The wiki has its own "Recent Changes" section, but who wants to sift through all those minor tweaks to find important stuff? Who even cares?

No one except people with OCD. That said, we are now creating this thread as a place to post when major changes have been made that should receive attention, such as new wiki articles, features, significant updates to character profiles, and things like that.

Anyone is welcome to post in this thread, so if you make an update or rewrite for your character info, get new art, or do anything else of the sort, feel free to drop in here and call attention to it. For now, I'll kick us off with some updates from the past month or two.


Rules:
- Minor star rating changes have been made. The "climate" star (the one that says characters aren't bothered by extreme climates, etc.) no longer exists, and all character profiles have been adjusted accordingly.
- Some character profiles also had their toughness ratings readjusted to match their written info. Check your own profile history and send a PM if you have questions about any of these changes.

Character updates:
- Zip added.
- Tau added.
- Rock general info fully rewritten.
- Sheffer general info fully rewritten.
- Mako general info fully rewritten.
- Some character ability boosts pending, but not yet submitted.

Resources:
Height and weight guide added. You can find it at the bottom of the rules article, with the other resources. This is not a rule, mind you. It's just for convenience, so people can find all known official character heights and weights in one place.

Features:
Ability focuses added. In other words, power types added. The graphics are still being refined, as some are difficult to read, but, look to find these under the character icons on the list of original characters and list of official characters. Characters whose profiles are as complete as possible will receive these, but they are not mandatory, and if you do not like them, that's fine. (Consider it incentive to get off your bum and finish your profiles, mini-descriptions, and 150x150 icons!) Also, if you disagree with the focus assigned to your character, speak up. (They were just chosen on the fly, in order to test the system and populate the list. They're hopefully accurate, though.)



I believe that's everything from recently. Keep the updates coming.

Some more updates from the last couple of weeks:

- Added Leon
- Wild Badge now has a thumbnail on the list of original characters
- Rachel updated Tracer's art
- Kazz updated Murdoch's art
- Kazz also updated Rodolf's art (may require refresh to see)
- "Relations to official characters" in the character guidelines changed to a more general History rule section, with clarification on what is allowed.

- Adjustments made to "toughness" star standards, including removal of climate related stars (what was I smokin' anyway), and addition of some other options. This was done a while ago. If you had a character that had a halfstar for being a super tough outdoorsman immune to the cold or whatever, it has been long removed.
- Complete rewrite of inactivity rules (but duh, you've already noticed that).
- Star ratings added for most official characters, though their profiles are still otherwise incomplete.
- Ivan added. (Welcome back, Bunnybeard.)
- Added list of locations for the Chaos Emeralds in eye-searing technicolor.
- Added Sol Emeralds article, though it's empty save for list of locations.
- Added images to things like Chaos Emeralds, Rings, World, etc.
- Changed original character approval template to be prettier.

- Ivan added
- Lots of unimportant pages added to the wiki to fix dead links (About, General Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, other boring stuff)
- Some inactive characters removed from list (Zipper, Rekk)
- Animus added
- Baron von Fremont added
- Powers and skills restriction added
- Capsule Trooper article added, to explain what the heck they are. (There was an old one up for a while, but it was mostly info from the old RP.)

- Canon article added to define what games are acknowledged as a part of our RP story's history, and how. Pending more details later.
- GUN Database added, just for fun. Will receive further fleshing out with more characters and info.
- Species guide updated, as it occasionally is, but probably still not comprehensive
- New thumbnails added for Kazz's characters.

- "Robots" added to the species guide (yeah, no, robot isn't really a species, whatev)
- Thumbnails added for Archer, Ivan, and Tank
- Art re-proportioned and scaled
- List of Original Characters reorganized with different sections and order. "Main original characters" now features only fully-completed character profiles, and only one character per player. "More original characters" features additional characters, info completed or not. "Minor characters" features only less-seen, less-played characters.
- Both the original character and official character lists have been turned into category pages, so they have the full, alphabetized list of articles at the bottom, too, for convenience's sake, and now all the category links at the bottoms of profiles should work.
- Height and weight guide updated with a rad scale image to help scale original characters in the future.
- Rock has been the first to be rescaled, with an image that has been altered and updated to make him look less redonk-stretchy-tall.



Some important notes from this update:

- New members (and even old members) have long been confused about how we scale characters, what height is normal, what's not, etc... so we're going to finally be adjusting all the original characters so that there is some semblance of consistency in their heights, and they all look like they're in the same scale. Being that it's easier to adjust numbers than pictures, that is what we will do. You're welcome to put your characters against the chart and discover the height at which they look in-scale (i.e. not barbie-doll-ish or goofily oversized), or you can just leave it to us to do that for you.

