Now you see just SOME of the many reasons I quit maintaining it a couple of years ago.....
The database has become so expansive that no one person could possibly be able to maintain it all by their self and still have any kind of life left over. It MUST be a collaborative effort.
I remember when I first started what is now the Official GBATemp Cheat Database. It was kinda fun back then......there wasn't SO MANY
cheats to be added all the time like there is now. The biggest issue back then was people not wanting their
cheats in the database, they intended to keep those
cheats to them and their friends, not share them with the world. But that's a whole other story in and of itself.....
Now there are thousands of games, tens of thousands of codes for all those games, it's frakking insane! I myself couldn't program a stinking .bat file without help, I'm no programmer/coder (I just did a lot of copy/paste/save as... when I maintained it), but we need a type of internet cheat database that allows members to hand-select the games they want cheats for from a list, then assemble it into a down-loadable cheat file tailored just for their flashcart. This way, they would only have the cheats they need for only the games they actually play, not EVERY freaking code in the database. It would make the file smaller, which I understand is an issue on some older flashcarts. It would be a whole lot simpler than trying to teach people to use R4CCE when many people are not too computer literate. And it would be easier for the people who maintain the "magic" database to do it a little at a time instead of having to do everything at once.
But like I said, I'm no programmer. I can see it in my head, but I wouldn't have the slightest clue how to make it happen. Maybe some talented coder could code up a magical database site like that, but I certainly couldn't.
The funniest part though is that I don't really even use cheats myself. This is not to say that I don't occasionally use a cheat to get me over a hump or "stuck place" in a game, or just to have fun with an old game I've beaten before. It just means I don't have the interest in cheats enough to add EVERY CODE ON THE PLANET to the dat and provide it for everyone anymore. It used to be easy when there was only hundreds of games, but now there are thousands. It's just too much for any one person to deal with without some kind of helper program. But I still think about it.
That brings us to R4CCE, pretty much the definitive cheat code editor that you can use, but many can't (or won't) learn how to use it. And you have to admit that adding codes, uploading the dat, verifying codes and keeping it all maintained takes forever. So if we had a "magic" internet based database where you could select your games, select your flashcart brand, hit download and get a custom cheat file, that would be awesome!
There could be a staff appointed that would add/alter/edit or remove codes to the database as necessary as they are submitted to......say.....someplace like
http://cheats.gbatemp.net/forum/ but they wouldn't always have to be compiling it into a huge down-loadable file anymore. The magic database could compile the the dat based on member's preferences and would be a hell of a lot smaller, not to mention simpler for everyone to deal with and we wouldn't have so many people whining about cheats so much.......or at least I would assume.
I would recommend a couple of basic rules to this magic database.....
1. No online WiFi cheats would be supplied. Local multiplayer maybe, since with local multi all the peeps you play with are right there around you, but not online where you are unleashing nothing but a bad time on any unsuspecting online player who has the misfortune of joining a game with you. You want those kinds of codes, you will have to find/add/create them for your own custom dat yourself.
2. Only registered members of GBAtemp would be able to access the "magic" database. What people do with the codes after they get them does not concern me. (Would this be too much of a "dick move"?)
Well, that's the fantasy database that I see in my head anyway......
Wish I could make it happen.