Black Squirrel/Old

From Sega Retro

Nice work on the cleanup of some articles out there, I also thought that we should had use the original title screen and not one from a port in the info part. - User:Elratauru 11:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Contents

For convenience

This Japanese chap has been kind enough to buy and review all sorts of Mega Drive related hardware, and from the looks of things, he's still actively doing stuff

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.yahoo.co.jp%2Frig_veda%2Ffolder%2F1499935.html&sl=ja&tl=en

Bubble Bobble 2

I changed the name to what is on the title screen. Does the boxart actually only translate to what you posted and not whats on the title screen?

Traditionally the game's just known as "Rainbow Islands". Nobody's really paid attention to the subtitle before (and by nobody, that means wikipedia, mobygames and numerous other databases). There's also a bit of confusion to be had, as there are other games called "Bubble Bobble II" or "Bubble Bobble Part II". And to make matters worse, Parasol Stars is sometimes called "Bubble Bobble III" or "Rainbow Islands 2". It's easier on everybody if the games are just called "Bubble Bobble", "Rainbow Islands" and "Parasol Stars".
The European Master System box actually calls it "Rainbow Islands: Story of THE Bubble Bobble 2". So I'm really not all that sure. -Black Squirrel 21:29, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, on Sonic Retro we go by what's on the title screen. An example is calling the game Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball rather than just Sonic Spinball. I'm sure that still applies over here.--MathUser 21:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

TeamPlayer

I tried to make sense of why there are 3 wires. Correct it if I'm mistaken on my guess.

About old logos (MD ones for example)

I believe that the main problem about these logos...is that it seems that according to what I have read over the years, these logos were not vectorial (At least the EU and US Megadrive logos). I mean, these logos were painted by hand like any other old Sonic logo. Letter by letter, and shadow by shadow.

Even so, I examined the cover for the Megadrive Collections they released...and they used the same logo I uploaded here... The "Collection" words looked really really vectorial, but all the other logo parts looked the same old hand painted (and kinda low quality for its resolution) logo.

For now, I believe that'll be nice to have SVG's for now like I said, I also retraced the logos following everything the most accurate I could too (I took pics from boxes, so I'd not even miss a detail.)-Elratauru 18:42, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's very unlikely that you'll ever find vector versions of the US and EU Mega Drive logos. But we're not desperate for them since Sega Retro has some massive PNGs already. The Japanese one, however, is very simple, and simplistic logos tend to suggest that somewhere there's an official vector-based copy. I haven't done a lot of research in the subject, but I think most professional logos use the EPS format, which has been around since the mid-1980s. Don't know how Sega work, but there's always a possibility the raw copy exists somewhere.
I a lot of the logos I've uploaded were rippped from PDFs, which I believe is often the format used for creating manuals and covers these days. So if Japan were to get a Sega Mega Drive collection and a PDF replacement manual was hosted on Sega of Japan's website, we might get lucky.
But I don't think we should be endulging in fan-made works, partly because we don't allow fan-made scans and partly because it's never a good idea to spread wrong data. -Black Squirrel 19:10, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Do I pay you via PayPal?

I hope you don't mind correcting the list; it did give me an excuse to make more unlicensed game articles... in fact - Andlabs 11:12, 29 March 2011 (CDT)

I don't mind at all =P. I only made it a user page out of fear it might be too big for the the current Sega Mega Drive page. It'll need to be shifted to somewhere more meaningful at a later date-Black Squirrel 11:15, 29 March 2011 (CDT)

SMS cart scans

I see you put one of the carts scans I've just done into place. =P I've put most of the rest up but 3 elude me due to alt box covers:

Any thoughts? Overlord 16:53, 2 January 2012 (CST)

This is why I stopped after Aerial Assault, I figured you'd know better =P
(Castle of Illusion also has this problem by the way)
I would imagine there were no changes to the cartridges (or at least, the front of them) between EU releases. They might even be identical to the US versions too. The only one I'm not sure about is that OutRun Europa cart, because it's a third-party one.
this image suggests a red version of OutRun Europa exists, and assuming that cartridge is both legitmate and came in that box, this would suggest that the white label one goes with this (though honestly, it feels like it should be the other way around). There's a few similar U.S. Gold releases which probably follow similar rules... unless SMS Power have the answer I'll have to check this all up at a later date since I'm short on time at the mo -Black Squirrel 17:08, 2 January 2012 (CST)
Fair enough. I've added Castle of Illusion above - best to leave it I think until it's verified rather than rush into it and make a mistake we never end up fixing. These are the only loose carts I've got, just annoying that half of the buggers have alt covers! Overlord 18:09, 2 January 2012 (CST)

This piqued my interest

"Most Dreamcast scans are fake - see spine for product code, PAL games =/= jewel case " — are we talking region-specific here?. I know most of the US ones are crap, but the EU collection I have seems to check out. Have I been mislabeling?

The PAL set here is fine (although it might be missing a few language variants), it's just that at the time of writing that note, our collection was incomplete and image searches were throwing up more fake covers than real ones. I also spotted one or two dodgy covers on Sonic Retro back in the day too so people must have been getting caught out
https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=dreamcast+pal+cover&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=Nus8UfrVCKzb7AbB4ICwDw&biw=1920&bih=951&sei=N-s8UYznFYqe0QX7koHICg
you don't have to scroll down very far until the fakes turn up - a few months ago fakes were more common than the real things (thankfully though, easy to spot because we had crazy boxes unique to the DC). The US/JP set isn't quite as lucky, and in fact a few fake covers managed to slip through:
(IIRC non-fake scans of these games suck even worse than these four, which is why I haven't bothered to replace them)
Sites like GameFAQs and Giant Bomb were all using fake covers at the time too (and probably still are) so it easy to be misled -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:28, 10 March 2013 (CDT)

Saturn spines

With IF+XM, they pulled the old "there's no interpunct" stunt... although the logos are actually drawn like that, and I'm going to start using them. With Souky, pretty much everything related to the game writes it that way, and as much as I'd like to override that, this is not my wiki. Obviously, if whatever English spine starts cutting out subtitles (this goes way beyond Saturn spines), we override that. With Garou Densetsu 3, the announcer says the subtitle because they always did in the originals; Sega simply didn't see the subtitle as important, or it was a mistake that stuck around. I'm actually seeing a bigger problem with the logo of GD3 always using "ROAD TO THE FINAL VICTORY", even as the announcer says the Japanese form. In fact... Despatche (talk) 14:43, 15 April 2013 (CDT)

oh

ok --Uno10 (talk) 09:12, 4 August 2013 (CDT)

Victory Goal credits

Hi! You added the credits for the game, can you tell me which source you used? Regards.--Hydao (talk) 08:08, 15 April 2014 (CDT)

IIRC it was a video on YouTube, and I think I had to do some digging to find it. It was a while ago - good chance the video has been removed since.
Doubtless it needs double checking - most things do. -Black Squirrel (talk) 08:27, 15 April 2014 (CDT)
Oh that's ok, if you used the video, then it's fine. The names are correct. I was just not sure about the "Nifty-Serve Soccer Forum", but no big deal. Thanks.--Hydao (talk) 09:58, 15 April 2014 (CDT)

My Uploads

Hi. What are you doing with my uploads?) If I understand correctly, adding to them This image is a scan, photo or promotional image of a Sega 32X video game box etc.. Second question - what about deleting old versions of files, like worse scans? Third - about upload resolution limit. I mean - for example in wiki scan - 600x800, 500Kb. I have 1200x1600, 2Mb - upload like new file version?Depressor (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2014 (CDT)

When you upload a file, MediaWiki automatically creates a page for it, which in turn is treated like any other page on the wiki. I'm adding this template which we use to categorise those pages/files (there are tons for all sorts of systems and scan types).
"Upload a new version of this file" is the way to replace an old file with a new one. There's an incredibly tedious bug on Sega Retro which means the thumbnails don't always update straight away - sometimes it can take days for the wiki to wake up, but the file will have been replaced. The wiki keeps track of old revisions just in case we need to revert back to an earlier version - they hang around indefinitely (there's no point in deleting them because doing so doesn't actually remove things from the server - you can't do that from this end, it just blocks access).
There shouldn' be a resolution "limit" - we aim for 300dpi because that generally brings out all the detail, but 600dpi is often better and above that can be good too. But usually it gets to a stage with scans where you reach an artificial limit - when the scanner stops picking up extra "art" and starts picking up the really tiny patterns caused by ink droplets and the like. When you start scanning more dots per inch than what the original printer could print.
There also shouldn't be a super strict file size limit (if there is, contact an admin because it shouldn't be there) - we aim for something along the lines of the highest quality JPEGs with scans and photos. Lossless PNGs, which we use for screenshots, don't lend themselves well to big images (by their very nature scans are imperfect, so it's pointless to losslessly preserve the imperfections), and low quality JPEGs distort the picture too much. Typically (and this isn't scientifically accurate) that leads a really good Mega Drive cover scan around the 5-10MB mark, so if you're exceeding 20MB on an image like that you're probably doing something wrong. There's plenty of space on the server, regardless.
p.s. sign comments with "-~~~~" -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:59, 19 June 2014 (CDT)

