Games w/launchers

[spacegoathlz]

I haven't even tried it, but I have been thinking of playing some Rift/Wildstar again, and wondered, since steam games can be run through launchbox, can it be done with Blizzard, Origin, etc? I've got a few hours of downloading before I can even give it a shot and I'm hoping someone already knows the answer and will save me more hours of trying and failing.

[ckp]

I have the same question. What is the process to add Origin and Blizzard games? Same question for non launcher PC games? I already know how to add Steam games. Thanks.

[Lordmonkus]

Blizzard games can be run bypassing the launcher, if you look inside the games folder you will find the exe for the game. Now of course you will need to be logged into battle.net already to play their games unless you are using a copy of their games that do not require a login like playing WoW on a private server for example.

I think the same applies to Origin but I do not know since I so not give EA money for their trash.

Adding PC games is sort an annoying process right now but last night I finally added my PC games to Launchbox and the way I did it was to just drag in the games shortcut files (I keep all my games shortcuts sorted in a games folder for my Windows Start menu). I put them under the Windows platform but I had to assign an emulator on the import and this is where it gets annoying. Once all the games are imported you them need to go into the Windows platform and for each game you need to "uncheck" the "use an emulator" box in the Emulation tab of the edit box. This really needs a bulk edit option or a way to not have to set an emulator in the import.

If someone knows of a better way to do this then please post it here.

[DOS76]

Yeah the ability to set the emulator to null in the bulk edit wizard would be the easiest way I could think of and then that would uncheck all of the emulator boxes.

[ckp]

Are you guys saying I can just drag and drop my existing game shortcuts (with launchers and without) into my LB "Windows" platform and that should add those shortcuts so they will just get run as though i double clicked the shortcut? Because that seems like what I want.

First I am trying the Import Windows Games wizard and will see if that works well and finds everything or not.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah.

But on import you will have to set an emulator to that platform in the import wizard. Just pick a random emulator, it doesn't matter which one. Then once they are all imported you will need to right click each game one at a time and edit them, go to the emulator tab and uncheck the box for use an emulator to play this game. That's the pain in the ass part.

I didn't do the Import Windows Games method, so let me know how that turns out for you.

[ckp]

I just tried it and it did not ask me to pick any emulator. But it only got my 4 Origin games and those appear in Windows platform fine.  They do not appear to have any emulator associated to them. Cool. Maybe the developers improved the Wizard in my version.

The others it found were not correct so I had to press delete on those ones. So for those other ones (like Blizzard and non launcher games, I will try drag drop to LB Windows Platform and see what happens.

[Lordmonkus]

Ok, so the Import Windows Games is hit and miss.

The way I described above will work, it's just a bit of a pain with the extra step of uncheck the use emulator box for each and every game. But I did it last night for 46 games

[ckp]

I just noticed that when I did the Steam import wizard the other day that it missed one game. It did not import the new Doom game. That game is listed in my public profile like all the others. So I just ran Steam import again and it said it didn't find anything new.

Must be a LB bug?

[Lordmonkus]

Hmm maybe, I didn't import my Steam stuff at all.

[ckp]

I just tried drag/drop my windows game shortcuts into Windows platform that have not been imported yet, but it did not import any of them (and I had to choose ms-dos games or roms so i chose ms-dos)?  The import wizard did come up and I went through it. I chose to copy files (actually shortcut links) to LB. What's the trick?

Edited August 24, 2016 by ckp

[Lordmonkus]

When I did it I chose roms (not ms-dos) and I left my short cut files where they were like I always do with my roms.

[ckp]

And there you have it. Worked doing it that way, thank you!

Except it refuses to get the latest Doom game shortcut, just like it failed with Steam! Maybe it thinks it is a duplicate??

[Lordmonkus]

Maybe. Is there a Doom shortcut already in your Launchbox ?

[ckp]

Not in Windows platform, but there are some Doom games in Mame. I imported with force duplicate and got it. But it didn't find any art. I put an image named Doom.jpg in the images\windows\front folders but still no image art?

[Lordmonkus]

Doom games in Mame ? That is weird unless you imported them to that platform or something. If you rescrape the game and it doesn't come up with the new Doom you may just have to input all the metadata and images yourself. I have had to do that for certain games.

[ckp]

Oops, not in Mame. There was the same name game in Nintendo Game Boy Advance. 

[DOS76]

@lordmonkushave you ever tried making an empty .bat as a generic emulator for games like this then the .bat would be the emulator but when you clicked the game it would try to run the .bat and then launch the game. I've never tested it out but think it would work.

[ckp]

emulator of cmd.exe instead of a batch file could be another option.

[Lordmonkus]

Hmm, no idea if this would work, never thought of it or tried it.