Resolved - Splitting super nintendo games into two reduntant categories of platform sfc snes, No need for this - Informational

[Freestate]

Super Famicom and SNES are the same platform. No need for this, bad decision that leads to duplicate entries. We need regional info on games, not split with regional platform games. STOP DOING THIS! The better choice to avoid duplicates is, to add only 1 entry with regional data on this, languajes, regional releases, names covers,etc. With this workarround if we have some undetected duplicate games on our romsets, undetected because customized western games or other changes, the scrapping classifies as the same ame and we can delete or merge into some type of launch eur version, launch us version, etc. creating two platform entries for regional is a mess, and don't have sense, what's the criteria to add a snes game into super famicom entry? Only available on japan? Only on japanese? If the game is translated into english with fanbase translation is a snes o superfamicom game? Why no euro exclusive platform? Please stop doing this or clarify.

[FistyDollars]

Personally, I agree. I also don't think we should have split the NES/Famicom. You can split hairs and say there were slight differences between the hardware, but they were the same console. If No-Intro distributes the romset in the same archive, then to me that counts as the same hardware. Same with having entries for Genesis/Mega Drive.

[Freestate]

This decision is only made in my opinion for fans of hyperlist/hyperspin, hyperlist for example have crazy lists that they and emumovies say complete with missing games, crazy criteria about what game are included or not, and other questionable choices about naming. I personally i refuse any change on moderation from snes to super famicom until they clarify this issue or establish a clear and valid criteria to accept this split, for example only add on super famicom platform the japan exclusives without english translations made by fans or simething like that. But i insist, is a non logic decision and a bad workarround. Much better only one entry for game in one platform, with all the data, and next an option to scrape as user likes better.

[Zombeaver]

I'm not entirely sure I understand the issue here. Isn't this precisely what scrape-as allows you to bypass if you so choose? You can divide them up (or, more to the point, combine them) in your own library however you choose. If you don't want to have Capcom CPS-1, Capcom CPS-2, NeoGeo, etc. and instead have them all under the platform of "Arcade" in your library, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. That's what scrape-as allows you to do. There are people (@CriticalCid, I'm looking at you ) that like to have everything strictly divided out by region so, for example, separate entries for TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine. If you don't want that, fine - scrape them all as TurboGrafx-16 (or PC Engine, whatever your preference). Done. It's entirely possible that I've misunderstood the issue, I don't know. But @bundangdon, I can tell you for sure that the issue you're specifically mentioning is entirely fixable via scrape-as. If they're already imported and you have 200 SNES games in your library and 200 Super Famicom games and you want them all to be called SNES, just select all the Super Famicom ones and bulk edit the associated platform to SNES and you're done.

[FistyDollars]

Zombeaver said I'm not entirely sure I understand the issue here. Isn't this precisely what scrape-as allows you to bypass if you so choose? You can divide them up (or, more to the point, combine them) in your own library however you choose. If you don't want to have Capcom CPS-1, Capcom CPS-2, NeoGeo, etc. and instead have them all under the platform of "Arcade" in your library, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. That's what scrape-as allows you to do. There are people (@CriticalCid, I'm looking at you ) that like to have everything strictly divided out by region so, for example, separate entries for TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine. If you don't want that, fine - scrape them all as TurboGrafx-16 (or PC Engine, whatever your preference). Done. It's entirely possible that I've misunderstood the issue, I don't know. But @bundangdon, I can tell you for sure that the issue you're specifically mentioning is entirely fixable via scrape-as. If they're already imported and you have 200 SNES games in your library and 200 Super Famicom games and you want them all to be called SNES, just select all the Super Famicom ones and bulk edit the associated platform to SNES and you're done.

Well I can't speak for Freestate, but the issue I have with dividing the platforms is simple; it's not uniformly applied to every platform. For example; somebody importing Super Nintendo games will have to worry about whether the game is considered "Super Famicom" or "Super Nintendo", whereas somebody importing, say, a PS1 game won't have that problem, and they won't have that problem for the completely arbitrary reason of Sony choosing to keep the Sony PlayStation name consistent worldwide. If you're going to have regional sub-sections for each platform, either do them all, or don't do any of them. Right now the biggest flaw with the DB is that there's no support for regional differences. I recently had to rebuild my entire front-end setup after a catastrophic drive failure, and when I used the ROM Importer for my NES games, more than half of them weren't imported correctly, because we've arbitrarily decided to cordon them off in the Famicom section. However, since we hadn't yet split the Super Famicom games when I rebuilt, I didn't have any issue with them, and it was a much more pleasant experience. And if I found the NES/Famicom importing issue unpleasant, I can only imagine how any new users feel when things don't go as smoothly as they could. From a moderation standpoint, I'll follow whatever guidelines we decide to set, but my personal opinion is that we're dividing things that don't need to be divided.

[Freestate]

https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/issues/122/merge-superfamicom-and-super-nintendo Vote!

[Zombeaver]

FistyDollars said ...it's not uniformly applied to every platform.

Well now that I certainly understand. If there's going to be a way that's decided upon, arbitrary or not, it needs to be consistent.

FistyDollars said If you're going to have regional sub-sections for each platform, either do them all, or don't do any of them. Right now the biggest flaw with the DB is that there's no support for regional differences.

Yeah, that seems reasonable to me.

