User talk:RingTailCat/Sandbox-4-example icons

Searching for already existing legendary item icons I found this page. Unfortunately there are some Third Age icons that are different with each level, for example maces, and the actual layout of this table will not be enough. Good news are the icons are the same for all classes.

• Do you mind if I edit your sandbox or should I do my own version?
• Do you know if the current icons were extracted from a lossless o losy source? Some of them are clearly from .jpg (bow, for example). I got my own versions from .png screenshots, but dont want to upload yet another version if the same icon if there is a correct one currently.

Moinante (talk) 12:51, 9 November 2012 (EST)

I create icon files from the ScreenShot####.jpg saved when I do an in-game screen capture from a 2030x1059 window or 2048x1152 screen. I use the Opaque skin, which provides for a pure black background for tooltips, rather than the default semi-transparent background. I clip out the icon and save it directly to a 32x32 .png file. I do all image manipulation with Paint.NET.

I only collect the screen shot for an legendary item prior to identifying the item. In fact, I almost always take that screen shot from the tooltip that pops up when I hover over the unidentified item in the forge-master panel, just before clicking to identify it. I believe that at the instant you identify a LI, it transitions from a generic item (which is the same for everyone who has one) to a specific instance of the item (that is unique in the game), and that the specific icon that the unidentified item had is locked-in.

A very serious problem, which arose in the past, resulted from an assumption that observing a different icon for a specific instance of a legendary item implied that the icon was changed for all other legendary items which had previously in the game shared the same icon. With the release of the Rise of Isengard expansion, and raising the level cap from 65 to 75, some legendary items with a minimum level of 66 or higher were given different icons in the game. Some of us editors (my self included), wrongly changed the shared icon images used on our wiki for legendary item with minimum levels of 51 through 65 to be the icon for LIs with min levels of 66 and above. In some cases, as well, the initial no-minimum-level LIs granted as quest rewards while earning the ability to use LIs, have different icons from the LIs found as landscape drops and purchased from vendors.

I built this check list page to capture the full palette of legendary icon images. (I have other, even more detailed, pages.) I have not revisited it since the Riders of Rohan expansion, so it does not (yet) include bridles. I have played around with calculating the correct icon for a legendary item given the minimum level, class, age, affinity, origin (crafted, reforged, reshaped).

You can help keep this page up to date, but please limit changes to icon file names, and check marks. Let's talk about it if you see a need for more significant changes. If you like, you can take a copy, but please add a link to and from your page, if you do. I am setting all the checks to blank, and adding a note about when to change the link.

-- RingTailCat (talk) 15:20, 9 November 2012 (EST)

I made another legendary item table in User:Moinante/Sandbox-2. As you can see there are weapons that seems they dont change their icon and another weapons that every level is different. In the table there are only items I found until now. My aim is to have generic icons with names like weapon 1-icon, weapon 2-icon... in level order, I only uploaded icons for those whose first levels are known and then used existing icons to fill other cells. I have checked if the icon changes when you identify it, but never saw any change.

I added too a link to a shared folder where I put lots of data I collected to figure out how legendary items are dropped and shown ingame. As you can see in the txt list, it seems that certain creatures drops only items in their level. I saw some creatures dropping legendary items that are a lower level that themselves and need to check if they can drop a higher level item. I reckon they have a drop table for every internal creature ID. For example, if you have a mob that can be level 59 or 60 any of them can drop level 59 or 60 items independently of their own level.

-- Moinante (talk) 21:19, 21 November 2012 (EST)

I have never seen a mob drop an LI with a minimum level different than it's own level. Please verify that.

I notice the different icons for Maces. Be careful to distinguish between crafted (and reforged and reshaped), vended, dropped and quest reward legendary items; and don't ignore the class and affinity!.

Like all items in the game, unidentified legendary items are versioned. When the characteristics of the item are changed by the developers, they may create a new item with the same name, but different internal id or they may modify the existing item. Your old item may or may not get upgraded to the new version, depending on the implementation of the patch or if the item is in the personal or shared vault or house chest. Some patches have changed the icons for new LIs. Whether that change is applied to all LIs that existed prior to the patch is hard to say. The bottom line is that you need to be careful to use the latest icon. While an icon was the correct one at the time you took the screen shot, it may not now be the right one for a LI newly acquired in the game.

The biggest difficult that I see with using generic icons arises from what to do when you see an icon change. You now have a single exception to the generic icon. That is insufficient information to justify changing the icon for all the items that share the generic icon. You simply do not know how extensive the change is. Before you can change the generic icon, you need to verify that all the items sharing that icon now use the new icon. That is a large task, made more difficult by the fact that you may not be able to re-acquire items given as quest rewards, without leveling up a new character.

Legendary items are much different from other items in some very significant ways. The big wins from consolidating icons for non-legendary weapons, armour and trophies are comparatively easy. For legendary items, it is a matter of continual data collection, re-collection, and repeated generalization.

RingTailCat (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2012 (EST)