General metaFAQ v2 (please read before posting!)
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What are these ''tip jars''? First note that you should sign up for PayPal to use this service. Begin by going to ''Update Info'' from Contributor Central. (http://www.gamefaqs.com/contribute/update_info) There, at the bottom, you will see instructions on how to make a PayPal button. PayPal is an online means of donating and receiving donations from others; the process on the Update Info page will link you to PayPal's help section (https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/get-started/donate-button) on making a donation link/button. Follow the prescribed steps. I recommend these specifications for the button: - Button type: Donate. - Organization name and service are not required. Choose one if you wish, however. - Customize button: It is simplest to use the normal small button type without the credit card logos, to be as unobtrusive as possible. You may choose to create a custom image, but it's simplest to ignore that. Also be sure to select your country of residence and your language (for most of you, that will be ''United States -- English''), with the appropriate currency based on where you live (''USD'', or ''United States Dollars'', for most of you). - Opt to let the donor choose their own amount, for their own convenience. Some might not be able to forward you $10, others might want to give more, for example. - Choose the merchant ID option appropriate for you. Click on ''Create Button'' after and you should get some code looking like: <form action=''https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr'' method=''post'' target=''_top''> (NOTE: Do NOT use that code above here. That will not work for you or anyone, as it's just to show you what you need to copy. It will not look exactly like this, either.) Once you have this code, copy it in whole and paste it into the designated box on your Update Info page. What are the icons in front of FAQs? What do they mean? - Empty circle: Skeleton FAQ (rarely posted these days) - Half circle: Incomplete FAQ (which covers part of the game, but not all) - Full circle: Complete FAQ (which covers all of the game's main content, usually up to the main credits roll or end of the plot) - Trophy: Winner of the FAQ of the Month contest - Hollow Star: ''Most Recommended'', meaning it ranks around the top 2% of recommended guides on the site - Full Star: ''Top Rated'', meaning the users have given it an approval rating of 77% or more after 20 votes have been received - Blue ''G'': ''Official GameFAQs Guide'', a guide acquired by GameFAQs through a contract with the author (discussed later) Note that full stars are limited to the top 20% of a game's FAQs. Also note that reviews can get all of these, save for the ''Official GameFAQs Guide'' logo, with an exception for full stars being that they are earned after a minimum of 10 votes. |
How are FAQs sorted? There is a sort of ''tiering system'' for FAQs. FAQs within the same tier will be sorted alphabetically by author's name. - Contract FAQs (''Official GameFAQs Guides'') - Winners of a full star, a hollow star, and FotM - Winners of a full star and a hollow star - Winners of a full star - Winners of a hollow star and FotM - Winners of a hollow star - Winners of FotM - Complete FAQs - Half-circle - Skeleton What does ''FotM'' mean? It stands for ''FAQ of the Month''. It refers to the monthly contest in which the five best FAQs are selected (though sometimes fewer). You must apply first: http://www.gamefaqs.com/contribute/submit_entry.php Do note that you cannot enter one specific guide in both FotM and Bounty contests at the same time; it's one or the other. Winners of FotM will be given at least a Trophy icon next to their guide (which ranks above other guides to a slight degree) and will also be awarded a $100 gift card to an online retailer, typically Amazon. Registration for FotM runs until the 15th of the next month (for example, May FotM registration runs until June 15th), and winners are announced usually 1-2 weeks thereafter, although it can vary depending on the administation's schedules. Announcements are typically made public on this board, so check back every now and then! But FotM is U.S.