User talk:Islandking/Archive 2

Back to answer
Greetings, Islandking!

Sorry for not answering earlier – was off a couple days.

Looks like I still have to learn a many things about NI – never used the "View area" feature before, and it is much more than I expected! Thanks for hinting me to this …

Okay, I'll wait with my "maps".

As for one of your requests for an NI update – a workaround for your spell look-up might be to use xxx Keepers spell browser in addition, where you can sort by type (innate, priest, wizard (default)), level and name' (and code).

And yes, I noticed your comment on my codes' forum post … well, as far as I know that wasn't the case in the old editions of the games, same codes being used for the scroll and the spell. I'll take a look into this.

For the icons: I think, there's no need to display a pre-EE icon in the gallery if it's not totally different from the EE one – as indeed is the case with the Sword of Grief. If it's only a minor visual overhaul of the original icon, the classic one could simply be replaced. Though, if they are very different, it'd possibly be a better solution to place both icons in the IB, rather than to use a gallery for it that's located on a completely other place on the page …

We could introduce tabbed infoboxes for differences between classic and EE variants of all things, as FR is doing for the various ruleset editions. What about this?

Why do I keep myself away from EEs? ;) Of course you might ask …

I started playing BG in 1999 – and over the time it became and remained my favorite game of all times. (I'm speaking of part 1.) Also the one with the most playthroughs.

Though playing BGT nowadays, I never added large expansion mods, only small things like Unfinished Business. I think, the game's/games are big enough as it is/they are. For the same reason I didn't like the additions that came with the EE – the new companions and areas and – lately – the story expansion for between the both games.

Since I have started to use this wiki and giving thoughts to my own "improvements" to the games, I, however, see some good reasons to consider EE content. This extends to the wiki as well: I think we should overhaul the BG1 area articles and move away from some old dudleyville naming scheme or simply using directions – to the new naming from the EEs. Thoughts?

One thing remains, however: I see a lot of screenshots from the EEs that show characters with a fat, dark outline. Is this the visual style of the EEs? That ugly feature alone would be reason enough to not play those editions …

Thanks for the feedback, regarding CE/VE and IE11. I think I noticed a change since then, but am not sure about it. I'll get back to this if it gets important some day …

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:24, October 15, 2017 (UTC)

Your edit on Larze
Hi.

What's the reason behind replacing my template with plain code – with the exact same formatting (except the link) but requiring more space? |alignment = Neutral Chaotic Evil vs. |alignment = NeutralBG Chaotic EvilBG:EE -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 20:03, October 15, 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't apply to all templates, and not to this one. Look:

(Tested on User:CompleCCity/Sandbox01)

VisualEditor can handle this. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:13, October 16, 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I don't get it …

What do I have to do to get that specific editor you're talking about, the one where this doesn't work? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:41, October 16, 2017 (UTC)

No, what I wanted to know is, how do I get this break you mentioned. For me all looks well when this template is used inside the infobox. What I want is a proof of what you're saying. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:51, October 16, 2017 (UTC)

Okay, then I'm sorry for bothering you.

There are way too many ways to use the way too many modes of editing … ;) Got me some time and edits to find the specific combination that produces this error.

So, that's the solution? Leave templates out of templates? Forever and all times? I hope, they're working on this … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:33, October 16, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Staff of the Ram damage
I do really think, I understand those mechanics, but only to be sure I uploaded an NI screen:

STAF22.itm has only 1 ability which defines the 1d6+12 crushing damage, Dice size = 6 Damage bonus = 12 Damage type = Crushing (2) but no bonus damage.
 * 1) dice thrown = 1

There are 3 effects: Wing buffet (=knock back; Effect 0), Sleep (=stun) and Display portrait icon (Sleep). None of them has additional damage (dices).

So in EE there are 4 effects at least? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:58, October 16, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Staff of the Ram damage 2 and more
Yes, latest GOG, unmodded (at least the files I use for research).

First: I'm no fan of cited in-game descriptions in general – their content could be implemented in the intro section of an article and/or in a background section. But as the description, as well as a possible background, are somehow a core component of an article, the lead section, they always should come first. (Also it looks better, when the Quote of the description serves as an introduction right after the TOC and isn't placed amidst other sections.)
 * As for "inconsistencies" in page layout/section order

Acquisition is important for items – and scrolls are items! – and quests. And I agree that it's the first step in a quest's walkthrough. A quest, however, has no "description", only journal entries which can be/are placed in their own section.

Follows, what I think is plausible, logical and comprehensible:


 * QUEST
 * Intro
 * Acquisition
 * Walkthrough
 * Reward(s) I'm not sure whether to use singular or plural for this.
 * Notes, Bugs, etc.
 * Journal I'd call this "Journal", not "Journal entries".


 * ITEM
 * Intro
 * Background/In-game description
 * Acquisition
 * Upgrade information – where applicable, including upgrader, cost, differences Exact layout of this has to be further elaborated.
 * Gameplay
 * Notes, Bugs, etc.


 * SPELL
 * Intro
 * In-game description/Background For spells I would use the description, rather than a background … I think …
 * Acquisition (of scroll = item)
 * Gameplay
 * Notes, Bugs, etc.

You see? That's not inconsistent. The quest article layout is the only one without a section before "Acquisition", and only because it per se lacks a description. And although for most readers the acquisition of an item is the most important thing to those pages, intro and background/description in most cases are not that long, so that one would have to scroll to get to the acquisition.

Spells often cite AD&D ruleset descriptions and in many cases have much more text than item descriptions. Would this justify their use instead of a self-created background section? And what about extensive and lore related descriptions of some magical items? There exist some pretty long ones, too …
 * In-game description vs. background section

As there are already differences between BG1 and BG2 descriptions of the same object, and further alterations between non- and EE-versions, I think it would be best to use the in-game descriptions only as long as there hasn't been written a background. That background can cite uniquely or well worded content from the description, but also could implement further information from related FR articles. And, as for spells, isn't the mechanics and effects information from the infobox more useful than those descriptions?

Ah … not sure about this.

What's really inconsistent, is that some item articles use "Acquisition", while others use "Location". That should be consistent – and I prefer the former term.
 * The real inconsistency

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:27, October 17, 2017 (UTC)

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:32, October 17, 2017 (UTC)
 * Two more things
 * 1) The official abbreviation for pounds is "lb" – without "s" and period. (But sorry for forgetting them at all …)
 * 2) Why do you replace the appearances' whole game name links with those unlinked abbreviations?

I'm happy for you!
I'm so happy for you that you found somebody for creating a really nice Siege of Dragonspear Walkthrough here! Of course I looked at it already and will continue to do so!

I'm still abroad and don't have SoD yet. This woman/man seems to present a wonderful Walkthrough! Excellent!

Congrats!

Gejadus (talk) 00:49, October 18, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Hello Faalagorn how are you?
Hi :). Yeah, I kinda dropped out, been busy with RL and the remaining time I spent on some other things beside BG:EE, but I hope I'll finally get out to finishing it lol. I see you made a talk archive, that's good and was actually wanting to suggest that seeing how lengthy our conversations were – still have to do that for my someday :P. Also I see you liked the idea of custom signature, similar to what I've been using on various wikis for a while :).

Replying to your question, sadly it's only available for those SoD areas exclusively – as Beamdog filled them as "cheatAreas" in BGEE.LUA file, so the names appear in the debug console available upon pressing Ctrl+Space. They can be found either in-game or explored in NI under LUA -> BGEE.LUA file.

For BG2:EE (and if I remember correctly BG:EE without SoD) unfortunately only this stub is available: cheatAreas = { {"BD0010", "Test"}, }

I think PST:EE have the cheatAreas named filled in, as I saw a report about correction in this in Redmine, see Feature #32145 – I don't own PST:EE to check though, and I didn't check that for IWD:EE either, but that's not relevant.

There's a chance this will be added later on, as the "cheatAreas" is remain to be populated in non-SoD EE games (let's see what 2.5 update brings) – I was actually thinking of adding the cheat menu for remaining areas as a feature request on their Redmine.

Until these, the only "official" names are those that are explicitly visible on WMP maps in NI. And the best unofficial ones are those on Dudleyville.

—Faalagorn☎/✓ 19:52, October 18, 2017 (UTC)

Energyblades (Wizard) / (Priest)
Hi Islandking,

are you on the Island Iceland or are you on another one?

Thank you for fixing it BUT I want to explain to you how I got to Energyblades (wizard). I went to the Druid page and clicked on High-Level Class Abilities and Energyblades and came to those from the Wizard instead of those from the Priest! Try it yourself please. Would be nice if you could fix it! Thanks a bunch!

I'm excited about the SoD Walkthrough! Great to have it here!

Gejadus (talk) 22:35, October 18, 2017 (UTC)

Hi Islandking,

all fine concerning the Energy Blades.

Gejadus (talk) 03:51, October 19, 2017 (UTC)

 Ranking list of the BEST SOLO Walkthrough PROTAGONISTS 

Hello Islandking,

I just created a ranking list of th best Solo Walkthrough players on the Gejadus Walkthrough list. What's your opinion about the best Solo Player? Do you want to leave a comment?

Gejadus (talk) 03:54, October 19, 2017 (UTC)

Solo Walkthroughs
Hello Islandking,

thanks for your reply! I'm often surprised how much you know about all the stuff. I didn't know anything about this exploit page and to be honest it's not really my thing.

I went to the Beamdog Forum and had a look again at the page that you recommended about two months ago.

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/62202/the-free-for-all-lob-scs-solo-challenge/p1

Is it ok to mention Harpagornis name on the Gejadus' Walkthrough page like I do or should I delete his name?

5.Ideas for future Black Pits II Solo Walkthroughs

Contents
[hide]#Gejadus' General Walkthrough (Strategy)
 * 1) Gejadus' How to defeat The Winged?
 * 2) Gejadus' Solo Walkthrough (Strategy)
 * 3) Fighter Mage Solo Walkthrough
 * 4) Dwarven Defender Solo Walkthrough
 * 5) Fighter Cleric Solo Walkthrough
 * 6) Sorcerer Solo Walkthrough
 * 7) Blackguard Solo Walkthrough
 * 8) Assassin Solo Walkthrough
 * 9) Assassin Fighter Solo Walkthrough
 * 10) Totemic Druid Solo Walkthrough
 * 11) Ranking list of the BEST SOLO Walkthrough PROTAGONISTS
 * 12) Ideas for future Black Pits II Solo Walkthroughs

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Gejadus (talk) 07:04, October 19, 2017 (UTC)

Hi Islandking,

thank you for your message again. I'll try to consider what you said.

>>> My question only was if it's ok to mention the name HARPAGORNIS on my Walkthrough page (at the bottom) or should I delete the name Harpagornis again? I don't want to break a rule or offend anybody.

Thanks!

Gejadus (talk) 07:38, October 19, 2017 (UTC)

Hello Islandking,

you are a really patient person! Excellent!

Thanks for you advice! Yes, I will make a link to Harpagornis’s profile on BD forum.

Great to have you here, Islandking!

Gejadus (talk) 09:18, October 19, 2017 (UTC)

Great picture for The Winged!
Hi Islandking,

great job! Great Picture for The Winged!

You improved this page a lot!

Thank you so much!

Gejadus (talk) 04:27, October 20, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Another case about file.suffix
I commented on the forum topic. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:23, October 20, 2017 (UTC)

Spell Progression Tables
Hi!

Following my edit on the Spell Progression Tables, I thought it would be a good idea to have separate articles for each spell-casting class, which can go further into detail and at the end can be implemented into the overview article.

I've started with Spell Progression (wizard) (until now only two tables and some sort of a really short intro section, together with a WIP notice), when I discovered that there seem to have been changes from the classic to the enhanced editions.

It would be great of you to copy/paste the file (in the classic game named MXSPLWIZ.2da), either on my talk page or hidden (inside ) on my article. I hope, there are no differences between the enhanced BG1, SoD and BG2EE (ToB) …

Many thanks! -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:13, October 20, 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! For the table and the template!

Okay, weren't any changes, unless you have a mod that changes spell progression back to non-enhanced. That means, in the original article in its current state there are some mistakes, starting at level 21 …

For the naming: I thought of a series of Spell progression (class) articles, summarized as and implemented into the existing Spell Progression Tables. I wouldn't call them all "table", and e.g. the section on Mage (Baldur's Gate) doesn't use the term, neither. Suffices to have it in the overview. Also I deviate from the present capitalizing, using upper-case only for the first part of the name.

Original source material (AD&D rulebooks) and the manuals are naming it Class Spell Progression, using upper-case for all words and putting the class at the first place, but without the use of the term "table" (well, they are in the section or headed "Tables").

I'm open to this. Personally I think, it shouldn't be over-capitalized, and as they are all the same, the articles should be disambiguated with the class as suffix. (I nevertheless would create a redirect from e.g. Class Spell Progression (and Class spell progression).) If you think, Spell progression table (class) would be the better name, then I really liked to use singular and lower-case. Searching possibly works better without "table", however.

Any opinion about the layout?
 * The implementation of the INT reqs.? Better in their own line? Parenthesis, rather than brackets? Italics yes or no?
 * The total in bold? (I'll change the coloring of that column back to standard.)
 * Anything else?

I plan to expand the intro section for the table (taking the original one, but altering it), give some more useful information, possibly add bugs, hint to differences between editions (if there are any), integrate level-game dependencies into the table and add a section with differences between the games and PnP rules. You probably noticed the expanded table for level 40. When finished, the page will go as template into the overview, though only including the main table and the most important information, with a link to the main article. Thoughts?

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:44, October 20, 2017 (UTC)

Hi there, and …

… yes, noticed!

But I didn't like your re-ordering of  and   – that seemed arbitrary. You don't have to show me that you're admin, here – I know of that.

Okay, I've renamed the page to your favored capitalization. Or at least as far as I have understood your comment on my talk page.

Why did you mention the "–" for blank cells – this is exactly what I was doing!?!

And I'm not sure if I understood that "How to group your pages …" paragraph. You plan to rename Spell Progression Tables to Spell Progression, without any suffix? Why? As for Experience Tables I would leave it as this – a compilation of mostly "tables" as an overview.

