Conflux III wiki discussion

Custom dungeons for CSBWin. Includes all Confux 2 and 3 discussions.

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Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Zyx »

Phoenix wrote: I have a checklist of 86 unique items(even though there's 5 of one of them and two are not collectible). I can post my checklist if anyone is interested. The wiki does not list them all.
Yes, complete the wiki, it would even help me!
It would be intersting if anyone has any additional info on alchemy. I know how to obtain auric water, make sulfur and saltpetre.
It's good someone tries at last to tackle this one. Create a dedicated section on the wiki !
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Christoph »

Zyx wrote:
Phoenix wrote: I have a checklist of 86 unique items(even though there's 5 of one of them and two are not collectible). I can post my checklist if anyone is interested. The wiki does not list them all.
Yes, complete the wiki, it would even help me!
I also suggest adding anything to the Wiki rather than posting it only here or personally, which can be done in addition to writing the wiki, you can then always refer to that.

„Unique in which regard?“ is also an important question:
  • Only one of those available in the game.
  • Has the special property "unique".
I suggest to include both types in the wiki with all Information:
  • The normal item name, which even low level priests can see
  • The "orange" text or name available to high level priests
  • The text description the item "says" to high level priests
  • Properties set: unique, funereal, vampyric
  • Initial properties when first found, which can be "removed" later: broken, cursed
  • Any statistics the item increases or decreases
  • Additional information (the One Ring, for example, remains cursed, and has another special effect)
  • Where you find it
I've probably forgotten something above. I also didn't look at the unique item list recently, but it didn't seem to be very systematic to me.

It would also be good to include a description what the special properties do. I know what "vampyric" and "funereal" items should do, but not whether "unique" actually does anything.
Zyx wrote:
Phoenix wrote: It would be intersting if anyone has any additional info on alchemy. I know how to obtain auric water, make sulfur and saltpetre.
It's good someone tries at last to tackle this one. Create a dedicated section on the wiki !
I've collected information about the more obvious oven usage, this is included in the map.
However, I didn't find out anything yet about other alchemy.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Phoenix »

Who do I contact to get access to the wiki?

There's always something new to learn in this dungeon. I just learned how to make capes and torches. On the topic of vampiric weapons, one needs to be very careful with their use. The stat that they increase can roll over to 0 in a battle. I seem to remember this being a legacy issue with the original game engine itself. I think I ran into somthing just like this with the atari ST version when stats went over 160. I don't know how CSBwin handles these situations.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by beowuuf »

Megar I believe!

Stats are capped at 170 in most engines when using potions, magic etc, and can actually go as high as 255. Not sure the rollover problem remained in any later engine. Does the DSA get around this cap?
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Phoenix »

Ok, I've updated the unique items list on the wiki. I've also reorganized many of the existing entries to correct names and locations from pre-3.5B8. I forgot to write down where I found the Cape of the Chameleon, so I'll update that when I take Iaido through wip003. When I get a chance I'll add a new page for alchemy to at least list all the various powders that I've collected.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Christoph »

I've added information to the unique items' list. I think it would be good, if someone checked that for correctness.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Phoenix »

The one thing I saw that was off was you had "take a coin" not "take a gem" in the sapphire and emerald purses. I've fixed this. Also, I've never had to kill the giggler of all twice to get the lockpics. Are you sure you aren't confusing him with Golum?

There are still a few issues with that page. I have golemsoul in my current game and it doesn't give me stoneskin. I think it might be a priest level issue.

I'm also going to modify the cerberus entries after I create a new page for them. I've noted that cerberus's have completely different behaviour and responses depending on your wizard level. In fact, they pretty much don't like any wizard under EE and they only meow at you once you reach PAL wizard.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Christoph »

I haven't obtained any Cerberus personally yet, so I cannot contribute any knowledge about that issue except what has been said in the forums. What I've read about them, however, lets me believe that Cerberi give different responses according to your (wizard?) level.

The Giggler of All, however, is definitely partially invisible. When I encountered him first, I killed a visible Giggler, and after that, I kept being attacked, so I kept whacking my now invisible foe, which fortunately was cornered in one of the leftmost "alleys" of the northern big room on the Spiders' Level. The behaviour was like Gollum's in the Moria. I'm not really sure if it is necessary to kill the Giggler twice, since its first "death" could also be a mere change in visibility. I know for sure, however, that I kept beating an invisible foe making Giggler noises, which eventually dropped its possessions.

I've got rather high priest levels as of now, and any champion holding the Golemsoul stone club in their hands casts stoneskin on the whole party. That happened always for all party members since I obtained the weapon, I unfortunately cannot remember their priest levels at this time. When holding it, however, my party moves sigificantly slower than normally.

I had copied the "take a …" responses, so there might have been some remaining mistakes. The important thing is that the action of one of the special purses is "take a $WHATEVER" if the second hand is empty, and "empty purse" if not. In the first case you get exactly one item out of the purse when using the action, being placed in your second hand; in the second case, all available non-special inventory slots (the upper rightmost ones, which are not related to your hands, body, or belt) get filled with items, except you've got fewer items in the purse than empty normal inventory slots.

I "reserved" the "Um master priest" column for text messages given in the area where normal speech is displayed. As you surely know, there are three possible identification texts for any item. The first is the normal name, which is not very significant, since you cannot distinguish normal and magically enhanced items from that. The second are the properties such as "unique", "broken", and so on. The third is the orange writing available to higher level priests, which gives you the true name or an additional description of the item, such as "SWIFT DEATH." for the special dagger. The fourth is the "poem" displayed in the normal speech text area, and only this one is eligible for the "Um…" column, I think. There are, however, additional messages, like "this feat will be remembered" whenever you get competition points, which are also displayed there.

I had the impression that you sometimes had confused the "annotation" column with the "Um master priest" column, and corrected that, see the "ultravision" of the Xorn Eye for reference.

I could not verify the "Crystal Blade" being harmful to other champions than Leyla. The Darc Shield seems to be the only Darc item being harmful to even Halk. Can you verify that it injures normal people?

Regards, Christoph
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Phoenix »

The Cerberi do give indeed offer different responses and will actually injure neophyte wizards who even try to look at them. I'll be adding a page for Cerberi to the wiki.

I think it might be the way I fight him that makes the difference. I've completed Conflux seven times now, so I now play each new release with a single champion and that requires a different strategy in approaching gameplay. I don't even open that gate until gigglers stop walking into my poison clouds and the lockpics are on the ground. I knew Golum attacked that way. In fact Golum can attack from long distance.

I think I understand what you mean about the entries, but I've gone and completely reformatted that page. I've incorportated most of what you added, but I've moved all your feat messages to the annotation column since they really only occur once. I think that the UM Master column should only be for the text that repeatedly appears in the dialog box when looking at an item and make the annotation column the catch all for commentary. The description column, even before I had made any changes, had been used for the orange text. So I've changed that column to Expert Priest Description since that's when orange text starts to appear. Yellow text appears at Adept and below that, you don't get any information beyond the item name.

The new page is sorted with new hyperlinks for all item locations to the places page. I've also changed all entries that don't match locations noted on the online maps or differ from what you would actually see in the game. So, for example, "The Moria" is now just Moria as it is in the game, maps and Places page. Lots of minor changes in caps and adding periods. I've been giving Zxy many many bug reports since 3.5B8, so I'm trying to give back by updating the wiki as much as I can.

Iaido is my only champion in my current game(wip003), and at UM level priest, he does not get stoneskin with Golumsoul.

As for the "Crystal Blade", I just retested this with an old save game. In that game, I have Gando, Mophus, Gothmog and Halk. If I put the blade in Gothmog's hand and use the cleave attack repeatedly Gothmog will randomly say "Ow" and take damage.

The Darc shield doesn't physically injure anyone in my party, but there is a sustained wisdom drop from using it(even Halk). I'll remove the injures commentary.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Christoph »

I've been testing the effects of drinking liquids recently, but some questions remain about SAR Wines:
  • The PAL version always decreased dexterity.
  • The LO version decreased dexterity less frequently than wisdom, which was always lowered.
  • MON Wines exist with varying Expert Priest descriptions, some of those increase strength, vitality, and even wisdom or dexterity.
So I've split up the table entries for the low level wines to reflect that PAL seems not to influence wisdom, and removed the ones I had not found temporarily to first verify that they exist in the game and what they do. Phoenix, you have reverted that; can you confirm that PAL wine also lowers wisdom?

