Poll: March Mayhem and you

[Eleima]

Though it means more avatars have to be made.

I forgot that!! Hopefully, we'll get our avatars redone, and we'll get the opportunity to win more badges (for all you other badgaholics). Which brings me to the perfect bracket question. Who do you guys think will win this year? All bets are open!

 

[Steppin Razor]

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

Is that really any different to how the site normally is?

 

[DC_Josh]

I never really get involved with it, to be honest i'm not even sure what it is and why I should get involved? Are there prizes?

If they made it a much less forums based competition i'd probably be much more excited.

 

[Eleima]

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

Is that really any different to how the site normally is?

Well, in SimuLord's defense, it's true that some seems more active around March than during the rest of the year, but it's true that you can always find some year round. I just ignore them, most of the time. Don't feed the trolls, and all that jazz.

I never really get involved with it, to be honest I'm not even sure what it is and why I should get involved? Are there prizes?
If they made it a much less forums based competition I'd probably be much more excited.

March Mayhem: Developer's Showdown is an event which was inspired from the Men's College Basketball frenzy dubbed March Madness. Basically (and feel free to call me out if I get this wrong, I'm not exactly an expert in this), there are quite a few teams that play against each other in a tournament until there's only one team left standing, and a lot of people will hedge bets on which basketball team will win. Same thing, except with game developers and Escapists are the ones who vote and determine the winner. I found the FAQ for last year's right here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/mayhemfaq].
Not sure I remember any prizes though... =/ Bragging rights for the developer who wins? ^_^

 

[Lordmarkus]

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!

Damn it, now I'm hyped too.

OT: Well after the total fuck up that was last years MM I will probably shrug at until the semifinals.

Besides, what games have Turbine made? Never heard of them until now.

 

[DustyDrB]

Ooh, a pretty bell curve in the poll results. I like bell curves for some reason.

I'm indifferent.

 

[Eleima]

Besides, what games have Turbine made? Never heard of them until now.

Turbine [http://www.turbine.com/] made Asheron's Call, a couple Lord of the Rings Online games and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Complete list here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine,_Inc.], on Wikipedia.
Yeah... Hadn't really heard of them either... =/

Ooh, a pretty bell curve in the poll results. I like bell curves for some reason.
I'm indifferent.

Well bell curves are always nice and neat and easy to exploit, statistics-wise. ^_^ Pretty happy to see a Gaussian distribution myself. XD

 

[Lordmarkus]

Besides, what games have Turbine made? Never heard of them until now.

Turbine [http://www.turbine.com/] made Asheron's Call, a couple Lord of the Rings Online games and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Complete list here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine,_Inc.], on Wikipedia.
Yeah... Hadn't really heard of them either... =/

And they beat Valve, Bethesda, BioWare and Rockstar? More folks from /b/ or before the Escapist became the sacred home of Valve and Bioware fanboys?

 

[Armored Prayer]

I'm neutral with all of this.

Sure its all good fun and its nice that the Escapist is expanding with new members, but the amount of fanboyisim, hate, and the website slowing down to a crawl make it impossible for me to even stay here.

Besides I'm not fond of popularity contests. Only good thing to come out of this is my post count dramatically rising up.

 

[AgentBJ09]

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 will admit, the idea is interesting, but there have to be things in place to stop issues on the site because of this. From what I understand, Zynga, whom I did not vote for, caused the most trouble on these forums last year. Blind voting, flame wars, ect. ect.

Chances are, a number of people will start flame wars over who should win. It's typical on forums, and I've grown to expect it. However, that being said, this is the time to use the Report button if you see someone actively starting to encouraging a flame war. That's it.

That aside, my hope is that Zynga does not win this year. I distrust their business practices and their corporate culture, so I do not wish them to win this year. It has nothing to do with games, I will admit, but culture and practices of business should also be looked at when voting on these 64 developers, not just games alone.

 

[GeorgW]

Seeing as this is my first, I'm very excited! But having heard a lot of stories, I'm a bit woorried as well. But they say they've fixed the problems, so I'm excited.

 

[Eleima]

I will admit, the idea is interesting, but there have to be things in place to stop issues on the site because of this. From what I understand, Zynga, whom I did not vote for, caused the most trouble on these forums last year. Blind voting, flame wars, ect. ect.

I did pretty bad last year, bad enough that some threads had to be shut down IIRC. A good solution is to report offensive posts, as you pointed out. Still, it can be fun if you steer clear of the trolls.
And as for Zynga winning, there's not much you can do besides voting against them. If the rules are the same as last year, Twitter'ing will give you an extra vote.

 

[Sacman]

I'm kind of excited it's usually interesting... though it tends to draw a lot of, for lack of a better word, complete assholes to the site... I mean more than usual...<.<

 

[Mr. Omega]

This is my first MM. Although I'm afraid I'll be crucified by the Church of Freeman (Valve fanboys) because I had the GALL to prefer Double Fine (Actually, considering this site's love for DF, I just might survive...).

 

[Dark Knifer]

It's good fun, even if it does draw in way more jerks and trolls then is usually on the escapists...

 

[The Rockerfly]

Yeaaaah I can't wait, I love the crazyness of it all with people going ape shit over it. The chance to win is good and since I don't care for sport this is the most competitive thing I like

Also go team Valve

 

[ShockValue]

I am indifferent towards it. I'll vote but avoid the threads like the plague.

 

[darth.pixie]

Dissapointed Larian isn't among the nominated. Otherwise, this is the first time I paid attention to it (as a lurker who's known the site but not the forums) so I have no idea how it usually goes. Considering the amount of dread older, regular users have of it, I expect flame wars, so I probably won't be posting much.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

I'm already seeing trolls, and that makes me sad. All the boards and people seem nice from what I've seen. I'm probably just going to ignore everyone under 200 posts or something like that

 

[ManiacEskimo]

Slightly annoyed, I guess we can expect more of those ads that force the videos to pop out and center on the page. I couldn't care less about March Mayhem, it is a joke of a "contest".

Although, I suppose it might be interesting to see what Zynga offers its players if they click a banner taking them to the poll to vote for zynga. Can they beat 100,000 votes this time?