User talk:Nephele/Archive-2007-04

Object ID

How do you acquire the item object id (one you use on console additem/removeitem)? Is there any way to acquire by TES-CS? --Kasugurami 09:01, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes, the construction set is how almost all the FormIDs were figured out. If I remember correctly, the FormID is the second column in most of the construction set listings, but by default the column is very narrow and therefore you can't really see it. If you just increase the width of the column you'll be able to see all the IDs. --Nephele^Talk 16:16, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

Thanks! you helped me alot. --Kasugurami 11:28, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Indoor ingredients

One drawback I've noticed with the ingredient maps is that certain ingredients which are mainly found in interior cells are not adequately represented on the map. Best example so far is Oblivion:Cairn Bolete Cap. While this is one of the most abundant ingredients in the game, you wouldn't know that looking at the map, since it's mostly found in caves. Would it be possible to mark squares where these cave entrances are to indicate that these are good places to look? Or would it be too confusing, making people try to look for things outside rather than inside the cave? Possibly some sort of visible icon, an 'x' or a '+' on cells with an entrance to an interior cell with a good supply of them? (Possibly multiple symbols, depending on how abundant the cave in question is.) It wouldn't affect most ingredients, as only a few funguses are typically found indoors like that. So most of the maps wouldn't need to be changed from what you have.

Another thought that occurred to me is what do you plan on doing for ingredients that are not found on plants? If all the plant-based ingredients get their own page, it seems only fair that the creature-derived ones would as well, not to mention ingredients not found growing anywhere in the game, such as Apples and Oranges. Of course, a map in these cases would be not very useful, since the former depends on leveled creatures locations, and the latter relies on random respawning items in houses and such. It's also occured to me that items found mainly outside of Tamriel (such as in planes of Oblivion or Camoran's Paradise) should have their own maps showing their area. Of course, part of that depends on me, I guess, since I never got around to finishing all those Oblivion maps. Maybe that'll be my next project... --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:37, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

A lot of good points, most of which I've been avoiding thinking about ;) My main plan right now was to post all of the maps and associated pages that I've already prepared... and then think about what's been left out.

• Good idea with the Cairn Bolete Cap. For now, the page does list the best caves, but adding symbols to the map would be really good. The other one where that's really a big issue is Wisp Stalk Caps, but that doesn't have any outside plants at all. Nirnroot also comes to mind, and there's a dozen plants that have 2-10 potted varieties in a handful of places. I think there probably does need to be a way to distinguish the outside symbols from the inside symbols. And the inside symbols would need to be color-coded, because the numbers are just as variable indoors (Cairn Bolete numbers range from 101/cave all the way down to 1/cave). I might start by trying colored dots and see how that works. But it will also take some more tricks on the number-crunching side to identify the location of each cave's (and house's) entrance. I'm sure it's possible, it just requires looking through some records that I've been ignoring up until now.

How about: ·•×+* as symbols? (Obviously scaled to look good on the map, rather than actual ASCII.) Maybe one even-bigger asterisk for the most abundant, so we have 6 symbols as well as 6 colors. Keep them in black, to avoid confusion with the other colors. Might work. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:47, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

• For apples and oranges I could easily do a text page, something like other food ingredients (i.e., Corn), but without the map. But it would also in theory be possible to do something on the map showing the buildings where the food is guaranteed to be found. My first guess is that such a map would be less than useful because basically each city would just be a mess of overlapping dots, and the majority of the landscape would be empty. And they're so easy to find that nobody would necessarily care. On the other hand, there are ingredients like Sweetcake and Ironwood Nuts that are more of a challenge to find. Another round two task: collect info on where and how many of those there are and experiment with how to present the info.
• For Oblivion ingredients, for now I'm putting up maps showing the oblivion gates where they'll start growing. I've done Bloodgrass so far. I think knowing the gates is useful for ingredient collection after the main quest is done. I'm also listing numbers in various Oblivion worlds. I could do plant map overlays for each Oblivion world, too, although they are generally easy enough to find in any Oblivion world that I can't imagine too many players are desperately searching for the plants. Actually, I could also do map overlays of things like Mana Fountains, Blood Wells, Fleshy Pods, etc, that we were talking about adding to the Oblivion world maps. If it's in the construction set with x,y coordinates I can map it now... so that opens up a lot of possibilities.
• I don't know what to do about creature ingredients. Of course, assembling a minimal text page on each creature ingredient is straightforward. I think doing something even more useful may be possible, though. For example, I put together a map of outdoor creatures. That info could be revamped into creature specific maps (perhaps colored according to the level at which you'll meet creatures, which has both a low end and a high end. Some creatures like imps actually become very rare at high levels, so a high-level character might want to know where imps are even possible). And symbols could be added for cave/ruin locations that may contain the creature. Even more food for thought.

I was thinking just taking on maps of all the plants was an overly ambitious project. Now I'm starting to realize that maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg....

Actually, with a lot of this stuff (especially ideas that involve maps other than all-of-Cyrodiil) a big chunk of the work is the map assembly. I can easily spit out colored dots and squares on a white background, but then putting that on top of a map takes work (getting the map, getting the scale and position right, labeling the map, etc). In other words, if anyone would enjoy working on adding information to any Oblivion-related maps, I'd be happy to provide sets of automatically-generated overlays that anyone with a graphics program could then add to existing maps.

