GameFAQs Contests

I thought most people use credit cards, then again the younger voters probably don't have one.
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Board 8 BOP: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/BGE2%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Krahenprophet for winning the guru contest

I use a debit card myself.
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http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss217/Squishy_Pliff/serah3.jpg

People are discussing Zack over Crono?

Ok, as Zack's biggest supporter here (well second biggest, Karma Hunter actually kept his Zack > Mario upset), that's ridiculous. (Albion, if you're trying to help Crono win and look good by downplaying his chances, alright).

As for the Mario/Luigi/Yoshi scenario, I think I'd take Zack over Mario there- Link/Mario don't hurt each other all that much for the same reason that SMB3/SMW didn't hurt each all that much. They are both classic characters that everyone knows about, and have plenty of fans who are not really Nintendo fans. There might be characters I consider weaker than Zack I'd take there too....
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

I'm a Crono fan, but I'm also realistic. The guy and his friends are no where near as relevant as they used to be. The fact that it lost to a game it woulda easily beaten in 2004 is enough proof of that. Not to mention that Zack looks at about Tifa level last contest, and I'd say that Tifa/Crono is definently a debatable match at this point. I'd love for Crono to stay as strong as he used to be, but unless theres a new Chrono Trigger that comes out, the poor guy is just going to continue to fade into obscurity.
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As for CT doing better in 4-ways than in 1v1s.....that's the same old hardcore fanbase theory coming back, that we've never seen any evidence for (or at least we haven't been able to predict which characters would benefit from it). It certainly didn't work out for CT the first year of 4-ways, 2007, where the game had by far its worst performance ever. As for the idea that CT is in a constant state of decline, well, Crono lost to Vincent by 1700 in 2007 and won last year, so that doesn't seem to check out either. That's not even mentioning that CTDS came out after Crono/Vincent last year.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

The thing is, Crono was NEVER relevant, ever. Didn't stop him from beating Mario in 2004.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

As for the idea that CT is in a constant state of decline, well, Crono lost to Vincent by 1700 in 2007 and won last year, so that doesn't seem to check out either.

Having Link in the poll and Samus in the poll are quite different. I can't say we can really say one way or the other if Crono shifted much.
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http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss217/Squishy_Pliff/serah3.jpg

From: red sox 777 | #156
The thing is, Crono was NEVER relevant, ever. Didn't stop him from beating Mario in 2004.

... What? He is very relevant on Gamefaqs. Maybe not in general, but from 2002-2004, he was one of the top characters we had. Now, I doubt he's a top 15.
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http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss217/Squishy_Pliff/serah3.jpg

Yeah, I've always said that Link and Crono were very similar characters, so I'm not going to deny that, but I don't think it looks like Crono fell at any rate. Frog and Magus did more respectably in 2008 than their humiliating 2007 showings too. But now that CTDS has come out, Crono should be the strongest he's been in several years- probably not 2004 level, but a good deal better than 2007-8 also.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

How is losing to an inanimate object not humiliating for Magus?
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http://card.mygamercard.net/nxe/albion+hero.png
http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss217/Squishy_Pliff/serah3.jpg

... What? He is very relevant on Gamefaqs. Maybe not in general, but from 2002-2004, he was one of the top characters we had. Now, I doubt he's a top 15.

And he's still relevant on Gamefaqs now. He has always been relevant here, and he has never been relevant in general. It's the same reason "It's Freaking Mario" is such a bad argument- he was "freaking Mario" last year too. And the year before that. And the year before that. If it didn't help his Gamefaqs strength then, it 'aint going to do it now.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

Yeesh, I'm not sure who's side is worse here. Zack wouldn't beat Crono 1v1, but red sox and Crono always enters into the delusional zone within a few posts.

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the journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step

How is losing to an inanimate object not humiliating for Magus?

It is, but this is Magus we're talking about. There are greater humiliations and lesser humiliations, and I think at this point Magus has got to count a lesser humiliation as a victory.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

I thought most people use credit cards, then again the younger voters probably don't have one.