I will try to group the article(s)'s content in a way that it can be transcluded into other pages that refer to the table. Both, the overview of all these tables, and the classes. (That will not work for two different mage articles, Mage and Mage (Baldur's Gate) – are there that many differences between both, that justify an extra article? Okay, next thing: merging those …) Perhaps it will come down to the simple table, that's referred to, and no additional content, which then would be duplicated on certain pages, but that's okay, I think. We'll see …

For the Sorcerer edit: couldn't you have formatted this in a more clean way? ;) With a proper heading and leaving the unused bullet point out? Perhaps even put it at a better place? Currently this piece of information gets totally lost in the page's content …

And now I have an article to write! ;)

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:02, October 21, 2017 (UTC)

This is why I don't like that visual editor, grrr…

Sorry! But what should I think after an admin did such an arbitrary edit? I didn't know that this came from the editing mode. And that wasn't really an offense; I even thought of placing a ";)" there, but then eventually did this later in my comment.

;)

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:21, October 21, 2017 (UTC)

Now I'm confused … Do you prefer "–" or blank cells?

With all due respect to your "encouraging" thought – but it looks awful. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:52, October 21, 2017 (UTC)

Re: New templates
Uh… I followed TotSC and ToB, but notice only now that there indeed is no "SoA".

Do as you want. It's the first time that we have "The" as starting word in the title. You want to omit that?

And something for the above topic: Would you please take a look at Spell Progression (wizard) and tell me your opinion? The first paragraph uses the current continous text, but perhaps the bullet list below is better? Or what about a table (further below)? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:19, October 21, 2017 (UTC)

Re's
Hello, Ike. < that's okay? ;)

A collection of replies and thoughts, as I move through the six(!) edits of yours on my talk page …

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:55, October 22, 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah, you're right! There was something like a big picture … ;) Yes, I allowed myself to do the moves, without waiting for your answer on that topic. Needed it for the templates' use in the Experience Tables, which leads to the next topic …
 * 1) Theoretically – as I wrote – 8,950,000 points of experience are possible in The Black Pits II: Gladiators of Thay. This is not only based on the sum of the starting level (2,950,000 XP) plus the "accumulated XP gain" from the article's table, but also from various internet sources. (That's also where I found a 2da file content, listing the XP caps for the different single- and multi-classes for BP1, somewhere on beamdog's.) 8,950,000 XP means: mages can reach level 33. If this really is possible, I don't know – there might be an additional level cap 2da, or simply missing 2da entries for these levels. And if you take a look on the fighter's evolvement, they would reach even higher levels than 41: specifically 43, following the pattern. What about a test? Start a game, create a mage and a fighter, cheat them to an experience of 8,950,000 and see what happens! Or assign this task to Gejadus. I can't do it, I don't own this game …
 * 2) "Double-" indeed is better than "dual-class", and also better matches "triple". I'll change that.
 * 3) "Convert them into tables"? There is already a table! But it doesn't look good – that's why I wanted your opinion. And actually that article is about spell progression tables – would an additional table with a different context not distract from this? I even thought of omitting that piece of information, shorten it to a brief sentence, hinting to the related entries in the table (for single-class characters) and otherwise linking to the class's page or experience tables. Hm … have to rethink this. Yes – perhaps extra progression tables for multi-classes are the best idea!
 * 4) And following this, I'll get back to the related part of your elaboration later. For the general structure of the overview page (and I – as said – would retain the name and not move "Tables" to a disambig suffix!):
 * 5) two new headers, "Arcane …" and "Divine spellcasters", with the two cleric-mage classes appearing twice (perhaps; or a different solution for them)
 * 6) every table with its own header – to quickly be accessed from the TOC
 * 7) I have to take a look into the gnome's multi-classes, if it's indeed handled as a specialist mage.
 * 8) I splitted the table into "basic" and "expanded" for levels above the maximum reachable because level 40 spell progression isn't important for an unmodded game. That's only of interest for the rare case, somebody would like to know how many spells a certain opponent of a really high level might have access to. I like to leave it as this. And I don't understand what you're wanting to say with "since BG, BGII, ToB etc are already there" …
 * 9) You notice a delay? Really?? Wow, that would be the exact opposite of what I intended to achieve with all this. I'm no programmer – I can't say if the transcluded page is "opened" in the background, I don't know how this technically works. What I know is that it's horrible to edit that large page with such a number of large tables, in terms of performance. Okay, we'll see the result when all tables are done – which will take some more time. ;) As the tables are used on a number of pages (class, class-combos; in the case of the wizard additionally for the specialists) it really makes sense to have only one instance of it – else you would have to apply changes on several articles, and might oversee something.
 * 10) I plan to give each table a subpage, to be more flexible and able to link to a specific table if needed. I'll then already see on the current page, if there's a loss of performance.
 * 11) And now you're coming back to the naming … Why are you saying "Mage Spell Progression is indeed a better name than the Spell Progression (wizard) suffix"? Okay, first we should settle on the use of the general terms "mage" or "wizard". The class is named mage, but they rely on the wizard spellbook. The tables in the source material use "wizard". So I tend to use "wizard" myself. However, the source material – again – calls them "Class spell progression", but I think it's better for a series of similar pages to disambiguate them by suffix, not prefix. So I'll create a redirect from "Wizard Spell Progression", but name the page as is – "Spell Progression (wizard)". And you disagree?

Drizzt's weapons
Hi.

If I might bother you again with another research in EE? ;)

While editing Icingdeath and Twinkle, I noticed some differences between my original game files and the contents from the infobox.

Could you please check
 * the weight of SW1H16.itm (Twinkle),
 * its enchantment,
 * confirm its in-game description,
 * and check if Beast Master and Thief are indeed not able to equip it (have to be of good alignment!)?

Enchantment in BG is 0, in BGII it's 5. Weight should be 3, unless Beamdog has altered it to 4 in EE. The description only to be sure. Is a thief really not able to wield a scimitar in EE? A beast master shouldn't, theoretically, but that wasn't enabled in the item file. Fixed in EE?

By the way: I changed the "not usable by" class Cleric to Clerics, where the plural "s" shall indicate that this applies to all cleric class-combos, too. Okay?

Would be great to have your assistance, here, but do it whenever you want – it's nothing urgent. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 21:08, October 22, 2017 (UTC)

Hello, King.

Let me shortly explain the background of that nick I chose earlier – if there's uncertainty of why … Of course it was based on your user name's initial(s), I and K – when you read it as two words. It's shorter, though. And to make it pronouncable, I then went for Ike. ;) Any allusion to the tour master is totally coincidental.

Upon your answer and edits to my changes …

Certainly you meant "don't hesitate, instead of "hastate", right? At least the translations my dictionary offers me for that latter term don't make any sense. ;)

Many thanks for clarifying the item stats from the EE versions of Icingdeath and Twinkle! But now, um… it gets a bit, um… precarious …

Besides the basic facts, I disagree with most of the changes you did after my edits. Let me explain, what I mean in detail: So much for the infobox, now to the rest of the page: versus You're serious? I hope we can settle this … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:06, October 23, 2017 (UTC)
 * Changing the item group from "weapons" to "scimitars" is okay – I oriented myself by the description on the template page. If you want this "category" more specific, you might think about adjusting that description.
 * I put the values that only appear in the classic BG as second row to spare the listing of all other games' indexes, making the "default" value simply default. I even thought about putting that into parenthesis. Now you re-ordered that. Perhaps one row, without line break, and parenthesis are the better solution? Same for the proficiency type.
 * My formatting of all those game indexes, together with a link, should emulate the according templates, which shouldn't be used in the infoboxes. (In general I disagree with this bug workaround – I would use them, regardless of this making the CE-VE-combo impossible, but I respect your wishes here.) You removed all links and even broke consistency by replacing parts of them with "Classic Versions" and "Enhanced Editions". If you insist on this, okay … But I liked my variant better. (By the way, "Classic Versions" is no title or proper name and should have a lower-case "versions".)
 * What's the reason behind changing "-2 AC bonus" to "Armor Class: -2 bonus", even without a link anymore?
 * Not usable by: Is it really necessary to implement the other requirement here, when this field already is that overstuffed? I mean, what's the purpose of other requirement, if not for this case? And my choice of a small header instead of using the sup'd indexes was purely for aesthetic reasons. Again, in general it looks awful to place the sup'd indexes in front of something – they're intended as a note or index behind something, like references are.
 * Why did you add "(SoA)" to the BGII appearances? ToB has it's own index/link/template. And the items can be carried over to ToB … And why in parenthesis?
 * Why not using the source feature of the quote template to differentiate between CE and EE in-game descriptions, instead placing this as some sort of subheader?
 * Of removing my note for the reason "enhancement level, AC, THAC0 bonus are different things": the only plausible explanation that the classic games and AD&D 2e source books (see the notes on the related FR article) call this weapon "+5" is this being the sum of the two bonuses to THAC0/damage and AC. Period. The bonus to THAC0/damage or AC of almost all items equals their enchantment. So it's only logical to sum the two bonuses of this unique item up.
 * And now for the ugliest thing – please take a look at this:

Delay
Hi. Only wanted to say that I'll get back to our discussion a little later – have to read your answers again, make me some thoughts and reconsider, perhaps try some things and look into others …

Thanks for the deletion(s)! :) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 07:32, October 24, 2017 (UTC)

Exclamation mark > !
Hi Islandking and CompleCCity,

I'm an excited chess player although I don't find to play this wonderful game right now. It's also a huge effort to play chess!

In chess you can set after certain moves one exclamation mark, even two or for great awesome moves even three!

That's why!

Doesn't matter! I can only use exclamation marks on my Walkthrough page! ;-)

I'll cooperate!

Gejadus (talk) 22:35, October 24, 2017 (UTC)

Articles for mod only creatures?
Hi.

Does the appearance of a creature (unique, with quest) in a mod only justify an own article? See Mal-Kalen and Ulcaster Dungeon. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 07:08, October 25, 2017 (UTC)

So I guess, my change on the Ulcaster dungeon matches your ideas …

But, doesn't this blow up all things potentially too much? Every creature from every mod with their own article – okay. But implement them in their locations of the un-modded game? The idea's okay: as player I stumble about someone, go to this area in the wiki … and learn, they're from a mod.

But then: mod A adds char 1, mod B adds chars 2 to 5, mod C adds char 6. Mod D adds char 7 and, in case you have installed mod A, chars 8 and 9. And so on … Where to make a cut? What about changes to items? Shall we list different enchantment levels not only for the different base games, but also for mods? Where shall we end up?

I guess, additional information on default articles about changes/additions from fixing and restoration mods would be okay. Never in the infobox and default sections, and with as less information as possible and mostly pointing to the mod article – or in this case to the creature –, but in their own section on the article, e.g. "Mod-related", as I did name it in this case. Another possibility, instead of a whole section at the end, would be to make

==Characters== ===Mod-related=== But that's probably the same as you already said with "we can create something like “Mod elements” or “Mod sections” (etc names)"? (By the way – what are those quotation marks and inverted commas you always use?) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:12, October 25, 2017 (UTC)
 * A
 * B
 * D

Just wanted to point you to this, when you asked already …

The way infoboxes work on this wiki, makes this impossible. They use what I call auto-categorizing (don't know if that's the official name for the mechanic), and auto-categorizing can't be en-/disabled for certain pages without a really large effort and further coding, as far as I know – either all articles or none are auto-categorized.

Perhaps there's a possibility to cross-check categories, telling the IB template e.g. "look if CAT "mod…" is existent, then don't use integrated CAT". Perhaps not. I have to do some research, was busy with this topic some months ago …

Another option would be to disable auto-categorizing in general. Thought of that? AC brings many problems, such as redundant parent CATs. For example a clean CAT tree would have "Items" as parent and "Scimitars" as child. If you catgeorize all scimitars into CAT:Scimitars, they are also per infobox auto-categorizing part of the parent CAT – that's not how categorizing should work. So this would be my preference of sorting this problem out – because it also gets rid of other ones. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:15, October 25, 2017 (UTC)

P.S. Or you duplicate all infoboxes as a mod version, e.g. Template:Infobox mod creature – and remove auto-cat from those. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:17, October 25, 2017 (UTC)

Okay …

There are two (Gamepedia) wikis, I'm admin on, though inactive since around february this year. In the – with exceptions for certain reasons – we have such a clean category tree. In the I started cleaning them up, before I … um, lost interest/felt burnt out/vanished/choose your own accusation …

In this second one another admin largely implemented something similar to SMW. Though I began to get used to use those mechanics, I'm far away from being an expert in this matter. I am unable to set up something like this, at least currently. Talk was, that the original SMW wouldn't be enabled on Gamepedia at any time, but they were going for an alternative solution – ETA unknown (possibly same as here on Wikia). I even don't know how that works what we have there. (And possibly it even is true SMW.)

In the second wiki, auto-categorization is still active, but in a far more detailed way than here. There are parameters defined in the item infobox which already sort each type of weapon in their own child-CAT. I'm unsure, though, if this can be integrated into the portable IBs here – remember, Faalagorn told you something about the general technical differences between the two wiki hosters (as far as I remember to having read somewhere in your talks).

I've somewhen created a specific helping template (general stuff, copied from Wikipedia) that can be used to assist the auto-categorization, but that one fiddles with namespaces. Might be necessary to create a "Mod" namespace to have this work properly on this wiki here …

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:09, October 25, 2017 (UTC)

Re: About the transclusion
A quick reply – currently I'm heavily occupied with other things …

I just replied to that topic myself. But I think, a possible solution would be the splitting of the pure tables to own subpages. Or true templates – if that's the only way. (I know of large pages on other wikis, that only have large lists of transclusions on them – I don't see where the problem lies …)

Hm … Saftzie said, it wouldn't increase the load on your client. What about this? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:19, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

Gamepedia has a nice feature on the editing page's bottom after using the preview: parser profiling data with performance values. Do you know of something similar for Wikia, restricted to admins? I mean, you also seem to have some insights on page traffic and such … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:24, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

No, didn't spot anything on the Special pages (why don't you give me the link, instead do post an image? ;)

Well, don't worry, those "templates" would simply include the table code, nothing more. ;) So editing wouldn't be different than on the article itself. Do you need a lesson in tables? I could explain much, though not all. :) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:53, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm still not comfortable with the differences between the various editing modes.

Well, when they're done, there will not be much to edit on those tables, besides the layout or links perhaps.

Another thing, I noticed (not that it's really important to me): do you have an explanation why I am missing on the "Top Contributors this Week", on the right side of Special:Community? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:17, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

I think that while transclusions have some effect on performance, it's more server side rather than PC side, which may result in slightly longer page loads. However I woudn't worry too much, as it's all hosted on quite performant FANDOM servers anyway, and keep in mind that all the templates are in fact transcluded – an ease of maintaining is more important and MediaWiki should be quite optimized piece of software anyway :). —Faalagorn☎/✓ 15:00, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

"Dedicated transclusion pages" are simply templates :). The only difference between template and regular page is the namespace they belong to, and templates can be translucded via shorthand name – compare and  vs  or , the mechanic is the same except templates can be referenced without explicit namespace —Faalagorn☎/✓ 15:36, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

Game superscripts
Hello!


 * Note: This simultaneously goes to Faalagorn's talk.

Another thing I'd like to know before continuing with the spell progression tables (because it is part of them and important for the layout): Is (was?) planned to make those superscripted game abbreviations, BG etc., icons one day?

So, for example,
 * […] 1d8 +2 slashing damage – with an additional 1d4 piercing damage –, this arbitrary chosen example […]

would become
 * […] 1d8 +2 slashing damageBgee logo.png – with an additional 1d4 piercing damageBg2ee logo.png –, this arbitrary chosen example […]

I know this from a lot of other wikis. I think, it's my preferred solution.

Opinions?

Should this rather go to the board? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 08:03, October 27, 2017 (UTC)

Follow this on Re: Game superscripts … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:01, October 28, 2017 (UTC)

CE again?
Oh my, I just didn't test if that quote part would also work with, and didn't know that the template breaks the CE's VE … There are wikis that can't handle a pipe in their quote template, so I placed that sort of automatically, sorry.

Oh, and just noticed yesterday, what your use of those special apostrophes might cause, hehe … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:59, October 31, 2017 (UTC)

From the Special:RecentChanges: "contribs) moved page M’Khiin Grubdoubler to M'Khiin Grubdoubler over a redirect without leaving a redirect" Took me a while to notice what was new. ;) By the way, the text behind doesn't make much sense, "over a redirect without leaving a redirect." -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:00, October 31, 2017 (UTC)

Comments are talk pages
Hello.

First let me say that I don't have forgotten the icons, but there are more than 5,000 BAM files for BG only, and not all icons are placed in something so obviously named GUI… And there are other things to do for me, as well …

But now to what I actually wanted to say:

In a certain way I understand your removal of a small passage from an article comment, I replied to recently.

(Link to the change: Talk:Yoshimo.)

I didn't really got the meaning of those words ("pubes"?), but I'm no native speaker and know only little about street language.

But article comments are technically talk pages (see link address above). And it's common sense on wikis that other people's comments on talk pages aren't to be edited (despite perhaps some major formatting issues or to eliminate red links). But the content itself has to be left untouched by other editors, including administrators or moderators.

What you have done, is actually censorship.

So, if you found those words inappropriate, either contact the contributor and ask them to edit it by their own, or delete the whole comment. Cutting content from it isn't the right thing. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:53, November 3, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Charisma page edit
Well, in my game (classic ed.) the store prices are adjusted to the party member's charisma who's doing the talking. To clarify this: not the currently chosen member whose inventory is shown during the shopping, but of that who initiated dialog with the merchant, no matter who's the leader. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:15, November 4, 2017 (UTC)

Classes and … schools?
Hi!

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about when speaking of "NONE school". (And setting a word as all-upper-case looks ugly, by the way ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:45, November 5, 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I supposed, it'd be related to the schools of magic. But I still don't understand that paragraph … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:18, November 5, 2017 (UTC)

Re: My profile sig
Thanks!

It already has improved. (To speak frankly: "only" MDD.) I just have to carefully look how many time and energy I invest on wikiing – might have been occupied a too large part of my life in the past. (Is "condition" the wrong term, too strong?) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:45, November 8, 2017 (UTC)

Oh, oh …
I might have messed up things …

Template:Infobox item

But I did use VE … :( -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:58, November 9, 2017 (UTC)

Well, by now the message has disappeared again. Have you made a null edit?

And what's this specific code, you're talking about? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:27, November 9, 2017 (UTC)

CONGRATULATIONS!
I happened to be here again and just realized that you have become NUMBER ONE in the ranking list here! Great! You have deserved it with all your beautiful work here!

I'm not playing Black Pits II right now but enjoy playing BG II, EE! That's the real stuff!

Gejadus (talk) 11:18, November 10, 2017 (UTC)

Area names
That was a good move! :) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 07:44, November 13, 2017 (UTC)

Take a look at my first post on your current talk page here: "I think we should overhaul the BG1 area articles and move away from some old dudleyville naming scheme or simply using directions – to the new naming from the EEs. Thoughts?" [October 15, 2017 (UTC)] You never answered to this … ;)

Well, the "new" names were possibly only created as redirects. Most articles use or at least hint to both names, and in such a case a redirect is useful. But be a bit careful whith moving forth and back and … Else this happens: Error. (That's from my watchlist e-mail.)

I hope, all those names are now identical to the BG:EE map? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:43, November 13, 2017 (UTC)

Re: About Rasaad's BGIIEE gameplay
Hi islandking,

I just wrote 2,000,000. It's about 2,000,000. If you want to know exactly when I had the impression that Rasaad became really strong I can look it up.

aha, you want me to write "good" instead of "best". - Ok. I'll improve it.

I just looked at the Dorn Il-Khan (quest). At the bottom of this page is mentioned:

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition FAQ/Walkthrough by Haeravon

Why don't you put this link to the other three Walkthroughs?

In my eyes his Walkthrough is solid stuff.

Gejadus (talk) 02:56, November 14, 2017 (UTC)

I just fixed it.

Gejadus (talk) 03:03, November 14, 2017 (UTC)

Hello Islandking,

it's me again.

Sure we have nice access to the Walkthroughs like this: BROWSE > Walkthroughs

'''My question is, why don't you add Haeravon’s BGEE Walkthrough here as a fourth one beside the currently three ones? Do you not like his Walkthrough?'''

I guess concerning Rasaad I'll have a look at my saved BG II, EE data. Probably Rasaad seemed to become extremely strong at about 2,000,000 exp compared to the other Party members at 2,000,00 exp as well AND he started to be stronger just by using his fists than using a weapon like Celestial Fury.

I will have a look again.

Probably you never played such a high level monk yourself yet. They become incredibly strong because their magic resistance improves as well with each new level.

Gejadus (talk) 07:45, November 14, 2017 (UTC)

Great Idea!
Hello Islandking! This would be a great idea to have links to these two Walkthroughs on the Companion page!

Ok. I understood you now regarding the Monk Rasaad. Feel always free to improve my stuff or delete it.

Thanks!

I'm playing BG II, EE faster than expected. Soon I will face Bodhi for the second time for getting the Rynn Lathorne. Hope that Drizzt is still waiting for me.

Gejadus (talk) 22:20, November 14, 2017 (UTC)

Hello Islandking,

great that you added Haeveron's Walkthrough!

I'm done with BG II,EE. I just defeated Irenicus and started Throne of Bhaal.

I was so fast because I know what to do and the Fighter /Mage and Nalia have each Boots of Speed and Rasaad as a Monk is fast anyway. So my Party could really travel fast! I enjoyed BG II,EE a lot again. Brilliant game!

Gejadus (talk) 10:56, November 15, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Help on IB horizontal layout
My, would have been easier if you'd have left the code for an example … ;)

I'm on it. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:44, November 14, 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, take a look now, please, and then tell me what you mean exactly. Perhaps the STR? -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:56, November 14, 2017 (UTC)

Walkthrough?
Hi!

You deem that a "walkthrough?" :) So I've written my first WT! :)

Shouldn't it then be in a subpage? No, because it's doesn't really contain strategy. Right?

Is it okay? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 02:55, November 16, 2017 (UTC)

You're right. At first I thought of the large walkthroughs here, DT and BPII. But those contain these elements you're talking about. Together with their sheer size, this justifies extra articles for them. Could be named Durlag's Tower (strategy) as well, but "walkthrough" sounds better.

Well, okay, thanks. Never was a friend of detailed strategy guides – they always seem too play-style/character-build specific, they always seem to tell, "hey, look, what my party is capable of!" No, better only simple facts, perhaps with the one or other single hint, but nothing too elaborated.

Lvl 3 still misses. I'll see, if I will go back to that one – a savegame I have … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 09:33, November 16, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Bone Club's Undead effect
Hi.

Reverted the edit, placed a note on the Bone Club.

For the two abilities – I'm not sure. See for yourself, I've added screenshots of the effects (sorry for the name of the second image; you might rename it).

There's no dedicated immunity against "Stun" for Enrage, where the Barbarian Rage has "Stun" and "Power word, stun" listed. Though there's many similar effects' immunities, such as hold and paralyze … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:19, November 19, 2017 (UTC)

Hexxat
Hello Islandking,

"I see you’ve completed the Underdark, not sure of your quest completion % but if you haven’t talked to Clara (or haven’t recruited Haxxat) before you sail off to Spellhold to rescue Imoen, could you go to the Copper Coronet and talk to Clara to see if she’s still available to hire? "

You can't avoid that Hexxat/Clara addresses to you when you talk to Hendak or the former owner of the Slave Pub Copper Coronet). Hexxat/Clara just approaches you. The Swashbuckler didn't take her with him on Hexxat's Grave Quest. He didn't do the Hexxat's Quest and he hasn't recruited her. So after coming back from the Underdark the Swashbuckler will have a look if she's still in the Pub.

Gejadus (talk) 07:39, November 21, 2017 (UTC)

Hi again,

yes after coming back from the Underdark I'll make a test run with Hexxat in Dragomir's cave. It's just a test, not my real Swashbuckler Walkthrough. If I should forget it remind me please. You can always see where I'm at.

Gejadus (talk) 01:33, November 22, 2017 (UTC)

Hi Islandking,

perhaps I should just rush through the Underdark and see what's going on with Hexxat afterwards.

Gejadus (talk) 04:49, November 26, 2017 (UTC)

Hello Islandking,

the Swashbuckler is back from the Underdark and I went into Hendak's Pub in order to see if Clara (Hexxat) is still there. She in NOT! She's also not at the Graveryard District. So whoever said that you can't do Hexxat's Adventure after coming back from the Underdark is right. I guess it has to do with this that Bodhi and lots of other Vampires are already waiting for you at the entrance of the Graveyard District when you come there after having completed the Underdark.

Gejadus (talk) 22:51, November 28, 2017 (UTC)

Re: DPL, vol. 1
Hi.

For the DPL thing I need some research, but will give you feedback soon.

About the Axe of the Unyielding: fixed it. :) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:51, November 24, 2017 (UTC)

Note to myself: Next time read carefully – before speaking of "fixed" … :| -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:33, November 25, 2017 (UTC)

Regarding that: you simply negated the contribution from this anon … but where did it came from? I can't imagine, curse scrolls are random loot. Player mistake when looting, confusing the bodies? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:15, November 25, 2017 (UTC)

Boring Solo Walkthrough?
For me it was very exciting to play a Swashbuckler Walkthrough. He's extremely flexible and from level 24 on (> Use Any Item) it's lots of fun and not boring at all. It's just that it nearly got to easy for me on level Insane after getting the Staff of the Magi and the Ring of Gaxx before sailing to the Spellhold Island. My German version has only level Insane. One day I sould really get these improved difficulty versions that you already talked about.

A Fighter / Mage is my favorite Protagonist. So I want to see if I'm able to play through the whole Series except SoD that I don't have yet: BG I, ToS, BG II and Throne of Bhaal.

So when I finally buy Siege of Dragonspear (SoD) I should get a more difficu;y version of playing automatically.

I have lots to do right now so I can only play on weekends. But I'll keep in mind that you want to know if the Swashbucklers finds Clara/Hexxat still in Hendak's Pun after coming back from the Underdark.

Bye!

Gejadus (talk) 06:03, November 26, 2017 (UTC)

Re: DPL, interim
A somewhat un-elaborated, but definite statement from another wiki hoster about SMW: --  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:12, November 26, 2017 (UTC)

Re: About the area page images I
Hi, again. And thanks for consulting me on this. :)

I'm going to create one or more sandboxes, to see the different possibilities. In the meanwhile, could you point me to your old discussions about that topic? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 09:23, November 27, 2017 (UTC)

Some people …
Hi. Could you please look into this? Thanks. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:37, December 1, 2017 (UTC)

I restored my data
Hello Islandking,

thank you for you help! It's all fine!

I could restore my data!

Thanks!

Gejadus (talk) 08:32, December 3, 2017 (UTC)

Hello Iskandking,

thank you for all your great help here!

I enjoy a lot being here on this Baldur's Gate Wiki and contributing a little bit. I hope that all my Strategy stuff helps players to enjoy the Baldur's Series, Black Pits II included more!

You have a really good and nice way of dealing with people here. Thank you so much! This also gives me the impression to be welcome here.

Gejadus (talk) 23:02, December 5, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Fighter/Fighter / Thief ?
But all the multi-classes are sub-pages!?

Got something seriously wrong with that – sorry! I have reverted the related edits, though I wasn't able to "undo" the renaming, so I had to do a second. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:37, December 3, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Minor naming
Well, the current description of the Category:Area map notes definitely reads different from your proposed purpose: "Icons that appear on maps indicating the function of the placed location." ;)

I'd go for two categories, because the layered maps are different. Okay, apparently you may blend in character names in EE – which doesn't work in CE –, and also the exit ("Stairs Up" on your example), but I still don't see containers, I don't know if the names work for enemies/creatures, and traps aren't shown neither.

By the way, I noticed some redundant/duplicated files related to this: the ones you used on the Durlag's Tower Walkthrough, and those Thomaslove92 upped for Durlag's Tower (treasure). -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:34, December 3, 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with renaming it to "Area maps with notes" – that's what I thought of when giving my summary. And if NI snaps and different approaches on the topic are grouped together, that's okay, too. I chose specifically "layers" because I wasn't sure of that. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:38, December 3, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Implement Str (strength mod) in IB:test, or no?
As I think to remember, it's now rather late in your time zone, so I might not have to feel too bad when I say: I've done that lot today, I don't know if I have the mind for this right now … ;)

I assume you're relating to Cailan. Funny, that I especially missed that field when redoing his infobox. :)

(Wow, my head currently is really thumping …)

Is "total scores" necessary at all? If so, the STR mod. could be implemented as decimal places. All derived stats can be grouped into five intervals, so it might be 18.2, 18.4, 18.6, 18.8 and … oh, wait, then we are at 19. 18.0, 18.2, 18.4, 18.6, 18.8 – that's five. But not very clear to the editor. So 18.01, 18.02, 18.03 … up to 18.00 (as the highest one)?

