Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion

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Double Drop Week 2012?

I've missed the first two Double Drop Weeks and I want to know if there will be a third one. So if anyone could give me some info I would appreciate it a lot thank-you

Exploding Potato 10:23, 2 October 2012 (PDT)

PS: My time is 04:19am ,3 October 2012 (EST)

We do not know anything about valve planing (e.g. Halloween event date), please do not ask this type of questions because we all can't find the answer for you. Hinaomi (talk) • (contributions) 11:06, 2 October 2012 (PDT)

tf2wiki.net?

Does anybody know about why there is this official Wiki along with the (seemingly abandoned) Tf2wiki.net? It doesn't make much sense for two of them to exist... Captinchikin 18:08, 3 October 2012 (PDT)

It is the older version of this wiki. Many pages and images were migrated, but you should consider this one to be the official wiki. Darkid (|) 18:26, 3 October 2012 (PDT)

Any way to erase the domain? to avoid confusion between 2 sites for normal people. Irufort 04:57, 9 October 2012 (PDT)

Team_Fortress_Wiki:FAQ#Why two wikis? tf2wiki.net and wiki.teamfortress.com? —Moussekateer·talk 07:27, 9 October 2012 (PDT)

Should phrase's meaning be added into trivia?

Thing is, not all translators have native understanding of English nor of English phrases. Adding phrase's meaning into trivia section would help translators and people, who read Wiki in English, but don't have native understanding of it nor its phrases. Example can be found here (Lacking Moral Fiber Mask). It wouldn't require much to add phrase's meaning into trivia section, and it would make it clearer and more helpful, while it may seem very obvious to native speakers. Another example would be "K-9 Mane" (in trivia would be added "K-9 Mane is pronounced similar to Canine man" or something like that); although this example was fairly simple, it might still be good addition to make it clearer. -Asplode 13:04, 7 October 2012 (PDT)

 Support — Of course, it is not always necessary. But sometimes it is, and it really helps finding a good, adequate name in other languages. I can also mention cases like this: Tail From the Crypt. — Stormbird ^T│C 14:00, 7 October 2012 (PDT)

 Agree because it makes sense rZ 05:03, 9 October 2012 (PDT)

 Support — Thats's a good idea, not all of us have the same understanding. I think I'll agree if we have to simplify the trivia into much compact and easy read pieces.But we will just leave some as it is . Well since i am also like to tamper with trivial things , I'll second this one :) Irufort 05:07, 9 October 2012 (PDT)

 Support Sure, why not. I didn't even realize the K-9 pun until I read it just now — Wind 12:47, 13 October 2012 (PDT)

 Support Alot of trivia in tf2 does relete to puns and as such making sure it is mentioned in other languages is a good idea DLStrike 23:50, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

Splitting PDA

This not the first time I've brought this up, but I'd like to bring it up again. I'm going to list the differences between the Construction PDA and the Destruction PDA. Hopefully you'll agree with me.

Construction PDA

• Constructs buildings
• Occupies a loadout slot
  • Can be named, described, and traded

Destruction PDA

• Destructs buildings
• Doesn't occupy a loadout slot
  • Cannot be named, described, and traded

This is a short list of the differences, but I believe they are notable enough to warrant separate articles. rZ 05:41, 10 October 2012 (PDT)

 Not yet The thing is, the two PDAs are basically a pair. IT doesn't make much sense to split the weapon demonstration simply - you really need one to use the other. The two come as a set, even though only the construction PDA uses a loadout slot. I don't doubt that Valve are intending to add new PDAs at some point in the future, so maybe we should just wait until then and decide what's best at the time. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 05:58, 10 October 2012 (PDT)

 Nope Maybe if they had their own loadout slots, but as of now, they're essentially the same item just switching to change their function. Balladofwindfishes 06:03, 10 October 2012 (PDT)

 Comment Can we at least split the bucket icon into two separate ones?

It doesn't really make sense to combine the two icons into one image when it's not how they are represented in the backpack. 01:28, 11 October 2012 (PDT)

 Unsure I don't know. On one hand, they aren't seperate weapons, and aren't sperated via any loadout slots. On the other, they serve very different purposes. I don't think we need a new weapon demonstration video, but I don't know if there's enough information for both PDA's to warrant separate articles. --Enthers. (I find this work intriguing. How about yourself, sir?) 18:19, 13 October 2012 (PDT)

 Comment Just split the backpack icon to 2 items (Not split the page) because in the stcok backpack view aren't the same weapon. Hinaomi (talk) • (contributions) 11:01, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 Not yet The two PDAs are currently the only ones available to the engineer, until valve decides to release some differnt ones, then keeping them as a pair is good enough. If the two were to be split then it would result in short articles that look unprofesional. DLStrike 23:49, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

Should we add death cries to the response pages?

Honestly, i don't see a reason not to myself. Should we add them and possibly other sounds to the wiki for completion's sake? Shadoo 09:05, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 I disagree, and feel that all (idiotic) cries (i.e. the ones in Special:Unused files) should be removed. Darkid (|) 10:23, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 I agree, I think those sound files must be added (or keep added) and added in an category called "Death cries" (or something else) on the response pages. — Robin0van0der0vliet (talk | contributions) - 11:36, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 Yes. Wiki is usually used to list all particular game's game-related things. So, I agree in adding them. -Asplode 13:46, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 Support I don't think this is strictly necessary, but I also don't see why not. I think this is notable enough to be placed in these articles.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 13:48, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 Agree Not entirely mandatory, but would be useful if only to supply people on websites with response links like some of our other lines are used for. Balladofwindfishes 15:24, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

{{common link}}

I've been meaning to say this some months ago... but well, better late than never!

There are several links in templates with common strings in the entire Wiki: major update titles, comics, but specially nav boxes. These links can also be seen sometimes in languages, to "counter" "unstable" translations (for example, translations subject to changes in the Steam Translation Server) or for other reasons. One way or another, they all currently use the [[Name{{if lang}}|{{common string|name}}]] structure, which is too much for just a link. Instead, I propose we use a {{common link}} template, which works just like the {{item link}} one, by grabbing strings from the common string dictionary and making them into translation-switched links. This would help both when making templates or when you need to translate a piece of text from a link using the dictionary (this is what /pt-br and /de normally do in their articles).

Sure, changing all of these in the entire Wiki would be a difficult and tiring task (unless we were to use bots somehow), but the final result would certainly be great and rewarding. What do you think?  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 11:07, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 Oppose - From the standpoint of somebody who is experienced with templates, I can safely say that there is no need for this, and that it will only increase loading times for pages and not do anything to assist the end user. rZ 15:26, 22 October 2012 (PDT)

 Maybe If it could be used substituted only, and thus as shorthand for the longer link, then it would save time but not cause additional calls. Darkid (|) 04:12, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

Template:Item Checklist

{{Item checklist}} is currently too large to be included--what should we do about this? Darkid (|) 08:04, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

Uh... Widen it? I have no idea how to work templates. The last time I edited one, I broke everything. But only in the preview :3. --Enthers. (I find this work intriguing. How about yourself, sir?) 11:11, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

There's a maximum number of characters for templates--this breaks that. Darkid (|) 11:16, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

Template:user weapon checklist and Template:user hat checklist are similar to the checklist, I think we need to force people to use these 2 templates instead of use the checklist. Hinaomi (talk) • (contributions)

 Great idea, but.. we're going to suddenly delete a template? How about we simply make the icons and text smaller, and we see how it goes? --Enthers. (I find this work intriguing. How about yourself, sir?) 14:07, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

We're talking about bytesize here, not physical size. Hinaomi's idea is a good start, but unfortunately it would still only be a temporary fix - at the current rate items are being added there'll be too many before long. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 14:39, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

Yeah, temporary, but it's better than do nothing. Or we split the weapon template to each slot, hat and misc split to each class? it's temporary fix too, but can solve longer... Hinaomi (talk) • (contributions) 16:06, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

Protecting class basic tips from tampering

I'm guessing a fair amount of new users make edits to the basic tips on the class pages that have to be undone. Maybe we should make subpages such as [[Class/tips]] that contain the basic tips and protect it with a reason like "Page has official, basic tips that should not be changed in any way". Even just including it as a separate page may turn away wikinoobs. I know List of official tips has been protected in the past for a similar reason, only really unprotected because those tips actually get updated. Toomai Glittershine 19:10, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