That's probably true. This same exact poll was run almost 4 years ago.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2264

Since that poll, the average age of the users here has increased. The last 2 age polls were hosted on 4/18/2007 and 8/26/2009. In only about 2 years, the dominating age on this site has shifted from "14-17" to "21-25". Which is a pretty big shift. In the second poll, "14-17" actually came in third place behind "21-25" and "18-20". Since debit/credit cards can only be used by people who are at least 18 or older (at least in the United States), it would make sense for the debit/credit card option to do better this time around.

Although looking by the updates here, the debit/credit card option is falling apart already. Its best percentage so far has been with the board vote, then dropped about 1% on the second update.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as KrahenProphet, Guru Champ!

If you want an FFVII side-character with a shot at Crono though, take a look at Cid. Possible #3 FFVII character right there- possible.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

Zack's more like Aeris in strength than Tifa, and I have a hard time imagining Zack's fans are as supportive as Aeris's if the situation arose.


I'm also ready to see what CTDS did for its characters...though its sales weren't great and it only looked good in last year's GotY-polls under the context that it was a port. CT also only impressed in R1 this year when it was against two other SNES RPGs and SMW2:YI. It's not like it looked particularly bad though despite letting SM64 upset it twice, and I think it held up to FF7 well enough too. It's just feeling like it's lost a subtle step at this point despite the port.

I wonder how Crono holds up compared to last year because of this, though I don't expect anything good from Magus/Frog as far as maintaining goes. They've fallen off pretty far and I don't expect CTDS alone to save them from that downfall.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

Cid's got no chance at being the third strongest FF7 character. Stronger than Zack is a possibility, but he's not going much higher than that. He's never been that popular anywhere.

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the journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step

Losing to Mario 64 was embarassing, but I think Mario 64 coming within 200 votes of beating LTTP more or less vindicated it. If Mario 64 wasn't the strongest Mario game in 2004- it probably is now.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

I'll agree that SM64's success helped CT save a lot more face. We were all pretty much ready to laugh at CT after losing to SM64 despite SMW2:YI, but holding up nicely despite FF7 in the next round and losing to arguably the #3 game here by a little over two hundred votes made CT's showing a lot more acceptable. It's still definitely one of the top games here, and the big question is how much credit CTDS gets for CT still holding up almost as well in BGE2 as it did in BGE1.

It's just hard to say; I'm of the opinion it didn't do very much. For what it's worth though, CT and FF3/6 have each seen a handheld port since BGE1 (FF3/6's was for the GBA though, I think) and there is a much bigger gap now between CT and FF3/6 now than in 2004...

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3497
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3503
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3496

...I mean, that's a pretty huge difference from this...

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1658
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1652

...and most of the older games showed us that name-power could keep you alive, so to see what was once FF's #2 game drop like that in comparison to CT so much is kinda nutty. From this angle, CTDS looks like it was quite a success...but CTDS just couldn't have been THAT much more important than FF3/6's port, right?


I dunno, my head hurts after trying to play devil's advocate for CTDS like that. I do think it's a funny trend to see CT smoke FF3/6 now though.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

so what would you say is the strongest mario game of the first games contest?
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Shakes Fist!

From this angle, CTDS looks like it was quite a success...but CTDS just couldn't have been THAT much more important than FF3/6's port, right?

I think CTDS had 3 advantages over the FF6 port:

1. CTDS was more recent, and came out last year as opposed to (3?) years ago.
2. CT was a more obscure game than FF6, due to the Final Fantasy name; thus any additional exposure helps CT more.
3. CTDS came out for the DS as opposed to the GBA.

Before the contest, I was hoping for CTDS to put CT back to LTTP's level or above it, but being worth 48-49% on it is an acceptable result when you consider how much the characters have fallen in 5 years. I never understood why people thought the characters had taken nosedives in the 7-10% range from 2004, that CTDS wouldn't do much, and that CT would nonetheless only be a little weaker than in 2004.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

From: voltch | #170
so what would you say is the strongest mario game of the first games contest?

