Add <RetroAchievementsTitle> and <RetroAchievementsPlatform> fields into the Platform XML for missing games

[Paul R]

I'm classifying this as a bug, because with the current implementation, many games will never show achievements.

So the Retro Achievements website has 'Ys III: Wanderers from Ys' for SNES named 'Wanderers from Ys III.' That is most unfortunate, because I realized earlier that achievements will not show up unless the game is named exactly the way it is on their page.

What this means for a user is, that if you want Retro Achievements to work properly for your entire library, you will have to go through and manually rename all of the ones that aren't working. Some of their names are pretty bad (like 'Wanderers from Ys III' ) and I'd never name it that.... but it bothers me, because I want those achievements. :)

Additionally, some games will not show up unless they are listed under the correct platform - Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo must be listed under NEC TurboGrafx-16, and not 'NEC PC Engine-CD' or 'NEC TurboGrafx-CD.'

So, these games should be pulling the achievements another way.

This is a great feature, let's get it working properly, and for every game that it was intended to work for.

Edit: Please read 2nd post for what I believe to be a viable solution for this.

[Paul R]

I think I've figured out a way to resolve this issue. Simply add the following two fields to the PlatformName.xml:

<RetroAchievementsTitle></RetroAchievementsTitle>

<RetroAchievementsPlatform></RetroAchievementsPlatform>

And then make these two fields editable within Launchbox, and then make Launchbox/Bigbox use these two fields when pulling data. This would completely solve all problems - if a user isn't seeing the game they wanted to add, they can manually make it working, without having to compromise the 'Platform' or 'Title' that they prefer.

So here's two examples (entries shortened to the relevant fields only:

<Game> <Platform>Super Nintendo Entertainment System</Platform> <RetroAchievementsTitle>Wanderers from Ys III</Title> <RetroAchievementsPlatform><RetroAchievementsPlatform>
<Title>Ys III: Wanderers from Ys</Title>
</Game>

<Game> <Platform>NEC PC Engine CD</Platform> <RetroAchievementsTitle>Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo</Title> <RetroAchievementsPlatform>NEC TurboGrafx-16<RetroAchievementsPlatform>
<Title>Castlevania: Rondo of Blood</Title>
</Game>

If the the 'RetroAchievements' fields are the same, they could just be left blank.

[Belmont]

I would like this as well, and I do not consider this “minor”. Right now the integration is flawed and somewhat broken.

Alternatively to Paul’s solution, all we really need is a new field on the game for the RetroAchievements ID. If an ID is present, use that over trying to resolve it through the name.

[Paul R]

Honestly I think that is over complicating things, unless I’m misunderstanding. The IDs would have to be created and become a whole new thing. The current implementation is just to pull the names off of the webpage.

I spoke with Jason about this at the time, and I actually went through and identified and made a list of all the affected games, with the intention of helping ‘fix’ the problem. Jason’s solution was to just add the Retro Achievements names as ‘alternate game names,' which I went through and did.

But, a lot of the game names were weird (e.g. situations where on the RA page, the game would have two names separated by a slash). So, ignorant people in the community who had no idea what was going on began deleting some of them. It was a flawed, and no offense to Jason, lazy solution.

I gave up at that point. I personally put 12 hours into compiling the lists and adding the alternate names, and with no guarantees that my work would be ‘safe,’ which it clearly wasn’t.

Jason works very hard on LaunchBox and has a ton of things he’s always working on. Unfortunately, that sometimes means using half measures to implement things. He wants to get the best results with the least work possible because there are only so many hours in the day. I get it and I’m not saying I would do things differently.

But, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for this to be fixed. You are one of only a handful of people that even notices or cares that there is a problem.

[K Pedersen]

I suggest an editable URL field pointing to the correct game on retroachievements, doubles as a shortcut

[Shane Bristow]

I’m also expressing interest in seeing a fix for this. I was wondering why I couldn’t see my Phantasy Star 4 achievements and it was due to the name being “Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium” on retro achievements. I do find the retro achievements to be a motivator in taking a deep dive in to a title, I have to use Retroarch’s intergration to track my progress for some titles at the moment.

[Christian]

The only revision to the RetroAchievement logic we would deem as acceptable is to get the integration working with the same file hash logic the emulators use to see if the ROM is supported. This would require the least amount of maintenance overhead and the most customization on the user’s part. At that point the system wouldn’t care how you name your game or platform and would “just work”. We’re working with the RetroAchievement team to make this a possibility but I don’t have any sort of ETA on to when to expect the change.

[Xeinok]

That’s great to hear - totally agree with going by hash. I know a ton of people would really love to see that (it’s a very common question in all the various achievement-focused discord communities for people to ask “why is Launchbox not showing my achievements for X game?” and we always have to tell them to re-title the game perfectly. Some filter/sort options by various achievement-related metrics would also be amazing (sort games by completion%, sort games by point value, etc.)

Thanks so much! Really looking forward to this whenever possible.