RPGWatch - Shortlisting the GOTY

I don’t think the list should have a specific length, but having people vote from a list of over 100 games is just plain silly. It also doesn’t work. We ask voters to cast three votes, for first, second and third place. Statistics show that there is a decline in the number of votes the further one gets in the voting system, so there are less votes for third place compared to the number of votes for first place. The length of the list appears to be one source of influence on this. In addition, in our previous GOTYs we see that already around number seven or eight the numbers get quite low.
A list of 10 is too short in my opinion, but what a good number would be, I don’t really know. At the very least it should be a list where the games on that list are actual single player RPGs, or have an actual single player mode and have some chance to attract more than one or two votes.

Can we not use a simple GUI like this?

(It doesn't matter then how many games are in each listbox - we could even vote for a top 10 with more listboxes.)

HiddenX said:

Can we not use a simple GUI like this?

(It doesn't matter then how many games are in each listbox - we could even vote for a top 10 with more listboxes.)

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Looks good in principle. You'd have to make sure that the listbox will not simply clip into the border of the screen if it gets too long, thus hiding some entries.

I would like Vampyr & Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the lists as they were my favourite ’RPGs’ of 2018.
So far I'm not really anticipating anything in 2019 excepting maybe reducing my backlog. (Yes I know dream on!)

HiddenX said:

the places below are much more interesting for me. One of the best games of 2018 is for example The Great Gaias. Unfortunately it was ingnored by most people because it is an RPGMaker title.

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Then Starsector, a potential 2019 product, is a candidate: dedicated single player RPG.

Dasale said:

Are you really saying that Rimworlds is a RPG? Or that Kenshi and Star Control 3 (or Origins) aren't RPG?

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No. From the comment, that is weird not to consider Rimworld a RPG while considering Kenshi and Star Control 3 RPGs.

As to relying on tags given by Steam players, this would include products that are rejected as RPGs on this site. Works both ways (at least, for people non addicted to double standards)

ChienAboyeur said:

No. From the comment, that is weird not to consider Rimworld a RPG while considering Kenshi and Star Control 3 RPGs.

As to relying on tags given by Steam players, this would include products that are rejected as RPGs on this site. Works both ways (at least, for people non addicted to double standards)

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Have you played any of those games?

For the tags, it's all the point, Steam players tend give the RPG tag everywhere, not give it at all in first 4 tags of the game is saying a lot. Your comment is only reinforcing my quote, there's something obviously very different between Rimworld and the two others from a RPG aspect. Looks like Rimworld is no RPG at all for many players, it means something.

These are what took hours away from me in 2018, and also what took hours away from me reading about whats coming in 2019... in no particular order:

goty

pathfinder
pllars 2
bards tale 4
fallout 76
vampyr
assassin creed odyssey
call of cthuhulu
final fantasy 15
monster hunter world
divinity original sin 2

anticipated

wasteland 3
biomutant
sinking city
CYBERPUNK 2077
ANTHEM

HiddenX said:

Can we not use a simple GUI like this?

(It doesn't matter then how many games are in each listbox - we could even vote for a top 10 with more listboxes.)

Click to expand...

Drop-down boxes only work well with a limited amount of elements in them, especially when they are used to select one element of the list and you don’t know in advance what is in that list. They do work well when you already know what you want to select.
If you have to make a selection from 30+ games and still have to make up your mind, a single page with all of the entries listed together, serves the purpose much better, as it gives you a clear overview of all the games in that list.

But the users don't select unknown entries - they should vote for their top 3 games - of cause they know them.

An alphabetical sortet text as overview can be easily added. In the listbox you can then push the first letter for your game to navigate easily.
(I have to do this for every newspost)

While I sympathise with the idea of letting every player vote for whatever game they wish, I thought the format last year to be overwhelming and a lot of posters voiced the opinion that a shorter list is better. I think your list of 42 is a significant improvement over a list of 110+, and I personally think 30 would even be better. I think "other" or "none" should be choices as well. Maybe "other" could be accompanied by a write in box. I think this is what most voters want, as the majority probably haven't played more than 6 candidates, and only a small minority have played a dozen or so. I'd also bet there are a number of games that none of are voters have played at all.

