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Darkwaltz4

Former Developer
The first thing about your arcade is you'll want to get some games into it, right? There are three ways to do this, accessible through the Import Games link in the vBArcade menu in the admincp.

Conversion from an existing arcade (ibproarcade and v3 arcade). The option of which appears depending on what you still have installed on your server (although again, you will not be able to run it simultaneously with vBArcade). If you know you have something available but it is not showing up, or you get errors, or game information appears to be missing, please post a thread with the type and version of the arcade you had installed. I might ask for FTP information to look at your database directly.

Installing from a feed. Currently only supporting mochi. You will need a free mochi publisher ID and apply that in your settings. If you get errors or information appears to be missing, please post a thread with the name of the game you were looking at.

Upload/bulk process archive files. Tar and zip (if your server supports it), FTP'd to a specific directory or with the supplied upload field. The information within should be detected automatically regardless of mix of type. Due to many variations over time, this area needs the most testing to ensure anything anyone tries to use will be processable, as long as it was provided that way at some point. I do not care how you obtained the games :) If you know you have something that worked in the past but it is not showing up, or you get errors, or game information appears to be missing, please post a thread explaining what you know, and email to archive files to blackwaltz4@msn.com with a link back to that thread.

The first beta version for use with this task will become available 8/13/11 - in the meantime please take the poll and locate any game archive files you can find to test importing.

Otherwise, if you have any questions or suggestions please let me know. This feature is designed to be as automatic as possible so adding lots of games is simple, quick and painless :)
 
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The first beta is now available for you to test install. Currently only the mochi system has been included for testing the feed and uploading the zips. ibp and v3 coming in a little while; theyre almost done. After import check they have been installed by visiting the arcade on your forum to see if they appear intact.
 
Make sure you write down your Mochi information, the config stuff isn't imported so you'll need to copy/paste it into vBArcade
 
The fourth beta now available includes the ibproarcade handler :) For converting existing installs and processing archive files.
 
Can confirm this is working, all my ipproarcade games are imported in vbarcade .

Great Job :)
 
Just an unfortunate note:
ibproarcade can historically import v3arcade zips - the problem is it does not mark them internally as v3arcade games.

So, while vbarcade can import from your database the games installed on ibproarcade, it wont be able to tell which ones to mark as v3arcade, and so might not process scores correctly.

The good news is, in an upcoming beta youll be able to switch the scoring system per game if it seems to be using the wrong one. Additionally, it will be able to process the same v3arcade zips that ibproarcade did, but mark them correctly.

So, if some games arent getting their scores but others are, try to find out if they used to be v3arcade games that you imported into ibproarcade.
 
Darkwaltz4, Any suggestions on what to look for to find out where these came from? I have a bunch of zip/tar files, but... yeah, I dunno how to tell what's what really. Just look at game descriptions, or are there specific telltale files type of thing?
 
The importer will detect some consistent patterns between them automatically, but if you wanted to know yourself, its sort of like this:

mochi has: zip, (gameid)/__metadata__.json
ibproarcade has: tar, (game_)(gameid)/(gameid).php or (gameid).ini
v3arcade has: zip, game/(gameid).game.php

There are probably others.
 
Does anyone happen to have the 1.0 version of v3 arcade installed, or at least the addon zipped up. I need to verify some things with the imports for it.
 
The last big piece that is just about to be available is the v3arcade handler.

Now that you guys have had a week to play around with the importer, ive only had some small requests about it, so i assume it at least works.

are there any opinions anyone wants to share on the import experience overall? Is it better than what other arcades have done?
 
So far it's pretty good and I can say it's probably smoother than the other ones I've used, less issues, etc.

Mostly things are pretty solid and running good. I'm sure there will be more input later when it comes to the UI and functionality. =)
 
As of now all of the importers are pretty much complete that i had available. only some minor stuff left and i can call this done.

is there any interest in converting old scores from v3a/ipa? its kind of difficult, but possible, so only if it seems valuable.
should i ignore v3 scores from challenges/tournaments? still counts towards stats i would think
 
Up to you really, I'm sure some people will want an importer for the scores, but since I (and others here have mentioned as well) clear out high scores routinely, not sure if it's worth your efforts to make it happen.
 
importing scores and some equivalent settings from ipa and v3a are now available from the existing install option.

i have some lingering ideas for improvement which i might try out at some point, so keeping this thread for now.
 
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