744 - Temple of the Three Winds

[Cariadast]

The guide is in the wrong category - "Classic AO". TL7 TOTW instance requires "Shadowlands" expansion to enter ...

At the time of this guide (ToTW Raid) creation, it was determined that ToTW (Raid) TL7 in-game location was Rubi-Ka as a point of category. Being that is it located on RK with a corresponding lower dungeon of the same name, even where it to require SL, it's still consider, for this site's purpose, a classic-based encounter.

It's relatively clear a paid account is required as the minimum level to enter is 201, and the assumption is that 99.9999% of current paid players have the expansions including SL. However, it would be appreciated if you would cite your source for your statement.

Thank you for your counterpoint on the location of this guide, and we appreciate your concern in this matter. Please be sure to cite your source in the info regarding that statement. Thank you!

[Khuri]

Hey Anonymous,

we do appreciate feedback and our editors are happy to make changes if obvious errors are found, and even better if those errors can be cited with correct sources/confirmation.

To answer your interesting questions:

No, there is no public article that lays out exact details on how we operate or how the organization of the site is handled.
And no, there is also no internal documentation that defines exactly how guides are organized either.

We do have some rough internal documentation on how things are working, but the website has in all it's years been growing mostly organically with changes made along the way when (current) members of the staff felt them appropriate.
The editors have pretty much free range when it comes to editing and categorizing guides, and they make a damn good job at it for free.

Of course it can be debatable if the current categorization and organization of the guides (and other content) on this site makes sense.
But to answer very honest about those questions of yours:
The categories made sense at the time they were made. Which is many many years ago.
Today most players probably won't use much digging in the categories unless they browse, wondering if a certain guide is in a certain game DLC. If they search for something specific, there's a search function. Moreover, to answer the question on how readers find articles, most visitors seem to come directly up on the page they want from external search engines (like Google, etc.) - since the "address bar" of most browsers is connected with a search engine nowadays anyway.
The game is old, the site is old. Unless Funcom comes along with a complete remake of AO, there seems to be little requirement to change something that has (seemingly) worked for all those past years.

And if your questions come from a marketing perspective:
We ain't digging actively for more visitors (financially there's no money made with the website, never was and never been the purpose). Statistics collected on this website are purely for my personal interest to have some scale comparison to other projects, and not being used for making passive analytics on how to improve something for "the silent visitors".

[Cariadast]

Khuri answered your concerns more completely than I could have. Thank you, Khuri!

However, there is one point I'd still like to address.

...The issue then however becomes that in the past the category of the article was not chosen based on game location, and a significant number of articles about Rubi-Ka activities are in other categories, example is Dreadloch camps, https://www.ao-universe.com/guides/lost ... mni-quests is on Rubi-Ka, moreover unlike TL7 TOTW - Dreadloch camps ARE in fact accessible by Classic AO players and even have some loot usable by Classic AO players, however the article is in "Lost Eden" category.
...

As to why the Dreadloch Camp encounters are listed in LE, I wanted to clear that up.

These sided camps were introduced with the 17.2.0 patch in early 2007 (pre-March) as part of the new Lost Eden expansion originally introduced Dec. 15, 2006.

Being that these encounters didn't exist until created through Lost Eden it made more sense that they be grouped in the LE section they came in with.

We group our guides where they make the most sense when they are created. There are rare occasions where a guide has been moved, however, it was for internal reasons. As Khuri has pointed out most players google our guides or use the search bar located on the main page of the site.

Being there is no reason for FC to have created the ToTW TL7 experience in ShadowLands, one might wonder if...at the time the booster was added in 2020, being that AO was already in maintenance mode, and AO had 1-2 people working on it at that point, that they may have just slapped on the SL req to avoid having to code something for these new instances. Maybe it's just as simple as using SL would set the requirements they desired for the new instances, and save them time and man-hours.

It's just a thought. I would have to research that, as I don't know the source you used to cite this SL knowledge with. Even if I do, it doesn't affect gameplay or the ability of players to locate the guides in question. But its an interesting thought.

While the AOU staff appreciates all activity in the forums, if someone is looking for us to take specific action regarding one of our guides, and the information it contains, we ask that they please be sure their comments and requests are accurate, relevant, and support gameplay, as well as offering a cited source when pertinent. While changes will not always be made to the guides, any logical, well-researched comments will be left in the forum for players to make their own judgment on independently from the guide itself. We reserve the right to remove comments found to be unrelated, inaccurate, or nonproductive/spam.

Thank you for supporting AOU!

[Saavick]

hey hey

Deciding the category is always going to be subjective and there is no hard list of definitions for which guides fits where, but the editors pick a location where we expect players will look for it. I can give some examples of the reasoning though:

Dust Brigade
The dust brigade generals have long existed in PW and their background story predates SL. The dust brigade quests and some of the instances require levels not attainable by froobs, but based on location, story and similarity to existing content, this is classic AO content.

Temple of the Three Winds and Condemned Subway raids
Both totw and the subway are strongly tied to their low level counter parts, with a setting strongly reminding of RK and located on RK, so they they too are considered classic AO content.

Dreadloch camps
These camps are located on RK, but the bosses wear Ofab, some of them walk around in mechs, and the majority of the loot requires Lost Eden, so I think if people go look for this guide, they will expect it under Lost Eden.

Basic Fashion Quests
Although this can be completed by froobs, it is generally used for Combined Armour, which is AI content, so the guide is categorised as AI. It is also, considerably less often, used for Maria's Fashion which is now froob friendly, but subjectively this makes the most sense to us and there is no perfect answer.