And lo, on the mighty field of battle, after 64 teams did make war, only one game still stood in the end, after the powerful Ar Tonelico vanquished the wicked Guilty Gear X. But all the fallen warriors did rise again, to try once more to take their place atop the mountain. The first to fall entered into the arena first, while Ar Tonelico watched.
The once-loser's fought, and fought. For many weeks did the turmoil continue. Each time the majority standing fell, new contestants were pushed into the fray. One gladiator did rise above the rest of the fray, the noble Chrono Cross. But alas! As Chrono Cross was rejoicing in its victory, Guilty Gear ran in and snuck attack it, striking not once but three times! Without its best weapons to defend itself, Chrono Cross was nearly helpless, and was slain.
Ar Tonelico saw Guilty Gear's act of treachery, and was not pleased. Realizing there was no one else left to stop Guilty Gear, Ar Tonelico stepped onto the battlefield itself.
Ar Tonelico called upon Mechanical Maze, while Guilty Gear laughed and drew its Awe of She, and with Awe of She, Guilty Gear destroyed Mechanical Maze and sent Ar Tonelico reeling, 14-5.
Refusing to give up, Ar Tonelico pulled out a second track, EXEC_SPHILIA. Its mightiest weapon, The Second Tower, had been lost in the process of defeating Guilty Gear the first time, and so EXEC_SPHILIA was the most powerful it had left. However, The Second Tower had also shattered Guilty Gear's forceful Holy Orders, and yea it was forced to call upon Still in the Dark instead. The two battles for many hours -- an entire day! -- and the initial advantage Ar Tonelico gained was lost as twilight fell. Gathering itself for one last test of steely resolve, EXEC_SPHILIA struck back against the blows of Still in the Dark, and in one last desperate struggle did destroy it, 10-9.
And so it would be that this match, this ultimate showdown, would be settled through the use of a pair of untested tracks. Guilty Gear lashed out with Bloodstained Lineage, and Ar Tonelico answered with Rustling Throb. The fight raged as the previous did, with many hours of fierce votes ensuing. Eventually, it seemed as if Bloodstained Lineage were tiring, and Rustling Throb had the advantage, but furiously, Guilty Gear retaliated. Surely it would not be defeated now! Yea, though, the righteous hand of Ar Tonelico answered with a resounding blow of its own that vanquished Bloodstained Lineage fully, 11-8.
Ar Tonelico looked out upon the field of battle, of all the fallen warriors and scattered, unused tracks. Ar Tonelico had been mortally wounded in the first exchange this time with Guilty Gear, and had barely staved off its advances in the two bouts that followed. It knew it had been outvoted as a result, but still it stood, bloodied, yet triumphant.
Best OST Contest Winner: Ar Tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. After roughly three months, after 125 matches plus tiebreakers, after a loser's bracket that returned us a rematch of our winner's bracket finals, it's finally over. In a 2-1 decision of yesterday's songs, your winner is...Ar Tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica
If you're an AT2, rejoice! If you're not happy with those results, there's always next year. But speaking of that, I really want your feedback on the contest overall. This was the first time I've ever run anything on GameFAQs, and I clearly hit some bumps along the way. Besides that, though, the format of the contest was designed rather uniquely, and in some regards it worked out, and in others it failed horribly. While I'm not asking you to answer this questionairre style, I'd really love to know your thoughts on some or all of the following:
* For the mostpart, did you enjoy the contest? * Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest? * Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket. * Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently? * Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket? * Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.) * Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role?
But hey, talk about whatever you want to with regard to the contest -- favorite matches, sore points, what if's, what you look forward to in a theoretical bOSTc2...
Oh, and finally, I'm in the process of finalizing a page on the B8 wiki for the contest. Feel free to comment on how horrible or inaccurate or horribly inaccurate my writing there is.
For my own part, I enjoyed the contest a great deal. I hope everyone else generally did as well. We lost some folks along the way, and I think the loser's bracket had a major role in that. I had some other issues with the LB as well, such as dampening the impact of upsets significantly and forcing some games to go as many as 8 matches, repeating tracks the whole way. I would have been content ending the contest with the winner's bracket. If we thought a single field of 64 was not enough, I'd be willing to try 128, although quite honestly I'm just glad it's over. A 128 field would take just as long as 64 double elim.
I do, personally, like the 6-song 6-round format. The only adjustment I *might* make is to require nominations to list the songs in terms of their perceived strength, and then pick an order beforehand to use, like 2-5-3-6-4-1, or something. I think that 6 songs is a reasonable number to use -- more would force things to be excluded, less and a game with 2 or 3 stand-out tracks can dominate on their strength alone.
