Post here if you've seen 500 or more unique items.

[Eric Morton]

I just saw my 500th unique item (and a large number of repeat items).

Of these 500 items, I placed 53 in my keep folder (though I may end up dropping a few of the weaker ones). Of these kept items, I think 18 are strong candidates for the Top 32. The rest are long shots, but a few might make the cut.

[Cheapy]

Alternative Title: "Post here if you had the foresight to start counting unique items."

I have ~27 items in my "Keep for later" pile. Of those, I think 20 have a good chance of hitting the top 32. The other ones are good ideas that have too many things going against them.

[cwslyclgh]

I have not kept track of how many unique items I have seen... as of right now I have logged roughly 40 voting hours. At an estimated 40 votes per hour, I have seen roughly 2000 item pairings. Even given how common it is to see repeat items, some many times, I would be surprised if I haven't seen at least 500 unique items.

My list of items that I really like is only at 11 (12 including my own)... which is not to say that those are the only Items that I think are solid items, but they are the only items I think are certainly top 32 material based upon previous years winners.

[Anthony Adam]

Also around the 500+ mark. Items on my list as potential Superstar stands at 18 - I think I may be the Simon Cowell of voting >.<

[Thomas LeBlanc]

I have been voting so long, I have started to zone out and lose hours of time doing so. Not sure how many items or pairs I have voted on. They are starting to blend together. I know I haven't seen a new item since lunchtime yesterday.

[Herremann the Wise]

I have a reject word doc and a keep word doc open. I currently have 392 items in the reject folder and 44 in my keep folder. I've been at about the 10% mark for the voting thus far with my criteria being fairly loose; looking to pare it down at the end of voting. I'm looking forward to posting my top 32 in order and seeing how it compares with everyone else.

Of interest (I'm voting from Sydney, Australia by the way) is that at night when I'd say the voting is at it's quietest worldwide, I regularly get to see new items. During the morning when voting worldwide is at it's heaviest, I'm seeing the same items repeatedly (and generally of lower standard too). I'm blaming the silly "neither" button which to me defeats the purpose of this contest. If someone's gone to the effort of submitting something, surely the least I can do in supporting their efforts is to vote higher or lower, even if it's to effectively judge their item number 2,000 out of 2,000 and the other one 1,999.

I think it would be really cool if they could suspend the "neither" button for a few days and see what happens. I might then get to see new items more regularly. I'm still yet to see my item - maybe a good sign, maybe not.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[Rogue Eidolon]

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

I have been voting so long, I have started to zone out and lose hours of time doing so. Not sure how many items or pairs I have voted on. They are starting to blend together. I know I haven't seen a new item since lunchtime yesterday.

I'm right there with you, though I see new items a bit more commonly. I've definitely seen at least 500, though I haven't been counting. A few of them were really awesome too!

[michael patrick]

I have been at it off and on since voting began. Must have seen 500 by now. I have only hit "neither" once or twice.

Less than five items have really impressed me with originality. Another twenty-thirty are workable.

I wonder if the handful of items I really liked will make it into the top 32? Maybe I just have bad taste.

[Sean McGowan]

I've been keeping a tally, and I should have gained admittance to this club sometime this afternoon.

Currently at 524 unique items (out of a total of 750 viewed so far).
Haven't hit the neither button once.
Much like Herremann, I have a 'reject' and 'keep' folder. Rejects currently at 421 items, keeps currently at 103. Out of those keeps, there are approximately 22 items I feel are sufficiently above the rest of be called Superstar potentials were I the sole judge and jury of wondrous item quality. I've been accused of being too generous on my selections. Tough, these are my (completely irrelevant to the actual sorting) categories, not yours. :-)

Some side stuff re: repeating items. Currently, the most I've seen any item has been five times, and only three items have shown up that frequently. I've seen five items four times each, and 28 items three times. 190 doubles.

[Orcus Of Undeath]

I've done over a 1000 pairings now, so I can safely say that I've hit the mark. And now I can say that I've seen some items so many times I can recite them from memory.

[Joseph Valoren]

Naturally I defer to the experience of people who have been in the Top 32 or better before, but what, really, is the functional purpose of cataloging every entry? Or even some?

It seems to me that ultimately, the only entrants worth watching are the ones who break the Top 32, and no amount of bookkeeping on your end is going to alter who that is.