- On that note, we will probably start just going through and rescaling everyone willy-nilly in a week or so. If you don't want us doing it, beat us to the punch. There will be uniformity or DEATH. (Okay, not really, but this is something that will be nice to get polished up once and for all.)

- The re-ordering of characters was done to make it so we no longer have to rearrange every single left/right template tag every time a character is added to the list. This is mostly an adjustment of laziness, and not intended to slight anyone or move anyone present up or down the list.

- If any characters are in an incorrect order of appearance in their given section, mention it; that's still being sorted out, and isn't exactly at the top of the priority list.

- List of Original Characters moved to Category:Characters (Original). This name is not as elegant as the previous, but allows the character list page to also be a category page, alphabetically listing all articles within at the bottom.
- Did the same thing to the official character page.
- Ace rescaled
- Rekk, Jacques, Slick, Teck, Suzy, Leon, and some others I forget moved to a new category for inactive characters (It's good to keep the profiles just for back-reading purposes.)
- Some never-used characters deleted.
- Added link to Ability focus article in the original character list at last
- Thumbnail added for Key
- Astrid finished, approved, and added to list

As usual, I forgot about this thread. I'm not even gonna try to mention everything. That's what Recent Changes is for. I only do this as a courtesy so deal with it.


- Glastonia is being continually updated with mystery info. It's barebones, but it's something to help keep facts straight.
- Apex has been added and approved, and is now waiting in the wings for action.
- SSRP Rules and its sub-articles received a host of mostly inconsequential changes to correct wonky, sub-optimal phrasing and convey a little extra info. Some new rules were also added. (I do not mention them in detail here because 1. I forgot what was added and am too lazy to scour Recent Changes, and 2. None of them are imminently important nor counter to common sense.)
- Some star rating values were adjusted earlier this month to be a little more balanced and accessible. All character profiles affected by the change have already been updated.
- Sheffer the Hedgehog renamed to Geoff Hawkins by retcon power. It is asked that you mentally pretend this has always been his name. Nothing has changed in-character.
- Articles started for Metal Knuckles and Gemerl. They, like 75% of official character profiles, will likely never be finished. (You guys are actually welcome to edit and build on the blank official character profiles if that kind of busywork tickles your fancy—just don't be offended if some things you write get edited.)

Forgot to keep this updated again, and unfortunately, Recent Changes doesn't go back far enough for me to see everything that has come and gone. I'll try, though, because I know not everybody notices every little thing added to the wiki, but may benefit from some of it.

- Added Aga.
- Re-added Leon.
- Added article for the Eggman Empire. This one's probably the biggest addition, and is still being built on.
- Minor alteration to Injury. Just wanted to make clear that we are not expecting hyper-realism in regards to attacking metal robots with fleshy, bony bodies. Sonic characters break robots. It's what they do.
- Working on an overhaul of the Star Ratings. I'm not entirely sure about all the changes that are going to be made, but it will probably involve a change in graphics, total star numbers, number of categories (fewer than currently), and more relevant categories. (Does anyone really pay attention to "stamina" anyway? It's all clutter and busywork for nothing.)

New star ratings "prototype" added at Star ratings (prototype). (Isn't that apt.)

The question that must now resound in your minds:

Why.

The answer: I like screwing with things and don't know the meaning of "don't fix it if it ain't broke." Perhaps I do not know the meaning of that phrase because of its abominable grammar. Who knows?

Now, the real answer:


1. The above is actually at least a little true. Part of me just wanted to play with the system some more and make it "better." I derive enjoyment from this. (Warning: "Better" is highly subjective.)

2. I thought five categories was too many. I have reduced the number of categories to four. (Agility, Strength, Toughness, Energy.)

3. I felt "Speed" was unnecessary clutter, as it was just a single number with a star value attached to it. It feels more elegant to just lump it in with the incredibly-relevant agility section, which really should have covered speed all along.

4. I felt "Stamina" was the single most useless stat ever conceived in an RP, as it very seldom came up at all. Comparisons of strength and agility are common in RP, and often must be known; who compares and measures endurance that often in RP, though? It was just a star-dump.

4. "Energy" is now the former "Stamina" combined with something that was never addressed before, and is probably quite a bit more important: Supernatural energy. I feel we've largely shied away from using some of the more fantastic abilities the series is known for simply because it wasn't acknowledged much here, and it was unclear how far one could go with it. Now, it is obsessively quantified like everything else. If you are even slightly OCD, you will likely find this numerical safety blanket warm, fuzzy, and comforting.

