User talk:Browncoat Jayson

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• Underworld Ascendant

Quotes

"We're coming, we're coming, into your swamp,
through the bull rushes we will take a romp.
We'll tramp on your dwellings and make such a mess,
because we are humans and we do that best!"

To the tune of "The Temperance Union"

-- Jeffrey Kesselman, Kickstarter Comments on 03/04/2015 at 12:50pm CT

I'd like to add a bunch of pages. What's the best approach?

Hiya - is this wiki still alive? If so, I've a few lists of things I'd like to add into it, partly from trawling the data files and partly from exploring the game (map areas, chest locations, memora locations and texts, items, runes, spells, graffiti locations and texts, characters, quests, etc).

I don't have enough on the vast majority of these things to make a whole page for each one, so pretty tables of data with links to pages where they exist makes the most sense to me. But you're the site maintainer, you're likely gonna be the one who ends up maintaining whatever mess I end up barfing all over your nice clean wiki, and at the moment lists seem to be handled with categories in most cases. So, how would you prefer I do it?

Or, if this wiki's dead, any idea if there are other UW:A wiki projects I should edit instead? DewiMorgan (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2019 (MST)

Responded directly to user. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 12:25, 11 January 2019 (MST)

Level maps?

For the level maps (which are still a couple steps down my list of pages I want to make: I still have a lot of work on the Magic page!), I think it would be super cool to have them highlight the same way as ingame on mouseover. However, the only way I can see to get imagemaps that highlight is using Javascript, as seen on https://davidlynch.org/projects/maphilight/docs/ -- there's no HTML+CSS way to style an imagemap area as they aren't in the DOM, or even a jigsaw of transparent PNGs as they get treated as rectangular. According to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Adding_javascript_to_wiki_pages that's the right place to add it, but it's (for really good and obvious security reasons!) protected. This may not even be needed, though, as I might be able to make it work using just SVG and CSS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TM63ing6jY), though that means converting the maps to SVG... If SVG doesn't work, and I can find or write some super-simple and obviously non-malicious JS for imagemap area hover effects that will work with wiki templates, would you consider adding it to MediaWiki:Common.js? DewiMorgan (talk) 12:11, 11 January 2019 (MST)

So there are a couple ways we can do this. Adding directly to the js files works, but its clunky as it loads for every page (not just the map pages). We could try putting the code into a Widget or Template, so that it only gets used on the pages where we want them. I do this when embedding YouTube videos, for example, using the Widget:YouTube.

I havn't played around much with imagemaps, but its one of the things I fully intend to do long term both here and on SotAwiki. I'll investigate this weekend and let you know if I find a simple way of doing this. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 12:25, 11 January 2019 (MST)

Good news is that I have Widgets in place for each of the maps. They are all out on my Sandbox. I do need to get the mouseover and links fixed, so it goes to the correct page and shows correctly have hovering. They are just using the name from the image currently, which is obviously incorrect.

I don't currently have area maps for the Vault of Nyx, only a base map. I'd also like to get the markers set up so we can show where specific characters or items are. That functionality will probably need to be baked into the Widget, so I'll wait until we have a need for it before implementing. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2019 (MST)

Monsters Page

Eek, sorry to cause you concern. (particularly since I wrote this once, a couple days ago, and either failed to save it, or stuck it on some random place in the wiki... if the latter, sorry!)

First, to reassure you: I think we both have similar visions for how the "finished" wiki should look :)

Secondly, I acknowledge and apologize that I currently have multiple topics that are "Unfinished": Characters, Achievements, Feats, Runes, Magic, and now Monsters (which I thought would be an easy "few hours" thing! Hah! Won't make that mistake again!) I shall not start on any of the other categories of thing (Maps/Locations, Memora, Graffiti, Quests, Items, Skills, etc) until I have finished the existing topics!

