Time to update guides and wiki

[random417]

So, DarkGod says, and I quote:

"I have worked hard and now I shall rest while I watch new players stumble upon the deadly world of Eyal! More tears for the DarkGod!" (from his Steam release blog post on the main site, I'm not sure how to quote it here)

Sounds like he's taking a well deserved break for a while, so it's time, I think, to pay homage to our dark Master, and get to updating the guides and wiki, for the influx of new players. Some of it is fine, but there are a few classes that had new trees added, or balance adjustments, in the time that the guides have been written. Even some reletively minor adjustments have big changes to some classes.

I wouldn't mention something if I'm not willing to do a bunch of it, but there are some classes that I just don't play. Also, it's a huge project if one person is gonna do it all. I'll start on an updated guide to necro, as I'm beating on the new tree anyway, I should be able to throw it up over the weekend.

Not to step on toes or anything, but if people want to help, throw what ya want to write up here, if you would, that way we don't duplicate work.

[darkgod]

Help him out please yes

And thanks!

[SadistSquirrel]

I'm fully up for this. The wiki is workable right now, but there's a few dead links, and some out-dated information.

I'll get to work on doing what I can.

[malboro_urchin]

I'm fully up for this. The wiki is workable right now, but there's a few dead links, and some out-dated information.

I'll get to work on doing what I can.

Could you explain the wiki's pages for talents/talent categories? I understand that range, cost, cooldown etc. appear to be waiting to be filled in. However, the Requirements and Use Mode fields are filled with several braces, and I'm wondering as to why that is.

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

I've been busy updating the wiki. The unlocks page needs a little love, since I don't have all of them, but I did add in two.

I've run through most of the classes and given it a once-over, but I wouldn't mind someone going in and checking my work. The Prodigies page should be fully updated.

Ninja Edit: To the above question, basically, the brackets are indicating that the talent in question is based on the attached skill and modifier for that talent. It's the reason that in-game, the damage on your fireball goes up if you put more points into Magic. Maybe it would be better to throw in some different terminology.

Also, should we maybe create some sort of checklist? That way we have a definite goal and not have more than one person working on something at the same time.

[SadistSquirrel]

Said work is entirely under way! Mostly just editing the Archer class right now. It was needing some love after the 1.0.5 made some serious changes to it.

Edit: For what it matters, I don't have any coding experience. So I can't code-dive for how a talent improves based on talent levels or attributes. I'm compromising by just entering a Level 1 Adventurer's 1.00 Mastery for everything I'm editing. This isn't even perfect for a base guideline because Adventurers start with 12 in each stat. Needless to say, if people see that and feel like code-diving, it would be appreciated. Or I can try and do it myself some time.

Edit2: Some of the information on the wiki is heavily 'guide' based. That is, there's a -LOT- of opinion.
I'm of a mind to remove said opinion, or move it to a new page, linked to the old one. Example of "Archer/Strategy" in the form of the currently wildly out-dated Archer Guide on that page. Would prefer to get the other editor's opinions first, though.

[jotwebe]

It would make sense to have strategy guides on separate pages and link to them from the class page. Preferably guides would say at the beginning what version they were written for. If the version was linked to a page with a version history, with changelogs, we'd be cooking.

My two 0.02€

[Lord Blade]

I'll do what I can to help update stuff here and there. I will update the difficulty page right now.

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

I like the idea of keeping the guides on a different page. Especially considering that most of them are pretty lengthy and could be considered spoily. Some folks just want the basic stats and such without having to read through one guy's opinion on how to build a good character.

[Lord Blade]

A ton of the abilities need updating. Most of them are just bare bones info.

[jotwebe]

I wouldn't go too much over and above the bare bones info for now. Let's work on having that be complete and accurate for now.

Currently I'm adding the usage, which is generally missing generally. Sometimes I've added a small note like here http://te4.org/wiki/Spell_shield_(talent) where I know people will probably make erroneous assumptions otherwise.

I don't think we should add judgements like "this talent is sub-par, spend your points elsewhere" directly on the talent pages - that should go to strategy guides.

Speaking of which, we should probably have a naming convention for those. How about, for example: Class_Guide_Berserker_1.0.6_Blood_for_the_Blood_God?

Class_Guide_<Class_Name>_<ToME_Version>_<Addon_Name*>_<Addon_Version*>_<Guide_Title>

*For addon-based classes

[SadistSquirrel]

A continuation of that: I'm a large fan of neat and tidy index. So for example, the Berserker Class would link to "Berserker Strategy" which in turn would link to Berserker guides' own pages?

We're bound to have people writing up some guides for the classes based on their knowledge, and it's best that's kept as far away as possible from the sheer fact pages.

If we can have all opinion in it's -seperate- pages, it means coming to wiki for pure fact can actually be a thing, and if people want opinionated guides, they're still easy to find.

Ed: Although on the subject of Berserker strategy. RIP AND TEAR!

[jotwebe]

At the moment we could use the strategy section of each class page for an index, with links to each class guide. So we'd have

Berserk Page

==Strategy==
[jotwebe's Critserker Guide]
[SadistSquirrel's RIP AND TEAR! guide]

Each guide with it's own page... and if they get their own category, it should build a central index with all of the guides automatically. Maybe have a category Class Guide and another one Strategy Guide - a class guide would be both, but there might be general guides around on nightmare/insane/madness mode or whathaveyou. So Class Guides would be a subset of that.

Anyway, somebody made a neat class table for berserk, which I'm currently writing as stubs into the class guides. Just grab a stub and copy/paste!

Suggested order:
unlocked
-category types alphabetic
--categories alphabetic
locked
-category types alphabetic
--categories alphabetic
locked with achievement needed
-category types alphabetic
--categories alphabetic

Done: Alchemist, Archer, Archmage, Berserker, Bulwark, Cursed, Marauder, Paradox Mage, Temporal Warden
Stubs: Anorithil, Arcane Blade, Brawler, Corruptor, Doomed, Mindslayer, Necro, Oozemancer, Reaver, Rogue, SB, Solipsist, Summoner, Sun Pally, SW, Wyrmic

Working on:

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

I like the idea of having a standard format for guides. Some of them on here are very easy to read, others, not so much... Having a standard format would ensure that the ideas are presented in a logical way.

[TheSlayer]

There needs to be a script/program in place for importing artifact info. That should be a given with the number of coders we have present. Then one can simply pull the prevalent code bits and feed them to the script. Updating for a new version would be extraordinarily easy, and the same goes for putting add-on content in the wiki.

The code actually already exists in the game for interpreting the scripts to the UI. We need a "run once" version with an output we can copy-paste to a wiki display (which will need appropriate formatting).

After that, we can do something similar for all "talents." Editorial content about functionality, usage, etc. should be added/edited on a secondary basis. This would also make editing and updating race and class pages a breeze -nothing but a pile of links and/or collapsible displays for talent categories available to the class. Talents should be displayed on a page under their proper category (each category should be a table just as in-game which can be linked to), and the page should probably include all categories of a type (pugilism/category_name etc.) to avoid wiki clutter. Each add-on put in the wiki should have its own page with all the categories it adds/affects.

So, in order of priority to create a wiki that can be easily maintained and very professional:
1) Program for converting game code to wiki display (talents, items/artifacts), can probably be largely cannibalized from T-engine
2) Create talent pages (whether per category, or per category type is debatable)
3) Create/edit class and race pages
4) Write and link guides and recommendation pages (all editorial type stuff)

In short, the discussion is about the far end of the agenda at the moment and we need to refocus and prioritize. This will give us a very organized and attractive wiki with easy maintenance.