Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Other Announcements => Topic started by: Z on December 30, 2012, 10:28:28 PM
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Some people think that methods used by DarkGod to promote ToME's success in the ROTY 2012 poll are unfair (like messages which pop up when you start the game, or e-mails sent to all registered players).
http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/not-happy.html
http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/badly-worded-apology.html
I am not sure how to phrase the question, but I would like to run a poll to know how our community feels about this. The question is simple, and of course many other questions remain (should the rules change? was ADOM cheating? etc.)
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I can see how some others might see it as being unfair to a degree.
Personally, I'm not sure I would really call it unfair myself. If someone is interested enough in the game to register it, I don't think an email or pop up would really sway their decision to vote for it or not.
I doubt a new player would really be that likely to go and vote for it just cause they saw the pop up before really getting into the game.
Although I do find the pop up a little annoying. Not unfair though.
It might even be a good thing in a sense. Some players may be more casual and not even aware of the rloty poll if it weren't for the pop up.
I would like it if there was a sub-poll though for best new rl of the year. Some newer games simply can't compete with older more fully developed ones like ToME that already have a long running following. Newer, smaller games that are great like Infra Arcana just don't really stand a chance against big ones like crawl or tome in my opinion. Not so because they aren't as good ( I actually prefer IA to ToME) but because they are much newer and don't have the same long standing dedicated fan base.
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Having a competition is a dumb idea/offensive/stupid when you can't police the results.
Yep. Doesn't stop it being fun. You can vote for multiple different roguelikes. The idea here is that you will be encouraged to go out and download a roguelike that other people consider interesting, not that there is any kind of real competition element involved.
That was part of the initial RotY poll post over at ASCII Dreams. Funny how people are accused of cheating even when there's supposedly "no competition element involved".
I personally find it completely OK to send mails and stuff. I mean, I see why Andrew Doull and others get upset about large-scale community mobilization. But I just think this is a very fine line and none of us should really get to decide where it is drawn. So Andrew thinks sending emails and informing folks in-game about the poll is unfair. Yet apparently he didn't consider Biskup sending emails to his folks unfair. What about notifications in forums or websites? Is that unfair as well? If, say, Toady went and posted on the Bay12 forums "Hey everyone, help us win RotY", he would bring several hundreds of loyal Bay12ers to the poll. I think that is about how many active players ToME has. Would that be any fairer than DG sending mails and popups? The size of a community is always going to influence the numbers, whether you mobilize it or not. I always thought that was the purpose of the poll - to measure the game popularity - but apparently I was wrong.
I'd like to echo Thomas Biskup's statement: It's the 21st century. :)
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I think it's silly that there's any controversy over this. Modern methods of mobilising communities should be celebrated, not demonised. The more people that vote on the poll the better.
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Ultimately, it is the games that are compelling for the players---devs that keep players in the loop via the game or otherwise just being another facet and help to draw attention to the poll in general and plant the seed of curiosity to poke at Hottest Thing X's competition.
I do hope next year's poll has a few categories to it, some perhaps a bit more generally curated than list-dumped alphabetically. Just because DG and Biskup did as they did does not guarantee victory in 2013---any number of things can happen as the scene of quality projects is the liveliest it has ever been and stands to be even moreo true in the new year.
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I am unsure what the problem is here. Having a notice in-game about the poll is something we should be encouraging. You want everyone to know the poll is going on so we get more votes overall, right?
Not sure who put a stick up you-know-who's rear end :P
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Non-issue.
I voted "don't care."
It's Andrew's poll though, so that's an issue if he thinks it's an issue. I fear that if he's not careful he'll put a cloud over an otherwise fine yearly event. One I look forward to.
-Jo
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Non-issue.
I voted "don't care."
It's Andrew's poll though, so that's an issue if he thinks it's an issue. I fear that if he's not careful he'll put a cloud over an otherwise fine yearly event. One I look forward to.
-Jo
Maybe next year we can have "Jo's No-Nonsense ROTY Poll 2013" :)
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I think for ToME and ADOM it's all about visibility. That way more people buy the game if it's high on some poll that the RL players may see. So it's money that makes developers try everything they can. I think both ToME and ADOM suck. Well, ADOM didn't suck that much 20 years ago when it was still cardware. Now it's too little too late.
