2 games in DB with identical name, LaunchBox only finds one.

[Z3R0B4NG]

these 2 games are both called "Finders Keepers" but they are different games...  

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/34000
https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/100923

here are the gamebase 64 DB entries for comparison: 
http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=2742&d=18&h=0
http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=25976&d=18&h=0

i just stumbled over one and started adding cover art of the wrong one (which i need to delete tomorrow because moderators will most likely wink it through)

the problem is, LaunchBox only finds one of the two DB entries if they do have an identical name for the same System.

So, what do the rules say in this case? how should i rename them, add the release year (1985/1983) or the Publisher? ...can't leave it like that if LaunchBox bugs out because of it.

...and why would the LBDB allow for same name entries to begin with if the software can't handle it, seems like something that could be prevented in software before it happens.

[Thanatos_Prime]

I fixed this. Both now have alternate names Finders Keepers (Mastertronic) and Finders Keepers (Carousel) you can use these to match the correct games once the changes roll through tomorrow.

[Z3R0B4NG]

here are 3 more "The Great Escape"

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/102809

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/102810

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/6249

[kurzih]

On 4/7/2020 at 5:41 PM, Thanatos_Prime said:

I fixed this. Both now have alternate names Finders Keepers (Mastertronic) and Finders Keepers (Carousel) you can use these to match the correct games once the changes roll through tomorrow.

Hi,

Doesn't changing the alternate name still find it in the LB software's search function as just "Finders Keepers"? Though the one matching the correct LB ID with game overview, publisher, year etc. this time as you said.

But then wouldn't the issue with binding images still remains if the games are identical in main name? Let's say both have NA covers. Wouldn't they share those even if they are completely different games? In that case both entries will be mixed with each others images/media. I'd assume changing the main name (into alt name for example) would bind those images to their unique names?

Media/images are .. problematic with identical main names for different games. (I had a problem with that with Arcade's PlayChoice-10 titles, which I actually started to submit here so they don't "overwrite" themselves with the same Arcade titles, it was pain with having the correct video for each as well).

Edit: Alt names are great if they are for the same game using different regional names for example. I think you could also manually rename a Western title into it's Japanese name and if it has (Japan) media it would show those after refreshing. Brilliant if you like some cool Mega Drive covers from Japan. That's when I really realized the importance of binding images and game titles (and having correct media/region info).

Edited April 14, 2020 by kurzih

[Z3R0B4NG]

7 hours ago, kurzih said:

Doesn't changing the alternate name still find it in the LB software's search function as just "Finders Keepers"?

that is a yes.  

you could MAYBE identify it when manually searching if the release date was entered correctly and you happen to know it (fat chance of that), but no idea what happens in mass importing.  

Worse:  
i got a game "Aliens" which is some Homebrew thing from a magazine, not the retail game, so i renamed it "Aliens (CP Verlag)" and the video from Emu Movies that is just Aliens.mp4 still plays, of course that is the wrong video.  
I think it either ignores the (CP Verlag) part entirely or just grabs onto the closest filename.  

I also tried deleting the path to the video inside the Edit window for the game, but it doesn't care and adds it right back as soon as you click on it.  

//EDIT:
ok i just tested a bit on my end, didn't change anything in the database for this.  

if i have a game

"Alien" and a game "Alien (CP Verlag)"

then Launchbox turns the names of the pictures into

Alien-01.png and Alien (CP Verlag)-01.png and does not get confused.

but the video Alien.mp4 gets used for both... i do not have a video for the (CP Verlag) version...
if i rename another video and call it "Alien (CP Verlag).mp4" then it uses that one. 

if there is only one Alien.mp4 ALSO if i rename that entire game Alien (The Game).mp4  ...then Alien (CP Verlag) will STILL latch onto this video ...i guess it acts that way because the stuff in the brackets might as well be a region tag or something.  
and for the record: when i renamed the game in LaunchBox from Alien to Alien (The Game) it did not rename the mp4 file, only the pictures.  

and i don't want to rename the game for the official Movie game anyway, not because some kid got his homebrew thing with the same name onto a magazine disk...  

Edited April 14, 2020 by Z3R0B4NG

[kurzih]

I have to say, while just moderating a minute ago someone AGAIN is trying to mess the database up by changing the unique game names for games that happen to have the same name on the cover/screen title. 
If that goes through we will have duplicated names in the database and big issues:

If there are titles named, under the same platform, exactly the same, they will be messed/mixed up with images, since the images/media are saved based on the game's name. And second, the search function will not find all the entries with the same name, it will probably display only the one that is first in #ID order and ignore the others named the same.

