User talk:TheRealLurlock/2013 01

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Question

Hey Lurlock! I have a question – is it possible to extract the logo for the College of Winterhold (as seen here) from the game files? Like an icon of sorts? The bigger, the better, of course. Thanks in advance! --Krusty (talk) 04:52, 11 January 2013 (GMT)

From the looks of it, that seems to be modeled geometry, rather than just a texture, so I'd say likely not in this case, though it's possible they did something fancy with normal mapping - I haven't looked too closely at the Skyrim game files. (The icons I did were just screenshots from the game against a black background.) Though it might be simple enough to just trace it and make it whatever size we want. What were you looking for, just black against transparent? TheRealLurlock (talk) 14:17, 11 January 2013 (GMT)

Hello again! JR suddenly sent me an old file with the logo and I photoshopped it to death. The end result is here - and I think it's okay for now. We tried the game files and they are more or less hopeless in png... --Krusty (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2013 (GMT)

Loading Screen Models

Hey TRL, I know you and Kimi (who hasn't been especially active lately) have been the ones to upload most of the icons for Skyrim, and I thought I'd point out this discussion in case you have input and/or feel like taking on the task. — ABCface^◥ 15:40, 11 January 2013 (GMT)

Messages

Hey Lurlock! I just saw what you did with the Messages page, and I'm thinking there has to be a better way. The H1s are definitely less confusing (having H3s act as higher level headers than the H2s that are now included with the messages was just...odd), but the H1s don't look that great either. The easiest fix is obviously to take the headers back off the message pages, but what if we could have it both ways? I'm thinking some {{#if: magic might do it. Thoughts? ⇠eshe^talk 15:12, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

Yeah, I just wasn't sure if that would fly on these messages, which are subst'ed as far as I know. One alternative would be to simply change all the messages to use H3's. It's not like anybody looks at these for the most part. (Why we insist on putting blocked messages on spammer talk pages at all is a mystery to me - the bots aren't going to see them or care.) It could do with some testing. If an #if statement works with a subst'ed message, I'd say we should do it. I'm just not sure if they work that way or not. TheRealLurlock (talk) 16:26, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

Hmm...I'm not sure if it'll work with the substitution or not. I'll check it out when I get some time. Thanks! ⇠eshe^talk 17:13, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

So... it works, but it leaves the #ifeq junk in there, and makes the section not editable. I don't know if that's a big deal or not, but it does seem to be an improvement... TheRealLurlock (talk) 17:17, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

What I've got now in User:RobinHood70/Zain seems to do what you want, but I have a mental block when it comes to substitution, so I may have overcomplicated it. Have a look, and feel free to simplify it if I have, or copy it to the actual Block templates. Oh and if you're wondering just what the hell all that code actually is, don't look at me! I got it from wikipedia:Help:Substitution, and I'm not entirely sure I understand it myself. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:46, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

Nope. It's pretty much the same as just using #ifeq. The code stays on the page, and the section is un-editable. Problem as I see it is it's not really a #subst in the general sense so much as it just literally copies everything into the edit window. Not sure how to get around that. I'd like to be able to just click the block button and save, without the extra step of having to copy the word "Blocked" into the subject line. Seems to me there should be a way to do that - maybe using a sub-template of some kind? One template having just the warning message itself (which is transcluded onto the messages page), and the other having both the header, and a #subst of the message template. That might be the way to go actually... TheRealLurlock (talk) 23:46, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

Haha! That does work. Only problem is you can't preview (and thus change) the message before posting it. If you want to try it out yourself before we implement it on all of them, please do so. I think this might be a valid way to go. TheRealLurlock (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

That was actually going to be my next suggestion, but I wasn't sure if it was worth the trouble. I'll take your word for it that it works, cuz I have a bunch of RL things I need to go do right now. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:16, 16 January 2013 (GMT)

(←) On a related subject, did you see this. If you agree, could you work your magic to add this to the messages page. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 19:10, 17 January 2013 (GMT)

So I kind of floated away from this discussion as my classes started up, sorry! Anyway, the changes seem okay, but would it be possible to make all the messages editable when you're posting them, like the Welcome message is now? Currently I either have to copy/paste from the template itself or go back and edit it after the page is saved, otherwise my signature is all fubar. It also makes it a bit difficult to customize the message (I typically like to add block times and such when applicable) before posting it, which is something we've always encouraged. ⇠eshe^talk 15:35, 29 January 2013 (GMT)

