UESPWiki talk:Daggerfall Redesign Project

Related Discussions
Archived discusssions about the Daggerfall Redesign Project

Project Start

Heyla, all! I'm willing to be project leader, but I'm not as experienced as some of the rest of you. As such, I need help making tags and stuff. In general, my main methodology is a chaotic attack of the offending pages, doing what I can, and asking others to do what I can't. But anyway, this is important to me, so I'd like this project to be successful. At any rate, I'd like to be a part. Somercy 13:04, 1 March 2007 (EST)

As Daggerfall is the greatest game in the world, ever, I am happy to be aboard, but I have a lot of commitments right now. (Not least sorting out Shadowkey,) so please dont assign me anything to time consuming! ;o) Jadrax 18:50, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Hm, I'm wondering if you're better than I am at making templates for tags for the redesign and such things... Somercy 12:16, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Well for Shadowkey I just looked at Morrowind and Oblivion and then swiped whichever seemed best in the circumstances! Jadrax 12:28, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Can you do that for me here? I'm not that good with computer-y things...the first time I made a subpage on my userpage, I celebrated with a chocolate sundae, I was so proud! Somercy 12:30, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I can try once we actually have a structure to work too ;o) Jadrax 12:32, 5 March 2007 (EST)

That would help. I don't know how much we want to do here...do we try to squeeze it into the same box as Morrowind and Oblivion, with quest pages and npc pages and all that? Somercy 12:34, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Dunno ;o) I think the strategy that seems to have worked best on other projects is try to get something going in sandboxes and see how it looks? Jadrax 12:39, 5 March 2007 (EST)

(Sodomize the colons) Sounds like fun...I almost want to diagram out the way Daggerfall will look. I'll have something by tomorrow, 'kay? Somercy 12:48, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I'd been meaning to chime in here earlier and give my thumbs up, but got distracted ;) Basically, if you're willing to take the initiative on this, Somercy, that would be great. I think the most important thing in terms of making progress is just having someone who's willing to chip away at it regularly; that's more important than having a ton of experience or knowing how to do every detail. If you come across any questions about formatting, templates, etc., feel free to holler and I'd be glad to help.

My guess for overall strategy would be to focus on cleaning up the existing content, since adding any extra content will be difficult. So pages for individual NPCs sounds a bit too challenging. But it seems like most of the quests already have pages, they're just not in standard format (also, adding screenshots is probably another non-starter). In other words, trying to aim to completely mirror the Oblivion/Morrowind layouts is probably not too realistic, but trying to adapt some parts of those layouts (to get a similar look) should be feasible. --21:01, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Quests

I want to do something about the main quest walkthrough, because right now, it's amazingly blocky. I almost want to make it more like Morrowind, but I want some input, if'n anyone's around. Somercy 12:36, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Making it more like morrowind/oblivion/et al makes sense to me from the point of consistency and usability. Jadrax 04:54, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Created Cleanup Template

Add {{Cleanup-df}} to any pages you think need work under this project

Just to clarify: This template is no longer needed. The standard {{Cleanup}} tag will now work on all namespaces, including Daggerfall. Same goes for {{stub}}, {{wip}}, {{NeedsImage}}, and {{Peer Review}}. The -df tags will still work, but it's preferable to just use the same tags on all pages site-wide to ease confusion. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 10:38, 27 November 2007 (EST)

Working

I've sort of been working on the pages: If anyone else still redesigns Daggerfall, keep in touch. --Timmeh 22:46, 25 November 2007 (EST)

Hi everyone. I just got invite from Timmeh. I'm eager to help with Daggerfall Redesign project, although i must warn you my studies are very time-comsuming, so i don't have much free time. Anyways i'll help however i can. As for my experiecnte with UESP i was the one who transferred Battlespire walkthrough from old UESP to new one. Thanx for the invite! YessMasster 15:40, 27 November 2007 (EST)

And then there were... 2 --Timmeh 19:45, 29 November 2007 (EST)

Hey, I'm grammaring and such as best I can. I don't know Daggerfall like you, but count me in on this as a grammar nazi queen. Somercy 19:49, 29 November 2007 (EST)

Thanks for joining the fun, Somercy. I'm somewhere between ¼ and ½ finished with the Vampire factions (they require provincial data), and then I'll make good use of the provincial stubs and jump on the Knightly Orders. My work then will be the mostly painless task of adding the faction/subfaction hierarchies for the remaining joinable factions. I have no plans on adding the "dead" factions (Ex: prostitutes). Since I'm not much of a technical writer (which is strange, since I'm a technician by trade) you're nazism will be appreciated. --Uniblab 19:58, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

More Quests!

I've gotten all the main quest formatted so it has quest summaries (the part up around the contents), quick walkthroughs, and (if applicable) Notes.

Still need to do the detailed walkthroughs and add images (which I've shown how on the page somewhere) --Timmeh 20:42, 29 November 2007 (EST)

Thanks for all your work reformatting the quest pages! In case you hadn't noticed, I tried to add some info back into some of the quests that you'd reformatted, e.g. on Elysana's Betrayal. FYI, the quest header template can be provided with parameters such as:

• Start: for the starting location of the quest (i.e. the place where you find the quest-giver)
• ReqLevel: minimum required level for the quest

A full list is documented on the Quest Header template page. And there's also a useful Quest Footer template that can be used at the bottom of the page to help readers navigate through quest sequences.

But I had no idea what do with some of the info such as "Key Strategy: Don't take this quest unless you don't know the location of Lysandus' tomb", or "Story Progression: Lysandus' secret tomb location". If you think it would be useful to be able to add that information into the quest header, I'd be happy to set up some additional template parameters. Or else if you were thinking of incorporating it elsewhere in the quest writeup, that works too. Basically, there's no need to feel limited by what any of the templates are currently set up to do; if you'd like some help with tweaking the templates to work better with the Daggerfall pages just ask :) --Nephele^Talk 21:31, 29 November 2007 (EST)

Daggerfall Screenshots

I suggested this on the Daggerfall screenshots/previews page. The page is mostly bold words without links. I suggest we create a "Category:Daggerfall Images" page and whoever has Daggerfall (or at least the demo) can take screenshots of the game and put the pictures in the Category page. That way, we won't have to use links to other websites for all our screenshots. --Alcaeus

"What Hath Uniblab Wrought?", or "Darn That Uniblab and His Big Ideas"

Since Eshe and Timmeh (and a few others) have set such a fine example, then I guess I should do something now that I'm back. On my talk page I've written about my recent research (sometimes work and pleasure can mix!). Hopefully my desire to continue documenting the factions will be approved, because I wouldn't mind documnting the Quests. Hunh? Well, most quests include instructions to alter reputation with a specific faction. For example, according to _BRISIEN.QBN if you fail to meet with Lady Brisienna Magnessen (Faction #352, subordinate to faction The Blades, who are subordinate to The Great Knight, who (in turn) are subordinate to The Septim Empire) then your reputation with her is reduced by 14 points (ouch!), which of course translates upwards the hierarchy (and also spreads laterally through each faction's ally and enemy list)... Yeah, this has a lot to do with the faction database. Be all that as it may, where does the team think I should focus my attention? Uniblab 17:52, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Also, are there any current revisions/plans-to-revise the templates? I'd hate to start writing a bunch of articles/stubs only to learn that there is a commitee working on a new set of templates which will need to be applied shortly. Uniblab 17:52, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Thanks to everyone for this recent resurgence in Daggerfall interest. The Daggerfall Game Engine was and is a marvel of engineering genius which even today outshines many, many game engines found in the market. Few systems have as rich a faction subsystem, or as functional a quest subsystem, etc, etc, and I am glad to be in company who appreciates the design as much as I do. Uniblab 17:52, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Hey, welcome back. In case you haven't noticed, we've spent a good deal of time cleaning up the confusing stuff you were working on before - basically nobody could figure out where you were going with it, and it created a lot of red links, orphaned pages, non-existent categories, and other annoyances, all of it compounded by being transcluded so many layers deep nobody could make heads or tails of it all. While we appreciate the effort, It'd be good if you plan on doing anything nearly that complex again to first document your plans so that other people can have a say, and possibly make suggestions on how to simplify it a bit. Moreover, having it documented will make it possible for other people to figure out what the heck you were trying to do if you happen to disappear again, for example. Just a bit of a heads up there, because that stuff was a real headache on the site for a long time. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 18:13, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, I had something "juicey" come up. I would have prefered to continue here, but sometimes life doesn't let one do what one wants. When life gives me lemons then I typically find a guy who received vodka from life and enjoy some vodka-lemonade, but not that time; I was very busy. The red links in the Tamriel category might not have been too hard (oh, this refers to a town in the Tulane province of the kingdom of Daggerfall) but I'm sure many of the other links and templates might have been very confusing. Nephele first noticed I might be going down the wrong path, but I was unconvinced. Then, just before I had to go away, I realized how correct she was. This was naturally an uncomfortable spot because I would need to "fix" a lot of articles and stubs, and then I was real busy which meant no matter how much (or little) I wanted to do so, I would be unable to for quite some time. Sorry about the mess. I hope some of my contributions and ideas were well-received and I sincerely hope I didn't leave things worse than when I found them. So here I am, and I think I'm in a good spot in life. I don't have to work quite so hard for my money anymore (note to the kids: you have to put in your "dues" before life gets "easier", and it will never never never be "easy"), so now I can get back to the seriously fun work of Docofall: the complete documentation of Daggerfall by reverse-engineering the hell out of it. Uniblab 18:32, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Not sure what you by mean "are there any current revisions/plans-to-revise the templates?" Which templates? I'm sure that there will inevitably be changes/updates made to the templates, whenever a problem or new need is identified. But I'm not aware of any need to do a major revamp of our template system.

With the quest templates in particular, there are already options within the Quest Header template to incorporate changes in reputation that occur during the quest. You can see examples in the Morrowind quests, for example Morrowind:Potion Recipe. --Nephele^Talk 15:30, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Daggerfall Item Database, and interactions/impacts with Biography and Quest subsystems

The Biography Subsystem uses decimal representations of item codes, whereas the documentation for the Quest Subsystem (and the editors offered to date) use hexidecimal representation. Something which is of interest, is both the Quest and Biography Subsystems use the same values. While this may seem like a "duh" moment for some, it does facilitate documenting the Daggerfall Item Database. I worked at cleaning up the bio section, but this is not the place for listing items and their Id's. Some may have noticed there is an article entitled "Daggerfall Item", but that too needs quite a bit of clean-up. At any rate, I think it could be agreed both the Quest Subsystem and the Biography Subsystem should refer to a single documentation source. I have no idea how hard (or easy) it would be to clean up the current documentation at Daggerfall:Items, but I have some ideas. Uniblab 19:41, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

I think it would be wise to create sections (as in the Bio area) so one could simply include/link the appropriate table when necessary. The Quest and Biography Subsystem documentation might simply link to the main article, but other pages could simply include the relavent table. For example, promotions in the Fighter's Guild are rewarded with items. One might as well include, rather than reproduce, the weapon and armour tables for the reader's convenience. Uniblab 19:41, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

I have (after much research) confirmed that both Quest rewards and Guild promotions decide the material component (Z-axis in the Bio documentation) by the receiving character's level; there is no way to specify a specific material. This is fine, since most players would be unhappy if the high-level quests rewarded them with a leather cuirass, and receiving Daedric gear at the low levels is rather cheatish. Uniblab 19:41, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

So this leaves us with some questions on where to go, and how to get there. The data provided in the Biography section is accurate, but may not be exhaustive (more hacking/research required). Should the tables be simply copied bodily to the Item Database article, and then included in the Biography articles? Should we instead create macros for each item category? Should we leave things as they are, regardless of the dangers which data duplication invite? I am not, nor ever will I, be a fan of duplicating data, but wiki is not a database (as I learned the Hard Way, rather than simply accepting Nephele's wisdom). The middle idea may not prove very sound, since the point of a macro/template is to receive a variable, and these would not. So it looks like direct-inclusion would be the most "in the spirit of" wiki. Of course since I've been out of the loop for a while I might barking mad. At any rate, all the data is there, but it needs to be shared/included somehow with many other articles (Bio, Quest, Guild, etc, etc). What does the comittee think to be the best way? Uniblab 19:41, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Overall, I don't see any need to re-invent the wheel for Daggerfall. We've dealt with similar issues for Oblivion and Morrowind, and from what's described here I don't see any reasons why similar approaches won't work for Daggerfall. OB/MW have articles containing tables summarizing all of the items available in the game. Quests and NPC articles link to those item tables whenever an item is mentioned, generally using redirects to simplify the links. Leveled lists of various forms are extensive in MW/OB, and are dealt with in various ways depending upon the situation. Sticking to existing approaches will be easiest for editors who contribute to multiple games; it will also be easiest for readers who don't have to learn a new organization system for each part of the site. --Nephele^Talk 00:12, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Quests

Hey, Just wanted to say I'm back. I'm going to fix up the quests for now. I see someone made the rest of them and I'll add formatting (maybe? I didn't look to see if they had the correct formatting) and make my old quests look the same as the new ones. --Timmeh ^Talk 23:16, 11 October 2008 (EDT)

Information

Hey, P????? (random letter man) and Uniblab seem to have information I don't know how to get. Someone said something about reading it off of a .bsa file. Can you guys help me out with how I get this kind of information? Would make it a lot easier for me to do work on Daggerfall if I knew. --Timmeh ^Talk 15:42, 24 October 2008 (EDT)

Been A While

It's been a while since anything's been done with the Daggerfall project. Is this still ongoing? I may be able to get at least rudimentary information on bugs, both from other places on the wiki and from a large number of people who played Daggerfall extensively back in the day, as well as myself who has played a decent amount of it. It's a good old game and I'd like to see some love for it, even if I have to add that love myself. --13thSyndicate (talk) 04:29, 12 May 2015 (GMT)

There are a few editors doing upkeep in the Daggerfall namespace, but this project is inactive. From a cursory glance, it seems information on the Spell Maker is the only thing left to do. If you think of anything else you'd like to do, you can propose it here or on the Community Portal for feedback. —Legoless (talk) 12:56, 12 May 2015 (GMT)

I've noticed there's also some screenshots still missing, too, and one of the things on the list that either isn't there or I just haven't been able to find is a list of information on Daggerfall's many bugs, both of which are things I can do. I can also create a mage character to play with the Spell Maker, but I've got no experience with game hacking so I don't know how much use I'll be on that. --13thSyndicate (talk) 22:13, 12 May 2015 (GMT)