User talk:Nephele/Archive-2009-01

EquinGirl

Why shouldn't I view the page? If it's a complete list of item codes for the Console for the add.item command, I wanna see it and make my own subpage of it :P But yeah, I'm thinking we should keep a close eye on EquinGirl just incase... Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 00:10, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Ooh, I just loaded it (by clicking on the 2nd version of the page's date) and it is a complete list. I've copied and pasted everything onto a page, now I just have to sort it. This subpage I'm making will be incredibly useful to me :D Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 00:14, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Eh, nevermind. Too much work. Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 00:31, 1 January 2009 (EST)

I added the edit summary/recent changes warning message because trying to view a diff that deletes 100+ kB from a page freezes your connection to the site, and permanently (well, at least until the server restarts) blocks one of the site's ports. And please, please, do not post the list on the site, because that will just start the problems all over again. Really, there are reasons why we don't have such mega-lists on the site, and it basically comes down to the fact that they break the site. --Nephele^Talk 20:33, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Merry New Years!

(\ /)

(°_o) <(HERRRRPA DERPP!)

(u u)

(u u)o

Merry New Years from the brain damaged bunny! Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 01:11, 1 January 2009 (EST)

NPC Summary

Hi. I checked the edit history of the NPC Summary template, and saw you were a big contributor to the page. I was wondering if it's possible to make my own template of it (on this page), but without all the links, so there wouldn't be all these red links all over the template, when I put it on my userpage. Is it possible? Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 05:52, 1 January 2009 (EST)

If you'd like to tackle it, I'd actually suggest creating a community-wide version (for example at Template:User_PC_Summary, or whatever name works for you). There are a lot of users who've put that NPC summary on their user pages, so we really should create a proper user version of the template -- no red links, no categories, only include the features that users are interested in, make it possible to add new features users might want, etc. I don't know whether it's easier to start by copying the existing template and ripping out all the unwanted stuff, or whether it's easier to start from scratch with something simple and build up -- I suppose I'll leave that up to you ;) --Nephele^Talk 20:33, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Recent block

Hi Nephele. Concerning you most recent block i have to ask exactly why you blocked this user? Daedryon issued a vformal warning after which the vandalism stopped so im not exactly sure why you blocked them for "vandalising the site despited being warned to stop" perhaps im missing something here but i just cant understand why they were bocked when they appeared to have stopped. --Volanaro ^Talk 10:21, 1 January 2009 (EST)

I'd have to go with the old "Very rude vandalism deserves a ban" reason. I mean cmon, he put "In order to become a werewolf, you must suck a werewolves"...err...you know. He deserved the ban. Even after I reverted the edits, he continued. Once I warned him, he stopped, but the fact remains, he deserved a ban. Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 10:28, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Sorry, I didn't realize that the warning had been posted after the last of the vandalism; from the vandal's edit summaries I incorrectly assumed that he'd been warned and was then continuing to vandalize pages. I've removed the block. --Nephele^Talk 10:35, 1 January 2009 (EST)

It's ok Neph, we still love you <3 Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 10:38, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Glad we got that sorted. But just for the records Daedryon, "Very rude vandalism deserves a ban" thats rich coming from the person who issued the warning in the first place, thus implying that they should have a second chance. The reason we have a warning system is that its often enough to stop vandals on its own withuot having to resort to a block. Personally i find a big red banner much more intimdating than a block but thats just my opinion. --Volanaro ^Talk 10:42, 1 January 2009 (EST)

I would have banned him myself if I had magical mod powers :3 Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 11:04, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Oblivion Places Redesign Project

Hi Nephele, I'm on the Xbox 360 and I was wondering what information if any would be useful to this project when I am exploring places? — Unsigned comment by Gadianzero (talk • contribs) on 1 January 2009

I'm not sure I can say much more than what's already been said on the project page -- in particular, the section on In-Game Verification. It can basically all be done playing on the Xbox 360 -- the existing dungeon pages already contain most of the construction set-derived information that's possible. --Nephele^Talk 20:33, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Just asking for permission, or you could do it also.