I'm really not sure whether all wines (except particular MON types) can decrease wisdom as well as dexterity.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Zyx »

There are also special wines if I'm not mistaken.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Christoph »

Are wiki experts here? Phoenix wants to rename places so the spelling is exactly like in the game, which is a good idea, but currently is this breaking references to old stuff. Does anybody know how to do that right (other than looking in all articles to find and repair references, and copying the contents from renamed stuff to the new location)?
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Zyx »

I don't know about the wiki.

I just checked the new changes you both did, you're doing a great job!
I like the text about the cerberus' locations. Nice touch!

Fleshbite is Sustained, which means it shouldn't drain your strength.

I'd need someone to send me a savegame with the full darc armor. The awaken armor should work even if there's an antimagic effect.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Phoenix »

Lots of stuff to discuss.

Wines: From my tests the effect of wines is always random, but when they do have an effect, they always reduce Wisdom, frequently reduce Dexterity, and occationally increase other stats. I haven't found any consistancy. The majority of my tests on wines come from my last completed save game from 3.5B8. I seem to have lost my wip001 saves and I made a mistake, and didn't collect all the wines from the Alchemy Lab of the Hellforges with wip002. In my current wip003 game I haven't collected all the wines yet.

All specialty wine are MON.

I'm one of those completionist dungeon crawlers so I try collect *everything* and store them in the guilds. This can't be completely done with Conflux with levels like the Alter of Ancient Doors and the weight puzzle in The Sudden Death constantly generating new weapons, but I try and collect at least one of everything. I try to do everything possible in each run with some minor exceptions(I don't spend 4 golds for the throwing star, 4 coins for the sapphire, 4 gems for the ruby and other stuff from the Emerald shop.)

Christoph, I've responded to your talk on the wiki with what I hope to achieve. I do intend to visit every page and repair references when I find problems. I'm not suggesting renaming the physical links and if I did that it was a mistake. I want the wiki link format [[Conflux/path_link|link_name]] to be such that the link_name should always reflect the game and the online maps even if the spelling is wrong. If the spelling is wrong, we tell Zyx, and when he releases a new version and if and only if he changes the spelling *then* we adjust the link_name. The online Council map, for example, has an error on it in that it lists the Chamberlain's office as Chambellan. I used that spelling in one of my links and you corrected that spelling. In the game. however, all relevent scrolls reference Chamberlain. You corrected that spelling and I thank you for that. Unfortunately, you also changed my Moria links to "The Moria" as it *was* listed on the Places page. The online maps and the game refer to it as simply Moria. So, I changed those links back and fixed the Places entry. I probably should have only fixed the link_name and not the path_link. Hindsight is 20/20 mea culpa. This should not, however be a problem with path_links that don't have an existing pages. I'll send an e-mail to Megar to ask him if he can send me a simple listing of all the existing Conflux wiki pages(ala ls -l dmwiki.atomas.com/w/Conflux ). I'm of the opinion that the Level Notes page should be deprecated to a legacy page after the relevent information has been incorporated into the various Places pages. That page is a really giant spoiler that's only useful to me in providing the {level,x,y} coordinates. The Level Notes didn't even have a solution for Ruby Masters. I've already added spoiler tags to all the competition and The Repository puzzle page. It really does give away too much of the inner workings of the game.

Zyx, thank you. I 'd really hoped you'd link my little creative touch for that page. Another spelling issue I can across is with Breathsteal. It seems that I've broken my own rule and have the corrected spelling in the wiki, but in the game it displays as Thirs from the Orient.

Fleshbite Sustained: I thought all funeral weapons drained Strength. That's good to know. I've been waisting Strength potions on it. I've fixed it's table entry.

I don't have a wip003 savegame with the full darc armor yet. I have a 3.5b8 one, in that one I get "The spell fizzles and dies." Would that do? I might be able to get you a wip002 but I'd need to defeat the knights to get the armor.

The Cerberus wizard level table is now online and I'll add the feeding section soon. I don't have a wizard higher than Archmaster, so if there are addtional mesages from there, I don't know about them.

There is one aspect for that page that I'm open to suggestion on how to complete. I want to add images of the Cerberus. For what I have in mind, I need a normal picture, a fiery version and versions with eye color change. My documentation has at least six eye color variations(light orange, violet, dark brown, dark blue, brown/tan, and dark green) If there are other colors, I haven't seen them. Other than screen captures, I don't have a way of generating these images. The wiki is also missing pictures for many monsters.
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Zyx »

Yes, a 3.5b8 savegame would be fine.

To obtain the graphics from conflux, you can use Greatstone's tools her: http://greatstone.free.fr/dm/g_cd.html
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Re: Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

Post by Christoph »

Hello again,
Phoenix wrote:Wines: From my tests the effect of wines is always random, but when they do have an effect, they always reduce Wisdom, frequently reduce Dexterity, and occationally increase other stats. I haven't found any consistancy.
I believe ti have found consistencies, "Wine of Titans" being the only one able to increase strength, but nothing else, for example. This is unfortunarely the only wine to be easily tested, because there are huge amounts to be found in the Wine Cellar.
Phoenix wrote:All specialty wine are MON.
Yes regarding Expert Priest descriptions, but whenever I tested a PAL wine, it decreased dexterity, but not wisdom. This might be due to the low number of test samples. It might be the case that wines simply lower wisdom with a high probability, dexterity with a lower one, and any increases are specific to certain MON wine types, which are deliberately programmed. Zyx should know that.
Phoenix wrote:I'm one of those completionist dungeon crawlers so I try collect *everything* and store them in the guilds. This can't be completely done with Conflux with levels like the Alter of Ancient Doors and the weight puzzle in The Sudden Death constantly generating new weapons, but I try and collect at least one of everything. I try to do everything possible in each run with some minor exceptions(I don't spend 4 golds for the throwing star, 4 coins for the sapphire, 4 gems for the ruby and other stuff from the Emerald shop.)
I normally do the same, I want to explore everything.
Phoenix wrote:Christoph, I've responded to your talk on the wiki with what I hope to achieve.
Not yet read that; I'll have a look.
Phoenix wrote:I do intend to visit every page and repair references when I find problems. I'm not suggesting renaming the physical links and if I did that it was a mistake.
This happened with "(Black_)Crypt" and "Food_Storage(s)", and I think I did in the case of the Food Storages the same in the other direction (changed not only "path_link" back, but also "link_name".)
Phoenix wrote:I want the wiki link format [[Conflux/path_link|link_name]] to be such that the link_name should always reflect the game and the online maps even if the spelling is wrong. If the spelling is wrong, we tell Zyx, and when he releases a new version and if and only if he changes the spelling *then* we adjust the link_name.
The approach with leaving "path_link" intact has a disadvantage: the page's name/title when you get to it is still the old one even if it was incorrect.
This actually can be done: the Mediawiki software has a page renaming function, making the old "path_link" a redirection to the new one. I'm not sure, however, if there are drawbacks, because the informational text shown when using that warns you about breaking references.
Phoenix wrote:The online Council map, for example, has an error on it in that it lists the Chamberlain's office as Chambellan.
Which map? The maps in the wiki aren't more "official" than anything else there *except* for the Hint Oracle highlight links, which are imported from the in-game Oracle. See below…
Phoenix wrote:This should not, however be a problem with path_links that don't have an existing pages.
There is a problem: if one reference was made to a not-yet-existing page, someone could have created more of them on other wiki pages than the one you are currently correcting. Those would still remain "red", and not point to the newly created place. If someone else finds such a link, they might think that this text doesn't exist yet, and create one, while another differently named text already exists.
Phoenix wrote:I'll send an e-mail to Megar to ask him if he can send me a simple listing of all the existing Conflux wiki pages(ala ls -l dmwiki.atomas.com/w/Conflux ).
Good idea to get an overview.
Phoenix wrote:I'm of the opinion that the Level Notes page should be deprecated to a legacy page after the relevent information has been incorporated into the various Places pages. That page is a really giant spoiler that's only useful to me in providing the {level,x,y} coordinates.
I think you don't know about its relation to the map in the wiki, see below.
Phoenix wrote:The Level Notes didn't even have a solution for Ruby Masters.
This is because I didn't have a MON Ruby to include the solution. In the previous version of the map there was only a partially wrong hint (confusing the type of boots needed) at the place where the entrance in the mines is. I've then put into the maps what I found out.
Phoenix wrote:I've already added spoiler tags to all the competition and The Repository puzzle page. It really does give away too much of the inner workings of the game.
The "Conflux/Levels_notes" page is the place where ALL texts EXCEPT the Hint Oracle highlight links for the wiki maps are generated. Everything line with coordinates there exists only in order to be displayed on the coordinates' highlight description in the map. Every headline except the first in the file is the title for the corresponding level's map. Every text without coordinates at the beginning of the line gets displayed in the upper right corner as the level's description text.

The following fragment hopefully explains a bit how the parts of that file are shown in the map:

Code: Select all

=== This is the first headline for the general description of the level notes ===

Everything up to this line is not displayed anywhere in the maps!

=== Level 00 - This is the name displayed for level 0 on the levesl's map ===
Here begins the description for the level, which is displayed to the right of the map.<br>
This is a <dmzone zone='[ [[13,24],[14,27]] ]'>HIGHLIGHT DESCRIPTION</dmzone> for a map area.

{0,13,24}This is a pop up hint text for the map square 13,24. Any map squares mentioned here: {0,13,26} are highlighted in yellow in the map!<br>

Other text to be displayed to the right of the map can follow here. You can use this in order to give the notes page a structure based on different areas.

{0,0,5}Another highlight description for a map square in the area described above. Coordinate lines don't need to be at a specific place in the file! The first line found for any coordinate is used. They should, however, follow the description of the area they are located in, and never be below the wrong level's headline to make them easy to locate for editing. They should be ALWAYS followed by a "<br>"! <br>
In the lower right part of each map page you find higlight links which make map squares yellow and display poems. Those are the Hint Oracle texts extracted from the game. Highlighted squares are the ones which are displayed in-game, if you save your game there, and then restart CSBwin and consult the oracle. The popup texts are those shown in the oracle, if you click on the corresponding line.

As you can see, we cannot deprecate this file, because every bit of text in the maps except the oralce hints comes from there.

All those spoilers are intended to be shown only if you want to see the hint for a map square. Every coordinate line corresponds to a square with a red triangle. The line's text is the "mouseover" hint.

I suggest to explain this at the top of the file and to include also a huge spoiler warning there.
Phoenix wrote: I don't have a wip003 savegame with the full darc armor yet. I have a 3.5b8 one, in that one I get "The spell fizzles and dies."
The helmet is the thing preventing the casting of (at least normal) spells. Without it, however, the spell won't work because of not wearing a full special armour.
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Correction about special Gigglers

Post by Christoph »

Phoenix wrote:The one thing I saw that was off was you had "take a coin" not "take a gem" in the sapphire and emerald purses. I've fixed this. Also, I've never had to kill the giggler of all twice to get the lockpics. Are you sure you aren't confusing him with Golum?
Christoph wrote:The Giggler of All, however, is definitely partially invisible. When I encountered him first, I killed a visible Giggler, and after that, I kept being attacked, so I kept whacking my now invisible foe, which fortunately was cornered in one of the leftmost "alleys" of the northern big room on the Spiders' Level. The behaviour was like Gollum's in the Moria. I'm not really sure if it is necessary to kill the Giggler twice, since its first "death" could also be a mere change in visibility. I know for sure, however, that I kept beating an invisible foe making Giggler noises, which eventually dropped its possessions.
I haven't verified that, but I now think that I confused the "Giggler of All" on the uppermost level with the "Master Thief" in the treasure room prison on level 5. This is the one you need the lockpicks for, not the one you get them from.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Phoenix »

I used to do software QA for a living. Quality Assurance can be summed up as the following: (a)Test -> Record results -> Repeat -> Record consistency after several repetitions -> Report bug to Programmer -> Programmer fixes bug when bug is real and not user error -> Test bug fix -> Verify bug fix -> Wait for new version -> Test new version against old bugs and new features.-> Goto (a)

When I make a wiki entry, I try to make sure I follow the QA protocols I've learned in the software industry. The only thing I lack is some of the automated gui testing tools. Now, I'll admit I've made a few errors with regards to the Phylacter of Protection and Golemsoul, but that's because I don't really consider them essential to the game. I remember my first time defeating the Altar of the Assault and getting the Phylacter. I put it in my weapon hand and boom! fireshield! I returned to the Guild after the shield had worn off and tried it again and there was no fireshield. I popped it in and out of my had a bunch of times, no fireshield. I erroneously made the assumption from my DM/CSB experience that it had one charge. No big deal, I made a mistake and updated things when corrected. The book is heavy, and unless you've got Halk to lug it around, it's better to "cast" fireshield and get the Priest XP. Same thing with Golemsoul which is even heavier. I still want to and will collect both when playing the game though.

Now in regard to Sar Wines, I'm sorry but this is really going to be a rant:
Christoph wrote: I believe ti have found consistencies, "Wine of Titans" being the only one able to increase strength, but nothing else, for example. This is unfortunately the only wine to be easily tested, because there are huge amounts to be found in the Wine Cellar.
All of the wines in the Wine cellar are MON Wine of Titans except for the Zo Potion. The all of the other MON wines are found in the Altar of the Assault or the Alchemy Lab of the Hellforges. Yes, the Wine of Titans increases strength and that's only relevant information for that wine. As far as I can tell, the non-MON wines found elsewhere were only intended to be used in the Sewers to create Ven Eggs. If I remember correctly, the beginning sections of the Conflux II spoiler pages seem to hint that Zyx didn't even expect them to be drunk at all, but only changed that functionality after the fact. I may be wrong, only Zyx can say with 100% certainty.
Phoenix wrote:All specialty wine are MON.
Christoph wrote: Yes regarding Expert Priest descriptions, but whenever I tested a PAL wine, it decreased dexterity, but not wisdom. This might be due to the low number of test samples. It might be the case that wines simply lower wisdom with a high probability, dexterity with a lower one, and any increases are specific to certain MON wine types, which are deliberately programmed. Zyx should know that.
Hello, did you read what I put in my original wiki entry which you hacked up without exhaustive testing. I said that the effects with non-MON are *always* random. I've opened multiple instances of the game at the same time and had the same character drink a those wines and I *never ever* got the same result twice. I repeated this experiment with 4 different 3.5B8 saves, three wip002 and one wip003. How many did *you* test with? If there *is* supposed to be a definite specific effect it appears to be broke from my tests.

Now, as far as the MON wines go the Moon Wine seemed to be the only positive oriented wine. Did you know that wines affect the Guild leaders differently than regular champions? Did you know that they affect lower level characters more than higher?

After your changes, I decided to do some more testing. I started testing with two of my wip002 save games. One (call it "a") has a solo Gando with all the wines of the Altar of the Assault and the other (call it "b") has all four Guild leaders and all the wines in the game.

Using "a", I drink the Fruity wine; Here are my results for 5 tests with Gando:
1) +8 Str, -19 Dex.
2) +9 Str -16 Dex.
3) +10 Str goes to +9 Str as I watch, -14 Wis.
4) +8 Str, -15 Dex.
5) +8 Str, -5 Wis.

Using "b" and Gothmog drinks Fruity wine:
1) -20 Dex.
2) -16 Wis.
3) -12 Wis.
4) -21 Wis.
5) -15 Dex.

I got very similar results with Mohpus, Halk and Leyla.

Using "b" I restore a higher level Gando to that party:
1) -2 Dex
2) -13 Dex
3) nothing
4) -9 Wis
5) -22 Wis.

No increases what so ever, the only difference is Gando much higher in all levels(Archmaster wizard even!)

Conclusion, most wines aren't consistent in their effects, with the possible exceptions for Titan and Mud. I never had an instance of Titan not raising Strength nor Mud not raising Anti-Magic. I never got Mushy to do anything but reduce Wisdom or Dexterity. I never got Nocturn to do anything at all despite multiple tests.

