Talk:Main Page/Archive 1

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This page is an archived copy, and was created on 12/19/2007.

This page is for historical reference, not active discussion. Please use the article's talk page instead.

I just added weapon damage as a thing needed. Hope that was ok, I'm new here. Ratty 07:52, 30 September 2007 (CST)

I think we should add a "Weapon" section on the Main page. Oh, btw, I'm new too.--Di4tribe 11:48, 3 October 2007 (CST)

One more thing, www.tf2wiki.net goes to a different site. Ratty 07:58, 30 September 2007 (CST)

Oops, my fault. That's been fixed now. Nos

Is there a forum or something we can chat at? One thing I've been working on is collecting damage ranges for all the weapons, and I'm wondering if someone else has already been doing that work. I will trust the numbers of anyone that can provide samples of damages, if they include if each hit was a crit, and if they hit them in the same place everytime. It sounds pretty obsessive I know, but I'm interested in playing competitively and knowing roughly how many hits it takes to kill a given class with a given weapon would help in that quick decision of "do I fight this guy, or do I run away?". Once we can collaborate and come up on some good figures we can agree on, that will be some really cool content found nowhere else but here. p.s. If you hadn't started this wiki, I would have, you just beat me to it. But great job on this so far, I will try to help contribute.

Probably the best place would just be my user discussion page. I'll make a point of checking that on a regular basis. -- Nos October 1, 2007.

Respawn Time?

Am I the only one who's confused about what determines the amount of time you end up waiting to respawn? It seems different almost every time! Could use some research etc on this topic.

When the attacking teams captures a CP, the respawn time of the defending team increases for a short time and the respawn time of the attacking team decreases for the same amount of time. This was made, to avoid endless games. With a shorter respawn time, it's more likely that the attackers win. --koopa 13:28, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Bios?

Perhaps we could add bios containing the information that comes with the 'Meet the Class' videos on the Steam media section, as well as what accents the characters have, since some find them hard to place.

e.g:

Name: Engineer

Favorite Equation: *gif file*

This amiable, soft-spoken good ol’ boy from tiny Bee Cave, Texas loves barbeque, guns, and higher education. Natural curiosity, ten years as a roughneck in the west Texas oilfields, and eleven hard science PhDs have trained him to design, build and repair a variety of deadly contraptions.'

Useless information, but interesting to know. =)

A good idea! This would go well in their player page. Perhaps near the bottom after outlining their weapons, abilities, etc. - RiSK

Earning Points

It would be good to have a section, explaining how points are earned.

I realize, killing/destroying/assists etc, but I think they're a few special circumstances or situations that give more points. Or am I completely off base?

Thoughts? --Greyfox.ca 07:51, 4 October 2007 (CST)

I agree. We should implant this kind of section. But I can't do it myself now. I don't understand completly the way we earn points (the worth of each action). --Di4tribe 10:20, 4 October 2007 (CST)

I'll take some notes down and try to figure it all out, then I'll post something when I can. --Greyfox.ca 10:58, 4 October 2007 (CST)

Did a Points page up, you can review before linking to it. --Greyfox.ca 11:59, 4 October 2007 (CST)

Structure

New user, here. We might consider replacing the hub pages, like Classes, with Categories. I can work on that if you guys want me to. -Puddington 14:20, 3 October 2007 (CST)

Links section

Should we implant a link section? I think it could be useful to see a list of websites related to TF2 (ie: official websites, fan site, forums, websites about scripting, websites about strategies, etc.).

What do you think about that? --Di4tribe 10:11, 4 October 2007 (CST)

- That's a good idea --Greyfox.ca 10:57, 4 October 2007 (CST)

- I approve this. I think this will especially be an asset once the user-generated maps start flowing. -Puddington 12:14, 4 October 2007 (CST)

Spray How-Tos

(as much as I hate the abuse of sprays) I came across this guide to get Animated Sprays working. Tested it and it works fine. (Now how to create an animated SG image to spray on the opposite wall to where my SG is placed) Anyhow, do we want to create a page called 'Sprays' under the 'General'/'Customizing' section? --DNA.styx 13:29, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

Page naming conventions: Critical hit not Critical Hit

As per Wiki guidlines: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne and Art Nouveau, but not Video Games). The first letter of an internal wikilink need not be capitalized and will direct the reader to the same page (for example, video games or Video games can be used interchangeably as needed).

Are we all cool with that? Means pages like Critical Hit should really me named Critical hit? --DNA.styx 05:24, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

I'm kind of new here but I don't see why not. We definatly should probably adopt a standard. I could start moving a few topics to those pages, starting with Critical Hit --Pyrosity 15:10, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

Two quick notes: We're free to create our own conventions here since this isn't Wikipedia. (But Wikipedia conventions frequently have good reason for being the way they are, which makes them a good starting point.) Also if you plan on moving (renaming) a page, please use the Move button at the top. This moves the history associated with the page to the new name as well. --Praestat 16:42, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

I wasn't aware of that feature before, thanks for bringing that up. --Pyrosity 10:38, 22 October 2007 (CDT)

This should apply to all naming conventions i.e. "Sentry gun" not "Sentry Gun" and "Respawn area" not "Respawn Area". As a rule of thumb though, this is only titles (sections and page names). When used in standard paragraph text you should use lowercase, i.e. "The engineer can construct a sentry gun" or "camping the respawn area" (links are automatically picked up). After spending a while reading through wikipedia documentation, I'm as guilty as anyone for this and I've also told myself off for overlinking as well and will be going through quite a few pages sorting these two bad practices out. A help document with the basic TF2 Wiki standardisations (including user comments on discussion pages, grrr) might be useful at a later date. In the meantime, to save you a bit of time trawling through them, a good reference is the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (ironically titled eh? :p). -- Aurora 10:27, 28 November 2007 (CST)

I see you finally started using : instead of * to indent your comments :P -- WanderingFox 10:35, 28 November 2007 (CST)

Hense the "user comments on discussion pages, grrr" comment, lol. Hey I've always said I'm a noob ;), but this is good because if I didn't know all this stuff, it probably means other users won't when they first start adding to the wiki -- Aurora 11:48, 28 November 2007 (CST)

Wiki code?

On most of the pages when I click to edit a specific section all I get is stuff like this: ===Information=== {{{INFO}}}. It's kind of hard to edit pages with this, as I am totally unfamiliar with this style of formatting. Is there a reason for it? --Pyrosity 15:13, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

It's a consequence of the heading being in the template (such as Template:Class and Template:Weapon). Editing the Information heading, for example, edits the template that it comes from while the {{{INFO}}} text comes from page it's included from. The two simplest ways to prevent this would be to not use headings in templates unless the template contains the text you want to edit or to add __NOEDITSECTION__ to these templates to hide useless edit section links. --Praestat 16:42, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

I see. It's a little odd for me to grasp but I think I understand how it works now. I should be able to edit these pages now without it blowing up on me :) --Pyrosity 10:43, 22 October 2007 (CDT)

Main Page redesigned

I've redesigned the Main Page. Feel free to tweak it, revert it, or post comments here. --Praestat 19:15, 28 October 2007 (CDT) One annoying problem is that the images link to the image page and the only ways to workaround that behavior is to change a global in the MediaWiki software or to add an imagemap extension. --Praestat 20:13, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

Is there a way to embed an html image link there? It wouldn't be wiki-kosher, but you'd end up with an image that links to an article. -Puddington 11:32, 29 October 2007 (CDT)
Okay ImageMap is installed and working. I edited the demoman on the main page as an example, feel free to take on the rest. --Nos 12:34, 29 October 2007 (CST)

- I'll upload some more screenshots of the maps if you want, like I did with Gravelpit. Granted, the maps don't have pages yet, but they can at least have a spiffy picture :D Thepineapplehead 13:55, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

- Thanks Nos! I've converted the other classes. Nice pics Thepineapplehead. --Praestat 20:51, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

Guys - Do we really need the ToDo list on the main page? I totally agree that to do lists are a good idea, especially in a young wiki project but I don't think this is the best way of doing it. I propose we adopt the Wikipedia way of handling To Do lists (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia:To-do_list) which basically has a ToDo list at the top of each articles Talk Page by adding a {{to do}} template in the article. Also a To_do catagory is created which lists all the tasks (see Wikipedia:Category:To_do). I beleive this is how MediaWiki works but this is the first time I've used it so maybe someone can confirm this or we just give it a go...I thought I would leave this open for discussion for your feedback before trying it though -- Aurora 14:55, 22 November 2007 (BST)

Update - After much reading of MetaWiki and hours of head scratching I think I've solved this problem, see below in the Talk:Main Page#Templates section -- Aurora 19:41, 26 November 2007 (CST)

Taunts

I think we should move the taunt section in each class page to the Taunt page. At the moment, the taunt descriptions are very incosistent from page to page and this may fix the problem. Taunts also don't seem relevant enough to each class to warrant inclusion on their page.

