Game of the Year Awards 2016 - Best RPG

Fluent said:

And I just saw that The Quest was released in 2016. That's the RPG of the year for me.

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While it was released *for PC* in 2016, it was out for iOS back in 2009 and for PocketPC years before that. So I have been playing that game for more than a decade ... hard to call it a new game by any stretch - not saying I don't love it, I have bought it several times now, after all

I still haven't played Tyranny ... I guess now I am waiting for a deep sale.

Considering PC is the only true platform, I'd still count it a 2016 release

So many games released in 2016? I actually didn't play a single one of them yet.

I guess the backlog situation is getting worse and worse, I just re-checked and it turns out, all games I played last year were from 2015 or even earlier (Divinity OS 1EE, Witcher3, Dex, Legend of Grimrock, Legend of Grimrock 2) or not RPGs (Life is Strange)

And it doesn't look like that's to change, I'm still not even close to done with Witcher3, and then I'm thinking about doing Underrail next

I wouldn't mind a year with no good RPG releases, or several, then maybe I could finally catch up

I wonder where would Blood and Wine rank if it was among the listed choices.

lostforever said:

I was thinking the exact same thing! I voted for DS3 as my top 3 choices but didn't think it will make it to the top 10. So other than me and sakichop, who else voted for it? :lol:

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That would have removed all three votes, if the script works correctly.

pork said:

I guess the backlog situation is getting worse and worse

And it doesn't look like that's to change

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This was me a few years ago. Then I got downright draconian about what I buy and play. It's not a matter of money, it's the lack of time anymore. My backlog currently has 1 game... Witcher 3. I also wait a fair amount of time after release before I buy something usually. I've heard about almost all of the games on the list, but I bought very few of them. It only takes one or two negative things to keep something firmly in the watch list on Steam nowadays. I don't even respond to Steam sales anymore when I have a current game in progress. That doesn't mean all my purchases are smart ones though... definitely some games in the library that got very little play time.

I am one of the people that voted for Grim Dawn. I got Titan Quest basically for free back in the day and ended up playing it a bunch, so I was curious to see the latest effort. It also happened to hit right when I was feeling the itch for an action rpg... and believe me, that's a rare affliction for me. I also spent more time with Tyranny than Pillars of Eternity. I vote what I play, as anything else seems disingenuous. Are there better RPGs on the list? Maybe... but they aren't in my library.

pork said:

So many games released in 2016? I actually didn't play a single one of them yet.

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Seems like Zloth finally found some competition.

forgottenlor said:

Game of the Year votes come in here by a simple number of votes. That means because over 1,000,000 people bought Darkest Dungeon, and some 16,000 people bought my favorite (no I'm not being partisan or making a commercial ) Stranger of Sword City, the chance that the game made the list was actually pretty high.

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That's why monocled websites use Bayesian Averages on their polls.

That has disadvantages as well, I would think. Depending on how the votes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd are weighed (we need to do that, as that is how the poll is set up), this could mean that a game with 7 votes, which are all for 1st place can be placed higher than a game with 50 votes, but with a spread over the 3 places. The ratio of the sum of the votes versus the count of the votes would be much higher with the game with the 7 first place votes.

They don't have you rank games at the Codex, they just have you give a numeric rating to every game you played. Then the best rated games win. Same general disadvantage you mentioned though - games that very few people were interested in actually playing can win, if the people who did play them really liked them.

Bayesian Averages is obvious trolling. Get a group of dozen "revolutionists" to find some obscure trash and that game will be #1.
Public vote is only close to trolling, resembles democracy where three peasants can downvote Socrates and Plato, but unlike mainstream sites here we have RPG fans so their votes merit.
The best practice IMO would be a dedicated jury that'd, based on public vote, play top 10 games within a couple of months and then decide which one is the best. The problem as usual with this is if the time when awards would be given would matter and the jury beside gaming some 10 titles they might not like needs also to eat/sleep.

The system on RPGwatch is probably the best (currently) possible.

joxer said:

Bayesian Averages is obvious trolling. Get a group of dozen "revolutionists" to find some obscure trash and that game will be #1.

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No. The smaller the group the more the game's final rating is shifted to the total rating average. Only if you have a large group the game's final rating is (nearly) identical to its actual average rating.

Something like this:
Average rating (by vote) of all games: 60%
Game A: group size = 5; rating by vote = 90%; final rating = 70%
Game B: group size = 50; rating by vote = 80%; final rating = 75%

Actual numbers depend on parameterization.

We're talking about RPG players here. Whatever system you use there'll be quite a large contingent of stat manipulators

The RPGwatch system allows non-RPGs like Bioshock get voted in the top 10, the Codex version allows non-RPGs like Neo Scavenger to get in the top 10. The RPGwatch list get's manipulated by codexers who don't participate in any RPGwatch activities other than opportunities to rock the boat like this and the RPGcodex vote gets manipulated by all the developers who've been 'butthurt' passing through there over the years and developers who live there (with all their staff members, friends and family likely trotted out at voting time).

I agree with rjshae that what people played is an important metric (or, rather, what people were actually willing to pay for, so you could have it as what did you buy instead of what did you play, thereby allowing for intent to play being a factor). And I agree with joxer that peer review should play a part. Both these options still allow for acres of space for wholesale abuse though.

Regardless of the pedantics of the method, I see no problem with the results we got, they seem perfectly logical and what was expected, so, for me, it's a case of "if it's not broken, why fix it?". The only area I could see improvement in is greater restrictions about what games get put forward in the first place and the choice to not have Blood & Wine on the list. I know the arguments about Blood & Wine, but given the year and the other choices I'd have given it a special exemption from the rules.

I think RPGwatch compensates a little bit by also adding some editors choice rewards.

The only thing I'd like to see as a change is a stricter restriction of the pool of games participating. XCom for example shouldn't even be an option. And imho neither should Darkest Dungeon or Tahira (don't remember if it was an option, it's an awesome game, but not an RPG). Can't judge Dark Souls 3, Mass Effect 4 or Grim Dawn as I don't know enough about them.

Maybe someone can run all the relevant borderline games through the CRPG analyzer. Then set a minimum score to reach, so that non-rpgs can be kicked out of the vote.