Fund the Mabinogi wiki

[limber garnet]

The game relies heavily on the community wiki. Nexon should help fund its server costs. Right now its not even covered by its patron.

https://wiki.mabinogiworld.com

[haughty radish]

Highly agreed. The wiki almost singlehandedly keeps the game playable.

[covert kiln]

Slippery slope

[haughty radish]

Please explain? Everyone at the wiki does the intense task of logging and filing all the information about the game- something that should be nexon's job in the first place. Many mmos have their own official wiki such as bdo, which open in browser within the game.

[brazen snow]

I actually feel player built/managed guides and wiki will always be superior to corporate.

There are more nuances, detail, and explanation, and customization is free to the players choosing as long as it is accurate.

So I wouldn't necessarily think that I would hope for Nexon to take over management or consider it their job.

Any game devs obligation is the game itself and the info is complimentary if the devs want to part with it.

That being said, you are mentioning features at the end of the comment, and I actually think that would be pretty awesome if, regardless of how the wiki is handled, that Devcat implements it in game through the browser. That would be convenient. And a show of support.

As far as funding server costs... I am interested in seeing where the slippery slope comment goes. I have ideas of valid concern but I would love to see where your mind is for it @covert kiln .

I suppose if Devcat funded the wiki, then that opens up demand for other things to be funded like guides, tutorials, etc. Not sure if that's where Caelum is going to go with it but thats a valid concern.

"Give a mouse a cookie, it will want a glass of milk. Give it milk, and it will want some cheese... etc etc"

[covert kiln]

Nexon doesn't do crap aside from translation and gacha sales. All their events and development comes from abroad. I think expecting them to offer even $1 towards wiki maintenance is unrealistic.

Should they pay for the wiki servers? Yeah, but I don't think they will actually care unless the wiki goes down and even then they might not capitulate unless it causes gacha sales to fall. All I have to do is look at how crap the game servers are to see that they genuinely do not care.

Doing so would be a slippery slope towards being a good company and we can't have that. That hurts profits.

[ancient venture]

...why would we not want them to be a good company?

[hexed merlin]

I think "slippery slope" would be more correctly attributed to "what would happen if Nexon sponsored the wiki."

You know what Soul Streamers had to agree to to maintain their sponsorships? I hope some of yall actually read those terms and conditions cuz I cant find them.

The wiki in its current state, in my opinion, is not suitable for a sponsorship from Nexon.
Charitable sponsorships are pretty bad business decisions especially if the owner of Mabi Wiki did something funky, or some rando uploaded something heinous to the website.
That could go VERY badly for such a large entity like Nexon.

It's less about the money and more about the PR and it's very easy to mess that up.
In my opinion, I'd just appreciate if Smart Contents got properly localized.

(Don't get me wrong it would be super nice, but I don't think it could happen right now.)

[halcyon widget]

Perhaps it would be more beneficial if DevCat implemented an in-game Wiki. Perhaps improving the Crafting/Collection Journals we already have.

It would not be as in-depth and detailed as the Player-run Wiki, but having a surface-level Wiki for the stuff regularly sought out. Like: What a Material is used for, where to find it, All types of Recipes, Where to locate monsters and gatherable items, etc.

This sort of in-game feature wouldn't re-value the wiki as the wiki covers A LOT more then what's mentioned above. Scripts, Quest details, NPC info, Maps, Towns, Guides. stats, skills, titles, etc.

[brazen snow]

I was going to mention:

Slippery slope usually refers to an action that has potential to "slip" into unfavorable or detrimental places, through a progression of a sort.

If nexon gave money, it wouldn't be a slippery slope toward being a good company. Thats just a sarcastic barb off of a rant with valid concerns.

@hexed merlin Appreciate the honing in on where the slippery slope could also lay.

@haughty radish seems to have the right idea with in game access to wiki. Or a wiki of sorts.

[balmy glacier]

https://www.patreon.com/mabiworld

[haughty radish]

The feature I mentioned can only be done if it's an official wiki- as it would then become representative of nexon as a corporation rather than a fan page outside of the game. Additionally, yeah... they should have better ingame tutorials and guides, presumably made by the employees that they pay money for.

