James Leveling Addon - Style Consistency

Okay good. They're not needed, but properly coded they have another purpose. What about my other question? These can be easily fixed by one person with a determined afternoon, but is there any easier way to submit these corrections, other than posting bug reports on them?
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If you live a long life it is a testament to your friends' self control.

So I know you guys are aware of the "bug" where the |QID| attached to non-quest objectives are making said objectives skip. Are the |QID|s on those objectives absolutely necessary? I remember reading a post on another page stating that they were, but couldn't see a legitimate reason WHY. Having manually editing some of the guides LUA files I'm not seeing a need for them to be there.

Editing these |QID| numbers out of the guides is a simple, if tedious task I am willing to undertake, but is there an easier way to submit these corrections other than submitting a bug report for each one?

If there is I might even try my hand at helping sift through the style consistency in some of the guides.

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If you live a long life it is a testament to your friends' self control.

i still dont know if its a bug with the addon, or an error in the guide or wahtever, but occationaly ive seen that it has already ticked off a few steps, like i've completed them before i even started that quest..
i have reported a few of these

also there tend to be missing a few coords in a few random quests throughout the game, where theres no arrow/coords that shows me where to report the quest. this can be quite annnoying, if you, like me, dont read the quest names as you pick them up...

overall im very happy with the guide and a few explanations of how to do the more complicated quests doesnt matter, coz thats why we got lightheaded(the wowhead comments) to clear it out in a few different ways, and tips on how to solo various elites ect)

I agree with:

• Complete steps are better than kill steps. I think I haven't used a single kill step for now actually, there's always been a better alternative so far.
• Only point to a repair NPC when in small camps. Don't do it when in cities.
• Adding class specific information about trainers would be a nice addition
• Try to shrink the amount of information to a minimum.
• Try to make transitions in between guides smoother

I'm not too sure about:

• Using a run step back to the quest hub instead of just using a turn-in quest step, I think it's just unnecessary. I prefer using a turn in step, using the quest which is the closest from the point where we were before we go back to the quest hub. That's debatable of course, but I just prefer having as little steps as possible whenever necessary.

And I now wonder about the item use button. Since blizzard implemented one themselves, I guess we should just stop using the one from Tourguide? Less work for the coders and less prone to bugs and errors. Thoughts?

I'm not sure why, and I know the kill icon means "kill", but I don't like it when in the description it just has a sentence fragment, such as "QuestMobA, can be found southwest". I like it better when it actually says kill in the description, such as "Kill QuestMobA, which can be found a little southwest of you." Just me and my picky self.

The new quest tracker now provides a use button for quest items. This means that the quest item is on the screen twice. The quest tracker is also moveable now.

I think that for steps where the quest is automatically watched, and where bliz provides a quest item button, that we should not provide it. In the rare cases where bliz does not provide the needed button, we can provide it.

But I would like to hear others' thoughts on this, it's another important feature that needs to be consistent between guides.

One more thing I thought of today while editing. Something I think I would like as a player is to know when we are going back to a town, rather than just seeing a turn in step. So I think I would rather have a run step before a block of turn ins. This way I'll know as a player how long of a run it is to get to the next step, which is helpful in group situations, or if I have a flying mount or something that can get me closer.

I know in Tekkub's original guide he advises against this, saying just to use the turn in step. Any other thoughts?

I'm just revising and editing what someone else has done, so unless there is a bad screwup somewhere, I don't have to make a decision on the kill/complete steps.

I'm also working strictly in Northrend (so far) so I agree with your "edit" about vendoring/repairing in smaller cities and pointing to the blacksmith. I don't want to admit how many times I ran over to the profession trainers in Valiance Keep looking for someone to repair my armor (mousing over each one at least once) until I /facepalmed and ran over to the other side of the camp.

The training part is a mixed bag. I quest with rested experience at all times but I skip most of the group quests (unless I can solo them). I'm usually too focused on what I'm doing to pay too much attention to General Chat, unless I'm specifically looking for help and I don't have the patience to wait for a group. My (long drawn out) point is, people gain XP's at a different pace. It's very rare for me to "ding" at the same point playing different characters, so trying to guess when different players will ding is not going to be anywhere near an exact science. Some will be ahead of the curve, some will be behind. Again, this is speaking from Northrend characters. YMMV on earlier guides where you may have to grind to get to a level.

As far as the amount/style of explanation, I'm more in the boat with Lunargecko, unless the step is extremely obvious. We have the short step listed in the UI, but if you need more help, the mouseover is there for those that want it. I'm not saying you need a "War and Peace" sized mouseover text, but for those that may be going through the zone for the first time, they may need a little more guidance.

I don't really have an opinion about the last part. I'm wondering if the same person wrote all the Northrend guides, as they are all pretty similar.

These are just my thoughts....

James

I generally agree with you, except for the kill/complete step. I don't like the kill step icon, so I prefer complete steps.

Oh, and yes... the vendor thing is annoying in bigger camps and major cities. We have a minimap which we can track stuff with, right? I'm sure one can be able to find a repairman or merchant with said minimap, yes?

For the amount of explanation... I like as much as possible. Oh, and I don't really like it when authors put in random notes like, "check this" or "to be revised" within steps!

For style of explanation, I say be informative while not sacrificing all of the personality. I get kinda bored when all I get are very bland instructions. I'm not sure how to explain it, but a little personality in the notes are nice.

Finally, for the transitions, I think that an effort should be made to make smooth transitions at the beginning at the guides only. Find out what guides lead to yours and work from there. I mean... when a guide ends it usually just goes kersplat and leaves you hanging... which is where the next guide comes in.

• Kill vs. Complete Steps - Complete steps should always be used, unless there is a good reason not to. For example, if one part of the quest is completed first, then something else is done - then you use a Kill step. Complete steps have the advantage of using the quest tracker, and multiple complete steps in a row all use the quest tracker at once. For quests where you kill multiple types of mobs in one area, completing multiple objectives, its very important that you use complete steps and NOT kill steps. This may not be true in select cases, and in those cases a kill step can be used, but it should be the exception, NOT the rule.

• Vendor/Train/Sell/Restock steps - I know Jame originally said we should provide a corodinate for the nearest vendor, but as a player I actually found this annoying in big cities where I might be in a different area of the city going about my business. This kind of hand-holding is really unnecessary in my opinion, and actually gets in the way of leveling quickly. A gentle reminder to sell/restock/repair is all that is needed, because sometimes you won't really need to do any of those things. EDIT: In small camps where there is only one place to repair/sell/restock, I think an arrow could be useful. Mostly I am against breaking it up into multiple steps, and providing arrows in cities where there are many possible places for the player to go for these services.

  I feel a little differently about training. While I don't think we really need to direct the user to their trainer every time, some class specific advice would really be welcome. I don't know how many times, when leveling my druid, I forgot to teleport to moonglade before I hearthed to Orgrimmar, and missed training for a level or two or had to fly all the way to TB. Likewise, paladins who don't have a trainer in Org could probably use the occasional reminder to head to UC to train, or in cases where they go to Org from UC, to train before leaving. However, again, I don't think an arrow pointing to the trainer for every class is necessary (yeah I know I did this in my 51-60 guide, depending on the verdict here, I'll change it).

• Amount/style of explanation - Basically, I feel some of the guides have huge walls of text in the mouse-over notes (I left some of these walls in the Barrens guide, may change them depending on this discussion). Yes, we want to include enough information to tell the player how to complete the quest. But less text = less reading = faster leveling. Whenever possible, we should try to limit the mouse-over text to one or two sentances, and be as succinct and to the point as possible. I briefly glanced at the 31-41 guide (Horde side) and it looks like there is a bunch of erroneous commentary, I think this should all be removed.

• Transitions from guide to guide - This was most noticeable in the 21-31 guide (Horde side), where it's unknown what the user did for the previous 20 levels. I think the transition as it is is extremely clumsy and needs to be reworked. Basically, I think we should write these guides assuming that the user is going to use Jame's guide at level 20. I've already made an edit to Hosho's guide to that end, and am reworking the 21-31 guide as we speak. The goal is a seemless transition, so the user doesn't even know he or she changed to a new guide.

*steps off soap box* - sorry for the wall of text, been thinking about this for a while.

Please, bring your opinions, I think it's important for the community to reach a consensus on these issues. Also Jame, your voice would definitely help lay some of these questions to rest