In the meantime, I'll go back to impossible task #1: finishing the existing plant maps ;) --Nephele 13:27, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Shivering Wiki markup

Can you (or anyone else) include [[Shivering:|]] in the "Wiki markup" box that shows under the edit window? Thanks in advance. --GuildKnight (Talk) ^contribs 00:34, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Done. Thanks, by the way, for all the work you've been doing on the Shivering Isles pages. I'm trying to avoid reading too many of the Shivering pages since I'd like to be semi-unspoiled when I get a chance to play it. But let me know if there's anything else I can do to help... other than keep out of your way so I don't cause edit conflicts ;) --Nephele 00:40, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Thanks and You're Welcome. I was trying to avoid the spoilers, too, since I like to play through it VERY slowly, but I gave that up when I accidentally read this spoiler on the Jyggalag page when it was changed. Definitely avoid that page if you haven't read it yet. I noticed I haven't seen you much on the Shivering pages... I think they're coming along well. I've only been editing for 6 months, but wow! I'm amazed at how many people want to help out on the Shivering pages. Sure it's a lot of work going through everything and cleaning it up, but at least the info is there to begin with. Besides administrators and myself, we appear to have at least 5 new editors of good faith working diligently to add new info to the pages, and these aren't the ones that edit for a day or two and then stop. It isn't going to take long. --GuildKnight (Talk) ^contribs 01:28, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

The warning to avoid reading Jyggalag's page might be a bit too late, given that I just finished rewriting the page ;) But the "big" spoilers tend to bother me less than the smaller ones, i.e., how to solve a puzzle or what happens if I choose A instead of B during a quest. There definitely has been a huge increase in activity with people adding all the info to these pages. At some point I'll have to at least try to get caught up with the names of all the new editors.... At the moment it's all just overwhelming, since I'm trying to get caught up on the 1500 edits that happened while I took three days off to go skiing. --Nephele 01:39, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Sorry for the hijack, but I figured the topic was close enough. I always feel bad asking you things when your list is always so long, sometimes I wonder if you'll burst or something heinous. Anyways, can you or someone else make a Template:Shivering_Places_Summary, tried using the [[Template:Oblivion_Places_Summary|Oblivion]] one you made but it has the trail for Oblivion and the types are different and there's no stones, etc. I wanted to start updating some of the caves (or whatever they'd be called) pages, but I guess it can't be proper without a Template. I'd do it but I didn't know if I could or if it had to be proposed or anything, if not I'm up to it. Thanks ahead. P.S. I haven't beaten the Main Quest in Oblivion either. --AlbinoMudcrab 04:43, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

I might attempt it - I already recently modified the Oblivion template for Morrowind, shouldn't be too difficult. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:18, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

[[Template:Shivering_Places_Summary|Done]]. Try it out and see how it works, I don't know enough about Shivering Isles to really test it, so I'll need other people to help with that. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:29, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Ha, awesome, I'll take a look, try a few pages and let you know. I saw that you just did the Shivering Ingredients Link and I was gonna ask you originally last night, not sure why I didn't. I've been in the Isles for about 15 hours now and other than spending a lot of time getting to know New Sheoth, all I've done is walk the main road that circles the Isles three or four times just looking at the scenery. Thanks again Lurlock. Sorry about jackin' your page Nephele. --AlbinoMudcrab 17:43, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

No problem :) I'm glad Lurlock was able to take care of it for you. As with Lurlock, I'm also still a non-Shivering player, so I have no idea what types of places you need to create pages for (i.e., in Oblivion the "types" are Ayleid Ruin, Cave, Fort, Mine, Settlement), and whether there's any type of customized information that need to be added to any of those pages (i.e., Ayleid Ruins have Varla Stones and Welkynd Stones). Feel free to make up the "types" as you go. When you use the template you enter "|type=xxxx" to specify the type; you can replace xxxx with anything you want, and it will work. And if there is anything that you think needs to be added for some types of places, you know where to leave a request ;) --Nephele 17:59, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

One more thing... I changed the template so that the "/Directions" subpage is no longer needed. You can just put that same info into a parameter "|location=". The only reason to have the info in a subpage is if it's going to be accessed from anywhere else (i.e., if it was being shown by the "Places Link" template), but in Oblivion at least the /Directions subpage is basically obsolete. At one point it was used by other templates, but the /Description page took its place in all those other templates. So I think it would make more sense to use "|location=" in all SI pages instead of going to the trouble of creating more-difficult-to-access subpages. --Nephele 18:19, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, I added the /Directions thing on the Morrowind template, but then decided against it, mainly because the new Region/Coords thing makes the categories work better for the pages there. Didn't adjust the Shivering template to reflect that. Good catch on that one. Ultimately, I'd like to use the Coords field to link directly to a map page. (Presumably, we should be able to make an interactive SI map similar to the Oblivion Map at some point. I'd also like to get that for Morrowind if Daveh ever has the time to put it together. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure these things require more access than even us Admins have, so Daveh is the only one who can do it.) You might consider copying the Region/Coords thing on the Morrowind template to use for the Shivering one. That still allows the optional Location field, but if omitted, you can get a more specific coordinates location showing instead. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 11:06, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Alright, it seems to work perfectly to me, the location parameter will make it easier, especially if any newer editors want to use an already complete page as a guide for an incomplete page. The best info I can give you on the places is that the map symbols are the same as the Oblivion ones so it will be infinitesimally easier in the long run to just call them by the same names (Ayelid Ruin might be a problem though). I say it this way because the places look, feel, and are, a good bit different from the ones in Oblivion. Campsites are open walled huts now, or like the "cave" I just edited, they are more like tree trunks that protrude into the ground, the entrances look nothing like a cave in Cyrodiil, you walk down the trunk a little ways before reaching the door in as well. Inside looks somewhat like a cave with many new and different root structures and plants (ingredient wise, the Isles is unbelievable... Nephele :) ) and the old chests are gone and replaced with green glowing, vapor emitting 'Hollowed Tree Stumps'. There are new stone type chests that look like little coffins and all sorts of defensive plants that attack you when you go gander at them for ingredients, booby traps are pretty bad now too.

