New zone info box

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I've long felt that our weakest coverage was on zone info and user guides. With the user guides pretty well implemented, I have been considering what would make our zone info more useful and complete. Have a look at the Feerrott page, which uses the new info box that I cobbled together. I will be honest - I'm taking cues directly from WOWWiki in this. The "other resources" box needs some work before it can be added back in.

The zone info box is only the first step of a revamp that I'd like to do to make the zone pages more consistent and informative. I envision each zone page having as much of the following as possible:

the new in-game zone map, if available
at least one screenshot of the zone
embed map image from eq2maps (with clickthrough) if possible
paragraph description - taken from lore where possible, otherwise written by wiki users
paragraph discussion of dungeons/instances accessed within this zone (diagram showing locations)
paragraph discussion of the state of quests in this zone (diagram showing quest hubs)
paragraph discussion of in-zone travel options (diagram of routes)
summary located in a right-hand info box
Anything else that would guide the player in this zone

Basically, I think the various per-zone categories adequately cover the "reference" material for each zone, and that the zone page itself should add value by giving guidance and advice on usage of the zone. Anyone have positive or negative comments on this? Sassinak 06:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree on almost all counts. I'd personally like to see something slightly sexier for boxes, but that's just my personal bias. And my personal bias extends to hating the fact that Internet Explorer has so many non-standard display issues. One of the things that I'd like to see is a better way for people to see a zone and be able to get to other zones of similar level. The categories alone don't seem to be quite doing it in this regard because I'm constantly asked in game about what other areas would be good ones. In addition to the categories, could we make the zone box more effective for this or would that be overkill, trying to include too much?-- Kodia 22:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

When not logged in, the right-side user box gets shoved down by an advertisement directly above it. It looks hidden compared to having all the info in the center of the screen (next to that advert). I use the Firefox browser, and do not know if this "stuffed beneath the fold" look happens on any other browsers. It makes me wonder how many casual (not logged in) visitors will miss it because they will have to scroll down to find it, though. Janze-Nek 19:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The issue with advertisements also happens on the WoWWiki, as almost all of their info boxes are on the right side, and get pushed down by ads. It doesn't seem to be a concern for them, and probably would not be for us either, if the main body of our pages actually had more information on them. Ideally the page body itself will contain more information and will be longer than the box+ad, which would justify putting that stuff on the right rather than the left.

One thing we could do to reduce the size of the floating boxes is to put the "other resources" links at the very bottom of the article instead of at the side, as more of a footnote. Then the "other resources" could have any format we like, and isn't limited to being in a box.

Kodia, a "similar zones" list would be really nice, if we can avoid it getting out of hand. I guess the question then is, do we generate the list dynamically somehow using categories, or do we write the suggestions for every zone manually? Sassinak 23:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the similar zones idea. For shortening it, what about moving the other resources like you said, as well as moving the 2x4 category box as well? (To me, it doesn't fit there as well... that could be at the end of the page). Also, in regards to the ad... I assume you mean the square-ish one and not the regular banner? If that's the case, you could add a call to Template:ForceBanner at the top of your new zone template and it will force it to only use banners instead of the obnoxious box. -- lordebon 23:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't really thinking the similar zones would be something we'd include in it because of the very reason stated. It could most certainly get out of hand. The big thing I'd like to see is a link to the appropriate location at the wiki that would get the same information, even if it was just a link to the category page.

As for the advertisements, yes this is a common problem for users that aren't logged in and I believe it's something we'd need to consider carefully for *quests* before instituting. But for zones, I think we're okay with moving the information box to the side. I wouldn't say the same thing if the info box for quests was being suggested.-- Kodia 15:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Something else I've been thinking about. One of the things I think is the strength of EQ2i is the quest template that allows people to complete series of quests or even all of the quests in a zone. What would people think about moving the link to the timelines further north in the box.-- Kodia 21:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sort of yes-and-no on that. Let me explain... I like it where it is now for "true" timelines (eg Prismatic Timeline, an Epic Weapon timeline, or any series of quests that you basically have to do in order). For more general timelines (Antonica Timeline, etc. -- basically any timeline that is an agglomeration of other, shorter questlines) then yeah, I can see that as a link maybe a bit higher up.

