I'm just curious about why the Wookieepedia updates for material provided by FFG are so rare. Fly Casual hasn't been updated since before it came out and I know I made a number of the pages for FFG created ships in previous books despite usually me not getting the books for weeks or months after they come out. I just wondering why with such an active community they aren't being updated within a few days rather then weeks or months

Wookiepedia is a wiki.

If you want an update maybe join up and write it?

Though it is likely due to the license being active they CANT without plagiarizing and risking a takedown notice.

I usually do update them when I can buy or borrow a copy of the book in question, which right now isn't often due to a lot of unexpected financial issues and my group keeping the main set of books at the house we meet at. What I don't understand is why no one does it before I can.

There are actually a surprisingly small number of people who make material contributions to wikipedia.

I would not be surprised if you were the most motivated person who usually has both the books and the time to make the updates. But without all three of those attributes, the updates aren’t going to happen.

If you have the motivation and the time but not the books, then you don’t have the material necessary to make the updates.

If you have the motivation and the books but not the time, then you’re certainly not going to be making the updates.

If you have the time and the books but not the motivation, then you can’t really be bothered.

You need all three in order for things to happen. And apparently, you usually do.

So, others who might be in a position to contribute probably don’t, maybe because you’re usually so good at it.

I tend not to update wikis mostly because I get tired of the self appointed guardians of information reverting my changes for whatever wild hair they get up their butts. So they can eat a **** for all I care.

(TVtropes not withstanding, because they're pretty chill over there.)

There are actually a surprisingly small number of people who make material contributions to wikipedia.

I think you meant wookiepedia as there are a huge number of people who make contributions to wikipedia.

I tend not to update wikis mostly because I get tired of the self appointed guardians of information reverting my changes for whatever wild hair they get up their butts. So they can eat a **** for all I care.

(TVtropes not withstanding, because they're pretty chill over there.)

This is pretty much it. Geekdom wikis all have the issue of it's editors taking great pride in knowing more pointless facts than everyone else. You change something, even if you're right, and it'll still be changed back by some Otaku that's either including some utterly minor throw away mention from an insanely obscure source like a happy meal toy, on cereal box comic, or just as likely, just can't stand not being the one that knew something. That's a huge part of why the Canon Wipe was so traumatic to some people. They spent literally years absorbing information and becoming knowledgeable about this stuff, and then in a single media release LFL reminded them it was just a movie at the end of the day.

I tend not to update wikis mostly because I get tired of the self appointed guardians of information reverting my changes for whatever wild hair they get up their butts. So they can eat a **** for all I care.

(TVtropes not withstanding, because they're pretty chill over there.)

This is pretty much it. Geekdom wikis all have the issue of it's editors taking great pride in knowing more pointless facts than everyone else. You change something, even if you're right, and it'll still be changed back by some Otaku that's either including some utterly minor throw away mention from an insanely obscure source like a happy meal toy, on cereal box comic, or just as likely, just can't stand not being the one that knew something. That's a huge part of why the Canon Wipe was so traumatic to some people. They spent literally years absorbing information and becoming knowledgeable about this stuff, and then in a single media release LFL reminded them it was just a movie at the end of the day.

I don't know about others, but for me, the canon wipe was annoying in that it made it harder to know what to expect in new novels and such. Like the sudden inclusion of the A-wings and B-wings from before the Rebel Alliance managed to destroy the first Death Star. The explanation that the B-wings were special made for the Alliance as Rebel Alliance gained support and some worlds, like Mon Cal home world , and even the Verpine, broke from the Empire and started directly supplying arms and equipment to them made sense as it meant that the Alliance really was growing in support and effect in their efforts against the Empire. Now, a single person craft that was designed to take on capital class ships is so ubiquitous that random pirates already have them. Which is really odd as I don't see pirates taking on ISDs.

The part of the canon wipe that annoyed me, were the Star Wars books I recommended to others to get more fun out of the series were made into legends and thus harder to get people to enjoy.

Thrawn, Talon Karrde, Ben Iblis, Mara Jade... missing those as part of canon is worse to me than a few ship timing changes. At least they didn't say those ships never existed.

The best part of the canon wipe is all of the new awesome things we're getting from Star Wars right now I mean holy hell did you guys see that BTS reel from SDCC I mean jesus I am so excited wow

There are actually a surprisingly small number of people who make material contributions to wikipedia.

I think you meant wookiepedia as there are a huge number of people who make contributions to wikipedia.

There are a number of people who try to make trivial contributions, or who try to make seriously biased contributions — maybe for themselves, or their paid customers, or their favourite politician, or whatever.

The number of people who make actual material contributions to wikipedia is quite small.

The best part of the canon wipe is all of the new awesome things we're getting from Star Wars right now I mean holy hell did you guys see that BTS reel from SDCC I mean jesus I am so excited wow

For me the best part of the canon wipe is it establishes a solid and coherent set of content. While there was a lot of really great fiction/information out there, there was also a lot of garbage too. Intended or not, there was very little quality control related to material published about the Star Wars universe.

Now that they intend to move forward with the Star Wars universe, they needed to eliminate that garbage. The concept that they would expend the resources to actually read 30 years plus of material and decide it was good or bad is ludicrous. So they wiped it all with the qualifier that they reserve the right to use anything they deem is good at a later date. Or basically they took a common sense approach.

As an RPG Company operating under a license, FFG will of necessity be a little bit slower in putting out material that may establish anything canonical.

FFG must operate within the properties canon, they cannot establish canon.

Which is why they are putting out mostly occupation splat books (such as Fly Casual) instead of something useful to a GM like a sourcebook detailing COMPNOR, COMPFORCE, the Imperial Security Bureau, Imperial Intelligence, Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations (Sector Rangers and Special Enforcement Officers). While they are mentioned and there is a LOT of inference and a few specific mentions of interdepartmental rivalry and distrust. There is little to no detailed guidance about any of them.

As a GM running a EotE game, I pretty much have to make up everything to do with Imperial Law Enforcement. All I have is a few pre-generated NPC's.

The same with the Imperial Army and Navy. A little thin wrapping over an empty box.

Sourcebooks I'd like to see.

The Law in Edge of the Empire - covering Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations, Imperial Bureau of Ships and Service (BOSS) and Imperial Customs.

Imperial Military in the Age of Rebellion - covering the Imperial Army, the Imperial Navy and Local Planetary Forces.

Imperial Intelligence Services (all settings) - covering the Imperial Security Bureau, Imperial Intelligence,etc.

And some sector sourcebooks that are actually written for the game settings as advertised. Suns of Fortune was a good book, but really? For Edge of the Empire, instead of a fringe sector for a group staying low to avoid Imperial entanglements (the whole Edge of the Empire thing...) we get "the heart of the galaxy" and the "most heavily developed sector" sector in the galaxy.

The complete opposite of EotE as it was advertised. Even the name screams this, it is Edge of the Empire not Core of the Empire.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game and the setting. But just a little useful source material so I don't have to do all the lifting would be nice.

FFG has gone on record saying that "Edge of the Empire" is not so much about location, but about feel. That's why the set one of their free adventures in Coruscant. Being on the Edge of the Empire means living outside of the rule of the empire in spirit and principle, not just location.

The thing about the canon wipe, and it's relation to Wookieepeida, is you just end up with the Diana Carvy character from that Shatner SNL sketch. LFL doesn't care for buttons and bootlaces, it's the franchise that's important. The canon wipe wasn't about deciding if the toilet paper roll on the back of a stormtroopers utility belt was a thermal detonator or not, its about allowing JJ Abrams' writers, or Dave Filoni's writers the ability to write a script without having to read piles and pile and piles of novels and comics first.

