From Istaria Lexica

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Formula Template?[edit]

Just wondering whether we should have a formula template similiar to the item template, but different? (with, as info: products, requirements, (bulk) and hoard value? perhaps, if it's possible yet, even a way to find which NPC sells it?

Was planning on adding a bunch of the beginner formula now that tooltips are twice as easy to get but I wasn't sure whether to use the normal item template or not.

Meepsa (talk) 22:34, 20 March 2016 (CET)


Heya Meepsa,
I was thinking of a separate template for formulas for a while, but haven't been comfortable enough because of SMW. When creating dynamic lists/tables, such as the Complete Creature List, a separate template makes it harder to work with queries. Thinking of that I had the idea to enhance the item template with missing fields for the formula. They may auto-hide when no info is available so we won't flood the summary box with empty stuff. Enhancing the template is not a big effort to me and of course, if we had another item type with explicit data it's as easy to include those aswell later on.
Let's see if I can add that in the next days. Incase you've got some spare time, could you take a look on what's good to have in the template for the formulas?
12:46, 21 March 2016 (CET)

aah k, makes sense yeah, when I compare the current item template to a formula's desription, it seems the only general things that would need to be added would be a Products Value (though for some exp and master formulas that might become a long list...) and Requirements.
how about the "sold by" idea? would that be a possibility? perhaps not as a part of the template, but just something to add onto formulas that are sold.
Either way, thanks for helping me out with this! ^^
Meepsa (talk) 10:19, 22 March 2016 (CET)

You're welcome :)
The 'sold by' idea is already there, though I found it was missing in the item template just as you mentioned it, lol, blame the kitty. If you check the Template:New Item documentation you'll find Template:VendorBuys and Template:VendorSells included. Here's a good example how it looks like: Rose Quartz Golem Chip. I think with that approach we're easy on adding the values since the vendor NPCs articles become the root for the prices (see Vargas the Bold, property Sellitem enables the Vendor* templates.
By the way, I just checked Geoff (gj!); if you add the SellItem there, that's a cool tryout to get a feeling for the system behind :-) However it looks like most of the sold item's articles are outdated and need their template calls updated first.
16:31, 22 March 2016 (CET)

Easy way to look up Tooltips[edit]

Hey Elt, Cega has told me a quick and easy way to look up tooltips for easy screenshots, without even needing to be in the school/class to see it.

"Ok, heres something you can put in your Commands_Player.def file

 //showinfo
 {
  string name = "showinfo"
  string abbrev = "sip"
  string usage = "<primitive ID> <Search string>"
  string description = "Show information of the primitiveID or shows primitives with similar names"
  int numParams = 3
  int minParams = 1
 }

then you can type /showinfo primID# to make a tooltip popup in game, just as though you were hovering something Search the clientlookup.def or primitivelookup.def for the prim#"

"So, lets say you heard of Combat Stance: Red but don't have it and want to know what it does. Open /resources/clientlookups.def with notepad and Ctrl+F for combat stance.

LOOKUP_NODE
{
int elookuptype = 21
int id = 23468
int etype = 0.00
string text = "Combat Stance: Red"
string keyword = ""
}

23468 is the prim#, so type /showinfo 23468 in game chat window, voila, instant tooltip."

I wasn't sure whether to make an actual guide page for this so I thought I'd just tell you instantly

Meepsa (talk) 04:55, 19 March 2016 (CET)


Heya Meepsa,
that's a nice hint, thanks alot! I was assuming already there's a trick like that, but haven't looked into it any further :-) I like the idea of a guide, too. For the textual structure it's always good to know where wiki committers could find such things. Feel free to start one if you're in the mood, I'll join in with my knowledge for sure (or start it anyway ^.^)
14:16, 19 March 2016 (CET)

Adding a guide: what's the protocol?[edit]

I've been editing a biped/naka adventurer's guide in my sandbox. When I'm finished, I'd like to add it to the wiki, but suspect that I should not just plop it in. For something substantial like this, is there any review process? Someplace to post it up for suggestions prior to making it live? Or do I just go ahead and add it in, and make changes afterwards?

