Definitely. It's meant about not pushing your own political agenda. Not about depicting Bush balling in NBA Jam.
Not sure if it's exactly the same topic, but the Sonic Adventure Bug Database has a bunch of reports under "SEGA Standards" that list specific rules the game is at risk of violating and how they're being violated. Don't know if we have any documents that these people would have been referencing at the time but at least I know we have the database.
My original plan was to pick and choose bits we might care about, but that'll be annoying to work with when it comes to actually adding results. So I scavenged through the Dreamcast document and listed 128 "required" items. Watch me tidy things in real time at Sega Retro:Todo/Compliance2 No Dreamcast games will require 128 checks - a good chunk of these are for specific peripherals, networking or VMU software. We can probably auto-detect which bits aren't worth listing (and which won't need screenshots). My hope is from an editing perspective, it'll just look like this: Code (Text): | 15.1.4_image1=Whatever.png | 15.1.4_result=pass | 15.1.4_comments=everything died it's not "nice" syntax... but I don't know how to do better
Having all these Dreamcast rules set out in front me highlights some obsessions and naivety from Sega of America (or maybe more accurately, Sega of Japan, since the translations aren't always great). - I mentioned it before but there's so much about the software reset function (to the point where even the VMUs have one). And it's crazy because yes, it's mentioned in the manual, but I'd hazard a guess the vast majority of Dreamcast owners never knew it existed. I discovered it by accident back in the day (and thought I'd broken the game) - if it wasn't for the fact the Saturn had it too, you'd think they could have saved a lot of typing just by including a physical reset button on the console. - They are terrified of the Dreamcast Gun. I had read that certain NTSC-U games demand a Dream Blaster rather than Sega's official peripheral, but I figured the test was for the Dream Blaster, as opposed to against the Dreamcast Gun. It's all based on some weird, ill-defined check to ensure that "realistic" looking guns couldn't be sold in the US... but I'm not sure what's stopping you from faking it. Or why they didn't just paint everything in SAFETY ORANGE. I can get why they might not want to make these things work on US Dreamcasts but the fact still remains that you've got this device in your house. The orange tip thing was designed to help other humans - the console isn't going to get confused and shoot back. - Their networking coverage is just... weird. It's like they couldn't comprehend the feature being used outside of two scenarios: web browsing, and... 1-vs-1 fighting games. Like we're emulating a Versus City cabinet or something: In a Japanese arcade environment you might not see who you're playing against (which I must admit is something I only clocked when Masahiro Sakurai talked about it last week). I'm not super sure what the most popular online games genres were of the late 1990s (at least in Japan - obviously there were things like Doom and Quake in the West), but on a 56K modem... I wouldn't have said the high frame rate, super precise world of fighting games. I'm not even sure Sega tried putting this genre online on the Dreamcast.
There is speculation that it was cancelled due to Columbine. There's a chance that SoA thought releasing a light gun when that was still a hot topic would be in poor taste.
Dreamcast peripherals support region locking, but most devices are marked as region free. Light guns are probably the only exception. The US version of Virtua Cop 2 forgets to check the region of any attached light guns, so it works with the Japanese light gun.
Or even more overtly, Awesome Possum. Has a recycling symbol on the title screen, you collect recyclables in the game. Though it does makes me wonder about the lack of US release for Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
Ladies and gentlemen: Template:DCCompliance There were a few duplicates so there were 121 in the end. What I've tried to do is offer a concise explanation, alongside the official details ([Expand]). SoA's document uses some odd terms and has a few typos. I've got the definitions living in Template:ComplianceDetails so if my text needs correcting (spoilers: it will), that's where it lies. I haven't included the "recommendations" or the de-facto "standardisations" because we'll be here all day and it doesn't prove much. Although I still like the idea things like the CD player image. The one that really got me was the "Visual Comment" of a VMU. and it's lucky I have a totally legitimate memory card here - the "Visual Comment" is the image below DATA (that No Cliché logo) for Toy Commander. Barely any games make use of this, and normal people would call this an "icon"... not to be confused with the other, smaller icons that were mandated. Or the other things called "comment" and "name" that need to be defined. There's bits I'm not sure I fully understand. I think it's claiming that if a game supports the VMU, it has to write a file even if you don't specifically ask it to save. That would explain why so many games dumped cack on the VMU as I tested things x months ago.
An example: Sega Worldwide Soccer 2000/Compliance Because a) I had a copy lying around b) literally nobody cares about this game c) I didn't think it would pass everything. And it doesn't. So why does this Sega-published game with Sega in its name fail Sega-enforced standards? Well apparently you're not allowed to initialise memory cards from within software. There's also other issues like not offering a stereo/mono setting and the title screen probably being too bright - I'm sure there's plenty you can nitpick. I should stress: I wasn't going to test everything myself (and I couldn't even if I wanted to), this is just an elaborate excuse to go looking for fun screensavers (SWWS 2000 has a bouncing ball!). The reason I haven't written a Saturn template yet is because there aren't any screensavers there. That and it takes an age to write.