Edit: The best way to make people aware of relatively unknown games in probably not through the GOTY but through, curation, reviews, interviews, and what not. A title on a GOTY vote alone is somewhat meaningless. It might be better to ask developers of positively recieved and relatively unknown indie games to showcase their games somehow. If that sounds appealing to you, maybe we could think of some format for the website, like sending out an e-mail with a standardized mini-interview or communitiy questions or something. Maybe we could even have posters here nominate games which we can feature.

Well at least from what I recall an other box was offered where you wrote your pick on past GOTY polls for the last few years. So it's not something new or revolutionary.

It was mostly used for a game that wasn't on the list.

Might be easier to just have two votes. One vote with everything under the sun. THen keep the top 40 games and vote again

The other option we have only for 'Most Anticipated', as it is very difficult to look into the future. I'm not really in favor of having an other option for a list we reduced already to a short list, as that does the opposite of what the short list tries to achieve.

In my foreigner opinion, a full RPG list selected is interesting for archives and records. Years later you could want check such list because this year your focus on RPG get lazy and some years later you want check a part of the past.

A full list is just too much, a selection of nominee is better, but a too short list of nominee is rarely informative, you tend already know everything in such list, played or not, at least by name or fame.

So I would suggest to work for the future. OP quote is a too long list has bad side effects for the votes, ok. Then "you" suggestion seems fair, internal vote, first list of 41 (41 in case codex add one or two to their current list) is kept for future, first 15 are the nominee.

Dasale said:

. Your comment is only reinforcing my quote,

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Of course. Stating anything working both ways potentially re inforces each of ways.
Either it wont work both ways.

there's something obviously very different between Rimworld and the two others from a RPG aspect. Looks like Rimworld is no RPG at all for many players, it means something.

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It means that a label distributed erratically has no worth both ways.

ChienAboyeur said:

It means that a label distributed erratically has no worth both ways.

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Non sense, nobody would thread dices to decide what tags to give to a game, common, you can do better than that.

Ovenall said:

Maybe I should look into that Kingdome Come game. I have almost zero notion of what it's about. Haven't really read anything about it.

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Strange game. It was well liked here, but I found it tedious in the extreme. If you want to play a game that tries to emulate the middle ages, it's for you. Also, you have to be named Henry, which is just embarrassing. I just could not relate to the guy. Wanted him to die horribly

Can we get rid of any game with graphics from the 90's? That would drop about 97% of these off the list.

crpgnut said:

Strange game. It was well liked here, but I found it tedious in the extreme. If you want to play a game that tries to emulate the middle ages, it's for you. Also, you have to be named Henry, which is just embarrassing. I just could not relate to the guy. Wanted him to die horribly

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This is odd to hear from you. Hal, exactly like you, likes to smell nice.
As there were no synthetic sprays back then, Hal will either keep nice smelling flowers with him or visit bathhouses often. In fact while I was playing the game I thought this is probably what crpgnut would be like back then.

Unless you reason it like Chien. He has a problem that rookie blacksmith in 1403. is whatever european and not some mayan refugee escaped central america from conquerers. I mean, mayans were technically advanced and their blacksmithing skills were top notch unlike silly europeans who "discovered" metal processing only a few decades back from today.

crpgnut said:

Can we get rid of any game with graphics from the 90's? That would drop about 97% of these off the list.

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Stardew Valley regardless of it's outdated graphics was superfun game so it's not a (politically?) correct critetia. However I have to agree with this 100%.
Two reasons. Stardew Valley is a rare example where it's fun content makes a player forget how horrible it looks, almost all other games with similar visuals plain suck. Also IIRC we always have an option to vote for "other" where we can submit a game not nominated - if it was so awsome many would add it.