Homecoming Wiki talk:Main Discussion

New Badge, New Costume Part

The Heart of Light Badge (I hear its Darkness in CoV) and the Toga Costume part just went live an 9 pm PST (midnight EST). --StarGeek 23:17, 7 Feb 2006 (CST)

What's it for? --TonyV 03:38, 8 Feb 2006 (CST)

Valentines day, apparently. Everyone gets it. --StarGeek 03:43, 8 Feb 2006 (CST)

True, I created a new character and boom! Got it. And you're right, it is Heart of Darkness in CoV. --TonyV 06:12, 8 Feb 2006 (CST)

I appears there's also a Beautiful/Handsome badge for completing some missions in Pocket D. The details are supposed to be on the Test server board. I'm going to work through the mission though. I guess it's time to check the data files again http://dotn.evilgeniuses.org/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif --StarGeek 19:43, 8 Feb 2006 (CST)

A few thoughts about stuff I'm conflicted about

Okay, I freely admit that I'm really stumped about a couple of things, especially about how I want them to appear in the wiki.

First up would have to be the Villain Group articles. I just can't make up my mind how I want them presented. Right now, I'm torn between three options. From an outline view, here they are:

Overview
Minions
- Villain Class
- - Villain Name
- - Villain Name
- - ...
Lieutenants
- Villain Class
- - Villain Name
- - Villain Name
- - ...
...

A Villain Class is a subset of villains within a villain group. For example, the Circle of Thorns has several villain classes: guardians, demons, hordelings, mages, specters, possesseds, and probably several others I'm leaving out. The Council is another villain group with subclasses, such as Penumbrae, Penumbrae Elite, Vortex Cors, Equinoxes, Galaxies, etc.

However, this presents a problem. Where do you put enemies that have no subclass? For example, the Council Ascendants have no subclass. If this standard is adopted, then you'll have to either create a category just for one villain type or lump them all under an "Other" category. (Any other ideas?)

Also, some villain groups don't have subclasses. For example, the Clockwork aren't really neatly divisible like that. There aren't different classes of cogs, sprockets, and oscillators. Some really small villain groups such as The Infected just have five or so different villain types. How will they be formatted?

Consider this an open call for ideas. Either post a reply here or e-mail me at [email protected] with your comments.

--TonyV 16:11, 27 Jan 2006 (CST)

---

Well, Tony already knows my views, but I'll repeat them here :D I am not a fan of "Other " or "Misc". My favorite format so far is to make a sublevel only if it's needed for that type of entry. I tried out a bunch of things when making the Coucil page, and things are going to be just as bad when it comes to Crey, Nemesis, Rikti, Freakshow, etc (oh, man, I just remembered Prisoners, lots of types there that are just some proper name!). A lot of small variations, and also singular types. Tsoo for example, lots of enforcers, yellow ink men, red ink men, but only one type of green ink men. And Lieuts and bosses usually are singular.

I don't think there's a simple way to work through it. The data set we're working with is just too messy :D I think there should be 2 formats, a simple one for the small groups with just singular types, and a more complex one for the messy groups (Council, Tsoo, Crey, etc).

--StarGeek 17:31, 27 Jan 2006 (CST)

So will the Freakshow entry be the "official" format now? I like. It'll work well the big nasty messy groups. But isn't it missing a minion category near the beginning? :D --StarGeek 22:37, 28 Jan 2006 (CST)

---

Hi!

Just posted at the Freakshow section about this same issue...I tried the subclasses idea as well, but abandoned it when realized it wouldn t help with certain groups: many villain groups would simply have too subsections: it was hard to find a mob easily, so it was better to make something simpler than that, yet still complete.

As I mentioned in the Freakshow discussion, it is my theory that the game presents the mobs and factions as evolving entities. Clockwork, let's say:

-Gear (Underling): basic model

-Cog/Sprocket (minion): same model as Gear...even the same attacks!

-Oscilator (minion): Cog/Sprocket able to fly...same attacks than before.

-Knights (Lieutenants): Still same model than a cog, with one or another attack from the same powerset added.

