Hey STS, It's Time For An Integrated Arcane Legends Wiki!

[Niixed]

I came to the blindingly obvious conclusion that Arcane Legends is in desperate need of a wiki when I attempted to create help guide which listed all of the arcane legends achievements. The list was long and not very readable and I wanted it to be easy to read.

So, I spent a few hours researching how to stylize my post using the extremely limited methods afforded by the forum software used here. It was a success... until I hit the 60k character limit, not because it was a wordy post, but because the software counted otherwise-invisible the style code I was using to make it look halfway decent! #facepalm *#%@#!

Frankly, a forum is a horrible, terrible, no good very bad format for storing helpful information, facts and guides pertaining the game.


Player guide posts are listed in chronological order, so a casual browser who doesn't want to spend more than a few moments on anything will give up almost immediately.
You're losing forum readers frustrated by having to dig and dig and dig just to find one little tidbit on how to do anything.
The forum search function is about as useful as cutting steak with a spoon.
Encouraging players looking for info in-game to "visit the forums" isn't as professional as steering them straight to a user-friendly wiki.

I would suggest installing a professional wiki mod for Vbulletin 4.22. I did some research and I found a stable, well supported mod called VaultWiki (http://www.vaultwiki.org/). Feel free to research other options, but VaultWiki features seamless integration with Vbulletin, so existing users don't need to sign up for anything new. It appears to be the best option for STS, all things considered - low upfront cost, low learning curve, low maintenance, and low overhead if you allow us eager players to be the editors like you already do in the player's guide section.

I hope you agree it's high time to give Arcane Legends the professional wiki it deserves. Contributors and info-seekers alike would be happier players for it!

[Lastmind]

+1
Great suggestion! :)

[Happygamer]

Yea I completely agree but it's a long task for whomever undertakes it

[Overweightank]

+1
/11chars

[Schnitzel]

If you need help,

I'll help you out

also, I've wrote this in the past: http://spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?194412-The-New-Player-s-Guide-To-Arcane-Legends
(haven't updated due to busy schedule),

you are free to use info from that if you want

[Zylx]

If you're tech savvy, you can probably build a small website to act as a fan-made wiki. Add tabs for all the acheivements where people can click on to find more info.

[Dimitrian]

Usually takes 4-5 years of a game's existence to get itself a wiki [emoji14] but this seems like a legit idea.

Would be nice to have a drop page, drop % page, guide page etc etc
Clash of Clans is almost 3 years old and it has a wiki for like 1 year and a half.

[Niixed]

Usually takes 4-5 years of a game's existence to get itself a wiki :P but this seems like a legit idea.

Would be nice to have a drop page, drop % page, guide page etc etc

If it's cheap and easy to accomplish, why not now? AL is three years old, I don't think waiting another year for a wiki would accomplish anything.

Wikis are organized by category, so I'm sure all of those categories would be included.

[bedmaster]

Theres an AL wiki in wikia.com but its soooo outdated lol a new one would be appreciated

[Niixed]

If you're tech savvy, you can probably build a small website to act as a fan-made wiki. Add tabs for all the acheivements where people can click on to find more info.

I've built many small and mid-size websites, both individually and with a team. I often become the website administrator after it's built. Do you think that counts as tech savvy? :P Building any kind website is a significant investment, both in terms of time and expense. In my opinion, building a successful, sustainable fan website for Arcane Legends is an iffy prospect at best. The game is popular, but the fan base isn't large enough to support a fan website financially, so it would have to be a charity effort. Since a volunteer fan website would be a separate legal entity, STS won't give it official support without an agreement. Obtaining a legal agreement would be essential to help drive traffic to the site to make it worth the effort, so lawyers would need to be involved. I could go on, but the point is that if you want a good fan site with a wiki, there's a lot of headache and effort involved.

[Oezheasate]

+1 and STS should fund whatever is needed to make this possible

[Serancha]

The problem with something like a wiki is the same as anything else. The people who make them have a tendency to vanish, then there's nobody with administrative capability to ensure that the data posted is accurate and not a bunch of junk or spam.

I have found that getting people to do anything online in this game is very difficult. You can see that by this forum where there are maybe 30 true forumers and about the same amount of others that come and go. The rest of the game population just picks up their devices plays for 10 minutes here and there, and goes back to RL.

It is the forumers who are the ones most likely to be providing the info for the wiki, but as soon as the creator goes inactive, it will be forgotten. That's likely why the original one failed and is tiny and totally outdated. Making a second one would likely just generate confusion "Which wiki do you want me to post my guide on?", "Oh I posted it on the wrong one and don't have time to do it again" etc. Sorry, I just can't see it succeeding, especially since the original failed.

