User talk:Coolerdogs

NPC Image Standards

Good morning! Your efforts to add images to NPC pages have not gone unnoticed.

When you take screenshots of NPCs, would you mind attempting to get their whole body in the shot and cropping them 1:1 (if an image is 700 pixels wide, it should be 700 pixels tall and vice versa)? A waist-up shot is really only preferable if it's taken in the dialogue window, and full-body screenshots give the reader a better view of the NPC. Your screenshots look great in terms of graphics, it's just that the NPCs that don't have a dialogue prompt should ideally have full-body shots, and 1:1 images are desirable to keep things consistent with images on the rest of the site.

Additionally, you can easily add categories to your uploads by activating HotCat in your Preferences (the setting to toggle HotCat on is under the Gadgets tab). The category we use for NPC images is "Online-NPC Images": it typically autofills for me once I get to the "N".

Thanks for all the work you've put in so far! -MolagBallet (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi Molag! I really appreciate your feedback on what I've done so far. I think I have a fairly streamlined process of getting the images and getting them uploaded so I will add this to my steps. I will try to re-take images as I encounter the NPCs along the way. I'm having the most fun running around Necrom and trying to find these people!

When I'm saving the images should I mark it as a "minor edit"?

Please let me know if there is anything more I should do as I work on these images. I have joined the Discord group and monitor the DMs there if you want to use that mode of communication. Either way is fine with me.

Thanks again! SSSpelt 17:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Minor edits are typically superficial things that no one would dispute, like fixing typos. If you're just adding an image to the image parameter of an NPC summary, it doesn't really matter whether you mark it as minor or not: I generally don't mark them as such.

Another thing: if an image for the NPC already exists, and it was taken with high graphics settings (even if it was taken in the dialogue window), it doesn't need to be replaced. Full-body shots are definitely preferred, but it's acceptable to take a screenshot of an NPC in the dialogue window and use it for the infobox. For example, with the original version of File:ON-npc-Murkholg.jpg, the torso-up shot is okay because it was shot in the dialogue window (which gives you close and decent framing), it's bright enough to make out all the little details, and the graphics settings are high enough that you could see the scuffs in the leather on his outfit.

If an image for the NPC already exists and it's high-res, it usually doesn't need to be replaced, and it's ok to cheat with NPCs that you can talk to by taking a screenshot of them while you're having a conversation with them! Sometimes it's not always feasible to shoot an NPC straight from the front with no obstructions and perfect lighting, and if you can talk to them, that will occasionally give you slightly better lighting so their faces are easier for the reader to parse when the image is displayed on the article. The dialogue window is like a fancy little portrait mode, and NPCs that you can't engage in conversation with unfortunately aren't afforded that luxury, but we can reduce the amount of legwork required to document a character if it's possible to talk to them.

Full-body shots are preferred, but don't feel pressured to replace dialogue portraits with full-body shots (or to go out of your way to edit full-bodies of every dialogue window-having NPC), especially if the lighting in a given location isn't the greatest. -MolagBallet (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Quest Walkthroughs

Hi! I just wanted to let you know that walkthroughs like Uneasy Alliances don't have to consist mostly of dialogue. It's okay to add some dialogue to existing walkthroughs, but replacing expository paragraphs with a walkthrough that is mostly dialogue with minimal commentary isn't always the best way to do it. We use NPC pages to record dialogue, and it's best to use dialogue on quest pages sparingly. It's ok to use dialogue in place of saying "[blank] tells you to go here because [this] and [that] because of [the other thing]", but a walkthrough should tell the reader how to get the quest done. You're not necessarily doing anything wrong by adding dialogue to quest pages, it's just that making quest pages into dialogue dumps isn't the most reader-friendly way to write them: dialogue should supplement the walkthrough portion of the walkthrough.

A good example of a minimal dialogue walkthrough is The Awakening Darkness. The way this walkthrough is formatted is acceptable: it tells the reader how to complete the quest, and explains the story beats without overcrowding the page with dialogue. Usually, I pick out a few lines that illustrate the situation best, and I exclude the rest of the dialogue. You can also copy and paste the lines you need from NPC pages instead of transcribing them all by hand: Dragonhold's NPCs are already done! -MolagBallet (talk) 01:30, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Is all dialogue supposed to be captured in the npc page? I got the impression that all of the dialogue needed to be recorded. SSSpelt 01:47, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

for the walkthrus that already have the quest story written out should I just add some dialogue to those to finish the re-write?SSSpelt 16:05, 8 October 2023 (UTC)