Template talk:Npcbox

See also Archive of Template:Mobbox: /Archive 1

Removed Default Image
Arg, thanks to Mikaka pointing it out, I've removed the default image of a troll. It spawned on every page... Sillly me. Real fix pending. -- Hobinheim  ( talk ·  contr ) 16:30, 16 January 2007 (EST)


 * I removed the pic width argument because it was stretching the more slender pics (notably elven females) into pixelated ugliness, and because an small width makes the broader pics too tiny. -- 06:48, 20 January 2007 (EST)

Bot Convertion
See talk on Talk:Boilerplate:NPC --Voidvector 04:00, 3 February 2007 (EST)

Parameter names make no sense
Why is does the parameter faction= just pick the icon type, but the parameter city= actually shows up after Faction:? Looks like this template needs some work. -- Fandyllic  (talk · contr) 10:51 PM PST 5 Dec 2007
 * Ran out of names? o_o Unless you feel like changing all the instances of it now Have fun! . --Sky (talk | con | wh ) 08:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

New template for characters?
I just want to say one thing... This is MUCH uglier then the one we had before. +This one is NOT very good fore lore characters etc. etc. +The one we had before had such a nice textrure and... it was VERY nice. +Example... Sargeras! Look at it, does it fit for a lore character? NO!

Is WoWWiki starting to become an anti-lore site?!?!?!?!?! I am sorry if I sound upset, BUT I AM!

I don't know what you can (or will) do about it... but just... Now I have said what I wanted to...

--'The Lich King'' - - -  10:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The one we had before did not fit the color scheme of the site. It was too large, and clumsily coded.  This one fits both and allows for easier updates.  I don't see how you would presume that would make WoWWiki any less favorable towards lore. -- 13:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Wowbox was cool, but it did have very hacky code and made updating the relevant templates quite difficult. 15:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You see, now we have a "Level" thing... and... instead of a real "Faction" thing it comes a picture in the left corner and that doesn't work well for... hmm, let's see... the Burning Legion? Or the Scourge? --'The Lich King'' - - -  12:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, level needs to be put in an if, whilst the neutral icon does indeed need changing, perhaps with extra icons. 14:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeap, get more icons and we'll set it up. Otherwise, I recommend  . -- 15:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Linkage to Thottbot et al
How about adding a parameter for linkage to the DB sites that have mob pages? (I wanted to add one for K. Lee Smallfry) -- ScratchMonkey 15:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Should follow the NPC boilerplate, which says it should have a section at the bottom titled "External links" and then use the elinks-NPC template. --Sky (t | c | w ) 18:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Slight changes
Under where it has balance, with the, Pets needs to be changed to pets. 02:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Other factions?
Much like how NPC can handle factions other than A/H/N/C, how about NPCbox? I've already created Image:SSO 32.gif as a test case (see ). Short of the obvious factions (Aldor/Scryers), any other factions come to mind? Wrath isn't too far away and I get the feeling there's going to be another "pick a faction" decision happening as soon as we get to Dalaran... -- k _d3 03:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That would be nice... Neutral just doesn't fit all these new factions that are appearing. Just so long as it doesn't get crazy, by crazy I mean every faction (in-game) getting an icon... 03:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

New fields
How about if we add new fields called Parent Race, Former Race, and Caste? Parent Race would be used for all those confusing subraces that are sometimes called races. For instance, Night Elf would have Elf as the Parent Race. Ironforge Dwarf would have Dwarf as the Parent Race. Former Race could be used for people that have turned into the Undead or something else like Sylvanas Windrunner and Illidan. For Sylvanas, instead of Race = Forsaken (Undead high elf) it would be Former Race = High Elf and then Race = Forsaken. For Illidan, instead of Race = Demon/Night Elf hybrid it would be Former Race = Night Elf and then Race = Demon. Caste would be used for the Highborne, a caste of Night Elves, and other races that have castes like the Nerubians, with their Nerubian Workers, Nerubian Seers, Nerubian Spiderlords, Nerubian Queens, etc. Rolandius ( talk  -  contr ) 08:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No. -- 21:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Edits
Could an admin edit this article to clarify some things. For instance, no one is using the "name" field like it says it should be. It says NPC name, not names without titles. For example, according to this article the "name" field of Fandral Staghelm should say Arch Druid Fandral Staghelm. The article is already named Fandral Staghelm so I thought that is why someone created the "name" field for the whole name in-game. Rolandius ( talk  -  contr ) 14:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * First a disclaimer, I'm not an admin. I think I can answer your question. As I understand the philosophy of the site, we want to keep things as close to how they appear in the game. So Name= should be the name that appears above the NPC when you look at them. Title= should be the title in angle brackets that appears below the name. Any other name or title they are given in lore would go in the body of the article, not in the NPCbox.
 * I don't know how this applies to NPC characters that are not in WoW, if they even have pages in WoWwiki. It's been a long time since I've played at Warcraft III, and I don't play the pen and paper RPG. Madkaugh (talk) 04:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