I personally prefer the forum format, and all the guides and info are already here. The advantage the forum has is that the Devs are here. That means this will always be the #1 resource for accurate information.

[Remiem]

Hey there! Great idea. :D It is something that we've considered in the past. There's actually a pretty well maintained AL wiki here: http://arcanelegends.wikia.com/ but I agree an official one would be beneficial. The trick is getting the manpower behind it. We would have to have a pretty dedicated community of content creators to populate it with all of the latest content and keep it up to day. What do you guys think? Can we do it?

[Groaning]

Or we could update the search bar and make everything better :D

[Schnitzel]

Hey there! Great idea. :D It is something that we've considered in the past. There's actually a pretty well maintained AL wiki here: http://arcanelegends.wikia.com/ but I agree an official one would be beneficial. The trick is getting the manpower behind it. We would have to have a pretty dedicated community of content creators to populate it with all of the latest content and keep it up to day. What do you guys think? Can we do it?

If we had a team of content creators, I think we definitely can build an official AL Wiki and keep it updated

[Niixed]

The problem with something like a wiki is the same as anything else. The people who make them have a tendency to vanish, then there's nobody with administrative capability to ensure that the data posted is accurate and not a bunch of junk or spam.

I have found that getting people to do anything online in this game is very difficult. You can see that by this forum where there are maybe 30 true forumers and about the same amount of others that come and go. The rest of the game population just picks up their devices plays for 10 minutes here and there, and goes back to RL.

It is the forumers who are the ones most likely to be providing the info for the wiki, but as soon as the creator goes inactive, it will be forgotten. That's likely why the original one failed and is tiny and totally outdated. Making a second one would likely just generate confusion "Which wiki do you want me to post my guide on?", "Oh I posted it on the wrong one and don't have time to do it again" etc. Sorry, I just can't see it succeeding, especially since the original failed.

I personally prefer the forum format, and all the guides and info are already here. The advantage the forum has is that the Devs are here. That means this will always be the #1 resource for accurate information.

Perhaps you haven't edited a wiki before, but the reason they're successful is because every editor can edit everything, so nobody has a lock on a particular piece of content therefore anyone can pick up the slack at any time. It's independent of the whims of the original author. Players are posting to the player's guide forum so the wiki would just be a natural repository for the content they're already generating.

This particular wiki software is an addon to the forums, i.e. it's seamlessly integrated with this forum. STS themselves would be the administrators and could grant or deny access to whomever they choose. The original failed because it lacked what this wiki would have - financial backing from STS who is very interested in seeing it succeed!

Forum posts are limited to the original poster and they are in chronological order only, not grouped or organized in any other way. Sorry, but forums are a terrible and user-unfriendly format for storing that type of information. I'd rather keep new players in the game than have them quit in frustration because getting info on how to complete an easy quest is so difficult to find.

[Niixed]

Hey there! Great idea. :D It is something that we've considered in the past. There's actually a pretty well maintained AL wiki here: http://arcanelegends.wikia.com/ but I agree an official one would be beneficial. The trick is getting the manpower behind it. We would have to have a pretty dedicated community of content creators to populate it with all of the latest content and keep it up to day. What do you guys think? Can we do it?

Thanks Remi!

I've visited Wikia's AL wiki before and found it to be disappointment. It has limited information, the colors are garish, and the rampant ads on the site are enough to make me click that big "X" in my upper right hand corner in less than 30 seconds.

I think we already have the manpower behind it! There are so many players who regularly contribute player's guides to the forums. A wiki is a natural outgrowth of the content and effort contained there. Also, I'd encourage STS to perhaps offer small platinum, banner, or vanity rewards to editors and contributors, unless that would increase overhead costs too much. Knowing you'll be rewarded for effort - even a little - is going to help motivate even more players to contribute.

The iffy part is whether or not you grant greater permissions to some players rather than others.

Players with a strong writing skills and an thorough understanding of the differences between fact, opinion and the grey areas in between. If the wiki is to be successful, then you'll likely need to dole out limited responsibility for content to someone. If you decide to go that route, I'd suggest a 3rd party test and/or requiring writing samples to be submitted so that the appearance of favoritism is curtailed as much as possible.

If you decided to grant all players equal access, then someone from STS would need to curate the Wiki and they should be prepared to limit players who don't contribute appropriate content. Eventually you'd end up with a decent pool of editors, but the reputation of the wiki may also be severely damaged in the process of rooting out the bad apples.

I'd love to get my hands dirty and help set it up with a team of fellow players capable of that degree of organization. Anyone else want to volunteer?

