User talk:Acatlover2

Clarifying "how to obtain"

I was just working on some quests in Dol Amroth and realized the conventional advice is incomplete. It also leads to chat flak, because for instance, on my server, a player consistently asks for a group for Tarlang's Crown every morning. On most days, s/he gets replies like "why?" or worse. An Empowerment Scroll is 20 Amroth Silver Pieces, and if you do the dailies in TC, that's one a day. The conventional advice is to do the fishing quest and the warbands (all soloable except maybe if Hemokh kicks you off your horse). I didn't cotton on to the TC quest rewards until much later, and judging by the chat replies to the suggestion of TC, many others haven't either. So I'll be thinking about how best to add a list of ways to get DA Silver Pieces (after the quest series is complete) probably to the Item page which currently links to DA faction quests, which is not a list of repeatables, though if you wade through it you will find them. Acatlover2 (talk) 16:57, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Attempting to create new MT Quests

I made an edit on the Help discussion page about this: Help_talk:Contents#What_is_the_code_used_in_this_wiki.3F_MediaWiki.3F_Standard.3F_Are_there_versions.3F Hopefully it will become more clear to me soon. I see these new quests as an opportunity to learn more about contributing something more complicated than just walkthroughs and category tags (although that's important too).

I've answered that query there.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 04:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I will continue my travails here so I don't clog up the talk page of the Help... First thing I noticed was that this page: Create_new_quest doesn't do what it says it does. The button just takes you to the help page for creating quests. I was going to use the Intro quest for Old Anorien as an example. There may be some English issues too because the grammar of the first sentence can be interpreted a couple of ways. I can't correct it because since the function of the button has a surprising effect, I'm not sure what it's trying to say. Acatlover2 (talk) 14:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

??? The "Create new quest" link in the left column, takes you to a newly created page - labeled at the top: "Quest:<the name you typed in>"

As you scroll down to the bottom of that page, you will discover and editing window which has been populated with the basic layout and parameters of a Quest page.

The upper portion of that (and all of the other) Create XXX pages is the Boilerplate explanation found in the Help section. It is there for your guidance as you begin to create the actual page. As soon as you "Show Preview" that portion of the page will vanish. You have to refer back to the Help section for the information.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 04:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking of adding the various public quest areas to the Category:Public Dungeons I'll avoid the brackets this time since I don't want this page to be part of that category. But that still is only maintaining links. Still making an effort to actually learn to create a quest page right. Acatlover2 (talk) 15:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't worry about stub tags unless there are a lot of people working on something or if I "PLAN" to not get back to something right away. Several of the new MT quests I was working on were not completed when my hard drive crashed last weekend -- and I'm just getting back on the air now!

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 04:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I created a page here Quest:Assisting the Burgsmen's Fellowship copy/pasting from the Boilerplate page, but had a lot of trouble with "questgroup" and "questchain" parameters. Finally I found an example of Rathon's quests and found how to use the shorter quest chain and have it appear correctly. My example was this page: Quest:The Scaled Problem and the difficulty was in knowing when to use brackets and when not to. Details will be filled in when I can get online and repeat the quest. Acatlover2 (talk) 16:37, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The center of the Quest Boilerplate contains an explanation of where the different fields come from. The section is "Explanation of Parameters"

Boilerplate:Quest#Explanation_of_Parameters - This is a "scrolled up" box, like the rewards box at the top of the quest.

• The main thing to know is that Turbine has gotten sloppy in recent years and no longer follows their own example. Therefore, we tend to use ONLY the "guestchain" parameter at the bottom of the Quest parameters. This will collect the information from the same named category and display it at the top as the scrolled up box "Quest Group" -- which is nothing more than the text portion of a Category page. We have been ignoring the "questgroup parameter since The Great River when Turbine changed how they linked quests. They then changed it again in Rohan.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 04:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't drop off the finished quest at the first level of MT, so I didn't activate my reset timer... ergo, can't do it today. Wondering if I should add the stubs tag or if a day doesn't matter either way. I put a warning in the main quest so people don't make the same mistake I did. Acatlover2 (talk) 21:14, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, done with two pages. Not sure what to put in "bestowal dialog" of sub-quests since it isn't echoed in chat for the sub-quests. I'm reluctant to manually type that except for the wrapper quest, and I just echoed the same Background. Even assuming I remember to take screenshots. It's probably "Help Rathon in the Cisterns" or something generic. Acatlover2 (talk) 20:02, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know about the PC client, but with the Mac Client, once you accept the quest, and display the HISTORY window of the quest, you can cut and paste the dialog in that History Window! That makes it easy to both find and copy the bestowal dialog. (Assuming you have enough screen or system to flip back and forth between the Game and the Wiki...!

