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Community Projects => The FreeSpace Wiki Project => Topic started by: Mobius on September 20, 2008, 04:32:28 pm

Title: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 20, 2008, 04:32:28 pm
There's something weird happening in the Wiki.

Basically I see many Inferno ships(but the problems affect other mods as well, I guess) marked as normal custom ships.

You can see my recent contributes and get an idea of what is going on - it's strange to have the EAF Nyx marked as Inferno fightercraft while the EAF Claymore is a normal custom fightercraft with no connection to Inferno other than a link to INFR1 and its Tech Description in INFR1.

The Inferno image appearing in Inferno related pages is enough to point the content of the page itself as a non-canon one. An "All informations related to the <insert name> is non-canon" right above or below the Inferno logo wouldn't look good but should work, IMO. Most Inferno ships ARE custom made and should be part of the list of custom made ships as well. Is it possible to remove the tag for ships that are part of a mod project and keep them in the list of user made ships at the same time?

Maybe they should be part of both cathegories, Inferno Ships and User-made Ships? Is it possible to set the Inferno Ships category as a sub-category of User-made Ships? Thanks in advance...  :)

EDIT:

It'd be kind of strange to have this at the beginning of a page:



Quote
The following information has not been confirmed by Volition and is therefore not canon for the FreeSpace universe.

All information related to EAF Claymore Mk1 is non-canon
Back to User-made Ships


(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Inflogo.JPG)
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 21, 2008, 03:37:47 pm
Personally I don't know why Inferno or the Babylon Project have some big ugly logo at the start. Each page should be about the individual ship imo, and not the mod itself. If the ship database is intended as tool to allow new modders to add content to their campaigns it should by extension be about the ships. Then each campaign which uses that ship could link from their page to the ship and vice versa if required.

Or even if I were looking at the inferno ships or the derelict ships, and click on something from the list and the first thing I see is some big logo instead of the ship  . . . would make more sense to throw that logo at the bottom imo if its required at all.


Ontop of that, what campaigns do given ships get billed under? All or some? A lot of the ships in Inferno as I understand it weren't originally FOR inferno, several ships are from OTT, several are just models from Aldo. The Vesuvius for example is being used by Twisted Infinities, or Scroll of Atankjnksdas (whatever), not sure which, but both of them are older projects which may date back to or even pre-date INF:R1 so where does it go?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Stormkeeper on September 22, 2008, 03:29:40 am
I agree with Akalabeth. I think having the image kinda 'blocks' the page. The two 'non-canon' lines should be sufficient enough to alert the view that the ship is non-canon.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Aardwolf on September 22, 2008, 04:03:31 am
Then there are the people who think Inferno and Derelict are crap, and might like a ship they have if it weren't for the huge logo at the top...

 :nervous:
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Colonol Dekker on September 22, 2008, 04:13:45 am
FreeSpace wiki, not "other game/mod "wiki :yes:
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Aardwolf on September 22, 2008, 04:21:54 am
I wouldn't go that far. It would be fine to say somewhere (in not such a ludicrously huge manner) what campaigns a ship appeared in or was originally designed for.

For some mods--TBP, TAP, BtRL... basically any mod set in a completely different universe--it sort of makes sense to have something like indicating that.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Colonol Dekker on September 22, 2008, 04:25:58 am
Oh no, i didn't mean "cast the heathens out" i was trying "rather badly" to say FS should quite rightly take presedence.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Stormkeeper on September 22, 2008, 04:27:06 am
I think he means is that all we need to tell viewers is that the ship is non-canon. That's all.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 22, 2008, 07:48:59 am
I wouldn't go that far. It would be fine to say somewhere (in not such a ludicrously huge manner) what campaigns a ship appeared in or was originally designed for.

I think it would be notable in the multiple stats/descriptions that need to be given sometimes considering model reuse...failing that though I'm out of ideas.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TrashMan on September 22, 2008, 09:23:44 am
I'm getting sick and tired of Inferno.

No offense to anyone, but I'm beginning to wish it was never created.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 22, 2008, 12:43:59 pm
Someone got it wrong. The FreeSpace Wiki has a large non-canon/fanon section section and it's intended to provide the community with detailled info on anything concerning FS.

Personally I don't know why Inferno or the Babylon Project have some big ugly logo at the start. Each page should be about the individual ship imo, and not the mod itself. If the ship database is intended as tool to allow new modders to add content to their campaigns it should by extension be about the ships. Then each campaign which uses that ship could link from their page to the ship and vice versa if required.

Removing the connection to the mod that uses it is not an option. There are many INF ships that will never be used in non-INF campaigns, just to give an example, and should keep the reference to INF like the others.

Ontop of that, what campaigns do given ships get billed under? All or some? A lot of the ships in Inferno as I understand it weren't originally FOR inferno, several ships are from OTT, several are just models from Aldo. The Vesuvius for example is being used by Twisted Infinities, or Scroll of Atankjnksdas (whatever), not sure which, but both of them are older projects which may date back to or even pre-date INF:R1 so where does it go?

Maybe the only mod among them with an available release and with team members or fans who're also devoted FS Wiki contributors?

Mod teams tend to create their own stuff for various reasons. You'll hardly see shared ships, especially now.

Oh, the Vesuvius is no longer used in INF.


I agree with Akalabeth. I think having the image kinda 'blocks' the page. The two 'non-canon' lines should be sufficient enough to alert the view that the ship is non-canon.

If the image isn't appropriate and something needs to replace it then there should be a text saying something like "This is an Inferno<link to Wiki INF page> ship and is therefore non-canon<link to canon Wiki page> for the FreeSpace Universe". What about this solution?

FreeSpace wiki, not "other game/mod "wiki :yes:

This statement fights with the Wiki's main purposes.

I think he means is that all we need to tell viewers is that the ship is non-canon. That's all.

No reference to the mod? Very bad thing.

Maybe the small description that preceeds the Tech Descriptions should work. What about:

"This ship/fighter/bomber/etc. was initially created for OTT<link> to serve as <insert something>.

It has been widely used in <insert various mod and campaign names and their link>

It is a <small description of the custom ship>"

What about it?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 22, 2008, 01:30:58 pm
Someone got it wrong. The FreeSpace Wiki has a large non-canon/fanon section section and it's intended to provide the community with detailled info on anything concerning FS.

Removing the connection to the mod that uses it is not an option. There are many INF ships that will never be used in non-INF campaigns, just to give an example, and should keep the reference to INF like the others.

       What ships are these? Do you know for a fact that someone will never use them? Or has Woomeister prohibited their use in the read me? The best way to promote the use of ships is to have them accessible to people. People don't want to go through all their VPs and search 5 different websites, or 3-4 different wiki pages looking for ships. Or even just looking AT ships. Some people, like me, they won't necessarily ever use any of this stuff. They have great ambitions about using ships, they have great campaign ideas, but it'll never happen. But still they might enjoy half an hour just looking at all the different ships and dreaming up ideas for them.

        Quite honestly there's absolutely nothing worse that someone trying to look up ships and having to look in 5 or 6 different places to find everything. That was my purpose when I started adding ALL the ships to the user created ships page. I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, if it comes out in Inferno, or BWO or whatever then sure, say that, and provide links to the campaign, etcetera and so forth. Even the text option you list is probably much preferable. But if a person wants to just look at the ships, from all the mods, and has to look in more than one place, there's something wrong.

        And when I say all the mods I mean all the freespace mods not all the mods including TBP, WC etcetera. They'd have their own pages.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 22, 2008, 01:45:29 pm

Maybe the small description that preceeds the Tech Descriptions should work. What about:

"This ship/fighter/bomber/etc. was initially created for OTT<link> to serve as <insert something>.

It has been widely used in <insert various mod and campaign names and their link>

It is a <small description of the custom ship>"

What about it?


This is a compromise...
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 22, 2008, 01:53:05 pm

Maybe the small description that preceeds the Tech Descriptions should work. What about:

"This ship/fighter/bomber/etc. was initially created for OTT<link> to serve as <insert something>.

It has been widely used in <insert various mod and campaign names and their link>

It is a <small description of the custom ship>"

What about it?


This is a compromise...

       Why not just have "This ship was initially featured in OTT<link>, it's a post-capella Interceptor for the GTVA" (I say featured not created because not all ships used in a mod were purpose built for that mod) or whatever. And that's it? List all the mods that use it at the bottom. Because some ships will have a lot of mods, and some won't have any. So if you list them all at the top, sometime it'll be a bunch of crap. Sometimes it won't be very much, basically it'll be inconsistent from ship to ship and that's not something I think looks pretty.

       I normally tried to list ships in their original form (or their HTL version). So if a ship is originally from Inferno, I have that for the tech description and the rest of the mumbo jumbo. 
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 22, 2008, 02:02:34 pm
It's pretty much the same thing, yeah :)

The problem is: who's going to make the changes to the Wiki? I can't be alone...
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 22, 2008, 02:20:04 pm
It's pretty much the same thing, yeah :)

The problem is: who's going to make the changes to the Wiki? I can't be alone...


   Well I've been adding ships to the master list so I'll integrate whatever changes into whatever's coming up and go back and fix the other ones as time permits.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 22, 2008, 02:27:55 pm
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/SD_Nyarlathotep#General

Derelict combines the logo with the non-canon tag. What do I have to do to to get an Inferno version of that?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Stormkeeper on September 22, 2008, 09:25:23 pm
No idea. Looks like a custom Wiki tag.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Wanderer on September 23, 2008, 06:23:16 am
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/SD_Nyarlathotep#General

Derelict combines the logo with the non-canon tag. What do I have to do to to get an Inferno version of that?
Its just standard wiki template...
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TrashMan on September 23, 2008, 07:59:26 am
I agree with AA... custom ship database is about CUSTOM SHIPS FOR MODDERS. If you don't put that ship for free use, then it's has no place in the list in the first place.

Keep hte camapaings out of it. Just put in "modeled by X for Z camapign" and provide a link. No more is needed.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 23, 2008, 11:24:25 am
Its just standard wiki template...

Ok...you're the Wiki Warrior here... ;)
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 23, 2008, 06:32:47 pm
I agree with AA... custom ship database is about CUSTOM SHIPS FOR MODDERS. If you don't put that ship for free use, then it's has no place in the list in the first place.

Keep hte camapaings out of it. Just put in "modeled by X for Z camapign" and provide a link. No more is needed.

This is outright, blatant stupidity.

The customs ships database is a direct outgrowth of the campaigns one. It always has been. I should know, I started the damn thing with the Kato, the Derelict retextures, and the TBP shiplist. If anything should be kept out of the database, it should be those ships which have never been used in a campaign!
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 23, 2008, 06:49:40 pm
This is outright, blatant stupidity.

The customs ships database is a direct outgrowth of the campaigns one. It always has been. I should know, I started the damn thing with the Kato, the Derelict retextures, and the TBP shiplist. If anything should be kept out of the database, it should be those ships which have never been used in a campaign!

        And that makes sense how exactly? Not everyone who makes ships is a FREDder or even involved in another project. How is a person's ship going to get used if no one knows about it? People are always asking on the forums for ships when they can just look at the wiki and find whatever they want on there first. In updating the ship database I found a lot of ships that aren't in any MOD and I never had a clue even existed because no one's ever used them. If you keep those ships off the list then you only ensure that no one ever uses them. Which quite honestly is a huge, stupid waste.


Remember, it's:

Mod Database -> Ships

not

Mod Database -> Ships used in a released campaign

 

            I don't even agree with throwing the Derelict or Inferno logo all over each ship's webpage quite honestly. Not unless someone plans to make a logo for each campaign. But then again I don't have a vested interest in any campaign, the work I've done on it is for the sake of the modder and the visitor and because I want some comprehensive ship list. Because I as a modder want to go to one page, and look at all the ships to either draw upon for my own campaign, just to look at ships, or use as artistic reference, or any number of things, or to just archive all the work that people have done for this game.

             Seriously. Someone pours hours worth of work into a model and into textures and it's already completely unappreciated because no one's ever used the thing, and you think that work they've done should be further disregarded and unappreciated by shovelling it under the rug and keeping it off the webpage?? Now that's "stupidity" imo. And if that's a prevailing attitude on this board, people should stop wondering why someone like aldo would delete a bunch of allegedly finished models rather than releasing them to the unappreciative masses.


       
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TopAce on September 24, 2008, 04:39:58 am
While as a FREDder, I would support NGTM's idea, I would still recommend two separate categories. One named "User-made ships used in a campaign," the other "User-made ships not used in any campaigns"? We could have these as two subcategories of "User-made Ships."

That, I think, would be a compromise. Either way, all models would qualify, and still you will be able to find out which ships were used in which campaigns.

Quote
Seriously. Someone pours hours worth of work into a model and into textures and it's already completely unappreciated because no one's ever used the thing, and you think that work they've done should be further disregarded and unappreciated by shovelling it under the rug and keeping it off the webpage??

And what about those campaigns that were unappreciated because they didn't use multi-million-poly models with dozens of 16528x16528 textures on it? You can compare how much effort it takes to make a model and make a campaign, and decide for yourself if those are the modders that are unappreciated or the FREDders. This door swings both ways.

As for the logo thing, I would use a generic "This is not canon" flag on it, and let the Wiki-surfer see which campaigns use the given model, like having a "Campaigns that use this ship" section. (The xxx Techroom Description is not sufficient in this regard, because if my campaign takes place in the FreeSpace universe, and the tech info given by the modder fit my ideas for the campaign, my campaign will not be credited.)

After some time of reconsideration, I would support havng logos (or templates) for total conversions that say "This ship does not belong to the FreeSpace universe."
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 24, 2008, 04:48:49 am
        And that makes sense how exactly? Not everyone who makes ships is a FREDder or even involved in another project. How is a person's ship going to get used if no one knows about it? People are always asking on the forums for ships when they can just look at the wiki and find whatever they want on there first. In updating the ship database I found a lot of ships that aren't in any MOD and I never had a clue even existed because no one's ever used them. If you keep those ships off the list then you only ensure that no one ever uses them. Which quite honestly is a huge, stupid waste.

Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 24, 2008, 05:00:44 am
While as a FREDder, I would support NGTM's idea, I would still recommend two separate categories. One named "User-made ships used in a campaign," the other "User-made ships not used in any campaigns"? We could have these as two subcategories of "User-made Ships."

That, I think, would be a compromise. Either way, all models would qualify, and still you will be able to find out which ships were used in which campaigns.

