Project Eternity: Wiki

[Loren Tyr]

The wiki is fairly inactive as far as I'm aware. So if you have something to contribute to it, I'd say go for it. It's a wiki after all.

 

It could actually use a complete overhaul I think, with all the changes that have been made since the original release (in particular with regard to the gritty details of how things work; eg. attack speed mechanics and modifiers). Have been contemplating doing that myself, but the scope of the task has been stopping me so far.

[PangaeaACDC]

What do you have in mind in terms of a complete overhaul, apart from attack speed and such?

 

It's cumbersome to edit pages, and it must be quite a job if making for instance changes to the set up of loads of pages, e.g. to include more information about weapons and armour. One thing I miss there is the relevant weapon specialisation. And it's probably time to remove the "Legendary" lines from enchanting, as it looks like that has been removed from the game at an early stage. But doing more systematic stuff than single page edits is going to be... wikid hard work.

[Loren Tyr]

Mechanics generally, really. I see plenty of posts on these boards of people asking about how stuff is computed (or implicitly showing that they have misunderstood it). For attack speed, but for example also just simply how damage is computed with all the modifiers and lashes and DoTs, that sort of thing. And building on top of the more purely mathematical/mechanical side of things, also more on the practical implications of that (eg. the merits of dual-wielding vs one-handed vs two-handed style in terms of damage output). This is the sort of thing that comes up frequently and there is a lot of info in older threads on it, but it would be nice to have it all together in a nice, accessible format.

 

But yeah, it's a lot of work to compile that sort of thing and probably much more so in the wiki format, as you mention; the more applied part is perhaps also more of a guide than pure description, so probably not entirely appropriate in the wiki anyway. So if I would do something like this, I'd probably be inclined to put it on the forum here and get it stickied in any case.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Loren Tyr

[ilhdr]

Never understood why developers don't support these things, just as paradox does. Just in case Feargus is reading.

[Boeroer]

Well... time is scarce and it's a community wiki. So maybe we as community should put more efford into it. But it's true that OBS could pay a little more attention than to other things - like Something Awful or whatnot.

 

I, for myself, have to admit I find it too cumbersome to edit that wiki. Although I write a lot here and it's mostly about builds and items and mechanics I somehow don't want to work on that wiki. I'm not willing to find out what the common "structure" on those pages is, how I can edit stuff without breaking the existing formats and so on. It's easy to edit a few numbers and minor stuff and I did it, but creating a whole new page is so much fuzz (or it feels like it) that I don't do it - although I know what has to be put there. So blame my lazyness I guess.

 

I would have totally flooded the wiki with info if it was a Dokuwiki by the way. I love that simple approach. Honestly who needs all that design fuzz in a wiki - I just want info.

 

If somebody would pay me for it I would update the wiki to 3.05 all by myself.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Boeroer

[draego]

Ye it would be nice if the dev put out a wiki instead of a manual for the next game

[Torin]

I've started to edit the wiki here and there...

 

It would be cool if more people would contribute too.

[ilhdr]

Actually I was just talking about running a page for it, while the community still do the dirty work, just like the Paradox stuff. But the wiki stuff instead of the manual is a great idea!

[PangaeaACDC]

After many failed attempts I finally managed to create a user account, and have made some edits on the wiki. It's pretty darn cumbersome though. Wish it was easier and faster.

[Alianin]

After many failed attempts I finally managed to create a user account, and have made some edits on the wiki. It's pretty darn cumbersome though. Wish it was easier and faster.

Would you mind sharing some of the difficulties you ran into so we can look at how we can improve the edit process on that wiki? Thanks!

[PangaeaACDC]

I think it's simply how the wiki system is set up, not this one in particular. Cumbersome to know what template and such to use when making new pages, links and formatting is weird. It was difficult to navigate to get to what info I needed; basically try to edit pages that looked decent, copy and paste, edit.

 

Addtionally, the game files are often horribly structured, so getting to info that is needed/wanted is difficult. For instance, item names and item descriptions and properties aren't tied together quite often, and the quest files are also a mess more often than not.

 

Would probably be easier if there were proper templates for typical pages, so we could just copy that and use it, or even better, if it was possibly to choose a template when making new pages, a bit like how it works in Word I suppose.