-only! Can I really not apply from outside the U.S.? You actually can, due to a loophole. When entering the contest, simply enter any valid U.S. address when asked; even though you don't live in the U.S., you'll still receive the gift card (since it's sent via e-mail). Do note that coupons from amazon.com can not be spent on partner websites around the globe (such as amazon.co.uk or amazon.de). The most common address used is the address of the White House: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20500 How can I improve my odds of winning FotM? There are several things: - Often, most FotM winners will write for a new game, and a popular one at that. (This is not a rule, as older games have won, but it greatly ups your odds.) - Usually, FotM winners are for full, complete General FAQs. Only four in-depth FAQs have won at this time, and none (that were known at the awarding to be) incomplete. - The guide should have substantial amounts of content and be at least mostly comprehensive. - The guide shouldn't plagiarize. Information from credited sources is okay, but ripping off other people's work will likely result in a loss of the contest, and probably having the guide removed altogether. - Having great formatting and use of Formatted FAQ features (should you use one) is a big plus. - Your FAQ is written in English. GameFAQs commonly accepts FAQs for other languages than English, but English FAQs tend to be the only ones that win because the common user of the site (despite the advent of Google Translate) is unable to read foreign-language guides. Note that it is extremely rare to win FAQ of the Month back-to-back (i.e. in June and July); it's to keep it fair by stopping people from hogging the FotM wins. It is nonetheless still possible, often if you do something impressive in the guides for a given month, like provide a substantial amount of information found nowhere else. |
What is an FAQ Bounty? Basically, it is a prize for writing the first, high-quality guide for a game. Usually, only highly popular games will be offered a Bounty. For FAQ Bounties, the FAQ must be a Formatted FAQ (raw formatting or Editor) and be complete; it must also offer a number of extra features, depending on the expecations of the administration. For example, for a fighting game (i.e. Super Smash Bros. for 3DS), you would be expected to cover all fighters and a number of strategies. The money awarded for the Bounty varies from $50 upward, usually capping at $250, and is dependent on the detail required in a guide and on the popularity and demand for the game and guide itself. You can view the current FAQ Bounties here - http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/faqbounty.html. Awards are granted in cash, rather than gift cards; additionally, Bounties are international. You can claim a Bounty from here - http://www.gamefaqs.com/contribute/submit_bounty_claim. What is a Contract FAQ? SBAllen currently has a topic regarding these on this board; be sure to track it to get updates on new contracts! This is a relatively new system in which you and GameFAQs negotiate for a guide written by you; in turn, CBSi will pay you an agreed-upon sum of money. You may also have the cost of the game itself waived, and may even get a prerelease copy (though the latter is usually only within the U.S.). Your guide, once complete, will be dubbed the ''Official GameFAQs Guide'' for the game in question and by definition placed above all of the others on the list. What does it mean to license my guides to GameFAQs? Essentially, you're saying you let them host them; it's a permissions thing. This is a bit more complicated with FAQ Bounties, FotM winners, and Contract FAQs, however - if you win one of these contests, then you cannot request that your guide be removed from GameFAQs in most circumstances. What do the abbreviations in the FAQ Progress topic mean? We'll usually have an ''Ongoing FAQ Progress'' topic here on the board. Feel free to chime in with whatever's going on for you in your life and with your guide-writing! - FP: FAQ Progress - RP: Review Progress (yes, some people here pull double-duty!) - GP: Game Progress - LP: Life Progress (yes, even if it's not ''progress'') - MP: Music Progress (or Movie Progress) - BP: Book Progress - CP: Charity Project or Completion Project Who handles contributions? Contrary to most people's knowledge, the administrator SBAllen deals with contributions at this time - not the moderators! Devin Morgan - another admin - currently handles other technicalities of the website, though he has pushed through submissions for popular games' new FAQs at times. There were at some point plans to hire someone else for contributions, but details are currently unknown. There are several other admins and data admins on the site who help keep things running as well, but they're not known to interfere with contributions. How long does it take for my guide to get accepted/updated? Less than 24 hours during workdays: site updates are usually handled during business hours (9 AM ~ 5 PM) in the U.S. Updates are queued over the weekend, so if you submit something Friday night, you'll need to wait until Monday morning for it to get posted. The queue (at Contributor Central) turns green whenever it has been cleared. It then usually takes a day before it's fully cleared again, although existing updated FAQs are sometimes updated sooner. During holidays, updates may take longer. (Note that there are some exceptions, as the administrators are human. Special exceptions have been made for popular games during weekends and holidays in the past, though otherwise the queue will usually just pile up.) |
