User:Meander



Who am I?
Heh, my goodness, existential question right off the bat, huh?
 * I...
 * am an ardent screen-shot taker and will be adding visuals wherever I can.
 * enjoy the flavor of dialog and lore in-game so much that I have been known to compose fiction and stomach-churning rhyme featuring guildmates and NPC's.
 * have limited understanding of how a wiki is created, maintained or edited. So I look forward to the learning!

DDO Objectives
What's up recently?: Totally geeking out on the PD server.

Monster Hunter

 * Finding BIG interest in the conditions, attack/spells, abilities, effects and buffs on monsters

Currently monster hunting in: Rage series

Utility NPCs

 * Hirelings (eventually)
 * Collectors - lots of consumables to fill in Template:Consumable
 * Trainers - Neeper (Jackal Bastard!) of House D trainers, must be added somewhere.

wiki Stuff

 * Regular image file image.jpg
 * Popup image

Move in and get comfortable! Gonna be here a while=P.

 * 1) Links - still learning from Help page
 * 2) colors in background, popups, zero margins, line breaks
 * 3) can gifs be loaded? →  Yes
 * 4) how do I use a picture as a link?  Like an ingredient pic to an ingredient page? Button pushers! → filename.png or   —→ More help on Help:Images
 * 5) Tabs and sandbox thing, goof with it til it works like I expected.<--just don't care enough yet

Things I have learned:

 * Random page generator has been good to just meander and fix stuff or find things that need pictures. This is a good way to get used to wiki practices.
 * Enlarged font in the game so it can be read more easily when I take pics.
 * Total newb error - check to see if you are logged in before you save, and DON'T try to login without copying. When you come back, nothing will be there. =(.
 * There are different types of apostophe's. Make sure you know which one is being used. Lefty-slant backtick is under the tilde on my keyboard.  Beware, someone may be using it. The usual one > '   and the Impost(er)rophe!--->`
 * Fiddling around with User page is not a bad way to figure out how to use the editing tools.
 * When starting a page through a red-link, be sure the spelling is correct. ie NPCs renamed within an NPC template will still have the faulty spelling as the link.
 * DDO affects out-of-game graphics. So, if I go into the game and slide my gamma bar back and forth, for instance, all my graphics (even in other programs) will be displayed differently until the game is no longer running. Minimizing DDO into my toolbar has hosed the quality of what I am doing elsewhere on several occasions.
 * Bringing up brightness either from the keyboard or from the DDO graphics control panel does not affect the screenshots saved to the hard drive in any way. All the brightening/contrast/gamma must be happening after the screenshot is taken - which is why so many images loaded into the wiki are so darned dark.
 * The screenshot loses a lot of yellow, straight up. I think my City Maps look like crapola even with editing, and especially if I've forgotten that DDO is running in the background when I load up the images.  SO: trying https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/28106-trs-hdr-ish/ to punch-up the yellows. Hope it helps.
 * I have something weird going on with .png files and case-sensitive disagreement between the wiki and whatever my laptop is doing.
 * I have loaded quite a few NPC pics (.jpg) without any problems. However, the Cove stuff that I "save as" a .png (per the item call on the template) is not being accepted. I think my machine takes short-cuts and saves as... something else... until called to the task of displaying the new file format. Maybe I need to re-open every "save as" once after I close it to be able to load it up to the wiki.
 * And when I change something from (Level 16) to (level 16), my laptop reverts it to a cap, causing more problems. I have to rename the pic completely to get away from the reversion.
 * This last thing might be a Windows quirk. In my experience, the file is renamed, but Explorer doesn't realize it. Try pressing F5 to refresh the content of the directory in Explorer. --Cru121


 * There's not much to fear when editing, because no matter what one does it can be reverted to a previous version if something goes a little wonky. For new editors, young and old, there's no harm in trying to correct spelling or grammar, or to add information right at the outset of learning to wiki.  And when your guildmates want to gripe about the state of the wiki, let them know it's only OK to gripe if they are actively adding information.  Otherwise, it's much like the political views of non-voters... a lot useless and ineffective noise.
 * There's something satisfying to contributing information you had to go out and hunt for.
 * Engaging others to be contributors in any way is worth the effort. Sometimes this can be forming a wiki monster expedition party with a couple of guildies. It takes patience, a plan, and a keg of bribe beer. It is the "anti-zerg" party... a "Smell the roses stuck in that giant's codpiece" party.