What about playing around with formatting? Such as "  -ping" the mod.? Or choose a smaller font-size to get rid off unwanted line breaks?

No, I don't think I will today fiddle with the test, I still have to implement some minor changes to those characters I edited, to get them on the same level. And then … I'll see. Tomorrow. (For me it's now early evening, between 6 and 7 p.m.) Hey, that topic doesn't burn, does it? ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 17:45, December 4, 2017 (UTC)

Only to document this somewhere – for now not meant to be part of a discussion.

From the Player's Handbook 2nd edition


 * Chapter 1 : Player Character Ability Scores
 * "[…] any warrior with a Strength score of 18 is entitled to roll percentile dice […] to determine exceptional Strength; […]"
 * Note: That's why the table is named STRMODEX.2da. The "MOD"-part of the name stands for general modifications through strength, not for "strength modifier".


 * The "Table 1: Strength" lists: "18/01-50", "18/51-75", "18/76-90", "18/91-99" and "18/00".
 * No further explanation of terms or such.

By the way, the rule books indeed use lower-case abbreviations for the abilities, "Str", Dex", etc. I preferred upper-cases ("STR", "DEX"), but okay – less space needed in the infobox. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:37, December 5, 2017 (UTC)

Status Effects page
This page is great! I like it a lot! Lots of work put in here.

But I haven't seen any Weapons/items mentioned that help to protect you in your Battles like the Shield of Harmony, Peridan, Lilarcor, Blackrazor, Abjatha etc. There are Helmets and Plate Mails, Armors as well....

I would be willing to add my knowledge that I gained but I don't want to mess anything up there on this page.

Do you have any ideas?

Gejadus (talk) 23:07, December 5, 2017 (UTC)

EE GUI names
Hi!

I'd like to know which name exactly pops up when you choose the both spell books in EE. Is it still "Mage Book" and "Priest Scroll", as in the classic versions, or have they been changed? (I can't give you the TLK entries, because the Strrefs already vary from BG1 to BG2, though not the naming.) Could you please help me out with this? Thanks. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:25, December 7, 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks! :)

Though now I unfortunately have additional questions, resulting from your screenshots …

There's a little inconsistency. The heading for the Priest Scroll looks as expected. But that field in the Mage Book screen is named "Mage Spells", and "Mage Book" itself appears in the field below, which is empty for priests. Are there differences between types of wizards? Looks the screen different for e.g. a bard? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:58, December 7, 2017 (UTC)

Again, many thanks!

Okay, I publish a WIP article, so you might understand my curiosity. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:42, December 7, 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your appreciation. :)

Yes, it's getting a merge, though not technically. I redo and check information simultaneously, and restructure the table at the same time.

Not sure how many time I invest during the initial phases for the description/notes – those may change when cross-checked with the specific spells. E.g. I have listed three values for the Armor's duration, with the BG:EE value taken from the manual, the other two by NI. The spell page itself gives false info at the moment. Maybe I put efforts into this on a wait, depending on how complicated it gets.

I started this because I actually needed a link to the arcane spell book in general, not game-related. And in fact it doesn't make much sense if there are two pages for this.

Yes, will be a long way. I'll check those two pages that you linked, thanks.

Well, just notice that the values on those pages aren't better – Armor still is listed as longing for 9 hours, which is only in the description and nowhere else the case.

I post a modded, expanded GTIMES.2da below, though I haven't checked its correctness. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:33, December 7, 2017 (UTC)

Of course you might make suggestions, I even planned to ask for them! :)


 * Code: If I merge those two columns, I will see when the first level's finished and I can get a look on a filled table. Tendency: no.
 * Separated, you can even sort by the code. -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 17:45, December 7, 2017 (UTC)
 * Game: The intention of this is simply the same as "Appearance" in infoboxes – maybe redundant for the EEs, but important for the old versions.
 * Headings: I decided to not use level headings, so that a complete and sortable list is available. Same, as on the original pages.
 * Notes/Effect: Actually I don't know if that should be kept at all. If, then it needs further work – a very brief description of what the spell does, so place doesn't matter to the same extent as now.
 * ST? I thought of implementing a Saving Throws column, but dropped the idea because it's too difficult to integrate the various possibilities of ST consequences – and a simple yes/no would serve no real purpose.
 * Range? Another possible column, which could hold "self", "touch", "ranged".
 * Effect 2? If ST and range would be implemented, we could alter the notes/effect (old) column to simply contain "protection", "status effect", "damage" and such.
 * Duration? Implement?

Do you have an overview of which spells can't be learnt by bards? Or does that intro phrase only relate to level dependencies? ("Bards have a limited selection of spells available")

Thanks for clarifying Armor. The BGManual2 still notes 10 turns, as does the classic manual. BG has 3600, BGII 3000. Oh my …

Something else: Why did you do this? I think, "(spell)" is definitely the better disambig suffix. And for your other recent disambiguations: I don't think, file names are an appropriate solution – not clear enough for readers without access to game tools, who still might be legion.

If you want a good (in my opinion) guideline for how to name such pages, take a look at this. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 17:41, December 7, 2017 (UTC)

GTIMES.2da (modded; source currently unknown)
7200 ONE_DAY

14400 TWO_DAYS

21600 THREE_DAYS

28800 FOUR_DAYS

36000 FIVE_DAYS

43200 SIX_DAYS

50400 SEVEN_DAYS

57600 EIGHT_DAYS

64800 NINE_DAYS

72000 TEN_DAYS

79200 ELEVEN_DAYS

86400 TWELVE_DAYS

93600 THIRTEEN_DAYS

100800 FOURTEEN_DAYS

108000 FIFTEEN_DAYS

216000 THIRTY_DAYS

360000 FIFTY_DAYS

5 ONE_MINUTE

10 TWO_MINUTES

15 THREE_MINUTES

20 FOUR_MINUTES

25 FIVE_MINUTES

30 SIX_MINUTES

35 SEVEN_MINUTES

40 EIGHT_MINUTES

45 NINE_MINUTES

50 TEN_MINUTES

55 ELEVEN_MINUTES

60 TWELVE_MINUTES

65 THIRTEEN_MINUTES

70 FOURTEEN_MINUTES

75 FIFTEEN_MINUTES

80 SIXTEEN_MINUTES

85 SEVENTEEN_MINUTES

90 EIGHTEEN_MINUTES

95 NINETEEN_MINUTES

100 TWENTY_MINUTES

150 THIRTY_MINUTES

200 FORTY_MINUTES

250 FIFTY_MINUTES

6 ONE_ROUND

12 TWO_ROUNDS

18 THREE_ROUNDS

24 FOUR_ROUNDS

31 FIVE_ROUNDS

36 SIX_ROUNDS

42 SEVEN_ROUNDS

48 EIGHT_ROUNDS

54 NINE_ROUNDS

61 TEN_ROUNDS

62 ONE_TURN

120 TWO_TURNS

180 THREE_TURNS

240 FOUR_TURNS

300 FIVE_TURNS

301 ONE_HOUR

360 SIX_TURNS

420 SEVEN_TURNS

480 EIGHT_TURNS

540 NINE_TURNS

600 TEN_TURNS

601 TWO_HOURS

900 FIFTEEN_TURNS

901 THREE_HOURS

1200 FOUR_HOURS

1500 FIVE_HOURS

1800 SIX_HOURS

2100 SEVEN_HOURS

2400 EIGHT_HOURS

2700 NINE_HOURS

3000 TEN_HOURS

3300 ELEVEN_HOURS

3600 TWELVE_HOURS

3900 THIRTEEN_HOURS

4200 FOURTEEN_HOURS

4500 FIFTEEN_HOURS

4800 SIXTEEN_HOURS

5100 SEVENTEEN_HOURS

5400 EIGHTEEN_HOURS

5700 NINETEEN_HOURS

6000 TWENTY_HOURS

6300 TWENTY_ONE_HOURS

6600 TWENTY_TWO_HOURS

6900 TWENTY_THREE_HOURS

115200 SIXTEEN_DAYS

122400 SEVENTEEN_DAYS

129600 EIGHTEEN_DAYS

136800 NINETEEN_DAYS

144000 TWENTY_DAYS

180000 TWENTYFIVE_DAYS

288000 FORTY_DAYS

660 ELEVEN_TURNS

720 TWELVE_TURNS

780 THIRTEEN_TURNS

840 FOURTEEN_TURNS

Arcane Spells
Thanks for the input and such. I open a new (and exclusive) topic here for this. Okay …


 * What is or was the purpose of those two overview tables, Arcane Spells (Baldur's Gate) and Arcane Spells (Baldur's Gate II)?
 * The "#" column absolutely makes no sense other than to have a count at the end. Table re-sorted? Not working anymore. Spell added somewhere right in the middle of it? Lots of work to renumber it. Useless.
 * An overview, a complete listing of all available spells of a certain kind is always good. What further information would such a table need?
 * Cross links, "See also"s to related spells are good. Such as a spell of a higher level with basically the same effects, e.g. Larloch's Minor Drain and Vampiric Touch.
 * Is it possible to make the description brief enough, so that no problems with page space occur? In my eyes there's no way of a table with a scroll bar at the bottom …
 * Would it be of advantage to be able to sort by duration, AoE/target (can be pooled), range, ST y/n?
 * Would it suffice to shorten the description to a "(De-)Buff", "Damage", "Detection", "Cure", "Affliction", etc.? Then make it also sortable: easy access to all spells with a certain effect.
 * Somehow "Not usable by" completely makes "School" redundant – can the latter one be omitted? Is its information useful, other than to have an overview of all spells of a certain school? Better placed on yet to create school articles …
 * As one purpose would be to look after a spell with a certain name, an alphabetically sortable table is needed. Hence, as I said before, a splitting into levels wouldn't make sense. (I know that this makes the table difficult to edit for its sheer size ;)
 * But I think of returning up to a certain point to the original concept of splitting by game. Not two articles anymore, so a link always points to one page (similar to a disambiguation), but tabbed subpages – this way you land on the overview and are able to quickly choose the game you need. Would spare the game column, as you proposed. And would list BG, BG:EE, BGII and BGII:EE. Expansions can be integrated with the spell's name.
 * Differences between games would perhaps be better comparable than with two separate articles.
 * And this way the differences between games for some spells mustn't be pressed altogether into the small available space, each table has its own spell specifications.

So, if the new page replaces the two old ones, the purpose would shift from a large table with all available spells and a short version of the spell articles themselves – to a highly sortable one for many imaginable criteria, but with slightly less specific information.

Such a table best would be generated with something like SMW or Cargo – no manual placing of all the wanted information, but automatically done with searching for the data on the single articles.

Would you mind if I used that page as a kind of sandbox, placing a second, same table below and playing around with possible columns?


 * You're serious? A "ranking system?" And who decides which spell would get what rank? ;) Make a poll? (Btw., that's another column that has to find some space ;)
 * Okay, I leave that pipe – perhaps place a space instead. (Though it looked nice. :( … :)
 * Maybe they have reduced the Armor's duration, because most areas became smaller in BGII and movement faster. But in old BGI the spell lasted around the same time, one needed to extensively explore a wilderness area. -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:39, December 8, 2017 (UTC)

First of all: thanks for your extensive answer! :)

With all you listed there, I fear I have to give up the thought of a table without scrollbar … we'll see.

Is this "a +2 bonus on saving throws against spells of their school; and give enemies a -2 to save against spells of their school" an EE thing? I don't recall that was part of the CEs, at least it's not in the descriptions during character creation.

What do you mean by SoD "makes BG1 somewhat inaccurate"?

Oh my, so much to consider.

No, sorry, I'm absolutely against some sort of ranking there. That's too much depending on personal play style, party composition, situation, maybe even roleplay.

Do you know these lists? Though there seems to be no BG1 counterpart.

Posting, then on to the other comments … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:10, December 9, 2017 (UTC)

You say, that ST/specialization thing indeed isn't mentioned in the CE's descriptions. I'd go so far to say, even not implemented. Is there proof against this?

Well, this table wouldn't include spell progression, so I don't get your point … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:46, December 9, 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguations
Second topic during the same post – hope, you don't mind.

I can see your point of this "consistency" with Identify, but I still don't agree. The suffix shall deliver the fastest and shortest option to disambiguate titles from one another.

Even for Dispel Magic it is not really correct to disambiguate between "arcane", "divine" and "inquisitor". The former two are types of magic, the latter is a class. So in my eyes it would be better to use "wizard", "priest" and "inquisitor", perhaps even only "paladin". Though Paladins make indeed use of the "priest" spells, this one's closer to a disambiguation by classes than the current solution.

Back to Identify: what exactly disambiguates the both pages? The one surely is a spell, but the other? No suffix, because it's a general description of the process. That's okay, but I'd still prefer "spell".

Next: why do you add the "disambiguation" suffix to all of these pages? From which guideline is that? This is the first wiki I encounter, where this is done in such an extensive way. I really think, North Forest would suffice, without a suffix.

For that page (a redirect to the suffix page – you even not make use of your own edits yourself ;), it's easy to choose. don't care about neighbored regions or whatever, they are from two "games" (if you count "Expansion" as one), so: or, if you like that better,
 * "North Forest (Shadows of Amn)" and "North Forest (Throne of Bhaal)"
 * "North Forest (SoA)" and "North Forest (ToB)"

For the ones you want to create, I'd needed examples to see which possibilities there are.

Another thing: the suffix shouldn't be part of the article's intro sentence. Is Chain Mail +3 (CHAN21.itm) indeed only found in ToB? And the other variant only in TotSC? Then the suffix in my eyes is clear … (Is chain heavy armor? Or medium?)

