User talk:RingTailCat/Archive

• Promoted to Ninja Status! --Lotroadmin 21:37, 3 December 2010 (EST)
• Promoted to Editor Status! --Lotroadmin 01:57, 6 June 2011 (EDT)

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Hey RingTailCat, a bit of a late welcome to the wiki, but a welcome nevertheless! Just a small note: if you create a new deed page, could you not start the name with "Deed:"? This is something we do for quest pages only (but then with "Quest:"). We try to use the same sort of naming for all deed pages, so there is some consistency. If the name of a deed page already exists (for instance because there is a title called the same), you can always put "(Deed)" after the name. Have fun contributing! --Ravanel 06:35, 15 November 2010 (EST)

Also, try to use Template:Deed when creating new deeds. Some old deeds don't have that yet. They should all be updated some day, so don't look at those for examples. --Ravanel 07:06, 15 November 2010 (EST)

Santtu

There are actually two Santtu NPCs: one in Forochel and one in Lehmä-koti - Starbursty 21:03, 2 March 2011 (EST)

Ah, I was going to check that later, just in case. How do we distinguish between two NPCs with the same name? I was originally thinking about this with respect to two same named NPCs in the Bluestone Garrison in Thorin's Hall. Usually the NPCs seem to be interchangeable, but in the case of Santtu, we do need to be able to tell them apart. RingTailCat 21:32, 2 March 2011 (EST)

Usually you put the region behind the name between brackets and a sentence on top of the article to explain. For instance, check with Sigdan in (Ered-luin) vs Sigdan (Durin's Way). Seems to be done with Santtu in the right way. See also this extensive topic on the wiki forum: [1]. --Ravanel 22:59, 2 March 2011 (EST)

Legacies

Hi there! Saw how much work you're doing with these in general and wanted to give you some credit. :) A question about all those tables (like Feral and Savage Strikes Damage), though - do you think we need separate lines for each level/age of legendary item? I asked Fingolwë who knows more about LIs than I do, and he said that legacies are pretty much the same across items of the same age. What are your thoughts? Can we combine things into just Third Age / Second Age / First Age for legacies? Sethladan 08:37, 6 April 2011 (EDT)

I have three characters above level 50, a Champ(53), Guard(51), Hunter(55). As I am collecting these stats, I am starting to see the regularity between different weapon levels. The skill modifiers do not seem to vary as much based on the min level of the LI. I haven't seen enough to jump to any conclusions yet. At some point, I expect that I will be able to make some generalizations which will allow a reduction in the number of rows in those skill tables. For now, I am just collecting raw data. It was a toss up whether to put this info into a spreadsheet, or fill in the tables someone had already started on the wiki. This way, if I get bored with the effort, or too busy at work, it is already shared. Anyway, thanks for noticing. RingTailCat 09:51, 6 April 2011 (EDT)

Okidoke - thanks for the response. Good to keep it organized and I guess we'll draw conclusions once we have sufficient data. I just didn't want you to do more work than necessary if it was already known that legacies were consistent across minimum level. As you were. :) Sethladan 11:11, 6 April 2011 (EDT)

Having three level 65 and one level 62 character, I can confirm that every legacy that has a percentage modifier does not change with age, nor do legacies that reduce cooldowns. Rating-based legacies (and in some cases legacies that increase the range of a skill) change depending on the age of the item. Rating-based legacies also change depending on wield level (minimum level to equip), so those are the only really annoying ones. The LI spender on mmorsel is a very handy tool for adding legacies, highly recommended!
On another note, Ravanel and I are in the progress of cleaning up and expanding the legacy categories. Each Class category will contain two categories for the types of legendary items that class can use (such as Main-hand, Book, Belt etc), which in turn will contain categories for Major and Minor legacies (Pool A and Pool B were renamed with the latest update, so the categories will reflect that). /Fingolwë 17:39, 7 April 2011 (EDT)

More thoughts (for both of you) - should we collect data for rank-up costs for legacies? These will vary (so I understand) based on the tier of the legacy, irrespective of its age or minimum level, right? Sethladan 18:11, 7 April 2011 (EDT)

I don't see why not, we can get that information from the tool I linked above anyway if we so wish. By the way, Overwhelm Critical Rating is an example of what a rating-based legacy page could look like (note the new category too). /Fingolwë 18:15, 7 April 2011 (EDT)

Sorry for bothering you again, but I went ahead and sorted the Guardian Legendary Legacies page. It'd be great if you could use that as a standard for the other classes' legacy pages. :) /Fingolwë 20:05, 7 April 2011 (EDT)

Hey again, have to pester you about legacies again. ;) Noticed that you added a couple of new ones with some redundant information. If you have an IRC client, you could hop on #Lotro-wiki and I can explain it a bit more thoroughly. In short, these rules apply to legacies for all classes:

• Legacies that are based on percentages (+X% damage for Y skill, +X% healing for Y skill, etc) are always the same for all levels and ages of legendary items.
• Legacies that add pulses to over-time skills (+X Guardian Bleed Pulses for example) are always the same for all levels and ages of legendary items.
• Legacies that increase the range of a skill (such as Burning Embers Range) sometimes (probably always, but can't say with absolute certainty yet) differ between different ages of legendary items.
• Legacies that increase the threat of a skill or skillset (like Provoke Threat Up, Rating X) always differ between different ages of legendary items.
• Legacies that are based on ratings (+X Skill Critical Rating and so on) always differ between different ages and levels of legendary items.