 

Formatting is a lot of trial and error (preview edit preview edit, etc), because tables have weird syntax, and the same for various types of bold/headlines. The tables used for quest journal (10001 etc) was really awkward, and I gave up eventually (also because POE quest files are a proper mess). Sometimes links are even weirder than expected, for instance when I tried to create links to Durgan's Battery. The link ended up going to a disambiguation file, and I had to check another file, whereupon I shaw we're supposed to use a long link for it, so it gets Durgan's Battery (location).

 

Looks like you simply need to know what 'codes' to use, like for enchanting and such. Sometimes items end up in the right categories, from what I saw, but sometimes not. I edited Archer's Gloves for instance, but on another page it didn't list the enchanting type that item is supposed to have (but maybe the code used was wrong, I don't know).

 

Lots of small things I suppose. It's cumbersome and time consuming. And of course I want to try to preserve whatever practice has been used, and not mess up things.

 

I do wonder why there aren't creature pages though (or are there, somewhere?), instead of 'top' categories of them.

 

Looks like there are quite many 'missing' pages for WM1 and WM2 as well, like quests, talents and spells/powers/etc. Checking the Barbarian class for instance, and many of the WM introduced bits have 'redlink' pages.

 

Looks like Boeroer has a similar opinion/experience, so I'm probably not alone in saying it's a little difficult.

 

 

 

A fair few pages are listed as outdated, but I'm not sure what is outdated about them. Would be easier to fix if there was more info.

 

News on the front page hasn't been updated for a while either, but then I'm not sure how important that is given it is POE2 news.

[PangaeaACDC]

Is there a database for instance, so the wiki can somehow pull item (etc) properties from that, instead of users inputting their properties on every single page? That would make things a good deal easier. May not be technically possible, though, I don't know.

 

Also, if you check for instance the Blunderbuss page: There is an error of some type in these tables (and I've seen it in many of them), where there is a SEPARATOR in most of the rows. Also, I'm not sure why there are two 'tables' with info about the weapon, one small up top, and a bigger one below the table. It looks a little strange. Suppose it's because the big infobox will screw up the white space on the page, so a wordaround is to put a bigger infobox below the table?

 

About the Stronghold, I'm not sure if all the info there is correct. From what I can see in-game, I'm not getting temporary bonuses/penalties to prestige/security when guests visit, and I I've never seen the possibility of getting prostitutes to Caed Nua either.

 

About values for items, would it be an idea to just use integer values instead of e.g. "600cp"? Maybe it would be possible to sort by value then, like on the Headgear page and so forth (value isn't listed there btw). Then again, if you click on edit source and look at the formatting for the table.... holy smokes!! Not easy to start working on a thing like that.

 

 

Lots of comments off the top of my head here, but maybe some of it is useful

[Boeroer]

I think there's too much formatting in order to make things look fancy and medieval. A small table in the top right here (weapon pages for examples), a picture there, things like that.

 

You have to put a considerable amount of effort into editing and especially into creating a new page in order to have a consistent formatting.

 

I really like the Dokuwiki approach better. It doesn't look like much most of the time, but it's very simple and quick to edit an create.

Edited August 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[PangaeaACDC]

I've added some more stuff, mainly WM creatures and values for normal difficulty. Feels like it's pretty slow going. Images are needed, but I don't have those.

 

One example, where I added some missing Vithracks.

[PangaeaACDC]

Are the admins over there AWOL? Or am I just too excited and impatient?

 

Over the last week I've read a lot about wiki-ing and seen over the Wiki, and I think it could use quite a bit of work, not least in preparation for Pillars II. I've made a category with some pages for discussing things, and poked all current admins - but to no avail yet. Maybe somebody here are active users of the wiki and could offer some thoughts? You can edit those pages just like any other, also anonymously. You can also go to the Discussion page and offer thoughts there as well (but please remember to 'sign' your post with ~~~~ (four tildes) as that tags your name, making it easier to know who wrote what when you are discussing topics in talk pages.

 

This is a start:

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Category:Wiki_restructure

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Categories_restructure

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Creatures_restructure

[PangaeaACDC]

It felt a bit lonely, like I was shouting in an echo chamber, so I was very happy when I learned that over the last month, the wiki has had 64000 unique visitors and over 1 million page views

 

With no feedback from other admins, I've started to work on a design for creature pages (and have become an admin myself). Since I'm working on it in my personal space with a custom css, it's going to look very different for others, so I've attached a picture in the Creature restructure page. It's not finished, but I hope people would be pleased with it. Much work to do, but this has become a fun little huge side project. Once a template is ready and it is easier to make the pages, I hope others will join and help out, as adding hundreds of creature pages isn't going to be done in a jiffy by one guy.

