User:Hawki/Archive 07

Achievements, Template Size and Strategy
So a few things I wanted to run by you:

1. I was thinking of making another article for achievements, right now we've lumped a lot of the general, feats of strength and arcade achievements into Wings of Liberty or into their own articles. I was thinking of adding a sixth category just for the "other" achievements so it's easier to navigate, and that way we can also do away with all those dangling achievement articles. I was torn between StarCraft II multiplayer achievements (which is more intuitive, but less accurate and technically would encompass co-op) or StarCraft II general achievements (which is less intuitive but more accurate).

2. Right now on some of some mission pages like The Spear of Adun (mission) it's giving errors that the template size is exceeded, and so it won't display the campaign template. I was thinking it had to do with the size of our achievement template, but I admit my knowledge of wikia formatting isn't the best. Should we do away with the achievement template on mission articles?

3. I asked PsiSeveredHead about this, and he told me to rope you in on the discussion, but I feel like our strategy and esports sections have always been really behind. We really don't have anyone who both knows enough about that side of things and is active enough to keep it updated with the meta, and even if we did it'd be hard to match the info on that side Liquidpedia has. I was debating just axing a lot of our strategy and esports articles (like Zerg vs. Terran (StarCraft II)), and when necessary linking to Liquidpedia. We'd keep stuff like ladder maps, basic unit use and some of the absolute major players like Slayers_Boxer, but things like tournaments and builds we could just link to their site if that becomes necessary. That'd be a pretty big shift in wiki policy though so I wanted to clear it with you before I did anything.

Should be it, still got the category thing we discussed earlier on my radar but I wanted to get that done on a day I just sit down and knock most of them out at once. Subsourian (talk) 15:59, July 19, 2016 (UTC)


 * So actually going through the achievement articles I've noticed we had more group articles for achievements then I first thought. We have a lot that line up with the actual listed categories of achievements beyond just the campaign ones, like combat and exploration. So since we have that in place I was thinking of just making article for each achievement tab in the battle.net profile (Multiplayer, Feats of Strength and Arcade are the ones we need). This'll be a bit weird since some categories have changed between games though, I think FFA is out now. Also, we seem to be housing a bunch of removed achievements scattered around, do you think a "removed achievements" article would be useful for that?


 * Ah ok, just fixed it, seems to be working now. Just wasn't sure the root of it was all.


 * I wouldn't necessarily say that weakens our wiki, just plays to our strengths of focusing on the game itself rather then the scene surrounding it. The= difference I see with co-op vs. the actual ladder is the concept of a shifting metagame, where co-op only really gets shaken up during balance patches (and we're the only place that seems to have co-op content). But I see your point and agree, as we are the more general wiki so we should be self-sufficient in that regard. Subsourian (talk) 13:43, July 20, 2016 (UTC)

Template
Hey Hawki, long time no talk.

Sorry for (slightly) spamming the admins, but I was wondering if I could borrow one of your wiki's templates for my own? The AchieveBox one in particular.

Thanks,

Brainwasher5 (talk) 08:48, July 20, 2016 (UTC)

Alright, thanks so much. I figured that I should ask before shamelessly copying :P Brainwasher5 (talk) 09:02, July 20, 2016 (UTC)

Terran Confederacy state atheism
From what I've gathered the Terran Confederacy adopted it's state atheistic polices from the United Powers League. Technically speaking only Albania is the only state atheistic country on earth because it was the only one to ban organized religion. Other countries are called state atheist, but only repressed not banned it (Soviet Union, China). Terran Confederacy matches the Soviet Union, China model perfectly. Simpsonsfan1992 (talk) 06:27, August 4, 2016 (UTC)

Covert Ops
Being we did the same with the campaigns, I'd like to make a page documenting the various upgrades available to Nova's army. However, I'm not sure what to call it. DrakeyC (talk) 08:25, August 7, 2016 (UTC)


 * It doesn't, no. Griffin was my best guess as well. I'll whip it up shortly and add it to the page. DrakeyC (talk) 09:09, August 7, 2016 (UTC)

Heroes of the Storm: Where's the Line
So taking a second to catch my breath from these announcements; I've been adding a good amount of mounts/psionic abilities/units that show up in Heroes of the Storm for StarCraft characters, figuring they'd be ok as long as we flag them as ambiguously canon (stuff like devouring maw, for example).