If I had to guess:
2004: SMB3 > SM64 > SMW
2009: SM64 > SMW > SMB3

But people more knowledgeable than me may disagree.
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Brawl did well for me, but not enough to net me the Guru win over Krahenprophet, so kudos to him.

If I had to guess:
2004: SMB3 > SM64 > SMW
2009: SM64 > SMW > SMB3

I can agree with that. It's hard to tell how strong SM64 was in 2004 thanks to it being put against OOT, but that's as good a guess as any.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

We have not fair guesses about SM64 in 2004, though SMB3 was clearly a few steps ahead of SMW...so SMB3 > SM64 > SMW for 2004 feels right to me. This year though...I mean, I'd love to see SMW > SMB3 be true...

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3495
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3506

...but SMB3 won their first show-down when they collectively had the highest percentages of their rivalry and the least amount of probable LFF. Their second show-down also had SMB3 only lose by a little to SMW despite having the second and third biggest NES-games in the poll, too, so I suspect SMB3 would be looking better in a one-on-one match. SMW looked great when it won their final show-down despite the SNES-champ LoZ:LttP in there, but when they're fighting over 31.58%, it's hard to give it as much credit as how SMB3 looked in their first two matches when they fought over 64.9% and 59.96% (first and second round, respectively).


I'd count on SMW having more loyal fans when it comes to tight situations, but SMB3 probably takes it when lots more people have to pick between the the two of them. I'll go SM64 > SMB3 >= SMW for this year.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

it's weird though having those 3 mario be on really high levels and yet galaxy the best loved mario title since 64 flopped hard.
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Shakes Fist!

There's no shame in losing to Call of Duty 4, after that it was SFF by Brawl.
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Board 8 BOP: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/BGE2%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Krahenprophet for winning the guru contest

but what would the other 3 mario games have done in such a situation.
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Shakes Fist!

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27073764&page=0

I held a poll there asking for their favorite Half-Life side-character, and -- though I was only able to pick five choices for the poll -- G-Man's beating Alyx nicely (and was killing her earlier). Barney also had a lot of write-in votes; I'm pretty sure he had the most, which leads to...

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/detail.php?board=8&topic=51821322&message=570197717

...where Barney won out of the HL-universe excluding Gordon (including Portal). Though it's not like either vote sample is terribly big, Barney and G-Man could prove to be worthwhile guys in the sense of new guys we haven't seen yet on GameFAQs.


Probably not, but maybe. At the least, since HL2's picked up a lot since we last saw Alyx and we've got two guys here that could be as strong or stronger than she is now, it's worth a little discussion.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

The best part of Barney is his "I've been missing out on my beating quota" quote
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http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss217/Squishy_Pliff/serah3.jpg

I was bored so to help study for my stats midterm and to try to add some discussion here I took the SMW/SMB3/LoZ/SMB match and tried to look for some unusual points. An unusual point is considered to be a point more than +/- 3 standard deviations from the mean. Sadly I was only able to find two points that fit into that criterea.

LoZ - 5:55 (under)
SMB3 - 23:45 (over)

LoZ at 5:55 had a standrard deviation of -3.13. The only explaination that I can think of is that as the day went on and LoZ made its comeback people began to rally pushing the point below the threshold.

SMB3 at 23:45 had a standard deviation of 4.39. There's no doubt that something happened during this update and as many people are quick to point cheating was probably most likely. The second biggest update between 22:00 and the end was the update before it at 23:40 and even then that only had a standard deviation of 1.57. To bring that update to a standard deviation of 3.00 you would need to remove roughly 18 votes and to hit the mean 100 votes would have needed to have been removed.

Of course games are stronger at certain times than others so a split the updates with the trends that we've made.

LoZ at 5:55 had a standard deviation of -3.00. This supports my claim that LoZ picked up steam throughout the day, though the point is still boardering on unusual.

SMB3 at 23:45 had a standard deviation of 3.45. This could point that SMB3 was picking up steam at the end, but the point also had a larger effect on the standard deviation. Removing that number from both the overall and second night vote would give us 4.55 and 5.09 standard deviation respectively.

