Board 8 > Did research to see if subreddits allow rally topics for some newer characters

(+) Yeah! (+)

Basically what I did was send a PM to the moderation team of the biggest subreddits I could think of for many of the newer characters in CBX

Here's how my PMs to them were worded:

So I'm not sure if any of the mod team has heard or been on GameFAQs but ever few years or so they have a "Character Battle" which is basically a site/internet wide video game character popularity contest.

It's a bracket elimination 1v1 tournament where people simply vote for the character they like more.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/features/cbx_entry

You need to have a GameFAQs account to see the bracket .

[Character] happened to get a good amount of nominations to be in the bracket.

[Character]'s match against [Opposing Character] should be up on [Date]. He/She may have potential future matches.

When those matches comes up is it ok for me to post a link to have people vote if they so please?

Thanks.

Here are the responses (if any) I got:

2B - /r/nier

Sure, go ahead

Aloy - /r/horizon

I see no issue with allowing you to make such a post.

Chloe Price - /r/lifeisstrange

Sure, that's fine.

Cuphead - /r/Cuphead

Yeah sure as long as it's Cuphead related and safe for work and not promoting a personal twitch then it's fine.

D.Va - /r/Overwatch

Sure.

Estelle Bright - /r/Falcom

No Response

Geralt - /r/witcher

No Response

Hat Kid - r/AHatInTime

No Response

Joel and Ellie - /r/thelastofus

This could be interesting. Go ahead and post it if you want!

---

Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima - /r/yakuzagames

No Response

Monika - /r/DDLC

No Response

Monokuma - /r/danganronpa

No Response

Neptune - /r/gamindustri

Hello

We had another user posting about this in our sub a few days ago which got people pretty hyped. Should be fine for you to post a link when the match goes live.

Ren Amamiya - /r/Persona 5

Is it against the rules on GameFAQs to 'brigade' these contests from other sites? That's the only issue I can see.

I responded

It is not against the rules! In fact it's allowed.

Then

No problems, then.

Sans - /r/Undertale

Hi superange128, thanks for letting us know about this.

We certainly do know of GameFAQss popularity contests. Users made a ton of posts rallying each other to help Undertale win the 2015 contest Best. Game. Ever. Some other users were annoyed by those posts. We judged them to potentially be a source of division and conflict with other fandoms, and theyre the reason we wrote the no-soliciting rule the way we did.

Once the no-soliciting rule was in place, we continued to allow posts that shared information about the contest, but not posts asking users to participate in it. Our approach to this years Character Battle contest will be the same.

Shovel Knight - r/ShovelKnight

No Response

Velvet Crowe - /r/tales

It's fine, but only one post, please

---

Prepare your butts for the Overwatch brigade to rally D.Va.

Seriously
---

Neptune 2018??

Save us Ellie and Joel.
---

This is pretty damn good job you did there, thank you!
---

It would be cool to see the Overwatch twitter mention it because they have like 3M+ followers >_>

For the record, outside DDLC which I asked 4 days ago, most of these were asked about 20-22 hours ago as of this post. I may ask about others like Shantae or something but I went for the bigger unknowns/the ones that could have bigger rallies

If I get any updates, I'll put em here
---

swordz9 posted...

It would be cool to see the Overwatch twitter mention it because they have like 3M+ followers >_>

It shall be done.
---

Are any of those reddits even a threat?
---

I browse /r/falcom pretty regularly. My guess is that they would initially allow it but would try to stop it if it resulted in any sort of drama (which it would). Not sure how quickly they would implement a change though. Regardless, I think the amount of people on that subreddit is small enough that I don't think it would significantly affect the contest either way.

If you're worried about a rally for Estelle Bright (you really shouldn't be), then it would likely come from Twitter if anything, would be my guess.
---

This is great. If >50% of the brackets gets rallied, then it becomes a game of guessing which rally will be most successful. lol xstats
---

for Geralt just tweet CDPR or post on their FB
---

NowItsAngeTime posted...

Hi superange128, thanks for letting us know about this.

We certainly do know of GameFAQss popularity contests. Users made a ton of posts rallying each other to help Undertale win the 2015 contest Best. Game. Ever. Some other users were annoyed by those posts. We judged them to potentially be a source of division and conflict with other fandoms, and theyre the reason we wrote the no-soliciting rule the way we did.