Your notes on Zo Potions were completely wrong as well. Zo potion effects are permanent increases to stats. That's why Zo potions are the most sought after potions in the game!
Wines are just like the stone mushrooms; Woohoo! I can get drunk and take mescaline in the game! I think that's pretty cool. Just like Duke Nukem 3D allowed you to take a piss and get some health back. Sar wines are necessary for some puzzles, but mostly they're just for fun. If you are going to make changes, beyond spelling, to things I haven't even completed, I expect you to know what you are talking about and have proof to back it up. Only someone who has completed the game multiple time across multiple versions and Zyx can do that. You make far too many assumptions for my taste.

My appologies to everyone, but Christoph, who had to read this.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Zyx »

When I put all those wines in Conflux, I never suspected those 300 mouse clicks would yield someday a real fight between connoisseurs! That's the REAL effect of SAR wine, by the way, hurting each other. And making mistakes too. The characteristics' modifiers are just a red herring.

So, why don't you both let 48h pass on this topic? I'm sure there are better ways to talk about it.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Christoph »

Phoenix wrote:I used to do software QA for a living.
So did I, so I know how that works, but…
Phoenix wrote:When I make a wiki entry, I try to make sure I follow the QA protocols I've learned in the software industry.
This is a game, and designed to have fun with rather than systematically analyse it, so I do tests out of curiosity, but not as systematically as I would do that for a living. The Wiki can be corrected, after all, and it contains many inconsistencies already, for example things having changed between Conflux versions. I we did it "right", every bit of information would have attached the version numbers of CSBwin and Conflux, after all.
Phoenix wrote:Now in regard to Sar Wines, I'm sorry but this is really going to be a rant:
Christoph wrote:I believe ti have found consistencies, "Wine of Titans" being the only one able to increase strength, but nothing else, for example. This is unfortunately the only wine to be easily tested, because there are huge amounts to be found in the Wine Cellar.
All of the wines in the Wine cellar are MON Wine of Titans except for the Zo Potion.
I'm sure that one of them is different, a LO one, as I verified in a save game now, I think at the place where you open the path to the storage area. I wanted to say that only Wines of Titan (most of them in the wine cellar) are found in great numbers, the others are scarce, not that I other wines are to be found there with the exceptions mentioned above.
Phoenix wrote:Yes, the Wine of Titans increases strength and that's only relevant information for that wine.
No wine has ever influenced fire or magic resistance at all for me, and none ever decreased strength or vitality. It's also notable what an item never does, I think.
Phoenix wrote:As far as I can tell, the non-MON wines found elsewhere were only intended to be used in the Sewers to create Ven Eggs. If I remember correctly, the beginning sections of the Conflux II spoiler pages seem to hint that Zyx didn't even expect them to be drunk at all, but only changed that functionality after the fact. I may be wrong, only Zyx can say with 100% certainty.
According to the release notes file, this seems to be correct:

Code: Select all

V3Competition
ADDED
sar wines and zo liqueurs are drinkable now.
I think I remember from elsewhere that this was added upon a request.
Phoenix wrote:All specialty wine are MON.
Christoph wrote:Yes regarding Expert Priest descriptions, but whenever I tested a PAL wine, it decreased dexterity, but not wisdom. This might be due to the low number of test samples. It might be the case that wines simply lower wisdom with a high probability, dexterity with a lower one, and any increases are specific to certain MON wine types, which are deliberately programmed. Zyx should know that.
Hello, did you read what I put in my original wiki entry which you hacked up without exhaustive testing. I said that the effects with non-MON are *always* random. I've opened multiple instances of the game at the same time and had the same character drink a those wines and I *never ever* got the same result twice. I repeated this experiment with 4 different 3.5B8 saves, three wip002 and one wip003. How many did *you* test with? If there *is* supposed to be a definite specific effect it appears to be broke from my tests.
I tested it several times, three times in a row the one PAL wine I have decreased dexterity, and the three LO ones given to other characters decreased wisdom, the amount varied, so I thought to have found a consistent result. I retested that after my last post with more samples, and now I see that this assumption was indeed incorrect, as you say, because I managed to decrease both wisdom and dexterity with all wines except those MON types able to increase them.
Phoenix wrote:Now, as far as the MON wines go the Moon Wine seemed to be the only positive oriented wine.
Cupric and Egg always increased vitality for me, Moon increased wisdom, Chromatic almost always increased dexterity, had once no effect at all on Leif. I have never seen anything seen incresing strength than Titan, which does it always.
Phoenix wrote:Did you know that wines affect the Guild leaders differently than regular champions? Did you know that they affect lower level characters more than higher?
I saw differences in the random gains and losses. I thought the reason might be the statistics differences between the characters.
Phoenix wrote:After your changes, I decided to do some more testing.

[…]

Conclusion, most wines aren't consistent in their effects, with the possible exceptions for Titan and Mud. I never had an instance of Titan not raising Strength nor Mud not raising Anti-Magic. I never got Mushy to do anything but reduce Wisdom or Dexterity. I never got Nocturn to do anything at all despite multiple tests.
I also tested some more, and now can confirm your results with the exception of strength increses and the ones to be found in the Hellforge Lab, because I wasn't there yet in any of my games.
Phoenix wrote:Your notes on Zo Potions were completely wrong as well. Zo potion effects are permanent increases to stats. That's why Zo potions are the most sought after potions in the game!
Yes, I've got that wrong, because I tested those after many wines, where I had written down numbers. Then I fed 4 ZO potions to my 4 healthy characters, and noted consistently the lowest 3 statistic becoming red. Repeated that with the same result, and made the mistake not to look at the actual numbers. The right column increses, the left one does not, but the damn red colour distrcted me. Might be a similar mistake as you made with the Phylacter; you often don't see things you don't expect, such as a liquid with a ZO symbol on the flask, and making your statistics red having a positive effect or having to hold the book for a while to repeat its effect.
Phoenix wrote:If you are going to make changes, beyond spelling, to things I haven't even completed, I expect you to know what you are talking about and have proof to back it up. Only someone who has completed the game multiple time across multiple versions and Zyx can do that. You make far too many assumptions for my taste.
Well, what do you expect? Should only people work on the Wiki who have explored all reachable map squares multiple times? Do you think it's better if I write down everything I find just for me until I'm a worthy archmaster conflux gamer in your eyes? If I had done that, the maps would'nt contain nearly as much information as they do now, because I worked mostly on those in the past. If I misinterpret something, I simply change it later, and I also think it's no problem to mark things as uncertain. See above, it's a game, and nothing to be taken too seriously, I think.

One more thing about the Phylacter: you actually do get priest experience point for the spellcasting. When I found it, I didn't yet know from what the green frame protects, because I coudn't cast the spell, so I used that as a shield, and suddenly my priest level incresed without me having done priestly things. I then tested that with my fourth guild member after getting the Gaze of Faith, and it worked, I could earn priest experience by just holding it while doing other things.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Phoenix »

Christoph wrote:This is a game, and designed to have fun with rather than systematically analyse it, so I do tests out of curiosity, but not as systematically as I would do that for a living.
Funny, but I view the in-wiki maps and Level notes as a systematic analysis. The full graphical maps are art. Also, after I left QA, I became a systems analyst. So you'll see it's an almost impossible mindset for me to break out of.

If I do something, I strive for accuracy. Far too many years of empty suits giving me crap and denying me year-end bonuses when I didn't . Now, as much as I make and learn from them them, I hate making mistakes. I don't know any other way to approach things like this other than systematically. I don't really mind doing this for the wiki. It's actually helped me get out of a creative slump I've been in.

