User:Xerxes

I test games and enjoy boring pedantic work. If I do something wrong/stupid please tell me on my discussion page or right here, I don't care where. If you want me to extensively test something specific, just tell me and I will.

GameID adding guide
Needs:
 * Clarification on what makes Virtual Console IDs different (publisher code)


 * What to do with XYZ IDs (note them on the redirect)


 * Better formatting? (reads like shit)


 * More emphasis on how good GameTDB's next/previous ID function is, and what to do about wiki discrepancies such as two pages for different region releases of a single game (talk page until someone agrees with you then merge yourself   or have Kolano do it    )


 * More meat about GameIDs, their function, how they're stored in the game, etc. so that some day when the wiki's GameID database is complete, this writeup wont be completely useless (i'll need help for this one)


 * Explanation of tools like DPL (more of a sidenote, maybe just a link and a mention)

This will be a simple guide going through all the steps to quickly and consistently add good GameIDs to the wiki. It's not particularly hard to do, it's just a bit boring and sometimes can require some investigation for obscure titles. However, once you have an understanding of how IDs work and how best to use the resources available to you, it can be done without too much trouble.

Adding a GameID to the wiki is rather simple on a technical level. You simply create a new page for the 6 character ID that redirects to the main page of the game that it's an ID for. Example: if you wanted to add ID "G123E45" for the game "Test 123", all you need to do is create a new page on the wiki titled exactly "G123E45" and as its contents write " #REDIRECT Test 123 ". That's it. Note that it takes a little while to catch up and reflect your IDs on the game's infobox, so don't freak out if it doesn't pop up right away.

Before we get any further take a look at the GameIDs page if you haven't already. Having an understanding of how IDs are formatted will help you greatly when trying to spot bogus entries. As a crash course, what you really care about are the last three characters. Character 4 is the region code, so making sure that this region code matches with the regions that the game was actually released in will help keep out fake entries. Characters five and six reflect publisher, and these are the most confusing of all characters as they can be all over the place depending on the title. Sometimes titles will have different publishers for each region, the same publishers in all regions except one, all the same publisher, the same publisher but with a different last two characters that's actually valid, etc. Using the charts on the GameIDs page and the release data for the game from GameFAQs/Wikipedia is crucial to understand what is and is not a valid ID, so I also recommend that if you undertake adding or confirming IDs on the wiki that you take the time to correct the release data on the title's page at the same time. Example: page Test 123 on the wiki says that a game had only a North American release, and includes only a North American ID (region code E). It looked fine so nobody else bothered to investigate. You check the release data and find that in fact Test 123 had a European release as well, and you even find a European cover for the game on Google images. You then know that there is a missing European ID, and after a quick search you find it and add it. What looked like a page with all IDs was actually missing one all along, and not knowing the correct release data for the game it would've gone undetected.

Now, where do you actually find IDs at? There's five(ish) separate sources for GameID that are out there, and I want to close out this guide first with an overview of the sources, their pros and cons, and then my typical workflow that I've found the most convenient. I will list the sources by how reliable they are.

Source #1: Your own dump
The only complete, 100% valid and verifiable source of GameIDs in existence. Maybe a no brainer but if you have a dump of a game's release then you know for a fact that the ID Dolphin gives you in game preferences is correct. When all else fails, this may be the only place you can turn. The negative here is, obviously, you actually have to have a copy of the game and dump it yourself.

Source #2: The game's cover
On the back of all Gamecube and Wii games (besides Japanese Gamecube games maybe?), near the barcode, the Game's ID will actually be printed out. So searching for a scan of the game's back cover is always a good idea when confirming IDs. This is also a perfectly reliable source like having your own dump, but the problem is that the ID on the cover uses a different format to those used on the wiki; namely, it will only give you the first four characters, leaving out the publisher code. You can piece together the publisher code using the publisher information on the cover, separate sources like GameTDB and the GameIDs page if need be, but at the very least you know with 100% certainty the ID prefix. The other problem that can crop up is that some games just don't have good scans on the internet, so even if you find the cover, you may not actually be able to read the ID on the back, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it in that situation.

Source #3: Redump.org
Redump.org is, in my opinion, the most valid of all online databases for game data, so I would consider redump close to the game's cover in validity. When you can't find a cover and don't have the game yourself, this is the next most verifiable source. It also includes some nice formatting to help you out, like showing region flags next to the IDs in the database and telling you the languages of the games to pinpoint where European IDs had their release. Redump's main flaws are a) it uses the same four character prefixes as game covers do, and b) it only includes Gamecube games, no Wii data is available. On top of having only the four character prefixes of the game covers, it doesn't actually include any publisher data like the cover does, so piecing together the last two characters is even harder. In conclusion, use redump as a check for weird Gamecube IDs from GameFAQs or GameTDB, but don't rely on it as a main source.

Source #4: GameTDB
This will be your primary source. GameTDB is huge and contains almost all Gamecube and Wii IDs and covers, along with some other miscellaneous data like game languages similar to redump. The problem here is that GameTDB is not as reliable. There are invalid entries on GameTDB, low resolution/wrong covers making it hard to check entry validity (___X__ region European IDs having ___P__ region covers as a consistent problem), questionable developer and publisher information, etc. The actual IDs though are generally correct, and this is the only source other than a personal dump that contains full 6 character IDs like the dolphin wiki uses. I would say the IDs from GameTDB are around 90% accurate, with the other 10% generally being flat-out missing IDs or false entries (for example wrong publisher code). Because this is pretty trustworthy but not perfectly so, I still recommend checking against one of the more reliable sources above before mindlessly posting IDs from GameTDB onto the wiki. However, in the case of a Wii game with no good cover scans for example, this becomes the most reliable source and there's no choice but to trust it until someone with the game comes to confirm/deny your addition.

There is another problem which is a bit more subtle; while GameTDB is a good source for Virtual Console IDs, since GameTDB contains IDs from other Nintendo consoles, if a retro game had Virtual Console releases on multiple consoles, the actual pages on GameTDB (at least at the time of writing) don't distinguish at all what console that ID is for. So for example if you wanted to find the Super Mario Bros. Virtual Console ID for the Wii, but the game also had a Virtual Console release for the WiiU, you would get both the Wii and WiiU Super Mario Bros IDs in your results if you use the general search with zero way to distinguish them, so be careful about that and try and double check with GameFAQs for Virtual Console if possible.

Last point: although GameTDB uses the six character GameIDs, they omit the last two characters from WiiWare/Arcade games. While this isn't a problem for Virtual Console, as you can simply fill them in, WiiWare and Arcade games actually do go by publisher apparently for the last two characters in their ID, which means you'll have to fill them in manually.

Source #5: GameFAQs
I'm not going to lie. GameFAQs, on the whole, is a terrible place to get IDs. But as I do recommend looking into release data for games while you do this, you'll usually go to GameFAQs anyways as their release information is extremely good. The rule of thumb here is, never trust their Gamecube or Wii IDs. The first three characters are all you can get from them; not only do they omit the publisher code again, they also just fill in the region code by the region of release, NOT what the ID actually is. So do NOT blindly trust the region codes from GameFAQs; instead check their uploaded covers instead. In contrast to this though, their WiiWare and Virtual Console IDs are generally pretty good and trustworthy, so if you use GameFAQs for anything, use it for those kinds of IDs and nothing else.

My personal workflow
I start out by figuring out the game's release dates, with a special focus on regions. GameFAQs is my first source for this information, using Wikipedia's writeups on different titles' development and developer/publisher histories for elusive games. Next I open another tab to GameTDB and search for the game's title. Once I find one for the console I want, I click only that one and ignore all other results for the same console. GameTDB has this wonderful feature which lets you click to the next ID or previous ID alphabetically; trusting this over the general search and the game's raw title can find you games which had releases with different names in different regions. Using this, I go as far back as I can and as far forward as I can before I reach different games, all in new tabs; this generally leaves me with 2-4 tabs of different IDs for each game. Then I do a quick sanity check, making sure that there aren't any IDs for regions the game wasn't released in, and expanding the covers on GameTDB I try and confirm as many of them against the codes on the back as possible. If they have an entry for Gamecube that their covers don't substantiate, then I will check redump for it. Once I'm satisfied that the IDs are correct, I'll fix the release data on the wiki page (assuming it had any errors) and then start creating redirects for each ID, closing the tabs as I go.

The whole process on average, when things go smoothly, takes less than five minutes per game. If you really have to dig and use all of sources 2-5, start reading Wikipedia writeups, and search for outside second opinions (for example with elusive publishers), it can get up to around 20-30 minutes, but this is pretty rare, and in my opinion I think it's kind of fun in a way. Really the idea here is to understand the patterns of IDs and the limitations of your source. Once you fully grasp these things then you'll find it pretty easy to pick up on missing IDs or fake ones. Worst case, don't be afraid to use the talk pages to ask about weird IDs, they exist for a reason.

TODO

 * Make infoboxes look nicer.


 * Space them out evenly.


 * Change the ordering of entries in the template to match how it looks on the final page, as they can be scrambled.


 * Check that release dates are correct.


 * Put dates and publishers in chronological order, as specified by the conventions.


 * Validate GameIDs and add missing ones using data primarily from GameTDB.


 * Arcade titles seem to use the normal publisher ID, but not a large enough sample size to confirm this.


 * Virtual Console titles use uniform publisher IDs depending on console, according to the chart below.