Discussion/archive

Main Page

It seems like the mainpage is highly inaccurate... There's a halloween notice, but it passed (afaik); the moon phases are not correct anymore,the article of the day stays for weeks, and so on... Maybe a restructuration (like calling it article of the month) or something would make it better? --Twopeak 00:51, 7 Nov 2005 (MST)

• So I guess the topic YOU started at Talk:Main_Page#Moon_phases wasn't worth checking BEFORE you started another one here. See http://kol.thraeryn.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=483 --JRSiebz | ☎ 01:10, 7 Nov 2005 (MST)
• Your problem is browser cache, grasshopper. You NEED to hit refresh multiple times, it seems. The Halloween notice was removed days before you posted this. The featured article changes daily, although it cycles through a rotation. The moons are correct, except for a few minute lapse around rollover. --Alpaca 04:41, 7 Nov 2005 (MST)

Forums

• The forums appear to be almost impossible to load. Is there server issues, or is it a problem on my end? --Weirdguy 10:56, 29 Nov 2005 (Hawaii Standard Time)
  • Yeah, we know. I, and others, experience the same problem, but Jin and co. don't, even when they access the forums through the URL, so they're having difficulty debugging and/or fixing it. We hope to find some way, soonish. --Alpaca 17:13, 29 November 2005 (Central Standard Time)
  • They've been a headache for me recebtly, too. I get the top header of the forums quickly, then it sits, and sits, snd sits, until I hopefully get the page. (even at wierd hours). I makes it really hard to preview and post new posts. Is the wiki stealing all it's available bandwith?--JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 16:49, 9 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)
    • I asked Jin about that possibility, but she said that the forums and the wiki were on the same priority level on the router, so they should both experience the same amount of lag. Of late, the forums just stop loading sometimes. --Alpaca 18:32, 9 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)
      • Well, while the forums are really bad, I've been seeing some pretty slow response times here on the wiki at times, too. So I'm thinking either the new server is underconfigured (Nooo!) or something's not right in the server setup somewhere. Hopefully the latter, as that can be fixed more easily. -- Old Ned 04:33, 15 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

KoL History

Since Trog Dor's History of Loathing is somewhat defunct, is that a role that Visual KOL is suited for? If so, how should it be done? A unified approach would be much better, IMO, than just tacking random historical facts in various places around the site. The methods I've considered are:

1. Creating a page for each day of the year, under which the events, developments, etc. would be placed. Lots of flexibility, but LOTS of pages, many of which would not be of much importance. Also, with that type of approach, it would be hard to get an overall feel for the history of KOL without reading all 365 pages.
2. One long listing of dated events/developments, with corresponding pages further explaining them. Not as consistent, but maybe more practical. Also, just by browsing the main page, one could get a bigger picture of how KoL has progressed over the last couple of years.
3. Forget the whole thing - No one but me finds that type of thing interesting, anyway...

--Snickles 12:55, 20 May 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• If html anchors will work in wiki, this could be done on one big page, inserting anchors at each new day, and using the calendar someone put together, could be accessed in part by using that. Then someone could either hit up one day, or could read it all in one long stretch and/or skim the whole thing. KoL History Let's see how they work.... Yeah, so HTML anchors don't work in the normal way. I wonder if Wiki has its own variety. --jin 15:03, 20 May 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• Anchors can be achieved by [[NAME#SECTION]]. And yeah, I had to look it up. But anyway, that could become one majorly long page, depending on just how much stuff would be added. Integrating the calendar is a good idea, though, since it's not terribly useful at the moment. --Snickles 15:23, 20 May 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• My 2p:

1. Most of the changes have been logged in KoL's old announcements and trivial updates pages - I suggest we just link to them.
2. For special events that require a proper description (ie introduction of Ascension), I suggest creating a page for each year KoL has been running, and adding a section for each month and days simply as textual lists within that section. If the page gets stupidly big, split into multiple pages by quarter, and then month etc.
3. Another possibility is to add a full category by KoL Date. There are only 96 days in the KoL calendar versus the 365 of gregorian.

--ZzinG 08:01, 25 November 2005 (GMT)

Profanity

• I've just added a Pulp Fiction quote to "Another Lavatory Troll", and it includes the word "fuckin'". I couldn't find an official policy on profanity, so I figured I should ask here whether or not this kind of thing should be avoided. --Fnord

• I think it's nearly impossible to avoid "fuckin'" when quoting anything from Pulp Fiction. However, that reference seems a bit of a stretch. I think that's an okay use of profanity though. I think we should avoid/eliminate profanity that is rude, insulting, or extraneous. There's no reason to say something fucking sucks or call someone a bitch, etc. But, for quoting something like Pulp Fiction, I'd say it's okay. --jin 10:50, 26 Jul 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Sorry guys

sorry about the random number generator page's suckiness. i'm so new to this wiki stuff

drinking and pastamancer?

I'm a pastamancer, and I can drink up to "Inebriety 20", but according to the booze page only people with the liver of steel can drink that much.