Some might think of this as work but, creation is fun for me. I'll be able to take pleasure in that maybe one, just one, new player will be able to use the wiki to complete some part they couldn't figure out. In fact, I hope someone who has finished the game will write up the solution to the "save the slaves puzzle." For some reason I just can't motivate myself to go through the effort to figure out the switch pattern. That and I enjoy the puzzle blasting them every time I go through that area.
Christoph wrote: The Wiki can be corrected, after all, and it contains many inconsistencies already, for example things having changed between Conflux versions. I we did it "right", every bit of information would have attached the version numbers of CSBwin and Conflux, after all.
I know what you mean. I've been taking an axe to many sections. I've re-written the items page multiple times. Modified, sorted and updated the creatures page. The Champions page and the Spells page are now up-to-date, with one exception. I currently do not know the required spell component for Iaido's "pickpocket moves" spell. I'm not really happy with the looks of some pages. I'll expand on this in a future post. I think we need to establish an agreed upon format and guidelines for certain types of pages. After reading some of the wiki docs, I know I need to go back and add certain contexts for the indexing to work properly.
Christoph wrote: Well, what do you expect? Should only people work on the Wiki who have explored all reachable map squares multiple times? Do you think it's better if I write down everything I find just for me until I'm a worthy archmaster conflux gamer in your eyes?
Why not? It's what I did. I, personally, didn't feel worthy editing the wiki until I believed I had enough knowledge to do so. That took playing and replaying the game. It wasn't until wip001 that I solved Halk's quest, and wip002 before I learned how to collect everything from the Alchemy Lab. Just because it's a game doesn't mean the wiki shouldn't look professional. In my arrogant opinion, the forum is the best place for speculation and uncertainty to be voiced, not the wiki. I think it's wonderful that you can replay this game and learn something new each time. That isn't true of half the games I own.

In my current game, I just learned that Iaido can't recognize dead Blast Spores. As for being an archmaster, I have the competition scrolls to prove it. :P And now that Zyx has fixed the Mothers of the Egg Chamber bug, I'll be able to get the full 190 points on this run. :)

For me it comes down to this, if I'm going to put something out there for everyone to reference I want it to look professional and polished. I don't hold this true for forum posts as I've demonstrated. I won't hold you to my standards, but I'll ask you to wait till I finish my page stubs before you go and change things on me. Especially if you aren't taking the wiki editing seriously. In the future, I'll add completion messages in the comments section for my pages. I probably won't mind changes then.

Some of your changes have made me rework certain sections because I did like some of the aspects of those changes. Bullet points instead of <br>'s and needing &nbsp;'s. I'm also hopeing to discover a means of adding table anchors to provide direct links to table entries. But other changes, that I knew to be wrong, pissed me off. I'm sad to admit, I took savage glee in fixing them.
Christoph wrote: If I had done that, the maps wouldn't contain nearly as much information as they do now, because I worked mostly on those in the past. If I misinterpret something, I simply change it later, and I also think it's no problem to mark things as uncertain. See above, it's a game, and nothing to be taken too seriously, I think.
To me, Conflux isn't just a game, it's a great game! Conflux is really what DM2 should have been. As for the in-wiki maps, I don't like them and I've never used them after seeing how much they expose. I was able to complete the game multiple times without them, but I did rely heavily on the passworded graphic maps. If I wanted that level of detail, now that the dungeon is unencrypted, I'd just load my savegame in csbuild and be able to see everything.

If you want to nail down things to exact coordinates for the in-wiki map, you'll need to do it yourself. Any pages I create from now on will have text assists to guide you to things and links to the Place pages, but no coordinates. I'm going to be hard pressed to not put spoiler tags on the ones that do.
Christoph wrote: One more thing about the Phylacter: you actually do get priest experience point for the spellcasting. When I found it, I didn't yet know from what the green frame protects, because I coudn't cast the spell, so I used that as a shield, and suddenly my priest level incresed without me having done priestly things. I then tested that with my fourth guild member after getting the Gaze of Faith, and it worked, I could earn priest experience by just holding it while doing other things.
Interesting, that I didn't know. I usually don't a free hand once I get the Guild leaders with full armour sets.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Phoenix »

Before going forward with some updates, I'd like to get a consensus on a set of guildlines and conventions for future entries.

Here is my proposal:

Tables:

Organize information into tables and bullet points wherever possible.
When making and updating tables please Capitalize and end entries with a period.

If there are multiple entries for a category, use the bullet point (*) function and nest.
eg.

*This is example text.
*In some cases:
**More sample text.
**Different sample text.

If you are tempted to use an ";" in an entry, make it a bullet point instead. Bullet points need to start on a new line. So if your entry has multiple locations, bullet points will make the entry and the table look neater.

Currently all actions are lower case and bulletized when multiple actions are possible. I'm not sure if they look better this way or if they should be capitalized. Opinions?

If you're makeing a table and you find yourself repeating the same text for all entries, place that text above the table and bulletize in cases of multple text.

If relavent text exists on a different page add a link to that text instead of repeating it.

Use spoiler tags(<spoiler> </spoiler>) when giving the complete solution to a puzzle or riddle. Let's keep the magic of personal discovery alive. This will also encourage people to use the hint orcale.

When refering to actions "quote" them eg. Avoid the "hack" action on this weapon.

Comments? Concerns? Useful addtions?

Places(act 1):

Don't include information about other Places pages. For example, the current Guild page has a complete description of the Unleash Hell option. This infomation already exists on the Room of Fate page. If it needed to be changed, it has to be updated in two places. Keeping each places' information "pure" in this respect will make updates much easier and less likely to be out of sync.

Let's encourge players to seek and use the Map password scrolls by refering to places listed on the http://dmweb.free.fr/Stuff/conflux3maps/index.html maps.

Also, due to the fact that the vast majority of Places don't have pages(yet), we are in a good position to establish a convention for them. Here is the complete list of places with paths currently on the wiki:

