The EQ2 refinement initiativeFollow

If there is one going already please point that out to me :P

Otherwise, this initiative is to help mature the online EQ2 information database to something that is on par and even better then all that WoW's online resources has to offer. Most note ably the behomoth called Wowhead.

If you do not understand what I'm talking about and do not see room for improvement with the way info is distributed here, please give wowhead.com a spin to see for yourself. Note, that they have a UI, as does thottbot.com that they use to automatically gather information so the user does not have to manually enter every piece of data. This greatly cuts down on the human error part. I do not know if there is an EQ2 equivelant of such a UI yet.

There, you can look up an item, if it is crafted, not only will it have the usuall item information, it will contain a link to the recipe that created it. Also at some point or another, it will actually list the resources required to make it. The proffesion to make it. All the info are linked basically and gives the viewer quick and easy access to other related info that would be relevent to the craftable item. From where the resources are obtained from, to where recipe is dropped from mobs or trained or bought from. What proffesion, the required proffession level, etc. Even the polish is nice enough to show the actual graphics of each resource needed and a multiplier number next to it to show the viewer how much of that resource is needed. There's even color coding for rarity of item, recipe, resources etc.

I could go on, but obviously a lot of the above paragraph is cosmetic and really not the goal of this initiative. What this initiative is about, is raising the level of information presentation to something that is more fluid and easier to access plus that is not outdated.


For instance when I was searching up who makes adept 3 spells and what resources are needed, I was missing all that info really. No list of resources and their rareness and area of obtainability.

An example of an adept 3 spell:
http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?eq2item=4521

It is the actual completed crafted item. Yet we have no one believeing it was neccessary to link the proffesion needed to make it. The proffession level needed, the resources needed, etc. Now, if you believe that this info should be under the recipe page of said spell. Then we are basically missing the recipe link there then. As an opinion, a recipe link to display all that info, is just another click that we could do away with if it came to be. This is just another part of the intiative that would help streamline researching for the users.

Now, some of you guys are probably thinking "if this guy wants all the info then he could just do it himself and recruit others to help him to." I agree, I do want to do it, and yes, it is an overwhelming job, but that's what wikis are about. A community effort by many folks to help provide information for everyone (i'm sure there are more descriptions to wikis but I'm sure we all know what I meant). The biggest reason why this post was needed, was to help us create some form of template as a guideline to help flesh out all the data we have here and refine each page to have more pertinent information.

With that said about templates, perhaps once we come up with a good template (for the time being) we could have some kind of bot go to all the empty item pages (item as in anything, not just in game items) and stamp a template into there to further help any future contributor easily get an idea of what would be a desired (but not mandatory) way of entering data. Obviously anything the contributor doesn't know about the item he is entering, the person can leave it blank for others to fill in.

There we have it, one of the core of this initiative. Creating smoother templates that will make data displaying more intuitive to view and update.

Another core part of this initiative would be to updated outdated information, and to move things around so folks know that they are actually looking at outdated information.

Here is an example that I could totally be wrong about so please correct me if I am. I'm looking at classess, when I do so, I"m presented with the old archetype system. Again, I could be wrong here, but is not this outdated concept info? Wouldn't this info be better formatted without the overal archetype description and just go streight to the actuall classess instead?

Now before you go and directly take apart what I just said in the above paragraph, be aware what I am trying to point out is that we need to find these outdated info for renovating. It is not just classess, but also other info that I've yet to discover. If there is some sort of way, the average user can just tag a page for us, we could go there to update it in a way to reflect that the information was outdated. Also to replace the link with a new page to show the new concept or lack of things that the current state of the game does not offer anymore. I'm not pushing for a removal of all outdated info, just a way to tag them so we can put them in a sub link of the current new information as a kind of history link.

I am sure that others will have more ideas on what kind of retooling/renovation/cleanup/new concepts that we could discuss here to help build a foundation that the EQ2's community database could mature into.

I am just trying to get ideas that are more then just specific data for an article/item/thing. A way to help us to help other contributors more easily create a fluid page that in the end, all of us who are enjoying this game can have a more casual time when looking up info.

The biggest goal is to help us create a more fluid process for the folks viewing these web pages retrieve the information they want. Would rather folks only need to do 2-3 clicks to reach my desired information then instead of 4-10 clicks counting backing up to previous pages to go down other paths that are not really intuitive to the person looking up info.


Hopefully I did not babble on too much and what I presented could be digested easily. If you have ideas or questions, please post away! By no means that what I posted here is anywhere near a final draft of this initiative. Things like this, requires ideas and imaginations from many folks. Not just one ;)

Hi there, I took an MMO break since early august. Finally came back to EQ2 this Dec 2008.

I would really like to continue contributing, and would like to hear more about this official DB from SOE to you guys.

OMG, if we could get somethign like wow-head going, that would be so amazing.


Dang, its been a good 5 months since I posted this msg. Lots of viewers, but no replies with ideas and suggestions. I'm going to have to even reread my post to see what I was talking about back then :)

Too bad EQ2 doesn't have an ingame picture editor along with the screenshot feature ;) That and an ability to upload, would make updating this site 10x easier.