A simpler, and less restrictive (to actual editors--i.e. if it ever gets updated) solution would be to add __NOEDITSECTION__ to the section in question; thus it could only be edited from a general page edit. This would defer any casual editor; but can be circumvented by simply editing the entire page. Darkid (|) 19:13, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

Clarification: __NOEDITSECTION__ will remove all section edit links (i.e. [edit]) on the entire page—I'm still for this idea. Darkid (|) 20:00, 23 October 2012 (PDT)

TF2 Halloween 2012 Hidden newspaper

Most of the people know by now about the spy skull head on the TF2 homepage and seen the newspaper page with the torn corner. (if not the link is here) This might be just nonsense but i believe that the "MISSING" article mentioning about the voodoo items turning you into a evil cursed, souls. And the scout(?) cards with alchemy symbols, the top card translates into "super spped" and the bottom one into a "zero". Are connected. Next to the cards is written: own, eat for, enemies. I've been looking at the clues like Merasmus, Alchemy symbols, Voodoo-cursed items and it adds up weirdly but that is the VALVe way of doing things. If anyone has more information about this page, please do tell me. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Januzuzu (talk) • (contribs) 16:11, 24 October 2012 (GMT-2)

All info on this is currently being documented in Halloween 2012.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 11:24, 24 October 2012 (PDT)

Article for ingame notification system?

The ingame notification system has seen lots of use since its implementation several years ago. A short, non-exhaustive list of what it has been used for:

• Item drop notifications
• Trade notifications
• Golden Wrench findings and deletions
• Something Special For Someone Special uses
• Item server downtime
• The release of the Blood Brothers comic
• The spawning and acquiring of haunted halloween gifts
• The arrival of the Horseless Headless Horsemann and Monoculus, their defeats, and in Monoculus' case however much time is left before he leaves
• TF Birthday shenanigans
• Server-wide Strange weapon upgrade notifications (since removed)

And I believe there is more that just doesn't come to mind immediately. Should it receive a page documenting its usage through the last few years? I think so. FlotsamX 09:53, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Move Mann vs. Machine (game mode) to Mann vs. Machine?

Title is self-explanatory. I believe 99.999999999% of the time someone enters "Mann vs. Machine" in a link or in the search bar, they are refering to the game mode. Then, I think it'll be better and easier for viewers if this move is accomplished. On the article, we may put a hatnote like this:

This article is about the game mode. For other uses, please see Mann vs. Machine (disambiguation).

(The disambiguation page would be what this page currently is.)

Thoughts?  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 16:31, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

Much like Kinfe and Shotgun, go for it! Be sure to do {{Disambiguation|Mann vs. Machine|Mann vs. Machine (disambiguation)}}. Darkid (|) 16:32, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

 Agree I find this very annoying, and confusing. Mpnov 16:35, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

 Agree I agree in this. And hatnote about disambiguation page is also needed, like you said. -Asplode 05:59, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

 Done  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 10:19, 30 October 2012 (PDT)

The preceding discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Add filenames to template:Item infobox?

Most filenames of items are different from the actual names in-game. For example, J. Axer's Dapper Topper is something like c_firstplace_hat. Adding the filenames of these items would be extremely useful for modders and skinners, but would also be useful for players in Gmod who need to find certain items from filename. It would be easy to implement, as it would only require text without any major formatting.

SamuelEnthers 22:23, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

 Neutral Never thought to need this, but I see no harm. Provided that it's unobtrusive, that is. Darkid (|) 06:14, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

S51 Crate, we even going to try this?

I'm pretty new here, though I've been playing TF2 for years, I'm very familiar with MediaWiki and I write code for a living. That said, I've started the insane task of creating a template for the series 51 crate. I was able to copy/paste all the items by acquiring the item in a trade.

I'd actually be willing to work on some of the other technical issues involved (if I'm lucky I'd be able to autogenerate most of the missing articles required) but the crate template (or possibly a parent, I haven't checked it) is lacking two things:

• Support for more than 21 items. (S51 has 189, lol)
• Support for the fact that the crate drops HALLOWEEN-THEMED unusuals.