Are taunts actually gloating ? :unsure:--markdeadlydavis 04:51, 29 November 2007 (CST)

USE command for spy PDA incorrect?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=620003

Can someone please confirm?

Should we show how to do Glitches?

Should we have a separate article for glitches? Like explaining how to do a few. This is a TF2 wiki so we should post all about TF2 including the glitches and bugs. But, I'd hate to see people start to use some of them. It's a hard decision IMO.

What do you think?

FOR. We can tell about glitches and describe them, it's up to players use them or not, many server's rules state that they can ban for using Xploits/glitches. However, learning about WHAT can be done, people can think about WHY it is possible and maybe receive some extra knowledge about TF2 or create their own strategy. --JanisB 20:19, 8 November 2007 (CST)

It doesn't bother me either way, although someone will need to maintain the list. I highly doubt they'll let some of the current glitches stay (getting under TC_Hydro as a demoman for example).--WanderingFox 12:35, 14 November 2007 (CST)

I would say add them in, but as WanderingFox said, we'll need to make sure its kept up to date, say by adding a "FIXED" or something and a link to the patch description that fixed each glitch. --Nos 14:06 14 November 2007 (CST)

An Idea we could maybe implement?

I was wondering if mediawiki supports sound files? If so, perhaps we could add the speech files for the taunts, response rules etc. all linked to the text, Anyone with me? It's easy enough to get the sound files themselves- they can be easily extracted with gcfscape from the sounds folder.

How to defeat certain classes

New user here, but I have noticed that there is not much info on what defeats certain classes or what a class is bad against. Do separate pages need to be made? I already made one but am not sure if it should be there at all or the process should be continued for the other classes. Thanks for listening.

A single rock/paper/scissors page on class balance might be worth creating, although any class CAN kill any other class if there is sufficient difference in skill (I kill pyros all the time as a scout for example). --WanderingFox 07:53, 15 November 2007 (CST)

Exactly what I mean, creating a page that shows exploits in the weaknesses in each class so that it is easier for people to understand how to stop or destroy that class. Using your example, you obviously know how combat a Pyro as a Scout (Not using Scout much, I wouldn't know). Wouldn't that be some good pages? Show the weaknesses of the class, just like their strengths are shown, and suitable tactics for each class to combat the class discussed, kind of like rock/paper/scissors but with guns.

Right, but it only needs to be one page. There simply isn't enough information to warrant each class having it's own 'how to counter' page. A single page devoted to countering each class would suffice. --WanderingFox 21:05, 15 November 2007 (CST)

I think there's plenty of information to fill a single page for each class- considering you have to write a counter-strategy for all nine classes as pertaining to your own. I think we should do what the Smashwiki does: Have an idividual 'Match-Ups' page for every class which tells you what strategy to use against every other character. --Wilsonator 02:51, 16 November 2007 (CST)

I suppose. If you want to make all 9 pages go right ahead :P --WanderingFox 07:45, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Id say a separete section under the profiles would be enough so another section titled Versus or something like that eg in The spy section you could have Versus and then underneath each of the other classes i can see the length of each class getting longer over time do i put user:markd etc in here ?

If you're asking how to sign your pages hit the button that looks like a scribble on the edit bar or put in -- and then 4 ~ marks. Also the ':' character indents, which makes it easy to see what you're replying to. --WanderingFox 13:46, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Well, i added match-up pages for each class, which I will be updating over the course of the next week or so. Feel free to fill in the blanks with your own advice or build on the tips that are already there. --Wilsonator 15:40, 18 November 2007 (CST)

Perfect, this is exactly what I had in mind, thanks Wilsonator

Templates

If you're going to make a template for something... actually use it.

I've fixed the Map template, and applied it all of the official maps. I also created a Pickup template and applied it to the Health, Metal, and Ammo pages.

