GameFAQs Contests

It is interesting how vote totals have gone down so much over the last 10 years.

Have the number of active users gone down as well?

Why is there still so much traffic to GameFAQs?? Why do people come here?

Do they just skip the home page now?

KamikazePotato posted...

"Something As Broad As Years" is a negative, not a bonus. Simpler formats get more votes and this is a very complicated format. You could put Link/Cloud/Snake/Mario in a poll and it gets less votes than Link/Cloud. We've seen this happen back to back before.

Along this line of thought, I think we've also seen something similar with multiple simultaneous matches instead of one match at a time.

Oh well, bring back Link VS Cloud and our vote totals still won't be the same. =/

charmander6000 posted...

It'll be interesting to see how much order matters

Also, a user might vote in the first match before looking over to the second one. So it might matter more what the second pairing is on the second match.

these two matches have almost identical vote totals.

GaryOak1 posted...

It is interesting how vote totals have gone down so much over the last 10 years.

Have the number of active users gone down as well?

Why is there still so much traffic to GameFAQs?? Why do people come here?

Do they just skip the home page now?

Archived game boards

Did Gamefaqs become a lot bigger between 2002 and 2003? The last week of 2002 was clearly rallied/attracted the attention of the internet, but excluding that, 2k3 votals were nearly twice as high.

I always associated that boost with KHF...probably not a perfect answer, but Kingdom Hearts changed things that year.

theory: The only rallying that'll happen in this contest will be people posting about its existence on other gaming sites on the last day to bring up the votals so that it'll be more likely that they'll win the tiebreaker

I think the prevalent thought on rallying so far is that some people will inevitably try, but all rallies will quickly fizzle out because it's hard to rally and/or care for something like this.

Honestly the rotating pictures aren't bad -- as long as they work. I hear it's not working for everybody and it isn't working on Internet Explorer for me. Although speeding it up by a couple seconds is a good idea.

The main problem is the snubbing of Mega Man 2, one of the top 2 or 3 games of 1989. It's not affecting the outcome in this case, but imagine Pokemon or FF9 not being in 2000's rotation or Metroid or Mega Man not being in 1987's or MMX/S3&K not being in 1994's (the last of which seems likely).

I hope Allen won't snub a game when it matters.

well we know Allen's been here long enough to close the topic and remove the sticky so hopefully he's noticed the complaints about the pics

tennisboy213 posted...

I hope Allen won't snub a game when it matters.

I think he's going with a broad platform representation based on his notable games list.

This could mean we'll see Tekken in 1994 or Panzer Dragoon Saga representing 1998

Also, I decided to do trend charts because why not. It's what I do at this point, and the matches do appear to have trends.

I don't know if they mean anything at all or what to glean from them, but still!

Bolto4 posted...

All in agreement for a faster rotating picture at least, given after seeing how it is going and feeling a lot better I went with the 1995 upset to the finals, needs to be better representation of the games in the year, just a pity the picture format was never fully defined before lockdown, quite a lot of bracket placement was gambling on how the representation of the match pic turned out to be.

Bear in mind that there's no guarantee that this will be the format after Round 2. If we go to one match per day in later rounds, we could end up with something completely different.

So the gamble isn't over yet.

https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/1981.jpg
https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/2006.jpg

https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/1978.jpg
https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/2005.jpg

2005 with the Objection as it's banner sprite. Amazing.

_SecretSquirrel posted...

https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/1981.jpg
https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/2006.jpg

https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/1978.jpg
https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/images/byg/r1/2005.jpg

2005 with the Objection as it's banner sprite. Amazing.

Interesting, have to say 1981 wins the picture battle for sure

Bleh, 2006. It doesn't matter for this round, but keeping KHII out of the match pic can hurt it against 2011.

2005, on the other hand, lucked out and got its perfect set of four games.

CaptainOfCrush posted...

