Oblivion talk:The Bloated Float Inn

The page has now been made

i'll add a nice piccie later today - with hdr and all the trimmmings plus a purty sky to boot :) --MacFodder 18:12, 13 February 2007 (EST)

and yes i know there a pic hanging around from the quest but it's pretty manky... --MacFodder 18:25, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Is this page really necessary? Almost everything on it is already covered on Oblivion:Inns. Not sure we need to have a separate page for every inn and shop in the game, I mean, where do we draw the line? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 18:43, 13 February 2007 (EST)

To my mind its a distinctive and unique enough location that it is worth having a picture of, and hence it is probably best having its own page. Jadrax 18:51, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Also, if your preference is to not have individual pages for each inn in the game, how come all of the inns on Oblivion:Inns have titles that are red-links to non-existent inn pages? I know right now there are a fairly large number of NPC pages and other pages that have red links to inn pages. And red links are generally taken to mean that the page should eventually be created. If we don't want to have those pages created, all those links should be deleted and/or replaced with links to a more appropriate page. I don't have a particular preference either way. It could be argued that the inns are alot more worthy of individual pages than all the bandit campsites; but that argument could just easily be turned around to say that the bandit campsites really don't need to each have an individual page. --Nephele 19:13, 13 February 2007 (EST)

I created the page as I've come across a number of dead link references to a separate Bloat page rather than to the Inns one whilst going through the pages - from a practical standpoint this alleviates someone having to go through and remove/adjust the red links for the Inns page. It's fixed up a number I was aware of reducing tim, effort and cleaning up the wiki in one fell swoop. Oddly enough the Inns pages referred to above isn't straightforward to find -> go to Places, then inpage ref to Inns - where's the link to the actual Inns page? I only found it now myself using that link above so it begs the question of it's existence itself if it's not used by other to refer to. I hadn't navigated to it at any time since using the wiki early Jan 2007. --MacFodder 19:34, 13 February 2007 (EST)

There's a link to it under Oblivion:Services, but I see what you mean. It should probably be linked to from other places. Still, the only inns that had their own pages before were those that aren't in the major cities. Almost everything you'd need to know is covered either on the city pages or on the Inns page, so the only reason the other inns get pages is because there is no city page to go with them. As for the NPC page links, I know I didn't put those there, and I created the majority of the Oblivion NPC pages. My practice if I mentionned an inn (or a shop) in a city was just to put the name in bold, rather than making it a link. I've noticed a lot of other editors making practically anything a link in their pages, which I think is bad practice, as it encourages the creation of unneeded or redundant pages. But again I ask - if we create a page for this inn, does that mean we should also create a page for all the other inns? How about shops? Or people's houses? I hate to use the slipery-slope argument, but there it is. Just seems like it's overdoing things a bit. Anyhow, if you want to keep this, it's your perogative, I just think it sets a bit of a precedent for lots of other un-necessary pages. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:10, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Not that this necessarily deserves being nitpicked over, but, Lurlock, I feel like you started this slippery slope when you setup the Inns page with all of those red links: every single inn listed on that page has a link to its own page, implying that you wanted a page created for every single inn and tavern. Of course, you're always free to reconsider that decision, but I don't think that MacFodder should be the one who has to justify creating this page when you initially created a link for it. --Nephele 23:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Yes, I may be partially to blame for that. I think I designed that page in a hurry and didn't think about that. Anyhow, links did exist on NPC pages prior to that, so I'm certainly not the first, but since he didn't know the Inns page existed, I don't think he got the idea from me. I'd be more than happy to remove all those links if we decide that's the best thing to do. Either that or we could have them all link to the relevant city instead. Whatever people decide is best. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:33, 13 February 2007 (EST)

(←) Yep, true, MacFodder definitely wasn't directly motivated by your page, and I doubt we'll ever hear from Hoggwild on whether she knew about the Inns page when she chose to create all the links on the NPC pages (nor are we likely to find out why she thinks the pages should exist... trying to occasionally remind myself what's really relevant here).

OK, after staring at the list of inns for a while, here's my proposal: combine the inns and their publicans onto the same page, with a redirect from one to the other. To back up one step and make the idea sound a bit less crazy... I've been thinking that all the townspeople's houses might as well just get described as part of the house owner's description; so you just create a link like "Ganredhel's house" whenever you need to mention something that happens at that location. Similarly, stores might as well get covered along with the shopkeeper; any description of items for sale at the store are really based on the shopkeeper so two separate pages would be pretty redundant. From there, the next logical step is combine inns and publicans. We already have all the NPC pages, most of which are a bit barren anyway, so why not flesh the NPC pages out with relevant information? Overall, this seems more workable to me than planning to incorporate all this type of info into the city pages.

