There really needs to be an easy index. The search engine is great, but it tends to be that you generally know what you're looking for if you're going to use that. Suppose I can't think of any particular name to look for...
So, for those who just want to browse around, opening up a list of movies for a system or category brings up... A mess. Loading every single image of every non-obsoleted movie for a system, or worse, a rather bloated category (Genre: Platform (490)) in a single page is not something that appeals to me. Not to mention the site load this implies.
There's also the fact there's a lot of vertical space being taken up in a list. About three or four game names can be displayed on my screen at once. Looking through it isn't exactly speedy.
A list of simple links is preferable, to me. If it can be automated, all the better. I believe maintaining such a list manually is not a trivial endeavor. And should someone not like how the list was manually formatted... Anyone up to going through the entire list just to realign things?
NES
* 8 Eyes
* A Boy and His BlobALL
* Action 52
* Addams Family, TheALL
* Adventures of Bayou BillyALL
* Adventures of LoloALL
* Adventures of Lolo 2ALL
* Adventures of Lolo 3
* ...
Something like this.
Note the game with multiple unobsoleted publications has the main link pointing to them. Adventures of Lolo 2 being the example in my short list.
If there are any reasons not to have such a list, such as difficulty of automated implementation, I wish to hear of it. If nothing else other than to understand why such a list isn't available.
If there is already such a list I'm asking about, point me there. I obviously can't find things myself.
A couple of ideas (for possible site development):
1) Create an alternative smaller version of the current movie info box, containing the same relevant info but in a more concise way (ie. taking much less space), possibly also with a smaller screenshot. This way long lists of runs would take less space and would be nicer to browse.
2) More movie categories (of the descriptive kind, rather than the alternative goals kind). This way there would be more options to filter movies based on them (so that we don't get lists of 400+ movies, as the OP pointed out). Yeah, I know this would be a huge job (going through all the movies and adding the proper categories), but just an idea.
So, something like [wiki ListAllMovies]this[/wiki], but sorted first by platform?
More like some sort of filtering system than a sorted list of all movies. Besides, suppose I want to see the platformers. Those tend to be on multiple systems, and it's not exactly easy to find all of them if sorted by system.
Warp wrote:
1) Create an alternative smaller version of the current movie info box, containing the same relevant info but in a more concise way (ie. taking much less space), possibly also with a smaller screenshot. This way long lists of runs would take less space and would be nicer to browse.
It is one idea. Smaller pictures is certainly easier on the bandwidth, and shorter descriptions, perhaps no more than three lines, will make the list easier to browse through.
Even better if such a list can have each game with an arbitrary number of published movies all fit in exactly one line. (With a link that points to all relevant movies as seen in my example list, particularly the Adventures of Lolo 2 example. Something like that, anyway)
Warp wrote:
2) More movie categories [...]
More filters are fun. Implementing new categories will only get to be an increasingly longer task, as it appears to me, but once in place, gives a new way to filter things.
It would also be nice if there is a way to apply multiple filters. All platformers on the NES, for example, but this might mean something less static than "here's a list of games under this singular category".
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Warp wrote:
2) More movie categories (of the descriptive kind, rather than the alternative goals kind).
Didn't we just go through all the movies about 9 months ago to pare down the amount of categories, so that searches wouldn't return one or two entries? Or do you mean something different?
Didn't we just go through all the movies about 9 months ago to pare down the amount of categories, so that searches wouldn't return one or two entries? Or do you mean something different?
Are you referring to the partial renaming and re-evaluation of categories for all existing movies to make the categories more descriptive of the movies they are attached to (eg. "heavy luck abuse" is now given only to movies which truly have heavy luck abuse, rather than semi-automatically giving it to almost all movies)?
Some categories were indeed dropped because they were deemed as too game-specific (such as "teddy survives"), but I think the main purpose was not to reduce the amount of categories, but to make them more useful.
I'm not saying that we should reintroduce "teddy survives"-style categories which apply to only one game, but generic categories which apply to at least a dozen of games.
(Perhaps that could be a good rule of thumb: A new category should be introduced only if it can be applied to at least n different games, where n could be something like 10 or 20 or the like.)
Something like "Company: Capcom"? Handing out a category based on who makes the game is another way to divide them, and might encompass useful sets. Would be good to keep some ideas around just in case.
But first, it might be a better idea to focus on a list that doesn't shove several kilobytes per game at the local user who picks some 490 item list. Hello there, megabytes of download just to browse the list. This is the main purpose why I created the topic, but different ideas of having it happen are welcome... To the site's staff, I hope.
I have an aversion to using the lists for the reason of what sort of load is to be expected. Which defeats the purpose of having them (for me).
Something like "Company: Capcom"? Handing out a category based on who makes the game is another way to divide them, and might encompass useful sets. Would be good to keep some ideas around just in case.
That gives me an idea: Rather than introduce new categories describing the technical details of the game (game company, year of publication, etc), a completely separate info block could be created for this kind of data, and then one could search based in this technical info. For example, one could make a search like "all runs for games made by Capcom for the NES or the SNES, published before 1990".
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I distinctly remember a list like this, however, I think it has been replaced by the "problematic" pages in question. I remember there was NES A-K and L-Z, and the rest were all full lists. There was definitely such a list in the past.
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
Personally, I think there are more than a few formatting problems with the site. Whether or not they are ever integrated is completely up to whoever suggests it (after asking our overlords of course)
Wiki: MoviesList
Thanks. This is a good start. And apparently useful in catching errors in names already.
Sometimes I feel the only way to get things done is to do it yourself. Maybe what I tried to do myself here got someone to notice, but whatever the case, again, thanks. Now we have something.
Even if it is a bit ugly now, that can always change. These lists are far faster to browse through than the full-blown movie lists. I can say I can browse through the NES list without thinking about the hundreds of KB worth of images coming my way. Though I don't get to see the interesting descriptions or images, dropping those was pretty much the point.
As for any suggestions I have, my initial thoughts are some sort of table, but I'm not sure what to put in this table. Maybe non-obsoleted published movie count? Shortest reported time of such movies (even if it's not indicative of what the other movies bring)? Would a table add a bit too much vertical space? Might not hurt to experiment with tables.
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Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
