Talk:Rifles/RFC archive

RFC #1
I have mixed feelings on the reorganization of this page. Yes, it's good to distinguish crafted from looted/rewarded weapons... but is that distinction necessary at the topmost level? Or was it enough to simply state "No schematic (insert reason here)" for each of the entries? I'm not sure. We should think about this page from the average user's point of view. Which would the average visitor value more highly: a single sorted list of all rifles in the game, or two sorted lists of rifles, one of crafted weapons and the other of looted/quest weapons? It's hard to say. Thoughts? --Influenza 22:59, 16 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * I like em because I always want to know what I can buy and what I have to loot. If you don't like it I will change it back however.


 * Let's give it a few days for other people to comment. No need to undo all that work just yet :). And as a final request, please end all your comments on Talk pages with this: --~ . That will automatically leave your name and the time of your post at the end of your comment, like this: --Influenza 23:19, 16 Aug 2005 (CEST)

I like em because I always want to know what I can buy and what I have to loot. If you don't like it I will change it back however. The ideal here is to get the information fast. Without any sort of organization, just a generic listing of the stuff, I got frustrated and went to another site. --Careos 23:21, 16 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * Ive been thinking about this for a while and although not very beautiful in form, I am the one who always tend to say: Form follows function., so Im with Careos. If you get to know something about a new rifle, first question is always: Where did you get that? or translated, is it a quest reward/loot or can I bother my WS of choice with a request? Idealy you would have a short table sorting them all into incaftable/looted/ - energy/kinetic - lvl and skill requierments, but somehow I feel that might be an overkill. --5C0UT 10:45, 17 Aug 2005 (CEST)
 * Separating weaponsmith weapons and quest/loot weapons seems ideal, to me. It's quite clear in the table of contents.  We should just clarify whether the non-weaponsmith weapons are granted directly by a quest/loot, or if a schematic is looted.  Just like the crafters apron, it might not be a schematic you can learn, but you might still have to craft it.--Tandalo 11:16, 17 Aug 2005 (CEST)
 * I disagree. I think the first thing I want to know about a rifle is "What kind is it", and so I think alphabetically by name makes the most sense. If we want to put together some sidebar indicies, that would be helpful too. Maybe a 'Crafted/Looted Rifles' and 'Rifles by Damage Type' would help. --Zanfar 23:26, 17 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * I like the changes. If you are looking for a specific rifle, you can search the list. If you are just browsing all rifles, you browse knowing whether you can go out and buy the rifle, or whether you need to complete a quest to get it.  --YGR 23:41, 17 Aug 2005 (CEST)

Good points all around, but I have a few issues/arguments. First: yes, the "can I buy it or must I earn it?" question is very important... but it's a question that's already answered no matter which way we organize the page. Someone walks up to me and asks what rifle I'm holding; I reply "Trandoshan Hunting Rifle", they come here and find the entry and see that it's a quest reward. They can find this information regardless of the way the page is organized, so long as it's possible for them to find the entry in the first place. So this aspect of the issue, while important, isn't really relevant to the discussion, because either way the user still has to read the weapon entry to find out where it comes from. Sure, the new organization means they can skip part of the process if their weapon is crafted, but it does nothing for looted/rewarded weapons; knowing a weapon is a quest reward doesn't do you much good, and the first question will immediately be "but where do I get it?", which again requires reading the entry.

So the issue to me becomes this: who is the average visitor to this article, what are they likely trying to figure out, and which organization helps them most efficiently? There are probably three types of people looking at this page: newbies who need a new gun for their CL; collectors looking for rare weapons; and random players who hear of a weapon in guild chat or on the bazaar and would like to know its stats and where it comes from. Unfortunately each of the three would prefer a different organization: the newbie would like guns sorted by CL, the collector by source (looted, quest, crafted), and the random player simply alphabetically to make searching more efficient.

So maybe we need more than one page for this. Maybe revert Rifles back to a simple alphabetical list, and write up an intro with links to other sortings of the weapons. A little more work to keep them all updated, but it may be the best way to solve the problem. Perhaps add Crafted rifles, and simply make it a table of all crafted rifles, with information crafters are likely interested in: link to schematic, CL of gun, skill box where schematic is granted, and a link back to the main page. Then the same for Rare rifles (open to suggestions on a better title): also a table, with entries including gun CL, if it's looted or rewarded, where to loot it/what quest grants it, if it's bio-linked, and again a link back to the main page. That way we present multiple views of the same data, while only having to maintain one copy of each rifle's main stats. This is sorta what I'm thinking:

and That turned out way longer than I anticipated, so apologies in hindsight :). Is that overkill? Can we get away with just one page? --Influenza 10:12, 18 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * I still say we should keep the categories as the page currently is organized. For newbies looking for particular combat level weapons (and I've been in this situation several times), it's not that hard to find what's available.  Sure, you have to look through the list, but the format makes the CL stand out and easy to spot.  Random visitors can have just an easy time browsing the listing whether all weapons are alphabetized or just each category.  I think the Table of Contents at the top makes it very clear and easy to understand that there are mulitple sections of weapons.  What we should do, however, is follow Influenza's idea in that the format for each weapon should be different for each section.  The quest/loot section should have a clear heading of where to get the weapon, for example, why crafted weapons have links to schematics. The extra pages for resorted tables seems overkill to me. --Tandalo 12:08, 18 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * Im with Tandalo on this. We already have more than enough work, maintaining multiple pages with the same information will just clutter our work more, also the way it is now is still easy enough to handle, as I stated before there are more categories but plain is beautiful. Lets keep it simple and as it is now ;) --5C0UT 14:45, 18 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * As a recent newbie (I was CL 25 after the CU), I have approached the weapon pages from all 3 of Influenza's perspectives. As a newbie, I scrolled through the list of rifles to find the ones appropriate to my CL, drooling over the ones out of my reach, but also informing myself about what lay ahead of me, what I could use when I reached lvl 40, lvl 54, etc.  The alphabetical list was helpful, but the craftable/questable distinction was vital to me too.  As a collector, I really wanted to know if a gun could be made by a WS or had to be picked up in a quest (perfect example - the sweet-looking but underpowered DC15).  Finally, I have heard about guns in the forums or elsewhere, and wanted to know where it comes from, in Influenza's own words.  The craftable/questable distinction is vital here too.
 * In other words, I agree with both Tandalo and Scout (er, 5C0UT) that the craftable/questable distinction is more useful than not, and it results in giving you the most information at the lowest level of complexity. My $0.02.  --YGR 18:19, 18 Aug 2005 (CEST)

Well, it looks like the vote goes in favor of applying the crafted/looted organization to the other weapons pages. Let's give this another day in case anyone has final comments to add. --Influenza 21:26, 19 Aug 2005 (CEST)


 * Alrighty, the change passes. Yay for the democratic process! --Influenza 21:38, 22 Aug 2005 (CEST)