GameFAQs Contests

I found that the Oracle Challenge page is a good place to easily find the matches and their results for this past contest:

http://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k10
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"Ah, a party! We haven't had one of those. It could be fun! So...what is a party?"
"Well, you drink punch and eat CAKE! ...I think."

Wait you guys don't have a binder full of results that you can pull out at any time?

>_>
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Calintares made a whole lot of geolocation x-stats
Congrats to Dr. Football for winning the Guru.

Not me.

When I need to look up past match results when doing an analysis on an upcoming match, or I need to look up some match results when doing an Oracle Prediction, I just use the poll search feature.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

So what about the days when there was no search feature?
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Calintares made a whole lot of geolocation x-stats
Congrats to Dr. Football for winning the Guru.

I always used creativename's site for everything before that, since 2005. Before that.....I don't remember.
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

Before there was a poll search feature, I used creativename's site as well.


Anyways, as for yesterday's poll, DSL did indeed win South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania as I was expecting it to do. DSL wasn't as overly dominant as I thought it would be outside of the US/Canada. Cable Modem got a fair amount of support in Europe, which came off of the UK and the Netherlands, but DSL won most of the countries worldwide.

As for dial-up, funny that the highest percentage of dial-up users was in South America, with Asia having the second highest percentage. Between the 6 continents, North America was in 4th place in percentage of dial-up users (only Europe and Africa had a lower percentage for dial-up).

And for the states with the highest percentage of dial-up users, it ended up being Wyoming, Alaska, West Virginia, Kansas, and Washington for the top 5. Strangely enough, Washington D.C. had the 8th highest percentage of dial-up users and that's the most densely populated area in the US and the area that you'd expect to have the lowest percentage of dial-up users. No one in Idaho or North Dakota voted for dial-up and both states have a low population density. Hard to draw any sort of conclusions here when the overall percentage for dial-up was so low that there would be very little variation between the states.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

Pick that rematch! I was looking through some old matches, and I was wondering how you guys would side in these potential rematches:

Mario/Cloud
Samus/Sephiroth
Pikachu/Fox
Bowser/Yoshi
Sora/Aerith
Mario/Sephiroth
Knuckles/Yuna
Luigi/Yoshi
Frog/Liquid Snake
Frog/Master Chief
Knuckles/Kefka
Riku/Frog
Auron/Big Boss - Specifically, how close would Big Boss get this time?
Auron/Ganondorf
Bowser/Ryu
Master Chief/DK
Crono/Vincent
Vincent/Squall
Sonic/Mega Man
Mega Man/Crono
Ocelot/Pac-Man
Mario/Snake
Peach/Jill
Jill/Hayabusa
Yoshi/Dante
Kratos/Ryu
Sonic/Vincent
Master Chief/Sub-Zero

Huh, there were more interesting rematch possibilities than I realized!
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"But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside."
"I am lightning...the rain transformed."

Mario/Cloud: Mario would be able to take advantage of FFVII anti-votes like Samus and Snake did, but would never come seriously close to winning. Should probably take the lead for a fair bit of time in the early going. Probably around 53-54% in Cloud's favor.


Samus/Sephiroth: I'm of the opinion that Seph's performance this past year was partly a fluke. He appeared to be noticeably worse than Cloud, which he's never done indirectly before, plus there was that weird Kingdom Hearts drop. If these factors were just flukes, then he might have a chance right now. After Other M, and taking anti-votes into account, Samus probably takes it, if only by a hair.

Pikachu/Fox: Pikachu probably takes this. He will get anti-voted in 1v1s, but in a SFF match such as this one, I'd probably go with him to be safe.

Bowser/Yoshi: Bowser. Won before, and didn't look all that much different from Yoshi this year.

Sora/Aerith: Tough one. Depends on whether or not the Kingdom Hearts drop this past year was a fluke or not. Sora looked pretty bad this year all things considered, and I'd be tempted for the upset, but I'd probably just wuss out ant take Sora

Mario/Sephiroth: Same as Samus/Sephiroth, but with mario having a somewhat more uphill battle.

