Great first post!Rola wrote:Oh?MZ per X wrote:If this influx of MG people continues...
Welcome aboard.
Open Registry of Game Information
Great first post!Rola wrote:Oh?MZ per X wrote:If this influx of MG people continues...
I'm not that ignorant to designing database structure either.Rola wrote:a rehash of the database regarding game groups, compilations and special editions. Game groups would be only used for shared themes (like "games with zombies"), other uses like game series would be done by linking titles and flagging them (separate flags for special edition etc.). One thing that could be done first is color coding - make the compilations stand out. Or add a checkbox allowing to hide them (like stuff in search results). "Ideal" solution would look something like this: (with the ability to filter the search results, say, to "series" level, thus skipping all unofficial and compilation stuff)
I remember thinking about your proposal back then. Looking back, it helped shape Oregami's data model a little bit. So, a belated thanks to you.Rola wrote:Back in 2010 I suggested to MobyGames:... I'm not that ignorant to designing database structure either.
Welcome and make yourself at home. Great to see so many good people joining here.Piltdown_Man wrote:Hi. I too come from MG and it's comforting to find so many familiar names here.
We will probably rather go for a tagging system like UVL does to the extreme. It's more flexible, I think.Piltdown_Man wrote:- Game groups, I never did find a definitive list
That's one of my hobby horses, too. I secretly buy every "500 Games for Windows" - CD I can get my hands on. But give me another few days, I'm about to start writing a blog entry about the Oregami data model.Piltdown_Man wrote:- Compilations, I have a 'thing' about recording shareware games. There can be hundreds on a single CD and it's not practical to put a link into the compilation for every game.
Although this is a project of German origin, we try hard to make up a friendly community.Piltdown_Man wrote:- The community & forums. Even though everyone seemed to have a much more interesting life than me there was always someone there to help
We already discussed this in quite some depth, and will have a similar system like Mobygames, I think.Piltdown_Man wrote:- The points system. I am a bit of an achievement junkie
We aim for a rather scientific approach to game documentation, which mainly means peer review and public sourcing.Piltdown_Man wrote:- The approver system. It's good to be held accountable and to have to maintain a standard
There was always a problem with MobyGames compilations... they were designed to hold those games "not worth a separate entry", only in their description. Then there are other cases of compilations of existing titles (with own entries)... Those can be linked manually to separate titles, however this is only a one-way link.MZ per X wrote:I remember thinking about your proposal back then. Looking back, it helped shape Oregami's data model a little bit.
Welcomt to Oregami!Cantillon wrote:I'm not only interested in brainstorming about the features but since I'm an agile software developer, also in writing code for this project. My current company uses Smalltalk, but I was a Java programmer at my previous job. Are you still looking for people?
We discussed the compilation issues to quite some depth, and I think we're on a very good way there.Rola wrote:There was always a problem with MobyGames compilations...
In Oregami's data model, it doesn't matter whether a game was released or not, or how it was released. Every game gets its own database entry. Please stay tuned for English discussion of this subject.Rola wrote:These two-way links would solve another major omission in MobyGames system. Namely games-ported-only-in-compilation, which on their own separate entry never admit to being released on that platform (because of "no standalone relase" rule). There should be some indicator (color coding?) meaning "released for this platform, although only on compilation).
Yeah, once you've seen the light of a good data model, compare the Doom entry at OGDB, you don't want something worse any more.Rola wrote:UVL tags are its only interesting feature (otherwise I see plenty of problems, like shouldn't there be links to other platform ports here?).
Indeed. What IMHO is needed at least, is tag groups, like Mobygames tried with prefixing their game groups. The moderation of this would be Indra's job then.Rola wrote:At least some Ordnung muss sein... There should be moderation in creating tags (not for every user), to avoid doubles (how about alternatename field which is also used in autocomplete suggestions).
LOL, yeah. Maybe users can highlight their preferred genre or platform, or can give theirselves a funny nick on the site, besides their login nick.Rola wrote:Although considered "not serious" by self-made-researchers, "gamification" of contribution process (points and achievements - just check those Wikia sites) guarantees more content from the casual crowd. Badges could also be practical: for identifying the user's field of expertise (Piltdown_Man and me would get "Armchair Aviator", while Unicorn Lynx - "Tentacl... nevermind! )
Not implemented, yet, but definitely on our radar.Rola wrote:I can't find "website" on your database diagram. What I wanted to propose to MobyGames was adding "official" flag, because official website should be displayed on the game's main page (near title/developer), while all fanpages are dumped to "links" section.
This is something I'm looking forward to, too, because I deem it very important. Although I didn't implement the release languages in the data model, yet, I already thought about it, and it will be quite easily implemented, I suppose.Rola wrote:What I wanted to propose to MobyGames was a separate summary (next to release info data?) of "what languages is this game available in?" (not always clearly evident from release data!). Skip the packaging/manual, what we care about is in-game text and voices (counted separately).
Hi Lieven, glad to welcome you, too.Cantillon wrote:I am also abandoning MobyGames and looking forward to participate in this open database.
Just implemented it. Here's the list, please comment if I forgot something.Rola wrote:Another thing I couldn't find on your database graph was game's "business model". As I already said on the forum, MobyGames wrongly assigns it to technical specifications of given platform, while it should be tied to given release. I gave the example of Teenagent, originally released as commercial (Poland), soon after as shareware (USA) and now freeware (worldwide) - all PC (MS-DOS).
Would this make three different releases or one release with three "states" ?Rola wrote:I gave the example of Teenagent, originally released as commercial (Poland), soon after as shareware (USA) and now freeware (worldwide) - all PC (MS-DOS).
That would be three releases, at least.gene wrote:Would this make three different releases or one release with three "states" ?Rola wrote:I gave the example of Teenagent, originally released as commercial (Poland), soon after as shareware (USA) and now freeware (worldwide) - all PC (MS-DOS).
Genau. Assuming my example above (actual Teenagent had more releases).MZ per X wrote:That would be three releases
That would be an emulator release which would be connected to two release groups, one for Windows and one for DOS. That way, we can show people looking at the Windows release which version they get to play, and people looking at the DOS release that they can buy and play this old version on their modern system.Rola wrote:What leads us to another exception: what about all those GOG releases? They are Windows (because you otherwise won't launch the file), but once installed (wrapped in DOSBOX) the game files could be copied to old computer running DOS...