And when drinking a dry_vodka_martini I got 7 adventures instead of 6 (as written), 12 Chutzpah (instead of 0) and as stated, 3 drunkenness.
I haven't adapted the pages since I don't know if it's normal or not! Send me some booze and I'll test further  ;-)
twopeak 12:50 (CET-1), Halloween

• Couple of things, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the game, but the 20 drunknness could be acouple of things. you might be able to drink more than 15, but you can't adventure unless your drunknness is less than 15 (20 with the liver). or it may have been st sneaky pete's day. the other differences are becasue the results are somewhat random, and it may have been a stat day. test it a few more times and if it is consistent, add to the database. the result that is there now is probably from one person drinking once. --Pastamancer5 21:55, 11 Sep 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Clan Pages

There are the beginnings of a discussion on clan pages and notable clans over at category talk:clans. Feedback would be appreciated. --Aardvark 10:35, 11 Sep 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Miscellaneous

I'd have put this on the forums, but I can't seem to get it to come up, and I didn't know where else to put this. It seems that "special characters" have become UTF-8-isized (e.g. ™ has become â„¢). Is there some simple, blanket way we can fix this, like in the database? I don't know much about how the Wiki works internally, so I could just be talking nonsense here. Otherwise we might have to go page by page. Example: Template:Ascension_Rewards --Fryguy9 20:12, 21 Sep 2005 (MDT)

• For info on the forums see current events. While the wiki moved, it went form a windows server to a linux one, some characters have fouled up. --JRSiebz 20:37, 21 Sep 2005 (MDT)

• More or less i think the header <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"/> has become <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> , so the wiki identifies itself as using a different character set. ™ probably should never be in page name anyway, since it's not allowed in a web address. --JRSiebz 20:42, 21 Sep 2005 (MDT)

• On futher inspection it seems that all the ™'s not entered with ™ , but using alt+XXX commands, are the ones which messed up, ™ still works, though it cannot be in an address, alt+XXX characters are based on the character set. We should switch to standard characters instead of windows specific ones --JRSiebz 21:01, 21 Sep 2005 (MDT)

• I saw the post about the forums almost right after I posted. I agree on the special characters being posted in the HTML standard way (with the &WORD; format) as opposed to just pasting them from some other application. All special characters, that were not written the HTML standard way are messed up, including accented characers. (e.g. Retenez_L'Herbe_Paté...that one just happens to be a title, but all are changed). It seems they all got converted to their UTF-8 byte equivalent, hence why I asked if there was a quick database query we could run to do search-replace for these. Also, in the move was anything changed in the database, such as collations? --Fryguy9 22:45, 21 Sep 2005 (MDT)
• There really aren't too many, and I almost have em all. I keep noticing one here or there, either something spanish, french, or trademarked ;-) I've been moving the offended page, deleting the old name with the goofy characters, the going to wanted pages and figuring out how many links were broken by linking to the deleted page. For some reason all pages with the ascension rewards template show up as still linking to the wrong Retenez L'Herbe Paté in 'wanted pages', even though they don't, I have already altered the template.--JRSiebz 09:33, 22 Sep 2005 (MDT)

Areas by Number

This wiki has Effects by number, Items by number, Skills by number, and Familiars by number. But I don't see an Areas by number (or equivilent, if that name seems wrong). Things like 9 => The Sleazy Back Alley, 91 => Noob Cave, etc. Any reason? I have a fairly comprehensive list of them. The number shows up in the URL for the repeat last adventure in the left pane.

Other things in game have numbers, too. Like the choice adventures that come up. Of these I only know the number of one, the Under the Knife opportunity from the Back Alley. Would that be appropriate for the wiki?

Vandalism

User Bobbob210 is being naguhty. Can his account be disabled? Can this wiki post some guidelines for reverting vandalism? As a sample, here's the one from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version --Club 18:10, 5 Oct 2005 (MDT)

• I just banned him, the easiest way to revert vandalism is to rollback a page, which only admins here can do, if someone is the last editor of a page I can roll it back to the last version by someone else rather easily.--JRSiebz 18:56, 5 Oct 2005 (MDT)

Chat Pages

The Chat pages (In Category:Basics) have been in the Needs Work section for as long as I can remember.

How about a new category Chat, that's contents are

• Chat Moderators
• Chat Channels (Split from current page)
• Chat Commands (Split from current page)
• Chat Mechanics/Structure (Split from current page)
• Interactive Bots (Split from current page)
• Chat Etiquette (Split from current page)

Firestorm ZERO, 9th October 2005

I don't think we need a new category. The page should be restructed, however - specifically, the channels section. The section should list the channels, what they are for, and what you need to do to get into them. The section should not list players who frequent such channels. It's in invitation for vanity pages, IMO. There is already a seperate chat moderator page, although I actually wouldn't mind that being merged into the current article. --Aardvark (Talk | Contribs) 03:06, 17 Oct 2005 (MDT)

True, but things as small as candy get their own category, and chat is one of the biggest things in the game and therefore having just one page would make it quite hard to navigate as it would be cluttered. Firestorm ZERO, 20th October 2005

This is what I think is the 'obvious' thing to do: The page (all pages, really) should be re-organized, when necessary, to keep the sections well separated and easy to navigate. As a distinct process, when the page becomes very large, sections can be made into their own pages. So if the chat page is already very large, it should be split, but if it is not, you should wait until it is. But then again, what the hell do I know. -- Shadowless

It seems FirestormZero got tired of waiting for consensus, so he went ahead and did it his way. See the discussion in Category talk:Chat about cleaning up what he did. -- Old Ned 20:09, 12 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Transparent Images

Over at Cooking strategy, I've got tables with colored backgrounds and item images. Without transparency, obviously the images looked clumsy. (And of course many other pages, including the Main Page, have the same problem.) So I made simple GIF versions of the images I needed, with the pure white background converted to transparent.

