So in several threads I've wanted to talk about items and cards. I often feel that item and card names should be formatted in some way to distinguish their game functionality. Like Equip the Proliferation skill to receive three Fork cards or Equip the Proliferation skill to receive three Fork cards. But then when I proofread my ramblings, I end up undoing the format because I don't see anyone else doing the same thing. Now that we're inching closer to having the whole game open to us and we're going to start seeing more and more item and card names in discussion, do you think we forumers should establish a standard style? Or am I worried over nothing? I like the first option better. I also considered using colors, but those aren't as convenient to apply and I'm not color-blind so I'm not sure if it would work.
Yeah, I tried something like that way, way back in my very first forum post. I think I was bolding card names and italicizing item names there, probably because I felt that cards were more important than items. Don't think I really have a serious preference between the two styles, though. I haven't spoken about specific cards much, or I'd definitely be on board with you with regards to proliferating a consistent style for bolding/italicizing card and item names.
It'd be cool. Problem with those specific font choices is that italics are rendered irrelevant when quoting (i.e., all quoted text suddenly becomes italic anyway). But speaking of font . . . how about forgoing basic italics/bold/underlining and instead change font family? Equip the Proliferation skill to receive three Fork cards . . . Only way, way less ugly. Maybe Blue Manchu could add more options, and conveniently label them "item" and "card." Something that would be cool would be one of those "all letters are already capital, even when small" fonts. Then we could do . . . Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three Fork cards . . . Only way, way, way less ugly.
It looks like boldface and underline survive quoting. Maybe we could use those? As an aside, I already underline all my links to make them super obvious, but this probably wouldn't interfere with that.
Colored text is always rather infuriating, actually. :/ I would definitely prefer we avoid that. Especially since there's always that one guy who just has to type everything in magenta or puce. It is undoubtedly showing my laziness, but fussing with fonts seems far too involved for something that would be used so often. Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U, these are already ingrained in many people's typing habits and a system based on them would be much more intuitive for newer members to adopt. The downside is that some of our more expressive members already make extensive use of these systems, just in normal, everday posting. Of course, I don't know anyone who does that. Still, and taking the quoting aspect into consideration, I'd posit that underlining an Item name and then bolding the subsequent cards granted would be an effective formatting option. Helmet of Insight 1x Arrogant Armor 1x Enchanted Mail 1x Forward Thinking "Looking at the Arrogant Armor card you get from the Helmet of Insight as a comparison, I would have to say that blah deblah deblah blah blah." That'd be where I'd throw my initial support, anyway. Until someone convinces me of a better option.
Underlined text in the middle of a sentence keeps making me expect a hyperlink, though. Unfortunately, years and years of "the internet" makes it a hard visual habit to break.
well, I prefer this... Helmet of Insight 1 x Arrogant Armor 1 x Enchanted Mail 1 x Forward Thinking or in the case of a weapon Vicious Javelin 3 x Pinning Spear (A: 5, R: 5) 1 x Impaling Stab (A: 9, R: 2) 2 x Raging Strike (A: 7, R: 1, <add extra descriptions here>)
The italicized words don't show up in Quotes though, Phaselock... ...that makes it particularly difficult to pick out in the middle of a sentence. :/ As for underlined text leading to hyperlinks... eh. I suppose I'm used to off-color text leading to hyperlinks more than underlined words, which probably says something about the different sites we visit, though of course I see where you're coming from. But, really, if you instinctively go click on the text and it doesn't take you anywhere... it's not that big of a loss. That, and multiple fonts make my eyes go wonky, so even beyond my substantial laziness I tend to avoid pages/sites that switch up fonts regularly. Even just looking at that line you typed in your post above is really uncomfortable for me. So I guess... hey, there's a tip, guys! Want to keep Zoorland out of your thread? Just use a bunch of different fonts all in the same message.
In a sense, I'd like it if they did do something. Maybe not be links, but perhaps pop-ups . . . Imagine, if you will, a combination of two ideas. Imagine a forum coded with a special type of formatting option: along with "bold this" and "make this a hyperlink," there was a button for "make this a card name." Pressing this button not only added [whatever text style seems like a good idea], but also tried to make it link to some central Card Hunter database or wiki or something. It would be a terrible pain to code. Not to mention how there has been no discussion of central Card Hunter database thingies so far. But it would be similar to the "tooltips" in the game itself, and pretty darn cool. And, I repeat, a terrible pain to code.
Actually it seems to be pretty easy to code, especially since someone seems to have started up a wikia wiki already! The hard part so far was just getting a local webserver running so I could test it on my home machine. I think it'd be good to have special formatting tags (and associated buttons) for cards, items, and other random wiki links. Before I steam ahead with this and try to get it finished up, are there any final votes for formatting styles? I quite like Sir Knight's second suggestion with the capital letters (PROLIFERATION) since it's a formatting style not used anywhere else on the forum, and looks all official-like. The question then returns to that of the OP: How can we distinguish between cards and items via formatting? I'm pretty tempted to use the capital letter thing for all items and cards, and make items bold so they look nice when displayed as a table. I can probably change it if opinions are strong enough, but otherwise... get your opinions in quick before I finish up!
Egad, the idea might become a reality? Idle chit-chat might lead to such dramatic effects on the world as to (gasp!) add a button to a forum menu? I don't think I can handle something of this magnitude. And the icon for the "item" button could be a (cough) knight's helmet! For, uh, totally logical reasons related to items. I like the bold for the topmost entry in the table (the item); "emphasis" looks best when it's in the minority. And, perhaps, italics for the remaining entries (the cards) could be just fine: in a normal post, italics are visible; in a quote, the special font is still visible.
Heheh. Unfortunately the button is being troublesome, so people might have to settle for typing the tag.
By the wikia wiki, do you mean this : http://cardhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Card_Hunter_Wiki ? Is this the official wiki On my screen, the logos and resolution are wonky...is it only me ? or are we free to make our own in future ? So now its: a) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards ? b) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards ? c) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards ? d) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards ? e) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards ? f) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards ? I could do this all day
I have no idea who started that wiki, I just figured if we directed some traffic into it it'd receive a bit more love and attention, and any wonkiness would be de-wonked. I expect anyone can edit it, and I'm rather hoping that some people will. Also: d), unless anyone convinces me otherwise before I'm done.
And I had just thought of throwing up a wiki myself. But yea, the resolution is a little off here as well.
I had been voting for: g) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards . . . But now I think adding italics makes it harder to read. Farbs, are you actually adding a new font with built-in "small capitals" for lowercase letters, or coding it so our regular font just gets "font size 2" applied to it? Because if it's a whole new font, it would be good to see samples. After all, if italics are difficult to read as above, then all quotes would be difficult to read.
I was thinking of checking the Xenforo site to see how easily this could be added, but I see you've beaten me to it. d) is as good as any and better than some. h) Equip the PROLIFERATION skill to receive three FORK cards Something similar to the Tahoma font bolds up nicely, while I personally find Helvetica easiest to read in italics among current choices. Just so you have something to look for while font shopping. Ah, the good old days. In my very second post I used bold for both cards and items. As you can see, I've gotten into the habit of underlining links as well. The forum applies a color change, but I find it hard to distinguish on short text. Like from black to 80% gray or something. If Farbs is adjusting the forum settings, maybe they could turn into Card Hunter crimson?
I'd happily toss some time at editing/adding to a wiki, but I'd probably prefer that it be an official one. This is mostly because I irrationally (rationally?) hate Wikia and its slew of ads, banners and other annoying accoutrement. EDIT: Oh, and I just used "accoutrement" in a post, so whomever had that square in Card Hunter Forum Bingo can see me afterwards to collect their prize.
Behold the NoScript add-on! Making browsers that aren't Internet Explorer even more comfortable and secure than Internet Explorer since 2004! . . . Of course, that's just for the stupid animated banners, cross-wiki ads, and so on. It won't make up for other annoying accoutrements. P.S.: Heck yes, I support making the default "link" stuff display better. I'm tired of applying underlining to ensure basic noticeability.
I would absolutely love it if card/item stats came up on mouseover to tagged things, instead of having to go through a link. It's something that a lot of Magic: The Gathering based websites do already. Although I'm sure it would require a lot more work.
