Regarding front page

When to Archive this page for new slew of discussions..?

"World of Errin," "Equipment," and "Skills" is cluttered. More so "Skills" than anything else on the front page. Think we can have it take up a full width or something? Or any font page renewals if any :s...Every wiki (at some point) revamps the front page in some way/shape/form...sooo why not now, if not sometime in the next quarter? Not to mention how defunct DFO is now... I wouldn't mind seeing the images below being used again in the near future (other than now of course D:).

I've never been a fan of there being a giant sitemap on the front page. I don't think Kadalyn likes it easier. I honestly believe search is much easier to use than that navigation.

Well I actually use it since well...everything's right there.

Ditto with Lexis. I think Lexis should span multiple columns, but I don't think Equipment should. Rather, I don't see a point in the subbullets, and I think the weapons under "Ranged" should be made their own bullets instead of subbullets. World of Erinn I'm not sure on, but I think the front page icon should be changed asap to be honest, before the rest of this is resolved.

We're planning to revamp and minimize the front page relatively soon. Feel free to dump your thoughts here.

Also yeah, we should switch that logo...hm~ maybe the middle one.

Thank you.

If you guys are planning to revamp the front page, then I recommend Starting with the General Information, its almost entirely full of "Miscellaneous" Sections. You should really use it for actual general information, like the categories lingering in the bottom half of the front page. Enchants, Production, Species, Pets and partners are all general information that should just redirect to their own category page.

The actual Miscellaneous section should become its own, things like Current bugs, OST information, and other Non in-game content.

Basically everything you just mentioned is linked on the left menu navigation. Is there a reason to have those category links multiple times?

Yes, because the main page also tends to serve as a directory too and there is no reason not to leave important category links on the front page (Why cant we have useful links on both?). However we don't need the information on the category page cluttering up the front page. Why do you think the front page equipment section is awkward looking? The Misc. Items sub bullet isn't related to equipment at all. I also don't see why we need to list enchants F to rank A on the main page when the category page serves that exact purpose. Things like that.

Your words seem to be agreeing with my stance, but your wording seems to imply disagreement.

Why not put all those lists in collapsible boxes so they are easy to get to but don't clutter things up when you don't need them? Just make the main category headings the titles of the boxes. Each box is closed by default, and opens when you click on it.

I tried that...it looks very awkward...

Better than removing the lists,

No it is not because:

1. It looks a bit cluttered and awkward for new people.
2. It's not a good replacement for minimization
3. Some people like to see everything available for ctrl+F on the front page.
4. It's just a bad way to hide things and is inconvenient for people :/

I don't see how it's more inconvenient than removing things from the page.

Just because you use it doesn't mean it should be on the front page. I challenge you to find any site that has that much navigation linking on the front page. Unless you are a slow typer, search will almost always be faster and if you use Chrome (possibly others), you don't even have to visit the wiki to search. You just type in the wiki URL until it comes up on autocomplete, hit tab, then type your search term. The actual search box on the website does autocompletion on pages and so does the Chrome search, if you do what I described above. If you visit the site by bookmark, then you can always bookmark a new "Site Map" page or something like that. There is also a fair bit of redundancy between that blob and the left menu navigation.

That being said, even though I rather dislike the navigation, there is no mandate to remove it unless something better appears.

My main concern is skills and how bunched up it is. Everything else is okay as is. I just wish it was a bit more organized :s

I like the info on the front page of wiki...Mabi is a big game, at least for me as a newbie I didn't even know what to search for when I saw something cool...It's nice to have the list of map/generation/skills/production, I'm sure it's helpful for newbies to look up the info they want easier, without having to clicking through random pages to get to whatever list they're looking for.

Serendove, I don't really find that to be a compelling argument. Even if you don't know what to search for, you likely do know what category your super cool thing falls under. You aren't going to look under the map section for a super cool looking skill. It's rarely going to be a truly random click sequence. By far the most used links on the front page are the missions, patch page, and events. Having so many deep links is information overload and I kind of doubt that many people are willing to filter through all of that.

Also, people who want to see change are free to mock their changes up like with any other big change.

I didn't say you look up skills under the map section, you look up skills under the skill section? which is included in my list of helpful tabs. Also nowhere on the wiki you get a complete list of all areas inside the game. Which I find is useful for newbies who want to look for new areas to explore. If you remove all those information, or at least make them harder to find, in my opinion it hinders the ability for new players to explore the game efficiently.

The game itself doesn't have a efficient guide to new players, which is why, at least to my understanding, this wiki exits. I'm not saying the front page is perfect, it could use reformatting, but I don't think it's a big improvement to remove the information there.

I do agree the skills section is a bit excessive though, I wouldn't mind just keeping the categories.

Categories would be fine for me. It would be better than seeing fighter skills then underneath it is puppetry...and so on. just a jumbled mess :x

My example was simply pointing out that one does not/should not have to "randomly click" through pages to find information. You should basically always know the category of what you're looking for, so category links should be enough. If the wiki doesn't have a list of all areas in the game, that's a shortcoming of the wiki and needs to be fixed, but I don't consider that a strong argument for verbose front page navigation.

The wiki isn't really a guide to the game either, it's more of an encyclopedia/reference. In my opinion, there are clear examples that run counter to being newbie-friendly because of verbosity. Enchants were mentioned elsewhere in this thread. If a player is new to the game, how is having all rank enchants on the navigation useful? To further my point, the top enchantment rank link from the home page in the past ~2 months is Rank A. That link was clicked 177 times. Of all of the link referrals outbound from the home page, that one was clicked 0.03% of the time. Multiply that by 14 to cover all ranks (an optimistic estimate) and it's still a whopping 0.5% of all link clicks. Statistically speaking, it's not useful. I can look at more stats later if you want, but trust me when I say the lion's share of links leaving from the home page are due to recency, not the comprehensive index on the front page. The main reason the navigation section is used is for skills that are recently released, as far as I can tell.

So I guess one idea is to start collapsing the navigation to categories where we see fit, and add a new category for "recent/relevant (to the latest release(s)) articles". I don't know what the right granularity of that would be, though.

Personally I prefer information accessable from the start. I wouldn't want to search into subsection areas (e.g. categories) to find what I need, because that would take some time to load and I don't like my time wasted (even if its just a flimsy second).

Yes, I do use the search function, but that doesn't mean everyone else will.

I didn't mention enchants but enchanting is not a very popular path for most people, so I understand why it has low click rate. But instead of comparing the amount of clicks to the total amount of clicks on the homepage, it should be compared to the total amount of clicks on the Rank A page during those 2 months, to give an idea of how many people in total actually visited that page in the first place.

That is beside my point though. I won't argue back and forth on this thread because you asked for my opinion and that was my opinion.

I will give one last example: I played in the Taiwan server when Iria came out, there was a wiki for it as well, but didn't have the info readily available on the first page. I went through a 2 months oblivious to the existence of the generation quests. I got bored very quickly and quit the game. I started after in the NA server and got into the Generation story lines and that's what kept me in the game. Looking back it would've helped me a lot if I had that info presented clearly in an index. I still see a lot of newbies leave the game because it get's too complicated and there's too much stuff to learn, they don't know whether a quest is just a quest or it's part of something else. Having the info readily available puts things into perspective, because how can you search for something when you don't even realize that it exists?

Whether if it's an intended function or not, this wiki is used by a lot of newbies as a guide, and I don't think that is a bad thing. Because after all this is a wiki for a game, and I hardly think the importance of it being encyclopedia worthy surpasses user friendliness... This wiki is more guide than encyclopedia from the way I see it anyways. For example, all skill pages have training tip sections. When you look up Carpentry in Encyclopedia Britannica does it give you tips on what type of axe to use and how to hold it?...You find that info in a Carpentry guide... All skills give comprehensive training data for each rank. When you look up Schools in Encyclopedia Britannica, does it give you all the classes it offers and all the credits you need to graduate etc?...You find that in a guide for students also... That's just two examples =/

I don't mind arguing back and forth on opinion if it helps me understand other standpoints. I'm making an effort to try and convince people of my views because I don't want to put much effort into ideas that are unpopular. Though, I dislike having extended conversations on wiki threads.

