GameID Confirmation Guide: Difference between revisions

*Manual: On the upper right corner (only for GameCube titles).

While this may theoretically be a good source of IDs, in many cases certain titles just might not have high quality cover scans publicly available. If a cover scan for a title cannot be acquired using normal sources (GameFAQs, GameTDB, [https://www.mobygames.com/ MobyGames], etc.), [http://www.ebay.com/ eBay] is another possible option. A lot of listings use high resolutions pictures of both sides of the title's box or the disc, from which the ID prefix can be obtained. By knowing the regions of a title's release, region-specific eBays can be used to further narrow the search; for example, there's an [http://www.ebay.com.au Australian eBay], a [http://www.ebay.co.uk/ British eBay], a [http://www.ebay.de/ German eBay], and a [http://www.tradera.com/ Swedish eBay called Tradera], among others. Since these are not databases, keep in mind listings will come and go and results may vary, so results may be hit or miss. Note also that for the best results it's more effective to use the name of the title in the language of the region, which can be obtained from GameTDB or Redump. Below is a chart listing online auction sites in various countries for convenience.

Redump.org is a trustworthy site dedicated to disc preservation across many different consoles; its archives can be considered close to the title's cover in validity. When there's no good cover scans available for a title, this is the next most verifiable source for IDs available. The site itself also includes some helpful formatting, such as showing region flags next to the IDs in the database and listing title languages to pinpoint where European IDs had their release. Redump's main flaws are: a) it only includes GameCube titles, no Wii data is available; b) it doesn't document publisher data, so piecing together the last two character publisher ID is challenging. In conclusion, Redump is a great place to check outlier GameCube IDs, but does not contain enough information on its own to be a primary source.

GameTDB is huge and contains almost all GameCube and Wii IDs and covers, along with some other miscellaneous data like title languages similar to Redump. The problem though 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 or the NUS that contains full 6 character IDs like the Dolphin wiki uses. Because this is pretty trustworthy but not perfectly so, it is still recommended to check against one of the more reliable sources above before mindlessly posting IDs from GameTDB onto the wiki. However, in the case of a retail Wii title 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 title can confirm/deny the ID directly.

GameFAQs, on the whole, is a terrible place to get IDs, plagued with filled-in ID characters and false assumptions between different regions. But as it is recommended to find release data for titles while doing ID confirmation, GameFAQs ends up being a high priority visit anyways as their release information is extremely good. The rule of thumb here is, never trust GameFAQs' IDs without a second source. The first three characters are all that can reliably be obtained 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.

 

Currently the wiki is undergoing an effort to try and understand some of the odd IDs that can appear. Examples of this would be titles which have a different first three characters for different region releases (usually happens with Japanese versions), special Walmart/Best Buy release versions, strange region codes, etc. In these cases, it's recommended to add a little sentence on the ID's page below the redirect with a few details about the ID (however it is not required). It won't interfere with the function of the ID or with the redirect, unless a second <nowiki>[[link]]</nowiki> is added to the ID page after the redirect. This currently breaks some wiki functionality and should not be done.

Because this is a wiki, there's a nearly Turing-complete scripting language and all its extensions available to find patterns in the wiki's IDs. The most useful of those extensions is DPL. DPL is the primary method used on the wiki for interacting with IDs both inside and outside of templates, and a familiarity with it is almost crucial. Take the following as a small example of what be done: