Detailed NM Database {Do You Need It?}

What's stopping you? go do it.

I wanted to see what other players would think about the idea before I start it and end up wasting my time.

I have, however, gotten a couple PMs from people maybe offering assistance and general support for the cause. I might decide to do this after all.

Don't bother if you are going to be so closed minded.

If I was going to be close-minded about it, I wouldn't be asking for suggestions.

"useful" isn't very open at all.

Oh dear. I want useful comments to invoke ideas instead of pointless peanut gallery stuff. How very close-minded of me.

Yes it is. You should be ashamed.

Preventing the thread from derailing...

What would people think would work better? A website with submission forms (e.g. to email me with drop rates, testimonials) or a forum where people can discuss NMs in individual threads? Or (dare I say it) a wiki where people are free to edit... it'd just be about the NMs only.

If you have any suggestions otherwise, I'd really appreciate them, as well. I'm sort of leaning towards the first option at the moment.

The first option, but if you get really high trafic and emails, you might not be able to keep up.
Forums take too much reading and stuff...the forum shout be for making changes about things already put in place.
Wiki cant be trusted.

I doubt the traffic will be unbearable, as I'd still expect people to use Wiki more often (at least initially). The use of a forum would alleviate the E-mail spam, however; not sure if many people would be keen on registering simply to add a drop rate, though...

When I need information on mobs I go here first:

Important Note: Make sure you're using Firefox with No-Script and Popup Blocker before going to FFXI-Atlas. Do _not_ visit if you use IE.

http://www.ffxi-atlas.com/maps/uleguerand_range/monsters/

(Just picked Uleguerand Range for an example)

If the information on there isn't good enough, then I turn to Wiki.

As an example as how the layout for each NM page would look like, I whipped up a quick page (no formatting, just the basics):

http://mudkip.eeveeshq.com/NM/Mindartia/Sarutabaruta/East%20Sarutabaruta/Spiny%20Spipi/

I will have directories for each NM, sorted primarily by region. I will also create lists of NMs based on ecosystems, families, and sub-families.

Drop items are linked to their respective page on FFXIAH for convenience. Obviously most of the other links won't work at the moment, but an updated map IS included and can be accessed by clicking on the coordinates under "Spawn Location".

Is there anything big I'm missing?

That looks good.
Just need pretty pics, background and blah blah =P

I think that's a good amount of info on an NM. Like Ludoggy said, pics and such. Big thing to me is accurate soloability. Just saying "killable by 75 _____" is kinda useless info, especially to someone that doesn't have a 75, and as the bulk of the stuff that soloable NMs drop is not 75 gear, someone below 75 may actually want to kill it sometime.

I'll include screenshots as they're available, I don't just want to rip-off what's on Wiki (although a decent number of the screenshots are mine.) But other than that, I can't see myself making it too much fancier. It's supposed to be simple and not too elaborate. Too many images will increase loading times a decent bit, so I'll probably just include *a* screenshot on the NM page and link to the map. My girlfriend agreed to help me with redoing maps since a lot of Vana'diel Atlas/Wiki's NM maps are outdated or inaccurate/misleading.

I changed the font to a Sans-Serif default since they tend to look a little cleaner.

EDIT: At the left, I'll probably just frame the navigation and search bar. Since this is just for NMs, I doubt I'll need any more than that.

How about a brickwall background or something? plain white makes my eyes bleed =\

I can change the shade, but I don't think a background image would be very prudent. On my BLU pages, the background is simply light blue. In this case, I'm thinking a cream-ish might work. Opinions/suggestions?

something light, but not hurt my eyes light. pinkish cream, light light blue.

Okay, added a light blue-green background and got rid of the horizontal rules in favour of highlighted headers. How's that?

I personaly like it.

{All right!} It's midnight now, so time for bed. I'll see what I can do tomorrow as to adding the navigation/search function and, of course, more NMs.