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Availability table overhaul


Garrett
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I am proposing a new availability table overhaul (now implemented - see Template:Availability).

 

The biggest change is that the required DRM is kept completely separate from any optional unlocks (similar to Humble Store) to avoid confusion.

 

The service name and product ID are supplied as parameters; this then automatically fills in the service name, full link, affiliate ID (if applicable) and inherent service DRM (e.g. Steam). Any additional DRM IDs can still be specified as needed.

 

All current uses are supported by the new template including retail rows and links to sources like the developer's site.

 

Template:ID would be overhauled to handle both service unlocks and generic DRM types (online activation, disc check, etc.); the new implementation is used for this example. Some IDs would change (GMG) or disappear (Retail) as part of this.

 

There are some minor issues remaining with this implementation; in particular I haven't figured out a reliable way of linking to the Uplay store by ID due to how regional stores are handled so the template currently uses the full Uplay URL. All of the other services respond correctly to basic linking.

 

EDIT: inherent service DRM insertion has been removed due to the specifics of implementing Soeb's array suggestion.

 

GOG and Amazon links currently have doubled referral IDs when clicked; this is caused by the site-wide referral script rather than an error in the template and would be resolved when the template goes live.

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Cool, after an year we are finally doing that overhaul :D

 

Anyway, I think the number of times games gives you additional keys is too low that a specific column doesn't worth it, imo.

OS column on the other hand is pretty a nice addition, like soeb did. The column could be moved though, for a better layout. Inverted with redeem one, or placed before even the source one perhaps.

 

What's should be really present in my opinion, should be something to handle patches and underline you need them. Especially for those games which don't rely on steam/origin/uplay for automatic patching.

Besides, there's games even on steam which are not patched too!

Weird

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I'd be fine with this new layout then. I thought the OS stuff was pretty cluttery anyway.

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I think OS would be nice these ways

 

Besides.. I sort of tried to find a method to at least tell user with a glance if he's updated or not... For the OS thing I haven't other ideas, whilst for the patch one I kinda feel like this solution is pretty bad

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95% of cases all stores sell one lisence for all platforms available, rest 5% are either OS specific stores or for some reason game having seperate OS X version. With those cases shouldn't it be enough to state it in notes section like it has been to this point? 

 

I like that it's now easier to state game having online account as DRM which I said on free-to-play thread earlier. 

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I don't think using the ID template for DRM is a good idea, as it'd make it really hard to get information about different types of DRM in a semantic data structure. I'd prefer a separate "DRM" template for that, which would include many of the same icons as the ID template.

 

Also, do we want to use my Availability Table icons for this? See here.

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Also, do we want to use my Availability Table icons for this? See here.

 

I assumed they were going to so I didn't bother pointing that out.

 

The GMG icon isn't too great tho. The stroke doesn't work at all, it would probably look nicer without it.

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It sounds really quite hard to keep a valid list of up-to-date versions.I imagine this information could easily become outdated at times, and in the least the date the information was inserted should be made obvious directly in the article (Wikipedia's way of "As of 1 January 2013,..."). If you think there's a nice way of presenting this clearly in the table, I would happily be for it, but right now I just see little way of making it not too cluttered.

Well, mhh.. considering we can't own all versions of every games that's absolutely a good point...

With older games you have 99% of times the retail edition to mention and then, sometimes, Steam or at most another service.

 

But with newer they are usually bound to a single service and all other stores just sale keys. So, indeed, this thing shouldn't be mentioned in the availability table, sorry.

I hope I could find another solution to streamline patch notes.

 

The little (and few space consuming) OS row instead feel good, there on the left imo

 

 

ps. and I would scrape too that shitty platform locking stores (windows, ubuntu, mac) but sometimes they are the only place with those versions, or with special features (san andreas with touch support comes to my mind)

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I don't think using the ID template for DRM is a good idea, as it'd make it really hard to get information about different types of DRM in a semantic data structure. I'd prefer a separate "DRM" template for that, which would include many of the same icons as the ID template.

 

This overhaul only uses IDs to represent required DRM and/or optional keys. IDs that merely identify the service (e.g. GamersGate) would be dropped.

 

This change will also mean more accurate coverage for sources like Amazon that do not have their own DRM option.

 

 

As you can see in my previous attempt at overhauling this, we can hide the use of ID and similar templates entirely with some simple parser functions (arraymaptemplate in this case).

 

I actually hadn't checked the source of your template; comma-separated values are definitely a better implementation.

 

EDIT: I have now implemented the array for IDs. The switch is still in its own template since this way it can handle spaces around raw URL parameters; putting it directly in the row template means spaces cause a broken link unless parameter names are specified.

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I assumed they were going to so I didn't bother pointing that out.

 

The GMG icon isn't too great tho. The stroke doesn't work at all, it would probably look nicer without it.

 

I'll try that and see how it looks. The GamersGate and GMG icons are both pretty bad, but it's unfortunately rather difficult to fit them in such a small space.

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See the ID documentation for supported DRM/key types and the Availability documentation for supported stores.

 

Availability/row sets two new properties: Property:Required DRM and Property:Optional product keys. These will specify the valid strings once the ID and store lists are finalised. (pending replacement with template implementation)

 

Are there any thoughts regarding the layout and implementation?

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The properties were one of a couple of possible solutions for the problem but I'll opt for an alternate solution instead. This wasn't going to be exposed on pages anyway.

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