language
Why isn't there a Language field? Rolandius ( talk  -  contr ) 04:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Text alignment
Is it possible to set the alignment of the headline (within the blue box) to center? It looks weird on some pages: Velen.--Iggey (talk) 05:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Alias
I don't suppose an "alias" field could be added. It would be helpful for certain characters where their other name is not a title; Highlord Darion Morgraine -> The Ebon Watcher, King Varian Wrynn -> Lo'Gosh the Ghost Wolf for example. Tevri (talk) 17:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Image alt text should default to pagename
I had just 'fixed' the Voidhunter Yar page since the image alt/mouseover text displayed as "Image of ", but then I thought, this is rather a shortcoming of the template than the NPC page's editor, the template should use when  is not defined. In fact, the table title already does that fallback. Can someone with the proper rights change that please? ~ Nathanyel (talk) 15:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. -- 15:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I salute the ever-busy Pcj. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 16:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Race/Creature
Was that an accidental change to the npcbox to prevent whatever may be in the race= if no creature= parameter is there (or filled in)? Cause I'm noticing if creature= is empty the race doesn't show up either. 01:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I noticed that too. I also have noticed that people are putting in race and/or creature terms that do not exist or are not correct, but that is a whole other thing. Rolandius [[Image:Paladin.gif|25px]] ( talk -  contr ) 06:31, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Heres the funny thing, it shows up without creature type if you change it from race to races. 14:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Pet section
It might be time to remove the following pet parameters:
 * learns → Since its all done by family type and talent points now
 * skills → Same reason
 * hp → Done by family type now, might change in the future (again) and most likely won't be updated (many haven't been).
 * armor → See hp
 * dps → See hp
 * balance → links to categories that no longer exists

Any opinions? 01:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * No opinions, well... since seeing as these parameters are outdated and unused anyway, I'll go ahead with the changes. 08:37, October 26, 2009 (UTC)

Race field
I have started to see people is adding the RaceIcon to some characters pages. The current race field doesn't support this properly, cause it automatically adds the link. Also, for multiple races, in case of the halfbreeds, it's a mess. Because of this, people is using the race(s) field instead. The problem of using this one is that the creature type doesn't display, so my suggestion would be to merge the race and the race(s) fields, and remove the automatic linking.

Then, we should start using RaceIcons. We could improve the Race, too, to show every single race, and make tagging easier.

Finally, there's a "bug" I've found in almost every single page using this template. Whe you put race, but you don't put creature, the race doesn't show. Would be nice if that was fixed, to post the race no matter if creature is posted or not (or an empty creature folder could display "unknown" instead of hiding the race).

That's all, thanks from advance ;).--Lon-ami (talk) 17:36, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * I second this. 18:02, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * A top priority!
 * Almost no book character, we have in the wiki, has a Creature type, so they got no race either! (even thought the race is filled) Great shame!
 * 18:23, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * For the icon+race template to be used inside the race folder, I could think of something working like this:
 * Orc
 * Human
 * Arakkoa
 * We could use this template to replace the Race templates, too. There could be a problem with children and dragonkin (in case we decide to replace those other templates), but we could add more tags to it.--Lon-ami (talk) 18:32, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * For the race not showing if creature= is empty is not a bug... it was done on purpose... exactly why, I don't know. I noted this back in July see . As for delinking the race parameter I'd have to disagree. 21:23, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * What for half-breed races? Garona, Med'an, Lantresor, Alodi... they can't display their multiple races properly if the inking is automatic.
 * And whatever the reason for creature not displaying if empty, I don't find it anything positive.--Lon-ami (talk) 23:27, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * For a half-breed with multiple races, you have to use, because you will have Half-orc/Half-draenei if you use   instead of Half-orc/Half-draenei
 * Yes we could try to look for the  in the field, to put the   in the right spot, but that would assume that all users of Npcbox knows how you must format the field and that's surely impossible.
 * And  displays properly without the need of , but anyway,   should not need   too.
 * 09:24, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * The creature bug is fixed, looks like it was just a typo. -- 10:28, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Good eye... I had gone over that code a couple of times back in July to figure what was done, didn't see that little l. =/ 21:30, January 5, 2010 (UTC)