Heh, I'm new to this soo... well I wen't to the administrator noticeboard because I accidentally clicked it on the recent changes page.. and then I wen't reading :p soo after a while I saw rpeh's name spelled reph 2 times! And I don't know if I can change that page or something soooo I'm asking you.. sorry if I bothered you for such a stupid thing XD. Byebye!

- edit: sorry don't mind this, I'll ask one of the mentors, Byebye!

---hiya!- 15:47, 4 January 2009 (EST)

Generally, you shouldn't edit other people's talk page posts, even in cases of typos or grammar errors; talk pages don't need to be maintained to the same standard as articles. See Talk Pages for more. --Nephele^Talk 16:52, 4 January 2009 (EST)

Martin's Armor Glitch

Concerning your deletion of my entry into the Oblivion:Glitches page, I understand your desire to limit the types of glitches listed in this section to game-breaking bugs: to keep the section from exploding into a confusing list of every undesirable bug that one may encounter in the game. But I feel that limiting the acceptable list to that sole criteria is contrary to the nature and intent of the Problematic Glitches section, if not to the article in whole.

I did not choose the 'Martin Armor Glitch' simply because it was my Flavor Of The Month or because it was the latest thing I chanced across while browsing the wiki. The glitch stuck in my mind because of unique and especially problematic elements of its nature. While its consequences are not as severe as the other glitches listed in this section, they are nonetheless undesirable and especially frustrating to new players who may not be able to save Martin. But furthermore it is the circumstances around it that separate it from many other undesirable bugs found in the game.

Most quests as important to the story as Miscarcand are generally safeguarded from players accidentally upsetting the order of events: usually by locking dungeon or generating the quest item only after the quest is first activated. Miscarcand is an attractively large ruin that is visible from one of the most traveled roads in Cyrodiil, and it has no such safeguards: a player can enter the ruins during normal exploration and they can pick up the Great Welkynd Stone when they reach the end of the dungeon. Now, why they would do such a thing is simple to explain: precedent has been established with several other quests that appear to be just like Miscarcand.

We have several quests which are activated by chance encounters the player makes while exploring Cyrodiil: Revenge Served Cold, When the Vow Breaks, A Venerable Vintage, The Collector, and Seeking Your Roots. Miscarcand has every appearance of being just another of these same quests. But unlike a jade amulet; a bottle of Shadowbanish Wine; or the Rockshatter mace, all which initiate an independent quest, picking up the Great Stone is actually supposed to culminate one mission in the Main Quest. And by doing so, the player creates what is indeed a very problematic glitch.

I'm not looking to open the floodgates and put every incidental glitch into the section. I don't think all the other smaller, problematic glitches carry the same insidious circumstances as Martin's Armor Glitch, yet if they did so, it's our responsibility as editors who build such a page to provide fair warning to players of those instances where their otherwise normal actvities will generate a situation which will later ruin their gameplay experience. —Dark Spark 19:07, 10 January 2009 (EST)

I suppose in part it's that we disagree about how problematic that particular glitch is. Having triggered the glitch myself, I know it's easy to accidentally pick up the Great Welkynd Stone. But I also didn't find it particularly difficult to complete the main quest even with the glitch; it definitely did not ruin my gameplay experience. My impression is that players are almost always going to proceed to play the game even if they have the glitch -- rather than pull up an old save game from before getting the Welkynd Stone, just to get rid of the glitch. And I suppose for me that's perhaps an indication that a problem glitch needs to be on the main glitches page: that players will absolutely not want to play the game any more after triggering the glitch. Those are the glitches that are important enough to need extra warnings, to give readers an opportunity to know about them well in advance.

For this glitch, I think readers are more likely to be interested in knowing about how to complete the quest given that they've triggered the glitch. The place where readers are going to look for information in that case is the quest page. Especially since it's very likely readers don't even know that Martin wearing robes is a glitch -- they're probably just surprised how easily Martin dies. Therefore, I think it's more appropriate to document the glitch on the quest page (as has already been done) than to highlight it on the main glitches page. --Nephele^Talk 19:39, 10 January 2009 (EST)

Then what is the express purpose of the Glitches page if it is not to give readers a quick index of links to particular problems they'll encounter? Mind you, I did not spell out the full mechanics of the glitch in the article, as neither do most of the glitches listed. But if a reader had the desire to gain forewarning of any and all game bugs they might encounter in the game, they are more likely to scan over the index of this one page rather than thumb through every single quest page in the hopes of picking up whatever info might just exist for that particular quest.