What characters can I use in my guides? You can use any of the following characters, which make up the standard ASCII character set. Basically, anything reproducible with a standard English keyboard. - The 26 lowercase letters (a-z) - The 26 uppercase letters (A-Z) - The 10 numbers (0-9) - The space character - 32 punctuation marks: ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) - = _ + [ ] { } \ | ; : ' '' , . < > / ? ` ~Are there any more characters I can use? There is an extension to standard ASCII known as ASCII-II. There are characters that can be made by using the Alt key and pressing four keys on the Number Pad. For example, if you hold Alt and press 1, 3, 0 in that order, you produce the symbol ''é''. These symbols are allowed to be posted. You cannot, however, use other characters within Unicode. There is an exception in the character set of Japanese (Shift-JIS). A list of ASCII-II characters can be found here (http://www.theasciicode.com.ar/ascii-control-characters/start-of-text-ascii-code-2.html). Just hold Alt and type the ASCII code to get the character. How do I submit a Shift-JIS FAQ, then? When you construct the FAQ, it is still best to do so in Notepad or JWPce. Formatting-wise, Formatted FAQs typically work best as JIS characters are not fixed-width. When saving the file, be sure it is still saved with the *.txt extension, but make sure that the encoding is not ANSI but UTF-8. When you go to submit the FAQ, there is an ''additional notes'' box above the ''Submit'' button in which you must place a note that mentions that this particular FAQ uses Shift-JIS formatting, as the administration handles these differently than most FAQs. What are ''hits''? Hits refer to the amount of clicks that have been made on your guide, and more narrowly are an indication of how many people you've helped with your guides. Since there are bots, and since the same people will click your guide many times over and over, your hits total does not equal the amount of people you've helped. Nonetheless, it remains a good indication of how popular your work is. What is considered a high amount of hits? For guides, anything above 500,000 total hits is generally considered quite high. Guides with millions of hits have the highest amounts this site has ever recorded. For reviews, anything with 20,000+ hits can be considered very high. For Top 10 lists, (tens of) thousands of hits is considered relatively normal, with 75,000 or more being very high. |
What are recommendations/votes? Whenever someone looks at a guide, they can choose to vote ''Yes'' or ''No'' - via the header - as for whether they would recommend it. They can also leave a comment about the guide, to be viewed on your Contribution Hits page. The result of taking together these votes creates your FAQ's approval rating, which is considered ''accurate'' after 20 votes. An FAQ with 77% or higher approval gets a full, black star, while an FAQ with a lot of ''Yes'' votes gets a hollow, white star. Now, yes, trolls do come about and mess with guides. This is a fact. They can lower your rating as a result. 77% might seem low, equitable to a ''C'', but, in reality, it actually marks a near-perfect guide. Keep in mind that the following is not the only system for contextualizing votes, and neither is there an official or correct one. The current system, while good for general quality, is not a 100% indicator of quality, as quality is itself subject to perception, idiocy, and ignorance. You are more than welcome to abide by your own chosen system should you so choose. Indeed, the influence of trolls and other people who don't understand certain aspects of the guide or minor things will offset the accuracy of the system, so take everything with a grain of salt. If you truly believe the guide is as good as it can get, and you have a reasonable number of (rational) users agreeing with you, that's about as good as it can get. After all, guides for some games can only go so far; you might be trolled for not writing a step-by-step guide for Pac-Man, for example, but can ANYONE really do that? That's something to take into the mind: the limitations of the game, the limited perception of the users, and, of course, trolls. And, yes, to some degree that does influence the accuracy of the system. People have been known to downvote guides for the most minor, tedious, and literally-wrong things. Sometimes it will stem from stupidity or lack of knowledge, sometimes it is legitimate. In all honesty, we cannot ascertain how accurate the system is. This is one of the ways to contextualize the approval rating. Again, it's hardly official, but it's a lot better than the letter-grade system many are tempted to use (which is VERY wrong). - 85% or higher: Something