Alterations to be made to PAL game entries

[AndyC]

Currently in the database the majority of the European games have been entered as European region wide releases, however everyone from Europe will realise that in most cases this isn't the case as some countries receive their own regional variant with usually its own unique artwork on the case and game itself as well as text differences throughout. To try and amend this we have decided to rectify the entries already in to the database to be more accurate to where the particular game was released. This in turn may make a mess of some peoples collections they have stored here as they will be showing games from (for example) the UK or Spain were before they were just a European release. To rectify this a submission will have to be made, using the usual process, to generate a regional specific version of a game you require.

This will more than likley be quite a lenghty process to alter all the games already in the database and then add all of their regional variants but with all our members help Im sure we can get there and fulfill a 100% accurate European games database.

[Tynstar]

Nice work guys!

[AndyC]

Save your plaudits until it's done Scott, there's a hell of a way to go.

[Tynstar]

Save your plaudits until it's done Scott, there's a hell of a way to go.

Well you guys have a good work plan and have started to do work. How about so far so good?

[AndyC]

Much better

[Tynstar]

OK good now get back to work! You have months to make up for!   

[Alabama-Shrimp]

personally i think this is a bad idea, the majority of PAL games have been and are exactly the same no matter where in Europe they are released, changing the database so that they are all listed separately just seems to be creating work and using storage space for nothing.

I do think a game if not released region wide would need to be listed under that country but this new way now means a game might have to be listed 20 times even thought all thats diffrent is the title might be in that country's language or the text on the back translated.
to me these aren't variations they don't make it diffrent so long as the actual game itself underneath the localization is the same.

[Belgarath]

I hated the multiple entries for one game from day 1, it even stopped me from joining RFG for a long time, and now oh joy it's getting worse.

I always thought variations should be listed under 1 master entry for the game, then have a section under the game for variations, whether it be budget rebrands or different countries.

It's also terrible for things that should be shared, i.e. ratings and screenshots, why should 1 version have a ton of screenshots even though the other variations look exactly the bloody same, and when it comes to ratings, do I rate 1 or do i have to end up rating all 20 variations of it!

[sharp]

I think most English speaking people don't understand the situation on the mainland. Games are spread quite a lot. In the Netherlands for example Tales of Phantasia Frech sells for 10 euro, Dutch or English fo 50 euro and german would catch round 20 I think. As this is a collector's site I think it would be important to make these differences, for screen shots i think it is alos ok as there are some differences.

[img width=700 height=529]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-076/ss/ts/E-076-S-01481-A.jpg[/img] Dutch screenshot
[img width=699 height=527]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-076/ss/ts/E-076-S-01480-A.jpg[/img] English UK Screenshot

Only step I would welcome is if the could be a version selection at the back of the game of which version you want to select and a euro flag in Front would be somthing like:

[img width=21 height=15]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/regions/E.gif[/img] Pikmin [img width=21 height=15]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/regions/GB.gif[/img] [img width=21 height=15]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/regions/NL.gif[/img] [img width=21 height=15]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/regions/FR.gif[/img] [img width=21 height=15]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/regions/DE.gif[/img]

only problem can be translation from the title, as game title are often translated as well. I think maybe a translated site would be great for better coverage, and this could be fixed by then by giving priority to the version of that country.

So variants should be all in only way of displaying it could be changed

[Alabama-Shrimp]

i think the thing with the flags could be a good idea, as in too say it's a all of Europe version and if the one you have is significantly different then it should be put in the database as a varient.

those 2 screenshots posted above example everything that i think is wrong with trying to make multiple listings as its just a language diffrence and that really shouldnt count



(this took ages too type on the Wii)

[sharp]

i think the thing with the flags could be a good idea, as in too say it's a all of Europe version and if the one you have is significantly different then it should be put in the database as a varient.

those 2 screenshots posted above example everything that i think is wrong with trying to make multiple listings as its just a language diffrence and that really shouldnt count



(this took ages too type

on the Wii)

For me the screenshots are an issue as otherwise we can start using same screenshots for multiple systems as well. Language differences are in my opinion much more significant then some conversion-differences.

[AndyC]

I think the flag idea by Sharp is a cracking idea. It would mean there wouldn't be pages of listing for the same game and users can click the flag of the region they desire. This would also link everything together nicely as regional variants and we can still keep all scans and screns seperate.

Also Alabama and Belgarath, initially I didn't see the point with the regional variants the reason being that all games in Britain ae generally British, I never see any French games or German but on the continent this is more regular, they also have different scans and text differences to the games. It would be slightly predjudice to just list every thing British just because we live in Britain.

I have faith in Sharp, Magewout and Speedy to sort out the mainland side of things of things for the games, we just need to keep up our end and keep the British stuff bang up to date. If we can stremaline the search for the variants even better.

[Belgarath]

I never said there was no need for regional information, it's certaintly important that versions other than english are kept track off, I just question the need for it all to be spread over a dozen seperate entries.

[Magewout]

I think sharp's suggestion pretty much solves this issue as there will only be 1 main entry per game in the search database, while still showing all regional variants.

Btw, don't forget there might be collectors out there with different language versions of a game, and who want to see them listed as separate in their collections.

[Cobra]

Out of honesty I agree more with Belgarath.
I mean parts of the site like the Top Rated Games and the Bottom Rated Games are useless as you can have one game in the bottom that is from the US, then that exact same game, but a PAL version of it at number 1 in the top games.

It is no doubt all hard work though, and I'm sure you guys will have it all figured out.