The Wookieepedia Otaku can't understand that because they want a domain to be master of. If a "widgets" book came out a week after the canon wipe announcement they took that as canon, because it gives them something they can go on and on about as being canon. Nevermind that the book was prepped, written, and printed before LFL even decided to do a canon wipe, and it contains no story relevant information, and as far as LFL is concerned it's not really any more canon then anything else that isn't a movie.

Some stuff is clearly canon (the movies) and some stuff has been clearly identified as not (ToR, the EU stories), but LFL honestly doesn't care enough to really make a solidified continuity on the scope and scale the Otaku desperately want. As long as the overall story makes sense and doesn't lock the company into any direction or theme, it's all good. Meanwhile the Otaku will be trying to figure out the "canon" number of protein bars in a Stormtrooper's field kit....

The thing about the canon wipe, and it's relation to Wookieepeida, is you just end up with the Diana Carvy character from that Shatner SNL sketch. LFL doesn't care for buttons and bootlaces, it's the franchise that's important. The canon wipe wasn't about deciding if the toilet paper roll on the back of a stormtroopers utility belt was a thermal detonator or not, its about allowing JJ Abrams' writers, or Dave Filoni's writers the ability to write a script without having to read piles and pile and piles of novels and comics first.

The Wookieepedia Otaku can't understand that because they want a domain to be master of. If a "widgets" book came out a week after the canon wipe announcement they took that as canon, because it gives them something they can go on and on about as being canon. Nevermind that the book was prepped, written, and printed before LFL even decided to do a canon wipe, and it contains no story relevant information, and as far as LFL is concerned it's not really any more canon then anything else that isn't a movie.

Some stuff is clearly canon (the movies) and some stuff has been clearly identified as not (ToR, the EU stories), but LFL honestly doesn't care enough to really make a solidified continuity on the scope and scale the Otaku desperately want. As long as the overall story makes sense and doesn't lock the company into any direction or theme, it's all good. Meanwhile the Otaku will be trying to figure out the "canon" number of protein bars in a Stormtrooper's field kit....

LOL, well said. I got a good chuckle from that...

FFG has gone on record saying that "Edge of the Empire" is not so much about location, but about feel. That's why the set one of their free adventures in Coruscant. Being on the Edge of the Empire means living outside of the rule of the empire in spirit and principle, not just location.

Yes, but it seems strange that a game that as advertised with "Thousands of places across the galaxy exist on the Edge of the Empire where the influence of the Core Worlds’ laws and regulations are dimmed or muted. These places are populated by figures who live on the fringes of both the galaxy and its society. Such shady locations attract shady characters, but they also lure those independent thinkers and insurgents who seek to break free of Imperial law." would choose to make its very first campaign location smack dab in the middle of it's opposite.

Of course to be fair they do say "Edge of the Empire isn’t just about adventures that take place outside the Core Worlds, it explores the lives and adventures of all those who live outside the comforts of established civilization or the law." so there is nothing out of place about a Core World EotE game.

But to me, and it is only an opinion, I would have made an Outer Rim or Wildspace campaign setting first and then added the Core World one as a natural progression for PC's that have accumulated a fair amount of experience and want to operate in a high profit but much more dangerous (for criminals/outlaws) location.

I think declaring the previous stuff as legends was all in all a good idea, because either they would've been forced to make movies out of the stuff already there (awesome material, but kinda damages revenue when everybody knows whats happening) or they would've had to shoehorn it in some obscure break between stories, which leads to more shoehorning the new stuff into the old canon, as has happened numerous times before. Look at eeth koth and agen kolar. Or adi gallia and stass alie. suddenly there were duplicates, characters that suddenly had to be someone else as not to contradict something else in a comic from years ago.

I just hope there is still the possibility to get new stuff in legends universe (very unlikely) and that the old stuff will still be available for years to come (also unlikely, because disney will want to strenghten their new brand)

For that last post of yours Ghostofman...

As for the canon wipe, before that quite frankly the canon system was a bloated mess, as nobody at LFL really started to try and keep track of things until it was far too late, and even the tiered system of canon was a mess.

With a clean slate and the intent that "everything going forward is canon," that makes it easier for writers of both film, novel, and other media to have a generally consistent backdrop in which to tell their stories. Even if 90% of the EU was awesomeness incarnate, it was such a convoluted mess and frankly a huge chore to keep straight that it just made things easier to deep-six the majority of the established lore and start from scratch. I commend Leland Chee for his valiant efforts in trying to keep things straight before the canon refresh, but I suspect his job is now a whole lot easier now that everyone's on the same page and there's more communication between the various media.

As for Wookieepedia, even before the canon reboot, I simply treated that much as I do Wikipedia; either a starting point for research into a topic, or simply a way to get the basic idea of some part of the overall lore. Granted, I was amused that for a brief time my old d20 character Jedi General Morningfire was considered canon (C-level, but still canon), but I've shed no tears over his existence being placed into the Legends category. And if down the road some author gets the wild idea to make use of JGM in a story they're telling, I'd certainly be tickled pink... but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that happening. Still, might be amusing to see him (or her, I did leave the gender unspecified when including JGM in Unknown Regions) to get a brief mention about how they died or did something rather foolish that winds up causing trouble for the main leads of the story down the line

I think with a little effort the new canon and the EU/Legends could have been the same history to a point then split cleanly. That said I don't hate the new canon and there are a few EU/Legends events, or rather EU/Legends versions of canon events mentioned but never seen in the OT, which I hate.

How did your character become C-Canon Donovan?

With a clean slate and the intent that "everything going forward is canon," that makes it easier for writers of both film, novel, and other media to have a generally consistent backdrop in which to tell their stories. Even if 90% of the EU was awesomeness incarnate, it was such a convoluted mess and frankly a huge chore to keep straight that it just made things easier to deep-six the majority of the established lore and start from scratch.

Well the EU always had one critical weakness, namely that kinda had to be centered almost entirely around these guys:

After a while there's only so much you can have them do before their lives become a idiotic chain of crisis after crisis with literally only months between.

That's actually one of the things that I'm really hoping the new films let us do; leave these guys behind. I'm a tad annoyed they're back for TFA, but we'll see how it actually plays out. Hopefully it'll be a nice torch passing event to tie everything together and the future will allow the Luke Skywalker story to officially come to a close.

How did your character become C-Canon Donovan?

I was one of the contributing designers for the Saga Edition sourcebook Unknown Regions, and included a bit on the new planet I was creating for the book about a "Jedi General Morningfire" that had embarked on a mission to said planet during the Clone Wars along with Vornskr Company, with said mission ending badly. And since the RPG books were considered C-level canon at the time (pretty much it was okay if it didn't directly contradict a higher level of canon), then so was JGM. What probably helped get the character in was the fact that I deliberately avoided a first name as well as not using any gender or species descriptors, so Jedi General Morningfire could just as easily be a Togruta female as a Human male or even been a Hutt for all anyone knew. Frankly, it was more of an easter egg type thing than anything else, and I honestly expected it to be cut or changed.

Nice

The thing about the canon wipe, and it's relation to Wookieepeida, is you just end up with the Diana Carvy character from that Shatner SNL sketch. LFL doesn't care for buttons and bootlaces, it's the franchise that's important. The canon wipe wasn't about deciding if the toilet paper roll on the back of a stormtroopers utility belt was a thermal detonator or not, its about allowing JJ Abrams' writers, or Dave Filoni's writers the ability to write a script without having to read piles and pile and piles of novels and comics first.

The Wookieepedia Otaku can't understand that because they want a domain to be master of. If a "widgets" book came out a week after the canon wipe announcement they took that as canon, because it gives them something they can go on and on about as being canon. Nevermind that the book was prepped, written, and printed before LFL even decided to do a canon wipe, and it contains no story relevant information, and as far as LFL is concerned it's not really any more canon then anything else that isn't a movie.

