GOTY 2010 Questions

What categories do we want to use? Do we have enough entries for add-ons, indies, mods?
Do we need a special category for limited / mixed releases?
Should Mass Effect 2 and Stalker be included or are they primarily shooters?
 
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I'm pretty sure skavenhorde was saying add Two Worlds 2 to this list since by next years list it will be long forgotten and have no chance. But it will have little chance this year either unless the voting is delayed until February (after the NA/Aus/UK release) so I'm not sure if it really matters.

I don't think there are enough games to allow for more than 2 categories (if that). Indie and larger budget (or whatever you'd name that category). The mods like False Prophet & Nehrim could be included in the indie category.
 
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Make the list as inclusive as possible. If too few people had access it will not be voted for -> problem solves itself.
 
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Make the list as inclusive as possible. If too few people had access it will not be voted for -> problem solves itself.
I support this.

In addition I suggest that a game can be put on next years list again, if we feel later that it gets more widely known only in 2011. This precaution should remove any reason NOT to put something on the list.
 
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I think an English release in the NA is the most suitable as it's the biggest modern market and (without having any data or stats) most of the regular Watchers are based in the NA.
 
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Dear Green Place
I think an English release in the NA is the most suitable as it's the biggest modern market and (without having any data or stats) most of the regular Watchers are based in the NA.
I think you'll find that the Watch has a decided plurality for Europe, at least among the folks that have more than a couple posts. Even among the "Will you please shut up" crowd ( ;) ) of the top 30, you've got 15 Euros, 10 NAs, 3 Asian/Australian, and 2 that I'm not sure about (although I think both are Euros).
 
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Add my 2¢ for English release anywhere. The Watch definitely has a good mix of us Americans and the Europeans. There's even a nice dabbling of other countries too. The bottom line is that it needs to be majorly released in English somewhere. I really believe that the winner will only be a game that has a US release though. I'd say we outnumber the rest of the crowd, but not by a wide margin. We definitely do not win by the posting margin, which would also be a cool way to conduct a poll. If you only allowed votes by people with over X number of posts, I think the numbers would be different, because Europeans seem to post more at this site. I can't believe I have over 1000 posts here. I really don't post that much….

+1 for Nehrim's inclusion too. It would have been my game of the year in a lot of years.
 
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There are a LOT more than 3 Asian/Australians!! :) Heck, there are that many just on staff.
 
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I think English anywhere release, based on the stats Dte shared. I personally thought ME2 was more than just a shooter. JMHO. I think any game with a new game mod released that earned more than 3 reviews (not counting the Watch) might be added as a secondary or subcatagory for votes. One way to judge the interest they drew.
 
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Only Myrthos has the detailed country statistics. I think I remember that 70-80% of our visitors are from NA though. This means a game without a release in NA has no chance to reach the medal ranks.

"English release anywhere" doesn't sound good. Does it really make sense to include a game which is only available in Benelux but neither UK nor NA?
 
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Maybe should just say English release a must for majority of the Euro countries? There were a few that did not get a NA release as yet but did come out in 2010.
 
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The visitor estimates are not correct. On a country basis most of our visitors come from the US, but based on continents the list is as follows:
Europe 51%
Americas 38%
Asia 6%
Oceania 4%
Africa 1%
 
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Ooh, what a great stat. Thanks for sharing that! I've always been curious. I'd still go with any major english release. As an American, I lean towards only including games that have been released in the States, but a European release should hold its own. Continental stats seem better than country stats. It's not fair to compare a countries that are smaller than some individual states, against the whole USA.

Although, population-wise, Europe has WAY more people than the USA. The USA is sparsely populated in comparison. The US has 310 million people. That's a lot but nothing compared to the the top 8 most populous European countries. If you add Russia, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Poland and Romania; that's over 616 million people. Even dropping off Russia, which is huge like the US, Europe outpopulates us 474.8 million to 310.5 with just your 7 largest contributors. You kick our butts :)
 
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I'd say the percentage of the regular members outweighs mere "visitors" who don't post in the forum.

How bout a RPG-mod of the year category for Nehrim and the like?
 
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Dear Green Place
The US sparsely populated????!!!! Ha, with an area about the same size as the US, Australia only has about 22 million people. Now THAT is sparsely populated!! :)
 
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Hmmmm, Ego Draconis came out in 2009. Dragon Knight Saga is a "re-mastered" Ego Draconis plus an expansion and that did come out in 2010. I think it's worth putting on the list but I would understand if it wasn't there.

From what I've read, Nehrim is pretty much a full game based on Oblivion's engine. I think it has as much right to be there as Fallout: NV.

Mass Effect 2 is a shooter AND an RPG. It deserves to be on the list, IMHO.

The STALKER series is a lot more shooter than RPG, IMHO, though it has enough RPG elements that I think it could be included.

The list itself never really bothers me much - you folks are very good at doing that fairly. The thing that bugs me horribly is that I have to vote without playing even half the games on the list. Would it be possible to do a double poll? Have us choose our favorite RPG then, in a second question, let is checkmark each game that we played. That would let you say things like "35 people played Such & Such and 32 people listed it as the best game this year." And, if you can actually keep the two answers linked, you could say even more interesting things like "44% of the people who played both Such & Such and Mass Effect 2 listed ME2 as their favorite game while only 22% listed Such & Such with the other third voting for something else on the list."
 
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I agree in principle…but in practice? DD may take care of the future but it's not there yet. For example, I ordered Drakensang: TroT from Gamemania in Belgium…how many people will brave a Dutch language site to buy an English game? It's technically and English release but it surely doesn't reach "a large portion of the gaming public".

I think a UK or US release is OK but Europe without the UK is a stretch. I'd love to see more opinions.

You can always ask a forum member to help you navigate the site. Plenty of Dutch speaking members (I'm one of them, but I did mean Myrthos, pladio and a few others)
 
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I'd say the game needs to be released in US to be considered. I simply choose this because US is largest English speaking market by far, so from most developers' mindset, the game isn't truly released in English until the US market gets it. This isn't meant to sound condescending, it just makes most sense to me to base it on US release date. Also, US release date is much more straight forward than Europe release. But whatever, maybe I'm wrong.

Oh, and I'd also remove STALKER. It's an FPS.
 
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