Do people think this is worth doing? Are those who are authorized so make such an impactful edit (the base crate template, possibly parent templates) willing to do so? Sarysa 09:00, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

It's just one template, but it'd increase load times for pages which reference it by a large scale. I'd propose calling this one an exception. Darkid (|) 09:28, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

I imagine the base template could also be cloned. I feared that loading time could be a problem. (though you'd think MediaWiki would have implemented caching of template pages by now...) I do have one other concern, and it's how far off my estimates might be. I've looked at peoples' Eerie Crate related posts and I'm starting to think that it's X% halloween costumes (with individual item odds being X/n_costumes), Y% "Haunted" quality hats (individual odds Y/n_hats, and 1% Halloween Unusuals. If I were to go through the trouble of making the thing I'd like it to be accurate. How did people figure out the percentages of other crates? Sarysa 16:41, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

Before we were relying on a owner of several high traffic trading servers to log uncrates and compile the data for us. Other than that, there's no other (reliable) way of knowing without Valve telling us otherselves. —Moussekateer·talk 16:44, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

Ah cool, I was just wondering if drop rates were plaintext in some file or something. This is going to be difficult to figure out if last year (which was during my hiatus so tell me if I'm wrong) had haunted items as well -- it'll throw calculations off. In any case, I've created Template:Crate series table huge and aside from a ton of individual pages item pages that need to be created, it should be right. Somebody else even added it to the main Mann Co Crate page. The "Haunted" bit is in there and I took out the "Strange" bit. Sarysa 17:40, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

What we should use (and this reminds me of said issue with Festive crates... another tale) is stats.tf. It's just like someone compiling it for us, but we don't pay them. Darkid (|) 17:52, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

Oh, oh! I just remembered. It'd be faster to figure out what this crate doesn't have (i.e. promotional hats) than to list all hats it does have. I bet it's basically all hats but Bill's, Max's, etc. Darkid (|) 17:56, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

What it does have is known from its trade window description. What's funny is there were actually five duplicated items on the list. I wonder if we'll discover that these have double the drop rate of others... Sarysa 08:16, 28 October 2012 (PDT)

Adding a second thread to S51. It's almost done! I fixed all the icons by removing "The " at the beginning. (and one special item I had to manually fix) Once we get correct drop rates then S51 will have been completed. Woohoo! Sarysa 18:15, 27 October 2012 (PDT)

I really think that it only has new community Halloween items. rZombie 08:18, 28 October 2012 (PDT)

New Response Lines

Ok, this is a two-parter:

1) I've managed to upload and update the Response pages for the classes, but I'm having trouble determining what conditions the classes will say them. I have been going by the file names, but at times they can be very vague. Is there a file that specifically states which sound files are used under what conditions?

2) I've held off on uploading the Merasmus and Bombinomicon lines mostly due to confusion on where they should go.

In an effort to future-proof the Audio nav I'm proposing this layout with "Halloween Boss responses" as a new column.

I'm suggesting a single page that will list the voice lines for the HHH, MONOCULUS, Merasmus, and the Bombinomicon. This will avoid future conflicts in the Audio Nav and keep it as concise as possible. Whaddya think?

P.S. Feel free to suggest a new image. 09:56, 28 October 2012 (PDT)

 Agree Individually, they don't have an overwhelming ammount of lines like the classes and the Administrator do, which means we can do this without having people confused if it's correctly done. Plus, it saves time and space (article- and template-wide). Also, this image is good enough IMO.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 13:23, 30 October 2012 (PDT)

New Environmental Kill Icons

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm currently having a lot of trouble adding the kill icons for the Underworld and Merasmus. I believe the hazard infobox the correct template to modify on account of it displaying the actual kill icon notice, but I could be mistaken.

Health

From my understanding of the hazard infobox template, it does needs to be updated to include the health of MONOCULUS and Merasmus, but I'm having difficulty getting it to show properly without breaking it.

Fixed. Add health=number to each page's infobox to use this feature.

Thank you kindly. 13:41, 30 October 2012 (PDT)

Kill Notice

Lastly, the Template:Kill_notice may have to be modified.

MERASMUS! 

File:Killicon merasmus staff.png

 Spy

MONOCULUS! 

 Heavy

MERASMUS! should be green and MONOCULUS! should be in purple. The current implementation for the HHH is correct.

