Forum:Location page overhaul

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > Location page overhaul

		17:01, August 17, 2019 (UTC) Technobliterator (Talk)
		I've wanted to completely redo the way our location pages work for a long time: In my view, our location pages could do with significant work to make them more helpful to readers. The current layouts are quite confusing, require a lot of scrolling to get people to whatever information they want at a certain time, and a lot of the pages are unfinished because it's very confusing also to editors what content needs to go where. This is likely because locations in Final Fantasy are very confusing to find spots for. I would like today to propose a new way of organizing and writing these pages that I think could make them significantly easier to read. My proposal, based on the layout we have used successfully on other wikis (see w:c:ratchetandclank:Maktar Resort as an example), is listed below:

Proposal

Updated 17:01, August 17, 2019 (UTC)

New layout

The new layout will be as follows:

• Story - Same as the current section.
• Geography - Replaces the current, confusingly named "Locations" section. This will have a subsection for each of the areas in a location, e.g. Necrohol of Nabudis would have a subsection for each of "Hall of Slumbering Might", "Hall of the Ivory Covenant", "Cloister of Reason", etc. Under each of these subsections would be prose describing the area, (e.g. "The Calm Lands is a large grass plains area on the side of a large cliff, situated in between mountains...") and also pointing out treasures and where exactly they are found. It would also list what "quests" take place here.
• Quests - Similar to how it currently is, but crucially, we follow the VII/IX page model of also including main story quests, and not just sidequests. There should essentially be guides in here, but we need to also make sure we include {{main}} links to any sidequests/minigames that are covered in full on other pages.

Undecided on if Enemy formations should get its own section or be in Geography.

For locations found in other games, there should be no need to subsection by game under this layout. For instance, in IV: The After Years and X-2, the location layout is almost always identical. I think this would lead to less bloated pages.

Treasures/shops

Currently, the treasures are just listed in a bullet point list in their own section. This seems like an error, as it doesn't really help people find treasures in a location. That's why I suggested above that in the new "Geography" section, treasures are pointed out as they appear. Additionally, a bullet point list will be included in the infobox on the top of the page, which just lists all the treasures that can be found and not by sublocation.

This will work in the vast majority of cases, but not all. An obvious example is XII. Necrohol of Nabudis#Treasures has great tables for where the items are found, but this isn't really suited to the location page itself, as the tables end up so long they take up most of the content. Instead, these treasures should be included on a separate page (possibly titled "Final Fantasy XII treasures" or "Treasure (Final Fantasy XII)" depending on if the game has a term for it or not...), and the location page Geography section should link to the specific subsection on that page. That way, we include all the treasures in one place while making the rest of the location page more manageable.

The same would apply to shops. We already have pages like Final Fantasy VII shops, so instead of include that info on the location pages, we can keep it all in one place and link to it from the location page.

Enemies

"Enemies" is a tricky one, and I think it's an open question if we want to make a separate "Enemy formations" section or simply include that information under Geography.

The bullet point list of enemy formations as is in place on enemy pages right now, in my view, is not that useful. What most readers are looking for is what enemies are encountered in what areas: the infobox will list all the enemies fought in a specific area (though we can separate bosses from normal enemies if preferred), while the Geography section can list the enemies fought in a specific area in prose. This allows us to elaborate more on the enemies than the current bullet point lists. For locations appearing in multiple games, it wouldn't be too difficult to just have separate paragraphs for different enemies in the different games.

Alternatively, we can include the full context of the encounters, as in Silver Lobo#Formations. In my view, however, the fewer tables we include on a page, the better, however, the Final Fantasy VI enemy formations pages are already huge and don't list encounters by location, so this would be fine if not preferable.

Quests

The most important change would be that the "Quests" section list main story quests as well as sidequests. For most games, this can be done as simple subsections for each quest, which can be separated by game. However, for games with a huge number of quests and with quests on their own pages (like XIV, XV, etc.), we can just give a prose overview and otherwise link to the relevant pages, with either {{main}} or a bullet point list, as necessary. Similarly, for games where the information is in chapters, we should instead give an overview of the quests in prose for that chapter, and otherwise link to the chapter page where the quest information/guides would be found.

