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There's another obvious (cute) bot here : https://howlongtobeat.com/forum.php?thread=1434&page=1&jump=to#post47435

Am I blind or something? How do you set a game as playing? It seems like the only way is to add it to your backlog then change it to playing. Doesn't seem to be any option on a game's entry page.

Well, I guess there's not quite a quick add option, but I kind of figured it out.

Not sure if it's been brought up before - but it would be cool to have the date field on the Completion submission page to read from the system clock instead of whatever time zone it's on at the moment. I only bring it up because I often have to change it to set the correct date, even though it's only out by a day!

Maybe should add platforms:
NES Mini
SNES Mini
SEGA Mega Drive Mini
TurboGrafx 16 Mini
PlayStation Classic

Maybe should add platforms:
NES Mini
SNES Mini
SEGA Mega Drive Mini
TurboGrafx 16 Mini
PlayStation Classic

And while we're at it, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox 360 Elite, Xbox 360 S and Xbox 360 E?

The "Mini" and "Classic" consoles are getting popular. Adding a new platform for them sounds like a bad idea. Otherwise we'll end up with tons of new duplicate platforms to choose from. If you complete Earthbound on the SNES Classic, you light as well choose SNES as the platform since it's basically an official SNES port of an SNES game fini g on an officially emulated Nintendo designed SNES console.

Maybe by analogy with NES/Famicom?

NES:
--- Dendy
--- Famicom
--- Hyundai Comboy
--- NES
+
--- NES Mini

SNES:
--- Super Famicom
--- Super Nintendo
+
--- SNES Mini

Why are people obsessed with the need to keep adding every single iteration of devices?

The whole purpose of the site is to track game completions and the rough time you can expect to finish them in. Platforms should be used to track game versions not such fine detail as which version of the hardware you are using when there is no meaningful difference.

Dendy's are just Famicom clones, like every other clone.
VitaTv is just a Vita without a screen and some minor software differences. they are the same thing.
Mini devices have no functional differences that will affect submission times (for cd systems see next line)
Even cd loading times shouldn't affect completion times so much that guideline times between a ps1 disc version for example and an emulated version on another console will actually matter (especially if the game has its own in game time that will be used by most people). Any loading times can easily be neutralised through gameplay differences.

Big difference between adding platforms because they aren't represented and the same platform having lots of sub entries for variants. And no, nested entries are not helpful, they clutter the platform list all the same for no reason. I would also argue that Oculus and other PC VR platforms should be combined as PC VR. The gameplay experience is essentially the same across all the VR devices, PSVR should stay separate.

If you want to record these variations, why not use the notes or your own records?

edit: I didn't realise the nested format had already been applied. It looks a right mess. I mean why on earth do we need to separate Genesis and Mega Drive. It's preposterous and looks ridiculous. One platform now uses three lines in the list., and this is amplified by the number of times this is being done. More entries for identical platforms makes the list more confusing, not less so. I'm amazed it was implemented. There are actual UI issues which the site has that need the attention that was given to this.

Why are people obsessed with the need to keep adding every single iteration of devices?

The whole purpose of the site is to track game completions and the rough time you can expect to finish them in. Platforms should be used to track game versions not such fine detail as which version of the hardware you are using when there is no meaningful difference.

Dendy's are just Famicom clones, like every other clone.
VitaTv is just a Vita without a screen and some minor software differences. they are the same thing.
Mini devices have no functional differences that will affect submission times (for cd systems see next line)
Even cd loading times shouldn't affect completion times so much that guideline times between a ps1 disc version for example and an emulated version on another console will actually matter (especially if the game has its own in game time that will be used by most people). Any loading times can easily be neutralised through gameplay differences.

Big difference between adding platforms because they aren't represented and the same platform having lots of sub entries for variants. And no, nested entries are not helpful, they clutter the platform list all the same for no reason. I would also argue that Oculus and other PC VR platforms should be combined as PC VR. The gameplay experience is essentially the same across all the VR devices, PSVR should stay separate.

If you want to record these variations, why not use the notes or your own records?

edit: I didn't realise the nested format had already been applied. It looks a right mess. I mean why on earth do we need to separate Genesis and Mega Drive. It's preposterous and looks ridiculous. One platform now uses three lines in the list., and this is amplified by the number of times this is being done. More entries for identical platforms makes the list more confusing, not less so. I'm amazed it was implemented. There are actual UI issues which the site has that need the attention that was given to this.

There are actual UI issues which the site has that need the attention that was given to this.

What UI issues do you have with the site? I'm always looking for feedback.

-------------------------------

For the record, I will not be adding any mini platforms.

I personally believe that a platform should only be added if:
- It has exclusive titles.
- Is not a remake or redesign. (No minis, Xbox One S/X, etc.)
- Is a standalone experience. (Oculus Quest, I don't know if it has exclusive titles yet but it's hardware doesn't rely on anything else.)

It can be difficult to judge what to add and what not to add when you aren't familiar with all the hardware. Also, I try to design the site so that it's useful for everyone. I've experimented with different things over the years that I had to remove from the site. So the platform separation can always be changed but there seemed to be enough demand that it was worth trying for a bit.

So I've rolled back some changes to platforms and made new changes too. I think going forward we will stick with these basic rules. I may have been too quick to attempt to please everyone. The most important thing is that HLTB times are accurate and everyone can catalog their games easily. Blowing out all the platforms only complicates things on the back end (extra code to combine like platforms and getting accurate times). We will be sticking with the NA and EU system names, which is why Sega Mega Drive/Genesis is the only duo to stick. That is a popular system in both regions with a unique name.

There are actual UI issues which the site has that need the attention that was given to this.

What UI issues do you have with the site? I'm always looking for feedback.

-------------------------------

For the record, I will not be adding any mini platforms.

I personally believe that a platform should only be added if:
- It has exclusive titles.
- Is not a remake or redesign. (No minis, Xbox One S/X, etc.)
- Is a standalone experience. (Oculus Quest, I don't know if it has exclusive titles yet but it's hardware doesn't rely on anything else.)

It can be difficult to judge what to add and what not to add when you aren't familiar with all the hardware. Also, I try to design the site so that it's useful for everyone. I've experimented with different things over the years that I had to remove from the site. So the platform separation can always be changed but there seemed to be enough demand that it was worth trying for a bit.

So I've rolled back some changes to platforms and made new changes too. I think going forward we will stick with these basic rules. I may have been too quick to attempt to please everyone. The most important thing is that HLTB times are accurate and everyone can catalog their games easily. Blowing out all the platforms only complicates things on the back end (extra code to combine like platforms and getting accurate times). We will be sticking with the NA and EU system names, which is why Sega Mega Drive/Genesis is the only duo to stick. That is a popular system in both regions with a unique name.

Can we add "isometrics" perspective and "dungeon crawler" in genre?

Is only the date of completion saved and not the time that the entry was made? I ask because I completed two games yesterday and, when sorted by completion, the completion list sorts games completed on the same date by alphabet. It's not a huge issue, but it's mildly annoying since the completions in question were completed chronologically by release date and it looks like I played them out of order. Could you fix that, please, even if it meant I had to resubmit those entries?

Is only the date of completion saved and not the time that the entry was made? I ask because I completed two games yesterday and, when sorted by completion, the completion list sorts games completed on the same date by alphabet. It's not a huge issue, but it's mildly annoying since the completions in question were completed chronologically by release date and it looks like I played them out of order. Could you fix that, please, even if it meant I had to resubmit those entries?

I've added update time into consideration so if they are out of order, simply update the playthroughs in the order you want them.

EDIT: I've also added time updated to the details drop down so you can see the exact time. Plus some optimizing to that.

I've added update time into consideration so if they are out of order, simply update the playthroughs in the order you want them.

EDIT: I've also added time updated to the details drop down so you can see the exact time. Plus some optimizing to that.

Wow, thanks! Seems to work for me :) More numbers are always nice to see.

I'm having troubles with my "shuffle" button. When I click it, my entire backlog just disappears instead of bringing up an individual game. Any idea what I should do?

I'm having troubles with my "shuffle" button. When I click it, my entire backlog just disappears instead of bringing up an individual game. Any idea what I should do?

I just tried this on both PC and Mobile and I'm having the same trouble!
Just in case it's related to the problem, I want to state that I'm using Google Chrome

There are actual UI issues which the site has that need the attention that was given to this.

What UI issues do you have with the site? I'm always looking for feedback.

-------------------------------

For the record, I will not be adding any mini platforms.

I personally believe that a platform should only be added if:
- It has exclusive titles.
- Is not a remake or redesign. (No minis, Xbox One S/X, etc.)
- Is a standalone experience. (Oculus Quest, I don't know if it has exclusive titles yet but it's hardware doesn't rely on anything else.)

It can be difficult to judge what to add and what not to add when you aren't familiar with all the hardware. Also, I try to design the site so that it's useful for everyone. I've experimented with different things over the years that I had to remove from the site. So the platform separation can always be changed but there seemed to be enough demand that it was worth trying for a bit.

So I've rolled back some changes to platforms and made new changes too. I think going forward we will stick with these basic rules. I may have been too quick to attempt to please everyone. The most important thing is that HLTB times are accurate and everyone can catalog their games easily. Blowing out all the platforms only complicates things on the back end (extra code to combine like platforms and getting accurate times). We will be sticking with the NA and EU system names, which is why Sega Mega Drive/Genesis is the only duo to stick. That is a popular system in both regions with a unique name.

After reading through the recent posts in this thread, I feel it may be best to not look at platform categories from a hardware perspective, but rather a software perspective. For example, I could be playing a physical SNES game on a clone console, but the platform would still be SNES as that's what the cartridge is. No matter what console you play it on, it will always be a SNES cart. That goes doubly so for console revisions, like PlayStations various Slim models, or the different 3DS variants.

For the future, before asking about adding a console to the platform list, think about the games that would go on it first. It'll most likely result in something redundant. Even Mini and Classic consoles are just smaller emulated versions of the original hardware. I've played numerous games off of the NES Classic on here, and I've listed them all under NES in the platform selection. After all, it is called the NES Classic.

That's why I asked about potential redundancy with my PS TV question. Yes, it is technically a separate piece of hardware, but at the end of the day, it still plays Vita cartridges/downloads, and Vita games alone.

I've added update time into consideration so if they are out of order, simply update the playthroughs in the order you want them.

EDIT: I've also added time updated to the details drop down so you can see the exact time. Plus some optimizing to that.

This furthers my thoughts on needing different time zones - if it can't be auto-detected via system clock, having the ability to set a time zone in our profiles would be very useful. You can see here that I just posted my completion of Until Dawn and locally it's 17/06/2019 13:57, but it says I updated it last night - even after setting the completion date to today!



Edit: by "just posted" I mean within the last half hour or so - which is why my current time stated above doesn't match the equivalent updated time... it's close enough for the point though =)

Can confirm that the Shuffle button making the backlog disappear is happening on Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.

Same here, the random game picker no longer works (but was working yesterday). I tested it on my iPod Touch with Safari.

Fixed the shuffle button.

EDIT: And yeah, I'll have to change the updated time thing when I get a chance later today.

EDIT 2: Changed to time ago. I somehow forgot about that whole can of worms. It's why the whole site uses time ago. It makes this not quite as useful but I'll leave it in and look at time zone options but no promises as I'd have to make a lot of changes to the site.

Fixed the shuffle button.

EDIT: And yeah, I'll have to change the updated time thing when I get a chance later today.

EDIT 2: Changed to time ago. I somehow forgot about that whole can of worms. It's why the whole site uses time ago. It makes this not quite as useful but I'll leave it in and look at time zone options but no promises as I'd have to make a lot of changes to the site.

I reckon that's a pretty straight forward way to make it all make sense - I imagine it would still solve the problem of same-day completions being in the right order - having to change the date for submissions is just one of the downsides of living in the future... but we must endure...

Not sure if it's been brought up before - but it would be cool to have the date field on the Completion submission page to read from the system clock instead of whatever time zone it's on at the moment. I only bring it up because I often have to change it to set the correct date, even though it's only out by a day!

This has been added! Can I borrow your time machine?

This has been added! Can I borrow your time machine?

Tried it out and it works a treat!

This might be a start for time travel purposes: https://bfy.tw/O90x *heh*

Is there any way to do small caps in posts? Could we get some limited support for HTML/CSS in forum posts? As a fellow web designer, I'm used to styling my text with CSS.

Is there any way to do small caps in posts? Could we get some limited support for HTML/CSS in forum posts? As a fellow web designer, I'm used to styling my text with CSS.

Won't be happening, sorry.