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 04:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Well I hope you find this log of what I'm learning to be useful. The next thing I'm going to try and "grok" is how to add those nifty icons for rewards. I copy-pasted this: '25 Minas Tirith Silver Pieces' but I wonder what the syntax really is, what fields available, I had to remove the plural and change the number of course, but I'm not clear what else is possible or needed in other quests. For instance I was unable to change Item:Heavy Nadhin Armour (incomparable-100) to Item:Heavy Nadhin Armour ('''rare'''-100) in Quest:Book 1: Chapter 12: The Shadow in Morthond. Maybe the icon DNE Acatlover2 (talk) 20:16, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

To find the parameters for any template look at its "source."

1. At the bottom of any page you are EDITING, such as this page, you will see a right pointing triangle and the words: "Templates used in this section:"
2. Clicking on that triangle will expose a list of templates in use on the page.
3. Click on the name portion of the entry: "Template:Reward (edit)" to display the doc page for the Reward template. If you click on (edit) it will open an editing page with t he actual template in it (as well as the doc info).

Note that many templates are "nested" i.e. composed of multiple templates, so that finding all the info you want/need can be "fun". Template: Tooltip is one commonly used one.

Note that the "parser profile data" entry is intended for use by masochists! :)

As for the "Heavy Nadhin Armour" The correct syntax would be: Item: Heavy Nadhin Armour (rare-100) --- IF such an item exists. If it does exist in-game, it does NOT exist on the Wiki and needs to be created as an Item. However, guessing from the other Nadhin Armour pieces, there is NOT a "rare-100" Heavy set, but a "rare-95" set. There does appear to be a Light rare-100 set.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 04:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

editing breakpoint

• This "editing breakpoint" is simply a way to shorten the amount of text you have to scroll through in any given topic.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 03:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the many helpful pointers! I checked and you're right, I'd missed that the rare item I have from the quest is indeed 95. The might on it is much higher than the 100 version, but the armor value is lower. I also randomly got a yellow piece level 98 with 180 might on it. I imagine the yellow set scales with level. I think I got it from the spider cave near Morlad, but I'm guessing it was just random.

I'll be using Mac before long too, it looks like. On PC it seems to freeze the game for about a minute if I open "completed" quests. But as long as I don't move around or try to click anything it doesn't bug or crash. Good idea though for these multiple/repeatable quests with just a sentence in them to look in the completed area.

This "pause" when you open the Completed quests is, quite literally, the list of quests being downloaded from the server. The more quests you have completed, the longer it takes! The same is true for "completed" in any of the other tabs - like Deeds.

One thing which is true with the Mac Client (don't know about the PC) ONLY the "History" box is copyable. The "Completed" listing does not offer a History panel and is therefore devoid of much information.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 03:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

While I hesitate to change a page that is so essential as the "Create New Quest" page, I wonder if an internal link would be appropriate at the top (scroll down to editing area or similar link) or if the explanation could be collapsed. I honestly never considered scrolling down because I'd already read the bolierplate page, or most of it. I thought I was looking at the same page. Maybe I was, the links look similar enough, they may be the same. Thanks for explaining the quest group thing too, I'm starting to see how it works. Acatlover2 (talk) 15:53, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it is the same! The Create Quest DOES copy the boilerplate! If you visit User:Magill#Quest_cleanup you will see the list of "parts" - specifically the "User:Magill/Project-Infobox Quest cleanup where the parts are identified. All of the "Create New XXX" templates work the same way. Which is why you can't really modify the Boilerplate without doing game playing with the "...include" parameters, which is another whole kettle of fish. :)

• BTW, if you haven;'t guessed -- I went through the same thing you are going through -- that is why I have all of these pages of "notes" and explanations. The biggest difference was that when I was learning, there was literally almost zero documentation. Things are better now, but a great deal of information is still missing!.
• Feel free to add or modify the documentation you find as you learn! There is undoubtedly much that could be written better -- after all, I both wrote and proofread the materials!