Please use the templates rather than copying the code out of them. This allows for changes to easily be made to the template without having to go through and change each individual map. --WanderingFox 13:44, 16 November 2007 (CST)

I just added a template for Patches (see Template:Patch). I've applied it to all of the release patch pages, although some of the source links need to be updated (the ones that I could not find quickly just go to http://steampowered.com). The template still needs to be applied to all of the Beta patches at some point. I'll try to get to this later. --WanderingFox 14:24, 16 November 2007 (CST)

New template created for Match-up's, originally called "Match-Up". All layout (including image representations) done in templates and data entry should be straight forward. I've just finished transferring all the original data to them for all the classes. Hope all these changes I'm making aren't causing any concern for anyone, if they are let me know. -- Aurora 23:59, 23 November 2007 (CST)

Holy templates Batman, I've finally got the ToDo templates working! "WTF are they?" I hear you cry, well it means that shortly you will be able to create a ToDo list for any page you wish. Not only that, but when you do, it will automatically create a new listing in Category:ToDo so anyone looking for stuff to do can go there and pickup any outstanding work on TF2Wiki. And it doesn't stop there!....you also have the facility to easily create a watchlist on the ToDo pages, which will let you track changes to them. -- Aurora 19:41, 26 November 2007 (CST)

Update 08:07, 27 November 2007 (CST): Added a Help:Using ToDo Lists page, see this for instructions -- Aurora 08:07, 27 November 2007 (CST)

Why is it always the soldier...

Is it just me, or is every single weapon/skill screenshot here being demonstrated on the soldier?

It's kind of saddening to those of us who regularly play the class >_< -- WanderingFox 13:40, 26 November 2007 (CST)

Thats cause you count 1,2,3,4 rockets and attack him--Markd 07:25, 28 November 2007 (CST)

No no, I'm talking about the staged screenshots we use on the wiki, like the backstab one for example :P -- WanderingFox 08:05, 28 November 2007 (CST)

I gathered that lol i just find most soldiers quite easy to counter when playing, the clever ones fire three rockets and then reload or two and reload id guess we could stage some screen shots with other classes though the best oponent would be ideal like the sniper taking down a heavy a pyro taking out a spy etc--Markd 08:16, 28 November 2007 (CST)

Look at the TF2 trailer, the soldiers are getting pwned by a single lvl1 sentry, and a heavy. Its not our fault that Valve hates heavies. DontEatRawHagis 11:34, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Actually us really good soldiers only fire 1 or 2 rockets before switching to shotty, just in case :p - The soldier is the easy all rounder option for beginners making it one of the most common choices. Easy to play but not so easy to master, when you come across one of these you will know about it, well that is just after the camera switches to the deathcam ;) --Aurora 12:14, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Taunt Pictures

Both Aurora and WanderingFox have attempted to table the taunt pictures I uploaded, but I didn't notice any difference apart from the alignment becoming slightly messed. Looking at the script, it appears that tables don't work in the template, does anyone with more editing knowledge know how to fix this? --Wilsonator 09:46, 28 November 2007 (CST)

They work, but you need to modify the code slightly. I forget exactly how, but its something along the lings of having an extra | in the table code. I'll see what I can do later tonight. -- WanderingFox 10:28, 28 November 2007 (CST)

I've been thinking about this for a few days and I'll take the blame on this one, WanderingFox was just amending what I had already done. The reason I tabled the images originally was because when you run all three down the side, they run into the next section and the page looks generally cluttered. Even after tabling and re-arranging them though it didn't resolve the layout flow of the article. I tend to defer to Wikipedia standards as the chances are they will have already run into any issues and resolved them. In this case the guidelines are here at Guide to layout - Images and they suggest moving the images to Commons (dedicated Wikipedia media storage) and link to it. As we don't have our own Commons, we will have to come up with our own standard. My personal choice would be to use one image thumbnail which then links to either A) a new page specifically for each classes taunts, or B) an image gallery. However I'm not adverse to any solution but do think we shouldn't have all the image taunts on the main class page. --Aurora 04:09, 29 November 2007 (CST)

It seems WanderingFox has finished what I gave up on and re-arranged all the taunt pictures (I still think we should only have one but will go with others opinions). Wilsonator can you give us some feedback on this to see if they are still "messed", they look ok on Firefox and IE to me but you could be using a different OS or browser that we haven't accounted for. --Aurora 13:08, 29 November 2007 (CST)

I was in there fixing the class pages anyway, so I figured I might as well. Whoever wrote them originally had the | for the template variables at the end of each section (rather than right before the variable name), and it was driving me batty whenever I went to update something in the section. Anyway, everything looked OK to me, though I don't like having to use dozens of BR's to space everything (more content maybe? or move those 'meet the' images into info rather than bio). -- WanderingFox 13:58, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Weapons section?

