Talk:DM-Deck17

Items
What are people's thoughts on something a bit more structured like this for item listings? --Haarg 16:07, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Having had no interest in including that information ont he map pages, I actually like that and would like to see it on map pages. --Sir Brizz 18:28, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Definitely looks a lot better. I was confuzzled for a while about the selection of information (why the table includes the health vials' locations, but not those of the health packs), but now I see that's what the map is for. It might be handy to mention that for the rest of the locations one should look at the map, for retards like me --Kaithofis 07:10, 6 November 2007 (EST)

Well, not all maps have image maps to go along with them. But items are of difference importance. Health packs aren't a huge point of interest, but vials might be more important because they get you over 100. Mainly though, I was just copying the information that was on the page to begin with. It can be adjusted as needed. --Haarg 13:16, 6 November 2007 (EST)

On the contrary, I think the location of health packs are pretty important. Sure, after you play the level awhile you know where everything is, but having some entries filled out but not others makes the table look incomplete. Plus, it'll help new players who don't know the map be able to quickly find health under fire, assuming they remember where it is. Adrenaline might not be so important, since it isn't in any games other than 2kx (And UC2, albeit implemented far differently) and plus not too many servers even have it on, anyway. --Dark Pulse 00:17, 9 November 2007 (EST)

I agree with DP's point and his reasoning. In some cases Health Packs are more important than the vials that only give you 1 health, even if they do get you 100+. It all depends on the situation. Retodon8 23:29, 9 November 2007 (EST)

I don't disagree, but I would say in the case of Deck where there the vials are in clusters I would say they are more important than normal health packs. It really depends on the level. If we did want to go into full detail on every pickup though, this structure might not work the best. Any thoughts on how to improve it for that? --Haarg 21:47, 10 November 2007 (EST)

What about something like this:

Rather than make "overall" amounts, we split them into groups if possible, since it's pretty rare to see just one health vial or one adrenaline pill in a general area.

Yeah, it's a bit longer and perhaps over-informative to some, but I think that it's plenty of information, especially if we paired it up with maps and/or pictures. --Dark Pulse 04:20, 11 November 2007 (EST)

I think that's a bit overkill. Pickup locations are something you'll have to figure out while playing anyway, so I think limiting placement descriptions to items that are out of the way or of particular importance (super shield, amp) would be better. I'd also rather have something small enough that the pickup and weapon boxes can be placed next to each other as in my example, although the placement of the blank space isn't ideal. I'm fine with including more information that I did initially; as I said, I was just copying what is currently on the page. But including a complete description of every item's location is pointless in my opinion. --Haarg 19:26, 1 February 2008 (EST)

I agree that mentioning the locations of smaller pickups (even if it's in groups) and ammunition is a bit too much. However, I think that it would be useful to include the locations for the weapons. Personally I see more use for that than for the ammo count from the 1st example. Other than that I think that the 1st set of tables looks very good. Maybe the health/shieldpack's locations should be given instead of the ones of health vials, but I haven't played enough to know which of the items are most important in combat, so I'll leave that up to others to decide --Kaithofis 20:00, 1 February 2008 (EST)

In my opinion there really is no need to describe every little (or not so little) item including it's location. Who's gonna come to Liandri Archive just to find out where all of the Health Vials are located? I doubt anybody will. In my opinion the only interesting point of view - if any - is the statistical one. For example when looking at VCTF-Suspense you could see there are only two Avril pickups and zero ammo, leading to the conclusion the mapper wanted to keep the Avril use down. IMHO the only items with a place description should be the hidden or special (dd, redeemer, supershock, super health, etc.) ones. --Awaw 18:56, 2 February 2008 (EST)

Revised my chart at the top. Any criticisms layout wise? The amount of details can vary from map to map. Also, isn't there only 1 link gun on this map? --Haarg 19:38, 2 February 2008 (EST)

If you're going to give the location of a weapon, you might as well give them all. Right now the notes section is a big waste of space apart from the last row. I'd replace "Notes" with "Weapon's Location" too, as now it's unclear whether you are talking about the weapon's location or that of the ammo. Now on the subject of what people are coming here for: I try to write my articles so that people who've never played the map will have a good idea of what to do. I'd say that the weapon locations are crucial for that. It's the first thing you'll need after spawning and a good knowledge of these locations will win you the match. --Kaithofis 07:38, 3 February 2008 (EST)

I kinda agree on your layout criticism. But how are you gonna describe the locations of the weapons? Let's say the Flak in Deck - Between the rocket launcher and the dd, below on a little platform? But in order to understand that, the user needs to know where the rl/dd is... Apart from that I doubt anyone can remember all the locations of the weapons by reading it. How about this: The tables just show the pickups/weapons (and ammo) and their count. For the location a picture is used, just like it is already on this page, maybe more detailed. If it isn't clear how the reach something in the first place (redeemer), an explaining sentence is added. --Awaw 08:53, 3 February 2008 (EST)

Wrote this before Awaw's post: In this case, the notes section is somewhat wasted, but that's because there's only really one weapon that's out of the way or not obvious. And if there were no notes, the space would be wasted anyway. You aren't going to be able to play a map well without walking around it first, and doing that you will find where the weapons are anyway. If you can't remember where the weapons are from that, I don't think text instructions will help. Additionally, describing weapon locations is usually awkward. You can't use directions like left or right, nor compass points. Pickups are easier to describe usually because you can reference the nearby weapons. That's all mostly irrelevant though. If people want to add descriptions of weapon locations, I don't have a problem with it. I'm more concerned with creating a layout that will work for all pages if possible. Are there any obvious problems with what I have? I'd rather optimize for a medium to low level of detail than have it be ugly or less useful because many pages don't have exhaustive detail. --Haarg 09:00, 3 February 2008 (EST)

I definitely don't think the notes column as I have it is ideal, but the symmetry with the pickups table makes it work OK I think. I'm not sure of a better way of doing it. I'd like to provide a place to add a small location description like I have for the redeemer where that is viable. --Haarg 09:06, 3 February 2008 (EST)

I've created a testpage at User:Awaw/MapTest to view the different possible layouts. Please keep in mind that none of these includes the graphical layout atm, which would be quite a waste if we wouldn't include it IMHO. --Awaw 09:39, 3 February 2008 (EST)

I think it's undoubtable that the notes sections are needed. Particularly for Super Weapons/Super Pickups, though we could potentially just group them under a heading like that. I don't see a purpose in telling where anything other than those are since everything else is typically in relatively easy to get to places. Sir Brizz 13:20, 5 February 2008 (EST)