Mister Mario, you are assuming new people will vote completely different than the old people when every stasticial fact known to man tells you that unless this new group has a reason to have a completely different bias (which there shouldnt be a reason. We are assuming all of these new voters are just random gamers visiting the site. You cant assume they come from one specific fanbase), then no matter if a million people vote the results should be fairly similiar.
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"Why would the boost from AC be bigger than those?" - Mac Arrowny
"Because (Heroic Mario) just replayed Final Fantasy VII." - Lucid Faia

Just checked, all but 28 of the voters would have had to prefer Sephiroth.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

Clearly there was a shift in voting trends, not new voters being intrinsically different than old voters. So this is a long discredited idea.

The shift in trends can be attributed to new voters though. An old voter is not guaranteed to stay here, so when you have 50,000 people voting in one match, and 50,000 in another, it doesn't mean they're all the same people voting. So t's just as easily a mixture of the voter population changing and other factors (such as the slightly silly KHF) that leads to changes in patterns. No way is KHF the sole reason for the characters increasing.

And yes, I realise we're in the realms of guesswork and speculation here.

And see how the post count suddenly jumped? Whee, something to actually talk about.
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Mega Man clearly overperformed on Sephiroth in 2k2, no way around it really... unless you make up some WDF crap. Hell, I think even I voted for Mega Man the first time and Sephiroth is easily in my top 10 favorites in the contest while MM is not (he's close, though). Bracket voting and general cluelessness (since none of us knew what the hell was going on) left its mark on that whole contest.
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"Have you missed me? Was I there? I was dreaming... someone cared" - Iio "Give it Up"

How can it not be the sole reason?? Person A never played Final Fantasy VIII. Person A votes another character over Squall. Person A plays Kingdom Hearts (as millions did), loved the game (as a good percentage of those millions did), and visited Gamefaqs one day. Person A sees Squall facing the same character. Person A votes Squall. Its really that simple. Considering Mario hardly changed at all from 2002 to 2003 to 2004 outside of one match, I dont know how more people is going to suddenly make him change when we had the same amount of people in 2003. You cant just assume the new people will vote differently because its going againist everything that basic statistics tells us unless there is a reason. Fact is you take a random 1000 gamers and ask them to vote and then another random 1000 gamers and ask them to vote, 99% of the time the two groups will vote extremely similiar.
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"Why would the boost from AC be bigger than those?" - Mac Arrowny
"Because (Heroic Mario) just replayed Final Fantasy VII." - Lucid Faia

"No way is KHF the sole reason for the characters increasing."

Well, let's look at the 3 with the biggest increases...

Squall - Faced Snake round 1, had no way in hell of winning, probably had bracket voters against him for that, wasn't considered likable by the masses until KH.

Cloud - Faced SUPER Mario in 2k2, lost most of his ground due to Mario being on Sunshine Steroids (and maybe some PGC voters) while gianing some by looking cooler (Go, go Vincent!)

Sephiroth - Wholly underestimated by anyone who didn't have him going all the way... and the bracket... oh, and he possibly over performed on Cloud because of said hero's victory over Link.

There is a hell of a lot more to it than KHF, and none of it is due to population increase.
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"Have you missed me? Was I there? I was dreaming... someone cared" - Iio "Give it Up"

The shift in trends can be attributed to new voters though. An old voter is not guaranteed to stay here, so when you have 50,000 people voting in one match, and 50,000 in another, it doesn't mean they're all the same people voting.

You are talking about a lot of additional complicating factors. Which wouldn't be reasonably possible to prove anyway.

So t's just as easily a mixture of the voter population changing and other factors (such as the slightly silly KHF) that leads to changes in patterns. No way is KHF the sole reason for the characters increasing.

Come now...by calling KHF silly you are just exposing that you haven't done any analysis yourself :) I suspect you are more trying to gain a reaction out of people by saying something like that, than actually meaning it.