I suppose all this collecting makes for a fun exercise if you have the time for it, but is there some strategic intent behind it that's eluding me?

[R D Ramsey]

Way over 500. Just started keep and reject folders today, though. So far all my keeps are "weak keep", running at about 10% of items seen. I notice I tend to like the oddball items that actually kinda work. And non-tactical items.

[Anthony Adam]

Joseph Valoren wrote:

I suppose all this collecting makes for a fun exercise if you have the time for it, but is there some strategic intent behind it that's eluding me?

For me personally, my list of keeps will be compared to the Top 32. This will allow me to gauge whether I recognize superstar or not and also help me improve my own designs by looking at what I thought was good and what actually was deemed good and made the top.

[gbonehead]

I've just been saving every pair I see; that way I can run statistics over the lot. For example, I've seen 610 items in 305 pairs. I've seen 456 unique items and 127 more than once (17 items 3 times and 5 items 4 times; none 5 or more times yet).

I haven't seen my own item yet and have not been keeping track of which ones I'd keep, but I'd say there's only been a handful that have made me go "holy crap, that better be in the top 32."

I'll point out they're usually very short.

Unfortunately, I feel like I'm doing a lot of picking between two items when I'm guessing neither has any chance. Ah well. Still seeing new items on a regular basis though, and I still have a gut feeling there's something like 1800-1900 items in the queue.

[Reckless]

I'm sure I have by now, but I only started cataloging yesterday. I'm trying to keep them in a ranking list for comparative voting, so I have 4 categories: strong keep, weak keep, weak reject, strong reject. Before I vote for an item, I insert its title into where I feel it falls on the list. After a while of accumulating items in the bottom of the weak keep bin, I cycle anything past 16 into the top of the weak reject bin. So far, I have 5 I've ranked strong keep.

[Cheapy]

Joseph Valoren wrote:

Naturally I defer to the experience of people who have been in the Top 32 or better before, but what, really, is the functional purpose of cataloging every entry? Or even some?

I don't catalog every item I see, although I do have a google doc full of items I find interesting and that I'd like to use at some point for homegames. I haven't made a formal distinction in it between Superstar and non-superstar items, but I might end up doing that at a later date.

To me, just because an item isn't superstar doesn't mean that it's not good. As an example, there's one item in my list that is badly formatted and offers a very powerful no-save effect, and there's a big mismatch between the CL of the item and the numerical effect it has, and in addition the effect scales strongly with the character's level, making pricing a bit wonky. The formatting seems to be free-form. To top it off, it's a non-standard action SIAC.

But damn if it is not a cool idea. The implementation of it leaves a lot to be desired to me, but it's an idea that is worthy of refinement at a later date.

So I put it in my document of Cool Items.

If this is too specific about the item, I'll edit more details out.

[Oterisk]

I think I am also in this club. I've seen one item in particular over a dozen times, and I only see new items every 5-6th pairing now. I've seen a buddy's item three times now.

Still haven't found my item...

Of course, I'm getting to the point that voting has taken precedence over preparing for the next round. I should probably do something about that. Maybe next week.

[bugleyman]

Cheapy wrote:

Alternative Title: "Post here if you had the foresight to start counting unique items."

This. :)

[Sean McGowan]

Joseph Valoren wrote:

Naturally I defer to the experience of people who have been in the Top 32 or better before, but what, really, is the functional purpose of cataloging every entry? Or even some?

Oh, that's just me being an obsessive geek, no real meaning behind it. I do like being able to cite statistics with actual confidence, I'll admit, and I have a reasonable amount of spare time at the moment, so it's no major problem for me to take a little extra time per pairing to do this.

Speaking as a longtime fanboy of the contest, I think this is mostly a way for me to keep feeling involved more. First year I just sat and watched, second year I still sat & watched, but commented on entries as well. Third and fourth years I got to compete (and did better second time around than first.) Last year I got to be a guest judge. (which basically just translates to getting to view and comment on the top 32 slightly earlier than everyone else, but was still fun.) So, my personal relationship with RPGSS is that every year I get to do a little more.

So this year I was ready to take a step back to just watching & commenting. But then THIS happened. We get to be almost like real judges and see EVERY ITEM. That was something I'd have LOVED to be able to spend the past five years doing. Every year I always make a point to read every entry in the critique, almost-ran, and even gag item threads, not just to hone whatever critical or writing skills I have, but also for entertainment. I just love seeing the output of creativity by the community. Even less than stellar items are always fun to read; even if a good idea is poorly executed, there's a LOT of good ideas to see. (Which, come to think of it, might explain why my 'keep' folder is so bloody large compared to others.) So really, doing this is just a way of maximizing my own feeling of involvement before contestant phase of the contest begins.

So yeah, I probably am overdoing my voting by keeping running tabs on what I've seen. I do hope that doing so will prove useful to some extent when the critique threads open after the top 32 are revealed; I feel like having an opinion already in place on various items makes me more likely to give feedback if requested than seeing a massive wall of items posted in a frenzy the day the thread opens. And like others, i also want to have my own 'personal top 32' list, both out of curiosity to see where my opinions fall in line with the masses and a desire to give some kind of praise to any entries that I really like that fail to make the actual top 32.

And hey, if nothing else, having every entry on hand will be useful when someone inevitably posts 'I'd like feedback on my item, but I didn't save the file. Can someone post it for me?' Because I'll probably be happy to do that. While chewing them for being so ridiculous as to not save their own work, of course.

[Rich Malena]

I love the data in this thread! If only I'd thought to create a statistical summary of my own voting history. Next year, I will not miss out on this opportunity!

That being said, I'm at the point where my totally-supportive-but-otherwise-nonvoting girlfriend has recognized items from earlier in the contest, so I feel confident that I'm passed 500 entries now.

[gbonehead]

Don't be so sure :)

I encountered my first repeat with the 22nd pair; I just now passed 500 unique items, and before that I'd seen some items as many as six times.

[Jon Haire]

I'm sure I have seen over 500 items. I've also seen some items more than 20 times. I seem to get more unique items early in the morning or really late at night. It may be that more people are voting during the day and many of those people may be hitting the neither/both button. Don't worry, I'm still ranking every pairing.

If I kept statistics, I would probably have to stop voting. After you have seen the same bad items enough times it stops becoming fun. It is fun seeing ANY new items, even if they are bad.

[Rich Malena]

gbonehead wrote:

Don't be so sure :)

Oh no, I meant that I have seen so many repeats while she is doing totally different things across the room, that her just glancing at my screen at random has let her see and recall a repeat. It could have just been a thematic repeat, but I can't say for sure. On that note, I wish I could see someone's theme tracking stats!

I've seen so many repeats I often groan out loud. Like when Oregon needs a field goal for a win and sends in the same kicker who missed the last five field goals. It might work out, but I'm not buying any Rose Bowl tickets just yet.

[Jon Haire]

Just noted the new voter tag. Only applies to your main account and not to any alias.

[Jacob Trier]

No idea how many unique items I've seen, but according to my new tag, I'm over 500 votes in - lots and lots of repeats, though.

My personal keep folder holds 19 items + my own.

[Kenton Abel]

Jacob Trier wrote:

No idea how many unique items I've seen, but according to my new tag, I'm over 500 votes in - lots and lots of repeats, though.

My personal keep folder holds 19 items + my own.

After voting closes, I'd love to send you a message to see if my item is in those 19 in the keep folder. Do you know if it will be possible to list the names of the items you think are best, or does that need to wait until after the top 32 are announced?

[Magical_Beast]

No specific item names should be discussed until the Top 32 are announced.

[Celeador]

I'm pretty sure that I have seen more thank a 1000 entry's but let's see if how the tag shakes out!

[Feros]

Guess I am in the 500+ group, but seeing items that are a lot a like makes the whole thing something of a blur...

[gbonehead]

Looks like I'm going to have to restart my statistics :)

[Woodengolem]

I've seen at least that many. Not been that good about keeping track though.

[Garrett Guillotte]

I haven't kept track of unique items, but if I haven't hit 500 yet, I will by the end of the weekend. I'm about 270 votes in, so I've seen about 450-500 items. I haven't been tracking repeat item presentations. My own item just showed up around vote 269.