Thanks For Answer... One more. Adding this template - it's kind of verification from you, or i can add it too? And another one - the sequence of files influences their display? I mean scans - |front=, |back=, |Spine= looks like |front=, |Spine=, |back=, ?Depressor (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2014 (CDT)

You can use that template - when you first upload a file, the initial "summary" becomes the page contents, so it can all be done in one go
And no the order doesn't matter -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:29, 19 June 2014 (CDT)

New day - new questions) What about hardware manuals? I have scans of manuals (Sega Megadrive 32X (1994)(E), Sega Genesis 32X Instruction Manual (1994)(U)) & other texts (Genesis Super 32X Overview & Hardware Reference (1994)(U), MIDI Converter v1.30 (1994)(U)). Upload? And if "yes" - there i can show them like game manuals?Depressor (talk) 09:38, 20 June 2014 (CDT)

Yep. For consoles there are new-ish pages like this one that should accommodate for any documentation, be it manuals or ammendments or leaflets or flyers or whatever. But even if we don't have a page for them right now, it's better to upload and have them sit on the wiki rather than sit on a private hard drive somewhere. Stuff can always be accessed through categories and the like. -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:24, 20 June 2014 (CDT)

What about scans of official hints for Master system? Is there are tag or template for them? And where i can place them? Gallery, or beside manual? Depressor (talk) 09:04, 27 June 2014 (CDT)

Gallery, for now. The Scanbox templates are used to keep track of stuff that came with the release of a game (e.g. carts, manuals, box scan, maps. etc.) - everything else should be stored outside. And we can worry about categories and templates and whatever later, no worries there -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:13, 27 June 2014 (CDT)

Another Day - Another Questions) 1 - If game were released in several regions, from which version i can make a title screenshot for her page? 2 - I have some scans of our russian very unlicensed cartridges (one-game cart & some multi-cart) - where i can place them (if i can, of course) 3 - In-game screenshots - only for big articles about game, or i can place some in gallery? -Depressor (talk) 09:52, 28 June 2014 (CDT)

We try and have title screen screenshots match the name of the page... so if we're using the US title, we use a screenshot from the US ROM. Titles are chosen based on which is the most popular name, then, failing that, US -> EU -> JP -> whatever. Although to be honest the situation really depends on the game - Langrisser for example uses the Japanese title, because "Warsong" felt out of place when every other entry in the series used the original name.
Multi-cart scans are good, as are scans for these sorts of unlicensed games. As for pirated copies of "legitimate" releases or bootlegs or whatever your choice of words are, I'm genuinely not sure what the stance is. Technically mass-produced knock-offs are within this project's scope, but there are thousands of Mega Drive cartridges and I wouldn't begin to know how to document them all. Russian stuff in particular is a problem because I get the impression cartridges are still being produced today - it almost feels as if you could fill another wiki with that stuff.
In-game screenshots are fine - most pages don't have them because nobody has put themselves forward to talk about games in great detail. Organisational stuff can be handled later - getting content on the wiki is more important. -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:27, 28 June 2014 (CDT)

I have some scans of Magazines & Books, especially on Russian, each about 50-250 MB. So...
1) What about uploads of full scanned Magazines & Books? In both pdf & cbr formats.
2) If i create page - name it on English - translate or just translit (i mean book 52 Игры Для Sega Megadrive, page - 52 Games For Sega Megadrive or 52 Igri Dlya Sega Megadrive)
3) Why create empty templates for game versions or empty line (like cart=)? Such many TW or AU SMS games - there are nothing in them.
4) Little offtop) I have some manuals for sonic games, but i think i cannot pass validation on sonicretro) Any other ways to upload this stuff?
I hope I don't look silly) I just think that if i take more from internet i must give something instead. -Depressor (talk) 09:27, 16 July 2014 (CDT)

Don't bother with the CBR versions - that was the "old" format before introduced better PDF support
"52 Igri Dlya Sega Mega Drive" would be preferable
Empty scan templates are for the scan tracker (http://andlabs.sonicretro.org/scans/), so we have a better idea of what is needed
I can upload Sonic Retro stuff on your behalf -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:45, 16 July 2014 (CDT)

Cartridge images

Hi,

I've uploaded my own shot of File:Phelios_MD_US_Cart.jpg, which I believe is clearer. Is this the correct practice? I should be able to take shots of a similar quality of File:Columns MD EU Cart.jpg (my cart is in better condition), File:Toki MD EU Cart.jpg (Better condition + neutral background), and others games in my collection, if it is wanted. LTom (talk) 10:56, 29 June 2014 (CDT)

Yep
Generally scans are better than photos (although this isn't always clear cut with cartridges because they're not always "flat"), but good photos are better than bad scans... and good photos are of course better than bad photos. -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:05, 29 June 2014 (CDT)

Posters

Maybe for posters make something like for Gallery? I mean separate them from cover\cart\manual scans. Many of SMS posters have games catalog in their back that have no connection with the games in this catalog... And those posters was on sale without games, present on them. -Depressor (talk) 09:23, 5 July 2014 (CDT)

The ScanBox template is meant to house any material that came with a game, and as most of these posters came with games, their best place is in the template. It can make things a bit messy if a release shipped with a bazillion addendums, and promotional material is likely to be duplicated, but it's the best option we have right now.
This is particularly true of generic Sega posters which effectively just advertise a system. If a game like Fantasy Zone which saw two separate US releases, has two different posters/catalogues/whatever, it can get a bit tricky to describe the differences in a gallery, because you're having to explain exactly which US release received what. There's a German release of Fantasy Zone and a pan-Euro one - Germany is in Europe, but it doesn't mean it received the same stuff as the rest of the continent, and you might find yourself having to re-explain that, etc. -Black Squirrel (talk) 09:41, 5 July 2014 (CDT)

IMHO, of course, but template with posters\cover\cart for every region looks little... big) And strange to see R-Type, for example, with poster After Burner & Catalog on its back. Maybe another way - make wiki page for back scan-catalog and then place hyperlink on game page... Little offtop - where i can place scanned SMS catalogs not in poster format? -Depressor (talk) 10:00, 5 July 2014 (CDT)

Most of the scanbox templates are arguably too small because they're incomplete =P
As for categories, upload first and we'll deal with the admin stuff later -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:23, 5 July 2014 (CDT)

OK. I have about 20 GB scanned materials (mainly manuals from all around internet) only for Sega consoles... Too sad, most of manuals are double-pages scans and all of them - converted from pdf to cbr. Another little offtop - i have some covers for Korean SMS games (45 Hap, Geim Moeumjip 188 Hap, Janggunui Adeul, Jang Pung 3) but cannot find pages for this games. And, if i figured things right - i cannot create game pages. -Depressor (talk) 10:41, 5 July 2014 (CDT)

All registered users can make pages - you need to search for a page title, and when the wiki doesn't return any results, it will ask if you want to create a page with the title you've just searched for. Alternatively click on red links (e.g. 45 Hap). -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:35, 5 July 2014 (CDT)

I looking for button "Create Page") Ok. Will try it.

Fully scanned posters from magazines like Sega Force tagged - Poster Scans->Magazine Scans->Sega Force Poster Scans? Or just Poster->Sega Force. Some of this posters not present in magazine scan, some just scanned separately from magazine scan and have better resolution, or just combined in one big image. -Depressor (talk) 10:57, 17 August 2014 (CDT)

Poster scans -> Sega Force poster scans
-Black Squirrel (talk) 11:03, 17 August 2014 (CDT)

About Errors

I see those pages like on this screen - [1]. Error in creating miniatures. In Opera 12 & FireFox. That's why i edit this pages.

