MISAO = FIN

Posts

Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Scourge
author=kentona
author=Sooz
Y'all all talkin about this award like it was ever anything more than a reskinned popularity contest.

If you want accurate awards, set up something juried.
that didn't go over well at all when I did just that back in 2008. people complained bitterly.

in my experience, anything other than the light and airy popular vote contest we have now (Misaos) is fraught with difficulty, animosity, hurt feelings, disdain, hubris, scorn, condescension, anger, and superciliousness, among other things. People get really uptight when it comes to any sort of official recognition and ranking.
I wasn't around in 2008, so maybe this suggestion is off base, but what about a combination of the two systems?

Games could be nominated in different categories by popular vote and then a jury selects winners from among those nominations. It ensures that users still have a voice, but keeps something ridiculous, like Umbral Soul winning best fangame, from happening.


TBH I think any change in the system is going to result in upset.

Of course, no change will also result in upset, because people get really emotional about any semblance of official validation.

Probably there's nothing much to be done about it. vOv
Funny story, attention actually makes me nervous, hence why this handy paper bag is always at my side. Umbral Soul has more support than I ever thought it'd get, so it'd be great if other games were to get the spotlight. I assume if a game wins in a category it isn't eligible for, the Misao goes to the runner up, right?
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
TBH I think it'd be p. funny if we just kept Umbral Soul for Best Fangame. Just admit that the Misaos mean nothing. :V

Edit: That sounds a lot meaner than I intend it to be. I find the pointlessness of the awards to be really fun, and enjoy our traditional voting for homecoming court. IMO, it's the nominations that are important, not the awards. :3
How about Nominations of Site Members > Jury goes through and adds Jury's Pick, removes weird nominations > Showcase of games by dedicated site members > Vote

OR

Jury does something like this thread where a list of games is compiled over the course of the year, and those are the ones that can get recommended for nomination - anyone can recommend a game to get into the nomination round, but there'd be an actual visual and interactive component so that people would be recommended to play these games in particular (and if someoen plays something good, they can plonk their rec down for it). Then at the start of December (maybe January of the new year?) we could have a review/nominate event where you play the games on the recommendation list and nominate among them. After that, Jury checks that there's no weirdness and maybe add a game or two of their own choosing. Then vote.


The main issue is that the people nominating haven't played many games as some of us. So some people will have played a decent amount and vote for certain games but then a lot of people would have played one or two well-known/seen games and only nominate that one particular game. THEN, since it takes two nominations to get into the voting round for a particular category, some games miss out since the people who nominated lesser known games might have a more even spread and no-one else would have voted for that game in that category. Thus you end up with only those games that were particularly popular in all the categories and none of the other games, which did get A nomination but not enough to get into the voting round.
This is so much more complicated than it looks, but I like Liberty's second idea. And it's not a fangame dag-nabit!
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=WheelmanZero
And it's not a fangame dag-nabit!


IT IS NOW! >:D
Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
When does the voting period end anyways?
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

I think it's easier to simply remove games from voting prior to voting starting if they shouldn't qualify for that category.

Just on an initial look I would have removed Ubral Soul from best RTP / Sleeper Hit (I would have to asked the developer whether it was a fan game or not because I'm unsure.) And I think Pocket Mirror was nominated last year, so I would likely remove that as well.

Or you could have a thread like this all year. People post their nominations. Just like before, 2 nominations in a category moves you forward. This also means that people will know when a game has enough nominations and they may nominate something else. People also might not have to be limited to nominating just 1 game for every category. I could volunteer to run that thread if no one else wants to do it. But the thread actually has to be backed up by the RMN staff and the community.

Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I'm cautiously in favor of a year-round nom thread; if people openly post games, that makes it more likely that others will check those games out, so it's some nice cross-promo.

My one worry would be that it'd probably require some heavy moderation to filter out noms that don't apply (wrong year, bad category, etc.) and chancers promoting their own games.

The success or failure of such a thread would rely heavily on community participation.
Could also limit the number of categories a game can be nominated for, if 1 nomination per game is too many or we're still averse to trimming the number of misaos.
Reduce the number of categories.
Have games only be able to compete in the top three categories they were nominated for during the voting phase.
Maybe also hide the number of nominations each game got and randomize their order on the list, so people don't just assume the games that got the most nominations are the best ones to vote for.

