Mobys stuffs ......

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MrFlibble
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Mobys stuffs ......

Post by MrFlibble »

If you want to submit screenshots to MobyGames it'd be better to do this in the original resolution anyway, so you can just use the internal screen-capturing feature of DOSBox. By default it's Ctrl+F5 but I remap it to PrtScrn (Ctrl+F1 to open up the DOSBox keymapper) because in so many games the Ctrl key is assigned to some action or other.
Quadko wrote:EGA video already isn't working in dosbox, so maybe more is wrong.
Do you run the game configured to EGA via the internal setup and with DOSBox set to emulate a EGA machine?

[Edit by ~dosraider]
Topic split from http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19817
:laugh:
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Quadko
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Post by Quadko »

Cool tips, thanks. I'm so used to the complexity of Snagit at work and I really didn't want to try selecting the correct rectangle if I'm being too lazy to crop the images in Paint.Net. :) I'll suck it up and try the built in screenshotter, but I'm glad to know about client area auto-snap. That's useful.
MrFlibble wrote:Do you run the game configured to EGA via the internal setup and with DOSBox set to emulate a EGA machine?
No, not yet, I forgot about that since most EGA games work under default settings. That's certainly the easiest thing, so I'll try it first. :)

Quick lunch googling hasn't turned up the game on another platform, but I haven't given up yet. I have lots of things to try tonight/weekend!
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Post by MrFlibble »

Quadko wrote:Quick lunch googling hasn't turned up the game on another platform, but I haven't given up yet. I have lots of things to try tonight/weekend!
Apparently the game was planned for Amiga but never released.

As a side note, that Hall of Light Amiga website is simply awesome. I haven't actually visited it before, only heard of it (and maybe got links to it when searching for some game that had an Amiga release), because, you know, I've never had an Amiga.
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Post by Quadko »

DosBox ega machine didn't help, and I played with 386_slow and some other settings as well. I've got trying it on real hardware on the list for this weekend, but I don't always get through the list... we'll see.

I've usually played with LemonAmiga, so Hall of Light is new and cool to me, too. Very nice.

Signed up for mobygames, awaiting my email, will be fun to hopefully help out.
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Post by MrFlibble »

Quadko wrote:Signed up for mobygames, awaiting my email, will be fun to hopefully help out.
Great! I have the same username there as here :)

As for helping out, there are lots of undocumented DOS games (as well as other old computer platforms like the Amiga, but I have little knowledge of those so I can't really judge), so any additions in this field are more than welcome.

A good start before submitting a game would be to check out the MobyGames Standards. Some of the contribution sections have their own help pages too.

The Most Wanted! section is for games which lack critical data or assets like screenshots.

Finding the exact release date for a game such as Strike II might be tough, but you don't need to give the exact MM/DD/YY date if you don't know it, just the year would suffice, or year plus month (which should be easier to track down if there are reviews of the game in some magazines). If you later find more detail on the release you can submit a correction and the release date will be updated accordingly.

One more thing to note is that MobyGames doesn't use BBCode tags in forums and needs HTML tags in game descriptions and other text. You don't have to use the paragraph tags (<p></p>) though, just leave blank paragraphs between the actual ones.

There's also a handy system of <moby></moby> tags to specifically link to the site's database entires. So for example a link to a game in the database would be

Code: Select all

<moby game="Game Title">Game Title</moby>
For the developer

Code: Select all

<moby developer="Name">Name</moby>
etc.

Note though that if there are several games that share the same title in the database (for whatever reason), using the <moby> tag might result in a link to the quick search page instead of the exact game you want to link to. In such cases you just need to use a regular hyperlink instead.

Finally, it's a very good idea to indicate all possible sources for your submission in the Comments section. Submissions with sources have a higher priority with approvers than those that lack source indications. You can even upload proof images to a image hosting service of your liking and leave links to them in the comments.
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Post by Rwolf »

One thing I must warn you of is Moby's primitive html interpreter, and its tendency to erase blocks of text if there are syntax errors in the html code entered.

(I use a html preview plugin for my editor to safeguard against that, and just copy/paste when all looks good.)
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Post by Quadko »

Great, thanks for all the hints and tips! New board, new rules and culture to learn.
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Post by MrFlibble »

Rwolf wrote:One thing I must warn you of is Moby's primitive html interpreter, and its tendency to erase blocks of text if there are syntax errors in the html code entered.
Yes, that too. It helps to keep a backup copy of your text in a notepad programme, just in case.

Also forgot to mention that when you're submitting tech specs/system requirements for a game (which you probable are going to do), there are lots of fields in the form but they are almost all optional. It makes sense to submit only those requirements that are mentioned in the official sources (if any). Also you can skip that part and add the tech info later, this is quite easy to do.

[Edit] One more thing I did not immediately realise when I joined MG: you don't necessarily need to to submit the very first release of the game (if a game had multiple releases) when creating a new game entry. Any valid release will do, because the goal is to eventually document all known releases, not just the fist one.
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