Skill rune sections

[Risingred]

How do you guys want to handle this?

I thought maybe we could use a gallery of the shots below the description, as I did with weapon throw.

http://diablowiki.net/Weapon_Throw

But since it is five entries and not four, there's a lot of black space in the second row of the gallery.

[Flux]

I've given that thought, over the months. Since they've been making clear how massive and important the skill rune changes would be. I have a huge working list of item section navigation issues, which I'll try to figure out as I continue updating the pages with more info, post blizzcon.

I don't think a text page can adequately cover the full stats of any skill, not with 5 rune types x 7 rune levels x all the modifications from Clvl, attributes, traits, weapons, etc. It'll take damage calculators, which won't exist until the game's out.

What people want now and going forward is info about what the skills do, what the runes will do in them, and images, if possible. Actual stats and figures are irrelevant until we know them in context anyway.

For now, runestone modification info will go on the individual skill pages. Much as you did it on Weapon Throw. Hopefully we'll get better pics over time, and we'll also be picking them out of screenshots and gameplay videos from here on.

The main Runestones page is now kind of a mess of archived stuff. I'll streamline it in the days to come, when I add in a bunch of new blizzcon info. In theory, that page is just basic runestone info, with a few examples listed and links to skill pages that have good runestone info on them.

The 5 individual rune pages are tiny now, since we didn't know enough pre-blizzcon. Those will be increased in size, with more basic info about that rune's bonus, an example or 2, and links to skill pages that show that rune off.

Ultimately, the navigation might become a lot more complicated. Perhaps 5 subpages for every skill, showing off the rune effects? That could easily get into text overload though, so we'll have to see what kind of drop down/expanded nav can be done, once the game's out and we can tap into the engine to automate things. That's how most of the WoW wikis do it; they're running programs that actually pull the info from the game files themselves, thus displaying in cool pop up boxes and such. Doing that for D3 at this point would be impossible, though. Even if you had the programming chops to set it up, you don't have the detailed info to display.

[Flux]

I thought maybe we could use a gallery of the shots below the description, as I did with weapon throw.

http://diablowiki.net/Weapon_Throw

But since it is five entries and not four, there's a lot of black space in the second row of the gallery.


The images are pretty small and dark, too. When I have time I'll combine them all into one or two larger images. Ideally visitors can see the cool images on wiki pages without having to click thumbnails to do so. In my wiki page theory, the galleries on pages are meant as collection/collation; kind of bonus info.

[Risingred]

The images are pretty small and dark, too. When I have time I'll combine them all into one or two larger images. Ideally visitors can see the cool images on wiki pages without having to click thumbnails to do so. In my wiki page theory, the galleries on pages are meant as collection/collation; kind of bonus info.

Yeah, that sounds good. They're shots that Elly took for part of her really well-done transcript from the gameplay panel.

I'll keep that in mind for further wiki'ing. I have a project (http://www.diablowiki.net/Bastion's_Keep) that I should be able to complete tonight. I have a lot of images to go with it but there's a ton of text, too.

An entirely different page for in-depth information for the skill runes sounds smart, even though (in a technical document) it is often bad to sever information into various sources. There'd just be too much text and image real-estate on the page for the skill itself that it would really detract from the usability of the entire page overall. Good call.

I was going to edit that second-to-last sentence but I gave up before I began.

[Flux]

I went over all of the WD skills and put in the correct navigation and updated their Tier info. While I was there, I also put in some skill synergy and runestone info, where it was to be put. About the most synergies are on Mongrel.

http://www.diablowiki.net/Summon_Zombie_Dog#Synergies

If anyone gets the time/energy/ambition to do that sort of thing for the other classes, it would be great. It's easy enough to do; just skim over the class traits page and then stick in the few (if any) that are directly relevant to each skill.

Perhaps long term a more definitive listing would be useful, General Synergies and Specific Synergies, or something. i.e. the WD has several traits that boost dmg to all undead, or demon, or beast. Or traits that boost spell dmg with staves or 1H weapons. Those would be listed on the appropriate skills (basically all that are attack) but the more specific synergies would be those that directly affect a given skill. Like the ones listed for Mongrel.

Cross listing would be good also, eventually. On the individaul traits pages, add a listing of skills that trait directly and indirectly affects.

So many things to do...

[Risingred]

Saw the front page stuff that you did with the WD, and I can try to get some loving to the wizard later tonight, time allowing.

[MrFrye]

I've given that thought, over the months. Since they've been making clear how massive and important the skill rune changes would be. I have a huge working list of item section navigation issues, which I'll try to figure out as I continue updating the pages with more info, post blizzcon.

Ultimately, the navigation might become a lot more complicated. Perhaps 5 subpages for every skill, showing off the rune effects?

I've got some thoughts on the skill page issue:

First, I think one sub-page for each skill would be sufficient for the skill calculators. True, 36 tables (5*7 + one for unruned) is a lot, but possibly workable, as long as nothing else is on the page (except maybe a reiteration of trait synergies and a media section).

Secondly, and more radically, here's my conception of a skills page. I hope you like at least some of these ideas.



Short skill description. The info currently provided in the Background section would be included here, because these sections are kinda redundant.

Skill Design
Long skill description, including (eventually) the relevant manual quote.

Skill Rune Effects
This would have 6 sub-sections, one for unruned and one for each rune. Maybe just 2 or 3 lines each describing the effects and rank progression, with links to the page of tables described above. Also, a fairly small (maybe 175 wide) image for each version of the skill. The idea here is to put the info most people are going to be looking for as close to the top as possible.

Trait Synergies
An excellent idea from Flux. Wouldn't change a thing. Well, except for the title, but that's just so D2 players don't confuse it with skill synergies. Because people are easily confused. As I'm sure you know.

Development and Media
Don't have much to say here, just that Development is where I'd put all the Blue quotes and fun historical bits.

The main thing I'm concerned about is the skillbox fighting for real estate with some of the sections and creating some ugly layouts. Not sure what to do about that. Maybe add more content to the Skill Design section? Or here's a thought for a slight variation of the above: keep the Skill Effects and Skill Rune Effects separate, but still next to each other.

Anyway, those are my ideas. For the record, I don't mind helping out here; I just didn't want to jump in making radical changes to a big chunk of the wiki without your approval. With me being the new guy and all.

Besides, you said you've been thinking about this for a while; I'm sure you have some good ideas of your own. In any case, I'm willing to help. Just let me know what you think.

--XOXOXO MrFrye (formerly Dragonfriend)

[MrFrye]

You know, the more I look through the skill pages, the more I realize how difficult this task is. I don't envy you, Flux, the task of organizing the massive amount of info on each skill while keeping pages a manageable size. So, for now I'm going to stick to making minor edits.

The point is, I'm a lot less confident in my ideas now than I was when I wrote my last post, aside from a general belief that Rune Effects should be as close to the top of the page as possible. Also, renaming Synergies to Trait Synergies, because reducing confusion is never a bad thing.

--MrFrye

[Risingred]

Just as a note, I went through and added images to all five of the skill runes that were released today, but I'm not happy with them. They're really ugly. When I find time (or if someone beats me to it), I plan on redoing them.

Kind of a pain that there's five runes and not six, but I may add in the vanilla skill to balance it out. I'm thinking of building a template psd so I can just plug the images into it with a uniform size to each.

Also been looking at the rune entries, the entry for each color rune.

http://www.diablowiki.net/Alabaster_rune

It would be neat to have a blurb at the top with the general functionality of the rune, and then below, broken up by class, have each skill or spell and what the rune does to it. Skills listed "chronologically" or when they become available. Maybe with the icon for the skill to the left of each one. It would be a lot of text, but at least it'd be condensed into one easy-to-find area.

[Risingred]

Ok, this is what I came up with:

http://www.diablowiki.net/Ray_of_Frost#Media

http://www.diablowiki.net/File:Rayoffrost_runed.png


Tell me if it's good or not because I don't want to spend more time on something that may be going nowhere. :p

[MrFrye]

Gee, I take a few days off because my computer died and I had to replace it, and of course Blizz reveals some new info. About skills, no less. Anyway...

Red, I like the images; they're a nice pictorial of the six versions of each skill. The only (minor) issue I have is I think the labels might be a bit too big.

P.S. Your sig now spells tnritacwrsahc, and I'm not sure how to pronounce that.

[Risingred]

Hmm. I agree about the label boxes. How is this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v88/blackbard/acidcloud_runed.png

Any smaller and they affect readability, so it's either this or I come up with something else to show which rune it is.

You can pronounce my new sig as Tennyson if you want. ;)

[Flux]

I'll 2nd MrFrye on the images; I like the idea, but I think the rune name/image is larger than it needs to be. The interest for most fans is seeing the char and spell graphic. It's enough to know what type of rune it is; don't really need the whole big icon. Plus Bliz color coded them nicely, so you don't even really need to be able to *read* it to know what it is.

Maybe put the runestone tag smaller and not obscuring the char/spell, and you don't need to do the char in such a closeup. I say put them on the pages in full size, up to maybe 800px; it's a visual presentation and doesn't need to be a tiny thumb.

I'd say more and try some sample layouts, but I'm out the door literally right now to pick up my U-haul for my 600m move tonight.

http://www.diablowiki.net/images/thumb/9/92/Rayoffrost_runed.png/800px-Rayoffrost_runed.png (http://www.diablowiki.net/images/9/92/Rayoffrost_runed.png)

[Risingred]

Maybe put the runestone tag smaller and not obscuring the char/spell, and you don't need to do the char in such a closeup. I say put them on the pages in full size, up to maybe 800px; it's a visual presentation and doesn't need to be a tiny thumb.

Alright, I'll drop the label boxes altogether and just use the runestones themselves, see how that looks. Bump up the size a bit, too, I suppose.

They require transparency, so they have to be saved as png. My concern was how big the actual file would be if I made the thing much larger.

[MrFrye]

I actually like the array the size that it is, at least for the main skill page. Well, maybe the full image (in the gallery) could be bigger, then the image on the skill page could be shrunk to whatever size we want.

Also, I don't have a problem with the name of each rune being on each image; maybe if it were in a separate box from the rune itself (perhaps centered), it wouldn't need the blank space around it. As Flux said, the runes are easily distinguishable, but don't forget, once the game comes out, a lot of visitors will be casual browsers just looking for a quick tip. They might need the name of the rune.

P.S. Tennyson, huh? Wow, I've got a sudden urge to use a literary quote in my sig.

[Risingred]

Ok, got a big image now, with no text besides at the top, big pics.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v88/blackbard/rayofrost_runed.png

So this is kind of like one extreme or another. Whatever works between them. I can post the photoshop files if anyone wants them.
And I always use a literary sig, except for the one I just replaced. ;)

I need a break from this. I have a tumor in my eye and this is getting painful, since we're getting a bit personal in this thread. :p

[Risingred]

Ok, so I went through today and replaced all the images with the final versions.
It's ****ing amazing how OCD I am with the wikis. I purposefully left a typo in the filename of the first whirlwind runed image just to prove to myself that it isn't the end of the world.

Anyway the resizing tags aren't working on the images so they're all at full size. I checked the help page for images and I did exactly what it said on there, tried multiple variations, but it won't resize the image. :(

I'm going to try to stop obsessing over this...FOR NOW.

[MrFrye]

I'm pretty sure you can't resize images when you use the "frame" tag. So I switched them all to the "thumb" tag and made them 600px wide. It's not the sort of thing you would know about unless you've played around with the different tags. Which I have.

Also, I can certainly understand being OCD with the wiki. I'm the one who made 6 passes through the skill pages trying to get them just right.

[Risingred]

Wow, that's good to know. >.>
Thanks for the heads-up. Looks much better now.