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 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.
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."
- 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:"
- Clicking on that triangle will expose a list of templates in use on the page.
- 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
- 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)