There's a lot of factors. Models are limited by nature. You can't account for the position and velocity of every particle in the universe (incompleteness theorem aside even).
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www.SC2K5.com

what the heck? why are people suddenly doubting the strength of Lloyd? i would like to point out something about Tales of Symphonia that i don't believe have been mentioned yet. oh, and keep in mind that RPG characters tend to perform better than non-RPG characters.

Tales of Symphonia is the biggest RPG to be on a Nintendo console since Chrono Trigger.

i'll say it again - Tales of Symphonia is the biggest RPG to be on a Nintendo console since Chrono Trigger. seriously, think about it. you had the Mario RPGs, which are popular on GameFAQS, but never had the sales or widespread popularity as Tales. and besides that, all the N64 and Gamecube had some Harvest Moon games, Ogre Battle 64, and Baten Kaitos and that's about it. and none of those even came close to matching how well-known and popular Tales has become. so, finally RPG-starved Nintendo fans have been able to get an epic blockbuster RPG.

and IF (it's still an if at this point) the voting demograph of this site has shifted towards Nintendo, making Nintendo characters stronger, that would almost certainly help out the Tales characters, too, seeing how it is a MAJOR Nintendo-exclusive RPG.

i honestly expect Lloyd and Kratos to both be as strong as Kefka, possibly a little stronger. i believe that Lloyd will easily hit 70% tomorrow and i will not be surprised if he triples Wesker and gives Zero a run for his money. i will also not be surprised to see Kratos take out Diablo (although i still think Diablo will pull that one out.

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Official Co-Host for PUB TRIVIA XV
Yoblazer is officially THE MAN for beating us all in SpC2K5!!

How can it not be the sole reason?? Person A never played Final Fantasy VIII. Person A votes another character over Squall. Person A plays Kingdom Hearts (as millions did), loved the game (as a good percentage of those millions did), and visited Gamefaqs one day. Person A sees Squall facing the same character. Person A votes Squall. Its really that simple.

It makes less sense for old voters changing their minds from 2002 to 2003 being the sole reason that those characters increased, than it does for it being a mixture of new voters coming in and old voters changing their minds. It's not cut and dry enough for us to say that it's only because of the process you described here.

Considering Mario hardly changed at all from 2002 to 2003 to 2004 outside of one match, I dont know how more people is going to suddenly make him change when we had the same amount of people in 2003.

The point is that he may have changed, and we don't see it. We assume he hasn't changed much, that his opponents haven't changed much, and therefore we call it constant.

You cant just assume the new people will vote differently because its going againist everything that basic statistics tells us unless there is a reason. Fact is you take a random 1000 gamers and ask them to vote and then another random 1000 gamers and ask them to vote, 99% of the time the two groups will vote extremely similiar.

That's the snag though, GameFAQs isn't a random 100,000 people voting each time. It's not the same group of 100,000 people voting each time, but they're definitely not a random group of people.
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Im saying it right now anyone who votes that annoying character that shouldnt even be allowed in Kratos's shadow over one of the best villians in gaming history should not be allowed to access the internet.

That is all.
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"Why would the boost from AC be bigger than those?" - Mac Arrowny
"Because (Heroic Mario) just replayed Final Fantasy VII." - Lucid Faia

i honestly expect Lloyd and Kratos to both be as strong as Kefka, possibly a little stronger. i believe that Lloyd will easily hit 70% tomorrow and i will not be surprised if he triples Wesker and gives Zero a run for his money. i will also not be surprised to see Kratos take out Diablo (although i still think Diablo will pull that one out.

Here's hoping Lloyd kills Wesker, and Kratos > Lloyd.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

I should have made my reason for calling KHF silly clear. I called it silly, meaning that it's silly that so many people liked the game, because it smelled, not that it wouldn't help Square characters :P
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Tales of Symphonia is the biggest RPG to be on a Nintendo console since Chrono Trigger.

Hmmm...never thought about it like that. I guess that's why ToS dominated conversation on this Nintendo-biased board for a couple months there.