The Welcome message is the same as it ever was - you'll notice you still have to put a header on manually for that one (or any of the "Notice" ones.) Unfortunately, I don't see any way of having it both ways - either you have to manually add the header, or you can't edit the message until afterwards. What we could do is add a new block message which is customizable like they used to be, but you'd still need to add the header yourself. 99% of the time, there's no need for this, as most of our blocks are indefinite blocks on spammers, so the boilerplate form letter is good enough. (It's not like anybody is likely to ever look at those anyhow.) I think overall, the method that saves work in 99% of use cases is preferable. But if you really want, we can add a customizable one for the rare cases where you need it. TheRealLurlock (talk) 23:35, 29 January 2013 (GMT)

Hmm...in that case, I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather have to add the header manually than go back later to fix my signature. I wouldn't even raise the issue except that I'm pretty sure the people who use the warnings and block notices the most have custom sigs and are running into this problem. It's not a big deal ultimately...it just seems to be adding a step to what (for me) used to be a very quick process. ⇠eshe^talk 15:50, 30 January 2013 (GMT)

I would have to agree with Eshe here. It's not just the signature either, sometimes all you want to change is one or two words, and the extra steps of finding the template and copying from there seem much more bothersome than simply writing the header in yourself. Writing the header in yourself isn't really a problem that's difficult or takes a lot of time to do. — ABCface^◥ 15:54, 30 January 2013 (GMT)

Well, I added in the custom messages for those cases. I'm just trying to make it so that these spammer-block messages, which represent by far the vast majority of cases, are easier. You might have to go to a little extra effort in those rare instances when a customized message is needed, but this is almost never the case, so overall, this method saves the most work. The only other somewhat-common use-case I can see are temporary blocks put in by Blockers who can't do a full block. Maybe we could put in another message specifically for them, and that would cover all but the most extremely rare cases, which could then use the custom messages I've put in place. And since in that case, the only thing that would be variable would be the time of expiration, that field could be added as a parameter to the subst'ed template, so you could enter it in while you're giving the block message, no need to change anything else... TheRealLurlock (talk) 16:37, 30 January 2013 (GMT)

Okay, I've put an adjustable temporary block message template in place, does that work for people? I'm not sure what problem could occur with the custom signatures - I've used one forever and it works fine in block messages. Does it somehow fail if you try to do fancy stuff in the signature? That sounds to me like a problem with the signature more than anything else. TheRealLurlock (talk) 16:51, 30 January 2013 (GMT)

The temporary block message is a really nice addition, thanks for that. If the whole point of these changes is to make the spammer-block messages easier, can we change the warning messages back to how they used to be? That way, the block messages would be faster/easier like you want, which is the reason for the changes made, and the warnings could still be customized easily like before. — ABCface^◥ 19:20, 30 January 2013 (GMT)

Sure, that's reasonable, I guess. I wish the InputBox plugin had the option to specify a header (I looked it up, it doesn't.) - then we wouldn't have to jump hoops like this to make things work. Really, I'm considering removing the Block Messages from the UESPWiki:Messages page anyhow. When you block somebody, you automatically get another screen with Block Messages to choose from. You'd pretty much never need to go to the Messages page to find a Block Message unless you screwed up somehow. Though I suppose leaving them there makes it easier to edit them. But if we just as a general policy make it so that Block Messages default to boilerplate and not shown on the Messages page, while all others are more easily editable, and are shown there, it'd be more consistent. TheRealLurlock (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2013 (GMT)

(←) That sounds like a good idea to me, especially given the reason you mentioned. Since you automatically get the screen with Block Messages after blocking someone, there's not a large need for them to be on the regular Messages page. I'd agree with that change being made. — ABCface^◥ 01:14, 31 January 2013 (GMT)

Alright, so, I'm totally fine with the block messages not being on the messages page, but would it be possible to change the block messages back to being editable too? Those are the ones I use most of the time. Thanks! ⇠eshe^talk 14:41, 8 February 2013 (GMT)

