MediaWiki:Community-corner

Welcome to the Ecstatica Wiki Community Corner

Hi, my name's John and I'm the founder and admin on the Ecstatica Wiki. If you're viewing this page it probably means that you're interested in contributing to this Wiki. Well, that's great! I've already put insane amounts of time and effort into this Wiki but even I have limits. There is still a lot left to be done and also many things I don't know about Ecstatica, Urban Decay or Andrew Spencer Studios yet. Any help adding content and filling gaps is welcome.

Anyway, if you wish to contribute but don't know how, check out the chapters below listing some open major tasks and guidelines for contributing to this Wiki. But don't feel intimidated, you can also just follow your guts and add stuff.

To-do
While the range of this Wiki is comparably small and means that it will eventually be basically complete (especially if Sony won't get its act together and do something with this amazing franchise it probably owns since Psygnosis' demise) there is still a lot to do. Below is a summary of some stuff that should be added to this Wiki.

And some nice-to-haves:
 * Synopsis for Ecstatica II
 * Walkthrough and tactical guides for Ecstatica II
 * "History" and maybe "Philosophy" sections in the article on Andrew Spencer Studios
 * In-depth technology article that covers the engine in greater detail
 * More screenshots and other eye-candy to make this Wiki more appealing
 * More reviews and other information in the "reception" and "legacy" sections of both games' main articles
 * A high quality scan of the English version of the map
 * Collection of scans of printed articles, interviews, original PR material etc. concerning everything Ecstatica or Andrew Spencer Studios
 * Article about Psygnosis and its role in and impact on Ecstatica

Editing Text
I'm trying to maintain an objective encyclopedic style throughout most articles but given the Wiki's theme the occasional humorous touch is okay, preferably by the choice of the information provided rather than openly comedic writing. General descriptions of the games, events and characters are to be written in present tense unless of course the event described happened in the past, relative to the current moment described in the text or before any events in the game (like background story or events described earlier in the same article). Before adding a piece of information please make sure that it is not already present in a different passage or article on the wiki.

But generally: just read some parts of the wiki, get a feel for the style, and add stuff!

Adding Images
The wiki needs some more eye-candy, so feel free to provide it, but please try to follow the rules listed below.

Screenshots
Screenshots are to be taken directly from the games in the native resolution. You can create those easily by using DOSBox' internal screenshot feature (CTRL+F5). If they are too small (they certainly will be in case of the original Ecstatica) please only upscale them by a factor of x2 or x4 without any filtering applied. When embedding them in articles please do so with a left or right alignment and a horizontal resolution of 240.

Character and object artworks
Artworks of items, characters and monsters are to be taken directly from unflitered and unscaled screenshots. The low resolution and color depth of the games makes it quite easy to cleanly cut the objects out of the screenshots. If small portions of characters are obscured you can fill them manually. In this case upscaling is okay, preferably by a factor of x2 and with cubic filtering applied. Before pasting the images into the articles please also add some shadows. Preferably this way (via Photoshop or GIMP): on the layer with the individual character or object use "alpha to selection", add another layer behind the character, apply a Gaussian filter with a radius of 10 on both axes and fill the selection with perfect black. Make sure that there is no background layer and export as PNG.