Stories on MS Paint Adventures occasionally link out to material not by Andrew Hussie that still might be considered part of the narrative. And more often they link to material that is by Hussie buts sits apart from the numbered pages (quite often served from the MSPA website via shortened URLs.) The project is a multimedia linky thing that lives on the web and tries to have fuzzy borders.
However, for the most part MS Paint Adventures numbers its pages consecutively, across the sequence of stories that have been told on the site.
But not exactly: there are some missing numbers, and some non-numbered pages. This resource attempts to collect the details so we can keep everyone's page arithmetic straight.
I care because I count pages carefully in my stats.
This resource uses the old mspaintadventures.com/?s=n&p=nnnnnn URLs. All old URLs redirect seamlessly to new URLs on homestuck.com - this part of the rehost been done very nicely. Although it restarts each story's page numbering from 1 (thus shifting the page numbers by a constant amount e.g. -1900 for Homestuck) the new site has the same missing and extra pages as the old site. So e.g. Homestuck runs from story/1 to story/8130, and has 8126 pages once you consider the seven missing and three bonus pages described below.
p=000001 is missings=1, 134 pages) runs from p=000002 to p=000135, except:p=000007 is missingp=jb2_000000 was added as a final page long after the story originally endeds=2, 47 pages) starts at p=000136, then jumps over 34 pages, and runs from p=000171 to p=000216, so:p=000137 through p=000170 are missings=3, 1 page) has a single page with non-number p=MC0001p=000217 and p=000218 are missings=4, 1673 pages) runs from p=000219 to p=001892, except:p=000992 is missings=5, 8 pages) runs from p=001893 to p=001900s=6, 8126 pages) runs from p=001901, except:p=pony is secretly linked from p=002838p=004299 is missingp=004938 is missingp=004988 is missingp=darkcage exists but I am ignoring it)p=pony2 is secretly linked from p=006517p=006715 exists, although it redirects to /DOTA)p=darkcage2 is secretly linked from p=006927p=008270 is a clone of p=008269 that nothing links to - I'm counting it as skipped and missingp=008801 exists, although it redirects to /GAMEOVER)p=009058, p=009109, p=009135, p=009150, p=009188, p=009204, p=009222 and p=009263 all exist, although they redirect to the same /index_pw.php page. I count them separately... because... I guess the common page is an implementation detail? They are definitely distinct points in the narrative.)p=009305 exists, although it redirects to /shes8ack)p=009802, p=009803 and p=009804 are missingp=009987 exists, although it redirects to /collide.html)p=010027 exists, although it redirects to /ACT7.html)p=010030 exists, although it redirects to /endcredits.html)s=ryanquest, 15 pages) has stand-alone page numbering running from p=000001 to p=000015
There are eight waywardvagabond/manywordphrase image container pages concerning the Exiles that are linked out to from Homestuck. They are almost true story pages, but I treat them like other non-story pages linked out to from the main story because they have no p= identifier, and do not present themselves within the usual website surrounding frame.
recordsastutteringstep is linked from p=002148anunsealedtunnel is linked from p=002171anagitatedfinger is linked from p=002339astudiouseye is linked from p=002409beneaththegleam is linked from p=002623asentrywakens is linked from p=002744windsdownsideways is linked from p=002770preparesforcompany is linked from p=002921
p=darkcage does exist as an accessible s=6 story page. It contains a Flash with the same content that can be secretly accessed from p=006273. But, because the page itself isn't actually linked into the story, I don't count it.
The stories number their media (mostly images, but Flashes too) independently. The numbers reset with each new story, but the numbering increments with the pages (so the images on any one page have the same base number, with some extra suffix to differentiate them.)
I'll elide the details for most stories, but talk more about Homestuck, because people try to use the image numbers to count the pages. This actually works (ignoring secret pages) since some edge cases cancel out. Here are the details!
The general rule: the media usually live in storyfiles/hs2/. Images are typically of the form 0NNNN.gif if there's one on a page, or 0NNNN_1.gif, 0NNNN_2.gif etc. if there are several. Retcons leave the original images alone and add 0NNNN_retcon.gif copies. Flashes are typically 0NNNN/0NNNN.swf, with retconned copies using a surprising 1NNNN/1NNNN.swf convention.
Here are the exceptions. For the most part they keep the underlying property of one number per page consistent; for example, they might use a different number, but the count has still ticked up on subsequent pages. But there are three cases where no number is used, two cases where a number is skipped, and two where a number is duplicated.
pony: p=pony features similarly non-numbered pony.swfpony2: p=pony2 features similarly non-numbered pony2.swf04812: p=006715 aka DOTA serves the expected number Flash but from top-level directory /DOTA/darkcage2: p=darkcage2 features similarly non-numbered darkcage2.swf06102, 06103, 06104: p=008005-7 feature retconned images from previous pages in place of their three numbers06150: p=008053 features 00248retcon.gif in place of its number06156: p=008059 features 01395retcon.gif in place of its number06163: p=008066 features 02267retcon.gif in place of its number06169: p=008072 features 05247retcon.gif in place of its number06175: p=008078 features 04054retcon.gif in place of its number06180: p=008083 features 04863retcon.gif in place of its number06184: p=008087 features 05277retconheir.gif in place of its number06243 is missing: p=008145 features 06242.gif, p=008146 jumps to 06244.gif06379: p=008282 serves expected number Flash but from Sfiles/06394: p=008297 serves expected number Flash but from Sfiles/06398: p=008301 serves expected number Flash but from Sfiles/06898: p=008801 serves expected number Flash but from GAMEOVER/07445: p=009349 features this expected number Flash, but p=009348 duplicates the number by featuring 17445.swf, leaving 07446 for p=00935007952 is missing: p=009858 features 07951.gif, p=009859 jumps to 09753.swf08038 is duplicated: p=009944 features 08038.gif, then p=009945 features 08038b.gif08080: p=009987 features a YouTube video in place of its number08082 to 08119: p=009989 through p=010026 serve their expected number images but have a sequence of additional suffixes (heal, mspaint, ah, rings, lilypad and johndad) and are .pngs08120: p=010027 features a YouTube video in place of its number08123: p=010030 features a YouTube video in place of its number… probably… I mean, there may never be a 08124.Thanks to Aepokk Vulpex for drawing my attention to this way of counting pages and correcting some of the above!