Alternate Badge Titles per Alignment

[GuyPerfect]

As I was picking up the Paragon City Exploration Badges on my Mastermind today, I came across the Purifier badge in Skyway City, except for Villains and Rogues, this badge is called Defiler instead.

This is likely to become an issue before long with side-switchers. I figure we should probably have an article dedicated to:

• Badges that have different names depending on alignment, such as the Purifier<->Defiler incident.
  
• Badges that are equivalent but can only be obtained by being a specific alignment: for example, I understand Day Trader and Marketeer (Consignment Day Jobs) are two distinct badges, but characters who obtained one will be granted the other as well when they switch.

[SaintNicster]

Day Trader and Marketeer are the same badge with two different names.  They both have the same settitle.  The name just changes when you switch sides, so it is a redundant example of the first point ;)

You might be thinking of something like power-granting Accolades, where if you are a hero and have Archmage, you will be awarded Demonic and its power (but none of the prerequisites) automatically when you fully switch to a villain.

I do agree with the article ideas, though :)

[K26dp]

Should we have two articles that say the same thing about essentially the same badge? Or should the "opposite side" name be a redirect, with any differences in the hero/villain description noted.

[SaintNicster]

Should we have two articles that say the same thing about essentially the same badge? Or should the "opposite side" name be a redirect, with any differences in the hero/villain description noted.

If you want to be consistent with what has been established, different pages for both versions of the badge

Explorer and Obsessed as an example

[eabrace]

If you want to be consistent with what has been established, different pages for both versions of the badge

Explorer and Obsessed as an example

Yeah, that's our established method.  That being said, since badges can change names with side-switching now functional, this might be the time to take a step back and ask ourselves, "Is this how we really want to continue to proceed?  Or is there a better, more maintainable approach?"

I'm not uncomfortable continuing as we have in the past here.  I do think we might save ourselves a lot of extra work if we move to using a single article for each unique settitle identifier with an "Alternate Names" (or something similar) section that shows all of the possible names of the badge depending on your current alignment.

For example, in the case of Explorer and Obsessed, we would redirect Obsessed to Explorer.  We would then add a table in a new subsection that looked something like this.

Just food for thought at the moment.

(I don't think we should combine articles for badges with different settitle numbers even if they're very similar because the game is definitely differentiating between the two.)

[GuyPerfect]

I've collected all the Exploration and History badges from the public zones (and busted some arsonists), and I've found the following name conflicts:

Hero: Founders' Hero
Villain: Founders' Loss

Hero: Freedom
Villain: Covert Operator

Hero: Guardian Angel
Villain: Barely Contained

Hero: Hero Corps Insider
Villain: Hero Corps Infiltrator

Hero: Hero Corps Recruit
Villain: Hero Corps Reject

Hero: Justice Avenger
Villain: Socialite - Name Conflict

Hero: Nature Lover
Villain: Eco Warrior

Hero: Patriot
Villain: International Spy

Hero: PPD Informant
Villain: Former PPD Stoolie

Hero: Purifier
Villain: Defiler

Hero: Use Might for Right
Villain: Rookie's Mistake

Hero: Volunteer Firefighter
Villain: Fire Bane

Hero: Wincott's Ally
Villain: Wincott's Betrayer

[Blondeshell]

Yeah, that's our established method.  That being said, since badges can change names with side-switching now functional, this might be the time to take a step back and ask ourselves, "Is this how we really want to continue to proceed?  Or is there a better, more maintainable approach?"

I'm not uncomfortable continuing as we have in the past here.  I do think we might save ourselves a lot of extra work if we move to using a single article for each unique settitle identifier with an "Alternate Names" (or something similar) section that shows all of the possible names of the badge depending on your current alignment.

For example, in the case of Explorer and Obsessed, we would redirect Obsessed to Explorer.  We would then add a table in a new subsection that looked something like this.

Just food for thought at the moment.

(I don't think we should combine articles for badges with different settitle numbers even if they're very similar because the game is definitely differentiating between the two.)

The thought I had was similar to this, but it differed in that the individual badges would redirect to a combined page called "Obsessed / Explorer."  That way we don't play favorites on the naming of the article, and all names, artwork, and descriptions can be kept on one page.  Due to the volume of badges that now have to deal with different versions, I think this would be simpler to only maintain one article per /settitle.

I'd expand this more, but my brain is getting tired.

[patteroast]

What about Praetorian versions of the same badge? Is 'Knows the Truth' the same settitle as Explorer/Obsessed? Explorer/Obsessed/Knows the Truth seems kind of unwieldy...

[Sekoia]

There's a technical consideration to keep in mind: {{BadgeBox}}. This template uses DPL to extract information from the badge articles and assumes that:

• If a badge is named FOO, then the article is "FOO badge"
  
• The article has exactly one image wrapped in {{Image}}
  
• The article has a section named "Description" that contains the badge's description, and that the whole section is suitable for use in the badge box

Several of the proposed changes would break BadgeBox. This is bad because of two reasons:

• If BadgeBox breaks, we'd have to go find and fix all the broken uses of it
  
• If BadgeBox breaks and we have to stop using DPL, then that means we have to go back to maintaining the badge art and badge description in every article that has badge boxes. That's a ton of duplication of effort, and historically, we did very poorly at propagating changes and corrections.

If we start combining badges as in "Obsessed/Explorer", then DPL is no longer an option.


Now, even ignoring the above, I don't like the idea of articles named "Obsessed/Explorer" or "Obsessed/Explorer Badge". Nobody is going to search for that and I think it's an awkward title. I'm inclined towards making a separate article for each. Link them to each other with something that demonstrates the link between them. Some templates and formatting would do that nicely.

[TonyV]

Can we just use transclusion to include the entire text of one badge article into the other?

For example, have an article named Guardian Angel, with the entire content of the badge and all of its information.  Then have an article named Barely Contained that just contains {{:Guardian Angel}}.  In the content of the article, there should be a note that says something like, "The hero version of this badge is Guardian Angel and the villain version is Barely Contained."

Or is the descriptive text of the badge different?  If so, I think they should be two completely separate articles, with a note that the other one exists and is equivalent.

[eabrace]

Hmm.  That does bring up an interesting point.  In some cases two badges may share the same settitle number for both heroes and villains but have different descriptions.

And I'd completely forgotten about the DPL calls.

Starting to sound like our current one article per badge name might still be our best bet.

[Blondeshell]

Obviously I'll defer to those who know the technical pitfalls of these suggestions.  (I had thought about {{BadgeBox}} but didn't know its limitations.)  I agree that it sounds as if our current system will still be the simplest.

@patteroast: There are many Praetorian-only versions of the Achievement badges, so that avoids having three different names for the same settitle number.

[GuyPerfect]

Couple more changes:


Hero: Zig Warden
Villain: King/Queen of the Zig

Hero: Firebase Zulu Security Detail
Villain: Firebase Zulu Deserter

Or is the descriptive text of the badge different?

Hmm.  That does bring up an interesting point.  In some cases two badges may share the same settitle number for both heroes and villains but have different descriptions.

Firebase Zulu Security Detail:
You have logged enough time in the Shadow Shard to be made a part of the Firebase Zulu security detail.

Firebase Zulu Deserter:
You once were part of Firebase Zulu's security detail, but have since abandoned them to the ravages of the Shadow Shard.

It's usually the same, but not always.

[SaintNicster]

Regarding Guy's listing of badge name changes... were you aware of the list compiled by Snow Globe?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showpost.php?p=3105548&postcount=2

A lot of the footwork is already done.  Eabrace made a copy of it on the discussion page of the wiki.

[GuyPerfect]

I was just about to post about that. (-:

[Sekoia]

Can we just use transclusion to include the entire text of one badge article into the other?

This would also break BadgeBox. DPL does not follow transclusions within a page, so a BadgeBox for "Barely Contained" would not work if the article only contains {{:Guardian Angel}}.

[konoko]

First attempts at using Alignemnt Icons... Horrific table structure.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Clothes_Horse_Badge

[eabrace]

First attempt is better than no attempt.  :)

[Aggelakis]

And apparently DPL can handle two {{Image}} uses, because {{BadgeBox}} doesn't break on the Halloween Event badge page:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Halloween_Event/Badges

[konoko]

My sandbox. Move if you wish.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/User:Konoko#Alignment_Sandbox