Once the no-soliciting rule was in place, we continued to allow posts that shared information about the contest, but not posts asking users to participate in it. Our approach to this years Character Battle contest will be the same.

This seems like a meaningless distinction. Making a thread only saying he's currently in a contest match is basically the same thing as asking you to vote for him, lol.
---

So every place in the internet will allow rallies except for Draven and Undertale because they've seen what happens when they do.

Lmao.

nep nep rallies would be incredible.
---

pyresword posted...

I browse /r/falcom pretty regularly. My guess is that they would initially allow it but would try to stop it if it resulted in any sort of drama (which it would).

My suspicion is that every single response is underestimating the drama a successful rally would cause.
---

ZeldaTPLink posted...

So every place in the internet will allow rallies except for Draven and Undertale because they've seen what happens when they do.

Lmao.

Basically yeah. It's pretty funny.

Regardless it looks like Sans and LoL might be less of a threat this time...maybe...but stuff like Overwatch is a potential problem.
---

Underleveled posted...

Neptune 2018??

Save us Ellie and Joel.

That sub has 16,000 subscribers. I'm not too worried about it.
---

Overwatch is the biggest threat. It may fail to generate interest if there's no opposing rally. DVa isn't really interesting as an "underdog" or anything. Apparently Draven was interesting to the LoL community because he wasn't even considered likable; so, the rally was more of a troll effort than anything.

Tag
---

Will you actually post a topic on each of them when the match happens?

Fuck off ange.
---

It sounds like the policy with Sans (purely from that email) is that you can mention the match is on, or give a score update, you just can't ask/rally for people to vote. It will be interesting to see how much they do allow.
---

Dels posted...

Will you actually post a topic on each of them when the match happens?

Maybe a few but not all. Everything else was just out of curiosity and preparation in case I needed a bracket change
---

MoogleKupo141 posted...

Underleveled posted...

Neptune 2018??

Save us Ellie and Joel.

That sub has 16,000 subscribers. I'm not too worried about it.

Maybe they can get lost pause to pitch neptune on his videos/twitch
---

Eddv posted...

Fuck off ange.

I wouldn't go this far but when the board kinda hates these big rallies in general, it's pretty dickish to just flaunt how much you're going to rally on multiple different subreddits.
---

XIII_rocks posted...

Eddv posted...

Fuck off ange.

I wouldn't go this far but when the board kinda hates these big rallies in general, it's pretty dickish to just flaunt how much you're going to rally on multiple different subreddits.

Well I just said Im only going to possibly do a few topics

It got assumed I was doing em all when I never said I would

And Eddv has hated me for a while anyway
---

Id love to see all the rallies take off because who even knows what would win then. Also seeing stuff like Neptune make a division final or Monika would be neat. Id mostly just love to see the N9 get buried because seeing stuff like Vivi > Mario last time was so amazing

I know the guy's been memed half to death, but are you going to send one for Cayde-6/the Destiny sub too?
---

Excellent investigative journalism ange
---

Ytterbicide posted...

I know the guy's been memed half to death, but are you going to send one for Cayde-6/the Destiny sub too?

Guess it wouldnt hurt
---

I don't mind rallies as long as the fan bases of the rallies don't come here just to post about the rally and leave.
---

Fantastic work on this, seriously. I would have never thought to get this kind of foresight.

I'll be very intrigued to see what DDLC has to say, if anything.
---

I personally think characters like Ren, Aqua, Kazuma, or 2B have the biggest chance of being the rallied characters this year. People are looking too low in seeds. The noms are weird this year with seeding.
But those four will have the Board vote plus a good chance of a rally. Could put up big numbers.

...For some reason I don't think Geralt has a chance, but that's just a hunch.

Cuphead is the most likely rallied lower seed character...if he weren't going first day of the contest I would pick the upset.

Then D. Va. Too much hype train now to make it happen at this point.

However, the biggest likely rally of them all??? ...Phoenix Wright people. Phoenix Wright is the correct response.
---

TheCodeisBosco posted...

I'll be very intrigued to see what DDLC has to say, if anything.

the fact that they ignored his message lines up pretty well with my suspicion that they likely don't care about the contest
---

XIII_rocks posted...

when the board kinda hates these big rallies

are you sure?

we also say we hate the on-season and yet
---

well that makes it easier for me to have sans lose 1st round

MariaTaylor posted...

TheCodeisBosco posted...

