User talk:Indigofera

This is the default talk page text.

Welcome to Echo Bazaar Wiki!

Hi, welcome to Fallen London Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the Benjamin Villein page.

Please leave me a message if I can help with anything!
Wikia (talk) 08:05, April 21, 2014 (UTC)

Redirects

To redirect a page, delete everything on the page and add #REDIRECT page name (If you edit in source, this command will be under the more+ button on the top of the editing screen)

If you redirect to a category, remember to write :Category:X instead of Category:X The latter adds the category to the page and makes the Whatlinkstothispage command work badly.

...but that might not be what you meant on the pages you marked for deletion?
Aximillio (talk) 20:31, May 1, 2014 (UTC)

I think I meant game redirects. Which are actually called linked storylets, right? I forgot there's also wiki redirect. Sorry. But now I know how to make a wiki redirect page, if I ever need to:D

The story behind the deletes is this. Dabbling in the Great Game has all these "Gather resources" options, with the descriptions telling you who your employer for each job is. But when you click on the options, you're taken straight to the old spying storylets - weirdly, with no success text in the interim. I tried recording the new text by creating new "action" pages for each of the options, but without a success text, the result was unacceptably ugly (as someone pointed out). So I put the descriptions as a "Redirect text" note on the linked storylet's page instead (e.g. the text from "Gather resources: befriend a tomb-colonist" is now in Befriend a Tomb-Colonist). To clean up, I marked the "Gather resources" pages I'd made for deletion.

You're one of the moderator people, right? So it falls to you to untangle such messes:) Thank you!
Indigofera (talk) 09:49, May 2, 2014 (UTC)

The Singing Mandrake has the same mechanics.
Indigofera (talk) 08:32, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

And Business on Watchmaker's Hill.

Maybe such options could have their own template? (Is it troublesome to make one, though?)
Indigofera (talk) 01:15, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

Do you want a specific field (like "Redirect text:") added to the Storylet template?
Vae Victis (talk) 17:58, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

Yep, sort-of! I just want some way to include the new info without messing up the clean look of the formatting.

How about this:

* a "From Card/Storylet title" field, like for actions - so the source storylet doesn't have to go all bolded in the unlocks
* a "Redirect text" field that just acts like a normal "Description" field, with
** the text going right at the top, above the description proper
** (if not difficult) a built-in separator line at the text's end - in case the two descriptions don't read well together

So Rats in your lunch! would look like:

From Business on Watchmaker's Hill

SPOILERS AHEAD! BE WARNED!

You find a quiet spot on the far side of the hill. Under the faint light of the false-stars, the marsh has an air of sodden, silvery mystery. Wait a minute. What's that noise coming from your picnic basket?

[Find the rest of the story at http://www.fallenlondon.com]


-----

You've brought a knapsack of bread and cheese with you to the Hill today. When you open it, the cheese is gone, the bread has been largely consumed, and you appear to have won a bonus rat.

[Find the rest of the story at http://www.fallenlondon.com]

Game Instructions: This will begin an epic tale of struggle and heroism.

Unlocked with Dangerous 24

Locked with Vermin-free

...

What do you think?
Indigofera (talk) 02:01, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

Here is the changed template (ignore its name, it's just temporary) and here is an example (the same page has an example of it acting as a regular storylet template and as a redirect storylet).

The only problem that I see with this system is that people would have to link manually an action instead of using the built-in options of the original storylet/card template.

For example, in the previous system Business on Watchmaker's Hill would have a regular option Making Your Name: Enjoy a picnic on the marsh's edge that would link to a page with the redirect info that would link to Rats in your lunch!, while under the new systems editors would have to ignore the "option" fields in the template and write underneath the template *Rats in your lunch!. I'm not sure how good that would be to newcommers.
Vae Victis (talk) 18:30, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

That's awesome! The page looks a deal more tidy, now!

But I do see your point about the confusion with the titles...