* [[Conflux/Places/Guilds|Guilds]] (Level 00)
[[Conflux/Places/Mildew|Mildew Area]] (Level 00)
* [[Conflux/Places/Minotaur Maze|Minotaur's Maze]] (Level 00)
[[Conflux/Places/Food Storages|Food Storages]] (Level 00)
[[Conflux/Places/The Giggler of All|The Giggler of All]] (Level 00)
[[Conflux/Places/The Pit of Ephesus|The Pit of Ephesus]] (Level 00)
* [[Conflux/Places/Pit D|Pit D]] (Levels 01 to 13)
* [[Conflux/Places/Storage Cellar|Storage Cellar]] (Level 01)
[[Conflux/Places/Wine Cellar|Wine Cellar]] (Level 01)
[[Conflux/Places/Temple|Temple]] (Level 02)
[[Conflux/Places/Retirement Room|Retirement Room]] (Level 02)
[[Conflux/Places/Monastery|Monastery]] (Level 02)
[[Conflux/Places/Way of Tsu|Way of Tsu]] (Level 02)
* [[Conflux/Places/Sewers|Sewers]] (Level 03)
* [[Conflux/Places/Dwarven Maze|Dwarven Maze]] (Level 04)
* [[Conflux/Places/Dwarven Fortress|Dwarven Fortress]] (Level 04)
* [[Conflux/Places/Dwarven Forge|Dwarven Forge]] (Level 04)
* [[Conflux/Places/Mines|Mines]] (Level 04)
* [[Conflux/Places/Black_Crypt|Crypt]] (Level 05)
* [[Conflux/Places/Dwarven Hall|Dwarven Obituary Hall]] (Level 05)
[[Conflux/Places/Treasury|Treasury]] (level 05)
[[Conflux/Places/Path to Moria|Path to Moria]] (Levels 05 to 12)
[[Conflux/Places/Stairs of Ashes|Stairs of Ashes]] (Levels 05 to 08)
[[Conflux/Places/Spiders|Spiders!]] (Level 06)
[[Conflux/Places/Druafang Tomb|Druafang's Tomb]] (Level 06)
[[Conflux/Places/Spiders Lair|Spiders' lair]] (Level 06)
[[Conflux/Places/Four_Choices|Four Choices]] (Level 06)
* [[Conflux/Places/Officers Canteen|Officers' Canteen]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Head Councillor|Head Councillor]] (Level 07)
* [[Conflux/Places/Oracle|The Oracle]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Prison|Prison]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/The White Chambers of the Council|The White Chambers of the Council]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/places/The Fall of Fright|The Fall of Fright]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/The Barracks|The Barracks]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Captains Quarters|Captain's Quarters]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Chamberlain|Chamberlain]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Chambers of the Council|Chambers of the Council]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/The Council|The Council]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Circus Games|Circus Games]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Mampang|The Tower of Mampang]] (Levels 07 to 12)
[[Conflux/Places/ArchmageObservatory|The Archmage Observatory]] (Level 07)
[[Conflux/Places/Emerald Level|The Emerald Level]] (Level 08)
[[Conflux/Places/Emerald Shop|The Emerald Shop]] (Level 08)
[[Conflux/Places/Emerald Guardians|Emerald guardians]] (Level 08)
[[Conflux/Places/High Sentinel|High Sentinel]] (Level 08)
[[Conflux/Places/Mummy Puzzle|Mummy Puzzle]] (Level 08)
[[Conflux/Places/ROS|ROS: Quest of Leyla]] (Levels 09 to 10)
[[Conflux/Places/NETA|NETA: Quest of Mophus]] (Levels 09 to 10)
[[Conflux/Places/DAIN|DAIN: Quest of Gothmog]] (Levels 10 to 11)
[[Conflux/Places/KU|KU: Quest of Halk]] (Levels 11 to 12)
[[Conflux/Places/Sudden Death|The Sudden Death]] (Levels 09 to 11)
[[Conflux/Places/Upper Armouries|Upper Armouries of Moria]] (Level 10)
[[Conflux/Places/Garden of Nostalgia|Garden of Nostalgia]] (Level 10)
[[Conflux/Places/Three Fights for Freedom|Three Fights for Freedom]] (Level 10)
* [[Conflux/Places/Moria|Moria]] (Levels 10 to 16)
[[Conflux/Places/Great Tribunal|Great Tribunal]] (Levels 12 to 13)
* [[Conflux/Places/VoidPit|The Void Pit]] (Level 12)
[[Conflux/Places/Entrance to Moria|Entrance to Moria]] (Level 12)
[[Conflux/Places/The Bridge of The Second Hall|The Bridge of The Second Hall]] (Level 12)
[[Conflux/Places/1st Moria|1st Moria]] (Level 13)
[[Conflux/Places/Tomb of Balin|Tomb of Balin]] (Level 13)
[[Conflux/Places/Dracos Lair|Dragons' lair]] (Level 13)
[[Conflux/Places/Maze of Thieves|The Maze of Thieves]] (Levels 13 and 15)
[[Conflux/Places/Hell|Hell]] (Level 13)
[[Conflux/Places/Clockwork Knights|Clockwork Knights]] (Level 14)
[[Conflux/Places/The Bridge of The Tower of Chaos|The Bridge of The Tower of Chaos]] (Level 14)
[[Conflux/Places/Emerald Forest|Emerald forest]] (Level 15)
[[Conflux/Places/Smaugs Den|Smaug's Den]] (Level 15)
[[Conflux/Places/Hot Springs|Hot Springs]] (Level 16)
[[Conflux/Places/Apprentice|The Apprentice Level]] (Levels 16 to 17)
[[Conflux/Places/Xanathars Lair|Xanathar's Lair]] (Level 16)
[[Conflux/Places/Tower of Pits|The Tower of Pits]] (Levels 16 to 20)
[[Conflux/Places/Underwater Level|Aquantana]] (Level 17)
[[Conflux/Places/Darkness Chamber|The Chamber of Darkness]] (Level 17)
[[Conflux/Places/Tower of Loops|The Tower of Loops]] (Levels 17 to 19)
[[Conflux/Places/Tower of Doors|The Tower of Doors]] (Levels 17 to 19)
[[Conflux/Places/Sundrier|The Sundrier]] (Level 18)
[[Conflux/Places/Gardening Challenge|The Gardening Challenge]] (Level 18)
[[Conflux/Places/Cursed Armoury|The Cursed Armoury]] (Level 18)
[[Conflux/Places/Boots of Speed|The Boots of Speed Puzzle]] (Level 19)
[[Conflux/Places/Darc Armour|The Darc Armour]] (Level 19)
[[Conflux/Places/Ants and Dragons|The Ant Nests and the Dragons' Room]] (Levels 19 to 20)
* [[Conflux/Places/Deathtrap|The Deathtrap Dungeon]] (Levels 19 to 25)
[[Conflux/Places/Old King|Ye Old King Under The Mountain]] (Level 21)
[[Conflux/Places/Inferno|Inferno]] (Level 26)
[[Conflux/Places/Altar of Love|The Altar of Love]] (Level 27)
[[Conflux/Places/Fire|The Elemental Plane of Fire]] (Level 27)
[[Conflux/Places/Air|The Elemental Plane of Air]] (Level 28)
[[Conflux/Places/Earth|The Elemental Plane of Earth]] (Level 29)
[[Conflux/Places/Water|The Elemental Plane of Water]] (Level 30)
[[Conflux/Places/Dragon|Dragon]] (Level 31)
[[Conflux/places/Techno|Techno]] (Level 32)
[[Conflux/Places/Altar of Ancient Doors|The Altar of Ancient Doors]] (Level 33)
* [[Conflux/Places/Green Nightmare|Green Nightmare]] (Level 33, and all even numbered levels from 34 to 62)
[[Conflux/Places/Altar of Rose|The Altar of Rose]] (Levels 33 to 34)
* [[Conflux/Places/Fur Trader|The Fur Trader]] (Level 34)
[[Conflux/Places/Merchant Maze|The Merchant Maze]] (Level 34)
* [[Conflux/Places/Repository|The Repository]] (Level 34)
[[Conflux/places/Out of This World|Out of This World]] (Level 35)
[[Conflux/Places/Altar of Nightmare|The Altar of Nightmare]] (Level 36)
[[Conflux/Places/Chamber of Oblivion|The Chamber of Oblivion]] (Level 38)
[[Conflux/Places/Altar of Assault|The Altar of the Assault]] (Level 41)
* [[Conflux/Places/Hellforge Lab|Alchemy Lab of the Hellforge]] (Level ?)
* [[Conflux/Places/Room of Fate|The Room of Fate]] (Level 63)

So, 21 pages out of 103 exist and since this list will potentially tripple, now is the time to establish a convention. As you can see right now they are sorted by their (level) number. Does it make sense to go forward adding pages this way, or does it make sense to start a level convention like:

[[Conflux/Places/Guilds|Guilds]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/Mildew|Mildew Area]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/Minotaur Maze|Minotaur's Maze]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/Food Storages|Food Storages]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/The Giggler of All|The Giggler of All]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/The Pit of Ephesus|The Pit of Ephesus]]

Disregarding the problem of existing pages for the moment, if we do it this way, when we add a new page the level is implicit and the wiki will automatically have a list of all places for any given level. We would only need Zyx to either give or agree to a name for all currently unnamed levels which at worst would just be the level number. Does this make sense? For? Against? Alternatives?

Places (act 2):

When a player accesses a places page on the wiki, how do we want to present the given information? There really isn't a consistant convetion for the format of a given place page. For many, but not all, it is:

Description
Places of Interest
Connections

I'm not a big fan of Connections. To me it's a little stilted and could be simply merged into the description. If we keep Connections, I propose we make it into a table and hide it with spoiler tags. This way it's still available for players who follow Christoph's conventions and hides it away for the purists like myself. We can address the problem of dealing with existing pages once we establish a convention. I'd really like to hear from others on what they think of these ideas so that we can establish a plan before starting to populate the non-existent pages(Death to red-links!).

Thanks.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Christoph »

Phoenix wrote:Places(act 1):

Don't include information about other Places pages. For example, the current Guild page has a complete description of the Unleash Hell option. This infomation already exists on the Room of Fate page. If it needed to be changed, it has to be updated in two places. Keeping each places' information "pure" in this respect will make updates much easier and less likely to be out of sync.
Agreed, the fact you mention here is a historical issue. The one in the Guild was there before I crated the page for the Room of Fate, for example.
Phoenix wrote:Also, due to the fact that the vast majority of Places don't have pages(yet), we are in a good position to establish a convention for them.

[…]

So, 21 pages out of 103 exist and since this list will potentially tripple, now is the time to establish a convention. As you can see right now they are sorted by their (level) number. Does it make sense to go forward adding pages this way,
No, I don't think that a flat list is the right way…
Phoenix wrote:or does it make sense to start a level convention like:

[[Conflux/Places/Guilds|Guilds]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/Mildew|Mildew Area]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/Minotaur Maze|Minotaur's Maze]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/Food Storages|Food Storages]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/The Giggler of All|The Giggler of All]]
[[Conflux/Places/Guilds/The Pit of Ephesus|The Pit of Ephesus]]

Disregarding the problem of existing pages for the moment, if we do it this way, when we add a new page the level is implicit and the wiki will automatically have a list of all places for any given level. We would only need Zyx to either give or agree to a name for all currently unnamed levels which at worst would just be the level number. Does this make sense? For? Against?
…but I'm totally against the approach above, because that's a hierarchical order not taking into account the non-linearity of Conflux ad it's use of teleporters, ladders and elevators. Levels are often irrelevant in the game. The Future lies on the Temple level for the player, while it is physically on the Spiders' level, probably just because there was free floor space to use.

