Rappelz Wiki:Format and Style Manual

Since this wiki is quite big (3900+ pages) it's quite the time for this kind of article gets written to help have a consistent wiki. It is still a work in progress.

Purpose

This manual is intended for all editors to help them make edits that are consistent with the rest of the site.

How to contribute

Please use the appropriate talk page before changing this page. Keep in mind that this is a community site and big change decision should not be taken by a single person.

Aspects

Images

Images submitted to the wiki to be displayed on articles must respect these criteria:

• Be of a png file type.
  • png format uses a lossless data compression so they are of a better quality than jpg or gif.
• Use a meaningful name
  • Use spaces.
  • Use in-game full names.
  • If it's an icon, end the name by icon, e.g. Betrayal of Belief icon.png
  • If it's an in-game screenshot, end the name by screenshot, e.g. Monocle screenshot.png
  • If it's a screenshot of a costume, the name should follow this rule: [Costume name] [Race] [male or female] [optional back/front] [screenshot].png (respecting the letter casing). E.g. Betrayal of Belief Deva female screenshot.png.
  • If it's a screenshot of a pet, the name should follow this rule: [Pet name] Evo [evo number] screenshot.png. E.g. Cerberus Evo 2 screenshot.png.
  • If it's a screenshot of a staged pet, the name should follow this rule: [Pet name] Evo [evo number] Staged screenshot.png. E.g. Cerberus Evo 2 Staged screenshot.png.

Tips for getting a good image

• Avoid un-necessary elements.
  • In-game, Crtl+H is your friend: it allows you to hide UI graphics so you can take a real nice picture.
  • Use the Escape key to avoid taking screenshot of the circle on the ground around the selected target.
  • Avoid as much as you can taking screenshots of character names in order to avoid hacking.
  • Focus on what you want to show. If you want to take a screenshot of a salamander which is standing by AH broker in flea market, you might not be able to take a clear shot, so better wait for a better occasion.
  • Crop your image to what you want to show: it gives better results.
• If you want to take a screenshot of a pet, try to show 2 to 3 sides of it so the viewers can have a good idea of what it looks like (make sure you see, for instance, the front and the side of the pet, or the front, the side and the top if you can).
• Print Screen or Alt+Print Screen.
  • Print Screen is bound to taking a screenshot in-game (in Rappelz), which is supposed to output a screenshot in your Rappelz installation directory. (Supposed because sometimes it doesn't (bug)). This feature is not your friend because the image produced is 1) a jpg (remember, lossy format) 2) of poor quality 3) named generically and sequentially like rappelz_screen00000007.JPG. What's bad about the name is that it does not describe well what's on the image, and it might be overwritten by another user.
  • Image editing programs are your other friends: You can use Print Screen or Alt+Print Screen and then go to your favorite image editing program (Adobe Photoshop, The Gimp, Windows Paint) and paste the image there to make the perfect picture. Windows Paint (as far as Windows XP) is able to save files as png, so even if you don't have another image editing tool, Windows Paint can get a good job done.
  • If you run Rappelz in Full Screen mode and find that Print Screen puts a completely black image on the clipboard, go to "Menu - Options - Settings - Graphics Audio" and switch to windowed mode. (If when you try to switch back to full screen you find you can't use the Menu button because it's off the bottom of the screen, Alt-O takes you directly to Options.)
• Ask for help! If you need help for anything, ask an admin on their talk page, they'll be glad to help, as they all want perfect images :)

Conclusion

This said, you're free to upload anything that is meant to be posted on your personal user page, as long as it does not offend anyone ;). Keep in mind that unused images may get deleted from the wiki once in a while.

What happens when Print Screen is pressed?

Basically, Windows detects that the Print Screen key is hit on your keyboard, then it does two things

1. It makes a copy of what is currently on the screen and saves it you the clipboard of your computer (the cloud where data is saved when you hit Copy or use Crtl+C in your programs). It doesn't save it anywhere else, so the only way to retrieve it is use the Paste or Crtl+V in any program that supports pasting images. It does not alter the image in any way (no compression).
2. It sends the key to the current running program, in this case Rappelz.
   1. Rappelz makes a copy of what's currently displayed in the game window, just like Windows does
   2. Rappelz compresses the image to make it smaller on your HDD.
   3. Rappelz saves the compressed image on your HDD.

This is why an image editing tool is required to make the best screenshots of Rappelz.

Difference between Print Screen and Alt+Print Screen

Print Screen takes a screenshot of everything that is displayed on your monitor(s). Alt+Print Screen only takes a screenshot of the currently selected program window. Rappelz should produce the same image in it's installation directory in either case.

Character Classes and Jobs

Wording

Class

This term refers to one of the four type of Costumes/Helmets limitation a character faces: Warrior, Hunter, Magician, Summoner.

Job

This term refers to the name of is character class, chosen during a Job Change.

Content

Job pages should respect this general template.

Quests

Please see documentation on the Template:Questpage for format and style guidelines for the quest pages.

Mobs

Please see documentation on the Template:Mob for format and style guidelines for the mob pages.

Old or Obsolete information

Information that was relevant to a previous version of Rappelz should not be kept within the core of an article. Instead, a History, In the past or Additional information section should be added at the end of the article, relating the differences in rules/features between the current version and the pasts versions. This section can also be used to state when the feature was added to the game.

If a whole article is not relevant anymore, it should be marked for deletion with the {{Delete|reason}} template.

If a whole article is about an item that is not needed anymore and not available for buying (such as Ethereal Charge Stone), the {{RemovedFeature}} template should be added to the article.