One possible alternate idea is to make pages for quests for the games even when the games do not name the quests. This would give us a way to elaborate on guide information to a greater extent than can be allowed on location pages, if necessary. An example of what I am talking about is w:c:jakanddaxter:Take care of bugs in transit system -- while we didn't have the name of the mission provided in game, we were able to put a title together based on dialogue. This could also be done for most Final Fantasy games. However, whether we do that depends on how much can be written about the main story quests.

Discussion

Early discussion

		17:01, August 17, 2019 (UTC) Technobliterator (Talk)
		Please leave your ideas below and let me know what you think! I can update the proposal based on any new changes. It will be a while before I get to it if approved, but someone else can feel free to pick it up if it is.

So how do you think we'd cover the Shinra Mansion in FFVII, Crisis Core, and Dirge with this proposal? Covering the areas of these games in one non-game-divided "Geography" section will be a nightmare because the geography isn't the same.

My suggestion for when the same location appears in multiple games is to create separate articles for each game. I.e. "Shinra Manor" would use the Geography section to mention the mansion's general layout features and contents, while "Shinra Manor (Crisis Core)" and "Shinra Mansion (Final Fantasy VII)" etc. would be where the gameplay for the specific games go.

I also think we must include the treasures list and shop info on the location page. It's the perfect place to put that information. Making readers go to a much longer page to find a small bit of information relevant to only that location is bad navigation.

If we nix the Items h2, then we should consider (a) in bigger locations, dividing the infobox list by sub-area, and (b) putting some simple info in brackets for time-sensitive items. Otherwise you're making users have to hunt through masses of text to find one item they may not even be able to get. JBed (talk) 20:07, August 17, 2019 (UTC)

The original thought would be like w:c:ratchetandclank:Kerwan -- when the geography of the location is completely different (i.e. not like X-2 or TAY where it's the same), then it gets a game subsection. With that said, nothing against making separate pages (or subpages) for gameplay information related to separate games to be honest. Depending on how large the pages would get, it could make them a lot more manageable. If we're still having a "base" location page for things like lore, then it may make more sense to instead just make the gameplay info for the separate pages as subpages of the base page.

Regarding shops and treasures, the keyword is "prose". While the table content will be outsourced to its own page, which can be purely data, written content will take its place on the location pages. e.g. on Mt. Gagazet, you'd explain when talking about Wantz' shop that it's a great place to buy Holy Waters to use for Zombie Ward as that becomes important for the next boss. Right now the shop table provides players with little context behind the data and most of the info exists to tell them they can buy things like Potions or Hi-Potions which they would've already known about, but drawing attention to important items can be significantly more helpful.

Agreed with both suggestions for the items list in the infobox, though I actually thought we already did this.-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 20:25, August 17, 2019 (UTC)

X-2 and TAY share a lot in common with their predecessors, but when the articles will keep jumping between talking about gameplay from two different games, one of which will likely be irrelevant to the reader, it gets unwieldy. This article gives me nightmares, as represented beautifully by the TOC.

Subpages work, although when it comes to pages existing primarily for gameplay purposes I prefer naming the article a gameplay name and tagging, like we do for bosses. I get the confusion though--ideally I'd suggest something like "(Final Fantasy VII field)" or "(Final Fantasy VII dungeon)"-- but the gameplay terms we tend to use ("location") also applies to lore-places.

With Items and Shops, we're dealing with the same thing as we are with EnemyFormations. We shouldn't restrict ourselves to pure prose. Ideally these sections could also include the maps for ease of use (for XII we have one for the whole area, but it's conveninent on a sub-location basis too).

