Forum:NPC Infobox

Any thoughts on the NPC Infobox I'm working on? More information it should contain? I'm thinking location might be nice... Does it look good? Fenyx4 14:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Your work in honor, but I think that the characters don't need an infobox. Everything important is said in the text and the charcter portrait also looks fine enough. I would add little, so an infobox isn't needed.--Tribun 14:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm taking another stab at NPC Infoboxes. They provide the information in a summarized, organized and attractive form with a consistent appearance. Sega381 seems to like them too as he made my invisible one visible back in December.


 * The current prototype is much better than my previous attempt. By having subtemplates for each Ultima (Ultima Underworld II,Ultima VII) inside of one main template (User:Fenyx4/Sandbox/InfoBox NPC) each game can have information specific to it. For example we could add keywords that NPCs have responses to for Ultima IV and V but we wouldn't want that for later Ultimas. Also the information of the portrait size can be embedded in the subtemplates so we won't have to edit every NPC if we want to change the size of a portrait. Since all but the top appearance will be collapsed by default it keeps the infobox from getting prodigiously large. This will also allow us to put all the portraits of characters that show up in multiple Ultimas without overwhelming the page.


 * I disagree that the information is included in the first sentence. Just look at the prototype. "Where is Nelson found? Oh, in Moonglow. No wait the Lycaeum? Oh but I'm playing Ultima Underworld II so he's in Castle Britannia which is down in the 4th paragraph." And that's just in my skeleton layout for the prototype when we add more information to the infobox it will only become more apparent.


 * It also gives us a place to put repetitive information that we may not even want in the main body of article. Like my above example of keywords.


 * The NPCs category has the most articles in it adding Infoboxes to them will give them a better polish will greatly increase the overall quality of the wiki. -- Fenyx4 11:37, April 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * I fully agree; the infoboxes for NPCs on some other sites look fully bad-ass. We don't have to go nuts, but I think the "at-a-glance" thing is important for anyone who doesn't want to sift through a lot of text. And yeah, what Fenyx said about wiki quality. --Polygoncount 08:38, April 25, 2010 (UTC)

Contents
Oh and I meant to ask what do people think would be good to have in the infoboxes? Putting it here to keep it separate from the "Should it exist" discussion above.

I think they all should have portrait, profession, and location. Portrait is a bit iffy for the earlier Ultimas but it would allow people to add screenshots if they wanted to. The main one can have name, and appearances.

Although keywords for U4 and U5 was an off the hip example I came up with for above it's growing on me. That could be really useful information for people playing through the game again or even for the first time. -- Fenyx4 17:01, April 24, 2010 (UTC)

Portrait, profession, location/s AND which games (if in multiple games), species (if applicable). All these should be linkable. --Polygoncount 08:38, April 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ooo, species. I like.
 * Should we force the linking (the template itself adds the brackets) or should we just make it highly suggested? I'm leaning towards forcing. -- Fenyx4 13:38, April 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, what do people think of the template in use. I'm hoping that its use is fairly self-evident. The template names will be shorter once it is moved out of my userpages.
 * I think the current NPC Infobox's profession should be changed to description and a new profession should be added to U1-U5 which would match the stuff in Professions.
 * I'm about ready to start rolling it out so let me know what you think. -- Fenyx4 14:56, May 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with the "description" field. The new profession field would be nice too, though it should be optional.--Sega381 18:09, June 6, 2010 (UTC)

Portrait Size
Standardizing portrait size struck me as one of the advantages to the infobox. If we want to tweak the size we only need to change it in the template. I know the portraits themselves are inconsistent but I think it would make more sense to fix them than have to continue fix each page's portrait size on a case by case basis. But perhaps I am reading to much into the removal of the size. What were your reasons Tribun? If it's the case of there being a few exceptions I can add an optional portrait size parameter to the templates. -- Fenyx4 16:54, May 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * There are several reasons, but mainly I did it, because the portraits are here represented in eactly original size x2, which is optimal. Your size limitations have the disadvantage of making them too small on higher resolutions and also too blurry. Only in the original size is the picture sharp. That already were the reasons why I did remove the size tag from all the portrait thumbs.


 * So its best to just leave it this way.--Tribun 17:07, May 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, I gotcha. I didn't realize the sizes were being set on the page to the exact size they already were. I totally agree then. -- Fenyx4 17:14, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

Multiple Characters
I'm not sure what to do for pages like Hydra Brothers and Malloy and Owings. I made Hydra Brothers work by merging the three images into one. I can either (a) continue merging images (b) Add a parameter for additional portraits (c) find a hack to make something like File:Malloy.gif]][[File:Owings.gif work or continue thinking and come up with more options. Think I'll need to ponder it for a bit. -- Fenyx4 16:09, May 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks good. I think you should go with whatever is easiest for you. (Dungy 21:06, May 22, 2010 (UTC))
 * I second Dungy; these types of NPCs seem rare enough that your merging solution works fine. --Polygoncount 21:22, May 22, 2010 (UTC)