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 02:52, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I noticed some other helpful souls have updated the parts I've left blank, which is great. I might add some walkthorugh notes today if I remember them. My husband and I have been doing the cisterns and the smiths ones every day for several days in a row now (to gain the max anfalas emp scrolls), so we've noticed a few tips like that the Withered Tree Followers do not always respawn in the same spot, and if you're grouped, the ones who run off only count for the first person to successfully click them. So when you put these two together, it can be frustrating to try and guess where the "new ring" is located, and it makes you feel silly if you stood there and waited for the guy to repop and he doesn't. It's good to know you have to check the other locations. Acatlover2 (talk) 19:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Erebrandir's Horseshoe

Answered your question. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 20:17, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Added some more comments. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:01, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Stepping up to the plate for virtues

Not sure if anyone already has a new Virtue Traits page all set to go or not. I'm going to make some forays into creating the new page and I hope others will add information as they see fit. If it's not the way it should be, please let me know on my talk page, or if you're an admin, just do what you feel is right, I won't get all mad. I just felt like it needed doing. Note that I have no access anymore to the email from this account on lotro wiki, I can try to figure out how to change it some other time. Work to do! Just contact me by talk page if needed. Acatlover2 (talk) 19:53, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Great job on starting this! --Ravanel (talk) 09:51, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Not sure how to do a redirect

I was unable to google or use the internal wiki search to find Quest:Grár's Seal, I guess because of the accent. So I'll try to create a page that redirects though I haven't done that before and if I try to search for one, the result is a class skill. So I'll just create a stub with a link, it's less breakable that way. Quest:Grar's Seal Acatlover2 (talk) 16:34, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

no worries. see wikipedia's help on redirects. --Taz (talk) 22:10, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Further, if you click the "Advanced" drop-down menu in the editing box, the second-to-last icon on the toolbar will insert a redirect with all the syntax in place, and you just need to paste in the target page. Velkeirien (talk) 22:54, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Links I need to remember

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Template:LocationList https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/File:War_of_Three_Peaks_map.jpg

Promotion

You are now an Editor. Thanks for your many contributions to the wiki over the years! Join us in Discord if you haven't already. —Thurallor (talk) 00:06, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! May I live up to it!Acatlover2 (talk) 00:38, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

As part of this I thought I'd try Discord again. I think it hates me. It gave me the trains challenge three times. Then it told me I had to do the email verification twice, then it demands my phone number. Well they can forget it. I've got enough robocalls. Seriously why do we need Discord, what essential service do they perform? It seems to take attention and time away from the wiki. Acatlover2 (talk) 13:19, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi ACatlover!

Sad to hear that Discord is not working for you. I haven't had much problems with it myself, but oh well.

I just find it convenient to ask other editors if they're okay with a major edit to a page. And it's easier for me to look through the Discord channels than through 'Recent Contributions/Discussions'. If it works for you, that's okay though. --RoyalKnight5 (talk) 13:33, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the insight. It's disappointing, and this has been a problem with me and games in general for a few years. People just assume you are on Discord or don't mind getting on there and I have trouble with it. It seems to have complex verification systems that I can't manage to keep up with, then it asks for a phone number and I'm out. One ask too many. I appreciate your understanding. Acatlover2 (talk) 13:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

You can get a throwaway phone number at Google Voice, use it to validate your Discord account, and then forget about it. —Thurallor (talk) 18:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that idea. I can try again this weekend. Acatlover2 (talk) 03:21, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Are categories invisible or are some not editable by me?

I'm working on https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Category:Invalid_Coordinates and I'm noticing it's hard to find the Category: Invalid Coordinates tag so I can remove it when finished. Maybe that's by design, not sure. Acatlover2 (talk) 14:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Looks like I had to fix the template info, but if there's more advice, I'd appreciate it. Acatlover2 (talk) 14:25, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for working on this! However, another solution is needed for the specific pages you edited, which I will describe below. First some explanation about what happened:

• On the pages you edited, the {{Npcbox}} template has map and maprefNS and maprefEW arguments. All it does with these arguments is to pass them into another template: {{Tooltip Coords}}.
• Pages are added to the "Invalid Coordinates" category automatically by the {{Tooltip Coords}} template. This happens when either the map doesn't exist, or the given coordinates are outside the bounds of the map.
• Since there is no map called "Morthond", these pages were being put into Category:Invalid Coordinates. (You can see a list of all existing maps at {{Tooltip Coords}} or in User:Eleazaros/coords.js.)
• You replaced the maprefNS and maprefEW arguments with NS and EW, respectively. {{Npcbox}} doesn't recognize these arguments, so it doesn't try to make a map link. Therefore it doesn't use {{Tooltip Coords}}, and hence the page is not added to Category:Invalid Coordinates.

