Talk:Secret Correspondence

How is this page spoiler-free? It's one big spoiler. The only thing left out is the name QuasiSpace, which is the one thing which doesn't help you along in the game. — SvdB 09:35, 18 March 2007 (CET)

meep-eep: It is spoiler-free. The original table with the "green-red endpoints" was ridden with alien race names and so on. This one only presents information that you can easily find out when you reach that certain dimension. And it doesn't say how to get there. 86.35.40.204 14:42, 18 March 2007 (CET)

I'm going to have to agree with SvdB on this one. Something that is spoiler free should only contain information that a player has when starting the game for the first time, ie information found in the manual (and other material like the HyperSpace Starmap) and when looking at the in-game starmap for the first time. This list fails on that criterion. The surprise of going through a q-portal for the first time was not knowing were you'd end up, and this list ruins those surprises, imho - hence, it's again spoiler info. --Fyzixfighter 15:40, 18 March 2007 (CET)

Well then, we should call it a "semi-spoiler". 86.35.40.204 16:00, 18 March 2007 (CET)

I think we should delete this page. I don't see how you can point anyone to this page without spoiling something. Even if you create a list of "semi-spoilers" (I'd call them "hints"), you'd see the topics of the other semi-spoilers/hints, spoiling things the player may not want to know about. — SvdB 16:47, 18 March 2007 (CET)

Some players may want to know this - if they are too lazy to note down on paper the correspondences and they don't want to spoil their game by using a table that includes alien races and special planets. 86.35.40.204 17:03, 18 March 2007 (CET)

Well, then give a solution to the problem; how would you direct those players to this page without providing spoilers to those who don't want to be spoiled about the existence of QuasiSpace, while providing enough information in the link on what the link target is about to those who do want to know? — SvdB 18:03, 18 March 2007 (CET)

Simple: at "Non-spoiler hints" I have added a link to this page under "Read this only if you have a green background". 86.35.40.204 19:43, 18 March 2007 (CET)

Simply putting the "read this only if you have a green background" doesn't remove the spoiler-ish nature since the list is revealing information that a first time player won't have. As I assume this is the result of a thread over on the UQM forum, and if you really still want something like this in, I would suggest adjusting Walkthrough#Portal Destinations, reducing it to a list of just HS and QS coordinates, adding a wikilink to QuasiSpace#QuasiSpace Portals in that section of the walkthrough, and directing people to that section of the walkthrough (and then we can delete this page). But again, any list of this nature spoils the excitement of entering a portal without knowing the final destination, and so should not be linked to from the Non-Spoiler hints page. The creation of this type of page gets into the gray area better handled by a UHS. Aside from creating a Spoiler Hints article and clearly describing what is and isn't revealed, I don't see a reason for keeping this article. I also think making this a subpage of the QuasiSpace or Walkthrough would be more appropriate (rather than editting the Walkthrough list), allowing the information to be kept, but not in an actual article. --Fyzixfighter 23:50, 18 March 2007 (CET)

But this page is made for the average/lazy player who doesn't want to map so many portals himself, so it DOES NOT spoil his game. He knows what he wants. I think that we should simply add some lines in this article about what it is about, more clearly, before the table. Let me show you...

And no, if you move the article to the spoiler section, the same lazy player (not wanting to spoil his game - once again, HE WANTS to spoil only his enjoyment of manually mapping the portals, since he doesn't feel the joy in this activity) would NOT look at it.

Plus, there will be no danger for completely-non-spoiler players, since the link is named "Read only if you have a green background" and even if they will click it, it will first lead to another page - you will see. 86.35.40.204 14:44, 19 March 2007 (CET)

In my view, the non-Spoiler hints page isn't for lazy players, but for first-time players. I have little to no respect for lazy people, and I hate having to compromise to satisfy the lowest common denominator. It's like putting "Warning: Hot" on coffee you buy at McDonald's or microwave instructions for pop-tarts that are longer than one step. Laziness should not be encouraged. I mean, how hard is it to get a piece of paper and pencil and write down 16 numbers. However, imho, the best compromise so far that still allows this information to be accessed while maintaining the integrity of the Non-Spoiler Hints page is a Hints page, with a disclaimer at the top that warns people that the information here spoils some aspects of the gameplay without spoiling major plot points, yada yada yada yada, or something like that. Such a page would also be excellent for the infamous "I can't get the Mycons to go to Organon" problem as well as contain the hints from the RPRG. Additionally, the hints can be hidden like a UHS using Hints/hint1 to contain the hints so that a lazy person who only wants specific information won't accidentally see information that his lazy eyes don't want to see. A blurb can then be included on the non-spoiler hints page directing people to the Hints, of course with a slight warning. Imho, this is a much eleganter solution than putting the verbose and overly complicated warnings and the annoying extra spaces and markings used right now, which are more appropriate to forum threads and not wiki articles. --Fyzixfighter 16:28, 19 March 2007 (CET)

Well then, proceed with the deletion. 86.35.40.204 17:47, 19 March 2007 (CET)

Well, since this is a community effort, I would like to give it some time to hear from others before making such a change. I'd also like to hear what you yourself think of such a compromise - is it a fair compromise? does it still provide the information that you want to include, and does it functionally do what you want for the people who want semi-spoilers? Is there a way to improve it? what are the downsides in your view? I would like it to be a compromise in the true sense of the word, rather than us old-timer editors making unilateral decisions against new editors (or visa versa). I think I'll wait a day to see if others chime in and also to give you a time to give your thoughts on it. --Fyzixfighter 18:45, 19 March 2007 (CET)

I agree with FyzixFighter. Additionally, I could install this extension to Mediawiki. It requires Javascript, which is a bad thing in general, but when no Javascript support is available, the result is only that the "hidden" text is shown. The alternative of having separate pages for individual hints has its own drawback, namely having to load a new page at each hint. — SvdB 03:42, 20 March 2007 (CET)

Yeah, that is a bit of a drawback. The ShowHide extension might be better (if it works) at creating the UHS-style that I was trying to emulate. I'm a little nervous though of how the "hidden" text would appear without Javascript support. Another alternative is to just leave all the information visible with all the hints on the same page (like a FAQ). Since a Hints page would probably mainly have gameplay spoilers with little in the way of plotline spoilers, we could simply tell people that they peruse the page at their own risk. This would also be a good format in the interim until a final solution is decided upon. Any other thoughts? --Fyzixfighter 04:44, 20 March 2007 (CET)

I'm thinking that this page is just rather silly. It ought to just be used from the QuasiSpace page. If someone's found QuasiSpace, they've likely foud Falayalaralfali, so they know it's QuasiSpace already, and if they want this table, they can look there. And what exactly does Secret Correspondence mean?