If we really want to get into it (ie amount of work wise)... what if we differentiated them and automatically built part of the right-hand timeline nav based on that? For example, Antonica Timeline has lots of little questlines in it... Antonica Timeline would be the "timeline" for all of those, but the "Gnoll Investigation Series" is a questline (ie one quest comes after the previous). So for quests in that series, the Questline near the bottom would be "Gnoll Investigations" or something like that and would have a template like many timelines have now. But Antonica Timeline would be the over-ruling timeline, so the right-hand nav would automatically include the Gnoll Investigations timeline while giving it a top-level heading of Antonica Timeline (with a link to the full timeline page). But either way, if we want to get into the quest box (Which IMHO is much better than the old ZoneBox and so less in need of improvement) we should probably split that off onto a separate topic to keep things straight. -- lordebon 23:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you might be misunderstanding. I just mean the link to the timeline, not the templated timeline.-- Kodia 03:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Although it is a tangent, I agree with lordebon that it would be very nice to somehow automatically generate quest lines using templates. As he said, you would then get the actual quest lines like the Gnoll line auto-generated, while a "timeline" page would just be a hand-picked collection of auto-generated quest lines. I wonder if the template wizards can think of a way to do this? Sassinak 06:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I added a new field to the zone box for "Harvesting Tier". This is not always self-evident (e.g. Feerrott is T5, Sinking Sands is T6) so it's a useful piece of information to display. Can anyone think of any other pieces of useful information that would be common to all zones?

As for the page body, both The Feerrott and Nektulos Forest pages have been revamped into a template similar to the WoWWiki zones pages. I was wondering if any other information would be useful for most zones. Sassinak 18:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good, though I think it would be a bit neater if "other resources" was put outside the box (ie directly underneath it) and if the category box was moved to the bottom of the page or somehow otherwise incorporated (I just don't like the way it looks now, it's not integrated). -- lordebon 18:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the category box just needs a better presentation. It would make sense to keep it in the summary zonebox if possible. I agree that the other resources stuff badly needs to be pushed down to the bottom of the page. Sassinak 23:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Aye, I have no problem with those links being there (in fact, like you said I think they're somewhat important and belong there) but box-within-a-box presentation doesn't look right to me. Which is somewhat to be expected, given the change to a new look; we just need to update it and make it fit better. What about if we removed the inner set of boxues and just subdivided the bottom of the entire zone box into those 2x4 boxes, I think that would make it look at least a bit better. -- lordebon 02:15, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion Edit

I like the new appearance, but do have one suggestion: put the talk page links and other resources link in some kind of box to make it look better? Right now, IMHO it kind of runs into the start of the article text. -- lordebon 21:38, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a wiki wizard, but I gave a shot at addressing both issues. Other resources is now in the zone box below the category links, and the talk page link is at a reduced size. See what you think. It can be tricky convincing Wikia to reload the templates, so if the zone box looks the same to you, try editing a zone page and hitting "preview". -- Sassinak 22:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I like it much better now =) -- lordebon 13:45, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

A new suggestion: For zones that contain raids, don't define them in terms of time like an instance. Maybe in terms of a short descriptor (Short, Medium, Long) and/or # of nameds. But time depends far too much on raid makeup and ability to be accurate, I think. The new pages are looking great, a whole lot better than the old ones. -- lordebon 19:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Harvesting Tier Edit

One of the things that people are constantly asking in chat is "What skill level do I need to harvest/mine/etc". Right now our harvesting tier doesn't list a number, just a tier. Most people don't know what this is. Some do. What would people think about a number associated with the tier number? That is, "Harvesting: Tier 2 (minimum 20)" or something like that? I think it would be far more useful than what we have now.-- Kodia 12:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It'd have to be manual text. Unfortunately there are cases where the harvesting skill is not consistent among the same tier (I'm looking at you, mixed-up, muddled-up T7!) so you can't do a direct tier --> skill calculation. But it would be helpful, I agree. -- lordebon 12:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)