Lurker > red sox 777

So you're argument is that both got weaker, but Cloud dropped more, so now that it's a different contest, Cloud will come back up while Link doesn't? I don't follow your logic. Or you could mean Sephiroth will make Cloud stronger, even those nothing will change because it's the exact same fanbase voting for both of them, while Ganondorf won't add anything to Link using... the same (but opposite) logic?

Seph adds a lot more to Cloud than Ganon does to Link, yes. But even if it were Link/Ganon/Cloud/Seph in a 4-way, I'd still take Link/Ganon and expect 51% or so. This matchup is even better for Cloud/Sephiroth than that though, because the contest is for "best rivalry," so Cloud/Sephiroth have good winning chances. I certainly don't discount the possibility of Link/Ganon winning.

As for the specific argument that started all that talk about anti-votes and trends, Yoblazer said that he thought Cloud/Seph couldn't beat Link/Ganon in the finals but might be able to in earlier rounds. My reply was that I didn't think so, that whoever wins that match would likely win in any round. A few years ago, when Link wasn't anti-voted at all, he may have gotten a boost from facing Cloud in the final, but nowadays it would be insignificant, unable to impact a match that wasn't already basically 50/50.

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90s games > 00s games

Charizard/Blastoise have zero chance of beating Cloud/Sephiroth. Well, not zero because nothing is certain in these contests but it's pretty close!

There's no stretching to see that Link has gotten weaker. He did 1% better against Cloud in 2010 than in 2005. Everyone agrees that Cloud has gotten a lot weaker since 2005, so since Link barely did better, he must have gotten weaker too. And all his 2010 matches confirm the same thing.

This is patently clear after the 2010 final, and all those people who thought Link could go for 60% in that match have no room to talk here.

And I'm a bigger Zelda fan than an FF fan. I was one of the few people cheering when Link blasted Snake out of the water with the ASV.

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90s games > 00s games

Kanzari: The match was 50/50 either way. The games are statistical equals.

Leon: Cloud's anti-voting is indeed part of his natural strength, which is why it doesn't matter if he faces Link early or late in the contest. And I'm sorry, but Link's trends were definitely shifted last year. They're not the same as Cloud's, but the site is becoming aware.

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90s games > 00s games

On Board 8, Mario/Crono wins easily, but sitewide, Link/Cloud crushes.

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90s games > 00s games

And let me ask you: are you arguing that Cloud is really stronger than 46.5% on Link but that he underperformed in that final? You can't have it both ways; Link can't have not fallen AND overperformed on Cloud.

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90s games > 00s games

FFVII had a good day vote back in 2006. It's tanked pretty far since then. Cloud was like 2% ahead of 2006 trends IIRC in the morning, but he gave most of it back during the day with his newfound bad day vote. That makes that comparison misleading.

Also, remember that there are other things driving the early vote beside anti-votes (for example, that the early vote is overwhelmingly from North America where Zelda dominates and FF is bad). Link would have to be anti-voted much harder than Cloud to actually have as bad an early vote as he does.

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90s games > 00s games

And lost in all this is that Link's wins against Sonic and Mario weren't even good performances.

Link scored less on Mario in 2010 than in either 2008 match. It was a fair performance, in line with past results, but nothing that should have been unexpectedly good.

And Sonic? Sephiroth got 64% on Sonic the year before. Link is stronger, and you can expect SFF in that one. Link put 67% on a much stronger Mega Man in 2004. What's so impressive about 70% on Sonic, other than the novelty of seeing a Noble Niner held below 30%? Unimpressive by Link standards.

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90s games > 00s games

Go compare Link/Mario and Cloud/Samus. Link went up about 1% less from the freeze to noon. 5% vs. 6%.

Link's increase in the Sonic was in fact meteoric (and yes, on par with Cloud/Captain Falcon measuring from the first 30 seconds). Link just did most of his increasing early in the match.

And Link obviously still has a better early vote than Cloud. But last year it was pretty close. Those are the facts. Cloud went up 1.5% from a minute in to the end on Link directly. Traditionally it is more like 8%.

A point about the best hour/worst hour thing: the reason the gap is so huge for Cloud is that his best hour is in the dead zone when we're getting almost no votes. Link's best hour is in the ASV, when we're getting several times as many votes.

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90s games > 00s games

Uh, we didn't, actually. Clinkeroth looked closer to the field in the early rounds......and they were closer to the field in later rounds when they got to face the heavy hitters!

If you want to argue Mario/Bowser over Cloud/Sephiroth due to desire for an upset, go ahead, but it's not a factor with Link/Ganon. We don't need to excuse all of Final Fantasy's defeats as the product of anti-voting. It's just flat out weaker now than it used to be.

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90s games > 00s games

And as of 2010, the site now does the same thing to Link!

Link was 50/50 with Sonic through 100+ votes.....and ended over 70%. Next, Link was at 58% on Mario at the freeze....and ended at 64.5%. Those are increases on par with Cloud. And as they would predict, when Link did face Cloud his early vote was only marginally better.

Which is why Link/Ganon is not going to win this because it's the final and people are thinking, "FF always wins." If it's going to win, it's going to win because it's flat out stronger.

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90s games > 00s games

Dunno about whether it would have changed the result or not, but it doesn't matter. MM and FFX are equals, regardless of who won a very close match.

There's a big difference between the late-game bandwagon wave we've been discussing here and small-time rallying that happens during a match. Frog getting 400 extra votes in the last hour doesn't indicate any bandwagon at all. That kind of rallying cannot impact anything other than a match that is already essentially 50/50.

Half of MM's final victory margin came from the first hour, IIRC. Brawl outright won the 2nd half of the match. So it did have the trends to show a bandwagon. Though it may not have been very large, yeah. MM might even have been able to win without it, for all we know.

All of which goes to show that the site did not "rally for a Zelda game" to win.

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90s games > 00s games

There's no evidence it rallied/bandwagoned against FFX, other than a few hundred votes it may have gotten from rallies during the day. The two games were just evenly matched to start.

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90s games > 00s games

And yet the site rallied for a Zelda game to win GOTD!

The other option was Brawl. The site rallied AGAINST Brawl.

And I wouldn't say "Nothing" happened in Snake/Sephiroth or Snake/Cloud. Snake doesn't have that kind of early vote against most people. It's the same sort of early vote he had in the finals in 2008, although not quite as potent because it was 1-on-1 and not 4-ways.

Not at all. Seph went up slower against Snake than against Tifa. Cloud actually went down substantially on the 2nd update, and was at 49% or thereabouts by the end of the Power Hour. Totally different from 2008.

Anyone has a good early vote when they're up against Cloud or Sephiroth. But in 2010, Cloud/Seph didn't do as badly with it against Snake as normal.

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90s games > 00s games

Are you insinuating that Republicans are actually Communists? Because if they're only slightly to the right of Democrats, whom we all know to be Communists, then they must be Communists too. We need someone even further to the right clearly.

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90s games > 00s games

Well, I think the reason Cloud/Seph looked weaker than Link is simply that they were weaker than Link. Link was getting anti-voted almost as hard; he looked stronger because he was stronger. And Cloud made the final quite respectable. The story of 2010 was Clinkeroth's fall back toward the field, and since Link started out further ahead, he wasn't in actual danger of losing to the field.

My point is that I don't think it matters whether the match is early or late in the contest; any boost Link/Ganon may get over Cloud/Seph for the match being the final would be minimal. If it's close I don't doubt that they would take the rallying pretty easily though.

I wish we could have cross-series rivalries, although it would pose the problem of Link/Cloud absolutely crushing everything.

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90s games > 00s games

Whether it makes sense or not, Link/Ganon will not lose to Cloud/Seph in the finals, and will not lose to anything else (Mario/Sonic being the only exception) before then. The best case scenario for a non-Zelda winner is to put Link in Cloud/Seph's section of the bracket and hope for the best. If they meet early, Square probably has a better shot.

I have to differ here. Link's never beaten Cloud because it was the finals before, it's always been because he was just stronger. A match between #1 and #2 is the match that will be least impacted by upset bandwagons and the like, because almost everyone is already on one of the sides. Plus, people HAVE finally realized that Link always wins. Cloud was above 45% in the first 60 seconds on Link last year- going by previous years trends he should have won easily. He finished 1.5% above where he was 60 seconds into the match.

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90s games > 00s games

On second thought, I agree with you. Mario has a good shot of breaking 45% on Cloud directly already, so Mario/Bowser getting 45% on Cloud/Sephiroth has a good shot. All this 2006 discussion made me forget about how much closer the field is to Clinkeroth nowadays.

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90s games > 00s games

If they get close (45%+) on either of the expected top 2, that would qualify as surprising.

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90s games > 00s games

I wonder if they're counting on zero Native American women showing up. Which is possible as Berkeley apparently enrolled a grand total of 87 Native American undergrads for the 4 years from 2007-2011, representing about 0.5% of the class. Yay for California's anti-affirmative action law?

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90s games > 00s games

Mario 64's ending isn't very emotional......I liked it too, but it's just your standard victory ending with cool music and video of the different courses.

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90s games > 00s games

It's all about Wind Waker. Did anyone want Link to win in that game? I sure didn't.

Nope. Well, actually, I mostly just wanted Old Hyrule to be restored to the surface, regardless of who won.

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90s games > 00s games

It's just so sad. How can you not feel sad after watching that? Serge in Chrono Cross evokes similar feelings. There's something terrifying and tragic about being stuck in a world where your life, your memories, are not real.

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90s games > 00s games

See, the fact that there are people who actually believe this is why Link/Ganon is going to roll this contest.

Well, the reason I think it's the greatest game ending ever has pretty much nothing to do with Ganondorf. It has a lot to do with Link, Zelda, and the music.

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90s games > 00s games

Well, the ending to OOT is absolutely amazing, and more emotional than anything in FFVII. It's so sad, Link being sent back 7 years, to a world that knew nothing about his victories. Zelda says she wants Link to have a proper childhood but how can he after all he's gone through? He's supposed to just go back to being a normal anonymous 10 year old kid after being the Hero of Time and saving Hyrule? He can't even talk to anyone about it, because no one would believe him in that timeline where Ganon never took over.

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90s games > 00s games

Ganondorf is the second most popular villain on the site!

Precisely. And he's far closer to 3rd than 1st. In fact he might even be 3rd (I know lots of people in here would be willing to take Bowser > Ganon).

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90s games > 00s games

Yeah, Leon's got it. Ganondorf just isn't that great a villain. And that's why he's not all that strong in these contests.

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90s games > 00s games

I just realized that we should be seeing very few SFF matches this contest, since characters will already be paired with others from their own series. So this could end up being a pretty good contest, as unappealing as the idea sounds.

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90s games > 00s games

The thing with relationship is that Link/Ganon isn't that bad. In fact it's not even bad. It's certainly not great, like Cloud/Sephiroth, but it's good enough to handle something like Mario/Bowser where Bowser is about as strong as Ganondorf and Link blows Mario out of the water.

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90s games > 00s games

The format is new, so it's pretty unpredictable. I'll give Mario/Bowser a 2% chance of winning the whole thing. Let's see.......

Cloud/Sephiroth 50%
Link/Ganondorf 35%
Mario/Bowser 2%
X/Zero 1%
Other 12%

Sounds about right.

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90s games > 00s games

Up for more

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90s games > 00s games

Mario/Crono would probably have the best early vote and final hour ever. It'll need every bit of midnight power it can get to overcome Link/Ganon's day vote power.

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90s games > 00s games

Hmm....

Agree. Demand in the US probably won't go up and might go down, with cars becoming more efficient, but it's a good point that gas demand from China and India will rapidly grow. I'm not sure that $4 really is a point where consumers start cutting back a lot on driving; I think it could be that oil was just a huge bubble in the summer of 2008, and the recession burst it. But now that it's back at $4, it might be there for good.

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90s games > 00s games

12-6

Now, it's not too much to ask for the same number of wins against Baltimore as the Rays get against the Yankees, right? Because the Red Sox would lose that tiebreaker game.

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90s games > 00s games

That's the kind of win we needed to salvage the season.

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90s games > 00s games

Where does it say they only got 10%? It looks like they raised 28k in 12 days, and didn't update the blog afterwards. At worst, I'm sure the Ron Paul campaign, which was fantastically successful at fundraising, could pay for his medical expenses.

His family is not responsible for his medical bills anyway, only his estate. And if it's coming out of his estate, then he could afford to pay. His children will just get a smaller inheritance, that's all. That inheritance would also have been reduced if he had been paying for health insurance his whole life. It's not clear from these facts his heirs even lost money from this decision.

If his estate can't afford to pay- then his kids just don't get an inheritance. That seems like a pretty reasonable risk for someone to take. It's not like the hospital can demand the family pay 400k for services that they never agreed to.

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90s games > 00s games

Done. Great choice.

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90s games > 00s games

OOT being so much stronger than MM doesn't mean Zelda fans aren't drones. It could just be that there are a lot of people who aren't drones who are voting for OOT. I'm not sure that's the case, but I don't see any proof one way or the other.

That's exactly what I mean. There are lots of non-drone people voting for OOT/Link, and those people will consider things like whether Cloud/Sephiroth is a better rivalry instead of just voting for Link. The fact that MM is so much weaker than OOT means that a low percentage of Zelda fans are drones compared to other series.

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90s games > 00s games

I know a lot of this GOP support would dry up if Ron Paul weren't the candidate, but it's got to look bad for Obama if he can't even get a majority on Board 8.

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90s games > 00s games

I think you don't give Zelda fans enough credit. This idea that Zelda fans are drones and will vote for anything just because Link is in it is not true. OOT/MM is one of the biggest gaps in strength between a game and its direct sequel out there. It's on par with CT/CC. I can't think of another series where the dropoff between the strongest character to the next characters is as huge as in Zelda either. And the drop from #3 to #4 is pretty big too!

Zelda 1 still lost to Mario 1, Zelda 1 still was only even with SMB3 with 3 Mario games in the poll, Ganon and Zelda lost handily to Vincent, LTTP barely beat Mario 64 (and wouldn't have come close to touching FFVII had it been LTTP/FFVII/CT/FFVI). Link himself is quite mortal and has never broken 54% on Cloud.

Yes, Nintendo fans are good at falling in line. When they decide one character needs votes they will cripple other characters of their own in the same match to get that victory. But only when the cause is good enough for them to want it. If the cause is not good enough, like with Vincent vs. Ganon/Zelda, the forces will not mobilize. As hard as it may be for people to stomach, people vote for Link because they genuinely love him as a character, not because they're drones.

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90s games > 00s games

Obama - 13
Paul - 8
Romney - 2
Huntsman - 1
Johnson - 1

Total Dem: 13
Total GOP: 12

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90s games > 00s games

Mario vs. Crono is the true deserving winner of this contest.

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90s games > 00s games

Halo? I said nothing about Halo, you were the one who brought that up.

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90s games > 00s games

Halo/Castlevania is the match you're talking about? Even though Halo has been horrible in every contest but one, and Castlevania/Alucard has been average all along? If you want to point towards the series contest, look at the Super Smash Bros/Sonic the Hedgehog. Not much care going towards actual series' in that match.

I was thinking more of Mega Man/Mario Kart and possibly SMB/FF. The voters treated these series as whole series and not the sum of its parts. Even SSB/Sonic shows this: SSBM would have absolutely flattened any Sonic game, by far far more than 57/43. If you have a big poll with all the Sonic games and SSB + SSBM, I daresay the SSB games would have gone well over 57% in that too.

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90s games > 00s games

We've seen before that the voters really do care about the actual matchup presented. See the Series Contest. Zelda fans are not drones, Zelda is just popular.

Though it's true that Skyward Sword could change things. If Link jumps up to 56% on Cloud 1v1, adding Seph vs. a complete leech and the rivalry wording probably isn't enough to turn things around.

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90s games > 00s games

Link/Samus getting 56% on Cloud/Sephiroth scares me. Samus doesn't add that much to Link, and that match makes it look like Link might beat Cloud and Seph together. Remember, Cloud/Sephiroth LFF has been measured to hurt Cloud by 56/44 (Cloud is that much weaker when Seph is leeching him). Intuitively you would think Samus hurts Link by less than Sephiroth hurts Cloud.

But as I said before, Link/Ganon can be worth 51-52% on Cloud/Sephiroth (figure Ganon adds 1% to Link's percentage), and Cloud/Sephiroth can still win this match because of the rivalry language.

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90s games > 00s games

I don't know why Cloud/Sephiroth would beat Link/Ganondorf. Are there honestly Zelda fans who would vote for Cloud just because he has Sephy with him here? Link and Ganon very clearly have the same fanbase, as do Cloud and Sephiroth. The fanbase that usually votes for Cloud against Link will still vote Cloud/Sephy and the Link fanbot crowd will still vote Link/Ganon over Cloud/Sephy. What's wrong with my logic here?

You don't have to be a Zelda fan to vote for Link over Cloud. It does matter that Sephiroth is way stronger than Ganondorf. I'd probably still take Link/Ganon to get over 50% against Cloud/Sephiroth in a 4-way poll, but it'd be a lot closer than a usual Link/Cloud match, probably, say, 51/49. I think Link probably doesn't get 50% in a 3-way Link/Cloud/Seph poll.

Now, the thing that puts Cloud/Sephiroth over the top here is that this isn't a normal 4-way poll where you pick your favorite character out of the 4. It's best rivalry, and Cloud/Sephiroth is a much more compelling rivalry than Link/Ganon. I think that is enough to reverse 51/49 and then some.

For example, take me. My preference is Link > Cloud > Sephiroth > Ganondorf. But I'd vote for Cloud/Sephiroth over Link/Ganon because it's a better rivalry. (It's true that I normally vote Cloud over Link, but that's only because Link always wins.)

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90s games > 00s games

The Rays could potentially be tied with us tomorrow.

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90s games > 00s games

Obama - 6
Paul - 3
Romney - 2
Huntsman - 1

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Voting for Ron Paul

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Which is your preferred candidate?

Barack Obama

Mitt Romney
Rick Perry
Ron Paul
Jon Huntsman
Gary Johnson
Michelle Bachmann
Sarah Palin
Herman Cain

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90s games > 00s games