Although this "fixed" the problem by removing the pages from Category:Invalid Coordinates, it did so by effectively removing the coordinates from the pages. We can do better than that.

The real problem is that there is no map called "Morthond". There is a "Blackroot Vale" map, but the instance At the Stone of Erech has its own coordinate system that does not match the coordinates used in the landscape version of the Blackroot Vale. This happens quite often; an instanced version of a place has different coordinates than the landscape version of the same place. And we do have a way to handle that, although I haven't adequately documented it anywhere.

Essentially, we can create an alias of the existing "Blackroot Vale" map with different coordinates. Then we use that new map in the {{Npcbox}} template's map arg:

1. Create a redirect from File:At the Stone of Erech map.jpg to the existing map File:Blackroot Vale map.jpg.
2. In User:Eleazaros/coords.js, find the section for "Instances or areas which use the same .jpg as an open-world map, but with different coordinates".
3. Add an entry there: MapData["At the Stone of Erech"] = { top:-51.0, left:-83.3, bottom:-71.4, right:-56.0 };
4. Modify the top, left, bottom, and right parameters to shift the map to the new coordinate system. (How? See below.)
5. Set the {{Npcbox}}'s map argument to "At the Stone of Erech". Then you can use the coordinates as seen in the instance for the maprefNS and maprefEW arguments.
6. When the user hovers the mouse over the coordinates, the Blackroot Vale map will be shown with the correct location marked.

How to shift the map to the new coordinate system?

1. Go in the instance and move your character to an easily recognizable point. In this case, just stand somewhere near the Stone. Note the coordinates: 99.6S, 88.6W
2. Go to the same place on the landscape and note the coordinates: 58.0S, 65.0W
3. Subtract the landscape coordinates from the instance coordinates. This gives you the numbers that need to be added to the "Blackroot Vale" boundaries to get the "At the Stone of Erech" boundaries.
   • In User:Eleazaros/coords.js, all North and East coordinates are denoted as positive numbers; all South and West coordinates are denoted as negative numbers. So, subtracting the landscape coordinates from the instance coordinates, we have:

     vertical shift: (-99.6) - (-58.0) = -41.6

     horizontal shift: (-88.6) - (-65.0) = -23.6

   • Take the existing Blackroot Vale map data:

     MapData["Blackroot Vale"] = { top:-51.0, left:-83.3, bottom:-71.4, right:-56.0 };

   • Add -41.6 to the top and bottom values:

     top: -51 + (-41.6) = -92.6

     bottom: -71.4 + (-41.6) = -113

   • Add -23.6 to the left and right values:

     left: -83.3 + (-23.6) = -106.9

     right: -56.0 + (-23.6) = -79.6

4. Modify the new MapData entry accordingly with the new boundaries:

   MapData["At the Stone of Erech"] = { top:-92.6, left:-106.9, bottom:-113, right:-79.6 };

I will take care of this, since you don't have admin access and thus can't modify User:Eleazaros/coords.js. But I will be reverting your recent changes to the affected pages, so I wanted you (and others) to understand what I'm doing. —Thurallor (talk) 15:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

This is truly amazing information; very interesting, well-written and educational! I truly hope all of this will get documented in a good place where it's easy to find it later if/when needed, and not just hidden away here where it might get lost. :)

Thank you so much for this great write-up! Awesome job! Things like this are incredibly useful to have. ♥

--Stargazer (talk) 16:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I will copy the above info to some more appropriate place, as soon as I figure out where that might be. —Thurallor (talk) 16:27, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Added to User:Eleazaros/coords.js/doc. —Thurallor (talk) 00:57, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

For Dorwë and Maonir, they are located in an area called "Morthond" (presumably near the river) in the instance, near a fortress called Garth Lotheg. We would need to make an educated guess about where these are located on the landscape maps before converting the coordinates. Personally, I have no idea. —Thurallor (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed explanation! How fascinating. And for fixing it the right way. Acatlover2 (talk) 21:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

A temporary situation I hope, the limitations of LI conversion at low levels

As of U 30.3, one of the more tricky tasks is to know what to do when you are converting a Legendary Item below level 100 to the new LI system. There seem to be limitations on low level conversion that are maybe unforeseen, even in a best case scenario. The situation is probably very temporary so I can't really justify putting more than the mildest notation in the LI page at this point. But I will try to create a sort of blog page for it, Sandbox:U30.3_Low_Level_LI_Conversion because we also have no idea how long the situation will last and being a wiki it's necessary to help guide people as best we can. I spent several hours on Sunday Oct 17, 2021 getting screen shots for it. Acatlover2 (talk) 02:11, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the research. Like you said, hopefully it becomes obsolete in the near future. If not, it can eventually be incorporated into the main article. —Thurallor (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing my talk post! Agreed. I have a feeling, some of the math involved here, wasn't intentional. It will be nice to get to know my low level hunter again, even if just for this research experiment. I'm pretty sure my Burglar is level 43 or thereabout. Experiment 2 might be to go through the LI bestowal quests, but realistically it may not happen for a while. Only so much time to play. Acatlover2 (talk) 21:10, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Not sure how to fix tooltip coordinates

I noticed this page https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Discovery:_The_Dungeons_of_Naerband doesn't have the tooltip working on the map. The code looks ok to me so maybe it's the map isn't set up right. Not sure how to fix that. Acatlover2 (talk) 00:43, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

It appears to be working for me the circle is spinning on the map. --Oakheart (talk) 02:20, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

/Thanks, I think it may have been one of those tracking protection things from Firefox breaking it. Acatlover2 (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Hermath Stormhammer quest chain

I don't know how to create a quest chain page / category page for https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Herm%C3%A1th_Stormhammer I think I once knew how to do the category page, but I feel like I never knew how to add one of those nifty boxes that collapse into region pages. The quest chain doesn't show in any of the quests mentioned on Hermath's page. I'm guessing it needs a category but the next step, to add that quest chain to https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Azanulbizar,_T.A._2799 that's beyond my skill. Acatlover2 (talk) 20:35, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Deleted Difficulty

Hi, I deleted the difficulty page because it was a disambig page and we should not have such pages with less than 4 entries. Difficulty had 2 until you added a 3rd. Please update Social World (I think it was) that links to that now-gone page. Cheers! — Zimoon 11:43, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

With all due respect, clean it up yourself. I started working on the Difficulty page because it was in the list of things to do. I noticed it was somewhat out of date, and did my best to update it and the difficulty page had 4 items in it, you just claim it's three because you class the perk with the LOTRO store bought item that gives you a "blue bar." Originally it had 3, then I added a fourth. I didn't even know the random excuse to delete pages like it has to have 4 items. So with all due respect I tried to fix an orphaned page that also had no category and you deleted it. And in the XP section of the LOTRO store page, now there is no mention of the XP Supply accelerator or the VIP perk. And on top of all that, there is no good reason to limit disambiguation to four items or more, not even Wikipedia does that. You're trolling me and I don't know why. So now you go and clean up your own mess. I'm a volunteer and a fan, not your slave. Acatlover2 (talk) 15:26, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. I just thought you knew exactly what you wanted to link to from that page while I do not, so I politely asked you first. But I will remove that link then, no problem.

I know the "random excuse" is somewhat hidden but it has been there for years, at Help talk:Names, together with the good reason.

This is the first time I ever talk to you so why you call that trolling is a surprise. Are you sure you do not mistake me with somebody else. Either way, we share the love and I hope slavery was done with centuries ago, mostly. — Zimoon 15:46, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Already fixed I see, by somebody else. :-)

Have a great one! — Zimoon 15:50, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

To avoid wasting people's time, this policy should be mentioned at {{Other}} and at Category:Disambiguation Pages. Also, a word to the wise: Whenever you delete someone's work, even if it's justified, you should recognize the work they put into it and apologize. Try to imagine what your own feelings would be if someone deleted your work and requested that you clean up what's left. —Thurallor (talk) 19:23, 17 November 2021 (UTC)