And thirdly, to explain the workflow that I've been aiming for, for each of these topics:

1. Create an overview page, gathering everything I've been able to find out on that one topic.
2. Consult with you how you feel this data would be best sliced into sub-pages; and how you feel the overview page would be best managed and maintained.
3. "Explode" that overview page into sub-pages, for those elements we feel worth exploding.
4. Synopsize the overview page into an index of those sub-pages, either as a Category page, or a manually-managed page.

This approach -- getting the data up onto the wiki as soon as I can, but only creating the sub-pages once I know what a sub-page should look like and contain, and once I have all the information needed to make those subpages -- feels like the most efficient use of time, at least to me. Even the early splitting of Feats/Achievements has caused considerable duplicate work: splitting Monsters or Characters early on would have made it basically untenable!

But I think that I need to "Complete" the topics I've already started, so that you can either feel more comfortable with it... or so that you can point out how it totally didn't work out well and suggest another approach! :D

The most "complete" topic, I feel, is Characters. So...

Exploding Characters

So I'll use Characters as a testbed for steps 2 through 4 of the above procedure. I have a BUNCH OF QUESTIONS for step 2!

1. When you picture a "Character" page in your head, how do you see it ideally looking? What elements do you particularly want to have reflected across all new pages, as conventions of style and content for pages in the Characters category? I'm thinking: Infobox with image of character floating top right, with a bunch of standard information in there (location, name... what else?) And perhaps a map with an icon for their location, if relevant? Screenshot image if no art available.
2. Of the existing pages Tyball, Sir Cabirus, etc - what elements (content or style) do you want to see applied consistently across new character pages?
3. Should character pages be top-level (eg Sir Cabirus), or off in their own namespace (Characters/Draupnir)? I'd argue for the former for characters, as they're fairly core to the game, and uniquely enough named that collisions are unlikely.
4. What do you feel the cut-off for "Notable enough to have its own page, even if it's only a stub" should be for Characters? there are a few characters that were mentioned only in passing in, say, an item name, or a single graffiti, etc. Should even these be given their own stub page anyway?
5. At the moment, on the characters page, sources of information is handled REALLY HORRIBLY: the text has reference-barf all over it, and the references are still relatively useless, and they make editing the text a pain in the ass because you can hardly read the text for all the refs. On Monsters I experimented with instead creating a template to show a block of quotes in a lightweight way as a possible solution to this. Don't need to ref-tag each fact, if it's right there as a quote on the same page anyway! To me, it felt like it worked OK, but I'm interested in your opinion.
6. Each character will have one or two collections of quotes: always one for everywhere the character's mentioned, and possibly one of everything they themselves have said or written. I think the Quotes have value to the reader, and hope the QuoteList template is a good start for this, but would you prefer another approach? Would you prefer quote blocks be styled differently, not be collapsible, or even not even exist and an entirely different approach be taken?
7. How would you like me to handle the overview pages? I see you've made use of Category pages for this in some cases. Should I migrate the condensed husk of the Characters page to Category:NPCs, make a new Category:Characters (since only a very few characters are ingame NPCs), or keep it as Characters with links to the main page on each characters, with the table as just a synopsis?

Ultimately, I know that you're going to end up being the one who has to maintain all my crap. So making everything minimal-work for you, and as close to how you want it to be, means that you don't have to go fixing my crap everywhere in the long run :D

I'll be traveling and at Pax South until the 23rd, but will try to check in here at least semiregularly. I would also be very happy to discuss this on Discord, too! DewiMorgan (talk) 10:29, 17 January 2019 (MST)

Going Forward

I think I understand what you are aiming for. And you're probably right, just getting things onto pages is going to make splitting them into individual topics much easier. So keep going as you are. I'll try to answer what I can for your questions:

1. An infobox with an image, their location, and any other information we can say definitively is probably best. Within the pages, I've included a Lore section if we have actual information from in-game or a printed reference (mostly from UU1 and UU2 manuals, hopefully the UA one and the novella will be coming soon). The Other Appearance section is if they are in other Ultima games (mostly, UU1, UU2, or SotA). If something is from a non-game source, like the forum, Reddit, the Kickstarter, etc, we have a built-in <ref> code that displays a superscript number and outputs all of the references using the <references/> output.
2. As above, each of the pages should contain the same structure, if present, with sections excluded if they don't apply.
3. Top level. The only reason to use subpages would be if the character appears in more than one game level (and it matters which they are in), or otherwise needs to be denoted somehow. There honestly arn't enough characters in UA for that to matter.
4. If characters are named, give them a page. Items should each have their own page, excluding quality (so "Leather Armor", not "Worn Leather Armor"); each magic item should definitely have its own. Graffiti... thats hard; I'd say each should be listed in the level where it appears in its own section, and probably the conversation series should be listed together in a general Graffiti article.
5. I know how hard creating those templates are; I'd try to use the LoreQuote template when possible, and use the <ref> code everywhere else, just to limit how much maintenance we need to undertake. Most of these will eventually be split, so I wouldn't worry overly much about it being extremely long on the reference pages we create right now.
6. These are basically LoreQuotes, with the character themselves (or the Graffiti, etc) listed as the source. If we need to, there is a Spoiler option that just makes that section expandable, rather than needing to put things into a special block for this. Again, not something I'd worry about until we get these into smaller pages and are just working on prettying them up.
7. I've used Category pages mostly because they automatically alphabetize things for me, which is easier than trying to group them manually. We do have Semantic Query installed on the wiki, so we have a ton of options for querying items and formatting the output, but that involves a lot of template work that I just don't have time to do right now. If I do use a category page, I try to put in a redirect from the normal name ("Bestiary" is a redirect to "Category:Creatures", for example) to make it more discoverable, and making adding links easier. I tend to use NPCs for characters other than the player; while Characters would be both the player, potentially multi-player characters (not a concern here, since that stretch goal wasn't hit), and NPCs. Note that I didn't do a lot of category work, as I didn't know what would be included up front; we could probably make a "Bestiary" category, change "Creatures" to be a subcategory for things like Deep Slugs, add "Undead" and "Humanoid" subcategories, etc. Again, probably not a biggie until we start breaking pages up. The various levels should probably have their own categories too, so we can tag where things are found.

So... no worries, keep doing what you've started and when I have time I'll pitch in. Thanks! --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 12:19, 17 January 2019 (MST)

Finally got back to this, sorry for the month-long wait. Please see Sir Cabirus ...and Talk:Sir Cabirus for lots more questions :D DewiMorgan (talk) 21:01, 16 February 2019 (MST)

Memora

[1] has a copy of the script I used to populate the memora templates. Let me know any changes I should do for the next patch! I have already fixed the keyword issues I noticed below.

I've set scene and location to ? in all cases because I have no idea.

For keywords, I have treated the factions and their races as separate keywords, not sure that's right since they are generally used synonymously and likely won't get separate pages. To identify keywords, I have gone for the singular of whatever was capitalized in the text, omitting any leading "The" and any trailing titles like "of the Expedition". This seemed to match well with your own keywords. Full list of keywords I used, with any other phrases I used that keyword for, and the number of times I used each one:

• 6 Abyssal Key <- any of Abyssal Key, Sun Key
• 1 Baldred
• 1 Cataclysm
• 17 Cabirus
• 3 Circle of Portals
• 1 Deep Gap
• 5 Disenthralled
• 7 Dwarf <- Dwarf, Dwarves
• 6 Elf <- Deep Elves, Elves, Elven (you had this as "Dark Elves" - should I change? Page is Elf)
• 4 Executor Rubric
• 17 Expedition
• 1 Galdwain
• 1 Gilgamesh
• 1 Goblin <- Goblinfolk
• 4 Great Work
• 1 Grue
• 22 Hivemind
• 1 Horn of Plenty
• 2 Ishtass
• 1 Izanagi-no-Mikoto
• 1 Khosnak
• 1 Leaf
• 1 Lich
• 4 Lower Dark
• 2 Marcaul
• 0 Mediator (I see you used this one: I've added it to the script)
• 1 Memora
• 1 Mogwawg
• 1 Obsidian (not sure what to use for this. Obsidian order?)
• 1 Odin
• 1 Outcast
• 14 Pir-Tama <- Any of Pir Tama, Pir-Tama (Hyphenated is apparently correct, according to Sam)
• 1 Praxor
• 1 Rotworm
• 1 Saurean <- any of Saurean, Lizardmen, Lizardman (BUG: I had this typoed, should be Saurian)
• 2 Seer (you had this as "Seers of the Moonstone" - should I change?)
• 1 Slasher of Veils
• 8 Shambler
• 30 Stygian Abyss <- any of Abyss, Abyssal, Underworld, Avernus
• 3 Sun Key
• 1 Tinker
• 1 Titan
• 14 Typhon
• 2 Undead
• 1 Xefreyani
• 1 Zeus

