Board 8 > ~ Board 8's Top 20 Projects of ALL TIME! Results Topic ~

(+) Yeah! (+)

damn if I had remembered to vote i would have crushed stupidngamer argghhh

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omg did u red text from last night dats so me LMAO : )
im not a slut i jus liek 2 haev fun LOL : )

tag

From: LeonhartFour | #100
Did you read yoblazer's writeup?

Whoops, guess I blocked that part out. I didn't want to believe it!

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"Congratulations Thomas and Sylvia! But their happiness does not continue long..."

@Kaxon: I'm still hoping for a 2011 FFP that's even more epic. And featuring pairings of all sexual preferences. Het, yaoi & yuri. To please greeks and trojans.

And Link getting progressively more heroic instead of more evil.

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The official Big Eater of the Duodecim board.

From: Ayvuir | #002
Positions 21-50

21. Board 8 Baseball League

****ing bubble.

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"Link has spoken for years. And music is his language" -YoBlazer

~ 7. Post Contest Analysis ~
Created by: UltimaterializerX
List Appearances: 11
Total Points: 52

Write up by Ulti


PCAs, PCAs.... I don't even remember how the "tradition" of it got started where topics get 200 tags before I'm done even 3 writeups, but I do remember my first attempt being complete crap. Following the summer of 2003, I had no internet at home so I was rushing through all the writeups to make sure I got through. It was horrible, and I eventually rewrote 2003 as a result. But I was in love with contests from the start and I'm big on reflecting upon things, plus contests mix my two big passions (video games and the NCAA basketball tournament) so it was a match made in heaven for me.

Since the beginning I think I've improved as a writer, but the real reason I continue doing PCAs is because people still love to read them. Every contest, a bunch of people ask me if I'm going to do a PCA. It's pretty awesome to see. I try to cover every contest by going over what actually happened, but also adding in a sarcastic/smartass/joke/guru/etc approach. It is an honor to be voted this high on our list here, seriously. I know I used to make fun of people all the time, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy people appreciating my big B8 project. I've done a lot on Board 8 over the years, but this is the one project of mine I care about over everything else and I'm glad people like it so much.

I'd also like to thank Zach for letting me be a Wiki admin so the PCAs can all be archived and protected there indefinitely. I used to archive them on some secret board, and bumping it was a pain. Zach really doesn't get enough credit for making and maintaining a wiki, and he should. He is as good and impartial a guy as you'll ever find, and the board is lucky to have him

I suck at concluding writeups (still!), so I'll just say thank you to everyone and be on my merry little way. I hope you guys still appreciate the PCAs and read them in the future.

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PCAs are good stuff.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Always look forward to PCAs.

Ulti still gotta do 2008, unless I missed it somewhere!

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Support Seifer Almasy (Final Fantasy VIII) for Character Battle IX!
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9342/banner3seifer.jpg

Last one for now whilst i wait for Kaxon's write up, and then i'll get to the top 5. Feel free to do predictions too!


~ 6. Nomination Rally Tournament ~
Created by: Leonhart
List Appearances: 8
Total Points: 54

Write up by Leonhart

(Part 1)

The Nomination Rally Tournament began in 2005 as a simple contest with a simple goal: To find the strongest characters who had yet to be in a Character Battle, and try to get them in. The very first tournament was run very informally and with little fanfare. The characters were picked by a few people who decided the idea would be neat, and they were run through a gauntlet-style tournament. There were very few strict rules at the time since it was a small contest. For example, if a match was determined to be a big blowout early on, the next match would be run. I think it only took about a week to run the very first contest due to all of that, and the five characters who were chosen were Tifa Lockhart (FFVII), Leon Kennedy (RE), Revolver Ocelot (MGS), Sarah Kerrigan (Starcraft), and Lloyd Irving (ToS). We were able to get enough support post-contest to get all five characters in, so all things considered, it was a rousing success.

Of course, once people saw the success of the NRT, its popularity ballooned quickly as they saw their chance to get their favorite character into the next contest. I personally did not run most of the 2006 NRT because I was taking a break form Board 8 at the time. Slowflake ran most of it, and I came back toward the end, right in the midst of a controversy where Slow had ended a match early between Sub-Zero and The Prince of Persia so that Subby won by 1 vote. The outrage caused by this mess caused Slow to give up running the thing, and so I stepped back in. The current format of the NRT has been around since this tournament, and the credit goes to Slowflake for all of that, not me. He turned the NRT into a traditional tournament style contest with a Round Robin Format for the top 8 finishers, with the top 4 from the Round Robin receiving NRT support. He also introduced the idea of the Returners Tournament, which was designed to bring back old characters who hadn't been in the contest for a while. The winners in 2006 were The Prince of Persia, Sub-Zero (Mortal Kombat), Captain Falcon (F-Zero), Nightmare (SoulCalibur), and Raiden (MGS2), who won the Returners Tournament. However, Nightmare and Raiden did not make the bracket this time around, likely due to the split between the Male and Female Brackets.

The next year's tournament in 2007 saw the NRT's popularity rise to the point of including 128 characters. In that year, Mewtwo (Pokemon), Nightmare, Diddy Kong (DKC), Seifer Almasy (FFVIII), and Raiden (MGS2), who won the Returners Tournament yet again, won NRT support, and once again, only 3 out of 5 made it, with Diddy and Seifer missing the cut despite the expansion to 128 characters. HaRRicH ran a Games Contest version in 2008, with Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow, Star Fox 64, and Donkey Kong Country 2 taking the available spots, and they all made the contest. The characters version returned in 2009, with Charizard (Pokemon), Cid Highwind (FFVII), Darth Revan (KOTOR), Yoshimitsu (Tekken/SoulCalibur), and Ken Masters (SF2), who won the Returners Tournament, getting the NRT support. Only Yoshimitsu failed to make the contest, although he did make the vote-ins and was thoroughly crushed. In 2010, the winners were Barret Wallace (FFVII), Squirtle (Pokemon), Seifer Almasy (FFVIII), Otacon (MGS), and Morrigan Aensland, who won the Returners Tournament. We shall see if they make the next Character Battle!

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(Part 2)

All in all, although the NRT has seen its fair share of controversy and heated arguments due to people's passion on wanting to see the best characters or their favorite characters make it into the contest, it's been a fun ride these last 5+ years. It's definitely been a lot more successful and popular than I ever expected it to be. I'm glad I got to have even a small part in making our Character Battles better, and most of all, I'm glad I was able to make a fun contest that a lot of people have enjoyed. It's an honor to see this contest rank so highly on the list of all-time Board 8 projects.

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So close to Top 5!

That's still higher than I expected though! Thanks for the votes, everyone!

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The only problem with the NRT I can think of is that sometimes the choices get shafted. Remember Cid getting fed to Mega Man in Round 1?

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Well, that's not the NRT's fault, really. I'd ideally like for them to get good draws where they stand a chance of winning, but them's the breaks.

The main problem with the NRT is that voters make weird choices!

(Go go Otacon)

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From: Ed Bellis | #114
34. Spread Betting: I clicked on one of these topics once and was thoroughly confused. I don't even know what this one could be – Prediction Percentage is guessing the number of voters who guessed the match correctly, right? Is Spread Betting guessing the stats of that or something? Or is that the Board Odds Project? AUGHGHGHG

Spread betting is basically guessing whether one character will go above a certain percentage.

Say you have "Link > 53" against Cloud.

You would bet on whether you think Link would break 53% or not.

It's basically like betting on sports games where there's a spread on how much the winning team will win by.

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"But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside."
"I am lightning...the rain transformed."

I don't participate in it myself, but it's pretty popular!

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http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2369/mythbattlers.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/Sensui22/1248835958206.png

Oracle deserves #1 imo

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

No argument from me. :)

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"Congratulations Thomas and Sylvia! But their happiness does not continue long..."

And I should really send in some kind of writeup!

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"Congratulations Thomas and Sylvia! But their happiness does not continue long..."

Needs more no-restart Fire Emblem playthroughs.

*cough*

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"I'm not an idealogue." - Terran. [Evil Republican]
Play Der Langrisser.

Guru
Oracle
The Board 8 Wiki
User of the Year
Video Game Music Contest

That's my prediction.

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Pokemon VGC2011 NW Regional - Top 8
Hopefully, we'll meet in Indianapolis...

Oracle for #1, hopefully.

Guru should not be #1 for forcing people to nominate Toadette and Wario.

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Oracle > Guru, yes.

The only problem with the Oracle is that it rewards consistency more than anything else. It's a better to make 10 decent picks than 9 great picks and 1 terrible pick.

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90s games > 00s games

From: red sox 777 | #127
The only problem with the Oracle is that it rewards consistency more than anything else. It's a better to make 10 decent picks than 9 great picks and 1 terrible pick.

That's only a problem for you!

Well, me too, since my predicting skills are often hit or miss, but hey.

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http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2369/mythbattlers.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/Sensui22/1248835958206.png

But it's so much more fun making risky picks that go against the board consensus than picking the board consensus! Memo to self: don't make any picks more than 6 points off the consensus next contest.

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90s games > 00s games

Making bold picks is fun, yeah, but that's what makes them bold! Risk big, win big or lose big!

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http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2369/mythbattlers.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/Sensui22/1248835958206.png

Kaxon please hurry with your write up ^_^ thanks!

~ 5. Video Game Music Contest ~
Created by: Ed Bellis
List Appearances: 9
Total Points: 63

Write up by Ed Bellis

The Big Ol' Video Game Music Contest (VGMC for short) has become something of a yearly tradition. Before VGMC Kleenex ran a number of Final Fantasy song contests, so I had the idea of extending it to all (original, non-licensed) video game music. For the first year's nomination period I initially wanted to do a bracket of 64 songs with the top-voted songs getting in. The nominators (many of whom are still regular voters to this day) convinced me to up it to 128. Then I realized that stopping at 128 songs would limit the amount of variety in the contest, and I also saw that there were 191 songs with 2 noms or more, so the first year's bracket consisted of 192 songs spread across three 64-song divisions. Subsequent years have upped the entrants to a more even, though no less crazy, number of 256.


The template for VGMC borrows heavily from Gamingforce Audio's Best Song Contest, which also caps at 256 songs and retires the top 16 from every year, banning them from being renominated. Where we differ is mainly in the nomination process – at GFA spots are first-come first-serve, and every one of each user's five songs gets in automatically. With my contest, everyone gets 20 noms (with some game and series restrictions in place) and the songs with the highest nom total make it in. (There's also 5 double noms people get, which has caused undue confusion every single year.)


VGMC is, first and foremost, about the music – the biggest rule is to make sure to listen to everything before you vote, to give everything a chance even if you dislike the game it's from. It's never been and will never be a contest based on game popularity – though the top 16 are typically more popular songs, a number of obscure ones have also had success, the biggest example probably being a song from the SNES port of the crappy Kevin Costner movie Waterworld making it to the finals of Year 3. If anyone wants to see a list of all the retired tracks, it can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19mAIzyCcG-bRCXcRdnof0OqbEbigOrzkOJrejmF2zYk/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CKGpyuMB

The four winners have been Scars of Time (Chrono Cross), MGS2 Theme (Metal Gear Solid 2), “Reset” ~ “Thank You” Version (Okami) and Hope (Umineko 1).


Of all the projects I've run over the years (some successful, some abandoned), VGMC is my pride and joy. It's a wonderful way to listen to new music or get reacquainted with old favorites. I look forward to running it every year, and I'm glad others look forward to participating in it as well. =)

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Mega Mana posted...
The only thing that could make that write-up better would be Bruce Campbell appearing midway withcarrying that gun from The Expendables while the nurses make out on both sides of him and-

Oh crap, my number's been called! NOOOOOOO

And this is why Caelus' writing topics rule all.

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Currently playing: Dead Space, GTA IV, Scribblenauts

The Movie contest gave us the infamous Broly (another DBZ character) vs. Stanley Ipkiss (The Mask) match, which is still quoted and referenced on the board.

This was the best. I freaking loved everything about that match, and its conclusion. And Crossfiyah's whining afterwards. Awesome.

Also I thank The Show for hosting that amazing live Brawl/Melee edition. It was the first time I actually talked to B8ers, and talking to B8ers made me realise "hey these people are OK", thus that is the reason I am less of a c*** now so THANK YOU Ngamer et al.

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http://perezsolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/lost.gif

woo VGMusic

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Kaxon please hurry with your write up ^_^ thanks!

Heh, I guess we know what's 4th.

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"Congratulations Thomas and Sylvia! But their happiness does not continue long..."

oh ya VGMusic Contest

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Want to listen to more video game music every day?
Check out the VGMusicoftheDay Youtube Channel sometime!

VGMC rocks - should be #2 (behind the Oracle) imho.

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"Congratulations Thomas and Sylvia! But their happiness does not continue long..."

~ 4. User of the Year ~
Created by: Smurf
List Appearances: 13
Total Points: 63

Write up by Smurf

UotY began in the 2003 off-season and was an idea inspired by a lot of things; that I gave my own flavour. I liked the freshness of bigbadbears "Around the users in 80 days" project which combined a lot of different voting styles and the continuity between Forsaken contests. The plan was to make a user contest that'd be more than something everyone forgot about after the final, to have a legacy.

To do this it needed to attract people, the definitive name of "User of the Year 2003" helped that, as did a huge roster of participants. Something with so many people and that would effectively go on for about 2 months needed an interesting design to keep them hooked, thats where the different formats came in. The voting formats were a mixture of old and new on the board, Boot/Immune was big in those days so I took that for a round. I always liked the idea of leagues and more complex voting systems so came up with some new things. The whole +3/+2/+1/-1/-2/-3 was something I hadn't seen on the board before but people seemed to take to it really well, a world cup based format worked well, a vote splitting head to head so-so but the biggest success was probably the golden parcel which has always delivered.

One of the strongest points of UotY was its audience, it was so general. Theres so many factions on board 8 and a lot of user contests in the past have been ruined by one particular group becoming obsessive about it and everyone else not caring to follow it. USB and UUL come to mind here, even Forsakens contests to an extent had the same people winning them. I'm happy that kind of thing never prospered while I ran it. The kind of strict voting rules UotY had was unusual in a world where most were happy to just get any sort of votes regardless of the source, but they worked well. The by-product of drama was something that was a lot of fun too.

Was definitely very proud of the format and how successful it became even independent of my involvement. Like most things ideas is my strongsuit, implementing them less so. kawaiifan, mumei, ngamer and carv all helped with that in different years which made things a lot easier. Once the project began to become a chore there was no end of people showing an interest to take it over which was a strong tribute to its popularity, it still seems to be a strong talking point on the board 8 years later which is awesome.

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UotY 4th? I've never been a fan of user contests, but UotY was obviously the king of user contests. And the aftermath of the tranny/ulti/ffd final of UotY was what made me change my "never vote in user contests" attitude to "rarely vote in user contests".

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"Congratulations Thomas and Sylvia! But their happiness does not continue long..."

Always thought that UotY was dumb. It can bring out the worst in people (just ask Icehawk), makes for really annoying conversations with people playing the game and/or talking about playing the game, and the entire concept just feels odd to me. How do you rank people you know? And then everyone pretends it's all just fun and games while rallying everyone they know.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

From: Ed Bellis | #142
This might be guessing the number of voters who correctly guessed the match. It might also be a topic where SBell posts his favorite recipes for all I know.

One of these two is correct...!

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Support Otacon (Metal Gear Solid) for Character Battle IX!
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/1950/banner4otacon.jpg

Ed Bellis posted...

30. Inviso's Battle Royales: Never followed these. The concept of a Battle Royale always struck me as a neat and efficient way of doing a writing project that holds people's interests: give them characters to create and pit them against each other. I'd imagine, as with any user-submitted project, interest wanes after the entrant you've entered is eliminated, but I'd guess the really well-written Battle Royales keep people around. I've honestly never heard anything about Inviso's writing style on the board, good or bad – people often talk about, say, MWIS or Sir Chris or even non-writers like Yoblazer, but I've yet to hear any comments about Inviso's style. Maybe she and I don't frequent the same circles.


You'll have to wait a bit on the next one - gonna be 'kinda long.'

Inviso's Royales were very well-written with a lot of user feedback and commentary in-between the chapters. I don't think anything influenced the writing, but there were a ton of little bits like Headless Jou. Oh god, I miss Headless Jou. And Donki Pon. All the characters were well-crafted, the stories both individual and overall had strong and wonderful timing, depth, and drama. If it wasn't four or five years gone, I'd remember more than just a few names and places (the bathroom, the rooftop, that hideout, the school, the park, etc.) and events, but damn it was a lot of fun. I don't think I even had a character involved then.

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Pyre GIR (9:26:57 PM): You lack a basic grasp of human nature that can only be learned through living
IamSoCool84321 (9:28:07 PM): ur dumb

I almost regret not voting for Funk and Inviso's Create-A-Character Contest (or whatever it was).

Monocle Ocelot dominating that contest, much to the chagrin of the contest's creators), was amazing. I remember Inviso IMing me almost every round asking me to vote against him.

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From: Ed Bellis | #145
and anyone (unless you provide dumb reasoning or you're PukeInMyPot) can vote for who they think would win.

God Ed stop being so bitter that Crono is broken and his team automatically wins

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

Wow, this is an excellent Top Five. Sure hope the Oracle finishes on top!


Ed Bellis posted...
49. solarshadow's Contest Stats and Discussion: I've been a part of a few subgroups on B8, and the stats topic has been one of the most unfriendly of the lot. I've never been the best with stats, and I remember people (especially the 'legendary' creativename) flat-out insulting me when I asked noobish questions. That obviously doesn't reflect on everyone: a lot of the regulars are quite welcoming, but I got severely turned off by that experience. Apart from that, it seems like the stats topic is prone to overexaggeration (see people calling a match within the first 15 minutes) and heavy reliance on numbers (see the entire 'lol xstats' meme). It deserves a fair bit of credit for being probably the longest-running, most successful thing in B8 history.

Wish I could say more in its defense, but nope, I've got to agree that (back in "the day") the Stats topic was legitimately awful from time to time. Especially where new users were concerned. HOWEVER, I would argue that this was more a product of the board at the time than anything to do with statsheads specifically. As in, B8 was "bigger" and more exciting back in that 2003 era, but it was also so much more confrontational, "serious," immature/high schoolish etc, and the Stats Topic was no exception. The whole culture of this place has mellowed out so much since around 2005, and Stats along with it, to the point where I think you'd have a very different experience if you'd waited until the last couple years to poke your head in for the first time.

Ayvuir posted...
~ 20. Agree or Disagree ~
Creator: Chronic1000
List Appearances: 8
Total Points: 21

Really happy to see this made the cut. Pretty amazing accomplishment to still have an (almost) daily topic series running after so many years.

Ayvuir posted...
~ 18. gamefaqscontests.com/Poll Updater ~
Created by: creativename
List Appearances: 4
Total Points: 25.

Whooooo, good decision to combine these!

Ayvuir posted...
~ 9. Serious Business ~
Created by: Icehawk
List Appearances: 8
Total Points: 45

Ayvuir posted...
~ 8. The Show ~
Created by: NGamer
List Appearances: 9
Total Points: 51

...seriously? Did not expect this at all! (Fantastic SB writeup by Ed, BTW.)

Ed Bellis posted...
34. Spread Betting: I clicked on one of these topics once and was thoroughly confused. I don't even know what this one could be – Prediction Percentage is guessing the number of voters who guessed the match correctly, right? Is Spread Betting guessing the stats of that or something? Or is that the Board Odds Project? AUGHGHGHG

Your 2010 Show co-host, ladies and gentlemen!


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thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com
You should search for The Show, the cool podcast featuring Guru Champ Black Turtle!