By the way, I've stumbled upon some disambiguations that used capital letters in their suffix (don't ask me for examples, I don't recall) – I guess that's not intended like this? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:39, December 8, 2017 (UTC)

Yes, because Harry is a character too important to make a simple disambiguation page out of him. That's what's meant with the sentence "However, if a character is of enough notability, (ie Harry) then the disambiguation page will be titled (Harry (disambiguation))." But take a look at e.g. Peter – there's no Peter (disambiguation), and there's a lot of such pages. And that's not the only wiki where this is the case. In fact, this is the only wiki I know, where "(disambiguation)" as suffix is added in that number …

To say it again, I strongly disagree with file names or similar mechanics as article suffix. It's not important if a game has some tool to see them (and Fallout has, even opposed to NI for BG, the official Construction Set, that's also used by the developers (as well as all Elder Scrolls games from Morrowind on, or NWN1), so don't use this argument) – it's simply bad style, non-meaningful per se, non-encyclopaedic and useless for people who don't use these tools. I ask you urgently to find other solutions. (I will try by myself.)

A first step might be to list all items of a certain name – and then see how they could be disambiguated? Or what speaks against that what I've done on Edventar's Gift? Not single pages, only list those variants and their use on some sort of parent item? Keep in mind, that creature-exclusive items often have no name at all, and aren't accessible via normal means. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:36, December 9, 2017 (UTC)

I really appreciate that intent of yours, and somehow I already sort of supported/expected it when placing e.g. "Skull: …" in the infobox of Albert.

And actually I'm not really a fan of listing individual items only as an overview on a similar item article – they indeed deserve their own one.

So that's a good project, definitely, even if it needs lots of disambiguations.

But still I would go to find a different approach for the naming, like e.g. (and I don't have taken a current look into those items) "Paws (wolf)", "Paws (dread wolf)", "Paws (brown bear)", if you know what I mean. That's better than "B-1", "B-2", "B-4", etc.

Back to "disambiguation" as suffix. (I don't have researched that topic on FRW, and I know enough wikis to have reliable sources for my opinion ;)

As some basics always two things have to be considered:
 * what might the reader be looking for, and is the use of a suffix necessary for this, respectively does the used suffix help this reader?
 * how will this work and look in the search bar (and the link proposals while editing)?

So, yes, your suffixing indeed does have a purpose, namely to tell the reader, "wait! here's more to this name; and if you click the one without suffix, you probably might not land where you wanted to go".

On the other hand, if I type in the initial letters of something I'm looking for, and I see then a big list of things that all start with these letters, then I am already forced somehow to take a deeper look.

The term without any suffix as basic disambiguation page is the shortest to type, probably the first in the list, and the easiest one to be chosen by an editor who doesn't know what else to choose. If I simply want to tell somebody that something's happening in Baldur's Gate, be it the city or the game, and I have no plan of how the various districts are named on this wiki, or how the game titles are written exactly, I'd go and do it in this exact way: type, place my sentence, and done.

(Let's see what's happening in the preview … ah, you've made a redirect from it to the disambiguation!)

And what does happen if I want to open exactly that page? Type  into the search bar and see, I got SoA, the game, the EE, II EE, II expansion and SoD – no city, no disambiguation. But when I came here, I thought this would be the game …

Okay, especially for this term, I'd say Baldur's Gate is the Harry and should be the (non-suffixed) game. But other people might say, it should be the city, because the game was named after the city. Another idea would be to name the series this way. (By the way, the wiki lacks a BG "series" link.) I don't know … Mainly I notice, that the term itself, without suffix/not expanded, doesn't appear when I'm looking for it, which is confusing.

Keep in mind that a redirect always appears at last in the search bar/link proposals.

Until later. :) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 17:04, December 9, 2017 (UTC)

Re: tabber/tabview
It would be possible to display different flails somehow tabbed on one page, but I don't like the idea. You'd still need names/suffixes for the different items, and what would be the benefits?

It would, however, be a great idea to display different game stats in infoboxes, such as FRW does. I've already taken a look into their infobox coding for this, but hell, that's complicated … ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:34, December 10, 2017 (UTC)

You could get them listed as last in the search bar, if you'd make them redirects – which wouldn't make sense, as they are then not linkable from their wielders.

You can not get them not displayed at all, if they are main namespace pages. The only way to achieve this would be writing them as templates. That doesn't mean complicated coding – you only place "Template:" at the start when creating them, but they still could look like every regular item page, complete with infobox and such. This way they would work as link, and in the same way could be implemented in some tabbed view. Though I still can't imagine that page's layout …

Side effect: they cannot be found by the regular search (and possible readers, who are after that info) at all, only by activating the by default disabled template namespace in the "Advanced Search Options". Or until they are placed somewhere. But still they are not shown as page links, only the name displayed in tabview will be there. So it wouldn't work neither, if you chose a different link display.

Example: Template:Flail (code1.item)|Flail (Baddest enemy at all) This would not show search results for "Flail (code1.item)", except you create both, the template and the page as redirect to the template. I guess. I would test it before taking this for 100%. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:13, December 10, 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) create
 * 2) create
 * 3) place the latter on the former with tabview, naming it different:

would break the infobox,  would not, as far as I can imagine. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 17:22, December 10, 2017 (UTC)

Article comment IP talk
Nice of you, to give a warning before deletion, but perhaps difficult to achieve by that IP – if they change it at least once a day, as is the case for me. And they even don't get a notice about your message … ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:39, December 8, 2017 (UTC)

Quote placing
And on it goes …

So you prefer it beside the infobox, rather than on top of it? Okay, I will regard this in the future. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:39, December 8, 2017 (UTC)

I thought about that by myself, especially in combination with permanent header notes, such as the also italicized disambiguations, abouts, and such. So I'm perfectly fine with it. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:41, December 9, 2017 (UTC)

Armor class/type
2e seems to not distinguish between armor weight classes, but at least with 3e those were introduced: see light, medium and heavy armor on the NWN wiki.

Though I think to recall that I have Hide Armor experienced as medium armor somewhere, and I'm also not sure that every chain is classified medium, especially if it's elven.

If there's really no single instance of this classifying in the BG game files, I would go and adopt the future classes from 3e. Might make it even easier if one day BG3 introduces something similar. And for consistency, of course, with the generally groundlying rules. A D&D player might be confused to find chain mail in a "heavy" category.

If re-categorizing doesn't fit into your schedule, I could do this. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 20:59, December 9, 2017 (UTC)


 * By the way, did you ever play that total NWN2 conversion, Baldur's Gate: Reloaded? Really not bad! :) -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 21:28, December 9, 2017 (UTC)

Sewers
Hi, another time! :)

I plan to make Sewers sort of a disambiguation page for all sewers in the game, after I created the Baldur's Gate Sewers and their single areas. I already linked the yet to be created Athkatla Sewers, which are also several.

Regarding your Sewers beneath Saradush – do you have a specific naming scheme in mind? And if so, based on what? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:19, December 10, 2017 (UTC)

Well, "East", "West" and "Central Sewers" for the ones beneath Baldur's Gate is a bit … vague. ;)

Of course those could become redirects, but I tend to contain the city's name in the page title. What I wanted to know was if you think, "Sewers beneath Baldur's Gate", somehow combined with the direction, would be more appropriate.

And now that topic's been expanded by ideas from EibhilinRhett. Please, take a look again. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 06:50, December 11, 2017 (UTC)


 * Should have given you the link to the associated talk as well, sorry. -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 07:13, December 11, 2017 (UTC)

Re: Hit count?
Um… is this sort of a test? Because … I have no idea where those statistics are from? Is it possible, you give me a link or something? ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:59, December 13, 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I've heard of that one. Nope, not yet, at least not as dedicated "dashboard".

Some special users have some tools to get this, but not the regular admin. I won't say, there wouldn't be ways, but it's nothing I've cared about in the past. So – can't help you, sorry. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:38, December 13, 2017 (UTC)

Journals, letters and notes
Oops… ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:53, December 14, 2017 (UTC)

Creatures' equipment and IB fields
Hi!

You know why I didn't place the IMMUNE1.itm ring under "exclusive equipment?" Well, I'd rather not call 57 hit(s) found in BG1 only "exclusive" … ;)

And I thought, a permanent immunity from a non-droppable item is something that indeed could be called "special trait" – what's this else for? There are no "traits" in BG … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:14, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

I don't thing, you got my point with "exclusive". Wouldn't it mean, the exclusive item is unique to this creature? (Which it isn't for the given ring that exists in 57 copies.)

In general: wouldn't it make sense to add some permanent effects (status effects, THAC0 or AC boosts, xy bonuses) to a creature's infobox other than by some description of "exclusive" or whatever items? Adding a field "Equipment effects" or such?

What's with the effective AC? That's indeed a field from NI. But is there any creature with differences between effective and natural AC? The Keeper only list base/natural AC … As a creature usually will not put off their armor, at least not non-companions, could the AC bonuses from armor and other equipment be calculated for the "effective" AC?

And – though I know I would have to take care of other creature IB things first –, what about auto-linking and auto-categorizing race and class? (Perhaps more?) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:49, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

Scripts
And another thing – which one's looking better?

Your version needs more space. And do you want to name all BCS articles e.g. "Script (SHOUTDLG)", rather than "SHOUTDLG" only? (Perhaps indeed SHOUTDLG.bcs?)

What's speaking against my version of putting the script instance in small letters and parentheses behind its name? Is a bullet point list really necessary? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:28, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

So ?
 * AI Scripts
 * Override script: Script (OVERRIDE.bcs)
 * Class script:
 * Race script:
 * General script:
 * Default script:

Empty, what's empty. What to do with the top one, the "Script name"?

I'm against the repitition of the term "script" in each row, "Override" etc. should suffice. "Scripts" is in the section header. And – if you really want to go for it like this – in the following link.

BG1 (CE) alone has 729 BCS files – I don't know how many of them are used for creature AI, but do you really want to create such a large number of pages that all start with "Script" in their name? I don't think that's a good idea …

My proposal:

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:59, December 15, 2017 (UTC)
 * AI Scripts
 * Override: OVERRIDE.bcs
 * Class:
 * Race:
 * General:
 * Default:

Well, "Flail (XYZ.itm)" still is different from "Item (XYZ.itm)", don't you think? ;) And remember, I didn't like this whole idea at all …

What exactly do you mean with "if there's a way to differentiate the script version of “Class/Race” and “Class/Race” in editing"?

And what about the general (not "General") script, the one that often is named after the creature (see TELLAN.cre)? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:44, December 15, 2017 (UTC)


 * TELLAN.cre wasn't a good example, because there is no TELLAN.bcs, but at least you perhaps got my point … -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:51, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, still don't get it … ("In visual editor, the two "Class" and "Race" will be shown exactly the same when editing the IB.") -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:29, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

Okay – but it doesn't make sense to insert those fields two times?!?! -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:55, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

Don't know what's with my mind today – don't understand anything at all …

Okay.
 * 1) The script data resources don't belong into the general creature section, no need to list them twice
 * 2) Also – despite the fact that Race yet doesn't exist – I don't think that both, class and race, need to be linked twice in the infobox: the first links in the creature section are sufficient, the scripts section doesn't need links again (especially as the scripts and their purpose often are totally unrelated, and you find class scripts assigned as race and viceversa).

Did I miss something? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:26, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

So we have to use "Override script", "Class script", etc. Well – okay. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:12, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

TELLAN.cre
Something else: could you please check shortly for me race and class of the TELLAN.cre in BG:EE? Thanks! -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:02, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

Take a look at Tellan for an explanation. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:08, December 15, 2017 (UTC)

Re: The unreliable classic editor…
Hi. Sorry …

Okay, then I will try to avoid such comments. (But, really, no option to comment things anymore?) At least for these things: when I place an NPC item's name. Will use a red link instead – makes it later easier to find them, when they get created. Agreed? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:59, December 16, 2017 (UTC)

Bonus/Penalty BGWiki writing formats
Hi.

Regarding these two changes, Set Snare and Set Special Snare, I'm feeling confused again, despite BGWiki writing formats saying "In hope of causing less confusions" …

(Same applies, by the way, for THAC0.)

Okay, the statement: "BGW will list ST changes by writing -n bonus and +n penalty; save vs. at +/- number as +n bonus and -n penalty to better synchronize how ST works in game"
 * First thought: I don't get the meaning of the sentence's second part, after the semicolon, at least not completely.
 * No, real first thought: ¿¿¿¿¿What's this?????
 * Why differ at all?

In-game (1): IIRC, the in-game descriptions confuse bonus/penalty-related plus/minus-signs themselves, so we wouldn't have to regard those en detail.

In-game (2): Mathematically a bonus to ST/THAC0 means "-", while a penalty is "+". (This is kind of oppositional to the terms' usual interpretation, where bonus means "positive" and penalty "negative"; but that's the linguistic point of view.)

Near Infinity: Yeah, now it gets hairy …
 * "Save bonus: -X" is to read as "penalty" – the negative sign is determining here –, hence it gets calculated as "+X" when added to a creature's saving throw.
 * "Bonus to hit: X" is in fact to read as "bonus" – the (un-noted) positive sign is determining here –, hence it gets calculated as "-X" when added to a creature's THAC0.

As there is this general inconsistency of relating the semantic "bonus" with the calculatory "-", as well as the semantic "penalty" with the calculatory "+", I propose to avoid wordings such as "with a +/- X bonus/penalty", and use This should then be explained in the formatting sections of those both pages, ST and THAC0, as well.
 * in written-out descriptions the semantic meanings, turning to "with a bonus/penalty of X", omitting any sign;
 * in formulas and infoboxes the exact mathematical notation, where the sum determines the sign, omitting any "bonus" or "penalty"; e.g. in infobox item  if it's a bonus (I know that this deviates from most item/spell descriptions);
 * exceptions: quotes – citation is citation!, no matter

If we cannot agree about this, I alternatively suggest to consistently switch to "-X bonus" and "+X penalty", omitting that second part of the notation in the initially mentioned paragraph. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:02, December 16, 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, really.

But could you give me an example of how's the wording is meant in that case? "save vs. at +/- number as +n bonus and -n penalty" in combination with some Glitterdust from Edwin? How would this read inside an article? (I know, I can be annoying … ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 04:23, December 17, 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but neither the in-game description nor the article of the Ring of the Princes has "-1 bonus" written anywhere. But that one I had understood, as you concluded.