The range for Lloyd is fairly large though. 60%-70%. And that real strange lightened picture can't help him, I don't think.
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www.SC2K5.com

It won't really hurt him either, I don't think. That's the way he looks through most of the game, really. It just mean his whole design is kind of crap :P
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

That's basic Lloyd art. I don't imagine it'll hurt him at all.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

By 1 second'd
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

You are trying to argue that the new voters will be different. Is there any evidence that there is. No. The minute that evidence shows up then please continue this argument. But in the lack of any evidence, like anything else, it is best to assume it doesnt exist. You also really dont have a clue what you are talking about and arguing this with you is like repeatedly slamming by head against a brick wall.
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"Why would the boost from AC be bigger than those?" - Mac Arrowny
"Because (Heroic Mario) just replayed Final Fantasy VII." - Lucid Faia

No, I was trying to argue that you shouldn't assume that they won't be different, not that they 100% will be different. There's a marked difference there.

Therefore, any discrepancies between comparing 2004 and 2005 aren't 'That was... uh... SFF! Yeah, that's it!'
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Well, Grover is my personal favorite, and I had him at the bottom.

Grover is the best... although I might put Telly over him if he'd gotten enough nominations to make the contest.
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SpC2K5 First Vote Champion
Current Score: 1/2 | Today: Zero over Ryu H

you had the Mario RPGs, which are popular on GameFAQS, but never had the sales or widespread popularity as Tales

I'm not too big on sales data, but I believe both Paper Mario games outsold ToS by a lot. Also Tales games were never big in North America. Once again I'm not too sure on this but no other Tales game before ToS broke 100k copies sold in NA.
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"Those whose memories fade seek to carve them in their hearts..."
"All dreams are but another reality. Never forget..."

If only Heroic Mario was around with his fancy sales data.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

Isn't Paper Mario 2 at about 500,000 in the U.S.A now? Or is that worldwide?

That game so should have sold better.
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Where does he get that data from, anyway?

He should make it public for us <_<
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Tales of Symphonia is the biggest RPG to be on a Nintendo console since Chrono Trigger.

Failure. SoA:L > ToS

*runs*
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That's right. Cloud N. Candy would get a NEGATIVE percentage, and RPGuy's extrapolated calculator would crash. - therealmnm

Biggest, not best :P
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Well...errr...*keeps running*

Actually, you have a point. I just wanted to point out how great Soa:L is...
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That's right. Cloud N. Candy would get a NEGATIVE percentage, and RPGuy's extrapolated calculator would crash. - therealmnm

Paper Mario is around 626,000 in the US.
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"Why would the boost from AC be bigger than those?" - Mac Arrowny
"Because (Heroic Mario) just replayed Final Fantasy VII." - Lucid Faia

http://www.n-philes.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-15653.html

I just found this so I'm not too sure how accurate this is. Paper Mario 2 seems to have outsold ToS by 2 to 1 as of April 2005.
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"Those whose memories fade seek to carve them in their hearts..."
"All dreams are but another reality. Never forget..."

Thats Paper Mario 2 not the N64 one.
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"Why would the boost from AC be bigger than those?" - Mac Arrowny
"Because (Heroic Mario) just replayed Final Fantasy VII." - Lucid Faia

I'm not too big on sales data, but I believe both Paper Mario games outsold ToS by a lot. Also Tales games were never big in North America. Once again I'm not too sure on this but no other Tales game before ToS broke 100k copies sold in NA.

i was referring to just Tales of Symphonia vs. the other 3 Mario RPGs individually. i'd be surprised if the other two Tales games released here broke 50,000 each in America.

Isn't Paper Mario 2 at about 500,000 in the U.S.A now? Or is that worldwide?

i thought that was worldwide, but i could be mistaken.


Failure. SoA:L > ToS

true - the Gamecube did get Skies of Arcadia Legends, but it was a re-release and didn't come near Symphonia's sales or mainstream popularity.

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Official Co-Host for PUB TRIVIA XV
Yoblazer is officially THE MAN for beating us all in SpC2K5!!

That's actually pretty good.
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

According to some sales figures I saw, Tales of Symphonia had sold 295,000 copies in the U.S. at the end of 2004.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

Yeah, I know...my bad. <__< Still, SoA:L >>>> ToS
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That's right. Cloud N. Candy would get a NEGATIVE percentage, and RPGuy's extrapolated calculator would crash. - therealmnm

<_<

ToS felt so soulless to me, whereas SoA was charming as hell.

Too bad the gameplay sucked, and the magic was useless.

Still better though.

>_>
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

There's still no guarantee that people who played and enjoyed Tales of Symphonia will vote for Lloyd. And it's still my guess that a good number of non-GC owners voting tomorrow will have no clue who Lloyd is.
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ALL YOUR VOTES ARE BELONG TO...Pac-Man?

Didn't you see that poll?

More than 80% of Gamefaqs owns a GCN.

>_>
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Tales of Symphonia had an outstanding battle system, which is more than I can say for Skies of Arcadia. Thankfully, SoA outclasses it in everything else.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

So who's voting for Lloyd in this topic?

*raises hand* I've rarely seen Wesker, and I don't hate Lloyd enough to anti-vote him.
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Summer 2005 Contest - 2/3 points
Current Match Prediction: Lloyd Irving vs. Albert Wesker

Nail on the head ^^^
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

...Didn't Tales of Symphonia do better in the GCN GotY poll than Paper Mario 2 did?
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

About SoA, not Wesker <_<
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

Yeah it did, which was bull.

Paper Mario > ToS.
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1870

It got nearly 25% no less.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

And it's still my guess that a good number of non-GC owners voting tomorrow will have no clue who Lloyd is.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1998
I don't think it's Lloyd who will have problems with recognition.
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"Those whose memories fade seek to carve them in their hearts..."
"All dreams are but another reality. Never forget..."

Wesker will suffer more from the name recognition problem. I've only played RE2 and RE4 and I had no clue who Wesker was or how he looked like until the Spring Contest. I did know of Nemesis though. And ToS got over 25% in the GotY poll, so people on the site have played the game and therefore, know who Lloyd is.

If Lloyd, by some freakish twist of fate, loses one or more of the following happen:

1) The stats become utterly meaningless.
2) The Spring Contest stats only become utterly meaningless.
3) Lloyd has more of a name recognition problem than Wesker.
4) Mithos > Lloyd
5) The ToS fanbase hates Lloyd and anti-voted him to oblivion.
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Summer 2005 Contest - 2/3 points
Current Match Prediction: Lloyd Irving vs. Albert Wesker

Honestly, if Tidus doesn't get anti-voted to death by his own fans, I don't think Lloyd will have to worry about that.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

At the 17:00 mark, this match has 73,053 votes.

Mario/Joanna Dark: 79,559
Ness/CJ: 80,228
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno

It's the same with Squall. Lots of the general FF fanbase despises him, but his performance doesn't seem to suffer because of it. Lloyd doesn't have to worry about that.
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That... was her final mission. And like a true soldier, she saw it through the end.
ZSB [aX]

1) I'm not saying that Lloyd will get anti-voted, I'm saying that there could be people who have played and enjoyed both Tales and RE who will go on and vote for Wesker.

2) I'm not suggesting that Wesker is going to win this match, but I think that the 70%+ estimations are a little unrealistic.

3) Squall and Tidus have a much, much, much larger sales base to work from than Lloyd does.
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ALL YOUR VOTES ARE BELONG TO...Pac-Man?

but I think that the 70%+ estimations are a little unrealistic.

Why? Unless Kefka overperformed in the Spring, KOS-MOS would do it. Lloyd definitely could. If there is this pro-Nintendo mentality in 2005, then I don't see why he wouldn't also benefit from it.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 1: (7) Geno