User talk:Lovestar

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Hello, Lovestar, and welcome to LotRO-Wiki, the Lord of the Rings Online Wiki!
Thank you for your contributions, and we heartily encourage you to continue contributing!

Some useful pointers:

We hope you enjoy editing here!
Take a moment to create a User page for yourself (click on "User Page" at the top left of this page).
Just a couple of lines to tell us about yourself and your interests. It's a good way to practice editing!

  • Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~) as this will automatically produce your name and the date.

Way to go with those class page revisions! It's sad how long they've been languishing in various states of disarray since last year. I'm not paying close enough attention to have any specific feedback, but it's good to know at least someone's here slogging through them.

Tangentially, when you add comments to a talk page, please add them at the end - this way everything flows in chronological order. (This should be the default behavior if you click the "add topic" button at the top, as well.) Kudos and thanks again for your work. :) Sethladan 15:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

oh ty for the tip about talk pages, sorry, not used to Wiki editing usually I'm using datamine / database-style sites. :p The revisions are highly imperfect, but as a new player I found trying to sort out each class and the LOTRO skill system a little confusing, but when I came to the wiki it was even worse >.< so just trying to streamline it to what would be helpful to me as a new player, hopefully others can make more minor edits to clean it up better overall. Lovestar (talk) 16:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

No apologies needed - helping new people get acquainted is partly what I'm here for. :) Believe it or not, it's the "new player" perspective that's the most valuable: People who have been around the game and around the wiki for ages essentially know where everything is and it's not always obvious to us how confusing something really is. That makes your input all the more important, even if it's not perfectly formatted and magically put together.
Protip #2: Each time you reply on a talk page, add a level of indentation so the discussion is easier to follow - you can do this by putting an appropriate number of colons (:) before each paragraph. Right now I have one indent, and if you were to reply, adding two colons would bump your text out a little further, and so on. Makes it less confusing when figuring out who said what in an ongoing conversation. There IS a help section on the wiki, but it is woefully disorganized and incomplete (that's mostly my fault, probably). You'll get the hang of things! Most people take a while to figure out the signature business, so you're well on your way. Sethladan 19:22, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Haha, got it. TY again. =) Lovestar (talk) 19:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Promotion

  • Thanks for your updates to the Lotro-Wiki.com collection of information!
The Wiki is successful because of dedicated fans like yourself.
You have been promoted - see: Ninja.
  • Tip: when creating a new page, use the Article Management Tag: {{Stub/Construction|[[User Talk <User-name>]]}}
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Under Construction! This user talk contains information which is currently being worked on.
Please coordinate updates with: [[User:[[User Talk: <User-name>]]|[[User Talk: <User-name>]]]] ([[Special:Contributions/[[User Talk: <User-name>]]|Contribs]] • [[User_talk:[[User Talk: <User-name>]]|User Talk]])

Signed

Page status and such

Just to follow on earlier comments -- there are in fact very few editors working on the Wiki. LOTRO is a HUGE game. And Turbine doesn't really provide any tools or guidance about much of anything.
At one time, Turbine had a large staff working on LOTRO, but that was long ago (and definitely before the 2013/2014 layoffs). Prior to the major revision/update of the Forums in the summer of 2013, there was "the Lorebook" which drew information from data.lotro.com -- both of which are now gone. Up until that time, we had a place where we could get some information about the parts of the game we editors were not involved with in-game. But that is the key. We editors tend to work on those pages/sections where we are currently questing. Hence, many things that are "not in our sights" get left by the wayside. Similarly, because there are so few of us, and because all of the data is acquired from in-game experience, things get out of date quickly -- AND, real-life gets in the way, constantly! Many folks are "academically oriented," Faculty, staff, students, so involvement comes in bursts, frequently aligned with an academic calendar.
So, in short, thanks for your work, and don't worry about stepping on people's toes. Sometimes (frequently) we bite off more than we can chew. Sometimes we tend to flag things that we know need to be done, but don't have the personal time or interest to do them, and just hope that someone else will come along and "fill in the blanks."
LOTRO had a major revision to all characters with Update 12, the Helm's Deep Expansion. The way in which "Traits" were defined/assigned, etc. changed from an individualized scheme to a Trait Tree scheme -- the Wiki is still trying to catch-up.
So again, thanks for your work! It is greatly appreciated.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 23:38, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, I was just trying to organize the information at first to make it more useful to me, but then I was like "Well if I'm doing this research anyway, why not just fix the Wiki page?" So I'm glad I'm helping a little, it's a useful resource for a new player. =) Lovestar (talk) 12:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
(/pokes head in) Whenever I see someone commenting ingame that the wiki is outdated, etc., I ask them to come and help update. It's not easy keeping up with Turbine's changes. So thank you! :) -Laineth (talk) 22:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Game terms

Most all game terms are (or should be) defined at: Game Terms.
These definitions are both MMO general and LOTRO specific.
I added your definition of Proc to the existing definition at Game_Terms#Proc_.28Special_Procedure.29 and linked it via a redirect page to "proc".
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 21:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
oh sorry, just in a hurry with those because it's useful for a quick summary in ability lists on the Class pages but I don't want to have a wall of redlinks for anyone new to the terms when they're looking at the tables. :p
if you remind me what pages I did wrong I can go back and update them when I have time Lovestar (talk) 23:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
If you click on the Contributions link in the top right of the screen and then filter by 'Namespace: (Main)' and 'Only show edits that are page creations' you should find them easily. Snarpel (talk) 16:26, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
ok ty will fix
it's just a little confusing bc lots of other game terms have their own page, so there's not really a clear model to follow. Are those pages supposed to be deleted too?
Lovestar (talk) 16:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
This is one of those things which has "just grown" -- Ideally, they would all be listed on the Game Terms page, but it's frequently just a case of catching them when they are created (like I did with Proc).
The situation is usually that the solo page terms tend to be only used by one or two other pages. (Use "what links here" in the left column to see, so they are pretty easy to either "redirect" or simply change the link.
The usual problem with the solo terms is -- "How do you spell them?" - PvP is a classic example -- PvP or ?PVP? is a term used by MMOs which has no direct application to LOTRO -- the closest equivalent is PvMP or ?PVMP?, but folks coming from other MMOs don't know that. And then there is that Capitalization and Hyphenation problem!
With all the terms in one location you can "guess close" on the spelling and then focus in as you look at the list.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:55, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Images and Icons

See: Help:Images for all the gory details --

Images and Icons on the LOTRO-Wiki have basically the same criteria. The difference being their size.
An Icon on the LOTRO-Wiki must be 32x32 pixels and in .png (Portable Network Graphics) format. (And will always display "full size," i.e. "as-is".)
An Image, by comparison, can be virtually any size and is in .jpg (JPEG) format. (And can be resized.)
  • Shield of the Raven's Wing vs Shield of the Raven& #39;s Wing
(A space is inserted here to allow the display of the HTML character. Without a space following the ampersand, the HTML code would be interpreted by your browser and displayed as an apostrophe.
The explanation here is a bit more esoteric and has to do with the MediaWiki's internal representation of certain characters.
In general, there are a number of punctuation characters which Microsoft has "screwed up" when compared with international, i.e. USASCII usage -- apostrophe and quotation marks being the two usually encountered.
There are a number of alignment issues which crop up when the "dsambigpage" value and the REAL page value (seen at the top of the page) do not match, which is also why there is a "name" parameter.
Typically you will see things display on the left side of a page, when they should display on the right side.
The value displayed at the top of the page is modified by your browser to display "correctly." However, what is displayed is not what is stored internally in the database.
Note that the "Create XXX" tools all create pages using the Wiki directives
| disambigpage = {{subst:FULLPAGENAME}}" and
| name = {{subst:PAGENAME}}
FULLPAGENAME and PAGENAME are almost the same thing -- see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Magic_words for the difference.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Change to Fiery Ridicule

Just to let you know I reverted your last change to Fiery Ridicule. I tested the skill on a training dummy and there were three different tiered effects on the target as expected. Not sure where you got your information but only make changes based on what *you* have seen in game not what you have read elsewhere. Snarpel (talk) 12:13, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

That was from reading the discussion here since I haven't paid for the RNK unlock yet (new to the game) but I'm considering it so researching the class. I assume it's something that was either communicated wrong in that guide, or changed post-Beta.
I'm glad you corrected the error, but with respect, the advantage of a wiki is that corrections can be caught and made easily. Considering the general state of disrepair of much of the class info around here (which was even worse before I tried to motivate some tidy-up), my first assumption is that if it might be outdated or wrong, it probably is.
IMO due to the scattered and unpredictable quality of information between different classes / topics, this wiki would really benefit from some kind of stamp that could be applied to pages certifying them as having info verified accurate post-Helm's Deep, possibly with a date or Update of verification.
The other way that it currently is — a page might have a notice that it's not been updated yet (but might not) — is so hit/miss that it just leads to paranoia/distrust of everything. :p
Lovestar (talk) 12:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
You have stumbled upon a truth! -- Turbine makes constant changes, some are "large" and are actually "documented" by them in their Release Notes; but many are "small" and simply show up "in-game."
Here on the Wiki, we have only a very few Editors who have characters spread across all races, all classes and levels. Virtually all of the material on the Wiki is "experiential" because of the way in which Turbine Updates and Changes things. An Editor needs to experience the change and realize that the Wiki needs updating. (This was different back in the beginning, in the days of the Lorebook. The Lorebook was an actual resource provided by Turbine which documented much of the game. Turbine eliminated the Lorebook in the summer of 2013. -- don't ask, it's a long story.) Consequently, there are many things on the Wiki which "were correct," but which have been superseded in-game with different information or actions. If an Editor happens to notice what is happening in-game is different from what is on the Wiki... it gets updated. But Middle Earth is a big place and we are few.
In particular, there were some massive changes made with Helm's deep for all classes which impacted all players. Turbine implemented the new "Trait Tree" system and revised virtually every single class and their capabilities. Identifying the specifics of those changes is difficult and hard work, and takes a lot of time. And compounding things is the fact that Turbine keeps adding "stuff" -- like Dol Amroth and the Dead Marshes.
The basic problem with flagging pages is actually quite simple -- you have to know which pages to flag! You could always flag "all pages" but then you have to "un-flag" them through some mechanic, which is itself a massive undertaking.
Player guides are notorious for "not quite correct" information. They are typically "fixed in time." That is to say, they are correct when they are written. But they are rarely updated over time. And while usually associated with threads of comments and updates, the original guide may never capture that information. It become confusing because, unlike the Wiki, there is no "history" of updates, or even an indication that there were any, unless the author is very conscientious, and used to writing documentation.
  • To that end, here on the Wiki, there are "Article Management Tags" which do cover many different potential situations, but clearly not all.
Hope this all makes sense.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 21:17, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Lovestar's idea actually echos my own thinking on this subject quite recently and I actually started work on a template that would allow an editor to mark a page content as verified correct against a certain update revision and auto-generate a timestamp. Future editors could review the update revision and timestamp and decide whether to re-evaluate the material. I will finish the template this evening and put it up to see what people think Snarpel (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Snarpel that would be fantastic! I know it ultimately relies on "someone" still having to be motivated to go verify the stuff in game, copy the info over, etc. (made more tedious without the database-style datamining that some games eg, WoW have etc), but if someone goes through the effort to tag a page with a "Verified on..." template, that boosts the confidence of both viewers and other editors that this probably was, in fact, checked. :p
It also offers a sort of, idk, odd kind of reward for putting the effort in — "Ooh, I made this page get a stamp of approval". ^^
Lastly, maybe (I am wiki-dumb) it would be possible to create some sort of like, "Reverse listing" of "Pages still lacking Helm's Deep verification stamps" etc. to allow enterprising (or bored?) editors to just sort of troll through and check anything in-game they have the ability to.
Lovestar (talk) 23:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
On the subject of datamining there is a plugin called ItemTreasury that allows you to view the in-game item database. It does have some limitations e.g. can only view lowest level of levelled items, so use with care.
You can use the DynamicPageList extension to show pages that are in one category but not in another. This query will show all the rune-keeper skills that are not verified (put the query on an empty page and click preview):
       <DynamicPageList>
       category    = Rune-keeper Skills
       notcategory = Verified Skills
       </DynamicPageList>
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