As far as Varla and Welkynd stones, they would now be replaced with the items Amber and Madness Ore I would think, although these seem to be random to me at this point. There are the even rarer matrices for the two, but these also seem to be random. There's going to be quite a few number of corrections for the Isles because of this as well, most all of the really rewarding items and collectibles (less quest rewards) seem to be very random. I've seen a lot of pages that will state you can find such-and-such rare item here or there but it was just by chance that the author found it, not intentional, rarities such as these can be found in generic containers, like barrels, and on everyday bandit types. Like I said I really haven't done anything progressive in the time I've been there, just enjoying that "feeling" all over again, sorry I'mma make you guys weep. But big thanks to both of you again. On a side note, how is the site holding up, there seem to be some major slow downs at busy times recently, just making sure we're all good. edit: just saw your post --AlbinoMudcrab 19:20, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Template issues

I'm having some minor issues with a template I've been working on, Template:Morrowind Places Summary, which is mostly based off of your Template:Oblivion Places Summary. First, the AddAbove/AddBelow things don't seem to do what I expected. (Looks like it just adds text above or below the chart, rather than as part of the chart.) I got around it in the one place I needed it Morrowind:Anudnabia, but I'd like to knowhow to do that properly if I need to later. Second, there's a minor issue with my new addition of "region" and "coords" fields, in the case of a few pages where the location is hiding inside another location. Morrowind:Assernerairan, Morrowind:Ibishammus, and Morrowind:Ihinipalit, all Daedric shrines underneath the city of Vivec. If you look at the /Description pages for each of these, you'll see what I'm going for. I'm thinking having a "location" field as optional in place of the "regions"/"coords" fields. The "regions" field might still be used for the category, but if the "location" exists, the region/coords shouldn't display, and location should display instead. (Sorry if you're busy, this is just a little too complex for my current skills. Just thought you might be able to throw something together.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 12:21, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

OK, I've added "location" and "extraloc" parameters that are used optionally, and updated Morrowind:Anudnabia. These will only work at the moment if the place actually uses the Morrowind Places Summary directly, which is probably how any page you want to update should use the summary. The only reason that Oblivion has pages like Oblivion Forts Summary is because originally there were completely separate summary templates for each place type, and I didn't want to have to go through and edit 100 place pages just to standardize the template. As for AddAbove/AddBelow, they're also somewhat of vestigial remnants at this point as well. They aren't meant to add info to the chart, just to the description section. I've got to run right now, but let me know if there's anything else. --Nephele 12:57, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Okay, one thing still missing from the Places Summary (which I did include in the Daedric Ruins et.al. templates) is the trail. Each type of location has a different trail, which needs to be covered by the summary. The 4 pages I mentionned in the previous posts are now missing their trails. Can you fix that? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 17:36, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Aha, I knew there had to be something I was missing ;) That seem to now be fixed. It means that for pages that are still using the templates like Morrowind Daedric Ruins Summary they officially have two bread crumb trails, but since they are superimposed right on top of each other, it won't mess up the page's appearance. The advantage of using Morrowind Places Summary directly all the time is that when new parameters are added to that template, all the front-end templates don't have to also be updated. Let me know if there's anything else that I broke while I was tinkering with your templates ;) --Nephele 17:47, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Okay, I ran into another doozy (seems inevitable when trying to make one template that does everything). Many Ancestral Tombs in Morrowind contain shrines, as I described on my new Morrowind:Shrines page. I'd like to include this in the template, and I set something up to do so, which works fine in most cases, see Morrowind:Andavel Ancestral Tomb. However (always there's got to be a "however"), there is one exception which will completely screw this up. The Morrowind:Helan Ancestral Tomb actually has TWO different shrines. The way the template works now, I don't see a way that I can indicate that there are two shrines in this tomb. It is the only tomb that has this problem, so I'm not sure if it's worth altering it for this one exception, but if there's any way to do so, I'd appreciate it. Also, if we could make the "Shrines" field not appear in tombs where there is none, that'd be a bonus, though I could probably figure that one out on my own with a few trials and errors... --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 22:12, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

The easiest way seems to me to have "shrines" only be used to provide a single shrine; I've now introduced a second parameter, "shrinesex" for the second shrine. (It might make more sense then for it just to be "shrine" instead of "shrines" but I didn't want to mess up any pages you'd already created). And I've made it so that Shrines doesn't appear if "shrines" is empty. Or at least in theory I've made these changes, now I have to go test them ;) --Nephele 22:22, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Alright, though I think I'll change the variable to one that doesn't sound like something that's really disrespectful to do in a shrine. :) Not too much of a problem with messing up already created pages. I've only used the "shrines" field once to test that it worked. I'm just getting the template ready for all the pages that will eventually need it. (I'm kinda hoping some other editors will catch on and help with this, it's kind of a big task for one person, especially since I don't have the CS at work, but I guess that's too much to ask, as everybody's going Shivering-Isles-crazy lately.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:48, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Oops, didn't notice the alternative meaning for that variable name ;) Definitely feel free to rename any variables as you see fit --Nephele 23:51, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Editing Problems

the mentor list said you were the one to talk to about wiki, so maybe u can fix my problem

i tried to make a test edit, but it messed up the main page, now i cant fix it because i didn't save a copy of the source code before i messed with it

is there any way to fix the site?

im really sorry :( — Unsigned comment by 195.175.37.70 (talk)

The pages you broke have all been fixed. On every article there is a "history" tab that lists every version of the article that has ever existed, so it is always easy to find any text that has been deleted. I'm glad you found our Sandbox; you may want to practice editing some more there. Some other tips:

• Read Help:Editing Pages and some of the other Help pages for more information on how to edit
• When you edit a page do not delete all the existing text that shows up in the edit box. Anything you delete will be deleted from the page.
• Use the "Show preview" button. That will show you what your edit will look like but without messing up the page. Make sure that the preview is what you really want before hitting "Save page"

Feel free to ask if you have any more questions (although I can't help too much if I'm asleep at the time!) --Nephele^Talk 10:53, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

That Anonymous User

Did you notice how he/she changed Oblivion:Glitches/Proposed in their User talk:200.238.102.162 rendition? I also think that we're dealing with a proxy user, after tracing the IPs.-Ratwar 11:04, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Yep, I noticed that edit, which was a key piece of evidence in proving that this user is vandalizing the site and not just using a screwy editor. And I don't like the pattern with IP addresses, either: Brazil, Korea, Japan. --Nephele^Talk 11:07, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

