GameFAQs Contests

KamikazePotato | Posted 1/1/2011 5:30:36 PM | message detail
What should happen is that, if a match is close at the 12-hour mark (within 3000 votes), it gets extended. If it's not, we move on. That seems fair to me.

I like the idea IN THEORY but can't support it for a full sized Contest where we've got a bracket and battle and oracle and all this other stuff we need to keep to a strict schedule in order to predict.


ANYWAYS anyone interested in this stuff should listen to the Wrapup episode of The Show we did with Ulti, discussing how to tweak the Contest format and what Contest we should run next and all that!

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/57673087

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thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com
You should search for The Show, the cool podcast featuring Guru Champ Black Turtle!

After looking at a couple matches, the highest successful 12-hour turnaround I could fine was Starcraft vs. WW. WW was leading by 1725 votes at the 12-hour mark. So the cutoff could probably be lowered to around 2200.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

but is that one upgrade worth the 90 other matches we'd have turned from "boring" to "just as boring; now twice as long!"?

Half of those matches might not even happen due to the bracket being cut in half. Then you have to halve those numbers again, as you're still getting 24 total hours of "boring" matches in a 12 hour format when you add two matches together.

And in regards to getting more characters in, we could just have the top 32 entrants get byes and then have 12 hour matches/4 ways to decide the bottom seeds. This would only extend the contest by 16 days, and would give us 96 entrants, only snubbing the vote-ins, who other than MMX (who shouldn't even be in to begin with) and Missingno haven't done much. I think this problem's a little overstated as well. I've made a 64 entrant bracket that gets almost all of the important characters in, and assuming Bacon doesn't slavishly stick to the noms it shouldn't be hard to do.
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"Ahem! There is *sand* on my *boot*!"--Kefka
Black Turtle beat me, Yesmar in the Fall 2010 Guru Contest!

Because there are 10 "dull" (as in nothing would change with an extra 12 hours added) matches for every good match that the extra time might turn "great". And also, as we've been over a few times now, we get 64 more matches in this format. Yes of course many of them are foddery and not entertaining, but expanding the field to 128 still gives us a few surprise entrants and unexpected fun matches every season, so I'd call it well worth it.

To be quite honest, I'd take 10 dull matches in exchange for one great match. Easily. There's only been one truly great 12-hour match in my opinion, and that was Crono/Missingno. Stuff like Deus Ex/Rock Band......I'm more than willing to replace a few of those with SSBM/GH2 style matches to get one additional FFX/MM or SC/WW.

And it's not really true that we'll just be getting dull matches lasting longer with 24-hour matches, because we'll only have 64 games. It's having 128 entrants, not the time length of the poll, that produces dull matches, because dull matches are principally caused by fodder. Take a match like Crono/Bowser- it was over within a minute or so, but it was still plenty entertaining, because the characters were strong, it had big implications for Crono's matches down the line, it had big trend shifts, and it was Nintendo vs. Square. With a 64-game bracket we can theoretically have no fodder!

Now, that won't happen in practice because of how nominations work, but we will get a lot fewer boring matches in a 64-game 24-hour contest than now. Each boring match will last longer, but I daresay the total time spent on boring matches will go down. And even if it's not, the increase in really great matches is worth it. The only problem is snubs, but I guess that's why the ideal solution for me is to switch to 24-hours in the final 16.
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Congratulations to Guru Champion Black Turtle, who called MM > GSC when most of us were calling it impossible.

64 entrants is fine for character battles, but if we're gonna have an open era all entrant games contests in, say, 2012, we really need 128, or else there will inevitably be some huge snubs. I could seriously see a top 20-30 game or two not getting the nominations, especially with the advantage recently released stuff always has.

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Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ.
(Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!)

Less than 2 minutes left until the PC GotY poll. Starcraft II wins that poll, assuming Mass Effect 2 isn't in that poll. Since Mass Effect 2 is only available on 2 systems for now (the PS3 release comes out in about 2 1/2 weeks), it might be in the PC poll. If Mass Effect 2 is in the PC poll, it will probably be in the Xbox 360 poll too.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

iPhone GotY? Well, that's a new one. I wasn't expecting that.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

The votaaaaals.

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Most marriages don't last as long as the love affair between Zelda and GameFAQs. - Sir Chris

ew... iPhone game

Hopefully he doesn't have best PS2 game
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BOP Results: http://charmander6000.webs.com/GotD%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Black Turtle for winning the guru contest.

Yeeeeeah Fruit Ninja in the lead when I voted.
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http://card.mygamercard.net/Mach+Tornado.png

Game Dev Story not winning this is a crime!

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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

I finally get to vote for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

*wipes single tear off face*
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Yoblazer: http://i32.tinypic.com/zlf1w7.gif
Watch and you'll see... Turtle own me... in the Guru!

I hope the iPhone entrant gets <2% in the main ;oll, just to underline how pointless this is. >.>

Also, MM10 for downloadable of the year!

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Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ.
(Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!)

hell yeah Game Dev Story

winner of this is going to get murdered in GOTY
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xyzzy

GTA is going to name brand its way through this poll despite CW being a 2009 game.
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BOP Results: http://charmander6000.webs.com/GotD%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Black Turtle for winning the guru contest.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3719

damn you brand name loyalty
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xyzzy

From: charmander6000 | #215
GTA is going to name brand its way through this poll despite CW being a 2009 game.

Wasn't it released on DS like three years ago? >_>

Certainly seems that way!
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Yoblazer: http://8board.webs.com/ariel.jpg
Watch and you'll see... Turtle own me... in the Guru!

XD, barely over 200 votes after 3 minutes. This will be under 400 at the freeze.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

Also, iPhone had some good stuff this year. Kinda pointless to run it considering the lack of popularity they have on GameFAQs, but it's not because the games suck. DS poll was worse!

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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

We are currently seeing the one case where GTA name brand loyalty on GameFAQs will actually pull through.

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Most marriages don't last as long as the love affair between Zelda and GameFAQs. - Sir Chris

This is bad...I'm kinda glad to see the poll, but the winner here's getting ganged up on in the overall-GotY.

Good to see GTA can still win a GotY-poll here though, I guess.
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First with SSBB > SMG in 2009, then with the GotD-contest: BT owned me once again.
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/3492/eponaharr.jpg

I started F5ing near the end. There were several refreshes where the votals didn't change, and my connection is pretty slow.
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Yoblazer: http://i33.tinypic.com/ml36gl_th.gif
Watch and you'll see... Turtle own me... in the Guru!

Look at that GTA board vote.

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Most marriages don't last as long as the love affair between Zelda and GameFAQs. - Sir Chris

You know what, I bet Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade are LFF each other.

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BOP Results: http://charmander6000.webs.com/GotD%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Black Turtle for winning the guru contest.

I started F5ing near the end. There were several refreshes where the votals didn't change, and my connection is pretty slow.

I was refreshing the results a lot and sometimes the vote totals didn't change.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

Less than 200 votes on that update. Man, the dead zone is going to be brutal with many updates being as low as like 50 votes or so.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

cut the rope and fruit ninja, sure. infinity blade, no way.
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xyzzy

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=4205&region=USXWY

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Most marriages don't last as long as the love affair between Zelda and GameFAQs. - Sir Chris

Game Dev Story is one of the most addicting game I've ever played. Kudos! I love it!

Also, to those that didn't know: iPhone/iPad game apps > DS & PSP games.

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GT: TriggerTRE // PSN ID: SolidTRE
The big Black Turtle won the race.

wyoming top tier confirmed
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"I submitted brackets on all [224] of my accounts so they would get the 10 free Karma for beating SBAllen's score." - Luster Soldier

Hopefully he doesn't have best PS2 game

In the past, the PS2 poll came after the PC poll. Tomorrow should be the PC poll. If PS3 poll comes after the PC poll, then we can assume there will be no PS2 poll.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

Man, I just voted for Fruit Ninja to see something called Fruit Ninja make the final poll.
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"Ahem! There is *sand* on my *boot*!"--Kefka
Black Turtle beat me, Yesmar in the Fall 2010 Guru Contest!

I haven't played any game today and I don't want to do any favors for the vote total, so I'm not voting for my first time in awhile!
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First with SSBB > SMG in 2009, then with the GotD-contest: BT owned me once again.
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/3492/eponaharr.jpg

From: Ngamer64 | #199
Because there are 10 "dull" (as in nothing would change with an extra 12 hours added) matches for every good match that the extra time might turn "great". And also, as we've been over a few times now, we get 64 more matches in this format. Yes of course many of them are foddery and not entertaining, but expanding the field to 128 still gives us a few surprise entrants and unexpected fun matches every season, so I'd call it well worth it.

But in the end, do I really care that I had to sit through 24 hours of Vyse/Laharl when we end up getting a classic like Frog/Master Chief? No. At the end of the day, we don't even remember that we had to sit through a snoozefest of a round 1 of the original Games Contest, but we still call it one of the best contests ever.

I'd rather sacrifice a little bit of quantity for a little more quality, personally. I've always kind of felt that 128 is a bit of overkill anyway. If you dropped half of those entrants, we wouldn't miss 95% of them.
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"But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside."
"I am lightning...the rain transformed."

Well, it finally happened. Today's poll just broke 10000 votes and it took almost 9 hours to do it. This poll probably ends up around 27000 votes or so.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

From: charmander6000 | #209
ew... iPhone game

Hopefully he doesn't have best PS2 game

It'd be more relevant than iPhone on GameFAQs for sure.
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:>

Holy Jebuz, this won't even get close to 30,000 votes. When's the last time we had such an abysmal poll?

We'll be lucky to break 25k
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BOP Results: http://charmander6000.webs.com/GotD%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Black Turtle for winning the guru contest.

Thank goodness there's a game with a brandname and two other systems under its belt in the poll today, or the vote totals would be looking even worse.
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First with SSBB > SMG in 2009, then with the GotD-contest: BT owned me once again.
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/3492/eponaharr.jpg

Apart from GTA, Game Dev Story is the only title I recognize. I've heard it mentioned in a few places; shouldn't it be doing a lot better?
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Yoblazer: http://i32.tinypic.com/zlf1w7.gif
Watch and you'll see... Turtle own me... in the Guru!

I've heard about cut the rope, fruit ninja and infinity blade more often.
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BOP Results: http://charmander6000.webs.com/GotD%20BOP.xls
Congratulations to Black Turtle for winning the guru contest.

Cut the Rope had better be another sequel to You Have to Burn the Rope! aka hardest game ever.

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"Getting lucky 100% of the time... it's called PRO SKILL."
-BlAcK TuRtLe

I voted for the least popular choice, first time I've done that in a long time!

Never played any of these, since I don't have the devices, so mostly it was done after a Google search or two.
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:>

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

When's the last time we had such an abysmal poll?

There is this poll:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=4067

It had the lowest vote total of 2010 for a 24 hour poll. But I'll blame voters for being lazy and not bothering to check the bracket for possible upsets. Despite how bad 2010 was with vote totals in non-contest polls, there were no polls below 30000 votes and only 2 that were below 40000.


There is also this poll from 2006:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2570

I think that's the only other poll (including today's poll) since 2006 that has gotten less than 30000 votes. But that poll was ran during the contest season, because there were a couple times during both 2006 contests that CJayC ran an extra poll along with a contest match. I'm pretty sure that poll was a full 24 hours and there's no way of knowing if the contest match actually hurt the vote totals of that poll.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

From: -LusterSoldier- | #244
I'm pretty sure that poll was a full 24 hours and there's no way of knowing if the contest match actually hurt the vote totals of that poll.

If it was run alongside a contest poll, then it was probably underneath said contest poll and most definitely hurt by it. Common sense would indicate such a poll would get way more than 28K votes under normal circumstances.

And today's poll should still finish way under it. I'm not gonna search, but this may be the most abysmal poll since the early days of GameFAQs.
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Yoblazer: http://i33.tinypic.com/ml36gl_th.gif
Watch and you'll see... Turtle own me... in the Guru!

I think you need to go back to at least 2004 or earlier to start seeing polls with vote totals close to what we are getting today.

If it was run alongside a contest poll, then it was probably underneath said contest poll and most definitely hurt by it.

Yes, it was underneath the contest poll based on this archived page:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061114210406/http://www.gamefaqs.com/

But that poll was a sponsored poll, in which it had a background image. Still, the background couldn't have hurt the vote totals because the poll question and the options were very visible.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as BlAcK TuRtLe, Guru Champ!

For what it's worth, I believe this poll was sponsored in 2004, too; it was definitely under another poll:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1590
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First with SSBB > SMG in 2009, then with the GotD-contest: BT owned me once again.
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/3492/eponaharr.jpg

Where is PoP in that poll and why isn't Melee?
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"Calintares is a huge stat nerd"
Link always wins. Only Jay Solano, God and BlAcK_TuRtLe can defeat him.

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