          Quite honestly what's the point of that?
          So not only is it more complicated, by having two categories, but now someone will have to check every new mod that comes out and transfer ships from the "not been used" to the "been used" category? Really, that's a completely needless complication.

Quote
And what about those campaigns that were unappreciated because they didn't use multi-million-poly models with dozens of 16528x16528 textures on it? You can compare how much effort it takes to make a model and make a campaign, and decide for yourself if those are the modders that are unappreciated or the FREDders. This door swings both ways.

          Someone's appreciation or lack thereof of a campaign is their perogative, and completely irrelevant to the issue. At least with the ship MODs, anything listed on the page has been released. The same could NOT be said of many of the campaigns. But I don't have a problem with that at all.
          

          My point is that, I don't care if a model's been in a MOD or not and I don't care if a campaign has new models or is just new mission files. Hell I don't even care if a campaign's been released yet or if it's still being worked on. All models, and all campaigns should be judged and respected equally on the Wiki. It is after all, the Freespace Wiki. Not the BWO wiki, not the Fate of the Galaxy Wiki or the Inferno Wiki or even the Casualties of War wiki.

          Someone should be able to click on Mod Database, then click on the ships, and find all the ships that have been made, used or not used. Similarily, they should click on the Campaigns section and find all the campaigns that are made (or in progress, apparently). End of story. So if people want to find ships for their campaign, they go to ships, if they want to find campaigns to play, they go there, if they need new music, they head to that section, etcetera.  It's that simple.

          If people want to play favourites, play favourites on your MOD's page and no where else.
          And hell if people ARE really insistent on "only if the model's been in a released MOD" then I'll take every ship that hasn't been, throw them into a couple random piece of **** missions, call it a campaign, and leave the ships right where they are because who gives a damn.


Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

         Says who? You? I'm a player, and it's interesting to me. Hell I was interested just adding all these ships to the webpage, nevermind blowing them up in some person's campaign.
         It's the "MOD Database", a database of freespace MODs. Simple.

         Why don't we even quote the Wiki?

"This page is under construction. It will list ships, effects, models, templates, and anything else related to current mods and/or the modding of Freespace 2: Open.

         Notice, anything else related to . . . modding of Freespace 2: Open.
         Creating a ship, is modding Freespace Open. Creating an Effect is modding Freespace open. There's no requirement to have it in a campaign.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Wanderer on September 24, 2008, 05:05:21 am
If some one had bothered to check majority of the 'Derelict' pages regarding to ships are actually about certain 'special' ship and its appearances in the derelict campaign - not about the ship class. Like the previously stated SD Nyarlathotep.

As for ship classes they could go to sort of structure described earlier

User-made ships
   User made ships appearing in campaigns
      User made ships appearing in Inferno / Inferno R1 ships
      ... (same for BP)
      ...
   User made ships appearing in total conversions
      TBP Ships
     ...

As pages can belong to multiple categories that should work just fine (all could be in 'user made ships' in addition to any relevant category related to the ship). And in any case data regarding the retail FreeSpace campaign must take precedence to everything else. Also any data regarding to total conversions should take precedence to anything else except retail FreeSpace 2 ships. So if some one would make a retexture of TBP freighter and use it in FreeSpace campaign the info about the retexture would be in the TBP freighter's page.

Also 'simple' reskins or direct table edits could just have a redirect page pointing to the actual ship and then the actual ship page (like GTC Leviathan) could have additional section at the end of the page about the reskins/table edits and their usage in campaigns.  

And i would like to keep the TBP (and other total conversion) ships & pages marked as belonging to that setting.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TopAce on September 24, 2008, 05:11:40 am
Quote
Quite honestly what's the point of that?

:wtf:

You're the one that is complaining about individual mods that are not used in a campaign, saying that it is disrespectful for the modders. If you don't like the compromise, I'm fine with it. Sooner of later, we will have to split the "User-made Ships" category, because there will be so many mods in there in the future that it will be hard to find what you are looking for.

Quote
It is after all, the Freespace Wiki. Not the BWO wiki, not the Fate of the Galaxy Wiki or the Inferno Wiki or even the Casualties of War wiki.

There is nothing to prevent other modders from adding entries only relevant to their campaigns. Makes of the mods that you are mentioning put some effort to add their ships to the Wiki, and this is what differentiates them from makes of other mods. There is nothing that prevents "makers of other mods" from using the Wiki.

Quote
All models, and all campaigns should be judged and respected equally on the Wiki.

I don't see why you think it's not the case.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 24, 2008, 05:21:42 am
If some one had bothered to check majority of the 'Derelict' pages regarding to ships are actually about certain 'special' ship and its appearances in the derelict campaign - not about the ship class. Like the previously stated SD Nyarlathotep.

As for ship classes they could go to sort of structure described earlier

User-made ships
   User made ships appearing in campaigns
      User made ships appearing in Inferno / Inferno R1 ships
      ... (same for BP)
      ...
   User made ships appearing in total conversions
      TBP Ships
     ...

          Are you referring to the gray alphabetical pages here or to another as of yet un-made page?
          I can see adding a new page off the top of the main shiplists which lists campaigns in alphabetical order and lists the ships featured therein. And then if that's what interests people they can head there and look to see what's going on. Though that would likely require alternate pages for different ships, because it would be wierd to click on a ship from Campaign X and get the ship but with the statistics and description from Campaign Y.



You're the one that is complaining about individual mods that are not used in a campaign, saying that it is disrespectful for the modders. If you don't like the compromise, I'm fine with it. Sooner of later, we will have to split the "User-made Ships" category, because there will be so many mods in there in the future that it will be hard to find what you are looking for.

      Wrong, I'm saying it's disrespectful to treat someone's efforts that aren't featured in a campaign less than someone's efforts that are.
      That's why I treated everything on an equal footing regardless of what wizbang campaign it was released in or how crappy the model looked. All I disagree with is the suggestion notion that ships not in a campaign should somehow be treated any different than ships that are a campaign. Whenever I finish adding the ships to the wiki, I plan to do a page with "ships by race" as well. If people want a "ships by campaign" page that wouldn't be much of a problem either. I don't have a problem with listing them in that fashion, but there should be one page with all the MODs on it. All the MODs related to a specific genre that is. TBP, FotG, WC etcetera should be separate because people are not going to typically mix them.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Wanderer on September 24, 2008, 05:30:10 am
The 'gray alphabetical pages' (category pages).

In this method you wouldnt even need to make a page with campaigns listed in it as the wiki would do that as category page anyway. In any case if ship is used in multiple mods there could be redirect page(s) for the set mod pointing to the proper section in the ship page (and that ship page could have sections for each mod in which the ship appears).
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 24, 2008, 01:05:38 pm
While as a FREDder, I would support NGTM's idea, I would still recommend two separate categories. One named "User-made ships used in a campaign," the other "User-made ships not used in any campaigns"? We could have these as two subcategories of "User-made Ships."

How can you manage that? As you can see people add stuff regarding WIP campaigns on the Wiki(and they have the right to do it). Many ships we have never seen in a campaign will be considered as "User-made ships used in a campaign" because they're used in the WIPs. The different categories will be messed up.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Goober5000 on September 24, 2008, 09:30:14 pm
This is, over all, a player's reference.
No, it's a community reference.  And some people in the community are campaign designers.  It's useful to know what sorts of ships are available -- provided they're in a usable format.  Many times somebody has created a list of available ship mods, only for that list to quickly become useless once the author leaves the FS community.

Though, it might be helpful to set up project namespaces so that ship mods can be kept separate from user-made campaigns and so forth.


Quote
And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.
The SH Gargant has never been used in a campaign...
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: DarthWang on September 25, 2008, 08:54:55 pm
        And that makes sense how exactly? Not everyone who makes ships is a FREDder or even involved in another project. How is a person's ship going to get used if no one knows about it? People are always asking on the forums for ships when they can just look at the wiki and find whatever they want on there first. In updating the ship database I found a lot of ships that aren't in any MOD and I never had a clue even existed because no one's ever used them. If you keep those ships off the list then you only ensure that no one ever uses them. Which quite honestly is a huge, stupid waste.

Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.

I've only experimented with modding and done some FREDding but never released anything, yet those things would be of interest to me.

I want a page of the AJ Akrotiri, TSJ Icanus, SSJ Gigas, SH Gargant, etc.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Droid803 on September 25, 2008, 11:21:51 pm
AJ Akrotiri is already there, under ACa Akrotiri. Its a carrier.

The Ancient Juggernaut is the AJ Androgeos. :P
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TrashMan on September 27, 2008, 09:36:14 am
Quite simple.

This is, over all, a player's reference. We cover some other things at a basic level, and there's some indepth discussion surrounding FRED and its uses, but this is still a player's reference, not a modder's or campaign designer's or whatever. If you want to get your ship out there and used, that's your job. The wiki's job is to provide accurate and useful information to people who play the game.

And a ship that has never been used in a campaign is not something of interest to a player.


Utter, total, complete, 11000% BULL****.

Why the hell do you want to make a difference between ships used in a campaign and those that weren't used in a campaign? It's not like that will influence someones decision to use ship X in his campaign. Or is it a ego thing..Your ships have been used by a campaign so they HAVE to be marked differently so people would know just how much better they are?
Get off your high horse.

The wiki is a depository of information, mostly used by modders. Especially since it's in the MOD database section. So the simple rule is KISS. Keep it simple. No dividing into unnecessary categories.

Just have a list of all ships and you cna mention where it was used in the ships description or the notes (Made by X for Y).
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 27, 2008, 01:35:12 pm
     Anyway, on a related topic, I have some more time to do some contributions to the Wiki. I don't know how to get ships under any cateogry other than User-made ships, so, someone will either have to fix it or tell me what I'm doing wrong at some point haha.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 27, 2008, 02:28:18 pm
Utter, total, complete, 11000% BULL****.

Why the hell do you want to make a difference between ships used in a campaign and those that weren't used in a campaign? It's not like that will influence someones decision to use ship X in his campaign. Or is it a ego thing..Your ships have been used by a campaign so they HAVE to be marked differently so people would know just how much better they are?
Get off your high horse.

Ships used in custom campaigns have their importance. Other ships are relased hoping that *someone* will use them. A ship with an interesting background, a tech description(many ships released in little packages don't have one) and a solid connection to other ships and plots appreciated by the community is, IMO, much more important than "phantom" ships. They have a "curriculum" and the Wiki should focus on it...
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 27, 2008, 02:45:43 pm
Utter, total, complete, 11000% BULL****.

Why the hell do you want to make a difference between ships used in a campaign and those that weren't used in a campaign? It's not like that will influence someones decision to use ship X in his campaign. Or is it a ego thing..Your ships have been used by a campaign so they HAVE to be marked differently so people would know just how much better they are?
Get off your high horse.

The wiki is a depository of information, mostly used by modders. Especially since it's in the MOD database section. So the simple rule is KISS. Keep it simple. No dividing into unnecessary categories.

Just have a list of all ships and you cna mention where it was used in the ships description or the notes (Made by X for Y).

I'm curious why you felt the the need to add your thoughts considering that we've already decided it was not the best idea.

As for the reason, there are plenty of them, including the interest to people playing the game as opposed to modding, and the interest of the modders themselves. A ship that's never been used in a released campaign may well be more desireable to someone then one that has, so their campaign looks and feels more unique...or it may be an indication that something is broken about it and so you should be prepared to fix/modify/steer clear if you intend to use it. Segregating the entries into used and unused makes sense.

...and how the hell do you know it's mostly used by modders? Considering modders almost certainly constitute a minority of the community, it almost has to be the reverse. The modding material on the wiki is among the least-updated articles and this whole section is almost entirely new, which I can't imagine would be the case if it were used mostly by modders of the game.

I also find the ego comment hilarous. I've never released a working ship model and I don't pretend that I'm likely to ever do so. Point of fact, I've only ever released a couple of dumps, and one of those was a remake of someone else's stuff, while the other apparently had serious conversion errors and was never heard from again. (Stupid C4D, stupid texturing...) You have, and as I recall, a decent number of them remain unused. Is this about your ego?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TrashMan on September 28, 2008, 06:39:46 am

Ships used in custom campaigns have their importance. Other ships are relased hoping that *someone* will use them. A ship with an interesting background, a tech description(many ships released in little packages don't have one) and a solid connection to other ships and plots appreciated by the community is, IMO, much more important than "phantom" ships. They have a "curriculum" and the Wiki should focus on it...

They are not.
the Wiki should not focus on campaign in the ships section. It's there to give information on various ships. In which campaigns it features can be mentioned within the specific description. It doesn't need any extra markers or categories.

And what if a ship has a done description and background? What are the chances they will be compatible with MY campaign? Assuming I even want to keep the description, instead of writing my own.

The Mod database is gonna be browsed mostly by the modders and campaign makers. And even if I were not a campaign maker/modder, I'd hate any useless divisions. Information databases should be kept as simple as possible.

As for the modder approach to the database, people generally look for ships that FIT their story or their idea. Weather it has been used before or not is unlikely to affect their decisions, especially since being a campaign is no guarantee of quality or good design.
Searching for ships for you campaign is thus a visual job, where the one who searches will go trough as many craft as he can to find those he deems best. introducing different divisions and categories just out of some fit is bad, bad decision.


Quote
I also find the ego comment hilarous. I've never released a working ship model and I don't pretend that I'm likely to ever do so. Point of fact, I've only ever released a couple of dumps, and one of those was a remake of someone else's stuff, while the other apparently had serious conversion errors and was never heard from again. (Stupid C4D, stupid texturing...) You have, and as I recall, a decent number of them remain unused. Is this about your ego?

No. You don't know me very well, do you? :D
I've never kept anything back (to be a secreat exclusive), but rather released everything (well, almost. I have a easter egg or two, but they are not serious ships anyway). Weather or not someone will use them is up to them.
I know people have been asking me for permissions to use ships in their campaign (I should really put that statement of free use back into my siggy), but to be honest I have no idea which ships and for what campaign. I don't keep track of those things really, since I don't really care.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: General Battuta on September 28, 2008, 09:06:40 am
All ships should be available to view on the wiki.

Ships that appeared in a campaign should have a line of text or a banner indicating that they 'appeared in Inferno/Blue Planet/Derelict' whatever.

Users and modders alike are interested to see what campaigns a ship has appeared in -- perhaps so they can track them down and play with them.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 28, 2008, 09:24:20 am
They are not.
the Wiki should not focus on campaign in the ships section. It's there to give information on various ships. In which campaigns it features can be mentioned within the specific description. It doesn't need any extra markers or categories.