/Fingolwë 06:45, 12 April 2011 (EDT)

Where the existing data enumerates the levels+age of the legendary item, I have been adding items as I discover them. When the page has been modified to generalize to state something like for "All Levels", I have simply been confirming my observations. I will let you, or someone else (perhaps me when I feel safe making a conclusion) change from the enumeration format to the generalization format. In the mean time, I would like to continue contributing where I can.

I am exercising some caution with the generalizations, as I am observing some odd things with the Guardian weapon DPS, where the values seem to differ depending on the weapon type. It is small anomalies like this that lead me to be cautious about generalizing too early. The results we get back from data.lotro.com or find in the lorebook for legendary items does not give us the same ability to check our data that we have with non-legendary items. I would like to think that the turbine developers are using good programming practices that share objects and data tables, but lacking evidence to the contrary, I fear that they may be able to introduce cut and paste errors in the data, or that they have included special casing code. RingTailCat 11:59, 12 April 2011 (EDT)

Since the weapon speed normalization that came with the Mirkwood expansion, all weapons of the same age and level that can be wielded with one hand should have the same DPS for melee classes (Tactical classes do not have the option to rank up DPS on their weapons, so their values will differ). If they don't, it is a mistake and should be reported as a bug. As far as generalization goes, it would create a lot less work if you could at least apply it to percentage-based legacies, because they never differ with age or level. /Fingolwë 12:32, 12 April 2011 (EDT)

Deprecated vs Depreciated

from Template talk:Infobox Quests

Sorry to be a pain about this, but please have a look at these two pages:

Depreciation

Deprecation

RingTailCat (talk) 00:31, 10 June 2011 (EDT)

Hmm, I was working off my physical dictionary (it's literally faster to pick it up and look up a word than to switch windows and nonsense most of the time, I find), which says about the same as this: deprecate, and I am at fault for not looking it up further to find more modern usages -- I wasn't aware that it was used as a term in programming. I am humbled, lol, but more informed! Thanks for the explanation, sorry for the revert of the revert. I'll change it to deprecated now if you haven't already. Rubyctook (talk) 04:30, 10 June 2011 (EDT)

Glad you guys worked it out peacefully, hahah. I am guilty of having used "depreciated" in the past, too, but have since struck it from my vocabulary since I'm not a tax person. :) (And in all honesty, I probably use "deprecated" incorrectly at times when I really should be saying "obsolete" - it just sounds cooler.) Sethladan (talk) 13:57, 10 June 2011 (EDT)

Cremello Pony

Hi, hopefully you dont mind I renamed your Cremello Pony, so we can use it on the skill and Mount page... I also renamed it in your char-page. --Tiberivs (talk) 08:41, 18 June 2011 (EDT)

No problem. Doesn't he look like he does not really belong on top of a horse. I grew up with pure breed Shetland ponies. When you put a scared city kid on one, they looked just like my dwarf. 10:19, 18 June 2011 (EDT)

Monster Play update

I gather from the levels of your toons on your main page, that you have not taken a Freep to the Moors ... :)

I've been trying to get the Freep side of the Moors pages "updated" (or in far more cases... created).

One thing which has been an issue I have been trying to correct -- most of the Moors pages are (or were) isolated.... they weren't linked together by any kind of mechanism.
I created a new Ettenmoors page and have been linking things through [[:Category:Monster Play]].Category:Monster Play

I have an updated "Monster Play" master page that is probably about 98% done. .. User:Magill/Sandbox-7 Please look it over and let me know if you find anything that needs fixing or changing.
My basic problem is that I know nothing about the Creep side of things except what has been here in the Wiki.

So far, various Dev notes have implied that some kind of "major" change is coming in the Moors play... minimally somehow allowing F2P accounts access to the Moors. No details out yet.

When I started out, I got into Monster Play quite quickly after running into one too many rude Hobbits. There is nothing worse than a shop keeper that sounds like he doesn't want to do business. It was fun for a while, until I got tired of the lousy performance, and the shift in balance that left Creeps at a disadvantage.

All my Creeps are on a different server from my Freeps. I did not like the spying that went on. And I now refuse to use Ventrilo at all. My wife doesn't seem to mind - she is in a kinship with an associated tribe, so she plays with the same folks on either side.

