Messages

31

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 28, 2023, 08:04:20 am »

I'm not your Santa either Masamune, but I'm sorry that you were dissapponted with your gift. I think the mistake with the Steamworld Dig game is very easy one to make. I doubt I would have been able to tell the difference.

However, if you don't count the Game Gear game and treat Steamworld Dig as loose, the approximate value is still $70 not including shipping. I like many others, tend to overspend during this event, and it's not fair to those who do follow our budget to be expected to do the same and then be criticized for doing the "bare minimum".

I think the real conversation here is whether our budget should be increased for next year. And I think we should be stricter about following that budget so that it is more fair for all involved.

32

General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2023!!!

« on: November 27, 2023, 02:21:01 pm »

Game 20 - Operation C (Switch) - 3 Hours

Beat this game without having to use any continues. For an early Game Boy game, Operation C has a lot of really great things going for it. For one, it plays beautifully, something that a lot of portable versions can't say. It plays like a perfect little mash-up of Contra and Super C including the controls and music. There aren't as many weapons, but the new homing weapon was my favorite and I preferred it over the spread gun. It isn't a very long game, at only 5 stages, but what is there was very enjoyable.

As a side note, I'm not sure how many more games I will be finishing on the Contra Anniversary Collection. I've tried the arcade originals of the first two Contra games and didn't really like playing them. I was also very disappointed to find that Contra Hard Corps doesn't allow for any button remapping. So other than Contra III I'm not sure if this collection will have much more to offer.

33

General / Re: Black Friday 2023

« on: November 23, 2023, 09:50:03 am »

I was also hoping for a PS5 deal because I really want to play the Silent Hill 2 remake when that comes out. Maybe next year!

34

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 20, 2023, 12:06:39 pm »

To those who are considering joining the gift opening event: what about December 8? It would be the start of the weekend for everyone, meaning anyone not based in the United States would have a better opportunity to join.

I usuall work from 08h00 to 16h30 (UTC +09:00) on weekdays, so 8th of December 21h00 UTC-05:00 (which would mean Saturday, 9th of December 11h00 here) works great for me!

Okay great!  I think that time works for me, hopefully that will be okay for others as well.

35

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 20, 2023, 09:52:18 am »

For me, it's more about the time of the day than the date itself. Haha
At what time (of what time zone) are you guys thinking about doing the openings?

I believe that, in the past, gift opening events are generally based on UTC−05:00. Last year, the event was held at 21:00 local time, which would be 11:00 JST.

If we did the 11th or the 12th, not sure if that work would for you if we had the event in the evening our time since that's a weekday :/

36

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 18, 2023, 01:56:58 pm »

I think the 9th works for me.

Turns out the 9th does not work for me, but don't hold things up on my account.

What about the 10th 11th or 12th? I can do any of those days! Maybe others can too?

37

Site Feedback / Re: Implementation of Special Announcements Upon Log-in

« on: November 18, 2023, 12:16:05 pm »

I've wanted something like this for a long time. Specifically a notification system when an item in your collection gets edited, like what's in place at Discogs.

38

Site Feedback / Re: Rejected edits and site advancement

« on: November 18, 2023, 11:53:32 am »

The reason why I didn't reply to the majority of your examples is that like you, I don't think the majority of your examples will be a problem either. I have to commend you for all that research and typing those long posts however haha. My point is that people do think differently about this (though probably not to the extreme) and they do make these changes, as much as you like to bash on them and say they're stupid or not educated. And the proposed rules list, while possible, is not worth replacing what we already have which has been well vetted by this point.

I've tried to give you reasonable examples without resorting to extreme distortions. There were some examples that you didn't seem to believe could be a problem, so let me clarify a few of my points.

~

Colons - There are no definitive guidelines for when a game gets a colon and when it doesn't. We've had large conversations about this in the past. The reason why I talked about text/font changes is because tripredacus and I had a discussion about that years ago and even for games that don't have colons now like Metroid Prime should get colons and be named Metroid: Prime because the style on the box changes.

So without going into silly examples, here are a few practical examples of games that do not traditionally have colons but would need to be specified as either yes they have colons now or no they don't. You'll see that this is an entirely arbitrary process, so our rules have to capture that arbitrariness unless we specify another source.

Donkey Kong Country
Metroid Prime
Super Mario Sunshine/Galaxy

I don't think "the colon has to signify a phrase/describe something/be coherent" works as simply in practice. I'll give you words like "advance" or "adventures", but here are some examples where some titles have colons after words and some titles don't, which is where this rule needs lots of stipulations.

Elder Scrolls: Online vs. Phantasy Star Online
Silent Hill: Origins vs. Baten Kaitos Origins
Tomb Raider: Chronicles vs. Final Fantasy Chronicles

There are also games that don't have colons that arguably should have them but they don't.

Mega Man Battle Network
Fire Emblem Awakening

- Words on the box that are not a part of the title

Again, here are some examples of games that have words on the box that were not part of the title.  Why is this game not called Caution: Seaman? https://vgcollect.com/item/8330. And why don't we put Tactical Espionage Action in the title? Seems pretty reasonable to me. How do we make those decisions? That's what I'm getting at. We'd have to make rules about it.

~

At the end of the day, my argument has never been that these rules can't be used, my argument is that additional rules complicate the site, and for user engagement the less complicated the better. Regardless of whether you feel that these are simple rules or complicated rules, they are still way more rules than we have currently and I would argue that they all require stipulations. So even if we adopted the most barest of bare rulesets that are reasonable, I believe that any alternative remains by default more cumbersome for our users and staff to navigate than using GameFaqs and is therefore inferior. If you can convince me that GameFaqs provides a less adequate solution, then I'm all ears, but I'm still not convinced.

I certainly don't think changing naming rules is going to claw VGC out of decline and make it prosperous again because most of our users that have had trouble with using the site in the past was based on our old search algorithm, not with game title formatting. For example, in the past people searching for SoulCalibur would search for "Soul Calibur" and get no results and then they would add the game with a space and we'd have a duplicate to scrub out.

If we really care about user experience, we should stick with GameFaqs for naming because we have enough sprawl with our rules as is. Our current naming scheme adds a touch of needed simplicity to what is already a very cumbersome style guide.

39

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 17, 2023, 10:59:50 am »

In my tenure of having the handle "Kashell" I've been various names: Kash, Kashy, Kashypoo, Ka$h, etc. I've never been called Kashell Smith, though. So, to my Secret Santa, I want to thank you for adding a new nickname to the list.

All that to say, I've received my gift addressed to Kashell Smith. Thanks, Santa! I can't wait to open it.

Probably the package was most likely addressed to just "Kashell" and the postal clerk gave them the "this must have a legible address to be shipped" spiel. I know I've had in the past when sending packages with only an Internet username to go by, the one that sticks out the most being "Pipin Rogers" due to the look the dude behind the counter gave me. Most don't care as long as the actual address is indeed legible, but others are just bumbling pedants.

I think I've just written "VGC Secret Santa" on the label if I didn't have the name of my recipient though in hindsight that might not have been the best option.  I remember my first year I had tpugmire and I just wrote T. Pugmire as the recipient and still I don't know if his last name is actually Pugmire. Haha

40

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 16, 2023, 12:18:53 pm »

So when would folks like to do an opening? I will be out of the country Dec. 13th to the 19th so what if we did that first week in December? So Dec. 3rd to the 9th?

I think that first week of December should be fine. Depending on the overseas shipping, not everyone might be able to join in unwrapping but they can still login.

Also, where are you headed??

In my opinion, the first week of december is too early. I probably cannot attend

We opened on the 9th last year. Would the 9th work for you this year? That's a Saturday. Alternatively we could try the 10th - 12th. My flight is on the 13th.

41

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 15, 2023, 02:37:13 pm »

So when would folks like to do an opening? I will be out of the country Dec. 13th to the 19th so what if we did that first week in December? So Dec. 3rd to the 9th?

I think that first week of December should be fine. Depending on the overseas shipping, not everyone might be able to join in unwrapping but they can still login.

Also, where are you headed??

Wales for a destination wedding. 

42

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 15, 2023, 09:25:41 am »

So when would folks like to do an opening? I will be out of the country Dec. 13th to the 19th so what if we did that first week in December? So Dec. 3rd to the 9th?

43

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 13, 2023, 08:34:14 am »

It begins!! Will hopefully get mine sent out this week.

We'll need to start discussing a zoom hangout if anyone would like to open together!

44

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 11, 2023, 05:56:05 pm »

Slightly off topic but I'm curious. Telly - what's that Chrono Cross thing in your VG Collect signature??

It's sheet music for the soundtrack! Was an anniversary gift from the wife and she also set up my old keyboard that I've had since high school! It was so sweet of her :')

Bruh, she's a KEEPER!

I'll send you a pic on Facebook!

All my gifts for my person have arrived so I just need to get it shipped out once I'm back from my conference trip!

45

General / Re: VGCollect 2023 Secret Santa!

« on: November 11, 2023, 07:36:52 am »

Slightly off topic but I'm curious. Telly - what's that Chrono Cross thing in your VG Collect signature??

It's sheet music for the soundtrack! Was an anniversary gift from the wife and she also set up my old keyboard that I've had since high school! It was so sweet of her :')