There were so many awesome entries this round I found I needed to create a spreadsheet and rank all 32 of them from 1-10 to decide who to give my precious votes.
I can't imagine I'm the only one who ranked the entries something like this. Is there interest in starting a thread of these personal ranking lists? I would be particularly interested in hearing from the contestants themselves whose egos are on the line as it were.
Honestly, I wouldn't be interested in seeing that. There's already an 'exit poll' thread.
Personally, I definitely have a couple monsters I would have love to given my vote if there was more than 4 vote slots. I've just been trying to post the reasons why I like the ones I do (and perhaps countering arguments against them), which potentially might contribute towards somebody else "bumping up" that monster on their own personal ranking list, making the difference between that creature being a #5 on their list or a #4.
The whole 'exit poll' thread does bring up the possibility of people voting 'strategically' if one of their 'top 4' choices is already doing great and not looking like it needs their vote, and voting for their #5 or #6 instead. Essentially, giving you an extra vote by making the most of your votes.
The whole 'exit poll' thread does bring up the possibility of people voting 'strategically' if one of their 'top 4' choices is already doing great and not looking like it needs their vote, and voting for their #5 or #6 instead. Essentially, giving you an extra vote by making the most of your votes.
That thought had crossed my mind, yep. A couple of my own favorites are solidly at the top, so I might try to give a boost to some stragglers. Of course, it's important that not too many people do this... :)
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The whole 'exit poll' thread does bring up the possibility of people voting 'strategically' if one of their 'top 4' choices is already doing great and not looking like it needs their vote, and voting for their #5 or #6 instead. Essentially, giving you an extra vote by making the most of your votes.That thought had crossed my mind, yep. A couple of my own favorites are solidly at the top, so I might try to give a boost to some stragglers. Of course, it's important that not too many people do this... :)
Which is why if you do that you should make sure to contribute to the exit thread yourself :).
Though of course with changeable votes, if people take this too far and change their votes in response to the exit polls after already posting, it could result in tallies that are either very inaccurate or very confusing to do with people constantly redacting their votes :).
The whole 'exit poll' thread does bring up the possibility of people voting 'strategically' if one of their 'top 4' choices is already doing great and not looking like it needs their vote, and voting for their #5 or #6 instead. Essentially, giving you an extra vote by making the most of your votes.
That's a valid voting strategy. I did it for the first couple of rounds last year- picked one entry I 100%, no matter how many definite votes it already had, wanted to see go on to the next round; then the rest of my votes I filled up with entries that, while maybe not in my personal top four, I liked and looked like they could use some shoring up. Worked for me in round 2, in the sense that all four picks moved on, but then took a complete reverse in round 3 when most if not all of my picks failed to advance.
Chief Technical Officer
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The whole 'exit poll' thread does bring up the possibility of people voting 'strategically' if one of their 'top 4' choices is already doing great and not looking like it needs their vote, and voting for their #5 or #6 instead. Essentially, giving you an extra vote by making the most of your votes.That's a valid voting strategy. I did it for the first couple of rounds last year- picked one entry I 100%, no matter how many definite votes it already had, wanted to see go on to the next round; then the rest of my votes I filled up with entries that, while maybe not in my personal top four, I liked and looked like they could use some shoring up. Worked for me in round 2, in the sense that all four picks moved on, but then took a complete reverse in round 3 when most if not all of my picks failed to advance.
It's that kind of "strategy" that lets Taylor Hicks win American Idol while Chris Daughtry is eliminated in the number 4 position. (Hicks has the lowest-selling album from an American Idol winner, and was dropped by his record label after the first album, while Daughtry's first album became the fastest-selling debut CD in rock history.)
I know we're all gamers, but if you all try to game the voting, you will not be pleased by the results. Vote for the people you want to advance.
Sure Vic, I was never suggesting people vote for entries they don't want to advance. That would be absurd.
I was just coming from the perspective of I had 6 entries or so I would like to ALL advance. Since it doesn't matter whether you're #1 or #16 at this stage, switching my vote from an entry that's ranked #1 and far ahead of most of the pack, to my '#5' choice that I have a hard time distinguishing from my 'top 4' choices, would help MORE of my choices advance.
I have of course updated my vote in the "exit poll" thread so this doesn't disrupt things "by stealth". Having some sort of instant run-off mechanism would be ideal, but in the absence, it seems a reasonable appproach, at least at this stage where the top 1-16 advance... not so much at later stages.
BTW, How is it resolved if two contestants are tied for 16th place?
Randomly resolved? Judges' choice? Both go into the next round anyways, making a larger-than-expected pool?
BTW, How is it resolved if two contestants are tied for 16th place? Randomly resolved? Judges' choice? Both go into the next round anyways, making a larger-than-expected pool?
That happened last year. And they advanced them both. So we really had a Top 17 instead.
I know we're all gamers, but if you all try to game the voting, you will not be pleased by the results. Vote for the people you want to advance.
True, but I have faith in Paizo recognizing good talent. If there is someone talented that makes it into the top 4, I'm sure they'll be put to good use.
I wasn't here for the first year but I'm certainly more familiar with Boomer's work than the winner from 2008.
Of course, one year later I can say Neil is a definite superstar.
Being able to vote for more than one does lend itself to some strategic voting but I think everyone still puts at least one vote toward their absolute favorite. It all works out in the end.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I know we're all gamers, but if you all try to game the voting, you will not be pleased by the results. Vote for the people you want to advance.True, but I have faith in Paizo recognizing good talent. If there is someone talented that makes it into the top 4, I'm sure they'll be put to good use.
I wasn't here for the first year but I'm certainly more familiar with Boomer's work than the winner from 2008.
Of course, one year later I can say Neil is a definite superstar.
Being able to vote for more than one does lend itself to some strategic voting but I think everyone still puts at least one vote toward their absolute favorite. It all works out in the end.
Christine worked on the Campaign Setting book, her winning adventure (of course), and on the Cheliax PF Chronicles book. I believe she is still a full-time student, which may account for her not churning out as much product as the other Superstar 2008 Top 4 peeps.
I have to say, I'm surprised that we don't have 8 votes this round, and 4 next round. The number of contestants shrinks by powers of two, so if we're allowed multiple votes at all, shouldn't they match?
Put another way: it seems very odd that in these early, less definitive rounds we have to be far more specific in our selections!
Round 2: 32 contestants, 4 votes. We get to vote for 12.5% of the contestants.
Round 3: 16 contestants, 3 votes. We get to vote for 18.75%.
Round 4: 8 contestants, 2 votes. We vote for 25%.
Round 5: 4 contestants, 1 vote. 25%.
If the number of votes went 8-4-2-1, we'd each be pulling for 25% of the field each round and you wouldn't see such a huge disparity between the pack leaders and the Maybe Zone.
That's kind of my thinking. And I think that "stragetic voting" offsets this somewhat, though it will become a worse and worse idea (or, to put it another way, will mess up the results worse and worse if done anyway) as the number of votes we can cast approaches the number of contestants who will advance.
Edit: I rereading I realize how arrogant this sounds, since I'm sure the people who came up with the system have given it a lot more thought than I have. Maybe they were taking vote-gaming into account? It could also be said that 8 votes is a bit of a handful no matter how many choices you have, and that limiting it to 4 makes people more inclined to give more thought to each vote.