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PostSubject: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 8:35 am

I'm in the middle of a big ovehaul of the wiki.

And I'm starting to wonder whether some wiki pages for races would look better if sub species would have their own pages, as well as being listed on the main species page, as it has been suggested by some people.

PRO : less big walls of text, easier to the eyes.
CON : You don't have everything under the eyes instantly ( and that would be a lot of work to make links match too )

So what do you think about it ?


Last edited by Karbo on Sun May 22, 2011 8:47 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 8:44 am

I think a fair compromise would be that they have their own page, but they are linked in the general specie's entry.

For example, Dryads. The page for Dryad would have one section where the links to the sub-species of Dryads are put.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 8:46 am

oh yes of course, this is what I meant ^^
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 8:58 am

Sounds good to me. It'd also allow for more information to be put on either rather than a few lines in some cases
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 9:24 am

i also agree. will be easier for everyone
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 11:54 am

Hmm, I'm not sure about how you plan to introduce all the subspecies into the main species list, but I don't think it will be really ... esthetic (well that mainly depends about how you plan to do it, I'm not sure about the wiki's possibilities in that matter ^^')
What I see better would be to leave the race list unchanged, but if for exemple go to the fairies link, there would be a generic description, and then the links to the subspecies.
...
Actually that's practically leaving everything as it is but adding links to the subspecies's name for more information ... hmmm
But well, anyways, I think it's a good idea, but then we will have to develop some subspecies a bit more, in order to make the new pages for them worth it, i think
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 3:58 pm

I agree with Atlas' suggestion
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 22, 2011 5:36 pm

Is it worth me posting here to show my support for it, seeing as I came up with it? I will anyway.
Karbo wrote:
CON : You don't have everything under the eyes instantly

The alternative won't give everything under the eyes instantly either. The page will be so big that users will have to scroll down to find whatever they're looking for. Additionally, they'll have to load text and images they won't be looking at.
Atlas wrote:
Actually that's practically leaving everything as it is but adding links to the subspecies's name for more information ... hmmm
But well, anyways, I think it's a good idea, but then we will have to develop some subspecies a bit more, in order to make the new pages for them worth it, i think
That's a good thing though. Razz

I'd also like to make a distinction here between species and order or genus.
'Snake' does not refer to a species of animal. It refers to a a suborder of Squamata. There are species of snake. They come under the classification of snake.

I believe that nagas should be classified in a similar way. Pit nagas, hydranagas and diamond nagas are far more like species than subspecies in my eyes. Subspecies implies that a hydra naga could breed with a pit naga and have fertile offspring. This might just be me, but I have a feeling the result of such a union would be weird, to say the least.

Another thing we want to avoid is listing links as headings, such as in the example below:
Example 1:

What we want is something like in example 2, except with organisation. The links are right under the eyes when the page loads, there's no scrolling required.
Example 2:
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeMon May 23, 2011 1:01 am

Sound like a good idea in general to me. However, a lot of sub-species don't actually have a very but entry currently. River mermaids, for example, only have about four and a half lines dedicated to them, and in cases like that it seems odd to give em' their own page. While the Selachi entry seems more than adequate to receive a full-page dedication. Overall it still sounds like a positive move, even with the 'oddness' of a whole page with only a few lines on it. I give it one-and-a-half thumbs up.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeFri May 27, 2011 9:56 pm

I do agree. I'm thinkin' the best way to do it would be like...


{Title}
-image-
SUB SPECIES:
[list]
Article

For example, using nagas...
Quote :

Nagas

[that picture of Nege]

SUB SPECIES:
Hydranaga
Diamond Naga
Gorgon
Pit Naga
etc
etc

Nagas are half human, half snake people. A wide variety of species and sub-species of nagas exist on Felarya. From the enigmatic diamond nagas to the rare Hydranagas...[cont.]

Not sure how to make it clearer, so I hope it helped o:
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 1:50 am

Indeed, what Aisu suggested is a good idea. However, images should be kept off to the side as much as possible so as to not break up text.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 3:32 am

I'm starting to examine wether species pages could not be categories on themselves, with the listing of subspecies at the end.
EDIT : On second thought that seems a bit too drastic of a change ( involving moving pages and having a TON of redirects ) for not so much result in the end.


Last edited by Karbo on Sun May 29, 2011 4:56 am; edited 2 times in total
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 4:03 am

I would avoid having distinct pages for subspecies for which there is very little information, and little prospect of additional information in the near future. It would just look silly.

Instead, I suggest that the main species page give information on the species, then a list of subcategories with basic information on each subspecies - and, when there's quite a bit of information on one subspecies, a link to that subspecies' page.

Something like this. (Note that I've left only a little bit of information on the subspecies where there was a lot, and instead inserted a link to guide readers to more specific pages. Where there was fairly little information on a subspecies, I've left it all, since in such cases there's no need for a specific page.)

http://www.felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:French-snack/test12
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 4:36 am

I disagree frenchsnack, for the following reason. THe following quite is taken from the Culture and Customs thread.
Jætte_Troll wrote:
I've been looking through the new, shiny wiki layout, and was noticing how bare the Culture and Customs page is, at least, bare for such an expansive topic.
This is exactly the reason I gave so many things their own page when I was designing the new layout. It makes people notice that there's nothing there, so they go and try to fill it. The result is utilising the wiki not only as an encyclopaedia Felarya, but also as a means of showing which things need development. This is why species like diamond nagas, mantoids, bolas dridders need their own pages. People will see that there's not a lot there and develop it.

We must not forget that the wiki is not a fixed thing, like a published encyclopaedia. Information can be added and is indeed added all the time. "Looking silly" due to a lack of infomation should not factor into this. There are plenty of entries in the wiki that have or have had little to no information on them for years.
Felarya is still under development and probably will be for the foreseeable future. It is understandable that some pages aren't going to have a whole lot on them. We don't need to worry about people thinking that it looks silly because there's not that much infomation there.

I believe that, just like how we have the undescribed wiki entries thread, we will see threads appearing on the sadly underused species idea subforums about developing these species that for so long have had very little development.

I designed this layout with an eye for future developments. I understand that there may not be much there now, but in the future there will be. The separate pages are there so that when the developments are made, they can be easily added to the wiki. For example, if there was suddenly a whole lot more development on mantoids, what would happen to the current minor races page? If the infomation is just added there then the page would become dominated by the mantoids entry.
It's a case of doing more work now to save it being done later.

As for your example, that's not really that bad. The image on the left midway down the page is a bit jarring as it breaks the text up. Consistency is very important in any design. Decide which side of the page images will be aligned to and stick to it.

Note that I do not consider mermaids a species. Just like how 'snake' is not a species and 'fish' is not a species; 'naga' and 'mermaid' should not be species. Instead, I believe that they should be one of the higher taxonimical classifications like genus or order. This will allow for a much greater variety in nagas, mermaids, etc.


In the case of Fiona, who is apparently based off the green tree snake:
Order: Naga
Family: Giant Naga
Genus: Colubrid Naga
Species: Green Tree Naga


EDIT:
Apparently Fiona is based upon the Emerald Tree Boa.
In that case, her taxonomic classification is as follows:
Order: Nagas
Family Boa Nagas
Genus: Neotropical Tree boa Nagas
Species: Emerald Tree Naga

EDIT 2: This is just an example. I don't actually mean using Earth genus.

A system like this allows for as many species of naga as there are snakes on earth. Of course, just because it allows for it doesn't meant that we should make a naga species for every single species of snake on earth. That would take far too long. The point of this is that it allows for is greater variety and therefore greater freedom in ideas and stories.


Last edited by Anime-Junkie on Tue May 31, 2011 7:08 pm; edited 4 times in total
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 4:56 am

Your idea to re-organize the wiki are clearly nice but on that point of having races as categories I'm not really sure. I guess i'm going to make a test with angels to see.
However on the classification as genus I really disagree. I'm not fond of having too much link with earth, and it works well that way already.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 5:02 am

Quote :
Note that I do not consider mermaids a species. Just like how 'snake' is not a species and 'fish' is not a species; 'naga' and 'mermaid' should not be species. Instead, I believe that they should be one of the higher taxonimical classifications like genus or order. This will allow for a much greater variety in nagas, mermaids, etc.


In the case of Fiona, who is apparently based off the green tree snake:
Order: Naga
Family: Giant Naga
Genus: Corallus Naga
Species: Emerald Tree Naga

A system like this allows for as many species of naga as there are snakes on earth. Of course, just because it allows for it doesn't meant that we should make a naga species for every single species of snake on earth. That would take far too long. The point of this is that it allows for is greater variety and therefore greater freedom in ideas and stories.

I like this idea. It also helps clear up some of the classification issues that we already had.

Look at Nagas, for example. The only kind of classification we had for them before was by what type of element they used. No other species had this, despite all individuals of all species having access to different types of elemental magic. It made everything all blurry and inconclusive. Like, what's the difference between a "fire naga" and a forest naga that just happens to use fire element magic? Under the old method, they'd be mixed in under the same category, despite the only similiarity being their magic of choice.

This would allow for more flexibility, the creation of more distinct sub-species (which Nagas desperately needed before), and it will make it to where the element of magic one uses is not a defining species trait, but a personal trait that is unique to a person regardless of species (Granted, sometimes species does play into it. Like, a Mermaid is not going to ever use fire magic, for example. ...although, then you'd have a steam mermaid, which would be pretty scary o_o ).

Another good side-effect of this is that people would have to actually look up a little information on the animal they are basing their hybrid on. Im not saying they'd need to be able to write a report on it or anything, but they would know more about the actual animal than if they just made the character without looking. That opens the way for not only more interesting personal traits, but the use of more actual animal traits within hybrid predators.


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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 5:07 am

rcs619 wrote:
(Granted, sometimes species does play into it. Like, a Mermaid is not going to ever use fire magic, for example. ...although, then you'd have a steam mermaid, which would be pretty scary o_o ).
Hey, who says that's not possible?
Maybe steam is their version of fire magic. Instead of a mermaid throwing a blazing hot fireball at an enemy, she shoots a boiling hot burst of steam.

Staying on topic:
Quote :
Another good side-effect of this is that people would have to actually look up a little information on the animal they are basing their hybrid on. Im not saying they'd need to be able to write a report on it or anything, but they would know more about the actual animal than if they just made the character without looking. That opens the way for not only more interesting personal traits, but the use of more actual animal traits within hybrid predators.
Building upon that, it's not unreasonable to assume that in doing that, they could come up with ideas to develop naga species further, filling up the individual species pages.

Karbo wrote:
Your idea to re-organize the wiki are clearly nice but on that point of having races as categories I'm not really sure. I guess i'm going to make a test with angels to see.
However on the classification as genus I really disagree. I'm not fond of having too much link with earth, and it works well that way already.
I understand that; as you can see from my comments on The Sojourner, I believe that linking with earth isn't that great of an idea.

However, taxonomic classifications are independent of world. Taxonomy is one of the most basic forms of science. It is unreasonable to assume that it is something that is only found on earth.
I used Fiona as an example because Cliff specifically based her off a Terran snake.


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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 5:09 am

Anime-Junkie wrote:
rcs619 wrote:
(Granted, sometimes species does play into it. Like, a Mermaid is not going to ever use fire magic, for example. ...although, then you'd have a steam mermaid, which would be pretty scary o_o ).
Hey, who says that's not possible?
Maybe steam is their version of fire magic. Instead of a mermaid throwing a blazing hot fireball at an enemy, she shoots a boiling hot burst of steam.