 Engineer

I apologize for the long discussion topic, but I hope someone can help. 02:09, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

There's an easy hack which involves changing the friendlyfire parameter to accept "purple". What color should it be? Darkid (|) 06:24, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

Done! Darkid (|) 07:14, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

The green color is a little bit darker than Haunted color. Hinaomi (talk) • (contributions) 09:07, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

Thank you so much for your help.

Kill Icons

Regarding a page's kill icons, from my understanding, the info and hazard infoboxes auto-magically link the correct kill icon based on the page name. However it runs into problems when the kill icon doesn't match the page name or there are more than 2 separate kill icons.

This made even more puzzling when the kill icon images are not directly linked from the pages themselves. Normally, I would use the custom kill icon template, but I cannot find any evidence of its use in any weapon page's code. Naturally, I have no idea how to name the new kill icons or how to include them in the pages.

In short, the following kill icons have to be added to their respective pages as they are not currently shown there:

(Eyeaduct Underworld)

File:Killicon merasmus staff.png (Merasmus)

There are several more kill icons for Merasmus which have not been uploaded yet. I believe those include the bombs and the fire damage spell. Several kill icons are also reused such as the Cow Mangler's suicide via afterburn.

If you look at Huntsman you can see an example of a double-kill icon. That should inform you of how to display both. The issue below still holds. Darkid (|) 05:44, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

If you can upload the images, I can help you a bit more. Also, sawmill does not show saw-death on its page. Darkid (|) 07:15, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

Ok, I couldn't get around to it last night, but Dio uploaded the new killicons.

MERASMUS! 

 Demoman

MERASMUS! 

 Pyro

Spy 

 Sniper

I was wondering about the Huntsman page as it wasn't clear from the page's code how the multiple kill icons were implemented. I'm also unsure about whether the "Bomb Head" kill icon should be associated with Merasmus since it's usually a suicide or another player killing another from the explosion.

I've also seen alot of these when a player dies from Merasmus' afterburn:

 Medic

As I recall, there are several missing icons on a lot of map pages, especially the train.

 Spy

 Spy

 Spy

However, I wonder whether if just a kill notice in the page body would suffice or would a kill icon in the infbox be more appropriate? 13:41, 30 October 2012 (PDT)

The point I was making was that map pages don't list associated death icons; oddly enough. I may change up the infobox at a later date, but that'll need sandboxing. The point I was making on the Huntsman page was that you could specify | kill-icon-2 = huntsman headshot and that would work. I'm going to leave the bomb head kill-icon in there, as it is relevant. I've updated Merasmus to include the kill icons. Darkid (|) 14:12, 30 October 2012 (PDT)

Related Achievements

I was having some confusion (which IRC did not help) on the Saxxy page, and it brought up a more general question: What defines a "Related Achievement"?

For example, the achievement War Crime Spybunal (Kill a spy who just backstabbed a teammate as a soldier) was to be listed, but Blunt Trauma (Uber a heavy who kills 2 enemies with his fists) was not.

I'd pose that the achievement should only be listed if it is of the specific slot required for the achievement, and it is the weapon directly responsible (ubercharge, kill, etc) for the earning of said achievement. Thus, War Crime Spybunal would not be listed, nor would Blunt Trauma. Darkid (|) 15:36, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

Going through the weapon pages on the Wiki, I have come across the same issue. Using his examples (War Crime Spybunal and Blunt Trauma), I would assume that War Crime Spybunal covers every Soldier weapon, and should not be on that page listed as an achievement, and that Blunt Trauma should be listed, because the achievement strictly involves Heavy melee weapons, and the Saxxy is, indeed, a Heavy melee weapon, and should be listed as an achievement on all Heavy melee pages. However, this is not the case. War Crime Spybunal IS included, and Blunt Trauma is NOT. This confounds me. LuchaHoovy 15:46, 29 October 2012 (PDT)

HLVM Scout Socks

For some reason every time I load any class model The Scout's misc item, the essential accessories appears. Even when another weapon is loaded. I've tried unloaded the weapon and changing the submodels on the scout but nothing. Help? Is there a way to make all the models go back into their default settings? Wariopunk 16:15, 30 October 2012 (PDT)