Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta)

Post by **root** » 13 Feb 2008 14:27

Rif: 1989-1 Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ Yakushi~Kabuto on 13th February 2008, 14:27 wrote:

Here are the changes:

Code: Select all

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2+1,3)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 (1,2) + Title2 (1,3) (Region)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1+1,3)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (1,3) (Region)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2+1)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 (1,2) + Title2 (Region)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3) -- same languages in all games
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3) -- unchanged

2 Games in 1 - Title1 - Subtitle1 + Title1 - Subtitle2 (Region) (1,2+1,3)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 - Subtitle1 (1,2) + Subtitle2 (1,3) (Region)

Title1 Pack - Title1 - Subtitle1 + Title1 - Subtitle2 (Region) (1,2+1,3)
Title1 Pack - Subtitle1 (1,2) + Subtitle2 (1,3) (Region)

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 13th February 2008, 19:01 wrote:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 - Subtitle1 + Title1 - Subtitle2 (Region) (1,2+1,3)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 - Subtitle1 (1,2) + Subtitle2 (1,3) (Region)

I see the potential character saving, but I don't like it. We should limit "Title1" removal to cases when there is a meaningful leading "Title1 Pack" that justifies subtitle-only usage, I mean, only when your last example happens.

Also why Harry Potter Collection has merged languages?

EDIT: a quick inspection reveals missing rule application for the following packs:

Hot Wheels
Hugo
Pferd & Pony
Some SpongeBob
Yu-Gi-Oh!

After considering Hugo pack boxart it should be used (last rule):

2 in 1 - Hugo - Bukkazoom! + Hugo - The Evil Mirror (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da,Fi,Pl)
Hugo 2 in 1 - Bukkazoom! + The Evil Mirror (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da,Fi,Pl)

Also found some oddities:

2 Games in 1 - Sonic Battle (En,Ja) + (En,Ja,Fr,De,Es,It) Sonic Pinball Party (Japan)

2 Games in 1 - Power Rangers (En,Fr,De) - Ninja Storm + Time Force (USA)

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ Yakushi~Kabuto on 13th February 2008, 19:17 wrote:

Yes I totally agree with you kazumi and that's how I applied it as you could see if you run a diff between this and site dat.

I have strictly limited the change to the form:
"2 Games in 1 - Title1 - Subtitle1 + Title1 - Subtitle2 (Region)"
If anything varied from that form like in your above examples, I did not touch.

In fact, it was already used in some SpongeBob gamepacks, not sure if it was intentional or not.

Also why Harry Potter Collection has merged languages?

You mean the latest Harry Potter? I haven't touched that one, don't they all have same languages?

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 13th February 2008, 21:07 wrote:

Yes sorry Y~K, I didn't noticed your attachment to check those before posting. I edited my post accordingly.

Regarding Harry Potter Collection, Prisoner of Azkaban is only (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Da). Current GBA DAT displays it language-merged since release. I know the proper naming is going to increase a lot the title size, but if we are going to apply an exception here anyway, then why to change all packs with common main title?

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ Yakushi~Kabuto on 13th February 2008, 21:28 wrote:

Thank you so much for your double check kaz. For Harry Potter, it's a shame but it has to be fixed as long as it's lower than 256 chars.

Feel free to upload a fixed dat. Otherwise I'll do it in a couple of day since tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I'll be out to celebrate.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ NGEfreak on 14th February 2008, 07:13 wrote:

These changes are invalid. Nothing has been decided for the convention regarding gamepack titles yet. The last vote has been made invalid.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ BigFred on 14th February 2008, 09:47 wrote:

For Harry Potter, it's a shame but it has to be fixed as long as it's lower than 256 chars.

All other sources use a short and descriptive 23-character name "Harry Potter Collection". But why easy when you can get it complicated?

My suggestion is a case by case decision regarding the multipacks.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ Yakushi~Kabuto on 14th February 2008, 12:45 wrote:

BigFred, that could work if they all had same languages set, but they don't.