Hmmm, true. That would still be scary as hell o_____o

Pretty damn cool though.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 5:20 am

Quote :
Your idea to re-organize the wiki are clearly nice but on that point of having races as categories I'm not really sure. I guess i'm going to make a test with angels to see.
However on the classification as genus I really disagree. I'm not fond of having too much link with earth, and it works well that way already.

Honestly, the genus is largely inconsequential. Its there for looks. An animal's scientific classification always inclusde family, genus and species.

A character's main traits would be coming from its species. The genus is just mentioned to fill out the entry, fill in the gap between family and species, and give a little more insight into the character. Its something that can be found in about 30 seconds with a google search, and copied into a bio. Its not a big deal.

THe main thing is, this gives the person making a character much more freedom. Instead of just making "a naga with the traits of this snake", this lets them make their own species right then and there, without every sub-species needing its own wiki entry.

"It works fine now" is never a good excuse to resist changes that could potentially be better.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 5:36 am

ok I made some test on angels : http://www.felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Angels

I admit I'm not totaly convinced.
The problem is that the wiki treat category pages as something pretty monolithic. And it seems hard-coded in the program. Unless I'm missing something, there is just no way to edit the way it looks, what it says or where it appears in the page. and in the end it's surprisingly easy to miss.
For that reason, French-snack's suggestion of having "links to main article" only when the sub-species is developped enough seems the best option to me

Or another way would be to have "expand / collapsing" entries ( a bit like the spoiler code : click to see - re-click to hide ). That could reduce tremendously the wall of text on many pages, especially fauna ( each zone would be foldable ) but I think it's something that requires getting into the program itself, right ?
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 6:37 am

I disagree wholeheartedly with the new "information" for characters, like genus and family and all for nagas. It doesn't really affect them, unless all nagas are split into real-life snakes, which mean they would all have the same traits. Also, quite a few nagas aren't even based on real snakes. I doubt you're going to find one with skulls as its patterns. Also, family whether the naga is giant or not is completely redundant. I'm pretty sure you can tell that 110 ft is much bigger than 6 ft. What "Family" should be is "Tribe", should the naga belong to a certain tribe or not.

I appreciate that you want to be closer to the scientific term, more or less, but it's not going to improve them. All it does is just add needless trivia as to what the counterpart in real life is. The current templates for the bios are fine. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 6:42 am

Anime-Junkie wrote:

This is exactly the reason I gave so many things their own page when I was designing the new layout. It makes people notice that there's nothing there, so they go and try to fill it. The result is utilising the wiki not only as an encyclopaedia Felarya, but also as a means of showing which things need development. This is why species like diamond nagas, mantoids, bolas dridders need their own pages. People will see that there's not a lot there and develop it.

I think people have been noticing empty or near-empty sections already. Having quasi-blank pages doesn't seem necessary in that regard. Remember, the wiki is also an encyclopedia for readers to discover more about Felarya. Its layout should be rational in that regard.

Quote :

For example, if there was suddenly a whole lot more development on mantoids, what would happen to the current minor races page? If the infomation is just added there then the page would become dominated by the mantoids entry.
It's a case of doing more work now to save it being done later.

It would be easy enough to create a page for mantoids at that point.

I have to say, I don't feel particularly strongly about this, but I don't really see the need for lots of near-blank pages.

Quote :

As for your example, that's not really that bad. The image on the left midway down the page is a bit jarring as it breaks the text up. Consistency is very important in any design. Decide which side of the page images will be aligned to and stick to it.

On the other hand, having all images on the right can be unesthetic. A balance is better. It's easy enough to set the text in such a way as it's not broken by images on the left. (That's what's done on Wikipedia, where they also alternate between images on the left and right.)
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 8:02 am

Indeed, This is not an urgent matter.
As you can see from my wiki organisation chart, this was something that didn't have to be implemented at the current time, but I would have liked to have seen it done.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 8:30 am

Quote :
disagree wholeheartedly with the new "information" for characters, like genus and family and all for nagas. It doesn't really affect them

The main problem is that the current system doesn't work. MOST species in the wiki are already divided up by species anyway (dridders, mermaids and fairies, for example). Nagas are the only ones who are done differently.

