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ToK Compilation with Shrewd (Ostermark)

L

LuNiX

Guest
Once again I would like to thank Shrewd of Ostermarkfor taking the time to answer some of my questions, along with all contributors, for maintaining this guide.


1.Describe what your database is and how you started it.

Bestiary ToK Unlocks is a compilation of player-driven submissions describing their in-game Tome of Knowledge unlock encounters. The list is entirely player-made. The quality of the material is only as good as the submissions provided, but I am personally very happy with the exhaustive determination the players have shown.

The idea for the Bestiary was started by a player who posts under by the handle: LatukiJoe.
His original listing garnered a great deal of attention at warhammeralliance.
com... The problem for me was that as I read it I became lost in the pages. The first thread had no structure and was essentially a lot of people posting at one location. Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with that and I am in no way criticizing LatukiJoe. His brilliance was in the initial idea. My contribution was in providing order to the chaos.

I sorted through the original listing and assembled a single thread that contained all of the information in one central location. The primary goal was and is accessibility.


2. When did this project start and what inspired you to do so?..
You can date the inception by going to the original thread. It looks like that was back on September 22nd, 2008.

My sole inspiration and single driving force was GREED. Ha! I wanted to get Tome Tactic unlocks and felt the best way to accomplish that was by stealing information from other players brains. So…how did I do that? I tried to make a place where a mass quantity of people would want to share data. In fact I didn’t care so much about the actual Bestiary (it was a means to an end) because what I wanted was Tactics to make my toon stronger.


3. How do you obtain your information? How helpful is the community in this?

The community is essential. Without the community there is no guide. The thread functions because people contribute to it. Daily. And my job is to update the main list so that people keep interest and keep sending submissions in.

That’s the simple dynamic…but there is a little more to it these days. A huge supporter and worker is Kellithe who spearheaded the effort to make a comprehensive MOD that allows players to access the Bestiary while playing the game. The current incarnation of this MOD is called: Tome Titan. Kellithe and I communicate daily. I tell him when I am done editing new information so that he can go update the Tome Titan. The product is something the entire playing community can benefit from and enjoy.


4. What can players do to help you?..

Keep on submitting your unlock encounters.
Look over the unsolved unlocks and see if you can figure them out.
Take screenshots of your unlocks and submit them.
If an entry is missing data (like coordinates, or a specific item or NPC name) find and submit it.

Again, the guide is only as good as the players who are building it.


5. Have you done any other work like this for other games?

During FFXI I made a pretty large Farmers Guide (Dug’s Guide to Farming, I called it.) A guide like that wouldn’t work for WAR, but in FFXI one needed to farm like mad in order to work the grossly inflated economy (Asura server, for anybody who knows something about it). And while the guide was popular for a time, it eventually faded away. The problem with that particular guide grew from the player community’s reticence to share coveted farming locations.


6. Any additional comments, shout-outs, or announcements?

One of my proudest accomplishments with this thread is in listing contributor’s names below each entry. And if I had to point out a theory for the cause of the threads success, I’d say it’s linked to giving credit where credit is due. We made it together, and I am just another cog in the machine. HUZZAH!

His guide can be found here.
 
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