(Also, I don't know how to add a new page, and link it in to everything. Is there a guide to that somewhere?) Daulnay (talk) 18:58, 10 August 2015 (CEST)

Heya Daulnay. There is no 'protocol', really. Feel free to place your guide whenever you want to. For reviews you're welcome to ask any others of course but that's not necessary at all. You may want to read through the The Gifted's guide to the Istaria Lexica Wiki, whose subguides contain most of the info for site creation. However missus oh-so-smart-guide-writer (was that me?) forgot to mention about the site creation. I'm gonna fix that soonish. To create a new page you may use the 'Start a new article' link in the toolbar, right below the main menu (you can't see it in edit mode yet, try from any simple page view). There you enter the title of your new page and the wiki editor opens, ready to be abused. From your sandbox, a simple copy & paste should do the job then :) Oh yes, depending on the type of guide you wrote you may want to add a category after creation (bottom of your page), refer to the headlines on Player Guides for the category names.
Good Editing!
19:12, 10 August 2015 (CEST)

Page thinks I'm adding new links?[edit]

Whenever I edit a page with an external link to say, Istaria Reference, it always makes me go through a verification even if I didn't add the link myself and it was already there. However, afterwards, it doesn't bug me again. Not sure if that's just a bug, known or not, or just a nuisance that has to be dealt with? The wiki loads a bit slow for me (probably just due to the distance in hosting it) so having to reload the edit page just to do the math captcha for a link I didn't add is slightly annoying. --Rakk (talk) 01:00, 15 August 2015 (CEST)

I am not sure if I understand correctly. Did you edit a page on WikiEditor and after pressing the 'Save Page' there came up some system message to verify? I am not aware of that behavior at all, *smiles*. I'd like you to describe me a step-by-step situation so I can reproduce and eliminate it since that's for sure a pain.
On the slow site part. I am sorry and I'm fed up with that, too. My server's hardware is about 10 years old and MediaWiki drains simply too much CPU on loading pages. I am planning to move as soon as possible, but that is hell of a work since I got alot of email users and three domains on it. Istaria Lexica's data and the site would be the easiest part though.
02:01, 15 August 2015 (CEST)
It's sort of like that - say I'm editing Reklar's page. That page was imported from the Istaria Wiki, so it has those "From Istaria wiki by X." links at the bottom. I add some information about Reklar and hit "save page". The wiki then says "You're adding new external links to this page! Please verify you're a human to prevent automated spam." and gives me a simple math problem. The issue is that I, personally, did not add those links - they were already there. Yet the wiki says 'new links'. However, if I go back and edit Reklar again, it won't give me that verification process.
Is that clearer? :)
--Rakk (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2015 (CEST)
Aaaah yes now I recall. That's a security option which should not be enabled. I guess the wierd admin did something wrong there, wait.. is that me? I'm going to fix that and give feedback then.
22:49, 15 August 2015 (CEST)
Congrats on finding the first user bug ;-)
That was a configuration misfit. Since we were administrators only until a few weeks ago this configuration was never set *cough*. I removed the captcha for URLs on editing. Please let me know if all went well. Must be more confortable now of course.
00:18, 16 August 2015 (CEST)
Yup, it doesn't bug me anymore! Thank you! :)
P.S. - is there going to be a new template for locations, or are we just to use the Urban Summary and the location page template? I see a location template with just coordinates and area type (city vs mine vs whatever), but I'm not sure which to use. (I'm using Urban Summary at the moment for the Bitter Pickle page)
--Rakk (talk) 23:14, 16 August 2015 (CEST)
Sorry for the late answer, my smartphone just died when writing it and I wasn't at home a while.. The Location/Urban templates are the ones being used for any kind of location: City, Outpost, Forest, Volcano, Island and so on.. If something's missing just add it manually. Or if you feel it should be in template you can also edit that one :) The Template:coords template is used to set the x / y properties inline for Semantic Mediawiki, for example on pages which do not have a 'Summary Box with coordinates' or page where you would want to set a second/third set of coordinates. While creating a table overview of specific locations you are able to do an SMW search for that article page (Template:Urban Summary does the same btw.)
23:40, 17 August 2015 (CEST)

You are being a MediaWiki pro[edit]

You got awarded for excellence in supporting the Istaria Lexica with it MediaWiki, Semantic Media Wiki and it's extensions.
And now go and fix my map extension ^^
01:05, 23 August 2015 (CEST)
errrh... okay sir :-) Thank you sir. :-) 13:45, 23 August 2015 (CEST)

Loot tables and how to add to them.[edit]

I'm wondering what's the "best" way to add to the loot tables, especially with things that have a LOT of loot to drop. I've edited all the t6 fyakki pages in some way and I know for the most part that they all drop the same massive group of possible things: t6 hoard, t6 forms, t6 dyes, t6 broken items, t6 crystals, and t6 rare crystals.