-Bosses:

Duke: still very similar in apparence and powers to the cog/sprocket: more damaging attacks, but that´s all.

Prince: same attacks than a Duke, plus Pummel. Bigger model and leaves gears behind

...and that's all, folks! =) The "Charged Bolts + Charged Brawl + Something Else" model repeats itself from the start to the end. The madness follows a method. It's much easier than it looks! =)

And Prisoners, since Star mentioned them:

Minion: Rock + Knife / Pipe / Brawl

Lieutenant: Revolver. No melee attacks.

Boss: Shotgun or Submachinegun. No melee attacks.

And a whooping list of 31 named mobs, that´s true =P.

My theory: just follow the order of the game spawn in missions and things will solve by themselves! =)

--Yakovlev 23:23, 28 Jan 2006 (CST)

---

I'm actually considering something else as well, maybe something along the lines as what I've done with the powersets articles I've been tweaking lately. Check out the Energy Melee article for reference.

What I did is to have them all listed in detail alphabetically. This would mix minions, lieutenants, bosses, giant monsters, archvillains, underlings, elite bosses... the whole shebang. See the Powers section of the Energy Melee article; it's all neat and alphabetical. Each would have a detailed entry in the list, including description, powers, classificaiton, and so on.

Then at the top of each villain group article, at the top of the page would be an index that could group and classify the enemies in a simple list, with links into the article to the alphabetized section.

I'll try to throw together an example today sometime to show what I'm talking about. It's probably a lot easier to show through demonstration than to describe.

--TonyV 08:52, 29 Jan 2006 (CST)

Picture Size

Hey Tony, what would be considered optimal picture size for uploading, both in dimensions and file size. I certainly don't want to overrun your web space. --StarGeek 13:21, 28 Jan 2006 (CST)

---

Typically, I size character portraits to be 300x700. If that's too slim, I go for 350x700 or even 400x700. There are a few exceptions for oddly-shaped things, such as the picture of the Golden Roller, which is 450x450. Those are really weird cases, though. Character portraits I upload are stored in .jpg format (.pngs are just too durn big, even highly compressed). Typically these files are around 30k - 40k, give or take a little. The larger ones are maybe 50k or even 60k for a very few.

Iconic images, such as powers icons, inspirations icons, badges, etc. are in .png format at full size, because they're really small and the format allows transparency, which means I don't have to go in and format the background of all of them.

Maps are really big, but there aren't that many of them. (And I haven't uploaded them all yet.) The Skyway City map, for example, is 82k, and is 488x750, which is a cropped (to remove the border) full-sized copy.

So far, I'm still good on space. If the size of the wiki doubles, I'll start getting a little worried, but will still have enough room. If need be, I can make further arrangements to accommodate more images if need be, but I think I've still got some time left before I have to think about that. Worst-case scenario (or actually, best-case, since it means that the wiki will have become huge) is that I can bump up the account type to accomodate more information and images. I guess what it boils down to regarding adding images is don't go too wild spamming full-sized screenshots or anything, but don't hesitate to add cool pictures.

--TonyV 08:41, 29 Jan 2006 (CST)

I got a webhost if you need space -- there's oodles. -- Taxibot Yellow 21:10, 29 Jan 2006 (CST)

Forums?

Quick question: Do you think that this type of discussion page is enough to have meaningful discourse on stuff, or should I set up a (some?) phpBB forums for it? --TonyV 08:53, 29 Jan 2006 (CST)

I like the phpbb forum setup and would certainly use it. But ATM it might be too much, since you appear to have only 3 (edit oops, forgot about Taxibot) other dedicated people making entries. --StarGeek 11:57, 29 Jan 2006 (CST)

We clearly need a Taxibots entry. -- Taxibot Yellow 17:02, 30 Jan 2006 (CST)

What, a link on every page isn't enough :D (Kidding!) --StarGeek 20:26, 30 Jan 2006 (CST)

I would have, but seriously, I don't want this to turn into a supergroup database. For individual players, I suggest using the Crey Industries Hero Threat Database. For groups, well, I suggest the official Team Sites portal. For player-created content such as fiction, I can't help but recommend donning a reporter's hat and writing for the Paragon City Free Press !

And StarGeek is right; I have them as a link on the left of every page. :-) Oh, and when are you going to create your user page!!?

---TonyV 10:00, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

I just noticed that you have forums off your main PC Free Press page. If you wanted to add forums, wouldn't just adding a Wiki Discussion section there be better? I've found that it's a big enough pain to update just one forum (esp if there's a fair amount of Mods), and two would drive me insane! Well, more insane :D --StarGeek 16:58, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

This is true, but I'm actually considering deleting them. No one ever uses them. The intention of those forums was to create a place where writers for the PC Free Press could get together and talk about stuff like historical facts and such about the city, as a basis for articles. Honestly, though, I'm having a really hard time getting folks other than myself interested in writing for the paper. I was hoping to be a lot further ahead in that project by now, but the wiki is really sucking up a lot more of my time. No complaints, though, it seems the folks are really more interested in the wiki anyway. At some point, I'll try to strike a better balance.

One bad thing about the PC Free Press forums that I've been painfully aware of for a while is that the user database between the wiki and the paper is not integrated, so if you want to post a message there, you'll have to have a totally separate username and password. What I had in mind for wiki-specific forums is forums that use the wiki user database so that you could log into the wiki (or the forums) and be done with it.

--TonyV 12:56, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

Okay, here's an update on the forums idea. First of all, as a side note, if I do put forums out there, they will replace the PC Free Press forums, which right now, are effectively dead.

I installed phpBB and got to playing with it, and I found that there is a free wiki/phpBB authentication file out there that will allow me to integrate the wiki and phpBB user databases. That's the good news.

The bad news is that it totally integrates the databases, which means that your wiki account and your phpBB accounts are one and the same. Also, the phpBB account is considered the "primary" account, and since no one has phpBB accounts right now, everyone would have to create a new account for the wiki.

I thought to myself, "Gee, Tony, you could just pre-create all of the accounts, and copy the hased passwords over," but that won't work either. MediaWiki stores the passwords as salted MD5 hashes, which is very secure. phpBB stores them as straight-up MD5 hashes, which is less secure, but plenty secure enough for our purposes here. The problem is that it's impossible for my time and effort to convert from salted MD5 to MD5, and even if it weren't, I wouldn't do it anyway since it would involve effectively cracking the passwords.

Another possibility is to pre-create all of the accounts and assign them a random password, and send it in an e-mail to folks who have registered an e-mail address in the wiki user database. This would still mean that folks who haven't registered an e-mail address would have to re-create their accounts by creating a phpBB account, and folks who registered a bogus e-mail address just to get an account (I do this myself using Mailinator, so I understand and really don't care) would suddenly be locked out for no discernable reason other than whatever explanation I post on the front page.

Last, but not least, my least favorite option is to just have the wiki and phpBB use two different user databases. I'd like to avoid this at all costs, since it means that, with the PC Free Press user database, a person who uses all of my site would have to have three different accounts, and that's just plain silly. By "avoid at all costs," what I really mean is that I'm not going to consider this option.

So what do you think? If I'm going to integrate the databases, I want to do it as soon as possible (after a bit more testing on my test server, of course), so that it will be done and over with. There are currently 27 registered wiki accounts, not including the admin account, my account, and a test account I set up and will probably delete in a few minutes. Oh, and even if I do this, people will still be allowed to edit anonymously.

By the way, the test forums, if you want to go ahead and create an account, are at http://www.pcfreepress.com/forums.

--TonyV 15:10, 7 Feb 2006 (CST)

No real opinion either way, Tony. I'm fine with remaking an account, seperate passwords, what ever. --StarGeek 15:22, 7 Feb 2006 (CST)

Helpful Hints

Here's something I just figured out. If you want to add a new entry, you can just pick the edit link nearest the place you want to insert it, and put it before or after, as appropriate. That way you don't have to use the edit tab at the top to open a really long document in order to add something in the middle. This entry is an example. I clicked on the Forums? edit link and just typed this part afterwards. --StarGeek 20:31, 30 Jan 2006 (CST)

Help!