I found the nominating period the most ridiculous and frenzied part of the contest, though. EVERYONE was frenetically posting and supporting and commenting on each other's line-ups, and nobody had gotten tired of the contest yet. The energy was overwhelming, as was the workload. Fortunately I was relatively unemployed at that point (since my work picks up as the school year progresses.) I liked the one-per-day method, and I thought the support vote system in general worked fine. Now that we've done it once and people recognize the dynamics of how first-day games get a tremendous advantage, (Secret of Mana and Metroid Prime were 2 seeds?,) I think it would work itself out better the second time around. However, I'm still a little nervous about how wise it is to let the nominator completely dictate the song list. This was a logistical decision on my part so I wouldn't have to deal with arbitrating or tabulating anything additional, and while it was definitely the right move for me at the time since I handled all the tournament content myself, there is probably a better way to approach this.
That said, it's dangerous to go alone. I made a lot of mistakes. I ended rounds at poor times, started them later than intended, and had nobody to really back me up. On a few occasions when I knew it would be an issue, there were folks willing to step up, but I didn't really grant anyone the authority to do any of the work or upkeep, which was a mistake. I would say "probably a mistake," except with some of the counting issues that were recognized later in the tournament, it has me scared to think that maybe I was wrong on some earlier occasions as well that went unchecked. (I have a math degree. How do I fail at counting?) I know there are some folks who might be willing to help or even take over the contest. I'm not saying I want to completely step down, and we certainly don't have to deal with this until VGMC6 ends, but I am curious if everyone is sympathetic toward my rookie errors and felt I hosted well and fairly, or if my mistakes were too grievous and I should back away.
For my own grievances, I can't say any games that I especially favored went to the end of the tournament, but I'm not exactly surprised, given Board 8's unique tastes. One of my running jokes for my ignorance of the board's zeitgeist is "what's a Touhou?" In the course of the contest, I've learned a lot of new stuff I wasn't familiar with, and opened a few eyes with my own selections. Aside from my mishandling of the MMX/FFT match, the pain of which still lingers in my mind since I did truly cost FFT the match, I don't know there's anything about the way the contest played out that I'm particularly upset with.
Thank you all for your time, your votes, your energy, and your patience with me.
Oh, please, enough with the drama. Finals sucked (except winners), the end setup shouldn't have been kept hidden for 'tension' when it drastically changed the final results, and the contest was good except for that disaster. Let's keep at least one thing nice and simple, instead of making a mockery out of it, quiaff?
And let's work this out so that the next time, the contest will have a real finals.
* For the mostpart, did you enjoy the contest?
Yeah, mostly.
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest?
Speed up losers. It took way too long to get through it.
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket.
Yeah, definitely. It just needs to go by quicker, but it was worthwhile.
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently?
The rules? Not particularly. The vote counting should have been more precise but that's about it.
* Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket?
Definitely. Lots of good OSTs were suggested and lots of good ones got in. Can't ask for more.
* Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.)
The losers finals sucked. The grand finals sucked worse. And it all could have been avoided by being transparent with the setup so you could get critcism. Never, ever, EVER play a card close to the chest for 'tension'. We have years of history to tell us that it is a crap idea. The loser's finals should have used a different setup that didn't penalize playing by the contest's rules instead of frontloading. Seriously, it was THAT bad. Run the exhibition doubles I suggested here and see what results you get. They'll tell you more than I can say about how terrible that setup was.
* Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role?
Definitely. And you'll be fine as a host, so long as you don't get cute with important parts of the rules.
There, just closed the spreadsheet and the bracketmaster page for what I hope is the last time. I'm sick of looking at those!
Oh, please, enough with the drama. ... Let's keep at least one thing nice and simple, instead of making a mockery out of it, quiaff?
I was just having some fun with it. Sorry if that bothers you.
Speed up losers. It took way too long to get through it.
Any suggestion how to do that? We were running two matches a day. More is iffy at best. Not counting the finals where it's the same games three times, I didn't enjoy the days that had more than two, and there were a ton of people who ignored the JFF matches for that reason.
And it all could have been avoided by being transparent with the setup so you could get critcism. Never, ever, EVER play a card close to the chest for 'tension'. We have years of history to tell us that it is a crap idea. The loser's finals should have used a different setup that didn't penalize playing by the contest's rules instead of frontloading.
