RF Generation Message Board

So, I am going to use this to rank projects and let you guys have an idea of what may or may not be in the future.

My Possible Projects

• Downloadable Games Database (Med): A specific home for downloadable games. Needs definition and architecture established.
• Progress Tracker (Low): Play a game? How far did you get? What did you think of the game? Where are you stuck? The world would like to know.
• Online Matchmaker (Low): Needs downloadable database coded. But yeah, a better way to handle gamertags, steam IDs, friend codes, etc.
• Excel Integration (Low): Read into that however the hell you want. Chances are it won't
• Community Blog Extensions (Low): You people need to read the blogs... you might find something interesting.
• Small Improvements (High): I go back to school Monday. I am a project manager for our transportation project, and I am double concentrating... so yeah, I have no life starting Monday.

Let me stress that anything above may or may not happen, and if they do they may not happen anytime soon.

So, why have I let you know of my next intentions? Well, the answer is that I'd like input, suggestions, and desires to be made known regarding things you like to see pertaining to any of the above, particularly with the submissions system. Do you think we need some more fields? Do you think that a field can be refined and stardardized? Do you want something to be incredibly anal? Do you want the site to help end world hunger? Whatever meaningful thing that is, I'd love to hear it. Keep in mind though that just because you suggest something does not mean that it will be added. Some things would just be too much of a pain in the ass, and we'd really rather not be changing anything really, really major in the system (see the ID system). But that having been said, I'd really like to know what you want. In my unending quest to make this site better I go to you, our members, for guidance.

By submit more info when you submit a new game entry does that include actual game page content and submission accreditation?

Indeed, it will also prevalidate the form so that you know if you fucked screwed something up.

^^^Awesome.^^^

On hardware.
I think we need Cheat Device and Memory(aka game saving device) options.

Unless that is what storage is there for. But i assume storage means physical storage; carrying cases, cartridge cases, etc

The multiple images at once will be fantastic. I tend to screw up when I'm clicking back and forth adding images.

The only thing I can think of is Japanese character support, but you've mentioned the issues with that already. And once the international ratings get worked out (unless it has been?) that'll be great to fill in somemore information.

edit-

Any thoughts on MSRP? I personally don't care, but I know some folks that keep track of that kind of thing.

Has anyone ever mentioned adding a comment box to the submit information page? I'm thinking of import games again. It might come in handy for whoever is approving the additions. Example: I submit a game, but I'm not sure the title is correct. In the comments box I could say that I'm not sure, giving the person approving a chance to be sure and not having to go back and fix it.

I actually wanted to put that in the last version of the Submissions system. Don't know why I didn't, probably got too caught up with the ratings system, which has to be expanded / upgraded.

To guide this discussion, perhaps people should tell me what needs to happen and how to the ratings system to make it better. (Console Specific Rating Systems, Compilations)

About the game ratings, is there a way to tie together all releases of a game and make them count as a single rating? For example, Ocarina of Time appears twice on the list: once as the original N64 release and another time as the Gamecube collector's disc. Another example: Super Mario All Stars and the Mario All Stars/Mario World combo cart. I think doing that might help make the top 100 list a little more fair and accurate.

Another idea: We should do a top rated games by year/genre/console/company or whatever.

Oh, I was talking about ESRB, CERO, etc. Ratings, not those ratings.

But, to combine the ratings you speak of would be very difficult for entirely separate IDs; however, it may be doable for an ID and all it's variants.

The ability to submit multiple images at the same time?  I think you just gave me the biggest nerd chubby this year.  I've been praying for that almost a year now!

Ok, as to my sugestions, most are personal wishes, a few may actualy help though.

1.The ability to see how many aproved submisions other have made if not what they've made.  This doesnt realy serve any purpose beyond letting everyone see all the hard work their fellow boardies have done in making this site what it is now.

2.Contrabution fields automaticly filled out when one makes software/hardware submisions.  I myself have had a few I've submited where I either put misc as the description for everything I submited, or just UP as I...had forgot to type C as well.  It'd help as some people tend to think their handle is also what they've contributed in adition to who submited it.

3.Getting the rest of the game ratings (ESRB, CERO, ect) would be apreciated and sadly that's one thing I've yet to get around to working on in the Japanese section.  I've had a few project which refuse to work right for me.

4.A list of HTML comands wouldnt hurt as I'd realy like to finish the staff page as well as fill in a number of blanks on game pages.  Reviews, trivia, that kind of stuff.  I suck at HTML.

That basicly covers all the things I can think of at 5:30 in the morning.  If I think of any more I'll list em then.


5.This was spoke of before, but I tested it tonite to see if it was changed or not.  It wasnt.  The ability for users to see and change submisions they've made that have yet to be aproved.  Be it new games to the database, edits to game info, or changing the image waiting for aproval.

All of that sounds good to me, and re: 1. I'd just like to see more stats in general, why should it just be limited to the last 5 updates?

and re: 2. I absolutely hate filling out the contribution stuff, even though i always took care to fill it in properly I did wonder why it wasn't automated, and as Fuyukaze says I've often seen people put simply "misc" or make a load of typos and even put stuff down that they didn't contribute which I doubt was purposeful but it all becomes a bit of a blur especially when submitting a lot of information.

Also it shouldn't be totally compulsory (at least for staff) to have to put something in there, a few times I've created new entries, noticied I made a typo and then have to edit it and put something in the contribution field even when all i had to fix was 1 letter.

If you don't feel your contribution was major enough thats when you use Misc. ;)
Like changing the ' in that atari game.

The ability to submit multiple images would be awesome!

Responding to Fuyukaze's Comments:

1. Such a script currently exists, but it is limited to editors and admins. Stats are fun, but we don't need people attacking people for not pulling their weight. Also, the stat script for editors is much more powerful than the one for regular members.

2. I've thought about it, but what happens when people do small edits? It used to be that small additions such as Part Numbers, Genres and the likes were submitted as Misc, but now everyone wants everyone to know exactly what they did.

3. There needs to be a rating discussion thread. The ratings fields will be tweaked, but I need to know how in depth they need to be.

4. I may add the ability to parse BBC to submissions, something that doesn't happen right now. So, similar to making a news post, it'd be just like making  a forum post.

5. I'll consider it, but then I'd have to write things that lock submissions for a while after they've been edited so that we know are being edited.


To Belgarath: 5 is a nice round number. Increasing that number increases load, and makes the right bar larger. That having been said, perhaps it would be possible to have a more stats page.

Here are some new fields that I've thought of for games, feel free to suggest more:

MSRP
Release Date (Would take priority over year), though not supplant it.

Also, if I added the ability to submit multiple images, you would still be limited by the max upload size of the server, currently set to 2MB. If people would compress images before submitting, this would not be much of a problem.

Release date would/should be the same line as the year, right? Just change date to release date and set a standard for the format.

2007/10/10
10/10/2007

It's nice just having my nic on the page I've contributed to, doesn't matter to me what I've added.

I agree 5 is a good number for the front page, but yes I'd like to see a seperate and more comprehensive stats page, and to reduce server load only have it update once a day rather than dynamically updating.

Okay status update.

So, bad news kids, neither Arcades nor memorabilia nor magazines will be the next database. However, there will hopefully be a new database. In an attempt to increase uniformity and conistency in the databases the next database will be manufacturers, developers, and publishers. We hope that this improvement will make life better in terms of consistency, and we could have some neat pages regarding the aforementioned publishers, one that is much more in depth than say at IGN. This change also means that the developer, publisher, and manufacturer fields would all be tied in to this system. So, if you guys want to start a discussion on what this database needs, I'd really appreciate it.

Distributers should be there as well, not as big as the other three but sometimes the biggest differences in a game come from who distributed it within each sub-region.

Here's a few of the fields I think should be present to get the ball rolling:

name - company name (obviously  :P)
previously known as - prior to name changes (could possibly link to other pages if say Squaresoft and Square Enix are 2 separate pages.
subsidiary of - if owned by another company i.e. AM2 owned by Sega
based out of/address - where the headquarters or office is located, address etc as well as global HQ if part of a much larger company i.e. Ubisoft Montreal HQ and also Ubisoft global HQ which is in France.
website - official company website
year - the year the company was founded. maybe year closed as well if applicable.
history - company foundings
games accredited to/credits - what they've developed, published, distributed or made.
hardware manufacturured hardware and/or peripherals made

If somehow possible stats on how many listing have their name associated with in the database we have would be neat, as well as images of some kind (logos, company headquarters etc,). One I'm not sure how we could do is employees. They change so often it may be impossible to keep track of them and stay up to date. Though maybe a notable employees past and present could work.

I agree with all of Tan's suggestions, and distributors is definitely a must.

You might also want to have their country of origin as well and also known sublabels, like Psygnosis also had a Psyclapse label, and then there's budget labels etc etc.

games accredited to/credits - what they've developed, published, distributed or made.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That seems like just adding the same content to the website but in a new place.

I think maybe notable titles or sleeper hits or something would be better than a list of all their titles.

Or even the number of titles they are currently accreddited to in our database.

Had another idea to share.

1.Something I dont remember ever seeing on any site is a field for info on game save size.  Not every game saves the same and some take up more space on harddrives and memory cards.  Not sure if anyone else would want one more field in the database to enter numbers into, but figured maybe it'd be one more way to distance ourselves from the ordinary database of others.

2.As strategy guides could be considered both a mag and extra media concerning a game, what if we simply added scans of them (just the front and back people) to the database as extra media for the titles in question?  I'm not sure if there's a limit to how much can be considered extra content for a game but figured this would atleast help take care of any problems concerning guides.

It may show up on a page somewhere, but it definitely will use the games and hardware database to get that information rather than you manually having to enter it.

Thats what i had meant sorry if i was unclear...

I should mention that this thread and your suggestions are critically important. You guys really should make requests if you want something improved or new for the submissions system.

That having been said, today marks the first day of coding for the next project. The first thing up is writing the scripts that will allow a true image search to work.

Would an extra field for ISBN numbers be of any help to anyone?  I know these are used for books, but sometimes see them listed on games and other software items (it's usually printed just above the barcode).

The only hangup with these is that they're somewhat long to type in for searching or submitting purposes, and not every game has them listed.

I find older games, especially PC ones tend to have ISBN numbers. Nice thing about them is that you can still look most of them up and gets google results as well. I'd be nice if somehow a field for this was available during an edit or submission, but woud only show up on the page if it was used, hidden if not. UPC's would be great the same way.

So I've decided to do something risky.... I now list almost everything that is on this whiteboard seen below.
[img width=700 height=525]http://www.rfgeneration.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=8.0;attach=1698;image[/img]

So yeah, uh, you know my game plan... ideas, thoughts? Yeah, you can help determine the future of new additions (not related to the collection tools).

An edit like on a game/ hardware page for the staff would be awesome if it is possible.

You mean those submit info links on hardware / games pages?

This is circuitous, but if you click those links and then change the link in the address bar from submitinfo to [INSERT NAME OF THE STAFF SCRIPT HERE] you'll get the right script.

Boy am I blind. Thanks

Although that does work, it really slows down page edits when you have to do that every time, especially when the site isn't loading super fast.

I find it's faster to just submit while I have the review submission screen up on another tab and just approve my own submissions. Not very efficient but it is much faster. :P

That doesn't make much sense. If you can approve your own submissions as a staff member, what's the point of having them approved? Might aswell go straight into the database then.

Um, it does. staff peeps have a whole other tool.

The Admins fixed this for us ages ago, this thread is 3/4 of a year old. ;)

You're right, I should've looked at the date. It was at the top of the list (because it's a sticky, I realise now) so I thought it was a fairly new topic.