Lotro-Wiki.com talk:Mordor

Creatures by Hidden Threat

Do we need a category for Hidden Threat Creatures / Mobs? Not sure this was a necessary addition so when i moved everything over to Category:The Plateau of Gorgoroth Creatures i didn't add it to the creature template and removed the category. If we think it needed then i can add it to the template to make it more official and categorize on its own. Rogue (talk) 06:21, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I think it would make sense to have a category for this type of creature. However, we should then probably also consider categories for scourges and shard droppers. Anyone else thoughts on this? --Ravanel (talk) 23:59, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

There is Category:Scourge of Gorgoroth Creatures - which is under Category:The Plateau of Gorgoroth Creatures. I was just curious about the Hidden Threats. Rogue (talk) 05:44, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Location types

As I was taking my first steps into Mordor, I was immediately confused by the locations and how they map into our wiki categorization. Based on what this project page says, Gorgoroth is meant to be the region, and Udûn is an area. However, I see Udûn listed as the region in all the quests I've looked at (for example Quest:A Foothold in Mordor). Is that not correct?

It's also confusing that the official name of the region on the map is The Plateau of Gorgoroth, but we have that as a redirect to Gorgoroth. So is Gorgoroth the one I should be making links to? (For example, on the page Sador which I just created.) -- Elinnea (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

The categorization on the project page is correct, at least in regard to the meaning of the locations in Tolkien's work, on the wiki and in-game. The big thing that makes this confusing is that the Plateau of Gorgoroth is a region of (the land of) Mordor, but there's currently only one region in the game. SSG could add other Mordor regions later (such as Rhun etc); but for now there's just Gorgoroth. Because of this, people in-game use "Mordor" and "Gorgoroth" pretty much as interchangeable words.

NB, I remember I've had a discussion about this with Magill and someone else on a talk page, but I can't seem to find it back right now.

What I suspect is going on with regards to the quests is that people have filled in the area under Region simply because it gives the most useful information. If all quests were to read "Region: Gorgoroth" that wouldn't really give people an idea of where the quest approximately is. Information in-game is (unfortuntely for us) organized by area rather than region - you see the same with deeds. More correct would be to add "Area: ..." for Mordor quests. We'd have to look into the quest template on how to best organize that; I wouldn't know by heart.

I agree on the confusing redirect. It would be more correct to have The Plateau of Gorgoroth as the official article, with Gorgoroth as a redirect page. That would be more in line with the rest of the wiki as well. --Ravanel (talk) 17:28, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

About Udûn as region in quests, I looked back to Moria for precedent, and it looks like we did the same thing there: filled in the area for the region parameter (Zelem-melek for example), even though the region is technically Moria. The NPCs also have their area listed under the region field. I don't see anything wrong with that, apart from not helping my confusion as I was trying to figure out what was a region and what was an area. (I don't actually care all that much about the distinction, just don't want to be filling in wrong information.) The more narrow area does seem more useful. -- Elinnea (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Good idea to check how this was done in Moria! Perhaps we should add it as a note in the quest boilerplate, so it won't confuse anyone else in the future (or if it does confuse people, at least they can find out why it is as it is in a somewhat logical place).

Added the redirect thing to the To Do list under General Mordor. --Ravanel (talk) 22:15, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Moria began the confusion between Region and Area. Turbine evidently got a new copy writer who didn't konw about the previous conventions -- or felt that Region was more impressive in PR than Area. . . so the usage was changed.

If you look at the PR pages (Category: News) and compare them to our definitions, for Land Region and Area, you see how things changed.

And see the comments on Category: Political Geography and Category: Physical Geography (no idea why that note never made it to the parent category - Category: Geography.

It became really muddy with Update 20, when the "Land" for March of the King was actually Mordor!!! i.e. that is how that Update was displayed on the in-grame maps.

Mordor is technically a Land, with only one Region - Gorgoroth - and 5 areas. But that is not how it is written up in the PR materials.

