Equipment vs. Item

Forums: Index > General Discussion > Equipment vs. Item

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I have been mulling this topic over a bit recently as there seems to be a very "fuzzy" distinction between the two. Alot of things that seem to be "Items", following the definition found on both the Equipment and Item pages, are being added as equipment, and vice-versa. I would like to see a more concise, easier to classify definition for the two.

(I am, of course, reminded here of the recent solution to the years-long debate held by the Astronomical community over the exact definition of what constitutes a "planet".)

Towards this end I would like to propose the following definition of what should be required for a "thing" to be classified an Item , with the remaining "things" falling under the Equipment heading:

ITEM:
Any object that can be held in a character's inventory that:

1. Performs no actions or abilities in and of itself.
2. Grants no benefits (or penalties) to a character.

As such, any "thing" that is defined as an "Item", when examined, should only display:

1. The item's name
2. An icon
3. Quality (i.e. COMMON, FABLED, etc.)
4. Flags (i.e. NO-TRADE, LORE, etc.)
5. Descriptive (or flavor) text
6. (For Raw materials) Tier useage information
7. (For Quest Items) Quest granted, or requiring, thie item
8. (For House Items) Rent Status Reduction

Everything else should be considered to be "Equipment".

Can we put this to a "stress test" and see if anyone can find any holes in this?

Thanks!

-- Melf 23:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

My Two Cents Edit

I don't blame you for the confusion. When I was inputting item/equipment information for ROK stuff, I kept getting confused as to what should fall as what (armor and weapons being the easiest to define as weapons)...

I still get confused sometimes. Thus, I do agree that some sort of clear definition to each category would be nice so that we can better clarify (for at least the sake of which template to use) what is what on the site. (I wonder how SOE defines the difference, honestly...)

Not to say your suggestion isn't good, but I would think that more discussion needs to take place (between more users) before the admins/community-at-large makes a decision of this magnitude. And while I think it would be good to make this decision, I say it is of such magnitude because it may mean a complete revamp of all items/equipment listed in EQ2i. /frown And yikes, can you imagine the time that would take?! =P

So, there's my two cents... -- Mysterious drake 00:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

My Thoughts Exactly Edit

I had a heck of a time figuring out where I should post this, and I figured the Forums would be best as it is most certain (I hope!) to have a big debate over it! -- Melf 00:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

no debate needed Edit

general rule

• if you can equip it, its an Equipment, there for Template:EquipInformation .
• if you cant equip it, its an item, therefor Template:ItemInformation .

exceptions

• bags/boxes dont equip technically, so they are Items.
• food/drink are items.
• ammo has its own template because its a very weird item with stat like +hit -accuracy that arent found elsewhere, but are in the grand sense are considered equipment.
• spell books (crafted or dropped) are items, but we dont make pages for every version you can learn a spell because the Template:SpellInformation handles the difference between versions.
• house items are items
• harvested tradeskill parts would be items, but a new template was split off Template:HarvestInformation because of the tiering and node sorting that standard items did not have to deal with.
• non-harvested tradeskill parts includes: various quest parts, transmuting parts, those dropped substitution parts are under Template:ResourceInformation

the big problem is that the item template looks like butt right now, it hasent been redone to match the ingame layout like equipinfo or ammoinfo. i think that if it properly displayed the input'd data in the same way that it did in game, you could very easily see if the thing you were adding was a equipment or an item.

-- Uberfuzzy 00:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a great pass on the guidelines for equipment and items. I'm going to add this to the guidelines information at some point in the near future.-- Kodia 13:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)