Retro Modding Wiki

Antidote

Edit history:

Antidote: 2015-02-08 11:34:51 am

Antidote: 2015-02-08 11:33:09 am

Antidote: 2015-01-24 10:53:04 am

Antidote: 2015-01-23 01:27:32 am

Antidote: 2015-01-23 01:24:30 am

2015-01-23 01:23:00 am

Nate has been gracious enough to host a wiki containing all of the information we've gathered on formats used throughout their games, please feel free to post any questions you have here.

@Mods I posted this thread here "Gaming" as it's not Metroid specific, if you feel it's more suited somewhere else, please feel free to move it.

EDIT:
Here is the link to the wiki: Retro Modding Wiki

Thread title:

Poision Envy

2015-01-23 02:18:50 am

Club 27 Goals

nate's alive?!?

Antidote

2015-01-23 02:36:35 am

Well, someone named Nate gave us a wiki on m2k2 :P

BioSpark

2015-01-23 03:53:50 am

Quote from Poision Envy:

nate's alive?!?

only on sda, because he has to check people's video quality

MrSinistar

2015-01-23 04:20:40 am

I hope you guys don't mind, I made a logo that has a font that better matches the original logo. I have the transparencies for this as well.

Antidote

2015-01-23 05:32:24 am

I personally like both.

Aruki

Edit history:

Aruki: 2015-01-23 10:47:55 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 09:43:45 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 09:43:05 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 09:08:35 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 07:14:23 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 07:10:48 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 07:08:38 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 06:54:54 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 06:11:58 am

Aruki: 2015-01-23 06:11:22 am

2015-01-23 05:55:08 am

nate's given me ftp access, so I should be able to make changes to the style/layout now. I don't know what logo to use now, there's too many :P

EDIT: I put up Bearborg's logo (from the first post). I can change it if you guys like MrSinistar's version better.

For the record, if anyone wants to keep trying to improve it, it should be transparent and it needs to look good at 135x135. I'd also appreciate if you post a 135x135 version along with the original higher-res logo so we can see how it looks and I can more easily put it on the page!

EDIT 2: Working on getting short URLs set up too, but I might need nate's help for that. Apologies if some stuff is broken in the meantime! Would be cool to tweak the visuals some more (colors, fonts, etc) but I'm not very good at that. :P

EDIT 3: By the way MrSinistar, the one byte after the subdirectory string in AGSC isn't padding. That's the terminating 0; it's part of the string, and its purpose is to tell the program reading the string that it's reached the end of the string.

EDIT 4: nate got short URLs all set up. Now you can use URLs like this!

EDIT 5: I'm kinda thinking maybe for each format, we should put the name of the first game that format appears in in the page title, rather than "(File Format)", because it might make things a little bit easier to organize. Agree/disagree?

nate's given me ftp access, so I should be able to make changes to the style/layout now. I don't know what logo to use now, there's too many :P

EDIT: I put up Bearborg's logo (from the first post). I can change it if you guys like MrSinistar's version better.

For the record, if anyone wants to keep trying to improve it, it should be transparent and it needs to look good at 135x135. I'd also appreciate if you post a 135x135 version along with the original higher-res logo so we can see how it looks and I can more easily put it on the page!

EDIT 2: Working on getting short URLs set up too, but I might need nate's help for that. Apologies if some stuff is broken in the meantime! Would be cool to tweak the visuals some more (colors, fonts, etc) but I'm not very good at that. :P

EDIT 3: By the way MrSinistar, the one byte after the subdirectory string in AGSC isn't padding. That's the terminating 0; it's part of the string, and its purpose is to tell the program reading the string that it's reached the end of the string.

EDIT 4: nate got short URLs all set up. Now you can use URLs like [url=http://www.metroid2002.com/retromodding/wiki/TXTR_(File_Format)]this[/url]!

EDIT 5: I'm kinda thinking maybe for each format, we should put the name of the first game that format appears in in the page title, rather than "(File Format)", because it might make things a little bit easier to organize. Agree/disagree?

embyr_75

2015-01-23 12:10:23 pm

Metroid Wiki

Both logos are great, but Bearborg's fits the squareness requirement best and will probably be easiest to read once shrunk.

