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The flow is much better and less cumbersome than the previous track creation process. I created a track this morning and have a couple of questions and a clean-up request.

What's the difference between "Game Specific Rules" and the "General Rules / Additional Information" sections? Do both sections carry forward to derivative tracks? From previous track creation attempts, I remember that only the game specific tracks carry forward to derivatives and the "General Rules..." only stay with the master track. I'm curious if anything has changed and if you can provide an example of what content could be entered into "General Rules" that could add value that is not already available in the "Game Specific Rules" section.

Thanks

Also, the "Game Specific Rule" section altered the formatting after I pasted the text from MS Word and created the track. There was an option to 'clean' or keep the Word format; I choose to keep. The result is extended paragraph spacing and leading bullets that were not visible before I donated my post. Could you please clean the formatting to make the rules more aesthetic and concise? Is there a specific format you recommend track creators use to get a more WYSIWYG experience which allow bullet lists?

https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/251871-PlayStation-Barbie-Gotta-Have-Games-NTSC-Bubble-Machine-One-Player-Medium-Difficulty-Most-Points

Barthax, sdwyer138, nads liked this post

Originally Posted by MyOwnWorstEnemy

What's the difference between "Game Specific Rules" and the "General Rules / Additional Information" sections?

I think this has always been confusing to people. Also, IIRC, only one of those fields actually populates to the adjudication thread? There was one situation (probably JJT) where we were having to go to the game entry itself to view all of the rules. It is my opinion that there should be only one rules field.

MyOwnWorstEnemy thanked this post

Can anyone confirm that adding derivatives from previously created tracks is easier? It's so difficult finding a game you created a track for ages ago because every one was on just one list without you being able to choose the console to clean up the list.

Hi Desidious

For a derivative track we can give an option to select platform and a game . Based on the selection , your created tracks will be listed .

Upon choosing the track you would be able to create a derivative track

Let me know if that works for you

Originally Posted by Desidious

Can anyone confirm that adding derivatives from previously created tracks is easier? It's so difficult finding a game you created a track for ages ago because every one was on just one list without you being able to choose the console to clean up the list.

Originally Posted by admin staff

Hi Desidious

For a derivative track we can give an option to select platform and a game . Based on the selection , your created tracks will be listed .

Upon choosing the track you would be able to create a derivative track

Let me know if that works for you

It does still list ALL track descriptions when you create a derivative. It already does ask for Platform and Game but then displays all tracks you've ever founded. Some with just the words "Points" will repeat for as many tracks as you founded despite which game and platform they're on.

I created two derivatives last night and it was this way. Perhaps it's been addressed this morning. It was easy enough to do mine because they were for Pinball Arcade which lists the table name in the description, so I was able to pick out a table name easily. But it still required looking through a dropdown of ALL the tracks I've ever founded to pick it out.

Ok I attempted to add another Pinball Arcade derivative track to iOS platform for "Central Park - Points" and I have two things to report:

1. It asks you to select the previously Founded Track and the Platform before it lets you select the Game. So there's no way it can be filtering the Founded Track list by game at the moment it seems.

2. It told me the track already exists and it does not. This is the first time I got this error when founding a derivative track.

Yeah I'm hoping we can get this sorted out but it's been years since I created a derivative. Ben seems to be on it. When I have time away from my new job, I'll test some things since I have tracks all over the place.

bensweeneyonbass, Barthax liked this post

Originally Posted by admin staff

Hi Desidious

For a derivative track we can give an option to select platform and a game . Based on the selection , your created tracks will be listed .

Upon choosing the track you would be able to create a derivative track

Let me know if that works for you

Right now it forces you to select track from EVERY track you have ever created:

Then it auto populates platform and game based on that track selection

This seems completely backwards, and depending on how many tracks you have made, and the name of the tracks, it could take a lot of guessing / trial and error before you land on the one you are wanting to expand on.