[Serancha]

Perhaps you haven't edited a wiki before, but the reason they're successful is because every editor can edit everything, so nobody has a lock on a particular piece of content therefore anyone can pick up the slack at any time. It's independent of the whims of the original author. Players are posting to the player's guide forum so the wiki would just be a natural repository for the content they're already generating.

This particular wiki software is an addon to the forums, i.e. it's seamlessly integrated with this forum. STS themselves would be the administrators and could grant or deny access to whomever they choose. The original failed because it lacked what this wiki would have - financial backing from STS who is very interested in seeing it succeed!

Forum posts are limited to the original poster and they are in chronological order only, not grouped or organized in any other way. Sorry, but forums are a terrible and user-unfriendly format for storing that type of information. I'd rather keep new players in the game than have them quit in frustration because getting info on how to complete an easy quest is so difficult to find.

On the contrary, as a professional web developer, I have been heavily involved with several wiki projects as well as the creation and maintenance of mediawiki sites, which is a stand-alone wiki that can be hosted on the server of the related company. In both cases there are administrators who have the ability to filter what content is added, who is able to add, and put security levels on sensitive pages.

For example, if I put my KT4 levelling guide up there, i wouldn't want some troll coming in and changing the information that I had spent 3 months to put together, just because he thinks WT4 is better. So before putting it up, I would request the administrator put a lock on that guide so that only the admin or I could edit it. There is so much misinformation already spread in this game, that such a wiki would definitely need a knowledgable team of admins to go through every entry and make sure it was accurate. Otherwise some dufus would post things like "Deary is the best pet and has an Arcane version that is extremely rare....." sending newbies off hunting for a nonexistent pet.

I will say that I was unaware that there is a wiki plugin for this forum software, since I prefer phpBB forum software, so that is what I use for my clients. Whether STS is willing to take on another major addition to their website, and whether the forumers will have the time, energy or inclination to keep it updated (I can't see STS filling in the content) is something nobody can know.

We will have to agree to disagree on the rest. Forums have been an essential tool in every online community for over a decade. Wikis are much less frequently used because of the reasons I already stated. Sure some are successful, but as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, usually it is 3-4 years (or more) into a game's lifespan that this happens. Forums are there from the beginning. There is a reason for this.

If STS wants to do it, that's all cool, but I think they would have a tough time getting enough people willing to work on it.

[Schnitzel]

On the contrary, as a professional web developer, I have been heavily involved with several wiki projects as well as the creation and maintenance of mediawiki sites, which is a stand-alone wiki that can be hosted on the server of the related company. In both cases there are administrators who have the ability to filter what content is added, who is able to add, and put security levels on sensitive pages.

For example, if I put my KT4 levelling guide up there, i wouldn't want some troll coming in and changing the information that I had spent 3 months to put together, just because he thinks WT4 is better. So before putting it up, I would request the administrator put a lock on that guide so that only the admin or I could edit it. There is so much misinformation already spread in this game, that such a wiki would definitely need a knowledgable team of admins to go through every entry and make sure it was accurate. Otherwise some dufus would post things like "Deary is the best pet and has an Arcane version that is extremely rare....." sending newbies off hunting for a nonexistent pet.

I will say that I was unaware that there is a wiki plugin for this forum software, since I prefer phpBB forum software, so that is what I use for my clients. Whether STS is willing to take on another major addition to their website, and whether the forumers will have the time, energy or inclination to keep it updated (I can't see STS filling in the content) is something nobody can know.

We will have to agree to disagree on the rest. Forums have been an essential tool in every online community for over a decade. Wikis are much less frequently used because of the reasons I already stated. Sure some are successful, but as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, usually it is 3-4 years (or more) into a game's lifespan that this happens. Forums are there from the beginning. There is a reason for this.

If STS wants to do it, that's all cool, but I think they would have a tough time getting enough people willing to work on it.

Well, I'm willing to help work on it.

on a side topic, I noticed you wrote that you are a professional web developer,
I was wondering, what languages do I need to build webpages?

[Niixed]

On the contrary, as a professional web developer, I have been heavily involved with several wiki projects as well as the creation and maintenance of mediawiki sites, which is a stand-alone wiki that can be hosted on the server of the related company. In both cases there are administrators who have the ability to filter what content is added, who is able to add, and put security levels on sensitive pages.

For example, if I put my KT4 levelling guide up there, i wouldn't want some troll coming in and changing the information that I had spent 3 months to put together, just because he thinks WT4 is better. So before putting it up, I would request the administrator put a lock on that guide so that only the admin or I could edit it. There is so much misinformation already spread in this game, that such a wiki would definitely need a knowledgable team of admins to go through every entry and make sure it was accurate. Otherwise some dufus would post things like "Deary is the best pet and has an Arcane version that is extremely rare....." sending newbies off hunting for a nonexistent pet.