As for the File Format pages, I think that'll do for now, but in the future it might need clarification. If someone is searching really hard for the PAK files for MP2 but can only find PAK (Metroid Prime) and PAK (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption), not realizing that they're the same in 1 and 2, they're going to get really confused. The organization aspect should be centered as much around the random user who comes to find things just as much as it should be a tool for the editors. But I think the best way to do that will become apparent as things progress. That's my two cents. :P

In the meantime, fleshing out the PAK (File Format) page so it acts as more of an informational hub might be good. At the moment it's acting more like a disambiguation page, which I think is limiting what the page can potentially do.

One other thing: will the scope of the wiki cover anything besides file formats? I only ask because the Category:File Formats by Game includes Category:Metroid Prime, which is fine if file formats is all we'll be covering anyway, but if there will be other topics on wiki, then Category:Metroid Prime should be its own root and Category:Metroid Prime File Formats should be included in Category:File Formats by Game instead.

Both logos are great, but Bearborg's fits the squareness requirement best and will probably be easiest to read once shrunk.

As for the File Format pages, I think that'll do for now, but in the future it might need clarification. If someone is searching really hard for the PAK files for MP2 but can only find PAK (Metroid Prime) and PAK (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption), not realizing that they're the same in 1 and 2, they're going to get really confused. The organization aspect should be centered as much around the random user who comes to find things just as much as it should be a tool for the editors. But I think the best way to do that will become apparent as things progress. That's my two cents. :P

In the meantime, fleshing out the PAK (File Format) page so it acts as more of an informational hub might be good. At the moment it's acting more like a disambiguation page, which I think is limiting what the page can potentially do.

One other thing: will the scope of the wiki cover anything besides file formats? I only ask because the Category:File Formats by Game includes Category:Metroid Prime, which is fine if file formats is all we'll be covering anyway, but if there will be other topics on wiki, then Category:Metroid Prime should be its own root and Category:Metroid Prime File Formats should be included in Category:File Formats by Game instead.

Aruki

Edit history:

Aruki: 2015-01-23 12:16:59 pm

2015-01-23 12:15:38 pm

How else would you disambiguate them? I can't put the name of every game in the page title, or else I'd have to rename the TXTR page to "TXTR (Metroid Prime/Metroid Prime 2/Metroid Prime 3/Donkey Kong Country Returns)" and.. yeah, I don't think anyone wants that. I don't really think it'll be particularly hard to find it given the disambiguation page clearly states which versions of the format are used in which games, and the pages themselves say which games that format is used in. The best improvement I could think of would be linking back to the main pak page in case someone's actually looking for a different version of the format.

Also, what do you mean about making the PAK (File Format) page a hub? I'm not sure what else could be done with it.

As far as the scope of the wiki, right now we're most focused on formats since that's what most badly needs documentation, but I imagine soon we'd expand it to include pages on specific tools or mods (whenever they exist). So yeah, you're probably right that more general categories for each game should be created.

How else would you disambiguate them? I can't put the name of every game in the page title, or else I'd have to rename the TXTR page to "TXTR (Metroid Prime/Metroid Prime 2/Metroid Prime 3/Donkey Kong Country Returns)" and.. yeah, I don't think anyone wants that. I don't really think it'll be particularly hard to find it given the disambiguation page clearly states which versions of the format are used in which games, and the pages themselves say which games that format is used in. The best improvement I could think of would be linking back to the main pak page in case someone's actually looking for a different version of the format.

Also, what do you mean about making the PAK (File Format) page a hub? I'm not sure what else could be done with it.

As far as the scope of the wiki, right now we're most focused on formats since that's what most badly needs documentation, but I imagine soon we'd expand it to include pages on specific tools or mods (whenever they exist). So yeah, you're probably right that more general categories for each game should be created.

embyr_75

2015-01-23 12:30:52 pm

Metroid Wiki

Yeah, no, listing the games in the titles like that wouldn't be optimal. laugh new

Like I said, I think the best solution will become apparent later. Off the top of my head (and not knowing enough about the file format differences), I don't have any good ideas.

As far as making something a hub page, I can't think of any really good examples to show you, but imagine a shrunken version of this, where you have a general overview of, for example, what a PAK format's functionality is and its shared qualities among all versions, and then each version summarized separately with hyperlinks to their respective pages. Because as it stands, if someone goes to "PAK (File Format)" looking for information, all they're going to get is a page telling them to go somewhere else for information that is game-specific. It's just a little bare-boned is all. But not exactly a high priority page, as far as the Wiki's mission for documenting the formats so far. :P

Yeah, no, listing the games in the titles like that wouldn't be optimal. :laugh:

Like I said, I think the best solution will become apparent later. Off the top of my head (and not knowing enough about the file format differences), I don't have any good ideas.

