The strength of a wiki is that anybody can edit it. The weakness of a wiki is that anybody can edit it. While the strength tends to outweigh the weakness, there are certainly times where an authoritative source can prove to be better than a community effort.
In particular, Monsters, Structures, Decorations, etc.'s statistics. This wiki is old - very old - practically as old as the game. With that comes an early explosion of content as everybody is in a rush to add information, images, sounds, etc. In that rush, sometimes attention to detail is overlooked and, as time goes on, the content may be largely ignored or - arguably worse - accepted as truth.
The recent release of My Singing Monsters Official Guide app is an authoritative source, presumably with information taken directly from the games' internals. There wasn't somebody playing the game, noticing they get a particular monster available at a given level, and go to update the wiki only to make a typo, or intending to enter the correct information but never getting past a copy/paste stage from another page. Instead, the information is taken 'as is', put in a different format that the new app can use directly in its interface. Very little room for human error.
This makes the app almost inherently more accurate. But it doesn't necessarily make it more helpful. Besides the social aspect of the wiki, the wiki still offers vastly more information in a single location than the app. While it offers more information than solely the in-game mechanics (and I'm surprised they decided to list all 'Likes' for a monster on a given island, instead of keeping the mystery like, a mystery like), it pales in comparison to the wiki.
These are certainly things that the app could address by incorporating more of the features of the wiki. However, the same also applies the other way around. The wiki can be made more accurate by checking the information that's in the wiki against the information offered by the Guide app.
This blog post, with follow-up comments, will chronicle my personal efforts to review 'All The Things', and help make sure that this wiki is the best possible source not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality.
Where information is in conflict, I intend to presume that the Guide has the correct information, but will make note on where the Guide and the wiki disagree; it's always possible that the Guide is in fact wrong.. or that both are wrong.. or even that both are right and that footnotes will have to explain what's going on.
Without further ado, the humble beginnings of checking information against the Guide.
Chapter 1, the monsters. The information that can be checked, and I will check, is the following: Class, # of beds, level required, XP gained when placed, Incubation time (normal + calculate for enhanced), buying price, selling price, elements, Earning Rates (at 0% happy and increasing levels, with the presumption that the happiness multipliers of 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, rounded down, apply), Likes, Islands.
Where information differs, this will be indicated. If there's no difference, a simple 'OK' is used instead.
( Note: Accuracy only 'guaranteed' at time of writing. Guide app version is 1.0.0 (1048). )
- Noggin - OK
- Mammott - OK
- Toe Jammer - OK
- Potbelly
- Earning rate at level 6, Guide=14, Wiki=13. Wiki adjusted to match Guide.
- Tweedle
- Enhanced breeding time appears incorrect; 3/4th of 4 hours should be 3 hours, not 3.5. App doesn't specify, left comment in existing thread asking for input.