My question is for future work, should I start entering all that into the loot table as done here: http://www.istaria-lexica.de/Azg%27azak_Fyakki, or as I've done here: http://www.istaria-lexica.de/Ul%27zilgat_Flayer ? The first is an incomplete list but is nicely bulleted and alphabetized and the second (that I added loot for) does look a bit messy but is complete and functional.

Thoughts?

--Machaeon (talk) 04:42, 2 October 2015 (CEST)-Machaeon (Talk) 03:33, 2 October 2015 (EST)

Heya Macha!
My thoughts are: you're going the correct way already, hehe. You found we've got the loot templates which is cool. The #set approach is outdated because it's buggy, please do not use it anymore. I created Template:LootList as a replacement where you are able to apply both, single loot and loot templates. Template:LootList takes care of the alphabetical order already. I updated Ul'zilgat Flayer for you as an example on how to use it. Since you encountered an older version of a creature article you may also want to look into the Template:New Creature for reference. *cheers*
11:47, 2 October 2015 (CEST)

Legacy Monsters/Abilities[edit]

Hey there Elt!

I have a small question - what do we mark legacy monsters and whatnot with? For example the Red Present mimics and whatnot. I have them marked with just {{Legacy}} for now, but I note that Category:Legacy specifies items in particular and so does the headline of the template.

Is there anything specific for removed monsters, or should I just use Legacy?

Thanks!

--Rakk (talk) 02:59, 17 October 2017 (CEST)

Heya Rakk,
The {{Legacy}} template is used for anything being removed from the game. That includes items, monsters, lore pages, quests and so on. It's okay to add the mimics there aswell.
cheers
12:09, 17 October 2017 (CEST)

Required Items for Quests[edit]

Hey, I've just started cleaning up a few pages and fixing links, and I'd just like something to be clarified.

When editing a quest page, there's a "Required item" parameter. On one of the first pages I started editing, it already had "Iron Bar" listed as a required item, so I interpreted that parameter as items that are required in order to complete the quest. However, I've since had a look at the quest template and it says "Item needed to be able to start the quest".

Should this be left blank if you can start/accept the quest without the later-required items? Or should I include the item that you need to complete the quest, but don't necessarily need to start it?
If the latter, what should I enter if a quest requires multiple (sometimes more than 3) items? Include all of them but separate them by commas?

--Teritha Windtwister (talk) 12:53, 27th March 2018 (GMT)


Welcome to the wiki Teritha, and thanks for cleaning up :-)
The required item situation is a little complicated due to restrictions of the wikicode. First of all, the parameter is indeed used for any item you require to own or deliver to start or finish the quest. I'll try to text better on the template documentation.
However, you cannot add multiple items to the template directly, but there is a workaround: You may use the {{#set:Itemreq=<item>}} on the head of the page, a good example adding two additional items you can find at ARoP15 - Gate of Embers: Harness the Energy for the Spell of Pathfinding. Keep up the good work :-)
15:18, 27 March 2018 (CEST)

Thanks for the prompt response and for clearing that up! I'll continue what I'm already doing then :)
--Teritha Windtwister (talk) 13:30, 27th March 2018 (GMT)

Required Level Type, Quest template[edit]

Greetings Elteria,

I've been wanting to suggest a change to the quest template. Currently it only states "Required Level", however, it doesn't specify whether this level is craft or adventure, I would suggest splitting this up in two with "Required Craft Level" and "Required Adventure Level" for clarity's sake, adding both for the quests that have a mixed requirement.

Furthermore another catagory you could consider adding would be "Required Skill" and "Required Skill Amount", as we have several quests that are dictated by this, as well as a "Max level", as for example (Hourly) City Under Siege can be done from adventure level 5 till 15.

Regards, Liseth

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Vi-Liseth (talkcontribs)

Heya Liseth,
sounds like a good idea. However, it will be complicated to add that stuff on the templates, and there's no simple way to update existing pages with the new parameters. I'll add it in the next days.
19:08, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
Sounds good Elt, I'm covering all (yes, all) quests in the time I have between my work on the upcoming update so I don't mind personally going over them.
Vi-Liseth (talk)
Hello again Elteria,
I wanted to speak with you again regarding this, I've given it some more thought and here's a comprehensible list of what could be changed about the quest template:
  • add specification for Craft or Adventure level/rating requirement, so a quest can say level 20 Craft. I would suggest this with two field "Required Craft Level" and "Required Adventure Level"
  • add required skill field(s), sometimes a quest will require you to have a specific skill at a specific level, so "Required Skill Type" and "Required Skill Level", some quests might have multiple skill levels so certain quests might need multiples of this, but I cannot say for sure so only 1 set of the abovementioned fields should be fine.
  • Rather than having the required items field list items that are obtained in the quest, have it be a list of items that are required to even take the quest, I see on multiple quest entries currenly that it lists items that are acquired in the quest which can be somewhat confusing to some, and more often then not we get questions internally about "How do I pick up this quest, I hit all the requirements?" when they are simply missing an item.
Let me know what you think, I'd really like to continue adding requirements as I feel it's one of the few things we could be a bit more transparent about.
Vi-Liseth (talk) 13:03, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Liseth,
For the required items, the items mentioned are needed to start / complete or progress on the quest. Obtained items are mentioned in the rewards template. I see the point though that it's not understandable at all. I'll have a look into the template and let you know when changes are done.
15:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Heya Liseth,
sorry for being so late to the updates, I've been very busy in RL and forgot about the changes :-(.
I've updated the Template:Quest to provide four more parameters: craftschool, craftlevel, skill and skilllevel. Please review the template documentation for further details and a sandbox example.
The item parameter has been removed silently (it's still in the template but should not anymore be used). Alternatively I've created a new Template:RequiredItems which you can place below the Template:Quest. It's able to enlist up to 30 items required for the current quest. It also hosts a headline, telling the reader that the items may be required to start the quest, finish it or to progress in it. Here's an article already updated to it: ARoP22 - Ritual of Journey: Stars of Attunement; Hope that helps.


However, each quest article will need to be updated so the 'item' parameter and the {{#set:Itemreq=xxx}} are replaced with 'RequiredItems'. Also, some of the Quest template calls are inconsistent now. There will be quests telling the reader that he needs an 'adventuring skill' but a crafting school is defined. This needs to be updated manually.
13:45, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
Hey Elteria,
Everything looks great, no worries about the delay, I'll see if I can cover some of the quests (will likely go in alphabetical order) in the coming few weeks myself.
Thanks!
Vi-Liseth (talk) 19:20, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Cost on Item Page[edit]

Hey Elt,

On the item page such as for the Vault Keeper Hiring Permit, it only lists who sells it, but not how much for. I wonder - would it be possible to edit the template "Vendor Sells" that searches for who sells it to also pull how much they sell it for?

Would be a quick way to search for who sells something the cheapest, too.

--Rakk (talk) 23:20, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Heya Rakk,
I've tried to implement that a whole while ago and failed. This is a very deep crosslinking and MediaWiki's/SMW's restrictive functions are not able to handle that. Sorry.
11:51, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello from an old friend[edit]

Hey Elteria. How goes things these days. Teto here. I have returned to istaria and just dropping by to say hello. Hope you have been well. I am back on Order though haven't filed a ticket yet to see if they can find Teto. Playing as a dwarf named Otet. I know you are on Chaos now but wanted to say hello. Be well my saris friend.

Greeings Teto,
nice to hear from you, has been a whole while since we spoke :-) I hope you're all well and if you feel lonely on Order, come over to Chaos for a chat!
22:41, 2 April 2020 (CEST)

Flash of unstyled content[edit]

Hello, thanks for the welcome! There is one item on my wishlist that an admin could help with.