Bleh, 2006. It doesn't matter for this round, but keeping KHII out of the match pic can hurt it against 2011.

Also, TP at the bottom isn't helping its cause either.

Yeah, 2006 got a raw deal on its match pic. Thankfully, it won't matter this time, but if Allen simply reuses the same pic in the next match, that'd hurt its chances.

2006 has an awful picture. KH2 isn't on the picture and slot 4 TP might as well not be on the picture either. It doesn't need a better picture this round but it will likely lose to 2011 if 2011 gets slot 1 Skyrim. Maybe even slot 2 Skyrim.

2005 has the right games but also the wrong order. It still beats 1978 and 2015 so I guess it doesn't really matter.

imagine if 2011 gets Skyrim in the same slot 2006 has Oblivion

2006 would be doomed

Why was 2005 even a wildcard entry in the first place? Looks to be pretty strong compared to years after it

Eh, 2005 is probably one of the weaker modern years. Those four games are decent, but they might be the only decent games 2005 has! Deciding its pic wasn't that hard, really.

I thought putting 2006 in the wild card was weird if Allen was picking the years he thought would be weakest in the main bracket, but I dunno what his thought process was when making it.

Hmm...The poll updater stopped working about an hour ago, looks like.

@creativename

Considering the name of the file I expect this will be 2006's picture against 2011.

It makes the match more interesting though to be fair I'd take Twilight Princess over Skyrim and Okami likely beats everything else outside of maybe Skyward Sword (which would be SFF'd and may not even appear in the match), the other options for 2011 are Batman: Arkham City, Dark Souls and Portal 2.

This is a bad early sign. What happened to RetroFAQs?! Based on the games chosen for its marquee, 2009 was apparently complete and utter crap, yet it's breaking 80% on 1979 while 1989, a year that technically counts as part of the vaunted 16-bit era (but even if it didn't, it houses some all-time 8-bit classics), can't even break 70% on 1983. And let's be honest, 1979 should clearly be stronger than 1983.

Sadly, we'll have to wait quite some time to get a read on what this means, because most of the next matches that compare different eras are pretty obvious. We all knew that the pre-1985 years would all lose this round, and we expect the more recent year to win 1995-1986. So the first real gauge of whether this is just an anomaly or not would be 2001 vs. 2014, which we expect to be a blowout in favor of the older year. If 2014 manages to not completely fold, consider me panicked.

LeonhartFour posted...

Hmm...The poll updater stopped working about an hour ago, looks like.

I suspect the site was IP blocked again. creativename is going to have to talk to Allen about this, if that's the case.

LeonhartFour posted...

Huh, 1991 > 1994 is the favorite. Didn't expect that.

also didn't expect 2001 to be the upper half chalk

I'm not too surprised by 1991 > 1994 being favored. 1991 has Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. Of course, 1994 has Sonic 3, which most Sonic fans consider the best in the series, plus FFVI...oh, hey, wait, 1991 has a FF game, too! Granted, VI is ahead of IV in the pecking order, but...

...Okay, let's be honest, this really comes down to the fact that SMW probably trumps anything that 1994 can throw out there. It's a close one, to be sure.

91 > 94 surprises me.

like, it's got a better Final Fantasy, a better Sonic, a top Mega Man and Super Metroid which is probably a top 15 game on the site. 91 has.. Mario World, basically. you have to rely on the Mario vs. Sonic rivalry which won't even play in this format anyway if pics are cycling.

I picked 94 on the fact that I don't think Super Metroid will completely fold to SMW, in addition to the above post.

It surprises me as well. I thought 94 would be a strong favorite due to its combination of depth and power. Metroid, FFVI, MMX, and DKC are all games that can bust brackets.

I guess the fact that it doesn't have any of the top three SNES games (1991, 92, and 95 have one apiece) might have scared people away, but hell, it's got four of the top ten.

I also think the days when Super Metroid would get SFF-blasted by the likes of Mario World are over. Respect for SM has only grown over time, and it has seen a bigger resurgence with the rise of speedrunning than almost any other game.

Didn't see your post, tennisboy, but you beat me to it. METROID RESPECT.

I'd take FF6 over Mario World.

transience posted...

like, it's got a better Final Fantasy, a better Sonic, a top Mega Man and Super Metroid which is probably a top 15 game on the site. 91 has.. Mario World, basically. you have to rely on the Mario vs. Sonic rivalry which won't even play in this format anyway if pics are cycling.

1991 seems like an oddity to me, and one of the matches we won't be able to apply standard logic to. On paper, 1994 has the much stronger smorgasboard of games, but the history of Sonic vs Mario, in addition to the SNES, I think 1991 is a great upset pick. I'm actually surprised it is the favourite though, I picked it thinking it would be a good upset pick to help diversify my bracket. Oh well.

94 probably has the slight advantage in overall strength, but I chose 91 due to potential Mario/Sonic synergy.

So Ulti's legendary anti-meta bracket only has 4 risks?

Meh.

I have 2 risks. Wow. That's probably the most cookie bracket I've ever made.

it's too bad 94 ran into 98. I'd probably put it third or fourth overall and might have rolled the dice over 96/97/00/01.

Yeah I'd probably have taken 94 to the finals if it were in the north half. It's the golden year for the SNES, and given how amazing all things SNES looked last time, it just makes sense to have a big representatvie for that console in the finals.

Unfortunately, almost every SNES year was thrown in the 1998 feeding ground.

Oof 2006 with Zelda in the last slot.

End-of-rotation factor strikes again?? An underperformance here would be telling.

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

And let's be honest, 1979 should clearly be stronger than 1983.

Should it? Mario Bros. alone probably defeats everything in 1979 combined.

transience posted...

like, it's got a better Final Fantasy, a better Sonic, a top Mega Man and Super Metroid which is probably a top 15 game on the site. 91 has.. Mario World

Eh, a better Sonic is debatable. I imagine if you put the two of them side by side, S3&K would win, even if you might argue Sonic 1 is stronger indirectly.

1991 has the strongest game out of either year, and I was betting on that mattering. It still might! I think the Mario/Sonic thing does still matter a little bit. I wasn't really banking on the SNES, but it could be a wild card if it somehow makes it into the pic.

transcience posted...

I'd take FF6 over Mario World.

Eh, I wouldn't. 52-53% on Wind Waker and 40% on FFVII? I'd take Mario World to best both of those marks. I don't think World wins by a ton, but I don't think I was impressed by FFVI beating up AC2 and TTYD as you were!

that's debatable, yeah. I think you could even argue Super Metroid over Mario World but I can't imagine anyone actually going all in on that.

I love Super Metroid so found it really easy to push 1994 to the semi finals. It still feels a stronger year on paper than 1991 and even though I was surprised 1991 was the more popular choice I still feel good about 94

Super Metroid, FF6, DKC2 and MMX all had solid runs in the last contest. SMW was gonna lose to RBY next round even if it didnt run into bloody Undertale. Its a strong as hell game but the four '94 heavyweights still combine to be a better year on contest strength. just comes down to how people vote

transience posted...

that's debatable, yeah. I think you could even argue Super Metroid over Mario World but I can't imagine anyone actually going all in on that.

it's freakin' MARIO circa 2017...?

I was impressed with the win against WW in general. Back then, I was beholden to the philosophy of "literally nothing might beat Zelda." The fact that FFVI actually pulled it off with room to spare (and Super Metroid came very close as well) surprised me.

Realtalk though, 1994 might be the actual best year in gaming, even though it won't win the contest

Eh, Wind Waker has always been a beatable Zelda title.

Super Metroid nearly beating Majora was more impressive than FFVI actually beating Wind Waker.

so do you think Super Metroid is the top game of 94?

I'm open to that argument, just curious