 

Edit: I've created a template, documentation for it, and published the first creature page: Adra Animat.

Edited August 25, 2017 by PangaeaACDC

[PangaeaACDC]

The Wiki has been redesigned to a darker look (the game is dark, so it made sense). There is a background image now, which should give the wiki a more unique look, and connect it better to the game.

 

Most things should look good now, but I know there are issues with some of the infoboxes (those containers with information to the right of most pages). I've made changes to the mobile skin too, as the other was... a little lacking in content. For some reason it doesn't show up my phone, but it's pretty ancient so many it's just an issue on my end.

 

The big challenge is that a good deal of the content is outdated or missing, and populating thousands of pages isn't exactly a one-man job (I have an actual job after all), so if people want to help out, by all means do

 

More long-term I'd like to change all the infoboxes so they look more like the creature one (an example here) and migrate the whole site to use an extension called Cargo, which will enable us to cross-reference content more easily (the "Other variants" in the link is an example of just that). It's a rather big task though, so will take time. Particularly the various item pages (And there are LOADS of those) are fairly complex, so I'm hesitant to start digging too deeply there (an other editor has basically done it all). And naturally we need to get more information about Pillars II with time as well. We'll know more once the game is actually out, or at least in public beta phase.

 

I'd like to redesign the frontpage too, so if you have suggestions for how to go about that, don't be shy

 

One thing I'd like to introduce is something called Tabber, so people can flip information between Pillars and Deadfire, similar to on the Witcher Wiki. That will enable us to have more information on the front page, while structuring it better than currently. There are probably too many links and such right now too. Would probbly be better with less of a link dump, and have the more important things there instead.

 

Anyway, I hope people like the new changes.

[Messier-31]

The worst thing about the new design (which I like) is the fact that god emblems are hard to see.

[Boeroer]

Honestly? It's not so nice for mobile use now.

 

I also don't favor background images behind text and other formatted content - but maybe that's the little media designer in me who prefers clear and simple designs for info stuff like wikis, outvoting the fantasy geek.

Looks aside, I appreciate the effort you put into the PoE wiki! 

[PangaeaACDC]

Honestly? It's not so nice for mobile use now.

 

I also don't favor background images behind text and other formatted content - but maybe that's the little media designer in me who prefers clear and simple designs for info stuff like wikis, outvoting the fantasy geek.

 

Looks aside, I appreciate the effort you put into the PoE wiki! 

 

What is the problem with the mobile skin?

 

Unfortunately I can't really test it much myself, because my mobilephone was made when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. From what the staff said, however, the old mobile skin was pretty terrible, so I've made an attempt to remake it. It looked okay from what I managed to test, but I've not been able to play around with it on my own phone.

 

I hear what you are saying about the background image, but I tried to make it so it wouldn't interfere too much, while also giving the wiki a more unique and lively look.

[PangaeaACDC]

The worst thing about the new design (which I like) is the fact that god emblems are hard to see.

 

Very happy to hear you like the design. I've put in a silly amount of work into the wiki by now, including lots of trial and error when re-designing it, so kind words are definitely appreciated

 

Totally agree the deity images don't look good on dark/black background. It's taken a while since I've been busy with other tasks, but have played around with something today, which I hope turns out okay. Have just redone one Deity page so far: Eothas.

 

A picture of the icon with a gradient background.

Edited October 2, 2017 by PangaeaACDC

[Boeroer]

It's a bit harder to read. Bright letters with a dark background picture that has some brighter parts on a small screen is more fidgety than with a plain dark background for example.

[Messier-31]

Thanks, mate. And I really apprecieate your work

 

This looks OK on a single deity page (e.g. "Eothas"), but on the "Deity" page this will be tricky.

[PangaeaACDC]

Thanks Boeroer. It's a bit tricky to test when my phone is ancient and doesn't even take the new skin for some reason, it uses the old one, but I can try to do something about it. Maybe the picture is too dominating or something.

 

I've made a change to the Deity page too. It may look a little out of sorts, but probably better than the old version (but I didn't want a totally white and square background). These icons simply don't look great on black/dark background due to the colour composition. It was the same with a bunch of tiny icons on the old light wiki, but thankfully they came out much better on the dark look. For instance here: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Spiders

[Boeroer]

It's okay. It's of course readable and not a real problem with the new design/background. It was just a little bit easier with the old plain background - but I think the majority of players uses a computer screen to look at the wiki (where the new design is fine) so it's all good.