Gothic 3 RPGWatch Wiki awaiting contributions!

Removing the page identifier (this is what I will call it from now on, since it is accurate) will be an improvement. Search results will still look a bit confusing, I think. I understand the decision to use just one wiki, but forcing the use of the Gothic3 prefix will be a problem, as will a standard page layout. I was under the impression that all this is easier to accomplish in Wikipedia's software, but oh well. We're using this now.

I'll have to adjust my idea of what this wiki really does a bit and wait for when you guys get around to fix things up with it.

Great, was a little dissoriented at first before i found the main page for gothic.

Perhaps it is troublesome editing and linking documents (doesn't look like i at a first glance), but i really feel the end result will be wonderful. The correct way to present all info on a game!

Oh well, my trouble in life is that i often see the result all work might bring. Not really thinking to much of the work getting there...

Nice initiativ! Me like.

Hey, even if you add one little bit of information, a small correction to an existing page or a small start of a new page, it will be very helpful to the wiki!

Yes, let me repeat: Every tiny piece of info is valuable!


The WYSIWYG editor has been activated.

Just added some armors.
Haven't seen them all yet, so more will come as soon as I run across them.
Of course you (everybody that reads this) can add them too!

Thanks for adding them.
You forgot the naming conventions though. Every page name must start with Gothic3... unless it´s clear it can be used for multiple games, like developer or publisher profiles for example. A wiki doesn´t have a hirarchy, all pages are equal, for all 500 games in the DB. A prefix is the only possibility to enforce some sorting.

A page can be cloned if you add
/clone
to the URL in the browser.
Then the wiki asks for a new name.

I renamed all old pages and created links for items and cheats.

Thaurin said:

I'll have to adjust my idea of what this wiki really does a bit and wait for when you guys get around to fix things up with it.

Click to expand...

I also think it´s a bad idea to use only one wiki, but if the user participation remains as disappointing as it is now the problem will solve itself.

Problems will only be fixed as they come up. Developing the site has priority over developing the wiki.

I think that at least part of the low user participation may be that they find it confusing to use. And that may be in part because of how the system works now. But don't forget that interest might grow after the NA release. (especially if there's some useful stuff on it by then, like the list of trainers) But most people probably don't even know it exists. In any case, I don't think there are a lot of good guides widely available yet.

Updated the Wiki with several armors, quests and other items.

Thanks! I haven't played a lot of Gothic 3 myself, lately, but this stuff is appreciated.

How is this wiki more confusing to use than wikipedia? Wikipedia uses mediawiki. Our wiki uses a similar way of handling pages as mediawiki does (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents vs. http://wikkawiki.org/WikkaDocumentation).
Names with two capitals in them are automatically converted to a Wiki link. If you want to use a name like 'Heroes' as a wiki page name you need to add two brackets around it like: [[Heroes]]. It will then be converted to a Wiki link. Page naming is not different in that way. It's just a choice you have to make.

Both mediawiki and wikkawiki use categories. At the moment you have chosen not to use them. It adds the only thing that can be seen as a hierarchy to a wiki. It would be an option to have a category labelled as Gothic3. In that case you can automatically group all pages into the Gothic category. You don't have to use the Gothic3 prefix for all pages then either.

Actually Mediawiki and Wikkawiki are not that different, but if you can explain to me in a bit more detail how in Mediawiki (or wikipedia) things are easier, I'll see if I can change that.

One criteria with respect to the choice of which wiki to use on this site was if I could integrate it. It needed to be 'skinnable' for that and it needed to be in PHP (and using mySQL as database would be nice too). WikkaWiki is a better choice than MediaWiki is in that respect. And it is also a lot faster too.

It is not impossible to install multiple wikka wiki's, but how many would we need? As a compromise we could go with one wiki per subsite of RPGWatch. I don't think we will have too many of those.
That would mean the current wiki will be used for Gothic 3. This does however not solve your problem as when there is an add-on for Gothic 3 or a Gothic 4, you will still need a way to separate them (my choice would be using categories). On the other hand, there is a complete encyclopedia made using only one installed wiki, if they can, why can't we?

@Gorath, is it possible (read not too much work) to make Gothic 3 a category? Adding the Gothic3 prefix everytime is annoying.

Is there a way to link directly to an image added somewhere else on the wiki? For example I've placed a map in Maps (Asaru's Hide-out). Now I want to link directly to the map in a quest description (Aila, quest in Braga).
I only managed to do it by taking the imageshack url.

Making categories for Gothic 3 and any other wiki you'd like for other games sounds like a good idea. Originally, I was just a little put off, because I was used to using wiki's like Wikipedia that work more as a dictionary look-up than a guide. That is, you can search for terms and it will direct you to pages matching that term. You can do that with Wikkawiki, but someone I was missing the referral and disambiguation (or whatever) features. That is, getting directed to a page through multiple keywords and having multiple pages for the same word with different meanings. I guess there kinds of features are not really necessary for a game guide wiki, though.

But the prefix is kind of tiring. And layout is king. There shouldn't be Gothic3Heroes titles on the screen anywhere. Also, I think the current version is incapable of easily adding a table of contents section like Wikipedia often has. I read something about a workaround using <a name="name"> anchor tags, but anyway.

This is just off the top of my head. Really, Wikkiwakka isn't that bad, I'm just a perfectionist.

In both cases the answer is "I don´t know". Myrthos is doing the behind the scenes work.

Maybe you can find the URL in the picture´s properties.

Sem said:

@Gorath, is it possible (read not too much work) to make Gothic 3 a category? Adding the Gothic3 prefix everytime is annoying.

Is there a way to link directly to an image added somewhere else on the wiki? For example I've placed a map in Maps (Asaru's Hide-out). Now I want to link directly to the map in a quest description (Ail, quest in Braga).
I only managed to do it by taking the imageshack url.

Click to expand...

Categorization is very, very important, IMHO. And if that way we can avoid the annoying "Gothic3" prefix, then even better! Personally, what's stopping me from contributing is a) lack of time, and b) the fact nothing is there yet! Creating new pages ain't my forte, I'd rather just improve upon existing ones.

I believe some sort of categorization should be agree upon soon/now, though, to avoid major work later (like, say, editing hundreads of pages to add a single link to 'em). I suggest something along the lines of:

Gothic 3 (Top level category)
1. Quests
- Main Quest
-- Quest 1 (because you decided to have separate pages for each quest)
-- Quest 2...
- Ardea Quests
-- Ardea-Quest1...
- Reddock Quests...
2. Apendices (no sub categories, just to list pages)
-- Trainers List
-- Armors list
-- XX List/Table/map/something
3. Misc
-- Publisher Info, etc.


Of course, now you're thinking... but there are only 3 "high-level" categories! Yeah, but: a) I may have overlooked something important; b) it's just way cleaner that way. The sub categories are really only needed for the Quests category, but they are very needed there. And the best thing? This same method can be used for other games you'd want to make a Wiki for; standardized "rules" are a good thing.


Also, no spaces in page names? Is this a design choice, or does the software not support it? I find it slightly annoying.

How to use categories: http://wikkawiki.org/WikiCategory

How to create smart titles: http://wikkawiki.org/SmartTitlesInfo
What Wikipedia has and we don't is that when you add a link like this: [[This is a page]] it shows the text 'This is a page' and links to the page 'This_is_a_page'. In our system that same link shows the text 'is a page' and links to the page 'This'. Both have their pros and cons I assume.

Linking is to pages not content of a page.

Myrthos said:

How to use categories: http://wikkawiki.org/WikiCategory

Click to expand...

Can the content that has been contributed so far easily be placed into the category, or does everything have to be moved manually?

The answer is in the text isn't it?

Mentioning a category anywhere on a wikipage will include the page in the mentioned category.

Click to expand...

I've made a category for Gothic 3.
For all contributors: please add the following to all existing or new pages:


You can leave out the prefix "Gothic3" now as long as you've added it to the category.

@Myrthos:
The wiki "homepage" stills show the Gothic 3 wiki and not the category, however I can't edit the homepage.