New Fields

[diamondgeezer]

I think it would be great to have a field for games with cases as they are mixed in with " Box front reconstructed "  which have a lot of high quality box fronts as well . It would save a lot of time and bandwidth for those who just want the game image in the plastic case and not the high res ones as well.

[Fugus]

The main new fields I would love to see added to the database, but would have to restrict access to changing them to only the more trusted users.

File Name : this would be a godsend for the mame collection, especially given that they have games with the exact same title but different games and all but you know for a fact the name of the zip/7zip file attached to it as it has to be named correctly for Mame to launch it.
File Hash: This would be for games that can be matched against the No-Intro/ReDump databases so they can be 100% for sure matched regardless of naming conventions.

Also, a future feature I hope for you guys to add will eventually to be a video entry into the database, lock access to it behind a license requirement if need be but having one associated with the actual database entry would be a huge benefit. I have a lifetime membership to EmuMovies myself and even with that, I have resorted to using ScreenScraper and having it look for nothing but videos and front box art since they are on a database setup like you guys just so I can compare the frontbox art to the file names to make sure they are matched and then moving those movies to the launchbox folders and then just using EmuMovies for the missing ones that I then verify personally if I can and leave blank if I can't because the rate of false positives due to how their search is setup and trying to watch each of the videos to make sure they matched every game would be an impossible task if you have games you haven't played yourself yet and don't know the content in them.

Edit:  This is something that would be completely unreasonable as an actual request but more of a wish list.

And as an extension of the file hash setup to make it more usable. Separate each system into 2 databases, one with the official, unlicensed, and virtual console like games and the other for the homebrew, aftermarket, and hacks.

That way the first list could eventually get completed at which point it could be locked where no new entries could be made or deleted from it and only metadata and media changed in it. Would make that part highly stable and the only ones where a file hash could reasonably be used and those database numbers will never reasonably change if anyone wanted to update their databases metadata down the line. Many of them would likely be completed already minus any future virtual console setups where the developers themselves retroactively added something.

The second database would still get new stuff added to it regularly though as new hacks, aftermarket, and homebrew get added regularly.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Fugus

[MJF]

An individual game credits field would be nice set apart from the "developer" field where you can credit Tomohiro Nishikado for Space Invaders for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invaders

 

More region options would be nice as well. Mexico, Poland, etc. There were a number of Polish only releases, particularly during the 8 and 16 bit eras.

Edited January 7, 2023 by MJF

[Freestate]

On 4/25/2016 at 9:51 PM, Jason Carr said:

I'll be adding new fields soon to the database. I want to add all new fields in one fell swoop so I figured we should discuss it first. Open to ideas and suggestions about new fields to add. First off, one field I want to add is Series, to match the Series field that we have in LaunchBox. Beyond that, I want to better handle the description for multiplayer games. Right now we have "Max Players" and "Cooperative" but that doesn't quite cover all the details. At first I thought about replacing Max Players and adding a new "Play Mode" field to match the one in LaunchBox with options like "2-Player Alternating" and "2-Player Simultaneous", but with online games these days I'm thinking that would get unruly fast. So my current plan is to keep "Max Players" and add a new field called "Multiplayer Modes" with these options: Alternating Simultaneous Cooperative Online Split-Screen This would eliminate the Cooperative check box (we can move the data over to the new field easily). Also, of course you would be able to select several of these options at once. Looking for feedback on the above and also any new fields you think are important to add. Thanks guys! I'd like to nail these down before I implement the last major piece, which is adding new games.

Here we go! My choices and opinion.

Missing fields that we need to stop some common feuds and workarounds in contribution-moderation.

Fanart - Box - 3D (to include fanmedia 3D Boxes and avoid mixing with retail based ones)

Fanart - Clear Logo (exactly the same, people use region priorities some times to download their region retail art but they must have fan creations as something transparent to them not something mixed and umpredictable)

Cart - Front - Reconstructed (some users prefer just legit pictures of carts and others restored images using standarized cart templates, due to the lack of reconstructed option, sometimes they were moved to fancart category triggering similar issues mixing retail based carts with fancarts).

With the options currently available, the moderators and contributors who work in the database have to be constantly looking for alternatives and generating stupid fights for the particular tastes of each one. There are users who prefer only official art and others insist on uploading art created by them to standarize by region the visual aspect of their collections even though there are no suitable options for their creations. This causes media downloads to be unpredictable, and a simple prioritization of regions (something as simple as prioritizing usa or europe to have the images of the releases you remember from your childhood) causes a chaotic mix of mixed fanmedia and official art. 

On the other hand, an option in the launchbox would be desirable where we can choose to only download FAN MEDIA ART when there is no official art available. For those users who only want boxes and extra art created by users in those digital or homebrew games that lack it.

