kurzih

Thinking of this, separation & additions (for more than just regions) by extension, instead of separate entries/sub-entries actually sounds very much like the new GUI updates that were made in the Launchbox App, which allows for more content to be handled in the Edit option. That approach could indeed work with the database and could be the most likely way to go. But as I've said before, my guess is that it looks to be much more complicated/time-consuming making changes in the database structural code (it also needs to work properly with the App, changes will be needed to be done there too) than we'd expect - not about the will of doing those changes. Probably some longer downtime would be needed too, lots of testing etc. And who knows if the database coding was made by someone not part of the team anymore. And we shouldn't forget that the To-Do-List from the last Poll isn't complete yet. But those are just guesses, nothing to make any conclusions of. I'm sure Jason will clarify as soon as he can. Hopefully everyone is OK in the US with the LB team. Things look very critical there with the virus etc. All we can do now is patiently wait. I appreciate everyone's input/feedback on this so far, thank you! Looks to be more than just a guideline discussion

No problem I think actually the latest version should have those features already: http://nenecchi.kirara.st/ (use the np21.exe) from np2fmgen.7z These were instructions that helped me to get a good basic setup: http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,11117.msg736742.html#msg736742 if it doesn't work here's my exe+ini for policenauts policenautsexe.zip

I can confirm from my experience that there are PC-9801 (well actually 9821 in some cases) CD games that do come with full speech and CD music and animated content - some of them are exclusively CD versions. One of my favorite games on CD for the PC-98 is Policenauts, which was originally released on the PC-9821: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/images/106088 A really cool version with atmospheric music I'm using CD-based PC-98 games with Launchbox using a custom np2fmgen 0.83k8., Which allows using ISO and HDI files, Disk files (at the same time) quite easily with the config file. But it's quite manual since I have an exe+config file for each game. I would love to know if someone has managed to make the process more automatic with Retroarch. I haven't actually tried the latest core in that regard for quite some time. Thank you for bringing this up! EDIT: oh, and here's my config file (np21_policenauts.ini) regarding the game files, the CCD file is the CD image: FDfolder=L:\Policenauts User Disk.FDI HDfolder=L:\Policenauts.ccd FD1NAME0=L:\Policenauts User Disk.FDI And then on Launchbox I have the "Application Path" (no emulator ticked): "Emulators\np2fmgen\np21_policenauts.exe" and Command-Line: ""L:\Policenauts User Disk.FDI"". Works like a charm like that.

I guess .lnk (desktop shortcut icons) files should work just fine as "roms" - works with GOG .lnk files at least, have you tried that? You should be able to create those within NOX. I'm actually using Android Apps in a virtual environment, so I have a bit of a different setup in Launchbox with VMWare.

You have a valid point. And this is most likely the opinion that the majority shares. I guess Jason would prefer to keep the way things are with separation via regional tags and gametypes. But that will not remove the moderation/submitter's conflicts with media/metadata and will not make a full separation with official releases and fanmade patches/hacks from the same source (game) - they would still be mixed among each other. But if we would think another way around that, how would it sound if those separate entries would actually be a separate (sub)platform entity - we have that kind of things with ARCADE games for example - the same games in the Arcade Platform and some of those games are duplicated in Sega System 1/2/3, Sega Naomi etc. and they use sub-platform specific media files. Using the same thinking, one portion would be exclusively for authentic, original then-released games and the other one would have rom hacks, translations, homebrew etc. I have to say there are a LOT of homebrew and hacks (how many Pokémon games are there?? xD) in the database and the official commercial releases do not really stand out compared to them. Could we split those two into separate gamelists in the database? It doesn't mean your local database would need to be any different, it would only give you more choice and also there could be more and different images to be uploaded - just like we see in those Arcade Sub-platforms. Fanart makers would probably have more to contribute as well. To be honest the database structure has been untouched (at least looking from the outside) for a long time and an overhaul wouldn't be a bad idea. There are a few hiccups in need of a fix (empty, duplicate platforms, inconstantly named platforms) and a few bugs here and there (duplicate entry bug, alternative name comment field bug). It might be that touching the database is a more complex thing than we'd know. At this point I would have expected more missing platforms added to the database, there is some fully emulated systems that are not there yet. Of course I understand that the focus is with the Launchbox/BigBox App's development, not the database.