A real life example:
*Universe
*Milky Way
*Solar System
*Earth
*Africa
Up to this point, it's a hierarchical structure where each bigger "place" fully contains the smaller ones. If you then take countries as "places", there are already some which aren't restricted to one continent. The Sahara qualifies certainly as a "place", but does overlap with multiple countries.

Moria is a good in-game example: it begins on level 10 with the Upper Armouries, and goes down to the Hot Springs. The three uppermost levels' main parts are Guild Master quests, 13 to 15 are the main Moria levels.

How do I determine what larger area a place belongs to? It's not only a matter of wall decorations, inscriptions on walls or the texts formed by the shape of rooms on the maps, I also consult the Hint Oracle (via the online maps Phoenix dislikes, because I'm too lazy.) If you go below the Hot Springs, the Oracle calls that "Under the Moria", while the Upper Armouries have got "Moria" hints.

The Towers of Loops, Doors, Pits all can be regarded as subareas of the Tower of Mampang, but are, apart from the entrance, located on physically unrelated levels.

Besides are you proposing a physical structure in the wiki namespace, while the list seen by users would remain flat. The logical ordering would be hidden as long as you don't click the links.
Phoenix wrote:Alternatives?
Well, I suggest the following: let's keep the areas ordered by the level of their uppermost part or the part where the main entrance is. On the levels, let's order by importance/size of the areas. Fully contained subareas should be listed nested under the main area:

*Old Path to Moria (5-12)
*DAIN (10)
*NETA (11)
*KU (12)
*Moria (10-16)
**Upper Armouries (10)
**Entrance of the Moria (12)
**Smaug's Den (15)
**Hot Springs (16)
*Emerald Forest (16)
*Under the Moria (17-21)
**Ye Old King Under the Mountain (21)
*Inferno (26)
(Only the "core" Moria places grouped, Moria placed at main (and initially only) entrance's level.)

or:

*Old Path to Moria (5-11)
*DAIN (10)
*Moria (10-16)
**Upper Armouries (10)
**Entrance of the Moria (12)
**Smaug's Den (15)
**Hot Springs (16)
*NETA (11)
*KU (12)
*Emerald Forest (15)
*Under the Moria (17-21)
**Ye Old King Under the Mountain (21)
(Only the "core" Moria places grouped, Moria placed at its uppermost subarea's level.)

or:

*DAIN (10)
*NETA (11)
*KU (12)
*Moria (12)
**Old Path to Moria (5-12)
***Entrance of the Moria (12)
**Upper Armouries (10)
**Smaug's Den (15)
**Hot Springs (16)
**Under the Moria (17-21)
***Ye Old King Under the Mountain (21)
*Emerald Forest (15)
(Everything strongly related placed under Moria, Moria placed at main (and initially only) entrance's level.)

I'd go for a logical order rather than strictly level oriented.
Phoenix wrote:Places (act 2):

When a player accesses a places page on the wiki, how do we want to present the given information? There really isn't a consistant convetion for the format of a given place page. For many, but not all, it is:

Description
Places of Interest
Connections
The first few existing places pages had the following general structure (not all headlines existed on all pages):
*Description
*How to get there
*Interests
*Connections

"Description" contains a general text and the links to the levels' maps of the area at the bottom.
"How to get there" describes exactly that: how to open up an area or from which area(s) it is easily reachable.
"Interests" describes quests, riddles and magical items or map scrolls to be found, champion mirrors, and so on.
"Connections" is for stairs, pits, removable walls, teleporters, ladders, hallways, mostly more in a short form, complex instructions should be given in "How to get there".

I've not changed that, and used those headlines as well, but not as consistent as described above.
Phoenix wrote:I'm not a big fan of Connections. To me it's a little stilted and could be simply merged into the description. If we keep Connections, I propose we make it into a table and hide it with spoiler tags. This way it's still available for players who follow Christoph's conventions and hides it away for the purists like myself. We can address the problem of dealing with existing pages once we establish a convention. I'd really like to hear from others on what they think of these ideas so that we can establish a plan before starting to populate the non-existent pages(Death to red-links!).
There's nothing wrong with spoiler tags, I think. Indeed we should use them for coordinates and similar references on the "places" pages. Also should my "entries" and "exits" descriptions for the Moria (one of them being the way through Inferno) be moved to the corresponding levels' "How to get there" sections, making links to those in "Connections" of the main page of the Moria, which then refers to subareas such as the Upper Armouries via links in the "Interests" section. "Connections" should be reserved for paths to areas outside the current one. Such fully contained subareas would list under "Connections" paths to other subareas of or directly to the main containing area. "How to get there would describe which doors must be opened by which means and such. All this can be covered with spoiler tags whenever a secret/quest/riddle is described.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Zyx »

Since this wiki is reaching a threshold, I propose to set 5 pillars, similarly to Wikipedia.
- Wikiconflux is a knowledge & art database about Conflux.
- Wikiconflux is written from a friendly, good-faith point of view.
- Wikiconflux is free content that anyone can spontaneously edit, use, modify, and distribute.
- Editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner.
- Wikiconflux does not have firm rules.


---

So about many high standards, as long and they're not forced upon others, I agree wholeheartedly. Perfection is a virtue to pursue as long as you accept the imperfections of others. As Librasulus already explained, order and chaos require some balance.

Cheers.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Phoenix »

Christoph wrote:
Phoenix wrote:Places(act 1):
…but I'm totally against the approach above, because that's a hierarchical order not taking into account the non-linearity of Conflux ad it's use of teleporters, ladders and elevators. Levels are often irrelevant in the game. The Future lies on the Temple level for the player, while it is physically on the Spiders' level, probably just because there was free floor space to use.

A real life example:
*Universe
*Milky Way
*Solar System
*Earth
*Africa
Up to this point, it's a hierarchical structure where each bigger "place" fully contains the smaller ones. If you then take countries as "places", there are already some which aren't restricted to one continent. The Sahara qualifies certainly as a "place", but does overlap with multiple countries.

Moria is a good in-game example: it begins on level 10 with the Upper Armouries, and goes down to the Hot Springs. The three uppermost levels' main parts are Guild Master quests, 13 to 15 are the main Moria levels.

How do I determine what larger area a place belongs to? It's not only a matter of wall decorations, inscriptions on walls or the texts formed by the shape of rooms on the maps, I also consult the Hint Oracle (via the online maps Phoenix dislikes, because I'm too lazy.) If you go below the Hot Springs, the Oracle calls that "Under the Moria", while the Upper Armouries have got "Moria" hints.
This is something Zyx can address now that you've brought it to his attention.
Christoph wrote: The Towers of Loops, Doors, Pits all can be regarded as subareas of the Tower of Mampang, but are, apart from the entrance, located on physically unrelated levels.

Besides are you proposing a physical structure in the wiki namespace, while the list seen by users would remain flat. The logical ordering would be hidden as long as you don't click the links.
Phoenix wrote:Alternatives?
Well, I suggest the following: let's keep the areas ordered by the level of their uppermost part or the part where the main entrance is. On the levels, let's order by importance/size of the areas. Fully contained subareas should be listed nested under the main area:

*Old Path to Moria (5-12)
*DAIN (10)
*NETA (11)
*KU (12)
*Moria (10-16)
**Upper Armouries (10)
**Entrance of the Moria (12)
**Smaug's Den (15)
**Hot Springs (16)
*Emerald Forest (16)
*Under the Moria (17-21)
**Ye Old King Under the Mountain (21)
*Inferno (26)
(Only the "core" Moria places grouped, Moria placed at main (and initially only) entrance's level.)

or:

*Old Path to Moria (5-11)
*DAIN (10)
*Moria (10-16)
**Upper Armouries (10)
**Entrance of the Moria (12)
**Smaug's Den (15)
**Hot Springs (16)
*NETA (11)
*KU (12)
*Emerald Forest (15)
*Under the Moria (17-21)
**Ye Old King Under the Mountain (21)
(Only the "core" Moria places grouped, Moria placed at its uppermost subarea's level.)

or:

*DAIN (10)
*NETA (11)
*KU (12)
*Moria (12)
**Old Path to Moria (5-12)
***Entrance of the Moria (12)
**Upper Armouries (10)
**Smaug's Den (15)
**Hot Springs (16)
**Under the Moria (17-21)
***Ye Old King Under the Mountain (21)
*Emerald Forest (15)
(Everything strongly related placed under Moria, Moria placed at main (and initially only) entrance's level.)