Should a weapons section be added the the general topics section on the main page that links to all the different weapons by class, or are the links from the class pages fine? --Wilsonator 09:50, 28 November 2007 (CST)

There is already a Category:Weapons page, do you mean seperate pages for each classes weapons, i.e. Engineer weapons, Spy weapons, etc? If so, this would be a good idea, but I think this should be a List (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Lists) rather than a full article. --Aurora 05:27, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Default keys layout

Do we want / need a page on default keyboard commands the medic button could be accompanied by an image of all those red crossess and direction arrows--markdeadlydavis 07:17, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Moved your post to bottom because I almost missed it, hope you don't mind. Not really sure what you mean by the red crosses and direction arrows though? If you feel like anything would be of useful to someone just create a page and start doing it, no need to ask, the wiki is for everyone. If someone objects and thinks it's pointless they will probably put it in the discussion page and a request for removal maybe made. A guide would be, if you think it would be useful, someone else will probably think the same and the objectors can moan all they want, it's the admins decision. --Aurora 12:23, 29 November 2007 (CST)

My guess is he's talking about the 'medic call' arrows that show up on the medic's screen. If that's the case, they should actually be added to the Heads up display article. As for the default keys, that is probably something worth making, so feel free to make the page, if you do anything wrong, or we don't agree with something, it will end up in the talk page of the article, or we'll just fix it for you :P -- WanderingFox 14:38, 29 November 2007 (CST)

You never need to fix my additions :D yes its the HUD medic call arrows i meant. Have created the default keys page now. I use it on my monitor when playing saves time--markdeadlydavis 03:31, 30 November 2007 (CST)

Thoughts on adding userboxes?

A lot of our user pages are really dull :P Not that this has any real baring on the wiki, or anything at all, adding something like the userbox template from wikipedia may be a nifty way to spice up our user pages (user boxes for achivements, classes, etc.)

While I know this wiki is still in its infancy, we should start to consider what we can do to make it more of a community in addition to a repository of knowledge. Userboxes, and some of the other nifty things from wikipedia may be worth adding. Thoughts? -- WanderingFox 14:36, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Why the hell not, I know mine could do with some work. Although this is the first time I've used a Wiki (other than reading Wikipedia) so I don't know what people do on their pages and what kind of stuff you want to add. Want to point me in the right direction of what your thinking? --Aurora 16:02, 29 November 2007 (CST)

They're small pictorial tags that are used to identify and group people. For example on wikipedia there are ones for languages you speak, hobbies (such as chess, or video games), and a hell of a lot more. They're just little things that you can put on your user page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Userboxes

They're implimented via a global template, that is in turn used in another template (almost like how todo works). Someone creates a user box by applying the userbox template to a page, and filling out all the information. It's then used by everyone the same way you'd add a todo list to a talk page. Some more info on them: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-wikiHow-Userbox-UIB -- WanderingFox 16:34, 29 November 2007 (CST)

The master {{Userbox}} template doesn't seem to cause any issues after trying it, you can use it if you like but I'm not doing any documentation on it or anything yet, got plenty of other work that needs doing first. I'm sure Nos wont mind you creating your own templates though. Thanks for the wikihow link as well, that's a pretty damn useful site --Aurora 17:39, 29 November 2007 (CST)

I have no problems taking the project on, as it was my idea, I was mainly looking for other opinions, but it seems like it won't hurt, so I'll do the docs and examples and some basic ones :P -- WanderingFox 17:48, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Archive?

May want to set up some sort of standard for archiving long talk pages... Are we going to just clear them when they get too big, or are we going to split them off wikipedia style? -- WanderingFox 15:01, 29 November 2007 (CST)

If I understand you correctly, archiving articles wouldn't be used for this, it would be used for historical and out of date articles. Splitting the article would be the right thing to do and referencing out from the original. It would seem blasphemous to me to delete anything, it should just grow and at the minute there are only 154 articles on it. Just needs a bit of maintenance work doing one it, we just haven't had to do much as yet :p --Aurora 15:22, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Splitting was what i was referring to by the mention of archive (in the sense that it's old information separated into another section for reference). See any common wikipedia article's talk page for an example of what I mean. -- WanderingFox 15:24, 29 November 2007 (CST)

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