This was flagged up a while ago - nothing to worry about -Black Squirrel (talk) 03:41, 6 July 2014 (CDT)

Need New Category)

Can you add some new category for scans? Scans->Catalog Scans->SMS Catalog Scans & Scans->Advert Scans-> SMS Advert Scans - something like that & maybe something for Garantee Scans & Epilepsy Warning Scans

We've been classing guarantees and warnings and things of that ilk as manuals - I can't imagine there'll be enough to justify their own categories.
As for adverts... eehhh I might have to think about that one. If they're individual pages from magazines they might be superseded by full magazine scans at a later date. If it's a slip of paper from inside a game box or something I might end up classing it as something else (at some point someone will have to come up with a plan for special or collectors editions of games - the ones that might come with toys or odd things) - I'm thinking of a general "miscellaneous" category to handle all of this extra tat but I'm not sure yet -Black Squirrel (talk) 13:48, 12 July 2014 (CDT)

I divide my collection of scans on manuals and other stuff) So maybe other or something similar for optional things it's the right category -Depressor (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2014 (CDT)

Russian Dreamcast Scans

Ok. I have a lot of them... Covers, Discs & Inlay\Inside. All our releases are unlicensed, so If i correctly understand, i can't put this scans in Physical Scans on game pages? Second - I am not confident in tags for VideoCD for Dreamcast.

These are all bootlegs to yes, they need to stay off the game pages. I'll have to chat with the admins to see if we can figure out a nice place to put them (same with the Mega Drive stuff I uploaded a couple of weeks ago).
If by "Video CD for Dreamcast" you mean software that lets the Dreamcast run Video CDs, we'd class that as a Dreamcast accessory (so {{accessory|Dreamcast}} or {{DCBox|accessory}} etc.. That would include things like boot discs for now... until we figure out a more elegant solution). -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:56, 2 August 2014 (CDT)
Oh hang on you mean like this
That's an odd one. If it's a Video CD in the sense that it follows the Video CD standard it shouldn't be on this wiki because it's not strictly a Sega-related product (it just has unofficial Dreamcast branding and would work in any Video CD player). If it's some wacky piece of software that needs to run on a Dreamcast for whatever reason, I... guess we'd have to treat it as a game or something. I'm not sure -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2014 (CDT)

At last... I load everything i have. About VideoCD - it's simple mpeg4 video with autoloading videoplayer for Dreamcast only. -Depressor (talk) 05:18, 14 August 2014 (CDT)

Sourcing reviews from Sega Power Issue 59?

That would be helpful for Pirate Dragon, who's organizing magazines that have had reviews added. So, please? -Firbin4576

I've been thinking about this for a while myself--we need the equivalent of the scan tracker for magazines. Right now I have no idea how we'd do this other than a giant table with every issue of every mag- Scarred Sun (talk) 20:39, 25 August 2014 (CDT)
I twoked that image from an eBay auction - it's not a proper scan, just a placeholder (and there weren't any other pages). -Black Squirrel (talk) 09:56, 26 August 2014 (CDT)

Suggestions for separating the tops from the sides? Is there a way at the moment this can look good in the boxes? I've been doing it this way because ultimately it's the same sticker.

Would you prefer something more like this, perhaps? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26958538/lionKing.png

There's a "carttop=" field - (see: the Korean version of Decap Attack). So you'd do exactly as you've been doing, just upload two images rather than one -Black Squirrel (talk) 05:28, 8 September 2014 (CDT)

Re; it's better off split into two pages

While Worldwide Soccer/Sega International Victory Goal reuses a lot of Victory Goal's assets, Sega International Victory Goal in Japan is rebuilt near-entirely (different teams, different cutscenes, different menus, different soundtrack, etc).

In terms of semantics it's still pretty much the same game, just with different teams and a few varying features. It's not so drastically different as to require an entirely different page, but the "'Worldwide Soccer' for the Western release and "Sega International Victory Goal" for Eastern release" generalization should still be noted.

While the NA/EU version of SIVG is clearly just a localized VG, and WS97 is a localized VG96, SIVG as it is known in Japan appears to be a stand-alone "ver. 1.5" of VG, whose features (including an updated, more internationally-appealing soundtrack and international team range [Brazil, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, England, Argentina, France, Denmark, Spain, Romania, South Korea, Japan]) would not become a permanent component of the original VG games (as VG96 reverts back to all-Japan teams), instead being more at home with WS games despite not actually being one. This became streamlined with '96, which is why this doesn't happen with the other annual releases.

The best way to think about JA SIVG is as a "rare variant" or a "special edition" releases after all the others. E-102 (talk) 07:47, 17 October 2014 (CDT)

A few questions

1. Why are some arcade flyers under "Promotional Material" and others under "Physical Scans"?
2. Are screenshots of Levels/Stages/Rounds and/or lists of moves (fighting games) wanted?
3. What about lists of items/enemies/bosses with sprites? --AllisonKidd (talk) 13:54, 8 November 2014 (CST)

1 Before we had PDF support, we were using template:scanflyer to house flyers, but these days it's out of date and shouldn't be used. The only reason some pages still use it is because we haven't got around to converting sets of flyers into PDFs - the aim is to put everything under the "promotional material" heading.
2 yes
3 yes
(Daytona USA is an example of how I've been doing it)
-Black Squirrel (talk) 15:17, 8 November 2014 (CST)
Ah I see. I'll work on that then and make a list of "duplicates" on my user page for the admins to delete. --AllisonKidd (talk) 15:31, 8 November 2014 (CST)

Question about digital albums

I was going to start pages for the Digital albums for Virtua Fighter soon, but then I thought about how stuff in the Shining series like Shining Tears Music Collection, Shining Force EXA Music Collection, and Shining Wind Music Collection also have iTunes releases with slightly different track lists that COULD be seen as different releases and if they should have their own pages somehow. There are also some JP OSTs that were released in Volumes when they hit iTunes overseas and those would then need their own individual pages as well. In fact, Sega Japan has put up some of their OWN OSTs in Volumes up on iTunes (like the Shining Force Cross Raid Original Sound Track), so would those need pages too?

I'm not sure what these would be named (maybe something like "insert name here (Digital Album)"?) since the Virtua Fighter releases are their own thing and not simply a JP release being released digitally overseas with some tracks missing.

What do you think? JaxTH (talk) 19:59, 23 November 2014 (CST)

I added the digital release to Alex Kidd Complete Album a couple of days ago. I'm not 100% happy with how it looks, but making several pages for what is basically the same album wouldn't make any sense either. If the track listing is different, just put both versions on the page (like how they do on Wikipedia). - Hivebrain (talk) 23:15, 23 November 2014 (CST)
Okay, so Shining Force Cross Original Sound Track is an example of a game with only a digital OST that was also released in volumes. Satisfactory? JaxTH (talk) 02:08, 26 November 2014 (CST)
Technically those images aren't scans (because there's nothing to scan) - do we want to do something special with them or just class them as artwork? -Black Squirrel (talk) 13:58, 26 November 2014 (CST)
What about calling them "Digital Covers"? JaxTH (talk) 01:25, 5 December 2014 (CST)

Show Summaries

Since the search function still isn't working on SEGA Retro I've held off on making album pages and have instead directed my sights toward the various SEGA anime. I'm planning to watch series and make episode summaries for them. I played around on the wiki a bit an came up with this (The summaries themselves are from wikipedia for demonstrative purposes):

No. Title Original Air Date Episode Summary
1 "It'll Always Be 10 Years Too Early for You!" (いつだって10年早いんだよ!) October 8, 2014 Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, and Mega Drive get acquainted with each other, discussing what kind of guys Saturn might like. As the classes begins, their teacher, a cybernetic 8-bit bunny named Center, explains that in order to graduate from their academics, they must collect 100 medals. For their first lesson, Center sends the girls into the world of Virtua Fighter, where they are confronted by Akira Yuki.
2 "Connect Your Passions into a Combo" (コンボでつなげ 熱い気持ち) October 15, 2014 Tasked with winning 100 matches in order to clear the lesson and earn some medals, the girls use each of their abilities to beat Akira. As the matches continue and the opponents get even weirder, ranging from giant beetles to various palette swaps of Golden Axe enemies, it soon becomes apparent that Dreamcast's flying headbutt attack can instantly defeat them. They are soon confronted by Sakura Shinguji from Sakura Wars, whose steam-powered armor defeats Mega Drive, but Dreamcast once again defeats it with a headbutt. After the lesson, only Saturn receives five medals, as Mega Drive was eliminated and Dreamcast was disqualified for attacking before the "Fight!" announcement in an earlier battle.
3 "Up, Down, Left, Right, and Occasionally, Up Diagonal" (アップ、ダウン、レフト、ライト、たまにナナメ上) October 22, 2014 After Saturn contemplates her future career and love life and Mega Drive tries her hand at weather forecasting, the girls are tasked with entering the world of Space Channel 5, where they must help improve the channel's ratings and retrieve two of Center's friends. While trying to get a hang on their dancing moves, the girls soon meet up with the game's heroine, Ulala.
4 "We Tried to Dance Space Channel 5" (【セハガール】スペースチャンネル5【踊ってみた】) October 29, 2014 While helping Ulala with fighting against the Morolians, Mega Drive slightly less so, the girls find that the ratings are starting to gradually decrease. The girls attempt to raise their ratings by rescuing Center's friend, Jeffry from Virtua Fighter, putting Saturn in a swimsuit for added sex appeal, and getting the cooperation of Center's other friend, Golden Axe's Gilius Thunderhead, who exhibits a dubious affection towards Saturn. They soon end up facing the Morolian Boss, which is defeated by Saturn. At the end of the day, Mega Drive and Dreamcast get five medals each, whilst Saturn gets none after the Space PTA complains about her attempts at using sex appeal.

What do you think? It might need a bit of work but I did what I could. Acceptable? JaxTH (talk) 06:04, 12 February 2015 (CST)

Seems fine to me - I would use the ISO 8601 standard for dates though, i.e. yyyy-mm-dd - that's what we're using elsewhere -Black Squirrel (talk) 06:09, 12 February 2015 (CST)

Out Run

The first game was explicitly called "Out Run" in its flyers, which is really all you have. All those computer ports used it as well. Apparently, some of the Western-made MS games like Europa (which exist in some marketing limbo anyway) also use it.

Sega started using "OutRun" for Turbo and kept that for all future games, even going as far as to rename all later ports of the original game. Despatche (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2015 (CDT)

NEC Retro & Retro CDN

Hi, just curious. I noticed a while ago that the NEC Retro and Retro CDN sites no longer work. What happened to them? Over9000 (talk) 07:42, 1 August 2015 (CDT)

NEC Retro isn't open yet - all I know is it'll be opened at some point "later this year", as there's some server stuff to take care of first. We've been planning for it months in advance, which is why we've been moving shared content over to Retro CDN.
Retro CDN accidentally broke a couple of days ago (there was wiki maintenance on the 30th). We need ScarredSun to flick a few switches, but I'm sure it'll be back soon -Black Squirrel (talk) 08:08, 1 August 2015 (CDT)
I see. I didn't realize NEC Retro doesn't exist yet. It looks like an interesting project though, so best of luck with it. Over9000 (talk) 00:50, 2 August 2015 (CDT)

Question

What's the consensus on books like these? http://www.worldcat.org/title/secret-codes-2001-playstation-2-playstation-dreamcast-nintendo-64-game-boy/oclc/46479673&referer=brief_results

Obviously it contains SEGA content, but are we documenting things likes this or not?

Okay quick EDIT for another question but, was this ever a cover for Rome: Total War - Destroy Carthage? It's all over eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Total-War-Rome-Destroy-Carthage-David-Gibbins-9780230770966-/391243871938?hash=item5b17f3b6c2 JaxTH (talk) 04:50, 10 September 2015 (CDT)

For codebooks on the like, I'm guessing pages on Sega Retro aren't a priority, but scans for Retro CDN will still be welcome. We might find a use for them.
I don't know much about Total War stuff - perhaps it was a placeholder image of some sort? You'd have to look up the history. -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:13, 10 September 2015 (CDT)

The Terminator (SMS credits)

Hey Black Squirrel! What source you used for this? http://segaretro.org/index.php?title=The_Terminator&diff=103208&oldid=95471 You added "Programmed by Mark Knowles" but I was checking the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywxynryr6XA and it says "Programmed by Dominic Wood, Artwork by Mark Knowles". Am I missing something? Thanks. --Hydao (talk) 08:27, 19 October 2015 (CDT)

I'm probably wrong, you're probably right =P -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:25, 19 October 2015 (CDT)

Album Question

Okay, so I found out that Aliens: Colonial Marines TECHNICALLY has an OST. The man behind the music (Kevin Riepl) put up a download on his website in uncompressed .WAV format for a few weeks starting sometime in August 2013, complete with album cover art (even an insert) by a "Javier Burgos Gasco". So, I look up this guy who did the artwork for it and a I spot "Captain America: Super Soldier" among his cover arts that he has done. Apparently the guy who did the music for that game (Bill Brown) did a similar thing as well (though this is just a front cover). Now, after Kevin Riepl took the link to his Aliens OST down he put it on Soundcloud. Bill Brown also has the Captain America OST on Soundcloud.

The thing I want to know is whether we are going to treat these as official and makes pages on Sega Retro or treat them as fan made even though the artists themselves have put them out there?

Another thing I noticed while browsing Javier's website is that there were two Dead Space 3 covers (complete with art for inlays and discs and etc.) with links to the iTunes page for the OST. I was curious why there were two until I realized that two people did all the music. Apparently they both commissioned this guy to make art for them in case for some reason people want to burn and make jewel cases out of just their tracks? I don't really understand why someone would want to do that when the full OST in on iTunes. Anyway, this got me weary of Kevin Riepl and Bill Brown simply because I have no idea if they worked on their game tracks all alone or if there were other contributing artists, which would mean their OSTs would be incomplete without the other artists.

Another thing to note is that the Aliens track only mentions Gearbox while Sega's name is only to be found into the Soundcloud description for Colonial Marines while the Captain America: Super Solider Soundcloud doesn't mention Sega OR Marvel (Also it has two covers so I wouldn't know which one to use regardless). So once again, I ask, what course of action do we take?

Kevin Riepl's 2013 Facebook announcement about putting the tracks out there: https://www.facebook.com/kevinrieplmusic/posts/10151761897789383

His website's page on the Aliens: Colonial Marines Soundtrack: http://www.kevinriepl.com/wordpress/index.php/aliens-colonial-marines-soundtrack

Javier Burgos Gasco's website: https://javierburgosgasco.wordpress.com/

The Captain America: Super Soldier Page in particular: https://javierburgosgasco.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/bill-brown-captain-america-super-soldier/

Soundcloud Page for Aliens: https://soundcloud.com/kevin-riepl-music/sets/aliens-colonial-marines-1

Soundcloud Page for Captain America: https://soundcloud.com/billbrownmusic/sets/captain-america-super-soldier JaxTH (talk) 09:50, 9 November 2015 (CST)

A tricky one
Were it one or two tracks I wouldn't bother, but given that these sets are fairly big, I think you could get away with making pages. As long as they were labeled so that there's no mistaking them as officially endorsed albums designed to make lots of money, I don't have much problem. Might want to seek a second opinion too though. -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:34, 9 November 2015 (CST)
I'll wait on a second opinion then. JaxTH (talk) 04:04, 10 November 2015 (CST)
It's been 10 days with no second opinion so I went ahead and made the pages:
Aliens: Colonial Marines: http://segaretro.org/Aliens:_Colonial_Marines_Original_Soundtrack_Recording
Captain America: Super Soldier: http://segaretro.org/Captain_America:_Super_Soldier_Original_Soundtrack
Let me know what you think. JaxTH (talk) 20:55, 20 November 2015 (CST)

Lets talk: Few questions

How do you feel about taking Wikipedia articles, and copy pasting them. I'd make an effort and change them up a bit, but I've seen qute a few that are just copypaste

Articles for every little update of a game. Especially for arcade titlles, that have the whole Ver. 2.83 with online updates etc. thing going on, I'm not sure if this a thing that should be kept. Theres no multiple articles for mobiles or PSO2 as well, so I'm not sure.

As you are probably are aware I am in the process of changing up the development studio articles. The way I am currently doing is taking stuff of my two lists: Video Games produced by Sega and Arcade video games produced by Sega, which are non-italic and alphabetic order, rather than in chronological order. I guess I am asking, if at least for the time being, you are ok with some lists being like this. Doing it chronological and adding italics, is a lot of busywork...Also you insist of keeping some small substudios like AM Annex. Hmmmm...there some substudios that can technically get thier pages as well, but I refused simply because I guess am not used to every little thing having its own page. I'll try to adapt, lets how it goes.

Are there any more advanced ways to format or is this it? Its a little a barebones, but I'll manage.--Trippled (talk) 15:27, 20 November 2015 (CST)

I've never been a fan of pages which are copy-pasted from Wikipedia - there were more in the old days of Sega Retro, but over time they've been re-written and made... uh... better.
Fundementally Sega Retro isn't Wikipedia - Wikipedia covers every topic imaginable, but will never go into detail about many subjects. Sega Retro exists because we're doing the things Wikipedia can't do - we document everything related to Sega - the broad stuff, and the super duper niche topics - every single game, every single accessory, all the books, all the videos etc. Much of this stuff is already available on the internet, but we aggregate it so it's all in one place.
Another difference is, for example, Wikipedia links out to external sources, we have big archives of scans and original research and that sort of thing. Wikipedia is always trying to prove that what is says is true - we know what we say is true... most of the time... if that makes any sense at all.
My thinking is that every developement team within Sega should have its own page, so if one disbands and is replaced with another, that would be two pages (e.g. Sega AM1 and WOW Entertainment). Of course, the problem is, we don't honestly know where a lot of these rebrands and major reshuffles happened - it's a mess, which is why I didn't instantly undo your redirects (p.s. this is an area that Wikipedia was provably wrong about).
We can afford to have a bazillion pages on this subject - I don't want to mislead people into thinking a game was developed by a studio which didn't yet exist (which I think is the case for many of the classic "AM2" projects - e.g. Power Drift was likely made by Sega R&D 8 - the assumption is that team became AM2, but we don't know if it was a simple rename or a more significant restructuring). Team Andromeda and Team Aquila were probably part of AM6, but they were working on their own games, so are kind-of separate studios within a separate studio, etc.
Either way it's important to point out exactly who made a game when we can, rather than some umbrella group.
However, some of them I can definitely vouch for. AM Annex was it's own thing, split from AM3, housed in its own building and working on its own projects. [Have an interview].


The problem with making big lists of every game Sega has ever made is... someone has to maintain it. Sega are still making games - the list could be endless - I'd be more tempted to go down the DPL route and have it automated, if it even needs to exist at all (and with that you can get it to do the italics/ordering for you).
As for arcade games with revisions - I've separated some where the update is... "significant" (e.g. Border Break), but the really minor ones probably don't deserve their own pages, for the same reason we don't bother to have separate pages for US, EU and Japanese releases. IIRC there's a couple of arcade games which swap out an advertisement or two - if it can be described fully in less than a couple of sentences, it's probably not worth the effort, but it'll depend on the game. If a game page becomes massive one day we can always revisit the question.

-Black Squirrel (talk) 16:20, 20 November 2015 (CST)

I definitly want to maintain a list that covers all Sega games. It's also more for me...and in general to see which games haven't had a page. I guess a category of, games produced/published/developed by Sega should exist (and in the future sub-categories of differnet types of arcade games), so there can be a DLP which fits. But again alot of busywok goes into adding that in hundred of games.

Regarding studios - yes mentioning within the page that games were branded as different studios is probably something that should be done. BTW my source is this: [2] And my assesement was that having umbrella groups for pages would be for the best, with so many frequent smaller sub-groups where output is hard to attach. In the end AM Annex and also Digiral Rex are probably the ones where I would agree that seperate pages would make sense. RPG game, PC, 32X, Sega CD, medal game, theme park groups are hard to attach output to. I put the Sega Production and Engineering Department as an entire umbrella group that handles manufacturing not related to arcade videogames. I wonder how you feel about that. --Trippled (talk) 02:33, 21 November 2015 (CST)

Scorpion Illuminati

we're not too interested in indie releases, nevermind pages on people who haven't yet released an indie game =P

I fully understand, but would like to make you aware that there is in fact source code available here. If it would not be too much trouble, could you please not allow the creation of the developer and game pages with the exception of mods, admins and me? I would like to try to avoid using certain words and phrases that would make me the target of an unfair ceast and desist or possible lawsuit. I ask due to these recent events.

Thanks Scorpion Illuminati (talk)

PSR-3 error

Hi Black Squirrel. I've been getting a strange error lately. Whenever I click the following links:

I get an error stating:

"MediaWiki requires the PSR-3 logging library to be present. This library is not embedded directly in MediaWiki's git repository and must be installed separately by the end user. Please see mediawiki.org for help on installing the required components."

Do you know what might be going on here? I tried doing what it says, but no luck so far. Is there a way to fix this problem? Over9000 (talk) 07:21, 14 December 2015 (CST)

They work for me (p.s. by "end user" it means the owner of the wiki)
The software just got an upgrade, I imagine it's just some teething problems? -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:15, 14 December 2015 (CST)

the whole cs1 and cs2 articles by the user "trippled" are a fucking mess

like, why is the cs1 article a redirect of am7, which is (supposedly) supposed to be a division WITHIN cs1, and may have worked on different games separate from the whole cs1 softography??? why does the cs2 article have a mention of sonic team, when it's clear that the CURRENT cs2 division team is just a re-branded sonic team with little to do with the (supposedly) old, pre-existing cs2???? and did the cs divisions even fucking exist back then?!?! please fix this shit asap --Uno10 (talk) 12:19, 1 January 2016 (CST)

Permission to use your scans you have uploaded

Hi there Black Squirrel,

Just a short question, I am currently making a massive database with all the console variations ever created. it will be a website with thousands of other variations of different companies. You my friend have the largest Sega database i've ever seen and I would be honored to use those scans for my website (which is in development) Could I have your permission to use your scans you have uploaded? It will be pure for information purposes. ofcourse we will thank you with your name and website to the source,

Please let me know! Thanks and best regards -Vinyl

Found some more magazine articles regarding Spikeout

https://archive.org/details/Arcade_Issue_01_1998-12_Future_Publishing_GB - page 148

https://archive.org/stream/ng_unedited/ng_47_unedited#page/n19/mode/2up (interview w/ Toshihiro Nagoshi on the game; says development started around April 1998)

Would it be at all possible to upload these magazine issues onto Sega Retro? --Uno10 (talk) 14:10, 12 January 2016 (CST)

Not onto Sega Retro - we're not doing that for magazines anymore - Retro CDN:
http://retrocdn.net/File:Arcade_UK_01.pdf
And we have a full set of Arcades :)
I'd like to do those Next Generation scans but they need cleaning up first. Also we're putting the breaks on uploading too many more magazines right now - I found out earlier today that we're running out of disk space. Whoops -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:31, 12 January 2016 (CST)
Oh for the record anything uploaded on Retro CDN can be accessed through Sega Retro (or Sonic Retro, or NEC Retro). It's just decided not to render thumbnails today. Don't know why -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:32, 12 January 2016 (CST)
Also there's a full-ish set of Edge scans - lots of content is shared between Edge and NG, so it might be up here in some form already -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2016 (CST)
I'm aware that Next Generation is basically the American version of Edge. Problem is, I tried checking the Edge magazines during the 1998 period from August to November (since the latter month is when the specific Next Generation issue w/ Nagoshi stating the beginning of Spikeout's development was published), and since Edge #62 (which would've been the 1998 September issue) has yet to be scanned by any of the online gamemag preservation sites, I can't seem to find that tidbit anywhere else. The corresponding Nagoshi interview in Edge #63 (page 139) has no mention of the development date whatsoever.

Can you at least tell me when, if ever, you'll acquire more server space for Retro CDN, so that the corresponding Next Generation issue can be uploaded?

By the way, some magazine preservation sites you might wanna check out if you haven't seen them already and/or for quick reference:

https://archive.org/details/gamemagazines
https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Imagine+Publishing%22
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Next+Generation%22
https://archive.org/details/ng_unedited

http://www.smspower.org/Scans/Magazines
http://www.oldgamemags.com/
https://www.retromags.com/
http://www.outofprintarchive.com/
http://amr.abime.net/

http://retroactionmagazine.com/retrolinks/videogaming-magazine-preservation/

Might be some more sites I'm missing, but whatever. --Uno10 (talk) 09:40, 16 January 2016 (CST)

word on the street is it could be a while

new advice: if it's on archive.com use the {{ref|}} template

It won't work for galleries or embedding files or whatever, but it's better than nothing. At a later date I can then look through lists of references and pick out the ones that should be hosted on-site. -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:13, 18 January 2016 (CST)

"if it's on archive.com use the {{ref|}} template"

yeah i've actually been doing that since i saw you make such an edit on another article, so --Uno10 (talk) 14:17, 18 January 2016 (CST)

Re: Spikeout

fine, but i can really only post bits of my unfinished work that are finished, rather than a whole block of scrambled text and notes. i mean that just looks really goddamn unprofessional that way??? --Uno10 (talk) 14:26, 16 September 2016 (CDT)

I like to think that badly presented information is better than no information - if it has a Cleanup template in there, it'll both warn people of impending suckage and add it to the list of jobs to do -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:43, 16 September 2016 (CDT)

What Happened to the Videos?

I've noticed over the last couple months (I don't know if it was a server upgrade or if the site went down) that many files (mainly videos, some radio commercials as well) have just disappeared from the site. The boxes are still there with descriptions after all this time but the files themselves are just gone.

Some examples are the videos on the Aliens: Crucible page as well as the JP TV Advert and US radio advert for Fighters Megamix. But really it just seems to be all the videos and such directly on Sega Retro. I've gone directly to these blank files (kind of a hassle to do that) in the past and am only greeted with an error. JaxTH (talk) 23:07, 14 October 2016 (CDT)

It's a known issue, but no admins have got around to fixing it. I don't have the permissions to attempt a fix myself -Black Squirrel (talk) 03:42, 15 October 2016 (CDT)
The table used by the TimedMediaHandler extension ("sonicret_sega.wiki_transcode" according to this example pointed by Hivebrain) seems to be missing. Fixing it might be as simple as running the update script (update.php) to create it as the extension's page says, though only an admin can give it a try. Note that it also says mp4 isn't supported by default, which must be added to $wgFileExtensions manually. --AllisonKidd (talk) 16:14, 15 October 2016 (CDT)

Some Help...

Could you please delete the scans of "The Ren & Stimpy Show Presents Stimpy's Invention" manual? I messed up... and i don't know how to do it... im a noob at this... sorry to bother you and thanks in advance...

Sure
The wiki doesn't update everything instantly these days - thumbnails can take a few hours to kick in and even the recent changes page only updates once an hour. It's a mixture between trying not to overload the server, and the unfriendly nature of Mediawiki. Top tip is to use Ctrl + F5 to see if changes have actually happened.
Also sign off comments with "-~~~~" - there's a button second from the right at the top of this import form.
While I'm here - watch out for file names (I wrote a guide once) and try to categorise files when you upload them. We're big fans of people contributing content, but I'd hate for things to get lost while we're fighting technical problems -Black Squirrel (talk) 13:27, 15 January 2017 (CST)
Ok...understood... sorry for the inconvenience... i only asked you because i've seen your work here and as i can see you're a Pro at this...--Asagoth (talk) 14:11, 15 January 2017 (CST)

Sword of Vermilion Hint Book

Two years ago i found a pdf of this book but its not a good one... the pages aren't scaled to fit ...should i upload the book and you decide what to do?It´s in full color and complete...--Asagoth (talk) 15:09, 15 January 2017 (CST)
Bad scans are better than no scans :) -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2017 (CST)
It's Done... do what you want with it--Asagoth (talk) 15:36, 15 January 2017 (CST)

Boris Vallejo Gallery

Artwork for Onslaught,Starflight,Wings of wor/Gynoug,etc...

http://vallejo.ural.net/ --Asagoth (talk) 15:11, 24 January 2017 (CST)

Bullet point bug

Hi. There seems to be a bug with the bullet points, which look messed-up in many articles. Do you know what the problem might be? Over9000 (talk) 03:33, 11 February 2017 (CST)

Scarred Sun's been adjusting the CSS - nothing to do with me, and I'm sure she'll resolve it -Black Squirrel (talk) 04:04, 11 February 2017 (CST)

Starlight Fortune

I found this https://mamedev.emulab.it/undumped/index.php?title=Starlight_Fortune ... maybe you can use this image...--Asagoth (talk) 13:27, 13 February 2017 (CST)

Hey

I have been thinking, should Am2 and Sonic Team also get multiple pages then too? Would it not be consistent?--Trippled (talk) 12:37, 24 February 2017 (CST)

If the name stays the same, it's probably not worth the bother, but the earlier titles like Space Harrier and OutRun definitely should, as they pre-date the name "Sega AM2". -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:44, 24 February 2017 (CST)
Here is the funny thing tough. I read one of the 3D Sega Classics Interview with Yosuke Okunari, there was this: "AM1 – One of SEGA’s former arcade development groups. They are currently called dai-ichi kenkyuu kaihatsu bu (1st R&D Department), but SEGA employees are still often called AM1 internally anyway." So for Sega, R&D or AM R&D does not matter much. If there is WOW Entertainment in between and it get it's old name back...I think should be page like Sega Am1 (2005 current), or Sega Am3(2005-current). For studios like Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Sonic Team, Team Andromeda, I think it would be benefecial do have a double - both the corporate division page and a page for the brand name.--Trippled (talk) 13:08, 24 February 2017 (CST)

Press releases

I myself am too lazy but perhaps you can make good use of the archived links here, here and here (those are all between 1996 and 2007/2008 though). SoA's official site is better than The Free Library, I guess. --AllisonKidd (talk) 17:01, 24 February 2017 (CST)

I think I caught most of the pre-1999 ones on my last round - I've been searching recently for more early-2000s business-y stuff, but have been picking up games and third-party releases along the way.
We don't have many press releases from 2004-onwards, probably because there's likely to be some overlap with the PDF releases from Sega's press sites. I've been taking the path of least resistance so I haven't checked -Black Squirrel (talk) 04:29, 25 February 2017 (CST)

How to make navigational templates (scrollable div horizontal)

How does it work to properly assign things to different time periods (I am editing your SoJ template). I keep increasing columns, but it keeps moving to the right. I can't find anything on the internet to figure how this works.--Trippled (talk) 19:40, 2 March 2017 (CST)

My solution isn't great - it's just a bog-standard table with colspans, and I've been individually defining empty columns (which I don't need to do).
Mediawiki tables are identical to HTML ones, they just have "simpler" syntax. To get a better feel with what's going on, you could always try adding a few borders
My SoA and SoJ templates
are laid out
a bit like this
-Black Squirrel (talk) 10:56, 3 March 2017 (CST)
So to speak clearly, this is how it works...

!52||53||54||55||56||57||58||59||60||61||62||63||64||65||66||67||68||69||70||71||72||73||74||75||76||77||78||79||80||81||82||83||84||85||86||87||88||89||90||91||92||93||94||95||96||97||98||99||00||01||02||03||04||05||06||07||08||09||10||11||12||13||14||15||16||17||18 < this is the general colspan that applies to all

||| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || < this is the amount of of columns for each row right? How can I determine where it starts and where it stops?

|colspan="6" class="colour-bg-yellow" style="border: 1px solid #999;"|R&D 8 < this determines how much columns an object has right? again how do I determine where it starts and where it begins?--Trippled (talk) 02:22, 4 March 2017 (CST)

Every "||" is an empty column. So just delete some of them -Black Squirrel (talk) 05:17, 4 March 2017 (CST)
That is not a problem. I add or remove columns, there is no consistency to where it starts or it ends up. Does it depend on the colors?--Trippled (talk) 06:34, 4 March 2017 (CST)

do we need pages for every renaming of a sega department?

The argument thaT Sega AM2 and Sonic Team are the only ones to stay consistent is wrong. Staff and names changed just as much as the other sega divisions.--Trippled (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2017 (CDT)

When there are opportunities to avoid massive lists, yes.
I'm open to the idea of splitting AM2 and Sonic Team as well - I just don't know how best to organise it and don't have a lovely text replace tool at my disposal right now to make the changes effeciently.
But in cases where we've already split pages, it's counter-productive to re-combine them. -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:06, 15 March 2017 (CDT)
I'm making tons of changes and pages without explanation. Expect one when I'm feeling that I'm done. And again I want to say, I can't figure how to edit that SoJ template.--Trippled (talk) 15:46, 15 March 2017 (CDT)

Segadev32,T.U.M.E map editor, and some genesis software manuals

I have Segadev32 software and Tume(Universal Map Editor) tool and two technical manuals, one is called "Genesis Software Manual" from 1989 an the other "Genesis Software Development Manual" from 1991.Has you may know TUME map editor was used in a great number of mega drive games https://games.greggman.com/game/tume___the_universal_map_editor/ ... i don't know if this could be useful for SEGA RETRO/SONIC RETRO... what do you think? I don't want to bother you im just asking... i don't have any documentation for segadev32 just the software and a readme file with the revisions,it says "western technologies"...--Asagoth (talk) 17:04, 9 May 2017 (CDT)

All of those would be useful - feel free to upload -Black Squirrel (talk) 06:14, 10 May 2017 (CDT)
 I don't know where to put this stuff so i just upload it, do what you want with that...--Asagoth (talk) 06:53, 10 May 2017 (CDT)

Just one thing that makes me confused...

I don´t want to spread rumors... just some observation... i remember when i was a kid to have played Puzzle & Action: Tant-R and Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R in the local amusement arcade(Portugal)... and i remember seeing them in Spain also... the first was not translated,the second was in english...they were not supposed to have left Japan... I did not even know there was versions of those games for Mega Drive... --Asagoth (talk) 13:08, 10 May 2017 (CDT)

Two Spanish blog's that refer to what i said https://mediaramablog.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/el-rincon-de-los-cinco-duros-4-puzzle-action-tant-r/; http://www.vandal.net/retro/puzzle-action-tantr ...they are in Spanish... just an observation i wanted to share...sorry to bother you--Asagoth (talk) 13:40, 10 May 2017 (CDT)
Our wiki's probably wrong - feel free to correct it. I'm relatively sure I've seen an English version of Tant-R online, though I don't know exactly where it was released -Black Squirrel (talk) 13:44, 10 May 2017 (CDT)

Realtime Games Software

Look what i have found http://www.crashonline.org.uk/29/realtime.htm , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realtime_Games_Software ... Ian Oliver created the snasm68k and later founded cross products company to produce game development systems... i became aware of this guy when i bought the book "Playing at The Next Level-A History of American Sega Games" by Ken Horowitz of Sega 16 site ... it was this guy who made improvements in the sound drivers provided by Sega to developers ... the book does not mention the SMPS sound driver only referring to it by the name "Genesis Sound Driver".It looks that this sound driver was designed only for music but Ian Oliver was able to make it more flexible adapting it for dynamic sounds and effects... he created the snasm68k because the pc version of "M-1 Abrams Battle Tank" had been codded in C language and there was no way to port it over with the cartridge size and ram available he then decide to rewrite the entire game in 68000 Assembly Language heven though he didn´t have a complete set of tools for doing so...he had an assembler and linker but he handmade the ram board himself this allowed him to do simple debugging of both 68000 and Z80 processors and with a single button press he could have the game rebuilt an running on Mega Drive hardware in about half a minute... what a genius... and then the snasm68k was born... i nedded to share this... sorry to bother you...--Asagoth (talk) 16:23, 11 May 2017 (CDT)

Todo Sega Magazine

I have the scan of "Todo Sega" issue 2 with all the pages cropped... I extracted the images from the original pdf,cropped the images,compressed the images,created another pdf,compressed this same pdf... the result...140 mb... all this was done online... i can't compress more than this...the images in the original pdf were 2mb or more in size...I don't know what to do...--Asagoth (talk) 15:17, 27 May 2017 (CDT)

Find a place to host it and I'll upload it for you -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:33, 27 May 2017 (CDT)
Here it is https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11cl5uRBh5kS1VQS1FOa3JsSFk/view ... just one thing... i have some US mega drive manuals,missing here in Sega Retro,Art of Fighthing,Batman Returns and some more,the problem is that they have pixel watermarks, and i can´t remove them ... and some european game gear manuals too...--Asagoth (talk) 16:41, 27 May 2017 (CDT)
File:TodoSega ES 02.pdf :) -Black Squirrel (talk) 04:09, 28 May 2017 (CDT)

Doujinshi Phantasy Star

I have 6 scans of these... can't find any reference about them here... some sort of comic book or manga... i don't know... some have 300 pages...more or less.--Asagoth (talk) 06:40, 28 May 2017 (CDT)

Sounds good - Sega Retro is always a work in progress, so just because we don't have a page yet, doesn't meant we don't want scans -Black Squirrel (talk) 06:45, 28 May 2017 (CDT)
Observation..."Phantasy Star II Joukan" and "Phantasy Star II Gekan"... looks like those two are a JP Phantasy Star II Hint Book being "Joukan" the 1st part and "Gekan" the 2nd part...--Asagoth (talk) 09:49, 28 May 2017 (CDT)

Small Request

So I just made a page on amiibo, and then further made a page on the Sonic one. On Sonic Retro (which I can't log in to), the "Amiibo" page there is just for the Sonic one anyway. Could you move the Amiibo page on Sonic Retro to "Sonic (amiibo)" so that Sega and Sonic Retro link up properly? JaxTH (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2017 (CDT)

Memorial Drama CD & Fanbook "Phantasy Star: Fuujirareshi Kioku"

I have the the entire audio riped in a single mp3 file... should i upload it?--Asagoth (talk) 06:53, 30 May 2017 (CDT)

We don't currently host big audio files - that's not to say it wouldn't be done in the future, but there are sites out there more suited to that sort of thing.
Also from a preservation standpoint we'd want it in a higher quality, lossless format. It's not really my speciality though -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:38, 30 May 2017 (CDT)
OK... you're the boss...I'll keep it for now...--Asagoth (talk) 11:56, 30 May 2017 (CDT)

Fire Pro Wrestling S: 6Men Scramble

I can´t upload this one... 108MB in size...says it's too big...here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11cl5uRBh5kaFZEWm5QZWdOT2s/view?usp=sharing... when you have time please upload it...Thank's in advance...--Asagoth (talk) 04:07, 7 June 2017 (CDT)

Sega Porta Drive

https://assemblergames.com/threads/news-sega-prototype-system-sega-portadrive.5248/page-2 Thought you'd like to write a article about this.--MathUser (talk) 08:22, 18 June 2017 (CDT)

Some Ecofilmes Curiosities....

I found some things... im not triyng to show off... im just a curious guy with a great love for SEGA (especially the Mega Drive,my childhood console) and i like to share the little i know about something Sega related... it happens that Dragon Ball Z: Buyuu Retsuden was initially sold in is original form (Japanese version,same cover,same cartridge) with the manual replaced by an awful photocopy of the Spanish half of the French/Spanish Láppel du Destin and a Mega Key 2 ( i can´t precise the year)...only after that ,someware in 1996 ( in fact the Mega Game II box anounces the launch of the game in 1997) the cover was changed... so three diferent versions of the game were sold in Portugal. Now another curiosity...as you may know Ecofilmes sold some games with Genesis cartridges and PAL Covers...they are easy to identify...in these the seal "Garantia Sega Portugal" is printed and not just sticked,the same goes for the text in the box wich this time is all translated to Portuguese...You will say "nothing new"... it happens that the majority of this versions are Acclaim,Flying Edge,Probe,Arena Entertainment games (all the same) with a mind blowing exception,an that is X-Men 2: Clone Wars.The game was developed by Headgames but came in the same plastic box with Acclaim embossed seal in the inside (like the others...a deal between Acclaim and Ecofilmes? Who knows?)...there was also cases of complete Genesis versions sold by Ecofilmes like Justice League Task Force(nothing was changed,just a Portuguese manual included,)...I owned 2 of these versions F1(US cover,cartridge,manual) and Champions World Class Soccer(PAL Cover,US manual,text in the back of the box entirely in Portuguese,US cartridge).One thing of note is that those games were originaly sold in the correct european form when they were launched,that genesis "mess" only started somewhere in the end of 1995 beginning of 1996 the same time that Mega Game II started to show on the shelves ... 2 videos that show this curiosities here :

About Dragon Ball Z- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBdfhDlcFV0

About the "Genesis mess"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-plgbotpZM&t=557s

Sorry they are not translated,just in portuguese, but you can see some of the games that were sold with a genesis cartridge in the videos... the guy that made the videos was helped by Ivan Barroso a famous (here in my country) Portuguese Game journalist who wrote for now defunct portuguese magazine "Mega Score" (the succsessor of the Portuguese Mega Force Magazine) and know does videogame reviews for "O Público" portuguese newspaper an portuguese retro gaming magazine "PUSHSTART".Take a look when you have time... sorry to bother you...--Asagoth (talk) 03:16, 24 June 2017 (CDT)

Footage from Sega Euro Challenge 92 held in France

A huge compilation of French SEGA commercials(59:22 minutes) with footage from Sega Euro Challenge 92 (starting at 13:37)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ja7gYElTeo&t=610s ...--Asagoth (talk) 07:20, 24 June 2017 (CDT)

Feel free to actually add some of this stuff to the wiki (were appropriate) - as lovely as these things are, they're not much use being posted on my talk page :) -Black Squirrel (talk) 08:42, 24 June 2017 (CDT)

French Press Releases

Do you want those translated? - https://web.archive.org/web/19970715055726/http://www.sega-europe.com:80/PRESSE.HTM --Asagoth (talk) 07:33, 26 June 2017 (CDT)

We do - we've already got the French versions on the wiki - the idea would be to put the English translations underneath the French on each page. -Black Squirrel (talk) 08:21, 26 June 2017 (CDT)
OK just look if is something wrong with the English and adjust it as you like--Asagoth (talk) 09:21, 26 June 2017 (CDT)

Teradrive

I don't know if i have found something important or not but you have to see this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11cl5uRBh5kZWU0Y3Z6cjhWNzQ/view?usp=sharing... Dumps from a Teradrive Computer, bios dump,documentation,etc... i have also found similar stuff for Mega PC and Dreamcast Dev.Box...--Asagoth (talk) 07:44, 29 June 2017 (CDT)

Sega Game Server and Sega Channel Computer US Manual (General Instrument).pdf

On Page 27 one can see a menu of sega game server with a game called "TINYSTAR.GI",could this be Ristar?... i don't want to annoy you ... but since you guys at sonic retro found some more sega channel stuff this could be interesting...--Asagoth (talk) 10:20, 30 June 2017 (CDT)

Can you Help Me?

Can you save this in a document form? https://web.archive.org/web/20120402115825/http://www.ylw.mmtr.or.jp/~hosino/ma-net/sndgen/japanese/manual/ym2610/ym2610am.htm ... is the YM2610 Application Manual in Japanese...--Asagoth (talk) 16:54, 25 July 2017 (CDT)

There's an English translation on the net, but for this Japanese version, I'm not sure how you would cleanly convert an HTML page to PDF. There are online converters out there - your mileage may vary -Black Squirrel (talk) 05:15, 26 July 2017 (CDT)
I've tried some of them ... but they are just crap... it's not extremely important... Thank you anyway...--Asagoth (talk) 05:34, 26 July 2017 (CDT)

Just to inform...

I uploaded this book to Retro CDN File:FM TOWNS JP Technical Data Book.pdf ... is in Japanese, has a lot of information about the Yamaha YM2612 starting on page 217 to page 241 ... i've translated some portions of the text on google translator and i could see this is serious stuff ... take a look if you wan't... if you think this is not important just ignore it... i'm just asking for an opinion...--Asagoth (talk) 13:19, 27 July 2017 (CDT)

Rob Northen compression

Hello, I do not know if this is the most appropriate way of getting in contact but here we go. I'm translating Stargate for Sega Genesis to brazilian portuguese, but some of the data is compressed. The best clue I've got to keep my work going was to find a compression method page which mention on Stargate game. On brute force (real time hex editing) I managed to find the tiles addresses. I would like to know if you could help me out on de/compression of the data chunk. Thanks in advance.

I'm not well versed on the technical side of old Mega Drive games I'm afraid - you'd be better off contacting someone on the Sonic Retro forums -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:37, 4 September 2017 (CDT)

Super Smash Bros.

So, I made a long needed page on Super Smash Bros. Brawl which links to Sonic Retro, because it's nothing but Sonic related in that game. However, with Smash 4, I'm torn.

The page on Sonic Retro only talks about Sonic, but he's obviously joined by fellow Sega character Bayonetta. Because of this, if I make pages for Smash 4, I was wondering should we still have those pages be on Sonic Retro and update for Bayonetta info there, or should the Smash 4 pages be moved to Sega Retro? JaxTH (talk) 20:17, 3 September 2017 (CDT)

I've not played the game so I don't know how much non-Sonic Sega stuff there is in terms of trophies and what have you, but I'd be tempted to put it on Sonic Retro. It's more Sonic-centric than Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, anyway, and if that's where Smash 3 is going to live, it might as well sit next to Smash 4. -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:43, 4 September 2017 (CDT)

Joseph B Hewitt IV Ex- Designer/Graphics Artist at Westwood Studios

I'm pending approval and most likely i will never be approved (i'm not complaining... rules are rules)... so i can't contact with no one at the forums... so regarding that Mr. Joseph B. Hewitt IV former designer/graphic artist at Westwood Studios was kind enough to collaborate with some information and regarding that he was pratically involved in every title and conversion made by Westwood Studios it would be a waste not to take this opportunity, so i'll sugest that someone with more experience could made him some more questions, i was thinking in Researcher: ICEKnight, he interviewed many people before. We're supposed to act as a team so it doesn't matter who interviews who (correct me if i'm wrong) so can you talk to him to see if he agreeds with this?... it was Mr.Hewitt who made the background art on The Lion King --Asagoth (talk) 04:38, 26 September 2017 (CDT)

ESPN Sunday Night NFL

Hello Black Squirrel. Can you access the ESPN Sunday Night NFL Sega CD credits? All you need to do is just finish a single (exhibition) game just like the SNES and Genesis versions. I tried the SCD version but for whatever reason I can't play it. If you can provide a video/screenshots, I'll insert the credits. Thanks. --Hydao (talk) 16:11, 7 November 2017 (CST)

I haven't got a physical copy so I'd have to go down the ISO route - it would honestly be no quicker than if you did it -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:01, 8 November 2017 (CST)

Credits PDFs

Do you think either this PDF or this one is usable? Or maybe taking screenshots at a non-native (e.g. 640x480) would be a better idea? --AllisonKidd (talk) 19:13, 15 November 2017 (CST)

I think I read up on the PDF standard once and found that while it is capable of storing lossless images, there's a few extra hoops to jump through. The JPEGtoPDF program we've got hosted on RetroCDN converts everything to JPEG (unless the file is already a JPEG, in which case it leaves it alone).
A lot of modern image editors let you set the "quality" of a JPEG when you save - the resulting image is always lossy, but the highest quality JPEGs are very close to a lossless image to the untrained eye. If you want the best image possible, save your JPEGs at the maximum quality (100 in Paint.NET, which is what I use):
Put these into JPEGtoPDF and you'll get a better idea (I've got test images exactly for questions like these :) ).
There are lossless variants of JPEG (and JPEG 2000) - they're not widely supported though.
The being said, as long as it's readable, it should be fine. -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:37, 16 November 2017 (CST)
Those PDFs actually contain lossless PNGs, but PdfHandler creates lossy JPEG thumbnails (with subsampling). I converted the images to high quality JPEGs and used JPEGtoPDF as you suggested (rather than PNGs with ImageMagick) and it seems to render better now, although it's much heavier. --AllisonKidd (talk) 15:53, 16 November 2017 (CST)
I used JPEG2000 with JPEGtoPDF for this file. Worked pretty well. - Hivebrain (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2017 (CST)

Mark Voorsanger

I added some references to the page... i haven't touched in the production history... but after I saved the page, the production history disappeared ... what is strange is that when we click the preview button we can see the production history but after saving the page we don't see it... maybe you can fix it... is just to keep you informed...--Asagoth (talk) 07:36, 20 December 2017 (CST)

Edit: It's all ok now... false alarm... now i get it... just ignore it--Asagoth (talk) 09:35, 20 December 2017 (CST)
"purge cache" :) -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:15, 20 December 2017 (CST)

Tails and the Music Maker

Despite us having a page on the game here on Sega Retro, the redirect to Sonic Retro is still active which means anyone who looks for the game through the search bar will end up there. The only way to end up on the Sega retro page is through a direct link.

I'd fix it myself but I don't know how since both pages are existing together. JaxTH (talk) 00:00, 25 December 2017 (CST)

Mega Score Magazine (Portugal) issue 01

Could you upload it to Retro CDN? It has 137 MB of size...it's already compressed... i can't upload it... here https://drive.google.com/file/d/17-wFvzBIa-0vqCGPoM4dmgbp1ay-wf1f/view?usp=sharing --Asagoth (talk) 13:17, 27 December 2017 (CST)

File:MegaScore PT 01.pdf :) -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:27, 27 December 2017 (CST)
Thank you...--Asagoth (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2017 (CST)

What about this?

Do you think we can save it ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq7C6xzoegk&t=267s ...(read the description in the video)--Asagoth (talk) 12:38, 28 December 2017 (CST)

Ah yes, that's another thing we need to sort out at some point - Sega created some educational material for schools, and that video is part of it:
My guess is that there were other bits of teaching material too. You might be able to extract the ads - I don't know enough about video editing to do a good job myself.
IIRC I got distracted at the time by the other teaching-related VHS which involved lifeguards (and TV's Chris Evans!) -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:55, 28 December 2017 (CST)
Well... i'm not an expert at video editing either... i just use this https://ezgif.com/crop-video ... that's my "secret" :) --Asagoth (talk) 13:06, 28 December 2017 (CST)
Edit: I scaled the video a bit and now it has 156 MB you'll have to upload it , here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bSvcW0PodLteVnlEiqjHI_ymHtdUFlcq/view?usp=sharing ... is the first time i've used the scaling tool, but it looks ok, i hope it works...--Asagoth (talk) 14:47, 28 December 2017 (CST)
156MB is quite large for 30 seconds or so of footage - or is this the whole VHS? -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2017 (CST)
Yes is the whole thing... and there's some more on the web...but i can upload the original which is just 68,3 MB (res:480X360)--Asagoth (talk) 15:02, 28 December 2017 (CST)

Yes upload the original - scaling 360p to 720p just adds to the file size - it can't improve the image quality :) -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:27, 28 December 2017 (CST)

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