Forum:New Character Infobox

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > New Character Infobox

		18:21, August 21, 2016 (UTC) Technobliterator Talk
		Hey guys! Similar to the Location infobox, I've created a prototype for a new Character infobox, an example of which can be seen here. This is designed for use on both player and non-player characters, and to be able to work for every game. It should have enough parameters that it can suit playable and non-playable characters for each game. The infobox solely concerns their main/canon appearances. The reasons for doing this are similar to Location infobox. For purposes of portability and SEO, infoboxes are now always useful, and especially for users who want to find a quick fact. This template won't work for every page. For characters that are playable in more than one game, a different infobox will be needed - and I'm thinking of making it so this applies to all characters that appear in more than one game period. For recurring characters like Gilgamesh, a new template will be needed. I'm also thinking of making infoboxes that work on the Gameplay and Other appearances subpages, though it'll be hard to get one that works for Gallery subpages since there's nothing to add. So, should we use this infobox, and is there anything you'd like to see added/removed in particular?

It's fine but we probably shouldn't require citations for race and gender in most cases. Cat (meow ∙ hunt)

		BlueLionheart - "Be careful, dear friend, lest you fall into the endless ocean of stars..." - 水風死 TALK - 01:14, August 22, 2016 (UTC)
		I think it looks pretty good to me, except calling the third heading "Out-of-universe details" seems kind of weird to me. I know "Behind the Scenes" was suggested as a possible replacement, which sounded better, although you may think of others. That'd be the only thing I'd change, I think.

		16:05, August 22, 2016 (UTC) Technobliterator Talk
		"Behind the scenes information" could work as an alternate, sure. Any other comments before we push these live?

Looks good. Character designer and outfit designer(s) are not always the same person, so maybe change that field to "designer(s)" and maybe clarifications in {{foot|}}? Like Noel, Tetsuya Nomura*(facial design), Yusuke Naora*(outfit). And Noctis by Nomura and (default) outfit by Roen.

Gameplay infobox would be good, but games have such different systems. Signature abilities and signature weapons at least are fairly ubiquitous.

There should be clear rules who needs an infobox now though. Everyone? There was debate before whether Serah should have her FFXIII render in the infobox or the FFXIII-2 one, and FFXIII-2 won because it was FFXIII-2 playable character infobox, and now I guess the distinction is being done away with.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 20:03, August 22, 2016 (UTC)

Good point about designers, I'll go fix that now. I definitely agree with using foot to clarify who does what.

The infobox for /Gameplay pages I imagine would basically be a repeat of the gameplay details section of the infobox but using an image of the character model instead, and maybe there are a couple extra things that can be added to it. That and the ones for the other subpages can probably be done after this one is added on most pages.

Every character has an infobox, yeah. I imagine when it comes to images and the color, we still go with the image in a game in which they're playable as the most important factor, with second most important factor being which their first appearance was. So Zack would get an infobox with Crisis Core colors and his image from that game, the Turks who were playable in Before Crisis would get Before Crisis infobox colors, while the Turks who weren't playable just get an FFVII infobox. Sound good?-- Technobliterator ^T_C 20:15, August 22, 2016 (UTC)

It's the easiest to keep it as it is now, with the first playable appearance taking precedence. Guess we can then talk later whether remakes should remakes trump originals or not.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 02:05, August 23, 2016 (UTC)

Can do that. I'm going to start adding this to pages for a couple games from tomorrow (FFXV first), and hopefully get it on the pages for main series characters + FFT/other spinoffs. After that, I will make Character infoboxes for /Gameplay, /Other appearances, /Dissidia and /Gallery subpages and post them here. Last chance to raise questions about this specific infobox before I put it live.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 22:17, August 25, 2016 (UTC)

Another head's up: it's up on Terra Branford and Locke Cole as the first few pages. If anyone has any issues with it, please bring them up now since I'll be doing the other pages like this. I updated the infobox with everything it was missing from those pages, aside from the "treasure" parameter, I had no idea what it was for and it didn't have a reference next to it, and since I don't think readers understood what it meant either, I figured it had no value and removed it. I can re-add it if it comes to that. Also, the "Type" parameter is currently a switch statement to limit it to a few options, but if that becomes inflexible, I can remove that.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 20:44, August 26, 2016 (UTC)

Question. Currently the character infobox is able to link to a character's /Other appearances page, but if they have one main recurring appearance, there is no way to link to that. Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V), Ultros (Final Fantasy VI) and the Cids would probably benefit from a way to link to their recurring appearance. So for a way to link to that, we could either:

1. add a "Recurring appearance" above "Designer" under "Behind the scenes information" parameter,
2. add a "Recurring appearance" under "More information" to replace "Other appearances" for those that have it (and then also have a link to the right Dissidia page under it in the case of Gilgamesh), or
3. do both.

Thoughts?-- Technobliterator ^T_C 11:52, August 28, 2016 (UTC)

		FFfangirl - "Gullwings, let's go!" TALK - 5:26 pm, September 23, 2016
		Incorporating an image gallery in the infoboxes would make sense if certain characters are playable in multiple games or have multiple designs (Rikku, Lightning, and Yuna). This could help save space by not having to place any needless images in the Profile section of their pages. This might also be useful for locations that appear in more than one game or have multiple areas. I also think that color coding the image tabs would make them easier to read and easier to tell which game they are from besides just the image caption.

		22:41, September 23, 2016 (UTC) Technobliterator Talk
		Are we going on different character designs, or different appearances? I would say designs, since sometimes characters keep their design in different appearances. I say do it, for different designs of characters in the same subseries.