Updating the No-Intro naming convention

[PinkLouie]

One more idea. A specific tag for multicart roms, "10 in 1 pak", this kind of thing.

[KingMike]

Aren't the majority of multicarts bootlegs, which No-Intro doesn't deal in?

And Traditional vs. Simplified Chinese sounds a little overly specific? Would that be like if we were to tag European languages between their European and American (or otherwise) versions?

[hornpipe2]

My $0.02 regarding language tags: they should not be part of the filename at all!

What we're doing with Language has nothing to do with GameName, Region, or Revision information: they do not contribute to define what I'd call a "Release Event". The languages tell you nothing about the physical game cartridge itself. I mean, are there any examples of a game which are
* same name,
* same region,
* same revision,
* but different language tags? I doubt it.

Language instead is a user convenience that tells you information about the game program. This is IMO about as useful as putting "(Has Cheat Codes)" on the filename or "(Can Save Progress)" or "(Internet Connection)" or something similar. Nice to know, maybe, but not uniquely identifying of a ROM.

The PROPER place for language codes is in a complely different file, like GameBase or MAME's HISTORY.DAT or some external IVGDB source - somewhere that would keep all sorts of metadata about games beyond the rom itself (developer credits, languages supported, game sequel / series / reboot, cross-platform release info, license tie-in, trivia, promotional material, etc etc)

But the users will complain ... so the second best place for it is the currently unused Language tag in the XML file, and then ClrMamePro or RomCenter can be used to "Append the language tag to the Filename when Renaming", or you can sort and filter on them if you like. No functionality lost, rom names cleaned.

[hornpipe2]

On second thought after reading through these posts it seems like there are a few requests for different kinds of info:
Asian (Chinese or Japanese) or English titles?
NTSC or PAL?
Box Title or Screen Title?
...and the language tags I mentioned above...

Now I realize this is a post for the ROM File Naming Standard and I won't intrude too much further, but I do want to point out that the .dat / .xml files can have a LOT more info in them than what we're currently putting. So if we do have official English and Japanese names, put the names in tags in the dat, that way they aren't lost and are captured somehow in a standard manner. With more data the ROM manager authors or frontend authors can parse it and use to display however the user wants it.

Come to think of it this might be a good segue into updating the allowable fields in the Logiqx .dtd file.
http://www.logiqx.com/Dats/datafile.dtd

[KingMike]

What we're doing with Language has nothing to do with GameName, Region, or Revision information: they do not contribute to define what I'd call a "Release Event". The languages tell you nothing about the physical game cartridge itself. I mean, are there any examples of a game which are
* same name,
* same region,
* same revision,
* but different language tags? I doubt it.

I think Daikata GBC had a couple versions supporting a few different languages within each version.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in the GBA or DS library somewhere like that.

How do we handle the multi-region (and thus multi-language) Genesis ROMs again? Is it by whichever is the "parent" title?

3DS VC Pokemon games would fit that, having (3 in NA, 5 in Europe) language variants available for each game.

[hornpipe2]

What we're doing with Language has nothing to do with GameName, Region, or Revision information: they do not contribute to define what I'd call a "Release Event". The languages tell you nothing about the physical game cartridge itself. I mean, are there any examples of a game which are
* same name,
* same region,
* same revision,
* but different language tags? I doubt it.

I think Daikata GBC had a couple versions supporting a few different languages within each version.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in the GBA or DS library somewhere like that.

How do we handle the multi-region (and thus multi-language) Genesis ROMs again? Is it by whichever is the "parent" title?

3DS VC Pokemon games would fit that, having (3 in NA, 5 in Europe) language variants available for each game.

Wow. I stand corrected. I assumed those would be entered in as different Revision numbers.

In that case I suggest dropping Language from everything unless it helps to differentiate one ROM from another.

[PinkLouie]

(Asia) roms are a bit confusing. Some times they are in chinese, so I assume they are chinese games. Why would they be launched outside China? I think they should be tagged as (China). As Asia is a continent and not an official region for Consoles Manufacturers, and have both Pal and NTSC contries in it, maybe, (NTSC) and (Pal) should me mandatory. (Asia) games can have Pal and NTSC versions at the same time. It appears that (Asia) and (Unknown) are the same thing. (Asia) is a too general term. It seems that unlicensed developers, just developed their games for all the globe, or, specifically China. See famiclone cases. I had a lot of famiclones with games in memory that are tagged (Asia) today, but I do not live in asia, I live in South America, and those games were sold here. Maybe (Asia), (Unknown), launched in english, should be unified as (PAL/NTSC) (World) (Unl). What do you think about? What changes do you recommend?

[PinkLouie]

no-Intro has both (Sample) and (Demo) tags. I think this need to me unified.

[PinkLouie]

If No intro do not calls Japan as Nippon, or Germany as Deutschland, why do not use english for their games' names instead of the native country language (all roms equal in name, just change the language tag). It also solve a possible problem of multi region roms, for example, USA - Japan. Mario Paint or マリオペイント?

[PinkLouie]

Some games in no-intro database are tagged as (pirate). What's the point of supporting pirate hacks like "Sonic 4" for Snes or multicarts? I think, maybe, no-intro should be more clean, without pirate things and these kind of stuff.

[PinkLouie]

I also thing that a (program) tag is good for things like Pro Action Replay, because they are not games.

[Collecter]

Some games in no-intro database are tagged as (pirate). What's the point of supporting pirate hacks like "Sonic 4" for Snes or multicarts? I think, maybe, no-intro should be more clean, without pirate things and these kind of stuff.

i never understood why there are pirate and unlicensed stuff in the database if the goal is to collect all the licensed games.

[hornpipe2]

Some games in no-intro database are tagged as (pirate). What's the point of supporting pirate hacks like "Sonic 4" for Snes or multicarts? I think, maybe, no-intro should be more clean, without pirate things and these kind of stuff.

i never understood why there are pirate and unlicensed stuff in the database if the goal is to collect all the licensed games.

Tengen Tetris, for example, is an important bit of unlicensed NES history.

Some Sega games were from originally unlicensed developers, who later went on to become licensed developers.

It is a blurry line but I don't think "eliminate all unlicensed" is the answer.

[PinkLouie]

Some games in no-intro database are tagged as (pirate). What's the point of supporting pirate hacks like "Sonic 4" for Snes or multicarts? I think, maybe, no-intro should be more clean, without pirate things and these kind of stuff.

i never understood why there are pirate and unlicensed stuff in the database if the goal is to collect all the licensed games.

Tengen Tetris, for example, is an important bit of unlicensed NES history.

Some Sega games were from originally unlicensed developers, who later went on to become licensed developers.

It is a blurry line but I don't think "eliminate all unlicensed" is the answer.

I don't said neither think you should remove all unlicensed games, but pirated games, yes. Multicarts too, they are a bunch of repeated games that are already available in its standalone roms. Protos, betas, and samples/demos? I do not know, but maybe, they aren't even complete games.

[Collecter]

The good thing is we know which roms are pirate unlicensed etc so we can "make" our own personal collection.

i made my own collection for example with unlicensed stuff removed, removed all the early versions of games and kept the latest revisions, removed games with languages i dont understand, removed all demos and samples that cant be used with the main games to unlock some bonus content, kept all the ereader roms cause some can be used with the english games and i simply cant test all of them because of no free time and kept prototypes and debug roms in a separate collection kust because i like rare stuff.