this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3

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All things BG3!

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)

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Corporate-owned wikis have ads and other issues, so fans have decided to go their own way

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[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 203 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] HereticalDoughnut@lemmy.world 71 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] yukichigai@kbin.social 32 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] HidingCat@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago

Yea, half of my custom rules in Ublock is all for Fandom.

[–] HidingCat@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Content is all on the people contributing to the wiki, it's not Fandom's problem.

The shite experience though, totally is Fandom's.

[–] Graphy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

If there’s a current existing wiki for a game but it’s a fandom then I don’t even try to contribute.

[–] JustAnotherRando@lemmy.world 48 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] Can_you_change_your_username@kbin.social 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

uesp.net is another one. It's actually quite a bit older than fandom but I'm still going to count it.

[–] Jimbo@yiffit.net 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] HidingCat@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] rambaroo@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

How is that better? They would stop hosting it once the game was old which leads to the same problem.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

Heck, Blizzard was doing that in the D2 days, don't know if it's still the case, but everything was there!

[–] EddyBot@feddit.de 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] funnystuff97@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

osrs wiki >>> runescape fandom wiki

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

I hate fandom with a passion.

[–] TastyWheat@lemmy.world 114 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Good! Fandom is fucking garbage. So much bullshit on the screen it's hard to find the actual info on the page.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

There's ads on the web?

Get thee uBlock origin or on mobile AdGuardDNS or rethinkDNS

Fandom is still trash tho...

[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] ono@lemmy.ca 86 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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!

[–] Hairyblue@kbin.social 64 points 2 years ago

Hope BG3.wiki gets more attention. The article says it it is getting updated by fans.

[–] DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 43 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Amazing the article never once mentions the sites url, or offers a direct link. Bg3.wiki say it again, bg3.wiki .

[–] Damage@feddit.it 3 points 2 years ago
[–] CheeryLBottom@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Thank you! I thought I was blind :p

[–] Anonymousllama@lemmy.world 37 points 2 years ago (12 children)

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)

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[–] Donebrach@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

🎵 Down, down, down, by the riverrrrrrrrrr🎵

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

...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.

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[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What a shit article. They link to everything except the ONE SITE that’s the subject.

[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 14 points 2 years ago

Yeah, that was annoying. I had to go to Reddit to get the link.

Anyway, here’s the link.

[–] Cossty@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.

[–] Poggervania@kbin.social 16 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.one 8 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.

[–] teft@startrek.website 3 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] totallynotfbi@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

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.

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