Lurker > red sox 777

The way to think about it would be: would you be happy if healthcare was free for everyone, but only 1950s-level treatments were available?

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90s games > 00s games

In the short run.......

Private healthcare is better for you if:

1. You have a serious medical condition requiring very expensive treatment.
2. You are rich.

Public healthcare is better for you if the above conditions are not true (99%+ of the population).

In the long run (say, 50-100 years), it can be argued that private healthcare is better for everyone, because it will produce advances in medical technology and knowledge that will ultimately make healthcare better and cheaper for everyone.

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90s games > 00s games

For me, not ranking a game is not necessarily penalizing it. Rather, a game has to show that it deserves to be ranked before I rank it. If you can't demonstrate that, because the schedule gives you no opportunities to do so......too bad. You don't start with a blank slate and accumulate losses that hurt your rank, you start off in the same position as all the other games, which, in a field of 168, is not in the top 25.*

*Except, of course, we didn't go into this tournament blind about this board's preferences, so there is a preseason top 25.

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90s games > 00s games

I'm actually pretty surprised how well POR is holding up against SMW.

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90s games > 00s games

That's perfectly fine; it's good to have diversity in criteria for rankings. I hope most people don't rank that way though; personally I think most voters punish games for losing too hard (when the losses are to strong games).

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90s games > 00s games

If it's between a game I've never heard of and Umineko/WoW, I'll happily vote for the game of which I'd never heard. This sentiment is probably shared by.......close to a majority of voters.

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90s games > 00s games

I just love this CT dominance.

LMS is eccentric, but I can sort of see where he's coming from. He has a set of ideas about how strong games are (and how strong they deserve to be) and cannot accept things not going according to plan. So with each surprise, he has to construct a stranger and stranger edifice of reasonings and rationalizations to make things make sense. It's what I've done with CT characters in contests for years. That said, his vote this week was incredibly weird, and I have no idea how one could arrive at that list.

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90s games > 00s games

Twilight Princess- our perpetual #26.

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90s games > 00s games

#10 Super Mario World (Thousand-Year World of Sunshine Conference)
#21 Final Fantasy VI (Twilight Barrel Galaxy Conference)
#3 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Zelda Overload Conference)
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Thousand-Year World of Sunshine Conference)
#5 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Metroid Eater Conference)
#11 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations (Fanservice Conference)
Contra (Games of the Decades Conference)
#25 Mega Man 2 (Zelda Overload Conference)
#1 Chrono Trigger (Smash Trigger Conference)
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (Tanooki Blitzball Conference)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Games of the Decades Conference)
Halo 2 (Metroid Eater Conference)
Star Fox 64 (Twilight Barrel Galaxy Conference)
Animal Crossing (Tanooki Blitzball Conference)

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90s games > 00s games

The voters have spoken: Down with Nintendo!

1. Chrono Trigger
2. Super Mario Bros. 3
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
4. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
5. Super Smash Bros. Melee
6. Resident Evil 4
7. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
8. Super Mario 64
9. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
10. Super Mario World
11. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
12. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations
13. Paper Mario
14. Final Fantasy X
15. Metal Gear Solid
16. Metroid Prime
17. Final Fantasy VI
18. Super Mario Galaxy 2
19. Super Mario Galaxy
20. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
21. Final Fantasy IX
22. Super Metroid
23. Final Fantasy VII
24. Star Fox 64
25. Portal

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90s games > 00s games

I dont believe that any particular belief (moral) can be shown to be absolutely correct

There's a big difference between this and saying that no morals/beliefs are in fact absolutely correct. There are many things that are true but which cannot be proven.

And yes, that means that we generally cannot prove that a moral is actually correct- but if there is in fact a correct moral, that means we can debate the question. If there were no correct moral at all, then it would be senseless to do that.

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90s games > 00s games

There is only one right viewpoint among mutually contradictory viewpoints. Healthcare cannot be both moral and immoral. Clearly there are people on both sides, or else there would be no need to make an argument about the issue.

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90s games > 00s games

Well, it's obvious that people disagree about what is moral. But Smuffin is arguing that people who think single-payer healthcare is moral are wrong. He's trying to convince this board of this. Whether some other people agree or disagree is irrelevant.

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90s games > 00s games

charmander, what are you arguing? That it is moral for the killer to kill people if he thinks it's okay? Because that's pretty much exactly what the Taliban do.

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90s games > 00s games

Moral relativism is stupid. And yup, forcing people to buy healthcare (and for others no less!) is immoral.

Not about health care, but about welfare: If it's true that 20% of the nation produces 80% of the nation's output, then why does it matter that people are drawing welfare instead of working? If they don't belong to that 20%, they're not going to produce much anyway, so if they produce zero instead of some small number, it doesn't really hurt the nation much. What's really important is maximizing the number of people who can get into the ranks of that minority of the nation that produces a lot. And, to a lesser extent, making sure that the rest of the nation has plenty of money to spend to advance business.

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90s games > 00s games

How about giving a person who doesn't make a pick the same score for the day as the worst pick of the day?

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90s games > 00s games

#14 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations (Fanservice Conference)
Assassin's Creed II (Patriot Time Portals Conference)
Killer7 (Metroid Eater Conference)
#8 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Zelda Overload Conference)
Suikoden II (Nintendo Objections Conference)
#1 Chrono Trigger (Smash Trigger Conference)
#17 Final Fantasy X (Tanooki Blitzball Conference)
#22 Final Fantasy VI (Twilight Barrel Galaxy Conference)
Starcraft (Fanservice Conference)
Xenogears (Brawl for Broke Conference)
Mother 3 (Sonic Overload Conference)
Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (Smackdown Hotel Conference)
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (Twilight Barrel Galaxy Conference)
#4 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Patriot Time Portals Conference)

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90s games > 00s games

I don't think Super Metroid was ever a real top 10 game. It just got pushed up there because of all the games ahead of it that lost, while it maintained its deceptive 8-0 record.

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90s games > 00s games

Hmm, looks like MGS2 is going to hold on. Well, I guess the voters really are tired of Nintendo winning all the time, so I should probably rank MGS3/RE4 highly. Maybe something like.....

1. Chrono Trigger
2. OOT/SMB3 winner
3. LTTP
4. MGS3
5. SSBM
6. SM64
7. RE4
8. RBY
9. SMW
10. OOT/SMB3 loser
11. PW

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90s games > 00s games

ASCII tag......um.......can we post pages of esoteric statistics on topics like votal-stats, soda polls, number of posts per user in the stats topic, and the varying strength of the ASV across years instead?

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90s games > 00s games

Mario 3 and OOT are facing off, eh? Well that will settle the question of who gets #2 now pretty cleanly- the winner should get it. With many of the top Nintendo games now having lost or almost lost, I think I'm going to listen to the RPI (stats never lie) and put LTTP pretty high up, as in #3.

I'm not sure what to do with MGS3 and RE4. They have perfect records and very strong performances, but they've not yet been tested against elite Nintendo and I just don't feel very good about their chances against those games heads up.

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90s games > 00s games

Don't think Ulti will be too happy with that.

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90s games > 00s games

Battletoads (Brawl for Broke Conference)
Half-Life 2 (Sonic Overload Conference)
Portal (Patriot Time Portals Conference)
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Cult RPG Galaxy Conference)
Star Ocean: The Second Story (Smash Trigger Conference)
The World Ends With You (Zelda Overload Conference)
Chrono Cross (Sonic Overload Conference)
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (Nintendo Objections Conference)
F-Zero GX (Patriot Time Portals Conference)
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Nintendo Objections Conference)
Demon's Souls (Zelda Overload Conference)
Fire Emblem 7 (Smackdown Hotel Conference)
Gears of War 2 (Zelda Overload Conference)
#10 Super Metroid (Nintendo Objections Conference)

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90s games > 00s games

Star Fox 64

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90s games > 00s games

But let me ask you this: Let's say R/B/Y had faced Brawl's schedule up to this point, with the exact same results and everything. Then it loses to SF64 here. What do you do with it? No wins against the top 25, and now a loss to a game outside of the top 25.

If it were RBY in that situation I would not be ranking it next week. If it were CT or Melee, I would probably be ranking them (because they have outright won major board contests before), but not in the top 15.

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90s games > 00s games

Well, I've never ranked Brawl, and I have been ranking Galaxy 2, so from my perspective, this match is going exactly as expected. Now, for people who have been ranking Brawl higher than Galaxy 2, this result should be a surprise, in which case something should change. Usually games who lose to other games in the #20 area fall out of the top 25......I don't think any game has survived losing to a game ranked below #15 and still stayed on the top 25 the following week yet. So why would Brawl be different?

I don't feel I'm being unfair at all here. I could be wrong about Brawl's strength, but I'm not ranking it lower than where I honestly think it is.

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90s games > 00s games

The difference between #15 and #25 is miniscule. If we were doing spread betting, the line would probably be something like 2 votes. Those other results point to Star Fox being somewhere around #25, while this RBY upset if it holds points to it being a top 5 game. So you average them. Matches against stronger opponents are weighted more because we know more about them, but of course multiple matches have the advantage of numbers against a single match.

I feel like we're trying to measure different things here. I'm trying to construct a list ranking the games in order of strength, which is the number of wins I would expect them to get if they played all the games. I feel like you're ranking them more like a sports division or something, giving games credit for winning, regardless of the circumstances.

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90s games > 00s games

Galaxy 2 and Star Fox 64, there isn't a large difference between these two games, I would wager.

I daresay there isn't much of a difference, which is why I'm going to rank those games really close to each other, probably somewhere from 15-20. The difference between RBY and Brawl is that Brawl only has this loss against ranked competition while RBY has an OT win over Melee and an absolute demolition of FFVI.

It's based on evidence from matches, not benefit of the doubt. There is a component to this that you get from experience on the board outside of this contest.....but I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. It's not exactly controversial that this board likes CT, SSBM, SMB3/W/64, etc. CT and SSBM have won board contests before. Melee was ranked above Brawl in the pre-season rankings for a reason. As the season goes on and we get more and more evidence from inside the contest, we can disregard pre-contest expectations more and more.

At this point it's not really about those expectations anymore. Brawl's finally gotten a chance to prove itself.....and it lost (assuming the result holds).

Edit: It's not like Melee has a bunch of matches against unranked games and a single ranked loss to PW. It went to OT against RBY and beat SM64 comfortably. Also, the margin of victory matters, and PW's 3 high-tier matches were all very close.

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90s games > 00s games

If RBY loses here, I'm going to rank it much lower.....maybe outside the top 10. I was always reluctant to rank it so high actually, but it smashed FFVI and beat Melee, and naturally made its way to the top. I still didn't vote it over OOT until just this week, but OOT put up some rather disappointing performances recently so I went with the consensus opinion. Star Fox 64 will get onto my list of course, probably between #15 and #20.

PW is much better than #17 for exactly the reasons you stated: it beat Melee and had very close matches with SMB3 and SMW.

Why on earth would I give a game the same credit for beating RBY and Brawl? RBY is a stronger game, with proven wins against ranked games. Brawl is not. If you beat the champion (or in this case, our #3), you get a lot of credit. If you beat a game that I've never ranked all season- why would that get any credit from me? I expected Galaxy 2 to beat Brawl, if it happens, that reinforces my previous notions of their strength. I did not expect SF64 to beat RBY or to come close really, so if it pulls if off- that means I have to make big changes in my thinking.

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90s games > 00s games

Whoa Star Fox. Let's see if it can hold on to this massive upset of RBY!

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90s games > 00s games

Yeah, #20 sounds about right for it. This is, I believe, Brawl's first match against a ranked game, so if the result holds, it'll be 0-1 in matches that matter, and the loss won't be to a top 10 game.

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90s games > 00s games

PW deserves to be ranked much higher than #17. If Melee lost to a game that was actually only #17 in strength, I'd be putting it at the bottom of the top 25 or out of it too!

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90s games > 00s games

Perhaps not, but it deserves to for losing to the #20 game.

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90s games > 00s games

Brawl is losing right now, let's hope the result holds up. Away from the top 25 with this game.

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90s games > 00s games

#20 Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Cult RPG Galaxy Conference)
Mario Kart DS (Tanooki Blitzball Conference)
#23 Final Fantasy IX (Smackdown Hotel Conference)
#9 Super Mario World (Thousand-Year World of Sunshine Conference)
#7 Resident Evil 4 (Smackdown Hotel Conference)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (Smash Trigger Conference)
Civilization IV (Sonic Overload Conference)
Star Fox 64 (Twilight Barrel Galaxy Conference)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Games of the Decades Conference)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Games of the Decades Conference)
Brave Fencer Musashi (Cult RPG Galaxy Conference)
Psychonauts (Fanservice Conference)
Final Fantasy Tactics (Sonic Overload Conference)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Patriot Time Portals Conference)

Down with Brawl, for great justice!

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90s games > 00s games

up

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90s games > 00s games

Yes - 17
No - 29

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90s games > 00s games

Yes- 23
No- 27

Wow, this is actually close.

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90s games > 00s games

Yes- 13
No- 25

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90s games > 00s games

Yes

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90s games > 00s games

Yes: 16
No: 26

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90s games > 00s games

Brawl can always beat Melee on this board it seems, but it loses to games Melee beats. I hope it's the same for the contest site-wide......and I really don't see MM beating Melee. I just.......don't see it after Melee beat WW 65-35.

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90s games > 00s games

CT/SSBM has been my dream contest match since.....maybe 2006. It's perfect: Nintendo vs. Square, Old vs. New, Night vs. Day, all at once. It's perhaps the strongest possible close Nintendo/Square match that isn't OOT/FFVII. But I'd be pretty scared of CT losing if it ever came to pass, because it would be very painful.

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90s games > 00s games

How about FFVII vs. FFX?

Chrono Trigger can face.......I'm scared about CT/SSBM. RBY is a good opponent too, but I'm thinking that can wait until later in the season.

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90s games > 00s games

I don't remember my preseason 25 much, except that I had Chrono Trigger #1 and RBY way too low.

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90s games > 00s games

Melee's also got its amazing 31-0 run from last contest and its general reputation on the board in its favor. But the loss against RBY actually helps here, because RBY is at #2 and that match went to OT.

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90s games > 00s games

Yes

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90s games > 00s games

Melee has a bunch of easy wins that don't mean much, a loss to PW, a loss to RBY in overtime, and (if it holds on) a win against SM64. So, a loss to a lower top 10 game, essentially a tie with our #2, and a win against a top 5ish game. That averages out to a #4 ranking or something like that.

PW would have a win against a top 5 game and 2 losses against top 5/10 games, so that averages out to somewhere in the bottom of the top 10.

SMW would have a loss against a top 5ish game and a win against a top 10 game, so it lands in the bottom of the top 10.

SM64 would have a win against a top 10 game and a loss against a top 5 game, so #6 sounds reasonable.

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90s games > 00s games

That's fine, I'm just trying to get demographic information about Board 8. It's highly interesting......and we'll see how it compares to when this was done before.

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90s games > 00s games