VGCollect Forum
VGCollect Site Stuff => News => Topic started by: jason on July 19, 2016, 09:13:43 pm
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Hi everyone,
We have just overhauled the algorithm for the search on VGCollect. This should help to find games more easily from any of the search locations. If there are any issues, please let us know. Also, please let us know what you think.
Thanks!
- Jason
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TY
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definitely some issues... I knew something was up.. I had no idea you updated the search function either lol.
anyhow, when i go to search for say Rapala Bass fishing... it brings up Everything with any of those words in the title, which was over 600 results or some crazy number.
also, even when i do an advanced search, say for a PS3 Accessory... it's showing results from EVERY category.
word up ;)
-Retro
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yeaaa i second the issues with EVERYTHING with ANY of the words in the title
it's really nice tho that you don't have to put things in perfect now, but that needs to be fixed i think? i don't know how to do it exactly, or the code, or anything... i've got some minimal experience with databases and programming, but yeah... it needs to include all words in search in one title, rather than...
for example, i did a test, looking up "castlevania blood rondo"
and found a bleach game (which ofc does not have 'castlevania' in it, or 'blood' i think, but it does have 'rondo', so it's causing it to show up)
while it's nice to have sometimes, it's not, uh, slim lined enough to make sure someone didn't get series mixed up... i guess.
but it's an improvement where before, that same search string would bring up 0 results (because it's not exactly 'castlevania: rondo of blood', with a bit of bold for emphasis.
for example... putting in "the world ends with you" gave me >1900 results... when in reality, the amount of titles with all of those words is probably pretty slim, if not JUST the game 'the world ends with you'.
fortunately, though, of course, TWEWY shows up first. at least, the NA and EU versions, the strat guide and the solo remix soundtrack.
animal crossing gave me >200 results, but looking through it (since i can, it's only 11 pages) it seems 'prioritised' to hit that specific string first and foremost... so maybe this was intentional, i'm not sure?
on another note, i never tried them but... are wildcards new? i tried one just to see, and it worked nice enough. but quoting doesn't seem to change the results ("the world ends with you" like that exactly still nets >1800 results, and "animal crossing" still has 11 pages of results) so i'm not sure if we're supposed to be able to use things like wildcards and quoting to make it work 'in our favour' or better, or if it's just wildcard or what. tho i never tried wildcard before because the search seemed so specific before that i never thought to try.
i really want to reiterate that i'm SUPER HAPPY that the search is now FAR LESS PICKY overall, because having to remember the colons and such was awful, i'm really glad that it's just overall been improved. and honestly, as long as searches come up where the games (or items) that seem to hit the most 'flags' in string queries or w/e you'd call it still come up first, i don't care if there's 10 results or 10000. as long as the most relevant still pops up first. so i'm actually really glad it's been overhauled and is just a lot more user friendly overall. it's really appreciated and i can't imagine how much work went into that, so it's really a nice thing, thank you~)))
w/e w/e it's really nice. thank you.
(i want to add my complaint about the search results is kinda a bit petty overall, it just seems a li'l messy is all tbh, it doesn't seem to effect searches)
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random issue I noticed in the quick search. when I was searching for Knack on ps4 just today I put in "knac" their are no results but when I enter "kna" or "knack" the list fills out.
same issue when searching Castlevania games "castl" and "castlev"-"castlevani" shows zero results while "cas" "cast" and "castlevania" show results
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There are definitely some errors in the algorithm, as it brings up results from every category even when I limit the search to a specific category.
Nevertheless, thanks for your efforts. Greatly appreciated. Please just try to adjust it a little more.
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hooray!
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Thank you all for the feedback! We are looking into the current issues and hope to have an updated rollout soon.
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Just a heads up, the specific console search function under advanced doesn't work for some things. It will just boot you to a normal search, instead of a console specific one.
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Just a heads up, the specific console search function under advanced doesn't work for some things. It will just boot you to a normal search, instead of a console specific one.
Thank you for the heads up. This should be functioning as normal now.
- Jason
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Just a heads up, the specific console search function under advanced doesn't work for some things. It will just boot you to a normal search, instead of a console specific one.
Thank you for the heads up. This should be functioning as normal now.
- Jason
Keep up the good work! ;D
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Just a heads up, the specific console search function under advanced doesn't work for some things. It will just boot you to a normal search, instead of a console specific one.
Thank you for the heads up. This should be functioning as normal now.
- Jason
Working fine, nice job!
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Search allows for use of double quotes for exact matches. Using single quotes generates an error.