Regarding @covert kiln I completely understand what you mean in a cynical and sarcastic manner, however, I will always campaign for the betterment of the user experience even if it falls on deaf ears.

In the event the wiki does become funded by nexon, I agree with what Gie said completely in regards to them essentially becoming pseudo employees, which then has all the expectations attached to it. I would much rather there be a separate team at nexon made to do things, and those individual contributors possibly being reached out to for employment rather than slapped with a big contract and code of conduct.

Again, bringing up bdo- the ingame wiki has a lot in it, but that doesn't stop players from making outside guides regarding the most efficient ways to do x or y. It does, however, make the user experience at a baseline more easily understandable and enjoyable.

[hexed merlin]

I suppose there may be a lot of people who don't know what Smart Contents actually is.
We know it as the Traveler's Guide! The Traveler's Guide is a single feature of MabiKR's Smart Contents, which to my understanding is an information resource easily accessible within the game's UI!

The second image displays what Smart Contents looks like over in Korea. Presumably the search function would be used to look into certain topics - perhaps those lower 4 options are "recent searches"?
(I haven't looked into it enough to say for sure but I am told this is an information resource.)

This is something several people have brought up, and I'm both surprised and yet not surprised not many people are aware it's a feature that we fully don't have. (I can only imagine its a monsterous task to localise...)

Additional Note: Rather than fund the Mabi Wiki, I would rather Nexon put time and resources into one day bringing us Smart Contents; the FULL Traveler's Guide.

[limber garnet]

They don't need to be funding it officially. Couldn't they just have an anonymous subscription to the pateron?

[brazen snow]

It is why I had mentioned likeness of a wiki.

Meaning, @sacred elk 's point of KR having some pseudo wiki-esque capability already in their game.

That said, that complimentary addition would be a step in that direction. Welcomed too.

Also @hexed merlin that's incredibly more descriptive and nuanced than I originally thought it would be. Thank you for sharing that!

[hexed merlin]

Though I'm from the UK so my understanding of laws are different, because Nexon legally owns the IP of the majority of the content featured on the website, and thus has(?) the legal power to make demands of the website's owners, I don't think it would actually count as a donation from a legal perspective?
-# Big disclaimer: I might be very incorrect/misremembering laws/applying the wrong law here.

Also, that's even more risky for a business.
-# Not to mention, they'd probably need approval from KR...

There's no guarantee that the money from Nexon would be used appropriately or in a way that Nexon approves of, given the current state of the Wiki.
Anyone who makes a donation does so with the awareness of that risk, and does so despite the fact, true! But one cannot donate money and expect to have a say in the entity's use of that money. That's illegal.*
-# *In the UK.

But, Nexon has, in the past supported Mabinogi World Wiki by advertising the website on the Mabinogi Official Homepage! However, after some conflicts involving the contents present on the website, the wiki has since been removed from the website.

It's complicated, but for several reasons it would be a really bad idea for them to do that.
Again, would be nice though.

[meager oyster]

The best way Nexon NA can really help the wiki at the moment is by providing as much information as possible about sales, events, and items featured. Which is not always the case!

Full drop lists for the event boxes for instance, from the latest adventure pass, are missing from the main website.

However, on the other end, there have already been efforts to add more detailed information ; i'll take for example the link 10 arcana gifs that have been showcased on wiki; in the faith&fury update, those link 10 gifs were put on the main page, and could be used as-is for wiki rather than to have a player reach that link rank themselves and then make a gif out of it.

The level of information, item previews and drop lists have been getting better; I am only looking forward to more of that. Often times, the japanese web pages for events tend to be a lot more detailed than what NA does; I would recommend the NA team to take a peek at those for cross-referencing their own posts.

NA has been doing a better job, but there's always more that can help out

As for the wiki itself, I agree with giegue in that it's kind of.... dubious for a big company to take over what has been a player-contributed wikia for a very long time. There are other ways they can help it re: what I've mentioned above, and fully implementing Smart Contents. I remember people mentioning a public API for in-game items (I think it was about the auction house...?)

Sharing data like this so tools can be made would also serve a greater purpose.

Those still do not replace actual player involvement in maintaining the wiki, too.