Wiki WIP

Okay, I started dumping stuff onto the Wiki. As with most things Thessir, it is a work in progress.

Oh yeah.

http://thessirnwn.wikia.com/

Awesome! Some things to note:

The page for the Araakan Wastelands is going to be "Araakan Wastelands", not just Araakan.

The racial pages might look cleaner if we do Dark Elf (Race) and so on instead of The Dark Elves or The Wasteland Elves.

Also, check this out: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Templates

Also, on some theme-based things. We need...

A graphic wordmark, up in the corner. (250x65 .png file) This would replace the title up in the top left corner that says "Thessir Wiki"
A FavIcon to show in the tab bar of the web browsers (16x16 .ico file)

Wikis to reference from:
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page (Ideal to use this format for any lore and stuff)
http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page (Ideal to use this format for classes and mechanics)

http://wiki.arelith.com/Main_Page
http://wiki.avlis.org/Main_Page
http://amiawiki.shatuga.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

(Just to get a general idea of how PW wikis work and what kind of sections they include)

Everlasting Empathy wrote:Awesome! Some things to note:

The page for the Araakan Wastelands is going to be "Araakan Wastelands", not just Araakan.

Yeah, I was going to do that, but he says just Araakan so often, I was likely to make a page for each. "Araakan" Would probably be a society/culture type page talking about the "Araakanese" or whatever. This is where detail into trade and cultural values, religion, military, et cetra, would be embellished.

The page for the "Araakan Wastelands" will be about that part of the Thessir, its geographical location, climate, potentially a map. It would mention that it is home to the Araakan people, as well as others, et cetra.

Everlasting Empathy wrote:The racial pages might look cleaner if we do Dark Elf (Race) and so on instead of The Dark Elves or The Wasteland Elves.

Yeah, right now I'm looking at minimal crossover between the mechanics and lore halves of the Wiki, at least on the same page. I think.

I don't want to be talking about "Wild Elves are avoided, even by other elves. For centuries, they have been, quite simply, far too dangerous, due to their ability to cast spells 5 levels higher than their spell-casting ability, adding to their DC as well" For example. Right now its set up so that "The Wild Elves" will be a lore page that all of the lore pages connect to, and "Wild Elf" will be page for the mechanics of the subrace, or, possibly a redirect location of that subrace in a list of subrace mechanics. These pages can be linked to eachother, and disambiguated with a disambiguation page.

This is a root level distinction of structure, in terms of separation of "system" and "setting", and that's the split that makes the most sense to me. If you need a different structure, we need to decide that sooner rather than later. This is how my brain works, so, this lore/mechanics made sense to me, provided they link to each other. Sticking a (race) on either page's topic doesn't help, and neither does tacking on a (lore) to half the wiki's topics.

holy hell! I wake up and someone else has been working on the wiki, just the way we planned too! Thanks.

so.... will "Lore" and "System" be categories? Two root categories to differentiate things, since they aren't different wiki's like the NWN(system) and FR(lore) wikis are.

Honestly, the lore for most things would be on the page that details the mechanics.

Everlasting Empathy wrote:Honestly, the lore for most things would be on the page that details the mechanics.

Needs embellishment.

Seriously, though, We have a lot more lore here, thanks to Nem, than an italics sentence at the bottom of a magic card. If you don't want the wiki to have divisions between engine specifics and premise details, I need to know
1) Why this doesn't work (So I don't make the same mistake with a similar decision)
2) What to do instead (So that we can work on making progress in the right direction)
3) How it will be better (So that I can highlight and repeat those principles throughout the wiki)

Are the mechanics or the lore more important? If they're on the same page, which one goes on top? Yes, we could make giant pages using table of contents linking, but, couldn't we also put the entire server's worth of information on one page called "Thessir" and part it out like a manual? That would certainly save on unique addresses or redirect links or lost pages or click counts or whatever it is that I haven't figured out is the issue you have with having seperate lore and mechanics pages (as recognized above, equivalent to the NWNwiki for mechanics and the FRwiki for lore).

the original idea was to base lore on the FR wikia and mechanics on the NWN wikia.  but... it almost seems like a lot of topics would work under both categories and use the same page... maybe one color for mechs, one for lore?  with maybe a heading for lore especially?  like a graphic we'd use each time?

and yeah... I just came up with this idea, reading both your posts.

notice I'm doing more thinking/planning than doing?  yeah... I just noticed that too.

Example:

Speerhausen

Speerhausen has been doing work on the Wikia Page under the username AdamPatric


[LORE GRAPHIC]

Speerhausen

Speerhausen is rumored to be the street Sweeper of Thessir.

Doing it the other way, you'd have two pages for every path, two pages for every spell, and two pages for every race. Just lot anything mechanical on the appropriate topic. Spell changes counts as mechanical, but mana has lore involved. Why have two pages?

You can also spilt Nemmy''s lore into different pages. If one of the topics he wrote has information about the high elves AND dark elves, split them accordingly and have a page that links to them.

All of the pages I've put up so far have empty links to topics that should become their own pages. Splitting Nem's Lore is already happening, but, one of the things I really like about the way everything was written is that it continually references itself. This makes it very wiki surf friendly.

