Talk:Ronza's Satchel

Order

Not trying to edit war on the order. I just added description of them related to their difficulty level, and so I sorted them according to that (instead of alphabetical order). --Metal 16:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

As this is a reference site, alphabetical order is much more likely to be how people will be looking for them. I'm going to change them back. --B.Rossow · talk 17:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I came here to find out what is in the Green satchels. I'm already aware that these correspond to the higher levels, and so immediately looked at the last entry, expecting them to be in difficulty order. I don't think it would ever occur to me to look them up an alphabetic order (but that doesn't mean that other people wouldn't, of course). --Winelight 18:27, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow. That's like going to the Stephen King section at the library and expecting to find "The Stand" on the shelf before "Cujo" because it has more pages, or "Salem's Lot" before "Christine" because it was published first. Not trying to create an argument, but reference materials are virtually always alphabetized. --B.Rossow · talk 18:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually I'd expect the Stephen King novels in the library not to be in any order at all, they never are, in reality. But you're right, of course, in any catalogue they would be in alphabetic order - it is normal. But alphabetic order of colours seems contextually meaningless in this case, not that it really matters, I think people will be able to find what they need on this page. --Winelight 20:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia lists Stephen King's novels in order of publication, but that's normal for bibliographies. --Winelight 20:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

...which would make it darn difficult to find a specific book you were looking for unless you were already somewhat of an expert on Stephen King. Perhaps we should revisit the Mice page and relist them all in the order they were released? Or by ID number, which doesn't always correspond to release order? ;-) --B.Rossow · talk 20:56, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Alphabetic makes sense absent some other natural ordering, as there is here. Note that pages like Locations are also sorted by difficulty, not alphabetic order, both in the region and location within the region. Hence, unless there is some compelling reason to switch all such pages to alphabetic ordering, I think we should change this one to the more natural ordering. --Metal 12:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

How about sorting it after the colour-coding for screens R-G-B ?!? ... jk ... I propose leaving it in ABC and colouring the headlines in the respective colour.... _____m. 15:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

"Alphabetic makes sense absent some other natural ordering" Exactly so. --Winelight 16:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Location 'difficulty level' is misleading in the sense that as players progress, they get better traps, so locations are not necessarily more difficult from one location to the next. For example, most would rate the Training Grounds as an easier location compared to the Mousoleum, but again it depends on the traps available to players at the time they enter the location. Hence sorting by any form of 'difficulty' is not a safe choice.

To clarify also, the Location article is not sorted by difficulty, but rather by the order in which players will typically encounter the regions and locations. As above, the word 'difficulty' itself is difficult to quantify with the wide variety of traps and location paths available.

Regarding natural order, the paths that can be taken throughout the game is no longer linear, so it has become ambiguous as it would depend on how players choose to play the game.

As for whether to sort it by rank accessibility order, we'll need to look at what leads players to look at the article, as well as their existing knowledge of the item. A quick look at the What links here link, shows 3 major pages, Rockstar Mouse, Crafting Items, and Loot. Barring the somewhat redundant difficulty remark on Rockstar Mouse, there is no further information other than the item name to be found. Hence I would assume that most players will come to this article without a good idea of the item (as it should be).

Thus I find M.'s suggestion quite appealing, since alphabetical order remains the most neutral way of presenting the information, especially to players without existing knowledge of the item, while color coding helps recognition (although I personally prefer RGB ;)). Furthermore, regardless of a final decision, any mention of the satchel colours should direct to the respective section using internal links, which will further aid navigation. -- Grexx 17:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. To me, text colors look hokey.

Regarding the Location article sort: it is sorted by the rank required to enter the area (the "Other" section being the natural exception for obvious reasons). The TG is "more difficult" than the Moz in the sense that it requires a higher level to enter. That's the difficulty scale I'm referring to. My only point here was that not all articles follow an alphabetic scheme when there is a good reason not to, as there is here.

You suggest that "alphabetical order remains the most neutral way of presenting the information." First, the Locations article for one fails your test. Second, I think you're confusing this with something factually controversial. This isn't a political or religious article on Wikipedia; neutrality is not at issue. It's rather a question of which ordering is the most natural and accessible to most readers. "What links here" is a helpful data point but can by no means be decisive. The content of the article itself is much more important.

In that respect, RBG is the easy winner for me. The article rightly mentions that getting the RBG satchels requires access to increasingly advanced areas and in turn that they yield items more useful to hunters at those levels. The satchels are already closely tied to hunter level. Hence, it seems entirely appropriate and natural to follow the level ordering rather than a generic alphabetic or RGB ordering.

This is all I have to say about the issue. My opinion is clear, and I leave it to others to judge the outcome of this discussion. --Metal 16:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The neutral that I was referring to, is that alphabetical order compared to other ways of presenting the information, does not assume players have prior knowledge of the items. RGB order was just a joke actually, something that users with some technical knowledge would understand (so it's not a recommendation). RBG assumes that players who come to the article will read from top to bottom and understand each satchel clearly.

