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[edit]

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)

Is it possible to make the "location" an automatic link if the name exists (much like the way the book titles are linked for LoreQuotes)? --Polygoncount 01:38, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've been toying with the idea of making it an automatic link for awhile. I feel like it would be fine to just have it be a link not just if the page exists. I can't think of any examples where we would have a location where we wouldn't want a corresponding article. Do you have any in mind? -- Fenyx4 04:46, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

I made the location for U4 NPC infobox automatic. I like it and don't see any reason not to roll it out to the others. -- Fenyx4 06:17, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean that the link to the location's article appears automatically? If so, sure, I had been wanting to have that a long time ago.--Sega381 14:22, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Portrait Size[edit]

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[edit]

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)

Time[edit]

I've been short on time the past few days and I may be short on time for quite a few days to come. Or to be more precise I'm short on the consecutive chunks of time I need to do the NPC Infobox. I can run the bot if people are okay with it being a little messy for awhile (location not being set, non-human species marked as human, large portraits take up the screen, name param need setting for articles that don't match the name and people in more than one game won't have an infobox). That would allow me to pick at it when I have the time and give the added benefit of allowing others to work on it as well. Anyone terribly upset if it is in an unfinished state for awhile? -- Fenyx4 14:29, June 11, 2010 (UTC)

No problem, please do it if it helps move this forward.--Sega381 05:31, June 12, 2010 (UTC)

Allrighty I went ahead and ran Martian Dreams and Savage Empire. -- Fenyx4 16:17, June 12, 2010 (UTC)

Species Categories[edit]

We've got categories for :Category:Gargoyles, :Category:Ghosts and recently :Category:Martians. Do we want to make the infobox automatically add them to a category that matches their species? Only downside I see is that our categories are usually plural but the species are singular. -- Fenyx4 14:29, June 11, 2010 (UTC)

It makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure about the best way to make the singular/plural thin work, but automatically adding them to a category would save a lot of work, and it would be less redundant (and thus less error-prone).--Sega381 05:38, June 12, 2010 (UTC)

Sigh... I tried to push for de-pluralization of the monster pages a while ago, but nobody cared. It makes so much more sense to me that a monster description be singluar, while the category is plural. Oh, well. :p --Polygoncount 01:38, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Appearances order[edit]

I'm not clear on the guideline for the order of the appearances in the infobox. Is the idea to put the last appearance first, and then go back chronologically? If so, Lord British's last appearance should be in Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle, and not Ultima Underworld, right? And why the last appearance? Isn't it more logical to mention the first appearance first, and then go on chronologically? Thanks for any info on this,Sega381 01:25, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

I think what's being done is that the "best portrait" appearance is first, and then the other appearances are in reverse-chronilogical order from there (with the possible exception of the displayed portrait, if it was shown out of order). It's sort of weird, but from a display perspective it makes sense to see the nicer pictures by default. --Polygoncount 01:31, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't his last appearance be Ultima IX? --Terilem 02:22, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

I was doing it in reverse order with the exception of the top needing a portrait. If an earlier one had a portrait I would bump the top one in favor of it. (Which typically just meant U9 got bumped down). Looks like I messed up the order of UW2 and Serpent Isle for Iolo and Dupre and that got carried over to Lord British. Sorry, I didn't intend to make any "best portrait" determinations just "a portrait" vs. "no portrait". -- Fenyx4 04:59, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I noticed LB's infobox doesn't even have a U9 appearance! --Terilem 05:04, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but besides having the best portrait as the top appearance, why reverse chronological order? Just because the best portrait usually is the last one? Or because the last games a character appeared in are more important than the first ones? Or another logic?--Sega381 17:30, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Again I wasn't my intention for best portrait on top (i.e. I prefer Katrina's U6 portrait but I won't be shifting it to the top) the exceptions are the ones that have a portrait vs. no portrait at all.

As to the ordering;

A) In later games characters have more information about them. Much like most articles we put the long, rich descriptions at the top and down at the bottom the qucik short trivia.

B) They have portraits in later games.

C) (Most importantly IMO) Having it in reverse chronological order puts the most current information at the top. Since the infoboxes are for quick access to information and someone would, most likely, want the most recent information about the character. Much like a resume or an imdb.com listing. -- Fenyx4 18:22, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, that sounds logical. I tend to like things ordered in regular chronological order, but there are enough arguments for this choice, too.--Sega381 01:24, June 23, 2010 (UTC)