Poll: March Mayhem and you

[Eleima]

Greetings Escapists!

As some of you might know, the Escapists hosts a yearly event called March Mayhem: Developer's Showdown.  In said event, you pick a bracket of developers you'd like to see win and people vote for their favorites until there remains only one.  Last year, Valve emerged victorious with BioWare bringing home the silver.  A few regulars were a bit disgruntled during the event, however, as they felt it attracted trolls and flamers, drastically increasing trafic on the site, rendering a thousand times more sluggish than when a new Zero Punctuation video is released.

With preparations well under way (March Mayhem Top 64 Announced [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.261654-March-Mayhem-Top-64-Announced#9862873] on January 31st), a question came up that I'd like to submit to all you Escapists:
How do you feel about March Mayhem: Developer's Showdown?  Are you looking forward to it?  Dreading it?  Are you indifferent? Tell us why!

I, myself, find the event rather fun, even though it got a bit frustrating at times, and I'll definitely be looking forward to it.  Not sure who I'll be backing yet...

Also, let's try and keep clean, people, you can disagree with one another, but do it in a curteous manner, please.

 

[Dorian]

I completely hate it.

Last time I checked, versus threads almost always got locked here.

So then the staff turns around and blatantly does a site-sponsered fanboy versus thread. All it is is a reversal of what the staff say isn't acceptable and purposefully make this...... thing to make flaming, ranting, hating, all that stuff all the easier. Just for some extra traffic.

Didn't participate last year, not going to ever again. Once was PLENTY.

 

[Mana Fiend]

Seeing as how I can pretty much guess that Valve will win, or BioWare, I don't feel it makes that much difference.

 

[RatRace123]

Somehow I was able to completely ignore it last year, but from what I heard it opened a flood gate full of Zynga fans and /b/ stepped in to make sure they wouldn't win.

The place basically became a warzone from what I hear.
It was easy enough to ignore though, so I'm indifferent about it I guess.

 

[Mana Fiend]

Seeing as how I can pretty much guess that Valve will win, or BioWare, I don't feel it makes that much difference.

You must be new... Zynga almost walked away with it last year and Turbine won in the previous two years.

Oh, apologies. My bad. I retract my statement.

 

[drbarno]

Crap! I almost forgot about this.

I completely hate it.

Last time I checked, versus threads almost always got locked here.

So then the staff turns around and blatantly does a site-sponsered fanboy versus thread. All it is is a reversal of what the staff say isn't acceptable and purposefully make this...... thing to make flaming, ranting, hating, all that stuff all the easier. Just for some extra traffic.

Didn't participate last year, not going to ever again. Once was PLENTY.

maybe's it's a way of making everybody vent their steam about the versus thread so we don't have to see them all year round?

 

[Dorian]

Maybe's it's a way of making everybody vent their steam about the versus thread so we don't have to see them all year round?

Does that make it an adequate reason to dangle a cut of meat in front of a starving dog?

 

[Steppin Razor]

I love March Mayhem. It's like a gift from the heavens that both keeps me entertained and reaffirms my belief that the so-called "intelligent" community here is filled with muppets.

Also, go team, go!

Spoiler

 

[Veloxe]

It helps to distract me from what other March stuff that goes on with the ball and the hoop and the college kids. I think it has to do with the gates of madness, not sure.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Somewhere between vaguely annoyed and completely outraged...mainly because I have a funny feeling Zynga will fuck up my bracket again.

 

[Crusnik]

I'm indifferent, because meh.

 

[DazZ.]

There should will be some form of event happening in Escapist TF2 land over March to take my mind off it. So... indifferent.

 

[Irridium]

I personally wish they'd stop. The threads for these things(especially the Zynga ones) are filled with so much hate and bile its ridiculous.

What would a newcommer think if he/she came here during March Mayhem? And read the threads(especially the Zynga ones)?

 

[Random Argument Man]

I hate it. Each time, we end up with a community flamewar. Each time Valve/Bioware/other Escapist favorite gets in danger by some other developpers, the sites becomes one of the worst commuties online.


Solution: Don't post until April.

 

[Eleima]

Wow! Didn't think there would be so many naysayers. Although the poll does seem to have a normal or Gaussian distribution, though.
While it is true that some threads were locked because they got completely out of hand, some (at least threads I posted in), stayed very civil and were just full of people saying "go team" instead of putting down other developers. We'll see how things turn out this year, but I can't help being an optimist and hope that people'll be more behaved this year. ^_^

There should will be some form of event happening in Escapist TF2 land over March to take my mind off it. So... indifferent.

Now that would be awesome. Sign me up ASAP! =D

 

[DazZ.]

There should will be some form of event happening in Escapist TF2 land over March to take my mind off it. So... indifferent.

Now that would be awesome. Sign me up ASAP! =D

Thought that would get your attention.
We'll let you know what's happening when we know what's happening!

 

[fix-the-spade]

 Dreading it?

This will be the fourth March Mayhem I've had to sit through. I'm dreading it.

If you've been around for a couple of years, you know exactly why, this year's going to be no different. Have fun kids!

#Edit, although I am wandering which ingenious method of spamming is going to come to the fore this year, 2009 it was launchers, 2010 it was Facebook, what for 2011? The mind boggles.

 

[SimuLord]

I find it's generally better to avoid this site entirely during March Mayhem. I understand that the company running this site makes money when new customers are attracted, and creating an event that draws fanboys and fangirls from all over the damn place certainly achieves that goal.

But in the meantime, trigger-happy moderators who tolerate not a single word of dissent + a whole bunch of people that lower the value of discourse for the community by being nothing more than fanboy transients with nothing to contribute + the relentless pimping of MM to the point where it gets in the way of the content I'm actually here for (hopefully as a PubClub member I won't have to be subjected to prestitials this year during ZP and Extra Credits---if so, I might just set this site to resolve to 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file and find someplace else to spend my time)...

I find it deeply unpleasant, annoying, and a blight on this site's landscape. And as if that weren't enough, tournament vs. polls were played out when GameFAQs did them. And they're played out here. It's not only annoying, it's just plain lame.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

It sure as hell livens up the site. Basically massive flamewars fuelled by ringers from other fansites. I love it. Who will win this year?

Though it means more avatars have to be made.