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Revision as of 21:05, 2 August 2006 by PraetorFenix (talk | contribs) (monster template, code annot, and others)
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NetHackWiki

Welcome! Use page to discuss general topics with wikiHack members. The other way to contact Wikihack is to send mail to our mailing list.

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Culled dead topics

This page was getting really long and bogging down my browser, so I've cleaned up the dead topics.

New sysops

This wiki was inactive recently. I have recently joined and will probably work in the project namespace before I start working in the main namespace. You can look at Wikibooks:NetHack, where I havee previously contributed. --Kernigh 00:21, 10 Dec 2005 (UTC)

In order to help maintain the wiki, since it seems the founder is inactive, I've made Kernigh and ZeroOne sysops, and Kernigh a bureaucrat. Happy editing, Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

A model article

I've made an extensive article about the potion of object detection. Any suggestions or improvements? I think we should make a model article for each "type" of object or monster, and I think this one is pretty much what we want it to look like. --Jayt 16:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to get rid of the "spoiler-look" (xyz-343.txt) in all articles and replace those parts with running prose text. Otherwise this wiki becomes just a YASMS (Yet Another Spoiler Mirror Site, an acronym I just made up). Also listing the symbol and weight for each potion is rather needless, because they are the same for each one. After all, there is a general article about potions and another on weight. --ZeroOne 19:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, needs more prose. I'd actually prefer depending as little as possible on already public spoilers - after all, they all come from the same source: the source code. Lotte 21:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I rearranged the table to put the symbol at the top. I envisage a similar table for every item in the game, and weight is a standard property of every item, so in the interest of consistency between item articles, I think both symbol and weight deserve a place.
I too am keen to develop a wiki-look instead of falling back on the Hugo spoilers, but as it stands the xxxx-343.txt text is brilliantly designed; it's clear, concise and comprehensive. I am struggling to create anything better, but I would welcome any attempt to do so. --Jayt 21:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
It bothers me that some of those files are divided into two, like wan1-343.txt and wan2-343.txt. The information can be presented in one wikipage nicely. Listing all possible given messages ("You sense the presence of objects." (not hallucinating); "You sense the presence of something." (hallucinating); "You sense the absence of objects." (not hallucinating); "You sense the absence of something." (hallucinating)) also seems unnecessary. Who identifies stuff while confused, anyway? If someone really needs all those messages, they can go check the spoiler. Then there are lists like
 hits monster
    No effect.
  vapors
    No effect.
which could be replaced by a single sentence "The potion has no effect when it vapors or hits a monster."
--ZeroOne 23:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Check out potion of object detection now. What do you think? I've separated effects and messages, since people usually want to either (a) find out what a potion does, or (b) find out what a message meant. This is also why the message table is now arranged in reverse-lookup fashion. --Jayt 21:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, it sure is better, but actually I think a separate page with all messages from all potions ordered in that manner, reverse-lookup fashion, would be even better. People of part (b), who want to find out what a message meant, would not need to find out what the message meant if they had already identified the potion. Having not identified the potion, they will not find the potion page to see the messages there. Thus, having all messages alphabetically ordered and possible potions given next to them would be great. An example:
Message Possible potions
"This burns like acid!" potion of holy water (if undead or chaotic)
potion of unholy water (if alive or lawful)
potion of acid (uncursed)
"This tastes like <fruit> juice." potion of fruit juice (non-cursed)
potion of see invisible (non-cursed)

--ZeroOne 23:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I second this idea. Also it would be nice to have a single page about identifying potions (linked from potions and also identifying items ). The potion of object detection page should include strategy on using the potion. ie: using the potion to find vaults, to detect monsters with inventory, using when confused to generate alternate effects (none for this potion), etc. Also mentioned should be likely places to find this potion (independant of identification) and associated probabilities, ie Mines End (10% chance), nymphs (50% chance), etc -- PraetorFenix 23:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
The page does indeed have a strategy section :) --Jayt 10:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I like this idea too, as an extension of the pages dealing with object identification. There's no reason to include messages like "You sense the presence of objects" as it should be perfectly obvious what potion generates that. Messages like "You feel a lack of something" are distinctly ambiguous and would be very useful arranged in a table as you describe. However! If we are going to leave messages out of the identification-helper table, then they need to be included in the potion page, for the sake of completeness. So I think the easiest way to accomplish this would be to fill out the potion pages will all messages, like for potion of object detection, then pick and choose the ones useful for identification. --Jayt 10:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Source files and annotation

I've created potion.c using a script on my user page, with the intention of it being a convenient reference to link to from other articles. Since the source should be authoritative, this page should be protected from further edits. I hope to eventually upload the rest, so I'd find admin power rather useful. I hope my edit history demonstrates trustworthiness :)

(Regarding potion.c, I know it conflicts with the names used for the existing annotated files, but I'm going to move those to something like potion.c annotations.) --Jayt 18:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This source code thingie should be discussed separately from your adminship request. I think Obj.h could be used as a model article. If I understood you correctly, you want two pages for each source file: the file itself, protected, and another, a copy of the file but with comments, such as Obj.h now? I personally think that only one article per each source file is enough. They shouldn't be protected so that everyone can comment them. If they are vandalized a lot, then we might consider some restrictions, but I think it's better to keep them open for now. There are many skilled source divers out there who don't have an account in this wiki.
Oh by the way, see how I changed potion.c? It has still got the same features you implemented but I added a space in front of each row and removed all css-declarations, effectively saving some 60 kilobytes of space. :) Can you edit your script to generate output like that from now on? --ZeroOne 21:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Good change! I was sure I'd tried that combination of wikisyntax, but hey :) The simpler code makes it easier to add annotations inline, so I'm more inclined to agree with you that only one page per source file is necessary, and of course, therefore, that it should remain unprotected.
The xxxx-343.txt spoilers should be protected though. --Jayt 22:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The Artifact... should artifact article names start with "The "?

We now have two articles: The Tsurugi of Muramasa and Tsurugi of Muramasa. And The Eye of the Aethiopica exists, leaving the links at Special:Whatlinkshere/Eye of the Aethiopica all broken.

It is true that NetHack includes "The " in its artifact names. We at Wikihack need to decide how to name the articles in Category:Artifacts and how to handle the links. --Kernigh 04:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Update: My current approach is to redirect "The XXX" to "XXX". This will cause a minor improvement in categories (not everything starts with T). Then in the "XXX" article, I bold The XXX at the start. --Kernigh 16:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I feel somewhat responsible for the "The XXX" naming scheme -- I think this solution is fine. Eidolos 16:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
It's mostly a non-issue thanks to redirects, but I would prefer the following:
Artifact weapons have simple nouns for names, so they don't need to be called, e.g. "The Grayswandir", but all the quest artifacts are compound (hence countable) nouns, and require "the" in ordinary speech. We don't say "I think Eyes of the Overworld are better than Orb of Fate". So I think artifact weapons should not use The, and other arifacts should. This corresponds to their names in the source (artilist.h#line43) --Jayt 17:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I suddenly recalled that we have sortkeys (so in The Magic Mirror of Merlin one could use [[Category:Quest artifacts|Magic Mirror of Merlin]]. I now agree with Jayt; we should follow artilist.h. I should note that some of the artifact quest weapons use "The" (The Tsurugi of Muramasa). --Kernigh 20:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Commented / uncommented source code categories

I think the source code pages should be categorized based on whether they are commented or not. When all pages are commented (probably not within this year), the scheme can be completely removed. Until that, it would be a helpful aid in knowing what pages still need comments. Maybe Jayt's bot could do the categorizing? Before the bot uploaded them all, all source code pages that were added were commented pretty much right away. --ZeroOne 10:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think any of the source files are fully annotated yet. Artifact.c looks about 20% done; maybe we could add a note to that effect on Source code, like this:
AFAIK, all the annotations have been by Kernigh. Kernigh, would you like to track your progress on Source code, with notes like the above? :-) --Jayt 00:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Kernigh writes: I might start doing something like that in the future. Note that "100%" would probably only mean that every function is documented somehow, but someone might still want to perform cleanup or make corrections or add more thorough documentation. For example, the paragraph under artifact.c#line1219, about invoking the Staff of Aesculapius, neglects to mention that is causes a "You feel better" message.
Meanwhile, anyone can look through the source and add percentages to the source code page. --Kernigh 02:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
If we are going to use percentages then I suggest we borrow the 5-stage concept from Wikibooks. Replace the word "text" by the word "comments" and start adding those little images next to those links! 87.5% would round up to 100%.
About your second point, it's just that it's a really tedious process, there being hundreds of source files. That's why I suggested a bot could do it. It shouldn't be too difficult, just compare the number of lines that are source code against the number of lines that not source code, right? --ZeroOne 02:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I like the 5 stages ("sparse annotations", "developing annotations", "maturing annotations", "developed annotations", "comprehensive annotations"). If we add stage 0 to the beginning ("no annotations"), we can just let an empty space stand for that. Since the great majority of files are not annotated, that means a lot less work. --Jayt 13:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm planning on automating the addition of monster data to wikiHack. As a stepping stone project I could write a script to parse the source code and display the annotation status of each file next to its name. I see two options
Option 1 - put a single line at the top of every code file indicating its annotation status. ie: <!--annotation: 50% --> or <!--annotation: a -->, where the letters a,b,c ... correspond to ("sparse annotations", "developing annotations", "maturing annotations" ...). The script would parse each source file biweekly and update the annotation status on the index page.
Option 2 - run a one time script on the index page to put a status code next to each file. Whoever annotates the code should update the status.
-- PraetorFenix 21:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