Well, oddly enough, I'm in need of help =P

Just did the whole Vahzilok section today. As you can see, it's complete and ready for release. Much to my dismay, I can't make it show up in the Enemies section, in the "V" subsection, where it should be.

And rather than try and hit blindly, breaking God-knows-what in my efforts, I tought it would be best to come and ask how can I do it. Any ideas?

BTW, I have noticed that the Freakshow section done by Tony isn't showing up either.

--Yakovlev 07:40, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

Are you talking about showing up in the Enemies category? At the bottom of the article, simply enter a line that says [[Category:Enemies]] to enter it in the category. I just did it for the Vahzilok and the Freakshow articles, so they're in there now.

By the way, to actually link to a category (like I did with the "Enemies category" link above), put a colon before the word Category, like this: [[:Category:Enemies|Enemies category]]. And to actually show the double brackets and everything, like I did to show the wiki markup just then, enclose the whole think in <nowiki></nowiki> tags. Just a few marking-up tips I've picked up! :-)

--TonyV 09:53, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

Great! Now I know how to do it then! Thank you! =D

--Yakovlev 10:01, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

RE: adding [[Category:Enemies]] (or any Category entry), it appears it can actually be anywhere in the entry. Top, bottom, middle, doesn't matter, it still appears to work. It may not appear as nice and neat when you edit a page, but it is easier to remember and fix when it's at the top. --StarGeek 03:56, 8 Feb 2006 (CST)

That's true. That also explains why all templates that have a [[Category:whatever]] entry in them also show up in the category. Notice that all WIP articles, including the WIP template itself, show up in the WIP category.

I usually put the category marker at the bottom so that it doesn't clutter up the article in its edit view. I think that's pretty much how all the articles on Wikipedia do it, but I haven't really checked too many to make sure.

--TonyV 18:11, 8 Feb 2006 (CST)

Power Icons Update

I compared the Power Icons to the newest available on Test, and found 4 new icons:

• Temporary TargetedBuffDamage.png;
• Temporary TargetedBuffDefense.png
• Temporary TargetedHeal.png
• TargetedPBAoEConfuse.png

That brings the total number of power icons to 908 and I verifed that all the names of the icons online match what's in the data files (except WarriorsChallenge, which is Warrior'sChallenge in the files). Whether the pictures match or not, I'm not that crazy enough to double check :D. --StarGeek 16:50, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

Yeah, I left out the apostrophe because I didn't want to clutter up the URLs with ugly %-- codes. Thanks for uploading the other four. I've been meaning to run a diff on the files for a while now, but I've been pretty busy in a whole bunch of different ways lately. --TonyV 23:06, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

Sorted Icon Test Page

I've created a test page (since deleted, see below) for my icon sorting project, and need some feedback on it. Yes, it's ugly at the moment, but I wanted to get some feedback before I fiddle with it some more. --StarGeek 19:38, 31 Jan 2006 (CST)

The link's dead. Have you moved it already? Are you just using the Category page now? --TonyV 14:10, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

Yep, my bad (note to self, remember What Links Here link). I deleted the test when I put up all the pages. I was still trying to figure out the best way of setting up categories for it. So check out the Icons Outer Ring Key and make some alterations to it. I think the language I used could be cleaned up a bit. --StarGeek 16:44, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

Oh, and I just realized... Sorry for cluttering up the urls with the ugly %-- codes. I was just thinking along the lines of what I've seen on Wikipedia. I didn't even notice the urls until too late. --StarGeek 16:53, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

How odd...

Well, I can't see the Coralax section I did this evening in the enemies category, nor even the coments I made at the Nemesis section...nor the changes StarGeek did at the Nemesis page, either.

Even better: every time I go to the Enemies index, it says I'm not logged in...if I go to any article, it says I'm logged...

Just checked the Coralax article and everything seems all right, link included. Can´t imagine why it's not showing up... nor why its happening all that... :-?

Tried refreshing the page, but it hasn't helped...

Any ideas?

--Yakovlev 13:26, 1 Feb 2006 (CST)

Well, solved it...or almost. If I dont force it to refresh via CTRL+ F5, it doesn't bother to show me the changes... It wasn't happening before.

Any particular reasons for this? it's a site's issue or my computer's issue? :-?

--Yakovlev 13:37, 1 Feb 2006 (CST)

I dunno, everything looks to be working fine to me. I see the article on the Coralax and your comments in the Nemesis article. Maybe something got cached crazy, either on your end or the wiki's. --TonyV 14:08, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

/em scratches head

I have been auto-logged out as I was pre-viewing my response to you in the previous post O_o

Everything is working here, but it requires me to force the comp to refreh via CTRL+F5...or I can´t see the new sections...it seems this comp has gone crazy, but well, as long as it works...=)

--Yakovlev 18:38, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

Try switching to Firefox or Opera? (grin) No problems here with Opera. And I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that Tony uses Firefox... (quick search) oh yeah, there it is. Link on the front page. --StarGeek 00:38, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

I am definitely a diehard Firefox fan. Trying an alternate browser is actually a good idea. It would at least let you know if there's something wrong with the site caching or with IE on your machine. At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, Get Firefox today! (Full disclosure: the Opera Web browser is now gratis, too, so use whichever one you think would work better.) I've fired up IE on my machine, and again, the site and those articles look perfectly okay. --TonyV 03:51, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

I just checked the Enemies category, and the Coralax page specifically, in all three browsers (IE, Firefox, and Opera 8), and they all look perfectly fine to me, no trouble at all. I even made a couple of small edits in the Coralax article, and it all updated fine.

I dunno, man, I'm thinking it's on your end. If you can duplicate exactly what is happening and snag some screenshots, e-mail them to me at [email protected] and I'll look into it further.

--TonyV 13:21, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

It really does sound like a caching problem. Ah, Check under Settings->Internet Properties and check the Setting button on Temporary Internet files. I would guess (don't use IE, so I'm not sure) that either Automatically would be good, or if it's already set for that, try Every time you visit a page. And then click the Delete Files button, that's next to the Settings button to clear out your cache.

What do you want to see?

When I first started setting up the wiki, I started by documenting a little bit of everything. I consciously jumped all over the place. Contacts, powersets, history, badges, zones... You name it, I touched it. I did that for several reasons. I wanted to show everyone examples of what a fully populated wiki looked like, it's how I think (I'm a very stream-of-consciousness kind of person), I wanted to establish some formats, I wanted to provide the most common useful information first, and so on. The sacrifice I made is that I didn't really go all out on any specific category. There's a wide variety of information, but nothing's particularly deep or complete.

Don't get me wrong, I really like what's written by myself and everyone else, but now, I'm thinking I'd like to start delving into a specific area to make it as complete as possible. I'm not asking anyone else to do this, though it looks like some have made some really, really nice in-depth contributions to the enemy groups. It also doesn't mean that I won't still write articles on all sorts of stuff. It's more of an area of concentration for me going forward.

So what I'd like to ask is this, what do you want to see more of? What do you think would be particularly useful for people and get more folks here? Here are some obvious options for topics that I feel need to be fleshed out, at the expense of a lot of time that could be spent scratching a lot of other surfaces:

• Badges (Best example: Healing Node Badge)
• Contacts (Best example: Kirsten Woods)
• Enemy Groups (Best example: Skulls)
• Powersets (Best example: Energy Melee)
• City zones (Best example: Skyway City)
• Cleanup (i.e. General formatting consistency, template development and usage, etc.)
• Meta Documentation (i.e. Help files about the wiki itself)
• Special Events (Ghost ship, Steel Canyon fires, etc.)
• Task Forces/Trials (Best example: Virgil Tarikoss

Anyway, let me know your thoughts!

Hi!

Well, the way I see it and In My Humble Opinion...

• Visits: I wouldn´t even think about that yet. If people goes to a site, it's because the site has exclusive or very useful content. Put content in a site, add a link to the official site or to your sig and if the site is good, visits skyrocket. For now, at least for me, it's all about work and adding content: IMHO, the Wiki does not have any spectacular or unique content. Yet =). Indeed, I'd be surprised if I could finish putting in the site all the CoH info I have stored in my HD before I7 is released.
  

(And yes, I know: this is a common effort and people and visitors could contribute, but let's face it: most people likes to go to a site and read info, not type it. Those who work hard to build a site such as StarGeek or you, are a minority...Or at least that has been my experience in the Net so far.
On the other hand, once the site becomes popular and full of info, everyone will start to write on it and put notes and info in this or that section...wait and see! =) )

That said:

• Enemies section is still going to grow a lot. Expect it to be nearly the double size than it is now, since key groups haven't even been mentioned yet: Rikti, Carnies, Praetorians...there is still a lot of work to do. I'd say it could be ready in two weeks...if I keep the pace =)

• Contacts: I have a complete list of those as well, but for now I'm focusing on Enemies. Something interesting would be a graphic/picture/diagram showing who introduces you to what contact and such. Also, it would be very interesting to develop a section about missions and how to solve them (example: Hunt 25 Lost in Terra Volta, or Defeat 10 Trolls in Red River), since no other sites have done this, and some missions are universally hatred, and often deadly if you don't know how to solve them (example: Defeat X Carnies in Peregrine Isle): It would be useful, and can be done with just a couple of comments for such missions =)

• Maps and badges are, again IMHO, a lost battle: Vidiotmaps has such an amount of resources devoted to that aspect of the game that I can´t imagine a site better than that. I'm not saying that the Wiki should ignore those sections, but being already covered in other site they should be a low priority: I doubt the Wiki can say something that hasn´t already been said in that other site, since they have done such an excellent work =)

• Special Events should have guides and map images (example: Lusca's spawn points). That would definitively help.

• Cleanup can be done in any moment. I agree we should establish some general rules to avoid having everyone working with his own system, that would drive to endless editing =P

• Task Forces and Trials: IIRC, Nofuture site already had an excellent database of those. Same case as maps and badges: they should be added, but, IMHO, not a priority.

That said, I plan to do something like this:

-Enemies: every group, every being, every attack (well, at least the ones I have, that's it! =P)

-Elite Bosses and Archvillains: adding links to the already existing EBs and AVs in the Enemies section, and adding extra info as needed.

-Contacts and missions: adding what you guys leave for me! =D

And that's it. =)

Please tell me what are you guys focusing in, or if we can help each other focusing our efforts in an specific area. For now, I still have plenty of content to put in =)

Oh, and here are a couple of crazy ideas I had some time ago:

-Weapons gallery: I have taken SSs of almost every weapon in game. Some, such as the CoT Staffs are worth to see. Some others, like the heavy pistol, are based in real life models. Anyways, something curious and unique to have. My only worry is the space it can take, but I'm sure the size of the pictures could be adapted to the needs =)

-NPC Files: You don't realize the ammount of info Cryptic has put out on enemies who aren´t even in-game yet until you put it all together. The Center is a good example of it: they have already released so many info about him that it is not even funny.

I have started to collect info on beings, organizations and whatever other thing I can find and put it together in archives and files. Results are interesting in several cases, especially for a storyline fan such as me! =D

I hope it can be done in a future...Please tell me what do you think about it, and what are you focusing on, or if I'm needed in any other areas than the ones I mentioned. If not, back to Enemies section! Home, sweet home! =)

Yak --212.59.206.95 18:33, 4 Feb 2006 (CST)

Here's something that might be helpful, or at least a little insightful. These are the top 20 search strings that resulted in hits to the site (granted, some of them are for the PC Free Press's site:

1. city of heroes wiki
2. city of villains wiki
3. coh wiki
4. paragonwiki
5. cape radio and city of heroes
6. operative gruber
7. city of heroes ziggurat
8. city of villains costume changing
9. city of villains fateweavers
10. origin temporary powers
11. paragon city free press wiki
12. paragon city press
13. paragon city wiki
14. pcfreepress
15. the cape radio coh
16. v.i.p. badge in coh
17. villains costume mission
18. 3d fan art city of heroes
19. archmage tarixus mission
20. arful medallions

After that, the search terms get rather cryptic, which I'm guessing means that folks just accidentally ran across it looking for something else. (In fact, you can see that some of that probably happened later in the list.) Maybe also worth mentioning is that the vast majority of the hits came off of posts on the official forums, with some also coming from the VidiotMaps forums, the Taxibots web site, and some offbeat places such as from the Penny Arcade forums (?), some other fan sites (thanks!), and so on.