Does that make any sense to anyone else? Or am I just starting to see patterns where none exist? If there is any interest in following through with the idea, there are some formatting ideas that come to mind (bread crumb trails to tie the main "Inns" page to the individual inn pages; setting up a template for a consistent appearance across the inn pages; making it so that the tables currently on the main "Inns" page are relocated to the individual pages and transcluded; etc), which I'd be happy to set up. But, step one first: does merging inns with their publicans sound at all rational? --Nephele 00:12, 14 February 2007 (EST)

Wouldn't that mean for consistency we would have to merge all NPCs into pages covering the building there in, (If any?) Which basically means reformatting the entire wiki. Ultimately I don't really see why having each inn have its own page is an issue, indeed I actually believe it to be a desirable goal. Jadrax 03:06, 14 February 2007 (EST)

I don't see that to be the case. Most NPCs listed at the inns are not there all or even most of the time. Only the publicans (and possibly the merchants later) would need to have the information added to their pages. (Though you can still say "So-and-so likes to visit the such-and-such tavern on such-and-such days", etc.) Their customers, of course, would stay separate. I like Nephele's suggestion, actually. Seems like a logical compromise that doesn't lead to every single inn and shop needing its own page. Another thought that occurred to me was that you could use this for merchants to give some more specific idea of what exactly they will have for sale. (Of course it's mostly random leveled loot, but there are some things you can predict. For instance, not all weapon shops will have bows, not all armor shops will sell shields, etc.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:26, 14 February 2007 (EST)

But it will mean some NPCs will have there own pages and others will only be available on the Page of a Building? That seems untidy to me. I am still not sure why having pages for inns/shops is actually a bad thing. Jadrax 11:33, 14 February 2007 (EST)

No, you've got it backwards. The NPCs would still all have their own pages. It's the buildings that would be on the NPC pages, not the other way around. Buildings would not have their own pages. Just, generally, there's more to say about NPCs than buildings, and they already all have pages, so this would be a way to include this information that doesn't involve adding a bunch of redundant pages. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 12:01, 14 February 2007 (EST)

(←) While you two had that exchange, I was writing out my magnus opus reply that basically comes down to what Lurlock said but in a lot more words. I wouldn't envision having all NPCs that appear in the same building merged together. Rather, I'm thinking that building info should be combined with the single NPC that is most clearly identified with that building. Almost all houses are named after a single occupant (e.g., it's "Heinrich Oaken-Hull's House", even though his wife Hasathil also lives there). So I'd envision any info that we may want to add about the house as belonging on Heinrich's page (and I picked this example because Heinrich's house does have a non-random Dagger of Weariness, that should be documented as an interesting item in that house). Hasathil would still have her own separate page, that wouldn't really get changed at all (maybe a bit of rewording to make it clear that she lives in her husband's house). With stores, most only have a single merchant so the store information would just go with that merchant. In the few cases with two merchants (e.g., Gundalas and Elsynia), there'd be an arbitrary choice as to which one gets redirected to by "Best Goods and Guarantees". Each NPC page would detail what that merchant has available, and there could be a cross-link saying, e.g., "Elsynia is also a merchant at Best Goods and Guarantees. See her page for details on what she has for sale and on the store itself". With inns, the idea seems to make more sense thinking of it as each inn/tavern gets its own page; the publican's page just redirects to the inn's page. The page for the Bloated Float's publican, Ormil is as minimal as you can get, and half of the info is describing the inn itself. Ormil's page is missing some info, such as his involvement in the "An Unexpected Voyage" quest, but anything you'd have to say would be identical to what gets said on the Bloated Float's page. In general, the publicans don't have any type of life apart from their inns/taverns, so describing them solely in the context of the inn gives the reader all the info they would want to know. Other people who frequent the inns would continue to have their own pages, that would just state, e.g., that "Hieronymous frequently visits The Bloated Float Inn" along with whatever activities need to be documented. Many of these NPCs visit multiple taverns (one for lunch, one for dinner; or different ones on different days of the week), in which case there would be multiple links. So I don't see it as requiring that all the NPC pages get reorganized. Yes, it'll probably be a while before any significant part of this gets implemented (unless there are some interested volunteers with a lot of free time), and a lot of NPC pages might get modified along the way. But if it is adopted as the working plan, it would allow anyone who wants to add this type of info to know where and how to do it. And some of the basics like redirects and links could be set up to make it more obvious to new contributors where the information belongs. And, MacFodder, sorry for the prolonged organizational debate that your addition prompted. Hopefully this won't discourage you in any way from continuing all the good work you've been doing. You just stumbled into an area where no decisions had really been made about what to do, and you adding the page happened to be the stimulus that initiated the conversation. In other words, you didn't make any mistakes; this just happens to be how decisions end up getting made on the wiki. --Nephele 12:22, 14 February 2007 (EST)

not a problem at all, it's actually provided me with an excellent introduction to think critically about the structure and higher purpose of the Wiki-format itself as it pertains to this project - I appreciate the thought and dedication expressed here. One of things it illustrates is the interplay of enabling knowledge vs knowledge for knowledge's sake.

I agree that in cases where NPC's are effectively 'tied' to places, the location wins out in terms of requiring a discrete page as there will be other elements of the game that interrelate to it - the thing to consider about rolling them into a location page is that is certain NPC's might themselves have multiple roles to play for information, quests, items etc - but that just acts as a qualifier for their own page I guess... (musing whilst typing at work...not good for a coherent argument)

You can provide additional elements to pad out the simple NPC's details, lore, screenshot with the accompanying text and info - and they can then be directly linkable from other pages.

Does it muddy the structure as it stands with each element that has already been created? 'eg. Ormil becomes 'oblivion:the bloated float#Ormil' - or should it simply stand as a guard aginst further NPC page creation and leave implemented ones as-is? I assume that there would be a fair bit of link cleanup to de done across pages for certain NPC's - I haven't glimpsed the 'guts' the Wiki but is their a less tedious way of identifying and then rerouting these links? eg. Ormil has 20 instances of links to him, Hilfil the Barkeep has 2 - Ormil keeps his own page, Hilfil gets rolled up. --MacFodder 17:55, 14 February 2007 (EST)

I would suggest changing Ormil's page to be a permanent redirect page (existing example: Oblivion:Mysticism_Training). That means that none of the existing pages would have to be edited; if a reader does a search on Ormil his page would still come up at the top of the search; Ormil would still be listed at Category:Oblivion-NPCs; and, any editor adding a new link to Ormil can still just type in Oblivion:Ormil instead of having to remember which inn Ormil got folded into.

If there were cases where having both NPC and location information on the same page was just too confusing, then two separate pages would be preferable. But I think in the majority of cases, having both on the same page is likely to just make it easier for the reader to find all the information that they're looking for. --Nephele 19:54, 14 February 2007 (EST)

I still think that in terms of what requires the least reworking of the current system, [[Oblivion:Ormil#The Bloated Float]] makes more sense than [[Oblivion:The Bloated Float#Ormil]], making the locations redirect to the NPCs, rather than the other way around, mainly by virtue of the fact that all the NPC pages already exist, and that requires the least creation of new pages. Plus when you include shops and even houses this way, it makes more sense to have NPC pages than house pages. Plus it doesn't make sense if every NPC has a page except for publicans and merchants. The merchants can also be treated similarly to how we have spell merchants now, where a list of their goods (or charts explaining their leveled lists) are included on their page, along with a description of the shop itself. There may be some things duplicated by necessity in the few shops with multiple merchants, but I don't think that's much of a problem, given that there are only a couple where that would be an issue. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:18, 14 February 2007 (EST)

I Think I pretty much confer with Lurlock at this point, if we have to combine buildings and people, (Which I am afraid I still think is confusing and undesirable,) I would rather keep the NPC pages as primary. Jadrax 05:22, 15 February 2007 (EST)

(←) Well, letting this sit for a while doesn't seem to have given anyone a chance to come up with the "perfect solution" :) I'd prefer not to prolong this discussion; it is more important to be improving articles rather than talking about how to do it. But it seems that leaving this discussion semi-unresolved is preventing some editors from making progress (here, at Oblivion:The Feed Bag, at Oblivion:Winson), so I'd like to give it a go once more and see if it's possible to find a resolution that's less of an unpopular compromise.

I'd primarily like to clarify one point about my proposal. I was thinking that it would ultimately lead to every NPC and every inn, tavern, and store having its own page. But many of those pages would be redirects. So links like Oblivion:The Bloated Float Inn and Oblivion:Ormil would both continue to be valid links (but one would be a redirect). And a reader typing in either "Bloated Float" or "Ormil" in the search box would be clearly pointed to an article on the subject.

The main reason to combine the pages isn't to reduce the site's page count per se, but rather to prevent editors having to create (and maintain) almost identical information on two separate and redundant pages. And also to prevent readers from having to pull up two pages to get all the information on a topic, when it could all easily be shown on a single page.

At that point, there seem to be many fewer factors involved in deciding whether the building page or the NPC page should be the redirect. There isn't a need for overall consistency, such as a universal decision that every building must be a redirect. Consistency is most important when readers and editors have to remember which system is being used, but with redirects no matter how they choose to access the information it will be there. And the fact that the NPC pages already exist also doesn't seem to be a driving factor: it's easy to move the NPC page to the new building page; in the process you automatically have the redirect link that you wanted to create anyway.

If everyone else thinks that it still makes the most sense to make building pages all be redirects, I'll go along with it. But I think adopting that as the universal approach will at times lead to confusing pages. In this particular case, there is clearly more information to provide about the inn than about Ormil, so it would to me make more sense to have Ormil's page changed into a redirect. (As a reader I think I would be somewhat confused to pull up The Bloated Float Inn and end up at a page that starts by describing Ormil). In the case of a store, I'd tend to think that there's more information about the merchant (the store's goods are only legally accessible through the merchant), so it would seem to make more sense to have the store redirect to the merchant. It is potentially more ambiguous, and maybe it's a decision that needs to be made on a case by case basis.

I realize that redirects and case-by-case decisions are not the most straightforward way to do things. The most straightforward would be to have separate building pages and separate NPC pages. I think that would be a headache long term. But if we can't come up with a viable alternative, it might be best to just let separate building pages be created for now, so that editors can continue to add content to the site. It's better to have the information and clean it up afterwards than to permanently delay adding the information to the site.

So to make a clear list of the available options (or at least those that I'm aware of right now):

• A: Separate building and NPC pages (with the potential to reorganize later if someone has a better idea).
• B: No building pages are created; any building links are replaced with links to a NPC.
• C: All building pages redirect to NPC pages.
• D: Whether to make the building page or the NPC page a redirect is decided on a case-by-case basis (D+ perhaps with a preference to have publicans redirect to inns but stores redirect to merchants.)

(In theory, there's also an option E: all NPC pages redirect to buildings, but given that there are NPCs without their own unique building, it would lead to as much inconsistency as option D)

Overall, I prefer D. I would go along with C if that's what everyone else wants. Or, if others think that this cannot be resolved fairly soon, I would strongly suggest we go with A for now just to let wiki progress continue until a better option is found. --Nephele 16:09, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Well, I'm in favor of C myself. I think it gets too confusing if some of them work one way and some work another. As for people being confused at being redirected to Ormil after searching for "Bloated Float Inn", I think if it's fairly obvious, like in the first sentence, that Ormil is the publican at the inn (using the name of the establishment in bold so that it stands out nicely), such concerns should be relatively abated. It might be good as a preventative measure to go ahead and create all those redirects right away, so we don't have any more such confusions. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 16:49, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I am in agreement with TheRealLurlock here. As far as I see it this is the best way to disambiguate the wiki as it relates to this topic. I believe it should either be NPC's to buildings or buildings to NPC's although the latter seems more efficient. Pappasmurf 16:54, 22 February 2007 (EST)

A would still be my favoured solution, failing that then C Jadrax 19:38, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Merchants and their shops seem the best candidate for option C. I realise for the sake of future consistency for the wiki a single option is best - but I still feel that some locations merit there own page and a 'permanent' NPC should be subserviant to that page. It harks back to the reason I created the Bloat's page - I felt it was warranted given the multiple roles and characters that intersected with it in Oblivion - a quest locale and location of NPC's who were vital in multiple quests. Other inns lack multiple dimensions or only have single quests related to one-off or discarded NPC's - like the Imperial Bridge Inn.

Luckily it seems that option D is mostly done when you examine which Inns have had separate pages created - (ie. Gottshaw Inn IS Foroch ;) ) then the admin side of things would be rolling the publicans into those pages and redirects from the separate pages to help comply with option C, and add any quest interactions if necessary (a la Drunken Dragon). --MacFodder 21:51, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Gottshaw Inn is a special case, as it is not in one of the major cities, and thus has its own page just for being a location not contained within a city. Inn of Ill Omen, Faregyl Inn, Roxey Inn, etc. are all their own locations, complete with map icons and fast-travel. It doesn't matter how many quests happen there (many other locations have their own pages but no associated quests, e.g. Gottlefont Priory or Cadlew Chapel) but all the Bloated Float Inn quests are covered on the Oblivion:Imperial City page, so it just ends up being redundant to have them listed in multiple places. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:47, 22 February 2007 (EST)

