Forums > Suggestions > What bothers me
saturnsailor (4) on 3/24/2017 1:36 PM · Permalink · Report
Since everyone is so nice here I thought I'd take advantage of it and gripe some more. I would like to share what really bothers me. I'll use "The Witcher 3" example again. I enter it in the search box, select "XBox One" in the console dropdown and I get a bunch of results. I uncheck all but the "Game" option and I'm still left with a good number of them. I only expect to see 1 though or to be taken directly to the game's detail page as there is only 1 game ever made with that title. Leaving aside all the DLC entries what I really find disturbing is that I see 2 entries for the full game: 1. the initial release and 2. the complete edition. To me a given game is always 1 product no matter how many times it's released, and how many updates and versions of it have been released, physically or digitally. I'm not sure what the current structure is but this is how I imagine it could look in the database:
Game table - game title plus some generic details such as ESRB rating, genre, setting, narrative, main game/expansion indicator, and a general description.
Platform table - foreign key from the Game table and details such as initial release date and what's different from other platform releases.
Version table - foreign keys from the Game and Platform tables with details such as initial release indicator, what changed, credits list (here since different developers/teams could potentially be working on different versions/platforms), release date, release media, release type (standalone, digital download or part of a larger set) and publisher.
DLC table - foreign keys from the Game, Platform and Version tables with details such as type and release date.
The table with the most details would be the Version table. The game page, in addition to the existing "Also For" platform list, would have a version list (appearing only if a specific platform is selected), and details appearing/disappearing depending on selection (no full-page postbacks, thank you). Looks like I got carried away. I love of course that you can rate a game for a specific platform.
Cavalary (11445) on 3/24/2017 2:25 PM · Permalink · Report
Getting just the one exact result would sure suck if you aren't searching for something you know very exactly, or don't sit there to type the entire title, or aren't sure how it shows up in the database.
And about the database, the site launched in '99, initially focusing on PC games. Database structure and what it can do is largely from that era, expanded to accomodate more in various ways. For many years pretty much nobody worked on it, just quite recently that changed. As Tracy explained, changing the structure to accomodate for more modern concepts in gaming is a pretty high priority thing, but it's also a complicated one. And the fact that now there is someone to work on these things is infinitely better than nobody, but it's still largely one person in her spare time (maybe with a bit of rare help from one or two others?), and an entire database structure overhaul is a darn tall order.
The genres overhaul was discussed for years and years before starting to be implemented recently, and moving things to it requires doing so by hand, for tens of thousands of titles...
saturnsailor (4) on 3/26/2017 12:36 AM · Permalink · Report
As far as the search it's possible to have an exact match search and a broad search like what is implemented here, 2 radio buttons next to the search box. Broad search is useful if I don't know what I'm looking for exactly, but if I need information on 10 different titles and I have to wade through a list of approximate matches every time I hit Enter then that gets old quickly. I'm not saying what's currently in place is wrong, it just could be a little more friendly.
Thank you for the background information on the database. This is very interesting. Not having seen it I don't know what it looks like but judging by how good the front end is it should not be overly dramatic. I could offer help if it's of any use.
Well, I just wanted to share some genuine concerns in the hope they could be of some value to someone here. I do like this site a lot and it's my new go-to site for looking up information.
Tracy Poff (2094) on 3/26/2017 9:19 AM · Permalink · Report
Broad search is useful if I don't know what I'm looking for exactly, but if I need information on 10 different titles and I have to wade through a list of approximate matches every time I hit Enter then that gets old quickly.
Are you seeing cases where the exact matches aren't at (or at least very near) the top of the list? In your example of 'the witcher 3', the top two results are for the game itself (the regular version and one with bonus content), followed by DLC for that game, followed eventually by other things with similar titles. So it doesn't seem to me you have to wade through irrelevant results to find what you want--it's right at the top.
There have been bugs in the past that caused search to give worse results, and there are still a few lingering inadequacies, but it seems to me that recently the search is pretty good, as long as you get the title right. The biggest problem I've seen lately is searching for e.g. Japanese titles where the romanization could be different than expected.
If there are some particular cases where you're seeing the search fail to put reasonable results near the top, then let me know--it's not impossible that there's a bug. Failing that, search is going to be overhauled, eventually, and increasing the options you have to search and filter through games is certainly one of my goals. I'll keep your comments in mind: returning too many imprecise results isn't ideal, even when the correct results are near the top.
Kaucukovnik (16) on 5/10/2017 3:39 PM · Permalink · Report
I have to agree with the OP. The massive numbers of different versions can get really cumbersome, and not just when searching. Today I wanted to have a look at the Persona series and holy crap! Just the first page is almost exclusively filled with different editions and whatnot of Persona 5, and none of them even leads directly to a page with P5 detailed info, screenshots and reviews - that one is on the second page. And the bottom of the last page is downright hilarious. If I want to be sure I'm not missing any oddly named spin-offs among the crud, I either have to click them all or look elsewhere first.
Why is the top Windows game ever The Orange Box? I have never heard of a game of this name, why are Half-Life 1 and 2 second and third to it? Oh wait... I guess I should own HL2 at least twice if I'm a serious PC gamer, eh?
I can see almost no use for this except for bragging rights about the number of entries. It caters to a very specific audience of obsessive collectors and makes the site progressively harder to use for everyone else.
Are translated games eventually also going to be treated as separate entries? What about different point releases and content patches? Arguably they impact a lot more than a different box, bonus poster or a bonus in-game item does... Music collectors already track down regional releases of their favorite artists. Yes, this paragraph is beyond silly on purpose.
I don't even want to imagine a hypothetical MobyMovie entry on Star Wars.
I'm pretty sure I have already ranted about this before, but I had to chime in when I saw a recent discussion on the topic.
Simon Carless (1834) on 5/10/2017 5:17 PM · Permalink · Report
We definitely have plans to make these special editions and DLC 'sub-releases' of the major release and therefore not come up on search. That's just going to take a little while :)
Kaucukovnik (16) on 5/12/2017 11:14 PM · Permalink · Report
Great to hear that! Thanks to everyone involved, I'm sure it's a huge undertaking.
Cavalary (11445) on 5/10/2017 8:37 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Kaucukovnik wrote--] Why is the top Windows game ever The Orange Box? I have never heard of a game of this name, why are Half-Life 1 and 2 second and third to it? Oh wait... I guess I should own HL2 at least twice if I'm a serious PC gamer, eh? [/Q --end Kaucukovnik wrote--] Ask the users who rated that. And as you can see if you click, The Orange Box isn't a game but a bundle containing HL2, HL2:Ep. 1, HL2:Ep. 2, TF2 and Portal. Was a huge hit when it was released as a single package, and guess nothing else got better user ratings since.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66362) on 5/10/2017 10:44 PM · Permalink · Report
I would venture to agree that someone who had never heard of The Orange Box probably is not that serious a PC gamer 8)
Kaucukovnik (16) on 5/12/2017 11:20 PM · Permalink · Report
I was just trying to be funny and you know it! :)