Even though enchanting is not a popular skill line, using enchantments is not, so I don't really think that's the total explanation behind the low clicks (also, 15712 visits to the Rank A page in the same period which means 1.1% clicked from the front page). The argument I'm trying to make here is the same argument I will make in response to your last example. You make a strong case (in this particular case) for making users aware of the presence of generational content on the wiki. That makes total sense, and I'm not disagreeing with that. My question is, why does that mean that every single generation needs a link on the front page? If a user isn't aware of generation quests, it seems highly unlikely to me that the user will be looking to click into the G17 article. Instead, they will think, "what's generation quests?" and click on a link that talks about them as a whole (and also links to the individual generations). So what I'm saying is, the additional level of detail is not helping new users. The same argument can be applied for enchants. I am not arguing that the entire navigation should be discarded, I'm simply saying that I believe it is way too fine-grained.

Somewhat related:

We've been open for like...5 years now? can we change that image in the top left, if not at the least have it say "Mabinogi World Wiki" or something similar? I still have a couple we could use...let me dig them up.

Uhh disregard "North America" as people from EU use this wiki also more than their own EU wiki..not to mention that EU players play here sooo ya. Anyways one of them has more intense shading while the other doesn't. I can change the font or wording if necessary as well o-o

I don't remember if I ever gave feedback publicly, but I don't like the font or the shadow behind it. The style just seems rather old as far as web design goes. I don't like the colored eye much either since it's too much of an attention getter.

I have one with the Celtic Cross somewhere...I'ma dig it up and see if I ever did anything to it.

I love the one with the colored eye, Lexis! I vote for the one with the colored eye and Mabinogi World Wiki.

As long as its not related to the Cessair's Red Eye Magic >.>

Personally, I don't like the current coloration of any of them. I'd rather they be uncolored or completely colored (which includes not a brown outline). The font is okay I guess.

I could make it a black outline, but the colors would stand out more (at least I think it would)...

Anyways I have a couple undone ones with the celtic cross that I never really expanded on. You can see in the link with this post.

I want you guys to look at every other game wiki in existence.

This is the kind of minimization saiyr and I are talking about. Major categories are kept. A few categories (like Guides) will probably be added. But the minor direct links will be removed.

Some of you talk about there being an overload of information in mabi. Things like the main page present that fact. It is more likely to scare newbies than to help them. If I were a newbie staring at that information, I would have no idea where to start.

Infodude, if you want to save time so badly, realize that you're not a newbie player and probably have the majority of page names memorized so that you can go there directly. Newbies don't need to "save a few seconds" and certainly wouldn't be saving a few seconds because they would be spending minutes scrolling through that crap in the first place.

When I asked for opinions I didn't mean "beg me to keep it the way it is" or "argue the viability of statistically irrelevant links" I meant make suggestions on how to consolidate and what sort of major pages you would like to see in that section.

I can't help but agree with this. When I first started to use the wiki I was quite lost with it.

Major pages I feel should be on the front page 100%: Generation disambiguation (or full list, whatever floats your boat) Talent list, skills list/disambiguation page

Although I do think the newmenu is a bit excessive, I feel like those wikis are under-doing it. Can we shift this conversation to being about what we think deserves to be on the front page?
I'm going to section by section on what my personal thoughts are:

• General Information
  • I want to hear others opinions on this first.
• World of Erinn
  • I think we should keep the town and dungeon names, but remove the subbullets. (Such as Rath Royal Castle, Connous Underground Maze, Fillia, Shyllien Nature Reserve, etc.)
  • I think we should ADD Shadow Missions and Theatre Missions to the list under dungeons.
• Equipment
  • First Column
    • Remove Magical Accessory bullet.
    • Remove Designer Sets bullet.
  • Second Column
    • Remove every bullet under upgrades besides artisan and special upgrades, and add gem upgrades inbetween the two.
  • Third Column
    • Remove subbullets for Dream Catchers, Umbrellas, Arrows, Ballistas, Bolts, Javelins, Bullets, Puppets, and Rapiers.
    • Remove the primary bullet Ranged, and make all its subbullets regular bullets.
    • Remove bullets for Pillows and Ragdolls, they're just Blunts. . .
    • Move Marionettes and Missiles to the first column, like Shields is.
    • Add Instruments and Tools to this column.
  • Fourth Column
    • Remove Instruments and Tools from this column.
• Enchants
  • Merge with the second column of equipment, since it'll be so short now.
• Species
  • First of all, move it to one of this sections, not the last. Choosing a player race is one of the most important thing for newcomers.
  • The Monster subcategories seems unneeded to me.
  • Bosses is fine.
  • We might also be able to merge this with a different section.
• Mainstream Quests*
  • Remove the Chapter Bullets and make all of its subbullets regular bullets.
• Skills
  • Needs two columns, which should be easy since we eliminated the enchant column and can merge species with General Information.
• Production
  • Leave as is.
• Pets and Partners
  • Rename Pets, Minipets, and Partners.
  • Remove bullets such as "Animal Humanoid", "Anthropods", etc.
  • Leave collection, flying mounts, mounts, and list of pets.
  • Remove Parnters and Minipets since they're already in the name.

Please don't discuss it in terms of what's currently there. We will flat out be removing the majority of it, no argument.

You can discuss consolidation, for instance: "Add a category that lists all places in Erinn and link to that." Or specifically say what's on there that you want to keep. Keep in mind that nearly every "sub bullet" is going to be removed. If you want one of them kept, post what it is and a strong argument as to why.

The design will likely change significantly, so there's no need to discuss that. I frankly don't want anyone's opinion on that until after it happens, because it's impossible to incorporate public opinion into design. Also I seriously don't want arguments against this fact cause I know some of you will want to. If you're a seasoned web developer you're welcome to talk with us about design (preferably elsewhere), but I'm pretty sure no one in this thread so far is.

Since people associate pictures to skills rather than text...

I'm still messing aroudn with it.

I approve of this idea, why didn't I think of that. . . Though, the admins are probably going to remove the list of individual skills altogether.

I'm trying to weed out what's important and what's not, talking to several hundred players in-game and that latter..no, it's not fun socializing to strangers...

I've asked some players (guild members and friends) for their opinions on your new template.

• This is what one of my guild members said:

“	Having the skills as icons might make things confusing for newbies. I remember using the wiki to learn about skills when I first started, and since so much relies on people /mentioning/ names, you won't always know something just from how it looks. Especially as a newbie, you won't, for example, recognize Chain Cylinder just by its icon.	„

• Many players, including myself, use the two sections removed for easier access to Lists, whether it is to the Enchant Ranks or Item Lists.
  • Many of the players I spoke to are Life skilled players, and they liked how all the production lists were easy for access since they did not need to locate the skill to find the list hidden somewhere inside the Details/Info sections.

“	Having the Enchant Ranks displayed helps players with looking for bridging enchants quicker.	„

• The armor/clothing upgrade list was more useful than all the weapon upgrades as each individual weapon has the upgrades already written below, but the armor/clothing upgrades are all the same.

Still working out kinks and various things. Trying to either move it elsewhere or leave some note of it.

Something's been bothering me lately... There's only the transform skill for transformations, but why not the other skills associated with? I mean, Demigod has both the transform skill and all its other skills in the tab.

Hell should I know. I'm fixing what's there but I guess it can be added. I'll admit it does look strange :s

lol It looks strange with just the active skill...if you want everything to be there, then why bother defeating the purpose of minimization qq.

I'm not so convinced pictures are better than text. Can't search images, and it doesn't seem to me that new users will know pictures over text. I would like to hear your insight in talking to people, though.