As far as the template usage is concerned, things have been "different" since "The Great River." When RingTailCat discovered (If I remember correctly) that by putting the name of the area in the "questchain" parameter, instead of "quest group" that you actually got the quests listed in the info box for the quest, instead of nothing, unless somebody bothered to remember to put a "prerequisite" in the box. I don't think we got around to doing it consistantly until Riders of Rohan.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:28, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

I should add -- the basic problem is/was because the templates were/are still very poorly documented. Until Sethladan created the "doc" page structure, there was hardly any documentaion of any kind for any of the templates. Plus, Turbine kept changing things and most of the wiki tools and documentation created back in 2007 had not been updated since then, so the descriptions and documentation which did exist, did not match reality. There was (still is) a discrepancy between "boilerplate" and other documentation. All of which gave rise to the "Great Documentation Project" -- which was never completed. (Documenation is boreing and takes away from game time!)

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:36, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

there are the Boilerplates and coinciding Help pages - though outdated were the document pages for most templates - more of a guide / how-to. They somehow got lost over time I am sure. I'll think on this structure nd get my thoughts down at a later time here. Taken from Help:Categorization: Boilerplates Tip: Each Template has an entry in the Boilerplates section of the Help page which contains the documentation of the template. This can be referred to in another browser tab or window while creating the Article when you have "previewed" your article. A Boilerplate is a page layout which documents a Template and the basic layout for a particular type of article.Rogue (talk) 01:55, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Magill wrote: "I've made this change, however, nowhere in the game is it called the Plateau of Gorgoroth, tooltips and everything just use "Gorgoroth" "

For the "Plateau of Gorgoroth" I was referring to name as it appears in the map image (which is at the very top of that page). Where does it appear as Gorgoroth in tooltips? -- Elinnea (talk) 23:13, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

From what I remember from similar issues in the past (Mirkwood comes to mind), we have always taken the map as point of reference when in doubt. That said, I do feel sorry about you setting off on such a rename-all-the-categories-to-match spree, Magill! --Ravanel (talk) 21:04, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

To be more precise, I meant to say we have always taken the map as point of reference for the naming of location pages; for deeds we always have taken the deed log naming as point of reference. In this case, in-game the deeds are categorized under "Gorgoroth" and the Instance Deeds under "The Plateau of Gorgoroth" (just to make things more confusing, hehe). I see Magill is currently changing all deed categories to "Plateau of Gorgoroth" (so without "The" and with "Plateau") - is that what we want? --Ravanel (talk) 01:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

This discussion started with the naming of location pages; now it has evolved into a discussion about category naming. Let's continue in a new section "Mordor categorization" so we can stay on topic - hard to make sense of it later otherwise! --Ravanel (talk) 16:07, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Mordor categorization

The in-game map reads "The Plateau of Gorgoroth"

I assumed the reason Magill was changing all categories to "Plateau of Gorgoroth..." was because that's how it is written on the map, but I double checked and it actually says "The Plateau of Gorgoroth" on the map (see to the right). At the risk of everyone hating me now, shouldn't that be what the categories are called? Let's think this through before making more changes! According to how we've historically dealt with naming issues like these, the naming of categories would be the following:

• Category:The Plateau of Gorgoroth (...) - for everything world/location page related
• Category:The Plateau of Gorgoroth Instance Deeds - for instance deeds, as that is what it is named under the instance deed tab
• Category:Gorgoroth Deeds - for all normal deeds, as that is what it is named under the deed tab

If we decide to deviate from this, we should probably add a note under Help:Categorization (which would probably not hurt to do since it says nothing about the categorization of deeds at the moment). --Ravanel (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I suppose the question is directly related to my old question -- "How are people getting here in the first place?"

True, the "guidelines" pages / structure needs updating. HOWEVER, editors can easily look at early content and see the structure we set up quite easily imo. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I contend that the bulk of our traffic arrives via some search query to some external search engine.

