Hey guys, I decided to make a thread to call attention to one of our major features here, the Game Database. I'll probably bump it from time to time to let everyone know about new hot games that have been added that you can add to your collections or rate.

First, let me explain a few things about rating games and adding them to your collection. Everyone (yes, even you -1ers!) can rate games and add them to your collection. This is a pretty simple process. Go up to the menu above and select GAMES -> Game Database, or just CLICK HERE. You will see a list of titles you can browse, and you can also search for specific titles with the search feature at the top, and even add games you can't find with the little bar at the top right above the search functionality that says "Submit a Game (keywords)". To add a game to your collection you check the box under "Owned" next to the game, and to rate it you select a number under "You" (you can add without rating and vice versa, if you want to). You can do one game or a whole page at a time, and when you are ready to submit your collection and ratings updates, click the "CLICK TO UPDATE THIS PAGE OF YOUR COLLECTION AND RATINGS" bar that can be found at either the top or bottom. Simple!

You can also rate games and add them to your collection from the individual game pages that you access when you click on any game from the main game page. For instance, if you were on the Mario Party 6 page there is a box in the top right where you can add it to your collection or rate it and click the "PUSH" button to update.

Now, let me explain something about writing game reviews. Again, everyone (yes, even you -1ers!) can write reviews for the site. This is a pretty simple process. Like before, go up to the menu above and select GAMES -> Game Database (or just CLICK HERE. Select the game you want to review (you can use the search at the top to find games quickly) and click on it. Near the top right of the page for that individual game you will see "Add a review" with a little plus next to it. Click the plus, write your review, choose a score (or not, if you don't like scoring reviews) and submit. Easy as pie!

And don't worry about not being formal enough, or sticking to a specific review format, or whatever. As long as you can write a paragraph or two and put your thoughts into a semi-coherent form, everything is good. Also, reviews of older games are totally acceptable, for instance I recently posted a WarioWare: Twisted! review of mine that I wrote like 6 years ago or whatever.

Alright, that's all I have for now. Use the features guys!

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@DrFinkelstein

Me neither! I took some time off, lost skill, and then came back to a hard part.
I think I was playing that teachery lookin' chick, and she was just making IMPOSSIBLE shots.

How the heck are you supposed to match an Eagle?!

@Mr_Mustache It's up.

Just want to throw something out there that would be cool to have but would totally understand if it's way too much trouble to implement:

I love stats and graphs and such, so how nice if I could view a bar or pie chart showing my total number of games in my collection, broken down by video game system:

NES: 10 games
SNES: 20 games
N64: 31 games

and so on...

@roykoopa64

That's actually a neat idea. There are many already made scripts out there that do this type of thing. In fact, here's one.

Added:

Alien Solder (Genesis import on VC)
Aggressive Inline (GCN)
Out of This World (SNES)
Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (N64)

I recently added:

Alleyway (GB)
ClayFighter (Genesis)
ClayFighter (SNES)
Claymates (SNES)
Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time (WiiWare)
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (DS)
Jam City Rollergirls (WiiWare)
Kid Dracula (GB)
Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (GB)
NBA Jam (SNES)
Smart Ball (SNES)

I'm hoping people are using the game database to fill in their collection and rate the games they've played!

Chrisbg99, great job adding a bunch more games recently as well!

@roykoopa64

Wow, I can't believe a lot of those games that Chris added weren't in there already. Metal Gear? Really??

I might add some more today.. Training at work (read: she works, I sit on a different computer and answer questions) so I've got some time.

I..started adding in boxart. I saw that a few of you did it and now I wanted to, too!

I'm just pulling 'em from wherever. Is that no good?
Should we have our OWN database of images?
Would it make more sense to scan in our own boxes and have a Negative World Photobucket type thing?

Can we get in trouble? I haven't stumbled across any watermarks yet.
Is there a place we can pull from where we're definitely good to go?

@Simbabbad

So for now, one preferred method would be to have a box art image (no watermarks) saved on my photobucket account, and use that image link instead?

@Simbabbad

Do you want us to scan our own stuff? I don't have enough time right now to properly respond. I have all of my old boxes, and if I don't have that, at the very least I have my game and label. I can scan those in, blow them up, take a picture of them with an awesome camera (my wife worked at a photo place, too, so she knows her way around that crap), and then set the parameters. I'd gladly do that, and forward them or simply upload them to the Negative World photobucket deal. Again, gladly.

I only threw boxart on about 5 of my games. I'll check back later tonight for something and see if there is a definite verdict.

--Can we shrink one of the rows to make room for box art on the left or something?

I'm not sure how shady this is, but one place to get clean box art (IE no logos) consistently is Gamerankings.

Of course, whatever we do, we should not hotlink. We could probably host the image files here, we have tons of space.

HOWEVER, I'm noticing that with the podcast being a lot more popular than expected, our data transfer is a bit tighter than expected. Right now we're at 23/100 GB transfer for february... a large part of that being the podcast being downloaded over and over. Moving forward we may have to upgrade to the business account, which is about $10 a month and has 500 GB transfer.

@Simbabbad

I love having box art, but I can understand if the current layout does not support it.

I agree to have the box art images removed from my game entries, I don’t have a problem with that.

With the talk about hotlinking, now I have general questions about any images we post on NW in general.

What about our game reviews?
Does box art have a better place there?
What about the screenshots we post, should we post them from our own photobucket type account?

@roykoopa64

That's what I do personally: steal screenshots from somewhere on the net and put them in my photobucket account, and link to those.

@Zero

Just how many times is the podcast being downloaded? I've got stats from feedburner, but they wouldn't explain 23 gigs.

Okay, I found a website that provides TONS of NES box art.

http://nesboxart.generation-now.net/

The image quality is pretty good. I understand about the current layout not working with it. Would it be bad to suggest a slightly different layout? Maybe the box art to the left and to the right of it you have platform, release?, NW stats.

edit: of course, that only takes care of NES box art...

@Pandareus Well, here are the stats so far, the first number being hits and the second being KBs. I'm a bit confused how episode 2 has way less hits but about the same KBs, considering that it is about the same size, but maybe there were a bunch of partial downloads on the first? I dunno. (Keep in mind episode 1 released in late January, so these aren't the full stats for that.)

FEB
293, 2658622 /media/Negative_World_Podcast_001.mp3
80, 2058341 /media/Negative_World_Podcast_002.mp3
458, 499716 /media/Negative_World_Podcast_001.m4a

So, it doesn't explain 23 GB, but it's a good 5 or 6 just for february so far from podcasts alone. And if episode 2 manages to be as popular as episode 1, and then we get an episode 3 out this month... could add up quickly. Not saying you guys should worry about that, just keep cranking them out and we'll figure something out. If we have to we can always upgrade the account.

PS. The podcast seems to be a pretty big hit!

PPS. Site stats will soon be linked to in the moderator menu.

@Zero

Well, keep in mind that many people had issues for a little while with the first podcast: it would load and start every time they checked the page. Simba has since fixed that.

Yeah but that wasn't the .mp3 version was it? Or... I'm not sure.

Just Added:
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Volume 1
Jaws
Joust


--Deleted any pictures I had. One of the links had already broken, too.
I'll begin scanning..sometime.

@Simbabbad I'm not sure what 'edition form' you are referring to?? Was this something visible in the Game Database view?