nearly impossible, but worth shooting for - 77% or higher: This marks an awesome guide virtually beyond any improvement - 70%-77%: This marks a great, near-perfect guide - 60%-70%: This marks a good guide overall (the GameFAQs average approval hovers around 65% as of late) - 50%-60%: While good in certain respects, this guide may fall short in others - 50% or lower: While your guide does well in certain respects, it would help to, for example, poll the game's board or other FAQ authors to see what else they'd like covered (since, after all, they are the ones using your guide!) At the end of the day, we contributors and GameFAQs as a whole are thankful for any and all contributions you make for the site - that's the goal of our collective, to help people! Even if the numbers do reflect that your guides seem to be junk, odds are that is not wholly true; you might be able to make some improvements, sure, but always take into account idiots. It's not just intelligent, rational people voting Yes or No. I'll put it in the words of what another FAQ author has said on the issue: ''Good authors will always seek to improve their work, bad authors will not.'' By the way, if, for some reason, you wish to be unable to view the approval ratings and comments on your guides (some people have gotten very nasty comments in the past, though you can now ''delete'' the comment), you can go here - http://www.gamefaqs.com/contribute/update_info (edited 5 years ago) |
What is ''KB whoring''? In short, it's a controversial subject that arises every now and then on the board. It has to do with the (putative) inflation of guides, solely or primarily to increase one's KB total. ''KB whoring'' is as such an intentional act and goal of the author. These days it is believed – or at least hoped – by many to be an extinct phenomenon, even though the subject still gives rise to major disputes at odd times. Ever since hits have been made visible to authors, the insight slowly sank in that ‘more content' doesn't always equal ''more people helped''. Hey, my FFAQ has lower KB than what my computer says. What gives? This is a KB-whoring preventative started recently for FFAQs; one author was filling his FAQ with commented text the user cannot see so as to inflate his FAQ's size. Thus, now the system will strip out the formmating from a guide and evaluate the guide's KB without that. For some FAQs, it will only be a drop of about of 10 or 20 KB. For some - particularly table-heavy ones like my Final Fantasy X-2 HD FAQ, which lost ~1,500 KB - it can be more drastic. At the end of the day, the file size isn't what matters, so don't fret over it. What are Completion Projects? These are projects with the aim to have a complete/full FAQ for every game of a certain platform (such as the NES or the Game Boy). More information on these can be found in the respective topics. There also exist completion projects for other types of contributions as well - screenshots, box images, reviews, game home page descriptions... There's a lot going on! What are Charity Projects? A charity project focuses on one of the major problems in the world (such as (childhood) cancer, extreme poverty, slavery, etc.) and raises money by having one or more authors writing a guide for a certain game, selling licenses and asking for donations to get as many funds as possible. If you have any questions regarding charity guide projects, you are welcome to ask AbsoluteSteve any questions about them at faq@shillatime.org. I lost the raw markup file for my Formatted FAQ! How can I get it back!? (Note that you can use this to retrieve the markup for Editor-based FAQs. However, that will be in HTML and GameFAQs won't accept it. This ''trick'' really is only useful with FAQs originally created in the raw markup, not those in the Editor.) It'll help to begin by going any FAQ on the site, first. Preferably a text FAQ, because they have a ''printable'' version option that refers to the database domain on GameFAQs. Click on that option and you'll see a URL like the below (from BSulpher's Super Mario Bros. 3 FAQ). http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/super_mario_brothers_3_e.txt Notice the structure of this URL. http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/xxxxx/file/yyyyy_z.txt - xxxxx is the console name. ''ps4'', ''nes'', ''3ds'', ''sms'', etc. - yyyyy is the game name, in full, with underscores for spaces. (There are exceptions to this rule.) - z is a letter referencing the FAQ ''number'' in the database. Brian's was ''e'', and thus #6, since the first FAQ often gets no letter designation. With this info in mind, go to ''Contribute'' and act as if you're about to submit an update for your FAQ. When you navigate to it, you should see some text in parentheses, like in the screenshot here: http://i.imgur.com/1u685dE.png See that text within the parentheses in the red box? Copy it, without the parentheses. That is the ''yyyyy_z.txt'' bit in the previous URL. Fill in the console name alongside it in that generic URL and you should be able to get an actual URL that links straight to the raw formatting for your file. |