The problem with this isn't hard to figure out. Since the images are anti-aliased, they have quite a bit of light gray around their edges, giving them "halos". After some fiddling about in Photoshop, I worked out how to make PNG versions that had partially transparent outlines for less halo. (This technique was already in use on Mushroom Fields Strategy.)

Now some people are reporting, and I have confirmed, that Internet Explorer under several versions of Windows (including XP) does not handle this type of transparency correctly, giving the images oddly-colored backgrounds. Here are examples:

Original GIF

Transparent GIF

[[File:Gravy-alpha.png]]Transparent PNG

So I ask for consensus or mandates on two questions:

1. Should the use of partly-transparent PNGs be abandoned because of this glitch? This is surely a large portion of the audience that's affected.
2. When I made the transparent GIFs, I uploaded them over the originals. Setting aside for a moment that the halos make them look not-quite-perfect, is this a no-no? Or is it desirable because it automatically makes the image transparent everywhere without editing any pages?

I believe that we should forge ahead, not look back. That is to say, forget IE if it doesn't support something like transparent PNGs, especially since they're not really necessary to enjoy the site. People who use IE won't see the page rendered quite as prettily, but if we go back to GIFs, then everybody suffers that fate. Besides, IE will get there eventually. -- Shadowless

• I'm inclined to agree with Shadowless. When Microsucks releases Internet Explorer 7 here in a few months(?), this problem should be fixed. In the meantime, there are two work-arounds. Quicktime comes with a handler that (I assume) can properly render the alpha layer of PNG images. And alternative browsers are proving to be better than IE. Firefox isn't really a big download. It does have a slightly larger memory footprint, but this is because many of the components of IE are embedded in and load with the OS. Also, Opera has been made free.
• When creating the transparency, if possible, use either white or #ccffcc as the color you are converting from. This is the background color that will be displayed when the image is loaded in Internut Exploder or any other browser/image program that can't read the alpha layer. --Aardvark (Talk | Contribs) 01:44, 4 Oct 2005 (MDT)

• Do you happen to know how this is accomplished? I'm working in Photoshop, and for me it's a matter of separating the inside, edge, and background onto separate layers, deleting the background, and reducing the opacity of the edge. Color never enters into it. Of course the original background was white. There is no option to choose a background color when saving the PNG. And yet I do believe (no Windows to check at the moment) my PNGs were coming out colored. --PaperWhiteMaskOfEvil 06:22, 5 Oct 2005 (MDT)

• From what I understand, there is a way to do it, but I have no idea what that entails. I believe it differs between image editors. I really don't have much experience with .PNGs, as I still use the older standard .GIF and .JPEG for most purposes. Meh. --Aardvark (Talk | Contribs) 06:36, 5 Oct 2005 (MDT)

• Not to change the subject, but it seems like we're all agreeing here - we all want to move forward with transparent PNGs. All opposed? Worrying about background color is a secondary concern - and it probably can be changed later. Let's forge ahead, background-colors-on-old-browsers-that-don't-support-PNG-properly be damned! --Shadowless

• Until IE 7 is released, people are making due with a simple javascript fix. It's probably an admin-level fix, though I'm just guessing. How to use PNG in IE --Yehman 18:42, 21 Oct 2005 (MDT)

Monster Stats

From what I understand, stat gains from monsters are level dependant, with 5 levels equaling a stat point. For monsters that fall in between blocks of five, such as a level seven monster, stat gains are variable between the upper and lower possibility, with the average gain weighted depending on level (average gain for a level seven monster, therefore, would be 1.4, (2*1 + 3*2) / 5). If this is true, NO monster should have a range of greater than 1. However, there are quite a few adventures listed in the wiki with ranges of 2 or more stat points. Can anyone confirm that this description is accurate? --Snickles 23:50, 23 Jul 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

The following areas indicate the existence of monsters that have a stat gain with a range of greater than one. It is believed that no monster in the Kingdom actually has a range of more than one it its stat gain. These areas should be investigated. To investigate, be sure you have no item which increases monster level, and no stat increasing skills, effects or familiars. You should make sure you encounter the monster you are investigating multiple times (10 would probably be the absolute minimum). Outskirts of Camp Logging Camp The Valley Beyond the Orc Chasm King's Chamber The Misspelled Cemetary (pre-crypt) The Defiled Niche Entryway Guano Junction The Bugbear Pens Whitey's Grove Thugnderdome Orcish Frat House --Payback 08:53, 27 Aug 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Body part links broken since move to coldfront

I would like to bring to attention the fact that the bodypart links on many monster pages all point to the wrong page. I have tried to edit the templete for body parts but it seems that bodyparts have a mark up command which is not avalaible for users to edit. --SomeStranger 12:19, 12 March 2006 (CST)

• The path in the wfAnatomicalInjuriesExtension extension needs to be updated, but that requires access to its source (either by ftp, root through SSH, or physically), I'm assuming Jinya still *might*, else the two new mods from Coldfront should. I wish I could remember who wrote it in the first place, Aplaca maybe? It seems to point to "/wiki/Anatomical_Injuries" instead of what would currently be "/thekolwiki/index.php/Anatomical_Injuries". --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 19:22, 12 March 2006 (CST)
  • This is fixed now. I had FrostByghte go in and change the offending line. --jin 21:14, 13 March 2006 (CST)
    • This section seems finished. Is it ok to remove it? --Echan 08:23, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

Wiki Standards: Achieving Consensus and Resolution

Moved to the forums as per Jinya's request.

Vanity & Collector Pages

I (Gymnosophist) also raised the issue of Vanity & Collector pages. This issue attracted more response, and yet failed to achieve any clear resolution. A redaction of the thread from the Wiki Admin forum thread is as follows:

Gymnosophist wrote:

Perhaps the most pressing open issue is something of a philosophical one: to what extent should users be welcomed/accommodated? Are any and all user and clan "vanity" pages welcome? Should they adhere to certain standards? How should collections be handled? Just how dumb does an edit have to be to earn an acerbic correcting comment? There's been much discussion, both pro and con, on these issues, but I think that these are questions that you (Jinya) as the site founder need to answer, at least in a general sort of way.

For myself, I find myself agreeing with Shagie, who a month ago said "The wikis that tend to be the most successful are those that have a thriving community behind them. As collectors are part of the KoL community (and encouraged to the extent that there is a display case and the hall of records with collections) it would help the wiki's community to support them to some degree."

Jinya wrote:

Players so far have been welcome to put whatever info about themselves into their page as they wanted. However, we've run across a few issues with these in the past.

1. Other players coming through and making detrimental changes to the page of a player they have a vendetta against.

2. Vanity images locally hosted that were much too large for our servers to realistically handle.

3. Outright rudeness towards others "advertised" on a clan page.

4. People just don't know how to make the pages, but they all want to anyways. It's a lot of clean-up work.

I'm all for each player being able to have their own little corner of the wiki, their own page of accomplishments or whatever else they'd like to put there, but we need to find a way to head off the problems.

And we're also hitting the problem now that server resources are being taxed. We've emailed the host about it (approx 3 days ago), but they haven't responded yet. It may be time for a phone call. I don't think these vanity pages really get much use in a normal day, but I also don't want people to link to them from outside as maybe some are or have.

What can we do to help cut down on the problems, but still allow each individual in the community to have their own corner? An admin assigned primarily to watch player pages? Locking each page after it's created? I'm just throwing out random ideas right now. Feel free to do the same.

Snickles wrote:

To paraphrase Jick, I believe that the above problems are best handled on a case by case basis. With that said, I have not been the most active wiki admin as of late, so my impression of the extent of the problem might be off.

On a side note, is there some type of policy agreement screen that users "must" agree to when joining the wiki? It might not do much good, but perhaps some of the rules could be included within the agreement.

JRSiebz wrote:

I've whined about player/clan pages in a section of the propsed standards discussion.

There are a bunch of things I dislike, one line player/clan pages, people who create player pages for all their buddies, people who only join the wiki to create player/clan pages, the Item Collectors page, the ever growing 'chat regulars' section for ever channel on the Chat page, etc.

I do spend most my time "babysitting" the wiki, categorizing player/clan pages, redirecting User: pages to player pages (behold the power of redirection...yet again), replacing html special characters, and reformatting junky references that are not bulletted, are in the 'notes' section, that contain no links for more information, or are not at all explained. I don't really like doing that, but things like that bug me.

A new thing that I am starting to dislike, is player pages used as ascension checklists. These pages are updated daily! and steal bandwith. I (or no one else) needs to know that a player still needs 10 pounds of mosquito, a giant needle, and a digital key untiul they can ascend. This information is not useful to anyone but the author... so why put it up on a public wiki!?!? These things belong in .txt or .html files on their desktops!

Jinya wrote:

As for ascension checklists, maybe we could do away with those, but provide a link to a downloadable spreadsheet file that would keep track of that for them....?

Here again, I'd like be hearing thoughts on the issue, but perhaps we should first get a decision on the mechanism for achieving consensus and resolution of Wiki standards. --Gymnosophist 21:13, 26 Oct 2005 (MDT)

Up to very recently, I maintained a monster of a personal page, until I saw the light and downsized. (In my defense, I was planning to do that for quite a while, but was just lazy.) But I support a person's ability to maintain his own player page. The idea that only other users should be allowed to maintain somebody's player page is one of the most misguided concepts I've encountered. (Incidentally, there's a seperate page, called the user's discussion page, for other people's comments about that user.) I believe that if a person has contributed a significant (subjective!) amount of effort to the wiki, that person deserves his own little corner of it. To ban information that could be gotten from the user's profile is like saying that the wiki shouldn't put info from desc_item.php in the kingdom on its pages, since a player could just click he item image and look it up. It's just a matter of convenience. However, a few things do piss me off. One of them is the user who registers just so he can create his player page, and contribute nothing else to the wiki. Another is the user who updates his page every time he farts. But otherwise, I think users should be able to put pretty much anything they want on their user pages (unless, of course, they use them as bandwidth vampires, or do something else egregiously and obviously wrong). --Alpaca 10:54, 24 November 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Let's get something official-looking done, and draft a set of guidelines. --Alpaca 22:12, 26 November 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Okay, so is this the place to complain about the new collection snippets added onto various item wiki pages? They're unnecessary and cluttering. I apologize if this is some decision agreed on elsewhere, but they're not even in the same place on all the pages.--Unnatural20 14:12, 3 April 2006 (CDT)

• I want to bring up the issue of Vanity pages again by asking what happens if someone creates a vanity page for someone else. Normally I would just move it to the person's userpage but since they don't have an account it seems odd to move it to their userpage. One specific case which I am refering to is User:Hawkie. --SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 20:46, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

More on special characters

Reading some of Wikipedia's pages on how to edit articles, I noticed they had a pretty fierce discussion about whether typewriter characters like -- or " " should be replaced with prettier typographical characters like — or “ ”. One group felt the typographical characters were more professional, but the other group complained that codes like &mdash; or &ldquo; made articles much harder to read when you were editing them (which is true, especially when you've got a lot of nested quotes). The interesting thing is that they resolved the whole issue by switching the Wikipedia over to the UTF-8 character set, so now articles can just contain the actual characters, like — and “ ”. And to make it easy to do so, their Edit screen has a box just under the edit box that contains all the international letters and punctuation marks and other symbols; you just click on the one(s) you want to insert in your text.

We're on UTF-8 as well, so this seems like functionality that would be very useful for our site, too. Some of you may have noticed that I've been replacing dashes, quotation marks, and apostrophes with the appropriate &whatever; codes, as those were the most standard way I knew of to depict those characters. If someone can figure out how to add the character box to our Edit screen, I would be happy to start using the actual characters from now on; but I've added the &xyz; codes to so many pages by now that we would probably need some kind of script or bot to replace them all.

Does this seem like a good thing to do? -- Old Ned 20:32, 12 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Mediawiki:Sitenotice

This page is for adding a global notice to all pages. It appears in a bold text along the top, so shouldn't contain heavy formatting or lots of text. Only sysops can edit it, as well. Still, it may be useful to use this page to make readers and editors more aware of the technical difficulties that face the wiki. Something unobtrosive, such as the following, may be useful to add to this page.

The Wiki is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please be patient as we are taking steps to solve these issues.

Anyway, thoughts? --Aardvark (Talk | Contribs) 03:06, 17 Oct 2005 (MDT)

Food and Booze by Stat

I notice that on [[Category:Food]] and [[Category:Booze]] there's a food/booze by fullness section. Also, in the main text of the category, it references Moxie Substat, Muscle Substat, and Mysticality Substat, which really isn't helpful, seeing as the entry for Food/Booze says "Varies". Thus, I propose either a page or subcategory indicating the number of substats (for each stat) gained from eating/drinking. Also, completely off topic, is there anyway for me to see all the VKoL-specific templates in a single page? --Anarch 23:02, 25 November 2005 (Central Standard Time)

• In answering your least important question, you can see the templates used on a page by editing a page a page and looking under the 'save page' 'show preview' 'show changes' button. For example, the main page (currently) lists:

Templates used on this page:

• Template:DATE November 25
• Template:Editlinks
• Template:FEATURE Currency
• Template:Featuredarticle 5
• Template:Moons
• Template:Quicklinks

And actually this page lists Template:Ascension Rewards --JRSiebz (☎|§) 23:43, 25 November 2005 (Central Standard Time)

--Club 00:24, 17 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

• Well, no feedback yet. I put in a first draft. I can't do moreuntil Monday at earliest. --Club 12:58, 17 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Custom items in Tables, etc

I don't think that custom items should be shown in tables beyond those that deal specifically with custom items. I think that they are confusing at first glance and are certainly so to a new player who may not recognize a listing as a custom item (and that, ergo, there is only one such item).

For example: arse-shooting crossbow.
Right on its own page, it is shown with two tables:

• Crossbows (which is listed first), and:
• Custom items

Not only that, but it is also listed as a Muscle, Mysticality, and a Moxie booster. Because of its powerful ecnhantment (and its first letter being 'a') it is shown near the top of each listing. In fact, most custom items are near the top surpassing actual, acquirable equipment. (Note that, the Mafia equipment, though rare (and expensive), is not in the same dilemma, owing to its (technical) aquirability.)
Thoughts on this? --Xym 19:29, 8 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

In the same boat are especially homoerotic frat-paddle, bugbear-smiting sword, fetus-smashing club, and a few others. It does make sense to me to remove unaqcuirable items from the navigation templates (ie {{clubs}}, {{crossbows}}, and have them solely placed in {{customitems}}. And yes, custom items should be removed from equipments listings by power or enchantment, for the simple fact that they are unattainable. I don't know how many times I've sat in newbie chat and listened to people whining "how do u get a mahi fez?????". --Aardvark (Talk | Contribs) 19:36, 8 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

Perhaps the problem is that you've been sitting in newbie chat.... But I wouldn't mind their being removed from the listings. I'm always looking at Moxie Modifiers and having to scroll past half of it because it's NOT available to me.--jin 19:45, 8 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

Better get started then... This is a very manual job... --Xym 20:08, 8 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

• Ok, I think I finished. I'll leave it to someone who wants to deal with it to fix the "Maximizing your {whatever}" pages as I don't feel like dealing with them. (Their usefullness is debatable anyway, imo.) --Xym 22:03, 8 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

• I'm going to throw my weight around here a tad. Unless there is a good reason to remove custom items from the "Dressing for Success" set of pages, I'd request that editors refrain from doing so. The guidelines for the "Dressing" pages are clearly spelled out, and while the usefulness of the pages is debatable, removing custom items makes them no more useful. In fact, removing the custom items eliminates the original function of the pages, which was to demonstrate the theoretical maximum gain of each statistic or metric. --Snickles 23:48, 8 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

• I disagree with Snickles. There is NOT a "theoretical maximum gain of each statistic or metric" that involves custom items, that is available to ALL players. You cannot maximize your stats by means of using an arse-shooting crossbow, because you can't get one. Removing custom items from general categories makes the pages no LESS useful, and will discourage real n00bs from the erroneous belief that the custom item is available to all players rather than just one. --JLE 12:15, 11 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