I will say that I was unaware that there is a wiki plugin for this forum software, since I prefer phpBB forum software, so that is what I use for my clients. Whether STS is willing to take on another major addition to their website, and whether the forumers will have the time, energy or inclination to keep it updated (I can't see STS filling in the content) is something nobody can know.

We will have to agree to disagree on the rest. Forums have been an essential tool in every online community for over a decade. Wikis are much less frequently used because of the reasons I already stated. Sure some are successful, but as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, usually it is 3-4 years (or more) into a game's lifespan that this happens. Forums are there from the beginning. There is a reason for this.

If STS wants to do it, that's all cool, but I think they would have a tough time getting enough people willing to work on it.

I appreciate the opportunity to ally your fears. I, too, have professional web development experience, though that's no longer my primary career. I've installed and set up mediawiki and a number of other open source wiki software packages. You're correct that there are multiple levels of user rights that grant users permissions to perform specific actions, from administrator all the way down to read access. A wiki admin does not necessarily need to grant all users editorial permissions. For example, a Wiki admin may chose to treat basic users as contributors who are unable to make changes to others' content. I don't feel that would be the wisest choice since it would negate the purpose of a wiki. However, I also don't necessarily believe all forum users should immediately be given contributor permissions. I think every forum user should be required to request permissions and possibly pass a simple test.

I believe the purpose of this wiki should be to allow AL players interested and capable of creating decent content to share the responsibility for maintaining and editing content. Wikis have been around for a long time and there are easy ways to mitigate some of the concerns you brought forth.

As you know, wikis are famous for meticulously tracking every single change made to every piece of content, including the date, exact time and username of the user making the change. Inappropriate changes are easily reversed with few clicks, either by an administrator or by any one of a number of editors. The deary troll you mentioned can only do temporary damage. The article can easily be reverted back to its former state and the vandal's permissions can then be revoked. Your hard work would be preserved and very few players would have been misled. Requesting an administrator lock prior to posting your content would be unnecessary.

However, should a particular piece of content become contentious, the admin could either lock the whole article or specific paragraphs within an article. Since much of the content would be factual, you're not going to encounter a problem with most pages. Opinions being as they are, a wiki admin could easily allow for disagreement by creating multiple separate articles under a single index page so a user could choose to read one or all of the differing viewpoints.

The wiki is a major mod to the forum software, but it would likely reside under a subfolder (virtual or not) such as www.spacetimestudios.com/wiki (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/wiki). The forum itself wouldn't need be disrupted other than being down briefly during actual deployment. I dare to assume STS would already have a webdev server operating to handle cases like this. Also, the mod developer offers professional installation support, so the option is there should the STS web developer need it.

The vibrant-but-disorganized Player's Guide subforum is proof that many forumers are not only inclined to contribute, but eager to spend their free time and energy creating content that they, their friends and other players can use and reuse and, most importantly, easily find. STS could also offer a myriad of rewards for contributed content, increasing both public interest and the number of contributors.

[Serancha]

If you've installed mediawikis and extensions you know what a royal PITA that software is from the dev end. Worst interface on the net next to Drupal. As for the editing trolls, I once saw a post reverted back and forth over 30 times in a single week - we call them wikiwars. There's so many trolls in this game, that kind of thing is just food for them.

In any case the biggest issue is still getting players consistently entering and keeping content up to date. At this point in time a lot of major contributors, including me, are just about at the end of our time. The incessant ads and expectation of people to pour thousands of dollars into the game has gotten to the point where a lot of players have left, and many have announced this is their last season.

Unless things turn around with the game and make it fun again (really, how can the devs believe that being stunned 70% of the time in a run, and using rogues for everything is fun????), I don't think there's much potential for any major undertaking to succeed. But as I said, if STS decides to go for it, that's all cool. They just need to be aware that they need dedicated content generators and a strong management presence to make it work.

[Schnitzel]

Just a thought here,

What if we had a group/team of STS approved Wiki Editors? (forumers approved by STS to update the wiki)

And when one editor wants to submit new content, other editors can read, then vote yes/no to the new content. If most vote Yes, then the content is added. Otherwise it is rejected.



Also, since how the wiki will be edited is still being decided, I've wrote this a while back (still somewhat adding stuff), maybe we can add more to this, then when the real Wiki is decided, we can copy-paste the content from this thread to the Wiki?
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?194412-The-New-Player-s-Guide-To-Arcane-Legends