Zombeaver

Any chance of uploaded images in posts being a bit bigger like they were when we were testing during the stream? I thought that looked pretty great. EDIT: Oh, and thanks for fixing the spoiler tag! I see that it's working now.

Any hints for what goodies are in store for the beta?

I mentioned that during the stream haha. It sounds like the old tiers were actually one-tier higher than they should have been for everyone. I'm like 30 posts away from...getting back to where I was for the last 400 posts haha The new forums are definitely sweet though. Very spiffy and fast. Just gotta get used to everything.

The Commodore 64 has "64" in its name because it had 64 KB of RAM. "Oooooh ahhhh!" Now, 34 years after the release of the C64, I have 32GB of RAM in my main PC, which is 33,554,432 times more than it had. Technology typically advances pretty exponentially. It's actually kindof amazing how close to reality Moore's law proved to be; though, from what I've read, it's become a bit less accurate from 2013 onward and apparently we're starting to hit a point of "saturation". It's still amazing to think how far we've come in such a comparatively short amount of time.

lordmonkus said That floatiness and animation was in Symphony of the Night too and is something that could be easily tweaked as it gets closer to a finished product if they feel it needs to be changed. Not really, not in the same way (or at least to the same degree) as what I'm talking about. That's why I linked the video from SOTN. Watch him go left and right up the stairs. Now watch when Miriam turns from one direction to the other. I'm less concerned with the animation itself (from a visual standpoint) than I am with the potential control loss from animation lock. If you actually can't change direction until that 0.5 second or however long animation is complete, then no, it's actually not like SOTN at all. It could be that you actually can change direction but it just has a bit of an overlong animation. It's difficult to say until I have an actual controller in my hand to see how it feels. But yes, it could definitely be tweaked between now and release for sure. It's just something that stood out for me while watching gameplay clips.

I'm definitely interested, but something about the gameplay videos I've seen has kindof concerned me... the movement looks a little floaty and potentially slow to respond due to animation. It's hard to say without having a controller in my hand and playing it - it just kindof stuck out to me. It could be that in reality your control isn't actually animation locked - again, hard to say without playing it, it just looks that way. Pay attention at 1:55 in that video when she turns from left to right and then right to left. Maybe it's just the animation itself, I dunno. It just looks "floaty". Take a look at this for comparison. There's still plenty of animation while walking but he basically switches direction instantly. Animating the switch in direction might look prettier but there can be gameplay ramifications as well (if you really are animation-locked). Nitpicky...I know. The game is gorgeous, aesthetically-speaking; and I'm a huge SOTN guy, so I'm definitely looking forward to checking it out.

Glad to hear it!

CriticalCid said I don’t know what you think it would do but all it does is to fill in the “Region” value based on the tag in the ROM filename. The value exists since a long time but was never automatically parsed when you have imported games. I don't know what it does, that's why I'm asking haha. I thought based on the description it was going to auto assign the associated platform based on the region it saw (so TurboGrafx-16 for ones that have a (USA) tag and PC Engine for ones that have a (Japan) tag, for example) but it doesn't seem to do that, which is fine by me, it's just not how I interpreted the feature description. CriticalCid said All I’m saying is that LB should use this value to determine which region should be used for the artwork and name (when alternative names get added to the db). That seems reasonable to me. Again, my issue has never been with the concept of merging the entries, in and of itself - it's that I don't want to merge them if existing region-specific data is going to be lost as result of it. If they can be merged without anything being lost in transition, I'm all for it. Part of my IRL job is systems analysis. I've borne witness to data migration on multiple occasions and you know what the recurring theme was literally every single time? Shit breaks or it gets lost or it gets corrupted in some way; often all of the above. So long as we can do what you're suggesting without those things happening, we should do it. I'm not being stubborn or confrontational - I just don't want good data that people have spent time and effort compiling and submitting to be lost. Based on a quick browse through the Super Famicom platform on the DB, that platform shouldn't be particularly difficult to merge into SNES at all. I saw... Assault Suits Valken (Cybernator) which could just be deleted... and a boatload of Japan-exclusive stuff. If we want to say all of these are for the "SNES"...okay then. It's not technically accurate but it's not really going to hurt anything either. The Famicom, however, seemed to have quite a bit more multi-region crossover. Moving exclusive stuff over shouldn't be a problem, but what about say Galaga vs Galaxian? They're both...mostly the same game, but with different titles per region and currently neither entry has images from the other. Should the Galaxian images be added to the existing Galaga entry and the Galaxian entry deleted or should the Galaxian entry just be changed to "NES"? What about Probotector vs Contra? I'm assuming this is what you're talking about when you mention alternate names. I think that's a good idea so long as the data from the alternate region is properly migrated over. I'm repeating myself at this point, but as long as existing good data can be merged together but still region-separated within one game entry, we should do it. It's just that that's not as simple as flipping a switch and saying "Now they're all NES!"

Yeah, I've grabbed a couple new things myself as result of it. I'm at 60 currently. Sengoku Blade I was actually able to get working after converting all the mp3s to wavs (it won't mount in DT otherwise) and then converting to bin+cue. Thanks for the tip on that! At this point the only things that are outright broken for me are: 1) Elan Doree, and based on what Hakase-Nyan over on the Reddit thread said, it must be a problem with my rip. I haven't been able to find a working alternative though and CD-Mage doesn't seem to work in this case. 2) Virtual Fighter, which is broken for everyone. So...one actually broken game out of 60 tested. And the 59 that work typically run better (or at least as well) than they do on the alternatives (assuming Yabause/SSF are able to run them at all, which is a much more frequent "if" than it is with Mednafen). Love it. One other kindof interesting thing of note that I discovered is that there's a prototype version of Deep Fear that's US region - the game was never released in the US. The prototype works great in Mednafen haha.

CriticalCid said EDIT: I just looked it up in the changelog and it was added in 6.4 - New Feature: Region information can now be parsed from ROM file names for No-Intro and Goodsets and possibly other naming formats What form does that actually take during the import process? I've never noticed a prompt or anything indicating that any sort of specific region had been recognized. Based on that it sounds like it's already implemented, but I've never seen anything indicating that it was adjusting regions during or post-import as result of it. 6.4 is less than a month old though so maybe it just hasn't impacted anything that I've imported in the meantime. I know that I've imported a lot of TurboGrafx stuff during that period, probably half of which were Japan region (so actually PC Engine) and it never said anything about it. When it asked what types of roms I was importing I just said "TurboGrafx-16" and it didn't split them up at all. They all have (USA) or (Japan) at the end of the rom names. Looking at the Games DB though... it looks like there isn't even a PC Engine platform listed, so I guess that's it. That seems kindof weird to me considering there are tons of PC Engine exclusives...

CriticalCid said As of now you can upload artwork for different regions for every game. Only the metadata is currently lacking of multiregion support. So alternative names would be a good point to start with that. Ah, okay. CriticalCid said Also LaunchBox currently downloads all available artwork for every region but it’s totally random which artwork it uses. Yeah, I've noticed this as well. I've just been either deleting everything other than the one I want or changing them to "Box - Front Reconstructed" or "Box - Back Reconstructed". This is admittedly pretty annoying. CriticalCid said That’s why I said it would be about time that LaunchBox uses the right artwork based on the region tag in the ROM name. This assumes that the rom files even have the region tag. It also would mean that LB would treat rom file names differently than it's always done - which is to ignore text within special characters. I would say once again that this is probably harder to implement than it sounds - it'd have to be setup in such a way as to recognize the region tag (which can be in a number of different forms like U/US/USA/NA/NTSC and J/JAP/JPN etc.) and simultaneously ignore everything else in special characters. It seems possible, but potentially problematic. Here's a random C64 rom file name from my library: Rick Dangerous (1989)(Firebird Software)[cr REM][t +6 REM][a][Docs].d64 Gooooooood luck with that haha

I've been messing with these a bit more lately. The idea I have for them is to do 3+ for each system. When they're placed in the appropriate Images -> Platforms -> [platform name] -> Fanart folder it will actually cycle between them at random while switching between any games within that platform that don't have existing fanart. I'm hoping that eventually a new priority will be added to the Background Priorities list (Tools -> Options -> Images -> Background Priorities) that will be specifically for platform fanart, because right now if the game itself has it's own fanart it will always appear, rather than platform fanart. I'd like to have a way to have these always appear for everything within the relevant platform. Anyway, these are what I've come up with so far:

