| Board List | |
|---|---|
| Topic | Smash Bros competitive community is getting #MeToo'd |
| PostContestUlti 07/04/20 6:35:45 PM #220 | ExThaNemesis posted... I don't want to be like "hey, it's time to profit off of the actions of these horrible people" but like @stingers if you ever thought you could make it as a Smash Bros content creator, now is your time to step up and fill the absolute chasm that these scumbags are gonna leave.Every person with money on this entire planet profits off of opportunity. There is nothing wrong with filling a newly created void with something better. --- |
| Topic | Your First Thought 43: "Most AMERICAN game series of all time" |
| PostContestUlti 07/04/20 6:20:27 PM #35 | |
| Topic | Smash Bros competitive community is getting #MeToo'd |
| PostContestUlti 07/04/20 1:43:54 AM #179 | Gross. I feel sick ever sticking up for these people. I really do. The Brawl folks were right all along. --- |
| Topic | Smash Bros competitive community is getting #MeToo'd |
| PostContestUlti 07/04/20 1:36:35 AM #177 | Because I have zero experience with "the guy everyone likes" being a weirdo. --- |
| Topic | Election 2020 Statistics and Discussion |
| PostContestUlti 07/04/20 12:53:34 AM #9 | Nelson_Mandela posted... The debates, conventions, VP nomination, covid vaccine, Epstein's madam's trial and testimony all can still happen between now and the election. Let us not forget that Biden was only at 20 cents on the dollar to win the Democratic nomination at one point (fairly late into the season too), so this is far from over.Nah this is done. The only possible way Trump wins this election is Biden actually passing out during the debates, and even that might not be enough. --- |
| Topic | Smash Bros competitive community is getting #MeToo'd |
| PostContestUlti 07/04/20 12:42:16 AM #174 | Zero comes across as an awkward, but likeable neckbeard. Like if he was in your friend group, he's be the guy that literally everyone likes. I very, very much doubt he was trying to sleep with a 14 year old. That said, he should have known better: https://www.ageofconsent.net/world/chile It's not like he immigrated from a country where this behavior, even as a joke, is in any way okay. --- |
| Topic | Hearthstone Topic #5: The Generated By Meta |
| PostContestUlti 07/03/20 11:11:50 PM #288 | One thing I thoroughly disagree with him on -- minions killing minions as removal spells is in no way a bad thing. I very much enjoy card games being about the board over all else. --- |
| Topic | Hearthstone Topic #5: The Generated By Meta |
| PostContestUlti 07/03/20 11:05:43 PM #287 | https://twitter.com/Pelletire_hs/status/1278925661026029571 Presented with no snark whatsoever. It's a very interesting read. --- |
| Topic | The Last of Us 2 topic (ongoing spoilers) |
| PostContestUlti 07/03/20 4:42:57 PM #297 | HashtagSEP posted... Well, to be fair, you ran into Ulti and Biscuit, who can be some of the most obnoxious people here.Most of his nonsense is in Biscuit's 500 topic. The dude either cannot read or doesn't want to. --- |
| Topic | What is your proudest platinum/100% achievement? |
| PostContestUlti 07/03/20 12:01:24 AM #29 | |
| Topic | Is there a controller for the Switch that isn't complete dog shit? |
| PostContestUlti 07/02/20 11:48:16 PM #8 | WhiteLens posted... Are you using the Joycons or an actual Switch Pro Controller?Joycons. I don't have a pro controller. And with a game like Cuphead (or Zelda 2, which I just got done suffering through), you can't have questionable directional inputs. I will say that the option of using Mega Man X style of dashing with R is so clutch. I love this game so much. KamikazePotato posted... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RX8WBC4/I have Bose noise cancelers synced up with my TV if I want to play with headphones on. ZenOfThunder posted... https://www.8bitdo.com/sn30-pro-g-classic-or-sn30-pro-sn/Nicccccce. Is there a first party version? I don't trust third party stuff since all the third party Gamecube stuff was all hot garbage. --- |
| Topic | Is there a controller for the Switch that isn't complete dog shit? |
| PostContestUlti 07/02/20 11:35:38 PM #1 | I'm playing Cuphead, and I'm legit blown away by how good this game is! The problem is the controller the Switch comes with is complete and total garbage. I'm typically averse to buying alternate controllers for Nintendo systems, but it seems warranted here. @ninkendo @ZenOfThunder @KamikazePotato @Lightning_Strikes @LinkMarioSamus --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/29/20 5:29:18 PM #337 | Alright, added some quotes from you guys. One or two more bumps, then I'm out. --- |
| Topic | first thing that comes to mind 8: "strongest pokemon not in a contest" |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 9:26:51 PM #38 | I would be surprised if Blastoise was stronger than Charmander. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 9:24:22 PM #318 | 137 pages in Word. Last character battle was 189. Definitely not as many good matches this time around! At some point, hopefully this summer, I'll get around to the 2008 retro writeups I want to do. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 9:20:53 PM #317 | Post-Contest Analysis When the coronavirus turned the world upside-down, the people willing to adapt, overcome, and change got or stayed rich. Rigid Guy went out of business. I understand government executive orders from idiotic blue states played a part in this too, but bear with me. I could come up with endless examples of Rigid Guy falling off and Adaptable Guy succeeding, but I'll go with just one example. WWE continued putting on wrestling shows, but with no fans in the stands for safety reasons. Sure, makes sense. They put on the same trash they've been putting on for the entire PG era, and they hit new record lows for viewership every week. They're now below peak TNA numbers, just FYI. You guys think Fox is regretting that TV deal yet? AEW meanwhile did the same type of shows, but they put their wrestlers in the stands as their "fans" and split them up in the arena between faces and heels. Their shows, despite feeling empty, still have a form of crowd noise and actually feel like a good wrestling show. WWE's stuff is sterile, boring, and flat. It might look like a wrestling show, but it's not one. This might have ''looked'' like a GameFAQs contest, but the lack of vote totals made it look like a wrestling show with no audience and no innovation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT3iaK1w04A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnUj9XhWVl0 Watch those matches on mute. Aren't they trash with no crowd and no announcer? That's essentially what our contests are without voters. You can set up a good bracket, put all the bells and whistles on it, and all the board contests can fire off, but without voters, without excitement, without the usual new user influx, these contests feel like we're just going through the motions. This contest also had few truly great matches, but that's just bad luck. I can live with that. What I don't enjoy living with is a preventable low voter problem, and I should point out that viewership for everything across the board is way up for the things that are actually good. There are three main causes for the low turnouts: 1 - The site refused to adapt as the gaming world changed. It stayed text-based for way, way, way too long when it was clear that videos and fan wikis were the new hotness. At this point, it's too late to even fix the problem. The only traffic this site gets now are from Google referrals to the Answers sections, with the guides still getting ''some'' traffic. Trust me here, I have a big contributor page and I can see the page hits. Individual subreddits and message boards for each game or series is still popular, and we have that, but people left the site in favor of better places to offer that service a long time ago. The leads to issue #2. 2 - '''EXTREME''' over-moderation. This site is well-known across the internet for this one, and this junk helped chase off many a user over the years. Lip service has been paid to relaxing things, but it's worse than ever. GameFAQs is as bad as ResetEra or anything other extremist far left site you want to name. When you tell users that only far left garbage is allowed on your web site, people are more than willing to leave. Especially gamers. We are not an easy group of people to please, and we will gladly bail for the latest and greatest if we're not treated properly. It's the entire methodology behind how games sell. The fix here is hilariously easy. Allow for diversity of thought and get rid of the moronic dispute system where mods vote on their own rulings. If you want people to vote on disputes, leave it entirely up to high level users who ''aren't'' moderators. Too many overturns, and the mod loses their job. It's a good system of checks and balances that would get rid of 95% of the biased deletions that happen on here overnight. People like Team Rocket Elite, Raptor, Centurion, spooky, DetroitDJ, and the mods who are actually really good would be fine under that system. It's the bad mods that would all poof, and this site has been in need of checks for a long, long time. Our moderation system being so bad that it's a meme killed our message boards. 3 - Get rid of most of the anti-rally nonsense. This debate is completely settled and over. I've won the argument. Killing the rallies has all but murdered our vote totals. The experiment has failed; get rid of it. I like registered users getting a bonus and I like the poll starting at 8. ''Everything'' else needs to go. No more forced voting in every match, no more fighting against referral links, and every round after divisional finals needs to be one match per day. Witcher 3 vs Persona 5 and Dark Souls vs Skyrim both happening at the same time was a joke. I saw people suggesting some truly absurd methods that don't address any of the actual problems. These ideas ranged from complete nonsense like hiding seeding in the bracket to total idiocy like completely changing the scoring system based on prediction percentage. There are people on the forum stupid enough to think calling a round one match in a seeded bracket tournament should have the same weight as calling a semifinal upset. I even saw people calling for banning Zelda from contests, which is absurd to do. Why should Breath of the Wild be excluded from a popularity contest when it hadn't won anything before this contest happened? These are the sorts of bad ideas that happen when a contest has no vote totals and a predictable winner. We don't need anything ridiculous. We just need good vote totals, excitement for the web site, and a web site that people actually want to be on because they're treated fairly. I'm not even asking for anything greedy like the crazy vote totals from the late 2000s. I'd be happy with the numbers we got in 2015. It shouldn't take a mega-rally in the finals for '''one poll''' to break 30,000 votes. That is asinine. There is a real problem here and some of you are way off with how to fix it. ''Contest Ranking'' Fall 2015 (Games) Fall 2010 (Game of the Decade) Spring 2004 (Games) Summer 2002 (Characters) Summer 2013 (Characters) Winter 2010 (Characters) Summer 2003 (Characters) Summer 2005 (Characters) Fall 2009 (4-way Games) Summer 2007 (4-way Characters) Summer 2006 (Female Bracket) '''Spring 2020 (Game of the Decade 2)''' Spring 2006 (Series) Summer 2008 (4-way Characters) Summer 2004 (Characters) Summer 2008 (4-way Characters) Spring 2005 (Villains) Fall 2011 (Rivalry Rumble) Spring 2017 (Years) Last, but not least... '''The Ultimate Loser!!''' The big, um.... "winner" this year was.... Terraria! Breath of the Wild > Witcher 3 > Skyrim > Dark Souls > The Last of Us > Batman > Bioshock Infinite > Terraria. It's fitting that one of the many, many overhyped, useless indie games would be the big loser this year. Thanks as always and see you next time! I'd like to give a special thanks to my readers, and an extra special thanks to the guys you've never heard of behind the scenes who keep the wiki looking nice. Ngamer and I get all the credit, but without those unknown folks also helping out we could never do it all. Igordebraga, Averiah, MetalmindStats, Bwburke94, and anyone I might have missed, thanks guys! I really appreciate the help! Bottom's up, bros. https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/001/274/brofistcover.jpg --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 9:00:44 PM #316 | The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask vs The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Majora's Mask - 6156 [37.54%] Breath of the Wild - 10242 [62.46%] Total Votes - 16398 This was the clear and obvious bonus poll to have for this contest, and good ''lord'' did Breath of the Wild show up. This was just a beating right from the jump, and Majora's Mask never stood a chance. A lot of people are calling this match SFF, but I'm not so sure. The Zelda series tends to not SFF itself. Here are some great examples: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6168-best-game-ever-day-35-division-vi-final-zelda-a-link-to-the https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6173-best-game-ever-day-38-quarterfinal-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4188-northwest-division-final-zelda-majoras-mask-vs-zelda-wind Those matches weren't SFF, so why does this bonus poll have to be? Because Majora's Mask got embarrassed? I truly think Breath of the Wild is just this good. All the evidence is there already. A crazy boost for Link two years ago. An even crazier boost for Zelda two years ago. The game having strength fit for the 90s, which is the decade this site is still stuck in. It's the new hotness. Everything lines up toward this being a legit match, and Zelda only really SFFs itself in fourways. But it's a bonus poll at the end of the day and these are all lighthearted, so who really knows. We definitely need another catch-all games contest with no gimmicks or BS to find out though. Just throw everything in a normal bracket of 128 and let it rip. I'm also very happy Allen didn't turn around and have a poll between Ocarina and Breath of the Wild. ''That'' match needs to happen with money on the line. And with that, another contest in the books! I guess we'll see you all in ten years when Game of the Decade 3 happens, assuming this place is still around then. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 9:00:16 PM #315 | |
| Topic | An analysis of how each year performed in Game of the Decade 2 |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 7:40:52 PM #234 | |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 7:37:42 PM #313 | Contest Final: (1)The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs (1)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (1)Breath of the Wild - 17050 [55.91%] (1)Witcher 3 - 13446 [44.09%] Total Votes - 30496 Prediction Percentage - 37.14% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano Simply because I feel like posting one final list, here is every tournament final we've ever had. I'm cheating with a couple contests, but so what? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1002-tournament-final-mario-vs-link https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1367-tournament-final-cloud-strife-vs-sephiroth https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1663-tournament-final-chrono-trigger-vs-final-fantasy-vii https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1780-tournament-final-link-vs-cloud-strife https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2019-tournament-final-sephiroth-vs-ganondorf https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2128-tournament-final-mario-vs-crono https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2131-tournament-of-champions-final-link-vs-sephiroth https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2455-tournament-final-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-final-fantasy https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2561-tournament-final-samus-aran-vs-solid-snake https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2566-battle-royale-final https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2925-tournament-final-link-cloud-l-block-snake https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3306-contest-final-link-crono-snake-cloud https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3508-contest-final-ffvii-zelda-lttp-zelda-oot-ffx https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3856-contest-final-link-vs-cloud-strife https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4195-game-of-the-decade-super-smash-bros-brawl-vs-the-legend-of https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4572-final-rounds-final-mario-vs-bowser-link-vs-ganondorf https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5266-character-battle-ix-final-draven-vs-solid-snake-vs-samus https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6177-best-game-ever-final-undertale-vs-zelda-ocarina-of-time https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6720-best-year-in-gaming-final-2001-vs-1998 https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7387-final-battle-link-vs-cloud No real reason. Just felt like pulling this all up. Final matches are generally boring, if not screwey. Very, very few of these matches have been any good, and usually by this point we already know what's winning the contest -- even in years where the winner is out of left field. Undertale and Draven stick out, but when going through those contests live we knew what was coming. In this final, we all knew Breath of the Wild was going to cap off its run with a win -- only final percentages mattered. When the poll first started it looked like Zelda was going to deliver another giga-beating and deliver a swift 60-40 asswhipping to Witcher 3. 60-40 in a final, if you look at the list here, is a ''huge'' blowout. It's very hard to get much better than that in the finals of a contest. But once Witcher 3 weathered the early storm for a few hours, it did the unthinkable. No, it didn't win the match or come close -- but it ''did'' make Breath of the Wild look human, which hadn't happened in this contest even once to this point. With the assistance of Europe and the fanbase ''rallying their balls off'', Witcher 3 was able to turn a 60-40 blowout into a very, very respectable loss of 56-44. Breath of the Wild proved itself at or close to Ocarina of Time's strength for this entire contest, and Witcher 3 actually made it look mortal. I know the fans of Witcher were upset, but this is legitimately an amazing accomplishment. As a random side note, the Witcher series just passed 50 million units sold after only three games. To put that in perspective, it took the Resident Evil series 683 games to get 100 million in sales. All that said, this contest was the Breath of the Wild Invitational, and though a lot of people are tired of Zelda always winning contests, that sentiment tends to not be there as much when something gets to win for the first time. People were happy about Link in 2002. People were happy about Majora's Mask. People were happy about Breath of the Wild. Hell, people were even happy about Ocarina in 2009. It was such a mismatch though compared to the rest of the field that I can't wait to see this thing up against some 90s games. The obvious duel we need to have is Breath vs Ocarina, but I would also love to see it against Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7, Link to the Past, Pokemon. and so on. All in all, this was a decent enough contest, though the vote totals blew. There was just one more thing to take care of... --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/28/20 6:35:22 PM #311 | ctesjbuvf posted... Almost at the finish line already!I would have been done this past weekend, but during my work from home week last week I still went in to the lab twice LOL --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 9:52:40 PM #305 | Alright, I'll put a bow on this tomorrow. Thanks for reading and following along, all! And make sure you check out everyone else's stuff, too. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 9:49:09 PM #304 | Contest Semifinal: (1)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt vs (1)The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (1)The Witcher 3 - 14451 [55.2%] (1)Skyrim - 11729 [44.8%] Total Votes - 26180 Prediction Percentage - 21.57% The time had finally come for Witcher 3 to go out there and prove what it had shown us all contest -- it was a stronger game than Skyrim. I said pre-contest that the only way for Witcher 3 to win this match is for all of the following to be true: -Witcher 3 had to boost from Netflix -Witcher 3 had to boost from the respect factor due to this contest's title -Witcher 3 had to overcome a potential disparity in the Western RPG fanbase, which is fairly tight-knit about what they like -Witcher 3 had to boost from the Switch port more than Skyrim -Skyrim had to have a Bethesda deboost due to the company acting like a bunch of idiots All five of this happening seemed unlikely to me, which is why I picked Skyrim. And yet you can go right down the line: check, check, check, check, check, all with ease. Netflix was likely the biggest factor, but the other stuff all happened as well. Skyrim tried to make a show of it early, but it would find out the hard way that slow starts meant nothing for Witcher 3 in this contest. This thing was close for 30 minutes, and then.... swamped. Skyrim never stood a chance, and we all saw it coming for this entire contest. Three of the final four games in the field are open world RPGs, so it's fitting that this contest would be decided by Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, and Witcher 3. Skyrim may have lost this match with ease, but I don't think it takes away from how well Skyrim did in this contest -- being weaker than Witcher 3 doesn't mean it did badly -- and it certainly doesn't mean Skyrim didn't leave a lasting legacy on gaming. For a lot of people, Skyrim opened the door to the world of open world gaming, and I don't give a toss what anyone says or how games did things better later; Skyrim is an all-time great game. I know it's cool for the internet to hate on it and all, but I don't care. Skyrim deserves every amount of the love it got when it came out, and I hope people aren't holding Bethesda against it. This would set up the final that we all saw coming right from round one. Zelda versus Witcher 3. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 9:48:54 PM #303 | Contest Semifinal: (1)The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs (1)Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (1)Breath of the Wild - 18203 [67.76%] (1)Smash Ultimate - 8661 [32.24%] Total Votes - 26864 Prediction Percentage - 48.81% <i>"That was the update of the contest."</i> -Yoblazer I don't think I've ever based an entire writeup around one update, but it's kind of justified here. All of us knew Zelda would flatten Smash Bros in this match, and though it sucked to see these two locked in for a semifinal path when the bracket came out, seeing this match happen live made the placement make sense. This thing as a final would have blew. Believe it or not, this match was under a 60-40 at the freeze! Smash was getting some love, maybe Zelda was getting anti-voted for being the obvious winner, who really knows. It was a 98 vote lead for Zelda at the freeze, and maybe, just maybe, this would be a reasonable semifinal. And then Zelda goes "okay that's cute, thanks for playing buddy", increases from 98 to '''255''', and that was that. See you next time, Smash. You had a great run, but Zelda is a whole different animal. It was also nice seeing the Smash fans get what they deserve, I'm not gonna lie. It isn't often that semifinals have blowouts like this. Originally I was going to bring up the list of every semifinal match 60-40 and above, but I think pulling up the ones to finish 65-35 or over paints a much better picture of how hard it is to do what Zelda did here. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1778-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-mega-man https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2018-tournament-semifinal-diablo-vs-ganondorf https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2453-tournament-semifinal-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-metal-gear https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6176-best-game-ever-day-40-semifinal-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6719-best-year-in-gaming-semifinal-1994-vs-1998 A similar pattern emerges. Respect '''The LAW'''. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 8:53:07 PM #302 | Contest Quarterfinal: (1)Dark Souls vs (1)The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (1)Dark Souls - 12732 [47.32%] (1)Skyrim - 14176 [52.68%] Total Votes - 26908 Prediction Percentage - 35.31% I ''love'' Skyrim, so don't take this writeup the wrong way, but it just kills me that Skyrim won this match. Had Dark Souls pulled this thing off, Ngamer64 wins the guru contest and I think the contest outright. There aren't many people who deserve a contest win more than that guy does, and I hope no one disagrees. On top of The Show, on top of his web site where he hosts the guru contest and the x-stats and the calculator we've come to all know and love, he's also done a TON of work on the Board 8 Wiki. I was really pulling for the dude hard, and.... damn. For a good long while, it looked like his gamble had a shot. Picking Dark Souls to beat Skyrim at this spot was such an intelligent pick. The other reason this match kills me is actual gaming preference. Before this writeup, some of you asked me to explain why I love Souls so much. Will do. I started gaming in the 80s on the NES, and most games were fucking ''hard'' back then, especially for a very young child. Zelda 1 and 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 and 2, Mario 1 through 3, Crystalis, The Guardian Legend, a bunch of Mega Man games, Ghosts n Goblins, Yo Noid, Balloon Fight, Kid Icarus, Punch-Out, Contra, and even Battletoads. I beat all of those games as a kid, and probably some others I'm forgetting. I won't bore people with my story of growing older and games slowly becoming easier and easier and easier to the point where it was a joke. We've all lived that story by now. There were some hard games here and there, but nothing like the feeling of beating some absurd NES game as a kid. And then Demon's Souls came along. It was the first game I had played in a long, long time that brought me back to my childhood. It wasn't that I hadn't played good games or anything, but the experience of Demon's Souls almost had me lost for words. And then the damn motherload happened. I love Demon's Souls, and it did '''nothing''' to prepare me for how absurdly good Dark Souls is. Death matters? A huge interconnected world? Indirect storytelling? RPG elements and the game never actually gets easy? What the hell? I could wax poetic about the Souls series for literally years, so I will simply link to my review and move on: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/606312-dark-souls/reviews/162813 It's not my best work, but I've never updated it because I like to look back and see how far I've come as a writer over the years. The very short of it is Dark Souls is a once in a lifetime experience, defined a generation, and made me feel like a kid again. And by the way, those same words are used by everyone who loves Breath of the Wild. That game didn't flatten this contest by accident. It's a really, really, really good game. For those reasons and because I was rooting for NG so hard, this match murdered me personally in cold blood. But hey, there can only be one winner. When this thing started, Dark Souls was ''right there''. The match was outright tied for what felt like forever, even though it was only 35 minutes. Then Skyrim won an update by 50, and that seemed like the end of the road for Dark Souls. But no, Dark Souls had to sit there and fight back before getting buried again. And then it fought back ''again'' before getting buried ''again''. And then to make it even worse, Dark Souls looked like it was going to come back once and for all. It brought a 120 vote lead down to 40, so of course Skyrim buried it yet again, and Dark Souls fought back yet again. It was like watching an underdog in some sport fight their asses off even though they knew they were outmatched. When the poll got past 11, Skyrim finally decided to go "F this shit" and end this match, turning a 100 vote lead into 200 in all of 30 minutes, and after one final last gasp from Dark Souls, where our boy cashed all the souls in and made one final run at Paarthurnax, Alduin, and all 13 daedra, Dark Souls fell. Skyrim increased the percentage from 51% to 52 overnight, and that was that. It was an incredible first few hours, but Skyrim would ultimately win by almost 1500 votes. It was a wonderful match between two games I will be in love with for the rest of my life, but I just love Dark Souls that much more. This was also arguably the best match picture I've ever