Of course as I do this they announce we're officially getting two StarCraft maps for HotS, full of SC related bits, I'm wondering where the line is on what's too HotS related for this wiki. Do we want to have short articles related to those maps since they are StarCraft, or do we just want to have the relevant unit articles reflect their appearance on those maps? On that note, should we make articles for things like "infested goliath" and "infested archangel," or is even articles for things like devouring maw too much?

Also on that same topic, do we still want to put the HotS tag on every article that shows up in HotS? With these maps we may be reaching the point where that encompasses most unit articles.

Also completely unrelated question, I've been adding in weapon articles for each faction, mostly just things referred to as a proper noun. I noticed that we have a category for terran weapons but protoss just have protoss technology. I could see why since most protoss tech isn't designed for war, but with the influx of protoss weapon articles can I make an infobox/category for protoss weapons similar to the terran one? Subsourian (talk) 18:18, August 16, 2016 (UTC)


 * Yeah I could imagine the timezone difference kinda sucks for these big announcements, thanks for getting back so quick though.


 * Using the Eternal Conflict maps as a base I'm just confused as to what we'd categorize them as, they seem to take place in actual SC locations (one seems to be near Braxis) but in isolation from the SC universe. So would they be treated like how we treat co-op missions? Or would we just flag it as Heroes of the Storm and do a very brief summary? And would, say, the Braxis article get its own Braxis section or a Heroes of the Storm subsection? Probably better to ask these when the maps actually come out.


 * For devouring maw the description seems to be "Summon a Devouring Maw," which I took to mean it was a separate creature, especially since nydus worm is her other ult.


 * Yeah I'm rewatching the trailer and I think I agree with you on "infested ____," especially since they seem to deinfest upon capturing the camps. An interesting point on the skins though, would that mean something like spectre Tracer and Illidan would be worth an article, since they seems to be written in an SC lore context? I figured crossover skins fell into the realm of silly.


 * Ah yeah I was worried where the line was when it came to weapons, probably should have checked. The way I was doing it was if it was a proper noun or weapon that was exclusive to the SC universe and not something like "claw" or "shotgun." That said a lot of these got info thanks to the unit science pages and the field manual, but some stuff like the three WoL hero mothership auto-attack weapons I could see being a problem. And yeah next big thing I'll do is run through the unit articles and link them together, right now not a lot do. Subsourian (talk) 23:05, August 16, 2016 (UTC)

Too many motherships
I added a few mothership links recently but they were removed. There have been at least X Tal'darim motherships in the game - the one you can control in Legacy of the Void campaign, the one that attacks you in Wings of Liberty, a named one in Nova Covert Ops... each with somewhat differing abilities. The one in Trouble in Paradise has startlingly different abilities. I don't think a generic description such as Tal'darim mothership is enough, nor do I think having two or three units in an article is enough. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs 23:58, August 23, 2016 (UTC)

Tal'darim units
So, since we are not sure if the names of some Tal'darim units is actually canon, I asked in a private message Phill Gonzo about this (since sometimes I ask things to him when I have some doubts for my SC1 remake), when he will answer do you want a screen about the message? So we can consider the information 100% canon?--PRISON KEEPER (talk) 01:36, September 12, 2016 (UTC)

Co-op Units and Administrative questions
There's some ambiguity of when we want to include the co-op template in an article, specifically for units. Do we want to have it for everything co-op related, even base units such as the marine or zergling, for just units specific to co-op like the shadow guard and supplicant, or co-op specific units and also repurposed units that function differently from how they normally do, like the laser drill?

Second question, and this is something I've seen come up a few times, do we have any rule against using this wiki to circumvent blocks on other wikis? It's something a few other wikis have as a rule but I don't think we laid out anywhere on ours. If not is it something we want to start doing? Just want to make sure before I start enforcing a rule that doesn't exist. Subsourian (talk) 13:00, September 14, 2016 (UTC)


 * To clear up the second point, I meant when someone gets banned from another wiki goes on here and uses the talk page of someone (usually an admin of the wiki they got banned from) to talk to them and get around the block, usually asking to revert the ban. Like this from this morning. Not the it's pressing or gets in the way or anything I just wasn't sure where we stood on that. Subsourian (talk) 03:31, September 15, 2016 (UTC)

Mutators on the Front Page
Just a thought I had given the popularity of co-op, but I wanted to run it by you and Psi before I did anything with the front page. I wanted to add a section on the front page that shows the mutator for the week, since we seem to be the one place regularly keeping up to date in co-op content I think making that information more instantly available will help people just browsing around for that info and maybe make more people use us regularly for co-op content. Also maybe add a section on the front page listing the co-op commanders/maps.

I can do it I just wanted to check with you all before I touched that. Subsourian (talk) 15:22, September 21, 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with the idea. It helps make the front page current. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs 23:39, September 21, 2016 (UTC)


 * It would depend partially on how we looks. I think it might be better to have a link to the current mutation rather than writing it out twice - it would save space at least.


 * On the subject of the main page, something that's been bugging me for awhile is that we have a list of SC2 units, but not a list of SC1 ones. SC2 is of course more current, but SC1 could get some love. If anything, we could base it on the Borderlands wiki, keeping the most recent list up top (in this case, SC2), then making our way down (to SC1).--Hawki (talk) 11:58, September 22, 2016 (UTC)


 * For the mutator depends on how we do it. I think we could fit a small box with the name of the current mutator linking to it and maybe a list of the names of the mutations it uses (though not the descriptions). I'll whip up a quick thing in the sandbox. Mostly it's more about making the information more open, so linking twice wouldn't be a big deal. But we should probably also have a section in contents linking to co-op commanders.


 * I agree on SC1 units, but would we then link to the unit article or lore articles for units that cross over between two games? Or would we link to the lore article for both since it serves as a kind of hub.


 * If possible I'd also like to make the divisions between things in "content" clearer but that'd just be a line. Also how specific do we want to be with characters, mostly seems ok for now but given what we know of the trilogy Tychus seems out of place, probably less important than Valerian or Zagara. Not sure if in that case we'd want more or less characters. Subsourian (talk) 15:42, September 22, 2016 (UTC)


 * Link to units I think. The idea of a 'list of units' only has relevance in a gameplay sense. Also, inclined to agree with Tychus being removed.--Hawki (talk) 09:27, September 25, 2016 (UTC)


 * I mocked up a basic outline of a modified front page here, let me know what you all think. Some things like the icons are temporary but I got the basic outline down, not sure if the extra space up in the main contents section should leave more room for overarching lore things like books or characters, but I tried to sort of mix the Borderlands wiki style you suggested with what we had before. Subsourian (talk) 16:05, October 3, 2016 (UTC)


 * It looks good. A bit squashed, but I think that's more due to the recent activity tab on the right, which should be free on the main page proper. One thing I would do is to trim down the mutator section - have a name and a link to the current mutation, but I don't think it needs the details. It'll save us space and time in the long run.--Hawki (talk) 04:45, October 4, 2016 (UTC)

The mapper
Should we just block Nazi Mapper? His profile lists this Wiki as his "favourite wiki" even though he only has two posts here, so I don't think he's a World War II gaming enthusiast. The name strikes me as being offensive. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs 14:09, October 10, 2016 (UTC)
 * I raised the issue of "his favourite wiki" because as far as I can tell, he has literally only ever posted on this wiki. The name isn't remotely relevant to StarCraft. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs 00:44, October 11, 2016 (UTC)

Hawki I got a Link to The Field Manuel for you

 * I Got a Link for You To Have Free acces to the Sc1 Field manuel https://www.scribd.com/doc/25478804/StarCraft-Manual. Your Welcome John-Zander (talk) 21:02, October 12, 2016 (UTC) John-Zander

Nova
Sorry if I got in the way, didn't notice you editing at the same time. Carry on. :) DrakeyC (talk) 08:42, October 15, 2016 (UTC)


 * CP error, I'll fix it. Sorry. DrakeyC (talk) 06:03, October 23, 2016 (UTC)

Evolution
Hi Hawki,

There's a lot of info on StarCraft: Evolution hitting the wiki even though the book isn't out yet. I've read both excerpts, but it seems like there's a third one I haven't seen. I was wondering where this info is coming from. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs 12:58, October 22, 2016 (UTC)

Persons Policy and Articles
So with the coming portraits based on the top 16 WCS champions I want to head off a coming issue before we have to deal with it. Right now we have a pretty barebones policy on esports stars and StarCraft pros, and we haven't really needed to due to no real need. But with the coming portraits I was wondering if we wanted to make articles for those pros who now are in the game.

