GameFAQs Contests

A scan of the Guru bracket topic suggests that 1987 has about 5 times more brackets supporting it than 1985. I mean that's a lot better than 16-1 from the BOP but it still isn't close. I suspect this is another Auron vs Squall where people largely agree which entrant has the 51% chance to win.

I updated the excel sheet for the BOP, currently 1987 leads 1985, 23-4 so it has become more aligned with the guru.

is it really? wow. that'll be a fun one.

Is there going to be a Spread Betting this year?

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Is there going to be a Spread Betting this year?

Haven't seen FastFalcon around, so who knows!

While there is some debated matches, I think that the match will be pretty boring. The trend will be non existent. Games that do much better at night (or day) will be paired with other game that will nullified the effect. If there is no rallies, all matches could be called after 5-10 min

To be fair even back when we had trends almost all matches were called within the first 5-10 minutes.

Trends will probably be very boring for this contest. In general, the matches that show actual trends will probably be the matches featuring a 20+ year difference between the 2 entrants in the match. This would apply for the following matches:

1979/2009
1981/2006
1978/2005
1992/2016

There might be other matches that display noticeable trends, such as 1995/1986, 2000/1990, 1996/1989, and 2004/1994.

I'm expecting a lot of big blowouts, honestly.

LeonhartFour posted...

I'm expecting a lot of big blowouts, honestly.

Yeah me too. I just can't get myself excited for this thing. A year to me doesn't matter.

I played Bloodborne in 2017. Does that mean I cheer for 2015, or 2017? Seems so odd.

I bet the 90s have some insane power hour thing going on. other than that, yeah.

there's a reason that I keep comparing this thing to the series contest. that also featured some awful blowouts until the very end.

LeonhartFour posted...

I'm expecting a lot of big blowouts, honestly.

Yeah me too, have a good chunk of stuff breaking 60% and 70% in the Oracle.

that's not a big blowout. I think it's valid to think that every match goes 70%+ in the wildcard round with some of them breaking 90.

I doubt anything will break 90%, seems a little too much

I have no idea what to guess for percentages for any of these matches.

I think at least one match will break 90%, but again, no clue.

I'm seeing 3 matches that could break 90% based on a quick look at the bracket - 1981/2006, 1978/2005, and 1995/1986

it depends on what these match pictures look like, but we could see all four break 80% in the wildcard round and I wouldn't blink an eye.

I don't think 1981 will fail to break 10%. Maybe if Twilight Princess can SFF old-school games

contest when

Apparently in 30 minutes LOL

It says the contest starts on May 1, 2017 at 9PM PT, so isn't that a day later?

Oh

Anyone have an idea on when we will finally see match pictures?

So are the wildcard matches in 10 mins?

24 hours and 10 minutes

Ugh damn

So I guess today's poll is have you filled the bracket for The Best Year Ever contest?

Oh wow, we're not even going to get a poll asking about filling out a bracket for this contest. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a midday poll change, which has happened in the past (usually after a major E3 press conference ends).


cyko posted...

Anyone have an idea on when we will finally see match pictures?

I'd guess match pictures should be getting uploaded at some point between 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM EST. The tricky part would be attempting to guess the URL of the match pictures, though I have a couple of ideas on possible URLs for the match pictures.

I've barely seen creative this bracket period. I'm guessing that we won't have site updates - is anyone besides Luster doing live updates?

creativename posted his Oracle predictions so he's definitely around.

I'm hoping to get creativename to work on getting his updater properly configured for this upcoming contest. Maybe he wants to wait until the first matches start to see if we'll have 4 matches on the first day or just 2 matches.

I'll attempt to track poll updates myself until creativename's updater is set up for this contest.

creativename hasn't been around much and he's actually put me in charge of uploading match pictures to his website.

AssultTank is trolling hard with that "Latest Announcements and News: Sadly, No Competition. :(" on the sidebar

transience posted...

I've barely seen creative this bracket period. I'm guessing that we won't have site updates - is anyone besides Luster doing live updates?

My desktop is broken, think it's my motherboard. I'm going to have to edit the site through my home, which won't be fun.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Apparently in 30 minutes LOL

Yeah I thought so too and found it weird to see the topic so dead
Guess I was wrong by 24 hours

creativename posted...

transience posted...

I've barely seen creative this bracket period. I'm guessing that we won't have site updates - is anyone besides Luster doing live updates?

My desktop is broken, think it's my motherboard. I'm going to have to edit the site through my home, which won't be fun.

yuck. much appreciated!

I was going back and forth on 1990/2000 as well, but after thinking about it, I think Majora's Mask, FF9 and GSC trump Mario 3.

In Zelda I trust

I got faith in 2000 > 1990. It's hard to bet against the '90s here, but 2000 is strong in a number of ways.

My biggest worry is taking 2001 to the final. 1997 feels like it could have been the favorite since GameFAQs was built off of FF7's back that year, and I'm even more worried about Chrono Trigger/Playstation for 1995. If I had not thought of 2001 as a powerhouse for so long before this contest, I probably would have taken 1995 after CT's run in the last contest...but I'm staying set in my ways on this one.

CT brings up a specific issue with me though as a popular game to emulate: are we sure most of its strength will be fully considered as 1995 when emulation helped more people play it in later years? I guess probably, in the same way people won't be confusing Tetris for a modern game with all its ports. Still, I would guess CT's unique in that there could be multiple years where more people played it for their first time through emulation than during its year of release...so I'll be curious to see if we see that matter at all.

As a person that tends to play games not in their release year I don't think playing it in a different year will matter too much because I don't remember when I played the game. For Chrono Trigger, did I play it in 2003 or 2004? I don't know.

What will matter the most is what games are in the picture. I see people basing their votes on either which year has their favourite game or which set of six games are the better set.

We have to submit our brackets without the match pics, which are going to be critical in determining who wins. Thanks, Allen.

why do you think it's six games?

Because the 80s poll had six games.

HaRRicH posted...

CT brings up a specific issue with me though as a popular game to emulate: are we sure most of its strength will be fully considered as 1995 when emulation helped more people play it in later years?

That's what I thought about last night, and it somewhat bolstered my confidence in sticking with 2001. Tons of people played FFVII and GE in 1997 - we associate that year with those games. Same for 1998, but to a much larger extent, which is why it's almost certainly winning the contest. Same with 2001 - FFX, Melee, Halo, MGS2, GTAIII, Devil May Cry - those games were all immensely hyped and popular in their launch year, which is why so many people immediately jump to "2001" as their go-to answer whenever people ask about top years in gaming.

Chrono Trigger is a timeless classic, but part of the reason for that is because people have been discovering and loving it throughout the past 20 years. It doesn't have as strong of an association with 1995 as other huge games do with their years (Mario 64 in 1996, for example). Will that hurt 1995 overall? No one can say right now, but I certainly don't think it'll help.

I don't get it the thing says the contest starts May 1st

May 1st at 9 p.m. Pacific time, or just over 11 hours from now.

*thumbs up*

I don't think people are really going to factor what year they actually played these games. I'm not even sure most people know which year in their life they played which game (I know I played Chrono Trigger first in the early 2000s, but I don't know exactly when), so I envision this as more of a tag team contest of sorts.

I really can't decide on 2000 vs 1996. Might be the closest match we get.

I went with 1996 because I have a feeling SBAllen will still be doing the match pics in Round 2. 1996 is guaranteed to always get a Mario 64 pic. 2000 is less assured to get a Majora or FFIX pic (it doesn't have either on the bracket page right now). For me, that's just enough to tilt things.

I too picked 1996, but I'm really more afraid of 1990 vs 2000.

you can use that same logic for 1990, you know!