Also Box spine category must be 4 sided, not only one field and also a Fanart - Box - Spine field for fanmedia boxes.

Also including fantranslation patches like romahcking,net could be a great addition.

And considering some feuds about the thinner line between clean up some images and reconstruct them, maybe we could add a field called RAW SCAN media, for those who want to work themselves in restorations and make some modifications in moderator rules to state than a non heavily alterated image but cleaned could be located as main category.

@Jason CarrThanks for the good work!!

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Freestate

[Freestate]

On 11/28/2022 at 8:06 AM, Fugus said:

File Hash: This would be for games that can be matched against the No-Intro/ReDump databases so they can be 100% for sure matched regardless of naming conventions.

 

And as i said years ago could be useful to provide fantranslation language patches (ips format for example) automatically if we add them in the database.

Available languages in every game (oficial and fantranslated) could be also a good addition with two new fields Official Languages and Fantranslation Languages

Edited January 23, 2023 by Freestate

[Freestate]

On 11/28/2022 at 8:06 AM, Fugus said:

And as an extension of the file hash setup to make it more usable. Separate each system into 2 databases, one with the official, unlicensed, and virtual console like games and the other for the homebrew, aftermarket, and hacks.

 

My choice is just keep separated the hacks. Aftermarket and homebrew most of the time are legit and good elaborated games, the overwhelming amount of hacks with minor alterations it's something that in my opinion drives me mad.

[Fugus]

8 hours ago, Freestate said:

My choice is just keep separated the hacks. Aftermarket and homebrew most of the time are legit and good elaborated games, the overwhelming amount of hacks with minor alterations it's something that in my opinion drives me mad.

My part about separating them into 2 databases wasn't about them being good games or not. It was based on the logic that the official/unlicensed/Virtual Console database would have a finite number of entries to it and would eventually be completed. Once it was completed, the alterations on it would be virtually nothing outside of media entries which would also eventually stop. No more having your games entries being just deleted from the database as it was merged with a clone or someone created another one of the exact game and so its original entry was deleted.

When it comes to homebrew/hacks/aftermarket those can theoretically go on forever with new entries and that list would always been messed with because of it.

So, the first list would be the one that most people collected and with a finite number of entries could really be perfected and then more or less locked while the other one would basically go on forever because there will never be a full stop to people making stuff to them for a long time. That was my logic to those changes.

Off-topic, one thing they really  need to address in the entries is the resolution of the submissions. If the resolution of the system is 160 x 192 pixels, then the screenshot shouldn't be in HD or higher. Since the clear logo will never realistically take up more than 1/32nd of your screen, why does it need to be so big that I have a 1440p monitor and it has to scale it down to even fit on it for some of them.

Have me a lifetime membership to Launchbox and to EmuMovies but resorted to ScreenScraper for the screen shots and clear logos and for the movies as well due to their database approach to it since EmuMovies gives too many mismatches given their method. All I have to with the scraper is make sure my front box art matches and I know the screenshots, clear logos, and movies also match. Also, if you check some of the singing and guitar movies, they ended up just being a movie of the game asking for them to insert the controller.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Fugus

[Freestate]

1 hour ago, Fugus said:

My part about separating them into 2 databases wasn't about them being good games or not. It was based on the logic that the official/unlicensed/Virtual Console database would have a finite number of entries to it and would eventually be completed. Once it was completed, the alterations on it would be virtually nothing outside of media entries which would also eventually stop. No more having your games entries being just deleted from the database as it was merged with a clone or someone created another one of the exact game and so its original entry was deleted.

When it comes to homebrew/hacks/aftermarket those can theoretically go on forever with new entries and that list would always been messed with because of it.

So, the first list would be the one that most people collected and with a finite number of entries could really be perfected and then more or less locked while the other one would basically go on forever because there will never be a full stop to people making stuff to them for a long time. That was my logic to those changes.

Off-topic, one thing they really  need to address in the entries is the resolution of the submissions. If the resolution of the system is 160 x 192 pixels, then the screenshot shouldn't be in HD or higher. Since the clear logo will never realistically take up more than 1/32nd of your screen, why does it need to be so big that I have a 1440p monitor and it has to scale it down to even fit on it for some of them.

Have me a lifetime membership to Launchbox and to EmuMovies but resorted to ScreenScraper for the screen shots and clear logos and for the movies as well due to their database approach to it since EmuMovies gives too many mismatches given their method. All I have to with the scraper is make sure my front box art matches and I know the screenshots, clear logos, and movies also match. Also, if you check some of the singing and guitar movies, they ended up just being a movie of the game asking for them to insert the controller.

