"Mainstream"

Where did we get the term?

I recall there being a G1 post on Mabinogi's website when it first came out. I know because we were trying to figure out what the mainstream was, we thought it was a second set of beginner quests.

So how are we determining which quests are and are not "mainstream" now?

I do not believe there is an official or standard method of determining what's mainstream, we just judge it by how long it is, if it was the first quest chain in the update (if there is a quest chain in the update), and if it leads to other quest chains or starts from other quest chains.

Well, if it's completely arbitrary now, we need to discuss exactly how we(the wiki) define it.

Uh doesn't it say Mainstream when you over your mouse over the icon or something?

What Icons? Hovering over non-gen icons doesn't seem to give me a tooltip.

I think that's what Info meant.

No. I have characters with G1/G9/G13 quest lines. mousing over it does NOTHING.

O-o? I remember you can hover over any icon and it says "This is a blah blah blah".

You could. Now you can't.

Ahh, another thing...why are we questioning where mainstream comes from?

Probably from that overly long discussion about which of the sidequests should be considered important enough to get linked to the Generation pages?

oh geez...My statement still stands. I'll paraphrase it below:

“	Sidequests that directly follows after the mainstream completion should either be on its own page, or on the same page. It should also be noted as "side quest" is sucha broad term and anything could be considered a sidequest. Examples are: G3 -> Dark Knight Armor. G9 -> Andras's Past.	„
—Mikaya

We're gonna go back as far as "Where did the word "Capped Quest" come from" are we?

These overly long discussions give me a headache...

Well before I leave and head back to Cali, I'm gonna go off and finish the DK quest chain. Anything you want me to note while I'm doing it? cause I'm not doing again, but I will gather the boot image.

Just don't forget Ruairi's age. And if I may request, get his stats and skill ranks.

okie doki. Also, I guess while we're still discussing mainstream, why must we question the term. Pyrus is right. The old Mabinogi page says that it was the "Main" quest chain, and many people since then called it the "Mainstream Quest Line" or something along those lines.

We have to discuss it because there's still some disagreement over weather or not things like Andras's thing and things like Puppeteer and Shamala count as Mainstream.

Who is questioning that?

Most notably, you. You said you didn't want the optional quests that start after completeon of a generation(like Andrass's Past) anywhere near the mainstream stuff, but atleast 2 people disagreed.

I don't remember who or where, but I think someone on the wiki called shamala and nightmare sidequests.

And I'm questioning puppeteer's classification as a "side quest". If we're going by length, puppeteer counts as mainstream; It's not just a bit of filler text like most skill/side quests, it has more story than individual saga episodes, and it comes with long cutscenes and exclusive rewards and everything.

I don't recall anyone ever calling Shamala and Nightmare mainstream, even when I suggested moving them to their own page, I claimed they were sidequests and not to be confused with mainstream. Any I no longer think they deserve their own page because the justification of moving them to their own page was under the impression they were prerequisites to start the Saga.

I think Shamala/Nightmare, Puppeteer, and any other quest chain longer than 3 quests should be on it's own page regardless of weather we decide to call it mainstream or not, because throwing it on something like the sidequests page might make it look like the individual quests can be done out of order to someone who hasn't done it yet, and putting "finish the previous quest" in the "how to get the quest" box for each one of them would be messy and tedious.

Anyway, about your formal definition of mainstream, I'm not sure "first quest chain of the update" makes sense; Saga episodes 2-10 aren't the first quest chain of the update, unless you're counting updates smaller than a gen which would include Shamala, Nightmare and Puppeteer.

I was considering E1~10 the same quest chain.

But I agree, what we lable them doesn't matter. But if we give 1 "sidequest" its own page, they all deserve one, three quests or not.

My suggestion to give all quest chains their own page isn't about their importance, or weather or not they deserve it, it's about organization and clarity. I just think that if they're arranged one after the other ingame like a mainstream, then it would make sense to arrange them somewhat similarly to mainstreams on the Wiki. They'd just be in order on their own page with a note about how the first one is started, but if we don't decide it's a gen, then it still won't get things like the list of involved NPCs or any unnecessary links/references to mainstream stuff. For quests that aren't part of a chain, chronological order isn't as important so i still think it's fine to group them all on the same page with a note at the top saying they don't need to be done in any particular order(that part is optional since they have the "how to get the quest" box in the table anyway)

Even if there's a story order, I don't think we can call all of Saga a single quest chain if there's no requirement to do it in order.

That I agree on. So that begs the question, should Shamala and Nightmare still share a page? Ignoring whether or not they're mainstream.

Don't you have to complete Shamala to actually start Nightmare though?

Yes, but so do G1 to start G2.

They were released in the same gen, but different seasons, so I'm not sure how much sense it makes to have them on the same page since they came right after puppeteer, and even if Hwu somehow ends up meeting Shamala or Ruairi, g17s2 is still clearly a separate chunk of story from s3&4.

How to tell it's a sidequest when the current villians were introduced in Shamalaian Nightmares?

Was wondering, has anyone tried starting Saga without doing any of ShamalaNightmare? Does it change anything? Any cutscenes to explain what you missed? Is it possible to do Saga and then Shamalanightmare?

Nope, each new storyline quest regardless of mainstream or sidequest spoils previous ones, if referencing at all. Such as Morgant's identity in G9.

Well that's just ruining it for everyone isn't it? They'd ought to put the generation quest order back in.

you can do either. I can do saga's without doing shamala and vice versa.

Puppeteer's quest line is just a side quest for puppetry skills. Same with Fighter with "Rush of Love" or w/e it's called.. Shamala on the other hand introduces the plot elements now seen throughout The Saga.

Doesn't G11 reference that one G10 Sidestory with the Alchemist?

Hevaltis or w/e? I think it was another corrupt alchemist. I'll look at it in a bit after DK.

Helvetius*