6,906
edits
User:Xerxes: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→GameID adding guide
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
*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) | *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) | ||
*More examples | *More examples | ||
This will be an | This will be an in-depth 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. | ||
=== How are IDs formatted? === | === How are IDs formatted? === | ||
Every ID is a unique six-character code made up of letters and numbers which identifies a specific version of every wii or gamecube game. Each character holds | Every ID is a unique six-character code made up of letters and numbers which identifies a specific version of every wii or gamecube game. Each character holds its own meaning in the ID, as follows: | ||
*Character 1 tells you what console the game was released on, or in the case of the wii, it'll tell you whether it's a wii-ware title, a virtual console title (and which virtual console title specifically), or a retail game. | *Character 1 tells you what console the game was released on, or in the case of the wii, it'll tell you whether it's a wii-ware title, a virtual console title (and which virtual console title specifically), or a retail game. | ||
| Line 51: | Line 49: | ||
=== How do I add an ID? === | === How do I add an ID? === | ||
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 "G12E34" for the game "Test 123", all you need to do is create a new page on the wiki titled exactly "G12E34" and as its contents write "<nowiki>#REDIRECT [[Test 123]]</nowiki>". 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. | 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 "G12E34" for the game "Test 123", all you need to do is create a new page on the wiki titled exactly "G12E34" and as its contents write "<nowiki>#REDIRECT [[Test 123]]</nowiki>". 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. | |||
Currently the wiki is undergoing an effort to try and understand some of the odd IDs that can appear. Examples of this would be X/Y/Z region IDs (IDs in the format of ____X__, ____Y__, or ____Z__), U region IDs for Australian releases, games which have a different first three characters for different region releases (usually happens with Japanese versions), special Walmart/Best Buy release versions, etc. Once you get a feel for how IDs usually behave, whenever you spot an odd ID of this format, underneath your <nowiki>#REDIRECT</nowiki> line, add some details of what you know about that release. For example, often the X/Y/Z region IDs are just different language versions of the European release, so something that I'll do is I will change all the European IDs to add their languages, as that's usually the primary distinguishing factor. No need to get fancy or anything, just a one sentence little jot down like "Best Buy release" or "EN, FR language release" or something along those lines. It won't interfere with the function of the ID or with the redirect, UNLESS you add a second <nowiki>[[link]]</nowiki> to a page after the redirect. Don't do this, it breaks everything, so just write out the name of the page normally with no link. | Currently the wiki is undergoing an effort to try and understand some of the odd IDs that can appear. Examples of this would be X/Y/Z region IDs (IDs in the format of ____X__, ____Y__, or ____Z__), U region IDs for Australian releases, games which have a different first three characters for different region releases (usually happens with Japanese versions), special Walmart/Best Buy release versions, etc. Once you get a feel for how IDs usually behave, whenever you spot an odd ID of this format, underneath your <nowiki>#REDIRECT</nowiki> line, add some details of what you know about that release. For example, often the X/Y/Z region IDs are just different language versions of the European release, so something that I'll do is I will change all the European IDs to add their languages, as that's usually the primary distinguishing factor. No need to get fancy or anything, just a one sentence little jot down like "Best Buy release" or "EN, FR language release" or something along those lines. It won't interfere with the function of the ID or with the redirect, UNLESS you add a second <nowiki>[[link]]</nowiki> to a page after the redirect. Don't do this, it breaks everything, so just write out the name of the page normally with no link. | ||
| Line 79: | Line 79: | ||
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. | 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. | ||
=== | === Example 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. | 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. | 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. | ||
=== Miscellaneous tips === | |||
Because this is a wiki, there's a lot of neat tricks you can do to find patterns and help you in your quest to document IDs. One of them is DPL. While I won't get into all the specifics of using DPL (since I don't know them myself), here's an example of what you can do with it: | |||
<code><nowiki>{{#dpl:titlematch=____28|ordermethod=lastedit|order=ascending|redirects=only|mode=inline|inlinetext=<nowiki>, </nowiki></nowiki><nowiki>|notcategory=Not GameID|notcategory=Unofficial GameID}}</nowiki></code><!-- | |||
^^DON'T COPY/PASTE FROM HERE^^! I had to do some absolutely disgusting nowiki-ing to get this shit to come out right. Copy from the actual page, or the one below. --> | |||
This gives the output of: | |||
{{#dpl:titlematch=____28|ordermethod=lastedit|order=ascending|redirects=only|mode=inline|inlinetext=<nowiki>, </nowiki>|notcategory=Not GameID|notcategory=Unofficial GameID}} | |||
What this does, is finds all IDs on the wiki with publisher ID 28, and lists them the last edited to the most recent. With tools like this you can easily go through and add an edit to each ID, and your DPL will update as you go along to put the oldest edit first, so the one on top is always the next one you want to edit. | |||
== TODO == | == TODO == | ||