Unfortunately, I haven't been here for years. Those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it, I suppose. I'm still not displeased by my choice, but obviously there are detractors. I fail to see how GGX was frontloading, though. You don't seriously think The Original and Blue Water Blue Sky are better than Awe of She and Still in the Dark, do you?
Hmm...he makes some good points. There's a lot of strategizing that went into the ordering process--frontload, backload, or kind of do both with the weakest songs being in the middle?
But yeah, this was great. I kind of wish there was more room for more entrants to make the field, but that would mean lengthening the contest and adding more songs, so this is fine.
--
Okay, time to start the preparations for the next contest. Gotta be almost time for VGMC6, right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KloeGqCPszo
I don't, but apparently that was the strategy for GGX, according to the topic around that match.
As for shortening losers, just run it like a normal losers bracket with a shrinking pool. Alternatively, open the losers' bracket during winners - pretty sure there's a setup that takes advantage of this to speed things up, I'll see if I can find it.
* For the mostpart, did you enjoy the contest? - Very much. I was heavily interested until the end of winner's bracket, and I believe until the end of first round loser's, but then it somehow just became really really slow and not as much of a priority. I don't know if it was my own shifting timeline or loser's bracket + JFF losing a ton of steam somehow.
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest? - I have no ideas, but I've enjoyed the format immensely.
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket. - It was nice to see some of the matches, but it just wasn't as exciting or involving.
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently? - Prior knowledge to how ultimate finals would go down, but I didn't have as much of a problem with it as Kanz seemed to. I enjoyed the 3v3 format.
* Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket? * Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.) * Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role? - Everything was awesome. This was an exciting contest. I hope it returns in some capacity in the near future, but I understand taking some time off both for yourself and for some downtime to become nostalgic for it.
--
"Because they don't want to reason about what they consider a masterpiece and be hurt when they realize it was all useless." - Umineko on Lost
MP wasn't that overseeded. It got some good wins, including over PoR which finished well. It just ran into Awe of She! And then people like Chrono Cross' soundtrack for some reason.
probably the biggest flaw in how this was run - and it showed in popularity - was that you should have alternated between the winner's and loser's brackets
* For the mostpart, did you enjoy the contest? Aye.
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest? It worked out pretty well.
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket. I'd say it was worth running. JFF was a pretty good idea.
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently? Ehh, not really. You should probably emphasize "Vote for the song, not the game" a bit more towards the later rounds.
* Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket? Now that I look back, I probably should have nominated some games. At least a good number of the ones I gave reinforcement votes were able to get in.
* Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.) I'm a bit annoyed that the exact same games managed to be in both the winners and the losers finals. Otherwise, no. I am quite surprised at many of the match outcomes, though.
* Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role? This contest was handled pretty well, but maybe next time count better and don't announce results until the full 24 hours are over.
Yeah. However, I tend to like all VGMusic related contest/rankings/etc. so it's not too hard to get me on board something like this!
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest?
The format was fine, IMO. Demanding strength order would be tough, however, if you wanted to go that route. You could very easily have the nominator, the host, and the board in general have differing opinions on what general reception would be. We even had a bit of that kind of argument play out in regards to Homestuck, and really, it happened all the time in the nomination topic since even picking the songs on the list is about song strength (or should be.)
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket.
I'm not opposed to the LB in principle, but I will admit that the LB was a lot less exciting than the WB in general. We could keep it and I wouldn't have a problem, but if we get rid of it, I think I'd suggest expanding the WB to 128 and adding another round to compensate, but maybe that's a bit excessive.
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently?
Not particularly. I don't think the rules had any problems.
* Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket?
Yeah, that worked quite well, IMO.
* Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.)
I think the 3v3 format at the end is a bit tricky to deal with, the more I think about it. But not for the reasons most people seem to be complaining about it for. I think you run the risk of being a bit anticlimactic if you have the decisive match of the contest being a 1/2/3 match. I want to note ahead of time, this did not actually happen. Chrono Cross's match was not decisive except in the sense that every LB match was decisive because the loser was eliminated. I'm talking more about the hypothetical AT2 v GGX Day 2. Whoever would have won that hypothetical might have felt a bit anticlimactic. I'm not sure reversing it to be 1/2/3 -> 4/5/6 helps any because Day 1 is still decisive in that the WB winner can win on that day. I think the best option that preserves the 3v3 format is something like:
LB Finals: 2/4/6 Finals 1: 1/3/5 Finals 2: 2/4/6
It's not perfect, but I don't think you're going to find a solution that satisfies everyone.
