Trying to understand....

[DaSpug]

I do not understand the lorebook. I mean, in theory I do, but it seems crippled.

I came to this game from Guild Wars, which has possibly the most impressive official wiki ever. It is accessibly in game, and contains absolutely everything -especially lore and quest dialogue.

Except for the searchable items database, I feel that lorebook is a shadow of the guild wars wiki.

So, my friend told me that it's still in beta or something, and not totally open.

Can someone explain why people are not editing and adding to the lorebook off the charts?

Thanks in advance!

[Moondog548]

I'm very curious about this too. Turbine does a good job of dumping lots of great info and fluff on us but they can't do a fraction of what the community can (and already does at a menagerie of 3rd party resource sites).

Turn us loose, Turbine!

[KualaBangoDango]

I often wonder the same thing myself. I always try to Lorebook an item/creature first, out of loyalty to support what they're trying to do with it, but all the information I get basically tells me "yes, this item is in the game". I pretty much end up having to go to the lotro wiki or allakhazam or somewhere else, and even those places don't seem to have much info. Either LotRO players don't like contributing to databases, or they're all just too busy playing the game

It makes me question if anyone even adds their comments to the item discussion or if Turbine isn't letting players comment on anything yet. Maybe I should try it out on my own by commenting on something, and see if it gets added to the item's page or not.

[Banaticus]

<short version>User contributions are mainly marginalized on the Lorebook, basic wiki functions either don't work as expected or they don't work at all, and it's a real pain to really type up anything when you compare it to... just about any other wiki.</short version>

Yeah, the Guild Wars wiki is totally awesome. When LotRO was in beta approaching launch, we said that there should be an official wiki. I've told this story before, so I'll keep it brief. Turbine's response was "No way, Jose*, we don't see a need for something like that."

*My name isn't Jose, it just rhymed better that way.

So other wikis started up, notably lotro-wiki.com. As the weeks went by, Turbine changed their mind and announced the Lorebook, an official LotRO wiki. But Turbine didn't want any players to have any administrative control at all -- no Wikipedia-like admins. Turbine decided not to do what NCSoft had done, which was to invite the most stable Guild Wars Wiki posters to come be anything at the Lorebook. (Let me hasten to say that I was only a minor contributor at that time, I would not have benefitted in any way from any decision that was made at that time.) Most contributors were rather nonplussed at the turn of events. We'd spent hours typing up quest dialogue over at lotro-wiki.com and, because the wiki is editable by anyone and because Turbine is (for obvious reasons) using a commercial license while lotro-wiki.com is using GNU 1.2, we weren't legally allowed to copy/paste the words that we'd spent so many hours typing. Again, I was a minor contributor, but even so I'd still spent just gobs of hours typing stuff. You can imagine how the major contributors felt, when faced with the prospect of either continuing on with the implicit loss of Turbine's blessing or starting from scratch all over again.

It was a daunting prospect. Truly, the thought of starting from scratch again, at slowly leveling a character up while typing all the quests again, was enough to make anyone's hearts quake. Seriously, there's a lot of writing in LotRO (high quality, mainly, but still a lot of text when you look at the whole game). Many people, myself included, started putting the Lorebook together, but we clamored for Turbine to at least seed the wiki with the stuff that we'd already written. Just dump the quest text in there and we'd go through and make it all look pretty.

Eventually, as the nascent Lorebook withered somewhat, Turbine decided to do just that, seed the wiki. But Turbine also decided to lock the information up so that nobody could edit mistakes, so that nobody could, well, do much of anything with the text. We couldn't even make it look as good as it had looked on lotro-wiki.com.

Turbine marginalized the major wiki contributors and with them gone, the Lorebook became the home of fluffy roleplayers. At one point, by my count, most of the edits in a month (and over half of the Lorebook's pages) were devoted either to individual characters or to kinships -- basically to userspace, if you're familiar with that term from the Wikipedia.

Turbine did come out with improvements. They put in the Google maps interface (although we can't change the size or zoom or default location of any map). I started a Google map for my local Camarilla group and eventually other people took it up and this was created: http://riverside-camarilla.org/wiki/...rside_City_Map

But I can't do jack with the Lorebook Google Maps interface. The same goes for templates, for infoboxes, etc., I made several for the Guild Wars wiki, but I can't do jack with them here on the Lorebook, so I'm just walking away from that too.

