TCP - What I've learned so far

[akumaizer]

So it's been two months since I discovered and joined this forum.  I'm not the most frequent of posters, but I can tell you that I am reading these forums multiple times every day since I joined.  So, with well over 200 games once loose and now boxed courtesy of TCP, UGCs and DS cases I've learned a few things since I've been here.

- This is obvious, but some of you guys are really good at what you do and man do I appreciate it.  I've learned how to take some of the templates and make placeholders in GIMP but some of the stuff people do here is quite amazing and way beyond my skills.  Hats off.

- I was a bit too hasty when I first joined and was so anxious to print everything right away.  And I did.  Problem with that though is as I continued to discover different artists on the site, different styles, and my taste slightly changing, I eventually had everything printed twice.  I got sucked into the verticle world for SNES and N64 like many of you have and eventually all of my retail prints at first became wastes.  I guess if I had any advice to someone, it would be to soak it all in for a while first, get a full grasp of how much stuff is here not just on the site itself, but all the amazing covers people are hosting and posting their links to here on the forum.  Really stop and think about how you want your collection to look and what works best for you.

- I'm amazed by how young some of you are!  Early 20s... really?  I'm not complaining and quite honestly I'm used to being the old fart nowadays.  I'm still amazed though.  I guess I shouldn't be, I see young kids looking through NES games at local stores sometimes.  But geez, some of my games are the games I bought 25 years ago heh.  My one consolation is that I figure with many people, once the real world hits or they lose interest many will be selling their stuff off in a few years.  

- The pickup threads only make me sad.  I wish I had time to bargain hunt as much as some of you do.  I will hit flea markets and garage sales up once in a while but I know you have to be dedicated.  Life is too busy and I am still able to fit a good portion to playing games, but not enough time to do some really good hunting.  Oh well, I'll continue to pay the "sucker" prices for a lot of stuff.  

There's probably a few more things but that's all I can come up with off the top of my head.  Glad to be here and looking forward to sticking around.

[Dr.Agon]

you forgot to mention just how nice everyone is!

[akumaizer]

you forgot to mention just how nice everyone is!

Ha!  This is true.

Another thing I forgot and this is kind of a big one.  I had this notion when I joined that whatever we didn't have a cover for here, I could just post in the Request Forum and it would be fulfilled.  I think a lot of people make this assumption when they join as well.  Obviously (well now at least) it's not that simple.  If there are no scans for it people just can't make things out of thin air.  Plus, people making covers are doing this out of the goodness of their heart and owe you nothing so being rude about being "ignored" is not going to help you.  I never thought this but I have seen a few posts in my couple months that clearly don't get this.  When something obscure wasn't here and clearly wasn't going to get made unless a scan appeared, I learned to adapt and make do.  Placeholder covers, sometimes with really shitty low-res covers and playing around with different fonts and just typing the title in the spine had to do.  If you don't know about them, familiarize yourself with the amazing templates posted here and working with layers.  It will make the crummiest of placeholders seem decent looking from the side.

[Dravenae]

- I'm amazed by how young some of you are!  Early 20s... really?  I'm not complaining and quite honestly I'm used to being the old fart nowadays.  I'm still amazed though.  I guess I shouldn't be, I see young kids looking through NES games at local stores sometimes.  But geez, some of my games are the games I bought 25 years ago heh.  My one consolation is that I figure with many people, once the real world hits or they lose interest many will be selling their stuff off in a few years.  

You say that now, but 25 years on and your still collecting!

Glad you enjoy it here bud!

[Nacho3]

you forgot to mention just how nice everyone is!

I was gonna say this Doc! This is the only forum that I visit on a regular basis simply for this fact. I rarely see anybody being an ass on here and when they are the other person usually just shrugs it off and it doesn't get out of hand.

[Umbra]

- I'm amazed by how young some of you are!  Early 20s... really?

Haven't even reached that point yet But yeah I stumbled on this site from vgboxart and quite honestly it's proven itself to be far superior. Haven't used it since.

[kaysow]

@aku - still it's pretty amazing how willing people round here are to oblige. i've never seen a forum where so many people will step up when some newcomer mentions a game they can't find a cover for. i get that it's a collaborative effort to cover a lot of releases but it's still extremely accomodating.

[wiggy]

I will definitely second the notion that one should look around the site first before printing covers.  Even though I make my own templates/covers, I STILL wish I had spent more time on my older covers and templates (SNES and N64 most notably). There are quite a few things in my SNES template the I'd love to tweak, but now that I'm 200+ covers in, there's no way I'm gonna go back and re-do them and then re-print. 

I'll also second that this is a great community.  Some really talented, intelligent, resourceful folks here.  My post count alone should be a good indicator of how much I like this place

[Azazell0]

I have to agree on everything, especially on the great community spirit. I've got so much help for myself here that I'm actually feeling bad I haven't been able to contribute more, since I suck at photoshopping.

In the near future though I'm getting a new copy/scan/printer, so I'll be working on getting a few covers on the site that are not there already. First contribution is coming though, when Arseen posts the Ski or Die covers from my box 

[mojoeskateco]

Yup, this is a great place to be and pretty much the only forum I post on frequently.

I wish I would have examined all the cover options as well.

I've printed a crap load of horizontal SNES covers and the verticals are calling out to me  .  I just love how uniform they look in collection photos I've seen on the site.

The other thing I like is that you don't have to have a huge and crazy collection to be welcomed into the community.

Some of the nicest setups I've seen don't have a crazy amount of games in them but I still draw inspiration from seeing quality titles set up and displayed nice.

Most important thing is that just having fun collecting is emphasized here.

[akumaizer]

Everybody's comments here have been spot on.  Glad I started this sap-fest of a thread!

[Arseen]

In the near future though I'm getting a new copy/scan/printer, so I'll be working on getting a few covers on the site that are not there already.

My cheapo Canon MP-190 (40 euros) does pretty good job.

First contribution is coming though, when Arseen posts the Ski or Die covers from my box

Herra on hyvä ja lukee boardit tarkemmin :

Here are 600DPI scans of Ski or Die
Click to download.
Is quality good enough or is rescanning needed before I return the box.

[Arseen]

Seing this on big screen made me realize rescan is needed on the back atleast.

[Blumpkin]

TCP is hands down the best online community that I've found. My games are getting cased, I'm adding scans of games that I have, and now I'm even buying boxes of games that I don't have just to upload them here. It's like a hippie commune that actually works. lol