It's not a separate platform. It's really simply put an Amiga (computer) with a CD-ROM drive . Used to have one on my A4000/030. Probably the list of Amiga CD games are later games that were not Amiga CD32 compatible but required a higher-end Amiga Computer with a CD-ROM drive. And yes, they should be found/put under "Commodore Amiga", I've added a few CD-only games there myself. Originally Amiga computers came with a 3.5-inch floppy disk/diskette drive before HD's and CDs. The Amiga CD32 is basically a console version of the Amiga 1200 that came with a CD drive by default and it's own Akiko Chip and had it's own CD(32)-based games.

I would like to discuss about fan-translated entries and metadata on the database and I think we would in the end require @Jason Carr's comment for this specific guideline confirmation. Right now it looks like fan-made images for fan-translation are being added to the database to the entries with the actual games that were released for example exclusively in Japan. Mostly for some consoles and handhelds. I suggest that these entries would be separate entries, for example the Japan-only game "Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier Exceed" would have a separate entry like "Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier Exceed (fan-translated)" or some other way to distinguish them, sometimes the actual game title is also fully (fan-)translated so that wouldn't pose a duplicate name problem. You could probably argue that "why don't you use the region tags to choose which media you want to either original or fan-made?". Some of the benefits for having separate entries: - by definition a fan-translation is a ROM-Hack, and we have a Gametype for that. Only one of those can be chosen per entry. - No one will get a mixed-mash of media images of authentic and fan-made images. I personally prefer to have my games the way they were originally released - for example no western style (EUR/NA) logo, 3D box or screenshots for a Japanese game. - No one will need to say "Deleting this image, because this game wasn't released outside the region of xxxxx" and I've seen that happen with SNES for example. - People will know better which games have been fan-translated. In some cases there is no proper way of knowing where the game was *only* originally released if it has regional images from many countries or if a fan-translation is available. - The overview can be different (but always in English), perhaps even the release or publisher fields could reflect the fan-translation data from https://www.romhacking.net/translations/ for example (yeah, even that website is called romhacking - note: it does NOT contain commercial roms, only patches) . Don't get me wrong I really do appreciate fan-translation and the huge work behind them; I do have them (separately) in my local collection. I'm more than happy to be able to fully play text-heavy games in English for Japan-only games for example. But I also prefer to have authentic/original images and metadata for the entries (call it nostalgia or whatever) that were originally made at their time and not having translated fanmade images (like EUR/US style) for covers 3D boxes etc. when they originally never existed. And in the other hand I like to have the separated fan-translated entries with their (fan-made) localized images/screenshots & videos instead of the original language. It wouldn't surprise me if some of you might feel the same. So what do you think? Keeping them apart or just keep'em together using the regions tags we have and hope that there's no missing images or tags for the original entry to make sure there's no mixing up? Everyone has their own taste and reasons. This is just a suggestion, but in the end I would appreciate a proper guideline for this (and then the clarification for database rule #3 - if a translation rom-hack is OK to be a separate entry or not), thank you!

This is an old issue: I understand that the searching/scraping problem is one thing, but the worst issue here is that since the images/videos are saved based on the default name they would get mixed up (even if they would have a different database ID) if there is no unique default name when there's multiple identically named titles on the same platform. The latest solution which has been used for quite some time is "Title name (Publisher)". And if there's a game named the same from the same publisher then I think the next best thing would be "Title name (Year)". Just make sure when you make those changes you either put a link to the forum in the moderation comment field or explain the change - there's always a new moderator around the corner who might not be aware of the issue and might go on a solo journey. What has been removed (mainly in the C64 section) is the unnecessary (duplicate) alternative name, since even that causes detection problems nowadays. Unfortunately if someone is putting those (duplicate) alt names back, it is a mistake - but there's a bug in the comment field for alternative names and we can't seem to get the message through there:

I can see that the game is actually called "10 Pin: Champions Alley" on the database: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/72322 Did you check that those two entries beginning with 10 do not share the same ID? Maybe 10 Pin was added later. Did you try to remove the ID from Launchbox App and do a new metadata search? If you manually edited image folders did you then refresh the images/cache (pressing F5 on selected games in Launchbox)