• Game Mechanics has a useful compilation of items arranged by stat modification, without including custom items. Dressing For Success has an different goal. I fail to see how listing both the maximum theoretical gain with AND without custom items is equally informative as listing only the maximum gain without. If a player can click on a Baio or a Bowtie and understand how to obtain one, I cannot see how the inclusion of custom items would be confusing. --Snickles 13:23, 11 January 2006 (Central Standard Time)

• I think the page is supposed to show you how to get the best stats at a glance, and therefore including custom items would be sorta defeating for that purpose, wouldn't it? --Ihmhi 10:36, 3 April 2006 (CDT)

• There's also the fact that all of the custom items (with the sole exception of the Heteroerotic frat paddle, which may in itself be an error) are untradeable, so even if you personally knew the owner of a custom item, it wouldn't be possible for them to even lend it to you. --Quietust 11:20, 12 March 2006 (CST)

• I think they ought to only be in the Custom template and generally left out of things like "Dressing For Success". Do keep in mind that the reason this Wiki exists is to get information people in an efficient and understandable manner. Taking out an element of confusion would be a really good idea, and there is obviously an element of confusion in the game as evidenced by the comments of people in /c newbie. --Ihmhi 10:36, 3 April 2006 (CDT)

With regard to the treatment of custom items in the various Game Mechanics tables, the removal of the items from the Moxie Modifiers, etc. tables circumvents the intent of providing a "comprehensive list of everything in the game that affect your" stat. In fact, I could argue that their absence could cause as least as much confusion as their presence (they were always noted as Custom Items in the table notes). I think that a reasonable compromise is to reinstate these items in a separate "Custom Items" section at the bottom of the tables. This avoids the problem of having to scroll past a bunch of unobtainable items while at the same time returning the precept of the page to a state of verity.

As to the comments on the Dressing For Success pages, the explanations there are very explicit in describing "Villa" as a classification that any player can attain, whereas "KOL Diety" represents a theoretical maximum. It is not easily possible to be confused on this point.

Accordingly, unless I hear justification to the contrary, I'll plan on reinstating custom items to the Game Mechanics tables in their own section on the bottom as described above. --Gymnosophist 20:13, 10 April 2006 (CDT)

• Well then, even though it's stated that the "KoL Deity" items are a theoretical maximum, could we perhaps mark the custom items in some fashion? Maybe have a star next to it and say "items with a star next to them are custom items and cannot be acquired by any player save for the original owner"? --Ihmhi 01:53, 24 April 2006 (CDT)

location for discussions is more viable than commenting in talk pages, where it may be easily overlooked. --Snickles 12:55, 20 May 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Monster abilities

Baron von Ratsworth is assumed to scale his stat's with the player's like the Naughty Sorceress does, and The Bonerdagon prevents skill and item usage like she does. Are any of her other gimmicks replicated by the Goblin King and Boss Bat? This warrants some investigation. --Katarani 13:35, 10 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

The Goblin King requires special worn/wielded equipment to defeat, and the Boss Bat can drain your mana. --JLE 17.10, 11 January 2006 (GMT)

Always Hit?

I think I ought to have diffent sections for different topics, so I'm basically adding a few sections at once. Just a note as to why. So:

I might be foggy on my interpretation of the game mechanics, but can't you reach a certain level of muscle where you are able to hit a monster every time (with the exception of fumbles)? Perhaps a section similar to "Safe Adventuring" (but for the minimum amount of a stat to hit the enemy 100% of the time) should be created. I think it would be rather useful indeed. --Ihmhi 10:10, 3 April 2006 (CDT)

• I'm no expert on this, but the Muscle requirement to hit every time seems to be the same as the Moxie requirement to dodge every time. Maybe Safe Adventuring could be edited to reflect that. Keep in mind that when you're using any ranged weapon, Moxie is used instead of Muscle to determine hit chance. —Dentarthurdent(T,C) 22:54, 15 April 2006 (CDT)

• • According to the nice people a few sections down, the "always hit" and "always evade" numbers for the stat are always Monster Level +9. --Ihmhi 01:54, 24 April 2006 (CDT)

Adventure Template

I propose modifying Template:Adventure to include the monster's HP. It'd look something like this:

sabre-toothed lime
	Item drops: None Meat drop: 13-16 Substat gain: 2-3 Hit points: 10

This makes it easier to get a good idea of how your battles are going to proceed when you're reading the article for a particular location. It would also make combat and non-combat adventures easier to recognise, because the non-combats would have "n/a" or None for the HP. —Dentarthurdent(T,C) 12:55, 18 April 2006 (CDT)