I say: Screw it all! I'm sick of these gamepacks. I say we remove all multilanguage tags from gamepacks, it's redundant with other dat entries. We don't need them twice, do we?

NGEfreak, the vote is valid. If you want to bring something new after the vote was posted, then feel free to restart a new thread/vote that will null the previous one. Until then, the vote is valid. However, no matter how hard you try, I doubt the merged form you proposed will ever be accepted.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ BigFred on 14th February 2008, 13:18 wrote:

I say: Screw it all! I'm sick of these gamepacks. I say we remove all multilanguage tags from gamepacks, it's redundant with other dat entries. We don't need them twice, do we?

I suggested this once before I believe so I'm totally PRO. Either this or merged languages. The rule will only apply to "real" packs which means games that were released standalone before - not compilations that were only released as that (Dr Mario + Puzzle League). Here I'd use a multilanguage tag. Merged appears to be the most sane method since some of these can contain dozens of games and is also applicable in cases where the selectable games don't appear in the title.

We'd need a method to devide between packs that have the same title otherwise like 2 Games in 1 - Finding Nemo + Finding Nemo - The Continuing Adventures (Europe) in case we use no language tags. If we use merged style this would automatically be solved. So after re-reflecting about everything I vote for a case by case decision to find the most sane title for each pack plus merged languages.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ NGEfreak on 14th February 2008, 13:50 wrote:

I say: Screw it all! I'm sick of these gamepacks. I say we remove all multilanguage tags from gamepacks, it's redundant with other dat entries. We don't need them twice, do we?

Sounds like a good idea.

NGEfreak, the vote is valid. If you want to bring something new after the vote was posted, then feel free to restart a new thread/vote that will null the previous one. Until then, the vote is valid. However, no matter how hard you try, I doubt the merged form you proposed will ever be accepted.

The vote was rushed, leaving issues open and questions unanswered. Sadly, not much input was given in the first place (i.e. before the vote started). :/

There are multiple problems and issues with the split form. Why don't we list all pro' and con's of all forms? Then even you should realize that the split form is the most flawed solution.

Hammering down a convention without putting much though into it is a sure way to failure.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 14th February 2008, 19:08 wrote:

I'm totally against removing language tags and language merging, and all kind of amputation practices without a legit reason.

The gamepack discussion is an old question, but it originally was a "cosmetic" question.

Only since the release of *recent* GBA monster packs the "char length" factor has become the main reason to rework the gamepacks renaming. Except for "Harry Potter Collection" no other title is even near the char limit. And those long enough to "damage eyes" are just a few games.

Title lenght is not an issue for me as long as it allows for enough room to use a reasonable ROM path. So anything below let's say 200 chars should be a reasonable lenght.

However I will use the lenght issue to argument my position against those "radical" suggestions above. IMHO we just need to "tweak" problematic releases (already existing or future), trying to adapt them as much as possible to an otherwise working convention.

The fact is that none of the suggestion can reduce lenght of current GBA longest (179 chars)

4 Games on One Game Pak - Rocket Power - Zero Gravity Zone + Nicktoons - Freeze Frame Frenzy + SpongeBob SquarePants - SuperSponge + The Fairly OddParents! - Shadow Showdown (USA)

so applying size reduction to a bunch of other games which are shorter than this (all less than 150) makes no sense to me. Next is 169 chars

4 Games on One Game Pak - GT Advance - Championship Racing + GT Advance 2 - Rally Racing + GT Advance 3 - Pro Concept Racing + Moto GP (USA) (En+En+En+En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl)

With new language rules it will become 160 chars

4 Games on One Game Pak - GT Advance - Championship Racing + GT Advance 2 - Rally Racing + GT Advance 3 - Pro Concept Racing + Moto GP (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl) (USA)

Then we have a 158 one which could be revised:

Ignition Collection - Volume 1 - 3 Games in 1 - Animal Snap - Rescue Them 2 by 2 + Super Dropzone - Intergalactic Rescue Mission + World Tennis Stars (Europe)

I would remove the "3 Games in 1" part. We already have a leading text informing this is a pack ("Collection") so it becomes redundant because everybody can count. Plus it serves no purpose for alpha-sorting being there. So it would become 143 chars.