I'll be very intrigued to see what DDLC has to say, if anything.

the fact that they ignored his message lines up pretty well with my suspicion that they likely don't care about the contest

tbh the amount of subs that just have shitty mods is way too high for you to think mods are indicative of the fanbase.
---

i mean i feel like it's kind of a "you" problem at this point if you have a problem with rallies. they are the new reality and they (theoretically) bring people to the site and represent people who are enthusiastic-ish about what they like

yes the draven people seemed to be purposefuly antagonistic but that's just one example

(and when i say "you", i don't mean xiii for posting that, i just mean in general)

Id love to see Narukami pull off the huge upset and beat Vivi. Hes such a fun protagonist when you factor in the anime with all his amazing reactions to stuff. I mean I like Vivi too so it sucks thats an R1 match. The fact he is even returning when the hot new Persona is out is impressive to me

Dels posted...

they are the new reality and they (theoretically) bring people to the site and represent people who are enthusiastic-ish about what they like

This does bring up a good point that I've never thought of. I mean, we've rallied in some pretty minor and obscure characters over the years and it's almost always because one or a few people were passionate about seeing them in, either because they love the character or want to see how they would do. And we kinda shrug off the fact that this comes at the expense of, say, Altair or Meta Knight making the bracket.

But I suppose the difference is that we have been around since the very beginning; many of us have had a vested interest in this thing for the better part of the last two decades, so to have a fanbase overpower us to see their character win something they don't care about and then never come back stings a bit. The worse part is when they rub it in our faces. I bet you if we got even 5-10 quality new B8ers out of the Draven rally, we would've hated it so much less. But that's not how it went down at all.
---

Underleveled posted...

I bet you if we got even 5-10 quality new B8ers out of the Draven rally, we would've hated it so much less. But that's not how it went down at all.

Unless both sides tried to talk to each other not likely

Also what would someone from a much more populated site that're more appealing to the modern gaming crowd gain by becoming legit members of small board that as far as they know only get angry when contests don't go the way they want?
---

NowItsAngeTime posted...

Also what would someone from a much more populated site that're more appealing to the modern gaming crowd gain by becoming legit members of small board that as far as they know only get angry when contests don't go the way they want?

yeah this is the hard truth nobody wants to hear.

do you think any of them might have stuck around if you guys did anything other than throw a giant temper tantrum???
---

i mean, yeah, i get it, people are on this board because they liked the "predicting which characters gamefaqs users would vote for" thing, which was how the contests ran for many years (or not, my sense of time is warped, since someone pointed out that l-block was already like 10+ years ago wtf)

and it is perhaps less interesting to try to make a bracket when the biggest considerations aren't "who will gamefaqs vote for" and instead "which 1 character will get a massive rally"

but, i dunno, times change, there's really nothing that can be done about it. if ange goes and posts some topics, that's not gonna be the reason a rally happens. you can't control it at this point really.

and yeah draven was an example of it being a bad thing because they had a lot of rude people (though i'm sure this board has some people who helped escalate it) but the undertale folks seemed to just want to support a game they love

honestly, the ideal would probably be if there were MORE rallies

at least then it'd feel like there was real competition happening

the problem is when only ONE entry gets a massive rally to the point where they singlehandedly dominate and ruin the whole thing

so if anything, people should hope ange gets rallies going in many places!

B8ers suck as predicting the contest and look for any scapegoat

PALMER literally beat all of you one time

But now we have the scapegoat right in front of us - tons of rallies... why not embrace it?
---

Dels posted...

honestly, the ideal would probably be if there were MORE rallies

at least then it'd feel like there was real competition happening

the problem is when only ONE entry gets a massive rally to the point where they singlehandedly dominate and ruin the whole thing

so if anything, people should hope ange gets rallies going in many places!

Generally if I rally something I'd make it fair-ish on both sides. If say I posted something on /r/Persona5 Id want to make sure a /r/ResidentEvil rally for Claire would also be there, if not I would make it. Obv I'd prefer for Ren to win but I still want an interesting match

That said, once again people are assuming I'm going to actually post topics for all these which I'm not going to unless people want me to (or if people that salty for me not to)
---

b8 tearing itself apart at the possibility of winning a measly $1000
---

Ange is still a dickhead.

I was happy he was gone.

Fuck contest season.
---

foolm0r0n posted...

why not embrace it?

my sense of self worth isn't tied to my ability to predict contest matches on a dying message board
---