One solution would be to just have the option title as the page title (as is usual for actions). The storylet title ("Rats!") could then go into a new success-title-like field, between the two descriptions (instead of the dividing line).

This would keep the nice look of the storylet, which is a plus. But having so many fields might not be user-friendly... Moreover, people might still wish to search the Wiki for the storylet title - depending on where they got stuck in the game.

The alternative would be to put the redirect action and the storylet on separate pages. (See, e.g., here.) The problem here is that Template:Action forces the success section to appear, even when it's empty - which looks pretty awful. Would it be possible to make a similar template, but without the built-in success section?

What do you think? More changes to Storylet, or a new Action?
Indigofera (talk) 15:14, May 11, 2014 (UTC)

I prefer the action idea, so I've made a new option on the action template (again, the name is temporary) that overrides the "Success" portion and instead shows a redirect link. This activates only if anything is entered into the "Redirects to" field. Otherwise it works (fingers crossed) like a regular action. See here.

Also, the redirect text is big. Check if you can see it on your browser (we've had problems with some html tags not working properly before).
Vae Victis (talk) 21:03, May 25, 2014 (UTC)

That looks great; much better than the empty success! And using the template is entirely intuitive. (I like that it auto-adds the Redirect category, especially; I always forget about that one.)

Only - this setup won't cause problems for actions that have both a success text and a redirect link (e.g. Choose the knife-card), will it?

[Edit: Retracted quibbles. Formatting looks fine in practice.]
Indigofera (talk) 11:41, May 30, 2014 (UTC)

(Re:Waiting your Turn?)

Aximillio: so that's what you meant by redirecting a page! I see now. Thanks!
Indigofera (talk) 08:30, June 4, 2014 (UTC)

Look, Vae!

Discover the secrets of the Clay Men

Looks nice, right? :)

I'm still a bit worried about success/redirect conflicts. Otherwise, the template seems ready for use.
Indigofera (talk) 01:59, June 5, 2014 (UTC)

Wait, let's not be adding the new template willy-nilly. There are still the question of what to do with redirects that have a title and/or success text. The options are:

# In those cases use the regular action template and either add the redirect link manually or add a mini-redirect template (it just auto-adds the page to the "Redirect" category and makes the link big: example). Use the action-redirect only when there is no extra text. This makes things a bit cumbersome, but manageable.
# Remove the "if" function from the action-redirect so that "Success title" and "Success text" would always be displayed. The drawback is that if those fields are empty the page looks a bit worse.

What would you prefer?

P.S. I made the redirect big because it comes instead of the "Success" headline which is pretty big itself, and to differentiate it from the locked/unlocked parts which are also in bold.
Vae Victis (talk) 04:41, June 5, 2014 (UTC)

Won't make that big a difference to me. It's the creation of new pages for every redirect, I find inconvenient, not particularly linking them. That being said, it will be convenient on all redirects I need no success field for.
Aximillio (talk) 14:11, June 5, 2014 (UTC)

The new pages for redirects are both consistant with the general article stracture here (aka, every page with a picture and description text) and it's better for new editors because they wouldn't have to manually write a hidden link (like: *Rats in your lunch!).

I'll do the first option then - I'll just change the Action template so that we could use it as a redirect too. I think that'll be less confusing (besides, redirects with success text are becoming rare).
Vae Victis (talk) 10:18, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully we can make it without empty spaces appearing on all other articles =)
Aximillio (talk) 10:23, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

It's looks fine at the moment.
Vae Victis (talk) 10:25, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I prefer the first option, too, as far as Actions go.

[Edit: and that's all - see message below.]

However, I think there may now be a case to make for the more streamlined storylet template that you made way back, Vae.

It seems that FB have only been making double titles sparingly, in moving old storylets. The new content has the same title for the storylet as the option (see Uncover Society Indiscretions), as is the usual way. Moreover, where it made sense, the old storylets have kept a single title, too (see Discover the secrets of the Clay Men - and most of Veilgarden, in a sense.) The Hill seems to be the exception, not the rule.

If(!) we're willing to count on FB not giving us double titles from now on, we could safely use the storylet template.

And, as Aximillio points out, fewer pages is more convenient (and also more new-user-friendly.)
Indigofera (talk) 13:26, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Here we go: Clay Men Action vs Clay Men Storylet. Don't worry Vae, I'll put everything back how I found it:-)

I think I'll cast my vote with the Storylet. That said, I like both templates, so I'm not too fussed with what you two choose.

Final comments:

• Storylet is pretty perfect as it is. Perhaps just auto-add Category:Redirect, too.


• For Action, could we have some kind of firetruck red "error" message if people try to enter both Redirect and Success? (Wiki doesn't have AND, right? Maybe a nested conditional:
  
  
  
  {{#if: {{{Redirects to|}}}|{{#if: {{{Success title|}}}|"Use the mini-template for the Redirect info!"|}}|}}.
  
  
  
  Would that work?) The overall setup for Action is clever, but it'd feel odd to have text just disappear.

Indigofera (talk) 14:29, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

I like the storylet option =) One less article to click on, and no need for disambig pages. It should be limited to one redirect to not clog everything up, though. You don't get all the images, but overall I think it's worth a try.
Aximillio (talk) 14:38, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Oh, for goodness' sake.

I take it all back. That --- FB and their weird mechanics. Look: Enter the Clay Quarters. No success text, and not the unique path to the end storylet. (And the other paths have success texts.)

All my loquacity, and Vae's lovely Storylet template, all for nought. The Action one it is.
Indigofera (talk) 14:43, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I'd still consider it useful for things like An implausible penance. Less *Article name* 0 pages is always nice.
Aximillio (talk) 14:49, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Fair point... But how would you split up their uses? Mostly use Storylet, and keep the Action for weird cases like the Quarter...?
Indigofera (talk) 15:00, June 7, 2014 (UTC)

Like Aximillio have said, the storylet template loses an image. It's also a bit counter-productive: Suppose you're one of the first to see a new FL storylet with multiple actions. You want to add it to the wiki, but you haven't tested each and every action yet. So how do you add it?

It used to be, before FL went crazy on redirects, that you just created a page with the Action template. You'd put in the picture, the description and unlocks, but leave everything else empty to be filled later.

Now you wouldn't know whether to make it an Action or Storylet, and that means that many new pages would have to be entirely rewritten. Not to mention how confusing that would be to anyone coming to the partially finished page - a time when new pages get the most viewers.

{{#if: {{{Redirects to|}}}|{{#if: {{{Success title|}}}|"Use the mini-template for the Redirect info!"|}}|}}.

Maybe something similar in construction to the trimming function would work. I'll look into that.
Vae Victis (talk) 12:40, June 9, 2014 (UTC)

Yep, Action wins. Let us know when the template is ready for use! Thanks, Vae.
Indigofera (talk) 04:59, June 10, 2014 (UTC)

Is the template safe to use now?:)
Indigofera (talk) 03:25, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but I haven't been able to have the Action template use both a redirect and success title automatically. In those cases you'll have to leave the redirect field empty and add the template:Redirect manually.
Vae Victis (talk) 10:15, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

Great!

It is mostly for things without success texts, so the caveat shouldn't cause much trouble...

___

Got it. :-)
Indigofera (talk) 11:32, July 14, 2014 (UTC)

I'm tidying up Category:Redirect - how do you want to use it?

Can we keep it only for things which use Template:Redirect? That seems so much simpler to maintain than if we try to have the redirected-to storylets in there as well. All such storylets now have proper in-game locations (Watchmaker's Hill etc.) they can be categorised under, now that FBG have finished reorganising them.

(That is: Try to resume your picnic - yes. You still have rats in your lunch! - no.)
Indigofera (talk) 07:32, August 20, 2014 (UTC)

Sure.
Vae Victis (talk) 10:22, August 20, 2014 (UTC)

Investigating...

Awesome work on the page =) Feel free to make some for other qualities you think need them as well =) Do you think it's useful for anybody at all to have Investigating loss listed?Nobody's going to search for that in an action, so I'll be uncategorising them, I think.
Aximillio (talk) 20:22, July 5, 2014 (UTC)

Thank you!:-) And you have already done most of the hard work for the other qualities!:-)

Yep, Loss'd be redundant here: pretty much everything there'd already be listed in Gains. Investigating... is indeed more useful without the Gains, as a list of unlocks/challenges. All good all round:)

Just one thing - wouldn't it be better to keep resets in Investigating..., too? (See, e.g. The scholar of The Correspondence.) It can be a general where-to-spend-your-Investigating list.
Indigofera (talk) 03:20, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

Right, wasn't sure how useful that was. I'll re-add it.
Aximillio (talk) 19:43, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

If you could do Term Passing..., that'd be nice =)
Aximillio (talk) 21:00, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

Done :)
Indigofera (talk) 02:47, July 9, 2014 (UTC)

Good =) Since there's little point in sorting things like time passing in the southern archipelago (options are listed on the island categories instead), I think we only have small categories that don't really have any use for it, Detective's Progress, Someone is Coming, and The Hunt is On! left. I'll see if I can do some tomorrow, and then we'll see what's left =)
Aximillio (talk) 03:17, July 9, 2014 (UTC)

Well, many hands'n'all:-) Yep, the smaller categories don't need to be split; it's the larger ones that benefit.
Indigofera (talk) 03:45, July 9, 2014 (UTC)

The hunt is on left =)
Aximillio (talk) 13:45, July 9, 2014 (UTC)

Nice work on Someone is Coming! I'd completely forgotten about robbing the rat...

Actually, if I'm doing the maths right, the Rat looks to be always more profitable than the Relicker. (Basically because of the 2.5% chance of gaining a Ratwork Watch, and because the actions that grant SiC are very low-ppa, so the more frequent payoffs are not inefficient.) Which is a bit weird... Larceny pays, perhaps.

I'll keep tinkering with the Progress categories, as time allows - if any of them still need it :-)

Also, I've been trying to make the menace cures more manageable: have a look at Scandal - what do you think? If that's fine, we should sort the other menaces, too...
Indigofera (talk) 10:29, July 14, 2014 (UTC)

I'll assume 2% chance just to be sure in a profit-analysis. 2% * 230 E + 98% * +- 3 E (assuming level 200 w/items) = 7,54 E for 6 CP and an action. other option gives 12 E for 10-21 CP and an action.



That's 126 p for 1/6 action or 120-57 p for 1/10 to 1/21 action. The second approach doesn't give any shadowy CP's and is dependant on a card, and the first one can be upgraded a little further. And the second almost never give full money due to quality increasing too fast.

Also, this is assuming a 2% success rate instead of 2,5%.

So yeah, I think you're right.

* Heads off to check menace cures*
Aximillio (talk) 18:41, July 14, 2014 (UTC)

Yep, those menace cures are way more useful =)
Aximillio (talk) 19:36, July 14, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for doing Suspicion!

The Nightmares are still half-done. Just so you know about it, too ;-) (In my defence, that category is humongous -.-)
Indigofera (talk) 12:53, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, we've had to change that icon twice, so I know =)
Aximillio (talk) 14:03, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

They should both be complete now.
Aximillio (talk) 14:27, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

Cheers for finding a home for that table! I was wondering where it'd fit best:)
Indigofera (talk) 14:15, July 27, 2014 (UTC)

Attributes and such

Would it be a point to have tables like those on User:Aximillio/Sandbox at the end of pages for navigational purposes or does it just look like a mess?
Aximillio (talk) 17:06, July 29, 2014 (UTC)

I - um, I can't quite figure out which pages you mean. Would the Attributes table go on the bottom of Watchful (etc.) and the Items table go on the bottom of Hats? And the Unfinished Business tables... on the bottom of each action's page?