Of course I do agree that some players might come in with knowledge that the satchels are dropped based on the "difficulty" of the location, but even then they are unlikely to have any idea how many "difficulty" levels there are (with regards to satchel drop distribution). Also, color coding doesn't necessarily have to be on text, but can be contained within other presentational elements. I'm working on a quick table code based on a similar idea as the main page right now, since it doesn't have a bearing on ordering. -- Grexx 08:35, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Based upon the following quote from the News from the developers "The Satchels come in three colours: Red, Blue and Green and their contents range widely" - I think that it would be better to order the article in RBG order instead of the current alphabetical. The introduction mentions an "order of difficulty" with an RBG order - so the current flow of the article of jaring. -- Ralphminer 09:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Another good data point, Ralph. --Metal 15:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

To add to the pot - there is also another page that is ordered by difficulty/accessibility and that is Crafting. And to answer Brossow first question - yes I think mice should be ordered the same by default (buy level at which one can stumble upon them) or order them by what HG call "general difficulty". --Nux 11:03, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, it pretty much seems the majority view is to order by difficulty, which is also consistent with the devs' News item. Not everyone agrees, but that is the way of the world. --Winelight 11:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

What you people are missing is that order other than alphabetical indicates that readers are already familiar with the satchels, which is simply the wrong thing to assume. You're thinking like yourselves -- people familiar enough with the Satchels and the game in general to want to edit the wiki. You need to get over that and think like someone who doesn't know ANYTHING about the game who comes to the wiki trying to find info in the easiest way possible. If you don't already know that the Satchels are ordered by "difficulty" (and someone else has already made an excellent point regarding difficulty) then any order other than alphabetical will seem random and confusing. This wiki isn't a democracy and a show of hands by people who aren't thinking about what's best for a newbie isn't going to determine the fate of this or any other article. Those users most in need of this article aren't going to be here speaking up for their needs. --B.Rossow · talk 11:57, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I came to this page to find out what was in the green satchels and found the alphabetic order random and confusing (and actually absurd). I'm guessing that everyone who's attempted to change the order has had a similar experience. That's reality, not my guess as to who might come to this page and why and with what pre-existing knowledge of the satchels. --Winelight 12:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

How exactly do you plan to quantify how many people came to the page and found it intuitive and didn't change it? The page has been accessed 35K+ times and a tiny handful of people have attempted to change the order to something that makes sense only to people already familiar with the game. That the order isn't necessarily best for a seasoned player as yourself doesn't mean that newbies should suffer. The bottom line is you're not going to be able to answer the first question, so the order that is intuitive for people with little or no knowledge of the Satchels is demanded. That order, of course, is alphabetical. And seriously, did it really take you a long time to find "green" on the page? You were "confused"? Really? No comment. --B.Rossow · talk 12:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

B.Rossow, don't mean to be rude, but do you plan to make some statistical survey on the subject? The bottom line is you want it to be alphabetical and as I read the discussion I haven't found one person to support your idea. You ask people not to take your editorial decisions to themselves, well... --Nux 03:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course I won't be doing a survey. It's impossible. Therefore, we default to the most intuitive arrangement for the lowest common denominator: the newbie who comes to the page with little or no prior knowledge, not veteran players who already know much of the info found here. It's a no-brainer. --B.Rossow · talk 03:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

As a newbie I would want the information the satchels that are available in my area (Town of Gnawnia) first - therefore Red should go first. There is only three choices so really the order doesn't matter. -- Ralphminer 03:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Ralphminer, Nux, and Winelight here. There is no confusion created by the Dev's ordering since the article explicitly details the reason for their ordering. --Metal 14:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

In response to Nux, Crafting is ordered by rank, and it is necessarily so because players spend a fair amount of time on each rank that it would be very familiar, and thus it is ordered in a manner relevant to them. In a similar vein, items that are not encountered in any particular order should be placed in alphabetic order, one that does not assume players have prior knowledge of the items (novice/newbie users). For the duration of the event, the majority of players will never see more than one Satchel at all, if any. They will also typically have little idea what the item is about. Ordering the items based on "difficulty" assumes that players arrive on this page with a good idea of all 3 Satchels every time (expert/veteran users), which is not realistic at all.

We must also remember that this article will be here long after the event is over, and players visiting the article will likely fall into the Novice/Newbie category (at least in terms of knowledge of this article).

Also, I'm apt to agree with Ralphminer that there are only 3 choices, so this isn't a particularly important issue to spend so much time on. Further, I would like to add to the point B.Rossow made regarding voting with some links to Wikipedia articles, namely Wikipedia:Wikipedia:PNSD, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia is not a democracy, that are especially relevant and that editors should familiarize themselves with. -- Grexx 16:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that Wikipedia's rules actually apply here. (That's not to say that I disagree with them, just that appealing to them as an authority for this Wiki may be out of place.) As for the substantive issues, see my comment above in response to Brossow. In short, I think the Dev's explicit ordering in difficulty order seals the deal. --Metal 14:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The order the devs mentioned them one time in passing does not in any way dictate how people with little or no prior knowledge will actually look for the info in the article, and THAT is what's important. And anyway, what happened to "This is all I have to say about the issue" as you promised on 23 October? ;-) --B.Rossow · talk 15:04, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Grexx, first of all "Wikipedia is not a democracy" refers to general knowledge and science and stuff like that. Which basically means - if majority says earth is flat it doesn't make it flat.

Having said that usability is guided by the voice majority. So only exact way of one to know what others would expect would be to make some stats. Saying "this is better because I think it's better and I know better" doesn't make things better ;-). Majority of people here said they would expect ordering by difficulty.

One more thing - B.Rossow you seem to say that alphabetic order is "the most intuitive arrangement" for newbies in this situation. Well unless newbies doesn't mean illiterate people I think if they will see something is not ordered alphabetical they will notice that it's ordered in some other mysterious order ;-). If they have IQ around average they will also notice that they are only able to hunt in Gnawia... Doesn't seem like a brainer, either. --Nux 23:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Colors

Added a dash of color to the sections and standardized the introductions. Colors were picked from the satchel images, coordinates 43,37 for consistency, converted from RGB to HTML color codes using this. -- Grexx 09:48, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks great, Grexx! Not hokey at all! --Metal 15:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)