Again, I don't like the idea of the page flooding up with numerous lengthy paragraphs over the slightest glitches while contributors step over their own toes repeating the same issues again and again, but if a strong argument presented in the above is not enough to overcome the criteria you've established for the page, then I ask how the page is best served by adhering to that criteria.—Dark Spark 20:00, 10 January 2009 (EST)

Sorry, but I still don't see what is so strong about your argument for including the quest on the article. Your justification seems to be that the glitch can be triggered through standard gameplay -- but I don't really think that's the most important factor. I think what's important for glitches listed under "Problematic Glitches" is that they trigger a serious problem: one which makes it impossible to continue playing the game. Or at least makes it impossible to complete a quest. The glitch with Martin's armor does not prevent anyone from continuing with the game and does not prevent a player from doing any part of the game. It just makes one quest more difficult -- it doesn't even make the quest impossibly difficult, and doesn't even add new restrictions (e.g., required character level, required character type, 200 acrobatics, etc.) on how the quest can be completed.

I'd say the purpose of the Glitches page is most definitely not to provide readers with a list of every glitch in the game. Even just with one sentence summaries and links, the page would still be fifty times longer. Furthermore, I don't think a lengthy list containing forewarnings of any and all possible game bugs would help readers. Nobody would want to read through such a lengthy list, let alone try to remember any part of it (try reading through the UOP list of fixes for an example of what such a page could easily turn into). All that readers would be likely to take away from such a list would be the message that it's impossible to simply play the game and enjoy it; that you need to spend the game worrying at every turn about whether there's a possible glitch. However, I'd say that's definitely not an accurate impression of the game, and therefore we're not helping readers if we give them that impression. A prioritized list of important glitches that absolutely need to be avoided is far more useful than a comprehensive list.

In my opinion, extra emphasis is needed when it is critical to know ahead of time about the glitch: glitches for which there is no reasonable option for how to deal with the glitch other than to reload an earlier saved game. If the only way to deal with the glitch is to avoid triggering it, then it is important to be warned about the glitch ahead of time. On the other hand, if readers are likely to continue playing their game even after triggering the glitch, then there's no real advantage in being warned ahead of time about the glitch. You need to know how to continue with your game now that you've hit a problem, not be told how far back in time you need to go to find a clean save. Furthermore, after the fact, if a reader has been unlucky enough to trigger a glitch, then I don't think the reader is going to look at the Glitches page. At that point, the reader knows the name of the quest (or location) where the glitch occurs, and therefore can go straight to the quest/location page. --Nephele^Talk 23:50, 10 January 2009 (EST)

The Glitches page isn't an index, it's a refuge. Problems that don't go anywhere else go there, which means that the problem in discussion here is where it should be - on the quest page. I've had this problem too, but it's far more likely that one would encounter its fix by looking at place- or quest-related pages rather than a list of general glitches. Nephele is right - this glitch is already mentioned in the correct place. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 16:20, 11 January 2009 (EST)

Is there a way to find all glitches at once, making a comprehensive index truly unnecessary?74.65.142.202 16:24, 11 January 2009 (EST)

In theory, a category could be created that lists all articles containing a glitch description. But I doubt such a list would really be useful (it would only be a list of article titles; readers would have to pull up the individual articles and search through them to find any real information). Or you could look at UOP's list of fixed glitches. --Nephele^Talk 10:08, 13 January 2009 (EST)

Weather is here...