LoZ also at 23:45 had a standard deviation of -3.21 using only 2nd night vote trends. This is to be expected as SMB3 had a large spike of votes, but it does raise the question of why SMB and SMW didn't also plunge. While relative to the average they took a hit it was no where near the amount LoZ did (-0.35 and -0.68 respectively, also only using second night vote trends).

Just to remind everyone that just before 23:45 LoZ had taken the lead for 15 mintues. Taking the lead would cause LoZ to slow down its pace as people slow their rallies which is seen in the three updates before 23:45 (33.44% to 31.46% to 29.09%). Also with SMB3 behind Mario fans begin to rally, but just because the person goes to the site doesn't mean that they will vote for the option, which is why SMB and SMW didn't get as crushed during the 23:45 update.

While we established that rallying for SMB3 was going on it still doesn't excuse the 23:45 update, though if those votes were to be removed would the winner have changed (SMB3 needed a standard deviation of 1.17 on that update to win)?
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Board 8 BOP: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/BGE2%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Krahenprophet for winning the guru contest

Nice analysis, charmander. Some things to consider:

There are 288 updates in a day, and 4 games in the match, for a total of 1152 opportunities for a game to exceed 3 standard deviations, so we'd actually expect a couple of updates to be that unusual on an average day. (Yes, the percentages are related to each other, so it's not really 1152 separate opportunities, but you get the point). 2 updates out of 1152 doing so is not really unusual, and there probably doesn't need to be any explanation for the LoZ 5:55 update other than random variation. Also, I've noticed rather unusual-looking updates in the dead zone in other matches too- that makes sense as there are so few votes coming in that variance in percentages becomes much higher.

23:45 was clearly very unusual, but there's no real way for us to tell if it was cheating or rallying. LoZ doing so much worse than SMB and SMW seems to suggest that there wasn't even all that much rallying, or that a good deal of that update was in fact random variation (though I still think something happened then). The last hour is also a time of low vote intake normally, so again you'd expect an increase in the variance of the percentages, though not quite as much as the dead zone.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

Tag for future reference.
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The Straight Up G
The Palace of Wisdom Hardcore Legend and Board 8er Masa/Hiko

just wondering, are there any stat regulars who never made the contest leaderboard?
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Shakes Fist!

As in finished on the board at the end of the contest, or never even made a cameo? I imagine everybody's at least seen their name on there before.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

My highest was like ending up 20th or so in 2008 character contest
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http://card.mygamercard.net/nxe/albion+hero.png
http://actar.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/2008may19231734_2721.jpg

I mean, even BT's had his name on the leaderboard before. Lopen was supposedly screwed out of prize-money, once upon a time!

I'm certain LinkMario/Samus hasn't, and I'm not certain if Wylvane has. I'm pretty sure red sox, charmander, and Karma Hunter have, though it'd be worth getting a confirmation. Otherwise, I think we've all seen our name up there for a day before.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

My best finish was 12th in Summer 2004, with 189 out of 192 points. Things really have changed....nowadays one wouldn't dream of somehow missing only 3 points all contest.
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Link he come to town to dominate all other characters and trample them down with his sword of more votes.

I've made appearances and got as high as 9th, but I've never finished a contest while on the leaderboard. Probably because I've only gotten full points in the final match three times in the past (2k4 Games, 2k4 and 2k5 Villains).
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Board 8 BOP: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/BGE2%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Krahenprophet for winning the guru contest

I'm certain LinkMario/Samus hasn't, and I'm not certain if Wylvane has. I'm pretty sure red sox, charmander, and Karma Hunter have, though it'd be worth getting a confirmation. Otherwise, I think we've all seen our name up there for a day before.

red sox 777 and charmander6000 have already confirmed they had been on the leaderboard. Karma Hunter was on the Summer 2005 leaderboard after Round 10. I didn't check to see if he had made the leaderboard at any other time. I'll check Wylvane once I trace down what account names he used for his bracket.
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KrahenProphet, he come to town! Come to win the GameFAQs Contest!
Congrats to KrahenProphet on winning the Best Game Ever 2009 Guru Contest!

