For the most part, I agree with mnm, but...

And the fact that the pic issue even came up is proof that there ARE voters that it would make a difference to.

...this gives TJF more credit than it deserves, heh.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

The Jar Factor, yo, the Jar Factor. Mother Brain's gonna have this all wrapped up in the late hours when the TJF advocates start voting.

In all seriousness, though, I'm fairly certain that if the seeds were switched, Mother Brain would be in the lead right now. Double unknown-casual picks the higher seed. Double unknown-casual bracket votes.

I wish I had thought of that before I picked Mother Brain.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

And by "unknowns" I mean... "uncareds". "Unknowns" in terms of strength though.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

Had the seeds been switched, I'd still take Lavos, but it'd probably be closer than it is now.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

We all know that Tifa's left breast is Sweet 16 material.... <_< Seriously though, a lot of stuff is written off in a factual manner. Of course some factors like TJF are overplayed. I'm just saying there is no way for us to know how much a role some things play in a contest with thousands of voters. I mean, as much as we discuss the pictures on this board, you'd have to think that they do mean SOMETHING.
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

I think I've repeated this little tid-bit once every year: Seeding influences brackets, not voters.
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http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

Which, in turn, influences votes. Not immensely, but I think it'd be notable.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

Voting doesn't influence brackets?
Now that's counterintuitive.
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"I AM THE BLACK MAGE! I CASTS THE MAGIC SPELLS THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!" RPGE777:ChocoCid

But in a battle such as this, where both characters are not so much liked even by their own fanbase, bracket voting is a huge factor.

In fodder vs fodder, the bracket favorite will always win, I guarantee it. (if only I had seen this earlier... stupid stupid Lopen)
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

In fodder vs fodder, the bracket favorite will always win, I guarantee it. (if only I had seen this earlier... stupid stupid Lopen)

2002:
Gordon Freeman - 40.03%
Tina Armstrong - 59.97%

Tina also only had 43.71% of the brackets supporting her.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

I don't think it'd be notable. A minority of the voters have brackets. A minority of the voters who have brackets bracket-vote. A minority of the bracket-makers went for the higher seed. The ones who went for the higher seed have an equal percentage of bracket-voters as the ones who went for the lower seed.

Higher seed bracket voters - lower seed bracket voters = your difference.

Split between people who picked Lavos over Mother Brain is gonna be what? 60-40%? 65%?

It might even be a hundred people.
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http://img163.echo.cx/img163/8571/wowscrnshot0122051856460rr.jpg
http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

I don't want to sound elitist, but I'm not going to respond to people like Lopen anymore. I can understand where he's coming from (We did the same, once), but I don't have the energy to make arguments against every already disputed factor out there.

No offense, Lopen.
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http://img163.echo.cx/img163/8571/wowscrnshot0122051856460rr.jpg
http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

A minority of the bracket-makers went for the higher seed

That should read 'a part of' not 'a minority.'

:p
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http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

Um... well... GFNW. It of course, assumes equal fodder. Fodder comes in all varieties. There's Fodder's Fodder, Normal Fodder, and Strongish Fodder. Of course in a match with Tanner vs Max Payne I'm gonna take Max Payne, regardless if Tanner has the bracket support.

My rule, it obviously only works if they're both Fodder's Fodder or Normal Fodder. Alright, alright, I'm grasping for straws here. It's still true, though. But, not exactly anything I can guarantee... who's to judge the fodder level breaking point?
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

CJayC held a poll once. A very minor part of people actually bracket-vote. Heck, I think it was just as much as the amount of people that didn't vote at all.
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http://img163.echo.cx/img163/8571/wowscrnshot0122051856460rr.jpg
http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

Was there a poll like that? I'd be interested in seein' that before I say much else on bracket voting then.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

This may have been pointed out already, but, MB won 3 updates this morning. The biggest of which was

2005-05-09 08:00:01 10964 8638 55.93% 44.07% 2326
2005-05-09 07:55:01 10798 8523 55.89% 44.11% 2275
2005-05-09 07:50:01 10666 8384 55.99% 44.01% 2282
2005-05-09 07:45:00 10500 8238 56.04% 43.96% 2262

True, it didn't take any "official" 15 minute updates, but hey, it's something.

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the-elite.net
Ngamer's Contest Archives: http://thengamer.com/gamefaqs/

I'm entirely sure there was a poll like that. When is another matter entirely. I think it was before or after 2k3. I'm sure 'Flake or Ulti will remember.

Wait...TRE?
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http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

There are 25000 brackets. Say Lavos is favored 70%.

He's got an advantage of 7500 brackets on his side. Now in a normal match, the amount of bracket voters in this statistic would probably be small. I'd say he'd get around 10% of that, max, based on the amount of voters. But Lavos and Mother Brain are all around uncared about for the most part, even amongst fans of their respective games.

In this situation, in a battle of two "mehs", the voter with the bracket will likely vote for their bracket. It's what I do, it's what everybody does. If the voter actually prefers one, of course bracket voting will go way down, but in this match I'm just not seeing it happen. Really. These two are the ultimate in "meh".

I see no flaw in thinking that Lavos could draw 2000 votes+ from bracket voting alone. Now, swap the seeds, Mother Brain instead gets those 2000 votes+. 4000 vote+ difference.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

You're assuming a lot of the people that made bracket's actually vote. Some people made multiple brackets, but won't vote multiple times. A lot of people, like me, don't vote at all. Less then 50 % of the people bracket-vote. I think it was less then 30%, but let's keep it nice and wide.

A 4000 vote difference due to swapping a 6 and a 3 is an impossibility.

Theorycraft, Lopen. Laced with very little common sense.
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http://picturebin.com/mp3/Captain_Placeholder.wav

MB doesn't necessarily get the bracket advantage reversed if the seeds are reversed though; it wouldn't work like that. Plus, 2,000 is too much...I don't have any particular number in my head of how much it's affecting today's match, but I'm confident it's not 2,000; 1,500 or so's my personal ceiling for it, and first instinct says a lil' less than 1,000. Again though, I don't truly have a particular number in my head, 1,000 is just an instinct.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

Of course, the only way I can ever prove my theory is if Laharl gets in again. I'm pretty sure that Laharl is much closer to Vyse than his 60%-40% loss suggests. But this was also a largely bracket voted match.

Well, it all depends if Vyse was indeed the bracket favorite by at least 60%. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Pretty sure he was though.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

Vyse had 66.71% of the brackets against Laharl.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

I think bracket voting is a bigger factor than you let on, personally. It's never been a proven fact that bracket voting is negligible, because it isn't. We don't know what's going on in the mind of each and every voter when they vote.

On a side note, I'm mentioning this here before putting the topic up. Super Mario 64 kicked extreme amounts of ass in my topic yesterday. The results are..... pretty damned cool, to say the least.

~*ST*~
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Winner of the Spring 2004 "Best. Game. Ever." Contest
"If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh!" -Magus Zeal

Regarding pictures,

I don't think people spend minutes deliberating who to vote for. I think it's largely a thoughtless process. Someone may look at the poll and go "Kefka, who's that?" having played FFVI a long time go and not remembering any names. They they might say, "Oh, Crono. I remeber him!" and vote Crono, since Crono had a recognizable picture.
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"To sit at home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the men who do things is easy, but markedly ineffective" --Theodore Roosevelt

You're assuming a lot of the people that made bracket's actually vote. Some people made multiple brackets, but won't vote multiple times. A lot of people, like me, don't vote at all. Less then 50 % of the people bracket-vote. I think it was less then 30%, but let's keep it nice and wide.

I'm not. 7500 brackets. I cut it in half. 3750 of the brackets in favor of Lavos actually show up to vote. Then, I'm cutting it in half again, assuming that half of those Lavos brackets don't care for either character either way. Bracket voting goes way up if the bracketeers are impartial to both sides.

1875 votes in favor of Lavos. I think I'm being quite generous here. I'm only arguing bracket voting because of just who is fighting. Lavos and Mother Brain.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

Lopen, to be fair, I'd take off 5%-10% just because not everyone who made a bracket will vote everyday. Either way, that's not a bad means of estimating in a match like this, but I think we both agree it plays less of a factor than that in many more matches.

Ulti, I think my bumping got SM64's score lookin' pretty good; I know I bumped once or twice where several MORE 10's came into play right after, heh.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

Oh, I agree. Like I said, bracket voting is only a huge factor if the people are impartial to both characters. I think I'm undercutting it in the case of Lavos vs Mother Brain, to be honest. I think well over 50% of the voters will be impartial to both Lavos and Mother Brain.

In a normal match, it's only going to be like 200 votes or something crappy like that. I'm not arguing that.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

I don't think people spend minutes deliberating who to vote for. I think it's largely a thoughtless process.

I think so, too. If the voters are aware of what the next match is, they've probably got their mind made up on who's getting their vote before they see the picture unless they don't know the characters.
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Hi,I'm partystar. ^_^
Or maybe I'm Leonhart. That's for you to decide.

Ulti: Thanks for the X-Stats explanation. Heh, that is rather self-explanitory.

Everyone bashing the X-Stats: Anyone who thinks it is impossible to create a ceiling for Tenpenny using the X-Stats is delusional. Liquid is Liquid, and we are not needing to compare him to anyone else. However, taking a straight up match between Vercetti and Liquid will give us Tenpenny's ceiling, because I will streak the Champaign quad naked if a villain from a less-popular GTA game outperforms the "hero" from a more popular GTA game.

McChicken; Large Fries: Belly. Now.

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RIP: Tnote827 - 4/4/05
Fighting Illini (37-2): #2 in the nation, #1 in our hearts

You must also realize that many people aren't eligible for prizes, many people submit a bracket for fun but don't really care, etc. There is bracket voting going on, but in a non-close match, or in a match thats not expected to be close, such as this one, bracket voting wont matter, and it'll go back to other bases for voting (who they actually like better).

I think bracket voting will influence:

1) very close polls, only among those who really care about their brackets
2) voters who don't know either character, and care enough about their bracket to remember their pick after not knowing who either was when they picked (which was probably by seed. This could be argued as a seed influence, not a bracket voting influence).