We can't even properly wikify the Lorebook. When an NPC sends you on a quest to see another NPC, we can't link the NPCs name. We have to put any link like that in some sort of bastardized footnote at the bottom (since we can't even put in footnote markers).

Actually, linking anything on the Lorebook is an incredible pain. Let's say that you wanted to link to the page for the Honesty virtue. You can't just say, "Go visit the [[Honesty]] virtue page." You have to say, "Go visit the [[Virtue:Honesty|]] virtue page (note also the closing pipe | before the double braces ]]). It makes typing anything on the Lorebook except for walls of text a real pain.

Turbine also isn't even (apparently) using anywhere near to an uptodate version of the Wikimedia software (available for free, always has been and as long as the Wikipedia is around, always will be). Apparently there're either using something that they developed in house or they acquirred their software from other sources, because some really common Wikimedia features aren't on the Lorebook -- when you want to add a page to a category, you can't add a pipe to sort by a different name. So, for instance, the patch notes list is kind of getting out of order and will likely only grow increasingly chaotic since the category list is trying to sort by actual patch name (the name of the page), instead of date of patch release (since later patches always override earlier patches).

I could go on, but to make a very long rant into a something short and pithy, user contributions are mainly marginalized on the Lorebook, basic wiki functions either don't work as expected or they don't work at all, and it's a real pain to really type up anything when you compare it to... just about any other wiki.

[DaSpug]

Thanks for the reply. That helps a lot, and does suck. The amount of things that can be done with an official wiki is phenomenal, and I have no doubt that we will get as many good admins as Guild Wars wiki.

It took Guild Wars a few years to see the light... maybe it is coming for here.

/crossfingers

[Moondog548]

Wow.

So.... anyone interested should head over to lotro-wiki.com to contribute? ;-}

[Duwis]

It was a daunting prospect. Truly, the thought of starting from scratch again, at slowly leveling a character up while typing all the quests again

I'm not sure why you would need to level up a character and re-type the quest text into the Lorebook. If you've already typed it into one place, couldn't you cut/paste the text into the Lorebook article? Granted, the formatting may not completely transfer over, but the text would still be there.

the Lorebook became the home of fluffy roleplayers. At one point, by my count, most of the edits in a month (and over half of the Lorebook's pages) were devoted either to individual characters or to kinships -- basically to userspace, if you're familiar with that term from the Wikipedia.

I'd point to wonderful resources like Adder's /Mood_y Emote Compendium. People are crafting detailed guides on the Lorebook. People have uploaded images from in-game to point out erroneous item stats (something we've found invaluable in improving our generated item tooltips). Maybe the fluffy roleplayer noise drowned out the signal, but the signal is present.

But I can't do jack with the Lorebook Google Maps interface.

What would you like to do with it?

The same goes for templates, for infoboxes, etc., I made several for the Guild Wars wiki, but I can't do jack with them here on the Lorebook, so I'm just walking away from that too.

Templates are available on the Lorebook; again, what would you like to do with them that you don't think you currently can? Examples to your Guild Wars work would be helpful.

Actually, linking anything on the Lorebook is an incredible pain. Let's say that you wanted to link to the page for the Honesty virtue. You can't just say, "Go visit the [[Honesty]] virtue page." You have to say, "Go visit the [[Virtue:Honesty|]] virtue page (note also the closing pipe | before the double braces ]]). It makes typing anything on the Lorebook except for walls of text a real pain.

Namespaces require extra typing when linking to things; that's core Wikimedia functionality. However, we know it is not how you would prefer to do things; you would prefer everything dumped into the global namespace. We've heard this and keep it in mind.

Turbine also isn't even (apparently) using anywhere near to an uptodate version of the Wikimedia software (available for free, always has been and as long as the Wikipedia is around, always will be). Apparently there're either using something that they developed in house or they acquirred their software from other sources,

We're using a standard Wikimedia install. Upgrading is something that always gets the low priority stick, but the Lorebook is in a place now where we plan on bumping this up in priority and get it upgraded to the latest version.

because some really common Wikimedia features aren't on the Lorebook -- when you want to add a page to a category, you can't add a pipe to sort by a different name. So, for instance, the patch notes list is kind of getting out of order and will likely only grow increasingly chaotic since the category list is trying to sort by actual patch name (the name of the page), instead of date of patch release (since later patches always override earlier patches).

Hmm... wonder if that was unavailable when the Lorebook first came out; it is definitely working on the current Lorebook. Look at this example from the Release Notes category. The article uses the Category:Name|Sort Name format to sort it to the title 20081212 on the category page. Yeah, not a useful title, but this functionality is present and accounted for.

user contributions are mainly marginalized on the Lorebook, basic wiki functions either don't work as expected or they don't work at all, and it's a real pain to really type up anything when you compare it to... just about any other wiki.

Unfortunate you see things this way; again, if you (the global everyone reading this 'you') provide links to specific examples, we'll look them over and see what we can do.

[Leviathan]

Unfortunate you see things this way; again, if you (the global everyone reading this 'you') provide links to specific examples, we'll look them over and see what we can do.

How exactly does this process work? I know I've requested corrections before, but it doesn't seem like anything is ever done about it. Here is an example from exactly 3 months ago that still hasn't been fixed: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=231531

Is there something else I need to do?

Unfortunately, in it's current form, I see very limited use for the Lorebook for the average player. I realize it is in beta, but it just seems . . . broken and/or unfinished. Maybe the community isn't holding it's weight in adding/updating content, I don't know what Turbine had in mind for the Lorebook, but I find myself using third party sites more often than not because the information is better, more accurate, and easier to use. Also, why is there still no true in-game Lorebook support in LOTRO? I would think that would be high up on the list of things to do.

[Duwis]

How exactly does this process work? I know I've requested corrections before, but it doesn't seem like anything is ever done about it. Here is an example from exactly 3 months ago that still hasn't been fixed: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=231531

Is there something else I need to do?

Nope; you were heard, and this issue is being addressed in the next update. The pain comes for you and me that the updates aren't pushed out fast enough.

Unfortunately, in it's current form, I see very limited use for the Lorebook for the average player. I realize it is in beta, but it just seems . . . broken and/or unfinished

Technically, the Lorebook came out of beta in the last update. Unfortunate that you have this opinion, but I think we've come along way on making it a valuable resource and are continuing to do so.

Also, why is there still no true in-game Lorebook support in LOTRO? I would think that would be high up on the list of things to do.

/signed

[cicdle]

How exactly does this process work? I know I've requested corrections before, but it doesn't seem like anything is ever done about it. Here is an example from exactly 3 months ago that still hasn't been fixed: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=231531

Is there something else I need to do?

Unfortunately, in it's current form, I see very limited use for the Lorebook for the average player. I realize it is in beta, but it just seems . . . broken and/or unfinished. Maybe the community isn't holding it's weight in adding/updating content, I don't know what Turbine had in mind for the Lorebook, but I find myself using third party sites more often than not because the information is better, more accurate, and easier to use. Also, why is there still no true in-game Lorebook support in LOTRO? I would think that would be high up on the list of things to do.

I thought there is a lore book link on the radar in book 7.

[Leviathan]

Nope; you were heard, and this issue is being addressed in the next update. The pain comes for you and me that the updates aren't pushed out fast enough.

Excellent, good to hear!

Technically, the Lorebook came out of beta in the last update. Unfortunate that you have this opinion, but I think we've come along way on making it a valuable resource and are continuing to do so.

No doubt that the Lorebook has improved since it first came out. But, I still feel that it lags behind many third party resources in some areas. But you are right that it is headed in the right direction.

Anyway, thanks for your work on the Lorebook. I didn't mean to sound rude or pessimistic in my post, but I'm afraid I did a little. I know you are working on the issues and I appreciate that you read the forums and respond. Keep it up!

[Leviathan]

I thought there is a lore book link on the radar in book 7.

Do you mean the in-game radar now has a link to bring up the lorebook in-game? I didn't see anything about it in the patch notes (searching "lorebook" on the patch notes returns nothing either). Is it on Bullroarer and just not in the patch notes?

[APErebusAU]

Do you mean the in-game radar now has a link to bring up the lorebook in-game? I didn't see anything about it in the patch notes (searching "lorebook" on the patch notes returns nothing either). Is it on Bullroarer and just not in the patch notes?

There was some screenshots floating around on the bullroarer forum... lemme go hunting

EDIT: Found a pic but bandwidth exceeded =(

[lf2536]

There was some screenshots floating around on the bullroarer forum... lemme go hunting

EDIT: Found a pic but bandwidth exceeded =(

yes there is a button that'll open the Lorebook in game now, works much the same way the help worked till now except it has it's own cool little button on the mini-map.