Honestly, how often do you need to edit them? I did put a custom editable message on there for those rare cases, but I think for the vast majority of blocks, there should be no need to edit the message. I'll agree it's less than ideal. I'd prefer it if we could somehow fix the InputBox plugin to place the headers automatically. The other possibility - and I'm all for this one - is that we eliminate the requirement for block messages to have a header section. I mean, really, there's no benefit to it in most cases as those messages will never be seen by the blocked user anyhow, since they're pretty much all spambots. If we stop insisting that block messages have their own section with a header, it eliminates the need for these templates to be subst'ed in the first place and we can go back to the way things were before. In the rare instance where you're blocking somebody who isn't just another spambot, then you can add a header if you really want, but that happens so infrequently it's not that big a deal. TheRealLurlock (talk) 22:15, 8 February 2013 (GMT)

Honestly, it's almost every day. I go through at least one spammer a day, on average, and with my signature it looks weird. Whether or not block messages need headers is debatable, I suppose, but the old version didn't have automatic headers, didn't conflict with custom signatures, and didn't need to be substituted. I don't see much point fussing over it though, so I've just removed the offending dashes and we can call it a compromise ;). ⇠eshe^talk 00:25, 13 February 2013 (GMT)

Oh, I was wondering how these were messing up your signature. I get it now - that's actually a good change I think. Should probably do them all like that for consistency. I was thinking you were making some kind of edits to the message itself, which seems unnecessary. Anyhow, worrying about how a block message looks to a spammer who will probably never see it seems like it shouldn't be that big a deal. I was just trying to figure out how this was causing you problems. I think this change should reduce the amount of effort required by everyone when dealing with spam. TheRealLurlock (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2013 (GMT)

Marker IDs

In case you didn't know, adding a marker id adds a location to the Places Discoverable category. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 04:30, 18 January 2013 (GMT)

Ugh, sometimes I think these uber-templates do a little bit too much automatically. Oh well, it just so happens I just created this nice template for just such a purpose. Works nicely here. TheRealLurlock (talk) 04:35, 18 January 2013 (GMT)

Future RPG

I hope you are lucky with your RPG, maybe I will play it - hopefully, don't fill me in with everything, but where did you get your inspiration? :D

AlphaArgonian182 13:27, 20 January 2013 (GMT)

P.S I have no intentions of stealing your ideas, I am awful with games technology design!

It's far too big a project for me to describe it all here, but it's (very) loosely based on Greek mythology, most notably the legend of King Midas, and basically what happens after his death (which doesn't take long since everything he touches turns to gold, including food and drinks.) The twist is that the curse doesn't even end on his death - even touching his corpse turns things to gold, and after finally burying him in the ground (no easy task because he had to be carried without being touched), the whole earth is starting to turn into gold as well. It deals with, among other things, the complete devaluation of gold (peasants use it for decoration because it's now so common); a secretive guild of wizards doing everything in their power to keep people believing that magic can only be performed by a select few when in fact anybody who can read can learn magic - literacy is somewhat uncommon though; a few interesting twists involving various forms of time travel - people turned to gold are not dead, but can be revived decades later as if no time had passed; and prophecies misinterpreted and gone awry. Over it all is a pantheon of gods which ties into alchemy, metallurgy, astrology, and magic, and kind of binds everything together to set a backdrop. It was written first as a short novel, though with the game mechanics in mind so that it will directly tie into the story.

Gameplay itself is likely to be similar to the ES games, as those have been my obsession for some time now. Though the stress would be more on magic and less on physical combat (which is not to say there wouldn't be any - you could go completely without magic if you wanted.) The magic system is designed such that no two spells are equivalent, and no spell ever becomes obsolete because a better one comes along later - every spell must be useful from when you first get it until the end of the game. (They improve with skill, basically.) At the same time, no spell is ever required. For any given task, there should always be multiple ways of tackling it, both magical and otherwise. I give as a simple example - you're stuck at the bottom of a deep hole. What can you do? Using magic, you could: cast a flying/levitation spell to get out, cast a spell which causes vines to grow up the side that you can climb on, cast a spell to fill the pit with water and swim out, cast a spell to create boulders to climb out, cast a spell to teleport out, cast a spell which makes it possible to pass through thin layers of solid objects, and find a secret passage on the other side of the wall of the pit, etc. Without magic, you could attempt to simply scale the wall the old-fashioned way (carefully finding handholds and footholds), fire a grappling hook from a bow, dig your way into that secret passage with a shovel, or just collapse enough of the walls to fill up the hole with dirt and climb out, throw a rope up to your buddy at the top, etc. Always multiple solutions.