I was in 50th for one day, I think it was after Ganon/Auron.
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SSBB FC: 4425-1156-3590
According to the Krahenprophet, Dweebenheimer!

Every time I get oh-so-close to making the leaderboard, something happens and I end up falling. I still hope to see my name up there one day.
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Ragna the Bloodedge...
YOU'RE STUPID!

If FFVII beat OoT last year, I would have been top 10 I believe.
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Calling Pokemon RBY a top 10 game was the most insane contest jibba-jabba ever
Woe unto he who sig bets with the near-invincible Lord High creativename

I've been on the leaderboard for the last two contests. Never actually finished in the Top 50, but I was pretty high during the second half of Round 1/Round 2 in CB2008 and in the later rounds of the Game Contest.
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Brawl did well for me, but not enough to net me the Guru win over Krahenprophet, so kudos to him.

Did Slowflake ever make the leaderboard? I know he's not around anymore, but he's a classic regular and was big here until he left.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

I ended 2008 in 26th place. I also appeared on the leaderboard briefly in 2006.
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My Japanese alter-ego.
Butz: FFV, not Larry.

whoops, 27th place
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My Japanese alter-ego.
Butz: FFV, not Larry.

Well, today's poll is an ugly blow-out.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E

he, until last year i never made it, but since 4 ways i've always popped up at one point or another on it(never finished on the board but still).
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Shakes Fist!

Gordon winning the GS contest made me wonder how the non Square/Nintendo characters in our contests compare to each other. So...

1. Kratos
16. Phoenix Wright

8. Liquid Snake
9. Zero

5. L-Block
12. Knuckles

4. Leon Kennedy
13. Arthas Menethil

3. Gordon Freeman
14. Amaterasu

6. Ryu Hayabusa
11. Sub-Zero

7. Alucard
10. Diablo

2. Master Chief
15. Ken Masters

And one more question: How would you rank Dante, Ryu, Big Boss, and whichever character you have winning this bracket?

(Also, I didn't leave out any strong characters, did I?)
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Congrats to KrahenProfit

Voltch, I figured you had made it on the board before since you became a guru-champ from the Top Ten List.


Kratos > Liquid Snake

Poor Phoenix doesn't stand a shot. With MGS4 out and Liquid doing well in his three rounds last year, I'll trust Liquid to hold up a bit better than Zero nowadays. From there, Kratos smacked Revolver around and almost matched Dante against Sephiroth...so I won't take Liquid that high.

Leon Kennedy > L-Block

We've not seen Knuckles one-on-one since 2005, and -- while I don't think four-ways have been kind to Team Sonic -- Knuckles has been unimpressive the past several years (and Sonic 3 blew it in BGE2, too). Arthas barely beat Ike and CF in polls where Pikachu was hurting them, so Leon should do fine. Leon's beaten Pikachu and Pikachu's beaten L-Block, plus I don't think L-Block will be the same force he was in four-ways...so Leon > L-Block, even if it feels kinda weird.

Gordon Freeman > Ryu Hayabusa

Ammy's done well, but she's not doing that well yet. I like the rest of the four-pack though -- Hayabusa was a touch stronger than Zero and Vivi last year and has since gotten NGS2, so I'll reluctantly put him between Sub-Zero and Gordon (who could be pretty close together anyway).

Master Chief > Alucard

Alucard beat Arthas nicely last year after Arthas upset Diablo in 2007, so this feels safe enough. Ken > MC would probably a sexy upset, but I don't feel it even if SF4's out now. Super-MC killed Alucard in 2007 (before anybody brings up MC/Dante the past two years, it was even worse than that), so I'll take MC again.


Kratos
Leon
Gordon
MC

This is a good four-pack to finish this off...so I'm just going off instinct here. RE4's huge and RE5 came out this year, and I don't trust MC in a close match against another FPS-star. Leon/Gordon could be tipped by a little bit of Valve/Steam-involvement, but we've yet to see them try to affect GameFAQs contests in any way, so I'll believe it when I see it.
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Nominate DOC LOUIS (Punch-Out!!):
T E A M C H O C O L A T E