Board 8 > The Show EP 1 - The Glorious Return of GotD! Breaking down the bracket w/ Leon

(+) Yeah! (+)

MetalmindStats posted...

Oh, I agree with this, but I'm just not convinced Breath of the Wild is as far ahead of the rest of the field as Link was in 2018.

The catch is that the Link boost didn't happen out of nowhere. It happened after BotW.

Link being on his highest level ever and Zelda being a Top 6 is a product of BotW existing.

So what does this say about BotW?

Leonhart4 posted...

The corona virus can't stop Game of the Decade at least

If anything, it's about to help me participate because I'm officially stuck at home for the next two weeks.

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Leonhart4 posted...

The corona virus can't stop Game of the Decade at least

Let's hope so anyway

Votals are going to go through the roof!

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ZeldaTPLink posted...

The catch is that the Link boost didn't happen out of nowhere. It happened after BotW.

Link being on his highest level ever and Zelda being a Top 6 is a product of BotW existing.

So what does this say about BotW?

Beast of the Wild

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Stuck at home with no sports to watch? There's only one cure for these Global Pandemic blues- listening to The Show!


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i kind of have a cough right now, have me on for a special pandemic episode of the show where i maybe die on stream

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Off for 3 weeks... well almost

Guess that gives me time to finally get to this!


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I get laid off tomorrow, so feel free to record all the marathon length shows you want now.

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What's happening out there in the world is awful, don't get me wrong. But... the next two months are going to be a golden era for gaming.

• steam hit a new record for most concurrent active users this afternoon, at 20 million
• Counter-Strike reached a most active users record at the same time, over 1 million
• Rocket League hit a new all time peak today as well
• 100,000 people were streaming on twitch at the same time this aft, a new milestone for the site
• 2.3 million gamers were watching those streams at the time, also a new world record

And all these numbers are only going to continue rising! Pretty wild timing to have a Game of the Decade bracket running on GameFAQs AND an IGN Character Battle randomly arriving in the midst of this, especially since there will be no normal March Madness bracket this year (for the first time since 1939).


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Game of the Decade 2 is the new March Madness

someone put coverage on ESPN because they need something to broadcast for the next month

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The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure I gave a token mobile nomination for Plague Inc in 2015. That would have been a real interesting entrant in this contest.

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Ngamer64 posted...

What's happening out there in the world is awful, don't get me wrong. But... the next two months are going to be a golden era for gaming.

* steam hit a new record for most concurrent active users this afternoon, at 20 million
* Counter-Strike reached a most active users record at the same time, over 1 million
* Rocket League hit a new all time peak today as well
* 100,000 people were streaming on twitch at the same time this aft, a new milestone for the site
* 2.3 million gamers were watching those streams at the time, also a new world record
And all these numbers are only going to continue rising! Pretty wild timing to have a Game of the Decade bracket running on GameFAQs AND an IGN Character Battle randomly arriving in the midst of this, especially since there will be no normal March Madness bracket this year (for the first time since 1939).

Sounds like the coronavirus is the reason for all of those new record highs. Many people are either off from school or work, in quarantine, or spending more time at home to reduce risk of getting infected. Which would have an impact on online traffic instead.

We could see increased vote totals for this contest due to coronavirus, although I didn't factor this into my tiebreaker. It seems like only recently (last 7 days or so) that the current situation has picked a lot more steam such as cancellation of major sports leagues worldwide.

Starting last Friday, Allen has already started running a yellow site alert for this contest. This means it will be easily visible to new people visiting the site for the first time. I'm surprised at how early Allen has started using the yellow site alert, as this was typically reserved for only the final day of bracket entries. We still have at least 5 days left to fill out a bracket (at the time of the yellow site alert going up). Maybe Allen is trying to capitalize on the coronavirus situation by running the site alert so early.
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Go SB go!

But maaaaaan, at this point I am seriously jonesing for those Nick live listenthrough updates...


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contest time is almost upon us!

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Guru soon?

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Guru topic usually goes up on the day of bracket lockdown since we don't post brackets until after lockdown.

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And now the contest has been pushed back another week because of site maintenance.

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Well, I guess it's another potential episode for The Show, even if I don't know what we would do to wring two more episodes out of pre-contest shenanigans.

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Eh I think the first delay already reduced some contest excitement for it, this one might somewhat kill it. I feel like I have reviewed my bracket more than necessary already.

I think we all know what's really happening here.

SB refuses to start the Contest until Nick has posted his Episode One Listenthrough. And honestly I can't blame him!


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The last delay actually made some people consider the same killer upsets I was taking and that forced me to take even more killer upsets to stay above my risk goal.

At this rate, a week from now the board will have warmed up on Odissey > Smash and I'll have to look for upsets again.

I say let them all warm up to Odyssey > Smash

it'll make my work much easier

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One less bracket to worry about.
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Up we go.

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If you're looking for an Outside The GameFAQs Bubble perspective- here was the final from IGN's Game of the Decade polls. Good sample size here, they had over 700k votes.


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Zelda doing that bad is great to see.

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except it's actually better than every game in that poll

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Hey @MetalmindStats could you bookmark this site?

https://dotafromzero.com/

If you do decide to give Dota a try (and the timing would be excellent, all multi games are super active right now with everyone in quarantine), this site will ensure you have the best experience. They set up private games with only new players, and there's a coach on each team to give you advice. After a few games you'll have a core group of friends to play with that are around your level, which is great fun.


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Ngamer64 posted...

Hey @MetalmindStats could you bookmark this site?

Done, and I've also saved the URL in my personal Google doc devoted to this contest. I've gotta say, it's pretty cool that something like this exists, and I wouldn't have known about it otherwise, so thank you for letting me know.

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Good news, our average vote totals for March is about 700 votes higher compared to February. We're currently averaging 11014 votes in March. Seems like the coronavirus situation is helping out the vote totals so far.
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Keep those votes coming

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also if you guys are looking for some contest related fun transience and I have ranked our best and worst contest picks ever

well I'm about to post my #1s here in a bit </shameless plug>

you can also read my top 100 games list </even more shameless plug>

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With the quarantine in effect I assume most Show listeners have been working through their gaming backlog, perhaps even boning up on some of the best releases from this bracket that you missed. And that's great! But if instead you're itching to try something new, game companies have been putting out some free games today to help end all worldwide boredom:

Tomb Raider (2013)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/203160/Tomb_Raider/

Watch Dogs
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/watch-dogs/home#/purchase/receipt?_k=hssqip

The Stanley Parable
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/the-stanley-parable/home

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris
https://store.steampowered.com/app/289690/LARA_CROFT_AND_THE_TEMPLE_OF_OSIRIS/

Drawful 2
https://store.steampowered.com/app/442070/Drawful_2/

Headsnatchers
https://store.steampowered.com/app/797410/Headsnatchers/

Mable & The Wood
https://www.gog.com/game/mable_the_wood

Deiland
https://store.steampowered.com/app/760620/Deiland/

Tokaido
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.funforgedigital.tokaido


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I already own two of those games.

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Thanks for the tip, NG. I already own the two TR games, unfortunately, but Deiland might be worth a shot.

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when @Ngamer64 talked about Dota 2 I shed a tear I was happy. The International(Dota 2 World Championships) is arguably THE best E-Sports event of the year at this point. Love everything about it.

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Is there a Guru topic yet?

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Guru topic goes up on the day of bracket lockdown.

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We've reached Contest Week (for the third time... but FOR REAL this time), here are the side competitions if you want to get more involved!

Streak Contest - make your picks
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78476089

Oracle Challenge - guess your %s
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78448073

Spread Betting - pick OVER or UNDER on the lines
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78451459

Guru Contest
COMING SOON

Crew Analysis - sign up to do a match writeup
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78475871

And of course, be sure to finalize your bracket. I would personally recommend you push your tiebreaker UP A LITTLE BIT to account for Corona Time!


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My recommended tiebreaker range when the bracket went up was 1900000 to 2300000. I have since revised the tiebreaker range to be 2100000 to 2500000 after seeing the slightly higher vote totals in the polls this month.
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Yeah, I think I upped the hundred thousand digit a couple to account for slightly higher votals. We're probably not going back to 100K without a significant really, but I do think us laid off/quarantined people are going to have a little bit more turnout.

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3 more days

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oh gosh I still need to listen to this

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better get on that then

it should last until the contest begins if you start now

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I love that yo is now an old man who doesn't know any of the new fangled games

also death stranding rant

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Alright Guru topic is up, get those brackets in, everyone!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78503760


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last chance to squeeze in all this hot analysis before bracket lockdown!

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As with past contests, I will be involved on the stats side of the contest discussion. Last contest, I provided registered/anonymous user voting results and I'll be doing the same thing for this contest too. I have already created the spreadsheet for this contest's Registered/Anonymous user vote splits right here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kFS3SfH6sAhPdS85H7BpuFIkr9SayeF7AhMw-wrEBng/pub

Another side project I'll do is make trend charts based on just the raw vote totals (excluding registered user bonus), but I won't be posting those trend charts publicly although they will be located on this spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TpCHE9QWTuASBemQxDBHzEJDTt4gOddgPSlE8ne0zvc/pub
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GTM posted...

I love that yo is now an old man who doesn't know any of the new fangled games

also death stranding rant

Yo blazer ranting on dEath Stranding was the highlight

In fact any podcast where they shit on Death Stranding is going to be Gold.


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