Possible site updates?

[shaggy]

First off I must say this is an awesome site I found.  There are some things, though, that I found that would help me and I would hope the other people of the RF Generation community.  First, When picking a country would it be possible to put the country in peranthesis because not everyone knows what flag is what country.  Second,  would it be possible to be able to list our collect from descending or ascending order of the number of games we have for a console?  Last, would people find it easier to pick there system by the name of the system instead of the company name?  I know I don't know the company that makes every system I own, i.e. the Vectrex.  Thank you.

[Lord Nepenthean]

Countries - I'll add alt text to the flags so that when you hover over the flag images on the search page it shows the country in the hover text.

Collection lists - I'll let Eddie (St0rmTK421) respond on that.  He's the guy who programmed the collection software (among other things at this site).

Consoles - The reason I have the consoles listed with company name is that I would like to both be uniform and allow people to see all of the consoles made by a particular manufacturer at once.  Consoles such as the 3DO and ColorVision, that had multiple publishers and not really a single one, are exceptions to this since we don't want the same system listed twice.  A few examples of why the companies are listed too:

- The Nintendo DS.  "DS" doesn't really work as a console name.  You could argue that the "Nintendo" is not really part of the console name, but most people would include it.  Then what about the Nintendo GameCube?  "GameCube" stands alone better than "DS" does, but where you include the manufacturer on one, I think you must on the other too.  This is the #1 reason we have companies listed as well - conformity.

- The Nintendo NES/Famicom.  If we listed by console only, Famicom and NES would show up on totally different parts of the list.  Since we want only one entry per console, we could enter "NES/Famicom," but somebody looking for Famicom games would have to look in two places before he finds his console.  At least with "Nintendo NES/Famicom, they only have to go to the Nintendo consoles and they will find what they are looking for immediately.

- VTech consoles.  There is one VTech console in the database and several that will be added soon.  Many people do not know these consoles but do know the VTech brand and what they make (edutainment game consoles and software).  When they see these consoles all next to each other, they will have a good idea of whether or not they want to include them in their search.  The same goes for collectors only interested in everything Atari, Nintendo, etc.  A Nintendo fanboy might notice the little-known Nintendo iQue while searching for a GameCube game with the current search (and therefor find a new console that may interest him).  However, if the iQue was listed without its company, he may never see it.

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I will however see if we can come up with a way to allow users to select whether or not they want companies listed with console names in the search.  (The default will always be WITH companies though.)  I'm not making any promises just yet on the ability to turn companies on/off.  We will see.

Thanks much for the suggestions!

[St0rmTK421]

Well, in response to the sorting by number of games for a console, I think I found a different way to do it that should still be just as functional.  Try going to your collection profile and sorting the stats by console.  When the bar graphs show up, you can click on each console name which will display all games that you have for that console.  You can do that for year, publisher, genre, and region as well.

[shaggy]

Countries - I'll add alt text to the flags so that when you hover over the flag images on the search page it shows the country in the hover text.

Collection lists - I'll let Eddie (St0rmTK421) respond on that.  He's the guy who programmed the collection software (among other things at this site).

Consoles - The reason I have the consoles listed with company name is that I would like to both be uniform and allow people to see all of the consoles made by a particular manufacturer at once.  Consoles such as the 3DO and ColorVision, that had multiple publishers and not really a single one, are exceptions to this since we don't want the same system listed twice.  A few examples of why the companies are listed too:

- The Nintendo DS.  "DS" doesn't really work as a console name.  You could argue that the "Nintendo" is not really part of the console name, but most people would include it.  Then what about the Nintendo GameCube?  "GameCube" stands alone better than "DS" does, but where you include the manufacturer on one, I think you must on the other too.  This is the #1 reason we have companies listed as well - conformity.

- The Nintendo NES/Famicom.  If we listed by console only, Famicom and NES would show up on totally different parts of the list.  Since we want only one entry per console, we could enter "NES/Famicom," but somebody looking for Famicom games would have to look in two places before he finds his console.  At least with "Nintendo NES/Famicom, they only have to go to the Nintendo consoles and they will find what they are looking for immediately.

- VTech consoles.  There is one VTech console in the database and several that will be added soon.  Many people do not know these consoles but do know the VTech brand and what they make (edutainment game consoles and software).  When they see these consoles all next to each other, they will have a good idea of whether or not they want to include them in their search.  The same goes for collectors only interested in everything Atari, Nintendo, etc.  A Nintendo fanboy might notice the little-known Nintendo iQue while searching for a GameCube game with the current search (and therefor find a new console that may interest him).  However, if the iQue was listed without its company, he may never see it.

________________________________________________

I will however see if we can come up with a way to allow users to select whether or not they want companies listed with console names in the search.  (The default will always be WITH companies though.)  I'm not making any promises just yet on the ability to turn companies on/off.  We will see.

Thanks much for the suggestions!

How about putting the company name in parenthesis after the system instead of before the system name except where it is normally understood, i.e. Sega CD, Sega 32x, etc.?

[shaggy]

Well, in response to the sorting by number of games for a console, I think I found a different way to do it that should still be just as functional.  Try going to your collection profile and sorting the stats by console.  When the bar graphs show up, you can click on each console name which will display all games that you have for that console.  You can do that for year, publisher, genre, and region as well.

Cool!!  Thanks ,Storm, that was exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks again!