I guess @Jason Carr or any of the devs who have access to the database code could look at it? (short story = I suspect that when removing an alternative name the reason doesn't get saved to the moderators it just goes "no reason provided"). We tried to link this thread in the reason field after removing the alt name, but it seems that none of the text/link to the forum we typed in the (delete alternate name) reason field gets shown.. and some moderators are confused since that used to be part of the working workaround with duplicate names on the same platform, but now the alternative name messes up the search if it is also identical/duplicate. Right now someone on the database is again trying to put those problematic duplicate alt names back that you just removed in the C64 section. Lets hope it's someone kind enough to go undo what they are doing themselves instead of you or someone else going through everything again..

My intention was to help out and remove alt names from mainly the entries I had originally submitted with games named the same. I did start with Pinball and some Arcade stuff + Commodore Amiga. I had put the link to the forum on every single one of them as the reason for the removal of the alternative name. So I guess none of the forum link in the reason field showed up? (I did wonder why someone tried to put the alt names back xD, now it makes more sense if they couldn't see the reason). I have a suspicion that there might be a bug if you ONLY remove the Alt name on the database and make no other changes at the same time in the metadata - maybe the delete alt name reason field goes always "no reason provided"; if I recall I see reasons about an alt name removal on another field (like default name if it was changed the same time) but not on the remove alternative name reason field itself. But it's a bit hard to test that theory*. Worst would be if it's just random.. *well actually if we could just simply put the forum link to something else than the delete alt name, like an ESRB Field - Not rated or Game type - Released (plenty of those missing). Then we'd know if the problem is the link itself or what I suspect.

Nice, looks like that did the trick! I got both of them listed on the search list: As of that result I'd say not even Alternative names (on the same platform) can be identical... or maybe even necessary anymore for this workaround to function. Good job!

Just wanted to inform anyone interested in on what's new in the database that I'm mostly done with my missing games contributions for this year (and probably going a lot slower from now on - unless we might see some additional platform entries in the database ). I basically started to contribute missing entries early 2020, during this very challenging time. I simply thought of sharing all the media/metadata from the my local collection I had already collected for a long time, making it accessible to everyone using the database. I never thought I'd go through a total of 171917 submitted changes + quite a lot of moderation on top of it. This has included a lot of Japanese entries, like PC-88, PC-98, FM-7, FM Towns, Sharp X1, MZ-2500 and many other older computers (Acorn, Apple, CPC, Atari ST, filling missing gaps from Commodore models etc. ). Of course I haven't been the only one doing this, but those were the focus point I had. Many many others have managed to even complete or almost complete some hugely populated platforms this year like the PS1 and Nintendo DS. So please update your collections with the latest metadata and you'll find that you'll get a bit more ID hits than a year ago The latest batch I put up: Pinballs. They've got some really beautiful flyers, the oldest ones from the 30's(!!) and for example on the emulation side Visual Pinball's VPX tables look and play just amazing. And on the other note: I've seen different "hard" claims on the database (not the best place to make claims to be honest, use the forum for discussions please). And lately one of these claims was about the Wikipedia Field. I just double checked from Jason and he told me that this has been clarified before, so once again based on that information: the Wikipedia Field is ONLY for Wikipedia URL's, anything else shouldn't be accepted. Even if there is no Wikipedia URL available. It's quite natural when you think about it, since we have nowadays a "Wikipedia Link" button in Launchbox and you'd expect it to go right there . You can of course always discuss this, that's one reason we have the forum and we have super cool devs that are actively joining the discussions with the community. Anyway, I wish everyone safe and Happy Holidays and GAME ON!

My stand on this one is that no deletion should ever be accepted without a good explanation written in the reason field. And second, if the reason is just "dupe" or similar, then the reason field should also include the link to the other entry it is duplicated from to let the moderators make the right decision. Usually that's what we see, but not always. Please also be aware that some deletion are done because the game has duplicate regional entries while having different title names in different countries (we use regional alt names and regional media for a single game entry). Explaining this in the "Reason Field" + linking the other entry makes things clear for moderation. Most moderation and new content put on the database is top notch, but there are sometimes rare attempts that have no merit or are reasoned with even false claims. That's why double/triple checking different sources, not only for deletions, is most important and as well not relying blindly in just one source. Like sometimes it seems Moby Games is the "only" source information, even if it has it own hiccups and some inaccuracies as well - everyone should consider source criticism there too. I personally recommend for older games the combo of Moby/Wikipedia/Gamefaqs + dedicated website of the platform in question. And in addition for newer/recent games the publisher's/dev's game page.

