User talk:Robin

Drydorn's comment
Wow Robin, nice work on all those monsters! If you can impliment a "better" way to enter monsters (linkback?) I'm sure others would be pleased. Not sure myself, but others have done more with the monsters than myself. Drydorn 23:09, May 27, 2006 (EDT)

Stooooooop!
I'll explain why soon, but please stop changing all the monster pages, before you get tired and sick of it! ;) Tihocan 14:59, May 29, 2006 (EDT)

Ok, first of all, thanks a lot for all your hard work, you've been doing a LOT of edits just in the last couple of days, and this is much appreciated. The reason why I said "Stop" is because I want to make sure first you're not wasting time doing all this. I gave a quick look to your edits, and you seem to have navigated back and forth between various ways to do things with monsters. This is not surprising, categories can be confusing, and it's hard to figure out what's best on the first try. The botoom line is: the bestiary needs (or needed) to be revised and organized. It would be great if you want to do it. But first, we should write down exactly how it's going to be done, in order to avoid having to change all monsters each time we realize we missed something. Basically, what needs to be decided is: (1) what kind of fields we"re going to have, like type (subtype?), habitat (quest?), alignment, special abilities, etc. (2) what categories we're going to use, and how they will be organized together. We must be careful also to respect the naming policy, i.e. in particular use lowercase everywhere except for proper nouns (e.g. Witch doctor Wang), and plural for categories. We will also want to use a template for monsters, that can automatically modify the display of the various fields we need. So, if you're up to the task, I suggest you first write all this down for yourself on a sheet of paper, then submit a proposal on the Wiki (for instance here), let it be discussed by other Wiki members, then (and only then) go through all existing monsters and update them. Tihocan 15:31, May 29, 2006 (EDT)


 * Haha... lol @ 'botoom' - anyway, wow - I have come full circle! I was looking through the history of User_talk over at the wiki I started on; and i couldn't find the exact warning, but I got pretty much the same warning forever ago - I made over 500 edits in my first day, and they went frantic warning me to stop and 'consult with my fellow editors first!' - I told them they were insane, then went on to make 3k edits my second day (I started at 5:00 PM my time the first day, though). So, I'd have to say I disagree with you tihocan in a little way - I think he can start making any categorization changes he wants to the pages, as long as he's going to be around for a while. Now, changing everything up part way then disappearing - that'd piss me off. But asa long as he's willing to go *back* through again and change everything again if we decide some more changes can be made, then sure - go ahead. Though if you like, it'd be cool to try to figure out exactly what would be the coolest way to do it, then go through and only have to change it once... anyway, welcome, see my message please kthxbai. Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  03:50, May 30, 2006 (EDT)


 * Hehe, I have no problem if one is willing to go through all monsters more than once. However, I know for a fact we have had a few previous Wiki users who started editing a lot of stuff, then gave up in the middle, probably as they realized they did not to it all correctly the first time. So I'd rather make sure people realize what they're getting into before starting editing like crazy ;) Now, it looks like Robin's movitaved enough, so that's fine with me :] Tihocan 10:31, May 31, 2006 (EDT)

Welcome!
May I extend my warmest welcomes and offer you any help you may need? Thanks for your contributions, mate!

If you need help with something...
 * ...I'm always available! You can drop a message on my user talk page (which I watch like a hawk) or grab my other contact info on my user page.
 * ...There's a wealth of wiki documentation on the meta wiki, perhaps some of it may be of use to you.
 * ...There's a really good Introduction over on meta also, it should help you figure out what's going on if your new to wikis in general.

I'd like to hear a reply! Just click Edit above, and write a message under where mine ends - then, at the end of your message (on the same line) type four tildes (Like this: ) to automatically insert a nickname linked to your user page, and a date/time signature!