I think something that might be cool is to have a mini-table-infobox-thing at the top of each sub-location section, like:

Menu name	Treasures	Enemies
No. 1 Reactor	Potion x2	MP, Guard Hound
Map
Enemy formations (after exiting once)
[24/64] MP x2 [22/64] Guard Hound [18/64] MP, Guard Hound [8/64] Guard Hound (Back attack)
Treasures
Chest Spawns Holds Gil% Gil Normal Treasure Diamond Armlet Treasure 1[1] 100% 0% N/A Jade Collar 2 30% 30% 1,000 gil Item 1 Item 2 Common Rare Knot of Rust Doom Mace Knot of Rust Meteorite (A) 3 35% 30% 1,000 gil Item 1 Item 2 Common Rare Knot of Rust Vanishga Mote Knot of Rust Meteorite (B) 4 30% 30% 1,000 gil Item 1 Item 2 Common Rare Knot of Rust Power Vest Knot of Rust Meteorite (A) 5 35% 30% 1,000 gil Item 1 Item 2 Common Rare Knot of Rust Float Mote Knot of Rust Meteorite (A) 6 35% 30% 1,000 gil Item 1 Item 2 Common Rare Knot of Rust Reflectga Mote Knot of Rust Meteorite (B) 1 - Chest does not respawn.
Weapon shop
Name Cost Mythril Armlet 1,000 gil Potion 50 gil Phoenix Down 750 gil Grenade 80 gil Tent 500 gil

Each sub-location gets a summary, and useful detailed data is easily accessible but hidden. JBed (talk) 03:10, August 18, 2019 (UTC)

While a lot of readers will understand what is meant by "Final Fantasy VII dungeon", "Final Fantasy VII field" will almost definitely confuse people. "/Final Fantasy VII gameplay" instead? To be honest, I wouldn't mind us doing something like that for character pages either; with the VII Remake coming, it makes more sense to have something like "Cloud Strife/Final Fantasy VII gameplay" and "Cloud Strife/Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay" than just make people scroll through info they don't need to get to what they want...

To be honest, I would rather the Geography section be strictly prose and illustrative images. The idea was that there would be very short gameplay information in each Geography subsection, relevant to the expected player's skill level at the time in the game, and any information regarding items would just be prose as well. As in, "Wantz sells the usual healing items and a set of weapons with passive abilities. Most notably, Wantz sells Holy Waters, which are particularly useful for fusing to create armor with Zombie Ward, which prove very effective in the fight against the next boss". So I'd rather Geography was prose only.

That said, the table itself isn't too bad of an idea. It should probably use mobile friendly code though, as in, no tables within tables, and any collapsible elements like divs and etc. done within templates instead, but I don't object to anything else. If we include a "Gameplay" header below Geography, with the games as subsections of that, the Gameplay header can contain all the tables for each sub-area there. This way, the data tables don't break up the prose. If we were to do that, I think it would be much better to go with the idea of making the quests as separate pages and use this in place of the Quests header entirely (the summary/some prose can list the quests).

Will have to think about it more...-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 03:44, August 18, 2019 (UTC)

But even the games have used the word "Field"! "area" is a bit more of a gameplay-y name than a lore-y one.

"The idea was that there would be very short gameplay information in each Geography subsection, relevant to the expected player's skill level at the time in the game"

I don't particularly see anything wrong with your example sentence, but if this is your main hope for the Geography section then it doesn't seem that relevant for a JRPG. "Time in the game" is relative. Locations sections need to tell the player what's there at any time in the game. If we want places to offer gameplay advice then Quests sections/articles would be most appropriate.

Having a "Gameplay" section below "Geography" to puts these appendices in doesn't seem that much different to how we do things now... I like the idea of having the appendices with the sub-loc which is what I thought you hoped to achieve when removing all the other lists on the page.

