts on the proposed design. I greatly reduced the number of main topics displayed. Are there any topics I removed that you think absolutely need to be there? Are there any topics that were never listed but you thought should be there?
<br><br>I left out links to current/previous/all patches from topics for now, mostly because I couldn't think of good icons to use. I think that there should definitely be a link to the current patch on the main page, but I am not sure we need the previous and all patches links there with them already contained on the sidebar menu.
<br><br>I included [[Game Mechanics]] as a topic. My thought is that this page could be greatly expanded on, and that the current [[General Information]] page would be merged into it.
<br><br>I left out the [[Leveling Guide]] link as a main topic, but I figured that it would be linked to on [[New Player Guide]], [[Returning Player Guide]], [[Game Mechanics]], and [[Level Costs]], all of which are linked to on the main page, so it didn't need it's own link.
<br><br>I also cut out the whole welcome/getting started sections. I placed a short welcome blurb at the top with links to other pages, as seen on many wikis such as wikipedia. I figured that we could go into more detail on the [[Asheron's Call Community Wiki:Introduction]] page and if necessary, create a [[Getting Started]] page. And we could add more general information about the wiki at [[Asheron's Call Community Wiki:About]].


Another idea would be to keep (Spell) only on pages that require the disambiguation (like attribs), and drop it from every other one. Sword Mastery, for example, does not need the (Spell) since it already has the Mastery word to distinguish itself from the skill and the weapons.
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 21:50, September 27, 2009 (UTC)
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
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  | Text = I like Spells for a suffix, makes it more general and reflective of the diverse spells in some categories. And gets away from the title ending with parentheses issues. Although having the parenthetical suffix does make it come up first in the autosuggest drop down when searching. I'd be fine with either. If we decide to change them I can move the pages one by one while doing the redirects/categorizations. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 16:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
  | Text = Lot of great stuff there, I can't reply in detail yet but I wanted to make a quick post to comment on a few things. The dynamicpagelists are extremely resource intensive and so we won't be able to use them (it's possible to use them in a limited fashion, but it's not
really worth it). It isn't possible to set monobook as the default, though I did specify the color scheme default so at least people won't have the dark scheme when they first come to the site. Also I'd suggest making a long term mockup that we can work on and improve over a few weeks and leave the main page as is until most people have made the transition and signed in at least once. We can put a link on the main page though to the mockup to invite broader feedback and suggestions. The issue with the drop downs in monobook is an extension that's installed that messes up the formatting, I have a request in to remove it so anytime now I should be able to turn that back on (although it's still a little borked in IE, I need to figure out how to fix that also).--{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 00:59, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
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=== New Version of Wiki Swiss Tool ===
{{Post
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  | Text = Version 1.05 is now available for download of the [[Wiki Swiss Tool]]. Although it was mostly finished back in January I was waiting until we'd finished updating the templates to release it. It also now has the ability to easily update templates to the current versions on the wiki anytime by copying the text at [[Wiki Swiss Tool/Page Templates]] and using the update button on the tools tab.
  | Text = I've put together a page at [[Asheron's Call Community Wiki]] --[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 19:10, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 
If anything doesn't work as you expect it to, or you think of something else you'd like to see it able to do, just post here or on the [[Talk:Wiki Swiss Tool|talk page]]. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 17:59, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
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=== creature/NPC pages and lore ===
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  | Text = I have gone ahead an modified the main page.
  | Text = I've been wondering if we should handle pages for lore and in-game information differently. Currently the rule is that if for example an NPC/Monster is also a notable lore character, the lore character description would go on the same page as the in-game stats. I think this might be better if the main page is a disambiguation.


For Example, the ''Lady Aerfalle'' would look like this:
* I have left the topics the same until there is some discussion on them.


''See:
* [[Lady Aerfalle (Level 300 Creature)]]
* [[Lady Aerfalle (Level 135 NPC)]]
* [[Lady Aerfalle (Level 135 Creature)]]
* [[Lady Aerfalle (Level 95 Creature)]]
* [[Lady Aerfalle (Character)]]
* [[Aerfalle's Weakened Apprentice]]
* [[Aerfalle's Apprentice]]


There would be similar pages for other notable characters like Asheron, Borelean, Elysa, Nummy, Rytheran, etc.
* The whole welcome/getting started section was removed. It was mostly out of date, and hadn't really been modified since the wiki was created. The relevant info was moved to [[Asheron's Call Community Wiki:Introduction]].  


I also think it could be useful to split creature class pages up into stats and lore. While some creatures may not have a lot of lore, others like Shadow, Virindi, Tumerok, Lugian, Burun, and Undead have tons of information, and certainly deserve their own "Heritage" page, like those I've been working on for Isparians and Empyeans (see: [[Sho]] and [[Falatacot]])


As for how to split up creature class pages, I would suggest leaving the current ones in place as the stat page since they are linked to the most, and the first place someone would search for when looking for stats. On those pages we would place a link to the lore page. It could be something simple like [[Drudge Lore]] or [[Drudge Bestiary Entry]].
* There is now a news section on the main page. I will work more to streamline our whole news section. The old links in the monobook skin sidebar should be removed, but I don't know how to edit that part.


Thoughts?
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 16:44, October 13, 2009 (UTC)


--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 16:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
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  | Text = Awesome work on everything, it looks great. I've been visiting some of the other wikis for ideas and am testing some things out but was trying to finish a map generator first and get some lingering issues from the move resolved. I was also thinking we could make a central hub for navigation where we basically link to almost everything so we can both expand on what is currently on the mainpage and also have a onestop place for people trying to find something (and also expose the nooks and crannies that can be difficult to find if you don't already know they exist). Also I will have a new wiki style forum set up in the next day or two and I'll backfill it with the existing content from here (I may possibly be able to restore our original forum content as well if I can get it running locally). --{{User:Tlosk/Sig}} 15:47, October 14, 2009 (UTC)
  | Text = I agree that'd be a good way to handle creatures with multiple versions. For the creature class pages, I'd suggest that since an abundance of lore is the exception, we keep the layout as is, however for those few types with more than 2 or 3 paragraphs of lore, to have 2-3 paragraphs of abbreviated lore on the class page with a link to an additional page where the lore is expanded as you suggest. My preference would be with <nowiki>[[<Creature Class> Lore]]</nowiki>. Besides the frequency issue (maybe 10 of the 70+ classes have lots of lore available) it's also because of layout concerns, the ToC and image would cramp the table without the text there. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 17:59, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
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== June 2009 ==
=== Template Subcategories ===
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  | Text = The number of templates has increased to the point where making subcategories in the near future will be helpful. Discussion [[Talk:Wiki Templates|here]].
| To = Tlosk
  | Text = I have a suggestion for the central hub. The article [[Asheron's Call]]. Until I created the page for the home page updates, it didn't exist on the wiki. Right now it is just a stub, but I was thinking that it would be a great place to have links to lots of various content. Currently, [[Asheron's Call]] is linked to on the home page in the welcome statement, and it is on the monaco-sidebar with the alias Game Info (one of the first tier topics) so it will be easy to access. And it is probably the broadest topic article, since it can cover all things of AC1 and AC2. --[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 18:19, October 14, 2009 (UTC)
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=== Containers/Chests ===
== September 2009 ==
=== Negative modifers ===
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  | Text = Immortalbob pointed out that there are some weapons that have negative modifiers and they display as "+-10%" etc. I found a way to search for negative mods and found a few more bows and xbows that had a negative damage modifer and a bronze weapon with a negative melee mod. I decided to just add another parameter that would display its value and not format it at all. See [[Cragstone's Axe (Bronze Version)]] and [[Sublime Elari Wood Bow]] for examples. This won't be part of the standard page template as it would be confusing, rather I just wanted to let you know that it's available if needed.
  | Text = I would like to look into the Container Template, but to me it is still unclear how to make the subcategories. At the moment, both the Packs (i.e. those containers that toons can hold in their inventory), and the lootable chests (for quest items, and/or randomly spawning loot chests) are categorized under "Container". However, a (lootable) chest would, imho, require a different template than a Pack. Also, there is a (sub) category "Chest", and a (Sub)category "Pack". Personally, I'd prefer to have lootable (quest) Chests rather as a subcategory under "Object", since many do have fixed locations. For now, I'm gonna put a few proposals in the Discussion of Containers to see what you think of it --[[User:Sanddh|Sanddh]] 16:46, 21 June 2009 (CET)
 
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So if you have a weapon that has a negative mod, delete the regular parameter/buffed parameter and replace it with the special one. The two parameters are "Defense" (instead of "Bonus to Defense") and "Modifer" (instead of "Damage Modifer"). And since there is no formatting applied, set it equal to however you want it to appear (including %, font color, bold, etc). --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 00:47, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
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| Text = Subcategorization isn't exclusive, it can be a sub of both. Though on the [[List of Categories]] it probably only needs to be listed under the most logical one. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 19:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Quest Item Category ===
=== Wikia Test Server Live ===
{{Post
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| To = An Adventurer
  | Text = The Wikia test server is now available at [http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/ACC_Wiki_Home http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/ACC_Wiki_Home]. Almost all extensions have been installed, however there are one or two that are still being worked on. This is a test installation meant to allow us examine what our wiki would be like on Wikia and to give us time to resolve any issues before a move takes place.
  | Text = it sure would be nice to just have a 'Quest Item' category instead of just dumping them all into 'Item' - what do you think?  --[[User:RyanR|RyanR]] 22:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 
}}
You will not be able to login using your ACC Wiki account, however if you have a Wikia account or create one, you can login using that (if you create an account with the same name, use the same email address you use here to avoid any issues when merging).
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| Text = I think it could be useful, if for nothing else than to have a category to put all those items in besides item. One issue though would be what exactly would qualify as a quest item. I would suggest that for an item to be tagged as category:Quest Item, it would need to only be used in a quest. Any item that has the ability to serve any other purpose, even if it is only really used in one quest, would not be tagged as category:Quest Item.


For example - the olthoi soldier pincer would get tagged as category:Quest Item. It only has one use, and that is in the pincer quest. A wood golem heart, although used in multiple quests, has the basic use as a trophy, and would not be tagged as category:Quest Item. A piece of wieldable equipment (example:Lou Ka's Yaoji), even if only used in one quest, would not be tagged as category:Quest Item. A text used as part of a quest would not be tagged as category:Quest Item.
You can change the skin used to our current skin by going to your preferences after logging in and under the Skins section select Monobook and uncheck "Let the admins override my skin choice".


--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 02:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Please spend some time testing things out this weekend and record your feedback here: [[Talk:Wikia Migration]]. Later today I will have general information about new ways of doing things and differences at [[Wikia Migration]]. --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 13:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
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| Text = If you look at what's actually in the Item category (and not in a subcategory), almost all of the items could be described as quest items of one sort or another. Another way of looking at it is to say that the Item category already is the category for quest items (currently lots of items are double classified as a subcategory and as an item, but this will be cleaned up as we slowly convert existing entries to use current page templates).--[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 16:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Template Revision Progress ===
=== Returning Players ===
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| To =
'''General Issues:'''
  | Text = With the upcoming 10th anniversary patch we will be seeing a lot of returning players. So I'd like to initiate a review of the pages most likely to be of use to these players and beef them up to be as complete as possible. I've listed below as many as  I can think of (add any others you can think of to the list, and over the next few weeks if you have some free time take a look at a few to see what you can add. --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 00:07, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
* Updating all templates for next release of [[Wiki Swiss Tool]].
* Moving from format heavy page templates to variable based page templates (will aid data entry speed and provide flexibility in updating formatting in the future).
* Live images fixed to not overlap in small browser windows and not appear at all if no image specified.
* Move template links listed below up the chain as progress is made.
NPC Template
<blockquote>
'''Revised and Reviewed:''' (final inclusion candidates)
:* [[Creature Template]] - [[Talk:Creature Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Key Template]] - [[Talk:Key Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Patch Announcements Template]] - [[Talk:Patch Announcements Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Melee Weapon Template]] - [[Talk:Melee Weapon Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Creature Class Template]] - [[Talk:Creature Class Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Keyring Template]] - [[Talk:Keyring Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Jewelry Template]] - [[Talk:Jewelry Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Scroll Template]] - [[Talk:Scroll Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Missile Weapon Template]] - [[Talk:Missile Weapon Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Point of Interest Template]] - [[Talk:Point of Interest Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Magic Caster Template]] - [[Talk:Magic Caster Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Landblock Template]] - [[Talk:Landblock Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Armor Template]] - [[Talk:Armor Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer (includes shield, clothing, robe, etc)
:* [[Standard Text Template]] - [[Talk:Standard Text Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Dungeon Template]] - [[Talk:Dungeon Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Translated Text Template]] - [[Talk:Translated Text Template |Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Housing Settlement Template]] - [[Talk:Housing Settlement Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Quest Guide Template]] - [[Talk:Quest Guide Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Trophy Template]] - [[Talk:Trophy Template |Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Housing Item Template]] - [[Talk:Housing Item Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer (includes Portal Devices)
:* [[Healing Kit Template]] - [[Talk:Healing Kit Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Potion Template]] - [[Talk:Potion Template |Talk]] - Tlosk, Atarax, An Adventurer
:* [[Gem Template]] - [[Talk:Gem Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Portal Gem Template]] - [[Talk:Portal Gem Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Shopkeeper NPC Template]] - [[Talk:Shopkeeper NPC Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Crafter NPC Template]] - [[Talk:Crafter NPC Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer, Atarax
:* [[Quest NPC Template]] - [[Talk:Quest NPC Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer
:* [[NPC Template]] - [[Talk:NPC Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer
:* [[Item Template]] - [[Talk:Object Template|Talk]] - Tlosk, An Adventurer
:* [[Geographic Area Template]] - [[Talk:Geographic Area Template|Talk]] -  An Adventurer, Tlosk
:* [[Food Template]] - [[Talk:Food Template|Talk]] - Sanddh, Tlosk, An Adventurer
:* [[Cooking Template]] - [[Talk:Cooking Template|Talk]] - Sanddh, Tlosk, An Adventurer
:* [[Crafting Template]] - [[Talk:Crafting Template|Talk]] - Sanddh, Tlosk, An Adventurer
:* [[Portal Template]] - [[Talk:Portal Template|Talk]] - Sanddh, An Adventurer, Tlosk
:* [[Object Template]] - [[Talk:Object Template|Talk]] - Sanddh, An Adventurer, Tlosk
 
'''Under Review:''' (Updated and needs improvement feedback, sign the end of each template once you have reviewed it and have no further suggestions.)
:* [[Ammunition Template]] - [[Talk:Ammunition Template|Talk]] - An Adventurer, Tlosk, ??


'''Under Revision:''' (Currently being updated.)
* [[New Player Guide]]
:* [[Container Template]] - [[Talk:Container Template|Talk]] - Sanddh, ??, ??
* [[Returning Player Guide]]
:* [[Live Event Template]] - [[Talk:Live Event Template|Talk]]
* [[Plugins]]
 
* [[Story Arcs]]
'''Needs Revision:''' (Not currently being worked on.)
* [[XP Quests]] (Also you can go to [[:Special:MultiCategorySearch]] and search for Quest and Stub to find quests that need filling out.
:* [[Town Template]] - [[Talk:Town Template|Talk]]
* [[Leveling Guide]]
 
* [[Housing Kit]]
'''Needs Creation:''' (Does not exist in any form yet.)
* [[Armor]]
</blockquote>
* [[Weapons]]
* [[Mana Forge]]
}}
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{{Post
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  | Text = Instead of making a unique template for rares, I added an optional line to the [[Template:Intro|<nowiki>{{Intro}}</nowiki>]] template. Adding '''Rare Number = ''' makes a link displaying the rare number on the far right. For example, [[Mirrored Justice]].
| To =
 
  | Text = I started a topic already for the leveling guide, you can see it at [[Forum#Leveling Guides]], which links to [[Talk:Leveling Guide]]. Story arcs I can probably handle. The only issue there is that for each patch I have to look over all the quests, the TC rumors, and read the internet lore to make a good summary. And this takes some time. I've saved a bit of time by archiving [[Microsoft Zone Archive/Asheron's Lore/A Brief History for Travelers|A Brief History for Travelers]], but this is not a permanent solution.
I was able to construct the [[Armor Template]] so that it can handle all the different types of armor, so the clothing, robe, masks & guises, and shields have all been folded into a single template. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 11:26, 19 February 2009 (CST)
<br><br>I want to beef up some of the main lore areas like the cultural pages. I've started this with [[Yalain]], [[Falatacot]], and [[Sho]]. I also want to redesign the [[List of Texts]] page with a cleaner look and if possible, its own wiki table template like the ones for vendors and such. I've started work on this on [[User:An Adventurer/Sandbox 4]].
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  | Text = I'd like to bring spell templates back into discussion. Currently we have some copy/paste tables that I put together, but no wiki templates. And the tables were pretty much just my work without much input from others.
| To =
  | Text = Two things to add to the list
# A full list of /commands, with each command being its own page. We have the blank [[:Category:/command]] with 1 member. This should be populated.
# A complete and much more detailed description of the user interface, probably with multiple pages. I imagine a sliced image with each image section redirecting to the correct description page.


The current copy/paste table template is here: [[Standard Spell Template]] with examples here: [[Armor (Spell)]] and here: [[Blood Drinker (Spell)]]
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 22:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 
One important thing is recently someone (I am blanking on who it was) harvested all the spell data from the .dat files which gives us categories and spell difficulty and other information we may not have had. I think some of this could be added to the templates. I think difficulty would be a great addition. So I think there is still room for improvement on both the [[Standard Spell Template]] and the [[Cantrip Template]] before we possibly turn them in to wiki templates.
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 11:11, 12 May 2009 (CDT)
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  | Text = Yeah that list is really cool, especially with all the creature only spells. But the stacking info is invaluable, that stuff was a major pain to track down and test in game for all the combinations. I've got a few ideas I'm working on and will post them as soon as I'm done.
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  | Text = That would be really good. Having individual images line up together to make a seamless whole image would be tricky though, it might be easier to use an image map, where you specify the clickable parts of a single image, I'll get it installed. --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 11:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
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== May 2009 ==
=== Server Pages & server specific info ===
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  | Text = This is sort of related to the discussion of general vs personal pages below, but I thought it should have its own discussion.
  | Text = I noticed that all of the YouTube video embeds are broken, this includes older content such as Turbine's BZ video, game intro, Alphus Lassel, etc etc. I'm assuming Wikia has a different format for embedding? Anyways, I plan on trying to compose an extensive list of non-grind ways of leveling your character, which I think will be a refreshing change to players who dread coming back to grind... as AC has done a great job in allowing players to level without camping dungeons now. Perhaps this could be a seperate section called "no grind" or something. I do think the current leveling guide could be better organized though it is a good start... I might brainstorm for that as well :). Oh, and as far as the sliced image deal goes, can't you just divide the image by "hot spots" and do it that way rather than splitting the image around? <br>--[[User:ConnortheCraftmaster|Connor the Craftmaster]] 24 September 2009
<br><br>when I first put up some guidelines for restricting personal pages, I did so because someone had created a page for their allegiance. My reasoning for this was because 1) I thought allegiance pages were mostly irrelevant as general info, 2) I didn't want allegiances from different servers with the same name competing for a common name (like Defenders of Light or some other generic high fantasy sounding guild) and 3) I didn't want actual in-game factions, existing or in the future, to have to compete for the same name as a guild.
<br><br>Now more recently, there was a discussion on personal vs general pages, started because of Connor the Craftmaster's posting of his adventures as their own page. That discussion so far has concluded that personal pages for entertainment, such as connor's adventures or my fan-fiction, should be placed on the author's user page, under the format ''User:User Name/Article'' (example: [[User:An Adventurer/Character Back-stories]]).
<br><br>This gave me the idea that we could do the same thing for server pages. For example: the page [[Leafcull]] would be a general description page of the server. The page [[Leafcull/Allegiances]] would be a listing of allegiances on LC. the page [[Leafcull/Allegiances/The Trues]] would be a guild specific page for my current allegiance, The Trues.
<br><br>I think this would be a good solution for resolving possible name conflicts. I have no opinion on whether or not the info would be useful though. What does everyone else think? Would allegiance pages be good information to have up?
 
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 18:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
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  | Text = I think it's a good idea. I think the wiki is served by recording not just objects but to record history of the players and allegiances also. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 18:57, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
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  | Text = I'm going to be working a lot on the User Interface and other basic help items. I've put together a spliced image of the UI here: [[User:An Adventurer/Sandbox]]
 
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 17:51, October 8, 2009 (UTC)
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=== General versus Personal Pages ===
=== Wiki Relocation ===
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  | Text = Discussion here: [[Asheron's Call Community Wiki talk:Policy]]
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  | Text = Unfortunately continued growth and bandwidth/overhead demands are requiring we move to a new host again. Most of the larger gaming wikis have faced this same transition point in their history where the costs to operate become prohibitive and they have moved to the professional wiki hosting site [http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia Wikia.com]. Wikia was founded by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales Jimmy Wales] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Beesley_Starling Angela Beesley], Chairman Emeritus and Advisory Board chair respectively of the [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home Wikimedia Foundation] which is responsible for both [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia] and [http://www.mediawiki.org/ Mediawiki] (the wiki software that we use to run this site).
 
I will try to list as openly as I can the pros and cons of this move below and we will only reach a final decision once everyone has had an opportunity to weigh in, this wiki was made by players of Asheron's Call for the benefit of other players and our primary goal is to ensure the long term availability of the hard work and countless hours of the many [[Related Links|contributors]]. We recognize that the wiki's popularity rests firmly on how useful and broad the wiki has become because of their work.
 
{{{!}}cellpadding=6 style=background-color:#d5f0ff; border:1px solid #95daff;
!Pros
!Cons
{{!-}}valign=top
{{!}}style=width:50%;{{!}}
* Hosting would be provided free, meaning the longterm viability of the wiki would no longer be dependent on forces we may not be able to control. Time spent contributing to the wiki would not be in danger of being lost or unavailable.
* Editorial control will remain with us, we will continue to decide what the wiki will be and what it won't be.
* We would share the same host as the largest wikis for games like World of Warcraft, Guildwars, Diablo, Everquest II, Final Fantasy and nongame wikis like Lostpedia, Wookieepedia and others.
* Mediawiki software upgrades, weekly backups, outages, etc are all handled by a full time team of engineers employed by Wikia and we would no longer be dependent on one or two people that aren't always available.
* Wikia will not own the content, it will remain under the Creative Commons open license which means people are free to use submitted data on their own sites or build upon it as they see fit. Unlike other corporately owned fansites (as well as all private sites that I have personally contacted in the past) that severely restrict how information on their sites can be used, the wiki ethos is to make information as widely and as conveniently available as possible. Towards this end Wikia makes weekly data dumps that contain all the wiki's pages. This dump is readily downloadable. This was a goal we have always had ourselves but due to the complexity of remote administration and the size of the dumps it hasn't been practical for us to do. This also protects the data by allowing multiple copies across many people and locations, rather than in just one or two places as is now the case.
* Wikia engineers have created lots of widgets and templates that can be used to improve the site so players can focus on game content instead of spending that time on wiki plumbing.
* A lack of advertising is a common complaint by players that wish Turbine could devote more resources to game exposure. Because of our size we will benefit from visibility on Wikia which will mean Asheron's Call will gain visibility, which hopefully might get some players to return that otherwise wouldn't have.
* While Wikia will have ads, because of the increased costs of running the wiki ads would almost certainly be required going forward no matter what we do. However there would be no guarantee they would cover our costs and we would also require players to take time to administrate this. Wikia on the other hand would handle all aspects of this on our behalf.
{{!}}style=width:50%;{{!}}
* While the style/layout of the wiki as it currently exists can be maintained by adjusting personal preferences (using the monobook skin), it will not be the default skin. Users that do not change their skin preference or users that are not logged in will see pages that differ in appearance.
* Usernames are wikia wide, not just specific to our wiki, as a result there is the possibility some users won't be able to use the exact same name after the move.
* Ads will appear on most pages (the number of ads are reduced when logged in and on pages other than the main page). We will not have direct control over what ads appear, though there is a mechanism to report inappropriate ads.
* Players will not be the final arbiter of what material remains on the wiki. Wikia reserves the right to remove information for any reason. However the history of the other large gaming wikis shows that this has little to no real world impact.
* Wikia is a for profit entity, which means that if ad revenue is greater than the costs to host the wiki, those profits go to Wikia shareholders. Many popular services operate in the same way, like Google Search, Gmail, IGN, Warcry CoD, Hulu, Broadcast Television and Radio, etc. The ads allow the companies to offer services for free to the endusers.
* With the move to Wikia there is the potential for a fork (the creation of another wiki using the same base material but with each wiki then taking their own path with their own set of contributors). Technically this is possible already, however the potential increases if there are people that are unhappy with the move.
{{!}}}
 


=== Mediawiki 1.14 Update completed ===
We would like to allow time for any of our contributors or readers who might have concerns to be able to voice them now so they can be addressed to their satisfaction before a move is made. --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 23:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
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| Text = A list of changes and new help pages is in progress here: [[Mediawiki 1.14 Changes]]. Please post there if you find any bugs or glitches (for anything serious please post on my [[User talk:Tlosk|talk page]]. --[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 14:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
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=== Filtered Whatlinkshere Results ===
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  | Text = For a while now I've been trying to figure out a way to get more specific Whatlinkshere results, ideally we could filter results by category however I've been unable to discover any way of doing that currently. I have however come up with a partial solution for at least some types of items that would be easy to implement and could be changed if needed without lots of cleanup edits.
| To =
  | Text = We've been very fortunate to have our current free hosting (Thanks Mav!), but I don't think we're going to find a better solution than Wikia. Wikia provides exactly what we need, and since they host other gaming wikis with much larger communities, we shouldn't have to worry about capacity.


I realized that it's possible to make invisible links on pages (a link that isn't actually displayed, but will cause the page to show up in the whatlinkshere list) and that you can also have a whatlinkshere link to a nonexistent page, which allows us to specify a page for a specific type of links we want to filter for (just Shopkeepers, just Creatures, just Locations, etc).
I understand that advertising is necessary, but blinking, flashing, animated advertisements are so distracting that I either block them, or don't visit those sites anymore.  I see there is one such ad on the main page of the lotro wiki, though the other four ads aren't a problem.


These special links can automatically be included in component templates. For example, to get a list of just shopkeepers that sell a particular item, we can place this: <nowiki>[[{{PAGENAME}}/Sold By|&lt;nowiki>&lt;/nowiki>]]</nowiki> inside the <nowiki>{{Inventory Item}}</nowiki> template since it is only used on [[:Category:Shopkeeper|Shopkeeper]] pages. This would automatically create a link to each item for that shopkeeper of the format [[Item/Sold By]] which would then be used in the <nowiki>{{Sold By}}</nowiki> template which would be modified from a straight whatlinkshere link to <nowiki>[[:Special:Whatlinkshere/{{PAGENAME}}/Sold By]]</nowiki>. So instead of including all links (like recipes and patch pages etc, it would only list shopkeepers.
It's reassuring that they do make site content available for download -- so much effort has been put into the wiki already that I'd hate to see it lost.


I was trying to think what else we could use this for and so far I've come up with:
I already have an account at Wikia.  If we moved there, can my ACC Wiki account/username/contributions be merged/associated with my existing Wikia account?
* Items included in recipes.
* Creature locations (I will need to make a component template for creature lists that will be closer to item lists). (I'm leaning towards being able to specify the type of location as well, so we could get separate lists for dungeons and landscape locations).
* Trophies (may not be possible without changing the template in a significant way).


Are there any other ones that would be good to include? Also input on whether to include this for just item types that generate big lists and skip smaller ones that could be ready through quickly, or to do this for them all.--[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 11:17, 10 May 2009 (CDT)
By the way, it might be worth starting a thread on the Turbine forums, to hear what people there think. --[[User:Widgeon|Widgeon]] 09:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
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  | Text = That's a very clever solution. I was going to suggest looking at the Semantic MediaWiki extension, but it appears that it doesn't support to-many relationships (like the shopkeeper selling multiple items). --[[User:Widgeon|Widgeon]] 17:29, 11 May 2009 (CDT)
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  | Text =  If there are two accounts with the same name, then email addresses are compared. If they match, that name is set as one account. If there are two accounts and the email addresses don't match, then a prefix would be added to the new (merging) account. If you have accounts of the same name on ACCWiki and on Wikia, make sure your email address is the same on both accounts. To do this, go to your preferences page, make sure the "email" field is correct, and authenticate your email by clicking the link in the email sent to you. If you have accounts of different names on ACCWiki and Wikia, and you would like them merged, there will be a talk page where you can request they be merged into a single account. (If the emails don't match and someone ends up with a prefixed name, it will be possible to merge them after the fact after verifying both accounts belong to the same person, or a name change to a nonprefixed, unique name if desired if you don't own the wikia account of the same name). --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
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| Text = I'm not sure I understand exactly how this will work, but if you say we can just modify the templates and it will work, then it sounds good to me. I agree with the things you listed. I would divide creatures into 3 types instead of 2: Dungeons, POIs, and general landscape - the listings found in Geographic Area and Town pages.
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 18:10, 11 May 2009 (CDT)
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  | Text = Yeah it's kind of convoluted, but thankfully the implementation is transparent and a poster doesn't have to do anything different. However once implemented it will break existing vendor/recipe links so I'm going to wait until we finish updating existing entries with the new templates to turn the key so to speak (in the meantime we'll just get the full list of links like normal).
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  | Text = Thanks, that answers my question. I've updated my email address, and that's all I should need to do. --[[User:Widgeon|Widgeon]] 22:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
But so you can see it in action, here's a hardcoded example:
 
Old style (all links) for [[Stout]]: This item is sold by [[:Special:Whatlinkshere/Stout|one or more shopkeepers]].
 
New style (just shopkeepers) for [[Stout]]: This item is sold by [[:Special:Whatlinkshere/Stout/Sold By|one or more shopkeepers]].
 
This first one finds all pages that link to "Stout," but the second one just the pages that link to "Stout/Sold By" and that's only the pages using the new shopkeeper template.
 
--[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 20:11, 11 May 2009 (CDT)
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=== 10th Anniversary Event Preview ===
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  | Text = I think we should create a page dedicated to information about the 10th anniversary event. It would be similar to the 100th update preview page we had.
  | Text = I'd never thought of the fact that wikia advertises their other wikis. That is a real nice benefit. However, on the point about user names- if names are universal, that means anyone from any wikia wiki can edit any other wiki? That sounds like it has the potential for harassment. Has this ever been an issue? Also, you said we remain in editorial control. Do we still keep the ability to ban/block bad users, or is that something wikia does? --[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 16:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 
I would want it to be more than just re-posting articles and statements from devs. For example, we have a thread about the teaser video they posted with more than 140 replies and a great deal of information posted by Sev. It'd be useful to have a few simple statements about this new two-handed weapon skill to sum up the 20+ dev posts about it.
 
Frelorn also hinted that there might be a special test server for this patch. More information about this, all in one place, would be helpful as it is released. In the event there is another test server I would probably want to treat it like we did for shadowfell.
 
Thoughts?
 
--[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 13:55, 6 May 2009 (CDT)
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  | Text = Definitely, I'm sure we'll get a ton more info as the event gets closer, and we should add a link on the main page again like we had for the 9th preview.--[[User:Tlosk|Tlosk]] 11:17, 10 May 2009 (CDT)
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  | Text = Any registered user with Wikia would be able to login to edit our wiki, as we could theirs. All of our admins will still be able to [http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Administrators%27_how-to_guide#How_do_I_block_a_troublemaker.3F block any user from our wiki], also Wikia staff can put in place a global block for users that are vandalizing/spamming more than one wiki.
 
Looking through the [[:Special:BlockList]] for several of the larger wikis they don't have large numbers of blocks per month so it doesn't seem that vandalism/spamming is much of an issue.
 
Also on a related side note, we didn't move our old chat forums during the last hosting relocation because of the spam problems and server overhead concerns, but we can have a true forum again if we wish after the move. --{{User:Tlosk/SigR}} 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
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=== Leveling Guides ===
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  | Text = I'll start a page here: [[Asheron's Call 10th Anniversary Event Preview]] --[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 12:11, 12 May 2009 (CDT)
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  | Text = See [[Talk:Leveling Guide]] --[[User:An Adventurer|An Adventurer]] 17:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
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== Archived Forum Posts ==
== Archived Forum Posts ==

Latest revision as of 12:15, 30 July 2012

Related topics: Recent Changes, {{Post}}

NOTE: This is the location of our old Forum and this page has been locked. All content has been moved to our new threads based Forum. Please go there to make new posts.

The Forum is a central location for discussions that would be of general interest to other contributors. This also includes putting a link here to very specific discussions that are carried out on the talk pages of articles. The general idea is having one place to check for recent contributor discussions. The wiki is growing and there are now many contributors helping cover more topics than ever. The forum should help avoid missing reading and participating in discussions about standards and practices as the wiki continues to evolve.


If there is a particular contributor that you want to reply to a concern, post a link to the Forum or the article's Talk page on his or her user page (so he or she will get a New Messages highlight when they log in/post again). Two or three-way discussions can be hard to follow when they span more than a single page. Also, if you add this page as a Watched Page it will show as bold in the Recent Changes list. If your post will only be of interest to a single person, feel free to post on just that user's talk page. Discussions will be organized by month, though they may continue past the month they were started and will be archived on the talk page for this article after two months. 

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October 2009 Edit

Skins & home page design Edit

With the move to Wikia there are several Monaco skin colors along with the Monobook skin. I've done some editing to the MediaWiki:Monaco-toolbox and MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar (may need to clear history and refresh to see them). With these changes, the Monaco skin has pretty much all the same links, menus, and tools that were previously found on asheron.info's sidebar and drop down menu. This will hopefully help make the site easier for those not signed in, as Monaco is the default.

On the topic of skins - is it possible to change the default to Monobook, so the site would look more familiar to those not logged in? And if it is possible, do we want even want to make this change, or should we embrace and expand on the Monaco skin?

A related topic - the home page. I think that we should consider a serious overhaul of the layout. The major changes I would like to see would be to move AC News & Wiki News to somewhere on the homepage, where they would get much more attention. I'd also consider merging the two into 'news'. I also think we could make some major revisions to the whole topic section, especially since the monaco sidebar menu can cover much of it.

At the very least, the welcome and Getting Started sections should probably be edited or rewritten. And I think we could try changing the style of the boxes - from their current rounded edges to something more resembling our recent template changes.

--An Adventurer 17:37, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Nice work with the menus on the sidebars.--Tlosk  talk  contr 22:47, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

See: User:An Adventurer/Sandbox for a more clear example of my idea for updating the home page.

--An Adventurer 18:02, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

I have added some more detail to my sandbox linked above. It's not by any means a final design though. I have designed this with the thought that by default, visitors will be in the new monaco skin and will thus be using the sidebar, which I added a lot to. And hopefully we can get the drop-down menu added back to the monobook skin, and that drop down menu can mirror the links and levels of the monaco sidebar menu.

I'd like to hear some people's thoughts on the proposed design. I greatly reduced the number of main topics displayed. Are there any topics I removed that you think absolutely need to be there? Are there any topics that were never listed but you thought should be there?

I left out links to current/previous/all patches from topics for now, mostly because I couldn't think of good icons to use. I think that there should definitely be a link to the current patch on the main page, but I am not sure we need the previous and all patches links there with them already contained on the sidebar menu.

I included Game Mechanics as a topic. My thought is that this page could be greatly expanded on, and that the current General Information page would be merged into it.

I left out the Leveling Guide link as a main topic, but I figured that it would be linked to on New Player Guide, Returning Player Guide, Game Mechanics, and Level Costs, all of which are linked to on the main page, so it didn't need it's own link.

I also cut out the whole welcome/getting started sections. I placed a short welcome blurb at the top with links to other pages, as seen on many wikis such as wikipedia. I figured that we could go into more detail on the Asheron's Call Community Wiki:Introduction page and if necessary, create a Getting Started page. And we could add more general information about the wiki at Asheron's Call Community Wiki:About.

--An Adventurer 21:50, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

Lot of great stuff there, I can't reply in detail yet but I wanted to make a quick post to comment on a few things. The dynamicpagelists are extremely resource intensive and so we won't be able to use them (it's possible to use them in a limited fashion, but it's not really worth it). It isn't possible to set monobook as the default, though I did specify the color scheme default so at least people won't have the dark scheme when they first come to the site. Also I'd suggest making a long term mockup that we can work on and improve over a few weeks and leave the main page as is until most people have made the transition and signed in at least once. We can put a link on the main page though to the mockup to invite broader feedback and suggestions. The issue with the drop downs in monobook is an extension that's installed that messes up the formatting, I have a request in to remove it so anytime now I should be able to turn that back on (although it's still a little borked in IE, I need to figure out how to fix that also).--Tlosk  talk  contr 00:59, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

I've put together a page at Asheron's Call Community Wiki --An Adventurer 19:10, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

I have gone ahead an modified the main page.

  • I have left the topics the same until there is some discussion on them.


  • The whole welcome/getting started section was removed. It was mostly out of date, and hadn't really been modified since the wiki was created. The relevant info was moved to Asheron's Call Community Wiki:Introduction.


  • There is now a news section on the main page. I will work more to streamline our whole news section. The old links in the monobook skin sidebar should be removed, but I don't know how to edit that part.

--An Adventurer 16:44, October 13, 2009 (UTC)

Awesome work on everything, it looks great. I've been visiting some of the other wikis for ideas and am testing some things out but was trying to finish a map generator first and get some lingering issues from the move resolved. I was also thinking we could make a central hub for navigation where we basically link to almost everything so we can both expand on what is currently on the mainpage and also have a onestop place for people trying to find something (and also expose the nooks and crannies that can be difficult to find if you don't already know they exist). Also I will have a new wiki style forum set up in the next day or two and I'll backfill it with the existing content from here (I may possibly be able to restore our original forum content as well if I can get it running locally). --Tlosk  talk  contr 15:47, October 14, 2009 (UTC)

To: Tlosk
I have a suggestion for the central hub. The article Asheron's Call. Until I created the page for the home page updates, it didn't exist on the wiki. Right now it is just a stub, but I was thinking that it would be a great place to have links to lots of various content. Currently, Asheron's Call is linked to on the home page in the welcome statement, and it is on the monaco-sidebar with the alias Game Info (one of the first tier topics) so it will be easy to access. And it is probably the broadest topic article, since it can cover all things of AC1 and AC2. --An Adventurer 18:19, October 14, 2009 (UTC)

September 2009 Edit

Negative modifers Edit

Immortalbob pointed out that there are some weapons that have negative modifiers and they display as "+-10%" etc. I found a way to search for negative mods and found a few more bows and xbows that had a negative damage modifer and a bronze weapon with a negative melee mod. I decided to just add another parameter that would display its value and not format it at all. See Cragstone's Axe (Bronze Version) and Sublime Elari Wood Bow for examples. This won't be part of the standard page template as it would be confusing, rather I just wanted to let you know that it's available if needed.

So if you have a weapon that has a negative mod, delete the regular parameter/buffed parameter and replace it with the special one. The two parameters are "Defense" (instead of "Bonus to Defense") and "Modifer" (instead of "Damage Modifer"). And since there is no formatting applied, set it equal to however you want it to appear (including %, font color, bold, etc). --Tlosk  talk  contr 00:47, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

Wikia Test Server Live Edit

The Wikia test server is now available at http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/ACC_Wiki_Home. Almost all extensions have been installed, however there are one or two that are still being worked on. This is a test installation meant to allow us examine what our wiki would be like on Wikia and to give us time to resolve any issues before a move takes place.

You will not be able to login using your ACC Wiki account, however if you have a Wikia account or create one, you can login using that (if you create an account with the same name, use the same email address you use here to avoid any issues when merging).

You can change the skin used to our current skin by going to your preferences after logging in and under the Skins section select Monobook and uncheck "Let the admins override my skin choice".

Please spend some time testing things out this weekend and record your feedback here: Talk:Wikia Migration. Later today I will have general information about new ways of doing things and differences at Wikia Migration. --Tlosk  talk  contr 13:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Returning Players Edit

With the upcoming 10th anniversary patch we will be seeing a lot of returning players. So I'd like to initiate a review of the pages most likely to be of use to these players and beef them up to be as complete as possible. I've listed below as many as I can think of (add any others you can think of to the list, and over the next few weeks if you have some free time take a look at a few to see what you can add. --Tlosk  talk  contr 00:07, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I started a topic already for the leveling guide, you can see it at Forum#Leveling Guides, which links to Talk:Leveling Guide. Story arcs I can probably handle. The only issue there is that for each patch I have to look over all the quests, the TC rumors, and read the internet lore to make a good summary. And this takes some time. I've saved a bit of time by archiving A Brief History for Travelers, but this is not a permanent solution.

I want to beef up some of the main lore areas like the cultural pages. I've started this with Yalain, Falatacot, and Sho. I also want to redesign the List of Texts page with a cleaner look and if possible, its own wiki table template like the ones for vendors and such. I've started work on this on User:An Adventurer/Sandbox 4.

Two things to add to the list

  1. A full list of /commands, with each command being its own page. We have the blank Category:/command with 1 member. This should be populated.
  2. A complete and much more detailed description of the user interface, probably with multiple pages. I imagine a sliced image with each image section redirecting to the correct description page.

--An Adventurer 22:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

That would be really good. Having individual images line up together to make a seamless whole image would be tricky though, it might be easier to use an image map, where you specify the clickable parts of a single image, I'll get it installed. --Tlosk  talk  contr 11:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that all of the YouTube video embeds are broken, this includes older content such as Turbine's BZ video, game intro, Alphus Lassel, etc etc. I'm assuming Wikia has a different format for embedding? Anyways, I plan on trying to compose an extensive list of non-grind ways of leveling your character, which I think will be a refreshing change to players who dread coming back to grind... as AC has done a great job in allowing players to level without camping dungeons now. Perhaps this could be a seperate section called "no grind" or something. I do think the current leveling guide could be better organized though it is a good start... I might brainstorm for that as well :). Oh, and as far as the sliced image deal goes, can't you just divide the image by "hot spots" and do it that way rather than splitting the image around?
--Connor the Craftmaster 24 September 2009

I'm going to be working a lot on the User Interface and other basic help items. I've put together a spliced image of the UI here: User:An Adventurer/Sandbox

--An Adventurer 17:51, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Relocation Edit

Unfortunately continued growth and bandwidth/overhead demands are requiring we move to a new host again. Most of the larger gaming wikis have faced this same transition point in their history where the costs to operate become prohibitive and they have moved to the professional wiki hosting site Wikia.com. Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, Chairman Emeritus and Advisory Board chair respectively of the Wikimedia Foundation which is responsible for both Wikipedia and Mediawiki (the wiki software that we use to run this site).