We have discussed the search functions in Discord with our fearless leader User:Lotroadmin and he's looking / looked into that for the next update to the site. I will remind him about it and see what he found out, i want to say we'll be trying out google search but don't quote me on that. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

That being the case, the question then becomes -- What are they looking for?

We have always created pages for redirects - what we generally search for leading to what it actually is - not only for names with accent marks but shorted versions. Gorgoroth and Plateau of Gorgoroth should redirect to The Plateau of Gorgoroth - as an example - that's the way it "should be" as we knew / know how our search function works - doesn't work. Not that difficult to do and not tedious if everyone pitches in to catch those. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Over the years, Turbine and now SSG have provided less and less information to the Player about the game, and have proven to be less and less consistent in their naming of things.

Game developers don't think about our wiki, or us I suppose, that's not their job - their job is to create an awesome game. It'd be nice if they did though. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Today, it is quite apparent that Turbine/SSG has evolved to using many different patterns of repetition - Items with the same names, but different Item Levels is the most obvious case in point. Historically, Turbine was quite good at creating unique names for things over the levels -- but today, that is no longer true. This is an obvious necessity for them as their staff numbers have shrunk.

We adapt, and discuss, and collaborate. "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." right? So we do what we can with what we are given. As long as we are consistent and make a note of that somewhere for people to find. Documentation seems to be the wiki's biggest problem child right now - for that we need all hands on deck. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

If we assume that our readers are using search engines to find information -- both external and our internal - then we need to consider those things which search engines do, both for us and against us. Search engines eliminate articles as search terms (a/the/an etc.) Search engines "fix" special characters. A good example is -- Udun" -- type that into Google search and you will be rewarded with a page of hits spelled "Udûn". Now, I suppose that it can be argued that the results returned are from the fact that the web-crawler went to Udun and found the re-direct (on every possible website?) but that belies the fact that Google Search at least, is a wonderful "spell-check!" I have been a lousy speller for 70+ years and this ability of Google Search is fantastic -- you would be amazed at the number of times I am so far off on my spelling, but Google finds the correct spelling for me!

I don't agree with "changing it" because it makes it easier - I take that as laziness in the editors / leadership part of what we do here. Structure is so important, consistency makes it accessible, and again we will be updating that search feature because yes it sucks and needs to work better for us, not against us. The fact that pages with special characters is an issue goes back to laziness - not creating redirects like we should be. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

So where am I going with this?

Players today are different from players when Acheron's Call was released back in 1999. "Jargon," especially in chat, is far more common today than it was back then. Players are in a hurry and reading or typing out "The Plateau of Gorgoroth" is only done by a few. The rest "short-hand" things to a single word or syllable. Hardly anybody calls it anything but "the Moors" or PVP.' Rarely do you see a reference to "The Ettenmoors" or "Player vs Monster Player" (even on the Forums or Reddit).

All of that said -- "for deeds we always have taken the deed log naming as point of reference" is an interesting statement. The first time I have ever heard it! There is no reference to any such convention on the "Help Deed" page. I'm not disagreeing with it, just pointing out that it is "yet another" undocumented concept. And, just to make matters worse -- now that Turbine/SSG have created a massive "Meta Deed" structure, the number of deeds which can be classified rationally by the current template is rapidly decreasing -- many deeds now have multiple "parent" deeds, i.e. they contribute to, typically, an area meta deed as well as a regional meta deed. At least this is obviously quite true with the Mordor Deeds.

Don't get my long-winded-ness wrong. I am not upset and am quite willing to take direction. I just need to have some direction. Otherwise, I will solve things the way in which I have done since RingTailedCat left near the end of The Great River. I have been creating the structures for all the updates since then single-handedly. As the levels have increased, there have been fewer and fewer editors working on the WIKI in general, and even fewer working the "new content." The Mordor Expansion and the Discord Server have brought many "old-hands" out of the woodwork.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 11:19, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Multiple deeds should be easy - put them in multiple categories... not sure what else to say here that I've already said above but "solving things on your own" because there is no one else? Well hopefully that won't be the case anymore and is a bad habit on a wiki. Goes back to "changing things" because I think of it one way and you think of it another. Collaboration shouldn't be an issue anymore as we have Discord now. Rogue (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Some random other comments. The original structure and layout of Moria was completely re-worked by both Turbine and by Zimoon on the Wiki. And, as I recall, Moria on the WIKI no longer reflects the structure of Moria in-game. I.e. the content does not flow along with game activities. The parts are there, but the flow is not.