submitted, too. '''PRAISE THE SUN!''' I'd mention how Skyrim did well below what it needed to to match Witcher 3's performance, but I feel like that goes without saying at this point. Next round, we would finally get that match and see how it played out on screen. By the way, here are the seeding matchups for the final eight, presented without comment: -1 vs 1 -1 vs 3 -1 vs 1 -1 vs 1 --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 8:05:54 PM #300 | NowItsAngeTime posted... I think if Breath of the Wild and Witcher were removed from the contest, the elite eight could've been so much more interesting.You can't have a contest like this and remove the popular stuff before it's actually won anything. Contest Quarterfinal: (1)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt vs (1)Persona 5 (1)Witcher 3 - 15209 [56.53%] (1)Persona 5 - 11694 [43.47%] Total Votes - 26903 Prediction Percentage - 39.23% This match was a clash of the titans, because both games came into it firing on all cylinders and ready to go to war with anything. When this type of hype happens and the match is actually good, the potential for contest magic is there. These two games both flattened their divisions, so the only thing left was to jump into the octagon and fight to the death. And for a good little while, it looked like this would be the first match of this entire contest where something actually stared Geralt in the face and felt like fighting back. I honestly regret not making peace with the Persona faithful sooner, because you guys are legitimately a very lively, fun bunch. It's my own fault, really, because anyone should be able to go "oh well Sir Chris likes this so OBVIOUSLY it must be cool". Actually, check that, Chris likes World of Warcraft so this is invalid logic :p But seriously, waiting until Joker made it into Smash Bros to actually like Persona was super dumb. These games all have ridiculous board votes for a reason, and Persona 5 was ''not'' fucking around when this thing started. It had something absurd at the beginning like 80% of the vote, but such a thing did not last. Witcher brought it back almost immediately, and then we all figured this would be Witcher 3 vs Galaxy 2 all over again. It sort of was, but Persona 5 did not go gently into that good night. It raged. Raged against the dying of the light. And yes it's lame to go all Dylan Thomas in a PCA, but seriously, I need to find material ''somewhere''. Round one was blowout city and had something like 3 good matches total, then the contest got good until the divisions were decided, and then it was back to blowout city. Puke. Persona 5 did not get swamped like Galaxy 2 did. It was able to keep this within 50 votes for almost half an hour, and at the 30 minute mark when it looked like Witcher 3 would go berserk, Persona hit us with a 20 vote update. "Hell yeah, we might have a match!" And ''then'' Persona 5 got swamped, but not in a godstomper kind of way. It went out with, all things considered, a respectable 57-43 loss. Witcher 3 in this contest was just on a completely different level from 126 out of 127 of its potential opponents, and there is no shame in going out as the first game to hold Witcher 3 under 60%. Persona will be back, and it will be stronger. That's just what this series does. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 7:29:54 PM #295 | Contest Quarterfinal: (1)Super Smash Bros. Ultimate vs (3)Xenoblade Chronicles (1)Smash Ultimate - 15437 [59.61%] (3)Xenoblade Chronicles - 10461 [40.39%] Total Votes - 25898 Prediction Percentage - 28.79% Outside of the early parts of one match, the entire final eight of this contest really felt like one big dud and it all played out like mop-up duty. Just for fun, here is every contest where the final seven matches (so quarterfinals and on) was a dud. 1v1 only: -Villains Contest -Rivalry Rumble -Best Year in Gaming -Game of the Decade 2 Of the seven matches that closed out this contest, only one could even ''remotely'' qualify as "good" and it surely wasn't this match! For those playing the home game, this is the only normal contest we've ever had where the final three rounds blew. The only drama in this particular match was whether or not Xenoblade would hold Smash under 60%. Smash was just over 60% to start, and the Europe vote helped Xenoblade keep this under a 60-40. That's all she wrote. Given how strong Smash Ultimate is going to be on this site for many years, this was a very respectable way for Xenoblade to bow out. It definitely capped off its bandwagon with a good showing, and you can't ask for much better than that from a game that was clearly never going to be on par with the contenders. And make sure you all buy Xenoblade Remastered! --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 6:31:31 PM #292 | Contest Quarterfinal: (1)The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs (1)Mass Effect 2 (1)Breath of the Wild - 17691 [68.33%] (1)Mass Effect 2 - 8199 [31.67%] Total Votes - 25890 Prediction Percentage - 64.65% I know the 2015 stats are totally all kinds of nutty, but, um... Ocarina of Time (2015g) VS Mass Effect 2 (2015g) Ocarina of Time has a strength of 47.95. Mass Effect 2 has a strength of 25.58. Ocarina of Time wins with 73.33% of the vote! A win of 28,400 with 60,875 total votes cast. Getting nearly 70% in round ''five'' is completely insane, and it helps prove the theory (though I doubt it's a "theory" at this point) that Breath of the Wild is a 90s strength video game plopped into a bracket that in no way had a prayer of matching up. Breath of the Wild might one day be challenged in a normal contest against games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7, Ocarina of Time, Pokemon RBY, and the rest of the 90s heavy hitters, but for this contest we were living in the Breath of the Wild Invitational. It sucked to see Mass Effect 2 go out like this, but like I've said many times, only one game gets to end its run with a win. I would like to give a bit of love to Mass Effect 2 on the way out the door, because getting into the final eight shouldn't have a thoroughly unceremonious end. All the way back in 2011, I played 1 and 2 back to back. I loved 1, but I ''loved'' 2. 2 takes everything 1 does, flips it around, turns it all up to 11, and is one of the few games ever made that can be classified as "perfect". The entire reason butthurt idiots were so mad about 3's ending is because 2 was so good. It had the best characters, the best voice acting, the best gameplay, the Collectors were a truly terrifying villain even if they were a literal Aliens ripoff, and probably the best overall story. And yes, contradiction guy, I know it's just a glorified rail shooter. Fuck off. Very, very, very few games can match Mass Effect 2's brilliance. If for some insane reason you haven't played it or its series yet, you need to. Don't let it scoring 32% in some poll fool you. Mass Effect 2 is universally loved. --- |
| Topic | Big Street Fighter V news coming tomorrow |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 6:22:29 PM #77 | |
| Topic | Oh there was a Last of Us 2 direct just now and nobody cared. |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 6:19:03 PM #10 | Hard to care when Sony has gone so far out of their way to tell their own fans that they hate them. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/27/20 6:10:04 PM #291 | LinkMarioSamus posted... Obviously I'm getting all my ideas from watching a ton of Siskel & Ebert, since they used to complain about too many movies in the '80s coming down to shootouts and car chases.Bro, just watch things yourself instead of relying other people. You should be long into adult age by now. --- |
| Topic | Hearthstone Topic #5: The Generated By Meta |
| PostContestUlti 05/26/20 10:11:51 PM #7 | A correction is not "making fun of you", as I would never do such a thing with you :p Emeraldegg posted... I can't imagine feeling the need to prove anything to ultiYou Discord nutjobs really are literally obsessed. It's no wonder most of you haven't found success in life as of yet despite most of you either being in your 30s or pushing 30. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/26/20 9:54:33 PM #254 | Division 8 Final: (1)The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim vs (3)Pokmon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version (1)Skyrim - 15311 [59.82%] (3)Pokemon HGSS - 10284 [40.18%] Total Votes - 25595 Prediction Percentage - 53.66% This writeup will seem like a short letdown after the last one, but the last match's writeup took me three days to do. Give me a break :p There were a few matches in this contest, namely this one, Witcher 3 vs Mario Galaxy 2, and Skyrim vs Mario Kart 8, where a western titan went up against a Nintendo game of decent strength, but not ''titanic'' strength. These matches played out in exactly the same way -- a small struggle early where it looked like Nintendo might make it interesting, followed by the western titan flexing some muscle and winning the match in 60-40 fashion. A ''lot'' of hype was given to Pokemon in the leadup to this match, because Skyrim looked prime to be picked off in an upset, and Pokemon is a master at winning matches like that. Things were interesting when the poll started, but unfortunately for Pokemon, that's all she wrote. Even with Skyrim looking slightly weaker this contest than in 2015, it was still more than strong enough to get rid of Pokemon. I have no problem with the first three Pokemon generations, but given how the fans of this game acted against Nier Automata I was happy to be rid of them one round after we got rid of the Nier ass brigade. This would close out divisional play, and from here it was 7 main contest matches plus a single bonus poll. I'd love to build suspense up here as if we were wondering things live, but there was no way Breath of the Wild wasn't winning this thing. Still, journey not destination and such. This match also booted out the last of the three remake games, which was frankly nice to see. Resident Evil 2 getting in I can accept, but not Persona 4 Golden or Pokemon HGSS. Regardless of how strong the games were and how well they performed, it was unfair for them to get in. It was nice to see them not winning divisions over more deserving games. On to the final rounds! --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/26/20 9:39:39 PM #253 | This video is safe to watch. It has no spoilers in it whatsoever. Scout's honor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6f6mmuh_04 Have I mentioned that Druckmann is so woke that he fired a woman from out of her position as head writer at Naughty Dog? I hope the irony isn't lost on people here. And even after all this BS and all this nonsense and all this controversy, it ''still'' gets so much worse. How do you guys think Sony and Naughty Dog reacted to all this? By going full Barbara Streisand, of course! Youtube, and most social media really, has a means to protect privacy and protect content from theft. You submit a DMCA complaint, and poof. The issue is because these social media sites are so huge, the process is often automated and leads to erroneous deletions of legitimate content. Did Sony and Naughy Dog respond to this controversy by diffusing it, issuing any apologies, anything? Of course not. They scoured the internet and submitted a bunch of falsified DMCA claims. Some of them were legitimate so as to get rid of videos playing the actual leak. That was fine. But they also flagged people who were simply ''talking'' about the leaks or covering it like a news story, which is why a bunch of content creators had to put legalese in their videos threatening lawsuits. Rather than try to cover all of the fraudulent deletions, this screenshot should suffice. https://i.imgur.com/xjg0o8m.png Yes, Sony actually DMCA'd themselves. That is a real tweet that you can still see as of this writing, though I imagine they'll eventually delete it entirely. But trust me, for the wiki readers who see this in a few years, this actually happened. Be warned if you actually look it up though, as there are spoilers in the comments. It should also be noted that Sony went way, way overboard. Entire channels were deleted and they also struck down harmless memes that spoiled nothing. Does it get even worse? '''Of course it does.''' Sony and Naughty Dog have even gone so far as to blatantly submit false review scores to try boosting the game. Don't worry, this video is spoiler-free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6B4fFaXCU He's using numbers from a couple weeks ago. We're up to about 3100 scores as of this writing, and the game still has a perfect rating on the Playstation store. I've said this many times, but the only reviews in gaming that tell the truth are word of mouth reviews and/or people who are 100% independent. People paid to write reviews for companies and these aggregator web sites are manipulated on the professional side. There are far too may examples to list, but this aggregate score is literally impossible. Review copies haven't gone out yet and there is no way 3100 people have preordered the game on the store just to give it a 5 star rating. This has all been one of the biggest scandals in gaming history -- the story truly is that nutty, and the game isn't even out yet, just wait until June -- and one of the biggest stories of a gaming company fucking up you'll ever see. The story isn't even over yet, which is the crazy part. tl;dr version - People don't want SJW trash infecting entertainment anymore, yet somehow even the legendarily awful levels of the actual SJW trash did not match how bad Sony's attempt at damage control has been. Which brings us to the actual match. In ''The Art of War'', Sun Tzu discuss the tactics and strategy used that allowed his army of 10,000 to conquer an army of 100,000. One line from the text is very valid here: <i>"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."</i> Dark Souls never had to actually "win" this match. It just had to sit there and wait. The Last of Us botched this entire build so badly that we were about to see one of the biggest contest collapses in our history, and this might legitimately be the biggest mid-contest fail we've ever had. I'm too lazy to try looking it up to compare it to anything else, but by the numbers I'll be shocked if anything tops this. We played fun with numbers during the last round's writeup for Batman vs Last of Us, but just in case anyone forgot: Batman: Arkham City (2015g) VS The Last of Us (2015g) Batman: Arkham City has a strength of 25.17. The Last of Us has a strength of 27.36. The Last of Us wins with 54.00% of the vote! A win of 4,873 with 60,875 total votes cast. Last of Us would end up winning with 55.24%, so we can safely say adjustments and whatever else was done in the 2015 stats for these two games was accurate. Let's bring up the original fun with numbers from the beginning of all this one more time: Dark Souls (2015g) VS The Last of Us (2015g) Dark Souls has a strength of 25.11. The Last of Us has a strength of 27.36. The Last of Us wins with 54.11% of the vote! A win of 5,006 with 60,875 total votes cast. Dark Souls clearly went up between 2015 and 2020, that much is obvious, but the exact amount is anyone's guess. Thankfully, we know through Dark Souls vs MGS5 that we have 8% to work with. 8% can be split up for a Dark Souls boost and MGS5 deboost however anyone wants, but here's the point. You could give that entire 8% to Dark Souls and it turns this into a 54-46 match. Obviously it wasn't the full 8%, but you can see where I'm going with this. When this poll started, Dark Souls beat the ''piss'' out of The Last of Us. It was well over 60% for a very long time here, and only a slight percentage bleed with the day vote gave The Last of Us any shred of dignity whatsoever on the way out of this contest. Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that of the 8% we talked about earlier, we split it right in half. 4% Dark Souls, 4% MGS5. Pre-leak, we had evidence The Last of Us hadn't moved, so 4% from Dark Souls would have made this a 50-50 type of match that Dark Souls probably would have won in the 52-48 range. Maybe 51-49. In the actual match, Dark Souls won 58-42 and it could have ''easily'' been more. Do you guys understand how thoroughly ridiculous it is for a game to deboost by nearly 10% mid-contest in under 2 weeks? I'm not upset The Last of Us Lost this match -- though I am quite happy I was out of the guru by this point because losing on this garbage would have been beyond dumb -- because all evidence leading up to this pointed to an easy win for Dark Souls. What I am upset about is just how brazen and stupid Sony, Naughty Dog, and Neil Druckmann have been with all this. It's one of the worst displays of self sabotage I've ever seen from a gaming company, and it ''almost'' rivals the idiocy of Activision-Blizzard. This is an ongoing thing, so I doubt it's the last we'll hear about the indefensible shitshow this all is. Seeing it play out live in a contest was nuts, too. Like people wanted to '''punish''' The Last of Us here, and who could blame them? In the end, both games deserved what they got here. The Last of Us deserved to get its ass kicked, and Dark Souls also deserved to win a division. Let's not toss that aside. A contest called "Game of the Decade" would be borderline fraudulent without something related to Souls making the final eight, and having it be the flagship of the franchise made it awesome. This would set up a potentially incredible match between Dark Souls and Skyrim, provided Skyrim was able to get past Pokemon. In the end, game developers, be smart and listen to your fans. Don't be trash like Disobedient Canine. Be more like From Software. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/26/20 9:38:50 PM #252 | -Captain Marvel -Wonder Woman -Beatrix Kiddo -Sarah Conner pre Dark Fate -Commander Shepherd -Tifa Lockheart -Ellen Ripley -Princess Leia -Buffy -Jill Valentine -Presea Combatir -Sheena, and don't ask me to spell her last name -Rita Mordio -Judith -Scully (the real reason X-Files was popular!) -Elaine Benes -Althena from the Lunar games -Khaleesi -Cersei Lannister -Catherine Tully -Brienne of Tarth -Black Widow -Arya Stark -Xena, Warrior Princess -Katniss Everdeen (book version, the movies do her no justice at all) -Lara Croft -Padme (yeah I fucking said it, do not @ me) -Clarice from Silence of the Lambs -Miranda Lawson -Tali -Kasumi -Celes -Yuffie -Yuna -Rikku -Ashe -Lightning -Fang -Charlotte Flair -Becky Lynch -Shayna Baszler -Ronda Rousey -Sara del Ray -Sarah Stock -Portia Perez -Cheerleader Melissa -Kris Statlander -Toni Storm -Bianca Belair -The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -Maeve (Westworld) -Dolores (Westworld) -Bayonetta -Juno -Mulan -Ariel -Monica -Phoebe -Rachel -13 from House -Olivia Benson (the girl from Law and Order SVU with the big chin) -11 from Stranger Things -Jessica Jones -Catwoman -Maria from West Side Story -Mimi from Rent -Christine from Phantom of the Opera -Beatrix from Umineko -Beatrix from Final Fantasy 9 -Pepper Potts -Terra Branford -Ada Wong -Edelgard -Lyndis -Corrin -Undyne -Cammy -Chun-Li -C. Viper -Trish from the DMC games -Trish Stratus -Elizabeth Swann -Lucina -Tharja -Byleth -Sothis -Hilda -Petra -Ingrid -THUNDER CATHERINE, HER NAME IS LITERALLY '''THUNDER CATHERINE''' FFS -Shamir -Rhea -Titania -Jill -Celica -Azura -Camilla -Anna -Micaiah -Sakura -Rose -Elena -Juri -Kerrigan -Meryl -Samus -Zelda -Palutena -Gamora -Do female Pokemon count? -How about generic female characters when I get to create my own, like in Skyrim or Dark Souls? This should be around 100 or close to it. Yes, there are a lot of Nintendo, wrestling, JRPG, MCU, and Street Fighter characters. Welcome to what most of my entertainment time has gone towards! I could go on for quite awhile here with naming great females who aren't pushing stupid agendas, but do you get the point yet? If you're a great character, you're a great character and people will just like you for being you. No one who isn't completely out of their mind is walking around, looking at the world, and going "X is represented in this piece of entertainment, and by enjoying X you must hate all of Y". I've been trying to find the right words to prove my point here for years, and that Upper Echelon guy really did a perfect job. No one worth interacting with looks at Samus and goes "well by liking her, you must hate any female who isn't white". "Actually I really loved Gamora's character arc in the Marvel movies, plus Zoe Saldana is an incredibly talented actress. You don't star in three different 2 billion dollar movies by accident." "Yeah but she plays up to black stereotypes." "Uh, she's Puerto Rican and Dominican, plus she was born in New Jersey so it's neat having someone from my home state star in the movies." "Shut up cis amab racist, they should have cast black MTF trans POCs." This is an actual conversation I've had with someone, and thankfully she was laughed out of the room. This stuff just does not sell, which is why these people go on social media to spread their BS; they just aren't accepted anywhere else. A great recent example is that idiot who is embarrassing the new Twitch Safety Council by pretending to be a deer, with the irony of all ironies being an MTF transsexual who now claims to be a deer but is always on stream wearing antlers. News flash -- female deer don't have antlers, genius. Are you telling us you're simply a moron, or are you you telling us that you're full of shit and that everyone is right to want you off of Twitch? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GCCz4RnRwg This guy puts it best. It's the Emperor's New Clothes. Thankfully, even the internet is rejecting these people at record numbers. Or how about the SJW idiot in New York yesterday who called the cops on a black dude for walking her dog off leash? I refuse to link to the video, but the short version is her dog is off leash in a park in New York, he asks her to leash it, and she freaks out and ''literally'' says she'll call the cops and tell them an African is threatening her and her dog. Her words, not mine. Oh, and during the entire phone call she is quite literally '''lynching her dog'''. That's why I refuse to link to it or even say the dumb bitch's name. The good news here is not only did more SJW trash expose the entire movement as being the ''actual'' intolerant racism of our time, but the entire internet banded together and gave her exactly what she deserved. I could rant on that story alone for another 5000 words, but I'll keep it short. Conservatives get accused of being racist 24/7, yet the actual intolerant racists in our culture are always exposed as being these liberal SJW Karen types. Political donations are public, lady. Of course you virtue signal for equality and then turn into a plantation owner the second a black guy isn't following your orders. Anyone that's honest with themselves and pays any attention at all knew this already, but we're getting way off topic here. I just saw that story today and it made me sick, plus it's related to my overall point of SJWs being garbage, but all of them are being rejected from our culture in all mediums these days. Back to the point. Men have been saying they don't want this SJW nonsense in gaming for ages, especially if you're going to tell us how much we suck and how you want us dead all day. The issue was never needing great female characters. We all love them. The issue is, like I said, forced diversity and tearing others down while you do it. You cannot fight discrimination with discrimination and be morally correct in any way. Now women are on board with hating it all too, thank God, so the entire SJW nonsense is going to collapse in epic fashion. When even women aren't buying what they're selling anymore, when you lose the folks with the most buying power in our culture (women), the jig is up. This is why no one went to see Men In Black International, Birds of Prey, Ghostbusters 2016, Charlie's Angels 2019, Batwoman on CW, and a whole slew of other things. Gaming is still in the beginning stages of getting rid of this garbage, in large part because the medium is so young and naive, but we ''are'' getting rid of it. The one good thing about this shitshow with The Last of Us 2 is the momentum for getting the SJW vomit out of video games has hit a breaking point. Again, I won't mention anything specific in the leaks, but they're so awful and it's done in such poor taste that even the people Neil Druckmann is trying to cater to are telling him what a piece of trash he is. Dude fucked up hard. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/26/20 9:38:29 PM #251 | Division 7 Final: (1)Dark Souls vs (2)The Last of Us (1)Dark Souls - 14919 [58.3%] (2)The Last of Us - 10669 [41.7%] Total Votes - 25588 Prediction Percentage - 30.19% Before we talk about the elephant in the room, let's set the stage here. Some fun with numbers: Dark Souls (2015g) VS The Last of Us (2015g) Dark Souls has a strength of 25.11. The Last of Us has a strength of 27.36. The Last of Us wins with 54.11% of the vote! A win of 5,006 with 60,875 total votes cast. There isn't much reason to think these are fraudulent numbers. Dark Souls got like 30% on Link to the Past that year, and Last of Us got 40% on Kingdom Hearts 2. There is only so much adjusting that can be done there, and at a certain point if you think Dark Souls looked better anyway in 2015 then you're just adjusting the numbers around until you see the result you want. There was nothing wrong with looking at 2015 and picking The Last of Us to win this match, especially if you thought The Last of Us 2 hype was going to boost the original up. Even if you thought Dark Souls would go up due to the respect factor and the name of our contest (as well you should have, this was perfectly good logic and Souls was the decade's biggest story along with open world stuff), it had to go up enough to beat The Last of Us potentially being boosted by sequel hype. Oh it got boosted by sequel hype alright, but not in the way anyone was expecting pre-contest. One day after The Last of Us's match with Batman where it struggled a bit, Naughty Dog and Sony announced ''another'' delay in The Last of Us 2's release date. Now for the record, coronavirus has affected a lot of things in 2020 so delays on entertainment are understandable, but this game was originally supposed to come out on February 21st and the first delay was announced in October of 2019. A second delay was announced on April 2nd and corona was directly cited. Okay, sure, makes sense. We all understand that. But the announcement of a third delay really started to piss people off, and it happened right in the middle of this contest on April 27th. At that point, it isn't coronavirus causing the delays and we all know it. More on that in a second. On the ''same exact day'' that yet another delay was announced, all hell broke loose at Naughty Dog and the entirety of The Last of Us 2's plot was leaked and posted online. At first, it was widely believed that this was done by a disgruntled employee who was sick of the conditions there. And who could blame them? But as it turns out, the leak was done by a hacker who used an older game to exploit a server security weakness. I could go on an incredibly long rant here about how Naughty Dog legitimately treats their employees like slaves, but Jim Sterling covers this one far better than I ever could. Don't worry, this video mentions absolutely nothing about what's in the leaks. All he talks about is how and why they happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LRynF3PZn0 Whether the leak was an inside job or not, the fact that everyone believed at first that it came from someone pissed at a crunch tells the story, doesn't it? What's even worse is what's actually in the leaks, so let's just get to it. I will not discuss any of them here, even with spoiler tags, out of respect for anyone who doesn't want to know them. Instead, here is a video with a very safe thumbnail. If you want to know what's in the leaks, watch this video. If not, skip past it. '''WARNING: THIS VIDEO PROBABLY SPOILS EVERYTHING THAT'S IN THE LAST OF US 2!!! WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK!''' I asked a mod whom we all love and respect if this video was safe to post, and he confirmed that it is. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE6RcyqBUB8 I won't bother getting into how I personally feel about what this all means in terms of the series plot, because I already said I'm not talking about the specifics here. Just know that I liked the original quite a lot and that my opinion pretty much lines up with what everyone is saying on the internet. And believe me, you can't go ''anywhere'' on the internet right now without people talking about this. Naughty Dog fucked up, and they fucked up ''badly''. What I do want to talk about here is the thorough and swift rejection of the SJW filth that's been infesting entertainment. Last decade was the rise of that puke, but this decade is seeing the public reject all of it at an alarming rate. "But Ulti, everywhere I look online people are happy about diversity and such! And Captain Marvel made over a billion dollars so lol you!" Social media in no way reflects the real world, and people need to learn this lesson. Don't let Twitter produce your show or control your opinions. If social media or going viral meant jack shit, we would have had President Bernie Sanders 300 times over by now. As for Captain Marvel, good example! I'm glad someone brought her up. Thanks, Hypothetical Guy. She is a wonderful example of audiences being smart, because people know the difference between well-meaning diversity like Captain Marvel or the Tom Holland Spiderman cast and the garbage The Last of Us 2 is trying to pull. You can have the opinions Brie Larson or Tessa Thompson have. Free country, free speech. Go nuts. The problem happens when you try to fight discrimination with discrimination in entertainment despite the audience, including most of the ''women'' in your audience, outright telling you to fuck off. Girl power and diversity based on merit are very, very good things. Forcing it at the expense of others (13 Reasons Why and the constant misandry being a great example) is where the problem starts, and I don't get how people don't understand the difference. I could name 100 female characters, probably more, who are strong, amazing, great female characters who aren't in their roles to check off diversity boxes and tell everyone men suck all day long. Hell this writeup is going to be long anyways, so let's do it. What's 100 extra lines on a wiki page, anyway? This is right off the top of my head in no order whatsoever. I won't cheat, look at any lists, nothing. You can make strong, cool, and lovable female characters without ever going the moronic "all men suck and we must check off as many diversity boxes as possible" SJW route. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/26/20 8:07:05 PM #250 | |
| Topic | I contend that Vlado Live was the best project the board ever had |
| PostContestUlti 05/25/20 9:34:55 PM #11 | |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/25/20 9:34:21 PM #248 | Okay it's bed time. I'm mid-writeup, but it's a long one folks! This thing needs to get the attention it deserves. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/25/20 7:45:14 PM #247 | Nintendogs posted... *sits down with prepared popcorn as he waits for the next analysis*How do YOU know it'll be entertaining? <_< --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/25/20 5:58:39 PM #245 | Division 6 Final: (1)Persona 5 vs (3)Portal 2 (1)Persona 5 - 15239 [57.47%] (3)Portal 2 - 11276 [42.53%] Total Votes - 26515 Prediction Percentage - 29.22% I honestly thought Portal 2 might be able to make a match of this with all the momentum it had built up to this point, but Persona 5 was absolutely having none of that stuff. This match was reasonably close for one update, but after that first five minutes Persona 5 just beat Portal's ass all over the place for this entire match. No comebacks, no momentum, no mercy. Just a cold, hard, swift asswhipping as Persona 5 marched right to a division win. I know neither game in the Persona duo won this contest or anything, but for my money the Persona series and Witcher 3 are tied for Star of the Contest. With the Smash Bros series giving Persona newfound strength and respect, on top of that series growing more and more each year, it has nowhere to go but up. When and if we get Persona 6, it has a good chance to slide into whatever we want to call the tier right below Zelda's top games. Speaking of stars of the contest, this win set up a match between Witcher 3 and Persona 5. Few things in these contests are more fun than two white-hot entrants dueling, so we were all hoping the match would live up to the hype it was getting while this was all going on live. (Spoilers: lolno.) I don't want to leave this writeup without giving Portal 2 some love, purely because I love the game but also because getting this far in a contest should mean something. So without further delay... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVVZaZ8yO6o You won't find many villains more likeable than GLaDOS. --- |
| Topic | Behold, the Adjusted X-Stats for 2020! |
| PostContestUlti 05/25/20 5:38:14 PM #63 | |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/25/20 5:37:09 PM #243 | Division 5 Final: (1)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt vs (2)God of War (1)Witcher 3 - 17096 [64.48%] (2)God of War - 9418 [35.52%] Total Votes - 26514 Prediction Percentage - 51.77% After a small blip for one update against Super Mario Galaxy 2, Witcher 3 went back to its roots in this contest, namely beating up Western games so badly that people were calling for SFF as the reason for all these beatings. God of War's job was just making it up to this match; our boy Kratos was never going to win it, and that's okay. He finally made it into the fourth round. It's hard to argue against SFF as the reason Witcher 3 kept going berserk against other Western games, but the concept of "Western SFF" is pretty much brand new as of this contest so it's hard for a lot of people to believe. I get not buying it, but by this point of the contest people had seen Witcher 3 in action thrice and it was ''still'' overshooting its oracle consensus. This time, it was a 6% overshot. In round one it was an 8% overshot, in round two it was 9%, and here it was 6%. The only round where it didn't ''wildly'' (ha) overperform was against a big name Nintendo game. If that isn't proof that Witcher 3 is a Clint Eastwood esque king of the west, I don't know what is. Oh and spoilers, this would make four times in a row Witcher 3 was better-looking than Skyrim. How does that one saying go after three, anyway? One's an accident, two is a problem, three is a trend, four is.... what? Has that saying ever even gotten to four? --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 8:59:15 PM #227 | Persona got the lead down to 80 pretty quickly, and then.... Xenoblade was pushed once too many times and said enough of this shit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I It kicked Persona 4 into the pit of death, held serve at 80, and ultimately won this poll by 111. This doesn't sound like much, but think of the craziness of everything it had to fend off. Board 8 likes Persona games a ''lot'' more than Xenoblade. All of the rallies were in Persona's favor. Persona even had some bandwagon magic of its own. But in the end, Xenoblade had just a little bit more. I don't usually bring up the double vote user bonus, as I think it's incredibly stupid to give such a dumb gimmick any legitimacy, but there were two matches in this contest where the double bonus actually reversed a match result and nullified the effects of a rally. One was Resident Evil 2 > Bloodborne, and you guys can debate the legitimacy of that shitshow to your heart's content. Personally, I think the two hour delay not extending to 24 was bull. The other was this match. Xenoblade > Persona 4. Did you guys know Persona 4 wins by 8 votes without gimmicks? This lends a lot of credence to my Yoblazer Test theory. If this was a round one match, Persona 4 easily wins. But it was a divisional final and the site was bandwagoning Xenoblade enough for it to win. It was an incredible match, a joy to watch, and the last truly great match of this contest. Much like Resident Evil 2 vs Bloodborne, it sucked someone had to lose. It really did. Persona will be back and busting brackets next games contest though I'm sure, because these fans are cockroaches and I mean that as a compliment. They cannot be killed, they can live entirely off of postapocalyptic Twinkies, it takes divine intervention to beat them in a close match, and it took ''all this'' for Xenoblade to hold it off. Hell even had this match happened in round ''three'', Persona likely wins. But it happened when it happened and the result was what it was. Xenoblade didn't win this match so much as survive it, but a win is a win is a win. Scoreboard. Go look at it. Xenoblade's run was clearly coming to an end in the next round, but that's okay. This thing went from losing in round one to winning a division, and with remaster + sequel hype who knows where it goes from here? Last point before I move on. Only two gurus correctly called Xenoblade's path on top of getting all three matches in the Shovel Knight fourpack right. One was Ngamer64. The other was... Me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BfZ8VpPzz0 I would have finished something like top 10 had I stuck with my gut and picked Witcher 3 to make the final, but I am in no way salty about how I did. When you're on a list with Ngamer and no one else, it's something to be proud of. I'm super happy for him, too. He killed it this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVqpC3Rf1Nw Ngamer gets the deeper audio version because he is '''MANLIER''' than Ulti is. Moving on. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 8:59:05 PM #226 | Actually one more before bed. I couldn't help it. Division 4 Final: (5)Persona 4 Golden vs (3)Xenoblade Chronicles (5)Persona 4 Golden - 13334 [49.79%] (3)Xenoblade Chronicles - 13445 [50.21%] Total Votes - 26779 Prediction Percentage - 6.29% This was it, boys. The hardest match of the entire contest to predict pre-contest, and our contest's last truly great match. Both came in on incredible runs, both had a ton of momentum behind them that even a contest intermission couldn't squelch, and both of them had perfectly even cases to be made for winning this thing. Before getting to the match, I'd like to discuss what is now commonly known as "The Yoblazer Test". He probably shouldn't have spilled the beans on this, truth be told. Because I hate myself, I started rewatching Game of Thrones. Early in season one, Jamie Lannister is talking some trash to Ned Stark about fighting and tournaments and such, and makes fun of Ned for not fighting in them. "I don't fight in tournaments, because when I fight a man for real, I don't want him to know what I can do." I doubt Yoblazer ever gets season one'd, but he went and fought in a tournament -- that is, told everyone on The Show -- what The Yoblazer Test is. Every contest, there is one, maybe two things capable of going on an incremental lucky bandwagon run from out of nowhere and going maybe one round farther than it probably should. The way to do this is to see if something can win a round or two easily, then win against things of similar strength through luck and the bandwagon effect. His best call ever was Super Mario RPG in 2015. Let's have a look and see how many gurus picked it to make the semifinals: http://thengamer.com/guru/BGE3/stats.php?match=124 (By the way am I blind or just dumb? Did yoblazer not enter the guru that year?) It's an insane call at first glance, but if you use The Yoblazer Test it makes perfect sense. If you had Mario RPG beating Oblivion, well why not take it to beat GTA5? If that win happens, well at that point you already know the game is stronger than Chrono Cross or World of Warcraft, and from there that thing was off to the races. How could Resident Evil 4 beat a bandwagoned Mario RPG late in a contest? And if you have it getting that far, why ''couldn't'' it turn around and beat Metal Gear Solid 3? It's beautiful logic, and I half hope he never shared it. There's a difference between thinking upsets could happen and knowing which one or two bandwagons are most likely, and that's why Yoblazer is the best to ever do it. Frankly his legacy top 50 finishes should be added to his guru score. No offense to Swirl or anything, but no one is better than Yo at this. There's a reason for that. To the point. Xenoblade Chronicles was the perfect Yoblazer Test candidate this contest, and you could possibly give that title to Witcher 3 depending on whether you thought its run would be a bandwagon or a boost. Had Persona 4 Golden and Xenoblade faced off in rounds one or two, Persona 4 Golden probably easily wins. But because it happened in the divisional finals, after Xenoblade built up momentum against Splatoon 2, Overwatch, and Three Houses, and after Xenoblade Remastered hype was in full swing, it was the right choice if you had it getting this far. What was going to beat a Xenoblade backed by bandwagon love, Nintendo, and remaster hype? Grand Theft Auto 5? Persona 4 Golden has a rabid fanbase and all, but that's a lot of things to ask of it. When this match started, the bandwagon effect was on. The match was close, but Xenoblade was just better. It jumped out to a 50 vote lead early, and then used the rest of the evening to build up a lead of 200. This is when the Persona fandom's rallies started popping up all over Reddit and getting their own momentum going, and that 230 vote lead got knocked down to 150 fairly quickly. But here the thing with bandwagons. They are very, very hard to beat unless you are considerably stronger than they are. Persona 4 Golden was just too similar in strength here. Xenoblade was able to smack away the multi-layered rally attempt, and back up it went as we got close to midnight. Try as Persona 4 may to come back in this match, Xenoblade just wasn't having it. When the overnight vote came and Europe started waking up, Xenoblade ever so slightly increased its lead all the way up to 350. This felt like enough given the match was a rock fight, but then the morning came and Persona 4 had one last big push left. For the final 12 hours of this match, Xenoblade had to hold on for dear life. It wasn't getting a ton of rallies all over a bunch of subreddits. It didn't have the full Board 8 love behind it. It wasn't being boosted by hentai. This was all bandwagon effect and remake hype. Even the usual Nintendo ability to win the morning and day vote wasn't coming through this time around. As this match kept inching along, Persona kept shaving and rallying, shaving and rallying. For most of the past 12 hours, if Persona could just get one push going it probably could have come back, but Xenoblade just kept fighting it all off, like Deadpool blocking bullets with swords and such. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqqLptIqzOA As Persona kept pushing, Xenoblade would come up with these random updates of +10, +30, +25 out of nowhere to keep itself alive. ''Finally'', with two hours to go, the rallying efforts for Persona reached a fever pitch. With two hours left, the lead was at 230. Then Persona started pulling off these crazy updates with Xenoblade stalls mixed in. 10 votes gone. 20 votes gone. 25 votes gone. With an hour to go, the lead was down to 100 and it looked like Persona was going to clutch its ass off after all. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 5:50:23 PM #221 | Okay this is a good stopping point. I'm getting a bit tired and the next match deserves my full awake attention. See you tomorrow! --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 5:48:26 PM #220 | Kamekguy posted... I think Nier just got to the point that Persona got when P4 started getting its spin-offs and becoming a "big deal"; really desperate for validation now that their niche little series had even somewhat mainstream appeal. I love the game, but the two loudest camps for that game tend to be "look at this robot's butt" and "art through the medium you simply MUST experience this life-changing event", and often the butt people come out as more level-headed.You're also in no way the type of pervert I was talking about. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 5:47:02 PM #219 | Division 3 Final: (1)Super Smash Bros. Ultimate vs (2)Super Mario Odyssey (1)Smash Ultimate - 14975 [55.94%] (2)Mario Odyssey - 11796 [44.06%] Total Votes - 26771 Prediction Percentage - 40.52% RSFF is an incredibly rare thing in these contests, but we have seen it happen before. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2122-tournament-quarterfinal-mario-vs-samus-aran https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7373-finals-bracket-2-samus-vs-mario https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7383-loser-bracket-round-4-mario-vs-samus https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3849-jenova-division-final-sephiroth-vs-tifa-lockheart https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7369-loser-bracket-round-1-tifa-vs-sephiroth There may be other examples, but these are the two that jump out. I am thoroughly convinced Smash Ultimate RSFFd Mario here, because you can't convince me that Mario wasn't more impressive than Smash in all three rounds leading up to this match. Tekken 7 being stronger than Mortal Kombat 11 is just goofy. Link Between Worlds being held under 40% is impressive, but Devil May Cry 5 being held under 30% is better. We all saw the same thing and agreed. Yet come match time, Smash not only wins but wins ''easily''. Something isn't right here chief, and it wouldn't be the first time something "off" happened with Mario when put up against Nintendo in a match. I wish I had a better reason than RSFF for this match, but it's the best explanation I got. Look at every other big match this contest where one game clearly looked stronger going in. Dark Souls > Last of Us. Witcher 3 > Skyrim. Xenoblade > Fire Emblem. Even Skyrim > Pokemon. I could go on. In all of those matches, that game that looked better going in won the match. The one exception was.... this match. Right here. Something screwey happened, and I feel like RSFF is the best explanation given how the rest of the contest lined up. Nothing else makes much sense. I know it's hard to believe, but the idea of Smash actually being the stronger one all along is even ''more'' hard to believe. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 5:22:51 PM #215 | They weren't a bust. They lost to Zelda, Mario, and Brawl. --- |
| Topic | ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~ |
| PostContestUlti 05/24/20 5:21:13 PM #214 | Division 2 Final: (1)Mass Effect 2 vs (3)Resident Evil 2 (1)Mass Effect 2 - 13236 [52.47%] (3)Resident Evil 2 - 11992 [47.53%] Total Votes - 25228 Prediction Percentage - 20.82% Given the bandwagon Resident Evil 2 had built up leading into this match, I am convinced that the contest intermission hurt its chances to pull the upset here. I'm not saying Mass Effect 2 wouldn't have won anyway, but momentum is a real thing and those dumb delays that happen now really kill it for underdog runs. Outside of one match, Mass Effect 2 looked vulnerable for this entire contest. Resident Evil 2 meanwhile was coming off of an incredibly grueling, emotional win over Bloodborne and could have ridden football-like momentum through Mass Effect here. Didn't happen. If you ever talk to a professional athlete, and I've met about 50 of them from working various odd jobs, they hate all the TV timeouts and reviews and such in major sports. It kills the momentum. It kills the flow. I think that is a huge factor into what happened here. When this poll started, Mass Effect 2 had 52% of the poll, and then the poll just... stayed there. You can see the final result. This was the poll for the entire 24 hours. Resident Evil 2 never made a push to do much of anything, and this was certainly a far, far cry from the Resident Evil 2 we had seen in earlier matches. We can't confirm one way or another if the intermission helped Mass Effect 2 here, but it certainly didn't hurt it. It meant for a rather dud ending to Resident Evil 2's impressive contest run. I do have to say that I'm not upset about Mass Effect 2 winning a division though, especially with all of the nonsense that poor series has gone through. It was nice to see one of them finally break through a win a division, even if the means were debatable. --- |
| Board List |
