Author Topic: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?  (Read 6481 times)

Remaugen

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 457
  • Android Clan of One
Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« on: October 03, 2014, 07:02:27 PM »
I searched, but was unable to find if this has been brought up before. Will the SSA lore be included and updated on the Wiki? It's been a long time since the pay to play option was available so I was thinking that perhaps this lore should become canon on the Wiki. It's not like you're going to spoil anything at this stage.

I really hadn't thought about it until today, browsing the Statesman page which has absolutely no mention of the events at all.
We're almost there!  ;D

The RNG hates me.

Blondeshell

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 808
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2014, 08:37:43 PM »
I think that's a valid point, although the second arc's lore should be added with the {{Issue24}} tag since it never fully made it to the live servers. I'd think the {{Spoiler}} template should still be used for those people who never got the chance to play the arcs on live. (There are other current uses of {{Spoiler}} for much less surprising story lore.) There apparently never was a consensus reached about combining {{Spoiler}} with {{Hidden}}, and the discussion from 2007 has been lost.

I'm currently involved in another editing project that'll take a while to complete, but it's possible someone else will see this and take the initiative to work on it. Unless you'd like to take a crack at it. ;)

Remaugen

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 457
  • Android Clan of One
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2014, 08:40:28 PM »
Thanks for the prompt reply! Sadly I lack the skills to help, but I am sending good vibes at at!
We're almost there!  ;D

The RNG hates me.

Felderburg

  • Ask me how I got this title!
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,615
  • Personal text? What's that?
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2014, 04:06:56 AM »
I've been thinking about this for a while. I actually drafted a long post for these forums, but didn't reach much of a conclusion in my head about what to do. I have the post in my email, and since it looks like I'd just be quoting the majority of it anyways, I'll post it here. Essentially, because of the fact that the wiki reflects the original static nature of MMOs, it doesn't have what I think is an ideal way to deal with dynamic or changing content. Long-running MMOs in general have this issue, but CoH was moving away from that model, and the wiki was going to have to follow it. Should a reasonably official version of CoH come to the Unreal engine, I think it would behoove us to make sure that the wiki can handle things like contacts dying, or anything else that a new, modern engine could allow an MMO to do. Anyways, here is the post I drafted, with minor changes and completions:

So in the "Mask comes off" thread, I posted a reply about something that's been bothering me for a while: there is absolutely nothing in the main players' articles about the Who Will Die storyline. The relevant part of my post is here:

My concern with the wiki is not that arcs are missing, it's the fact that the current format for articles doesn't allow as much freedom as I would like for adding dynamic content. If you look at Sister Psyche's page, there is indeed a section about her wedding to Manticore (but nothing about Who Will Die). The issue is that it's sort of... I don't know, almost like a piecemeal way of doing things to just add "and then this happened!" at the bottom of the article for major events like weddings and deaths. There was never any need for contact articles to have a better way of presenting dynamic content, because there was little that changed in game requiring it. So the lack of forethought (poor choice of words as it implies negligence or lack of smarts which it wasn't, but close enough) in wiki formatting led to what is in my opinion a poor way of displaying info that happens to contacts / NPCs after their initial appearance.

I was first made aware of this when I fixed up Penelope Yin's many pages. Right now, there is a page for the original, young version we meet in Faultline. There is another page for the older, Freedom Phalanx member version. So that's two articles for what should be one character. Now, it could be argued that they are "separate" characters, and as far as gameplay mechanics are concerned, they are indeed two very separate contacts. But I am of the opinion that Penelope Yin should have one page, with all her versions, since she is one person. But the way the wiki has contacts formatted essentially requires her to have two pages. A similar issue comes about with The Dark Watcher - the single character has two articles: one for his Primal Earth appearance in the War Zone, and one for his Praetorian appearance.

This may be the wrong view, for Yin & TDW, given their mechanics in game as two separate contacts. However, it does raise questions about how the wiki handles changing content. If you look at the articles for the major players in Who Will Die, none of them have anything about that story line! Darrin Wade, Miss Liberty, Psyche, Statesman... nothing. I marked some of them incomplete a long time ago, noting that that content needed to be added, but I didn't add it at the time because I'm not really sure how to add that content. As I say in my quote above, just adding a section at the end of the article would seem to do a disservice to that content and the article - it's a bit of a cop out, and the top part of the article would still read as if  the characters are exactly where they were before they died.

But perhaps, for characters who have one major life changing event, that works. Put a blurb at the bottom about how Statesman is dead, maybe add something to the top, and we're done (future work would need some sort of spoiler tag). But then we come back to Penelope Yin. The Praetorian version, in Mr. G's arc in I24, was to become "Penelope Mayhem". I did think about adding yet another Yin page, but just decided to add a line at the bottom of her page, saying "Check out Mr. G's arc for info." There has to be a better way of doing that. I just don't know what that way is.

