Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?
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Alright, let’s keep this productive, and help poor X-Men Utopia out by removing this from their thread.
The core question: Should character information live on the wiki only?
I say a staunch no. In situations like a scene or when I’m new to a group of people, it is tedious to have to look each one of them on a wiki, even using a client that can recognize a URI and create a link out of it, most of the time it doesn’t work, this assuming the player has taken the time to enter the correct information.
There are ways to mitigate these issues, but none of them are as easy as typing +finger bob.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
I much prefer it on the MUX with an option for it to be on the wiki.
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I mean, the obvious and very easy answer is "it depends on the game".
A trait-based comic MU, who cares if it's all on the wiki? All the info is just for reference. "Superman can lift 100 tons." I think we all know that.
Obviously a WoD game or something, you need +sheets on the game so people can do rolls and spend xp and whatever.
I mean, until we have code where +roll strength checks your name, then checks the wiki, and pulls info from some staff-maintained database on the wiki or some shit....
Theno, get to work.
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@thenomain Call me on old man when I say this, but there are times when I miss the days without wikis. Where there was less focus on PBs and super formatted wiki pages with photosopped pinups of your PB.
I feel sometimes like I would prefer much of the character information remain on the server-side, but wikis be more reserved for scene log repository and a GUI for rules, systems, and setting information.
I miss there being more focus on description of the character, via descs and rp, than just picture Amy Adams in scrubs.
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
@thenomain Don't make me grumble and tinker with things.
The setup I was looking at allowed people to enter the data on a basic web form on the wiki. It then formatted everything for them for the game wiki without having to delve into wiki code at all, and kept everything there (what data was present, how it was presented) uniform.
It then piped the same data over to the game to populate finger/etc. as needed. This kept everything up to date and consistent everywhere.
I got a lot of feedback from people who were hobby-new on BITN re: the forms being very helpful, and the on-game commands being somewhat confusing to them. Being able to pick something from a dropdown menu or fill in a text box that covered both game and wiki seemed to be the safest, 'this is almost self-explanatory, and where it isn't, a description of what to do and how to do it can be right there above that section' route.
consistency + multi-platform access + ease of use =
Don't make me go wanna look at a thing, though, I'm serious! I will wanna poke at things again, or something. And augh. Not yet.
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@tempest said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:
I mean, until we have code where +roll strength checks your name, then checks the wiki, and pulls info from some staff-maintained database on the wiki or some shit....
That was totally possible. The +roll code just wasn't done yet. Sheet data was, however, public. But I'm big on the open sheet thing. If it can be pulled for +finger, it can be pulled for +roll.
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It’s also easier to come up with descriptions when you aren’t limited to trying to find people who fit. When I played Vera on HM, there were many pictures of her, but no two were the same. One was Elisha Cuthbert, one was Aviril Lavigne, all of them made by other people.
This was fantastic. It was fun to be a part of, and it couldn’t have happened without a wiki.
I have as of yet to play a character where someone could simply find me a played by and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I do love wiki pages for log lists and character flavor, but nothing I would need to just find out about them. I do wish that the character info sidebar was available on the game as finger. Hm, maybe something to approach Fate’s Harvest about....
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain Remind me later and I will poke some things? I was revamping +finger as +profile and had a sampling of data that did exactly what you're describing in the test bit.
Oh fucking well.
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Will do.
It would be easier to store all of this in a database and find some way to pull the data into MediaWiki (like this one.) This would mean that either system could pull the data, but crazy Surreality wants her own way. Why? Did I mention that she is crazy?
Mostly it’s so that the wiki is chargen, which is admirable but from a data storage standpoint is still cat-lady levels of crazy.
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Everything needed to play the game should be available in the game.
For one thing, a not insignificant number of people find making wiki-markup 'work' impossible. They look at wiki, and their eyes just glaze over and they give into despair. For that reason alone, wiki's should be optional.
For another, I don't want to need to alt-tab all the time to play the game. If I'm running a plot I don't want to have to open five windows to see what the characters are capable of doing: @Tempest's example of Superman is flawed. There's LOTS of FC's that are obscure or have nuanced power levels depending on when/where in their arc they are, and I'm just not really familiar with most.
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Mushing from a phone is a PITA if everything isn't on the game itself.
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@sunny said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:
Mushing from a phone is a PITA if everything isn't on the game itself.
Is MUSHing from a phone ever /not/ a PITA?
I haven't even bothered trying in years.
I used to log on Firan, just to blab on channels while sitting around, but I gave up on even that pretty quickly.
IDK how people RP on phone.
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@tempest said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:
IDK how people RP on phone.
Me neither, but I know quite a few people do. Also from their iPads.
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Well sure, it's always a PITA. Trying to alt-tab on a phone is next level PITA though, rather than just the regular garden variety. Uuuuugh.
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@tempest said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:
IDK how people RP on phone.
Usually slowly, badly and with an 'oh, well' attitude towards being bad.
But that's a gripe for another thread.
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But to answer the question, I guess I'd have to agree with 'both' if I must.
But honestly, 99 times out of a 100, if I want to know something about a character I check the wiki first. It's just more convenient to read and I can scan somebody's RP hooks or whatever without worrying about scrolling.
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I don't like changing mediums when into something, I find it jarring. I would keep things in both places, preferably automatically without any need for double updates, though I can understand if that's a technical limitation.
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This is like a "which do you prefer, chocolate or vanilla" type of question. You're not going to reach any sort of consensus here.
There are those who hate opening a browser for any of a dozen reasons, and those who would rather stick pins in their eyes than spam themselves with three screens of text just to find someone's skills/background/whatever.
In an ideal world you could do both, but that has a cost too. Even in a system like Ares where the game and website are integrated, somebody still needs to expend the effort to code up two parallel views for all the information you're talking about. And it doesn't always translate well.
Personally, I prefer to have the wiki/website be the primary source of all information, and have in-game commands for essential quick reference. But that matters to anyone else about as much as the fact that I like chocolate (i.e. it doesn't matter at all except insofar as what you'll find on my games or ready-built into Ares).
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On a Wiki only? No. As something that can accompany what's in-game? Absolutely.
I find it convenient to have character info viewable in a Wiki format, but it's not a necessity. If a place can code something up - and it's been done - where all you need is an account and a command you can run to copy/paste everything in, it's really simple without a need to figure out the basics of Wiki coding.
But, don't force people into using just a Wiki to find anything out. I like to use them when they're available, though. If there's a log system set up that connects with character pages, all the better.
I don't really care for setups that just point people to a web link every time in newsfiles, either.
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My answer is 'both should draw from the same source'.
AresMUSH has the right approach, where the web portal works like a wiki -- characters and scenes and everything -- but you have the same information on-game. (Evennia makes it possible to do the same thing, albeit doesn't include right out-of-box.)
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