I have three lists of items:

items I like, voted for, and would use with little or no modification (75, ~15% of items seen)

items with a decent concept but faulty execution that I hope to see in the critique threads (58)

items I almost always vote against, regardless of problems with the opposition, because they break the game (31)

I've voted:

71 times for an item I didn't like but liked more than the opposition

"neither" 68 times (3 times because both items were equally good)

41 times for an item I'd previously voted against because it was paired with a worse item

for 5 items a second time

for 2 items a third time

Longest streak without saving an item I liked: 27 votes (12 votes for better but still not good items, 12 "neither" votes with 2 of them repeat pairings, 3 votes for bad items against terrible items)

Longest streak of consecutive identical pairings: 3

Before the bottom 25% were culled, "neither" votes made up about 30% of my voting. After the culling, "neither" made up about 5% of my votes after compensating for consecutive identical pairings. The culling has made me much more polarized as well--the size of my always-vote-against list has doubled since the cull, with most of the new entries being GM nightmares (encounter-ending effects with no saves, videogame HUDs, camping items, respawn points).

[Eric Morton]

I just surpassed 600 unique items at about the same time I hit 500 votes.

I'm up to 57 kept items after a few cuts, but I think only 18 of those are strong contenders for the Top 32.

[cwslyclgh]

wow, based upon my experience I find it hard to believe that you are seeing new items 60% of the time... after the first couple of hours of voting I was lucky to see new items 20-25% of the time.

Maybe it has to do with the times of day you are voting :::shrug:::

[Kiel Howell]

I am sure I am somewhere in the 750+ voting range and probably juuuuust at 500 unique items.

[Eric Morton]

Just saw my 700th unique item, and new items are getting scarce.

I'm up to 70 kept items, of which I feel 18 are strong contenders for the Top 32.

[Sean McGowan]

Just hit Dedicated, so thought I'd update.

500 pairs of items viewed.
614 unique items out of those 1000.
501 in the reject folder, 113 in the keep.
Out of the keeps, 26 superstar potentials.

At this point, I'm pretty sure there will be long layovers between new items and even longer layovers between AMAZING new items. I figure I'll probably keep recording my results for a while; at least till I hit 900 uniques, give or take. After that point I'll just give in and start voting without taking any further notes.
Because I am shallow and want to earn Champion Voter by the end of this and I'll never get there at this rate. :-)

[CHEERS]

Yes today is the first day I have not seen a "New" item to my knowledge, but I am not keeping detailed records.

I still believe I will see "New" items from time to time in the upcoming days.

IMO over a 1,000 items and probably in the 1,500 +/- 200 range originally of items slightly distorted from seeing the same items dozens of times. IMO now 900 - 1,200 range of items after the cull.

Partly based on only seeing some items which have caught my interest once every 2 - 4 days since the cull and not seeing some items that I thought would have survived the first cull despite minor formatting problems due to creativity concept I was voting up.

[Jeff Lee]

No idea how many individual items I've seen, but I'm concerned with quality over quantity. Repeats at this point are the norm. I rarely see an item I haven't viewed before. Sometimes I think so, but once I've read it I realize I had seen it once and simply forgotten.

[Herremann the Wise]

I'm now at 594 items in my reject file and 80 in my keep file with this including all items seen pre and post cull. I'm currently getting an unseen item roughly once every 10 to 15 pairs and I've seen my own item twice up to this point.

By the way, cheers to CHEERS; you're the first I've seen with the "Champion Voter" tag. Darn impressive!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[Eric Morton]

In my first 1000 votes, I saw roughly 780 unique items.

I saw 600 of those items in my first 500 votes and 180 in my second.

At just shy of 800 items, I'm still "keeping" roughly 10% of the items I've seen.

---

Also, good job on the Champion Voter tag, CHEERS.

[Mikko Kallio]

Judges o' judges, would it be ok to make a document on Google Drive that contains "my top 32" and put a link to it in my Paizo account's profile page? No comments on the items whatsoever, just a list of the best 32 items I've seen so far in alphabetical order.

As far as I understand, that wouldn't break the letter or intent of the "no discussion about individual items on Paizo forums" rule. We are allowed to express our opinions about the items in other places than the Paizo forums, right?

And before a fellow contestant steps up and points out that it's better to err on the side of caution and not do that, I'll point out that I am erring on the side of caution because I'm asking the judges first. :P

[Neil Spicer]

Mikko Kallio wrote:

Judges o' judges, would it be ok to make a document on Google Drive that contains "my top 32" and put a link to it in my Paizo account's profile page? No comments on the items whatsoever, just a list of the best 32 items I've seen so far in alphabetical order.

As far as I understand, that wouldn't break the letter or intent of the "no discussion about individual items on Paizo forums" rule. We are allowed to express our opinions about the items in other places than the Paizo forums, right?

