March Mayhem Top 64 Announced

[Delusibeta]

Can you at least diminish...

A. The complaints if Valve, Bioware, Blizzard and (at some extent) Square Enix gets eliminated. (They are the most vocals ones.)
B. Flamewars.
C. Trolls (Yes, they do appear mostly during this time of year).

With Zynga's presence and The Escapist's continued failure to block people from using their Facebook accounts to vote completely (no, adding an extra click to the process won't do), the correct answer is "no".

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Can you at least diminish...

A. The complaints if Valve, Bioware, Blizzard and (at some extent) Square Enix gets eliminated. (They are the most vocals ones.)
B. Flamewars.
C. Trolls (Yes, they do appear mostly during this time of year).

With Zynga's presence and The Escapist's continued failure to block people from using their Facebook accounts to vote completely (no, adding an extra click to the process won't do), the correct answer is "no".

People have to register on the site to vote now. Not on Facebook. Spin said that earlier.

 

[Delusibeta]

Can you at least diminish...

A. The complaints if Valve, Bioware, Blizzard and (at some extent) Square Enix gets eliminated. (They are the most vocals ones.)
B. Flamewars.
C. Trolls (Yes, they do appear mostly during this time of year).

With Zynga's presence and The Escapist's continued failure to block people from using their Facebook accounts to vote completely (no, adding an extra click to the process won't do), the correct answer is "no".

People have to register on the site to vote now. Not on Facebook. Spin said that earlier.

As for the quick-register, we are putting up barriers to stop that. This year, you will need to sign up for an account (which of course you can from Facebook) but then you actually have to accept an agreement form just to participate in March Mayhem.

I'm going to stand by my point: Facebook users will have just an additional click to vote this year compared to last year. I am not convinced that this will stem the Zyrg.

 

[Lullabye]

.....hmm, I wonder if I should participate this year?
But I don't like choosing between my fav dev.
*sigh*
We'll see i suppose.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Oh damn, it's that time already?

I have high hopes for Mojang, Hopefully we dont get over-run by ...."that lot" with Zynga like last year. Bloody hell that was a mess...

 

[HT_Black]

But this is where things get a little bit tricky for me. Most of those things you described were the spawn of DOOM, WOLFENSTEIN, or if you're only referring to the last decade, HALO.[footnote]As an aside, isn't it interesting that those titles use all caps?[/footnote]

The thing that confounds me the most is the "minority sidekick" comment. Usually, when someone says that, they are referring to the character being a Peter Molyneux-esque ethnic stereotype given shape instead of their actual skin tone--can you clarify what you mean by that? Additionally (and slightly tangentially) I haven't noticed much of a romantic subtext between the player and Alyx. Did I miss something?

That's where you'd be wrong; despite Halo coming before Half Life 2, we didn't see the major surge of them until HL2 came out. Everyone was content to let Halo fill it's niche.
Besides,Halo has always been colorful except for the flood levels, there are no shoehorned in gimmick weapons, Master Chef has a personality; he just doesn't have a face, (Apparently in the books he has greasy curly brown hair, and freckles. Not your stereotypical action hero appearance.) and the aliens actually have reasonable motivation.
The romance thing isn't there so much in the first part of 2, but the episodes start to lay it on thick. Especially episode 2. I will always hate my friend for telling me I couldn't judge the game after quitting halfway through the first godawful vehicle section. (Quite possibly one of the worst vehicle sections in gaming history)
The

Okay, I can dig it. My final question is this: Do you have any beef with Valve games besides Half-life? It's the only one you've mentioned by name, but you claim to loathe Valve as a whole--would you care to elaborate?

Also, The to you too.

I also don't like L4D because Co-Op shouldn't mean gimping everyone so they're functionally useless on their own. I have nothing against Half Life 1, as it was good. It's Half Life 2 that things became problematic.
I also hate Valve because they run the largest digital distribution platform.
Valve frequently takes credit for other people's work. (Counter strike, portal, etc.)
Also, Gabe Newell is fat.

It's not a reason to dislike him as a person, but I was just listing their faults, and I figured with all the valid reasons to hate them, I should throw in a stupid one.

Alright then. Thank you for your time, stranger. I don't really agree with you, but it was a refreshing and interesting experience, and I'm glad that we were able to halfway make sense of one another's opinions.

And in closing, is there any sort of game you do like?

 

[Antibody]

I remember the whole Zynga drama from last year... I also remember that I was so determined to prevent them almost winning again this year, that I stored some screenshots back then for me post a year in the future:

Zynga beating everybody it faced off against until it faced Valve [http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8384/zyngacompetition.jpg]

Zynga annoying it's fans by posting a big alert on it's forums about the competition [http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1295/zyngarallyingthetroops.jpg]

Some of Zynga's fans reacting to that annoyance [http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/3925/zyngathread.jpg]

Two posters another forum member here made during all the drama [http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/52/zyngaunification.jpg] (I never noted the original creator, my bad)

Feel free to post these images in the thread of the first match that Zynga's in. Maybe if we get them in the early stages they wont take much better developers than them out of the running.

Now, don't get me wrong, all developers should have a fair shot at winning... but when it's a company like Zynga, who can be described more accurately as a thief than as a developer, they shouldn't get that kind of shot. I don't blame The Escapist for including them though, unfortunately they are technically a developer, and their games (no matter how they came up with them) are still popular.

Those of us who have been following this competition for a few years know exactly which developers are probably going to get to the final brackets... the fun in following this competition (for me at least) is not who wins, but instead, seeing how far my favorite developers can get before getting squashed by the most popular ones in the final brackets. A company that wins as unfairly as Zynga makes the competition less fun

 

[Ickorus]

Wait.. Where's Frictional Games?

the guys behind Amnesia that is. They totally deserve to be up there.

 

[Nikolaz72]

But this is where things get a little bit tricky for me. Most of those things you described were the spawn of DOOM, WOLFENSTEIN, or if you're only referring to the last decade, HALO.[footnote]As an aside, isn't it interesting that those titles use all caps?[/footnote]

The thing that confounds me the most is the "minority sidekick" comment. Usually, when someone says that, they are referring to the character being a Peter Molyneux-esque ethnic stereotype given shape instead of their actual skin tone--can you clarify what you mean by that? Additionally (and slightly tangentially) I haven't noticed much of a romantic subtext between the player and Alyx. Did I miss something?

That's where you'd be wrong; despite Halo coming before Half Life 2, we didn't see the major surge of them until HL2 came out. Everyone was content to let Halo fill it's niche.
Besides,Halo has always been colorful except for the flood levels, there are no shoehorned in gimmick weapons, Master Chef has a personality; he just doesn't have a face, (Apparently in the books he has greasy curly brown hair, and freckles. Not your stereotypical action hero appearance.) and the aliens actually have reasonable motivation.
The romance thing isn't there so much in the first part of 2, but the episodes start to lay it on thick. Especially episode 2. I will always hate my friend for telling me I couldn't judge the game after quitting halfway through the first godawful vehicle section. (Quite possibly one of the worst vehicle sections in gaming history)
The

Okay, I can dig it. My final question is this: Do you have any beef with Valve games besides Half-life? It's the only one you've mentioned by name, but you claim to loathe Valve as a whole--would you care to elaborate?

Also, The to you too.

I also don't like L4D because Co-Op shouldn't mean gimping everyone so they're functionally useless on their own. I have nothing against Half Life 1, as it was good. It's Half Life 2 that things became problematic.
I also hate Valve because they run the largest digital distribution platform.
Valve frequently takes credit for other people's work. (Counter strike, portal, etc.)
Also, Gabe Newell is fat.

It's not a reason to dislike him as a person, but I was just listing their faults, and I figured with all the valid reasons to hate them, I should throw in a stupid one.

Alright then. Thank you for your time, stranger. I don't really agree with you, but it was a refreshing and interesting experience, and I'm glad that we were able to halfway make sense of one another's opinions.

And in closing, is there any sort of game you do like?

I swear, i could feel the sarcasm from you way outside of this thread.

 

[IamQ]

Mojang, Valve, Blizzard and Zynga will be in the top 4. I called it.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

This is going to be fun. Platinum better get more support this time around.

But... Zynga? Zynga ruined it last year. Everyone was either spamming messages like "i love farmvile zynga love!!!!!" or "OH MY GOD ZYNGA IS THE WORST I HATE ZYNGA AND EVERYONE INVOLVED WITH FARMVILLE SHOULD DIE" and the forums went to hell pretty fast.

I think I'll vote, but stay away from the comments.

 

[wickedpt]

Go Turbine!

(Yes, we Turbinites are back)

 

[mattttherman3]

I'll most likely still vote, although I don't know why. Put Zynga up against Valve in the first round please! Also BioWare against Blizzard in the first round, I want the powerhouse guys out first . Also, Obsidian vs Bethesda would be interesting. OOOH Bungie vs Treyarch!

 

[ragestreet]

Zynga? Have they made an actual game since the last MM or are they doing the same facebook apps that are basically rip-offs of better games as last time?

 

[Emissary Laito]

Ooh, Zynga. Fun times await from the looks of things.

Anyhow, I will be voting for Konami.
Doubt they'll get far, but they're the only company on that list that makes a game I play regularly (IE more then once every few months) at the moment.
They might do better then I expect, considering how popular Yugioh seems to be at the moment ^^

 

[Valiance]

Mojave will probably win their division. Can't wait for the brackets.

 

[Jzolr0708]

Dont worry about Zynga. The only reason they got so far is because last year we didnt even think of them as a threat. if you would have asked anyone theyd have figured it'd be something like Nintendo V Valve or Blizzard V Square Enix, not Zynga at all. But now we know, and they'll go down before they get to the finals

 

[Spinwhiz]

There has been an update to the top 64. Yuke's has been replaced with Rovio!

 

[Tomany2]

In My Opinion, it will be down to Zynga and Mojang AB

Although, im rooting for Valve and Mojang

 

[The Rascal King]

Come on, Capcom followers. Let's give em hell this year.