It happens, but not by *that* much. I'd be hesitant to say it'd swing this match without first seeing the prediction percentage. I dont think 3/6 seeds make a huge difference though. It will mean something in Ridley/Diablo however. The main factor there may just be some extremely stupid strarcraft-like swarm of voters due to an online base of fans for Diablo, however.

I was under the assumption that San Andreas was considered more popular than Vice City.
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Hi,I'm partystar. ^_^
Or maybe I'm Leonhart. That's for you to decide.

Yeah, I understood that GTA:SA > GTA:VC. Plus, Metroid Prime barely beat VC in the 2002 GotY here (pretty sure 2002, anyways). In 2004, SA handed it to Metroid Prime 2 AND Halo 2 AND Half-Life 2.

I'm pretty confident GTA:SA > GTA:SA.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

Not from everything I have gathered, but hey, it would not be the first time I was wrong on something.

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RIP: Tnote827 - 4/4/05
Fighting Illini (37-2): #2 in the nation, #1 in our hearts

That's one hell of an inequality Harrich... do me a favor and prove it sometime =)

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RIP: Tnote827 - 4/4/05
Fighting Illini (37-2): #2 in the nation, #1 in our hearts

San Andreas > San Andreas?

PARADOX'D

Everyone bashing the X-Stats

It's just a couple of stats topic tourists/alt trolls who think they're cute. I just ignore them.

~*ST*~
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Winner of the Spring 2004 "Best. Game. Ever." Contest
"If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh!" -Magus Zeal

You want proof? I'll show you proof alright...

...I got nothing. Daggum typos.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

I was gonna read through all 300 posts that I missed, until I saw the CC spoilers, adn I stopped.
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"I don't care about your instrument! My god is communicating with me!"
- Ludwig van Beethoven

I don't think people spend minutes deliberating who to vote for. I think it's largely a thoughtless process.

I think so, too. If the voters are aware of what the next match is, they've probably got their mind made up on who's getting their vote before they see the picture unless they don't know the characters.

I'm just wondering what makes you so certain? We've seen plenty of people before on Board 8 voting due to the pic. Of course they are all written off as noobs or kiddies, but what makes you think that a good number of the thousands of voters don't think like that? Like I've said and others have said, we can't go into the minds of every single one of the voters. Don't you remember what the board was like with the Mega Man/Snake match last summer? "OMG, Mega Man is gonna blast Snake's face in! XD" *vote for Mega Man* I doubt those instances were just rare cases....

(Sorry if it looks like I'm ragging you Leonhart... just debating the topic)
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

I mean, if I am not mistaken Lavos had Harrich's vote until he saw that the giant porcupine would not be partaking in today's match picture festivities...

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RIP: Tnote827 - 4/4/05
Fighting Illini (37-2): #2 in the nation, #1 in our hearts

Well, it's generally not a good idea to base our contest theories solely off board 8. Otherwise, you might get the impression that Animal Crossing could beat Final Fantasy VII.
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Hi,I'm partystar. ^_^
Or maybe I'm Leonhart. That's for you to decide.

Lavos is kicking ass. If he keeps this up, this only looks good for Diablo and Sin.

I told everyone in my commentaries and I will say it again...Metroid villains are doomed here...First da Brain, next Ridley...

Watching Diablo break the hearts of the Nintendites will be amusing!
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SP2K Dream Final: Dr. Wily vs Kefka
Read Steve Illumina Speaks! Pub Trivian Forever

I was just using Board 8 to say that people like that are out there.... Hell, even I wanted to vote for Cloud upon seeing his Kingdom Heart picture... <_<
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Graduation: April 30, 2005 "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

If all the Nintendities really wanted Ridley to win, he would.
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

I think the picture could make a difference if you don't particularly like either character or like them equally. However, more often than not with me, I have one character I definitely like more. In the instances where I don't (such as today), I bracket vote.
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Hi,I'm partystar. ^_^
Or maybe I'm Leonhart. That's for you to decide.

I mean, if I am not mistaken Lavos had Harrich's vote until he saw that the giant porcupine would not be partaking in today's match picture festivities...

I told HM I wasn't sure who I was gonna vote for, but was siding with MB at the time. THEN, the pic was shown and I was certain. Still though, you could probably carry on that arguement if there's enough people like me in this kind of "whatever" match.
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Serious Reminder: Vote for Dr. Wily
"What awaits each person in Heaven is eternal peace, divine rest, and $10,000 cash." --Cartman

I dont think Ive ever purposely voted for my bracket. I either:
A) Vote for the character I like the most
B) Vote for the series the character is from that I like the most.
C) Vote for who looks the coolest (I did this for one match where I had never played a single game of either series)
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.

At the 13:15 mark, this match has 38726 votes.

To compare to some other matches at the same time:

Sigma/Andross - 36202
Vergil/Ghaleon - 41076

It's in between those two right now, though yesterday's match absolutely TANKED in the late hours.
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Hi,I'm partystar. ^_^
Or maybe I'm Leonhart. That's for you to decide.

Doesnt matches on Saturday/Sunday always usually get more voters?
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Vote for Robotnik, he isnt a woman or a giant slug or a .... hand.