(also YES! playchar gameplay should be separated into articles per-game. "Aeris (Final Fantasy VII player character)" plz) JBed (talk) 08:30, August 18, 2019 (UTC)

Those FFXII treasure lists are not so useful without maps to show where the treasures are, but without just scanning the guide I don't know how we would do the maps. I've thought that the treasure lists could be in /Treasures and then Treasure (Final Fantasy XII) could link to these subpages for a list of all treasures in one place. Some shop lists are long and some locations like Junon and Lestallum have a million shops, but I still think it's nice to have everything you can buy right there at the location page. It's part of the location! Maybe they could be hidden unless you want to see them.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 14:44, August 18, 2019 (UTC)

It still seems reasonable to suggest the vast majority of players will find the term "field" confusing. We need to go with the most recognizable and obvious name in article titles. Also, just because the Geography's short gameplay information (which would be no longer than a paragraph at most per area) would mainly pertain to the expected level at the time the player visits the location does not mean it cannot also have a couple sentences related to returns. It depends on the pages.

Glad Kelt and I agree on moving treasures to another page, though whether it should be on subpages or not depends on how large the final list is. Also, if we do go with making shops/etc. hidden by default, we have to do that in templates for portability reasons, though I have no objections otherwise.

It may be best to make a decision now on if quests should be given their own pages or just keep the Quests section and make sure to fill out the main story quests. Personally, I feel like giving them their own page is better, making space for a Gameplay section to include tables and etc.

p.s. discussion on character pages may warrant another forum.-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 04:34, August 19, 2019 (UTC)

How would the "own page for quests" look like for e.g. FFVIII? Like a walkthrough, basically?Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 14:33, August 19, 2019 (UTC)

Basically yes, as in w:c:ratchetandclank:Category:Missions in Going Commando. Gives brief story information at the start, then explains how to complete the quest. This would be done for main story.-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 15:02, August 19, 2019 (UTC)

I like JBed's table idea (modulo portability concerns, w/e) at the start of each sublocation, less confusing than having a big list of tables. I'm not sure what's wrong with scanning guides for maps (copyright concerns? Workload necessary?) With regards to example quest pages: are "Explore the swamp ruins" etc. the in-game names of the quests? I broadly like the idea (and I wonder if the content of "quest walkthroughs" could be adapted from Walkthroughspace, though given the amount of cleaning that would be necessary I'm not sure if it's worth it.) Cat (meow ∙ hunt) 21:01, August 19, 2019 (UTC)

In R&C, "Explore the swamp ruins" is the in-game name, but for Daxter, you have cases like "w:c:jakanddaxter:Take care of bugs in transit system" -- no in-game name is given, so it goes based on dialogue. We will have to follow this model. Using walkthroughspace as a general outline for some of the quests is fine, though this isn't really meant to supplant walkthroughs or anything.

To me, it sounds like we will just have to experiment with different ideas in sandboxes before settling on anything.-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 10:36, August 20, 2019 (UTC)

Final proposal

Unfortunately, I don't have good news. The table that was proposed above is, basically, not mobile-friendly in any way (which is important given that 59% of readers are mobile), and on top of that, those I've spoken to at the Editor Experience team suggest that actually including all that much information is not user-friendly either. This is to say, an overload of information can have a negative effect as it will make it harder for readers to find what they want through large tables. It also has a negative SEO effect. So they're inclined to go to my original proposal of outsourcing all tables.

However, I will accept the consensus of the forum was towards including the table information. Therefore, as a compromise, I propose we include smaller infoboxes on the side, possible {{infobox location section}}, for each Geography sub-header, in which we include an abridged version of the information. For instance, with a shop, we include what items can be obtained without including the price. We can then link to the more full version of the information elsewhere

I will make an example of how this will look, and we can iterate on it. Otherwise, I endorse this as the ultimate proposal unless someone has a better idea within the above parameters (user-friendly, mobile-friendly, SEO-friendly). If anyone does, we can discuss this, but I imagine the compromise should achieve most of what people want.-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 00:02, September 12, 2019 (UTC)

Proof of concept present.-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 23:17, September 14, 2019 (UTC)

Maybe the boxes could also have a field for NPCs present and Triple Triad yes/no. Fire Cavern only has the Faculty at the entrance and you probably can't play them.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 15:35, September 15, 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding that when I publish to the page. How does it look aside from that?-- Technobliterator (^T_C) 15:57, September 15, 2019 (UTC)

