Comprehensive Lore Database?

[Gamer3427]

I'm just curious, but is there a comprehensive collection of all the lore that has been given to us, both in game and by the dev team, out there somewhere? I know that there is some here and there spread out between the various wikis, but I mean just what is essentially a full study of Eorzean lore, including things told to us in one off dialogue that can't be viewed again, but that does hold an impact on what we know about certain factions or characters, (IE: any non-cutscene dialogue that is connected to a quest). If not, would it be possible for us to collectively group together and create such a database for the purposes of ease of access when referencing information, or even just research purposes for those who are curious on certain matters of the lore?

[Noka]

I've been intending to make one for a while, so I've been looking for them. Most I can find is the FF wiki, and even that doesn't have everything.

It seems like most of the interesting stuff was lost in 1.0; 2.0 seems to be deliberately vague in places about how certain things work.

[Celvantis]

I would love a proper gathering of the detailed lore, which beyond threads here isn't really a thing.

[Peachy]

The lore disc that came with A Realm Reborn CE was a nice start but we need something similar in website form, that covers ARR launch to heavensward, along with the 1.0 stuff (corrected for immersion).

[Anonymoose]

How to go about it is usually where it starts to fall apart.

The idea has come up many times, and the conversation ends there until the next time someone has the idea.

If you aren't already intimately familiar with the lore, you end up just quoting the official websites and easily-found flavortext ... and then it stagnates. If you are, your evidence and connections are usually exhibited by quoting small bits of well-buried dialogue and citing their origin to build a coherent whole. Personal lore collections are often a mess that only the one who compiled it can make sense of. "How do I build a good lore database?" has few answers that aren't equivalent in task to starting yet another Wiki / Forum / Website and your hopes of rallying the community are more likely to yet further divide it (and XIV's community is pretty fractured as-is), and, again, things start to stagnate once the novelty fades.

For me, even when I experimented with building a lore database on Gamer Escape's wiki, I ended up essentially making another wiki on a wiki. For me, it always comes back to, "Well, we already built the foundation to account for mechanics; I should just bug Gahoo to tweak it to handle accompanying lore." Story resources come from all over the game, collected manually by a community. A traditional wiki seems like the easiest way to accomplish anything, and the guy has never turned me down when I've found a way to improve how GE handles lore (except, after six years, I get to annoy him as a staff member, now).

The challenge is finding people that want to help build it instead of just showing up and being mad it's not already finished... Since ARR came online, reading of the wiki is as active as ever, but rebuilding the community that evaporated after 1.0 tanked and SE made these forums has been problematic. For what it's worth, if people want to work and build, I know they'd be happy to accommodate pretty much whatever people think it needs to make it work. I ended up with them by virtue of the fact that they just never gave up on the game, though, so I admit my two cents are biased by my respect for that, lol.

[Lusavari]

Well. I'm all for helping to build the community, Moose. The discussion then comes to how do we translate anything into a compendium. What we need is a way to organize things like people's notes into a legible and coherent system. Obviously, as you've kind of implied, the wiki structures already in place are the best bet to creating something like this. I would first suggest organizing volunteers and those of us pretty dedicated to the forums into a collective to transcribers.

The problem then becomes, as you said, fragmentation. The best way to deal with this is "What's agreed upon" followed by a very limited speculation area that follows popular theories and ideas (i.e. some say.....). You really have limit that only to the two most prominent theories. Three if necessary. If we really want to do something like this, we do need to recruit some people who are willing to dedicate time to the effort and collect descriptions of things. I personally would love to join the cause for Heavensward.

One thing FFXIclopedia and Gamer Escape have ALWAYS had above most any other wiki (and for the most part, Final Fantasy Wiki) is they have some of the absolute best navigation and menus of any game wiki out there. What I would like to see though is something like Mortal Kombat's wiki has: http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Kuai_Liang

You can see multiple tabs for each page. That Sort of begins to set up (of course, a wiki within a wiki) a page where you can read lore separate from other information and easily navigate to link certain lore topics.

[Anonymoose]

The discussion then comes to how do we translate anything into a compendium.

When using a traditional wiki as a base, the best idea I could come up with was to use the mechanic pages as a foundation (having lore simply included on the pages for everything that's already there while only needing to create pages for things that only are lore), and then moving a "step up" and simply organizing directories (pages or navs) that link to them categorically. For example, directories for mechanical categories would focus on narrowing down things like [Gear > Head > Worn by NIN > Has DEX] whereas lore directories would basically be pages set up like the Table of Contents of a World Of... book (Atlas, Races, Cities, Factions, Characters, Beliefs, Bestaiary) that link back "down" to those pages.

One thing FFXIclopedia and Gamer Escape have ALWAYS had above most any other wiki (and for the most part, Final Fantasy Wiki) is they have some of the absolute best navigation and menus of any game wiki out there. What I would like to see though is something like Mortal Kombat's wiki has: You can see multiple tabs for each page.