Tournaments have had portraits but for the most part I've just been linking to the tournament/liquidpedia page. But with other franchise portraits like Warcraft/Overwatch I've been making barebones pages that basically link to the more detailed wikis and state "they're in StarCraft as a portrait." Do we want to do that for these pros coming up, try to make detailed articles for them, or just not deal with making articles for them, and just link it to other wikis? I know you were mostly against linking to Liquidpedia for meta/gameplay articles, but I wasn't sure how we want to deal with esports aspects. Subsourian (talk) 17:50, October 28, 2016 (UTC)

Re: BlizzCon Edits
Oh shoot for some reason I thought there was a video of the panel in the summary. Thankfully the good folks at youtube already have videos up so I'll get that fixed. Subsourian (talk) 13:52, November 5, 2016 (UTC)

Coop Canon Template
Hi Hawki,

I had added this template to the co-op section of several units, such as the infested siege tank, found in co-op missions but other places as well. They have since been removed. Is the template only for concepts that exist only in co-op missions? PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs 14:33, December 25, 2016 (UTC)

Parasite Map
hey hawki, thanks for responding to my parasite wiki, I want to add this page as a link on the list of starcraft 2 arcade maps, can you please help me as I am unfamiliar with this site.

I am trying to create a kind of encyclopedia for this SC2 arcade game that a lot of people play and will find this useful.

hey hawki, jeese from parasite page, I'm really upset you deleted my page and made it private, this is the second time a moderator on wikia has done this, I am just trying to make a wiki for a game that deserves it and you delete it, like seriously, why? its the 5th most played game on sc2 arcade, why delete it, ive spent literally like 15 hours making this page, its just a little page, not annoying anyone and you delete it, I feel like I'm being trolled by some government dude while I'm paying a fine, please just let this page be, ive had 6 people ask why the link to the wiki doesn't work, what are you doing :(

way to make some one just give up...

The alliance in the SC canon
Hi there, i own both SC 2 and its expansions and i noticed that in LOTV you can form an diplomatic alliance with Jim Raynor's resistence so i added the semi-canon word in the alliance page based on this events, if i made a mistake i apologize. Tesshu (talk) 23:03, February 13, 2017 (UTC)

Merchandise Section
I've been thinking of ways we could expand our content, and I remembered something we dabbled in but never really expanded on, that being listing officially licensed merchandise. We've mentioned it a few times for figurines, but for things like shirts, mousepads or toys we haven't gone too far into it.

Given how much there is (or rather how much there is focused on a few units), I was thinking of making a new section in articles that had merchandise (like Jim Raynor or the main marine article) that lists them, probably pretty far down in the article. This would of course be limited to merchandise officially licensed by Blizzard and sold on their store or Jinx and ThinkGeek or the like.

The few problems I see are:

1. There's a lot of very generic merchandise that has, say, the SCII symbol and nothing else. For faction symbols we could put them in their respective race's articles, but I'd be unsure where to put the SCII merch or merch that just has the symbol for a specific expansion.

2. Some of them, especially pieces of art or shirts, contain multiple units so would have to be spread across different articles.

3. There's been a lot of Heroes of the Storm merch, and would we then go into things like a mousepad that has Raynor alongside three Warcraft heroes? I assume we'd do things like the Nova figurine even if it's not actually technically a StarCraft product.

Just wanted to run it by you and Psi before I started on adding it. Subsourian (talk) 13:25, February 22, 2017 (UTC)


 * Gotcha, so in that case would they be put under trivia/notes like Firebat? I did just notice that Raynor has a Collectibles section though (though that's under Game Unit, dunno if that's supposed to be there or not?) Subsourian (talk) 12:44, February 23, 2017 (UTC)

Unit Box Portraits
Since we have a bunch of articles doing both, I figured we should nail down how we do the unit portraits. Right now a bunch of our SC2 unit article's put the unit's portrait in the unit box above or below the model, while the others put the portrait in the body of the article itself and only have the model in the unit box. Which do you thin should be the standard? Putting both in the unit box makes it more crowded, but does align more with how we do SC1 unit boxes. Subsourian (talk) 17:08, March 22, 2017 (UTC)

Heroes Making a Mess Again
So once again I have a question about adding Heroes of the Storm content. They just announced 2.0 with a bunch of skins, banners, emojis and announcers for the game. Obviously a lot of that is StarCraft content. So my questions:

1. Do we tag factions that get represented in-game through banners/emojis with the Heroes of the Storm tag now? I was going to mention it in the notes section like with Overwatch portraits, but those don't get the Overwatch tag for example. Also, if it's in the notes section does it need the "DotA" infobox?

2. One banner I spotted was for the "Char Zerg," and seemed to be an original symbol. In cases like this, where the symbol is original for a faction that didn't really have a symbol, how do we want to note in in their article? Under the HotS section I assume? Also if a faction is made up (like if they had Sgt. Hammer's Battalion for example) should we make an article noting that?

3. Is the fact a character is an announcer in the game noteworthy or is it best to leave that out of the article?

I'll hold off on adding things until 2.0 hits the PTR and I can get solid and final descriptions on these things (also so I don't forget to change tenses).

EDIT: Well apparently the PTR is going up today, that sure speeds things up. I'll still hold off until you make the call on it.--Subsourian (talk) 15:53, March 29, 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah we're basically in a weird position, I try to not go into massive detail on each hero but also if we're noting things I have to do things like note that one talent makes minerals appear for Probius. It's why I'm always unsure where the line is with that.


 * From the look of things there's also the added problem of tints now reference planets since now tints are their own thing (it's Overwatch now apparently). Now I have a feeling these will be subject to change given the outcry against some of these master skin tints but there's another obscure thing to note.


 * Yeah the Battalion thing was just an example, from the looks of it though we don't have to worry about that since the StarCraft content in the non-skins is fairly barebones as of now. Subsourian (talk) 23:04, March 29, 2017 (UTC)

Response to the SCR Forum
Sorry to post this in your talk, but for some reason my work laptop's decided that half of the "edit" pages on this wiki are actually viruses so it won't let me access them. I'll figure out what's up with that, though that may make my editing slower during the week (not that we have too much we super need to edit currently).

Anyway, I agree that as it stands the base SC1 units and models should be in the unit box. Looks a bit better, and also for SC1 we have the full animated portraits in gif form so they're more complete. But I think a lot can change between now and summer, so we can decide when we have the actual game in our hands. --Subsourian (talk) 11:55, March 31, 2017 (UTC)

Mutalisk / Mutalid
Yo, I went through Starcraft I audio files (found on Internet, I don't remember the exact website), and files related to Mutalisk were actually called Mutalid. You can see it here, Ctrl + F for "Mutalid"

Plasteel
Hey, Hawki do you have Shadow of the Xel'naga on English? Need you to check if its ever said that the windows on the robo-harvester are made of plasteel, like both articles say, I only have it on Spanish and it doesn't appear to be the case, but the translation is pretty amateurish so I'm not certain... --CombatMagic (talk) 02:09, May 10, 2017 (UTC)

Regarding Portraits
Is there a way I can upload .webm files? I could screen capture all the portraits like this one I already did ...

