https://www.polygon.com/23871726/baldurs-gate-3-bg3-fan-wiki-fextralife
Corporate-owned wikis have ads and other issues, so fans have decided to go their own way
Corporate-owned wikis have ads and other issues, so fans have decided to go their own way
That's fantastic news. It's so lame how there hasn't been any serious move to take wikis off Fandom and make them independent or even just on another platform. Fandom is just the worst, and it's terrible that Google suggests it as the top result now over the independent wikis.
Like, Bulbapedia is head and shoulders a better resource than the Fandom Pokemon wiki. It's been around forever, it's very active, it has far more information, yet Google always suggests Fandom first anytime I do a Pokemon related search. It's gross.
If anyone ever gets annoyed at Wikipedia asking for donations, go spend time on Fandom with ad blockers off, and remember that's the end result of public information wikis relying on ads.
I really cannot stand fandom sites. It always lacks content so pages are filled with useless information such as links to review sites. Also, it’s an atrocious experience on mobile.
The number of CSS hacks needed to make the site anything but obnoxious even on desktop is obscene. Not just the ads, but the constant pushing of unrelated content and wikis, popovers, auto-play videos... it's awful.
One of the few successful fan wikis that got away from fandom has been the Path of Exile community. I don't play the game anymore because it just got to be too much for me and demand too much time, but I really appreciate that they collectively got pissed enough at fandom that they made sure that poewiki.net took off.
Edit: even better, the developers (Grinding Gear Games) apparently agreed to take over hosting of the wiki about a year ago so that the community members that started it didn't have to deal with the financial burden. Definitely a good idea for them to take over hosting so there's no concern of the owners taking a valuable resource offline.
uesp.net is another one. It's actually quite a bit older than fandom but I'm still going to count it.
UESP is ancient in game wiki terms, even just internet terms, wasn't it made shortly after the release of daggerfall?
Arena was 94, uesp was 95, and daggerfall was 96. It was originally fansite that followed development news for daggerfall.
Successful games really should have the dev/publisher hosting the wiki. It's better for everyone involved. I'll always appreciate Arenanet for hosting the Guild Wars 1 and 2 wikis.
It's so lame how there hasn't been any serious move to take wikis off Fandom and make them independent or even just on another platform.
there is wiki.gg
point stands that Google still favors fandom so high that not many will actually find them
Good! Fandom is fucking garbage. So much bullshit on the screen it's hard to find the actual info on the page.
There's ads on the web?
Get thee uBlock origin or on mobile AdGuardDNS or rethinkDNS
Fandom is still trash tho...
uBlock Origin works on Firefox mobile.
Also, remember that you can make uBlock filters for random bullshit like Fandom's side bars and suggestions, not just paid ads.
Yes but you should still use Adguard DNS to block ads outside of Firefox.
Also the DuckDuckGo app to stop apps from tracking you.
Direct link: https://bg3.wiki/
It's very good already, and as a fan-run site, I'm willing to spend time contributing to it. What a refreshing change it is to get away from Fandom/Wikia and Fextralife. Nice work, Taylan!
Amazing the article never once mentions the sites url, or offers a direct link. Bg3.wiki say it again, bg3.wiki .
to be fair a lot of the times a link like that takes you to another article of theirs about baldur gate or some shit.
Yeah I would never click that 😂 I've seen ads hidden in links like that with random text on the page. I'm good on all that.
I've found most RPG / CRPG games have really good subreddits. Most of time when I've needed to look up how a spell interaction works or how XYZ operations, the top search will usually lead back to Reddit (which is kinda a shame given how shithouse Reddit is now)
Computer RPG. From TTRPG, table top RPG. Same type of game, with dice rolls and turn based (in general), only done on a computer instead of with a DM
There are better ways of asking what something stands for if you don't know.
Also, side note, it's very interesting how quickly your mind jumped to Chinese when nothing here is suggesting thst even.
Given that JRPG is “Japanese RPG” it’s not too much of a stretch to assume CRPG would be Chinese RPG.
My mind just did the same association even though I knew the meaning.
If you remember JRPG has a J for Japan, it's easy for your brain to go with C stands for Chinese, even if that doesn't make sense when you really think about it.
Also, side note, just chill out with the conspiracy theories. And actually give the guy the proper explanation of what the term stands for like the comment next to yours.
It’s not really “interesting”? The first time I saw the term, that’s what I wondered if it might be, because of “JRPG” and all the games that had been coming out of China recently.
I think it is somewhat logical as there is literally an entire massive genre of "Japanese RPG."
There absolutely is something suggesting that: precedent. Though it could be Czech RPGs, Columbian RPGs, Cuban RPGs, or Canadian RPGs. Though Chinese RPGs would be more likely given the game Dev industry there and population.
Also the fact that outside of the tabletop community, nobody calls video game RPGs CRPGs.
The term CRPG is very popular, but it means something different than just RPG video game. Starfield is not a "CRPG" for example. Baldur's Gate (all of them) are. It's a conversion of table top RPG style to computers. If it's supposed to reasonably closely emulate a TTRPG in video game format, it's a CRPG.
...Reddit user Taylan, who created and shared a Baldur’s Gate 3 wiki as an alternative to the existing Fextralife site at the beginning of 2022. “In my opinion [the Fextralife wiki] isn’t a particularly nice wiki,” Taylan wrote. “It shoves ads in your face, and claims copyright ownership over anything you write. (Essentially, if you add something to their wiki, you’re doing unpaid work for their company. Not to be a hater, but I dislike that.)”
The irony and lack of self awareness is thick. To be fair, that was in 2022, before Spez shit the bed.
Yeah, that was annoying. I had to go to Reddit to get the link.
Anyway, here’s the link.
There is wiki.gg
Pretty good wiki, a lot of indies use it. For example: Dead Cells, Deep Rock Galactic, Terraria, ARK, Cuphead, Don't Starve, Brotato, Binding of Issac, Satisfactory etc.
Some AAA games are there too. Like Sea of Thieves, Dying Light.
It would be cool if there was some wiki with ActivityPub.
Fextralife and Fandom can go die in ditches. Fextralife is literally only for pushing views to their shitty Twitch channel so they can pretend they actually have the ~30k viewers, and Fandom is pure cancer to use on mobile.
I implore people to make their own or use alternatives, like WikiDot or Miraheze.
FTA:
"(Essentially, if you add something to their wiki, you’re doing unpaid work for their company. Not to be a hater, but I dislike that.)"
Posts to reddit... LOL.
It's better than Fextra's, too!
I added upcast info to a bunch of spells last month because I was annoyed that the in-game tooltips didn't have the info on my Warlock's Level Up screen. I was already impressed with their templating and I'm always down to support an independent wiki. I've also been using their item lists and class breakdowns.
Here's a pro-tip: if something you're trying to look up is on a Fandom wiki, replace the "fandom.com" domain in the URL with "antifandom.com". This removes all of the ads and autoplaying videos, and generally makes the page cleaner.
Very awesome. Anyone who hasn't played it yet should buy it and play it. It's so good. I'm almost done with playing through it twice and already planning out a third run.