Now for that axe: "Save vs. Death at -4 penalty" (by the way, not part of the CE in-game description) is indeed written in its infobox, but I don't see any reason why not to write "Save vs. Death at +4 penalty" instead, as I suggested. (Or, actually, "at a penalty of 4.") Your example – "roll dice, then subtract" – could be interpreted as well as "add penalty, then roll dice".

The NI notation is the same for both cases, bonuses and penalties. As this penalty is mathematically/semantically a "Save bonus" of -4 (NI), it indeed works as you described, but that then applies to all bonuses/penalties. So we would have to always use the other way of describing it: though a low THAC0 is better, a bonus still is to be noted as "+" – because technically that bonus is added to the opponent's AC before the attack roll (mathematically). (Annoy, annoy, annoy … ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 04:57, December 17, 2017 (UTC)

"halt any edits" – hey, don't panic! :D -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 05:34, December 17, 2017 (UTC)

Then I'll first wait on your updates.

I still tend to use a reader-friendly wording and to not confuse "bonus/penalty" and the related "+/-", such as the neutral "bonus/penalty of X". It's still a wiki, not a purely technical documentation … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:30, December 18, 2017 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
Hello Islandking!

I wish you Merry Christmas already now! Friends are coming to visit us in some days so you won't see me probably a lot here around this time of year. Thank you that I could contribute here a little bit concerning the Black Pits II stuff and I try to contribute a little bit to Game Playing in BG I, EE and BG II, EE on my profile page. I enjoyed and still enjoy it a lot!

It's a great Wiki here and I continue to discover new stuff in all these articles and pages here. BG I + II are just so complex! It's really a world on its own.

I didn't look at the SoD page here recently. I hope that the Walkthrough doesn't take too long any more to be finished. I really like this Walkthrough although I haven't played SoD yet.

Gejadus (talk) 10:21, December 19, 2017 (UTC)

donut worry about it, me and @CompleCCity are just having a nice fun talk about character banters~

EibhilinRhett (talk) 01:45, December 20, 2017 (UTC)EibhilinRhett

Also, for the record, the wording in these is my own - the original source material is just a compiled list of all interactions between NPCs in the game. I've been looking at them as a whole to determine exactly what kind of relationship certain characters have with each other.

EibhilinRhett (talk) 01:49, December 20, 2017 (UTC)EibhilinRhett

Companion Page Organization
I know you said the question about where to put the personality section may be premature as not all companion pages have a personality section yet, but like I mentioned to @CompleCCity earlier, I'm planning on trying to ADD them to all companion pages once I'm done with my Relationships edits.

The reason I'm bringing up the question with you two is that I need to know where to put it when I do, and I would really like to avoid putting them all down at the very bottom, because it makes it feel like the character's personality is little more than an afterthought, and well, I'm not sure how other people play the game, but for me at least it's one of if not THE most important consideration when deciding party composition.

EibhilinRhett (talk) 04:38, December 22, 2017 (UTC)EibhilinRhett

I've put this to the forum, for a not-distributed-on-several-pages discussion – continue here, please:

Companion page and general wiki layout/styling

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 07:00, December 22, 2017 (UTC)

re: conflicts
What I've been doing is adding the conflicts that actually end in a fight to the "conflicts" area in the infobox, so new players looking to make sure they don't get two characters who fight each other to the death don't have to scroll through the whole relationships section. Should I go back and bold the relationship section entries as well?

Also, it totally came as news to me that the sections were originally used only to show pairs and conflicts, because not all the sections included all the major conflicts before I started editing them, and many of them contained at least one relationship that was "unnecessary" to that deliberation.

I've also noticed that there are blank spaces for "friends" and "enemies" in the companion infobox template. What is that supposed to be used for? Is it just a holdover from another template or something, because I don't think I've seen either of them used, at least not in any of the BG1 characters.

EibhilinRhett (talk) 15:06, December 22, 2017 (UTC)EibhilinRhett

Merry Christmas to you as well!
Have a nice time off the wiki in the best way you want to spend Christmas and the turn of the year.

(I hope I manage to take a look into here each day – don't want to get my counter resetted ;)

I will try to not disturb and only bother you with really urgent things. ;) All other stuff can wait until 2018. 'til then -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 19:33, December 22, 2017 (UTC)

Quick Question
Hey IK.

Recently browsing the front page of the wiki, I've noticed you posted this image

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/baldursgategame/images/a/ae/Bg1sodscreen14_%289%29.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170619105152

Now I'm curious but since I wanted to replay BG EE what GUI mod is that which makes the 'Journal Updated' appear on top and having health bars like that above characters ?

Thanks in forward.

Damien01 (talk) 15:35, December 25, 2017 (UTC)

Happy new year!
(If you belong to those people, like me, who celebrate this on January 1.)

Yes, missed you a bit. And had some questions in mind, but didn't want to summon you. They'll come back if and when needed … I was surprised how fast you reacted to my deletion proposals, so I at least knew you hadn't gone completely. :)

So, you "got your hands" on the classic versions. Not sure, I really like this. Robs me of some exclusivity here … ;)

A thing about headings: consistency is good, also to have a look on other wikis' customs, but in some cases it's indeed okay to create something own and individual, I think. "Background" serves well for all categories of articles – locations can have a background, and items, and of course people –, but in my eyes it wouldn't break consistency too much if that section would be named e.g. "Biography" on character pages. By the way, the dictionary I use doesn't know "backstory", it's written in two words instead, without hyphen.

Personally I don't like a heading that contains the term "in-game". I have no specific reasons for this, except perhaps that people often don't know how it's exactly written, I … simply don't like the term.

So, forget what I told about naming characters' "Backgrounds" "Biographies" – what about removing all those "in(-)game" things? Simply naming it "Description" on item and spell pages, as they usually don't have a non-in-game description (and the quote style still hints on it), and "Biography" for companions' pages? As I mentioned already on the forum topic and as it applies to all greater changes, this could be done step by step or e.g. by your bot. The companions I could do manually, not too much work. And, hey!, in general sometimes things have to change, even if that breaks consistency for a certain time. (There's a saying, that "change is the only constant in life." ;)

Back to two or three questions of mine – without need for immediate replies …


 * First : categories

I haven't looked for some re-categorization project (but would find a link), but what about adopting the same item categories as the games use, perhaps with more specific subcategories? Where specifically armor could be further separated. But as item group in the infobox it would be the parent category. That would help to build some system for merchants, because their list of what to buy uses these categories.
 * "Miscellaneous" (0)
 * "Amulets and necklaces" (1)
 * "Armor" (2)
 * and so on …


 * Second : (image) file naming

I'd like to update and improve (mostly linguistically) the images policy (shouldn't that be linked more prominently on the general policy?). And I'd like to change the file naming system.

Examples: File:AR0500 Durlag's Tower (exterior) Map BG1CE.jpg and File:AR0500 Durlag's Tower (exterior) Actors BG1CE.png

Explanation: The policy says about area images to name them simply as the code. Well, that's useless if there are two areas from different games that use the same code. Which happens a lot with BGI and BGII. My supposed naming scheme indeed starts with the area code – AR0500 –, then adds a descriptor for this area – Durlag's Tower (exterior) –, a tag for what the image is about – Map or e.g. Actors –, and finally the game and version the file was taken from – BG1CE.

I think the descriptor is important, so that a search would lead to better results if somebody without access to codes wants to add something – an image to an article or a file itself.

The tag mainly distinguishes similar files from the same area by their purpose. I write it with an upper-case because it somehow means a new section in the name.

For better sorting, the game index should use BG1 and BG2 (instead of BGI and BGII) and "CE" should be added, opposed to "EE".

What still could be considered: what should come first – the descriptor or the code?

Similar thoughts about item images: wouldn't it be better to keep the descriptor for icons/images that are used for unique e.g. weapons and only use the code only for those icons, that are used by several items?

(Oh, and I take a daily look at my task of improving the image information template, but yet couldn't find enough motivation to work on it. ;)

Your opinion on this?


 * And third : area names again

Where does all this area naming come from? Who defined the "common names" on Areas? Who said that the "area north of whereever" has to be named this and that? Why did you move the Werewolf Warrens to Werewolf Caverns (even with a deleted redirect)? Is there a list somewhere? Certainly it's not dudleyville-based anymore. And not (entirely) IESDP, neither. BGT? Worldmap mod?

Okay, reply when you have time and the head/mind for it. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:16, January 6, 2018 (UTC)

Okay, then I'll try to make it short, so that you can spend more energy in adding rather than answering. ;)

Image naming is chaotic on every wiki I've contributed to. No matter policies about it or warnings that files without a meaningful name will be deleted – many simply use the name, Steam created for the screenshot, including date, time and index. Or whatever they get in their mind when naming their work. Even by admins of wikis. So I try to remember my policy when I upload something. And if I change/add to the official one, you get noticed. No need for you to take care of that. :)

I'll take a further look into the categories when merchants become my focus.

Well, if you say that that's more convenient, even if it needs your time, then okay. :)

I haven't looked deep into the BGII area names, but for BGI there are huge discrepancies between our Areas here and the current IESDP. And the naming of the articles themselves. Okay, I'll go on with my list …

Travel times: perhaps one day, when I own the EEs, I create an account there. Or I can figure it out myself.

Happy editing! :) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 08:00, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

Travel times
Another question: do you know how travel times are calculated?

I am able to get data for connected areas from WORLDMAP.wmp and the areas' links: the "Distance scale" value is to be multiplied by 4 to get the needed hours for a trip to the linked area.

But how does this work if you're not traveling directly to a linked area, e.g. from Nashkel to the Friendly Arm Inn (or even a not so straight route)? Any idea or website link? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 21:26, January 6, 2018 (UTC)

Yet still two further questions …
You once offered that I could ask you if I needed help interpreting NI data …

BGI, SW1H11.itm So what's the effective damage? I guess the first one, because that is shown in the ability's view tab. What's this effect for, and how's its dice calculated into this all?
 * Item ability is "Melee", no bonus to hit, and damage 1d2 +4 slashing.
 * Then there's an effect "Damage" of power 2, again slashing, but with another 1d8.

And second, Round etc. Would be much more plausible … This one's rather rhetorical. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 08:44, January 7, 2018 (UTC)
 * 24 h (1 d) = 120 turns – correct!
 * 1 turn = 10 rounds = 60 sec – okay.
 * 1 h = 5 turns? Why? Why not 6?

Yes, Doom Guards'. So … does it simply 1d2 +4? Or 1d2 + 4 + 1d8? Or even 1d2 * 1d8 + 4?

Yes, I knew of the connection between power and spell level, but don't know what it effectively does. Just mentioned it in case of …

Uhm… enchantment level is defined through "Enchantment", not some stars somewhere!? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 09:10, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. In CE a Doom Guard has axe and missile as proficiencies, the sword's a sword. So its damage would be 1d2 + 4 + 2 (Str) + 1d8 = 8 – 16. Correct? (By the way, the page's okay?)

Well, I have to rely on the "Enchantment" setting, because CE versions of this item (both, BG1 and 2) seem to lack the modify proficiencies effect. (It's an effect, isn't it?) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 09:44, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

As the BG1 base proficiencies are still present in BG2, all had to be done with those modification effects. So for CE BG1 items this field doesn't exist. I can only assume, but am relatively sure because of the lack of an alternative, that this same category also determines the proficiency modifiers in BG1.

In CE BG2 this specific sword has PROFICIENCYLONGSWORD - 90 at this parameter. And I've seen that EE has "fixed" the Doom Guard's abilities. ;)

By the way, I've noticed that at least some BG2 creatures, who might be fighting you with weapons, lack that "modify proficiencies" effect in their CE files. (No example in mind.) Would mean that they all would suffer from penalties … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:22, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

And where would this be defined? Is this an EE specific thing?

And … what's a "Blackjack"??? :D -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:27, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

Ah, then you were talking about the effects, immediately visible when opening a cre file. Yes, and some of the (CE) creatures are missing those – hence I spoke of the penalties. :)

Okay, will update nevertheless, looks good. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:52, January 7, 2018 (UTC)

Headings and such
Hi!

"Opinions?" Yes, several – but I doubt, completely to your liking. ;)


 * Split scrolls and spells – doesn't only play a role in this question, but also has advantages for the whole page structure, the infobox splitting, any potential differences regarding caster level and more …
 * Besides this: "Acquisition", always opened with a sentence like "Can be chosen by bards and all mages except (e.g.) Transmuters and Sorcerers on level x", then followed by the usual acquisition lists. (This needs more than a bot, as well as the parent thought ;)
 * I often can't decide between "Acquisition" and "Location(s)"; however, as long as there's no split, "location" would be wrong for a spell. (As well as for quests, which have both.)


 * "Lore" is good, but would only apply to unique or at least unidentified items. For spells it would have to remain "Description", and what do you want to do with the generic (and also in unidentified state) ones? Can't really be called "lore" … The Dragon Age Wiki favors self-written background sections, instead of simply copying from in-game texts. Items often don't have this section, and the in-game description is inside the infobox (as "Description", I think, haven't looked now).
 * "Lore" could also be used as the heading for a background section of items and locations, including more than only the text from the in-game description.
 * "Description", on the other hand, is unlikely to get expanded beyond this piece of text.

So much for now. Not really helpful, I think. Sorry. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:46, January 8, 2018 (UTC)

Uhm… I wasn't talking about "order". If you allude to my split-proposal – I meant articles, not sections. ;)

And I should get used to always activate the "Show bots" on the recent changes. (Unfortunately that's no preferences feature.) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:15, January 8, 2018 (UTC)

No easy questions …

How many of the "unique unidentified description" items are there? And how many of them do simultaneously have a different unidentified name, as Durlag's Goblet has? So factually there aren't two in-game descriptions for the goblet, as those are also by name two different items, the unidentifed being a Blood-filled Goblet – red link (2018-01-08, 15:34 UTC), as I thought.

No, I would try to find another solution for this. On the identified item page, named Durlag's Goblet, use only the identified text. Of course the page should start with a link to the unidentified version. In the DTWT (dee-tee-wee-tee – cute ;) both should be linked – I'm doing that one right now (User:CompleCCity/Sandbox01).

Let's take a look at a Bastard Sword and at Kondar:
 * Generic: name and description for both the same
 * Kondar: uni name is "Bastard Sword", uni desc the same as for that

Okay, what about something like this or similar: Bastard Sword (article)

Description (heading)

''Also known as the hand-and-a-half sword, the bastard sword derives its name from the fact that it is halfway between the two-handed sword and the long sword. The bastard sword has a double-edged blade and a long grip, which can accommodate both hands if preferred. The overall length of the bastard sword ranges between four feet and four feet ten inches.'' Kondar (article)

(Intro section)

Kondar is an enchanted, unique weapon, that comes as an unidentified Bastard Sword when obtained.

''Also known as the hand-and-a-half sword, the bastard sword derives its name from the fact that it is halfway between the two-handed sword and the long sword. The bastard sword has a double-edged blade and a long grip, which can accommodate both hands if preferred. The overall length of the bastard sword ranges between four feet and four feet ten inches.''

Their slashing damage range is between 2 and 8 points and it requires 11 Strength to wield a bastard sword. The weapon has a speed factor of 8 and weighs 10 lbs.

Description (heading)

''At a first glance, this sword appears much like any other. In the presence of any shapeshifting creature however, the blade becomes warm as its power stirs. Its namesake was the original owner of the weapon, and his tale, though mostly long forgotten, was wrought with treachery and deceit. Rumors persist that he paid a fearsome price for this blade, but with it he revealed the true identities of those that sought to betray him. Their names and crimes however, are long since lost to history.'' -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:33, January 8, 2018 (UTC)

So you're simply ignoring players who don't can, want to, can afford to, or for whatever reasons identify items, but still want information about that blue-shimmering object they are carrying around. ;)

Don't know. What speaks against a page Blood-filled goblet, that informs about the name of the identified object, that one's value perhaps, and that for now it would be better to follow the warning from the inscription. I think, that's a good idea.

And Kondar, as bastard sword, should indeed list the properties that it shares with the regular variant, and the unidentified description gives a good overview what this one's able to, if not identified and still after.

I thought, my first reply could be read as preferring "description" over "lore", so I wonder now why you're writing – apparently surprised – "Not Lore?"

Okay – did read your comment another time …

Bastard Sword

Blablabla…

-- Characteristics -- (good term! but plural, please!)

description

Blablabla… about damage, weight, etc.

Kondar

Blablabla…

-- Lore -- (= Background)

identified description

Possibly more information from other sources.

-- Characteristics --

Blablabla… about damage, weight, etc., with detailed differences to regular variant.

Hm? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:44, January 8, 2018 (UTC)

Yes, sometimes we have very different opinions … And nonetheless our work on the wiki works. :) And the wiki works! :)

Infoboxes should contain basic and important information about the article's topic as an overview – for a quick look at a certain thing without needing to read through walls of text or tables of content.

That doesn't mean, the rest of the article can't or shouldn't contain the same information in another format, more descriptive, less abbreviated. (You said something into that direction yourself, that not all people read infoboxes and such.)

Wait … Was that the reason you removed "Like common hide armor, this, too, has negative modifiers to piercing and missile attacks, but its Armor Class is three points lower. The by 5 pounds reduced weight allows thieves to use their abilities without penalty. In addition, this armor creates a Mind Shield, focussed on Confusion, and also provides a cumulative 15% damage resistance against fire, cold and acid. It can be bought at the Adventurer Mart." from the Aeger's Hide? Because it's all part of the infobox? No, that shouldn't be …

Yes, you try to give items a consistent layout. But still there are many that feature a large intro section, detailing about the item's characteristics. And many that tell absolutely nothing.

I wouldn't call it "Effect" on spells/abilities neither – this should be reserved for a more reader-friendly, elaborated, similar-to-gameplay section, not the wording the game uses.

I'll go and give some more thought about it … (Only that this collides with what I'm currently was trying to do here …) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:51, January 9, 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay, take a look at this. (Still doesn't contain any information about what a cloak is …) -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:35, January 9, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for liking it, thus I don't completely understand what you've done. (Reverted for now, while adding BGII info – sorry.)

Isn't that characteristics' section exactly what I'm looking for when searching for the item? So why place it at the bottom of the page? (And without all emphasis and links?) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 12:56, January 9, 2018 (UTC)

Oh, wow! No! That does not fit in perfectly right. Attacks per round, without taking any look into the Game Terminology, can be understood by everybody. Speed also is a common expression. THAC0 is something, BG players should be familiar with (if not – it's linked), and damage also is something everybody understands. But "opcode"? And for what sake add all this about MR, no save, etc.? The only useful information from that block would be the disability to dispel it – because then there's indeed no other possibility than to wait for the 120 sec to be over. But all that other stuff? It's not useful for the reader, only technical blabla – while the characteristics section in the form I chose is useful.

And you can't compare it with Limited Wish, because such a table is much too complex to incorporate it in such a short overview section. Of course that one could/should link internally to the expanded section. And I wouldn't call it "gameplay" – gameplay can be used for e.g. hints, in which situations it comes in handy. The tables are better named "Possible wishes" or "Wishes by wisdom" or as such. (And yes, it is indeed possible to place a uniquely named section in unique articles. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:24, January 9, 2018 (UTC)


 * An example from praxis


 * There were exactly two comments – both praised or asked things that weren't mentioned in the article before: advantages of Str and Dex and combat abilities, and confusion about how to leave wolf form again.


 * After my edit all these things were answered; prominently, in the first paragraph (after a short intro section). That's what I call useful information – readers talk about it, now it's there.


 * What do you think? -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:44, January 9, 2018 (UTC)

No, I don't find it fitting – as you presumably assumed.

As an editor you would be objected? Okay. If I saw such an edit by you, the random editor, I indeed would move your addition from the characteristics' section to gameplay, perhaps notes or trivia – as a technical, expanded detail of the effect. It's redundant and only blowing up a short section. If you (Ike, not the random editor) also think that my exact damage/attack/attribute values already are blowing the section up, then I remind you of the example about the comments, but okay, remove that information. Move it down. (But please keep emphasis and links.)

I'm not the owner of this wiki (neither are you), and the community decides how articles are arranged. If there is no community, but only two contributors debating, I bow to the admin role of yours. It's not the first time I see insurmountable discrepancies between us both, it will probably not be the last time, and it's also not the first time I consider retiring from here …

Deck of Many Things … horrible layout and such. Not worthy to discuss that one now, in this context. Would have to be redone first. (Not by me, at least not now.) Same thing as for Limited Wish: give that section a unique name. I insist on allowing unique headings for unique items.

Oh, and by the way, you came up with "characteristics", so don't tell me to be the one "insisting" on them.

Was I myself the same aggressive (before), as I experience your recent comment? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:37, January 9, 2018 (UTC)


 * No, thoughts about "retiring" are completely unrelated to any form of aggression or such, only to an – in my eyes – huge amount of different opinions about a similarly huge amount of topics.
 * No, you haven't been aggressive before, though that prelast comment I sensed as such.
 * Apologies for my own tone.
 * About the facts: later … -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:19, January 9, 2018 (UTC)

Okay, this page now has a rather unique layout. (Still thinking about proper titles for the individual books' pages, that certainly all should redirect here.)

What about it? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 19:54, January 11, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Problem is, I've taken shortened descriptions for the infobox to avoid line breaks.

"Fuernebol's death" would be the shortest posible title, if I'd use the ones from the headings, but even with a colon instead of " – " it breaks. So the xxx 1 and 2 are only workarounds. I don't want the numbers to appear in the headings – takes away some of the poetry.

What about the current solution? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 07:46, January 12, 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't annoy that the infobox comes below the TOC?

And the same order of TOC, article and code listing is obvious enough? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:41, January 12, 2018 (UTC)

Will revisit it (in my) tomorrow; let's see what I can do …

What about the two (of a series) new articles? You see them as useful as I? Naming okay? Or should "damage" be capitalized? (Fire and Cold damage (the latter is a mere template, yet), to follow: Electricity, Acid, Slashing, Piercing, Crushing)

It's okay to ask you all that? Or am I already bothering you? ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:29, January 12, 2018 (UTC)

Secret doors
IESDP doesn't elaborate that topic further, it's just a component of the area file format.

I unfortunately don't know the specific mechanics behind, except that there's a difficulty similar to traps on a 100% scale. Do you have to actively "find traps" to detect them? I once had the impression that another character in my party, no thief, had discovered one, but I might (very probably) be wrong.

There's no dedicated "Traps" page, either. At the moment, when I'm telling about those, I add the difficulty (the higher one of detecting and disabling, sometimes they differ) in parenthesis and sometimes link the term "trap" itself to the spell from its script. Shorter than to write what will happen if triggered, and the name/link will be displayed on hovering. I thought about some template, that might cover these informations better, but already failed with something similar on the Vault – that one was intended for locks. (Using a tooltip template.)

I think, a small (to begin with) article about traps and secret doors would be good, some simple mechanics explained, nothing big – but then a link could be used, for people who don't know nothing about. (The traps' article later could include all possible effects.) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:32, January 12, 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for moving it without asking before. Didn't think, I needed that long to manage what I wanted to do, before being able to contact you about it. Hadn't thought about this information might be contained in the manuals. When did I read those the last time? Years ago …

I've reworded and reformatted your article a little bit – hope that's okay. I've added that those console commands only work in EEs, "eval" seems to not exist in the old game versions.

What exactly do you mean with "door dispelled" in the second image's caption? And how do you manage to get these screenshots? From the elements contained, I'd guess it's from NI, but I haven't managed to find a setting that keeps fog of war active, or closed areas darkened. Or are they from the game? Then how do you enable the e.g. actors? Also I don't know how you display exit and door names – doesn't work in my area viewer. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 19:35, January 13, 2018 (UTC)

Okay. You didn't mean you send a mage doing something weird with the door, simply detected and opened … ;)

Thanks for the explanations! Now I have "Exit1802" displayed, too. (I already updated NI some days ago, after our last discussion about it.) Interesting effect in this area, with the door closed. And I notice, there are some differences between CE and EE: in CE the two Battle Horrors are scripted enemies, triggered by two of the traps; they aren't active actors on the map. In EE it seems, they are there from the start. So which scripts do "Trap 1" and "Trap 2" have assigned to? And in CE Davaeorn is hostile also from the start, in EE his allegiance initially seems to be neutral.

I sadly don't have two monitors, and my single one only offers 1920×1080. But, yes, I use Windows's Snipping Tool to get these screens. An alternative for a 100% scale would be to set the zoom to it, then scroll and capture several screens, finally merging them with some image editing software. But hey, too much effort for these, and too large files. (Many area map exports have to be exported to JPG, because the original e.g. wilderness maps are larger than 10 MB, the wiki's file size limit.) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:38, January 14, 2018 (UTC)

Djinni/Genie/Dao
Dear Admin,

I would like to bring to your attention the spelling/naming issue with djinni on this wiki. You can also find pages and categories dedicated to Dao and Genie, which are basically one and the same.

Could you please advise on a word to be set as "standard" term on the wiki? My version of BG 2 (vanilla) uses djinni (I believe I have an US version, though I'm not 100% sure), though I'm not sure whether this is universal for all versions.

Majorman86 (talk) 14:27, January 17, 2018 (UTC)

Category: Main Quests
Hi again, Islandking,

I have another issue with category pages, this time with the category "Main Quests". It exists under http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Main_quests, but I cannot add it to any article. Now, I'm not an experienced Wiki writer, so could you check if there's problem with it and hopefully provide a guidance on how to use it (again: I'm still a noob)?

Thanks! Majorman86

Re: Main Quests
Thanks, it's working! I've added a bunch of quests under their (correct) subcategory now! The question is: Should all quests be categorized as both "quest" and "main/side/companion quest" as well? Seems awfully redundant to me.

10:04, January 22, 2018 (UTC)

Infobox: Innocent
Hi!

I doubt the usefulness of detailed creature statistics, especially "Combat basics" named ones, in innocents' or, as many of them are categorized here, civilians' infoboxes. (See Maple Willow Aspen for an example.)

(I prefer "Innocent" over "Civilian", because that's the term from the game/NI used for their class.)

What about a guideline/policy, to give those characters only the really important information: relations perhaps, items (for pick-pocketing), the creature basics … such things, but not STs, abilities, APR and THAC0 – for what use? Maybe even create a new infobox for this … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:43, January 22, 2018 (UTC)

Was only an idea, but I see your point of the Amn massacre. Sort of … ;)

Separate the two IBs would have had the advantage of random editors not being able to fill in superflous info.

And I already had thought about different item cats' infoboxes, which e.g. would remove armor related stuff from weapons etc. Also would make auto-categorizing easier. But perhaps the all-in-one solution is better.

Currently I'm focussed on another wiki (have recently been promoted "guardian" there, so lots to do) and only come here for some patrols and my watchlist, minor edits. But certainly I'm following your changes on the icons' section! Tell me, when you're done with them, then I take a deeper look into it (again).

What did you mean with "please use the Relationships group for relates between characters" – I didn't intend to change that, it was one of the items that should remain!?

Your plans about the items/drops' section sound good. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:00, January 23, 2018 (UTC)

Disambig
Hey, if you're now placing this below the content on all pages, then you should probably change the displayed text as well, as "the following is a list" isn't really correct anymore. ;)

Perhaps reducing the box's size would be an alternative solution? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:18, January 23, 2018 (UTC)

Re: IB improvement thoughts
Hi.

Haven't looked into the files myself, but as the steal icon doesn't have a frame, the other one also should use the icon without the golden line.

But don't say, that inventory items don't affect stats: if one has armor equipped, stealable and dropped, it sure will influence their AC, or am I wrong?

Regarding this – what about those changes by TXTac and me on some quests? I doubted your approval of this layout. ;) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:25, January 29, 2018 (UTC)

So you agree with my choice of icon? You didn't reply to this specifically … ;)

Is that true, that non-party characters aren't affected by encumbrance?

I specifically spoke of the first of those edits, which was done by me, on Save Jaheira from Baron Ployer's Curse. I only wanted to restore the old XP value from before TXTac's correction to 21250 XP – which in fact is the pure experience for the plain quest. The other values are optional and may be gained in varying amounts, depending on choices. But it was only a quick fix, I hadn't the time or passion to integrate this into the walkthrough – where it certainly should be explained as well.

Also I was unsure about the horizontal lines I used (not TXTac, though). -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 08:34, January 30, 2018 (UTC)

Pretty quotes
Hi!

You're always using a different single quotation mark … Do you get this via keyboard? Is it a symbol, you're copy-pasting? A keyboard setting? I mean, is there an easy way to use that instead of the usual plain one? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 21:08, February 3, 2018 (UTC)

So, placed inside infobox, will still let you be able to use your preferred method of editing? That's indeed good news! :)

And, no, I didn't want you to let the pretty quotes be, I wanted to know how you use them. Perhaps I need them in the future, too. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 05:35, February 5, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Template:Box1 start?
Hi!

I don't understand your question: the templates clearly state what they are doing: placing blue and purple boxes! Doesn't that suffice for their existence?  

;)

Have you tried using them? Let's see …

This template starts a blue box, as the first part of a two column box.

This template starts a purple box, as the second part of a two column box.

Seems, the colors are very discreet …

Okay, when there are templates on a wiki, you don't know what they shall do there, what to do? Of course you could always delete them, if they are not used. (In this case edit my post here, please.) But sometimes templates are basic elements, imported by default on creation of the wiki, even if they are unused. (I once had an administrator who found my usage of such a default template – which she obviously didn't know, it was – too suspicious or what, removed it and chose a standard solution. Then deleted the template, because she didn't know of its importance. Later I really had use of it, without an alternative – but shall I dare to re-create a template, deleted by an admin?)

I would take these actions:
 * Look into their history, to get possible insights
 * Look for them on Community Central
 * Look for them on the Templates Wiki
 * Look for them on Wikipedia
 * Perhaps look for them on MediaWiki

Looks, as they are default import templates. Their talk pages on Community Central and the Templates Wiki appear to be empty. You could ask there, for what's their purpose. You could still simply delete them – they can be imported anew if needed one day. You could move them to some Category:Default templates. Personally, I wouldn't delete them, perhaps use the latter solution.

I will later this day having to visit a hospital for some minor surgery, and stay there for a couple days. I really hope I manage it to come here by once daily with my phone (and if it's only to not break the 200 days counter), but I can't promise. Just wanted you to know. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 03:53, February 6, 2018 (UTC)

Null edits
Hey!

If you ever come about a category like this, and you're sure the page without an image here does indeed contain one, go to that page, make a null edit (edit mode, no change, save) and then refresh the category page – should help. (Learnt this just these days.) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 04:19, February 6, 2018 (UTC)

(new) Category: Ghosts
Hi Islandking,

I've decided to create a new category:Ghosts in order to better categorize Ghost of Ulcaster and Wellyn; however I did not manage to put this new category under Category:Undead. Could you please fix that? Sorry for the extra work.

By the way, do you think that classifying Wellyn as a ghost is appropriate? Lore-wise, he IS a ghost, but technically (as in NearInfinity) he is implemented as a Halfling. I guess that was needed in order for his Halfling sprite to work properly.

There are other such inconsistences throughout the game, such as Lavok and Neveziah being called "liches" but technically not being such. Is there a rule to follow in these cases?

Majorman86 (talk) 07:45, February 7, 2018 (UTC)

Hello Islandking

I just saw your recent edit on the pages for the classes. What I have in mind is the icons for the different game versions on the experience progression tables. You have replaced the old text ("BG1", "BG:EE", "ToSC" and all that) with icons for each version.

First I must stress that I appreciate all the work you put into this wiki. However, I doubt the wisdom of this particular change. I understand the desire to make the wiki look more professional and aesthetically pleasing, but I think this actually makes the wiki worse for practical purposes. The wiki is essentially a database to look up information, a referral tool. These icons are so similar that now, in order to see the level cap of each game version, you have to hover the mouse pointer over the icon and wait for the tooltip to show up. Whereas earlier you could see it immediately.

This makes these pages more annoying to use. It caught my attention because I happen to be a first time player of the Baldur's Gate games and often look up information on this wiki.

Best regards, Nikomakkos (talk) 07:19, February 10, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Modifying the title icons
Hi.

Surgery has been canceled, my own decision. Will look into an alternative solution (pills). Anyway …

I've slightly reduced the icon sizes. Those glowing icons, are they extracted and uploaded directly, or have you edited them in any way? A slight downside of the no- and glowing variants of BG1 is that the inner image is practically the same, and the enhanced one only adds that outer glow – that leads to it being always displayed in a larger height than the old one, which breaks layout a little bit.

For now I have linked the distinct icons to their related games – don't know, however, where to link something that covers all editions of a certain game.

It seems, your desired solution definitely needs mediawiki edits. The first one offered is some java script (.js), the second one (think, you've not noticed it by now) uses some CSS classes. I rarely touch CSS, and if, then definitely in a sandbox before. Though this one seems to use an own file, and to not be implemented in the common.css. Usually such things are above my knowledge, too, but copy-pasting and trying to understand might help. ;)

The achievements seem to use a "module", which is a different system and something I've never cared about before. An extension, imported from central. But it's locally altered, to have your custom conditions and names and such. I have no idea where this is done, but if you would find it, that could possibly also help a bit.

Until a solution is found for that, I'd think about reducing the pop-up text to e.g. "BG I (original, without TotSC)" – okay, bad example, this text isn't shorter than the one before. But things like "BG I (original, complete)" and "BG I (enhanced)" probably work better than a whole sentence. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:47, February 10, 2018 (UTC)

Are the template and its use for you different, too? The Template:Tooltip Attila has images at the bottom, while the tooltip on hovering over Template:Attila doesn't show them for me, only the avatar. (My browser sometimes does this, not showing all images (e.g. in preview here), so I just ask before going into analysis …) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:16, February 11, 2018 (UTC)

… neither in Firefox, and still not after waiting for half a minute. Now I'm confused …

I also don't get the point of that Fngplg. Why "import" CSS, if simply copy-pasting the related lines from Common.css and js would suffice? Would it not? Have to try that … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 13:30, February 12, 2018 (UTC)

As mentioned before, "I rarely touch CSS" – which should read: "I have only a vague idea, if at all, of all that code." ;)

As the colors only define tooltip related classes, and pages, not using tooltips, aren't affected by it, the colors won't change anything existent. I'm not sure about the achievements, though. It might be a good idea to try it in your personal CSS first. And, by the way, I'm nearly completely helpless when it comes to color choices, being red-green color blind. ;)

I just started reviewing my missed watchlist entries from my absence – sorry for not being very helpful at the moment. :( -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:52, February 13, 2018 (UTC)

I've done it!


Now I own them, too! :)

-- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 20:54, February 13, 2018 (UTC)


 * Edited. -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:33, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the wishes, the helpful link, and all!

Haven't installed it, yet, though, so I can't tell you anything about a version. I think, I will try to use that unzipped method in a second directory (if that works), as research only structure – not for gaming. The first walkthrough(s) should be unmodded, so besides NI there's no need of this. Can't tell you when I will enter – currently occupied with other games …

I've edited the above post, you'll see why. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:33, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

Special:Insights/wantedpages
Uhm… empty??? -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:16, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

Something not so delightful
Hi, Ike.

Through with my watchlist, at least here. Don't know when I will install or even play the EEs, perhaps not before I've re-installed Windows (serious issues with my system's stability). These days I should become up-to-date with my other wikis as well, and then can take a deeper look into that CSS stuff.

Which brings me to this topic.

I don't know how exactly I can tell what's bothering me. Or how I should explain. This here's gonna be quite undiplomatic …

I think, I've mentioned it before, somewhere, but am not sure. I think, the former indexed and now iconized templates' purpose was and is to show game-/edition-specific context in a brief kind, to mark e.g. stat differences in infoboxes, game-dependent locations in item acquisition lists or edition discrepancies in certain tables. As it is already done in many places and will be in others.

No, I don't "think" so, it "is" this way.

But the trend of replacing every verbal instance of a game's or edition's name in continuous text, as e.g. in the intro phrases of (nearly?) each companion page, item pages and so on, is in my eyes a huge break of basic style rules.

It doesn't matter if there will be any changes to the icons – the icons themselves, their size, the description or link, any pop-up –, simply using an icon/abbreviation instead of a full name already counts.

If this trend continues and will not be reverted to common editing rules, I will loose a big amount of motivation and fun on this wiki. I yet can't say if I will start edit warring (by re-replacing the icons) until I get blocked or if I simply quit contributing here, but unfortunately I have to admit that I don't exactly see this as initiating a debate – it's an intolerable choice of style for me.

Feel free to take this into the forum, but I first wanted to tell you personally. (I will, however, inform Nikomakkos about this – he's interested in the topic.) -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 20:12, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

I can't find this particular topic in that specific former discussion, nor on its initiation here above. But I do recall some discussion about it somewhere and somewhen. Yeah, pretty vague … I gave my opinion, you gave yours – and then I stepped back from the topic for the time being.

The time being … now.

Look, these icons (with some further tweaking) are perfect for tables and infoboxes or at the end of a bullet point list item in some loot section. But continuous text, running text, a paragraph with sentences shouldn't use icons in it to replace what can be worded just as well. This looks horrible!

And this is no new topic, initiated by the switching from letters to icons – when I brought it up in the first, I was concerned in the same way by the chains of letters that were used then. The then intended change to icons was what made me step back from the discussion, and as this has happened now, it has become relevant again.

Some examples from Imoen's article (I won't use screenshots, for now): "Heya! It's me, Imoen."
 * Current

Imoen is a neutral good human thief and a potential companion in

She's one of the canon party members who adventured with the Gorion's Ward during the event of Baldur's Gate, alongside Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir, and Minsc. "Heya! It's me, Imoen."
 * Formerly

Imoen is a neutral good human thief and a potential companion.BGTotSCBG:EESoAToBBGII:EE

She's one of the canon party members who adventured with the Gorion's Ward during the event of Baldur's Gate, alongside Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir, and Minsc. "Heya! It's me, Imoen."
 * What it should look like

Imoen is a neutral good human thief and a potential companion in all Bhaalspawn Saga games.

She's one of the canon party members who adventured with the Gorion's Ward during the event of Baldur's Gate, alongside Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir, and Minsc.

Such styling simply doesn't belong there. Period.

You can replace "all Bhaalspawn Saga games" with "the Baldur's Gate series" (without further specification) or – if indeed wanted – the complete list of games, though I'd prefer to not list them all individually. The idea of creating the BG series article comes back to mind here …

Some old revision has plain text (and a longer paragraph on top).

So, what I wanted to say: both aforementioned solutions of defining in which games she appears aren't acceptable styling of a wiki article for me. Only the third one, only using plain text does work. If it's a matter of space for you – other wording can be used, grouping, a link to the series, simplification (such as using "Baldur's Gate II" if it applies to SoA and ToB, and the specific titles if not). If your concern is the editing and the convenience of using shortcuts instead of having to type in those long titles everytime – this also can be solved via a template, e.g. as we use some on the Official Pillars of Eternity Wiki (and is done in other places). But if it's your choice of style to use icons/abbreviations here – that would be no wiki I could be proud of being an active contributor. Not if it looks like that … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 11:46, February 15, 2018 (UTC)

Next time I get links from you!

;)

Okay, check Branwen, Khalid, Baeloth Barrityl, Clara and Yoshimo. For three of them I have avoided links now – we should perhaps making thoughts about what could be used as links for the various combinations of games/editions/dlcs. This was quick and without many thoughts. "Campaign" could be added for such things as "Shadows of Amn" at Yoshimo.

The initial discussion … icons indeed look better in tables and such. Perhaps back then was not the time when I (should have) mentioned that I'm against their use inside paragraphs.

I don't know if I'm back here timely to read and reply, before you quit today – have to leave for two hours or a bit more … -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 14:09, February 15, 2018 (UTC)


 * By the way – it would also be possible to create text, game-name displaying templates, to which a tooltip could be applied to. -- UserCCCSig.png -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 15:02, February 15, 2018 (UTC)

Give me some more days, please. I'm currently not in the mood or don't have the mind for the answer, phrased in a manner and containing all the information/points, I'd like it to be. -- -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:38, February 22, 2018 (UTC)

On Beholders (a.k.a. basecreatures with multiple stat entreis)
Hi again,

again I need your insight. I did some edits on Beholders and discovered that there are multiple entries (with different Creature Codes) referring to the same creature. While that is not entirely unexpected (creatures should scale with PC's level for the sake of challenge (and loot) ("and Gold" added the Dwarf)), it puts me in quite a predicament as what stats to put in the Infobox. In this particular case we have BEHOLD01 (no resists), BEHOBS01 (25% MR, immune to missile, more HP), BEHSPE01 (less HP, considerably less XP), CULTBH3 (similar to BEHOLD01, but with less HP and HP, also I suspect it appears during the "Unseeing Eye" quest), BEHUND01 (similar to BEHOLD01, I suspect it appears in the Beholder Cave in Underdark) and many more...

So, the way I see it (and my poor two spectacled eyes see it far worse than a beholder would), the Wiki needs either:

1. Multiple infoboxes in the current Beholder page, which is

a. Cumbersome, but

b. Would be easier to navigate if one can switch between infoboxes like with commands like *gallery* on the current Tazok page (i.e. 2 images, 1 infobox)

2. Split each Beholder entry into a separate page like Beholder (Cult), Beholder (Underdark), Beholder (wherever the heck does BEHSPE01 appear). Majorman86 (talk) 11:28, February 21, 2018 (UTC)

regarding articles with redlinks category
Hi, while going through the Category:Articles_with_redlinks page, I noticed that it contains several articles which have since then been "completed" - in the sense that they no longer contain any redlinks. Is there any specific reason for still keeping them in this category or was it an oversight? If the latter, can I go ahead and remove this category from such articles?

Su712 Talk /   Stalk     Not all those who wander are lost 20:08, February 21, 2018 (UTC)

Hi, thanks! I shall do so. Just reinstalled Baldur's Gate and it's good to be back in the game and on the Wiki again.

Su712 Talk /   Stalk     Not all those who wander are lost 06:08, February 22, 2018 (UTC)

Indeed it is. In fact, I can now proudly say I have gotten several of my friends converted to the cult of D&D worshippers thanks to this game :) For my second outing of the game I'm hoping to now actually learn strategy instead of randomly chugging a bunch of potions and thwacking away at the enemy till they die (I was mostly playing for the RPG aspects before). Hope to see you around!

Su712 Talk /   Stalk     Not all those who wander are lost 07:22, February 22, 2018 (UTC)