So far everyone that uses the wiki searches almost everything directly to the source via search bar. This includes but not limited to:

• Weapons
  • Upgrades for said weapon
• Enchants
• Methods of production
• Variety of equipment

So far, people find the front page rather useless except for daily info, on-going events, and server status. I'm guessing after that, everything just directs to the search bar for a more direct approach, rather than finding stuff on the front page. The item list is rather cluttered and shouldn't really be too elaborate. Like puppets and rapiers under sword and umbrellas under blunts. The skills box is said to be cluttered by about 160 of the some 400 users I asked. Some preferred skill icons while other prefer it be a large box rather than a cluttered mess.

Lexis, Kiyoura, in both of your cases, where these people taking into account hovering over the icon could show the name of the skills? I'd think that'd help newbies learn their names. I find that when I meet a new person, I don't remember their name, I remember their face. But if their name is said often enough while looking at their face, I begin to associate the name with the face. And when I learn a name and don't know a face, it's almost instant association, no need to spend time memorizing the face. (Keeping in mind that I am male.)

From what I asked, yes. In fact, hovering over the skill icon shows up the name in a generic windows box. Even the link in the bottom left corner says where the image leads to. If you mean actual mouse overs like the skill icons on Skill templates, that could be done.

From a long-time player's perspective, using the icons would be easier, but for beginners it would be harder.

From a beginners perspective, NPCs tell you the skills by their names, not by their icons. Hovering over each icon to find the name of the skill is rather more work for navigation. You shouldn't have to hover over icons to find the correct item in a list. If hovering over icons was adding function, then that would be one thing, but it's not adding function in this case; it's purely for aesthetics.

Also, having a player look at the bottom right/left of their browser, to check if the link is correct, is more work than it needs to be.

Which is why I suggested the skill icon template, because hovering over the icon says the name, rather than having to look at the destination link if your browser even has that feature. Perhaps we can make text-name toggleable somehow? There's no denying both sides of the argument are pretty useful.

Large icons are cluttery, and defeats the purpose of minimization.

Having these gigantic lists at all defeats the purpose of minimization.

Then what's the point of the front page at all? You expect people to click through 2 3 or 4 pages to find what they want?

The front page is for introduction, appeal, and news; it's not supposed to be a sitemap. Think of it like a book: you have your front cover, then you have your table of contents -- not both in one.

Then where would you have the table of contents? If we're not even going to have one.

It's exactly as Kevin says. Like before, I linked all of those other wikis to give you an idea of what front pages should look like.

And again, you will not be clicking through 2-4 pages to get to where you want, because you know what to search for. Newbies will, however, need to click through a couple pages; but they'll quickly learn what to search for as well.

I expect to add more categories and nicer summary pages and other things with this to make it an easy switch. Hopefully such a change will give users more incentive to keep pages like the Enchanting Sequences page up to date, which would fix Kyoura's guildmates' dilemma.

If I may stumble in to this conversation before stumbling out, the front page could be cleaned up by adding to the Categories listed under "Categories" on the sidebar, and there could be a link on the front page that leads to a "Table of Contents" page which would allow people to select categories and go from there.

Peace.

/stumbles out

And it's not that hard to make a "Sitemap" page and link to it under the "Navigation" pane on the lefthand sidebar.

Actually, is there nay way we can make hovering over a category on the sidemap bring up more specific subsections like in some other wikis? Either way, I don't think the Newmenu should be lost. Be it in the sidebar, a Sitemap page, or still on the front page.

We have something like that in the works I guess. Even then, I wouldn't want the thing to be super cluttered. Most wikis do not have a dropdown of all the skills in the game.

SkillIcon template is resizable (not that I care for the front page at all).

Okay that I did not know....time to do more messing around

Hovering is not newbie-friendly either. You still have to hover on each skill until you find the one you want, and well, that doesn't sound fun.

could do Skill Icon 2 template; it's the inverse with hovering the name brings up the icon.