FistyDollars said For example; somebody importing Super Nintendo games will have to worry about whether the game is considered "Super Famicom" or "Super Nintendo"... ...when I used the ROM Importer for my NES games, more than half of them weren't imported correctly, because we've arbitrarily decided to cordon them off in the Famicom section.

You kinda lose me here though - again, you can associate them with whatever you want and scrape them as whatever you want. If you don't want to divide them out, or divide them out differently than what's currently in the DB, that's an extremely easy and fast fix - just select them all and change the associated platform. Or, if it's the first time you're importing, indicate that they're all [insert platform] and to scrape them as [insert platform] -> they'll show up in the platform you specify with metadata scraped from the platform you specify. If you don't want half your games associated with Super Famicom, you don't have to. To me we're talking about two separate things here. Games DB cleanup/consistency is something that definitely should be addressed, but I don't think that's necessarily an issue that affects your own library so long as you're scraping/associating the way you want it. If you want to associate them all with a platform you call "The Super Awesome Turbo Console" and scrape them as SNES you can do that. If you don't correctly associate them upon import or decide you want to associate them with something else post-import, you can do that. Some people want these divided out, is all I'm saying, and I don't want to take away that functionality just because people don't take advantage of scrape-as or bulk-edit.

[Freestate]

It's a flawed funtionality. 1. In no time we could have duplicate entries like cybernator and assault suits valken etc, some defend that are diferent games on sfc and snes and other no, work to delete, work to add, losing time. 2. There's no clear policy to asign a game to super famicom, i've seen some games released on europe going to superfamicom platform because don't have US release.WT*! 3. All this issues are more and more work for moderators. Please, put on top of priority the regional data and games and avoid this workarounds. It's much better doing things right from the beginning than adding patches. Is much better have only one entry, add release and regional data and adding some presentation option on launchbox as split platform games with regional exclusives or something like that, view the japanese only separated, etc.

[Zombeaver]

Freestate said 1. In no time we could have duplicate entries like cybernator and assault suits valken etc, some defend that are diferent games on sfc and snes and other no, work to delete, work to add, losing time.

Except that, almost invariably, they'll have different box art and may or may not be different games in some way like Probotector vs Contra.

Freestate said 2. There's no clear policy to asign a game to super famicom, i've seen some games released on europe going to superfamicom platform because don't have US release.WT*!

I agree that there should be some kind of formal decision for moderation purposes on how they should be handled. It needs to be consistent, whatever is decided upon.

Freestate said 3. All this issues are more and more work for moderators. Please, put on top of priority the regional data and games and avoid this workarounds. It's much better doing things right from the beginning than adding patches.

I think that's being a bit dramatic, but okay. If someone submits images for the PAL cover that's listed under a single game entry with image subcategories per region, those individual images still have to be approved just as if they were submitted to separate game entries. The game description seems like it's the only thing that would really be redundant, though even that wouldn't necessarily be the case if there were significant differences between regional versions.

Freestate said add release and regional data and adding some presentation option on launchbox as split platform games with regional exclusives or something like that, view the japanese only separated, etc.

Except you realize that that's probably even more of a moderation nightmare than what you're claiming is "more work" now right? If there's some giant, reliable, and easy to use list of all those, then I'd love to see it. I hope you're not suggesting that mods are going to dig through something like this because not only would that take forever, I'm almost certain it's incomplete. If there's a feasible way to make this happen, I'm all for it, but I haven't heard it yet; and until there's some kind of feasible plan to implement it I don't think haphazardly dumping everything into one platform is the answer in the meantime.

[FistyDollars]

Zombeaver said You kinda lose me here though - again, you can associate them with whatever you want and scrape them as whatever you want. If you don't want to divide them out, or divide them out differently than what's currently in the DB, that's an extremely easy and fast fix - just select them all and change the associated platform. Or, if it's the first time you're importing, indicate that they're all [insert platform] and to scrape them as [insert platform] -> they'll show up in the platform you specify with metadata scraped from the platform you specify. If you don't want half your games associated with Super Famicom, you don't have to. To me we're talking about two separate things here. Games DB cleanup/consistency is something that definitely should be addressed, but I don't think that's necessarily an issue that affects your own library so long as you're scraping/associating the way you want it. If you want to associate them all with a platform you call "The Super Awesome Turbo Console" and scrape them as SNES you can do that. If you don't correctly associate them upon import or decide you want to associate them with something else post-import, you can do that. Some people want these divided out, is all I'm saying, and I don't want to take away that functionality just because people don't take advantage of scrape-as or bulk-edit.

You're right, I'm just kind of cranky about having to rebuild my setup, and let myself get off topic. Sorry.

[Zombeaver]

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.

[CriticalCid]

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.

[DOS76]

I agree that the regional stuff should get prioritized.

[Zombeaver]

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?

[CriticalCid]

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. Also LaunchBox currently downloads all available artwork for every region but it’s totally random which artwork it uses. 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.

[Zombeaver]

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

[CriticalCid]

Zombeaver said 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.

Jason already has added support for the region tag in either 6.5 or 6.6, can't remeber which version it exactly was. So yeah, the groundwork is already done ;) And if a ROM file hasn't the region tag in it you can always add the region manually in LB or consider to change your ROMset to a better one like No-Intro. 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

[Freestate]

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.

DOS76 said I agree that the regional stuff should get prioritized.

yeah! thanks for the support, guys !

[Zombeaver]

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]

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. 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).