User talk:Hivebrain

About the Wiki Articles, I did that just for now, Im gonna edit them and change the info to something like that from time to time (You know, adding screenshots, covers, and gameplay info.) These were very wip. Also, its nice to have some info to start - Elratauru 3:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

So, ok, cleaned them. Sorry about the copy-paste thing. Now they have screens, covers (not that high res, but I couldnt find better ones...), I added gameplay info and credits too. Elratauru 7:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

List of Games

Why are you giving the list of games a seperate page on Mega Drive but you are listing them on the same page as the system on other pages? They should each have their own page if you want to keep things consistant.--MathUser 23:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Lists will eventually be placed on their own pages. Consistency has to be worked on, not deleted into existence. - Hivebrain 23:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

-Um, the "List of Mega Drive games" pages should be finished.... -Firbin4576

Confusion on "Sands of Destruction"

On AnimeNetsNetwork's Sega page, "Sands of Destruction" is listed with "Original Creator, Production" as their credit; You can see for yourself if you want. Notice that nearly all the other things with "Original Creator/Concept/Copyright" on their credit are considered properties they themselves own. Therefore, I would argue that the page for the anime deserves to be reinstated (There should probably also be a page on the game, but I've never played it and thus can't give much details other than what I've heard.) You're free to debate this still if you want - I'm fairly confused over the ramifications of "Producer" credits for the likes of Evangelion myself, and am wondering if it warrants Wiki entries.--KiddoCabbusses 04:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding DPL-friendliness

This particular method isn't as DPL-friendly, no, but I didn't know that was a consideration. What current/future DPL uses did you have in mind? Garrett 21:37, 6 January 2012 (CST)

Concerning Dates

See Sandbox - it's perfectly capable of doing date sorts in DD-MM-YYYY format.- Scarred Sun 14:49, 31 March 2012 (CDT)

That's good, but we've used yyyy-mm-dd on hundreds of other pages. - Hivebrain 14:52, 31 March 2012 (CDT)

The root problem being, of course, that we have at least three different date formats floating around on pages. - Scarred Sun 15:09, 31 March 2012 (CDT) [Groan -- I'll just switch the existing stuff over to yyyy-mm-dd]

I think I like yyyy-mm-dd better anyway. Anything else might look a bit jumbled on a "list of games" table. - Hivebrain 15:46, 31 March 2012 (CDT)

Ay up

Don't know if you're still in the business of adding prices to Master System games but I found something in my travels

• http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/874/sdc10035v.jpg

This is apparently the compatibility list for the Master Gear Converter, though it's been nice enough to include RRPs of SMS games in the US for some reason. Don't know how reliable it is (since there's no such thing as a "Zillion III") but yeah -Black Squirrel 10:56, 19 May 2012 (CDT)

Meam Machines Sega

About upside-down pages... This pages presented in some issues and they were scanned definetely like this... Upside-down. And I specially didn't overturn them. -Depressor (talk) 01:19, 16 September 2014 (CDT)
I have sources so if you think it would be right, i can rebuild this issues.

Maybe you can work it out

n/a

Hivebrain
System(s): whoop
Publisher: whoop
Developer: whoop
Sound driver: whoop
Peripherals supported: whoop
Genre: whoop
Series: whoop
Number of players: whoop

I think the genre2num template generates an extra line break -->

I tried to solve it the other day but all I managed to do is make template code unreadable. Fancy a challenge? -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:42, 20 January 2015 (CST)

It's doing that because there's a div inside a p. I'm going to tidy up the bob templates eventually, so that they'll only use tables or divs. Until then I don't think there's a quick way to fix it. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:59, 20 January 2015 (CST)

scanbox

• Control Stick
• Joystick (SJ-200)

there's also things like Nomad PowerBack where the top side is in the wrong position... if you see what I mean. Because not all cuboid nets are the same unless I rotate the top image by 180 degrees this is really awkward to describe in text form -Black Squirrel (talk) 03:42, 23 February 2015 (CST)

Also thinking proper support for "disc 2", "disc 3" etc. might be an idea - at least up to disc 4, just so that it looks a bit nicer. There's a few extremes like Sakura Taisen Complete Box which shipped with ten discs, but I don't know if we want to be making special considerations for them. -Black Squirrel (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2015 (CST)

I've fixed the linebreak issue, and added discs up to 4. I know what you mean about the top/bottom images occasionally being wrong. I'll add an option to rotate them with css (so the images themselves don't need to be upside-down) some other time. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:08, 23 February 2015 (CST)

Mean Machines

Maybe better upload full magazines? *Depressor (talk) 06:53, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

It's a non-Sega magazine. The pages I removed were out of scope (NES reviews mostly). - Hivebrain (talk) 07:49, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

On this point, because I'm not keen on half-finished magazines either - Retro CDN? At some point you'll hit TurboGrafx coverage so it's something NEC Retro will need -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:38, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

I've started putting them on Retro CDN as of issue 5, because of Sonic content. I could upload full issues, but then I'd have to do it for every magazine and that would take up a significant amount of storage (I have several hundred gigs of magazine scans). My upload speed isn't good enough to do that regularly anyway. - Hivebrain (talk) 11:56, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

Might I suggest blank pages for the bits you've cut out then - just so we don't have to edit a bazillion ratings if someone turns up with a complete scan -Black Squirrel (talk) 12:25, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

I can upload full magazines after little rework, as i did with MMS or other sega-relate magazines *Depressor (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

I still think full magazines are out of scope and shouldn't be uploaded. Are we just talking about Mean Machines (because it evolved into MMS), or do we upload every issue of CVG, GamePro, EGM etc? - Hivebrain (talk) 14:30, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

I would say if the magazine has something of value in it, then yes. Assuming it's more than a couple of pages (else just upload those specific pages like the old days)

It's not an ideal situation, but I don't fundementally like the idea of only preserving half of something, on the grounds that some of it isn't in scope today. If we'd done this in 2010, we'd have a full set of cropped up Mean Machines scans, which would then need to be re-uploaded in a less cropped-up form for NEC Retro's launch. What if it turns out in another five years time we've got a wiki that deals with the Amstrad GX4000? Mean Machines would need to be re-uploaded for a third time.

Future proofing, in a world where gigabytes will cost less and etc. But blank placeholder pages at least means we won't have to re-edit wikis if the above happens. You could also probably argue that developments in the Nintendo sphere were probably important to Sega - they were competitors basing business decisions on the actions of each other, and the important bits usually coincide with when Sega games were being covered.

If a magazine is printed without any Sega (or NEC) stuff in it at all, we probably don't have to care. So that would discount 1982/1983 issues of CVG and things like that. -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:22, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

also the same logic might mean I could go through all the Sega Saturn Magazine scans and crop out all those damn adverts for spot treatment. But then it would be a 95% complete scan and that would annoy me more than anything. =P -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:24, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

How about if I upload the full mags with JPEG compression dialled up to 20%? It'll reduce file sizes down to less than half, without affecting readability. Seems like a good compromise that'll satisfy everyone's concerns. - Hivebrain (talk) 18:49, 26 June 2015 (CDT)

That could work -Black Squirrel (talk) 04:42, 27 June 2015 (CDT)

One Login

Hi. Is it possible to make one login procedure to all wiki's? (sonicretro, segaretro, NEC, Retro CDN) *Depressor (talk)

There were plans for something like that, but I'm not sure if it's still being worked on. Register with the same name each time, and hopefully the accounts can be merged in the future. - Hivebrain (talk) 12:29, 30 September 2015 (CDT)

About Repro covers

Dunno if this is a right place to talk with you.. about that M.U.S.H.A. repro cover,I added that one for educational purposes. You see a lotta people complained that it's pretty close to the original one and may confuse some people to think that it's an original copy.. I personally think that differences are pretty obvious but still this is a nice place to educate people and let them know which one is real etc. --Foxnoodles

Re: Does that mean we'll have multipage PDF thumbs?

File:SSM UK 22.pdf

File:SSM UK 22.pdf

this raises the possibility of being clever

File:SSM UK 22.pdf

File:SSM UK 22.pdf

rest of magrow template here

those added spaces might cause problems though. Food for thought -Black Squirrel (talk) 13:12, 11 June 2016 (CDT)

or do that -Black Squirrel (talk) 13:16, 11 June 2016 (CDT)

That's a bit disappointing. I thought it would make a single image thumbnail from the specified pages, and it doesn't work in galleries at all. - Hivebrain (talk) 13:42, 11 June 2016 (CDT)

Multipage thumbs part 2

File:SSM UK 22.pdf

Removing the spaces is possible with a bit of css. Maybe we could make our own gallery template that employs loops somehow. - Hivebrain (talk) 15:42, 20 June 2016 (CDT)

Ratings template version 32142

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source Bestial! (PT) 90 Look Cube (UK) 80 magazines Cubezone (FR) 70 that Dangerous Waters (US) 60 aren't Next Level (AR) 50 in NGC Magazine (UK) 40 the Play (US) 30 old PC Team (FR) 20 template

	55
Based on 8 reviews

template:RatingsTest

I've built a ratings template that uses loops and fancy functions to generate a table, rather than having to check against its own list of publications. Feed it a code and it'll generate a name - should be a lot easier to maintain.

There isn't any support for websites, which is why I'm here - do we want to handle these in a different way? At some point there has to be a judgement about which websites are big or significant enough to be included, and regions aren't always applicable. Do we even want to handle websites at all? Just leave it to Metacritic?

Also it doesn't automatically order by name. Also it doesn't include those little explanations about how scores are calculated.

I'm also thinking it might be better to have sources make use of the ref template - that way everything is grouped together at the bottom of the screen and it makes these wikis look more researched and cool.

p.s. I had to fight this template to get it to work - it may be possible to simplify it. Or at least make the code look prettier -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:33, 15 June 2016 (CDT)

Looks like it works pretty well, even with multiple instances of the template. Websites I don't care much about. Maybe we could just have a link to Metacritic at the bottom of the collapsible bit, which appears when metacritic=yes is set or something. Using the ref template should be as simple as modifying template:num slightly, which I would be in favour of. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:38, 15 June 2016 (CDT)

Same game?