As far as making something a hub page, I can't think of any really good examples to show you, but imagine a shrunken version of [url=http://www.metroidwiki.org/wiki/Metroid_Prime_(series)]this[/url], where you have a general overview of, for example, what a PAK format's functionality is and its shared qualities among all versions, and then each version summarized separately with hyperlinks to their respective pages. Because as it stands, if someone goes to "PAK (File Format)" looking for information, all they're going to get is a page telling them to go somewhere else for information that is game-specific. It's just a little bare-boned is all. But not exactly a high priority page, as far as the Wiki's mission for documenting the formats so far. :P

Aruki

2015-01-23 12:33:12 pm

Fair point, I could see that potentially working well. To be fair though, you also haven't exactly given me time to start fleshing it out yet. :P Lots of stuff is still WIP.

Have you got any ideas for what could go on the home page? All I can really think of is maybe the logo, and there should definitely be a link back to the forum somewhere.

embyr_75

2015-01-23 12:42:04 pm

Metroid Wiki

FLESH FASTER!!

Anyways for the main page, probably a brief mission statement; you can check around other wikis for ideas. Some have links to popular categories out front, a "to-do list," a news box, some kind of navigation pane sorted by game or something. Here's Zelda Wiki's, Mario Wiki's, and Metroid Wiki's, though those are probably all too complicated for your purposes. But you can pluck ideas you like out of those layouts. I'm imagining something closer to what TCRF has, aesthetically speaking. Nice and simple.

DJGrenola

Edit history:

DJGrenola: 2015-01-23 01:45:21 pm

2015-01-23 01:44:37 pm

one thing for the home page might be a getting started guide on how to go about setting up a hacking environment? ripping discs, unpacking ISOs, decompressing PAKs?

Aruki

2015-01-23 01:45:20 pm

Ooh that's actually a really good idea. We'll need to add some guides for that sort of thing.

Antidote

Edit history:

Antidote: 2015-01-23 01:48:57 pm

2015-01-23 01:47:55 pm

Yeah, that's an important thing to have, good point grenola

EDIT:
oops

DJGrenola

2015-01-23 01:59:27 pm

regarding PAKs, are there really that many versions that they can't all just go on one page?

Aruki

2015-01-23 02:02:51 pm

There's three versions that are completely different from each other. I don't really see the benefit of putting them on one page.

embyr_75

2015-01-23 02:25:43 pm

Metroid Wiki

The Help pages need to be written. Those sorts of guides could potentially go in there.

MrSinistar

Edit history:

MrSinistar: 2015-01-24 04:59:15 am

2015-01-24 04:57:57 am

I'll contribute to writing the help pages. I already made some modifications to the front page to make it look a bit more like a regular wiki.

Aruki

Edit history:

Aruki: 2015-01-24 10:09:52 am

Aruki: 2015-01-24 10:07:19 am

2015-01-24 07:37:49 am

Nice update to the main page, MrSinistar! I might throw the logo in there as well once uploading files is working (seems to be broken at the moment, not sure why).

Quote:

With 4 articles and counting.

lol what? There is definitely more than 4 articles...

edit: Uploads should be working.

edit 2: too big

Bearborg

2015-01-24 10:23:56 am

Suggestion: Add categories to indicate the amount of progress made on a file format. "Can be read", "Can't be read", "Can be modified", "Can't be modified", or possibly "Not understood", "Partially understood", "Fully understood". That way, people just learning about the project can easily see where they might be able to help.

Aruki

2015-01-24 10:24:57 am

Good idea.

I'm currently looking into getting some templates set up so we can label what's left to do on a page, like TCRF's to-do/WIP templates.

Aruki

2015-01-25 01:47:34 pm

embyr is trying out some different styles for templates on her sandbox, go check it out; you can leave your feedback on the talk page if you want. Would be interested to hear peoples' opinions on what looks best. http://www.metroid2002.com/retromodding/wiki/User:Embyr_75/Sandbox

Aruki

2015-02-01 12:10:15 pm

We've had a lot of spambot problems the last couple days. Due to that, as well as the fact that our userbase on the wiki isn't exactly big, I've set up new accounts to require approval.

embyr_75

2015-02-01 06:25:58 pm

Metroid Wiki

Do you have any Captchas set up? That would help too. It should have come installed with mediawiki, check the link for more info if you want. http://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit