Template talk:Creature treasure

Anyone with a slightly better grasp of templates give me some feedback on this? It doesn't look like its having any conflicts on the pre-existing pages. I tested updating Dhu goleras, and it looks fine. I'll roll it back if necessary, but I think it needs to be expanded a little, its too vague right now. IRVINETOMOE 16:27, 27 January 2013 (EST)

Are you going to update every creature page manually? Removing 'Types' from the template removes previously posted treasure data from being displayed. If you go to -->ghostly pooka-->edit you'll see Type = gems, boxes. That info is no longer displayed and will have to be updated manually. Mark 22:49, 27 January 2013 (EST)

I don't really see an alternative. The creature treasure section is so underdeveloped as it is, I don't think it will be that daunting a task anyway . . . it was trying to start adding to that which led me to this attempt at reorganizing it anyway. I have some additional concepts I might try to incorporate as well, such as a Gem category (Dhu goleras, for instance, would have a link to Elven Nation gems). Rather than put just Yes in the Gem field, you would put something like Yes (EN) which would link to that page. Do you have any suggestions or improvements, before I go do a massive sweeping change of 50 some creature articles? IRVINETOMOE 06:20, 28 January 2013 (EST)

I think it's a good idea to further delineate the treasure items. I can't think of anything specific to add - maybe an alchemy item field. Btw, it's not 50 creature articles, there are more than 400. It's doable but will take a bit of time. I'm not sure how many have treasure attribute entries already, but we'll need to open each creature article's EDIT function to check. Comment on this page when you're ready to go and I'll help with the updates. Mark 07:55, 28 January 2013 (EST)

I only say "50" because most of the creature articles have NOTHING listed in their treasure fields. 50 is a vague guess, and there may well be more, but I know that a lot of the articles will not require a single edit. I DID forget about alchemy items, but I think I need more research on how to organize it . . . most enemies don't just drop "any old item" but have either a specific item they drop (essence of air) or a class of items "shards/crystals/etc". Unlike the other fields, its not a simple yes/no, but might include a specific list. There are also the random clothing/container/junk drops. Ultimately, this was just the beginning of some experimentation to see what could be done to expand upon it for later use. I'll go start looking at some creature articles. EDIT: Okay, I went through all enemies level 1-5 and listed the ones needing a change, and while its more than I thought, its still only half. Additionally, I've seen all the evidence I need that this needs to be changed . . . enemies marked "general treasure" are scattered randomly, and what does that mean? Also, another category I was thinking was an "Other" category, for enemies that have weird or unique drops. Case in point was Giant Ants, who drop ant larva which can be sold. There are other enemies like that as well. Meanwhile, found some issues: Dark Apparition and Water Witch . . . their treasure field is buggy. Any idea why? If you want to start logging all the enemies that need to be changed, you could start at 100 and work your way down, or pick up somewhere else. I've got everything up to 5 so far. IRVINETOMOE 09:34, 28 January 2013 (EST)

In the creature treasure section after type = <Not Known> you'll see noskin = You need to remove the no before skin. Apparently someone was editing it this way if the creature couldn't be skinned/had no skin instead of editing it to read skin = none. I've fixed those two. Mark 10:40, 28 January 2013 (EST)

Okay, I've logged everything up to 20 that needs to be adjusted. I suspect it will be a bottom heavy task, since there are more low-level enemies, and more of the lower level enemies have been filled out. I also changed up the template a little: I added an Other category and an Alchemy Category. The Alchemy category looks too bulky (it says Alchemy Components). Perhaps just list it as Alchemy? Also . . . after every field is a little thing that says {{{coins}}} or what have you . . . if we change that to "Unknown", would it change the default display for unrecorded creatures to Unknown? That would be more aesthetic than it is now, but I don't really get the coding that much, so I don't want to screw anything up. IRVINETOMOE 12:56, 28 January 2013 (EST)

I'm not sure what's going on with this template, but I was just trying to update water wyrds to reflect that they only drop gems when I noticed that the edit page still has the original markup/template/whatever with the fields they originally had filled in, but the page it's self is using the template here (or drawing it off another page) to post info. Unfortunately, this means this portion of the article cannot be edited. After reading the discussion here I poked around several other critters (specifically, rotting krolvin pirates, jungle trolls, and hisskra shaman) and they all appear to be doing the same thing. I don't mind filling in the new fields for the critters around River's Rest if this gets fixed or someone posts a "how to" for editing them. OM1E5GA 05:14, 30 January 2013 (EST)

Editing them works, I assume, the same way the old fields were added in the first place. I am not aware if there is a way to automatically apply it to ALL of them, but to fill in one of the fields not listed from the older version, simply mimic the fields that are currently in place. For instance, to edit the gem field to yes, enter the following anywhere in the creature treasure section (position doesn't seem to matter):

| gems = Yes

As we are still determining the exact fields being added, I'm not making any widespread changes . . . we would just end up doing it multiple times. Feel entirely free to edit individual pages as you go, we will update the rest of each page in our own sweep, and include your edits. If you have any further suggestions, please share them. IRVINETOMOE 05:40, 30 January 2013 (EST)

Ok, I think I see what's going on now after playing with it, you all found yet another way to confuse me :P I'll mostly be filling in what I can on critters that are located around River's Rest, though I'll have to bring my rogue home and take some notes before I can get good enough ranges for the locks to do that. Is the idea to just have a simple yes/no for gems, magic items, coins, and boxes and to list whatever alchemy components and skins? I assume "Other" is for nonskin/nonalchemy items a critter might drop that are specific to that critter or area? OM1E5GA 06:09, 30 January 2013 (EST)

You pretty much have the idea. Yes for Gems/Skins/Coins/Boxes, enter the name of the skin or None if there is one, and them with Alchemy . . . I'm still figuring that out. I don't think a simple Yes is good enough, but having a list of all possible drops will crowd the table. In the end, I might try to figure out a distinct alchemy drop table. Also, with gems? In the next few days I'll probably make a distinction for what gem table the enemy pulls from (Zul Logoth gems, Rift gems, etc). Does RR have its own gem table, or is it the same as Solhaven's? I'll need to know that for the setup.IRVINETOMOE 06:31, 30 January 2013 (EST)

The gems dropped in Solhaven and River's Rest are identical as of right now. Though, there has been a push on and off by a few in RR to have a couple RR specific gems added to RR critters. From what I've seen of alchemy items dropped by critters, it seems like most critters drop from a standard list that's limited to the most common alchemy items (ex. ayanad crystal) with some critters having one to three items specific to that critter or type of critter that they drop as well (ex. large troll tooth). Maybe have two fields for them: one labeled "common alchemy" that could be a simple yes/no and one labeled "special alchemy" where the special items could be listed? OM1E5GA 06:56, 30 January 2013 (EST)

Oh yeah, I meant to add . . . the other category refers to weird fluke items that don't really belong anywhere else. I listed before an example, giant ants can drop ant larva or the like, and can be sold. Other examples I can think of are skayl hearts, the special pure potions that spawn when you kill wind wraiths, and the gold "gems" that drop in Gossamer Valley. I think that idea for common alchemy and special alchemy is good, but I think I need to do more research on it. I will probably take it to the forums. Also, before you edit anymore River's Rest enemies . . . let me try to get my regional Gem system setup. If not, every time you mark a RR enemy as Yes, can you write "Yes (RR)" and then link the "RR" to "Gems (Solhaven/RR)". I'll try to set up the page as soon as possible. IRVINETOMOE 13:08, 30 January 2013 (EST)

Restarting the conversation, as its getting quite cramped. Alright, I added in Alchemy (Common) and Alchemy (Uncommon) as a short term fix for the Alchemy problem. I also removed the lock difficulty field, as its virtually never filled in and it would be very, very hard to get factual data for every single enemy. I also added in stub pages for each of the regional gems . . . I'm going to update them with lists of gems when I get a chance to filter the information correctly. The regions are General (Landing and everywhere), Elven Nations, Solhaven/River's Rest, Teras, Zul Logoth, Icemule, The Rift, and FWI. If you DON'T have data for a particular field, enter "Unknown" rather than leaving it blank. If I knew how, I'd make it so that it displayed it by default, but it didn't work when I tried. For an example of a complete creature treasure table, see Kiramon worker. It even has multiple gem regions listed.IRVINETOMOE 15:43, 30 January 2013 (EST)

How about something like the Lich and Zombie sample pages? Each page will need to be manually updated but it will simplify entries for future users. All they would need to do is replace "?" with "Yes" or whatever was appropriate for that field. It would require replacing the current fields with the new ones and updating the new fields with any information currently listed. The lich sample shows a page that has no current entries; the zombie page includes the info that had previously been entered. Mark 17:01, 30 January 2013 (EST)

Looks good to me. It will also simply the conversion process. I'm not ENTIRELY content with the setup as it is, so I'd like a day or to more to get some Alchemy info from the forums (hopefully someone chimes in), but after that, I say we go for it. Since we will want to redo ALL of the creature pages . . . you want to start at the top and I start at the bottom? Meet in the middle wherever that is. Only addition I'd add is that I'd capitalize yes or no. Most of the info in the upper tables is capitalized, and it would be consistant. IRVINETOMOE 17:09, 30 January 2013 (EST)

I'll start from the top once you've completed the template. Mark 17:21, 30 January 2013 (EST)

I'll hold off on updating any more critters till you two get what you need to done. I did like the idea of having an approx. lock range field in there though, the data wouldn't have to be absolute highs and lows found on a particular critter (which would be pretty much impossible given all critters have outliers on both ends) to be useful. I Understand the reason for getting rid of it though. Maybe something like "Lock Difficulty" which could be filled in with Average, Low, and High based on how a critters locks compare to other critters of a similar level? OM1E5GA 17:48, 30 January 2013 (EST)

To me, it wasn't that it wasn't a useful idea, but that A) it was far too vague a field to be particularly informative, B) Way, way too difficult to collect the data on and C) one that was, that I am aware, virtually never used. I may have seen one, maybe two critter lock-difficulty fields filled in before. In the end, it was an incredibly under-utilized place for information. Now, if some clever locksmith wanted to come forward with approximate lock ranges for 40 creatures or so, that we could start with. But until then, leaving the field open will just result in several hundred empty lock-difficulty fields. IRVINETOMOE 00:13, 31 January 2013 (EST)

After some discussion and thought, I decided it may be best to entirely remove the Alchemy field from the treasure table, and create another table underneath it to make a full list of possible alchemy ingredients. Unlike the other treasure items, alchemy ingredients are the kind of thing people will go looking for specifically, and a concrete list of possible drops would be very important, but WAY to lengthy for the already slightly cramped treasure table. That said, I'm going to take it out. However, I don't have the formatting know-how to make another table the way I'd like to. I'll try to experiment and whip something up, and we will see where it goes. In the mean time, I'll remove the alchemy field from the main treasure table, and we can go ahead and start updating creature pages. If I have to update the others with the alchemy table at another time, hey, thats on me. I started this whole mess IRVINETOMOE 11:08, 3 February 2013 (EST)