ThePhleo

Can we get rid of those banners up top?

I have to click them off every time I log in, and sometimes theres three of them.

Any way to get a full scan of those two different NES Football manuals? I’d love to do a pixel for pixel examination of each page and see what differences there are.

:V that’s what I was saying...

* and (T) mean the exact same thing.

My full theory:

1. -USA* and (T) mean that there is a rear projection TV warning in the manual.

2. -USA* manuals are for games that were released before the inclusion of RPTV warning in the manual. These games should be reprints rather than unique original releases.

3. (T) manuals are for games that were released AFTER the RPTV warning was printed in the document by default.

4. There should be no manuals with -USA* AND a (T) on the same manual. But there may be variants with them separate.

Here is the definitive list of NES Sticker variants, Hangtabs, and Screw Variants.

As far as I can tell, there is VERY little room for improvement but as new things surface I'm sure things can change.

I think it's safe to say that 5-screw Stadium Events is legitimate with 3 known copies floating out there (C, CI, and CIB) and from my research, 3-Screw DK Math is in a similar boat to the Ultra/Konami 5-Screw variants....also, 5-Screw R.C. Pro-Am is still super weird.

13 minutes ago, Bronty said:

That’s a cool video and I remember it well.   Obviously I meant since it left the factory.   

I knew what you meant, I was just being cheeky was all.

Still...who knows what else those people might have touched at that facility. Can you imagine if they were also packing FAMICOM that day...the thought horrified me.

Then again in the video it seems they’re packing Canadian games...so maybe it’s ok.

Also, just right after that scene there’s a Canadian Zelda in the background of the VP of NOA, Peter Main...traitor

1 hour ago, DoctorEncore said:

Updated the original post with info about Circle-T symbol on the manual which seems to indicate the addition of the projection TV warning into the manual.

The star on the manual remains a mystery, so if anyone has any info, please let me know. I'll keep looking for games with versions that add the star with a revision.

The transition from Oval SOQ TM ---> Oval SOQ R, may involve an additional statement on the Nintendo assurance page of the manual, but that is somewhat unclear still.

I think the Star Code is synonymous with the Circle T. Only way to prove my theory is meeting two criteria:

1. No Star Code manual should exist with a Circle T (Or at least, very, very few should exist...maybe as a transitionary period)
2. All star code manuals must have the RPTV warning in the book.

Just added the initial batch of Unlicensed games.

Can't say I'm happy with what I gave the rarities on them, but it's definitely a start.

I don't view the entire unlicensed library as its own self contained library. Instead, I view each publisher as their own unique library, except for the super-rares like Active/Myriad/Panesian/Racermate/AGCI/Etc.

You might also notice an R11 or two in there....why? Well, who really knows what the hell is up with AGCI Wally Bear, and Sharedata Chiller!

13 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

 

I guess that depends on the strength of your system. I'd say go crazy as long as you are confident its accurate and not debatable/speculative. 

There's room to debate within three rankings for some titles, but then there are titles that can solidly fit as a half grade (Samson, BB2, Duck Tales 2)

Even Super Mario Bros. (standalone), and Super Mario Bros. / DH / WCTM can be debated whether they belong in 1, 2, or 3.

26 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

Great work. Are the rarities cart, CIB, or a hybrid? I always thought of Chubby Cherub as an available cart but tough box, although my notion may be super out of date since it's been a long time since I ever cared about Chubby Cherub.

Loose for now, CIB is a little tougher thanks to so many variants. I have a WIP list though.

4 minutes ago, m308gunner said:

Yup, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. That little crease in the main flap.

I had a sealed Sachen game, and I wanted to open it to scan it into my computer...when I did the scan, I noticed there were purple little flakes ALL OVER THE GLASS. The ink itself just jumped off the box!

Now, QC is terrible at Sachen. But I have to imagine the same is happening a little on licensed boxes.

I wonder if heating up the box would help lessen the damage though? Probably not.

On 11/13/2019 at 8:21 AM, Bronty said:

 

One thing you can’t take away from sealed is that no one has touched it.  

Hate to break the news.....but that's not true.

Seems like every NES game was touched at least a few times on the assembly line. BARE HANDED no less.

Check out 6:47 on this video....

Never worried too much about damaging a sealed game when opening it since the simple act of opening the flap damages the box by a little.

But If I had to "professionally" open it, I would buy a nice sharp letter opener (the ones that look like a dagger) ... or a little more ghetto, a simple metal nail file.

5 hours ago, Hammerfestus said:

Cool to see someone taking some initiative on these sort of things.  Awhile back I debated working on the PS1 rarity list over on PSA but it would basically be starting from scratch and I’m not so bold as to assume my thoughts on these things are correct.  