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Maybe next year we can have "Jo's No-Nonsense ROTY Poll 2013" :)
Oh god...please no... :-\
EDIT: It's way too much work. Way too much aggravation. Mr. Doull does a great job.
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I was kind of sad about the whole argument as it played out. I honestly find that DarkGod got more pepper on his plate than he deserves for putting out ToME. Still, the incident didn't exactly shake my belief in any particular community or person ;) Other than that, a lot of sensible things have already been said in this thread, as elsewhere.
As always,
Minotauros
PS. This made me smile wide: "Jo's No-Nonsense ROTY Poll 2013" :)
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So Andrew thinks sending emails and informing folks in-game about the poll is unfair.
I have issues with informing folks in-game. I don't have issues with sending emails, forum posts or anything else as I explained in the follow up blog post. (http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/badly-worded-apology.html )
I however also don't understand why DarkGod feels the need to continue to try to get the ToME community worked up about this poll. He's already won it twice. What does winning it again prove?
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And I really do not understand why you did not, before the poll started, say "ToME has won enough so I have not included it in the list".
Do not tell me you had no idea it would have a chance to win again you knew it would be a contender. So why did you not?
So, again, I suggest that you forbid previous winners from entering the contest in the next years, clearly state this in advance and I'm pretty sure nobody will find it unfair; I sure wont. But rules have to be set *before it starts*.
If you do not (I fully respect that it's your poll you do as you please), why would I not want to win?
To put it bluntly, your poll is not fair. Why? because it happens on your blog, which is only visited by a small subset of RL players, which is made of for a good part of "hardcore" ones. So if none of the participating games would ask their players to come over it would not be a poll on RLs but a poll on RLs as seen by a small minority. How is that fair to games that try to bring in new players ?
That you want it or not your poll has become the indicator of which roguelike is big, it is probably not what you want and I understand, thus my proposal by email (and that I also posted in a comment there http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.fr/2012/12/badly-worded-apology.html).
TLDR: Proposal is: make it the "new roguelike of the year poll"; only RLs whose first release is this year can participate. And if you truly want to help upcoming RLs, also forbid commercial ones as they have marketing power small indie ones do not. This would be fair and nice to help promote small new ones.
As for the ingame thing, as thomas biskup so eloquently put it: this is 2012 (well 2013 now!), you have to live with your time.
How is mailing in any way better ? So mailing a person that didnt play for 6 months to come vote is better than asking people that are *playing right now* ? (and I have obviously nothing against mailing either).
I have mailed about 9k people, I could have mailed thrice as much and by the way this are going currently next year I could probably mail six times that.... How the hell would this have been more fair than an ingame thing???
So you'll say, as you already said, that it would "force" other RLs to make the same kind of features. But having a huge list of emails to send to be ok is not forcing other RLs to have one too ? Where is the logic ?
And no it is not unthinkable to imagine devs actually implementing it. "Oh but they are all alone on their game they can not do it all!"
Can't they ? In 3 years I made ToME from scratch, along with a complete engine not tied to it, along with the server, along with the website and quite a few other side-things. And for 95% of it I was all alone on it. So either my nickname is true and I am a god, or, more realistically, you think lower than they are really worth of other devs. Hell quite a few RLs have devteams, DCSS, ADOM to name a few. Do not come telling me they can not implement such things.
Let's take another example, auto-explore. DCSS got it. Players loved it. ToME players started asking for it more and more (and more). What did I do?
Did I go to a forum to complain DCSS was unfair and I was feeling a pressure to implement it?
No. I pondered if it would be good for ToME, decided that it would, and made it happen. This is how progress is made; friendly rivalry that promotes progress on all sides.
To finish, if you do not exclude previous winners next years but keep on a specific rule that is very obviously targeted at one game in particular, I would kindly ask you to not include ToME in the list. As for myself I would make a post making it clear why I requested as such.
Because, once again, my deepest belief is in transparency.
Oh and please (this is not for you andrew), keep the "I dont like/hate ToME" "I dont get ToME" and such like out of the discussion. You can like or not a game, we all do; but you can not hate a game. You can only hate people making games. And if you hate me, please kindly explain why, as it is my deep belief that I always tried to be a good guy in my long RL history.
Thanks for reading this overly long post :)
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I however also don't understand why DarkGod feels the need to continue to try to get the ToME community worked up about this poll. He's already won it twice. What does winning it again prove?