I'd go for a logical order rather than strictly level oriented.
I think I was looking at this from the perspective of how do we physically add new places to the places page, and I agree that a logical grouping makes more sense. If we're going to go that route, then I'd suggest we ditch the level numbers entirely and just group by level and construct. We can include level information in the individual place page. This will also improve the presentation of the Places page.

So my revised example, adding your suggestions which I think are good as well, here
are, to me, the obvious logical groupings:

=== The Guilds ===
Guilds
Mildew Area ( I'm not sure this one even needs to have its own place it's just notation on a stairway down to the sewers really)

=== The Storage Cellar ===
Food Storages
Minotaur's Maze
The Giggler of All
Wine Cellar

=== The Temple ===
Temple
Retirement Room
Monastery
The Pit of Ephesus
Way of Tsu

=== The Sewers ===
Sewers

=== The Dwarven Mines ===
Mines
Dwarven Forge
Dwarven Fortress
Dwarven Maze
Dwarven Obituary Hall
The Fur Trader
The Merchant Maze

=== The Crypt ===
Crypt
Druafang's Tomb
Stairs of Ashes
The Altar of Ancient Doors
The Altar of the Assault
The Altar of Love
The Altar of Nightmare
The Altar of Rose
The Old Path To Moria

=== Spiders! ===
Spiders
Four Choices
Spiders' Lair
The Treasury

=== The Council ===
The Council
Captain's Quarters
Chamberlain
Chambers of the Council
Circus Games
Great Tribunal
Officers' Canteen
Head Councillor
Prison
The Barracks
The Fall of Fright
The Oracle
The White Chambers of the Council

=== Pit D ===
Garden of Nostalgia
The Maze of Thieves

=== The Emerald Level ===
The Emerald Level
Emerald guardians
Green Nightmare
High Sentinel
The Emerald Shop
Three Fights for Freedom

=== The Aprentice Level ===
The Apprentice Level
Xanathar's Lair
Aquantana
The Chamber of Darkness
The Cursed Armoury
The Darc Armour
The Gardening Challenge
The Sundrier
The Boots of Speed Puzzle
The Ant Nests and the Dragons' Room

=== The Sudden Death ===
The Sudden Death

=== ROS: The Quest of Leyla ===
ROS: The Quest of Leyla

=== NETA: The Quest of Mophus ===
NETA: The Quest of Mophus
Hell
Out of this World
The Elemental Plane of Air
The Elemental Plane of Earth
The Elemental Plane of Fire
The Elemental Plane of Water
Techno
Dragon

=== DAIN: The Quest of Gothmog ===
DAIN: The Quest of Gothmog

=== KU: The Quest of Halk ===
KU: The Quest of Halk
The Void Pit
Alchemy Lab of the Hellforge

=== The Dragon's Lair ===
Dragon's Lair

=== The Clockwork Knights ===
The Clockwork Knights

=== The Tower of Mampang ===
The Tower of Mampang
Tower of Loops
Tower of Doors
Tower of Pits
The Archmage Observatory

=== The Emerald Forest ===
Emerald Forest

=== The Environs of Moria ===
Moria
Upper Armouries of Moria
Entrance to Moria
The Bridge of The Second Hall
The Bridge of The Third Hall
Tomb of Balin
The Bridge of The Tower of Chaos
Smaug's Den
Hot Springs
Ye Old King Under The Mountain
Inferno
The Chamber of Oblivion

=== Other Places of Interest ===
Nightmare

So, for each === conext level ===, the first entry mirrors the context. If the level is flat like the Mines, I added places to each context alphabetically. I then grouped by the level you get access to places. For example, this moves areas such as Food Storages, Minotaur's Maze and, The Giggler of All from their physical location on Guilds level, to their access location since you can't directly access them from the Guilds level. For the multi-levels like Moria and The Apprentice Level, I grouped levelly, but for the Tower of Mampang I grouped by the order you have to follow. There's no direct access to the Nightmare so I pushed that one to Other. These are the major groupings that encompass the dungeon. Other places that need to be added can be easilly inserted into this structure. Does this make sense?
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Christoph »

Phoenix wrote:Does this make sense?
Sounds fairly reasonable, but I think we should not make a complicated multi-level re-ordering as of now and keep the level-based approach as it is for now.

Let's see how many places pages we need first before we try to order them so that the player can find things.

The Places page is growing rapidly, and we shouldn't waste time for multiple rearrangements, because we see later that the previous approach wasn't as good as we thought.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Phoenix »

Christoph wrote:
Phoenix wrote:Does this make sense?
Sounds fairly reasonable, but I think we should not make a complicated multi-level re-ordering as of now and keep the level-based approach as it is for now.

Let's see how many places pages we need first before we try to order them so that the player can find things.

The Places page is growing rapidly, and we shouldn't waste time for multiple rearrangements, because we see later that the previous approach wasn't as good as we thought.
I disagree, to me it makes sense to do it now while the number is small. The previous approach fails because it's an ugly flat listing places that started small and was never really populated at all. Only a quarter of the existing places pages even have data. The longer we wait the harder it will be to organize. What is the end purpose for the wiki? Isn't it to be a complete encyclopedia of all things Conflux? If so then ultimately the places page will list all the place in the map that have textual references on the walls of the dungeon, hold puzzles/riddles, a homes of significant monsters, etc. That makes for a lot of places. The sooner we have a foundation, the easier it will be to add and organize new places on top of what already exists.

Also,
I'd also like to see the descriptions a little less terse and not bullet points for that particulalr section. To me a description is a general layout of the room/area with information on what you see on the foors and walls, what you see when you first enter the place and what text appears (if any).

What's currently called Interests (I'm not a big fan of this name and construct) should have information on what buttons and switches do, puzzles located here, spoiler tagged solutions to puzzles/riddles, cautions about the area. It doesn't allow for future deep linking to particular content link you can with say Unique Items. As it stands now, you can jump link to the weapons section, the armor section or misc on the Unquie Items page. I'd really like to be able to jump link to particular table row/entries but I haven't found a method that works.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Christoph »

While increasing the number, the places (hence where to put a new page) are more easily to find by level, at least for me. I sometimes fail to rmember how I opened up an area initially, which is most important for a proper placement. I also have no idea yet, what approach might be the best, and I'm not fond of multiple re-orderings, because our best gues as of now proves to be still too confusing later.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Phoenix »

Christoph wrote: While increasing the number, the places (hence where to put a new page) are more easily to find by level, at least for me. I sometimes fail to rmember how I opened up an area initially, which is most important for a proper placement. I also have no idea yet, what approach might be the best, and I'm not fond of multiple re-orderings, because our best gues as of now proves to be still too confusing later.
The problem is your approach is based on matching the rooms to the interactive maps. Places have more importance than levels. I don't play Conflux with levels in mind. I take the elevator in the Guilds down to the Dwarven Fortress where I take the flux to the Officer's Canteen, consume food, take the flux back to the Dwarven Fortress, so that I can take a shortcut through the Dwarven Forges to the stairs that lead down to the Crypt.

I've been looking at other games that have a wiki and places. The majority of them list places alphabetically, and I now think that's ultimately the way to go. With an alphabetical listing, it's easier to find a listing then what we current have, anyone can add a page for a place they get to that isn't listed without needing to know anything about levels to know where to put the page. It also won't matter if you forget where you opened it up and you can add that information to that Place's page when you do.
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Re: Conflux III wiki discussion

Post by Zyx »

Is there a reason not to put both lists?
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