I'm not a judge this year, but I'll offer my opinion on it. Let's say for argument's sake that you did something like this...and surprise, surprise, you selected your own item for inclusion in the Top 32. Then, by posting such a list and calling attention to it while the public voting is taking place during Round 1, wouldn't that fall in line with trying to persuade others to vote favorably for your item...or at least to get more people to consider it for Top 32 and/or the Top 64 or more so it would be put in front of the judges?

To me, I don't see the need for doing as you've stated. What does the community gain by you posting your own personal Top 32 and then sharing it with everyone? Not that much. What do you gain by posting your own personal Top 32? More attention to your own item (and the items you personally favor) with the chance to sway voters. I'm not saying this is your intention, Mikko. I'm just saying it could have that effect. So, personally, I wouldn't be in favor of seeing people do that until after the voting closes.

But that's just my two cents,
--Neil

[Andrew Marlowe]

Neil Spicer wrote:

I'm not a judge this year, but I'll offer my opinion on it. Let's say for argument's sake that you did something like this...and surprise, surprise, you selected your own item for inclusion in the Top 32. Then, by posting such a list and calling attention to it while the public voting is taking place during Round 1, wouldn't that fall in line with trying to persuade others to vote favorably for your item...or at least to get more people to consider it for Top 32 and/or the Top 64 or more so it would be put in front of the judges?

To me, I don't see the need for doing as you've stated. What does the community gain by you posting your own personal Top 32 and then sharing it with everyone? Not that much. What do you gain by posting your own personal Top 32? More attention to your own item (and the items you personally favor) with the chance to sway voters. I'm not saying this is your intention, Mikko. I'm just saying it could have that effect. So, personally, I wouldn't be in favor of seeing people do that until after the voting closes.

But that's just my two cents,
--Neil

As a participant I have to agree with Neil. While I'd like to see top item lists to get an idea for next year what voters thought were good entries--That is an exercise I'd prefer to see happen after voting closes.

[Mikko Kallio]

Thanks for the reply, Neil. You make good points and that's enough for me to not put my top 32 in my profile unless someone specifically allows it.

Anyway, I didn't mention it, but I didn't intend to include my own item. Not only for the reason you mentioned above, but also because it might compromise the anonymity of my item. Out of a sample as small as 32, it might be easy to guess which one is mine based on my writing style.

As for what the community would gain from it, I noticed someone wanted to know if they made Jacob Trier's "top 19", so I guess at least some people are curious about how other people would rank their item and other people's items. (I know I am.) I'm not saying that my opinion matters more than anyone else's, but I was kind of hoping that others would follow suit, and that would be the benefit for the voting community: getting an idea of how your item is doing as far as public opinion goes. But you're right, it might affect how people vote.

On the other hand, exit polls have been very popular with voters and they haven't been banned even though they most certainly affect how some people vote. I also recall that there was a "top 5" thread after the top 32 was announced last year, which kind of ranked the finalists in the order of popularity. Not the same thing, I know, just pointing out it's not completely unprecedented.

[gbonehead]

At this point, after the narrowing of the field, I've voted 626 times and seen 408 different items (I've seen far more, actually, but I'm only counting since the lowest 25% were dropped).

Alas, I have not seen my item; by my current estimate there's about 676 items in the voting pool; the curve in my graph seems to match that estimate pretty well.

[cwslyclgh]

Eric Morton wrote:

In my first 1000 votes, I saw roughly 780 unique items.

gbonehead wrote:

by my current estimate there's about 676 items in the voting pool

hmmm... these two statistics do not seem to jive all that well.

[Jon Haire]

cwslyclgh wrote:

Eric Morton wrote:

In my first 1000 votes, I saw roughly 780 unique items.

gbonehead wrote:

by my current estimate there's about 676 items in the voting pool

hmmm... these two statistics do not seem to jive all that well.

It does if he voted 1000 times before the cull.

[cwslyclgh]

Eric said that he hit 600 votes the day after the cull.

[gbonehead]

Right. My estimate of the number before the reduction would be 901 based on that estimate of 676 afterwards.

Note that my estimate is a huge generalization; the math to do it totally correctly is quite a bit more extensive. But this graph seems to line up with my voting curve and the current estimate of the number of items:

Voting Curve for 333 Votes