Ignition Collection - Volume 1 - Animal Snap - Rescue Them 2 by 2 + Super Dropzone - Intergalactic Rescue Mission + World Tennis Stars (Europe)

Finally the "Harry Potter Collection". This is the title I originally suggested (which doesn't use the articles). It's 184 chars long (vs 179 in previous longest, which isn't reduced by any suggestion, and well below 200 too)

Harry Potter Collection - Philosopher's Stone (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da) + Chamber of Secrets (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da) + Prisoner of Azkaban (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Da) (Europe)

So except for "Harry Potter Collection" (or anything like it in the future) and the general language reallocation according to the vote, I honestly think there's no reason to apply a massive DAT modification which leads to info loss.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ NGEfreak on 14th February 2008, 19:31 wrote:

Oh, it's possible to fix these titles. Quite easy actually. We just need to follow the rest of the world (see official publisher site, GameFAQs, Amazon and many more for reference).

Nickelodeon Vol. 1 4-Pack (USA)
Racing 4 Pack (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl)
Ignition Collection Volume. 1 (Europe)
Harry Potter Collection (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da)

Simple, clean and, most important, sane!

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 14th February 2008, 20:12 wrote:

Web design limitations, marketing strategies or scene spreading needs are not legit reasons for invented titles (first 2) or information loss (last 2) in OUR dat, no matter what everybody else in the world is doing.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ neoforma on 14th February 2008, 21:12 wrote:

NGEfreak has already posted a link on several occasions to a massive PS2 collection of Sonic games. The title will be much longer than 255 characters, even if you drop languages. When No-Intro includes PS2 (or any other CD-based console which has something like Taito Legends), the Convention will be useless.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 14th February 2008, 21:57 wrote:

There are things that can be done and things that can't.

If we can't include a game according to current convention (or as close as possible), ok, let's use the best title alternative to make it possible.

But if we can include it according to rules, there's no reason to ditch info here and there to create more inconsistency.

Post by **root** » 14 Feb 2008 22:39

Rif: 1989-2 Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ neoforma on 14th February 2008, 22:39 wrote:

So it's a case by case decision as BigFred suggested?

As for languages, why not implement a different scheme:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3-4,5+6,7)

instead of

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3,4,5+1,2,3,6,7)?

First goes the list of languages found in all games, than after dash comes the list of languages in the first title and the the list of languages in the second title. All languages that are common for both games are listed first, so there is no need to list them twice, or add useless (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) which doesn't explicitly say which language belongs to which game.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ NGEfreak on 15th February 2008, 08:29 wrote:

There are things that can be done and things that can't.

If we can't include a game according to current convention (or as close as possible), ok, let's use the best title alternative to make it possible.

But if we can include it according to rules, there's no reason to ditch info here and there to create more inconsistency.

Using the titles I mentioned before does not create inconsistency! In fact, the exact opposite is true. Maybe you haven't noticed yet, but several people are working on various automatic DAT creation scripts/utils. Adding more and more exceptions overcomplicates the creation process and makes it more inconsistent and error-prone.

Besides, long titles are not the only problem. Just look at the proposed changes. Sometimes the language flag is after the country flag, sometimes before, sometimes in the middle of the title. Do you call this consistency? IMO, this is not consistency, it's a mess. The first part of a filename should _always_ be the title (except for BIOS files), the second part should _always_ be the country flag and not until then there should be other flags added.

So it's a case by case decision as BigFred suggested?

As for languages, why not implement a different scheme:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3-4,5+6,7)

instead of

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3,4,5+1,2,3,6,7)?

First goes the list of languages found in all games, than after dash comes the list of languages in the first title and the the list of languages in the second title. All languages that are common for both games are listed first, so there is no need to list them twice, or add useless (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) which doesn't explicitly say which language belongs to which game.

Sounds good at first, but at second glance there is a problem:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3+1,2,3,4)

would be

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3-4)

How do you tell which of the two titles have language 4?

Well, you can do something like this:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3-+4)

But this is kinda horrible.

Maybe a better solution:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De+En,Fr,De,Es)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De 2=Es)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es,Nl+En,Fr,De,Es,No)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es 1=Nl 2=No)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es,Nl+En,Fr,De)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De 1=Es,Nl)

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 15th February 2008, 13:15 wrote:

So it's a case by case decision as BigFred suggested?

Of course, WHEN we can't do anything else. I've always said that my "Harry Potter Collection" suggestion was just a extreme solution to a specific problem. But other than that pack, all others CAN be named according to current convention.

Using the titles I mentioned before does not create inconsistency! In fact, the exact opposite is true. Maybe you haven't noticed yet, but several people are working on various automatic DAT creation scripts/utils. Adding more and more exceptions overcomplicates the creation process and makes it more inconsistent and error-prone.

Your suggestion vs mine creates 4 vs 1 inconsistency.

Besides, long titles are not the only problem. Just look at the proposed changes. Sometimes the language flag is after the country flag, sometimes before, sometimes in the middle of the title. Do you call this consistency? IMO, this is not consistency, it's a mess. The first part of a filename should _always_ be the title (except for BIOS files), the second part should _always_ be the country flag and not until then there should be other flags added.

Totally agree with you, I voted NO to language reallocation. I'm using it on my arguments because it was the most voted solution on the poll.

Sounds good at first, but at second glance there is a problem:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3+1,2,3,4)

would be

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3-4)

How do you tell which of the two titles have language 4?

Well, you can do something like this:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (1,2,3-+4)

But this is kinda horrible.

Maybe a better solution:

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De+En,Fr,De,Es)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De 2=Es)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es,Nl+En,Fr,De,Es,No)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es 1=Nl 2=No)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es,Nl+En,Fr,De)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De 1=Es,Nl)

It's surprising that you reject my point of view and support neoforma suggestion which leads to more complicated to script, non-intuitive and uglier solutions just to save some chars where there's no need for it. Plus it would not be applicable to something like your PS2 example if, let's say, only 25 out of 100 games in the pack feature Es.

But let's discuss it. Maybe we could take advantage of the accepted language reallocation and neoforma suggestion (which sounds like something already suggested by you I think) to save chars without compromising readability too much.

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De+En,Fr,De,Es)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Es) (Region) (En,Fr,De)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es,Nl+En,Fr,De,Es,No)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 (Nl) + Title2 (No) (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es)

2 Games in 1 - Title1 + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De,Es,Nl+En,Fr,De)
2 Games in 1 - Title1 (Es,Nl) + Title2 (Region) (En,Fr,De)

Harry Potter Collection - Philosopher's Stone (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da) + Chamber of Secrets (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da) + Prisoner of Azkaban (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Da) (Europe)
Harry Potter Collection - Philosopher's Stone (Pt,Sv,No) + Chamber of Secrets (Pt,Sv,No) + Prisoner of Azkaban (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Da)

From 184 to 142.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ neoforma on 15th February 2008, 13:57 wrote:

I was a bit sleepy when I proposed the idea (which, as it turns out, might have been proposed before by NGEfreak - I really don't care, not trying to get credit for this). Anyway the implementation was ugly (the dash was the first symbol I thought of). Now I see that it will be really bad to use this scheme because of the example NGEfreak made.

I actually like the one kazumi proposed, but since I'm not in No-Intro it will be decided by high council or something like this.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ Yakushi~Kabuto on 15th February 2008, 14:52 wrote:

I want to get rid of any +,-,= sign in the flags, only comma should be allowed. And I must admit the limits of split form: sometimes tags are before region, sometimes after... this isn't explicite enough and can lead to some confusion.

Well, after reading all suggestions, I say like BigFred & NGEfreak: either we get rid of multilanguage tags in gamepacks, justified by redundancy (only compilations, not originals) or we use merged form. I prefer removing but I could live with merged.

I also agree with removing "game list" when there is a descriptive enough title.

If BigFred, NGE & I agree on these principles, then we have a majority of datters to amend the convention. So let's proceed to a new vote shall we?

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ NGEfreak on 15th February 2008, 15:18 wrote:

Personally I don't care so much about long filenames. I only have a problem with the crappy split form of languages tags. So, it's no wonder that I liked neoforma's suggestion more than yours. I still prefer merged form the most or alternatively no tag at all.

Anyway, I will stand by my point that it is simply not necessary to list all games in a filename. Harry Potter Collection is sufficient. It's a unique title, since only one such collection exists. More title information is not needed. btw would you want to list all games of Super Mario All-Stars (SNES) as well?

The root of this problem is the language tags. You desperately want to allocate the languages to each game and thus need to add all game titles. Without or with only one tag the whole problem would automatically be solved.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 15th February 2008, 17:49 wrote:

First I hardly ever act desperately. I'm just trying to show that we can keep being rigorous except for marginal cases, and even then, showing that just a minimal deviation from convention for them allows for accuracy and details being left untouched.

Second my first priority is to allocate games in a pack, not languages, so it's the other way in your conclusion. Which is causing inconsistency in "Harry Potter Collection" is title shortening, not languages (before neoforma suggestion). In my latest suggestion yes, languages cause inconsistency, but it is the same that will cause the already voted and accepted language reallocation. However it has the advantage of shorten titles, not only for "Harry Potter Collection". Can't see why now Y~K realizes of this language tags position problem.

Finally:

Super Mario All-Stars (Europe) or (USA)
Super Mario All-Stars - Super Mario Bros. + Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels + Super Mario Bros. 2 + Super Mario Bros. 3 (Europe) or (USA) (132/129)

Super Mario Collection (Japan) (Rev A)
Super Mario Collection - Super Mario Bros. + Super Mario Bros. 2 + Super Mario USA + Super Mario Bros. 3 (Japan) (Rev A) (120)

Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (Europe) or (USA)
Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World - Super Mario Bros. + Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels + Super Mario Bros. 2 + Super Mario Bros. 3 + Super Mario World (Europe) or (USA) (172/169)

Can't see the problem.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ gingerbuns on 15th February 2008, 18:44 wrote:

1547 - Konami Arcade Classics (Europe) (En,Ja,Fr,De,Es,It).nds

1547 - Konami Arcade Classics - Scramble + Tutenkahm + Pooyan + Time Pilot + Roc'n Rope + Track & Field + Circus Charlie + Basketball + Road Fighter + Yie Ar Kung-Fu + Rainbow Bell + Shao-Lin's Road + Gradius + Rush 'N Attack + Contra (Europe) (En,Ja,Fr,De,Es,It).nds

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 15th February 2008, 20:17 wrote:

We follow boxart. Games are not listed in boxart.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ BigFred on 15th February 2008, 21:44 wrote:

Not everything shown on the boxart is automatically part of the title. There are also tag-lines, ads and of course it makes sense to present the content in some way - for instance by showing the boxarts of the stand-alone releases. If you check the Harry Potter Collection you'll only find the boxes of the games included to give an idea of the content without the titles even specifically mentioned. It's simply an optical presentation and not a subtitle. It's more like an explanation to the customer.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 16th February 2008, 00:40 wrote:

I would include both games in title for your PC example. The fact is: if they really think that "Lilo & Stitch Collection" is enough, they wouldn't put the specific boxarts/explicit titles/whatever, as they did with "Konami Arcade Collection".

Regarding the "Harry factor", just take a look at the back cover. As soon as they had "space" they used explicit contents list. We don't follow back cover, I know. Just trying to say that, well, they simply decided to use "big" cover boxarts instead of smaller ones + explicit titles. For me NDS Konami and GBA Harry boxarts are not the same. I'm not going to discuss things like that.

I've found that we have several GBA collections with no game list contrary to boxart (Konami, Midway, Namco, Sega). Of course, with all this general opposition I'm not going to suggest changes nor keep arguing. Decide what you want.

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ BigFred on 16th February 2008, 09:29 wrote:

This is actually what I was referring to and you also used the word "content". Yes, that's what it is - a content list and not a game title. Check all the DVD-boxes around like "Alien Quadrilogy" - short descriptive title. But of course they will tell you what's inside or do they suppose you to buy a surprise-pack?

They could also write "includes all alien movies" on the front. Or show posters of the movies included whatever. It doesn't change anything.

Last but not least our beloved Gold Games Series

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ kazumi213 on 16th February 2008, 14:23 wrote:

Regarding your Alien example, I said on the poll thread that if a compilation contains *all* possible members in a series, it is redundant to list them. There is no need as long as the actual main title is descriptive enough. This possible applies to "Super Mario All-Stars", although I don't think that's a descriptive enough title as it resembles and additional "Super Mario" game. However many gamepacks contain hand-picked games AND boxart is designed to list them, whatever the reason.

As for the rest of your examples, please use cases from systems that we actually dat.

Capcom Classics Collection - Volume 2
no doubt, there is no intention to explicitly list games

Sega Classics Collection - (list of assumed 8)
I can't accurately read all titles, but IMHO they would fit under 200 chars

Pocket PC example: same as Capcom.

Those PC compilations: we CAN'T list games in them so we don't. However note that many contain several media, most of which are standalone, this is NOT the same as splitted ROMs in MAME. Then, from the datting point of view all images won't go (at least not always) under one archive with the long filename, but different archives (each disc/pack of several linked discs images) containing a fraction of the whole game list in their filenames. This is not comparable to what we are datting right now.

As I said I won't discuss it anymore. You want to use minimal title that allows unique filenames. Ok, go ahead. I think we should be as detailed as possible though.

Sample:

Code: Select all

Barbie Superpack (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
Barbie Superpack (USA)
Castlevania Double Pack (Europe) (En,Fr,De)
Castlevania Double Pack (USA)
Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 1 (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl)
Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 2 (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl)
Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 3 (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
Crash & Spyro Superpack - Spyro Orange - The Cortex Conspiracy + Crash Bandicoot Purple - Ripto's Rampage (USA)
Crash & Spyro Superpack - Spyro - Season of Ice + Crash Bandicoot - The Huge Adventure (USA)
Crash Superpack (USA)
Harry Potter Collection (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt,Sv,No,Da)
Ignition Collection - Volume 1 (Europe)
Rayman 10th Anniversary (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Sv,No,Da,Fi)
Rayman 10th Anniversary (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
Spyro Superpack (USA)
Twin Series 1 (Japan)
Twin Series 2 (Japan)
Twin Series 3 (Japan)
Twin Series 4 (Japan)
Twin Series 5 (Japan)
Twin Series 6 (Japan)
Twin Series 7 (Japan)

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Re: Gamepack Convenvion compliant GBA dat (beta) \ Dopefish on 16th February 2008, 15:38 wrote:

Being as detailed as possible in terms of game titles is one thing and without a doubt desirable, but I honestly think that using common sense and getting back to the roots is necessary here. Anything else, i.e. current naming of for example the "Harry Potter Collection" is a total mess and should be avoided. Just my two cents on this matter.