I'm only here long enough to say "I miss the nephster" (eye miss0r teh nephstarr?). I hope to be back soon, but for the next few weeks I will not. Shucksdarnit. Uniblab 05:56, 12 January 2009 (EST)

External links

Hi Nephele, I was wondering what the policy on external links was?. Someone added a link to a video on youtube for the Leyawiin house showing the interior. I wasn't sure so I didn't delete it. (Gadianzero 16:47, 15 January 2009 (EST))

We allow external links, as long as they're relevant and useful. In this case, I'm not really convinced that it's useful: I'd rather just play the game myself than watch somebody else's video of playing the game -- especially when the video is of someone playing the German version of the game. --Nephele^Talk 17:21, 15 January 2009 (EST)

Persistant Vandalism

This user keeps vandalizing the page. 72.92.86.160

Nvm, I see you've taken care of it by the time I've finished posting this. (Gadianzero 16:34, 21 January 2009 (EST))

Thanks for cleaning up the vandalism. But generally, it's not necessary to get in touch with an admin to deal with a vandal. Whenever I'm active on the site, I'm keeping an eye on the recent changes page and in particular looking out for any edit summaries that mention vandalism; I'm sure the other admins have similar habits. A notice on my talk page will only help alert me if I'm not active on the site at the time -- in which case, it's far more likely that another admin will get to it before I'm aware of the talk page notice or even the email. --Nephele^Talk 17:03, 21 January 2009 (EST)

About CS inventory lists,spells and birthsigns

Hey, I have recently started to work on expanding the Necromancer page to make it look more like the Bandit page. My work so far is here. I noticed you talking about leveled lists on a talk page and how complex they are... Well, same here! Most of the chart data I got is from the CS but some of it I don't understand, for example "Poison75". I mean, I know its a poison but what is that "75"? I also can't get the percentages for items to appear,e.g. Black Soul Gem (50%). Finally, I'm having problems with the spells and birthsigns. The CS doesn't list the spells for some reason and only gives the Birthsign as "AbBirthsignNecromancer". Help would be greatly appreciated ;) --SerCenKing 11:34, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Thanks for tackling this project -- one reason it's been left unfinished for so long is that it requires a lot of digging through the CS, compiling information from a lot of different places, as you're discovering ;)

Some general information about leveled lists can be found here. In general, with a leveled list name such as "Poison75", the 75 indicates that there is a 75% chance that the items (in this case, poison) will appear. However, that's just a naming convention followed by the developers; the percentage is actually controlled by a parameter in the leveled list. If you open up the leveled list in the CS, there's a parameter shown (I think it's called "Chance none"... I don't actually use the construction set directly too often any more); for a leveled list such as Poison75, that box should be "25" -- saying there's a 25% chance that nothing will appear (and therefore a 75% chance that something will).

The CS does list all of the spells. For any NPC, there's a tab listing the spells (which I'm guessing you've found if you've found that the Birthsign is listed as AbBirthsignNecromancer). Most of the spells are leveled spells, so the entry in the necromancer's spell list contains the entry "LL2Necromancer100". To decode that, you need to look in the leveled spells section of the CS, where it shows that LL2Necromancer100 is equivalent to two conjuration spells, two destruction spells, and one restoration spell -- all of which are themselves leveled lists.

As for the birthsigns, most NPCs don't have birthsigns in the same sense as the player character (see Oblivion:NPCs#NPC Statistics) -- many NPCs have no birthsign at all, and those that do have a birthsign generally don't take it from the standard 13 birthsigns available to the player. NPC necromancers have their own special birthsign, AbBirthsignNecromancer, aka the "Necromancer Birthsign". To decode what the birthsign actually does, you need to look it up in the spells section of the CS, where you'll find that it's 50pts Fortify Magicka and 33% Resist Poison.