Also kind of funny is I saw a referral from a site called The Unbound. Down towards the bottom, there are a bunch of graphics that are links to other sites, and included among them is the City of Heroes/City of Villains wiki. (Cool.) But then I saw two mini-banners on either side of the link to another site called NoFuture.org, which is another set of CoH/CoV informational sites. The funny part? The graphics are the ones I created for the CoH/CoV links on the main page of the wiki! I mean, it's all cool, because everything I put here is meant to be freely shared in the community, I guess I'm just a little honored someone though they were good enough to use somewhere else!

Anyway, I'm seriously considering concentrating on the powersets. In City of Villains, they're just plain not documented anywhere that I can find, which is wonderfully inconvenient if you want to know what they do without actually taking them to find out. I'd also like to hammer away at the Slash Commands article, as these commands are extremely poorly documented other than a very short description in-game which is often cryptic and sometimes useless. At some point, I'd also like to move Curveball's guide to /bind over, beefing it up in the process like I did with the Emotes article. One day in the way distant future (because it will be a truly massive effort), I'd also like to include the information on the demo models, powers effects, and MOV commands found on the CoH Codex site. The author of that site says that he's quit CoH/CoV and won't be updating it any more, and I really don't want that valuable information to be lost.

--TonyV 03:45, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

Oh, regarding the maps and badges: I think the wiki does have a lot to add to that area. I can think of two things right off. Check out the article, for example, on the Solace Badge. This is about as good as I envisioned every badge article being, with a level of detail that VidiotMaps just plain doesn't provide. Actually, I'd also like to add cross reference within that article as well. Somewhere in a "Everyone we know about" article, I'd like to mention Dr. Anguish, along with what we know about him and why. All VidiotMaps gives you is coordates and a marker on the map.

Also, the badge articles are very handy as a reference on other sites. Sometimes in my posts on the official forums and other places, I'll link to them when I'm trying to describe something. For example, check out the bullet point that begins with "Use it!" in a post on the Taxibots forum.

--TonyV 14:06, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

Hero's name in mission entries

Some mission briefings, debriefings, and such refer to the hero by name (i.e. Hurry your hero's name, they may be on their way there, already.) How do you want these to look, Tony? --StarGeek 18:16, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

I've been omitting them as much as possible. In your example, I just type it up as "Hurry, they may be on their way there..." Sometime I'll tweak the wording or leave out almost a whole sentence if it just can't be reworded. For example, something like, "The Council will definitely remember the name StarGeek" would become something like, "The Council will definitely remember your name." I know, it's not exactly transcribed word-for-word, but I wanted the articles to serve well as stand-alone resources, and I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the story contained within. I also correct any spelling or grammatical errors (and there are lots of them) in the mission descriptions. As a simple example that comes to mind, the word "liaison" is misspelled in almost every single mission description as "liason." I think the only place they got it right is on the NPCs themselves. In my articles, however, I spell it correctly. --TonyV 20:56, 5 Feb 2006 (CST)

Use the forums...

Hey all, I'm going to be using the forums for further discussion that would normally be on this page, and I highly encourage everyone else to, too. Aside from having more room to work with and a more logical layout, I am in final testing now (hopefully) to integrate the forum and wiki accounts, and you'll need a forum account at that point anyway.

I posted a topic on the new icons I uploaded today based on a directory diff between December 18, 2005, and February 13, 2006. I uploaded a bunch of icons, and this post explains why and what they are.

--TonyV 13:54, 14 Feb 2006 (PST)

Again, please use the forums to reply to this. I've added several new "definition" articles and want your opinions in a post in the forums. --TonyV 07:42, 19 Feb 2006 (PST)