Icons into the race parameter
I would like to include icons such as these: in the npc box race section, they are aesthetically appealing and they represent the characater's race in a visual way, not just by text, please vote for yes!Sure the photo represents the character but these icons represent the character's race as a whole, individual icons will be used only wwhere needed, unique characters like: Sylvanas Windrunner,Lich King

Votes

 * Yes, Icon and Race :


 * Yes, Icon Only :
 * Option removed; not every race has an icon.


 * No, Race Only :

Comments
I feel its redundant. Not to mention consistency issues... not ever race as an icon made for them. So then you'll have some with icons and others without. Also, I removed the option of Icon only... for obvious reasons. 21:26, January 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm unsure about this, so don't expect my comment to stay in the field it is for a long time. In case of organizations and zones it's great, but in character cases, it feels too redundant. I'd like to hear Warthok's opinion (I think he was the first to start adding this) before making my final decision.--Lon-ami (talk) 23:08, January 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * It is true that myself and Warthok were the first to start implementing the icons, also it wouldn't be too much trouble for me too add them, considering the huge community of editors we have it could get done on all te major characters in less than 30 minutes. Plus they are, like I said before, visual representation of the characters race in entirety,also i appreciate all you guys helping me wiht the wowwiki. Thanks again :D. NOAHGSULLIVAN 02:56, January 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Heh... getting every wowwiki editor to work together on a single project.. very unlikely. A bot if anything would be setup. 03:27, January 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with you Noahgsullivan, if it is to be done, then it must me done to all articles with a NPCBOX, not only the major ones.
 * But according to What Links Here, there are roughly ~16,000 articles with a NPCBOX, changing them all would be madness! (even for a bot?)
 * 10:26, January 6, 2010 (UTC)\


 * I agree with you on that aspect, but it could be a gradual change and since most visitors visit the major characters most, then those could get done and out of the way, then if an editor is editing around, they could add it for other more minor characters which could work, i mean why is it so important all of them are done at the same time? NOAHGSULLIVAN 19:39, January 6, 2010 (UTC)



Lastest changes
I don't know what last days' changes where about, but in almost each NPCBox, we now have a Warning sign with a "on click" buble saying (Unsupported type "Link" defined for property.). I doubt it is the better way to force user to double check what they wrote, and meanwhile, it looks like a Black Point in a White Painting (understand: Out of the place)

Could this point be discussed or explained here?

Thanks.

11:48, July 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * Please provide an example. -- 12:03, July 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Never mind, fixed. -- 12:07, July 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * While you're at it, same thing happens with Questbox. If the lvl is not provided. ("" is not a number.)
 * See Quest:The Day that Deathwing Came
 * 18:09, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Screwed up template
If you have a look at Nancy_Vishas, you will see that the npcbox template is screwed up. It shows Nancy Vishas in the title and both the race and level links are broken. Jamesjiao (talk) 03:51, September 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * See the sitenotice, server problems. -- 03:51, September 10, 2010 (UTC)

Repfaction change
Is there any way to make it so that the text we put in the "repfaction" field links to the actual faction page? For example, I think it would make sense if, when the repfaction is "Stormwind", the link sent you to the "Stormwind (faction)" page, rather than the "Stormwind City" page. I realize that you could just put "Stormwind (faction)" in for the repfaction, but I feel like it should be more clean than that. X-Malleus (talk) 04:53, January 19, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's on my to-do list to get that fixed up. -- k_d3 04:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Alignment
Can we just kill the alignment line in the template? -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 04:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)