I will try to list as openly as I can the pros and cons of this move below and we will only reach a final decision once everyone has had an opportunity to weigh in, this wiki was made by players of Asheron's Call for the benefit of other players and our primary goal is to ensure the long term availability of the hard work and countless hours of the many contributors. We recognize that the wiki's popularity rests firmly on how useful and broad the wiki has become because of their work.

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Pros Cons
  • Hosting would be provided free, meaning the longterm viability of the wiki would no longer be dependent on forces we may not be able to control. Time spent contributing to the wiki would not be in danger of being lost or unavailable.
  • Editorial control will remain with us, we will continue to decide what the wiki will be and what it won't be.
  • We would share the same host as the largest wikis for games like World of Warcraft, Guildwars, Diablo, Everquest II, Final Fantasy and nongame wikis like Lostpedia, Wookieepedia and others.
  • Mediawiki software upgrades, weekly backups, outages, etc are all handled by a full time team of engineers employed by Wikia and we would no longer be dependent on one or two people that aren't always available.
  • Wikia will not own the content, it will remain under the Creative Commons open license which means people are free to use submitted data on their own sites or build upon it as they see fit. Unlike other corporately owned fansites (as well as all private sites that I have personally contacted in the past) that severely restrict how information on their sites can be used, the wiki ethos is to make information as widely and as conveniently available as possible. Towards this end Wikia makes weekly data dumps that contain all the wiki's pages. This dump is readily downloadable. This was a goal we have always had ourselves but due to the complexity of remote administration and the size of the dumps it hasn't been practical for us to do. This also protects the data by allowing multiple copies across many people and locations, rather than in just one or two places as is now the case.
  • Wikia engineers have created lots of widgets and templates that can be used to improve the site so players can focus on game content instead of spending that time on wiki plumbing.
  • A lack of advertising is a common complaint by players that wish Turbine could devote more resources to game exposure. Because of our size we will benefit from visibility on Wikia which will mean Asheron's Call will gain visibility, which hopefully might get some players to return that otherwise wouldn't have.
  • While Wikia will have ads, because of the increased costs of running the wiki ads would almost certainly be required going forward no matter what we do. However there would be no guarantee they would cover our costs and we would also require players to take time to administrate this. Wikia on the other hand would handle all aspects of this on our behalf.
  • While the style/layout of the wiki as it currently exists can be maintained by adjusting personal preferences (using the monobook skin), it will not be the default skin. Users that do not change their skin preference or users that are not logged in will see pages that differ in appearance.
  • Usernames are wikia wide, not just specific to our wiki, as a result there is the possibility some users won't be able to use the exact same name after the move.
  • Ads will appear on most pages (the number of ads are reduced when logged in and on pages other than the main page). We will not have direct control over what ads appear, though there is a mechanism to report inappropriate ads.
  • Players will not be the final arbiter of what material remains on the wiki. Wikia reserves the right to remove information for any reason. However the history of the other large gaming wikis shows that this has little to no real world impact.
  • Wikia is a for profit entity, which means that if ad revenue is greater than the costs to host the wiki, those profits go to Wikia shareholders. Many popular services operate in the same way, like Google Search, Gmail, IGN, Warcry CoD, Hulu, Broadcast Television and Radio, etc. The ads allow the companies to offer services for free to the endusers.
  • With the move to Wikia there is the potential for a fork (the creation of another wiki using the same base material but with each wiki then taking their own path with their own set of contributors). Technically this is possible already, however the potential increases if there are people that are unhappy with the move.


We would like to allow time for any of our contributors or readers who might have concerns to be able to voice them now so they can be addressed to their satisfaction before a move is made. --Tlosk  talk  contr 23:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

We've been very fortunate to have our current free hosting (Thanks Mav!), but I don't think we're going to find a better solution than Wikia. Wikia provides exactly what we need, and since they host other gaming wikis with much larger communities, we shouldn't have to worry about capacity.

I understand that advertising is necessary, but blinking, flashing, animated advertisements are so distracting that I either block them, or don't visit those sites anymore. I see there is one such ad on the main page of the lotro wiki, though the other four ads aren't a problem.

It's reassuring that they do make site content available for download -- so much effort has been put into the wiki already that I'd hate to see it lost.

I already have an account at Wikia. If we moved there, can my ACC Wiki account/username/contributions be merged/associated with my existing Wikia account?

By the way, it might be worth starting a thread on the Turbine forums, to hear what people there think. --Widgeon 09:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If there are two accounts with the same name, then email addresses are compared. If they match, that name is set as one account. If there are two accounts and the email addresses don't match, then a prefix would be added to the new (merging) account. If you have accounts of the same name on ACCWiki and on Wikia, make sure your email address is the same on both accounts. To do this, go to your preferences page, make sure the "email" field is correct, and authenticate your email by clicking the link in the email sent to you. If you have accounts of different names on ACCWiki and Wikia, and you would like them merged, there will be a talk page where you can request they be merged into a single account. (If the emails don't match and someone ends up with a prefixed name, it will be possible to merge them after the fact after verifying both accounts belong to the same person, or a name change to a nonprefixed, unique name if desired if you don't own the wikia account of the same name). --Tlosk  talk  contr 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that answers my question. I've updated my email address, and that's all I should need to do. --Widgeon 22:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd never thought of the fact that wikia advertises their other wikis. That is a real nice benefit. However, on the point about user names- if names are universal, that means anyone from any wikia wiki can edit any other wiki? That sounds like it has the potential for harassment. Has this ever been an issue? Also, you said we remain in editorial control. Do we still keep the ability to ban/block bad users, or is that something wikia does? --An Adventurer 16:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Any registered user with Wikia would be able to login to edit our wiki, as we could theirs. All of our admins will still be able to block any user from our wiki, also Wikia staff can put in place a global block for users that are vandalizing/spamming more than one wiki.

Looking through the Special:BlockList for several of the larger wikis they don't have large numbers of blocks per month so it doesn't seem that vandalism/spamming is much of an issue.

Also on a related side note, we didn't move our old chat forums during the last hosting relocation because of the spam problems and server overhead concerns, but we can have a true forum again if we wish after the move. --Tlosk  talk  contr 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Leveling Guides Edit

See Talk:Leveling Guide --An Adventurer 17:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Archived Forum Posts Edit

See Talk:Forum

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