Board 8 > The Show EP 8 - Wrapping Up The Excellent GotD 2020 Contest, with Leon and KP!

(+) Yeah! (+)

We do not need a contest every year. Every 1 - 2 years is the right balance, imo!

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Oh man, what a way to bring it back to Tropical Freeze, Leon.

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While I agree with with yoblazer that Witcher 3 is definitely a star of the contest, I don't think being a Western game in this final is the greatest reasoning, because this bracket was kind of designed to do that from the start. For Nintendo to do it, it would have needed Pokemon HG/SS, Mario Kart 8, or Mario Galaxy 2 to rise up to the occassion, and we knew those games going in were no Mario RPG. Dark Souls and Persona 5 were the only true Japanese contenders on that side of the bracket, and them being in Witcher's place would have been just as incredible for different reasons.

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I have to laugh that this COVLD bracket did better than this person's actual Guru bracket, despite having a worse semi-finals.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Villains could have been a far better concept if we had characters like Magus, Knuckles, Riku, Pokemon Trainer Blue, etc. in the mix as well as the Villains themselves.

It's pretty hard not to agree with that IMO, at least from a perspective of quality matches, interesting set-ups, etc. The problem is that, as someone who's actually made a villains mock bracket before, I can say that a vocal contingent of B8 would not take kindly to such an expansion, even more broadly labeled as a best antagonist contest like I did. On the other hand, an equally vocal contingent probably would not take kindly to how bare a 'pure' villains bracket would be, so you can't really win for losing with this idea.

Ngamer64 posted...

Yes good idea, could someone please do this and link it here?

Well, I technically have such a bracket I haven't publicized, but I pretty much just ranked the consoles by estimated sales as of 2024, then sprinkled in certain systems like the PC that otherwise wouldn't have been represented. If people want to see that anyways, by all means I'll make the topic. If we'd rather see a properly curated bracket, though, I'm content with leaving that to someone who's more passionate about the idea of a system contest.

Oh, and thank you for linking directly to my new series mock bracket!

LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, I meant to mention there would be an issue with recent console generations because you'd have to make the call about whether to restrict games to console exclusives, in which case something like the Xbone would be, well, boned. Or even the Xbox 360 since most of its big non-Halo/Gears of War games aren't exclusive anymore.

Yeah, I don't think you can only spotlight exclusives for such a contest with the way that the architecture of video game publishing has shaped up in this century so far in mind.

Anyways, I've finally started listening to an episode in time for the meat of the conversation, so here's my initial thoughts:

• I most certainly agree with the high praise of Allen's picmaking/pic-curating efforts and the various formatting details in play for this contest. Where I personally differ is in terms of the bracket itself, which I'll say more about later when it'll be more relevant.
• I'm not fond of the idea of a sitewide best story/narrative/writing/whatever contest for the reasons everyone else covered. I do agree with KP about its potential on B8 specifically, and in fact, I've considered hosting such a contest myself. I just don't know that I'm a consistent or generally good enough host for future board contests, though.
• For anyone reading this post from start to finish, I think my earlier comments already betrayed my thoughts on a system contest. I see it as basically a non-arbitrary version of BYIG; it would still be predictable, including an obvious winner, and heavy on blowouts, but at least voters would know and care about what they'd be voting for. I think it's probably worth having as a side contest at some point, but I don't know that next year is that time.
• Personally, I think the only fair and consistent answer to the PC question for a system contest is to split it along the lines in the site database, even though only the PC itself would likely make the bracket. I'll admit that making it an old-school/modern divide certainly feels good, but that's ultimately too arbitrary a line for my tastes.

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Spread betting is all about those parlays, especially in Round 1 in this contest. Blowout city was very kind to parlay betting, and those successful 15x multipliers on four matches a day were key to getting ahead of the curve.

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I think solid B+ would be my rank here. For the most part, the contest was ran well. My rationale for not going to an A would be a few sticky points.

• RE2/Bloodborne should have been postponed. We shouldn't be having matches losing two hours in a post-Mario/Crono world. It's not 2002 anymore, and we could have just taken a day from the break to align the schedule back to normal or something.
• If there was a loose series cap, why? I appreciate the fodder, and I have found a lot of favorites due to the lower end of contests, but they shouldn't be coming at the expense of Skyward Sword, Super Mario 3D World, or Final Fantasy 13. The way this contest ended up going, they could have busted a lot of brackets in losing matches we wouldn't have thought possible. As good of a contest Persona 5 had, imagine it taking down FF13 in Round 2, cementing itself as the premiere JPRG series of the decade.
• The break seemed like it was better handled this time around with more yellow notifications pushing Second Chance entry and such, but I'd still rather see incentive to come to the front page to keep people around that week. To the point where I actually switched from taking the RE2 upset to Mass Effect 2 in second chance because I felt that could be a factor. It worked out for me even though it turned out ME2 would have won by more actually, but maybe doing some exhibition polls featuring the worst of the decade would keep people habitually visiting the front page the entire time, and maybe resulted in less people posting in the Stats topics or the unrelated stickies topics wondering what happened to the contest.