I think for the most part, the import process is good. Here are a couple notes...

• For Elves, they were "Dark Elves" in the original material, but "Deep Elves" ingame. We should probably have a consensus for this. "Elf" is fine for memora; we can redirect it whereever we want it to go.

When in doubt about a keyword, I used the page name in the wiki, eg Elf, Dwarf, Shambler, as I suspected this would make your astonishing magic memora autosearch thingus work better.

• Obsidian and Seer are fine.

For titles, we may need to look at capitalization. I see "Of" getting capitalized on the imports, but it does not appear to be capitalized in-game, and shouldn't be title-wise.

Yeah. This affects page titles, too, and means that pages you created before (Father of Monsters) cannot be auto-imported as they have a correct case and the script is looking for the wrong one.

The trouble is that the titles are stored in ALL CAPS, and I am using mb_convert_case($title, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8");, which does a very naive titleization, but I was hoping it would be enough because messing with case is a VERY DEEP rabbithole once you get started. I've been down this rabbithole before, and have code I could reuse, but... *shudder*.

For a start, all other languages have totally different Title Case rules. I shoehorned them into using Title Case because every other option meant I needed a native speaker.

In German you should in theory NOT use titlecase, ever: but all nouns should be capitalized (but there's no way to do that automatically), and then there's the whole problem about how in German an "SS" in capitals should become "ß" in lowercase except where it shouldn't: so, "ISHTASS" -> "Ishtass", but "AMBOSS" -> "Amboß").

In Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, you capitalize only the first letter of the sentence and any quoted sentences. You also capitalize proper nouns, but there is obvious ambiguity there, as in English with "may" vs "May". And then there are things like McDonald, mA, pH, iPhone, etc (no authority has yet ruled on how to titlecase iPhone). And there are acronyms like KISS, SWAT, ZIP, etc, which should remain all capitalized, and have obvious ambiguities with the words they often deliberately imitate.

In Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, you capitalize loan words which are spelled with roman letters, only if they are habitually capitalized in the source language, or if you feel like it for visual effect.

Even in English there are ambiguities. For a start, there is no accepted standard for titlecasing in English, despite what English teachers try to claim. Various style guides say different things, but Just Capitalizing All The Words Is Fine. You often hear rules like "words less than N characters" or "prepositions" should not be capitalized. But "like" can be preposition or verb, and "over" can be preposition or noun. Worse, we have the concept of "compound nouns", which should be capitalized as nouns, even if one of their words is a preposition. So even to correctly follow the prepositions rule, we would need "Man in Crowd" but "The In Crowd".

</rant>

Which is a long way of saying: I opted for "be consistent" rather than "be clever".

One way to TRY to be clever is hardcoding the capitalization of all Memora (In at least English, preferably in all languages), which in turn means a commitment to manually updating them if they change, or new ones are added, rather than just having the script handle them automagically.

Another option: we could just leave them in UPPERCASE. I hate this idea for page titles, but I can see it being possibly useful for the various |title-XX= titles that I've put in the template. That avoids all the problems with every other language, and means we have a version of the original English title from before we munged the case, in the template. It still leaves the problem of titlecasing the English titles, though, whether dynamically or by hardcoding. But that's a simpler problem than all languages.