Dylan O'Donnell spoilers

While these are a great resource, I don't especially like the mass copying of them here. It's redundant. The idea of the wiki, as I understand it, is to do and say things text-based spoilers currently do not. Interface alone doesn't seem like enough of a difference. Lotte 17:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

A goal of the wiki for me is to make it a "total spoiler", where you can find any piece of information about the game. If all information is going to be added eventually, we may as well add it in a structured way, and I think the DOD spoilers are great in that respect. However, they are not perfect: there are at least two ways we can improve them using this wiki: wikilinks, and commentary/strategy. The text-spoilers are very conservative in offering only facts, with no opinions. I think we can relax that a bit and have a Comments/Strategy section on every page. --Jayt 22:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Lotte in that I hate the spoiler look. They are too abstract and concise. It's impossible to learn anything about playing the game by reading one. They always remind me of the parts catalogues in auto body shops.
I also realize that the spoilers contain good information. They are a great reference (once you understand them) because they were written by experts for experts. It's the format and presenatation that sucks. They are a great starting point as long as we reformat them and collate the information in a meaningful way.
-- PraetorFenix 21:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Ideas for improving {{monster}}?

The monster template, in use on soldier ant and hopefully soon to be in use on owlbear, is big and ugly. It's unabashedly based on the Monster Manual, but not completely. It doesn't include the line of supplementary information, like "A wererat has no hands. It can regenerate itself. etc." It does include near-useless information like Frequency and Difficulty. Finally, its length makes it interfere with section titles below

I suggest a shorter infobox for the top of the article:

Y
Base level 5
Base AC 5
Speed 12
Attacks Claw: 1d6

Claw: 1d6
Bearhug: 2d8

This gives a quick appraisal of the major things you need to worry about (how tough it is, how easily you can hit it, how fast it can hit you, and how hard it can hit you).

Then, at the end of the article, we can have a ==Detailed stats== section which contains the full Monster Manual table, and all info about what kind of hands it has and all that.

Does anybody have any better ideas? --Jayt 18:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. Could the 16x16 tiles go there? In a lot of articles there just isn't a good place to put it and in my opinion at least they look awkward just slapped randomly into the text. Lotte 23:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Kernigh writes: When I check monster spoilers, I usually want to know whether to eat its corpse. I like Jayt's short, simple version of {{monster}}, and I agree with Lotte that we should include tiles, but I suggest fitting in one more line, something like this: --Kernigh 16:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Corpse Poisonous, gives poison resistance
OK, I added a corpse line. The new template is {{monsterbasics}}. I've updated owlbear to use it. {{monster}} still exists for the full infobox, but I see PraetorFenix has plans to auto-wikify this data, which I greatly encourage, as there are 250+ monsters. --Jayt 21:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
One piece of information I have failed to find from anywhere is, whether polymorphing into a certain kind of monster breaks your armor. The size obviously isn't the only criteria as, for example, winged gargoyles are human-sized but their wings break the armor anyway. Two other pieces of information of some interest to me are the food the monster eats (can it eat metal/rocks) and what special abilities other than attacks does the monster have - dragons fly, xorns have the phasing ability, etc. Although I'm not sure if any of these would merit their place in this template. Maybe they just need to be mentioned in the article. --ZeroOne 02:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I am strongly in favor of the short info box as I think the ant template is too clunky. Once everyone decides on the templates and information therin I am planning on writing a script to parse the code and automatically place the template the monster page.
Now the top of the page should have a mini template, but this does not mean that there should only be one template. We can include several templates in a page. I'm thinking in terms of three templates. A small one at the top that lists critical information that's frequently checked. A medium one with corpse data and other releveant info about the monster. And a canonical one listing all the other monster data at the bottom of the page.
I would like everyone to be happy with the end result and have the information they need represented in the templates. So before we proceed we should find out what information players are looking for.

Here's my suggestions

Y Bug Bear Bugbear.png
Base level 5
Base AC 5
Speed 12
Attacks Claw: 1d6
Claw: 1d6
Bearhug: 2d8
Attack Resistances None.

Now I would like the glyph and tile to be at the extreme ends of the table but could not figure out the html.

Corpse
Nutrition 50
Effects Is Poisonous
Conveyances poison resistance
Attributes
  • has humanoid head/arms/torso
  • omnivorous
  • strong (or big) monster
  • picks up weapons and food
  • visible by infravision
  • has infravision
-- PraetorFenix 21:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
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