The elemental system not only doesn't make sense, it doesn't work. The type of magic a naga uses is not a species defining trait, but a personal one.

Fiona uses wind magic, but she isn't a "wind naga". Vivian is classified as a water elemental, but she certainly isn't a "water naga". Why are "Fire nagas", creatures who live in mountainous and/or hot environments, have great skill at fire magic, and great immunity to heat, lumped in with random forest nagas who just happen to use fire magic? The system just doesn't work.

This system AJ proposes gives more flexability. It lets you have your naga be a unique species, and still be able to use any element you want. Your naga doesn't have to have red hair and be immune to heat if she wants to use fire magic.

It also encourages people to do some research before making a character, to actually give them some snake-like traits and abilities.

It also empowers people to create their own species, instead of just going "Welp, she's got a magic element, she's good enough". This lets us have a massive variety of nagas, without HAVING to come up with set species of them. That way, we get more variety, and ideas that get developed and expanded on (like Tora's Sea Krait nagas, for example) still get to rise to the top and get a spot in the wiki.

They don't ALL have to fall under real-world snakes. This is Felarya, we can make up Felarya-specific genus and species for some characters to fall under. Crisis, for example, isn't based on any real world snake, so we'd get to make up her own genus and species name.

This goes for some of the more fantastical species too, like Fairies (who could also use some defining). For example:

FAMILY:
Giant Fairy

GENUS:
Faeria

SPECIES:
Canopy Fairy
Narrow-winged Fairy (ones with dragonfly wings)
Broad-winged Fairy (ones with butterfly and moth wings)
Horned Fairy (Melany)

FAMILY:
Giant Fairy

GENUS:
Hybridae

SPECIES:
Storm Sprite
Dusk Nymph
Frost Sprite

...and so on. It lets us organize all the physical differences. Give them structure, instead of just going "oh, they can be anything". Then below the species, there can be other pieces of information, like magical element of choice, or tribe (if they belong to one). There's lots of ways to go with this.

Organization is always a good thing.

Quote :
I doubt you're going to find one with skulls as its patterns

Turboman stated that Malika is based on an Anaconda. Problem solved.

Quote :
Also, family whether the naga is giant or not is completely redundant. I'm pretty sure you can tell that 110 ft is much bigger than 6 ft. What "Family" should be is "Tribe", should the naga belong to a certain tribe or not.

Family, as in the scientific word. Not a literal family. A Family is a group of genus that share similar traits. Giant Nagas would be their own family because all of the members are giant. Human-sized Nagas would be their own unique family, with its own genuses and species.
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Shady Knight
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Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitimeSun May 29, 2011 8:49 am

Putting it that way, it makes more sense, but some bits about it doesn't need to be mentioned as the same as earth. For instead, the emerald tree boa. Hilary is based on them, but saying "emerald tree naga" is rather iffy. You could simply say "Arboreal naga", and writing their entry, you mention that Arboreal nagas are known for the green tones on their scales, long tail to help them curl and lunge down branches, etc. I'm not against basing things off of real life, but it would feel more fantasy-like by using a different term that more or less means the same thing as the real species.

The part with the fairies, I don't like the species of "broad" or "narrow" wings, since the "Mist, Canopy" variety works well already. "Broad, Narrow, Medium" wings should fall into "Wing Types." Broad like Moth/Butterfly/Mayfly. Narrow like Dragonfly/Damselfly. Medium like Bee/Wasp/Hornet. Also, given the weird nature of fairies, saying "Giant Fairy" is a misnomer since they have no true default size.
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PostSubject: Re: Should sub-species be put into heir own pages    Should sub-species be put into heir own pages  Icon_minitime

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