Talk:Monsters

Some cleaning up that needs to be done
Ok, now that I fixed this list, I've got some errors I've noticed that need to be rectified...
 * The various categories for alignment - chaotic, evil, good - need to be cleaned up and sub-sbu-categorized into such as Category:Chaotic Evil monsters and Category:Lawful Good monsters.
 * Category:Elf race monsters is broken - should be only under Category:Elf monsters, not Category:Monsters too.
 * Items in Category:Elf race monsters don't need to ALSO be in Category:Elf monsters, because Category:Elf race monsters itself is a sub-category.
 * Can do. Can go over all monsters that have both a type and race. Robin 16:38, June 6, 2006 (EDT)
 * You  'd this out - did you get it done? Awesome, if so! Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  18:50, June 7, 2006 (EDT)
 * I've just tweaked Warforged but yeah, all done! All monsters in both a main cat and sub cat were updated to the sub cat only. Giants, goblinoids, reptilians and undead were changed. Outsiders were fine as they were i think. &laquo; robin  &raquo; Talk 08:00, June 8, 2006 (EDT)
 * K, thanks - wow your on a roll (-: Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  11:56, June 8, 2006 (EDT)


 * Category:Evil monsters and Category:Evil outsider monsters
 * Evil Outsider is a type, just like Elf or Giant. Evil Monsters are any creature with an evil alignment. Sonil 21:33, June 5, 2006 (EDT)
 * Hmmkay, my bad, forget that one.

I might dig out a few more errors in a bit, but the categorization is looking good otherwise! Elliott Cable -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  19:52, June 5, 2006 (EDT)
 * Category:Giant race monsters needs to be sub-categorized into Category:Giant monsters, just like Category:Elf race monsters has been.
 * Category:Kobold monsters shouldn't be under Category:Monsters itself, it's a sub-category again
 * Same for Category:Troglodyte monsters
 * Same for Category:Zombie monsters

Monster focus orb pictures
I'm going all-out by getting a picture of each monster. For standardisation i'm taking a screen shot of the monster when targetted so it's headshot appears in the focus orb. I'm then gonna crop it and save as a 256-colour PNG file (alternatively JPEG). What name do you want? I'm thinking Mon- at the start, and then the monster name all lowercase.


 * Hmm. Is there any way to get rid of the controls and stuff around that focus-thingamabobber?What i'm thinking is that it must store those focus orb pics somewhere on the drive - perhaps we can hack them out and mass-upload them. And either way, I'd say just  [[Image:Monster's name, same as it's page title.png]]  - good for consistency, and then we can just use  [[Image:.png]]  in the template! Simple, no? Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  13:47, June 8, 2006 (EDT)


 * I dig the title-based images. The orb shots of monsters are not static images; in-game they animate. I'll look into ways of cropping the image.
 * I was hoping to position and frame the picture in a template but the pagetitle thing doesn't work because it uses the template's pagetitle and not the monsters. I won't do too much work on this but i've set up Inevitable and Gnashtooth Bloodletter as a test. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 12:19, June 9, 2006 (EDT)


 * Also, it's not a rule or NEthing, but it's my convention and i think it makes conversations easier to read and refer to in code or raw (or edit of course) views, is to add a linebreak between peoples' replies - like I just added. Anyway - the pagetitle thing works inside templates - when you're vierwing the template, well the pagetitle where you are looking is (obviously) the name of the template. But if you've added the template to another page, the pagetitlee attribute automatically uses that pages' title instead! And just so you know I didn't typo it, it *is* two E's - it's a thing about titles; for the page named Magic missile,   would output Magic missile; while    would output Magic_missile - it's an important distinction, because URLs and links and such can break, especially in templates and images, and ESPECIALLY with both (external links worst of all, but they don't apply here) and it's best to go with the safest alternative.  Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›


 * One other note, is that the IMGwiki (where I think you accidentally uploaded two monster images) is a shared image repository for all the sites in the network, and is more for interface images and icons and such; things like monster and spell images don't need to be there as much, because no other wiki will need to use them. So try to upload them locally instead (-: Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  14:29, June 9, 2006 (EDT)
 * About cropping the image; if you're willing to hack your game around a bit, see if you can find the place where the orb's image itself resides (the golden border around the monster) - if you can delete that file, or temporarily rename it while taking pics, it might just dissappear in-game so all you get is a clean circle; then we can worry about cropping it down to that later. I may be able to develop an image-mask template in photoshop, but i don't have quite the time to go through and crop all the images down to just the circle as a transparent PNG )-: Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  14:29, June 9, 2006 (EDT)`