Pages initially display with white backgrounds, then dynamic styles add the black background. This causes a white flash every page. Moving site-wide CSS rules (the backgrounds, at least) out of the dynamic styles, and into MediaWiki:Monaco.css or MediaWiki:Common.css, should fix that.

I don't know which file on the server has the dynamic styles, but it'll look something like:

body {
    background-image: url(/images/background-outer.jpg?e794b) !important;
    background-position: center top;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-color: black !important;
    font-size: 14px;
}

Putting that code in MediaWiki:Monaco.css or Common.css should load it before the page displays, avoiding the white flash. Easton West (talk) 18:34, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Heya Easton. I've never seen that flash by myself but I know there is a problem on loading the css in time. I see alot of unformatted content before the DOM has loaded completely. I know of that issue, it's part of the bad code of the monaco skin (I haven't developed it). I am planning to recreate the skin at one point but my time is short. I'll look into that white issue tomorrow and let you know what I can do. Thanks!
19:57, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
There you go, problem should be fixed :-)
20:13, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Wow, that's so much better! Thank you! Easton West (talk) 20:39, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Restoring SMW spell data[edit]

Hi, I was wondering how to restore some of the SMW spell data. For example, with Flame Bolt I diff, I just copied and pasted the old article version in. This fixes SMW queries, for example, Template:SkillSpells on Flame. Is it okay to combine product+spell info in the same article like that? Easton West (talk) 03:26, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Heya Easton, wow this is a riddle. I can't see a way to script down something to restore that. There are tons of such spells, too, so manually adding it again would take ages.. I admit {{SkillSpells}} was an oversight from me :(. It is good to have an overview of spells for each skill, and I may have a workaround for that in my pocket. I gotta think about that for a bit. Generally you can freely edit the new structure however you want to (I did for Food and Technique Kits for example since they were special aswell). In this specific issue I may change the #set logic into a template and possibly also change the smw properties to reflect everything a litlle better. Please don't do changes as long as I think over that so that we don't waste your time by overwriting it in the end. I'll let you know if I got the master plan ready!
Thanks for the heads up, Cheers!
12:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Hiya! I've updated 800+ Spells today and put in missing smw data again. Nice scripting skills, haha! The property 'Usable by' is used again and I'll work through the schools / skills later on to fix the calling templates. I've also added two new properties: 'Has attack type' and 'Has skill type'. Those are used in the new templates {{ShowSpellDetails}} and {{AddSpellDetails}} which were also included in the update. Some spells may still be missing them but I'm sure I didn't miss at least 95% of all spells. If you feel like it go have a watch if I missed something.
21:49, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

New NPC property "job"?[edit]

Some NPCs have text under their names, and I can often remember that text easier than the names. I'd like to add that text as a SMW property, e.g. Aminah "Spellcrafter Trainer" Special:Diff/183004/225294. Does this look okay? Easton West (talk) 05:23, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Heya, that is a good idea! Cheers!
10:45, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Filtered VendorSells/CoinPrinter[edit]

Hi, I saw a JS issue where Minisa Albrath's OffersItem tier 2 item records such as "Spell: Heal Increase II" were showing on tier 1 item pages such as Spell: Heal Increase I - partial string match bug. To avoid that, I filtered the output, so that only the correct item displays - diff. You might be able to simplify MediaWiki:ILPaymentPrinter.js, since wanteditem has already been searched for, and listsold is just the one correct item now. Easton West (talk) 22:00, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Heya Easton, good change, thanks. I've fixed the bug in the js so we're all fine now. May I ask you to avoid the Arrays extension whenever possible? It is due to die apart, because MedaWiki won't support it somewhen in their future releases :(. No biggie for us yet, I'm just thinking apart a bit. Cheers!
23:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Oh okay, I can probably rewrite it without arrays. Thanks! Easton West (talk) 23:08, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Refactored it using SMW subobjects instead of arrays. SMW subobjects were easier than arrays, I should've tried that first! Easton West (talk) 01:11, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

picture of Tazoon Fountains Blueprints[edit]

On your photo, your jewel is blocking the icon of the blueprints.

KamiFox

Hiya Kami, yeah that is a small mistake from exporting. Some thousands of pictures are like that. It isn't really covering any worthy data, I guess we can leave it as is. Thanks!
15:50, 9 October 2022 (UTC)