Talk:Phantasm (race)

Definition of Phantasm

→ moved from User_talk:70.82.113.198#Doppelganger race

Hi, may I ask what your reasoning was for changing the doppelganger race to Phantasm? Mechanically speaking, its race matches the chosen player's, and in terms of lore, there aren't any indications of it being a mesmer conjuration; it's kind of its own mysterious thing. —Idris 04:36, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Phantasms at this point in the game don't seem to be only reserved to mesmers anymore and as I see it, the race has become a bit of a catch-all term for all kinds of entities that either appear in visions or clones and what not. As you brought up, the doppelgangers may take on the apperance of let's say an Asura or a Human but that doesn't make them one in the literal sense. They're just clones so given that we don't have a better page for that kind of NPCs, Phantasm makes the most sense to me both lore-wise and mechanically. 70.82.113.198 04:55, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, but I feel "Phantasm" is too speculative -- as wide-ranging as phantasms are, they're always specifically temporary illusions which shatter on death, and the Doppelganger just doesn't seem to be that. You bring up a good point that we're lacking a better race for this, though; we could create an new category just for doppelgangers, or we could just leave its race as "Unknown". —Idris 05:48, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I just don't really agree. I don't think it's a bad thing to have more general catch-all race pages such as Phantasm or Animal to a lesser extent to cover some of the outliers. And as for the Doppelgangers specifically, I'm trying to see in videos online but it's hard considering the zergs present at those events but I'm pretty sure the Doppelgangers appear and "shatter" in some type of way similar to what regular phantasms do considering they are clones after all, and not living NPCs normally present in the world. Same goes for the ones in the Durmand Priory instance. Thus I don't think it's that far-fetched to label them as such. I would normally agree to leave them unknown otherwise if we take an NPC like Facet of Fire and War and other related NPCs which are both mega ambiguous both mechanically and lore-wise contextually, but I don't think that applies for Doppelgangers what with Phantasm being a thing already. 70.82.113.198 05:56, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I still feel that "Unknown" would be a better option than making a guess; to me, Doppelgangers are just as mega ambiguous as the Facets. I've brought this up on the wiki's discord for input from other editors; please feel free to join in if you wish. —Idris 06:31, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

This is just how I see this whole thing. Feel free to respond however you feel. Since I don't do Discord personally, I won't be there myself. At the very least, if the consensus comes back as Doppelgangers not meeting the loose requirements for Phantasm, I don't think leaving unknown is the best option either. I just don't like this option unless it's really necessary (such as Samarog, which was intentionally made vague by the devs). 70.82.113.198 06:54, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

(An admin recommended not having this discussion on discord, so I've moved it to this talk page.) I think it might just be you who feels "phantasm" has loose requirements; so far discord consensus seems to be that it's not a good fit for the Doppelganger, or Haunts or Malformed Shadows for that matter, which seem closer to nightmares. We have a duty as documenters to avoid speculation as much as possible; if we're unsure of something, we should always opt to say we're unsure, rather than guessing, and if we're going to have a generic catch-all category for ambiguous mobs, I feel we should create a new one rather than trying to expand an existing one. Personally, I think "Unknown" or "Unspecified" would work fine. —Idris 07:45, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) "Phantasms at this point in the game don't seem to be only reserved to mesmers anymore and as I see it" I feel like this is just your own definition, and not actually true. The only time we have things that we know are phantasms in the game are made by mesmers or beings with mesmer-like abilities (e.g., Raven, who is patron spirit of necromancers and mesmers). By definition, Phantasms are mesmer illusions created by bending and solidifying light. Just because they're "non-corporeal magical constructs" doesn't make them phantasms it makes them, well, magical constructs that are non-corporeal. If we have a catch-all, then the closest we got would be Construct but even that's a bit misleading for some cases like the Dopplegangers.

That said, I do think that people have been overzealous in classifying things as Phantasms for quite a while, and it never got attention until now. I'm seeing quite a few NPCs that are classified as Phantasms - and have been for a while - that are simply questionable - e.g., Viirastra (clone), Priory Arcanist (Precocious Aurene), and Web Clone. Since their sources aren't mesmer related, they feel more like generic "non-corporeal magical constructs". Which could likely have a name other than Phantasm, which is specifically meant to be mesmer-related, or Hologram, which is more asura-tech related, despite both being "non-corporeal magical constructs" themselves. Konig (talk) 09:38, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

An addendum inspired by discord discussions: It should be noted that, barring their origin point, Phantasms, Holograms, and Echoes are all the same kind of entity. That is: non-corporeal magical constructs. But that doesn't mean that all non-corporeal magical constructs must fall under one of these three groups. Konig (talk) 10:00, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like creating a new category called "Non-corporeal constructs" might be the best solution, then, and we can reserve the use of "Phantasm" for strictly mesmer-created entities. "Doppelganger" should probably get its own category too. —Idris 10:09, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I mean yes, it somewhat is my personal view on that, though I don't claim it to be fact, hence this discussion. I just felt that given the considerate amount of non-mesmer related "phantasm" beings in this game (Sylvari tutorial and the Orr vision coming to mind) a place for such NPCs had to belong somewhere and this page seemed it to me at the time. But I'd be all for making a separate page to place those instead if that's possible. 70.82.113.198 12:54, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Ow, on this subject, I want to say sorry for the lack of explanation for the revert on Legendary Doppelganger. I meant to leave a reason but I wasn't asked to somehow. The reason has been discussed here after all. --Txonä Atan - (talk) 13:04, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I would recommend two new categories. One for "Memories" such as those witnessed during Facing the Truth, the Raven showings, and Dream of Dreams related instances, since while their sources differ, they are all labeled as such on story instance and NPC pages (e.g., Hero (NPC) has ** Facing the Truth (as a memory)). And one that's more generic, though I think "non-corporeal constructs" is a bit of a mouthful so if we can find an equivalent, fan-made term, that'd be more ideal. Both should then be slapped with Category:Unofficial terms for further clarity. The majority of NPCs being added to Phantasms seem to fall under these two, with a fair share being memories. Konig (talk) 14:43, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

If something like that can be setup, I'd be all for it and more than happy to help implement it. I'd be in favor of a general catch-all unofficial race page such as your second suggestion. I just feel it was odd to label NPCs appearing as memories as Human or Norn and some such, though the lack of appropriate alternative wasn't the best either. 70.82.113.198 05:50, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess people were just trying their best to use whatever label seemed like the closest fit because we haven't sat down and officially talked through this problem before. It's good that we're doing it now. :) Having had a few days to think, I feel like "Unknown" might be the best name for our catch-all category, since we can cover other weird cases in addition to non-corporeals without inventing terms that might mislead our readers. —Idris 06:16, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't know, considering the substantial amount of NPCs that appear as memories and in other kind of magical instances, I think it'd be best to create an actual page(s) for them and keep the Unknown to pages that are either meant to be enigmatic (Samarog and Zeghai) and NPCs that just don't fit anything else (Bubble/Kralk Facets). 70.82.113.198 06:24, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I agree with Idris; if we don't know what it is, it's unknown and anything else would be speculation. And speculation in the infobox is something we definitely shouldn't do. - Do_odleplex 06:35, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Considering a race page such as Astral creature was created (which to my knowledge is a made-up term, if we exclude 4-5 NPCs in the list having the word in their name which could've all been easily listed as Unknown, I don't think making one named 'Memory' (or something to that effect) would be that much of a stretch personally. 70.82.113.198 06:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I could go either way with regards to things like "Memory" and "Astral creature". They work as convenient ways of grouping obvious categories of mob so long as we ensure they're placed in Category:Unofficial terms and, ideally, mention said unofficialness on their bestiary entry; on the other hand, minimizing speculation is ideal, so they'd also work fine simply being chucked in our catch-all "Unknown" category. —Idris 07:27, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

It should be noted there is a difference between using unofficial terms for known groupings, and speculation as to what things are. This is why I suggested using "Memories" over Phantasms for the, ah, "non-corporeal magical constructs" that reflect a past event or individual. Astral creatures is an unofficial term based off of how the generic individuals have "Astral" in their name.

"Unknown" would be ideal for different subjects, like the Kralk Facets as mentioned, and a variety of articles that have been getting added to Category:Phantasms and Category:Constructs over the years. Konig (talk) 22:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC)