Morrowind talk:Bonemold

Reorganization

Another step towards reducing Morrowind item redundancy. Previously, Bonemold contained 90% of the same information as Bonemold Armor and Bonemold Weapons. I've opted to merge everything into Bonemold and turn the other two pages into redirects.

• With all of the content, Bonemold is still a manageable-length article; it does not need to be split for reasons of length.
• In the other direction (delete all redundant content from the Bonemold page), Bonemold would turn into a pointless stub. Plus, some of the explanatory content (what Bonemold is, how it's made) would still need to appear on all three pages.
• Bonemold Armor can now become a more specialized redirect for the armor set (similar to the redirects in, for example, Category:Oblivion-Armor-Full Sets Light). Similar redirects can be created for Armun-An Bonemold Armor and Gah-Julan Bonemold Armor.

It'll be a bit of work to do this for all of the material pages. I'm not sure when I'll get to tackling the rest, but before implementing this any more widely I'd appreciate any feedback on whether it works and/or what needs to be improved. --Nephele^Talk 13:05, 13 November 2008 (EST)

Oh, one more specific question! I've added a "total" row to the armor table -- similar information was already provided on the Medium Armor page, and it's also been done for the Oblivion Armor. However, I'm not sure what to do in the Armor Rating column, having obviously not yet paid enough attention to Morrowind to understand how the armor ratings work. The medium armor page lists a value of 15: is that just the value for the cuirass? The most common value? What should be done here? I'm guessing a total (as for Oblivion) wouldn't make sense.

Also, following Oblivion's example, I've skipped total health -- or would a total there be useful? Similarly, would a total for enchantment be useful or should it be left blank? --Nephele^Talk 13:12, 13 November 2008 (EST)

This looks great and should definitely be easier to navigate. I'm never entirely convinced of the value of Totals rows, as few people ever seem to wear full sets of one type. On the other hand, I suppose it doesn't hurt and offers an easy comparison between types. If we do have one, though, don't forget to watch out for the two gauntlet/two pauldron gotcha on the stats!

I'm not sure about Rating totals myself, although I'm guessing that the value on the Armor page is an average. An enchantment total would seem to be worthwhile, although one or two of the oddly-strong items may make it look odd.

The thought also occurs that if we don't fill values in, people will do it themselves so we may as well get it right.

So a "thumbs up" from me to the changes, even if I'm not 100% sure what to do in a couple of cases. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 13:55, 13 November 2008 (EST)

In most cases in Morrowind, all armor pieces of a given material will be the same Armor Rating. There are a few exceptions (particularly in Bonemold with the various different styles), but generally, you'll see the same AR across the board for most other materials. This is why the tables on the armor skill pages were simplified - rather than try to explain all the various exceptions, the "default" value was used in those cases. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 01:29, 14 November 2008 (EST)

I added the total row because primarily some of those totals are provided on the skill pages (e.g., Medium Armor). The armor summary table on the skill pages is a good example of where the totals are useful, so that readers can quickly compare the armor types. But then that implies to me that the information should also be at Bonemold Armor: the detailed page should be the place where you can go to get all of the information about that armor. For example, if a reader sees the totals on the skill page, but then forgets where he/she saw the information, re-finding the numbers shouldn't be frustrating.

Oops, I remembered the double-pauldrons/double-bracers when I summed the weight, then forgot it five minutes later when I summed the prices ;) It shouldn't happen again, though, since I have far too little patience to add all those numbers by hand. Instead, I've put together some code to do it for me.

I'll leave the Armor Rating total blank for now. If it's just a "typical" value, then readers can look at the rest of the table to see the actual values. If it's an average (which presumably is more relevant to gameplay), then we need to know whether or not it's a weighted average. I'd rather not get sidetracked right now by trying to track down the exact formula used for armor rating. I'd also rather not put down an average value without knowing that it's a meaningful number.

However, I'll just go ahead and fill in all of the other columns. Since my script is doing all the real work, it's trivial for me to fill in the other values -- definitely easier than it would be to doublecheck the data if an anon IP later decided to fill in the blanks. --Nephele^Talk 16:33, 14 November 2008 (EST)