You can add Taiwan to that list, see User talk:163.18.31.224. Think we should extend the blocks that you issued? I mean, considering that he's been changing IP addresses even without being block, I'm not sure that it'll do much good, but hopefully it'll at least force him to keep changing IPs. Of course, if he's looking for attention, blocking him will only make him more interested.--Ratwar 17:41, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Dict Entry template

Just noticed that the change you made to the Dict Entry template basically made my change useless. Try this: go to [[Tamriel:Dictionary D]]. Now try editting a section. You get nothing but blank. Is there a way to make this work properly? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:08, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Umm, no, my change didn't do that. I just went back to your version and the same thing happens. Now that I think about it, I've noticed that problem with other templates that create a header. It's likely to be that the software can't figure out what to do if the section break is in the middle of a template: it doesn't know where on the page to split the sections. In other words, I doubt there is a way to have the template automatically create a header with a functional edit button. I'm going to change the template again to my most recent version so that at least the crosslinks work. I don't know what to do about the edit button. --Nephele^Talk 12:21, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

In the version prior to my changes, there WERE no section-[edit] buttons. If you wanted to edit a single entry, you had to edit the whole page and scroll down to find it. That was what I was attempting to change, apparently unsuccessfully. Might it be a better idea to just leave the headers entirely out of the template? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:48, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

One possibility is to break it into two templates, so the dictionary entry would then look like:

====={{Dict Title|word=xxx|pron=xxx}}=====
 {{Dict Entry
 |type=
 |defn=
 }}
 

I think that would work for the edit buttons, because now the "=====" are not in a template. And that would still allow for the pronunciation to be shown as part of the title and for the links to work. It's obviously a bit more complicated, but hopefully not too much so. Should I give that a try? While in transition, the pages may look a bit ugly, but it shouldn't take too long. --Nephele^Talk 16:05, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

To edit it, I just used the edit tab at the top of the page, it works fine like that. Your is better though though, so are we using the new template or the old one? -Lordsword 8 06:17, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

I'd say go with the new 2-template method. There's always the chance somebody would want to edit one of the definitions after the fact, and it's nice to give them that option. (Especially on pages with a lot of definitions, like 'S'.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:33, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, if everyone likes how the two template option works (the first four entries on [[Tamriel:Dictionary D]] demonstrate it working), then I'd say that's how we should proceed. (Although I set up so that for now the existing style will work the same way it always did, so at the moment either can be used). At some point in the next couple days I'll clean up the existing pages, update the style guide page, and all that other good stuff. Thanks for noticing the template change, Lordsword 8, and asking about it! --Nephele^Talk 12:44, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

No problem :). Ill reformat in the new style then. -Lordsword 8 12:54, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Vandal

It seems that the vandal is using open proxies, so I don't think William Mauco is likely to be doing this. In that case, it doesn't look like we'll be able to predict any future IPs he might use. I had a similar problem with a vandal using proxies to attack my talk page, and all I could really do was wait it out until he got bored. Nufy8 12:18, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

OK, waiting for him to get bored is pretty much plan A at this point. Thanks for looking in to that so quickly! (And what a pleasant scrapbook you've got there! I'm nowhere near conscientious enough to keep records of the nasty things that have been posted on my talk page.) --Nephele^Talk 12:26, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

enchanted weapons spell stacking?

Hi Nephele

Just a quick question, if you enchant a weapon with Weakness to Magic and Weakness to (Fire/Frost/Shock) Damage and (Fire/Frost/Shock) Damage will the weaknesses stack of is it like doing the same thing with a spell? There are a few places on the wiki where it states that enchanting a weapon in such a way will stack on top of each other but I'm not certain that it would.

Thanks Grandmaster z0b 22:44, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

My first guess would be that it wouldn't stack, at least not in the exponential sense of the real spell stacking exploit. For that kind of spell stacking you need to alternate between two different spells. If you just keep casting the same spell, the new weakness effects replace the previous ones instead of being altered by them. (I know I occasionally forget that spell stacking requires alternating spells, so I may have disagreed with myself in some comments I've made).

So I would guess that with a weapon it works the same way. As long as you just keep hitting the enemy with the same weapon, the effects will replace the previous effects instead of stacking with them. If you had two different weapons with similar enchantments and alternated back and forth between them, then you might start to get some stacking. But I haven't tested this myself at all. --Nephele^Talk 23:04, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Is there anyway to test this? Grandmaster z0b 23:19, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

One way would be to use the console command tdt (see SetDebugText and TESCSWiki's page) to monitor an enemy's statistics, then spend some time hitting them. Screen 8 of tdt says that it lists active effects, so you'd be able to see exactly what strength weakness effects the enemy has, and see whether the numbers go up or just stay constant. It would probably work best if the difficulty was set to maximum (so they would survive multiple hits) and you used tgm (so the enemy doesn't kill you while you're experimenting on them). I'd say you'd want to try to get in at least 4 hits in a row to clearly see what happens (I could imagine some interactions on the first couple hits, so weakness values might go up, but then after that they'd stay constant unless there's real stacking taking place).

That's a pretty brief summary of how to possibly test it; I know I left out a lot of the details. If you'd like to give it a try and need more information, just ask! --Nephele^Talk 23:29, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Yet another crazy template issue...

Okay, so after seriously over-taxing the server changing the Race Color and Race Color FC templates to make the Dunmer more easily distinguishable from the Other races, I've now run into a problem. Since you only check for the first three letters of the race field, "Dark Seducers" are now using the same color-scheme as "Dark Elves". Not wanting to experiment too much with this, since every minor change takes about 7 minutes to load and makes the server completely non-responsive until it's finished, I thought I'd hand it over to you. Any ideas how to make Dark Seducers use the "Other" coloring? (I think we've been pretty consistant with using "Dunmer" rather than "Dark Elf" for the NPC pages, so it might work to simply remove that option, but I'll let you be the judge of that.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:23, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

So you noticed that the server ground to a halt for a few minutes there? Given that the CPU usage went up (I noticed 5% load when I bothered to check, and I've never seen a value above 1% before) I think those edits were a bit hard for the server to digest :)

Another option would be to make the NPC Template use "racecat" first, then "race" for the color. Oh, except you're not using "Other" for the Dark Seducers' "racecat"... you've set up a "Dark Seducer" category. So maybe taking out "Dark Elf" would be the best option. I'm pretty sure everything that's been set up so far is using "Dunmer", I only put the alternate names in as a "just in case" feature.

Or we could confuse everyone by using "Mazken" and "Aureal" for the seducers and the saints ;)

I'd say it's your call. If you'd like to take out "dar" in the template, that works for me. --Nephele^Talk 00:49, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, I created new categories for them because there seemed to be enough of each to make it necessary. Would like to expand on their pages to include some actual stats on them, much like we still eventually need to do for the Dremora page. So for now, the only things included in "Other" are Sheogorath himself and all the Dremora. (Though Saints and Seducers are included as sub-cats under Other.) I'm thinking that any creatures that you can talk to should be added, even though they're implemented as creatures. This would include Umaril the Unfeathered from KotN, as well as a bunch from Morrowind, a few Dremora (which were creatures back then), a Dwemer, some Ghosts, and various assorted deities. Can't think of any other Oblivion examples off-hand. In fact, I'm not sure it's even possible to make a creature you can talk to in Oblivion's engine. (Even friendly ghosts are implemented as NPCs with Chameleon effects, unlike Morrowind's.) I'd say we should remove the "dar" option, and maybe the "woo" and "hig" while we're at it, because I'm pretty sure none are being used. However, it might be wise to wait until Daveh upgrades the server? (Also considering the possibility of giving Saints and Seducers their own colors. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 01:16, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

If you're thinking about adding a couple new colors, I'd say we should wait and do everything at once... removing "dar" doesn't seem at the moment to be an urgently needed fix. But we don't need to wait for an upgrade, I'd say just wait for a quiet time of day (like about now). --Nephele^Talk 02:12, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

About the server/CPU load on the server-status page, it took me a while to figure out how to read it. For example,

   CPU Usage: u30.61 s3.17 cu0 cs0 - .086% CPU load

means that user services (web server, database, etc...) are at 30.61% of the CPU, system services are at 3.17%. Not sure what cu/cs are (usually 0 anyways) and the given CPU load does not match the actual CPU load given by top (it says 0.086% when top gives around 1.2).

I've noticed that average CPU uses have been creeping up and average 30-40% which the odd peak in the 80-90% range. Changing a widely used template causes the cache for all pages using it to be invalidated and thus a large increase in CPU. I'm looking into a server upgrade in the near future (probably mid-May) which give us a dual-core CPU and thus much more room to grow.

Btw, if you are doing a large template change it helps to do it early in the mornings (mornings EST/PST anyways) as traffic is about half of what it is during peak times in the evenings EST/PST. -- Daveh 09:25, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Blanking Daedric Quests...

Not sure if you noticed, but the Daedric Quest blanking you reverted is the second time today that has happened. You might want to check out 75.109.3.133 and see if it's connected with 203.173.190.240 which you reverted. Pretty weird coincidence if two people independantly chose to blank the same page on the same day... --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 22:06, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

There's no obvious connection: one is from Texas, the other is from New Zealand. And neither IP address is connected to any UESP user. I agree it seems like more than a coincidence, but I don't think there's too much else that can be done, especially since neither edit is being treated as vandalism at this point. --Nephele^Talk 18:15, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

NPC Summary

I went ahead and created Morrowind:Masalinie Merian anyhow, complete with the fields for her Transport services already entered, though they don't do anything yet, of course. If you want to use her page as a guinnea-pig for template changes, however, it's available. Just thought I'd let you know. I'm going out for a bit, so I won't be contactable for several hours. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 12:39, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

Just in case you hadn't already noticed (or really more just to make it obvious to any one else that I hadn't ignored the request), the Template:NPC Summary was updated with the transport services, and Masalinie's page seemed to be working properly with the new tags. --Nephele^Talk 18:12, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

I saw that, thanks. Probably won't get around to the other Transport providers for a while, since I'm working on spell merchants now. (Masalinie just happens to be the only NPC who is both.) But it looks like it works for now. I'll let you know if the Caravaner and Shipmaster ones cause any problems when I get to them but I doubt it'll be a problem. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 18:25, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

Armand Christophe

Listen I don't mean to come off as mean but I am like 99% sure he is an Imperial his face looks red because the torch illuminates his face.— Unsigned comment by Dienerandamovie (talk • contribs)

It's not just the lighting... that is how is face always looks. And I am 100% sure that he is a Redguard, and I am 100% sure that many other editors on UESP will also confirm that he is a Redguard. There are much more conclusive ways to determine character information than your impressions of the character's information, such as the game's construction set. Information posted on this site is verified using the construction set to ensure that it is accurate. --Nephele^Talk 04:02, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

I know how to use a wiki

It's not hard to use a sticky you go to a page hit edit then start typing not hard to do so I don't need any getting started tutorial. — Unsigned comment by Dienerandamovie (talk • contribs)

What now?

This discussion has been moved to UESPWiki Talk:Oblivion Places Redesign Project#Initial Ideas

Don't post my ip on the web

Don't post my ip on the internet like that. I would like to remind you it is a crime to post someones ip like punishable by a fine so stop posting my ip on the web ok I will stop editing the armand christophe section even though I am right and you are wrong and please stop following me around maliciously changing me posts its immature and real dumb to do. — Unsigned comment by Dienerandamovie (talk • contribs)

By editing the page you are authorizing the use of your IP to identify your edits. It is neither malicious, immature, nor dumb to revert an edit that is incorrect. And by the way, you are claiming that Bethesda is wrong, not Nephele. She is using information provided by Bethesda. This site prefers information that is correct according to the construction set. It would probably be a good idea for you to look into the policies and expectations of a site before you start editing; it may help avoid misunderstandings on your part. --GuildKnight (Talk) ^contribs 19:48, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Also, you are the one who pretty clearly announced your IP address with the series of edits that you did ([1], [2]). If you had not made those edits, there would have been no need to confirm your IP address, and I would not have made public the results of the Checkuser test. But your actions necessitated a confirmation of your IP so that other administrators could act appropriately, which is fully consistent with policies such as Wikipedia's: "Where the user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP blocks." In short, if you don't want your IP information to be released, don't make disruptive edits using that IP address. --Nephele^Talk 18:03, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

Communit Portal Cleaning

Hey, can I volunteer you to do some archiving on the Community Portal? We're about due... I'd do it myself, but I'm swamped. (And you of course, are not! JK.) --Wrye 02:18, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

OK, some archiving done :) As always, it's still not exactly a short page, but there are bunch of topics that are active or too recent IMO to even be moved to some of the major discussion subpages. I'll try to remember to follow up in a week or so on some of the topics that can be subpaged (assuming there aren't too many new developments). --Nephele^Talk 17:52, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm sorry.

It's just that in Chorrol, I steal the chapel's key to the undercroft and it still says I need a key. Then in the quest of killing Black Brugo, he never shows up. Did he go through a wall or somethin'? I've waited from midnight to 6am on Middas on all accounts even on days 24 hours before and after within Middas. Either someone help me or Bethesda needs to learn not to make a game where it cheats you from your work. — Unsigned comment by 68.97.4.44 (talk)

I don't know about Black Brugo offhand. A couple other players have reported problems with finding him, you might want to try searching between Telepe and Border Watch (see Oblivion talk:Knights of the White Stallion (quest)#Brugo doesn't care). Also, you might want to try seeing what happens if Mazoga comes with you to Telepe (although the quest guide says you don't need her, some of the scripts suggest otherwise; I know I did the quest with Mazoga and didn't have problems). But make sure Mazoga doesn't die, because her death will disable Black Brugo and guarantee that he never shows up.

As for Chorrol, the undercroft is part of a quest (Oblivion:The Assassinated Man) and can't be entered until you start the quest, whether or not you get a key (so that you don't enter there ahead of time and glitch the quest). --Nephele^Talk 11:13, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Yet another tamplate issue...

Im trying to add an optional image to a template for the flora section, but am having dificulty. Would you have a look at it please? Its at Flora Entry. Thanks -Lordsword 8 14:46, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Nice work on putting together some templates... not too many people have been brave enough to try starting new templates from scratch! I tweaked your Flora Entry template to get the image to work.

The main problem you were having is that trying to do tables (i.e., {| .... |}) within template commands (like {{#if...}}) is extra tricky, because any pipe symbols (|) are interpreted as being part of the template command (used to split the template command into pieces), not part of the table. So

{{#if:{{{filename|}}}|{|style=float:right|-valign=top|[[image:{{{filename}}}|100px|thumb]]|}}

gets broken up by the parser as

1. {{{filename|}}} is the argument to check, which is what you want
2. { is taken to be the chunk that gets done if the argument is true
3. style=float:right is taken to be the chunk that gets done if the argument is false
4. the rest, up to }} is taken to be extra stuff that the if command didn't expect and doesn't know what to with, i.e., it gets ignored

Basically, to do tables within a template command you need to use a cheat to insert any pipe symbols, which is to instead insert {{!}} (i.e., use the Template:!). If that explanation doesn't make any sense, the bottom line is to avoid mixing tables and templates ;) And luckily in this case you don't need to have a table to do what you want; the image thumbnail by itself will float to the right, as long as you use |right. And BTW, wikimedia is the best place to check for documentation on these commands, i.e., if function.

I also made a couple other tweaks while I was in "under the hood" of your template. I changed the parameter from "filename" to "image", just because that's what's been used in almost all other UESP templates that use images (and added "imgdesc" for the same reason). And I added the {{NewLine}} tag at the end of the template: this will fix the problems with the images overlapping. When you add NewLine, it forces anything that follows to be placed after (instead of next to) any floating images, tables, or sections. I added that to Tamriel:Flora_F, too. It adds a bit of extra empty space on the page, but presumably the entries will eventually have a bit more content :)

Thanks, too, for adding some images of the plants. A couple suggestions, though, to consider if you're taking any new screen shots. Screenshots look much better if there's a lot of light... if you're outside, it's best to wait until daytime to take the shots. Also, you can turn off all of your character info, which makes for fewer distractions in the image; just use the console and type tm (and do it again to get your menus back again afterwards). There are a few more tips about screenshots at Help:Images#Tips.

Thanks for all the great work you're doing. You know where to ask if there are any more questions that come up :) --Nephele^Talk 18:40, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Error messages

Don't know if it matters much, but I've run across a couple odd error messages in your User:Nephele/Sandbox/4 page. Under the names Erer Darothril, Solea Nuccusius, and Tinaso Alan, there's a couple lines that say:

Use of uninitialized value in substitution iterator at /u/katja/temp/oblcs/npc_mw line 294.

I've just been deleting these when I see them, but I'm wondering if these represent some sort of important information that's missing from the data? Might also help to know what's causing this if you end up using this same script on any other groups of NPCs. (By the way, thank you so much for doing these. This saves me SO much time on these, all I have to look up now is what they sell and if they're important for quests.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:30, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Oops... I didn't notice those error messages before ;) Tracked down the problem, and even though the error messages are showing up in Sandbox/4, the missing info is in User:Nephele/Sandbox/6. Each of those NPCs has a Drain Skill spell, and the error message is coming up when my script tries to fill in the correct skill (because it's accidentally trying to fill in an attribute instead of a skill). The result is that a spell like "Scourge Blade" right now is missing the name of the skills that get drained. I'll get it fixed for any future uses.