 * Well, i tried the template image thing again and it doesn't work :| An example is here: Gnashtooth Bloodletter. The template is here: Template:Infobox-monster-pic
 * Regarding the game's focus orb surround, there is no way to hack the files without breaking the EULA, terms and conditions, etc.. I don't think it would be a problem showing the focus orb with it's surround because players are used to see it in-game anyway. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 08:05, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * I changed the monster-pic template to PAGENAMEE instead of PAGETITLEE and it seems to work now. Yay! Sonil 13:16, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * Coolio, nice one Sonil. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 15:22, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * I have started taking in-game screen shots of monster focus orb pictures. I put them up at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sheppardsteven/album?.dir=/e787re2 but yahoo reduces the resolution. Let me know if you know of better place to share the files. Drydorn 18:10, June 18, 2006 (EDT)


 * ...The wiki has image uploading for a reason... Special:Upload... also, try flickr ( http://flickr.com/ ) - either one. Thanks for starting this! Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  03:29, June 19, 2006 (EDT)

Monster Template

 * Don't know why you have a second template. 'sconfusing me greatly. Anyway, I fixed everything that I can think of, see these two edits for examples of how to format monsters: Gnashtooth Bloodletter Iron defender (BTW, is the Gnashtooth a boss or named mob? or is it named wrong? or is the iron defender named wrong? are we using caps titles or not for non-named mobs?). Once all the monsters are USING this template (robin, feel like doing you're magic and going through them all again?) we can just use the infobox-monster template to work on things such as categorization and formatting of the articles themselves. Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  13:37, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * Gnashtooth Bloodletter is a named mob, Iron defender is a regular mob Sonil 14:01, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * My bad. lol I didn't know. So, is the template all ready? Anything else I need to add? Of course, I'll fiddle with conditionals and categories and such later on, but for now, is this good? Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  14:06, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * The picture template was a test, added to a few monsters just to see the effect as well as to test my template skills (or lack of). I've looked at various templates recently (spells, armour) to get a feel for how they can be used and i'm happy to update all monsters.
 * I'll start with a few of the complicated or interesting ones to see if there are any extras we need to build into the template. We definitely need the race of a monster. For example, the goblinoid type is separated into the races of hobgoblin and bugbear; Elves will be elves proper and drow; Reptilians are troglodytes and kobolds; Undead is a gazillion different things.
 * A box on the right might be nice for optional information such as "is this a boss" but it isn't essential to put this in a box on it's own. Seeing as how we can use the template as a simple text factory i think it would be best to keep the display formatted on the left (like armour and spells). The picture (if present) would be great in a box on its own on the right but it isn't a priority. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 15:12, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * Well the reason for setting it off like that is for information, then putting actual encyclopedic content on the left. I just like the infobox architecture I guess, I dunno - I wanted to format spells and such like that too, vital numbers and basic info on the right, then description and such on the right. Add the race blank if you like, I forgot to - just copy the format of the other entries, it's pretty simple in this template so far! Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  15:17, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * Okie dokes i've tweaked the template to make it consistent with how spells and armour work, added the race and i'll update monsters on a per-category basis. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 15:22, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * Separated monster text for clarity. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 15:22, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * Still seems uglier to me - we can fiddle with it later though, as long as people can see the info. And can FIND it - so let's make categories work next. Or convert them all next, I dunno. Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  15:24, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * We need "desc" or "description" added to the template. This will hold the wordy information for the monster - where all the yada yada, tips and so on will go. We can display the description on the left and the stick the remaining text on the right. I'm honestly not fussy about the presentation so i'll work with whatever format is decided.
 * I'll play with some monsters in the next 24 hours to see what extras we need. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 15:29, June 13, 2006 (EDT)


 * I had thought about a desc one, but then I thought - why? Why not just put the text under the infobox on the monster page itself? The desc we COULD use, but I had thought it woul just make things harder for a newbie editor playing with a monster page to understand and contribute... I dunno, up to you - you're the official monster page guru now (-: Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  15:31, June 13, 2006 (EDT)

I think all of the monsters have now been migrated to the new template. &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 16:26, June 17, 2006 (EDT)


 * OMG teh wow, thanks Robin! You're on a friggin edit spree, crazy cool! Lesee, what to set you onto before you burn out - have you looked at the spells category? Pee-you! lol Elliott Cable  -  ?+¿  -  ‹·›  03:29, June 19, 2006 (EDT)


 * I have screenshots of the static rewards from Splinterskull, Catacombs and Delera to punch in and then maybe a few monster pics though the photoshopping will be a huge time sink. (I might write a tool to do that for me though.) Spells after static rewards maybs? ;) &laquo; robin &raquo; talk 06:14, June 19, 2006 (EDT)