Are this the same games with two separate pages? - http://segaretro.org/Sekaishi_Nenpyou_(Monbushou_Shidouyouryou_Junkyo) - http://segaretro.org/Sekaishi_Nenpyou

Right-to-left scans

File:AMLife JP 14.pdf

Japanese magazines and books sometimes read right-to-left. I've uploaded this one as left-to-right - a good plan, or should it be compiled as it was originally put together? (i.e. the last page would be the first)

the source, if you're interested. -Black Squirrel (talk) 16:19, 12 August 2016 (CDT)

Probably how you've done it is right. That's the order the pages are meant to be read, it preserves page numbering (in theory), and the default page should be the "front" cover. - Hivebrain (talk) 16:34, 12 August 2016 (CDT)

genre icons

aka a weekend with Inkscape

Some came out better than others. The only one missing is "table"... which I'm not planning to do because the icons are inconsistent across boxes and it's a really weird classification at the best of times.

-Black Squirrel (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2016 (CDT)

Press kits

Something I came across in my travels:

• https://archive.org/details/SEGADreamcastDigitalPressKit1999
• https://archive.org/details/SegaDreamcast2000PressKit
• https://archive.org/details/DREAMCASTStyleGuideCD
• https://archive.org/details/DreamcastPremiereEurope.7z
• https://archive.org/details/SegaE32002PressKit.7z

IIRC Sega Retro has absorbed one (or more) official press kits in the past - do any of these look familiar?

I'm thinking we might want our own archived copies if they're the real deal too. But I don't want to be the one who sorts it out because 600MB+ per file and not much time and patience and lazy -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:43, 25 October 2016 (CDT)

I've saved them so I can have a closer look later. - Hivebrain (talk) 16:33, 25 October 2016 (CDT)

Defunct Radica Games UK website

They have the manuals for "Arcade Legends" consoles on a chip,"Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition‎",Sensible Soccer Plus,Outrun 2019 and Menacer...since i am a little noob at editing i leave it for you if you don't mind... i just want to contribute...

https://web.archive.org/web/20070222125945/http://www.radicauk.com/manuals.htm --Asagoth (talk) 04:26, 12 February 2017 (CST)

Thanks, I'll take a look. - Hivebrain (talk) 11:59, 12 February 2017 (CST)

Ulala no Channel J

I think I'd struggle to make the page, but I can at least update the template:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040813220715/http://www.sonicteam.com/chJ/

I had assumed this was one game, but turns out it's a service with several games/ringtones/whatever that are individually paid for and downloaded. Do we want to cover this in a single "Ulala no Channel J" page or split things.

My first thought was to group everything, but turns out there's a bit of Astro Boy/Puyo Puyo content in there plus some original things -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:34, 24 February 2017 (CST)

oh and some of it might have been redistributed as part of sonic cafe. -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:36, 24 February 2017 (CST)

I suppose everything will need its own page. Would ringtones be classed as music or software? I've never downloaded one, so I don't know how they're packaged or anything. - Hivebrain (talk) 13:23, 24 February 2017 (CST)

I don't know exactly how they were handled in the days of the Nokia 3310, but by the early 2000s most handsets were migrating to bog-standard MIDI/WAV/MP3 files (at which point they become difficult to charge for as they're so easy to distribute).

I have no idea was the story was in Japan though. 381040824 proprietary standards in phones is why there's so many emojis in unicode. -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:01, 24 February 2017 (CST)

so this is a thing

cdn:Template:Descriptions/Namco

Namco

nec:Namco

"Scary Transcluding", as it's called.

I can't decide whether this is a good plan. The benefits are obvious, but it's an extra hurdle for the less able wiki user, and it's apparently not very efficient. An opportunity to unify some templates though?

-Black Squirrel (talk) 13:54, 11 April 2017 (CDT)

It's a good idea for basic text. Anything complicated, like MagazineName templates, isn't going to work (I tried already). - Hivebrain (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2017 (CDT)

Japan only Category

Can you give any time period where you will be adding this category that you talked about a while ago?--Trippled (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2017 (CDT)

About that TUME Demo

You can delete that video ( was made by me... it's awful... I'm an amateur... i made a better one and i linked it to the TUME PAGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDd_ExmQ114&t=162s ... i can upload this new video if you prefer... is the original demo (a DOS executable, made by the original developers...i just recorded a video with DOSBox) included in the File:TUME.zip... but i think you will need to repair it like you did with the first one...--Asagoth (talk) 15:08, 15 August 2017 (CDT)

If you save it from Youtube with keepvid.com and upload that mp4 instead, it'll definitely work properly. - Hivebrain (talk) 15:36, 15 August 2017 (CDT)

i've not saved it from youtube... i upload it to Youtube... this demo is a .bat file included in the TUME.zip ... i used DOSBox to record that video... i just used an online video converter to convert it to mp4... i'm user "Erkekjetter" on youtube the original uploader of the video...--Asagoth (talk) 15:55, 15 August 2017 (CDT)

Sorry... I misunderstood your answer... just ignore mine --Asagoth (talk) 16:19, 15 August 2017 (CDT)

Portuguese Mega Drive UPC/EAN Codes ...

A group of Portuguese Mega Drive collectors from a Portuguese forum of wich im a member began to catalog all Ecofilmes games(one of the guys deciphered the bar codes)... i want to add this codes... a tried edit the md releases template but i really don't know what i'm doing... can you edit the template so that the codes can be added?--Asagoth (talk) 16:28, 16 August 2017 (CDT)

Data Compression Reference Book

I can't log in on Retro CDN, i don't know why... so can you put this book there? Is a Reference book about all kinds of data compression (LZSS,Huffman Coding,etc)... here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11cl5uRBh5kc1FXNlk1cnpBclE/view?usp=sharing ... --Asagoth (talk) 12:53, 26 September 2017 (CDT)

The CDN is broken. You can log in on https, but you still can't edit or upload anything. - Hivebrain (talk) 15:32, 26 September 2017 (CDT)

Ok then... Thank you anyway--Asagoth (talk) 15:43, 26 September 2017 (CDT)

i got you a present

Template:CreditsTest2

what this does (rather crudely) is split a big chunk of text up and prints each line individually. Unlike the other attempt, this one can be fitted to the current creditstable template without the need to reformat everything

next step is to presumably split each line up using the "," character as a delimiter, and do some funky things to get it into cargo (ignoring the creditsheaders along the way - annoyingly I think they're HTML by this point). I'm guessing a row per developer (as opposed to a row per role) is a better way forward.

Leaving it in your capable hands because you might have had a better vision. Or you might be able to do it more efficiently than me. Not sure how it handles weirder credits layouts (and maybe we want a source column as well?).

-Black Squirrel (talk) 14:31, 6 November 2017 (CST)

I got it to strip out all the headers/html and bold formatting, and it's still fast. Some information could be lost in the unlikely situation where two headers are used, or two br tags. - Hivebrain (talk) 16:12, 6 November 2017 (CST)

Afternoon:

• AWS Pro Moves Soccer (Mega Drive; 1993) — Sound Driver

(obviously "Zyrinx Software" isn't a person but it was the first result to show in both tables)

In order to sort production histories by release date, the date will need to be calculated on the SQL side. I took an easier route because I'm lazy.

The side effect is that every creditstable will need to be supplied with a "console" parameter (MD/SMS/SAT etc.). "Date" on the credits-side is possibly redundant now, unless there's ever a need to overrule the calculate date for whatever reason (e.g. if the Japanese release came out 394803294 years after the US one and has a different set of credits - this isn't implemented yet)

When I originally set the releases table to build, I was using longer names for consoles (i.e. "Mega Drive" instead of "MD") - it might need rebuilding.

I'm going to have a lie down now -Black Squirrel (talk) 07:22, 11 November 2017 (CST)

I'm not quite sure what this is

Something called "MAKE WAR NOT LOVE 5" popped up on Steam today. Nothing but Sega games, which means I have no idea if the last four times this happened was all Sega games as well or if this is even a Sega only thing, but it SEEMS to be limited and will go away on the 19th if I'm reading it all right.

Since you are the one doing a bunch of stuff on Steam I wanted to pass this along to you. I'm still not able to post links since the CAPTCHA still doesn't load for me but the app id is "801990". JaxTH (talk) 19:14, 12 February 2018 (CST)

As far as I know it's an annual event by Sega Europe. See the official website for more info. --AllisonKidd (talk) 21:24, 12 February 2018 (CST)

All five of them are by SEGA Europe. However I can't only find concrete stuff for 3-5 while 2 has a YouTube playlist by Sega Europe. I can't find anything on the first one. JaxTH (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2018 (CST)

Small Request

Could you add Taiwan (TW) and it's currency to the DLC Template? The only game I know for sure that would need it would be the Vita version of Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls. JaxTH (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2018 (CST)

Not a problem. It should be easy the way I have it set up now. - Hivebrain (talk) 21:20, 19 February 2018 (CST)

"EX" covers

Spot the difference:

https://www.picclickimg.com/d/w1600/pict/282857987697_/40881-Virtua-Tennis-Worlds-Tour-Sony-PSP.jpg

There's a set of elusive "not for sale in the UK" games out there - English texts, usually a PEGI rating (as opposed to a BBFC one where applicable) and tiny changes here and there that most people wouldn't see. We've absorbed a few over the years and they're incorrectly labeled.

Because I don't know which countries these variants were sold in, and conveniently both Sony and Microsoft use a "EX" suffix on the product codes for these releases - I think we should start calling them "EX covers". It's more pleasant on the eye than writing "English but not UK" for every release.

While I was looking to see if EX was taken, I ended up writing some rules:

cdn:Retro CDN:Country codes

That is to say, I'm thinking of moving the Benelux (FR/NL) covers to BX too. I haven't yet decided if XN is a suitable replacement for Norway/Sweden/Finland/Denmark.

here's your chance to agree/disagree -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:48, 22 February 2018 (CST)

EX is fine. I'd also like to know exactly where Asian games were sold new. Maybe we can find pics of them in old Hong Kong/Thai/whatever magazines. - Hivebrain (talk) 16:44, 25 February 2018 (CST)

3D alloy

I was looking at this extension last week at some point - great minds etc.

Problem: It doesn't do textures. No Mediawiki extensions do - it's an issue with having to rely on two different files (one for the geometry, one for the texture), and nobody wants to deal with that noise.

Best bet is to write an extension from scratch - three.js might help, but I can see the Mediawiki side being a painful experience.

(unless you want untextured models that is) -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:47, 5 March 2018 (CST)

I actually thought there would be a format that included textures in the same file, but it seems I'm mistaken. Untextured models would be okay for some things. An extension that reads the model and texture from a single zip file would be best. I'm almost entirely clueless about how Mediawiki and extensions really work though. - Hivebrain (talk) 13:23, 5 March 2018 (CST)

bobscreen 2: bob screener

I've built this: Template:BobscreenTest

It'll let us toggle a anamorphic widescreen for when proper Wii screenshots come in and the like. In theory you also only need to change two numbers for it to work out the different aspect ratio.

I've tagged on some pretty crappy support for vertical monitors, but I'm not sure what's the best plans for games without monitors (e.g. EM games like Periscope).

Obviously we don't want the Periscope arcade cabinet to be stretched about... but rather than adding 3480932480392 special cases, I'm wondering if a better course of action is to have a new "non-screenshot" image field in the bob templates - where it's just puts the raw image up there like the old days.

Do we want that, or do we want a switch on the bobscreen template to tell it not to stretch images? I can't tell which is cleaner.

Also I'd like to think this is a better solution than before, but I've been writing it at the end of the working day with distractions so idk -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:29, 4 July 2018 (CDT)

Looks good, but it's stretching SMS screenshots that have the left 8 pixel border removed:

We could redo those screenshots to put the border back in, which would be technically more accurate. I agree that "{{bob|image=" would be sensible for non-screenshot images. - Hivebrain (talk) 16:24, 4 July 2018 (CDT)

We'll need to do something about GB, GBA and NGPC screens, because they have their own aspect ratios. Maybe other handhelds too. Also what about HD screens? - Hivebrain (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2018 (CDT)

As far as handhelds go, I think it's only the Game Gear that needs special treatment - the rest have have square pixels (unless you count the TurboExpress for NEC Retro... though I'm not).

I made a special case for 320x224 - you could do something similar with the Master System. Maybe.

The one that concerns me is the Amiga. Once you've taken your masters degree on how WinUAE works, you can watch it swap between resolutions on the fly, and there are a lot of strange ones. -Black Squirrel (talk) 11:38, 5 July 2018 (CDT)

Metrostar

See this link, the '89 website is still working.

• METROSTAR and METROSTAR logo are trademarks of METRO CORPORATION

• METRO Corporation Japan, 532-0011, Yodogawa-ku, Osaka Nishinakajima 5-chome 12th No. 8 es Thi Esubiru, Japan

• Metrostar Europe A.Ş., Yeni Mahallesi, No:, Atatürk Blv. No:39, 07980 Kemer/Antalya, Turkey

• Action in Moscow and Streets of War brands and all related characters are trademarks of Namco and used under licence of their owner. Metrostar Europe A.Ş. is an subdivision of METRO Corporation.

And the old website' info is not an evidence, eh?! Also, see Google Maps for Metrostar Europe A.Ş., it is exist. Soniccis96 (talk) 16:06, 31 July 2018 (CDT)

• Also check NECRetro, and see. As a way you did an error when deleting info about Metrostar Europe from Metro Corporation article. So be it. Soniccis96 (talk) 16:09, 31 July 2018 (CDT)

Magazine templates

Both Sonic and NEC Retro seem to be missing most of these templates, and since I'm not used to the "cargo" stuff I'm just leaving a hint. --AllisonKidd (talk) 23:32, 26 September 2018 (CDT)

The plan is for the same cargo tables to be accessible by all the wikis. Until then Sonic/NEC Retro will make do with the old templates. - Hivebrain (talk) 12:45, 27 September 2018 (CDT)

Event-me-do

So I want to be able to convert the lists on event pages (e.g. E3 1995) into rows in a database table.

i.e. for every game that's listed, store

game | event | console | ref

Essentially it would be a similar system to what is done in template:Creditstable. But I don't really want to be re-writing code again - I'd quite like to recycle parts where possible, because the loop syntax isn't pleasant on the eye.

Have you done something similar somewhere on this wiki - I genuinely can't remember if a generic "turn a block of text into an array of strings, iterate through each one and do something" system already exists somewhere. I seem to remember trying to make one once but I don't think it went anywhere -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:25, 20 November 2018 (CST)

Also it might be worth lobbying for https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Arrays -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:27, 20 November 2018 (CST)

We've both tried making a generic string array template (Template:Foreach and Template:Sequence). It never ended up being meaningfully useful because of limitations in the way loops and variables work. Loops have to be written into every template that uses them. The most recent & optimised one I've done is in Template:StoreCreditsLine. Here's a more general version:

{{#vardefine:i|0}}{{#while:
| {{#vardefine:<SUBSTRING>|{{#explode:<WHOLESTRING>|<DELIMITER>|{{#var:i}}}}}}{{#var:<SUBSTRING>}}
| {{incvar|i}}
<CODE GOES HERE>
}}

Another issue is, there doesn't seem to be a way to preserve references with this kind of thing. I usually end up removing them with Template:Stripref. - Hivebrain (talk) 15:59, 20 November 2018 (CST)

Thor promo

I've been collecting "promo" discs

I kept them separate because I didn't know what they were. I originally assumed they were the PlayStation/Xbox equivalent to those Dreamcast "white label" games, but that was before these two came along

Now I'm thinking there's a possibility of pre-release/prototype/demo content, and that could mean new pages. But I'm obviously not in a position to test anything -Black Squirrel (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2018 (CST)

SMS

Did we work out if 248x192 was a "correct" resolution for Master System games in some cases?

e.g.

256x192 or 248x192?

Just because one is 4:3 and the other is... not (31:24?), which presumably would mean we'd want to stretch it horizontally by 8 pixels? -Black Squirrel (talk) 10:49, 30 December 2018 (EST)

Forgive my intromission... but I also have the same doubt... shall we cut those left side borders or leave them alone?... I'm not that good in these subjects...--Asagoth (talk) 11:04, 30 December 2018 (EST)

The Master System has a VDP setting where the leftmost 8 pixels are blanked, which I'm guessing is meant to mask some horizontal scrolling weirdness. It's part of the visible screen, and shouldn't really be cropped in screenshots. I used to crop them myself to make them look nicer, but nowadays I wouldn't. The aspect ratio is correct for both cropped and uncropped screenshots, so no stretching is required. - Hivebrain (talk) 12:18, 30 December 2018 (EST)

Link-up cable

Thank you for taking notice of my article. I am new at wiki editing so if something seems not right, just say and i will try to learn to correct my errors quickly.

one question: how do you know the original cable was Manufactured by Techno pop, i understand they designed it and presumably own the patent, and i could only assume Accolade distributed it, but the manufacturer i can't find solid proof of. this site seems to suggest Sega itself made them, but the photo on this link is dubious, since it could just be shot of a Genesis control pad plug http://segaage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=43&threadid=127730 I would absolutely love it if you could shed more light on this obscure peripheral

Regards Jun

I just assumed they made it, but if we're not sure then I'll change it back. - Hivebrain (talk) 16:21, 5 March 2019 (EST)

That would be advisable, Thanks. User:Jun The Detective 22:52 05/03/2019

Bollycao Eternal Champions Stickers

Can I ask you something? ... is it possible for you to delete a page? ... I'm asking because when I found these Bollycao Eternal Champions Stickers they were named as Bollycao stickers (just google for "Bollycao Eternal Champions" and you will see what I'm talking about)... when in fact they aren't... they are actually a set of stickers that was given away with the Spanish magazine "Todo Sega"... so they should be on "Todo Sega" page as extras... with that said the "Bollycao Eternal Champions Stickers" page shouldn't exist...--Asagoth (talk) 19:53, 19 April 2019 (EDT)

Changes to the Releases templates

Will the changes to the Releases templates be carried over to more systems like the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch in due time? It'll be easier for when I'm doing the 3D Classics and Sega Ages pages. --SorachiJirachi (talk) 20:24, 22 April 2019 (EDT)

Yes, and I was planning to do the Nintendo ones next. I've only been doing them as I need them, but if it helps I can update the 3DS/Switch ones sooner. - Hivebrain (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2019 (EDT)

That would be great. Cheers. --SorachiJirachi (talk) 20:45, 22 April 2019 (EDT)

Error creating thumbnail

https://retrocdn.net/File:Neo_Plus_10_PL.pdf Do you know how to remove this error in Neo and Neo Plus scans ?

Are you using this program to compile the PDFs? - Hivebrain (talk) 11:01, 26 April 2019 (EDT)

With other files yes but all the scans from Neo and Neo Plus were created in adultpdf.--Lukdriver14 (talk) 11:25, 26 April 2019 (EDT)

Company

I have this nasty habit of looking at templates at the end of the day.

Took your advice with Streets of Rage 2 Original Soundtrack, using Template:Company, but... it's not working... and I don't understand why. While the text is appearing on the page as expected, nothing is being added to the database. First glance suggests Template:MusicBob looks like Template:Bob - I don't know why it's not behaving in the same way.

While I'm here, I had a fresh look at Template talk:Porttable earlier in the week - I can't see myself actually finishing this job, and it's probably for a similar reason - the act of getting company information into the database, with all these loose variables and things that can go wrong, is just really really awkward.

I'm thinking from an end user perspective, instead of having to pass multiple templates in as arguments, if we could get a situation where we were passing in a fancy-pants list, e.g.:

{{companies
|||AcademySoft-ELORG|0
|||[[Mirrorsoft]]|1
|||[[Atari Games]]|2
|arcade|JP|[[Sega]]|3
|||[[Tengen]]|3
|MD|JP|[[Sega]]|4
}}

(hardware|region|name|level)

AcademySoft-ELORG (licensor)
Mirrorsoft (licensor)
     Atari Games (licensor)

        

Sega (JP) (publisher)

         Tengen (licensor)

            

Sega (JP) (publisher)

I think life might be (relatively) simpler for people. And we could have maths work out how to store things in the database. -Black Squirrel (talk) 16:52, 4 May 2019 (EDT)

I think it's because there's no system specified. Usually in that case, Template:Company is supposed to pull systems from Bob's system parameter. MusicBob doesn't have a system, so the variable is blank and it's probably doing nothing. It made sense while I was writing it, but the whole thing's a bit of a mess. I'll have a think and hopefully come up with something a bit more elegant. - Hivebrain (talk) 18:00, 4 May 2019 (EDT)

Bugged-up releases table for Sonic Generations 3DS

I copied over the added release info for Sonic Generations (Nintendo 3DS) from its respective page from Sonic Retro, but now I have a problem. While it looks fine over on Sonic Retro, it's messed up somehow on Sega Retro in that almost everything is designated as a digital download when some of them aren't supposed to be. Could you look into this? --SorachiJirachi (talk) 22:11, 5 May 2019 (EDT)

I made a mistake in the releases templates. It should be okay now. - Hivebrain (talk) 00:23, 6 May 2019 (EDT)

Segaretro does'nt work in Flashpeak slimjet web browser

Hi, I'm not exactly sure where i should ask this, but since you are a site administrator I was hoping you could help or at least give me an idea.

I was going to upgrade my browser from firefox to slimjet (a deeply modified version of Chrome)and most pages work, but when i try to access any page on segaretro.org it won't let me in and displays this:

---

This site can’t provide a secure connection. segaretro.org uses an unsupported protocol. ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH Unsupported protocol, The client and server don't support a common SSL protocol version or cipher suite. This is likely to be caused when the server needs RC4, which is no longer considered secure''.

---

I don't know if this is specific to slimjet, but i never had this issue with firefox V52, or K-meleon.

--Jun The Detective 18:13, 12 May 2019 (EDT)

It's not my area of expertise, but I've passed it along to the rest of the staff. - Hivebrain (talk) 18:25, 12 May 2019 (EDT)

Assistance

Hello. Sorry for taking up space in your talk section. But my account has been deleted for the second time without my knowledge. And not i am not allowed to edit or contribute. Since you are an admin, can you tell me what i did wrong? - Peace MkIII

We don't delete user accounts here. However, we did switch to the Retro CDN user database a while ago, so if you created your account before that then it's probably gone. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:46, 16 November 2019 (EST)

Thank you for your time.

Releases bug

Found a thing:

• Rage Games

The Mega Drive version of Ultimate Soccer has two references for its earliest date (the UK one). This creates a string that is apparently "too big" to work with once it's been through the database:

https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=Special%3ACargoQuery&tables=releases&fields=_pageName%3DPage%2Cname%3Dname%2Ctype%3Dtype%2Cconsole%3Dconsole%2Cregion%3Dregion%2Cdate%3Ddate%2Crrp%3Drrp%2Ccode%3Dcode%2Ccode2%3Dcode2%2Crating%3Drating&where=name%3D%22Ultimate+Soccer%22&join_on=&group_by=&having=&order_by%5B0%5D=&order_by_options%5B0%5D=ASC&limit=100&offset=0&format=

we can strip the references away before the date is stored, but the question is... do we want to do that? Is it a good idea to store the reference(s)... somewhere?

Either way I ought to write this down since I've run out of time to fix it today -Black Squirrel (talk) 17:38, 12 January 2020 (EST)

Consoles using the newer system (template:ReleasesRowPlus) do strip references away. Mega Drive games are still on the old template, so it'll work when I update releasesMD. I had thought about separating refs for prices like this:

| pc_rrp_us=9.99
| pc_rrpref_us={{ref|http://google.com}}

which would be fairly easy to do with replacetext. The main reason was that refs become invisible when they pass through template:price, and this is the best way to keep them visible.

The problem is, you can't store refs in cargo like that. It would have to be "pc_rrpref_us=http://google.com", which is no good if you want more than one ref, or you want an intref/fileref/magref. My guess is any system we come up with would make templates horribly messy. I'm not too bothered about storing refs anyway, they're on the respective pages if anyone wants to look at them. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:17, 13 January 2020 (EST)

price

Template:Price is stripping out references, meaning we're losing the superscript link things in bob templates - is that by design -Black Squirrel (talk) 06:13, 23 February 2020 (EST)

It's not by design. Extension:Cite has changed so that any string operation (e.g. explode) strips references. Older versions of Cite treated refs as a single character. I've already thought of a solution to make refs visible again, but it requires intervention from someone with higher wiki permissions than me. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:04, 23 February 2020 (EST)

GamePro en Español

Something unpleasant:

https://www.retromags.com/gallery/category/542-gamepro-en-espanol/

"Gamepro en Español", a Spanish translation of GamePro. Retromags have this marked as an Argentinian magazine, but it's not - it's a "Latin America" magazine. There are cover variants for:

• Argentina
• Chile
• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Mexico
• Peru
• Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic
• Venezuela

• and maybe a version for everywhere

how do we want to handle this? -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2020 (EDT)

Probably try to decide which is the "main" country and go with that. i.e. where their offices are based and where it was printed. We're already sort of doing this for some magazines which have US and Canadian prices on the cover. - Hivebrain (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2020 (EDT)

Error creating thumbnail Part II

https://retrocdn.net/File:MD_Sonic_1_DE_TVAdvert.mp4 What can I do to make this working right?-Lukdriver14 (talk) 13:24, 10 June 2020 (EDT)

You're using the right codecs. It'll work when thumbnails & video transcoding are fixed on CDN. - Hivebrain (talk) 13:58, 10 June 2020 (EDT)

Erros in editing

Everytime when i try to edit the page i have message *** Forbidden. Message seems to be spam. *** Why?

I try to edit Sega Rally Revo page PC RU version in CD case, adding disk scan and divide versions on RU (CD case) and RU (DVD Case)

Something must be triggering a spam filter. Try adding one thing at a time, or editing the page without adding anything. - Hivebrain (talk) 19:03, 20 June 2020 (EDT)

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (talk) 13:36, 23 June 2020 (EDT) same thing... i cant even save page after editing button without doing changes.

Issues with SoR3 image replacement

I've uploaded the mugshots for playable SoR3 characters using resources from SoR4. I then realised that those resources were missing a mugshot for Roo and got a hideous black outline. So, I tried to replace them with resources directly taken from SoR3. But after replacing them, I can see that the result is my initial upload pictures being resized to the sizes of the new uploaded pictures instead of having the new pictures completely replaced the initial pictures.

Is there a way to actually replace pictures? Xinyingho (talk) 05:35, 18 August 2020 (EDT)

It can take a few hours for the wiki to update thumbnails - your uploads are fine -Black Squirrel (talk) 06:02, 18 August 2020 (EDT)

CDN

Can you delete files that I marked on Retro CDN? Thanks.

Why did you upload those files in the first place? You've created a lot of work for us, so don't expect it to be done quickly. - Hivebrain (talk) 12:00, 4 September 2020 (EDT)

Sorry for that. How long would this take ?

Could you please delete these files on Retro CDN in this week? It's not about giving you extra work, but the sooner you remove it, the sooner I'll stop bothering you with this problem.

Could you write me anything?

I told you it won't be done quickly. I'd have to find and upload pdf replacements for most of them. I'm already quite busy with other things on here, so dealing with this is a low priority. It'll probably be done in a month or two, if you're lucky. - Hivebrain (talk) 17:47, 14 September 2020 (EDT)

But these files are no longer needed and can be deleted. In each page where they been I added the appropriate page which will be in PDF version. I also gave few months ago links where you can look for it. Plus some of these PDFs are already on Retro CDN but the JPGs of those scans are still waiting to be deleted.

how good are you with double quotes

This is annoying me

Template:RatingsTableAll

Evander Holyfield's "Real Deal" Boxing (Game Gear) breaks because there are double quotes in the name. In order to query a name with double quotes in SQL you have to use two " characters

e.g.

name = "Evander Holyfield's ""Real Deal"" Boxing (Game Gear)"

... and I think I'm doing this, but somewhere between passing arguments through templates, this breaks for some reason. I don't suppose you have any ideas why, before I start throwing more hacky code at it -Black Squirrel (talk) 09:35, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

I think it might be a bug. It looks like you can't use a query with format=template if the invoked template itself (Template:RatingsTableAll/Cargo) does more queries. Notice how the name looks fine but the scores are broken, which doesn't really make sense (you'd expect both should break or neither). All I can suggest is that we never store quotemarks in cargo tables. Replace them with :qm: or something as they're stored and then replace back to quotes for the page output. - Hivebrain (talk) 23:13, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

Instruction Manual Scans

I have a lot of front cover scans of instructions from most PAL megadrive, game gear, mega CD and 32X games releases (must have about 800-900 different scans). On the upload page it says to only upload PDFs of instructions. just wondering if you would want me to upload as placeholders until PDFs are available. Nova Toad (talk) 08:30, 7 May 2021 (EDT)

I don't really see the point of having placeholders myself, but I suppose some people might argue it's better than nothing. Upload them if you want, but make sure you tag the images with {{PDFneeded}}. - Hivebrain (talk) 14:28, 7 May 2021 (EDT)

video overkilled the radio star

https://archive.org/details/the-house-of-the-dead-overkill-asset.-7z

this came through a couple of days ago - I can handle the images, but there's a 126MB mov file that I don't know what to do with. I really must learn how video formats work one day -Black Squirrel (talk) 17:40, 28 May 2021 (EDT)