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Unique vs. activate[]

I started this in the wrong place, as a tangent to what is essentially a deletion discussion. Here's the comment that started my train of thought:

My intention in not doing a unique power redirect was to make a unique power article for the on-hit and then have a disambiguification line linking to activate item for the cast spell item power.WhiZard 02:07, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

Now my reply, which should have been here to begin with: Would it be better to have "activate item" redirect to "unique power", then have "unique power" describe all the variations? After all, in the end, they are all basically the same thing -- a generic script call to allow quick customizations without a lot of .2da editing. (Both could still show up in the category listing.) --The Krit 02:26, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

  • Possibly, however I wanted to avoid the unique power (cast spell), unique power (on-hit) confusion. Also for cast spell, the permissible targets and range mean something, while for on-hit it is more assumed unless otherwise stated that the spell can be cast on the targeted creature, since this occurs automatically. WhiZard 02:31, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
  • What confusion would that be? The way they are presented in the game, both look like "unique power" with some extra qualifiers added on. As for the permissible targets and range, there is already a list of those to cover the various non-on-hit properties, so what would be the issue with adding "Unique Power (OnHit) the creature triggering this on-hit property" to the list? It just seems to me that the on-hit power and the manually-activated power are conceptually the same thing, much the same way that "cast spell: acid splash" and "on-hit cast spell: acid splash" are conceptually the same thing, just with a different trigger/targeting mechanism. --The Krit 22:10, August 22, 2011 (UTC)
  • Given that both unique powers are custom content, there could be confusion as one goes through the OnActivateItem event and the other doesn't. Module events are quite often changed in many ways including haks, overrides, and custom content packs (including CEP etc.). Thus I do want to make it clear which one is affected by which module events. Also I think it makes more sense to put cast spell:unique power under Activate item since it is an OnActivateItem, while on hit cast spell:unique power is not. --WhiZard 00:00, 23 August 2011
  • Still mulling over the above (not convinced yet, but keeping the articles separate is growing on me), when I realized there is another consideration bugging me. The way the game lists two of these powers are "Cast Spell: Unique Power" and "On Hit Cast Spell: Unique Power (On Hit)". Based on this, I can see someone wondering what the former is and coming here, typing "unique power" in the search box, and wondering why they do not get the desired article. Assuming the two are kept as separate articles, I think it would make more sense to follow the in-game naming scheme. That is, move the current "unique power" article to "unique power (on hit)" and have unique power redirect here with a disambig notice mentioning the on-hit variant. That way someone looking for "unique power" will find what they are looking for, while someone who enters "unique power" when looking for "unique power (on hit)" would (hopefully) see that "on hit" was an important part of the name to type in. --The Krit 20:10, September 17, 2011 (UTC)
  • Go ahead with this naming scheme? --The Krit 17:22, October 7, 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, I didn't realize you were waiting for a response. WhiZard 21:50, October 7, 2011 (UTC)
  • Well, a significant portion of the wait was actually me forgetting about this. ;) But, yeah, I wasn't sure if this was going into the confusion you had said you wanted to avoid. (And actually making changes will wait until I have more time.) On the bright side, I think I have come around to appreciating the separate articles. --The Krit 00:53, October 8, 2011 (UTC)

Conversations[]

Moved from a to-be-deleted talk page:

I use a "unique power: self only" to start a conversation multiple times most weeks. If a particular item is not starting a conversation, its script is bugged; it's not a shortcoming of the power. (For reference: I just removed a note indicating that conversations cannot be started with "unique power: self only".) --The Krit 02:26, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

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