Okay the way I've set the templates up means it's a good idea to at least "prepare" for Saturn compliance, even if I don't personally get around to finishing it. Template:SATCompliance Template:ComplianceDetails/SAT There's actually fewer requirements set out by the Saturn document than the Dreamcast one, but... eehhhhh, it's not a great document. First of all it repeats itself a lot, and it repeats itself a lot, but it also doesn't really stick to its numbering system, and it repeats itself a lot. And then there are a few appendices which also repeat themselves, and while it's happy to highlight most sections as "REQUIRED COMPLIANCE ITEM", some points imply that they're mandated but don't explicitly say so. And these appendices matter because they deal with things like multi-disc games and cartridge memory - things I can absolutely believe they never thought about when the Saturn first launched. Also apparently there's the concept of a "system pause" and a "user pause" which I don't think the Dreamcast has(?): if you remove the controller from port 1, it's meant to cause a "system pause" (i.e. everything stops). If you press start during gameplay, that's a "user pause". If you press start then remove the controller, that's two levels of pausing. Except I only learnt this after the document had been liberally using the term "pause" to mean both types of pause and now I have to go back and check and argh.
Time to solve a mystery that wasn't really a mystery but whatever. Unlike any other console ever made, on the Sega Saturn "all driving games must support the Arcade Racer". Because the Saturn had an official wheel at launch and it came to all territories... so there was no excuse. And yeah, plenty of Saturn "driving" games do indeed support the wheel. But what about "racing" games, because that was the term Sega applied to the genre (except for when it didn't, but that's another story). According to us, these racing games don't support the wheel: - Formula Karts Special Edition - Hi-Octane - Road Rash (Saturn) - Scorcher - Sonic R - Street Racer (Saturn) What are their excuses? Well for Formula Karts and Street Racer, I'm not sure there is one, but maybe they're mislabeled, idk. You don't really "drive" in Hi-Octane, Road Rash or Scorcher, so even though Manx TT and Wipeout were happy to implement support, fine, whatever. But Sonic R, that's a Sega first-party game designed to sell consoles and Amy does indeed drive a car. There's 3D Control Pad support so there's analogue code in here, so... is the game secretly compatible with the Arcade Racer? No. The game does not respond to Arcade Racer inputs, and if you nagivate the menus with a standard controller then swap to the wheel before the race starts... well this is that "system pause" I was talking about. So strictly speaking, in this game where you can drive, Sonic R does not technically comply with Sega's own standards. You can drive in this racing game, but it's not a driving game where you can use the racer. It is, however, the only game in the series where you can make Tails cry. So there's that. Spoiler tag 4 characters mode - yes I forgot it existed too
I've barely even started and I'm already greeted with outliers. If you leave the Dreamcast's BIOS alone for ten minutes, the screen darkens. Also I like the way speeding up the emulation puts you into the future. Wait some more minutes and you get some coloured lights. So that's two layers of screensaver? The compliance rules probably don't count because this isn't a game but yeah. Unless the world genuinely does get slightly darker in about half an hour's time and the console is reflecting reality, idk.
Holy shit that answered a question. Family had a habit of leaving the TV on until someone went to use it. So when those lights showed up while my sibling and I were playing with our dolls when we were little kids, I thought something was wrong with the TV. Just like the computer monitor I thought it needed degaussing but there was no degauss button. Funny how I get answers mere decades later...
Rayman 2 has an interesting compliance tidbit relating to "12.6 Hiding Commands During Pause". The standards recommend that "If a game provides a Pause function, it should be possible to clear the “PAUSE” (or other) indication by the X+Y buttons to allow for debugging and photographing screen images for print media". Obviously, this is intended for games where the pause screen is an overlay on top of the gameplay. Rayman 2, however, uses a full-screen pause menu: Spoiler: Rayman 2 pause menu Obviously a menu like this wouldn't "allow for debugging and photographing screen images for print media" when the pause text is removed; but nevertheless the developers decided to remove the "PAUSE" text at the top of the menu when X+Y is pressed. Why this functionality was added baffled me for a long time but after reading the compliance documents, I guess they just really wanted the game to pass without a hassle.
What, you thought I got bored of this? Well you're right, I did. But faced with a lull over the Christmas holidays, I came back and invented something stupid: Dreamcast game compliance Visual representation of compliance. How does your Dreamcast game fare against the official standards?? ...don't know yet - filling in the details for hundreds of Dreamcast games will take time, but you might call this "motivation". At the time of writing, Sonic Shuffle is the most compliant Dreamcast game in existence... because SorachiJirachi bothered to test some things and get some screenshots... and the vast majority of Dreamcast games don't have compliance sub-pages yet. But you can change that! There is, of course, the Saturn to do as well, but I never fully finished implementing that because it's annoying. But feel free to jump in!
If you were wondering: even the simplest Dreamcast games (such as those which didn't even bother to support the VMU) had to pass 45 "required" standard checks before being let onto the market. Specifically these 45 checks - lots of unplugging controllers and rebooting the game. On the other end, Skies of Arcadia required 104 checks, being the most complicated of all Dreamcast games (because it has multiple discs and a VMU minigame). On average it's about 80-ish standards checks per game. And that's why Sega of America had a dedicated test department.
As a former bug tester, the highest severity level was reserved for either crashes or Compliance/Legal. At my time the largest compliance standards were Nintendo which had much more strict requirements than Sony or Microsoft