The map placement seems odd but maybe I am just not used to seeing it there. I think it's overall good. Not so easy for games that don't have obvious screens and named areas though.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 16:15, September 15, 2019 (UTC)

I think it looks good, overall. One note, not related necessarily to the task at hand: I think the template on the right's heading is difficult to read with the brown text on brown along with the Squall head. ScatheMote 21:23, September 15, 2019 (UTC)

Reopening

Hi all, I'd like to reopen this quickly. Having redone location layouts for FF8, and a couple for FF7, I don't think I'm satisfied with the solution of using an infobox underneath the sub-location sections, due to overuse of clear: all. So I'd like to return to my original idea of moving gameplay content elsewhere in the article.

Comparison: current page, new sandbox.

Any thoughts on this? If there are no objections, I'd rather use the format in the latter example. I've spoken to a few on Discord about this, so just checking here before doing that officially.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 16:18, February 1, 2020 (UTC)

I think second is better.

In my perfect world FFVII location article layout I would have Sector 1 be the parent page that says something like: Sector 1 is a sector of the city of Midgar in the world of FFVII that appears in FFVII, FFVII Remake and in Crisis Core. It is a part of a city built by the Shinra Power Company, and is situated high up in the sky built on a plate that covers the slums below. Sector 1 is the starter area and has unremarkable Shinra Company enemies. It appears in the opening cinematics of all games. Notable areas are the Loveless Avenue and Sector 1 Reactor. Then appearances with {{Main|Sector 1 (Final Fantasy VII)}} and {{Main|Sector 1 (Final Fantasy VII Remake)}} and the Crisis Core info can just sit there on the parent page because we are not developing that content now.

Probably haven't thought this perfectly through, but integrating the FFVII Remake stuff to what already exists seems so hard!Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 16:51, February 1, 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, I completely agree with splitting the page. I think after we implement the new page layout, and once the remake is released, we can absolutely look at doing that.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 18:00, February 1, 2020 (UTC)

Hold up, you say this is about "moving gameplay content elsewhere in the article" and yet your proposal still has two paragraphs about the two potions and random encounters. Your suggestion is just going back to how we used to do things. If this is about the infoboxes and clearing margins, well, my proposal was screen-wide infoboxes.

As I suggested in my first post in this thread, location pages should have a "Geography" section that explains things from a non-gameplay perspective. This section shouldn't need to imagine the place as gameplay screens, but as if it were a connected, real place. It should note the notable areas, landmarks, architecture, etc., and it should do this without referencing specific games unless it's noting a difference in portrayal.

Then the Locations/Areas section can divide by screens and note the relevant gameplay things in each area. For FFIV, VII, and X this will involve spinning-off that content into individual dedicated gameplay pages. JBed (talk) 23:01, February 1, 2020 (UTC)

Fixed oversight... gameplay should all be under "Gameplay", "Geography" is from a non-gameplay-perspective except to put in context what the areas are that the players see (i.e. If we only see part of Sector 1, then the geography section should explain the parts we can see, and only briefly when they show up).

Nothing wrong with splitting gameplay content by game. I'm not sure how splitting gameplay by areas would work, main problem I had before was that too many enemy encounters are just repeated across different sub-aeras.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 00:03, February 2, 2020 (UTC)

I think if we're going to dissect the games by screen, then that section should be a gameplay section, not a lore section. The fact that a location is divided into individual screens is because of gameplay in the first place. And I don't find describing every background detail in exhaustive detail most useful to readers. When we're dealing with non-game media I can't imagine we'd be so thorough.

However, using the screen dissection to discuss the layout of each area and use that as context for the placement of interactive gameplay elements does sound useful.

The repeated encounters didn't bother me because (approaching from a purely technical perspective) FFVII assigns its encounters based on screen. So us repeating that data matches the game's repeating of that data. But listing encounter tables in its own section and having individual locations reference the one/s used is another way to do it. JBed (talk) 05:11, February 2, 2020 (UTC)