As for tool-tips --  Strong Gorgoroth Branch  Log of Gorgoroth Wood  Gorgoroth Crafting Bundle Bit of Pure Gorgoroth Ore Gorgoroth Skarn Deposit are ones I happen to have in my pack. I believe all of the other Crafting Mats refer to Doomfold.  Gorgoroth Steel-bound Lootbox. The Deed: History of Gorgoroth and its companion deeds

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 11:53, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Hey Magill. Not sure where to start, but as I've said before and will say again: you did some amazing work keeping up with all the new content! It really is much appreciated. I am sorry you felt that you had to do it on your own. I wish I could spend more time on the wiki, but my offline life is demanding and comes first. That said, if you don't know how to do something (and even if the help pages are updated, they will never cover every possible scenario), do ask. Even if you don't see me editing, I will notice when a comment is left on my talk page and reply. It is impossible for other contributors to know what you're struggling with because we cannot read minds. If it is any consolation, when I joined the wiki I wasn't sure about a lot of things and help pages were still to be made or I didn't know where to find them. So I know where you are coming from. That said, like Rogue already wrote above, there is more communication going on via Discord etc, so hopefully this will be better in the immediate future.--Ravanel (talk) 22:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Add Allegiances to list?

To help us categorize and track the Mordor updates to this wiki, does it make sense to add an Allegiances section to this page? Most of the updates to wiki pages needed for Allegiances fall into categories already mentioned, i.e. quests or NPCs, but Allegiance quests and NPCs are often separate from the rest of Mordor. If Allegiances have their own category, perhaps the work load for updating them will seem less. -- Dolenaglar (talk) 02:17, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I considered sections for the new Mordor mechanics, but decided against it because I wasn't sure how to deal with the overlap and wanted to keep the page short(ish). But I'm really not too fussed, so if you'd like to add that section, go ahead. :) --Ravanel (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Wait until Bullroarer comes up ?tomorrow? (Saturday), and we'll see if the Alegiences carry over into Update 22.

I believe the current Allegiance System page documents most everything that is unique to the system. I've only run a Dwarf through, so I don't know how well the Allegiance Halls for the other races are documented. All of the quests are still poorly documented. And I have not verified the mechanics of unlocking the dailies. Those instructions are simply culled from the Forums. I assume they are complete and correct, but I do not know. But as pointed out -- they are just quests.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 02:52, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

So far with what I have seen of U22, the Allegiance system does NOT continue with Update 22. I doubt that will change when it goes live on Tuesday 3/6. It is strictly End-Game Mordor. It is possible that we will see quest rewards of Allegiance artifacts, but not likely. U22 seems orthogonal to Mordor. Now U23, might be a different story as we return to Mordor for Minas Morgul. But I suspect that the Allegiance System was a one-off, and idea that didn't quite fly. Note especially the Dev Interview at the bottom of the page.

Erebor has been re-used, but not re-done for U22. While all of the various NPCs and the like are present, they (the NPCs) are not accessable if you have not purchased the Mordor Expansion and begun the Allegiance quests there.

It is not yet clear if U22 will be generally accessable, i.e. no Mordor Expansion purchase necessary, but that does appear to be the case. Strangely Cordovan has not been asked that question on his Twitch runs, and there has been no hue and cry on the forums about it. So, at the moment, I am assuming that there will be Quest Packs available to access U22. If that is true, then the Alliegance system is clearly a one-off!

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 23:16, 4 March 2018 (UTC)