Certain. Very interesting what you say. Regarding the resolutions,  at least in screenshots it would be very interesting if they were locked to the native resolution of the console and to PNG format, I am very bored of seeing beastly and absurd upscalings. With the logos it depends, because there are themes that use full screen logos, perhaps the best thing to do would be to put a field for the basic logo and another for the hd logo as they do in screenscraper at least for the videos, where I also get bored of the emumovies and API detection failures despite having contributed thousands of alternate names with the intention of using them recursively. I hope that once and for all the database receives improvements that have been necessary for years, I'm tired of seeing how contributors and moderators have to do workarounds for the missing fields and continually fight for things that people want to add and don't have a place specific for it.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Freestate

[MITUB3R]

I would like to request the implementation of the following categories:
Fanart - Box - 3D and Fanart - Clear Logo. I would also like to publicly ask the user who requests to delete the fan arts saying that we ask the developers for the function, please wait for the category to be created. You have to think about the common good, please.

[CuzzinChizzy]

I use LB/BB not only as a frontend but also as my own personal game database.
So my wish list would include

Own Physical
Own Digital
Have Rom
Time to Beat (from HowLongToBeat,  integration?)

maybe a more detailed completion tracker.   A percentage slider, beaten main check box, 100% completion. etc

or the ability to add custom fields. 

[UsielArcade]

I was wondering if you might be willing to add Videogame Rating Council, or VRC to the Sega older platforms (Master System, Genesis, Game Gear, CD, 32X, and Pico). The VRC was established in 1993 by Sega of America due to Mortal Kombat's federal hearings. It was later dropped as the Entertainment Software Rating Board system was applied to all systems. We have a ton of Sega games in the Sega systems with Non Rated as the rating to ESRP, and any other Rating seems to be made after 1995, or just used another Rating for another console. But with VRC we can have additional ratings such as Viewpoint is GA (General Audiences) - Appropriate for all audiences, and Mortal Kombat is MA-13 (Mature Audiences).

With that being said I got another question, how come there's no PEGI section? ESRB is for the US but for our brothers and sisters across the pond they use PEGI (Pan-European Game Information).
 

Edited January 30, 2023 by UsielArcade

[Uplink]

I think one field that should be used as part of the scrapper algorithm that would be IMMENSLY helpful for things like Wii/Vita/PS3/xbox etc would be a Title ID Field. GameTDB hosts artwork etc based on title ID and Vita3k only launches based on title id. So when scanning the DB if the name of a rom is the Title ID it could in theory rename the Sort Title into Clear names. It could also be used to better match Mame, No-Intro, and Redump to match dat names (or a Dat Name field could be added). This would save TONS of time and effort for everyone.

[viritys]

Optional region for Publisher field.
Some capeless hero has been working on removing duplicate companies (if you read this: great job!). When fixing a Nintendo game, he replaced publisher "Nintendo" with "Nintendo of America" and "Nintendo of Europe". Nobody needs both of those listed on their LB, but it would be great if it was optional: I could then pick my preferred region like in other categories and populate the field accordingly.

[Lucoshi]

GameFolders option - This is a good idea to be an easy way to organize the games look for information take a look at:

 

Artwork & Assets - You know you can use anything like use for the concept from Retrocatman0712 (see more on the link below), parts for a more detailed completion tracker, buttons for Controls Info, and more. I want to use to give a Rare Replay vibe and to stop those people from using the artworks with a white background as background.

Game Decompilation, Recompilation & Disassembly - Imagine if LaunchBox could read the coding of the gaming,
Catalog Game Elements like Characters, Places, Items, game engine, etc: You know i'm using custom fields for placeholders.
Won Awards
Press Critics Score
Fansites/Websites
Fanwiki
Link to buy on gog / eBay etc.
Keywords
DLCs
also on xxx System
Tips & Tricks
Spine - Left, Right, Up, Down Mostly for those old box games i want them to be perfect look perfect

Edited September 18 by Lucoshi

[Arthurcoutinho600]

Hello

I have an idea about compilation games that you see the original games that have in these compilations just like IGDB.

Another idea is the new image fields for games that have in bitbucket but i will replicate these interessing ideas

Box - 2.5D (Original, Fanart, Reconstructed), Posters, Alternative Boxes (Greatest Hits, Player Choice, Platinum Hits etc. Original, Fanart and Reconstructed,2D,2.5D and 3D).

Another idea that I see In the bitbucket is the alternative names of the platforms (like clones or arcade cabinet names)

Examples: Nes is the original name, the alternative names is Phantom System, PolyStation,Dendy etc.

Arcade is the original name, the Alternative Names is Sega System 24, Namco NB-1, Arcade Classics, Nintendo Super System etc.

Another idea is the field about Fan games and Non-games (Like multimédia, Game Boy Advance Video and 3DO Video for example)

Thanks

Edited September 19 by Arthurcoutinho600