It does sound like some changes are coming. Letting F2P accounts into MP may not be the best thing though. I suspect that with that will come more in-game requirements to spend TP, which in turn forces subscribers to top-up their TP with real world cash. You buy the game, and a subscription, and now you also have to buy TP, or get left behind. One of the biggest slaps-in-the-face from Turbine was the +68% horse in the store. After all my work to get the Eriador Horse - I had a bit of a "Why Bother" moment.

I have one toon ready for the moors, but my kinship does not seem to go there much.

I have noticed your work-in-progress in your sandbox. I could see you were putting a lot of work into it. I will have a look at it again. One of the things that would be nice would be to have the MP templates as close to the FP templates as possible. It lets one leverage their skills with FP pages over on the MP side. It seems like the mechanics of the templates should be the same, with the differences confined to the visuals and the validation

I suspect that we (editors and contributors here) are going to have a lot of work adjusting to the "new technology" in the expansion. We saw a bit of it with Enedwaith, where some of the NPCs have many locations, e.g. Halbarad who shows up in four regions, and several instances. That introduced a new level of confusion in the game, and made for some challenges in the wiki, too!

That is only going to get worse with ISENGARD... undoubtedly we will again encounter all of the Rangers in "yet another" location!
I think we have a convention "NPC-NAME (Location)"... but I don't know for certain. I've seen it used in one or two locations. I just completed VII Book5 and most of the Dwarves there are in "normally" in Moria locations. I'll have to go look them up. Yes... "Wíli (Twenty-first Hall)" Is one such, Bori is another, and Bróin is in 3 places... hmm...I do not know if the disambiguation page or the opening lines of the other pages are generated automatically, or they have to be done manually.

As for MP Templates... they do exist, and I guess one thing I should do is actually list them someplace.... I still haven't found a way to list "all" available templates -- mainly because not all are called templates (All of the "Templates" on the Help page are in Category:Boilerplates or aren't documented or ??? (And I haven't yet figured out the hierarchy of such things.) One that comes to mind immediately... there is a template ... MP-NPC for example -- {{Infobox MP-NPC... ) -- Similarly, I've been adding:

{{Ettenmoors}}

[[Category:Monster Play]]

[[Category:Locations]]

[[Category:Ettenmoors]]

to the end of locations to force things into the appropriate Categories. The first one, Ettenmoors in braces, puts that banner on the bottom of the page: "Settlements, Areas and Landmarks of Ettenmoors" which, as I finally discovered, is its own page and a manually created list!... but I can never remember how to get to it!!! I have to hunt around for it all the time. aha... [[Template:Ettenmoors]] under [[:Category:Zone Navigation Templates]]. ... ok now that I'm thinking and talking about it, I added them to my Editing page - User:Magill/Sandbox-6 ... and in the process discovered a couple more!!! Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 14:25, 29 July 2011 (EDT)

Editing these pages is a real process of discovery, I've found. I do a lot of Monkey-See, Monkey-Do editing: I find a page I like, and copy the techniques. I noticed one of the other editors seems to have a collection of such reference pages. There seems to be a gap between the level of information in our help page(s), and the MediaWiki documentation. RingTailCat (talk) 15:40, 29 July 2011 (EDT)

No-name NPCs

Hi there! Flet-runner, Galadhrim Archer, Galadhrim Warden, unnamed animals, and other no-name NPCs are of no importance. It is not needed to list them as NPCs. -- Starbursty (talk) 14:00, 1 August 2011 (EDT)

Actually, there is a quest or quest series to find the flet-runners at various locations in Caras Galadhon. (I was too slow and failed the first one, and never bothered to go back to do them) Also, I think that some of the anonymous NPCs become the parched-elves in another quest (I meant to go back and check after I finished that quest.)

As I recall, most of them start with a named NPC and end with ones named "Flet Runner," "Parched Elf," etc. see "Quest:At Home Among the Trees for the Flet Runner sequence and Quest:The Fountain of the Lady for the Parched elves. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 23:04, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

Sorry for bumping in so late, but it is actually the intention of the wiki to have all the NPCs, even if unnamed. Named NPCs are of course prioritized, since they often play a more important role in quests and such. Unnamed NPCs like "Galadhrim Warden" should just be added with picture but without specific coordinates (unless you get really enthusiastic :P), noting something like "Galadhrim Wardens are found throughout ..." etc. Their pages might not be as important as that of named NPCs, but should be there in the end. I don't see much harm in listing them, although I'm not sure what list we are talking about here. --Ravanel (talk) 06:38, 5 August 2011 (EDT)

In many cases in the Enedwaith and Grey Company quests, the rangers show up next to a permanent townsperson. That NPC's location could serve as a reference location, e.g., beside the townsperson just outside the stable yard gate. I think it is a little more realistic to have a player look like they are talking to an NPC than talking to themselves beside a rock (Halbarad in Eregion).