What's important:

- Title names must be unique under the same platform, and what has been used (a lot of moderation work behind that, I thank those for doing it!) works well enough: "TITLE NAME (PUBLISHER) or in some cases if publisher happens to be the same: "TITLE NAME (YEAR)".

- The actual "proper" name, like "Alien" can be added as the ALT name - it will actually help the search function find those "TITLE NAME (PUBLISHER)" if for example the rom file is not named like that - but many collections actually are using "game name(publisher)(year)" to distinguish different games under the same title name.

Do correct this information if I'm wrong, but this is what I've been experiencing.

EDIT: updated entry to reflect the latest development: The Main Default name still needs to be unique on the same platform, but the Alternative name cannot be identical anymore/cannot be used as it was since it will not show up if there is multiple identical alternative names.

Edited December 26, 2020 by kurzih

[Z3R0B4NG]

Thanks for defending, i just rejected a bunch of those as well.... heck i probably made most of these changes a few weeks back myself (and 3 moderators accepted the changes!).  

The only idea to permanently stop this sort of thing i have is to add another level, like a Super Moderator with elevated rights who then will LOCK certain fields from being changed.  

More candidates for locking would be all the "Pokémon" games that again and again get renamed to "Pokemon"... i see back and forth there every few days now, i just press ignore for 24 hours by now when i see anything pokemon related, i don't know about that stuff and i don't care anymore i let others deal with that noise ... Astérix / Asterix maybe ... anything leading with Disney / Disney-Pixar presents ...  (not 100% sure but i think we don't want that, even though it is written on the box, the No-Intro and Redump naming is super inconsistent with that as well, i just know some people went through all of those and removed the Disney stuff some time ago).  

----

A few more issues or rather "odd behavior" i noticed with media is that for Filenames specifically "TITLE NAME (PUBLISHER)" ... the (PUBLISHER) part is ignored by Launchbox (because that is where No-Intro naming puts all the tags like regions or Disc 1 Disc 2 and so on) unless there is a -01 behind it. 

So a picture with the name "TITLE NAME (PUBLISHER).png" will show up for all games with that Name, but "TITLE NAME (PUBLISHER)-01.png" only shows up for the correct game from that publisher.  

For scraped Media that is done automatically, except for VIDEOS from EmuMovies.  
Even more fun, if you have GAME (Publisher 1) and GAME (Publisher 2), you scrape the first game and you get a GAME (Publisher 1).AVI file, which will be displayed for both games. You then scrape game 2 and the video for game 1 will be DELETED, when video for game 2 with different filename is downloaded, now both games show video number 2. So now you need to go outside the app and manually move the one video you have out of there, download the other and throw your backup back in for both games to display their own video.

I would not be surprised if i am the only one who ever even noticed that happening.  

I bet even @Jason Carr isn't aware of his app doing that. ? ? ?

[Thanatos_Prime]

I was hoping to see a comment from the moderator that is attempting to remove these entries, with an explanation of why they are consistently working to remove these fixed Commodore 64 entry names. I will be linking this thread to all the declines I do for this in the future. It is good to know that there are others out there defending the changes.

 

[Jakatsu]

Yeah, noticed the same and rejected those changes. Makes sense to keep the names as they are now.

[fordgt68]

Hi

First I'm not a moderator, I only concentrate on entering more games into the database.

First time writing on the forum as I have been madly entering C64 games for the past 2 1/2 years with 75,000 submitted changes with 545 rejected changes.  I have been waiting for this conversion to come up and seek some clarification around naming conventions for duplicate titled games.  Seems like the community is divided when it comes to handling this issue.   A year and a half ago I started entering duplicate games with TITLE (PUBLISHER) etc and was rejected every time on the changes.  Since then it seems that the ball park has changed and now it is accepted by a few to have (XXX) after the title.  Personally I think it is messy and not true to the title name however I see the issues around duplicate games.

Having super moderators seems like a narrow approach to the issues as the community needs to have input into this issue.  Maybe voting and if the community decides how to handle this then we all adopt the approach.

Personally if we all decide to have (XXXX) after the game titles I would prefer to see [XXXX] which has the same effect because I think some game titles have brackets () in them at release and this would separate the two areas.

Jordan vs Bird - One On One [Disk 1 of 2]

Jordan vs Bird - One On One [Disk 2 of 2]

Journey [CRL]

Journey [Keypunch]

Jet-Boys [E]

Jet-Boys [US]

Jet [1985] [Disk 1 of 2]

Jet [1986] [Disk 1 of 2]

Jaws [Box Office] [Disk 1 of 2]

Jaws [Box Office] [Disk 2 of 2]

Working with media filenames you can also place the game ID after the art work filename which separates the two game titles and links perfectly to the correct game with no issues.

Sonic Boom.15565ba2-0e8c-410a-b56e-794925260f81-01

Sonic Boom.a8045be5-bde9-4483-ae3e-624b3c20e2f4-01

I will stop changing the (XXXX) games and get back to entering the C64 games in.  Up to "S" at present and this letter has a lot of games.

Hopefully there will be some resolution.

Thanks everybody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thanatos_Prime]

1 hour ago, fordgt68 said:

Jordan vs Bird - One On One [Disk 1 of 2]  Just do these as a single entry Jordan vs Bird: One on One (note not using dashes as separators), combine both titles in Launchbox. We won't be having separate entries per disk per game entry rules, however having an alt name of Jordan vs Bird: One On One [Disk 1 of 2] and another with the second disk would make complete sense.

Jordan vs Bird - One On One [Disk 2 of 2] see above, should be part of a single entry but could be alt name especially if these match one of the most common ROM sets.

Journey [CRL] if they weren't both coded by Scott Elder then yes!

Journey [Keypunch] Perfect unless above

Jet-Boys [E] Jet-Boys [US]  This would be a single game entry with 2/3 publishers Accolade/Advantage for US and CRL for Europe as it appears these are the same code

Jet [1985] [Disk 1 of 2] Jet [1986] [Disk 1 of 2] one entry combine disks in Launchbox, possible alt names here

Jaws [Box Office] [Disk 1 of 2] Jaws [Box Office] [Disk 2 of 2] Same, combine, alt names

Thanks for all your hard work, see above for some notes on these as I think you may be making some assumptions about what we mean.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Thanatos_Prime

[Z3R0B4NG]

1 hour ago, fordgt68 said:

First I'm not a moderator, I only concentrate on entering more games into the database.

First time writing on the forum as I have been madly entering C64 games for the past 2 1/2 years with 75,000 submitted changes with 545 rejected changes.  I have been waiting for this conversion to come up and seek some clarification around naming conventions for duplicate titled games.

First of all, welcome and thanks for all the work, C64 is what i consider a "hard mode" system to deal with, thanks to the open nature and all the homebrew.  
The console systems with practically complete No-Intro sets are certainly much easier to deal with and magnitudes smaller in scale.  

My idea with the super moderator thing would also include a pinned thread on the forum where everyone can bring up problems, how to best handle those issues would then be discussed between the moderators and the decision would be locked permanently. Priority would of course be to lock as little stuff as possible and i would not expect the two or three super mods to look around all day for just these cases but to act when users need help with something specific,
just the stuff that counts as edge cases, where the regular rules are not enough and people keep making a mess again and again because of circular logic.  

The thing is we are all just users here and are saying what we think, none of us have any power to say how it has to be or to decide on new rules or sub-rules etc. i don't even know who we would talk to about that.  

Having 2 or 3 somewhat active users be named super moderators who deal with little inconsistencies and these pesky back and forth looping situations just makes sense to me, it would also be relatively easy to implement from a coding perspective by the developer, giving a few users the function to lock and unlock certain fields in a database should not be the hardest thing ever or even all that time intensive to create (you would have that nailed down in a weekend).  

If we talk about making polls and stuff that gets more coding intensive fast with every extra feature and button that is needed.  (...or so i imagine.)  

Throwing in a sticky thread where people can bring up issues that the "super moderators" then have to decide on how to deal with is a matter of minutes.  
And this still gives everyone an easy option to bring up issues and get problems resolved, have their voice heard... or at least get a "NO and this is why" as an answer.  

I fiddled a bit with making websites and coding myself here and there, my natural way of thinking is lowest effort way to implement a solution that gets you the result you want out of it.  
Anything too complex or wild is an uphill battle to convince any Developer to implement.  

But that is just MY idea/suggestion to deal with it and i have no say in what, if anything, actually happens.  

Edited May 9, 2020 by Z3R0B4NG

[fordgt68]

Z3R04NG and Thanatos_Prime thanks for feedback.

Sorry to miss lead you Thanatos_Prime the Game List I posted was actually my Zip file names from my personal collect not how I would place them on the Game Database.  I agreed with not using "-" and I do use ":" all the time and multiple disk are always combined together in one title.  I guess I was looking at swapping "( )" or "[ ]" if the community start using "(PUBLISHER)" etc but that is just my personal option. 95% of what you have written for examples  I have been implementing when entering new games.  It is good that I'm at least on the same page with most of it. ?

Z3R04NG wasn't trying to offend you with your idea of super moderators and after your explanation makes more sense.

It is hard to do the right thing as so many people have different options and the style seems to change with time and different people coming through as moderators.

Is there a truly comprehensive naming convention out there that sets that guidelines?    If not it would be good as a cheat sheet on the front page for download to help guide us.

I will keep entering the new games to the best I know which seems to have been received well with low rejections.  After that if the groups wish to use "(PUBLISHER)" in the name title I will leave this to the moderators and not make any back changes when I see this.

The main thing for me is to get all those games not listed on to the C64 platform with as much media that I can find.  Minor tweaks can be made as we move along.

Keep up the great work everyone.  This is growing in to one of the biggest one stop shop for all your game info and media holdings on the web.

[Z3R0B4NG]

The ultimate clean solution would be using hash values of course... and that appears to be on the radar already.

 

[kurzih]

19 hours ago, fordgt68 said:

Hi

First I'm not a moderator, I only concentrate on entering more games into the database.

First time writing on the forum as I have been madly entering C64 games for the past 2 1/2 years with 75,000 submitted changes with 545 rejected changes. 

 

Hi @fordgt68

Just wanted to personally thank you for your contribution! C64 was my first computer, really appreciate your effort! It looks you're not far away from getting everything done with C64, compared to what's behind you already.

I've actually started to make my own "platform" list for Commodore 64 Demos and I already made a Launchbox "platform" list of a few thousand Commodore Amiga demos & Intros, with screenshots, logos, backgrounds etcs. Too bad we can't use them directly in the Database, but maybe I could share those if someone finds them interesting.

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by kurzih

[MJF]

Magazine/book type-in games tend to be the biggest "offender" when it comes to these multiple same name games. I added the North American version of Bionic Commando separately since it's a completely different game than the European version. So I just re-named them Bionic Commando (PAL Version) and Bionic Commando (NTSC Version) respectively

[viritys]

So I've taken a mission to fix Nintendo DS entries. Right now I'm struggling with a pair of games with identical names (America's Next Top Model) where the existing entry is for the 2008 version and the box art is for the 2010 version. I can't add the new game because moderators, sharp as they are, notice that the box art already exists and decline it. I can't explain it in the comments because there is no commenting available when you're adding new games.  I then tried to approach it the other way around and replaced the existing wrong art with the right one, but my feeble attempts are getting denied as well - this time I did explain why but that didn't seem to help at all.  

So, assuming my latest change requests are getting denied again, I'll try renaming the new game with (publisher) just to get it through, betting on the moderators to be sharp enough to compare the publishers - but, reading this thread, turns out the naming change is likely to get denied as well.  

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/605120-americas-next-top-model-2008

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/954296-americas-next-top-model

[kurzih]

9 minutes ago, viritys said:

So I've taken a mission to fix Nintendo DS entries. Right now I'm struggling with a pair of games with identical names (America's Next Top Model) where the existing entry is for the 2008 version and the box art is for the 2010 version. I can't add the new game because moderators, sharp as they are, notice that the box art already exists and decline it. I can't explain it in the comments because there is no commenting available when you're adding new games.  I then tried to approach it the other way around and replaced the existing wrong art with the right one, but my feeble attempts are getting denied as well - this time I did explain why but that didn't seem to help at all.  

So, assuming my latest change requests are getting denied again, I'll try renaming the new game with (publisher) just to get it through, betting on the moderators to be sharp enough to compare the publishers - but, reading this thread, turns out the naming change is likely to get denied as well.  

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/605120-americas-next-top-model-2008

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/954296-americas-next-top-model

Thank you for bringing and explaining your dilemma. 

I looked at it from a few different sources. It kind of sounds like the game was first released in Europe in 2008 and then re-released in Europe+US later in 2010.
I'd say that would count as two game entries (probably they updated the content within those two years), so you get my accepted vote at least!

 

[Thanatos_Prime]

I would first change the name of the one already in the DB to America's Next Top Model (Arts Software) or whatever, mention that there are 2 versions with different Development teams in different years. Make sure to put the original name without parens in the alt name. Then remove the box art and comment that there are two versions and you are going to create the new one when the old images were removed, then create the new one with those developers in parenthesis.

[viritys]

14 minutes ago, kurzih said:

Thank you for bringing and explaining your dilemma. 

I looked at it from a few different sources. It kind of sounds like the game was first released in Europe in 2008 and then re-released in Europe+US later in 2010.
I'd say that would count as two game entries (probably they updated the content within those two years), so you get my accepted vote at least!

 

Thanks! I tried the roms and they are completely different games; not just the graphics but the setting as well; moreso than your standard annual sporting game. I have the screenshots ready to show the differences to the world if someone would just accept them ?

The reason I wrote here was to give my 2 cents on the identical name issue. Ormaybe what I’m actually saying is: I think we need the moderator rules written somewhere where we define how cases like these should be handled and then can systematically make it so. As it is, I’m sure there’s an eternal battle going on in gamesdb with two users endlessly renaming their favorite game back and forth!