There are really a few issues with different types of NPC here:

1. Contacts with multiple appearances - the two Dark Watcher pages are separate because the contact pages are formatted so that the info box has one contact's information. Could we just stick a second one after a {{clr}}, and put all the content down there? Sure, but would it look good? Is it better than having two articles? What's the best way to combine those articles so that there is one article for one single character?

2. NPC Allies / Enemies - Miss Liberty's page is formatted in such a way that she's an NPC Enemy. She has a blurb, and dialog (which is was something people had concerns about including on pages: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Zephyr) and some notes. In her case, it shouldn't be too hard to add Who Will Die as another section.

3. Contacts with life-changing events - This is mostly Darrin Wade (possibly only him). Again, putting a blurb at the bottom just doesn't seem like enough to me. Of course, cluttering the top with spoiler tags isn't quite right either. I don't know.


It's not a huge issue now, but like I say at the top of this long post, should CoH return, dynamic content is going to need to be examined, particularly the way that the wiki handles individual character articles. Right now, it's pretty much just the Who Will Die folks and Penelope Yin (particularly Praet Penny's conversion to Mayhem) but in the future that may change.
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

Pinnacle: The only server that faceplants before a fight! Member of the Pinnacle RP Congress (People's Elf of the CCCP); formerly @The Holy Flame

eabrace

  • Titan Moderator
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,291
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2014, 04:51:40 AM »
Just floating this out there, but what if we created a new section near the bottom of the page for each SSA.

Code: [Select]
==== Who Will Die ====
See Also:  [[Who Will Die]]

{{spoiler|Words.  Words.  Words.  Statesman dies.  Paragon weeps.  Words.  Words.}}

Something like that, anyway.
Titan Twitter broadcasting at 5.000 mWh and growing.
Titan Facebook

Paragon Wiki admin
I was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters...In between two of the segments she asked me..."But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?" I said, "Type faster." - Isaac Asimov

Felderburg

  • Ask me how I got this title!
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,615
  • Personal text? What's that?
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2014, 06:06:14 PM »
I guess... but I just don't think that's... I don't know, "worthy" of a big change like that. Like the wedding of Psyche and Manticore - on their pages, it gets a two-sentence blurb at the bottom. I really feel like something like that should be integrated into the main article.

I'm also unhappy with the way signature characters are depicted in general... I have a note on my user page about it, but I can't quite remember what my specific issue was when I wrote that note, but I feel a general sense of unease when I view their pages, as if I need to edit them to make them better...
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

Pinnacle: The only server that faceplants before a fight! Member of the Pinnacle RP Congress (People's Elf of the CCCP); formerly @The Holy Flame

eabrace

  • Titan Moderator
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,291
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2014, 09:25:47 PM »
Yeah.  I get that.  The signature character pages were put together when those particular characters were a little more statically defined.  Once the characters actually started going through canonical changes, the pages became a little more clunky.
Titan Twitter broadcasting at 5.000 mWh and growing.
Titan Facebook

Paragon Wiki admin
I was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters...In between two of the segments she asked me..."But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?" I said, "Type faster." - Isaac Asimov

Blondeshell

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 808
Re: Any Plans to Update the Wiki to Signature Story Arcs Lore?
« Reply #7 on: October 11, 2014, 12:40:59 AM »
Might the clunkiness be partly due to the "fractured" visual appearance of the pages? With so many small sections given to powers, background, overview boxes, concept art, random screengrabs, quotes, and other appearances, there doesn't seem to be a truly consistent method for formatting these pages, much less the ability to add new background or story content. I'm thinking of the hero, villain, and Praetorian versions of signature characters and those who also double as task force contacts and trainers. (Also, what determines a character's "signature" status or the need for using the {{Infobox NPC}} template?)

Some handy lists for future reference!

HeroesPraetorians
Aurora BorealisAurora Borealis
Back Alley BrawlerMarauder
Blue Steel----
Calvin ScottCalvin Scott
Castle----
CitadelSiege
Foreshadow----
InfernalInfernal
LuminaryNightstar
MalaiseMalaise
ManticoreChimera
Mirror Spirit----
Ms. LibertyDominatrix
MynxBobcat
NuminaDiabolique
Penelope YinPenelope Yin
PositronAnti-Matter
Sister PsycheMother Mayhem
StatesmanTyrant
SwanBlack Swan
SynapseNeuron
ValkyrieBattle Maiden
War WitchSorceress Serene
WoodsmanShadowhunter

VillainsPraetorians
Barracuda----
Black Scorpion----
Captain Mako----
Ghost WidowBelladonna Vetrano
Ice Mistral----
Lord Recluse----
OdysseusOdysseus
Scirocco----
Silver Mantis----
Vanessa DeVoreVanessa DeVore