Those two images are a bit of a bad example, both of them would be rejected because they do not meet the minimum required size, which is: Fan art must be at least 1280 x 720 for Background based art. Made a quick test: I saved your PNG as a maximum quality settings JPG file and made the canvas size 1920x1080 on Photoshop. Those noises around the edges didn't appear, not even on fullscreen as they do in the JPG version above (launchbox / big box would use background images in fullscreen anyway, so the forum isn't the best place to show examples). Those noises only seem to appear when the image I tested is converted as a smaller image (for example as a thumbnail by this forum software). But that scenario shouldn't happen in BigBox/Launchbox since the image is used as big as it is (native reso I guess, right?). I think the point with background images is that they should be by default and by rule big enough in resolution that they look good in fullscreen and are not converted to a smaller image size. And I believe JPG is in most cases best for background images as long as they are saved as high/maximum quality JPG instead of auto-conversion/resize/re-save from a different format where there might be quality loss if the default conversion settings do not give the best option. To put this simple I'm always asking myself two questions for submitting content to the database on top of keeping it inside the rules: Is this the best for the community and how would it (the image in this case) work/look like when it's used by Launchbox / BigBox. But in the end, as I've said before. I'm just HOPING that people would prioritize background images using the JPG format. PNG is by no means against the rules and might be in some cases a good alternative depending on the source and image type (limited colours, 8-bit style etc.). That's why those two questions above I use as a personal guideline are open for different solutions. And I also would prefer a PNG backround image rather than none (BG images for me at the moment are "only" taking around 11GB of HD space + cache space), still some space to bare! If there would be a vote: Backgrounds = JPG FTW Screenshots for older games = PNG FTW Please, anyone who's more graphical-tech-savvy (most of you I guess :P), please correct me or comment on this, thank you!

Yes I agree, but I thought this was related enough to continue the discussion in this thread with an issue with screenshots that is occurring right now on the database. Just moved this "new" discussion here:

I got bumped from a related thread since this was not really in the center of that discussion: Just recently I'm seeing moderator changes/replacements from native PNG resolution to slightly upscaled JPG screenshots - with older games like from the Spectrum ZX etc., claiming that it's "better quality" making a bigger sized JPG screenshot. I think that is misleading and a bad mistake to approve those changes/replacements. Why is that? Because JPG files when saved (or should I say auto-scaled by Launchbox/BigBox) into a different resolution will add grain/noise especially around texts etc. PNG has lossless data compression and looks great auto-scaled in HD of whatever resolution (smaller or bigger) and it will also preserve the colours. No user should need to make screenshot image bigger than what they are in their native resolution if they are saved in PNG. I don't mind if someone upscales a PNG image (even if it's not really of any use), but changing perfectly fine PNG screenshot files into JPG is making the quality worse, not better - especially with BigBox. I'm sure there's people here in this forum who are very familiar with these formats and I'm quite sure they would voice it for PNG as a preferred format for screenshots. And anyone can google more about the benefits of PNG and problems with JPG for screenshots or in general, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics. Even if the database allows both JPG and PNG image file formats, I think we should focus on what's best for what image type and avoid any false moderation claims and stop replacing perfectly good, already approved, native resolution PNG images. I'm emphasizing "screenshots" here. I don't wish people to start changing Box - Front/Back / Flyers images from JPG to PNG. Since that would only fill everyone HDs. High/Maximum Quality JPG files are OK for these kind of files but are not good for screenshots (especially old games with low native resolution).