I absolutely agree with the idea that if an OST wants to win the contest it should be able to win at the top and bottom of the list, and that if it can't, it deserves to lose. My only concern is trying to make as climactic a format as possible. ...Actually, I say all this and I probably would have made that point more emphatically. My more "boring" version of the last few rounds would be something like:
LB Finals: Song 6 v Song 6 Finals 1: Song 6 v Song 6 Finals 2: Song 1 v Song 1
Just to drive that point home. ...But even my idea obviously falls under that anticlimactic thing. Like I said, I can't think of a good solution. I was absolutely fine with 1/2/3 -> 4/5/6 -> 1/2/3, my bigger problem was not the format but that it might have been better to mention it earlier. Even if it was right after the bracket was made if you were worried that revealing it earlier would cause people to try and mess with the order to take advantage of it.
(Continued because I could talk about VGMusic and contests forever!)
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
* Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role?
If I had my way we'd have an endless VGMusic contest cycle, with VGMC and the OST contest scheduled in such a way that one was always going, with little to no offseason whatsoever. Possibly adding another contest in there if there's still space!
...But I think I'm in the minority there. >_>
So, yeah, I'd like to see this contest make a return. As for modifications, I don't think many would need to be made. Just what I mentioned before: Figuring out what, if anything, is done with the LB. Potentially modifying the format of the last few rounds.
Maybe consider "retiring" the top few OSTs and putting them in a ToC. Or maybe just remove AT2 and make it an exhibition round after the finals. I think I'd definitely put AT2 off to the side to reappear in a ToC or Exhibition, from there it's just a matter of "Does anything else go with it? And if so, what?"
But hey, talk about whatever you want to with regard to the contest -- favorite matches, sore points, what if's, what you look forward to in a theoretical bOSTc2...
I look forward to .hack//G.U. getting revenge and storming through to win OST2 to challenge AT2 in a battle for supremacy!
...Or to just lose in the first round of another JFF Bracket. Who knows. Definitely look forward to putting together an optimal G.U. list from all 3 games and seeing what happens. And perhaps seeing what AT1 can do in comparison to AT2 (Spoilers: That is likely to end very badly for it)
My favorite part of this contest was definitely the latter stages of the WB West Bracket. That was a very fun (and totally overpowered) section with AT2, Chrono Cross, Umineko, and NieR.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
Also, to address xp's desire: I actually really like not having too many vgm contests. It makes VGMC that much better and more special. It's like how we went through a period on B8 of having a million user contests, and then we just stopped, and suddenly one showed up and it was really great. Oversaturation often makes people less interesting. A spinoff-type contest like this is fine, especially since it was explicitly designed as a neat experiment, but I wouldn't really want to see anything else between now and April or whenever VGMC6 starts.
There's definitely an oversaturation point, and I'm sure even my enthusiasm could be dampened by it at some point, just probably well after everyone else has become sick of it.
I think it does help that this was a spin-off. Starting VGMC6 right after VGMC5 ended, for example, not even I would like that too much. At least not for very long. I think that the nuances of this contest were such that it was unique enough to be able to follow VGMC without any problems like that.
A more realistic situation would be running both VGMC and this annually but never at the same time. However, probably starting this a little past when VGMC ended so that there's about equal space between them.
I'm just saying if someone could come up with another fairly unique VGMusic Contest idea I probably wouldn't be opposed to adding it in too. Not sure what other good ideas exist though. At least for a contest. I also rather enjoyed that mini-fad of "Give 100 songs and get them ranked" we had a while back. That was pretty fun.
...Honestly I blame the site contests for some of this. There's been approximately one good Character/Game contest since around 2005 and so VGMC (and this) have basically taken its place for me in terms of contests to focus on. >_>
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest?
WB went fine. LB had some serious issues in the last round, that 1/2/3 vs. 1/2/3 match should just not have happened. On any level. I don't even the like the idea of best 2 of 3 matches in general, but if you had to go with that then 1/2/3 was seriously the worst possible choice there. Get that trash out of any climactic match. Not fair to the nominators and especially not fair to the people who have to listen to it. >_>
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket.
Honestly? No, it really wasn't. I don't know how viable this would be but I'd prefer just sending the R1 losers to a losers bracket, but if you lose in R2 or later, tough ****. This gives every OST at least two songs, so it allows for second chances without going the route of "oh well the entire LB is pointless because CC is gonna come in at the end and crush everything".
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently? * Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket?
Going to combine these two because my answer applies to both.
IMO frontloading a nomination should have been heavily, HEAVILY discouraged. You can't really ban it outright because what counts as frontloading is subjective, but yeah. It seriously ruins the point of the contest. (Thankfully, it didn't cause any real problems that I can remember, but I still say to just nip that in the bud.)
Also, nominations had an issue where someone could come in early, nominate Game A, make a really awful lineup for it, and then refuse to make any changes. I know that in a few cases you changed the nominations yourself but the system should have been set up such that you wouldn't have to. This could probably be fixed just by allowing people to run competing nominations. For example: I don't like User1's lineup for Game A, he won't take my advice, so I run my own competing nomination for Game A. Users can only support one lineup per game and whichever has the most at the end of the nominating period gets into the contest.
* Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.)
Not really, at least none that weren't covered above. I had a few issues with some of your calls, but whatever, it's just a difference of opinion and it's part of the contest. Overall you did a good job.
* Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role?
Should definitely return. But yeah, enlist a backup vote counter. Two counts are always better than one anyway.
--
"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest?
I think its a solid system that works surprisingly well. I do think that the LB round format could've definitely seen some improvements, especially in the case of weaker, backloaded soundtracks that get out in the earlier rounds. My nomination, Last Ranker, was very much a backloaded one, with my weakest songs being the 2nd and the alt. By my estimations in the nomination period, my song would go out in round two, start on the third song in the loser's bracket and (hopefully) proceed to wreak havoc on the competition. This LB setup did not happen, so its almost lucky that my nomination didn't make it in, because realistically through the actual setup, the farthest I could have was maybe R2/3 in the LB, rendering most of my strategic ordering futile. :(
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket.
I think it was. The loser's bracket really gave the contest somewhat of a sense of depth. If it can be refined a little bit more to support the more strategic song setups (like mine), and perhaps if it is defined better in the nomination period (to allow people to get a grasp for how they want to set up their songs for the WB and the LB), that might have really make it worthwhile next time imo
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently?
The finals were solid, but could have been changed to implement those 3 vs. 3 matches earlier, and maybe even to loosen up the rules there to encourage people to decide on what songs should go in each match. That way, the people whining about for instance CC losing could at least have a reason to blame themselves for not picking the right songs for the match.
It also might have been nice to see the JFF bracket to be a bit larger, or at least the criteria for what gets into it to be fixed, but I'm probably only saying that because my sole nomination didn't make it into it :/
* Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket?
I believe the method for game selection was pretty solid. The method for song selection/order, on the other hand, might have needed a bit of fixing. Perhaps if people were able to vote on specific song selections, we'd see the more popular ones get in? Also, as mentioned above, fix up the LB setup and maybe we might be able to see more strategic selections made, you never know ;P
* Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role?
I would definitely like to see a follow-up next year. As somebody who had also been personally counting the votes most of the time, (generally because I was the last voter of the day at for at least 3/4 of the entire contest,) your vote counts seemed to be consistently accurate throughout the majority of the contest and, for a lot of the time, they were more accurate than my counts, so don't worry. Also, since I still hardly know anybody on here (in spite of spending most of my free time on this board for a solid year or two), I know that I'm pretty much the worst person for identifying alts and whatnot. Still, it might've helped to consistently have a backup throughout the contest just in case. I'm pretty sure I was the only one that even noticed the tie in the JFF finals was 9-9, not 8-8, and even then I didn't notice it until I voted the next day.
Yeah. I had fun watching my little 16 seed make it as far as it did. Honestly would have like to see it do better. I half expected it to lose in the closing rounds of the main tournament but was hoping it would make it further in the losers bracket. To lose to a Castlevania song that I didn't think was all that good was somewhat disappointing, but I guess I'm to blame for the song choice.
* Now that we've done the contest, with the six-song, six-round format, how well do you think it works out? Any particular tweaks you'd suggest? This worked just fine.
* Was the loser's bracket worth running? A few games got some measure of redemption, but we did end up with the same finals as the winner's bracket. Yeah, I liked the idea, worked well.
* Anything else about the rules you think should have or at least could have been handled differently? I can't think of anything right off.
* Were you happy with the nomination period and the method in which games were chosen for the bracket? I'm sure it was good, I was just late noticing it I suppose. Had I noticed it earlier, man, there were several other games I would have liked to nominate. Always next time.
* Any particular grievances you want to get off your chest -- either in terms of the results, or how the contest was administered? (Be civil, but feel free to let me have it.) I think it worked pretty well.
* Do you want to see this contest return next year, either as-is or with modifications? Would you prefer somebody else run it? (Or at least count the votes for it!) Would you have liked to take a more active role? I like the idea of a back up counter, maybe even two back ups. Other than that, all good.
Picking on MP's post to reply to, because it was most recent and because I want to bump the thread.
Strategic placement (you even encouraged it!) I think is something that the nominators should be allowed to consider themselves, each OST may stand a different level of chance depending on what music a game has to offer, where different methods of ordering of tracks would be different for different soundtracks, and I think removing that causes this contest to lose a slight amount of appeal to me as well anyways, since I enjoyed figuring out what order would be the best for my nominations.
Yes, I did encourage it, which is a fact that seems to be lost on some people. i was only tossing that out there to try to appease the "omg how dare you not go in order?" crowd. As if we'll ever actually agree on what the order should be.
You REALLY need to be more careful about quality of links in MycroProcessor's opinion. It was enough to prevent Ed Bellis from continuing following the contest, and it irritated Mycro as well! You should be considerate of people who actually do hear differences in audio quality even if you might not be able to notice them well yourself! It likely even affected some of the votes, I can think of at least 3 regular voters in this contest off of the top of my head that tend to focus on the overall audio production as an aspect of why they might enjoy a piece of music to some extent or another, that is a perfectly legitimate reason to enjoy a piece of music, and those people who may like/dislike something would have vastly different opinions if different links were chosen!
That's all good and fine, except if I can't hear it...TRULY CANNOT HEAR IT...how am I supposed to know if a link is bad? Clearly I cannot run this tournament entirely by myself.
I felt you were too strict and overly authoritative about people trying to play the system to not support vote things to get them into the bracket. Plus, to deny people ability to actually see what has a chance currently of getting in easily I feel is a bit harsh of a reaction and is also inconvenient.
Sorry, what? I don't understand this. Are you referring to how I was hiding the pivot table in the spreadsheet? I wanted the games to be in based on merit, not on last-minute rallying.
The main other thing I didn't like was how you made it so a single person dictated a list for whatever OST they got to pick first and how that was a bit unfair on anyone else who wanted to contribute to that OST's selection.
Logistics. It isn't reasonable to run a poll on every single game, nor is it realistic to expect every person who support votes to make their own list. Do you have a suggestion how to handle this?
Antonsaidwhat wrote: who decided this? 10 voters? rofl. But yeah, it was fun I guess
About half the voters of what we started with. Went from about 40 to around 20 by the end. I certainly would have liked more, but having a repeat of the WB finals was a bit anticlimactic and there were a bunch of people who I suspect didn't vote because they were sore over CC losing.
From: azuarc | #028 About half the voters of what we started with. Went from about 40 to around 20 by the end. I certainly would have liked more, but having a repeat of the WB finals was a bit anticlimactic and there were a bunch of people who I suspect didn't vote because they were sore over CC losing.
You could put the contest on multiple social boards, it's as easy and copy paste. Just a thought.
I seriously am ECSTATIC that AT2 won. ...because, it FELT basically like it was my nomination, since if xp1337 hadn't nominated it I would have, and with probably almost exactly the same selection/order. I even influenced the list myself talking to xp1337 to help him decide what he should include and how he should order them to each other so yeah.
Yeah, definite assist to Mycro and SuperAngelo for AT2. They probably saved me (and AT2) from a Round 2 exit in the WB. While the AT2 list that made it to the contest is quite close to my original draft of it when I was making it up alone, the biggest change to it when we were discussing it was when they convinced me that God's Footprints would be a much better choice for the list than what I originally intended in its place. On my own, I didn't think the board would receive God's Footprints all that well, so without them convincing me to make that change it's very possible (if not exceedingly likely) that AT2 would have lost to DKC2 in Round 2.
-- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX
From: azuarc | #028 Logistics. It isn't reasonable to run a poll on every single game, nor is it realistic to expect every person who support votes to make their own list. Do you have a suggestion how to handle this?
I would suggest taking nominations or like top 10 lists for each game. Whatever song does the best is round 6, 2nd most is round 5, etc. This would also prevent frontloading, unless people were really out to game the system.
Ed Bellis posted... For me it wasn't the quality of links that prevented me from continuing, it was my compulsion to continually look for new ones. I could have just let it be, but I'm anal retentive like that. So that's not necessarily on you!
Still, I wish I had known it was that big a deal. It's like going to a party hosted by a legally blind person, and not telling them that the room is too bright. They might know if it's too dark, but too bright isn't about to register with them on their own. When you checked out early, I thought I just smelled bad or you had to be home in time for Matlock or something.