That said, I like the three mini-tables (Attributes, Equipment, Menace)! I think they would - maybe among other uses :-) - go very well on the Qualities page.

If you try to navigate through the top-bar to some particular Quality on a mobile, you will almost inevitably end up at Qualities itself (the tabs don't work). And that is not a friendly page to find yourself on. An overview would be very welcome there...
Indigofera (talk) 05:26, July 31, 2014 (UTC)

'Ight, I'll put the mini-tables under qualities. For the unfinished business one I thought I could place it on individual articles as well as a "Unfinished Business" page, because I find it really hard to remember which actions I want to try if I want an item from there...
Aximillio (talk) 13:12, July 31, 2014 (UTC)

Might be a little too much to put it on every page, though.
Aximillio (talk) 13:20, July 31, 2014 (UTC)

An Unfinished Business page is a good idea! But I think the tables would be easier to use if you included the actions' names explicitly - not just in hyperlinks. (That'd be one less click to make your decision.) The tables could then also simply replace the action lists on the Unfinished Business pages.

I'm biased to thinking of item and source as two columns. But an Implausible Penance-like format would also work well.
Indigofera (talk) 13:21, July 31, 2014 (UTC)

Right.
Aximillio (talk) 13:22, July 31, 2014 (UTC)

[Oh, come on. Seriously. This is getting very annoying. >< Aximillio, if you could delete the above, that would be lovely. Thanks :-)]

Oh - wow. Very neat.

And I'm finding it useful already! I didn't even realise you can grind literally every low-level item at Unfinished Business. Come to think of it, that's probably UB's point, but the surfeit of options rather obscured it :-)
Indigofera (talk) 10:22, August 2, 2014 (UTC)

[Removed guest reply] Yeah, that's the point of UB, and yeah, that's also the reason I figured a page for all the resources would be very neat =)
Aximillio (talk) 12:22, August 10, 2014 (UTC)

Quirks

Thread:27623
Aximillio (talk) 23:37, October 27, 2014 (UTC)

Holiday events and retiring

We had a discussion on this subject over at Category talk:Retired. If you have time it'd be nice if you could voice your opinion. (As well as other people's)
Aximillio (talk) 21:07, December 31, 2014 (UTC)

Cheers! I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I'm reading through it with interest.

I love the clean seasonal approach, and the banners.

The only comment I have is that we can't rely on page history for preserving anything: if someone adds untrimmed text to the page, the entire history might have to get wiped. We'll just have to not forget to add the major changes to the _(historical) pages each year.

The Christmas writeup is very impressive! I think there was also a Christmas in 2009 -wasn't there? Also with Mr Sacks taking people...
Indigofera (talk) 02:48, January 24, 2015 (UTC)

There wasn't any category on the wiki on that year, so I didn't really want to risk adding it, knowing my mind is very bad at remembering dates. Hopefully these articles will make it easier to remember what actually happened each year...

Oh, and it's always nice if people double-check them - it's easy to get some years a little wrong =)
Aximillio (talk) 16:17, February 2, 2015 (UTC)

Should the Rose template go on top of every action page, or would just on the parent storylet be enough? The stacked red banners look a bit alarming :)
Indigofera (talk) 01:47, February 14, 2015 (UTC)

True, I'll see if I can change the redness of the banner =)
Aximillio (talk) 12:04, February 14, 2015 (UTC)

Better now?
Aximillio (talk) 12:10, February 14, 2015 (UTC)

The fangrose colours; nice:-)

We could colour the links in the same scheme, to avoid clashing with the usual greenish yellow:

{|
|width="100%"|

This content is only available during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose!


For feast history, see Feast of the Exceptional Rose (historical).
|}

What do you think?
Indigofera (talk) 02:12, February 15, 2015 (UTC)

Looks quite a bit better, have swapped the current one.
Aximillio (talk) 16:31, February 15, 2015 (UTC)

What do you think about marking out the SMEN content with a banner, too?

{|
|width="100%"|

This content is part of the Mr Eaten storyline.


(Content in stasis - not currently playable.)
|}





{|
|width="100%"|

This content is part of the Mr Eaten storyline.


(Content in stasis - not currently playable.)
|}

It's getting sorted in amongst the active pages in categories - but it's not exactly retired, either.
Indigofera (talk) 03:27, March 18, 2015 (UTC)

polythreme guide

not just because i kinda wrote it, but why did you revert to the old guide and create a second page?
Mfive (talk) 15:56, May 20, 2015 (UTC)

Because someone wrote the old one, too, and overwriting it with one so different is much like deleting it altogether. Plus, I can't see any drawbacks to having two contrasting guides; it seems like a good thing.

Is the old guide just confusing, or is it also outdated? If so, we can label its page as that. Otherwise, the page names are still up for being changed to something more informative than 1 and 2...
Indigofera (talk) 02:02, May 21, 2015 (UTC)

did you even read it? the old guide was outdated, incomplete, in prose, unorganized and - well - old. the thing is, guides serve two purposes on this wiki. one is me reading it because i want to go understand a complex part of the game. the more important one (id rate them 2%-98% regarding page impressions) is me opening that page again because i want to see all the numbers at a glance. look what we did to the On a Heist page. noone wants to open 20 tabs to check for the best way to do things. they know how heists work but damn, which one was the +1/-2 one? an incomplete guide in prose does not serve this main use case.

i understand how you might want to preserve the work the original author put into the page but firstly, every piece of information made its way into the new version, and secondly, this is how wikis work - improvement. if you overhaul a current version to make it better, nobody would mind. people are happy to see it perfected.

but such a hard revert to a couple years back with creating a second guide page that noone will ever find is very counterproductive. i know there are only few recognizably active editors here and most (even major) changes go unnoticed, but you just had bad luck getting caught and being forced to have this discussion on the topic. if you really insist on keeping the old text, and i disagree for the stated reasons, i suggest keeping it around as an addendum to the new tables and pictures guide.

like i said, active editors are scarce and work does go unnoticed (i see youre doing a lot of edits recently), but please keep in mind the purpose of this wiki. having information handy and providing it in a useful form to anyone that seeks it.
Mfive (talk) 21:47, May 21, 2015 (UTC)

Mfive wrote: look what we did to the On a Heist page.

You're most likely referring to Cards - On a Heist

As for Polythreme, I haven't been there at all so far, but I'm very much inclined to agree that (no matter the other improvements) having one guide that is clearly maintained is better than having multiple ones around. You can still link to old page revisions in wiki history, after all.
Achris (talk) 22:29, May 21, 2015 (UTC)

Divorce

Hi,

Great work on the Divorce stories. 
Pyrodinium (talk) 01:20, February 12, 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! :-)

The question of the Empress' Letter is still open, though...
Indigofera (talk) 06:39, February 14, 2016 (UTC)

New Fate option in your study (the Season of Skies)

Hi,

I saw you've added a new option in The Season of Skies: the Tip of the Iceberg  for "Putting the Pieces Together".

I believe this option is only there if you've played at least one of the season's Exceptional Stories, and therefore should not be listed on the wiki (even though the results of taking this action are not included).

Do you disagree?
Adnoam (talk) 22:22, February 11, 2017 (UTC)

Hello,

Nope: I can see the option, and I haven't bought any of this season's stories, or been an EF in months now.

Given that it's visible to everyone, it seemed like useful info to have on the wiki, in case anyone later wonders what these special items are...

I did a double-take too, but I don't think this is unintentional: FBG could reasonably choose to show everyone an enticement to buy the entire season:)
Indigofera (talk) 04:34, February 12, 2017 (UTC)

In that case you're aboslutely correct!

I was sure that my alt (who is not an Exceptional Friend) did not see this option, but I probably just didn't pay enough attention. Or maybe it was recently changed.
Adnoam (talk) 07:23, February 12, 2017 (UTC)