In my opinion the following would make the most sense, and streamline the process:

The first available field is Platform, and only displays results for the platforms that specific user has created tracks for. After selecting entry for Platform, the second field for game title is presented, and again only shows games (for that platform) that the user has created tracks for. Lastly, after selecting the game title, the user is presented with a third field for track titles they have created for the above selected game and platform combination. From there the user selects the track name and can proceed to modify it as needed to complete a new derivative track.

admin staff, MyOwnWorstEnemy thanked this post

I've added three derivative tracks from this 'master track'. Unfortunately none of the three derivatives are displaying under the game "Barbie Gotta Have Games". I created the derivatives around 5:30pm EST. In the past, the derivative tracks were added to the scoreboard within a few seconds after it was successfully created. As of this typing, its been ~ 30 minutes and still nothing listed under this game.

Not sure if this is a bug or the process is much slower.

Originally Posted by sdwyer138

I think this has always been confusing to people. Also, IIRC, only one of those fields actually populates to the adjudication thread? There was one situation (probably JJT) where we were having to go to the game entry itself to view all of the rules. It is my opinion that there should be only one rules field.

That's what I remember as well. I used the "General Game / Additional Information" field once to apply a game specific rule, as opposed to a track specific rule, and was underwhelmed with the result. It only appeared on the master track I created and was not visible for all derivative tracks. I'm not sure what information might be useful in such a limited data field other than indicating that this is the Master Track.

I hope you consider updating the formatting options for the rules text field. It seems that the formatting devolves from what is originally typed, to what is displayed in the "View Proposed Leaderboard" forum, and what is finally displayed in the approved leaderboard. This problem has been around for years and IMO hampers the track creation process. A bullet style format is easy to organize and read. The final product removes these and makes the rules harder to read and look unprofessional.

Please address this to make the user experience better. Thanks!

Starts out like this....

but ends up like this :(

Barthax liked this post

I managed to successfully create a track for the Bally Astrocade. Then I tried to propose other two tracks ("Downfall" for the Atari Jaguar and "Cyber Snake" for the Atari ST), but I got a "Track already exists!" message. This seems to be not true: tracks for these games seem not already available.

onlyinajeep, wirre.the.man liked this post

Originally Posted by Luigi Ruffolo

I managed to successfully create a track for the Bally Astrocade. Then I tried to propose other two tracks ("Downfall" for the Atari Jaguar and "Cyber Snake" for the Atari ST), but I got a "Track already exists!" message. This seems to be not true: tracks for these games seem not already available.

Tried again today (a few attempts), and I got the same error message, plus others.

«Description is required».

But all the required fields had been already filled.

«Your submission could not be processed because the token has expired.

Please reload the window».

But it took only a small amount of time to fill in all the required fields and send the request, so this error message seems nonsensical.

onlyinajeep, wirre.the.man liked this post

Tried Chrome, instead of Firefox, but nothing changes. Now maybe I'm beginning to figure out what is happening. If you key in something like "EMU - Points" in the "TRACK TITLE" field (after you properly filled the "GAME NAME" field and all, of course) you get the "Track already exists!" message. I suspect the reason why this happens is obvious: there already are a lot of previously created tracks named "EMU - Points", LOL! :) Sometimes the text you type in that field for some reason suddenly disappears after a few seconds so you alternatively get the "Description required" error message.

bensweeneyonbass thanked this post

onlyinajeep, wirre.the.man liked this post

I'm having the same issues as Luigi Ruffolo. May it have to do with certain characters in the game name? The tracks I'm trying to add has "!" in them. I get this every time:

Luigi Ruffolo liked this post

Originally Posted by wirre.the.man

I'm having the same issues as Luigi Ruffolo. May it have to do with certain characters in the game name? The tracks I'm trying to add has "!" in them. I get this every time:

Regardless of if that is or isnt the root cause of your issue, I would recommend leaving out the "!". When I made tracks for the various versions of BreakThru!, it would always jack up the database and would have to be corrected by admin.

wirre.the.man thanked this post

wirre.the.man liked this post

https://www.twingalaxies.com/admin-staff/wall/3296/scoreboard-errors-website-errors-report-them-here/page/204#comments