They way the Mortal Kombat wiki did it is actually pretty clever. Though it looks like each page includes "tabs," each page really just has a bar at the top linking to all of that page's subpages. Liu Kang/Moveset is on an entirely separate page from Liu Kang, but both pages have the same navigation bar. Notice how below "Liu Kang/Moveset" there's a small link back to the "Main Page" of the "Subpage?" It wouldn't be difficult to emulate at all, though it might take a while to standardize (the biggest perk being that GE uses a lot of DPL, which makes individual pages very expensive; this might alleviate that and thus that might be good incentive for Gahoo). Our standard nav, though, is about to get a boost even now, as a new version of the site drops soon (after many, many requests the website be wider than Wikia, and thus wider than GE has been since becoming unfettered to the way Wikia displays). Fusionx recently showed off the basics of what the "extended nav" (Opened Recent Posts > Site Nav > Wiki Nav) looks like (in development).

The best way to deal with this is "What's agreed upon" followed by a very limited speculation area that follows popular theories and ideas (i.e. some say.....). You really have limit that only to the two most prominent theories. Three if necessary.

I've always loved how the Wiki of Ice and Fire handles this. Only confirmed, cited information makes it onto biographies and summaries, and, if prudent to understanding, Theories are listed on one of the page's subpages. Any theory anyone can make a real case for with cited evidence is included in descending order from most evidence to least. Everywhere there's lore on the main page and someone has unconfirmed theories about it, the top of the lore section has a small, "See (Pagename)/Theories)" link, and it gets whittled down until there's more to cite the main page. I love theories - fanon bothers me.

[Peachy]

I guess we are imagining two different things here. That lore disc was a good format. Timelines with links and sub links. Then you can add a character list with links to more detailed info on each one. And I dont see how this would be a mess because it doesnt have to be a personal lore compilation. The problem is the wikis, they are a mess and you have to specifically search for things. Well how do you search for something you dont know about. Thats the point, people want to learn more about the lore and background in one sensible place. Fan based compilations are great and certainly helpful when searching for something specific, but I think a lot of players are wanting something more professional and accessible as a whole. I would prefer something official and leave out the fan theories and interpretations.

[Anonymoose]

That lore disc was a good format. Timelines with links and sub links. Then you can add a character list with links to more detailed info on each one. And I dont see how this would be a mess <...>

Most definitely that, indeed, does not fall under the "would become a mess," umbrella. However, the Lodestone PR previews and In Case You Missed Version 1 Bluray are pretty broad strokes. Once you collect spoon-fed flavor text, how do you build upon it without also having to expand upon the format? It'd be a shame for a lore compendium to stagnate at Eorzea 101. The world setting and backstory are massive just beneath the surface.

What you and I are suggesting aren't all that different, imho. You're essentially designing the lore directory I mentioned above; a portal of basics and introductions with links like [TIMELINE] [ATLAS] [FACTIONS] etc. that act as gateways leading downward into the specifics via a page structure that already exists, infusing those pages with things you learn by playing the game and looking for the truth.

People who don't know much have a place to start that's not overwhelming, but you don't end up excluding the people who dig past "Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn is the Admiral of Limsa Lominsa" until they find that <GENERATE RANDOM MERLWYB FACT> Bloodshore is named for a battle between the fleet of Captain Mistbeard and the pirates of the League of Lost Bastards under Captain Bloefhis, puzzling out that Merlwyb convinced her own father's greatest enemy to surrender his arms to her and lead Limsa into a necessarily more sophisticated age side by side with her. And then you keep theories on a separate page until Truth shows up because theory is fun, but canon or bust.

Sounds more like different layers of the same idea than ideas that are at odds to me (aside from the it should be official part, since most of what SE puts out is PR for people thinking about buying the game unless it's specifically an accompanying product, such as the artbook).

[Sakasa]

No I don't think it is but what you have is more like a library then a normal wiki. A Library houses both the current up to date news and facts but also contains the books devoted to theory based on that current up to date news. Larger and more aged libraries contain books of former ideas and disproven ideas which I do not think gamerescape would want waste space holding onto at least not a searchable capacity to avoid confusion.

Your view and model Anonymoose is very similar to theology research then to say an encyclopedia where the history of a place is just as connected as the stories it generated. So Egypt is a great example when talking about their old culture and gods most display what is known about them and the proof be it writings, or statues. Then there is the actual facts of the civilization and the enviorment. The third book which is not normally read would be a theory connecting the water god and paethon under coming into existance because the Nile floods. Which allows them to thrive in an overall area that would be dead with out it and at the same time the flood destroys things needed to survive which a singleton mind would contribute to punishment.

To some it looks very messy because the spider web touches multiple facts so in a web interface it would be linked all over. So Bloodshore would be linked to the greater contient, Merlwyb, Mistbeard, age of piracy, Merlwyb father, The League of Lost bastards. To me that is fine but it is not digestible as a prestated story where you go to the end of one specific target such as Jason and the argonauts where it doesn't give any focus on Hercules besides who he is and his purpose to the overall narrative. Personally I like your idea but Arthur Conan Doyle is also a favorite to me because even though it will be spoon feed at the end prior to that all the items are available to the reader to come to the same conclusion or a different (in this case wrong because Doyle knows the ending). So a list of theories on certain points allows a reader to weigh against the facts presented to them until Fern or others at SE reveals the truth of the matter.