~ MAPS, IMAGES, & CHARTS QUESTIONS ~ I want to make a map. Where do I begin? And how? It is best to begin with the mapping software. A variety of software is used, but most people will use one of the following: - Microsoft Paint or like programs - GIMP or Photoshop (GIMP is free: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/), which offer a variety of different functions Paint is preferred since GIMP/PS often tempt people into making increasingly complex images. Some people will also use emulators or other software to take screenshots and ''sew'' them together to make a map, seen as-is in the game. Hand-drawn maps or screenshot maps? Which do I pick? There are two styles of mapping. You can either draw it freehand, attempting to emulate the video game environment to some degree, or use a screenshot map, showing the game exactly as it is. Each have advantages: Freehand: - Better for 3D games with multiple perspectives or to simplify the complex graphics on some 2D games - Great for games on 32-bit consoles or higher, as their screenshots will consume a lot of data - Can be a lot simpler to look at, and give the creator more freedom - Takes practice to get good at, but you don't feel the need to be pixel-perfect Screenshots: - Best for 2D games, like platformers or top-down RPGs - Great for games on 16-bit consoles or simpler, preferably 8-bit - Is the exact same as the game environment - Allows for higher precision I'm mapping the game. What's the best approach? It depends on the game in question, but it often depends on the game's design. - 2D and 2.5D: For games like these, creating a sort of ''trace over'' of the actual game often suffices. The end result is often similar enough to be navigable. - 3D: For these games, you often have to look at the game from an alternate perspective. Sometimes, tracing a minimap can help. If that's not available, you can often try to imagine looking at the game's area from above and map it that way. Should I annotate it? Yes, add annotations when something important needs pointing out. Most people use annotations for items and treasures, doorways between areas, shops, and generally-important notes for the most part. Bosses also are important, and some people will also note individual enemies' locations, depending on the game. It is best to be sure that your annotations ''stand out'' to some degree; for example, you can use a yellow square with black text in the middle to mark treasure chests, since yellow and black have high contrast. It may help to look at other authors' works for some inspiration; I doubt we'd mind, so long as you don't actually steal our stuff! What do I need in my image? - Its title and a copyright notice from the author - The map itself - Sufficient annotation, and a legend as well if used |
What file type should I save it as? There are only three file types you should bother with, and one of those is very tentative. Animated GIFs/PNGs/etc. are not typically accepted these days, though a few do exist on the site if you do enough digging. - GIF (*.gif): These are best for simple, hand-drawn images and charts, and thus usually compress them smaller. This is a lossless format. With that said, however, it will be much preferred for you to use PNG, because of the expanded color palette (significantly higher than GIF's 256 colors). - PNG (*.png): These are best for screenshot maps in most cases. It is also good for most hand-drawn maps since the color palette available here is wider than in GIF. (In GIF, if you have a color outside its standard palette, that color is pixelated into two other colors that ''blend'' when seen at a distance to the original color - it, however, makes editing harder in the future in that case.) This, too, is a lossless format. - JPEG (*.jpg/*.jpeg): These are very rarely accepted, and should never be used unless necessary. JPEGs are used for photographic-quality images; you don't see that quality except maybe in the modern generation of consoles. If you use a JPEG, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have a back-up of the original saved in PNG format. JPEG is a lossy format, which can cause the color pixels to blend in compression, literally ruining the image's ability to be fixed at a later time by itself; thus the back-up. How do I submit a map, image, etc., once I'm done? Begin by opting to contribute a guide to a game via Contributor Central. Opt to submit a new guide for a game. Search for your game in the page that appears, then click on it and the release of the game that you're writing for. If you submitted for this game previously, be sure to specify that you are not making an update. Then select your map/image from the ''File to Upload'' box. When told to select what type of file it is, click on ''Other''. A dialogue box will appear for you to provide a description. This will be the name of your map as it appears on GameFAQs. For example, if it were a map of World 2-4 in Super Mario Bros., you should use ''World 2-4 Map''. Basically, what you want your map to be called. Once this is inputted, fill in the version number and stuff as usual, then opt to upload. Is there a maximum image file size? Not strictly. GameFAQs will not usually take images over 350 KB in size without due reason; most of the time, you'll almost never see an image above 500 KB. Being above that is an almost sure-shot at rejection except in special instances. How can I lower image file size? To one end, you can literally crop the image itself. If you have wide chunks of empty space in your image, you may want to consider rearranging the contents of the map so it fits together better; if you can reduce the actual dimensions, it can reduce the size significantly. The other popular method is using a file compressor/optimizer. For GIF and PNG files, you should use PNGGauntlet (http://pnggauntlet.com/) or PngOptimizer (http://psydk.org/pngoptimizer) for downloadable software, or the online TinyPNG (http://www.tinypng.org/). These will convert GIFs to PNG and strip the files of random useless junk for both formats to make them smaller. For JPEG, you may want to use JPEGOptimizer (http://jpeg-optimizer.com/). These will NOT harm the actual image and will leave it unchanged; they just strip away random bits of metadata and other stuff you cannot see/affect. Certain image processors can also lower the number of colors in an image's palette and you can also literally shrink the dimensions of an image to help compress their physical size (and thus their data size). These are not recommended, however, unless absolutely necessary. Be sure to explore even the alternative of making a freehand map for these games. |
Will GameFAQs accept duplicate images? Usually, one image on a subject - one map of a dungeon, one map of a level, etc. - is fine. GameFAQs may accept an additional image if you offer a significant amount of content more than the other image, however. But, in general, it is best to focus on games with few/no images when possible. You'd be surprised how many highly-popular titles have no maps at all! |
~ GUIDE HOSTING SITES ~ These lists are not comprehensive, and are just some of the more common ones used by the veterans of this board. If you have any particular questions about a site not on this list, feel free to post a topic and get some opinions. Good: - GameFAQs, of course (http://www.gamefaqs.com/) - IGN (http://www.ign.com/) - My Cheats (http://mycheats.1up.com) - Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com/) - Supercheats (http://www.supercheats.com/) - Chapter Cheats (http://www.chaptercheats.com/) - Cheat Masters (http://www.cheatmasters.com/) - Games Radar (http://www.gamesradar.com/) - Gamers Temple (http://www.gamerstemple.com/) - VGMaps (http://www.vgmaps.com/) (for maps, but you'll have to submit them there yourselves via e-mail) Untrustworthy: (often known for stealing authors' guides) - Cheat Code Central / CheatCC (http://www.cheatcc.com/) - Cheat Database (http://www.cheat-database.com/) - Cheat Index (http://www.cheatindex.com/) - Cheatstop (http://www.panstudio.com/cheatstop) - Cheats Guru (http://www.cheatsguru.com/) - Game Express (http://www.gameexpress.com/) Users from external wikis sometimes steal from GameFAQs as well, so keep your eyes open and trust on your readers to pick out the rotten apples. ALWAYS protect your work with a basic copyright section such as the below. (If you wish, you can copy and paste it into your own text guide, as it fits within the 80-characters-per-line limitation of GameFAQs.) ''This document may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any website or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web- site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. Do not copy or alter this guide, and do not present it as your own. The creation of this guide took a lot of time, and we would appreciate it greatly if you'd respect that. Below is a list of sites that are allowed to host this document and/or adaptations of it. The latest update of this text file can always be found at GameFAQs.com.'' Please don't include things like ''I'll know where to find you'', ''if you steal this, lawyers will be on the case'', or ''your nuts will be mine''; it just makes you look stupid and might actually provoke some people to send you spam mail. You are not required to give your real name when providing a copyright notice. Usually something like ''(c) 2015 KeyBlade999'' will suffice (in other words, the use of your username). |
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