Also, some feedback on your sandbox while I'm here.... The undead you have listed don't really belong there. They're creatures that can appear in place of necromancers in some cases -- just as dogs can appear in place of Bandits, which is mentioned on the bandits page, but doesn't mean that dogs are listed in the bandit tables. On all of the dungeon pages, the entries list necromancers and undead separately (for example, the entry would state "0-6 Necromancer Enemies (each 50% probability Necromancer, 50% Undead)"). --Nephele^Talk 12:52, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Right, thanks. I've however noticed that the CS doesn't provide any percentage for Potions... I also looked up the spell lists on the CS and did find the 'spell package', in 'Leveled Spells'. However there are still some bits that are obscure: firstly, I can't get the actual Spell Effects for the spells, e.g. it says 'LL1RestorationMajor'. So is that Restore Health, Absorb Health or what? Secondly, what do 'Major' and 'Minor' mean? Thirdly, the 'spell package' is a Leveled spell so why do some spells include 'lvl' and some don't? Sorry if these seems like a whole load of questions but as you dig deeper the questions just start multiplying! --SerCenKing 16:48, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Leveled Items

Leveled Spells

I'm not sure what you by the "CS doesn't provide any percentage for Potions". Every leveled list (i.e., everything shown in the Item->LeveledItem section of the CS) has a value listed under "Chance None". For example, the LL1NPCPotionRestoreHealthNecromancers list used by Necromancers is shown in the first screenshot on the right. In the blue circle is the Chance None box, which in this case is 50% (a 50% chance that nothing will appear, which also happens to mean there's a 50% chance that something will appear). Everything in the Necromancer inventory that has a green-box-style icon is a leveled list; to find out the percentages you need to look up the list. The only thing in this necromancer's inventory that is not leveled is the NecromancerRobe; since it's not leveled it is guaranteed to appear.

As for spells, again, it's a matter of digging through the many layers of leveled lists. Anything whose name starts "LL" is going to be a leveled list. LL0 lists are the lowest level lists, containing only actual items/spells; LL1 lists contain LL0 lists; LL2 lists contain LL1 lists. So in the second screenshot, LL2Necromancer100 contains LL1 lists such as LL1RestorationMajor. To decode LL1RestorationMajor you need to pull it up in the CS, where you'll see that it contains a set of LL0 lists such as LL0RestoreHealthMajor100. Finally, that LL0 list contains actual spells (listed with simple "S" icons, without a question mark). Those spells are listed in the Spells section of the CS, and pulling up any individual spell will show its actual spell effects. In this case, it's the standard Heal Major Wounds spell: 25 pts Restore Health on self.

For identifying leveled lists the most important clue is the icon. Anything whose icon is a green box containing a question mark is a leveled list item, regardless of its name (although the name generally starts with LL). Anything whose icon is an S with a question mark is a leveled spell, again regardless of its name. The names generally follow conventions simply so that the developers don't always have to pull up the actual list to figure out what it means, but the names are ultimately less important than the actual data. (And as you get familiar with the naming system, you don't need to pull up the actual lists as much, either). "Lvl" in a name normally means that the list always provides the best quality items at a given level (i.e., the "Calculate for all levels <= PC's level" box is not checked) -- although in a case such as LL2NecromancerLvl100 the checkbox that matters is in the LL0 lists (the ones where levels actually appear). So LL2NecromancerLvl100 means that it's constructed from LL1_Lvl100 lists, which are constructed from LL0_Lvl100 lists (such as LL0RestoreHealthMajorLvl100, where the only difference from LL0RestoreHealthMajor100 is the "all levels" checkbox, see the green circle in the screenshot).

I hope that helps without being completely confusing! --Nephele^Talk 20:35, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Thanks a lot, now I can clearly see the light! ;) Really appreciated that, I've probably learnt more thanks to you and those screenshots in two days than in 6 months on my own! The work now is basically finished and I'll be transferring the whole load to the Necromancer page shortly. What kinda makes me feel like a dumbass is that, for some unknown reason, I went from Keys to MiscItem without noticing that magic LeveledItem! Thanks again. --SerCenKing 14:25, 27 January 2009 (EST)

A picture is worth a thousand words :) --Nephele^Talk 14:29, 27 January 2009 (EST)

Andasreth images

Okay, now which project page were you pulling the rule that says that each level of a map must be on its own image? Because our standard practice for Morrowind maps is to combine them onto a single image, as stated on the last note in this section. It's makes much more sense to have the cells all together on the map, particularly when the individual cells are often very small and would by themselves contain no useful information. (Seriously, This image is completely unnecessary. There's nothing in it, and never will be. The only thing you could possibly add would be which propylon pylon transports you where, but I think my version does a more-than-adequate job of that. And when you consider a map like this one, which contains half a dozen such cells with almost nothing of note in them, it seems ridiculous to insist that every one of them be its own individual image. This isn't the OPRP here. Most locations in Morrowind only have one cell, and those that don't, the maps are much smaller and fit perfectly fine on a single image. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:14, 25 January 2009 (EST)

That's what was discussed on the project talk page; given there was no disagreement, I was assuming that was still the plan. I'd also previously tried to point you to that discussion. If you have a disagreement with what was discussed there, you could have brought it up there at any time. --Nephele^Talk 23:25, 25 January 2009 (EST)

"Nonsense"?

"Lesbia quoque linguam Catulli amat" is Latin; it means "Lesbia also loves the language of Catullus", in response to the Latin comment "sed amo linguam Catulli" ("but I love the language of Catullus"). It's actually a pun; "lingua" can mean both "language" and "tongue" (as in the part of the body); Lesbia was the codename Catullus used in many of his poems to refer to a lover, probably Clodia. It's not often you find someone on the Internet who's studied Latin, and I felt it necessary to respond; I didn't sign because I haven't yet registered an account on the wiki, and it felt redundant putting an IP address next to the comment. Sorry if I caused confusion, but I hope you can understand my comment was a little bit more in-depth than just "nonsense", as I imagine it might seem to a non-classicist. 80.6.81.224 09:03, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Thanks for the Latin lesson -- and the implicit assumption that I have no understanding of Latin, despite studying Latin for five years and being fluent in Italian. In other words, I understood your comment when I deleted it. However, sexual puns would not be appropriate on the wiki in English; the fact that the pun was in Latin does not somehow sanitize it. Nor does it make the comment any more relevant to the discussion. "Nonsense" is the generic description I use when undoing most edits that are foolish and inappropriate. Treating me like an idiot isn't helping to convince me that I should have acted any differently. --Nephele^Talk 12:12, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Revera linguam latinam vix cognovi. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 12:30, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Worm Anchorite

Ok, I might understand that maybe Rpeh didn't make any ONPCRP edits, although the page creation did look like some to me, but saying "nobody really has" quite puzzled me. The edit just before the one by Rpeh is mine and I think the edit summary is quite self explanatory. What is the difference between that page and, for example this one? The general info is there, the quests are, the unique dialogue, the inventory and the AI are there and you say "nobody really has"? Sorry if this sounds a bit ticked off, I'm simply puzzled... --SerCenKing 11:52, 29 January 2009 (EST)

Your edit is a good start, but one of the ideas of the project is to stop using sections as much as possible and combine everything into more flowing text. A better example than Arterion is Ambroise Canne, where there's unique dialogue as well as a full schedule (incidentally, I'd love to hear what other people think about that one and the few others I've done so far). The most important thing is that you shouldn't ever sign anybody else's name. Apart from anything else it means that the checking state of the project can get skipped. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 12:53, 29 January 2009 (EST)

I see your point and I've acted accordingly. I've edited both the Worm Anchorite and this page, trying to follow the same format as Ambroise Canne's one, especially in regards of unique dialogue. Can I now sign up my name on the tag, even only for 'dialogue'? --SerCenKing 13:19, 29 January 2009 (EST)

Sorry, I missed that earlier edit when I scanned the history. But as rpeh said, you shouldn't be signing other people's names, and when it looks like the entire block was simply cut and paste from another page, it's hard to be sure how many of the details are actually relevant for the new page. --Nephele^Talk 13:29, 29 January 2009 (EST)

You can always add yourself to the template; the worst that can happen is that the person doing the checking takes it off again. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 13:34, 29 January 2009 (EST)

Right, thanks for clarifying, I'll update the tags then. Just wondering if Rpeh wanted the 'honour' to be listed as having written the 'quests', 'invetory' etc. In that case, of course, I'll let him do the updating. ;) --SerCenKing 13:43, 29 January 2009 (EST)