Personally, my recommendation is to rename Father of Monsters to Father Of Monsters and roll with that style of Title Casing. :P But I can see that my main reason for this is pain avoidance, so if you want us to go the more painful route for consistency with the casing in the rest of the wiki, I can live with that :)

This will be fine. While it won't match 100% from how the game displays it (using smallcaps), it should be fine for how we are using them. The hardest thing for me will probably be remembering to capitaize it correctly when linking!

Also in the body, I was using paragraphs as we can control the line breaks between them. The import is using break tags, which always uses a full line height. Thats going to eat up a lot of space in the Quote/Lore sections.

This was deliberate: putting a <br> whereever there was a \n or \r\n linebreak (the translators weren't consistent which break they used) gave a truer transcription, and a truer display as seen ingame (since the intervening lines really were one line high). I didn't feel that I could convincingly claim that if there were two in a row, or two separated only by a small amount of whitespace (some translators used things like \n \n for their vertical breaks, rather than \n\n), that they definitely meant that the things on either side were paragraphs, especially for memora like Begin Your Ascent - those aren't paragraphs, so I didn't feel comfortable claiming that they were. I also felt that this was something that should be handled with styling, rather than <p> tags, ([2]). But I agree that this might be a mixture of laziness and anal-retentiveness on my part, so am willing to be told "just do it the way that's easier to style" if you aren't swayed :D

I hadn't dug into styling a break tag before. It isn't as easy as I hoped, but I got it working. It required different styles for the memora boxes and the quotes, but I made them generic unough we can reuse them on quests and other pages.

I think memora are found at specific locations, rather than being random like loot (and I REALLY wish this was true for runes...). I'll start getting location info to get maps added to these pages.

This is true of Regular Memora: the memora you find at a location always seems to be the same one. It will be a pain in the ass to get all the locations, and they updated in the last update, so will likely change again.

But worse, Quest Memora can be at any of multiple random spawn points spread through each level!

Also, there doesn't seem to be anything obvious in the code to say which memora are quest memora, nor which quest each one associates with (both of which should probably be a property in the Memora template, thinking about it).

Speaking of which, now that I have this script written, it might be easy to auto-create filled stubs for all the quests, too. Quest name, type, faction, description, goal text, location, associated quest object, etc. Some other time, though, I have too much started here and too little finished!

Quest memora, at least, have a specific number of places you can find them. So while they are in one of those randomized locations, we could easily tag all of the possible locations for the quest. But yes, if the memora themselves are randomized that will be harder to show. Perhaps we can just link to the quest itself, and have that map show the possible locations.

I had created a couple quest placeholders, to test using the maps and layout out the data. Find Civilization is the one you start with. Once I have all of the information I need for a quest in place, I'll turn this into a template so we can add more. The other thing we will want to get added are the character pages, including quotes for each character. I think we could just dump everything that say into the CharacterName/Dialogue subpage. I'd like to add these with templates, so we can trigger the same keywords and can query them for inclusion on other pages. That will probably be my next step.

Anything else you need prioritized for memora? --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 14:44, 4 March 2019 (MST)

Not that I can think of! --DewiMorgan (talk) 22:56, 4 March 2019 (MST)

Excellent. Now that the plugins I need for queries are installed, I'll look at getting the "mention" query for memora working, and then begin on the multilingual display. So much to do. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 08:10, 5 March 2019 (MST)

Quotes

I've set up something for quotes, so we can import them for various characters.

The Infobox NPC template points to the CharacterName/Dialogue subpage, which I created on Aelita/Dialogue. All this page has is a query for all of her quotes.

As a test, I manually created sub-subpages for two of her quotes from the export. These appear on the Dialogue page, and there are keywords and such applied to them. This should make them fairly easy to import, and populate the Dialogue pages.

Right now, I'm not sure I really want to put all of their dialog into their main page, so I'll probably end up pulling a few manual quotes, and creating a template to query by the quote id.

Again, this will need to be extended with the multilingual version of each of these, but I think conceptually it works. Thoughts? --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 09:35, 5 March 2019 (MST)