CriticalCid said To split the consoles in the database in to the different region variants was maybe a good idea before we had the „Scrape as“ function. But now it’s completely unnecessary and only brings more trouble than usage. If someone (like myself) prefers to split his platforms into different regions than it’s really easy and simple to scrape the additional platforms as the ‘main’ one. The non- consistency right now is a huge problem as well. I think the platforms should be merged again and it’s time that Jason finally adds “Alternative Names” to the games in the database and add the feature that LaunchBox uses the right artwork for each game based on the region tag of the ROM files. That's fair enough but I fear that it might be a bit more difficult to implement than it sounds. I think you make a good point, however, that splitting/merging one's own library based on personal preference is a two-way street - it's just as easy to split them as it is to merge them. I guess my main concern is just that nothing is lost in translation, as it were. If all the images and data that we currently have can be kept intact but consolidated in such a way that helps clean up the Games DB, then I'm absolutely for it, I'm just a little cautious about lumping everything together until some kind of system is in place to segregate region-specific data (covers etc.) within the same game entry. It was my understanding that there isn't a way to do this currently. Is that not correct?

No worries, that would certainly make me super cranky haha. I've actually been backing up my xml fairly regularly and plan to pick up another external HDD soon to do a complete backup of my emulation folders. I've just spent so much time on this crap I'd probably lose my shit if I had to start over... that uh... probably doesn't make you feel better, sorry :( I hope the process is going at least somewhat smoothly.

In addition to what lordmonkus said, I'm not sure why the "file name only without extension" is checked. Typically it isn't for Retroarch.

Yep, you can call them literally anything you want. Just keep in mind that your "associated platforms" section in any relevant emulators need to be named identically in order for LB to understand that you want to associate one with the other. This is why I always stress that point when someone has issues with Retroarch not working - if your platform is named "TurboGrafx-16" in your library and the associated platform in your Retroarch entry is named "TurboGrafx 16" or "TG16" or anything different in any way it won't work.

No, you'd actually do the opposite, assuming you want them to all be under the platform of "TurboGrafx". Scrape-as basically indicates where you want it to pull the metadata from and the "Platform" is what platform you want to put them in within your Launchbox library, so if you want them all to be under the "TurboGrafx" platform in your game library, that's the platform you'd choose, regardless of the fact that they may not actually be TurboGrafx games (there are PC Engine exclusive games). I have them all under either TurboGrafx-16 or TurboGrafx-CD, despite the fact that some of these (a lot of them in fact) were never actually released for the TurboGrafx itself (in North America):

Yeah it's in the middle of the uh... *cough* work day... good thing I can multitask :D

TurboGrafx-16 are PC Engine are essentially the same thing - TG16 is the North American version and PCE is the European version. Turbo Duo is a combo console of TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the JVC X-Eye but it's essentially the same thing but for Sega CD. The TurboGrafx-16 had a CD add-on attachment like the Sega CD to the Genesis - the Turbo Duo and X-Eye are the single consoles that have the combined functionality. SuperGrafx is a later iteration with beefed up hardware and was only released in Japan. There are only 7 games exclusive to it though and I believe two of those actually still work on a regular PC Engine. EDIT: Beat me to it haha

I should be available to help test but I may or may not have access to Twitch at the time :( I'll do my best though.

I'm a big Elite Dangerous guy myself. My Dad and I used to play the original Elite on the C64 when I was a kid so when I showed him E:D he was like "Holy crap..." haha. The always-online thing isn't such a big deal - you can still play single-player only if you want. The online component is just for updating faction territories based on your participation (or lack thereof). I haven't picked up the DLC either though. Like I said, I'm interested in No Man's Sky, but my enjoyment is going to depend pretty highly on how annoying the survival elements are; which, based on what I've read so far, are more pronounced than a lot of people anticipated.

Yeah, don't feel bad about that kind of thing. It really is true that it's the little stuff that'll get you. Tiny little spelling discrepancies, that sort of thing, are the worst since it'll still break something but because it's minor you just gloss over it. Everybody's gotta start somewhere, so no biggie! Glad you got it sorted out.

In all likelihood yes, it seems like my kind of thing. I've been following this one since it was announced, but I still want to do some more reading/watching before I pick it up. The whole "what is it?" question has been looming since the beginning. It's not Minecraft in space or 3D Starbound, I know that for certain - it seems like it's actually much more of a survival game, which can be both good and bad; it just kindof depends on how annoying they make the survival elements... I'm definitely still interested, but a little trepidatious about it. Worst case scenario I'll pick it up on a sale haha

Don't they have to list some kind of reason for requesting the switch? If so, what's the basis for the requests? If not...it seems like they should.

No worries! Might I ask what the problem was? It's partially in hopes of potentially helping someone else in the future and partially because I'm just curious