Sorry neil9000, but I have to debate this. I'm on @Freestate side of view on this one. And bringing this topic back on. Just recently I'm seeing moderator changes from native PNG resolution to slightly upscaled JPG screenshots - with older games like from the Spectrum ZX etc., claiming that it's "better quality" making a bigger sized JPG screenshot. I think that is misleading and a bad mistake to approve those changes. Why is that? Because JPG files when saved (or should I say auto-scaled by Launchbox/BigBox) into a different resolution will add grain/noise especially around texts etc. PNG has lossless data compression and looks great auto-scaled in HD of whatever resolution (smaller or bigger) and it will also preserve the colours. No user should need to make screenshot image bigger than what they are in their native resolution if they are saved in PNG. I don't mind if someone upscales a PNG image (even if it's not really of any use), but changing perfectly fine PNG screenshot files into JPG is making the quality worse, not better - especially with BigBox. I'm sure there's people here in this forum who are very familiar with these formats and I'm quite sure they would voice it for PNG as a preferred format for screenshots. And anyone can google more about the benefits of PNG and problems with JPG for screenshots or in general, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics EDIT: I'm emphasizing "screenshots" here. I don't wish people to start changing Box - Front/Back / Flyers images from JPG to PNG. Since that would only fill everyone HDs. High/Maximum Quality JPG files are OK for these kind of files but are not good for screenshots (especially old games with low native resolution).

I guess you might have tried this already, but just to make sure: did you try to remove the ID in the Edit window (red button next to the ID) and then clicked on "Search for Metadata" - also making sure it's the correct platform when it finds the game from the database? It's possible the ID has changed, if for example the game had a duplicate entry and the other ID has been removed.

Sounds to me like a misunderstanding. Did you write what you were planning to do in the "Reason" field? I warmly recommend to use it to avoid any confusion. Sometimes it might be hard for moderators to guess if there's something not so obvious to everyone. Thank you for using your time to add missing backgrounds, they really make a difference especially in BigBox! One more thing on this background topic: I don't know who doesn't do it, but I would personally hope that backgrounds (and back/front cover arts for the matter) would be uploaded in JPG instead of PNG. Those are taking a huge amount of space right now - I'm talking about cases like 0,7MB versus 4MB per image. Screenshots and pictures with a "transparent background" (3D Boxes, logos, discs etc.) are those that really need to be PNG for good upscale and keeping the background transparent. JPG is fine with rectangle shapes otherwise

Does anyone know when we will have more platforms added to the database or should we wait for the next community vote? Just wondering how much down this is on the priority "to-do" list. I have quite a lot of local game media ready to be added as soon as we get more platforms in.

Just a quick comment on my part: I would first look at the cover/back cover (priority North American) information as the main source for the publisher's name as we do for the title name. And my opinion is that companies usually use a shorter version of their trade name for external communication to consumers for example. And for legal contracts, agreements, manuals, contact details etc. they use full trade names. I don't think this community driven database requires the full legal trade names of publishers and what type of business (limited, public, co-operative, private etc.) the company it is. I'd stick with the simpler approach. But that's just my opinion. Big gaming databases like Gamefaqs (simpler) and Moby Games (gathering all possible regional versions, type of business) are total opposites in Company naming. There's truly nothing wrong or more right about this. The question is, what do we want? (I know that I'm going to take a break from moderation if someone starts to change every publisher's that's already out there ?)

Please read this thread below (it's not an old thread, you could actually have posted there before making a new thread about the same kind of topic), there's been quite a lot of discussion about this and the reasoning is good - so let's PLEASE not go back and forth on the database and rather keep to the image tags as they are mentioned and explained:

Sorry Pike, I should have been more clear about Game & Watch being from Nintendo My first touch to gaming back in the 80's .What is really cool is that they are bringing a brand new model with the Super Mario 35th Anniversary in 2020. Hopefully at some point the Database Platform list will be tidied up (removing duplicate / empty ones) and will have some brand new (well, actually old) platforms too. There's a thread for new platforms here:

Some of them are (intentionally) mixed up in the Game & Watch Platform: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/platforms/games/166 I think they are meant to be there, since they don't have any other place (kind of a unwritten thing, probably because there's a core in retroarch that had them mixed up and a tutorial for that): I'm using that platform to get metadata from the Database and have them as separate platforms for: Bandai Electronics Konami Hanhelds Misc Handhelds Tiger Electronics So we would need NEW platforms to get those database entries moved where they would belong. The question is of course, what to call the platforms. "Easier" ones are probably Electronic games by Bandai, Tiger and Konami: