Cover Quality Discussion

[BadChad]

Second, only a select few decide which cover (in their opinions) meet site standards. This Super Bonk cover was uploaded last month and it doesn't meet site standards. (http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cover_id=13207)

Where as this cover for Super Bonk has been on the forums for over a year (http://www.mediafire.com/view/?s5ztvcdnaqjbehz). Meets sites standards 100%.
So things are a bit skewed.

May I ask what exactly is wrong with the quality of my Bonk cover? Sure, I usually do my own thing to the template to kinda keep as much of the retail box present on the back (which not everyone may be into) but I don't see how this doesn't meet standards? It was made with great quality box scans.

And I do happen to be one of the few people around here who as actually taken some of my own time to upload covers made for other people (and I know I've uploaded at least one of yours). And understand that I am not the one who put the quality standards in place, but I do respect them as a cover admin. There are times when I've wanted to upload a bunch of your covers (I've printed every cover you've made that I needed for myself), and I'm sorry if I couldn't because I felt they may not be up to the standards of what some of the other admins that are more strict than me would expect. But that's no reason to single out one of my covers and say its not up to quality if that's your reason...

And by any means, if any of the other admins have been disappointed with the quality of some of my covers since I've been an admin, please speak up! I've considered myself to do pretty well with the quality of my covers as well as approving the covers of others. If you feel differently, please say so.

[shenske]

Second, only a select few decide which cover (in their opinions) meet site standards. This Super Bonk cover was uploaded last month and it doesn't meet site standards. (http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cover_id=13207)

Where as this cover for Super Bonk has been on the forums for over a year (http://www.mediafire.com/view/?s5ztvcdnaqjbehz). Meets sites standards 100%.
So things are a bit skewed.

May I ask what exactly is wrong with the quality of my Bonk cover? Sure, I usually do my own thing to the template to kinda keep as much of the retail box present on the back (which not everyone may be into) but I don't see how this doesn't meet standards? It was made with great quality box scans.

Agree w/ Badchad. I'll borrow this pic to show as an example.  The one on the left is far better quality, which is why the cover won't be replaced.

[BadChad]

I think maybe the issue is segamer doesn't agree with the fact that we generally prefer sharper quality art over those smoothed out with filters. I've always found that segamer does a really good job at what he does and over all everything looks great (sometimes with vector logos and redrawn artwork which is completely out of my skill set), but on other covers the artwork used is sometimes smoothed out with filters or rebuilds made from cleaned up label scans/lower res art etc. which in my experience working up to a cover admin, was not always accepted.

[segamer]

SEGAMER's Cover Project Story
Before I had ever joined the cover project, I was visiting the site and downloading cover for about 3 months. All most all of the covers I downloaded where very poor in quality. So, I would clean them and fix them for myself. I decided to join, feeling that I could help the cover project. I submitted cleaned and retooled versions of the covers that I had downloaded from the site. One cover, Fatal Fury for the Genesis was so bad, I end up rebuilding it all together.



I silently waited for months. At the time, only one cover had been updated in a two month period and snowcone hadn't addressed the site in over a year. My first post questioned the state of the site and why the covers I had submitted weren't being used. I was told that the covers sucked and the site couldn't use them because they didn't meet site standards. Even though they were downloaded directly from the site, apparently they were 96 dpi. As for my Fatal Fury cover, I was told it had the wrong barcode and the picture were incorrect and therefore, it couldn't be used.

So, I researched site standards and tried again. On my next cover, it was zoomed in on and picked apart by site members. I was referred to a post that included this image and the sites standards were restated.  


So, I set out to make perfect covers that followed site rules.

Unused Ren and Stimpy cover


Even though I set out to follow the site rule 100%, it was pointed out that my work couldn't be used because I was using an outdated template (used by the discussed Bonk cover and posted to the site). This is still unnoticed by the individuals who set such high standards. Funny how these standards don't always apply.  


Shenske did a wonderful job with his templates; second to none but they aren't perfect. It uses the modern Nintendo seal as opposed to the vintage seal and parts of it were poor quality. For myself, I updated this template which includes many clean ups, and a fix Nintendo Seal. Here's a small example of the update I've use for Tengen games.


For many covers, they had to be built from the ground up because no scans are available. Wolf and I worked on this Color a Dinosaur cover for over two weeks. I had to hand re-draw the artwork. It was pains taking. The cover went largely unnoticed and unused by cover administrators. It's hurtful to spend so much time reproducing a cover to have it ignored. It really suck when ones work is being used by retrogamecases and not the cover project.


I've been at the cover project over a year. The site is full of wonderful people. BadChad is my hero, Arseen is an Angel, Almighty Wolf is a Champion, Shenske is a God amoung men, Mel is heaven sent and Wiggy's sense of coolness is beyond me. There are so many wonderful people on this site who do great work. It's always been my feeling that the site should find a way to make work by say... Mel or Wiggy available through some means. However, the process of selecting covers seems skewed. I only ever hear excuses. The process is broken to me and favors a select few.

NOTE to BadChad: I wasn't paying attention that you created the Bonk Cover. I wasn't trying to pick on you. Just make a point. My apologies. I'm a jerk. The problem with the cover is that it uses an old template with lower resolution logos and such. I've had work rejected because of this.

[Akumu]

The selection isn't so much skewed just that it is very detail oriented and strict in terms of what is acceptable to go into the database. I been here since the start and while I made many covers, there are still some that doesn't make it into the database either cause I skewed over a few details that should have been cleaned up or whatever.

You mention people like mel who are very resourceful and active but one of the concerns I see with this page and hopefully can be handled a bit more after the redesign goes live is that there is too much of a focus now on these personal or completely custom layout projects where raws aren't really put up for share but just splattered onto some sort of one color custom template or deviantart pictures copy and pasted without any real work done to clean it up and preserve, which is what this place is about to me at least. Shit there's been covers that have taken me weeks to get cleaned proper. There's nothing wrong with custom covers, but they shouldn't be the focus of the site and should probably be at a spot on the forums which doesn't get bumped to the top to avoid raws and traffic exclusively going into the personal projects. Custom boxes are more suited for vgboxart.com and such

[irvgotti452]

The selection isn't so much skewed just that it is very detail oriented and strict in terms of what is acceptable to go into the database. I been here since the start and while I made many covers, there are still some that doesn't make it into the database either cause I skewed over a few details that should have been cleaned up or whatever.

You mention people like mel who are very resourceful and active but one of the concerns I see with this page and hopefully can be handled a bit more after the redesign goes live is that there is too much of a focus now on these personal or completely custom layout projects where raws aren't really put up for share but just splattered onto some sort of one color custom template or deviantart pictures copy and pasted without any real work done to clean it up and preserve, which is what this place is about to me at least. Shit there's been covers that have taken me weeks to get cleaned proper. There's nothing wrong with custom covers, but they shouldn't be the focus of the site and should probably be at a spot on the forums which doesn't get bumped to the top to avoid raws and traffic exclusively going into the personal projects. Custom boxes are more suited for vgboxart.com and such

Well said.

[segamer]

The selection isn't so much skewed just that it is very detail oriented and strict in terms of what is acceptable to go into the database. I been here since the start and while I made many covers, there are still some that doesn't make it into the database either cause I skewed over a few details that should have been cleaned up or whatever.

You mention people like mel who are very resourceful and active but one of the concerns I see with this page and hopefully can be handled a bit more after the redesign goes live is that there is too much of a focus now on these personal or completely custom layout projects where raws aren't really put up for share but just splattered onto some sort of one color custom template or deviantart pictures copy and pasted without any real work done to clean it up and preserve, which is what this place is about to me at least. Shit there's been covers that have taken me weeks to get cleaned proper. There's nothing wrong with custom covers, but they shouldn't be the focus of the site and should probably be at a spot on the forums which doesn't get bumped to the top to avoid raws and traffic exclusively going into the personal projects. Custom boxes are more suited for vgboxart.com and such

When I say that the site has skewed standards, what I'm saying is that BadChad has a standard, Shenske has a standard, Taketaketok has a standard, etc... and they are all different standards and they are very high. Obviously the point to Bonk is that the standard for one cover administrator doesn't match that of another. It's skewed. As far as custom cover go, the site has always had them. Why is taboo now? I agree that Mel hasn't always produced perfect work but there's a lot of work that's darn good! Mel made an SNES art of Fighting cover that was darn good and should have been used by the site; in addition to a lot of gameboy covers.

Let me say this about site standards. The site needs to be scrubbed of many, many bad covers. With that said, if we completely scrubbed the site of covers that don't meet site standards, there wouldn't be many covers left.

[larryinc64]

Touching on a different point, the quality standards, The entire archive on the left needs to be re-sorted. I was going through all the GB covers on the site, in a project to convert them all to 3DS, and I found that most of the covers are bad, the ones labeled DONE! ore ones I redid, many of them, like G&WG 2 and SML have bad covers on the site.

Gameboy----------------------------------------

Adams Family, The - Bad Scans / No NTSC
Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise - Bad Scans
Alleyway - Bad Scans (I Have Better Scans)
Amazing Spider-Man, The - Bad Scans / No NTSC

Baseball - Bad Scans
Bases Loaded - Bad Scans
Bomberman GB  - Bad Scans
Boomer's Adventure in Asmik World - Bad Scans
Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2, The - Good Scans (Million Seller)
Burger Time - Bad Scans

Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge - Bad Scans
Castlevania Adventure, The - Done!
Castlevania Legends - Done!
David Crane's A Boy and his Blob in... The Rescue of Princess Blobette - No Retail
Donkey Kong - Done!
Donkey Kong Land - Done!
Donkey Kong Land 2 - Done!
Donkey Kong Land 3 - Done!
Double Dragon - Bad Scans
Dr. Mario - Done!
Duck Tales -Acceptable Scans
Duck Tales 2 - Done-ish!

F1 Race - No Retail
Faceball 2000 - Good Scans
Final Fantasy Adventure - Bad Scans
Final Fantasy Legend -Acceptable Scans
Final Fantasy Legend 2 - Good Scans
Final Fantasy Legend 3 -Acceptable Scans

Game and Watch Gallery Done!
Gameboy Camera - Done!
Gargoyle's Quest - Meh Scans / No NTSC (I Have Better Scans)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Bad Scans

James Bond 007 - - Good Scans (Million Seller)

Kid Icarus - Bad Scans
Kid Niki - No NTSC
Killer Instinct - Ok Scans
Kirby's Block Ball - OK Scans / No NTSC
Kirby's Dreamland - Done!
Kirby's Dreamland 2 - Done!
Kirby's Pinball Land
Kirby's Star Stacker

Yoshi - No NTSC
Zoop - Bad Scans

On the move to the new site, we should go through every cover we have to see what covers we should dump, I'm willing to help with GB, GBC and GBA  

I think we should have a new PLACEHOLDER cover rank for crap covers with no good scans available, crap is better than nothing.

I think we should shift focus back to site design, and worry about this when the transfer takes place.
All forum posts will be transfered over to the new site layout, right?

[Azarkhel]

I agree about the custom covers. I much prefer them for my own collection but they're not what this site should primarily be about.

That said, I agree with a lot of Segamers other points. The way covers are added is definitely flawed, unfortunately I don't really see another way around it at this point. Yes it's not ideal, but it's what we have so it has to be accepted until a viable solution can be found.

At the least, I kind of feel like the current templates should be reviewed and updated. That's an easy fix as there are quite a few older templates with low res or dirty elements.

[Akumu]

While they have slightly different standards, it's not that skewed. Getting Tik to accept a cover is not easy, but it shouldn't be, and you at least know that once he approves a cover it's been thoroughly done. The common thread between all the people approving is that they look at the effort that has gone into the cover and the picture quality. There's a lot of covers from back in the day that needs to be cleaned up again per today's standards though, I do agree with that, but in terms of the selection process its a fairly well oiled machine and the people know what to look for.

Customs aren't taboo, but there are differences to them and they aren't beneficial for this particular site, so it's slightly against the purpose. In itself I enjoy good custom work and take a look at what I see just to catch a glimpse. However there's an abundance of custom work right now and that leads to various things, one that people don't share raws for people to properly handle and restore the artwork and rather just opt for a 2 minute copy paste job. While some work from various people can be good, looking over it right now that seems to be depending on the state of the original scan's quality and not that of the artist's work on it. When there are sites that specifically focus on custom boxes, it's better to share it there for proper feedback than to clutter up this place and divert the attention away from the official artwork threads.

Nothing personal against the people who do customs at all, just that it shouldn't be in the forefront of TheCoverProject so that the raw scans get properly handled rather than hacked together into customs.

[Azarkhel]

Customs are irrelevant and shouldn't be added to the site, I have no problem with people showing their work here though. The community here is better for it as people are constructive and relatively open minded. VG Boxart can be fucking toxic at times.

In any case I think Segamers point was to illustrate his frustrations with the current upload/approval system.

[irvgotti452]

Customs are irrelevant and shouldn't be added to the site, I have no problem with people showing their work here though. The community here is better for it as people are constructive and relatively open minded. VG Boxart can be fucking toxic at times.

In any case I think Segamers point was to illustrate his frustrations with the current upload/approval system.

I feel if he takes his time and uses less blurring filters and humbles himself his covers could make it. And Akumu is 100% right about tik's acceptance. Till this day I still can't get a couple covers up. But I don't moan about it. I fix em till they are better. I have countless pm's where tik and I discussed ways to make my covers better instead of fighting an assuming that the admins where shitting on me. Pass that I wouldn't even produce anything below that standard. After all this is an artwork conservation site to begin with.

[larryinc64]

I thin customs hat look retail should be allowed, especially place of a missing cover.
Stuff like:Vertical custom SNES and N64 covers, Genesis Red Spine conversions from black grid, Et.
Maybe stuff like this SMB3 over I stared awhile ago.



Also, I submitted a few 3DS covers a while back and never heard from anyone about them.

[Azarkhel]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the sites standards should be lowered at all. Perfection is unattainable but should always be strived toward. Getting some covers knocked back isn't going to kill anyone.

Ultimately I think the issue is the communication between those that upload and those that approve that frustrates people. I do understand that this is unavoidable though for the most part, Cover Admin isn't a full time job, it's a hobby. I'm well aware that the business of inspecting, writing notes and messaging people is time consuming and really, not something people want to do after a hard days work at their day jobs.

[segamer]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the sites standards should be lowered at all. Perfection is unattainable but should always be strived toward. Getting some covers knocked back isn't going to kill anyone.

Ultimately I think the issue is the communication between those that upload and those that approve that frustrates people. I do understand that this is unavoidable though for the most part, Cover Admin isn't a full time job, it's a hobby. I'm well aware that the business of inspecting, writing notes and messaging people is time consuming and really, not something people want to do after a hard days work at their day jobs.

This past month, I downloaded Kid Icarus for NES, Castlevania Adventures II for GB, Little Samson for NES and Castlevania Double Pack for GBA. Not a single one was good. No joke. Little Samson made me vomit in my mouth. I actually found a much better build on the forums. Sad isn't it?  I can't tell you how many substandard covers are on the site's data base. I would guess over 50% based on my own experience. So here some simple facts.

Fact 1
There aren't enough members that can making cover that meet site standards.

Fact 2
There aren't enough active cover administrators to approve covers. (As you mentioned, they have lives.)

So, the numbers don't add up. Very little gets done. I'm not sure if the Little Samson on the forums meets site standards but if it's better then the one available on the data base, why not replace it as a placeholder? If Mels rendition of a cover is the only one that exists, why not make it available until a higher quality cover can be produced? I don't agree with Arseen's standards (it's unlikely he would approve a single one of my covers).  However, the guy is dedicated and it's why I've petitioned to make him a cover admin.  The site desperately needs ACTIVE cover admins.