5. In order to make Agility and Energy both cover what used to be two separate topics, we needed finer detail than 5 stars used to allow. That's why we went to 10. Also, 10 is more than 5, and more is better.



Does this mean more work for us?

Nah. If you want, I can convert existing character profiles over to this new system in a snap. I'm normally what one would call "pretty damn bad" at math, but when I make up a system like this, I become Brainiac, and can automatically memorize and calculate it with the most keen and geeky of ease. Give it time and I'll get around to it. I actually already have most of the original character cast tabulated on a little chart here, anyway. Even John should be envious of my preemptive diagramming.



I hate it and want to stay with the old stars.
:(


Seriously, though, I'm not completely mad with power yet, so if enough of you are utterly repulsed, I will stop tampering with it. I think John's new star graphics are pretty rad, though.




(Also, thanks, John.)

But seriously, do air any concerns you have, if this actually concerns you for whatever reason. It's still being adjusted and balanced (I'm mostly doing it by using existing characters whose abilities I am well-familiar with, to see what they come out to be, and if it "feels" right), so it's very much open to suggestions, additions, removals, etc.

Just because this has come up twice or so since the change to the new star ratings, I'm going to make a note here: The change to a 10 star system didn't make anyone more or less powerful. Your character and what he or she is capable of didn't change as a result of this tinkering, so please don't even worry about it, and continue playing everything as you have. It's simply that more stuff is taken into consideration now, we have a larger scale to work with, and I erred on the side of "too many stars" when calculating everybody. (Who doesn't like having stars? Stars are pretty.)

"But my character used to have half the stars for strength that it has now!" If your character had 2.5 out of 5 star strength before, and it now has 5 out of 10... math! And, if it had 5/5 and now has 8/10 (or vice versa, in a sense), that's just a matter of the wacky new system taking weight and the like into consideration.

ON THAT NOTE, the reason characters' weights are now taken into consideration is because it helps balance things in a realistic-but-uncomplicated way. I think it'll also help ''remind'' folks (see: new folks) to balance their frickin' crap. I mean, their wonderful characters and additions to our cast. (Y'know, so we don't have another impossible/lame Animus situation, with the tiny girl who manages to be as strong as our 200kg crocodilian muscle-man.) In reality, weight goes a long way toward strength; someone who is a tiny but light wonder of gristle and muscle will still have a harder time moving a refrigerator than a 250 lb dude who can just put his weight behind it. I hope this all makes sense.

Anyway, change log.


• I am so DONE tinkering with all the stars. I mean, I might add some more stuff to give folks more options, or some other little bonus stars here and there to better respect everybody's abilities, but that's about it.
• All active character profiles (that I know of / remember) have been converted. Some mistakes are still popping up because I apparently can't count. (Will have that checked.) May warrant personal investigation of your profiles if you particularly care.
• Eggman Empire article still being built up more.
• Mie updated her Jam profile. "Current appearance" image link also added to hers and Rock's.
• Gonna finally get up off my butt and try to do some more official profiles sometime soon. (Thanks again to Kazz for taking care of MR. BIG.) I think it may reflect poorly on us that the official cast is the most neglected, maybe. If anyone enjoys writing profiles and wants to help, remember, anyone can tinker with almost any article (as long as said "anyone" doesn't mind his or her writing being mercilessly edited).

I added a wiki page for The Emerald Lady and it's crew. http://sonic.spindash.net/wiki/index.php?title=The_Emerald_Lady However it needs approval and moved to the right section.

I have taken the liberty to update the wikipage for E-123 Omega with his data, trivia, armaments and an image.
Ofcourse, it still needs to pass judgement: E-123 Ω "Omega"

And I hope this was the right place for me to post this.

I took the liberty of cleaning it up and editing it. Also, I removed the image because it was loaded with jpeg artifacts, not scaled remotely in line with the size guide, and should probably be the Sonic Channel art like the rest of the characters rather than the off-model Bioware art.

Also, I removed your "Written by E1Alpha" thing at the bottom. For the record, there is no writer credit for non-original-character articles on this site (such as official character profiles, location articles, so on, so forth). If you write about a topic that isn't your own character, it becomes permanent content and property of our site (inasmuch as it can be, in light of the fact that some of it is about SEGA-owned characters) so that you can't try to... take it with you when you go, if you get what I mean. That kind of "ownership"-claiming on a wiki is a big mess, since wikis are sources of collaborative, cumulative content, giving rise to questions of who wrote what, and what part of a sentence belongs to whom once edited by more than one person, etc.

Ah, alright. That's something to keep in mind for me then. I'll try to find a decent Sonic Channel art for Omega then, but just give a heads up so that someone else can upload it correctly.