And what if a ship has a done description and background? What are the chances they will be compatible with MY campaign? Assuming I even want to keep the description, instead of writing my own.

The Mod database is gonna be browsed mostly by the modders and campaign makers. And even if I were not a campaign maker/modder, I'd hate any useless divisions. Information databases should be kept as simple as possible.

As for the modder approach to the database, people generally look for ships that FIT their story or their idea. Weather it has been used before or not is unlikely to affect their decisions, especially since being a campaign is no guarantee of quality or good design.
Searching for ships for you campaign is thus a visual job, where the one who searches will go trough as many craft as he can to find those he deems best. introducing different divisions and categories just out of some fit is bad, bad decision.

The Wiki is not a shop where people can find the ships they want to use in custom campaigns - the main purpose is to provide informations about the original FreeSpace universe and fan-created universes. A ship that has never appeared in a campaign or mod has little importance simply because...there's nothing to say about it other than its potential!
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 28, 2008, 02:26:06 pm
The Wiki is not a shop where people can find the ships they want to use in custom campaigns - the main purpose is to provide informations about the original FreeSpace universe and fan-created universes. A ship that has never appeared in a campaign or mod has little importance simply because...there's nothing to say about it other than its potential!

The FreeSpace Wiki is designed to be a comprehensive source of data for the FreeSpace series of games, including information about the games themselves, the FreeSpace universe, and community activities such as modding and the Source Code Project. (Emphasis mine, From the Front Page)

       Gee, it sure would be nice if people who think they know the true purpose of the Wiki in this universe actually read the damn thing once in a while. And if the main purpose of the Wiki is to provide information about Freespace or Fan Created universes. Then can someone please delete:

Modding Portal
FRED
Freespace Source Code Project section

       Because clearly, all of these sections are meant to help MODDERS create new campaigns. And as such, have absolutely no reason to be on the Wiki because all people who visit the Wiki care about, is reading about Freespace 2 and new campaigns.



       You know something? I've visited the Wiki a bunch of times, and I've almost never gone to the Campaign section. Because quite frankly, I don't give a damn. If I care about a campaign, I'd play it. Not read about it on the Wiki. The only reason I visit the campaign section is to find a list of campaigns I haven't played yet. Or campaigns still in development. Not read up on ones I already know about or have played.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 28, 2008, 02:34:03 pm
I reply with this:

The FreeSpace Wiki is designed to be a comprehensive source of data for the FreeSpace series of games, including information about the games themselves, the FreeSpace universe, and community activities such as modding and the Source Code Project. (Emphasis mine, From the Front Page)

Which points out something that goes well beyond.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 28, 2008, 02:35:06 pm
I reply with this:

The FreeSpace Wiki is designed to be a comprehensive source of data for the FreeSpace series of games, including information about the games themselves, the FreeSpace universe, and community activities such as modding and the Source Code Project. (Emphasis mine, From the Front Page)

Which points out something that goes well beyond.

You're trying to say what exactly?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: General Battuta on September 29, 2008, 07:59:29 am
This is the most pointless debate I have seen in the past while. There's no reason you can't all have your way.

Why not make a full database of all custom ships (even those that have appeared in campaigns), but mark the appearing ships with a badge, small banner, or line of text?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 29, 2008, 07:32:53 pm
Because Trashman doesn't appear amenable to that.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Spicious on September 29, 2008, 08:24:52 pm
Because Trashman doesn't appear amenable to that.
Actually, I think the only people with a problem with that are Mobius and possibly you.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 29, 2008, 09:36:43 pm
Actually, I think the only people with a problem with that are Mobius and possibly you.

Considering I already threw my support into a method of differentiating, and he argued against me, I must assume he's against it and I am not.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 29, 2008, 10:01:12 pm
Actually, I think the only people with a problem with that are Mobius and possibly you.

Considering I already threw my support into a method of differentiating, and he argued against me, I must assume he's against it and I am not.


Considering that he was arguing in reply to a post that pre-dated your shift in mentality I think that is not the case at all and I'm not sure why you would assume otherwise. Though it's not clear to me either why Trashman is arguing the point when it's been ceded later on, unless he didn't read the entire thread or unless he REALLY wanted to reply.

Either way, whatever. Everyone carry on.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 30, 2008, 02:18:52 am
I reply with this:

The FreeSpace Wiki is designed to be a comprehensive source of data for the FreeSpace series of games, including information about the games themselves, the FreeSpace universe, and community activities such as modding and the Source Code Project. (Emphasis mine, From the Front Page)

Which points out something that goes well beyond.

You're trying to say what exactly?

Simple: you evidenced only a part of that description and focused on the modding aspect. I marked other words as well, what does "...and community activities such as modding..." suggest you? Isn't that a clear reference to providing info about campaigns, plots, etc. etc.?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 30, 2008, 02:31:29 am
Simple: you evidenced only a part of that description and focused on the modding aspect. I marked other words as well, what does "...and community activities such as modding..." suggest you? Isn't that a clear reference to providing info about campaigns, plots, etc. etc.?

       No it's not. Modding is a broad category which includes all forms of modifying the game. Be they FREDDing, modelling, table edits, effects, interface, music, texturing, etcetera.

       Somehow you read Modding = campaigns. Creating a campaign is modding, but modding is NOT necessarily creating a campaign. If the person who wrote the main page, intended to limit it to campaigns. They would have said so. Clearly the mandate of the Wiki is to provide information on all types of modding whether they're presented on their own, or in a package. And when you get down to it, a campaign, is simply a pack of missions. In the same way that Strattcom's fleet, for example, is a pack of ships.

      So when it says "community activies such as modding" I think "Wow, how are people changing this game? Are they adding new ships? Creating new effects? Adding new music? Creating new stories for me to play? Etcetera and so on." For example, If ships, which aren't included in a campaign are of no interest to anyone, then Inferno probably have a LOT less ships since 1/4 - 1/2 of the ships in INF R1 seem to be borrowed from other defunct mods which died a quiet death (ie Over the Top). It's a good thing that Woomeister, who is no doubt a player AND a modder, took interest in those ships and essentially preserved them in his own story which has endured over the years (assumign that INFR1 is his creation, which I think it is but I could be dead wrong. Either way, doesn't change the point).
       
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 30, 2008, 02:39:44 am
That's what I said. Saying "community activities" is generalizing. If the Wiki should provide info about community activities then creating a page about a ship used in a mod with no reference to the mod itself doesn't fit well with the Wiki's purposes.

Inferno took many ships from many sources and many of them have been modified. In OTT there was an installation that, now improved, took the role of "GTI Aristotle" in INFA.

If no one else uses that installation then the Aristotle will be remembered as an Inferno installation. Its page should mention the OTT origins but in terms of community usage that installation is an INF one.

By the way, did you know that Woomeister was an OTT team member?
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on September 30, 2008, 03:16:11 am
That's what I said. Saying "community activities" is generalizing. If the Wiki should provide info about community activities then creating a page about a ship used in a mod with no reference to the mod itself doesn't fit well with the Wiki's purposes.

      What ship on the Wiki doesn't have a reference to the Mod it's used in? Every ship I added, I either put the description from the first place I found it.  And/or for the download links I included the first major campaign it was featured in (some have multiple downloads). The references are there, perhaps not as this thread has agreed to, but they're there. For all of the ships I added, I didn't bother with that little blurb above the table of contents because I quite honestly didn't see the point of it. And most of the ships on the Wiki right now were added by me, or Trashman (or some fan or Trashman), since most of what was there when I first started adding stuff was just Trashman's ships and a few others.

      I mean some pages have tech description, veteran comments, developer's comments (which quite honestly I think should be omitted unless the developer himself/herself has something to say), etcetera and so on. How many ways does one have to talk about the same ship? Like for example:

GTF Odyssey (fake ship)
Intro blurb: This is a replacement for the Myrmidon. It's speedy with a lower profile.
Tech description: "The GTF Odyssey was introduced to replace the Myrmidon in 2290"
Developer's comments: I thought the Myrm was ugly, and I didn't like the Helios, so I made a replacement.
Veteran Comments: This flies a lot like the Myrmidon, but with a narrow profile and a few less missiles but 8 gunpoints woo hoo!

     And then, congratulations, the same page says the same thing four times. Of course, there isn't anything comparable right now. But the potential exists. I suppose in theory the intro's supposed to be a brief rundown, the tech is the fluff, the developer is the behind the scenes and the veteran is the gameplay 3rd person perspective on a mod but who knows if all that's necessary.


     And yeah I knew Woo was OTT. I found that in my digging for ships.



     But anyway, one day soon I'll get the urge to start uploading some more stuff.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Mobius on September 30, 2008, 03:26:40 am
We're derailing here, anyway...

The first subject was the appeal of ship pages(and why not, even some articles) and the fact that we don't need three tags, at the same time, pointing out the content of a page as non-canon.

The problem came with categories. If a ship belongs to many categories like INF and custom made ships there will be one non-canon tag for each category. That's the problem.
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: Wanderer on September 30, 2008, 03:45:04 am
Adding ship to a category wont automatically add a non-canon tag to the ship. If the categories are assigned via templates (the {{something}} ) in wiki then there might possibly be a need for a new template, like 'Inferno Ships'. Or then the page could be added to inferno category just via the normal categorizing method ( [[category:nameofthecategory]] )
Title: Re: About the user-made ships list and certain mods...
Post by: TrashMan on September 30, 2008, 11:39:46 am
Because Trashman doesn't appear amenable to that.
No, I said mentioning that was fine in the ships description page. Some ships already have that info.