Despite the creation of more pages, I think smaller pages on different subjects promotes surfing, and digestion. Keeping the lore separate, but linked to its mechanical equivalents forthcoming tl dr issues I am certain are on the horizon.

Speerhausen's color coding system could certainly help, and we could put lore on mechanics pages, but, its going to get thick really fast. Something like http://wiki.arelith.com/Drow is too thick, and I promise everyone just scrolls to the bottom, and everyone else doesn't even know that there's lore on that page. Arelith meanwhile has the added bonuses of the Encyclopedia Arelithica, as well as support from both the NWNwiki and the Forgotten Realms Wiki. This server is so heavily modified that we don't really have most of those assets. (That's not going to stop me from linking to nwnwiki pages on pertinent subjects (DC, Races) when appropriate.

Nem's materials are not full, but, he has a system of summaries and expansions. This works really well with a wiki. If we only had as much lore on each subject, as, say,

Path of the Bloodcaster

"My power is what I am, and what I am is power. I am the embodiment of all who fall before me, for it is my blood that reaps what I sow. Pain is what drives me. Blood is what FEEDS me!"

- Danikan Trivos, The Bloodscourge

The Bloodcaster breaks all the rules of magic. At the core of every spell is a raw power known as Mana, but at the core of every Bloodcaster's spell is blood. It is said that a bloodcaster merely draws upon the mana latent in every body, and perhaps this is true. Nevertheless, the art is considered foul by almost every circle of magus, and the power that comes from each agonizing ritual performed puts the user well above any other caliber. The forbidden art of bloodcasting is an impossibly destructive power that is not without cost. Sometimes, the cost can even be death.

Base Class: Sorcerer
Alignment: Lawful Good and Neutral Good characters cannot become Bloodcasters.

Abilities:
~ Destructive Siphon: Bloodcasters are able to draw from their own blood to empower and cast their magic.
~ Bond of Blood: The Bloodcasters' spells become more powerful the higher their Constitution is. They add their constitution modifier to their spells.
~ Foul Procurement: The Bloodcasters' spells count as 3 levels higher than they would be usually, and also gain a +3 bonus to all DCs.

Level 4: N/A: No ability for this level.

Level 6: N/A: No ability for this level.

Level 8: N/A: No ability for this level.

Level 10: N/A: No ability for this level.

Level 12: N/A: No ability for this level.

Level 15: Annihilation: The Bloodcaster relinquishes a very large amount of their blood to become an engine of destruction and wreak havoc on every target in range. While in this state, the bloodcaster is invulnerable to all damage and deals AOE damage per second. After this wears off, the bloodcaster is crippled and left at 1 hit point.

Gains:

The Bloodcaster does not use mana to cast spells.
The Bloodcaster's magic counts as of 3 caster levels higher than the actual spell. This effect increases damage and spell potency. The bloodcaster can even ignore the cap (maximum efficiency) on some spells, making them more fearsome than any other caster.
The Bloodcaster's spells also gain a +3 DC bonus to every spell they cast.
The Bloodcaster's constitution allows their spells to become even deadlier. They add their Constitution modifier to their spell DCs.


Losses:

Bloodcasters take damage on every spell cast. Each spell drains an amount of Hit Points based on the power of the spell.
Unlike Mana, health does not necessarily regenerate over time. A bloodcaster who does not supply himself with plenty of healing goods may not be able to survive a fight.
Spells do not distinguish between a blood caster's health pool. If a spell takes away more hitpoints than the caster has, it might kill them.
Bloodcasting is considered taboo in the In Character world.

With the italics at the top, yeah, we'd be fine. But we have and will have much more than that. I'm not concerned with anyone getting lost, and I've already listed many reasons why having two pages for [many but not every]thing is a good idea, and I haven't heard a single reason against. It will all be collected, connected, and logically laid out. Are we only allowed a certain number of pages or something? Are we running low on server space? Does that also mean we shouldn't have a Thessir (the continent) page and a Thessir (the nwnserver) page?

Everlasting Empathy wrote:Halp! I really don't know how to build a wiki.

I appreciated the links, but, I've been staring at all of those wikis for a decade, I've played on all of those servers. The most important thing to understand from each is that they are all constructed differently, and that they had to be.

Also, placeholders might be a good idea for the forum, and I thought they would be a good idea for the wiki too, but, because of how wiki's work, I've decided against placeholders, personally, and I can't imagine they are less of an inconvenience for others than dealing with my own placeholders myself.

Also we need a photographer. Given the pictures you've provided so far, and access to invisible characters, I nominate EE. His graphics are a little better than mine, and mine aren't going to get better because I'm on a mac and I'm emulating, and have no idea how to find that stuff to improve it. (buffers and textures and shading et cetra) With IG photography, we can grab some shots of, say, the Dragon Knights outside the Temple, the Ferry, the Halfling farmlands, et cetra. Pictures are good.

Tables help organize information. Side info bars like on FR wiki also help. Tables especially for mechanics.

As for pictures, just tell me what you need.

then a [[lore]] or [[mechanics]] main category that everything fits into, aside from the bit of flavortext?

I'm trying to figure out how to make a template for things such as Paths without it linking back to the category.  I could always just leave out that bit of code.