Honestly I think the problem is we're just spreading the Misaos too thin for the amount of activity the site gets. Consolidating them could help make the voting more meaningful.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
Yeah, I think that no viable nominee shows that some categories doesn't work. I think that removing or adding games or trying to limit people where can they vote their favourite game is bad and against rules of popularity contest. On the other hand removing unpopular categories is a logical step and i think its easier to implement in rmn's code.

I already wrote two comments, which say the same, but I have a need to share my opinion again to show that i fully agree with Mettool.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Yeah, there's certainly room for consolidation or just clearing out dead wood. Looking over the list now:

"Trippiest" and "Shyamalan" are both highly subjective and not necessarily going to have any valid entrants in any particular year.

"Lawsuit waiting to happen" just seems like a weird category that's not critically-based like the others.

Storytelling, Protag/Antag, and Intro/Finale are all similar enough that they could be folded into one another. I'd personally drop "storytelling" and "finale" entirely; the former feels sort of redundant, the latter is just a practical concern, in that around voting time, there's going to be the problem of voters never getting to the ending in the first place.

"Balanced gameplay" and "Best battles" are basically the same thing in this community for the most part.

We've covered the problems with "Sleeper Hit."

So that's my proposal for slimming the Misaos down.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

@Sooz, the person running the thread would be the person to moderate that. ie. check if the game qualifies for that year or category. (Sometimes its quite easy to tell if a game shouldn't be on a list.) I think overall a thread prevents people from just clicking every category when they play a game that is awesome. You can't walk into a thread and say I nominate this game for everything. That would be nonsense.

I could go with a 50% cut to the categories. Perhaps we should have some way of deciding what the categories are now, so that at the end of this year everything is set in order.

ie. Aren't fan games lawsuits waiting to happen anyways? (Yeah, I sense some unnecessary stuff here.)

y'all might be taking the Misaos too seriously. It is meant to be fun, kinda silly, but still a nice way to get some recognition. Even being nominated for a Misao is kinda motivating! Having a lot of categories helps with that.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=kentona
y'all might be taking the Misaos too seriously. It is meant to be fun, kinda silly, but still a nice way to get some recognition. Even being nominated for a Misao is kinda motivating! Having a lot of categories helps with that.


I mean the nominations are good, but given that this conversation happens p. much every year, and the Misaos historically tend to be "vote for the game you've played/heard of and ignore the rest," I don't feel like it's doing great in terms of getting recognition.

At the very least, keeping the nomination process on people's minds throughout the year could avoid the Oscars effect where only REALLY popular stuff and stuff that comes out later in the year gets considered.

Basically I'd just like to see the Misaos used to get a greater variety of games some attention. Whether or not they end up winning is less relevant, since at the end of the day, a non-juried award is just going to be a popularity contest.
Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
I don't see why the MISAOs need to be reworked. It's not the system's fault.

The lack of nominations for other games and resulting flawed winners of certain categories is just a symptom of the actual greater problem: that other than a handful of games, most other games have a hard time getting any meaningful attention at all.

Even if there happened to be all the right nominations in each category, what's the point if people never played the other nominees? They're still not going to vote for those ones, unless maybe they're doing it out of spite for the ones they don't want to win.
In other words, more review/play events are needed.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Dyluck
I don't see why the MISAOs need to be reworked. It's not the system's fault.

The lack of nominations for other games and resulting flawed winners of certain categories is just a symptom of the actual greater problem: that other than a handful of games, most other games have a hard time getting any meaningful attention at all.

Even if there happened to be all the right nominations in each category, what's the point if people never played the other nominees? They're still not going to vote for those ones, unless maybe they're doing it out of spite for the ones they don't want to win.


Well, in the case of a dedicated, all-year nomination thread, part of the idea would be for people to go, "Oh, look, Butt Quest 5 was nominated for Good Gameplay, perhaps I should check that out," and then they would have time to maybe play these games before voting.

As opposed to right now, where the noms and voting happen in a rush, during a time that is well-known for being super busy for people.

author=Liberty
In other words, more review/play events are needed.


I do not dispute this at all, for the record.
Tau
RMN sex symbol
3293
I voted MOM get off my back... I'll clean my room later!!!