(←) sorry, I didn't realise from the discussion so far that there was a relation to location relative to a major City (ie. subset of a major area) in the decision or strcuture - just the nature of it's being a shop/inn with an NPC. so if we take option C, then should those pages should be redirects to the respective publican moving away from the D scenario - that's what I'm hinting at. Or is this another factor that is now being considered - locales outside majors will be automatically OK to have a page created for or leave the ones as is? I had touched on the quest angle as an additional factor but if it's more about Quests->covered under Major location->relevant NPC, then it was moving away from the original spirit of the discussion (NPC/place) I thought. I haven't looked at the code for a redirect yet but I'll go have a squizz at one when I get a chance. --MacFodder 00:55, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Well, all the locations outside of major cities already have pages, so I don't see a reason to change that necessarily. I figure anything big enough to have a marker on the map and be fast-travelled to deserves its own page, regardless of quest-relevance. This discussion is specifically about those inns and shops that are located within the major cities. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 01:16, 23 February 2007 (EST)

I still don't see redundancy as that bad a thing tbh, indeed baring in mind how appalling the site search function is having multiple ways to get places seems to me to be a good thing rather than a bad thing. Apart from that is there any reason that The Bloated Float, (Which is one of the few totally unique places in game,) is less deserving of its own page than say the Drunken Dragon? Jadrax 08:05, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Jadrax makes an excellent point. There could be a page on a building that breifly discusses its patron and more thoroughly discusses what people frequent the building and other assorted things. Also a page on the patron of the building discussing what he sells and his mercentile skill and stuff. I think that would better than automatic redirects, which are confusing. Pappasmurf 11:26, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Well, I started this response planning to state that the whole reason to create redirects is so that the pages would show up when doing searches, and provide some of that redundancy mentioned by Jadrax. But... currently redirect pages are not found by the search engine. I just did searches on four different page names listed at Category:Redirects from Alternate Names (and a couple others that aren't listed there), and the search never came up with "page title matches" even though there clearly are page titles that match. I'll ask Daveh about what's going on there, because I think it really is a major error in how searches are supposed to work. Not that these are the only problems with the search function, but they are at least ones that should be fixable.

So the upshot there is that redirects actually are much less useful than I'd thought.

My interpretation of the most recent round of conundrum is that consistency does not actually seem to be possible here. I understand Lurlock's reasons for having pages dedicated to places like the Drunken Dragon Inn: it's for consistency with every other place that has a map marker. But that then means that it is not possible to do option C, because there will be several buildings that are not redirects to NPCs. We can't be consistent with Oblivion:Places and Oblivion:Inns at the same time. And once you throw consistency out the window, then it really does become hard to justify having a page for Drunken Dragon Inn and not for Bloated Float.

All of which is leading me to think that we need to go with option A: separate pages for buildings and NPCs. We all seem to agree that content describing these places is worth adding to the wiki; we all seem to agree that the pages need to exist; the question is just whether to turn those pages into separate articles or turn them into redirects. The underlying motivation for the redirects is efficiency. But if we can't come up with a system that makes sense to everyone (and if there are also bugs in the redirect plan), I don't think that efficiency justifies continuing to delay adding new content.

We can definitely continue to discuss this (or revisit it later once more of the pages have been filled in and the content we're discussing is less abstract)... that is if anyone has the stamina to keep at it ;) But I think for now we should just let new pages on buildings be created so that the content can start to be filled in. Any objections? --Nephele 02:26, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Sealed room

What is in the sealed room on the bottom deck? Crowbar 20:18, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

You don't actually enter the room yourself, but it is where you lock up Selene in An Unexpected Voyage. --GuildKnight^Talk2me 20:46, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

I checked the Construction Set, there's nothing behind the room. It's just there for Selene if you persuade her to surrender. — Unsigned comment by 65.186.71.236 (talk) at 22:37 on 23 November 2010 (GMT)

Free food

Correct me if I'm wrong but The Bloated Float is the only merchant shop or inn where its not stealing when merchandise is picked up. Seems Relevant, at low levels of course.69.204.11.122 02:25, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

Loot Bag

How come no-one has mentioned the hidden loot bag on the page? After all, it is an important object, as a presumably re-spawning high quality gem loot bag. It is in the hirable room inside a clay pitcher. Stirksailor 02:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Done.24.32.60.90 02:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)thedrunknord

I reverted it because it was specified there, in the last pharagraph:The room you can rent is the one to the left; it is small and badly-lit and only contains a bunk, a table, and a sack, hidden inside the clay vase, which contains a small amount of loot. Both of the other rooms cannot be accessed: the one next to you is sealed until the related quest is active while the storage room needs a key to be opened. --S'drassa ^•T2M 04:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)