Again, welcome to the wiki - and I can't thank you enough on behalf of the community for your help in making us the best DDO site around (-;
 * From Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  on 02:39, May 30, 2006 (EDT)


 * Also, robin - I need to make sure you understand using talk pages - can you just leave a reply to my comment here? Just edit the page, and add a line under this last one with a comment, thanks! Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  02:39, May 30, 2006 (EDT)


 * So many words this early in the day! i still haven't had any tea yet. Almost every monster on this wiki has to be edited - that's a fact! I don't think i saw a single complete monster so whoever does what to the monsters has to go through them all anyway.
 * The categorisation by type i'm going to continue with. I play a ranger, and i love my bane arrows, so i need to know what monsters are in what category. Elves are kinda cool do to and then i'll tackle undead (a huge category). Elementals and mephit-types won't take long. Doesn't matter how you look at the monster changes so far, categorising by type makes sense. Grouping by type also makes future changes simpler because you can do lumps of monsters at a time rather than face a huge list of all the monsters on the wiki. It works for me anyway. The only edits i'm not happy with so far are ones where i've linked a monster to a quest when really i should have linked a monster to a dungeon/zone and the dungeon/zone would be linked to the quest. There haven't been many of those.
 * I work hard. I smoke hard. I'm not leaving the wiki half-way through editing it. If this manually-edited bestiary/linking monsters to one page thing is a problem i'll go through them all and remove the category:monsters link. Alternatively, i'll make the bestiary the master page of all monsters, change every monster done so far to point to that, and make the Bestiary link to the Monsters page (so Monsters only has breakdowns of things but not monsters themselves, and the Bestiary is the one-stop-shop for monsters without other lists cluttering the top). I'm easy. One thing i would like help on is how to set anchors within a page so i can link a type (e.g. Giant) to the collectibles dropped by the type (e.g. amulets of lost empire, six, and bishop) with the anchors being the collectible names. Similarly, Undead drop funerary token, mark of the keeper (i think - will check) and necro gem. That is, on the Collectible page i'd anchor the Talisman Collector and then add a link to the Giant page to that anchor with Collectible#Talisman Collector to say that amulets could be exchanged at the talisman dude.


 * OK, thanks for replying - three things about replying in general before I move on: indent with colons, like I did; sign your posts at the end with four tildes ; and no need to put a line between replies (Yet - we may decide to implement that later). I'll reply to your actual post later; but I have to go to a dental appointment. Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  14:51, May 30, 2006 (EDT)


 * Okie dokes Robin 15:18, May 30, 2006 (EDT)


 * Nice to see you've got some motivation to do it all :) First of all, about anchors. I don't know how to do that, I guess you'd need to look for help on the web. All I know is that sectioning automatically creates anchors (e.g. Collectible). Here are a few points about monsters: (1) Bestiary should be generated automatically, we don't want to have to maintain it manually (2) We want some subcategories of monsters to be like Monsters by alignment (with subcategories Evil monsters, Lawful monsters, etc., and being careful there is currently a problem with Neutral monsters, which contain both Neutral X and Y Neutral, and should thus be split in two, though I'm not sure it is relevant DnD-wise), other subcategories could be Monsters by type for instance, I see you have also added a race tag, so Monsters by race too... Then see if we need any other sort of categorization, (3) Fix incoherencies, like Humanoids / Monstruous Humanoid monsters (4) Be careful with naming policy, in particular with lower-case in categories / monster names, (5) everything I'm forgetting. Thanks again for your awesome help :) Tihocan 10:42, May 31, 2006 (EDT)


 * I'm a games developer working on a slow-to-compile project with lengthy downloads to SRAM on hardware. I have plenty of time on my hands :| I'll begin migrating monsters (existing and new) to the Bestiary page, removing references to the Monsters page (so it then acts as a nice collection of lists). I'll fill in races where appropriate. (Right now i'm doing undead types which are split into zombies, skeletons, wraiths and so on which is handy to know because different weapons are required or especially useful.) I also intend using the template i made for Named monsters because it is a nice way of displaying this optional information.Robin 11:09, May 31, 2006 (EDT)


 * And I thought game developpers had no free time! :P About the Bestiary being automatically generated, I think it should be do-able with categories or those NCL lists Peerless is so fond of. I don't remember how to do this anymore, but just ask Peer or look around, it should be easy enough to find. Tihocan 12:20, June 1, 2006 (EDT)


 * Note: just noticed you had made a Category:Bestiary. That should work, though I think Peer would prefer those lists, hehe. Tihocan 12:22, June 1, 2006 (EDT)
 * Another note as I go through recent changes: what we want to avoid is to have to put a at the bottom of each monster. This could be done using a template (which seems to be the case for some of the monsters you've made, but not all of them).  Tihocan 12:25, June 1, 2006 (EDT)
 * Yeah definitely a template thing that. Once i made the Named monster template i figured out how useful it was and through that template all Named monsters are automatically added to the bestiary.Robin 12:57, June 1, 2006 (EDT)