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On the note of hiding seeds, I think it would defintely play better in a character battle than a games battle. If you hid the seeds in this bracket, we generally wouldn't have much trouble inserting them in ourselves save for the 8/9s and 7/10s. Even the few instances where we might have went wrong like Uncharted 4 vs. Mario Kart 8 didn't stop us from making the correct choice even with MK8 being horrifically under-seeded. However, characters are a bit different in that side characters are often under-seeded to begin with, since they have to compete within their series for nominations, and new cult favorites that Board 8 collectively pushes into the bracket, and there could definitely be some potential for hidden upsets with the right combination there.

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The seeds were hidden in the 4-way contests. I meant to mention that during the recording but forgot.

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Why does the content for the contest disappear so quickly? I remember not being able to find the rules after the contest began, and now I don't even know where to look for the results and leaderboard. Sure, we'll have some of that up on the wiki eventually, but I can't look at the full contest results or see who was at the bottom of the leaderboard any more (unless maybe I happen to have the link bookmarked.)

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azuarc posted...

Why does the content for the contest disappear so quickly? I remember not being able to find the rules after the contest began, and now I don't even know where to look for the results and leaderboard. Sure, we'll have some of that up on the wiki eventually, but I can't look at the full contest results or see who was at the bottom of the leaderboard any more (unless maybe I happen to have the link bookmarked.)

There is a page that lists all contests since the beginning, but I don't know how to find it from the main page. You can find it pretty easily by typing "gamefaqs contests" on google, though.

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

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Hey Yo, I dont know if youve seen it but The Witcher sctuslly has an option for a different movement style.

Im going to blame my account name differing from my display name (stupid lightning_guy) for not getting a leaderboard shoutout! Maybe next time I should make a contest alt.

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Well, I'm going to listen to the part after I dropped out while I'm at work today, so no running commentary from me this week.

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Oh, I totally forgot there was another character who is famous for a bathtub scene.

Bowser

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Oh yeah I forgot to rep Leonardo as my Ninja Turtle of choice.

Blue bandana + swords = Strongest turtle

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Leo > Don > Raph > Mikey

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Man, I wish I had been able to stay up and review the last handful of matches.

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Great episode! Yeah, I've always thought that we as a community greatly underappreciate how much effort and love SBAllen has poured into these contests. It shows to me that Allen pours a LOT of thought into designing each contest and I'm going to use the Show topic to give him some major kudos:

GotD1/CBVIII - After so much complaints about 4-ways, Allen listened to the board and gave us the 1 v 1 contest that people have been pushing for. Probably the most interesting thing he came up with is the night/day match which helped with the flow of the contest, by making boring 70-30 matches more tolerable to watch.

Rivalry - I recall SBAllen had a poll of what contest we wanted next and "tag team" ended up winning. On paper, the idea of a "Rivalry" contest was interesting because the winner was not immediately obvious. While most people went with Link vs Ganondorf, there were people that believed that adding Sepihroth to Cloud helped him more than adding Ganondorf to Link and there were a decent number of Cloud vs Sephiroth supporters. The contest ended up being a huge flop.

CBIX - This entire contest felt like a love letter to Board8 with the Noble Nine, Character Battle Nine and the 3 ways allowing for a debated final. Can Snake take advantage of Link/Mario LFF and win a championship? Unfortunately, this contest also got derailed and got the most toxic board we've possibly ever had.

BGE3 - Allen listed to our complaints about the "division by era" and gave us the contest that the board has been pushing for years. I believe this is also the first contest that gave us the 4 matches at the same time, which significantly helped with the flow of the contest. Of course, this one got derailed too, by Undertale.

Years - When Draven derailed the contest, that was probably the lowest in terms of B8's relationship with Allen. There were people openly lambasting Allen in the topics with some even accusing him of rigging the contest in favor of Draven. Allen was clearly hurt and I specifically remember he sent an ominous message saying that 2013 might be the last contest, but that he had one final idea that was "rally-proof". At that time, I remember speculating that the only possible idea that's rally-proof is Years. So when Years was announced after 2 contests derailed by rallies, it was no surprise to me. Ultimately, that one also was a flop since making a contest nobody cared enough to rally means it was a contest nobody cared about at all.

CBX - Coming into CBX, I think Allen faced a monumental challenge. He had to deliver a contest people cared about but still prevent it from being taken over by rallies and I think he came up with an ingenious solution with the second chance brackets. At the cost of reducing contest momentum, the second chance bracket allowed people with their brackets busted by rallies or other means (and have otherwise tuned out of the contest) a second chance, as well as possibly let the trolls who invade B8 to dunk on us a chance to settle down and participate in the contest. Obviously, this is not a full proof but I do think that this is a creative solution that does mitigate some of the damage a rally will do.

GotD2 - I'll be honest. I don't think this contest was that great, especially compared to CBX, but I do give SBAllen an A for his effort. if Skyrim and Witcher 3 swapped places, for example, Persona 5 vs Skyrim might have been an all-timer. Coming into this bracket, people expected the 2 possibly 3 best games in this bracket to be Nintendo, meaning it was incredibly difficult to design a well rounded bracket with this field. Allen ended up chose to put all the Western games in the bottom half to prevent an all Nintendo final and I do respect him for that and he designed the bracket as well as he could given his circumstances.

Future - I think any future contest is going to a challenge to make, in part because the voter base has become static (think our votals probably won't drop much further) and increasingly ossified in our taste. Link/Zelda/LoZ has now achieved near absolute dominance on this site and it will take multiple future LoZ titles bombing before I can see anything challenging that. People in general are too optimistic about their future contest ideas and I can see tons of ways each of them presented can a disaster. Remember that we've had 4 contests (Villains/Series/Rivalry/Years) that weren't Games/GotD/Characters and I don't think any of them are remembered that fondly with the latter 3 being seen as the 3 worst contests we've ever had, so it'll be an uphill battle.

Consoles sounds like another Years contest to me, with massive full day blowouts (with 32 entries, each match will be a day), lots of picture controversy and only a couple close matches. Villains and Series both will both be blowout city, judging from the first iterations. The irony is that I personally liked Rivalry and Years, so I'd be down for any of these (I really want a Best Video Game Duo contest), but I'm anticipating the board will hate it and go full "why the hell did we get this boring contest?".

As for all-fictional, I'm gotten more tired about debating this topic than debating whether rallies are good or bad since there are lots of people with an extremely strong opinion on this matter and I doubt anyone would change their minds at this point. I will just say that I can understand why SBAllen would not want to go with this idea, especially full Pandora's box because I think being the admin of GameFAQs, he's a purist in the same way that Masahiro Sakurai is a purist. Would Link vs Batman in Smash be fun to see? Probably, but I do understand why Sakurai would want to keep Batman at arms length from Smash and I think it's a similar reason why SBAllen feels the same as well.

That's all I will say on this matter.

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Thanks for giving Spidey props in my stead, Ng!

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I think I might disagree with KP and Ng a bit on Dragon Age being a turd of the contest. I think Ori is probably the third strongest indie game at worst. I'd only maybe put Cuphead and Stardew Valley ahead of it. I think those are the three indies that showed themselves to be legit. Don't forget they're behind like three layers of SFF when you look at those X-Stats!

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Dragon Age isn't the turd of the contest. Getting upset in a match that was never going to be worth more than one point doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

The turd of this contest is Fire Emblem, honorable mention to Kingdom Hearts 3. Just an embarrassing performance all around.

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My biggest regret about leaving early was missing the COVID-19 reveal. I was really hoping yoblazer's secret pre-Show guess would turn out to be correct...!

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Gotta give HaRRicH props for being the only Guru to get a perfect Division 4

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I think I'd give the contest a solid B. I'd have a hard time ranking it near the top for the reasons yoblazer said. Plus, the low vote totals and diluted trends have killed big vote swings and day vote comebacks, which have created some of our all-time great matches.

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I left off on World 5 last time I played Tropical Freeze. I need to get back to it and finish it off sometime!

Anyway, another great season of The Show! Wish I could've spent more time with you guys!

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NGamer: "'Best Female Villain Quote' should be a board contest"

say no more fam

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78694296

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Downloading this episode RIGHT NOW

I'll listen to it very soon.
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Leonhart4 posted...

I left off on World 5 last time I played Tropical Freeze. I need to get back to it and finish it off sometime!

Anyway, another great season of The Show! Wish I could've spent more time with you guys!

I'll say this much, World 6 (I think that's the last world) is an absolute classic.

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Oh, I didn't realize I was already that close to the last world!

I really enjoyed the savannah world. That's been my favorite so far. The water world was not so great though.

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LeonhartFour posted...

The water world was not so great though.