I'm glad you're finding the info useful... although I'm also a bit fearful of what I've gotten myself into now ;) But really, if you think I can generate any similar info in the future and save you some time, let me know. I'm already basically set up to do all the MW, BM, and TR NPCs... which should keep you busy for quite a while! --Nephele^Talk 00:52, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Ah, I noticed the missing skills on the Sandbox/6 page when I went through cleaning it up earlier today. Didn't make the connection between the names at the time. At any rate, Sandbox/6 has now been corrected in this respect, so the information shouldn't be missing anymore. (And now that I look, it seems that Scourge Blade is in fact the ONLY Drain Skill spell in the game. Might be worth noting somewhere.) At any rate, I've got my plate full finishing these spell merchants, so you're off the hook for at least a couple days... ;)

(Oh, actually, I'm wrong, Solea does have three other Drain Skill spells. Never mind, then. Does still seem to be pretty rare, though.)

--TheRealLurlock ^Talk 01:16, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Knights of the Nine

I recently downloaded and completed the Knights of the Nine official mod and it was great. I finished the raid on Garlas Malatar and lost one Knight. He was replaced by the nameless "Knight of the Nine" as was promised on the page here. Does this knight ever change? For me he is a Dark Elf and his face matches his chainmail and it bothers me. I have shown him the minotours at Hircine grove and Dive Rock several times and looted anything of value but he keeps coming back the same. I use the 360 and can't access the console, but can I get a new Knight? Grub 09:56, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Each of the original knights has one specific replacement knight. So when Lathon dies he is always replaced by NDKnight7Generic, who is a dark elf and is always wearing chainmail. About the only other alternative I can think of is to reverse pickpocket some permanent bound armor onto the generic knight: then you can get him to wear daedric armor instead of chainmail which might be less annoying. --Nephele^Talk 12:39, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Pretty Boxes

Ello, Nephele! Just wondering if the boxes (i.e.:this user is knowledgable about Oblivion) you have on your user page are something you created yourself or not (I don't want to just swipe them off your page w/o asking), but I was wondering if I could use a few. It seems like I've seen them somewhere before, but I can't remember. Anyway, are there any other ones that I could take a look at? --Werdnanoslen^Talk 12:15, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

They're available for everyone to use and add to their user pages. Lurlock has been setting them up: see UESPWiki:Community_Portal#Userboxes and UESPWiki:Userboxes for what's been created and how to customize others if you want to. --Nephele^Talk 12:28, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Ok, thanks. --Werdnanoslen^Talk 12:32, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

One more thing, how can I make three templates (all arranged horizontally at the top of my userpage) centered? I've tried float:center and <center></center>, but to no avail (stays on the left). --Werdnanoslen^Talk 13:13, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Don't you know it's too early in the morning for such a challenging question? :) After fiddling a bunch, I was able to find a way to do it, using a table with align=center instead of a div:

This user is a Recent Changes Patroller. This user is knowledgeable about Morrowind. This user is knowledgeable about Oblivion.

--Nephele^Talk 13:35, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Thank you very much, and sorry for giving you so much weekend-morning work w/o some coffee :X. --Werdnanoslen^Talk 13:44, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Hi there!

Thanks for helping make me feel welcome. When people do something nice for me, I like to "pay it backward" by offering them another opportunity to be nice. Could you look at what I wrote [[3]here] (can't make a stupid link work, so tired) and offer your two cents sometime?

My next request...

Well, I'm probably going to finish up the Morrowind spell merchants today. Just thought I'd put in a request for the next set of NPCs I'd like to deal with - restocking alchemy vendors. The easiest thing would be to just get everybody who has the "Ingredients" flag checked under their services. Granted, half of these may not actually have any ingredients for sale, but unless you can figure out how to access their inventories via scripts and figure out if they have any ingredients in negative quantities, that may be the only option. I've been entering them as I come across them, as many of them are also spell merchants. My plan is to make a page listing all the restocking vendors, along with what ingredients they carry. (It's far less random than Oblivion.) Additionally, I may at some point start making individual ingredient pages as you've been doing for Oblivion (my use of the Template:MW Ingredients Link should make all those links automatically go to the pages once they exist), and among the information listed would be which vendors keep a restocking supply. Anyhow, whenever you feel like it, I'll find something else to do if you don't.

Incidentally, you really should try getting into Morrowind one of these days. Would be good to have somebody with an analytical mindset and seemingly inexhaustable patience do some testing for how some of the stuff works in that game. Morrowind alchemy has a lot of quirks that are different from Oblivion, so it'd be interesting to see how everything works out mathematically. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:24, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Yep, someday I'll start playing Morrowind... but I figure I should at least finish the Oblivion quests first (so I can actually do patrolling on all the DB and Thieves Guild quests). So it might still be a while :)

Three questions for the next batch of NPCs:

• Do you just want Morrowind, or do you want Tribunal and Bloodmoon too?

• Hmm, I should probably do the Tribunal and Bloodmoon spell merchants as well at some point. Well, you can if it's not too difficult, just so long as they're clearly labeled as such.

• Do you want NPCs who are in Hoggwild's lists of unimportant NPCs? (The only ingredient seller who's showing up there is Abelle Chriditte, on User:Hoggwild5/Sandbox2#Valenvaryon)

• Well, Abelle Chriditte is the Master Trainer for Alchemy, so she definitely should not be on the "unimportant" list. So, I'd say, yeah, include those names as well - it's quite likely she missed some others that are important. (I've found a couple myself.) I think the unimportant list should include only people who do not provide any services and are not involved in any quests. I'm not sure what criteria she used to put that list together, but if it missed a Master Trainer, it probably needs to be reconsidered.

• Do you want autocalc NPCs? I haven't figured out how stats are autocalc'ed yet, so I'm not filling in training, health, or magicka for those NPCs. By the time you get through all the other NPCs I may be able to work out how the calculations are done. Or you can just look up those values and manually add them in. (It looks like for NPCs-with-ingredients I'm getting only 9 autocalcs, and 131 with full info).

• Yes, autocalcs should be included as well. To figure out how the autocalcs work, look at the settings for that NPC's Class. This is where all the default service settings are listed, which are used by all autocalc NPCs with that class.

Let me know, and then I'll post them :) --Nephele^Talk 13:53, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Answers in-line above. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 14:13, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

158 new NPCs for you to work on ;) I added in the spell merchants from Tribunal and Bloodmoon while I was at it.

For the autocalcs, I've been using the class info for all the service settings. The problem is just knowing how to calculate their statistics (health, magicka, skill scores to figure out training). Although in the CS it shows you those values, just grayed out, I'm reading in directly from the .esm files, which don't actually contain any of those numbers. I can think of at least one way to get the data, I just haven't followed through on it yet. Perhaps by the time you get done with this batch, I'll add that in (because overall more than half of the NPCs are autocalc'ed). --Nephele^Talk 15:25, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, there's a good chance that I'll only be doing about half of those, because they don't all sell ingredients even if they will buy them. (Mainly because they don't have any.) Incidentally, could you get me a just a straight list (with links) somewhere of all NPCs which buy ingredients? I mean, including the ones who are also spell merchants, that I've already done. I want to have one centralized list that I can check off names on for when I start making the restocking vendors page. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 19:21, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Done: User:Nephele/Sandbox/6#Ingredient Merchants. --Nephele^Talk 20:06, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Perfect. Now just one thing - it seems that there's only ONE spell merchant in all of Bloodmoon? That's going to be a little bit weird, because now the NPC Summary is going to create a link to Bloodmoon:Spell Merchants, a page which at most would be a glorified redirect to Mirisa's page, since she's the only one. Additionally, she'd have the Bloodmoon-Spell Merchants category all to herself as well. The Tribunal spell merchants aren't much better off - only three of them. I'm wondering if it would be better to list these on a seperate section of Morrowind:Spell Merchants, and have them included in the MW categories as well? Only we'd have to change how all the Tribunal and Bloodmoon NPCs worked in order to do that. (And possibly Shivering Isles, too.) Maybe it'd be simpler to just leave off these specific trails and categories for expansion NPCs. Or just live with red-links or nearly-empty categories? I don't know what to do about this one. A strange situation it is. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:08, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, I don't know what's the best thing to do about that. It seems like perhaps for consistency there should be Spell Merchants categories and pages for expansions: if that's where readers are used to looking for that information, not having the pages there could be confusing. In that case, maybe Bloodmoon:Spell_Merchants should just be a redirect to Mirisa (with a statement near the top of her page that she's the only spell merchant in BM). The "Spell Merchants" part of the bread-crumb trail would be somewhat useless, but I think it's better to have not-so-useful information in the locations where readers are used to looking for it than to have it disappear with no explanation. --Nephele^Talk 23:37, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Your little vandal...

Can you check User:69.144.88.164 against the several vandal sockpuppets you banned earlier today? Looks like the same M.O. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:00, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

He's definitely obsessed with the same lame insult, but hard to say much more than that. He's using a new IP each time (the earlier IPs have each been autoblocked when the user account is blocked). --Nephele^Talk 23:20, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

shum gro-yarug

Nephele; I'm sure you are aware of the tendency for the skingrad butler, shum gro-yarug, to fall off of the skingrad castle bridge and die before players utilize him to buy a house in skingrad. I was wondering if there is a way to transfer a save from the xbox onto the pc where you could respawn him and then transfer save back to the xbox? If the aforementioned is possible, could you tell me how to do this? — Unsigned comment by 68.81.188.162 (talk)

The short answer is it's not possible. You could transfer a save from the Xbox to the PC but as soon as you make any changes to the save file it becomes impossible to transfer it back to the Xbox, because the Xbox security layers can't be recreated. --Nephele^Talk 23:22, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

HALP!

Something odd happened to my userpage...can you check it out, maybe fix it, maybe fnd out what happened? Thanks, luff.Somercy 13:02, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

I fixed it. You can't indent Userboxes. Let me know if you want to arrange them some other way. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:16, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Hame Welkynd Stones

The change you reverted on Hame's stones was based on a conversation on my talk page, where it seemed that while 10 stones show in the CS, only 9 are accessible, since one is outside the map. So while there may technically be 25 stones, only 24 are available to the player for all practical purposes. Unless you know of some way to get that last one legitimately? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 11:17, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

No, I was unaware of any disucssion on your user page. I reverted based on the construction set and the fact that no reason was given for the original edit, either in the edit summary or at the time on the talk page. --Nephele^Talk 11:21, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

Another template request...

Yeah, I'm loading you down with these, huh? Well, this one shouldn't be too hard. I need a few changes to the Template:Ingredient Summary. See my first attempt at using it on Morrowind:Alit Hide. Two changes I'd like to see, first: if |harvest= is given for a creature-derived ingredient, it should show the same as it does for a plant. This was not an issue in Oblivion, but it is in Morrowind. Of course, if no |harvest= is given, it should still fill all 3 columns. The other change I'd like is the ability to have an image icon appear in the template header. At least for Morrowind, these images all exist on the site. (Though they're from the old site, and thus not uploaded properly to be used with wiki-markup. May have to change that.) We might consider uploading icons for Oblivion ingredients as well, so this could be used for both. As it is, I just put the icon in the corner. (since it's really hard to position non-wiki-images.) Obviously, this is less than satisfactory, but it's all I can do right now. Let me know if there's any problems with this. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 14:40, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Okay, I added the pictures on my own. The other part is a little more complicated, so I'll let you take a look at it. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 22:38, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Looks like |harvest= is now working for creatures. I should have a bit more time for wiki stuff in the next few days so I'll try to look into the birthday template then. --Nephele^Talk 00:56, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, seems to be working. No rush on that birthday-thing, that was just a whim I had. I did search a bit, and surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn't seem to have anything like it so far, though there are Userboxes that show the current date or time in them. Maybe if we get it to work, we could give it to Wikipedia too - I'm sure it'd be pretty popular. But obviously, it's a low priority. (For me, anyhow - I've got another 11½ months before my next...) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:06, 30 April 2007 (EDT)