Anyhow, it's a long term project, so don't look for it any time soon. Right now it's pretty much just me, and this kind of thing would need a pretty big team to put together. But it's a design I've been working on for quite a while now. TheRealLurlock (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2013 (GMT)

Cool! Like I said...good luck! AlphaArgonian182 20 January 2013, 19:37 (GMT)

Spell Icons

Are those spell icons just chosen by you? Or are they based in the game data? Also, are they just being displayed on the spell's page? Or do they get linked elsewhere? Jeancey (talk) 02:44, 21 January 2013 (GMT)

It was an aesthetic choice. I didn't like how empty those corners looked on some spells, so I chose some appropriate icons to balance the layout. It's not official or anything - none of those spells actually have tomes, but then there's nothing in the layout that says that corner must contain only tome images. They're not shown anywhere but on those specific pages, so it shouldn't confuse anything. TheRealLurlock (talk) 02:48, 21 January 2013 (GMT)

The tome icons I can understand, but I question the icons used on spells such as Vampiric Drain and Arniel's Convection. Random item icons really have no place there. We should either stick to the tomes, or leave the spells without an icon. —Legoless (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2013 (GMT)

I'll admit that a few of them were a stretch. But they're not "random items". They're all closely associated with the spells they're used on. On Conjure Dragon Priest, I thought the Konahrik mask was appropriate, because that's how you get that spell. Likewise you get Summon Arniel's Shade when you pick up Keening, and you get Summon Arvak from returning Arvak's Skull. For the others, which are mostly specialized limited-use spells, I chose what you need to use the spells for. You use Arniel's Convection on the Warped Soul Gem, you use Summon Unbound Dremora to get a Sigil Stone, you use Vision of the Tenth Eye to find the Master Illusion Tomes. The Vampiric Drain icon was the most iffy, but I didn't want it to be the only blank one. If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears (eyes). If the icon in the corner were labeled "Spell Tome", or in any way indicated that this spot is only to be used for the Spell Tome icon and nothing else, I could see why there'd be a problem with it. But it's just a picture in the corner, which in no way implies that it must be a spell tome image. I just think the layout looks really off-balanced if that area is left blank. TheRealLurlock (talk) 17:56, 21 January 2013 (GMT)

I'll admit, the items related to obtaining the spell make more sense. The Vampiric Drain icon still irritates me (especially since the Blood Potion isn't even vanilla), but if it's the only spell without a related icon then I guess it's best to let it slide. —Legoless (talk) 18:25, 21 January 2013 (GMT)

Move Files Delete Redirects

Hi,

I feel like there's probably a reason you said there's no reason to change to policy here: UESPWiki:Community_Portal#Move_File_Rights And I'm fairly wiki-illiterate in many ways. I think I got excited about "helping," which may have diverted energy from my thinking! What's the best thing to do? Or it's not really important? Thanks. --JR (talk) 07:56, 31 January 2013 (GMT)

My only point was that we were discussing whether or not a non-patroller/admin should be allowed to propose deletion on files or articles. I was simply clarifying that anyone can propose deletion on whatever they want, which has always been the case. Whether something is technically eligible for deletion is an entirely separate debate. But as long as all deletion proposals must be reviewed by an admin (since only admins can actually perform the deletion), there is no need for any kind of restriction on who can or cannot propose deletions. TheRealLurlock (talk) 15:36, 31 January 2013 (GMT)

I get it. I think it arose for me when I tried to rename a few images recently. I did my best to find and follow instructions or guidance on my own to possibly spare someone else a little work (as a general principle, because I've been making enough edits lately, that I should pay more attention to learning more and so making some things more efficient. After I went through that process of trying to figure things out, several people said, "Oh we've mostly been speeding them, in practice" and I think someone changed my prods to speedys, and/or had to fix mistakes I made. No big deal that, but I thought, well, maybe I can write a clearer guide for the next person who comes along in my boots. Thanks.--JR (talk) 15:55, 31 January 2013 (GMT)