To: Tlosk
Nice work with the spells and the new design. Some questions about it: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?
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.
--An Adventurer 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
To: An Adventurer
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).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 {{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.
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.
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. --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. --Tlosk 15:18, 17 July 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. --Tlosk 15:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
To: Tlosk
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.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. --An Adventurer 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
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. --Tlosk 16:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Another suggestion. On each page there is currently the following code used to display the TOC and an image:
{|cellpadding=5 |-valign=top | __ToC__ | [[File:0x0600115D.png]] |}I would suggest that we convert this into a wiki template, and create one template for each school. Each school would use a different image. Along with the image and TOC, the template could contain a [[Category:Spell]] and [[Category:<School> Spell]] so that all spells will be categorized. EDIT: Templates named {{Creature Enchantment Spell}}, {{Item Enchantment Spell}}, {{Life Magic Spell}}, and {{War Magic Spell}}.
I'd suggest the following images:
Creature - Item - Life - War
--An Adventurer 00:26, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
To: An Adventurer
That's a good idea, I made a single template with a school switch, {{Spell List Header}}. Edit: I added icons to indicate whether the spell is learnable, creature only, item only, or retired also. Willpower (Spell) and Feeblemind (Spell) show the changes. --Tlosk 16:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)