Go for it! PS1 is a HUGE task though and I can't imagine wanting to go after a library that huge.

The only reason I'm confident enough to post my lists in the first place is because I had the courage (can be translated as idiocy as well!) to make mistakes in the past.

6 hours ago, NESfiend said:

I for one plan on using your list as a go to reference and definitely would prefer if you didn't go down to R1-7. If you do do that, I'd suggest/ask you keep this one available as well. 

I went through R6-9 on your list pretty carefully. Everything here looks really accurate. I have no idea how much work or how long it takes to do that, but I'd love to see one for SNES as well. 

Thank you. I think I'll hold off on watering the list down...I've also added the "old" rarity guide in there for now for reference, but I do plan on deleting it eventually. It takes a lot of work to make sure the list is fair and there's still a TON of room for improvement...should we have half rankings in the upper tier? quarter or fifths in the 9.0-10 range? what about half rankings for 1.0-2.0? lots of room for improvements.

29 minutes ago, Strikezone1 said:

Great stuff @ThePhleo! thanks for sharing.

It does seem that Flintstones Dino Peak is a bit less common than the other R9s. IIRC I think it was the only “8” on the old NA database in the NES licensed NTSC library?

The "old" list used to look like the list I posted below...really terrible that we only had one R8, and one R9...and ZERO R10's in the licensed arena. Why even HAVE an upper rarity tier if we aren't going to utilize it?

Dino Peak is certainly a rare game, but with the cache discovered in South America and relative ease to convert it into a USA cartridge, the price rightfully stagnated on it and its relative availability went down. There is no "9.5" or WATA style .2/.4/.6/.8 but if there's demand for it, then it certainly can be added...though its literally splitting hairs at that point and we might as well just go all out on doing a 100% automated list with ebay availability being the only factor.

"The Old" list....looks about as archaic as Etlers list IMO. I haven't used it since 2013-14

R7

• Bandit Kings of Ancient China
• Bonk's Adventure
• Cowboy Kid
• Gun Nac
• Little Samson
• Panic Restaurant
• Power Blade 2
• TMNT: Tournament Fighters
• Wayne's World

R8

• Flintstones: Dinosaur Peak

R9

• Stadium Events

Thanks for the suggestions.

Some changes I want to make include bumping up Rollergames one more rank...three ranks down seems too much for that title.

I also wonder how angry people would be if I made this an R1-7 scale...

Ive been tempted to merge 1&2, 3&4, and 5&6 together but I don’t want to alienate the community.

Its really hard to maintain a 10 point scale in a satisfying way. The only difference between an R1 and an R2 for example is you go from being nearly guaranteed to having all of them in a lot of say 50 random games to nearly guaranteed to having all of them in a lot of 100 random games.

10 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

I gotta look thru this but Volleyball and Ultimate Air Combat a 5?  Volleyball should probably be like a 3 and Ultimate Air Combat a 7.  Its not expensive but its really uncommon.  I think in 7 years ive seen only ONE in a store.

Feel free to make suggestions for whatever stands out. I don’t want to share how I automate most of the list, but there is some going on.

2 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

I’m not afraid to bash a guy. However, he did say in an interview with @Johnny that he made NA for him, not anyone else. I don’t give Dain a pass though. He is equally responsible for what happened. He abandoned us all and let a corporation end it all for a paycheck..... Does that make him a bad person though? 
Do people really care about the “Carolina collection”?

The majority of the community here? No, they don't care about the Carolina Collection.

But there's obviously an incentive to have the name hold value, which in my opinion is diminished with the Game of Thrones Season 8 style ending of Dain and his website.

9 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

I agree with most of it. Still dont know how I feel about LS being a 9. To me it feels like an 8 with a weird price component that makes it harder to find a “reasonable” priced one. Which in itself doesnt actually make sense. Because “reasonable” is subjective. 

I hear you on that one.

I want to mark it as "8.5" because while price isn't the biggest factor in the list, it is a small part and having such a huge price tag on the title does tend to skew the score in the end.

Same goes for Wayne's World. I think it should be an R9 but the price is too "low" for it to make the mark.

Manual adjustments can be made, the vast majority of the list is automated but minor tweaks where price/old rarity are made by hand. For example, if you sort the list by price and THEN by rarity you'll notice that the majority of the "upper priced" games PER RARITY are "fan favorite" titles...this is because I believe that a "crappy" or "unknown" game shouldn't have the same rarity score as a rarer fan favorite game while being similarly prices or more expensive in some cases.

In that vein, Ultima Warriors of Destiny may actually be a 7 instead of a 6 because of the fact that Mega Man 5 is priced cheaper than it...but I feel Ultima is well known enough as a brand of game that 6 is safe. But also, the rule sort of fades away once you hit R6/7 area.