• This would be viable if it were not for the inaccuracies in mining hit point data. As of now there is no way to find the exact hit point data for every monster in the game. If you know of a database or are willing to mine for the data yourself then this would definatley be a welcome addition to the adventure template (and should probably also be added to the monster's indiviudal page as well.--SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 13:08, 18 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Actually, with just a bit of time you could get exact values fairly easily - attack a monster until it is close to death, using a wimpy weapon if necessary, and count how much damage you do. Once the monster is weak enough, use spices (or another equally wimpy item) on it to attempt to reduce its HP to exactly zero. If the last hit does 1HP damage, you've got it.
    Of course, this assumes that monsters always have the same number of hit points every time you fight them (which works for all monsters except for those that scale with your stats, such as Crimbo Reindeer and Feast of Boris monsters, not to mention Baron von Ratsworth and the Naughty Sorceress). For monsters that are currently inaccessible (such as the inhabitants of the Crimbo Town Toy Factory or the Spectral Pickle Factory), existing estimates (marked as such, or simply "unknown") can be used. --Quietust 15:19, 18 April 2006 (CDT)
    • Well, until you figure out the exact HP for those that scale, you could just write "HP Scales With Player Level", couldn't you? Perhaps it would be best to start with an article to collect the HP values, a table and such, and after a lot of data is collected then the process could go forward. Also, a suggestion for testing: You could basically playtest the monster. I mean, if the HP is static, and you do a one-hit kill with 17 damage but not a one-hit kill with 16 damage, then the Monster has 17 HP exactly. And so forth. I'm sure similar methods could be devised. --Ihmhi 01:54, 19 April 2006 (CDT)
• Could we append a little more data to it? A few sections up I discussed adding the minimum Moxie needed to succesfully evade all attacks (from "Safe Adventuring") to this template as well as the minimum respective stat needed to always hit. If we're going to be tinkering around with the Template for HP, I would like to request that these two bits be appended as well. I don't think it would clutter things terribly as it is all useful and important data, and it saves you clicking around and such. --Ihmhi 01:58, 19 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Those two bits of data are the same; they're both 9 above the monster's level. To save space, we can just add Monster Level as well as HP. —Dentarthurdent(T,C) 16:13, 19 April 2006 (CDT)
• Come to think of it, this should be a separate template. How about Template:Combat? —Dentarthurdent(T,C) 21:24, 20 April 2006 (CDT)
  • A combat template sounds like a very good idea. So we would have to have HP, Monster Level, and... what, what sort of damage it could do? --Ihmhi 01:49, 24 April 2006 (CDT)

Custom TOCs Severely Broken

As of this writing, custom Tables of Content (as seen on Hardcore Strategy and History of Loathing (2004)) appear to be severely broken, encompassing the entire content of the page. This is very impractical and unattractive, but I don't know what to do about it. Anyone? -Southwest 16:37, 23 April 2006 (CDT)

• What happened was that the Wiki underwent some changes today and for some reason html codes became super sensitive. Now in order for them to function properly all OPEN HTML TAGS MUST BE CLOSED! I will run around doing what I can for a bit...--SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 17:59, 23 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Yeah, we upgraded to Version 1.6.3 so that we could attempt to implement some measures to deter the recent increased spambot attacks. And badly coded pages are now showing up as such. Gotta close those tags, folks. For some reason, however, I can't get my change to the strategy page to go through... but eventually, maybe... --jin 18:07, 23 April 2006 (CDT)
    • Cool, new versions are always fun =) Any other changes that are significant? --SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 18:25, 23 April 2006 (CDT)

Categories and Templates, Redux

Text copied from Category talk:Gift Packages so as to discuss this broad issue in a more appropriate venue. --Gymnosophist 00:22, 29 April 2006 (CDT)

Boy, replacing the Hilarious Objects category with a template was such fun, let's do the same thing with Gift Packages! --Gymnosophist 12:04, 28 April 2006 (CDT)

• Sure "Hilarious Objects" isn't an in-game category, but Gift Packages is a subcategory of Usable Items technically. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 15:15, 28 April 2006 (CDT)
• I think we once had the problem of too many categories and over-categorization, now maybe we might be starting to have over templating, they can get really distracting, just imagine a mr. familiar hatchling that can be used a a sword and be zapped and is part of an outfit. That's 4 templates at the bottom without even including the collection. I never see the use in weapon type templates. For example, I've never followed the sword template on a sword to see other swords. That and it's getting big. I don't think anyone will even come to agreement regarding navigation-templates vs categorization. For some reaso I tend to think in-game groups/categories get categories (outfits, foods, weapons, familiars, candy), abitrary/navigation groupings get templates (whether a familiar is a mr store or not, random stuff produced via hilariousity, and i guess zapping (erg zapping, what a mess)) but maybe these things should be moved to pages (like the good ole "moxie increasers" type categories), and included in see also pages instead of nav-templates. Like see also "Mr store famiars", or see also "Hilarious items". I don't think things need pages and also nav-templates, that's worse than redundant categorization.--JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 15:26, 28 April 2006 (CDT)
• Ohh, example: asbestos sword is categorized in Category:Weapons and Category:Swords which is bad, all swords are weapons, so it's implied by swords being a subcategory of weapons. Redundant Overcategorization. It also has a space-hogging sword template lising all swords... why can't someone just click on the swords category to get a full list of sords instead of them taking up a good chunk of the asbestos sword's page? Overtemplating. It seems to me that the asbestos sword page needs no nav template and should be just categorized as being a sword and a 2-hander. Hmm them there's the prob of melee/ranged weapons. Sure all swords are melee weapons, but there are some other weapon types (instruments or untensil, or somtehing else) which is made up of ranged and melee weapons). What a pain in the ass. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 15:38, 28 April 2006 (CDT)

• • In my opinion, over-categorization is better than over-templating. Category tags just get listed in a nice compact manner at the bottom of the page, while each template takes up a big chunk of room and further bloats the page. For items that exist in reasonably small sets (or sets that are pretty much guaranteed to never change, like Tiny Plastic series), templates are okay, since otherwise the category would be pathetically small. For larger groups (like weapons and armor and stuff), categories are the way to go. As for your asbestos sword example, I agree - drop the template and put it in whatever subcategories are appropriate (in this case, 'swords', '2-handed weapons', and 'melee weapons'). --Quietust 15:49, 28 April 2006 (CDT)

I definately agree that the pages are starting to become overcrowded. Once Jinya's new Market Data template comes online, almost all pages will have at least two templates, and many will have three, four, or even five templates (Zapping, Collection, Market Data, Type template, Secondary template)!! And again, I agree that a See Also link to some sort of master page for a group of items is the best solution to the category/template problem. (In fact,I've always felt this way - newer Wiki editors can see some older discussions on this issue here and here.) These templates are like kudzu, but I guess that I've viewed them as the lesser of two evils. Anyhow, perhaps this is the time to make some wholesale changes. As much as I like the look and feel of the templates, there are simply getting to be too many of them. Some specific proposals:

• Replace Zapping templates with a text note that either says that this item is not zappable or gives a list of the zap group items. This could either go in a Zap section, or added as another note in the Note section.
• Miscellaneous untemplated categories such as Candy, Gift Packages, Hermit Items, Potions, etc. could all be uncatagorized and have a master page set up (Candy, etc.) that is pointed to through a See Also link.

• One issue with this approach is where to draw the line - how far would we go with this - Familiars, even Drops?
• Another issue is that this can leave some items (like banjo strings) uncatagorized. I think that this is why the Hermit Items category has survived.
• A third issue here is that sometimes the creation of a master page can have a large overlap with an existing page, thus duplicating content. A page like Candy is no problem - just set one up, but a Hermit Item page is more of an issue - should the See Also link point to the existing Hermit page, or should a separate page be set up?
• I don't think that we should hesitate to delete even a category that is a formal type in the game like Gift Packages - there's nothing sacred about game types.

• Replace non weapon item templates (like Template:Customitems, Template:Hilarious Objects, Template:Housing, etc) with a master page that is pointed to through a See Also link. It a category exists, delete it.
• Weapon items are something of a special case because of their complexity. Weapons have three unique charistics that govern their behavior - type (sword, etc.), hands (1, 2 or 3) and range (melee or ranged). Nevertheless, I'd love to clearcut all the weapon templates and categories and replace them with a a master page(s) that is pointed to through a See Also link. I don't yet have anything specific in mind, but am certainly open to possibilities.
• New master pages can be a big improvement over existing category/template arrangements - not only can there be a page with complete explanations, but the layout of the page doesn't have to adhere to the alpha sort approach that category pages force upon you - a user designed layout can be aesthetically and functionally superior. We can even have all the item icons on the page (sort of like the pretty but bloated Mr. Store Familiar template.

The uncatagorized banjo strings issue discussed above leads me to an issue that's been troubling me for some time, one with an even larger scope than the category/template mess. An item can have any number of categories: Drops, Booze, Combat Items, Swords, etc. Just so long as an item has at least one category, we're happy. If if doesn't fit anywhere else, we throw it into Category:Miscellaneous Items and call it a day. But let's take a closer look at item classification. One way of looking at items is to look at their "life history" - how do you get an item, what is an item, and what can you do with an item? Many of our categories fit neatly into this framework: how - Drops, Hermit Items, etc., what is - Sword, Gift Item, do with - Combat Items, Meatsmithing Ingredients, etc. Other categories don't always mesh quite so well, sometime it is because they are what I consider "sloppy" categories. Consider "Pixellated Items", Toys and Jewelrymaking Components. You would expect that the methadology used for all three classifications of things would be exactly the same, and yet, there are three distinct and inconsistant approachs used. Pixellated Items includes the raw materials and the finished product all in the same category. Toys has separate categories for raw materials and the finished product. Jewelrymaking Components only has a raw materials category; there is no category for the finished product. All three should should have the same treatment! With respect to our "life history" perspective, Toys (and the partial Jewelrymaking) categories conform well to it whereas Pixellated Items don't. Quest Items is another sloppy category - it's a jumble of items needed to complete quests as well as quest rewards. It also doesn't fit well with the "life history" perspective. The three categories of Booze, Food and Equipment all fit into the what is and do with simultaneously. But, these exceptions aside, most categories do conform well to the "life history" perspective. Given that this perspective pretty well describes the overall landscape of the item categories, how comprehensive are our categories? Offhand, pretty comprehensive so far as what is and do with is concerned. But the how coverage has lots of holes. There have been some efforts to fill these holes with such things as Category:Explosion Exclusives and the various subcategories for Familiars (Available through play, Non-dropping in-game, etc.), but there are many, many items that lack a category for their provenance. And perhaps that's not such a bad thing. I can think of maybe two dozen noncategorized ways to get things, most of them encompasing a very small group of items.

• So, what's my point with all this "life history" stuff? I'm not too sure that I have one, except to illustrate some of the inconsistancies and gaps with our current categories. And, getting back to the banjo strings, maybe it's all right to throw them and a bunch of other stuff into the miscellaneous category. If we look at Coldfront, they have more than 500 items in their miscellaneous list, mainly because they don't have a drop category.

• In any event, let's get some consistency with the sloppy categories.
• Also, how far are we going to go with how classifications - should we kill Explosion Exclusives, etc, leave things as they are, or move to a more fine-grained approach? --Gymnosophist 00:25, 29 April 2006 (CDT)