Game tags update
7 years ago
Bavaria, Germany

[section=Overview] Hey everyone,

The game tags update just went live (finally) :) The most noticeable changes are the overhauled games page, streams page and series overviews (Example). Functionally, games can now be in multiple series, unofficial releases (previously called ROM Hacks) are handled more flexibly, and the 'moderation from above' option for games has been removed.

As usual, let me know if you have any questions/suggestions/problems regarding the update.

Please post any requests for existing games to be added to additional series and/or requests to set/change game types in this thread.

See below for a more detailed changelog:

[section=Changelog] [section=Game tags] Series: Games can now be part of multiple series at once. Series can still only be set by full mods to prevent abuse, so use this thread to request additional series for any games that needs them.

Game types: Replaces ROM Hacks. Games can have any game type set, used for different kinds of unofficial releases. Currently the following options are available: ROM Hack, modification, fangame, webgame. Let us now if there are options you're missing. Where relevant, these games types allow setting the base game of which the game is derived. They are however no longer as closely tied to the base game, and show up on the series page (if in a series) rather than a separate "ROM Hacks/Mods" page. Game types and the base game can only be set by full mods, so use this thread if you want to request changes.

Genre, Engine, Developer, Publisher: These are some tag types primarily to give users more options to filter by on the games list/series overviews. They can be added by all game mods on the edit game page. A bunch of default values have been included, but game mods can define their own (which are then added to the list of values to choose from).

[section=Games list] The games list uses a new, more powerful filter-based system. This new system can be filtered by platform, year, genre, game engine, developer, publisher, game type and name. For each filter, it is possible to choose to show every game that HAS the selected option for that filter, or to show every games that does NOT have the selected option. For filters where games can match multiple options, it's possible to choose whether to show games that have all of the selected options (AND), or games that have any of the selected options (OR). The games list can be sorted both ascending and descending by run count, player count, release date or name.

The games list can be toggled between a games list and a series list. The series list is a bit more simple and can be filtered by name and sorted by name.

[section=Series overviews] Series overviews use the same setup as the games list, and allow for the same filter and sort options. By default, all games that have a game type set will be filtered out on series overviews. Series mods can alter this behaviour by setting the 'Show unofficial games by default' option on the edit series page. The default sort and sort direction can be customized per series on the edit series page.

[section=Streams pages] The streams page makes use of the same underlying system as the new games list. By default, only streams by users with a PB in the streamed game are shown (but this is a filter that can be turned off). Other than that, the streams page can be filtered by game, by title, and by showing only followed games. The streams pages for each series and game work the same way.

The streams page no longer shows streams in games not on the site, for both technical reasons and to reduce the number of casual streams on the list. To avoid missing out on games for which the twitch name does not match the name here, games can now have a twitch name set for matching streams, separate from the name as it appears on the site.

[section=Moderation from above] The 'moderation from above' option has been removed, meaning only the users directly added to a game are mod for that game. All users who were mod through the moderation from above option have been automatically added explicitly to the list of moderators for the game. This means that being a series mod now only means taking care of the series pages itself. Series mods can still add games to the series (they'll be automatically added as a mod to the created game).

[section=API] The API has been updated to support the new features in this update. All API changes should be backwards compatible, let us know if there are any issues. For a more detailed API changelog, check the API documentation.

[section=Other changes]

  • Games that have a game type set will not be shown on the front page by default. To change this behaviour, use the 'Show runs in unofficial games' option in the 'Front page settings' section of the user settings page.
  • The search field in the navigation bar will now show results by closest match, improving find-ability especially for short names.
  • If there are more results in the search field than can be shown there, it will link directly to the games list, filtered by the search input.
  • The full forums list now uses the same logic as the smaller one when following games. It should load significantly faster.
  • Forums are now always sorted alphabetically.
  • Newly added games now default to the rules being shown by default rather than hidden by default.
  • Due to old bugs, the thread and post counts for various forums was incorrect. These counts have been corrected and should remain correct going forward.
Saradoc, Deln and 7 others like this
United Kingdom

The issue with game art is that they're not all the same format. DS games are pretty square, most console releases are taller, and N64 is landscape. Currently it scales the images so that they fit within a max size on either axis, and then the aspect ratio isn't changed. I really don't think this is something that needs to be modified, and each game can set their own art anyway (For example in the FF series we've moved more towards game logos than box art since the arts are so inconsistent across regions and platforms)

EDIT: Something else: It seems like the rankings on profile pages has broken again for games that use subcategories? FF13 for example, the 4th place PC run is marked as 15th on Vulajin's profile

EDIT2: Would it be able to set a default sort mode either on each series or on your own personal settings?

xDrHellx likes this
Bavaria, Germany

[quote=MLSTRM] It seems like the rankings on profile pages has broken again for games that use subcategories? FF13 for example, the 4th place PC run is marked as 15th on Vulajin's profile [/quote] Fixed the rankings for subcategories again - there was a bug causing it to think the run wasn't in any subcategories. Nice catch.

[quote=MLSTRM] Would it be able to set a default sort mode either on each series or on your own personal settings?[/quote] Yeah something like this needs to be done. I'm inclined to go with having a setting for it per series.

MLSTRM likes this
Cambridgeshire, England

With game covers, in the early days of SRDC, they were the same aspect ratio and so, like MLSTRM said, the different formats of box art looked horribly stretched. Also, I find it better with some large and some small, because then, particularly with different leaderboards for different platforms (e.g. any console game with a handheld version), they stand out more against each other.

Anyways, great update, SRDC team. I especially like the new series layout, with the sorting options and everything.

MLSTRM likes this
United States

[quote=Lighnat0r][quote=MLSTRM] Would it be able to set a default sort mode either on each series or on your own personal settings?[/quote] Yeah something like this needs to be done. I'm inclined to go with having a setting for it per series.[/quote]

I think default site view for series should be the old chronological, oldest to newest (Release date, ascending). Default sort mode per user to override that may be sufficient. Per series is maybe okay as well.

For the game cover discussion, my understanding is that we eventually want to be able to switch these pages between text view and game cover view.

MLSTRM likes this
Bavaria, Germany

Series overviews now default to sorting by release date, ascending again. The default sort and sort direction can be customized per series on the edit series page.

PurpleSun, ROMaster2, and MLSTRM like this
United States

Great job rolling it out! I'm still going over all the changes, but what I noticed immediately is the games boards in http://www.speedrun.com/forum are no longer sorted by my custom order, but by alphabetical.

MLSTRM likes this
Bavaria, Germany

The forums of followed games are now once again sorted the same way as the followed games.

ROMaster2 likes this
United Kingdom

Speaking of sorting by release date, could we get a month field to make this more accurate? :)

MLSTRM likes this
Bavaria, Germany

Yeah that is the plan.

United States

[quote=Elehex] Can we get an option to turn the games list back into what it was previously? I much prefer the one big alphabetical list, no box art or anything else.[/quote] A link to a 'flat' list in the top left most box could work. It was nice being able to crawl all the games without using API.

Victoria, Australia
stoot
He/Him, They/Them
7 years ago

Looking really good. I'm loving the new series pages as well.

United States

I think the plan is to allow text view as well as game box view when we implement it. Having it integrated into one page should make site navigation simpler.

United States

I don't know which games have tags yet or not, but I made a list of the popular games with some: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xvLtNIXCErA2iNvOBXKj9XrjZBqfsA4MFprWdtuVFRE/edit?usp=sharing

I'll add more overtime at the end of the sheet; though Google Sheets has been really uncooperative lately ignoring copy-paste. It's easier for me to upload new versions.

Bavaria, Germany

Text view is now implemented for the games page, streams page and series overviews.

United Kingdom

Series pages only show 25 games by default again? I get that this isn't an issue in most cases, but for like Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario, and I Wanna Be fangames it means a lot of games are cut off on the default view.

Bavaria, Germany

It was 25 before as well; your selected size gets stored though, and is used afterwards. Previously it would only store a single size (shared between the games list, streams page, all series pages), now it stores your size preference for each page separately. As a consequence of the functionality change, the value stored before the change is no longer used, so you view the page as if you have no default set (i.e. size 25). As soon as you change the size however it should store that and use it when you next visit the page. Similarly, which view you use is saved per page as well.

United States

There's a couple leaderboards on the site for pre-release versions of games. Should there be a game type for them? Here's what I know: • A Hat in Time (Alpha Build)A Hat in Time (Beta Build)RWBY: Grimm Eclipse 1st Early AccessRWBY: Grimm Eclipse 2nd Early AccessCrash Bandicoot (Beta Version)Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (Beta Version)

There should be something to indicate when the same game has separate leaderboards (for remasters/platforms/versions). The problem is, there are games that are the same on some consoles but different on others (like The Sims Bustin' Out). I'm not sure how to go about it.

What about games that use sub-leaderboards for other categories (Super Mario World Memes)?

Now that there's a 'Fangame' tag, what happens to all the 'Fan Games' series? Do they stay as they are, the games also added to their main series, or is the series removed and their games are integrated into the main series? Should ROM Hacks get a similar treatment?

How should multi-game leaderboards be treated? Ones I know of are: • Multiple Mario GamesMultiple Pikmin GamesHalo Co-opHarry Potter PC 1-3 "Trifecta"Jak and Daxter TrifectaRayman TrifectaBioShock TrifectaCrash Bandicoot TrifectaMulti-GTA RunsMulti-Prince of Persia-RunsMultiple Humongous Games

Edited by the author 7 years ago
United States

In regards to ROMaster's list

Homebrew Multi Pre-Release

Possibly "Sub-game" (for now, I'd like a better solution later) Possibly Mobile?

Anything else come to mind?

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Switzerland

Could it be that the list layout with the big box arts makes the pages load slower? In that case, you might want to let people choose a preferred layout in their settings.