Knuckles/Yuna: Yuna in a naibliter. She's just looked more impressive recently.

Luigi/Yoshi: Luigi. Is more relevant to the Mario series now than in 2004, although I wouldn't be surprised if Yoshi won.

Frog/Liquid Snake: Frog, I guess. Liquid's performance this past contest was horrible enough to imply "fluke," but he still lost to Altair regardless, something I think Frog would struggle with doing.

Frog/Master Chief: Frog, although only because of anti-votes.

Knuckles/Kefka: Tough one. If this happened during the past contest, I think Kefka might have one, but Dissidia's probably worn off somewhat since then. Hmm. Not sure who I'd pick here.

Riku/Frog: Riku. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the Kingdom Hearts weirdness this past year was a fluke. He's still never looked that impressive besides 2006, but it'd be close either way. In fact now that I think about, this is another one where I'm not sure he could win.

Auron/Big Boss: Naked Snake wins outright, and Old Man Snake probably gets in the low 40's.

Auron/Ganondorf: Auron. No real question for me here. 2005 and 2006 are probably the only years that Ganondorf wins this match.

Bowser/Ryu: Bowser. I'm not impressed with Ryu's anti-vote performance against Cloud.

Master Chief/DK: DK probably wins due to anti-votes, although who knows really. It'd probably be another nailbiter.

Crono/Vincent: Vincent. I'm not impressed with Crono's ranking this year, which has the benefit of being behind Sephiroth anti-votes (probably more than Vincent was), and Missingno momentum.

Vincent/Squall: Squall. Has looked more impressive to me the past couple of years, although if the Kingdom Hearts Deboost is real, he might be in trouble.

Sonic/Mega Man: Mega Man. No question. Sonic looked horrible against Link.

Mega Man/Crono: Mega Man. Once again, no question.

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"Ahem! There is *sand* on my *boot*!"--Kefka
Dr. Football beat me, Yesmar in the 2010 Guru Contest!

Ocelot/Pac-Man: Pac-Man, albeit this is probably something of a fanboy vote. Plus, Ocelot might have benefitted last contest from Pokemon anti-votes, and people not realizing so early in the contest that there were two polls.

Mario/Snake: Snake. Has looked more impressive recently. Would most likely have won the showdown this year, but I see him slowly slipping throughout the next several contests, and by 2011, I think Mario probably has this.

Peach/Jill: I will tentatively say Jill. Her performance on Niko is more impressive than anything Peach has done. The only thing that has really changed in the past 4 years, is the Nintendo Boost dying off, so I will take the chance of the voters going the other way, if only slightly.

Jill/Hayabusa: Hayabusa, assuming he gets a ninja picture of course.

Yoshi/Dante: Yoshi. Looked somewhat more impressive this year, and I would probably take him to beat Ryu 1v1.

Kratos/Ryu: Ryu, probably. It'd be one of those matches that's fairly close, but Kratos is never really in it.

Sonic/Vincent: Vincent. As I said before, I have little faith in Sonic anymore.

Master Chief/Sub-Zero: Sub-Zero. Is probably more popular indirectly now, let alone what would happen once anti-votes got involved.
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"Ahem! There is *sand* on my *boot*!"--Kefka
Dr. Football beat me, Yesmar in the 2010 Guru Contest!

-LusterSoldier- | Posted 7/31/2010 8:35:40 AM | message detail
Huh, apparently there are no maps for today's poll. I get a 404 error page for this link:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/images/cb8/world_3988.png

No clue if it's just a glitch with today's poll, because there were maps for yesterday's poll. I know polls similar to today's poll have had maps for them. Tomorrow's poll should only have 5 options instead of 10, so we'll see if there are maps for the next poll.

Well, turns out that there are maps for today's poll. Which makes yesterday's poll look very weird. I'm calling it a glitch until I can get confirmation on this when I report the issue to Bacon.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

Mario/Cloud:

Cloud, easy.

Samus/Sephiroth:

Close match, but I'll take Samus to finally prove EC and crew's upset of 6 years right.

Pikachu/Fox:

Tough one. On the one hand, I think Fox would still win the SFF; on the other, Pikachu is very possibly as strong indirectly as Luigi/Yoshi/Bowser, who are a little bit above Fox. Since rSFF is so rare, I'll go with Pikachu.

Bowser/Yoshi:

Bowser, I don't understand the SFF mechanics of the Bowser/Yoshi/Luigi trio at all, so I'm just going to go with what happened the last time they met.

Sora/Aerith

Sora, he beat Aeris pretty easily with Squall in the poll, enough to shake off doubts caused by Aeris's massive win margin last time.

Mario/Sephiroth

Sephiroth is kryptonite to Mario.

Knuckles/Yuna

Not sure.

Luigi/Yoshi

Yoshi, same reasoning as Bowser/Yoshi.

Frog/Liquid Snake

Liquid Snake, MGS has risen a long way relative to CT since 2004.

Frog/Master Chief

Frog, because it would be hilarious.

I'll try the rest later.
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

Mario/Cloud: Mario, and it wouldn't down to the wire.

Samus/Sephiroth: Samus, and it would only look close on paper.

Pikachu/Fox: Pikachu 60-40's Fox.

Bowser/Yoshi: Pretty much the same result as last time.

Sora/Aerith: Sora unless KH gets worse.

Mario/Sephiroth: Mario, and Seph (unless it's a night match) wouldn't even be in the match.

Knuckles/Yuna: Yuna 55-45's Knuckles.

Luigi/Yoshi: Luigi beats Yoshi now.

Frog/Liquid Snake: Frog would probably still win.

Frog/Master Chief: Frog, though it wouldn't be as close this time around.

Knuckles/Kefka: Kefka narrowly wins.

Riku/Frog: Tossup, Riku could win, but not if Frog is within reaching distance.

Auron/Big Boss: Auron 5-45's him now.

Auron/Ganondorf: Auron now beats Ganon.

Bowser/Ryu: Same result.

Master Chief/DK: DK would probably win, now.

Crono/Vincent: Vincent, probably.

Vincent/Squall: Squall barely wins.

Sonic/Mega Man: Mega Man 55-45's Sonic.

Mega Man/Crono: Same thing as above.

Ocelot/Pac-Man: Ocelot wins now.

Mario/Snake: Mario 55-45's Snake.

Peach/Jill: Jill would likely win.

Jill/Hayabusa: Ryu would win.

Yoshi/Dante: Yoshi would win.

Kratos/Ryu: Tossup.

Sonic/Vincent: Sonic. FF7 anti-votes will doom Vince.

Master Chief/Sub-Zero: Not even debatable, Sub-Zero.
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The Gamer In Me
My bracket's busted, unlike our guru's, Dr_Football.

People who are taking Mario to get close to Cloud/Sephiroth: how close do you think Mario is to Link?

Because Link only beat Cloud 1% worse than in 2005 this year. Link meanwhile put up a very normal percentage against Mario- 64.5%, which is very consistent (and on the high end even!) with his past results. Excluding the BR (which was 6-way and happened at the height of TP hype), Link has always gotten between 62% and 67% on Mario (and Mario hasn't broken 36% since 2007).

So has Link suddenly dramatically increased his SFF power, in the same year that he took a pretty substantial drop?
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

I'm under the impression matches are just generally closer these days. We've seen the evidence of it. Anti-blowout FAQs, none of the heavy hitters able to really blow even the worst fodder of round 1 away, etc.
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:>

And yet Link (a Link, who, based on his other matches is the weakest Link since at least 2003) still managed to blast Sonic and Mario to smithereens. Those matches should have been closer too, right? You can argue SFF, but in Mario's case it doesn't really help, because we've seen Link/Mario before many times, so any anti-blowout voting should have made it closer than the past, and it didn't. You're left with saying that the SFF increased (if you think Mario = Cloud, the SFF was triple what it used to be!) as the gap in strength between Link and Mario shrank dramatically (from 40% to 46.5%).

And it's not true that nobody was able to impress against weak characters. 2 characters did- Samus and Snake- and guess what- they were the most impressive characters of the late rounds.
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

I'd be fine with saying Link increased his SFF power while be just as weakened as everyone else in non-SFF situations.
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:>

Mario/Sephiroth

Sephiroth is kryptonite to Mario.

Not anymore. And there's a reason why. The last known 1v1 match between those two was in 2005. So much as changed between 2005 and now. For one, the matches started at 3:00 AM back then, placing it in the time period that we call the "First Night Vote" in modern times under the 12:00 AM match start time. This makes Sephiroth's early vote not suck as badly as he normally would be with a 12:00 AM start time. You also have Sephiroth just being flat out weaker today than he was in 2005.

If Samus can pull off about 48% on Cloud (12 hour match, I know), there isn't any reason why Mario couldn't beat Sephiroth (who is worth around 47% on Cloud before SFF). This is also assuming that Mario is stronger than Samus and there still isn't a clear answer on that one because any match-up between the two will end up in an SFF beatdown. Cloud probably does a little better against Samus if the match had been 24 hours instead.

But the most telling sign that Sephiroth is no longer kryptonite to Mario is to look at the OoT/FFVII match from the last games contest.

In the first OoT/FFVII match in 2004, OoT could not even hold the lead over FFVII at the 5 minute point in the match. FFVII winning the first games contest made it an easy favorite to win the games contest from last year. Before the rematch between the two, we were all expecting FFVII to hold the lead over OoT again at the freeze. Where as FFVII is typically anti-voted heavily at the start of its previous matches, a match against OoT is far more significant here because FFVII is up against the one game that can actually beat it in a match. If FFVII was to defeat OoT a second time here, there cannot be any anti-voting here. FFVII would have to break free from the vicious anti-voting at the start of the match in order to hold a lead over OoT at the freeze.

Sadly, this did not happen and FFVII was still being anti-voted as heavily as it used to be in previous matches during the contest. If FFVII could not avoid the heavy anti-voting at the start of the match, why would you expect Sephiroth to be an exception here? It's not just the game that's being anti-voted, but everything FFVII-related. Sephiroth would still be anti-voted very heavily at the start, just like FFVII was. Mario would be able to hold a lead over Sephiroth at the start.

Now, as for Cloud/Mario, I think Cloud can still beat him though.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

Well, I don't really believe in Anti-Blowout-FAQs myself.

Lots of strong characters were unable to blow out weak competition in the early rounds. Clinkeroth did especially bad. Samus and Snake, however, did alright.

Later, it turned out that Clinkeroth also did badly against strong characters (with Sephiroth actually losing), so it appears that they just actually dropped. Meanwhile, Samus and Snake impressed. Another big reason for the lack of blowouts was the vote-ins: all the low seeds had already demonstrated some strength in a poll, so they were much stronger than the usual 13-16 seeds. The 13-seeds, in particular, were quite strong, probably as strong as the 4/5-seeds maybe.

And finally, there's just no reason to put Mario up that high (i.e. anywhere near 45% on Link). If he had shown really impressive numbers in his other matches, you could call major SFF in Link/Mario, but he couldn't break 54% on Charizard, and was extrapolated to 58% on Bowser. I mean, Squall got that much on Yoshi 2 years ago, and now we're taking Mario to give Cloud a run? There's just nothing in the actual matches to support Mario being that high, so I'm not sure why people were suddenly putting him up there. Perhaps a huge reluctance to countenance the idea of Snake and Samus being stronger than Mario indirectly?
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

Charizard was on steroids so that match really can't be used.

Also right now I would think Cloud > Mario > Samus > Sephiroth.

We should also remember that Link has had only seven non-SFF, non-Clinkeroth matches in all contest history, and he did not blow away the competition any of those times. Link disappointing isn't really a new trend, so much as it is an old trend from way back when coming back. In fact, the last such match Link had before last contest was Link/Magus, and we all know how much of a disappointment Link was there.

Uh.....did you see Link in 2004?

88% on CATS
88% on Ganondorf
81% on Yoshi
63% on Crono
67% on Megaman
52% on Cloud

Speaking of which, that's a good argument for Link's SFF powers not having improved. He got 81% on Yoshi in 2004, and a scant, what, 71% on Luigi this year?
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

I forgot to count Link/Cats in there, but then again it's an erratic joke character so I'm not counting Cats.

Also, I said non-Clinkeroth, non-SFF match. All Link matches in '04 belonged to one of these categories.

He got 81% on Yoshi in 2004, and a scant, what, 71% on Luigi this year?

Well, out of all the franchises that got Nintendo Boosted in 2005, Mario seemed to get the biggest boost of all.

Of course, that doesn't explain Link/Mario, so who knows.
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"But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside."
"I am lightning...the rain transformed."

Looking like a Mario deboost to me. Yeah, Bowser and Yoshi did impress, but they were also involved in pretty wonky matches with bandwagoned Pokemon.

If the Mario characters did deboost, god damn does Sora look pathetic. I mean, it'd make his performance against Laharl almost make sense.
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Wylvane
turbopuns is a horrible user.

Well, it's hard to tell anything from Yoshi's or Mario's matches, really. Luigi did fine though, all things considered, and so did Bowser. Sure, he got owned by Charizard, but we don't know what that's really worth until we see the 'Zard in action a second time.
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"I can set you free, mate."
"My freedom was forfeit long ago!"

From: Rhaknam | #124
Well, it's hard to tell anything from Yoshi's or Mario's matches, really. Luigi did fine though, all things considered, and so did Bowser. Sure, he got owned by Charizard, but we don't know what that's really worth until we see the 'Zard in action a second time.

Bowser's performance isn't that bad at all when you factor in the HGSS release date and how Charizard did on Mario.

It's just a question of whether Link fell in strength while increasing in SFF strength. Then again, Link crushed Sonic as well despite the Sonic crew looking the best it's been in awhile, so maybe the SFF thing is true and Mario can beat Cloud.

The whole thing is weird as hell, though. Never thought I'd see Samus be so close to Link indirectly, after all.
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Wylvane
KJ456 is a horrible user.

It's just a question of whether Link fell in strength while increasing in SFF strength.

Yeah, but Luigi just stands out as a stark contrast to that, especially considering it seems like Link SFF'd Sonic harder than he did Weegi, unless Sonic really is that weak now.
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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."

People who are taking Mario to get close to Cloud/Sephiroth: how close do you think Mario is to Link?

I don't know if 46% is considered close, but I personally think that Cloud/Seph are getting anti-voted, and that's why Mario would do well, not because he's really that popular (although Seph just looked bad this year, all things considered.) Clinkeroth were clearly getting anti-voted in the first couple of rounds.

Link's seemed to wear off at the end there, I admit. I don't really have any explanation for why that happened; maybe anti-champion votes falter when characters like the Noble Nine get involved? Samus/Snake do tend to imply otherwise, but my gut tells me that Link's bad performance were legit anti-champion votes, whereas the FFVII characters were just getting anti-voted plain and simple, and all of this "FFVII always wins" talk on the board is from people who just don't want to admit they're anti-voters. I've always thought that WDF back in 2002 was Sephiroth anti-votes (he was the target of FFVII hate back then), and while I have no way to prove that, I think we have come full circle again.

Anti-blowout FAQS is a myth though. Clinkeroth was getting anti-voted, but other than them, there's no evidence of this. It's silly to postulate about why blowouts didn't occur, when, except for Clinkeroth, nobody was predicting them anyway. The field was just stronger, and the worst of the fodder had the good luck not to go up against the big guys.
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"Ahem! There is *sand* on my *boot*!"--Kefka
Dr. Football beat me, Yesmar in the 2010 Guru Contest!

I want to see what Snake can do against Link, honestly. He's the only Noble Niner who hasn't faced him one-on-one now, and he's the only non-Clinkeroth option who has a chance of not getting SFF'd. I'd be interested to see what kind of number he can actually put up.
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"That's crazy. I could never do something like that."
"It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do."

I wonder which characters are more popular with virgins.

I know this topic will suggest joke characters and Pokemon.
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Wylvane
Highwind89 is a horrible user.

From: Not_Wylvane | #129
I wonder which characters are more popular with virgins.

I know this topic will suggest joke characters and Pokemon.

Link, apparently!
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"The great GF...Bahamut."
"...GF? I...? Using my powers...It is you humans...I fear..."

From: LeonhartFour | #128
I want to see what Snake can do against Link, honestly. He's the only Noble Niner who hasn't faced him one-on-one now, and he's the only non-Clinkeroth option who has a chance of not getting SFF'd. I'd be interested to see what kind of number he can actually put up.

Yeah, Snake's probably the best way to compare Link to Mario and Samus at this point, assuming there's no weird Brawl overlap that causes Link to SFF Snake.

Of course, I'd still like to see Snake vs Mario to see who is the true #3 on this site (lol Sephiroth). That is a match that could go either way, or at least it could've when Snake was still relevant.
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Wylvane
mas369 is a horrible user.

Wow almost half the people on GameFAQs have never been in a serious relationship.

I know this is GameFAQs, but come on guys...
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Calintares made a whole lot of geolocation x-stats
Congrats to Dr. Football for winning the Guru.

That is a match that could go either way, or at least it could've when Snake was still relevant.

Snake's no less relevant now than he was during the contest. MGS4 and Brawl were two years old by that point. Character strength isn't going to drop that rapidly. It took us 10 years or so before we started seeing significant drops in CT and FFVII characters.
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"Stay with me until the end. Please."
"Not until the end. Always."

Stealing a joke from tran here, but the virgin vote started bleeding percentage all over the poll once the Nintendo Power Hour ended.

There is no possible way this a coincidence.
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`·.,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.~*ST*~.,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.·´
You've really become quite an inconvenience for me.

From: UItimaterializer | #134
Stealing a joke from tran here, but the virgin vote started bleeding percentage all over the poll once the Nintendo Power Hour ended.

There is no possible way this a coincidence.

Well, the last option is technically doing the best in areas where Nintendo usually struggles, so it's kinda...weird in that sense.
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"Stay with me until the end. Please."
"Not until the end. Always."

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3864
http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/The_Average_B8er


Pretty sure the PotD is more accurate than yoblazer's topic.
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There's only one difference between heroes and madmen: It's whether they win or lose.

Considering the PotD has a much larger sample size...
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"Why must we always choose between certain death and probable death?"
"I'm in an epic battle to the death, FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF!"

Stealing a joke from tran here, but the virgin vote started bleeding percentage all over the poll once the Nintendo Power Hour ended.

Actually, it happened after the board vote. I'm tracking poll updates, just because I found these percentage changes amusing:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tkR2V3Pm9Gab0m3OS1GwMhA

"No, and I've never had one" nearly allowed "No, although I used to have one" to get in a cut at one point. And it's still bleeding percentage here. But looking at Europe, Asia, and Oceania, "No, and I've never had one" shall get the night vote.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

For a continent that likes to revel in its sexual freedom, it certainly has a lot more virgins.

Or I guess most of them simply sleep around without any real relationships.
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Wylvane
Anagram is a horrible user.

The Asians, though, those are all virgins.
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Wylvane
captainmurphy72 is a horrible user.

Oh hey, apparently the "Yes, and we're married" is dominating the morning vote. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. When I tracked poll updates for the last age poll, 26-30, 31-35, 36-40, and Over 40 had a good morning vote. Those are the age brackets which would obviously have the highest percentage of married users. 21-25 is pretty much all night vote and then collapsed once morning came.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

Older people have jobs and therefore can't go out and party.
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Calintares made a whole lot of geolocation x-stats
Congrats to Dr. Football for winning the Guru.

I think the Sonic match really wasn't all that impressive. I was calling for 70% before the contest, because Link got 67% on Megaman back in 2004, who was a great deal stronger than current Sonic, but it just looked like it wasn't going to happen after the Luigi match. Can't really draw much from it either way, because we've never seen Link/Sonic before, and really didn't know how much SFF we should expect.

I'd probably peg Mario around 40% on current Link myself. While that may seem low, it's as close to Link as he's probably been since 2002. (Mario was at 40% on Link in 2005). The only match that seems to argue for higher is Mario/Megaman, but I'll accept that as Mario/Samus part 2 (i.e. massive SFF turning a close match into a near-60/40).
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

I hate trying to measuring anything from that Winter 2010 contest. I think the data is less trustworthy than the 4-way contest from 16 months before.

Speaking of Mario, though, his result on Link doesn't surprise me. In the 2008 character contest he was pretty much doubled by Link. You could almost say Mario did better than expected in our recent contest (except for that fact that Mario probably always weakens in relation to Link when you add more characters in the poll....). Also, to explain why Mario did relatively well in Link in 2007 is because Mario Galaxy was released; actually I'm sure everybody knew this already. I remember thinking that Link/Mario/Sephiroth/Vincent proved that Mario/Link SFF was minimal to none (this match suggested 38% to 39% on Link; keep in mind Mario was expected 39-40% on Link before SFF).... but then the next year proved that all wrong. :[

Also, in 2002 Mario had Mario Sunshine released a few days before, which could explain why Mario got a "good" 37.5% on Link. So, I don't find anything to be very off regarding Link vs. Mario.

---
"Ah, a party! We haven't had one of those. It could be fun! So...what is a party?"
"Well, you drink punch and eat CAKE! ...I think."

I was calling for 70% before the contest, because Link got 67% on Megaman back in 2004, who was a great deal stronger than current Sonic, but it just looked like it wasn't going to happen after the Luigi match.

Only problem is Mega Man X is weaker than Mega Man.
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Calintares made a whole lot of geolocation x-stats
Congrats to Dr. Football for winning the Guru.

Speaking of Mario, though, his result on Link doesn't surprise me. In the 2008 character contest he was pretty much doubled by Link. You could almost say Mario did better than expected in our recent contest (except for that fact that Mario probably always weakens in relation to Link when you add more characters in the poll....). Also, to explain why Mario did relatively well in Link in 2007 is because Mario Galaxy was released; actually I'm sure everybody knew this already. I remember thinking that Link/Mario/Sephiroth/Vincent proved that Mario/Link SFF was minimal to none (this match suggested 38% to 39% on Link; keep in mind Mario was expected 39-40% on Link before SFF).... but then the next year proved that all wrong. :[

Also, in 2002 Mario had Mario Sunshine released a few days before, which could explain why Mario got a "good" 37.5% on Link. So, I don't find anything to be very off regarding Link vs. Mario.

I agree, and I don't think there was anything strange about the 2010 match (that is, it was normal SFF). I just don't understand all the speculation I've seen putting Mario in the 43-45% area on Link.
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Crono > Sephiroth. 7 years of waiting, and perhaps many more to go. Remain steadfast.

Mario Vs. Link in 2010 is weird on an inter-contest level because it implies that Link SFFs Mario more than he does Luigi. I agree that it's not weird in comparison to other years. Either there was some LFF going on, like in the 4 ways, or you have 2002 where SMS + Bracket Votes probably canceled out the SFF. I know that I gave a suggestion earlier in the topic as to why this would be, but if voters are savvy enough to anti-vote Link because he always wins, why would they just suddenly go "Oh, but Mario's pretty popular too. I'm not gonna let him get my anti votes." Surely they know that Link is still leagues above him.

Oh, and another random unrelated side note. Does anyone else find it odd that it was the latter polls that did poorly with European voters? The second poll would only start at 5 or 6 PM for most of Western Europe (where most of the Europe votes were probably coming from anyway), and that should give people plenty of time to vote after they get off of school/work/etc. I would expect European votes to be concentrated in a 4-5 hour window, but not lowered noticeably like they were. If anything I would expect them to not be able to vote in the first poll, since 5 AM-5PM seems like it would be a more inconvenient period for most people to get to a computer. I mean, what are people doing that they can't get to GameFAQS from 6 PM until the time they go to bed, when they apparently have time to vote before/during work or school?
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"Ahem! There is *sand* on my *boot*!"--Kefka
Dr. Football beat me, Yesmar in the 2010 Guru Contest!

Not really, while it's likely that their peak hours will be during the day, the other half of the poll is really killing them. Take a look at the vote totals by the hour in a world match. After the power hour vote totals drop off badly. Now remove the power hour, and make the drop even worse (remember when it's the dead zone here it's the ASV in Europe which helps lower the drop) and you get a low amount of people voting.
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Calintares made a whole lot of geolocation x-stats
Congrats to Dr. Football for winning the Guru.

Oh, and another random unrelated side note. Does anyone else find it odd that it was the latter polls that did poorly with European voters?

The day matches got about 11-14% of the votes from Europe, compared to about 17-20% for night matches. This is consistent with the information I got out of the last continent poll. Europe had 19.08% after the first 12 hours of the continent poll. During the last 12 hours, Europe only drew in 11.38% of the votes.

The second poll would only start at 5 or 6 PM for most of Western Europe (where most of the Europe votes were probably coming from anyway), and that should give people plenty of time to vote after they get off of school/work/etc. I would expect European votes to be concentrated in a 4-5 hour window, but not lowered noticeably like they were. If anything I would expect them to not be able to vote in the first poll, since 5 AM-5PM seems like it would be a more inconvenient period for most people to get to a computer. I mean, what are people doing that they can't get to GameFAQS from 6 PM until the time they go to bed, when they apparently have time to vote before/during work or school?

Here is the trend chart for the last continent poll:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tzDbbCvKgxpPAshUwKqF7pA#gid=2

If you haven't seen this yet, this is a real piece of work. Europe literally rips North America apart during a 3 hour period and manages to cut about 900 votes off North America's lead. The poll updates can be found in that spreadsheet as well. The "Extra Info" sheet includes stuff I couldn't fit into the Poll Updates sheet, and that includes each options vote intake per update and the percentage of votes they were drawing in during each update.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as Dr_Football, Guru Champ!

Mario Vs. Link in 2010 is weird on an inter-contest level because it implies that Link SFFs Mario more than he does Luigi.
Interesting. I never thought much about this before. Lessee....Link got 64.57% on Mario, while he got 71.13% on Luigi. This suggests Mario gets 59.37% on Luigi. That DOES seems closer than usual. However, let's take a look at Bowser, and compare Mario and Bowser's common opponent: Charizard. Now, if I have it right, Charizard had that "boost" for both of those matches, right? Well, assuming that....

Bowser - 45. 27% on Charizard
Mario - 53.59% on Charizard

Here, Mario is expected 57.98% on Bowser. That's not far from what Mario was expected on Luigi. So, perhaps Mario was just flat out hurt more by the 12-hour polls than Luigi and Bowser were. Normally Mario would be expected what, 62-64% on them? So, it's a notable difference, but not massive.

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"Ah, a party! We haven't had one of those. It could be fun! So...what is a party?"
"Well, you drink punch and eat CAKE! ...I think."