Some stuff is clearly canon (the movies) and some stuff has been clearly identified as not (ToR, the EU stories), but LFL honestly doesn't care enough to really make a solidified continuity on the scope and scale the Otaku desperately want. As long as the overall story makes sense and doesn't lock the company into any direction or theme, it's all good. Meanwhile the Otaku will be trying to figure out the "canon" number of protein bars in a Stormtrooper's field kit....

You've certainly captured the MO of a certain type of Wookieepedia editor, but it would be unfair to assume all their active editors fit this stereotype. I used to be very active over there, with my goal to create the most comprehensive resource on the 'net for the aliens I decided to write up. As a role-player, I wanted to have a place where I and other GMs and players could go to find a comprehensive overview of the Duloks or the Pa'lowicks or Frog-dogs. I also know that some of my write-ups were used as sources (at least as starting points) for official LFL publications—kind of telling when an author uses a turn of phrase directly from a wiki article you've written. At any rate, that was the goal: to create a shortcut for players, GMs, and authors, a way for them to avoid the endless toil of slogging through 30+ years of canon.

Then Disney wiped out the EU, so my work wasn't necessary anymore. I don't edit these days.

The thing about the canon wipe, and it's relation to Wookieepeida, is you just end up with the Diana Carvy character from that Shatner SNL sketch. LFL doesn't care for buttons and bootlaces, it's the franchise that's important. The canon wipe wasn't about deciding if the toilet paper roll on the back of a stormtroopers utility belt was a thermal detonator or not, its about allowing JJ Abrams' writers, or Dave Filoni's writers the ability to write a script without having to read piles and pile and piles of novels and comics first.

The Wookieepedia Otaku can't understand that because they want a domain to be master of. If a "widgets" book came out a week after the canon wipe announcement they took that as canon, because it gives them something they can go on and on about as being canon. Nevermind that the book was prepped, written, and printed before LFL even decided to do a canon wipe, and it contains no story relevant information, and as far as LFL is concerned it's not really any more canon then anything else that isn't a movie.

Some stuff is clearly canon (the movies) and some stuff has been clearly identified as not (ToR, the EU stories), but LFL honestly doesn't care enough to really make a solidified continuity on the scope and scale the Otaku desperately want. As long as the overall story makes sense and doesn't lock the company into any direction or theme, it's all good. Meanwhile the Otaku will be trying to figure out the "canon" number of protein bars in a Stormtrooper's field kit....

You've certainly captured the MO of a certain type of Wookieepedia editor, but it would be unfair to assume all their active editors fit this stereotype. I used to be very active over there, with my goal to create the most comprehensive resource on the 'net for the aliens I decided to write up. As a role-player, I wanted to have a place where I and other GMs and players could go to find a comprehensive overview of the Duloks or the Pa'lowicks or Frog-dogs. I also know that some of my write-ups were used as sources (at least as starting points) for official LFL publications—kind of telling when an author uses a turn of phrase directly from a wiki article you've written. At any rate, that was the goal: to create a shortcut for players, GMs, and authors, a way for them to avoid the endless toil of slogging through 30+ years of canon.

Then Disney wiped out the EU, so my work wasn't necessary anymore. I don't edit these days.

Yeah, if everyone were sane and just wanted to keep the digital record clean and comprehensive the wook would be in good shape and make a pretty quality reference. There'd still be issues from time to time (I need to check, but I know the AT-TE dimensions have been totally FUBAR for years) but overall it'd be nice.

Sadly some people are insane. You see it here too, with people wanting some silly rules interpretation because the book doesn't explicitly say that doing X requires Y.

Not sure if it's still going on, but there was a lot of behind-the-scenes drama on Wookieepedia regarding the size of the HWK-290 in the wake of FFG announcing it for the X-Wing product line, saying they had confirmed with the Lucasfilm archives that the ship was a lot smaller than WotC made it out to be. A few folks tried correcting the article to reflect the more accurate size, and various editors changed it back citing the outdated WotC articles took precedence.

Thus, my guideline of "Wookieepedia's a nice place to start, but take everything written there with several helpings of salt."