Compare:
http://vgcollect.com/search/%22alpha%20protocol%22
37 result(s) for ""alpha protocol""
Only shows items where Alpha Protocol are together.
and (default search) :
http://vgcollect.com/search/alpha%20protocol
172 result(s) for "alpha protocol"
Shows any item where either Alpha or Protocol exist in the item name OR alt name fields.
+1 we are now searching in the alt-name field.
Test:
http://vgcollect.com/search/%22espionage%20rpg%22
33 result(s) for ""espionage rpg""
Even with quotes, it is searching alt-name field, showing the non-english releases of this game.
NOTE: the difference in the search results (33vs37) is the 4 items which are digital games and a strategy guide. ;)
My only complaint about the new search is that the results are not in a good order. Prior to this update, results would be returned in alphabetical order.
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Bug report
"Tekken 5" 0 results:
http://vgcollect.com/search/%22tekken%205%22
Tekken 5 10 results:
http://vgcollect.com/search/tekken%205
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Bug report
"Tekken 5" 0 results:
http://vgcollect.com/search/%22tekken%205%22
Tekken 5 10 results:
http://vgcollect.com/search/tekken%205
I had a similar issue with "State of Emergency"
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Advanced search for NHL 09 (no quotes) in Xbox 360 [NA] category searches in all categories:
http://vgcollect.com/search/advanced/4/nhl%2009/no-filter
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Are apostrophes throwing off the search as well?
http://vgcollect.com/search/no%20man%27s%20sky
The games themselves aren't coming up but are in the database.
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Just did a search for WWF in the NES [US] category and it pulled up all categories.
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Are apostrophes throwing off the search as well?
http://vgcollect.com/search/no%20man%27s%20sky
The games themselves aren't coming up but are in the database.
It is not the apostrophes. We're looking into ways to best fix this particular issue.
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Are apostrophes throwing off the search as well?
http://vgcollect.com/search/no%20man%27s%20sky
The games themselves aren't coming up but are in the database.
It is not the apostrophes. We're looking into ways to best fix this particular issue.
Great - thanks, Jason!
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Doing a search for Again loads 0 results.
http://vgcollect.com/item/18666
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Searching for g-loc returns a ton of results, none of which are G-LOC. Using quotes returns zero results.
http://vgcollect.com/search/g-loc/
Searching for "air battle" returns zero results:
http://vgcollect.com/search/%22air%20battle%22
Searching for air battle returns 23 results in which you can find most of the G-LOC entries, iirc some versions do not use the Air Battle subtitle, so there are likely entries that I don't currently know how to find using Search.
http://vgcollect.com/search/air%20battle
EDIT: Here is one example, G-Loc on computers was called G-LOC R360. Here is the C64 example:
http://vgcollect.com/item/98858
http://vgcollect.com/search/R360
(DB is currently missing the Atari ST version, of which I have not yet confirmed that it exists)
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searched for "s.c.a.r.s" as written in the listing, didn't show up in top results.
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Searching for Never Alone doesn't pull up any of the never alone listings.
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Searching for Never Alone doesn't pull up any of the never alone listings.
Huh. Interesting. Wonder if it's because of the parentheticals in the title? But if so, we'd end up with a lot of broken searches for our variants, too.
Searching for the original name works, if anything by searching for Kisima Ingitchuna
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Just Cause 2
http://vgcollect.com/item/16007
Searching for this game shows no relevant results.
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Search can't find F-Zero games.
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Search doesn't like the term "Last Of Us" or even the word "Last" apparently as I get 0 results for both. ???
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Can't find Beyond the Beyond for PS1 [NA].
http://vgcollect.com/item/6239
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Was this the thread where we put in bugs with the search engine?
I tried putting in Yu-Gi-Oh into the search, but I get no relevant results back. It does however work if I put in "yu gi oh" with no hyphens, but "Yu-Gi-Oh" in quotes gives me no results
https://vgcollect.com/search/Yu-Gi-Oh
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We have plans to fix the bugs with the search. I'm working with Matt to coordinate things so we can move forward with this change.
Thanks for your patience.
Kind Regards,
Jason
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Searched "obi-wan" and got need for speed most wanted. WEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIRD.
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https://vgcollect.com/item/7193
O.D.T.
This item is near impossible to search for.
https://vgcollect.com/item/11758
B.O.B.
Couldn't search for this either.
Had to search "B\." to find B.O.B.
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This search:
https://vgcollect.com/search/advanced/119/killer/no-filter/ALL/ALL/ALL/ALL/ALL/no-filter/no-filter/no-filter
Advanced, Killer, PS2 [EU]
cannot find this entry (Killer7)
https://vgcollect.com/item/19620
It finds Killer7 [IT] because I put "Killer 7" in alt-name.