Some of those no-name NPCs have quotes that may not advance quests, but do add to the local color. The Malladhrim troops in the Mirk-eaves landing are another interesting case.

I guess, my argument is that it is hard to be sure that NPCs are not important when you first encounter them. I am not in the beta program now, so I can safely say that I have (only) a suspicion that in the Isengard expansion it will be even harder to predict which NPCs are significant. I expect more of what we saw in Enedwaith, where different races got different quests from the hobbits, and NPCs appeared and disappeared. From reading the release information, I think that our players will encounter different content based on race, class, quest progress, and possibly other hidden state variables. In advance, I don't know if you will see an un-named NPC where I see a quest-giver, or vice versa. I have no idea how the content differences will appear to fellowships who are at different points in the game.

I think we (the contributors to lotro-wiki) will need to more careful about capturing enough details for pages as we go, lest a different player have a different experience. I am a cautious explorer at heart, so I don't mind doing that. With some quests though, I have just played through, with the thought that I would take more time with a later player. I'm not sure any more that other players will have the same experience.

RingTailCat (talk) 20:37, 1 August 2011 (EDT)

I find a lot of references to things which "might have been" but which are definitely not there now after the various big Turbine revisions... The four starting areas, the Lone Lands, Evendim and the Moors (and I just found one in GF)... are littered with NPCs which have been moved or deactivated (i.e. quest eliminated) and the wiki not updated appropriately. I just fixed a number of Dwarves that way in the Lone Lands and have been "finishing" a bunch in GF. The Moors is rife with "stuff" from the original release when the level cap was 50... and it WILL suffer the same issue again with Isengard as the Level Cap is again increased, this time to 75. Those are simple level adjustments. But with a new Creep Class promised (at least one), there are likely to be significant quest changes as well.

As for Enedwaith and the Rangers. NPCs (Rangers) appear in Enedwaith which continue to exist in other areas. But some, like Candaith (Rivendell) have references, which I have never encountered. But then I have not completed all 3 Volumes. In the first Enedwaith location Echad Dagoras there are two rangers who only appear AFTER they are rescued in successful completion of certain quests. They then give additional quests. I see a page Halbarad (Eregion) but, like that page, I have no information. I suppose it may be a Volume III reference, but all I can say is that it is definitely not V1 or V2.

I have heard stories about different races getting different quests, but so far have not encountered any. Quests where it supposedly happened, I got the same quests for man/dwarf/elf. I would love to know who I should talk to as I have one of each race (except my hobbit is only lvl2 :)) and most classes.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 23:04, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

Re: Varying quests/quest text - the quests assigned for the Volume II prologue vary depending on your race; that's the only one I can think of off-hand. User:Aegya has updated the text for a few quests in Moria (specifically some dealing with Grawulun the Caerog) where differences arise depending on the player's race. Regarding NPCs that appear and disappear, that information should probably be noted on their page ("Soandso is only present after completing suchandsuch," or "is only visible when engaged in quest thisthatortheother."). Just my two cents. :-P Sethladan 23:18, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

Halbarad (Eregion) and Halbarad (Eregion) are a case in point, where you met him in Rivendell in Vol 3 Book 2 quests. And later on the road through Eregion. By Vol 3 Book 3, he is in Enedwaith. Part of the confusion is my fault. I did not fill in the quest involvement section when I created the NPCs. I have a second toon about 20% through level 64. I am going to be more observant while I do the Grey Company and Enedwaith quests with him.

The quest giver for the race specific quests is Rhus Cornchúthur. RingTailCat (talk) 02:17, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

Fascinating... have only done the Enedwaith quests on two Dwarf's since the V3 beta ... been working on getting them "World Renown," and just recently started trying to level up my Lore Master (Elf) who has been parked in the Crafting Hall in Esteldin, playing mule, for the past couple of years. In Kin discussions of the Isengard announcement and how this "Phasing technology" will play out "I've been told that all the races get all the quests, just not from the same NPC or with the same pre-requisite tasks... don't know, haven't been looking for it.

From the Massively interview... "Fortunately, for those who might be a little tired of typical questing, Turbine's experimenting heavily with phasing technology this time around. This means that the game world will begin to react to your actions, changing as you complete quests. Phasing isn't completely new to the game -- Turbine's already included it in past updates -- but the expansion will utilize it so much more than ever before."

Kin's comment was ... think of the opening of Mirkwood. First time in things are different than after you complete quests. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

Phew ... just finished Volume iii Book 2 Chapter 3 Quest:Chronicle: The House of Isildur (session play), please look it and Quest:Chapter 2: The Grey Company in Rivendell -- I've filled in a lot of the xxx(Rivendell) NPCs.

Note that the Session Play overlaps with the Moors... especially Ranger Play!

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 23:55, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

Looks good! RingTailCat (talk) 00:08, 5 August 2011 (EDT)

Alignment

Was wondering if you knew from an inspect if Rat-catcher has Evil as alignment. Alignment states on which side creatures are: that of Sauron, the free peoples, or their own. It doesn't have to do with if they are aggressive or not. Lynxes are solitary animals and thus often Neutral, even if they attack upon sight. I used to be confused by this in the beginning myself, so were just thinking of telling you. Perhaps all encounter mobs are Evil though, I don't know. Sorry in advance if you already know this. ;-) --Ravanel (talk) 06:22, 5 August 2011 (EDT)

You are right - I jumped to the unjustified conclusion that he was Evil due to his presence as an encounter mob in the Skirmish. Usually I avoid making that assumption, and leave that detail to a Lore-master. My Lore-master is not high enough level to run this Skirmish. RingTailCat (talk) 06:27, 5 August 2011 (EDT)

No worries! Perhaps one of these days I'll have the opportunity to check Rat-catcher out myself. --Ravanel (talk) 06:44, 5 August 2011 (EDT)

Text-shadow

Hiya! Saw that you were fiddling around with CSS to hide text-shadow on your skin. Since it doesn't yet work with IE (yay, CSS 3...), it's definitely problematic and can lead to some text being essentially invisible for a lot of our users. If you come up/experiment with any better ideas for the qc-text and the icon stack numbers displays, please do share so we can all benefit. :) Sethladan 15:56, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

I tried a bunch of combinations. I'd just as soon have plain black text. The quality of the reward item is signaled by the icon background, and if not, there is always the tooltip. The text shadow effect is one way of making the yellow (e.g.) text stand out on the white background of the default skin. I think I may have tried to try some combinations that I did not actually try due to the requirement for an edit summary. I had a slow connection at the time I was testing, and I was flipping tabs without waiting for the vector.css page to refresh completely.

I am not so bothered by the icon stack issue, although I think it would be more visible to separate the icon and count. Even in game, that arrangement is sometimes difficult to see. We are not short on screen real-estate, so we don't need to pack the two values together like the game does. I think for the icon stack, I would prefer to also see the count as text. I run the game in a window on a 2048x1152 monitor, and view it through worn-out eyes. I usually have this site, plus several other windows open on my other monitor.

I have always been conscious of standard conformance and usability guidelines in my own pages, trying to design them so I can put W3C badges for HTML 4.01 (or later standards) and WAI-A on them.

RingTailCat (talk) 16:43, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

I made a new vector.css which changed the colored text with shadow effect to black with no shadow. When I did this, I noticed that the text for the different rewards had different spacing between the icon and text. It looks like there is an extra " " generated for the {Reward|xxx} template that is not present for the {{IXP|#}} or {{Quest Rep|faction|#}} templates. The extra space looks better to me. RingTailCat (talk) 17:08, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

(Whee, editing at the same time)
Hear, hear! with regards to standards and conformance. I'm not in the programming/web design professions, but I do try to keep "best practices" in mind when possible. I guess there's a dynamic tension here between adhering to how the game presents things, what's most informative, and what just plain looks cool. The stack overlay bit serves two of those at the expense of the third, I suppose.
By the by, as far as I know, edit summaries aren't required. Take a look at your preferences and see if you're got "Prompt on blank edit summaries" checked or something. I know I edit pages all the time without bothering to summarize because I consider the intent obvious from the changes that were made.
Back on the topic of text-shadow, I may have to end up agreeing with you that the visual appeal of colored links/item names may not outweigh the issues (as above, mostly for IE users, I think?) with the shadows not showing as intended (or at all).
And WHY do you torment your eyes with that kind of resolution? I run the game on the lowest setting and still strain to see things at times, hahah. Sethladan 17:12, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

There are always unintended consequences to every change. The qc-rare, etc. classes are also used for the item text by the {{Lootbox|...}} template (and maybe elsewhere?), so my lootboxes now come out with black text on a dark gray background. Still visible, but not looking great. I did not notice that the shadow effect was occuring there as well. This suggests that the solution to my problem may require global changes to the skin CSS so that the reward template uses a different class from the lootbox template. I'm not sure that I want to take that change on myself. CSS has always made my brain hurt! RingTailCat (talk) 19:16, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

If it's used on Lootbox... ~checks~ Yup. It's used by Tooltip, so you're probably seeing those unintended consequences on every item page, too? It's like a devilish game of pick-up sticks... Sethladan 20:10, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

Talking about unreadable "stuff" .... look at Brunanc, Worm-sire Blue on Black ("Fair") is virtually invisible. Interestingly, both in Safari and Firefox (don't know what it looks like in IE or Chrome), In-game it is just as unreadable) I used to haring on "presenters" who insisted on using Blue backgrounds with Black lettering and vice-versa in their Power Point presentations ... "It looks beautiful on my PC" why doesn't the projector show it that way." Argh!!! [I too push W3C badges, etc. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 22:36, 8 August 2011 (EDT)

(not sure where to indent this any more...)

Basically, I have disabled my changes to vector.css - it is impossible to specify a text color which will be readable on all background colors. In my case, the item title text is displayed on a white background by the Reward template and a black background by the Item tooltips. You cannot arbitrarily adjust the foreground and background independently. They must be synchronized to avoid the invisible (black on black) or painful (blue on black) combinations. We need to be able to define a reverse effect, something like what happens when you highlight the blue on black text on Brunanc, Worm-sire. I quickly looked through my favorite CSS site: Index D O T Css and found nothing applicable. For now, I've given up on getting rid of the text shadows. RingTailCat (talk) 04:31, 9 August 2011 (EDT)

Duh...?

Thanks for spotting that one..... Ok... So why could I not find that quest when I searched for it? .... and then when I tried to create the quest using the help/create-quest page... that page simply "failed" ... i.e. never resolved.

So I just used the "page not found, create it" link from the search...

Was that the page with the missing space in the title? I've got spoiled by Google search. I expect the engine to be very smart about case folding, misspellings and such. By the way, check out the Enedwaith Quests and Category:Enedwaith Quests pages to help detect some of the quests that are still missing. RingTailCat (talk) 21:25, 11 August 2011 (EDT)

Skirmish Categorization

Actually we have been discussing this in the chatroom. Skirmish mobs will be recategorized and when that happens we will put that in Location (taking away the default skirmish we've been putting there. Plus for future reference to your pages, the category tree is nice but all instances (skirmishes will include this rule) are categorized inside the location of the creature template as "instance" mobs. If the instance isn't in the template categorization, then we add it there. "instance" creatures categories are not correct. So for now, skirmish mobs are not categorized properly, but will be. Rogue (talk) 14:12, 23 August 2011 (EDT)

Ok. So for now, any mob found in a skirmish must have the location set to Skirmish. It sounds like the plan is to change the "location = Skirmish" to "location = <skirmish name>" for skirmish mobs, so that the template will generate any needed categorization. Is there a timetable for this change? Anything we can do now to assist that later process? Are the chat logs published? Are the decision points summarized someplace for those of us that missed the chat or have just arrived on scene? RingTailCat (talk) 14:32, 23 August 2011 (EDT)

Keep in mind that any "significant" changes based on today's structure many need to change on 27 September with Isengard. For example, according to Dev notes, major changes in traits (including naming conventions) are coming, as well as Changes with Monster Play. See: https://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1370-rise-of-isengard-captain-developer-diary-?lang=en_US left hand column... "New Stat Updates" as well as the other diaries. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 21:59, 23 August 2011 (EDT)

And I keep forgetting about Orion.... his blog... https://my.lotro.com/user-55/2011/06/15/minstrel-update-first-finale/ (this is on the Minstrel update for Isengard... He has a whole series of blogs on up-coming changes. Nominally all are "design documents" as they are all roughly May-early June postings. Kelsan's notes on Monster play are here... https://my.lotro.com/user-1317796/ ... btw in case you didn't notice Orion is a "senior developer" he's user-55! Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 22:18, 23 August 2011 (EDT)

That's indeed the basic idea, RTC. As far as IRC chats are concerned: no they cannot be logged, so the best option is just to get into there and discuss it with us yourself! ;-) Some contributors log in regularly. I myself am always found there when I'm contributing. The most important thing though is that we don't want any manually added categories on creature pages, for this has always lead to chaos and inconsistent categories in the past. Nothing new here. Either way, the biggest nut to crack now is to decide how to call the skirmishes under Location. Fo we want "skirmish" in it mentioned or not? And... skirmish names are usually horribly long.

As for Magill: I don't think the upcoming changes will affect the existing skirmish names. In my experience they always keep existing content (in the sense of instances) the same, with the exception of scaling old ones. Since skirmishes are already scalable, I don't expect major changes that would effect this specific point here. --Ravanel (talk) 07:32, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

Actually, IRC chats can easily be logged, just as in-game chats can be logged. The technique all depends on the client. With the Mac IRC client I use - Clloquy -- it's called a transcript and you can initiate it at any time, or select an option to have it log everything automatically. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 21:57, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

NPC categories

I noticed you went in and added categories to some images I added. Should I be doing that every time I upload an image? Or just NPCs? Or just named/quest NPCs? Let me know, I'll do it myself next time and save someone else the work - I just didn't know! -Adelas (talk) 12:14, 11 October 2011 (EDT)

Adding the categorization to images and icons when you upload them is very helpful, and recommended, but like everything else, not required. If you are unsure of how to categorize something, don't worry about it; just use a general category. I would suggest browsing the Category:Images category tree to get a feel for how images are organized. Also the Category:Icons for icons. There are also some help pages relating to images found through the Help:Contents pages. The wiki is a collaborative effort. Please don't feel that a modification to something you upload or write is a criticism. If you looked through the recent changes that I made at the same time, you will see that I fixed up images created by several people, including myself! Thanks for the contribution. RingTailCat (talk) 08:50, 12 October 2011 (EDT)

LOL I saw you removed the stub/image from draig-luth raider. did you SEE that horrible image I uploaded? it's like 100x100 px.... I'll leave the stub thing off since you think that's better, but I originally tagged it so that it would show up in the list and eventually get it replaced. Maybe once I get another character up high enough level to run the quest again... hehe. -Adelas (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2011 (EDT)

And I thought it was just an action shot of the raider hustling to stick a sword in you! You make a good point, though, so I rolled back my change. RingTailCat (talk) 13:25, 13 October 2011 (EDT)

Hehe, well technically it was... but he was like 30m away. But that's not why I came here. NOW I'm coming to ask about Rhianu and Wunne (Galtrev) and the Labourer title/role. Do they serve any purpose as labourers? Is Labourer more significant than just a "pseudo-faction", so to speak? Is there a quest that says "find any/all labourers"? I guess what I'm asking is whether it's important to have a category for "Labourer NPCs" (autocreated when you put it in role) and whether it's anything more than flavor text in the floating name. :) In short, I thought I would roll it back, but I realized there could be something I'm missing. :-D -Adelas (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2011 (EDT)

I like categories. And I prefer deep rather than wide category trees. So that shapes the way I try to categorize things. I also like items to have multiple categories, preferably ones which are orthogonal, in the sense that they classify an item by different dimensions. If I worked for Turbine, and had access to the game code, I suppose I could say definitively whether "Labourer" was a title or a role, and if it had any "meaning".

Using role instead of title in the Template:Npcbox generates an additional categorization. Given my attitude towards categories, I just can't pass up something for free! This may be completely useless, and I really had no idea where it might go when I did it. This morning, tough, I saw a page about the labourers on the roof of the inn in Frogmorton. But they are part of the scenery only. In Dunland, with the phasing technology and the racial quests, it is hard to know ahead of time which NPCs are going to be important. And how they will play a part in the story. Perhaps, when I have finished everything in the Rise of Isengard expansion, I will be able to go back and say that this classification was useless. At this point though, I don't really know. Hopefully, putting in extra information like this will not stress the wiki server too much, and, you never know, it may turn out to be useful.

BTW, I have been using the "Stub/Image" to flag my poor quality images as well. RingTailCat (talk) 14:04, 16 October 2011 (EDT)

Instance Tusks of the oar

I think I finished up the missing parts... also a bunch of notes in the walkthrough.

Man... that is one tough quest to finish (seemed easier in the beta). Lvl 71 Hunter with 3 warriors.

Your Under construction tag is still there... Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 23:12, 24 October 2011 (EDT)

I died between the last kill and the horse, and have never been back to finish. Please go ahead and add the bits you learned, and remove the under construction and stubs, if the pages are done. RingTailCat (talk) 23:19, 24 October 2011 (EDT)

Search and CreateArticle Extension

Can you test drive the Search engine again :) .. Believe I crushed a few more bugs. Also I noticed your suggestion in the Sidebar page, you might look into CreateArticle as you can also create your own user templates or even add some that are missing for the wiki --Lotroadmin (talk) 01:45, 26 October 2011 (EDT)

I went to create a redirect for a new page with accented characters earlier this evening, and it asked if I meant the page with the accents. Something is definitely working right when that happens. The search box on this page seems to be suggesting with an appropriate list of choices now. I tried with "tal m" and say suggestions for "Tâl Methedras", so it was folding case and equating accented and unaccented chars. Also a search for "draig-lu" suggests "Draig-lûth ..." names. Very good. I didn't do any checks related to new vs old pages to explore the completeness of the indexing. All of the pages I looked at have recent revisions. RingTailCat (talk) 01:58, 26 October 2011 (EDT)

I was watching this page, saw this convo, and thought I'd chime in, since I've had so many troubles with this lately. I had my personal nemeses actually appear in a search today - omg! (those are Item:Warrior's Thick Brass Earring and Item:Reinforced Leather Dunlending Gauntlets) and although I didn't go directly to the page even when I typed in the full name (all lower case), they did come up in the search results. So that's an improvement. and I am also glad to see that dunedain gives Dúnedain and so on. -Adelas (talk) 22:51, 26 October 2011 (EDT)

Quest:Tusks_of_the_Boar

I completed Quest:Tusks_of_the_Boar (remembering to turn on chat logging) and took a bunch of pictures... :}

Help talk:Names

Check out the talk page... I created a Halbarad (Collective) page for as far along the Epic as I have gotten thus far. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magill (Contribs • User Talk) at 2011.10.30.

See Talk:Halbarad (Collective) RingTailCat (talk) 16:42, 30 October 2011 (EDT)

Generic Effect Icons

Hi! Ravanel and I are currently working on consolidation of effect icons, and I noticed that you uploaded a duplicate of one of the icons we're done with for your Unjustly Enriched page. It would be great if you could use the generic icons instead of uploading new ones (saves us a lot of work)! This way we only need one file for multiple pages, which keeps the storage of the wiki lower and makes it easier to track down specific icons. We're not done with the project yet, but the following pages you could already use. We tried to give every icon a logical name, so once you've wrapped your head around the naming guidelines we've used, you should be able to fill in icon names without having to look them up:

• Category talk:Acid Effect Icons
• Category talk:Armour Effect Icons
• Category talk:Aura Effect Icons
• Category talk:Defence Effect Icons
• Category talk:Healing Effect Icons
• Category talk:Offence Effect Icons
• Category talk:Shadow Effect Icons

As a side note, effect icons on Creature pages should have a size of 25 pixels. See Boilerplate:Creature for more info.

Thanks in advance! //Fingolwë (talk) 14:20, 31 October 2011 (EDT)

I'm gradually moving the generic icon lists to the category page itself, just like it's done for item icons. An example: Category:Acid Effect Icons. I think it's easier to track down generic icon names that way, because you don't have to go to the talk page (one extra click). I'm removing the brackets above to prevent the creation of red links. --Ravanel (talk) 14:19, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Old Snappy

Hey - I noticed you removed some text from the Old Snappy location description. It was my understanding that he is ONLY found within that instance (and then only if you fish up the correct item), and he would not spawn in the normal landscape. If this is correct, the text I had in there is useful to prevent people from running out to the Dunbog looking for a creature they'll never find. If I was wrong, please let me know. -Adelas (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2011 (EST)

I see your point. However, I don't believe we record that quest dependency in quite the format you used. Having the Quest Involvement section is a bit of a clue. Hopefully, by the time folks get to doing level 75 quests they know that the phasing technology really messes with the old expectations. NPCs, creatures, even landscapes, change depending on your quest progression as well as current instance.

I initially thought that these mobs should be handled by setting the location to the instance name. I don't really understand why some instances get a separate category for their mobs, while others do not; so I did not want to modify the creature template.

On occasion, I have added a Note sub-section for descriptions and explanations. Perhaps that would make it clearer to others. All the other mobs that are exclusive to that instance, some 15+ if I count correctly, would need the same treatment though, I expect. RingTailCat (talk) 23:00, 16 November 2011 (EST)

Hey there. Indeed we don't have anywhere specifically written down how to describe the location of such an instance mob, but I think we can pretty much keep the format we use for all the creatures, which is: to describe in such terms the location of a creature that people understand where it is found. I think how Adelas did that was much clearer than removing that sentence all together; on first sight it looked now as if Old Snappy was a landscape mob. Actually all instance mobs (should) have information about in what instance they are found under Location.

Removing the location in the template was sort of my fault: I saw "Dunbog" and automatically assumed the area name was used instead of the region name. I didn't realize it was an instance mob. Categorization of quest instance mobs is a tricky thing, though. If done, it should be by the instance name, of which we go by the spelling under the mini-map. But quest instances sometimes have a different name than under the mini-map. I don't want a category "Dunbog Mobs" because people will without doubt put landscape creatures in that category, or worse, will go create categories like "Carreglyn creatures" etc etc. That is unnecessary confusion.

First rule for quest instance mob: only make a special category for them if it is really needed (e.g. there are many of them, and they are very different from the usual creatures in an area, for instance 20 levels higher), otherwise just describe where they are found under Location. I think in these case, the creatures can live with being together with the other Dunland creatures.

About Notes: this section is not found in the template and should be avoided. If your notes are about where/how to find the creature, this can go under Location. If your notes are about how to defeat this creature, this can go under Tactics. --Ravanel (talk) 02:29, 17 November 2011 (EST)

I think the way it reads now is clear and concise. It adds "when" to the location, without getting too complicated. RingTailCat (talk) 03:19, 17 November 2011 (EST)

I'm satisfied with your solution, RTC. Not that you need my approval, but since I started the topic I thought I'd come back and put in my 2 cents. Thanks guys. -Adelas (talk) 13:50, 17 November 2011 (EST)

Heathfells Quests

I'm not sure how the quest chains/prerequisites are handled, but the three quests I just added are in a small chain in that order: Quest:Failure to Communicate > Quest:Flagon Morale > Quest:Caught in a Vice. Maybe you know where to put that information? For everything else I tried to follow the pattern of other nearby quests that are already wikified. -- Elinnea (talk) 18:38, 17 November 2011 (EST)

I got stuck trying to solo Instance: Rohirrim Herald, and have not done those yet. I added those quests in (what I think is) the correct place in my Sandbox-3 page. Thanks. RingTailCat (talk) 19:00, 17 November 2011 (EST)