[Giolon]

Lorebook is even missing basic information on class skills (Hunter entry is missing two skills, Strength of the Earth and Improved Swift Bow). Some of these things have had bug reports on the Lorebook boards for months. If you guys want Lorebook to be valuable resource, it at least needs to cover all these basics and even better be kept up to date at a reasonable pace. Lagging by 3-4 months is not a reasonable pace.

[KualaBangoDango]

I just want to thank you Duwis for replying to these threads and informing us of updates and such.

I've used 3rd party wiki sites quite a bit for other games, but have never registered at those places to add my own input, so I'm kind of unfamiliar with that side of things. I'll definitely try to do what I can for the Lorebook though.

[DaSpug]

I just want to thank you Duwis for replying to these threads and informing us of updates and such.

Agreed.

-ds

[Duwis]

No doubt that the Lorebook has improved since it first came out. But, I still feel that it lags behind many third party resources in some areas. But you are right that it is headed in the right direction.

We're working hard on closing that gap.

Anyway, thanks for your work on the Lorebook. I didn't mean to sound rude or pessimistic in my post, but I'm afraid I did a little. I know you are working on the issues and I appreciate that you read the forums and respond. Keep it up!

No worries; we can't please all the people all the time. However, we are listening and working towards making the Lorebook the best resource possible.

[Duwis]

Lorebook is even missing basic information on class skills (Hunter entry is missing two skills, Strength of the Earth and Improved Swift Bow). Some of these things have had bug reports on the Lorebook boards for months. If you guys want Lorebook to be valuable resource, it at least needs to cover all these basics and even better be kept up to date at a reasonable pace. Lagging by 3-4 months is not a reasonable pace.

/agreed and those skills will be making (finally) their appearance in the next update.

[Banaticus]

Look at this example from the Release Notes category. The article uses the Category:Name|Sort Name format to sort it to the title 20081212 on the category page. Yeah, not a useful title, but this functionality is present and accounted for.

Hmm, I've been wrong before and this appears to be another of those times. I would have sworn that I wasn't able to do that, though. I'll go check out what I was trying to do with those patch notes. Perhaps I was talking about categories being static, having to specify a path instead of allowing clouds, but it's been a good month or two since I last looked at the Lorebook. My apologies in advance.

I'm not sure why you would need to level up a character and re-type the quest text into the Lorebook. If you've already typed it into one place, couldn't you cut/paste the text into the Lorebook article?

To make a long story short, people were worried about copyright and direct copies from another wiki usually ended up in long debates or deleted or both. The first few pages that I copied over were deleted.

Sure, there are some great pages on the Lorebook, but they're kind of few and far between. When I last checked (in December), I think there were less than about 5,000 pages in mainspace and at least a couple thousand seemed to be fluff pages, things about peoples characters or kinships that really should have been in userspace to start with. Out of the rest, the vast majority were simple item pages.

Although that's great for simple crafting (which the Lorebook is pretty great at), it makes it difficult to find out how to actually craft an item -- so a particular claw exists in the game, but where should a person start looking for one? Additionally, most item pages seem to be missing half the stats of the item (even though my.lotro.com seems to have all the stats). Also, when I'm trying to see if what I'm looking at is the regular version or the crit version, I sometimes have to go out and hunt down the other version to see whether what I'm looking at is the regular or crit version.

I am, though, really really happy that we can move pages. When I last went in and checked out how many pages are in which namespace, I started with the A's and moved some character sheets over into the appropriate userspace. It took a while to go through and make sure that any links were also edited to properly link up, etc., but I was really happy to see that feature added to the Lorebook. It enables us to actually contribute to really cleaning up the Lorebook.

Namespaces require extra typing when linking to things; that's core Wikimedia functionality. However, we know it is not how you would prefer to do things; you would prefer everything dumped into the global namespace. We've heard this and keep it in mind.

Yeah, that was partially my fault. I've said before that using Category pages so much was a mistake on my part and it really kind of pushed the idea of putting regular things into their own namespace, which isn't how a standard wiki should work (in my current opinion). Templates, users, etc., they should be in their own space, but for ease of writing and linking, most everything should be in the main namespace, going back to the original CamelCase that first started everything. Linking should be intuitive and, in the current Lorebook iteration, linking isn't really intuitive, it feels clumsy.