On 11/8/2019 at 12:47 PM, B.A. said:

I've listened to the 1st 30 minutes so far.  Allow me to address some of the comments made.

@Johnny made the point about how much should GoCollect care about making a new forum when the entire userbase left.  For the record, VGS was not created because of the speculation that NA was shutting down, that was not how the chain of events were set in motion.  

If I were to identify a point where things really reached a point of no return with NA it would be when your video was taken down @DefaultGen .  A little background, that was a good 3-4 months after the sale to GC and we as a staff had heard next to nothing from Jeff in that timeframe.  Jeff actually told us that forums weren't the future for GoCollect.  That statement went along with everything we had seen from him, confirmed our suspicion that he had no interest.  We had asked if we could make improvements to the site ourselves and were told flat out no, he wouldn't allow it.

That brings us to your video.  We were told that people weren't happy about the content and wanted it deleted.  The message read like that was what Jeff wanted (which days later he clarifed that he was only asking our opinion).  The video gets taken down, shitshow ensues, I publicly resigned (which I asked Jeff to remove me that day and he never bothered).  After that mess Jeff asked if anyone on the staff wanted to purchase the site (the impression was that he felt he couldn't win with the community).  So he initiated selling the site to some of us, we exchanged emails and set up a time for a phone call to discuss details.  He didn't show up for the call, and we didn't hear another word from him until he popped in a couple months later to say some of his GoCollect lackey's were joining the staff as admins/mods.  

That blown handling of the potential sale was when we decided we were going to create an alternative and the wheels really went in motion for VGS.  We tried guys! The entire NA server being shut down forcing GoCollects hand to make their "improvements" had nothing to do with what we were building here.  

One other thing Johnny brought up about Dain being above criticism from so many, I couldn't agree more!  How can people say "NA sucks!! Except for Dain"  Now I'm not complaining about Dain, I like some stuff he did and don't like some other stuff.  But how does a person get all the credit but none of the blame? If people didn't like NA, wouldn't it stand to reason Dain could have fixed whatever they didn't like about it?  How Dain pulled that trick off I will never know.    

Anyway, hopefully that clears some things up. 

People are still scared to bash Dain. He was the defacto, but absent Patriarch of the community and it still "stings" to be mad at him.

I've already publicly said that GoCollect deserves little to no blame for the things that went down. They are a business, and whether or not we like it, they are doing what they feel is best in their businesses interest.

One thing I do know, is that Jeff single-handedly destroyed Dain's legacy, and likely even devalued the "Caronlina Collection" to a point of irrelevancy. Not only removing the name from the website, but practically scrubbing its existence from the internet is crazy. How do you destroy a brand overnight like that is beyond me!

On 11/14/2019 at 6:35 PM, JVOSS said:

New lets for GB

Awesome! Added

Added some stuff from @RoyalT and @Hybrid

Also created my own new rarity guide for the NES with a little hint of a loose cart price guide. It's not the old NintendoAge list either, this is my personal rarity guide!

So here's my version of the NES rarity chart. It includes some real changes to the rarity guide including some minor demotes/promotions and a couple major movers and shakers.

Let me know what you guys think about it...in summary, here are the biggest movers and shakers.

Demoted by 3 Ranks from R5 to R2

1. Jeopardy 25th Anniversary Edition
2. Jeopardy Jr. Edition
3. Tennis

Promoted by 3 Ranks from R4 to R7

1. Captain America and the Planeteers

Promoted by 3 Ranks from R5 to R8

1. Bucky O'Hare
2. Die Hard
3. Kickmaster
4. Metal Storm
5. S.C.A.T.
6. Swamp Thing

Promoted by 3 Ranks from R6 to R9

1. Dragon Fighter
2. Kid Klown in Night Mayor World
3. Snow Brothers
4. Sword Master
5. Wacky Races
6. Zombie Nation

Promoted by 4 Ranks from R4 to R8

1. Chubby Cherub (seriously, why was this R4??)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure NintendoAge was started with a bunch of former AtariAge & DigitPress members...of which those two were a natural step up from the ancient BBS/Newboards/Usenet groups.

VideoGameSage is Game Collecting 4.0

The only thing I have against the Carolina Collection is it’s a useless pedigree.

NintendoAge no longer exists, and Dain was an absentee in the community for the better half of a decade now.

For the Carolina Collection to have any value requires Dain to still be a driving force in the community, or for NintendoAge to be put back on the map.

Just hype.

Shiny and Not-So-shiny stickers are Sooo last month. Star flaps (or as I prefer to call them: Twinklers) are all the rage.