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LaunchBox Games Database Changes - 2016/08/15


Jason Carr

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Hey everybody, just got done with my work today on the LaunchBox Games Database. Going forward I am hoping to spend one day a week on LaunchBox Games Database development.

In the live stream this morning, we worked primarily on managing the region and platform data. We added a bunch of new regions to the regions lists, as well as merged, removed, and added some platforms:

  • Merged SNES and Super Famicom
  • Merged Genesis, Mega Drive, and Nomad
  • Merged Game Boy and Super Game Boy
  • Renamed Neo Geo platforms to SNK Neo Geo
  • Renamed Daphe to LaserDisc
  • Renamed NEC SuperGrafx to PC Engine SuperGrafx
  • Added Nintendo Game & Watch
  • Added SNK Neo Geo CD
  • Added Nintendo Satellaview
  • Added Taito Type X
  • Added XaviXPORT
  • Added Mattel Hyperscan
  • Added Game Wave Family Entertainment System
  • Added Sega CD 32X
  • Probably more that I forgot about

Then this afternoon I just added support for adding new developers and publishers (yay!). The interface is exactly the same as it was before but the text boxes will now let you add a new developer or publisher if the item that you've typed does not exist.

Finally, we're still seeing some issues with games not getting deleted after game deletions successfully make their way through the moderation process. Thankfully though no data is ever lost because I am able to go in and manually delete these games after the fact. So we are now caught up on game deletions but I have not yet fixed the underlying issue. I added error logging to the site to catch these errors and figure out exactly what is going on for next week.

Thank you everyone for your continued support and work on the LaunchBox Games Database. I realize we still have a way to go to make things ideal (and that it's been a while) but things should be improving quickly from here on out. :)

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One more thing to note, going forward (hopefully next week) I'll be working on adding Regions to games so that you can specify the regions where a game was released. We'll also be adding alternate titles with associated regions as well as adding multiple release dates with associated regions.

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You need to fix some platforms. They should always have the company name in front of the platform.

SNK NeoGeo needs a space between Neo and Geo !!

----

Panasonic 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

Mattel Intellivision

Microsoft MSX

NEC PC-Engine Supergrafx

NEC Turbografx-16

NEC Turbografx-CD

Bandai Wonderswan

Bandai Wonderswan Color

 

This is how roms sets are name, Rocket Launcher and how most users sort the systems.

 

 

 

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Compatibility with Rocket Launcher would require the names to match the way Rocket Launcher does things, or Rocket Launcher needs to add support for the way the LaunchBox GamesDB shows them.

This may be a big issue going forward with naming conventions, however I am not sure the best route to fix them.

 

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14 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Hi @Jazzphone, yes, that is on purpose. Wikipedia states that the official platform is "written as NeoGeo" with no space. It bugs me too though, I have to admit.

Scrape As functionality does help this situation a lot, however if you want to update the Metadata, it will overwrite the platform associated with it and change it back to the way LaunchBox GamesDB names it.

Jason, any update on when we will be able to update the Metadata without overwriting the platform?

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Hey guys, all I can say is it's extremely difficult to make everyone happy. I personally prefer systems to be merged in order to help prevent duplicates and keep consistency at its best.

Rather than rename platforms to match RocketLauncher, we need a way to just match them up. I can add a field, for example, called RocketLauncher Platform or something that can solve that problem. I need to speak further with the RocketLauncher guys to come up with some improvements.

The update metadata without changing platform thing is still on my shortlist, so I'll get to it soon but I'm not sure exactly when @Jazzphone.

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Hi Jason,

I know I am new and maybe this is just because I am so used to my setup this way but I actually prefer not to merge my systems even though I know 99% of Super Famicom games will run on an SNES there is still that 1% that will not (those special chip games). I personally like to see the difference of the look of the console and its unique bio and that platforms database contain all of the games that were released to be played on that system, even if that means i have duplicate roms. I guess my point is at the end of the day they were two separate systems meant for different parts of the world and games that were released for each system that were meant to be played in that region on that system. I like to visually see that separation and its always great when I am showing someone my setup and they say "What the heck is a Super Famicom?!?". 

Honestly it's not like I couldn't accomplish the same thing with the merged databases, really it would just mean that I would have to populate the platform artwork and information manually, not a lot of work. 

Possible suggestion, I am not sure what your database schema looks like but maybe you could have the main platform database for SNES that contains both PAL and NTSC games, then a separate database for Super Famicom for only PAL games, everyone happy. I don't know but with my experience I would guess this preference is split 50/50 some people could care less or would rather have one platform, others couldn't sleep at night unless that distinction was made between the two.

The naming changes however I completely agree with, PC Engine SuperGrafx was the official name same goes for the others. We would probably like you said need something for rocket launcher.

Just my 2 cents. Sorry if i beat this to death :D

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The idea is to still include the differences (including things like region-specific names and unique artwork) but within a single DB entry. It's not quite implemented yet, but with one entry they'll be divided up to still have all the information you want (in it's own subsection), just not spread across multiple "duplicate" DB entries. You're still going to be able to do what you want to do, don't worry. And you can still divide your own library in LB however you choose.

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1 minute ago, Zombeaver said:

The idea is to still include the differences (including things like region-specific names and unique artwork) but within a single DB entry. It's not quite implemented yet, but with one entry they'll be divided up to still have all the information you want (in it's own subsection), just not spread across multiple "duplicate" DB entries. You're still going to be able to do what you want to do, don't worry. And you can still divide your own library in LB however you choose.

I understand. I was actually going to suggest something to that affect. Thank you for keeping my frontend OCD at bay.

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No it's totally understandable. People should be able to organize their own library however they choose (and you still can) we just have to organize things in such a way that they're manageable and so we don't end up with a bunch of duplicates that have to be separately maintained/moderated. The single entry separation is somewhat in place at this point - take a look at the the Contra III entry for example. You can see that the NA, PAL, and JAP covers are all there, and have signifiers for the region (hover over them and you'll see "North America", "Europe" and "Asia") but we don't have region-specific names yet (Super Probotector in Europe). That's being worked on though.

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19 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

No it's totally understandable. People should be able to organize their own library however they choose (and you still can) we just have to organize things in such a way that they're manageable and so we don't end up with a bunch of duplicates that have to be separately maintained/moderated. The single entry separation is somewhat in place at this point - take a look at the the Contra III entry for example. You can see that the NA, PAL, and JAP covers are all there, and have signifiers for the region (hover over them and you'll see "North America", "Europe" and "Asia") but we don't have region-specific names yet (Super Probotector in Europe). That's being worked on though.

Yeah! I'm the one who upload the 3 covers, i'm happy that good judgement has taken here.

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