If each game has a wiki page that the community can freely edit, then lots of problems are solved. Random featured articles should be on the front page, like Minecraft/Terraria/Doom TAS pages where the community will improve the article over the decades to incorporate literally everything that is known about the game and its TAS history. I think information would be more easy to find if each game page looked like a regular Wikipedia article.
Another idea: The front page might be good if it had an alphabetical list of all games immediately available. People often know what they are looking for so just give an alphabetical list of links to all games at once. Only add links to the list when a published TAS has been made for the game.
Wiki is a powerful tool for collaborative optimization challenges, one amazing example being the Busy Beaver challenge which is forever ongoing and very TAS-like: https://wiki.bbchallenge.org/wiki/Main_Page
Have a nice day!
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
alexheights1 wrote:
If each game has a wiki page that the community can freely edit, then lots of problems are solved. Random featured articles should be on the front page, like Minecraft/Terraria/Doom TAS pages where the community will improve the article over the decades to incorporate literally everything that is known about the game and its TAS history. I think information would be more easy to find if each game page looked like a regular Wikipedia article.
Another idea: The front page might be good if it had an alphabetical list of all games immediately available. People often know what they are looking for so just give an alphabetical list of links to all games at once. Only add links to the list when a published TAS has been made for the game.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
This is very good, but now the game list links do not link directly to the game wiki pages like the amazing Super Mario Bros. wiki page: https://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/SuperMarioBros. I guess there is so much information on the site that I get confused and don't know where to click, LOL. I think the game list links could link to wiki pages where both the game resources and publications are combined, to minimize the size of the labyrinth of information. Oh, but then it makes the pages heavier, I see...
I understand that listing all games on the same page can be unnecessarily heavy, but vgmaps.com does it like that, literally all games listed on one page: https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/index.htm
This is very useful because you can use ctr-f to instantly find two things: the game you are looking for, or the fact that there are no maps for it available on the site. It is the speedrunner's method.
Hmmm. Now I understand, it can be done like this: https://tasvideos.org/Games/List?CurrentPage=1&PageSize=4386&Sort=Name
If it is not too heavy, consider making it the default view? Now all games are listed on a single page. Very nice! Thanks! Now I can use ctrl-f to instantly find the game and whether it has been tased or not. Problem solved.
The pure text list is often underrated and very useful for many kinds of things. For example, did you know that the word "ninja" is mentioned 58 times on game titles on the site? A site with 58 ninjas seems pretty dangerous, so I must agree with the thread title.
TL;DR I think "games" and "game resources" and "publications" could be combined into a single wiki page. Now the publication page does not link to game resources directly. The game resources also does not link directly to publications. It is a bit confusing for my limited brain capacity, LOL.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
alexheights1 wrote:
This is very good, but now the game list links do not link directly to the game wiki pages like the amazing Super Mario Bros. wiki page: https://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/SuperMarioBros. I guess there is so much information on the site that I get confused and don't know where to click, LOL. I think the game list links could link to wiki pages where both the game resources and publications are combined, to minimize the size of the labyrinth of information. Oh, but then it makes the pages heavier, I see...
Each individual game page links to everything related to it: game resources, publications, submissions, threads, etc. It doesn't make sense to link everything everywhere. Game based navigation means once you've found your game, you'll find everything relevant to it.
alexheights1 wrote:
The pure text list is often underrated and very useful for many kinds of things. For example, did you know that the word "ninja" is mentioned 58 times on game titles on the site? A site with 58 ninjas seems pretty dangerous, so I must agree with the thread title.
TL;DR I think "games" and "game resources" and "publications" could be combined into a single wiki page. Now the publication page does not link to game resources directly. The game resources also does not link directly to publications. It is a bit confusing for my limited brain capacity, LOL.
They both link to the game page which links back to them.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
This is very good, but now the game list links do not link directly to the game wiki pages like the amazing Super Mario Bros. wiki page: https://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/SuperMarioBros. I guess there is so much information on the site that I get confused and don't know where to click, LOL. I think the game list links could link to wiki pages where both the game resources and publications are combined, to minimize the size of the labyrinth of information.
alexheights1 wrote:
you can use ctr-f
What you're describing sounds precisely like what we already have. When you use the search box on the game list page (synonymous with using CTRL+F), you only really have one link to choose: the name of the game you're searching for. This leads you to the game page, and in the top-most section there's the link "Game Resources: GameResources/NES/SuperMarioBros". Also combined on that page, is the publications, and of course other content related to that particular game.
alexheights1 wrote:
I understand that listing all games on the same page can be unnecessarily heavy, but vgmaps.com does it like that, literally all games listed on one page: https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/index.htm
Educated guess is that vgmaps is a static site. In that the page you're referring to is generated one time and provided to all visitors as a simple html page. Whereas TASVideos is dynamic, in the sense that when you perform a search the website is (in the background) searching a database and returning matching results. When new content is added, the entire site does not have to be redeployed.
(Edit: even if vgmaps isn't static, massive web pages is overall bad site design)
If it is not too heavy, consider making it the default view? Now all games are listed on a single page. Very nice! Thanks! Now I can use ctrl-f to instantly find the game and whether it has been tased or not.
It is a nice suggestion, but making it the default view would be too much. It is quite a heavy site (1MB of HTML), and from my tests it seems to scroll quite slowly on older devices.
There's certainly room for improvement on the presentation of our pages. Currently the main idea is to make the Games page like this one the main hub to browse further.
Ideas are always welcome. This topic has been split off it seems, a nice place to post more ideas or suggestions or complaints is this topic (although you can also post on GitHub or even contribute yourself if you want).
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
Thank you, I can navigate the site now, but there's just so much information that it is a bit overwhelming. Good job keeping it all together.
I think I found one way to improve it. Now most game pages have the screenshot duplicated, which looks confusing. I think there is no need for the game screenshot, because the same screenshot is immeditely seen below as the publication screenshot. If a game screenshot is necessary, then maybe replace it with the game cover image like they do at speedrun.com? You could just copy the images from there.
I think the game screenshot immediately catches the eye and moves attention to the right side of the page, so now I feel like I am reading from right to left. The same effect does not happen at speedrun.com where the game cover image is on the left side.
Bigbass wrote:
When you use the search box on the game list page (synonymous with using CTRL+F)
Doesn't the search box use site resources while ctrl-f does not?