Sums up a lot of platformers

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ctesjbuvf posted...

Sums up a lot of platformers

It does, but the original DKC games had decent ones, at least!

Bring back Enguarde darn it

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My favorite new contest idea is still best generic enemy (goombas, tonberries, slimes, etc). You'd probably need to ban at least legendary and starter pokemon, though.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

My favorite new contest idea is still best generic enemy (goombas, tonberries, slimes, etc). You'd probably need to ban at least legendary and starter pokemon, though.

I suppose you could limit Pokemon to just the common normals like Ratattas, Pidgeys, Zubats, and their ilk.

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As of right now, I have just started listening to this episode.
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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Dial up internet. This is already a nostalgia trip of sorts.

I used to have Dial-up internet for a long time, from about 2001 until late 2010. It wasn't until late 2010 that I was finally able to get Cable internet because my area didn't have access to high-speed internet for a very long time, which limited me to dial-up.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

My favorite new contest idea is still best generic enemy (goombas, tonberries, slimes, etc). You'd probably need to ban at least legendary and starter pokemon, though.

Legendary and starter Pokemon aren't generic enemies.

I've also just described why that contest could never work. No one will agree on what's generic or not.

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only stuff that appears as random encounters?

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I imagine a lot of votes for "Something completely different" in the next contest poll were people who want the contests to go away for good. That's something that wasn't considered in this episode in the discussion on this poll.
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my 10 nominations for that:

Cactuar - FF
Tonberry - FF
Hell House - FF7
Forkies - SMRPG
Nu - Chrono Trigger
Dorky Face - FF7
Paratroopa - Mario
Slime - DQ
Alluring Rider - FF6
Slapper - FF8


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The Years contest was really bad for match pictures, especially Allen asking for Age of Empires pictures. My concern with a Console contest is that the match pictures could be handled similarly to the Years contest, where we have a slideshow of the notable games released on the console (with more of a bias towards the console exclusives). That would make a Console contest very picture dependent, where match pictures could determine who wins or loses a match.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, I meant to mention there would be an issue with recent console generations because you'd have to make the call about whether to restrict games to console exclusives, in which case something like the Xbone would be, well, boned. Or even the Xbox 360 since most of its big non-Halo/Gears of War games aren't exclusive anymore.

I think we should say anything that was exclusive at launch is fair game. It's true though, the Wars have been way watered down with how nothing's exclusive for long anymore (except Nintendo).

_SecretSquirrel posted...

KP hits the other problem, in that 32 entrants in just about any contest these days is just not going to have enough permutations to be a viable competition. You'd either have to hope for a viable upset to break everyone's brackets, or you'd have to resort to an all Oracle contest in the vein of second chance, which doesn't sound very enticiting to anyone but the fraction of Board 8ers that already do the Oracle challenge.

Well, we do have the tiebreaker. Maybe we could expand it with a "lite version" of the Oracle, for instance with the last three matches of the bracket there's a slider where you pick the winner to score in the 50-52 range, 52-55, 55-60, or else over 60.

_SecretSquirrel posted...

My thoughts on All Fictional would be to do a 128 character contest, designate 16 spots to all fictional characters, using the cream of the crop only, and have them evenly dispersed across the bracket, with each division having two outsiders, one on each side.

If that's a concern for SB then I'd be fine with setting a cap of 16 or 32, as long as they were all mixed in with the traditional characters.

Maybe that could be the Anniversary hook? We bring back the Sweet 16 from 2002, add in the best 16 non-traditional entrants, plus 16 never before seen traditional characters (newcomers since 2018 mostly), and everyone else is seeded through the normal nomination process.


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Speaking of Spider-Man being a star, Dragon Quest XI deserves a star for the same reason!

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Ngamer64 posted...

Yes good idea, could someone please do this and link it here?

To update my original response, Lightning Strikes and Gall have both posted their takes on a system bracket here (Gall's version in post 16): https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78694005

LordoftheMorons posted...

You'd probably need to ban at least legendary and starter pokemon, though.

As Ulti said, that's not a concern because legendary and starter Pokmon aren't generic enemies. However, I have a hard time seeing such a contest not follow in the same arbitrary, high on blowouts and low on interest ballpark as Rivals and Years myself. The one upside would be a chance for Slime to fare well, but there's no way it'd win a direct matchup over the likes of Goomba, Koopa, Octorok, and *insert generic Gen. 1 Pokmon here* anyways.

Anyways, it's time for more of my thoughts on this episode:

• To clarify, my idea was to stick those eight licensed characters in the next Character Battle wholesale as a second-chance gimmick; if they won, they'd advance in the divisional winner's stead. It would be much like how CBX handled (eight of) the Noble Nine, except without a Losers Bracket. I do get your pushback, though, Ng; certainly, part of the appeal of opening the Character Battle up to licensed characters is the lack of a read we have on their ceiling or strength in general.
• KP, you asked for an explanation of the opposition to an all-fictional character battle. As perhaps one of its most vocal opponents (even though I'm not vehemently opposed), I can condense my previous explanations. In short, you'd have yet another boring, predictable winner in the absence of the very real possibility of mass rallies hardly anyone wants to see, and there'd be issues with Allen having to add a few hundred characters to the nomination form. Plus, I think the idea in general is one whose time has passed, and now you're more likely to have casuals complaining about (ex.) Batman being in a video game character contest than being more interested because it has Batman in it. From a purely personal perspective, I'm pretty sure there would even be fewer characters I'd care about, and I'd care less about those characters.
• About Game of the Century, I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but BotW would be the obvious winner, and you can't evict it from a contest it hasn't won. The bracket in general would have to be carefully constructed to avoid the laughing-stock scenario of a BotW/BotW 2 finals match, and to ensure Melee wouldn't just stomp all over everything else with predictable rallies.
• I hadn't even thought of Yo's 25th anniversary idea beforehand, and now I wholeheartedly support it for basically all the reasons you all already covered. The one thing I'd comment on is that you all underestimate the rabidity of Melee fans when you say it would be a completely positive contest with no rallies. Alternatively, just imagine the complaints that would ensue if Allen only allowed accounts made before the top 25 contest's announcement to enter valid ballots and predictions.

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LusterSoldier posted...

The Years contest was really bad for match pictures, especially Allen asking for Age of Empires pictures. My concern with a Console contest is that the match pictures could be handled similarly to the Years contest, where we have a slideshow of the notable games released on the console (with more of a bias towards the console exclusives). That would make a Console contest very picture dependent, where match pictures could determine who wins or loses a match.

Ehh, I'm not too worried about this. I do agree pictures were a big deal for Years, since the average voter probably only knows one or two game releases per year off the top of their head... but everyone's well aware what the big games for the PS2 and N64 and 360 were, so I don't think the pics will swing percentages too much. It could for the lesser known systems, but those aren't going to be contending for wins regardless.


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I would just like to say that if we have an all-fictional character battle, only pics from video games should be allowed.

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tennisboy213 posted...

I would just like to say that if we have an all-fictional character battle, only pics from video games should be allowed.

i always thought this would be the case but allen using some Netflix Witcher pics for Witcher 3 this contest is making me doubt it now

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LusterSoldier posted...

The Years contest was really bad for match pictures, especially Allen asking for Age of Empires pictures.

The problem with the years contest pictures is that Allen apparently wanted only pictures that met a very specific set of criteria which he never gave us. I was backing 1991 in that contest, and I made some really cool pictures highlighting, for instance, the Mario/Sonic rivalry. I made an effort to superimpose the company logos onto very iconic pictures for their flagship games. He refused to use them because they didn't say "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Super Mario World" in the image. The SMW picture that got used, by contrast, was pretty terrible.


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Ngamer64 posted...

Ehh, I'm not too worried about this. I do agree pictures were a big deal for Years, since the average voter probably only knows one or two game releases per year off the top of their head... but everyone's well aware what the big games for the PS2 and N64 and 360 were, so I don't think the pics will swing percentages too much. It could for the lesser known systems, but those aren't going to be contending for wins regardless.

I dunno. Imagine an N64 pic that features Donkey Kong 64, Blast Corps, and Wave Race 64 instead of Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, and GoldenEye.

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in regards to undertale being the turd of the contest, I was pretty frequently checking there for rallies all contest thru their own search engine and google, I got nothing. zero. zip. nada. Not a single post, link or comment to any of our matches for the entire thing. pretty crazy how far they've fallen now post-porn

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MetalmindStats posted...

About Game of the Century, I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but BotW would be the obvious winner, and you can't evict it from a contest it hasn't won. The bracket in general would have to be carefully constructed to avoid the laughing-stock scenario of a BotW/BotW 2 finals match, and to ensure Melee wouldn't just stomp all over everything else with predictable rallies.

I imagine the series cap might apply for Game of the Century (so only MM and BotW, as absurd as it might sound), because otherwise Zelda might s*** over the entire contest barring a Melee rally.

Without getting into BotW2, how many games can beat even one of (BotW, MM, WW, TP) without a rally? Only FFX, Melee, Witcher 3 and FFVII Remake have a decent argument. Maybe Brawl, Ultimate and SMO if you are especially adventurous?

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