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:Roach_SC2_Head1.gif

... but since it's an animated .GIF, the file sizes are pretty large. This same animation in the .WEBM format is much smoother and less than half the filesize. I would love to see beautifully animated portraits that are less than 2 MB a piece. Please let me know what you think. ALoneWolf85 (talk) 03:33, May 15, 2017 (UTC)


 * Understood, so then do you think I should make .GIFs for all unit profiles? Or is that something that isn't necessary? Personally I would like it, but I'm not going to spend all my free time for the next month if they aren't wanted lol. ALoneWolf85 (talk) 04:02, May 15, 2017 (UTC)


 * I figured out a workaround to .webms. What do you think of something like this? http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:Abathur_SC2_Head1.ogv. Small filesize, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make them play automatically and loop. ALoneWolf85 (talk) 02:04, May 18, 2017 (UTC)


 * That's why I'm trying to figure out how to get them to play automatically and loop, so they can serve as an animated .gif replacement. I'll keep digging and seeing what I can find, trust me, I won't mass upload a bunch of videos until we can both agree on a working system. ALoneWolf85 (talk) 02:41, May 18, 2017 (UTC)

NPC Buildings
Got your message for NPC vs Campaign. However, you only said NPC is non-player controlled, usually enemy. If the player can't control it, but it's NOT an enemy unit, does that still qualify as NPC?--Psi-ragnarok (talk) 00:46, May 16, 2017 (UTC)

Article Title Consistency for Terran Units
I noticed that there's a bit of inconstancy with the titles we use for terran hardware that have full technical names. The banshee's article title is the AH/G-24 Banshee, while the A2 Viking Armored Mechanical Hybrid is just "Viking." This might make sense if there were variations vs a single unit, but both so far don't have any known variations. Which one should be our default? I'm leaning toward changing the lore article titles to be whatever their shortened in game unit title is and putting the full technical name in the first line like the Viking article, but what do you think?

On another note, this caused some trouble in the past with the SCV article just being about the T-280 when a bunch of other designs got confirmed, and now we have a bunch of dangling side articles. If we make this change, should those be folded into the SCV article? --Subsourian (talk) 18:46, May 17, 2017 (UTC)

Portable Infoboxes
Hey, I know you're out for a few more days but when you get a chance check out my talk page, there's a message about converting to Portable Infoboxes from wikia I figure you and Psi should chime in on. --Subsourian (talk) 02:25, June 5, 2017 (UTC)
 * Hey, just to remind you about the above - the discussion's on Subsourian's talk page. Would appreciate your input, but I'll assume it's all cool with you otherwise.-- V  Technobliterator   T  C  20:24, June 10, 2017 (UTC)

Re character infoboxes with no color: that's weird, they should have the same colors as the boxes used to have. Which pages are you seeing this on?-- V  Technobliterator   T  C  00:27, June 14, 2017 (UTC)

NPC Clarification
One more thing for when you get back, I discussed this with User:Psi-ragnarok. As you define NPC vs campaign unit/structure on his talk page:


 * NPC: Present in the campaign, but not controllable by the player - usually as an enemy-only unit.
 * Campaign: Controllable by the player in the campaign.

But that the two could overlap, like with the scourge nest. The problem we ran into was the wrathwalker, which shows up in LotV as a unit but is an NPC unit in Nova Covert Ops. The issue for me is that by this definition any unit that shows up in a campaign where they aren’t constructible is an NPC, including things like zealots and void rays. And even if we were to limit it to non-multiplayer units, that would mean basically every campaign unit like vultures and goliath would also be NPCs, as they show up in campaigns where they're only enemies.

Now, for scourge nest I can see that category being applicable still, since the capacity of how scourge nests show up in HotS vs how they show up in Co-op basically makes them different structures that happen to share the same model. So how would we want to define them, do we want to do it just as non-multiplayer units that show up in campaigns where they can't be controlled, or as units that strictly can't be controlled or show up in a different capacity where their NPC iteration and playable iteration are wildly different (like the scourge nest). The scourge being playable in co-op is another example of “was NPC but now is a grey area” that comes to mind. --Subsourian (talk) 15:21, June 7, 2017 (UTC)

Header and Background
So I changed up the header, since with the last change to the wikia did the solid block of blue wasn't cutting it in my opinion. If you dislike it or want me to change it back let me know.

I've also been debating changing up the background, nothing too gaudy but something along the lines of the SC1 custom game screen (mostly space). In that case though I may wait around for the remastered one. But just wanted to get your thoughts and/or approval on that. --Subsourian (talk) 22:40, June 14, 2017 (UTC)