Named monster template
I made a test template and used it on Celine_Peacemaker for Named monsters. These always have a level but not every monster is Named. Robin
 * How do you know a monster's level? By the way, we'd probably want to include information like type, race, attack, etc. in the same template. Tihocan 14:24, May 31, 2006 (EDT)
 * Named monsters appear only once in the game in one specific dungeon (with the exception of the boss that appears at the end of each of the Eastern Threnal stages) so they have a known level. Generic monsters such as troll and hobgoblin can appear in many zones and dungeons and their level is based on that area so that isn't known. Thats why the level is in the Named monster template. Robin 14:38, May 31, 2006 (EDT)
 * I don't mind using a template if it can be used as a simple text factory. The Named monster template appears as a little box in the top right which is all well and good for optional things but i think it would be cool to keep the general layout as it is for common information (type, attacks, etc.). If templates can do that then great. Robin 14:38, May 31, 2006 (EDT)
 * We can create an if-then thingie for the level in the normal infobox - if the monster is named, then display it's level (which you supply) or if not, then just leave it out as is normal. Sound like what you want? Perhaps also change the background color of the box for named monsters, to distinguish them... 16:43, May 31, 2006 (EDT)
 * But quest level is different from the monster's level. And it also changes with the difficulty setting (normal, hard, elite). I would get rid of the level, would rather indicate which quest a named monster appears in. Tihocan 12:08, June 1, 2006 (EDT)
 * Correct, the difficulty of the level alters the level of the named monsters, and the level of the quest can be different to that of the named monsters in it.
 * For completeness, it isn't even a level. It is the CR or Challenge Rating of the monster which i think is based on a party of 4. For example, a monster with CR 11 would be a suitable encounter for four level 11 players. Another example is one of the fire giants in the Giant cave in Threnal adventure zone (The Brutes Cave i think it's called - will verify): it has a CR of 24 on Elite. So really, we need to have the CR for each difficulty shown against the monster, e.g. CR: 18/21/24, or Normal: CR18 /br Hard: CR21 /br Elite: CR24
 * The reason i've added the level/cr for a lot of monsters is that it is still valuable information and there aren't many sites that have it. The level/cr i've put in is the normal CR. Finding the information for the other difficulties would require effort but would be excellent to have.Robin 12:30, June 1, 2006 (EDT)

Fire damage on undead
I have noticed you wrote that fire damage worked well against zombies / sekeletons for instance. From my own limited experience, it seems like any kind of elemental damage works just as well. Have you noticed anything specific about fire? Tihocan 12:13, June 1, 2006 (EDT)
 * Regarding fire, it's one of the few elemental weapon effects i've had! My main undead weapon has both elemental fire damage and lesser undead bane so i haven't tried other effects out much. By all means update the page.
 * Some monsters in the Ooze category also need the lore filled in, e.g. gray oozes are immune to elemental fire on weapons (not sure about other fire-related attacks) and do not appear to split (being lowbie ooze), and some Oozes are not affected by shock damage. I'm sure other elemental-type effects or sonic damage affects oozes in different ways. All Oozes are affected by Muckbane though.Robin 12:30, June 1, 2006 (EDT)

Monster renames
Some monsters are in the wiki with the wrong names. There aren't many of them. Whats the best way of dealing with this? I'll try to keep a little list here. Robin 14:03, June 1, 2006 (EDT)


 * Just use the 'move' content action (one of the tabs above). Also, for bold? Use wikicode, like this:  this is in bold  instead of HTML like this:  this is in bold . Italics are the same, only two apostrophes instead of three. See the wikicode help reference on meta for more such. Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  15:38, June 1, 2006 (EDT)
 * Thanks. And i've only been using html in this edit, not in the monsters themselves. Just thought i'd mention that to avoid panic attacks! Robin 15:56, June 1, 2006 (EDT)


 * Bishop Zasha'Oth should be Bishop Zasha'oth of the Fury

cAPitALisTIOn
So what's the deal with monster name capitalisation? I'm trying to keep my monster names the same as the game including monsters such as Witch Doctor Zizoo (matches game exactly). There are some web resources that do not match the game (showing Elf Fighter-Wizard when the game is Elf Fighter/Wizard) - i'm intending to match the game exactly unless the wiki policies come before game.

Comments welcome! Robin 15:38, June 1, 2006 (EDT)