In-game wiki

[cyhadam.3082]

Are there any talks of having an in-game wiki? I really do believe having to go outside of the game to check wiki in a browser breaks the immersion of such a beautiful game and it's a shame. It would be awesome to have the in-game wiki show up like a book. Perhaps this could be something that Anet could work on with their wiki community? Anything? Thanks.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't think that will happen. It would be cumbersome to have to scroll through so many pages to read what's on one page in the Wiki. The game only allows so much text in those in-game 'book' pages.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I don't think that will happen. It would be cumbersome to have to scroll through so many pages to read what's on one page in the Wiki. The game only allows so much text in those in-game 'book' pages.

I think OP means a browser window in-game, kind of like the trading post, and not standard dialogue boxes.

At least, that's the only feasible way I can imagine it working.

[Khisanth.2948]

"immersion breaking" has to be one of the laziest reason people come up with for all sort of things

what about you lugging around 30 pieces of armor and 20 weapons?how does karma even work as a currency?how does a piece of armor fit both a norn and an asura?

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I don't think that will happen. It would be cumbersome to have to scroll through so many pages to read what's on one page in the Wiki. The game only allows so much text in those in-game 'book' pages.

I think OP means a browser window in-game, kind of like the trading post, and not standard dialogue boxes.

At least, that's the

only

feasible way I can imagine it working.

in that case just install overwolf and use its browser overlay

[cyhadam.3082]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 yup that's what I meant

@Khisanth.2948 When I mean immersion breaking, I mean having to be pulled away from the game to do a search on something. I have tried Overwolf and used its browser overlay but it was slow and cumbersome (it may have been something on how I set it up). But I think the bigger question to ask is why does Anet rely on 3rd party software to provide a better experience to their players. Surely, I cannot be the only player to realize that having all game information in an external wiki is a rather lazy way to document in-game info. I think an in-game browser optimized and built by Anet that would pull in wiki info would be a much better experience.

[cyhadam.3082]

That would show wiki info* (not pull in)

[yoni.7015]

I think this would be to much work. They should rather focus on content. It’s not really a big deal to minimize the game to check the wiki. If you want to stay in game you can use your phone.

[Luthan.5236]

I only know about the /wiki command that links you to the external wiki that opens in your browser. (Though almost nobody uses that command since it is easier to alt-tab directly to the browser and search there.)

Ingame ... wouldn't be worth the amount of work they'd had to put into this. The only option for improvement I can see would be to have certain options on right-click where where an option would directly open the wiki page in your external browser. (Without you having to type it ingame or alt-tab out and searching manually.)

[Khisanth.2948]

@yoni.7015 said:I think this would be to much work. They should rather focus on content. It’s not really a big deal to minimize the game to check the wiki. If you want to stay in game you can use your phone.

or if they had so much extra funding left over in their budget it would be better used to hire some people to port the game DX12 or Vulkan, that would definitely a lot more bang for their buck

the only thing a browser would get you is confused journalists asking why ANet did this

[Omega.6801]

How is you knowing everything with a few klicks, i.e. using a wiki page, not immersion breaking?

Also /wiki [whateveryouwanttoknow] is a great addition to the game that works perfectly. Maybe an in-game window would be an improvement, but it's actually good the way it is. Could be more advertised in-game though.

[Danikat.8537]

I don't know if Anet are planning on doing it, but I think it would be possible.

The Black Lion Trading Company menu is a custom web browser built into the game (this can occasionally be seen when it goes wrong and shows a standard 404 error or other website error message), so the tech is there to do it. Anet could let us obtain a copy of Wikki's Official Guide to Tyria which when activated opens a menu that looks like a book but is actually a browser displaying the Wiki. Call it a magic book that can tell you (almost) anything about the world.

The biggest problem, I think, would be the formatting. I have no idea what the Trading Post looks like if you accessed it through a normal web browser or how much work is required to make it fit the in-game menu. Making it a full screen menu like the map, instead of a small box might help because then it could probably display the pages as they already are instead of requiring new versions of everything. Although I'm not sure how immersive a book with scroll bars on the 'pages', filters on tables, API boxes etc. would be.

[Vancho.8750]

@"Danikat.8537" said:I don't know if Anet are planning on doing it, but I think it would be possible.

The Black Lion Trading Company menu is a custom web browser built into the game (this can occasionally be seen when it goes wrong and shows a standard 404 error or other website error message), so the tech is there to do it. Anet could let us obtain a copy of Wikki's Official Guide to Tyria which when activated opens a menu that looks like a book but is actually a browser displaying the Wiki. Call it a magic book that can tell you (almost) anything about the world.

The biggest problem, I think, would be the formatting. I have no idea what the Trading Post looks like if you accessed it through a normal web browser or how much work is required to make it fit the in-game menu. Making it a full screen menu like the map, instead of a small box might help because then it could probably display the pages as they already are instead of requiring new versions of everything. Although I'm not sure how immersive a book with scroll bars on the 'pages', filters on tables, API boxes etc. would be.The Priory's Technomancer Book Of Knowledge About Many Things , you can twist around many things with the lore in GW2 if you try.

[Trise.2865]

Here's the thing: You're being pulled out of the game regardless. Reading factual, meta-knowledge information about the game and its world fundamentally breaks immersion on its own. The mechanism that delivers it is irrelevant.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Danikat.8537" said:I don't know if Anet are planning on doing it, but I think it would be possible.

The Black Lion Trading Company menu is a custom web browser built into the game (this can occasionally be seen when it goes wrong and shows a standard 404 error or other website error message), so the tech is there to do it. Anet could let us obtain a copy of Wikki's Official Guide to Tyria which when activated opens a menu that looks like a book but is actually a browser displaying the Wiki. Call it a magic book that can tell you (almost) anything about the world.

The BLTC also doesn't work like a standard browser since it pulls some assets from the GW2.dat instead of from the web server which is why new gemstore stuff can be datamined ahead of time. This was also a thing they mentioned when they changed to the current version. The original used to be accessible through your browser too, that was also how people were getting TP data before the API was added.

The biggest problem, I think, would be the formatting. I have no idea what the Trading Post looks like if you accessed it through a normal web browser or how much work is required to make it fit the in-game menu. Making it a full screen menu like the map, instead of a small box might help because then it could probably display the pages as they already are instead of requiring new versions of everything. Although I'm not sure how immersive a book with scroll bars on the 'pages', filters on tables, API boxes etc. would be.

A bigger problem would be any external links someone might add in and potentially executing code loaded from those external links. You could make it so external links do not work but that leaves you with a slightly broken wiki and there would have be a very prominent warning about external links being disabled.

[Algreg.3629]

I´d say metagaming is always immersion breaking, regardless the visual presentation.

[Kulvar.1239]

@cyhadam.3082 said:Are there any talks of having an in-game wiki? I really do believe having to go outside of the game to check wiki in a browser breaks the immersion of such a beautiful game and it's a shame. It would be awesome to have the in-game wiki show up like a book. Perhaps this could be something that Anet could work on with their wiki community? Anything? Thanks.

Because having a browser and wiki inside the game is not immersion breaking... /sarcasm

[cyhadam.3082]

@Kulvar.1239 To clarify, when I say immersion breaking, I am referring to having to leave the game to find more information about the game. Seeing the browser information in-game would not be a huge issue because you would not need to leave the game.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The only way the Wiki would be as convenient and resourceful as it is, in-game, is if it was full-page/full-screen.
If it is full-screen, you would not see the 'game environment', anyway. There's no way it could be like the 'books' in-game now.
Not much difference between pushing 1 key in-game to bring up the full-screen, and pushing 2 buttons simultaneously in-game to pull up the full-screen.

[Donari.5237]

I know this won't work for many people, especially laptop users, but a second monitor is amazing for this. My game window stays nice and big in front of my face, letting me see what's going on (in a way that a screen covering in-game book would not), while I check wiki information in my browser off to the right on the other monitor.

It doesn't even have to be a fancy top end monitor, though I admit having a smaller lower rez screen to the right makes sliding windows back and forth a little hinky and am looking forward to another bigger one ... except then it'll protrude too much over the cat's fleece bed on the desk, lol.

[cyhadam.3082]

I am just asking Anet to revisit their original vision for their game: "Beyond communication, we’re exploring features that allow out-of-game friends to help in-game friends by locating places or items. Additionally, we will have a much tighter system for accessing and consuming wiki content. This will greatly reduce the need to continuously jump out of the game to access web sites for information.", http://web.archive.org/web/20110208131919/http://www.arena.net/blog/gaming-outside-the-game-rick-ellis-talks-the-guild-wars-2-extended-experience

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Yeah, well, they gave up the idea of 'extended experience' before the game ever even launched. The Devs stated they want players to use the API to create apps, instead.

[cyhadam.3082]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 ok that makes sense, do you know what is the best performing app that would allow me to do in-game browsing of the wiki, GW2 PAO?

[Hashberry.4510]

Imagine a software company bothering to fully document their product. Sigh, that was a nice little dream.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Donari.5237" said:I know this won't work for many people, especially laptop users, but a second monitor is amazing for this. My game window stays nice and big in front of my face, letting me see what's going on (in a way that a screen covering in-game book would not), while I check wiki information in my browser off to the right on the other monitor.

It doesn't even have to be a fancy top end monitor, though I admit having a smaller lower rez screen to the right makes sliding windows back and forth a little hinky and am looking forward to another bigger one ... except then it'll protrude too much over the cat's fleece bed on the desk, lol.

This seems like a perfect time for ...."Do you guys not have phones?" ?