Moderators, language-translation, map verifiers

[piranha]

I've given KGB access to our moderation tools that I wrote for version 0.8 but haven't got around to do anything with.
At the moment it's a language tool that allows you to update any text on the site or create a new language. The tool also allows you too decide which maps should be ladder maps, which maps that should be official and if they should be available in the matchmaking pool of maps.

I looked at the map tools now and I have to do some work on it since we updated the map structure a bit in the latest releases but it should be a 1 day work to get it working.

My plan is to get a group of active players who are interested in helping out with some moderation. Deciding about maps and keeping texts free som spell errors and keep the information up to date in the wiki. I will open a forum that the moderators can use to keep a discussion between each others.

It would be nice with a couple more moderators, and if there is anyone up for doing some translation that is welcome too. Please reply in the thread or write a mess to me if you are interested in joining as a moderator.

[KGB]

I especially need help since the only language I am fluent in is English.

KGB

[Negern]

What languages are needed? I know swedish and english. Could help out if it's needed, but if programming skills are needed, beware: i have none whatsoever.

How does editing the wiki work?

[KGB]

Hard to explain how it works. But here goes.

You get a local copy of the existing Wiki. The entire Wiki. You select the language you want it in (I selected English). Then you can edit any part of the Wiki. You can view the changes to see what they will look like. When you are finished you save your work (like in the map editor). When you are ready to submit it gets sent to Piranha for approval and put in the regular Wiki.

I'm doing some simple HTML/Javascript programming to generate tables and other nice things in places that need them. You would not need to do that since that's not your area of expertise. You can simply translate all the English text to Swedish (you would not need to touch the existing tables and graphics) which would give a Swedish Wiki.

KGB

Note: I am not sure how it works when 2 of us try to edit the same area at the same time. For example we both change the description of Ruins. How do we exchange our changes or will Piranha merge them etc. So we'd probably have to agree to work on different areas to not overlap.

[Negern]

Hum, translating to swedish - doesn't sound too tempting! I believe most swedes would use the engelish wiki even if there was a swedish alternative, so i'd rather help expanding the english wiki, or help out with the forum and the maps.

[Chazar]

Since somone recently mentioned elsewhere that the 90% rule isn't really described in the wiki, here is my own writeup of all the knowledge I could gather about it in the forums. I think it - or a section like it, should go into the wiki:

The 90%-rule

Warbarons restricts the impact of luck through its "90%-rule".
Each battle is simulated a thousand times, and the number of occurrences of each outcome is noted.
The battle is then performed one more time, to determine the outcome that counts.
However, if that rolled outcome was within the left or right 10%-fringe of all outcomes, then
the entire battle is rerolled until the outcome is within the middle 80%.
This eliminates extreme results, such as winning without losses, or losing against very weak opponents.
The 90%-rule does not apply to ruin exploration.

The consequence of the 90%-rule is, that if the battle dialog of the game displays a win chance of over 90%,
then the attacker will definitely win with at least one unit surviving.
Similarly, the attacker will definitely lose all units if the game comes up with a win percentage below 10%.
Warbarons never displays chances that account for the 90%-rule (it is nowhere mentioned within the game).

Since the application of the 90%-rule depends on random-based simulation, any outcome remains possible.
A single weak Scout may still kill 8 strong Dragons,
but the 90%-rule makes the chance for this to happen very slim indeed:
the Scout must win at least 100 of the 1000 battle simulations,
and then he must also win the last battle that counts.
This is extremely unlikely, but not impossible.
The 90%-rule may sometimes have weird consequences,
such as smaller stacks having better individual survival chances:
e.g. a single spider has a better individual survival chance
attacking an elf in a city with no wall,
than a spider and a crow attacking together in this order.

The outcome percentage value that is also displayed in the battle dialog of the game
may already give away the result of the battle:
it is the probability of the survivor pattern that this particular battle will have.
Note that this outcome percentage may well be below 10%, despite the 90%-rule,
since it might be a rare outcome in the middle of all possible outcomes
(e.g. a stack having a weak unit wedged in between strong units, with the weak unit reaching the front line
and surviving).

Note that the winning chance shown by the game likely differs
if you repeat a battle with identical units,
due to the random chances within the simulations that were used to determine the win chance within the game.
In fact, the game may produce any winning percentage, as the scout-vs-dragon example above shows.

I have more text like this, e.g. about bonus mechanics or naval battles - things that I believe are missing in the wiki. I had already contacted piranha about it through the forum PM, but I guess I should have used the Warbarons PM instead, since I got no reply. So let me know if you can use my text and if you want more.

[piranha]

Chazar, sorry haven't noticed the forum pm. I'll add that text. Would be great with more descriptions like that if you can send them to me in a WB pm or here in the forum as a post I will add them.

I have given you and negern mod status too. You need to logoff and in again to access the mod-admin tab.

But you can't add new sections to the wiki so if you have texts that doesn't fit in the current topics please post them here and I'll add them.

Btw did you get a chance to test the nexus pad on the other urls?

[piranha]

We now have translations in work for:

Greek (Omen, complete but waiting for some code to test out the client)
Spanish (ChickenChaser)
Russian (Solo, Igor)

If anyone know any another language and would like to help out please let me know.