That it's the top roguelike of 2012. Which, quite frankly, it is. Whilst ADOM made a good challenge for the winner this year I still think the best roguelike won. Of all the games on the list ToME has had the most updates, the most modern features (both in terms of gameplay and interface), and the most active community. You should be happy that your poll has so accurately reflected the times ;)
Also at a time when both ToME and ADOM are trying/planning to get on Steam through its Greenlight service it's clear they'd try to do whatever they can to win any awards or accolades. Again, you should be happy that people take your poll so seriously and consider it worthy of winning! It seems bizarre to me that you're directly asking a leading roguelike developer to not care about your Roguelike of the Year poll.
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Yep, and besides, winning streaks are good so long as they are well wrought---can't win a poll each year if you've not been staying sharp and/or a step ahead of all else since it isn't the sort of thing you can rest on your laurels and coast to victory on.
"Just a poll" can be a good motivator---there are Roguelike devs that have kept projects going from just as much as a few e-mails. Lively and good spirited competition helps keep things lively which ultimately benefits everybody as the Big Ones moreso generate a bright light than cast an especially dark shadow over the rest on the whole.
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Indeed. ToME has played a significant part in inspiring me to improve my own games immensely, and has had a knock-on effect on other roguelikes. I know much of the push for ADOM to improve in both interface and mechanics has been due to the general community feeling of "roguelikes can do better", in no small part influenced by ToME. We need to celebrate these top roguelikes to help the whole genre advance.
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ToME made me addicted to the click and move system. I can't hardly play any other way now. THANKS A LOT DARKGOD!!! :-)
@Andrew - It seems many people disagree with you. Please don't get angry. I look forward to your poll every year and I don't want you quitting it over all this fuss. I guess most of us think of your poll as a popularity/beauty contest, so have little issue with a wide open nature. I find it just a little odd that people think they have a say in how you run it, but that just goes to show how important it is to the community.
So please keep running it. K? :-[
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ToME made me addicted to the click and move system. I can't hardly play any other way now. THANKS A LOT DARKGOD!!! :-)
AHAH !!!! My evil plan of world conquest unfolds!
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And I really do not understand why you did not, before the poll started, say "ToME has won enough so I have not included it in the list".
Do not tell me you had no idea it would have a chance to win again you knew it would be a contender. So why did you not?
I never thought about ToME while compiling this years poll. Because I had bigger issues to worry about, like compiling a comprehensive list and getting the Roguelike Radio episode recorded. And because I don't want to go down the path of excluding previous winners. And because, as I have said multiple times, I don't understand why you continue to push your community towards voting in a poll which you've already won twice.
You've still not answered that question.
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To put it bluntly, your poll is not fair. Why? because it happens on your blog, which is only visited by a small subset of RL players, which is made of for a good part of "hardcore" ones. So if none of the participating games would ask their players to come over it would not be a poll on RLs but a poll on RLs as seen by a small minority. How is that fair to games that try to bring in new players ?
Nothing in life is fair if you consider that criteria. As explained in the FAQ, the poll is not intended to be fair. It is intended to be interesting.
That you want it or not your poll has become the indicator of which roguelike is big, it is probably not what you want and I understand, thus my proposal by email (and that I also posted in a comment there http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.fr/2012/12/badly-worded-apology.html).
TLDR: Proposal is: make it the "new roguelike of the year poll"; only RLs whose first release is this year can participate. And if you truly want to help upcoming RLs, also forbid commercial ones as they have marketing power small indie ones do not. This would be fair and nice to help promote small new ones.
Because making it a "new roguelike of the year" completely ignores the multi-year release early development cycle of most roguelikes. And ignoring commercial games misses out one of the most interesting trends in roguelikes of recent times - since most hybrid roguelikes have also been commercial.
As for the ingame thing, as thomas biskup so eloquently put it: this is 2012 (well 2013 now!), you have to live with your time.
How is mailing in any way better ?
Except my concern is making the poll fair for the developers. Anyone in the community can put together a mailing list to let people know about the game. Only devs can actually code a feature to put a message in the game.
And in my opinion, there is a world of difference between reaching people who are actively engaged in the community enough to give you their email vs. anyone who happens to download the latest version of the game.
Can't they ? In 3 years I made ToME from scratch, along with a complete engine not tied to it, along with the server, along with the website and quite a few other side-things. And for 95% of it I was all alone on it. So either my nickname is true and I am a god, or, more realistically, you think lower than they are really worth of other devs. Hell quite a few RLs have devteams, DCSS, ADOM to name a few. Do not come telling me they can not implement such things.
Except (around) 62 of the games on the list have been developed in 7 days, not 3 years.
Take another example. Suppose libtcod ended up including a MotD and/or chat server function. I don't want to risk biasing developers towards choosing libtcod as a library just because of those features.
To finish, if you do not exclude previous winners next years but keep on a specific rule that is very obviously targeted at one game in particular, I would kindly ask you to not include ToME in the list. As for myself I would make a post making it clear why I requested as such.
Because, once again, my deepest belief is in transparency.
It is not very obviously targeted at one game. It is targeted at every other game on the list which doesn't have those features.
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Anyway, I've hopefully made my position pretty clear. I don't especially want to convince you of the merits of my argument, since that is pretty much impossible over electronic communication mechanisms, and just leads to massive ongoing flame wars.
There's a good 11 month gap between now and next year for this to cool down a little. As far as I see things there are three possible outcomes for next year (repeating what I've just said to Darren on Skype):
a) exclude all previous winners
b) ban me from the Internet for the duration of the poll
c) do nothing
I'm inclined to go with option b or c.
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Take another example. Suppose libtcod ended up including a MotD and/or chat server function. I don't want to risk biasing developers towards choosing libtcod as a library just because of those features.
Madness! No one sets their features up because of the poll. And hell, we've had server messages since Rogue itself! DarkGod's the first one to actually utilise for promotion, but there's nothing to stop DCSS or Cataclysm or a range of others from doing the same via ssh. Hell, you don't know if they did so already this year, or in previous years, and have no way of policing this.
Besides, if people modernise their roguelikes to win your poll that's a good thing. The reason ToME won is because it has a big community, and the reason it has a big community is that it's a great game with modern features and well-designed gameplay. Do you want to ban great gameplay because that makes games wins the polls and other games might feel forced to include such features as great gameplay? Like I said, madness! :P
It is not very obviously targeted at one game. It is targeted at every other game on the list which doesn't have those features.
Well that's not how it looks! Interfering with the rules to get different results makes it look very much like you're trying to change the outcome of the poll. And really, if you're going to ban promotion of the poll in-game you should really ban mass e-mails, because that's way worse in my opinion. At least in-game you know the people are actually playing the game. I severely doubt many of the 730 ADOM II votes are really from regular players (I moderate the ADOM and ADOM II forums and I can tell you it's very quiet on the ADOM II side).
But in my view any sort of promotion of the poll is good. There's bound to be a few people looking down that list and wondering what's the fuss about Brogue or Dredmor or others and giving them a try. This year's poll has been a remarkable success in terms of numbers, and that's not just for the top 2 - every game in the top 10 has gotten more votes than the winner 3 years ago. A fantastic result for the roguelike community, in my opinion! And a great turn-out for a clearly very popular poll - that's not something that you should be pulling any sort of negative spin from :P
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Just saying,
I don't have a server and I've never really written any network code, but it would take me 5 minutes to implement a MoTD in-game. This isn't the type of thing where someone would feel they have to take a week off of development to set it up.
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it's a great game with modern features and well-designed gameplay.
Seriously? When did ToME become that? (well, it is updated rather frequently..)
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I like one thing very much about Ascii Dreams poll. The fact that it shows how large community it has. By community I am active folks who go out of their way to participate in the life of the game one way or another. Be it by joining a forum, giving praise by email, submitting YANIs, bug reports and whatnot or participating in development somehow. The blog post "The power of you" (http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2007/12/power-of-you.html) is still one of my favorites. It explains why it is viable to refer to 'community' as such subset.
For the largest games there is this mobilization of player which is neither bad nor unfair. Far from it! But this has an unfortunate side casualty. Other developers might get the idea they should also make a release close to beginning of the poll to carry a message to players effectively. I actually considered that carefully for a moment. However, PRIME is undergoing some bold changes at the moment and releasing it now would subject players to unusually high concentration of bugs. Hardly fun. Also, getting ten votes (placed one myself, so not eleven) without explicitly asking for it means a lot to me.
Andrew, kudos to you for taking a stab at preserving above cool quality of the poll. I suggest you go with the option c) and let ADOM and ToME compete as fiercely next year. That was fun to watch. Thomas Biskup has just started fulfilling his pledges and development promises so he can reasonably expect more voters in future. When ADOM finally fuses with NotEye, be afraid DarkGod! It has done wonders for PRIME. Imagine what it may give to ADOM. Most developers like me will probably not make special releases for December. It's not ARRP. So the effect you fear might not happen at all. I sincerely hope so!
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More release targets during the year for roguelike is always a good thing. Most developers (you and me included) don't release often enough ;)
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I however also don't understand why DarkGod feels the need to continue to try to get the ToME community worked up about this poll. He's already won it twice. What does winning it again prove?
It proves that the winner for previous years is still a contestant?
To be honest, with all the updates and work that's gone into ToME...
I'm not huge fan of the entire package, but even I think it's RotY.
NOT my personal favorite, but certainly the most impressive regarding updates; bugfixes, balancing, a very nice set of features.
I've said it before on your site, but a lot of problems are with the concept of the poll itself.
Big communities are going to vote for 'their' game, major roguelikes are going to keep dominating (and if you keep winners in the pool, they're going to keep winning).
I never thought about ToME while compiling this years poll. Because I had bigger issues to worry about, like compiling a comprehensive list and getting the Roguelike Radio episode recorded. And because I don't want to go down the path of excluding previous winners. And because, as I have said multiple times, I don't understand why you continue to push your community towards voting in a poll which you've already won twice.
You've still not answered that question.
Now you're just being incomprehensible.
If a game had that many fans that it won a previous year, what in gods name would make the fans NOT vote for the SAME game a following year?
ToME won the previous TWO YEARS, and "you never thought about it", but you did ooh and aah about whether or not Diablo 3 deserved to be on the list?
YOU EVEN PUT GOBLET GROTTO ON THE LIST.
You took all this time to debate and think about which not-even-close-to-a-fucking-roguelike you wanted to put on the list, but you didn't want to consider if maybe the structure of the poll was inherently flawed and the same game is going to keep winning it for the next 3 years unless you change something.
Or just accept it. That's fine too.
To put it bluntly, your poll is not fair. Why? because it happens on your blog, which is only visited by a small subset of RL players, which is made of for a good part of "hardcore" ones. So if none of the participating games would ask their players to come over it would not be a poll on RLs but a poll on RLs as seen by a small minority. How is that fair to games that try to bring in new players ?
Nothing in life is fair if you consider that criteria. As explained in the FAQ, the poll is not intended to be fair. It is intended to be interesting.
I have to agree fully with everything said by DarkGod in that tiny little quote.
I've talked about how communities affect the poll, and how it will always be heavily skewed towards games that have a dedicated forum. You have to take measures and change the structure of the poll, or just deal with it.
(Not that changing the structure to allow a special category for roguelikes with a dedicated community forum would fix anything; I believe it would turn into a forum population dickwaving contest, however that is very amusing to me nonetheless.)
"The poll is not intended to be fair" AND YET you raise a ruckus over something being...
not fair.
Because making it a "new roguelike of the year" completely ignores the multi-year release early development cycle of most roguelikes. And ignoring commercial games misses out one of the most interesting trends in roguelikes of recent times - since most hybrid roguelikes have also been commercial.
Huh? What? "multi-year release early development cycle of most roguelikes."?
Like what? The small updates most roguelikes add now and again (I'm so sorry, but I can't word this in a way that doesn't make me sound like a douche, devs.)?
Brogue, ToME, SIL and Halls of Mist are roguelikes where I've seen updates during the year adding major changes.
(Not sure if HoM and SIL actually count since their biggest impact is branching off of Angband and being a major variant upon release. Ie. their 'birth' is the biggest major impact.)
ADOM doesn't count. I'm not bending over backwards for a bugfix after a decade of silence.
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ToME won the previous TWO YEARS, and "you never thought about it", but you did ooh and aah about whether or not Diablo 3 deserved to be on the list?
YOU EVEN PUT GOBLET GROTTO ON THE LIST.
You took all this time to debate and think about which not-even-close-to-a-fucking-roguelike you wanted to put on the list, but you didn't want to consider if maybe the structure of the poll was inherently flawed and the same game is going to keep winning it for the next 3 years unless you change something.
If you could point to any statement by anyone involved in the weeks long thread that we had discussing the poll candidate list or the hour and a half Roguelike Radio episode with myself, Darren Grey and John Harris discussing the poll made where it would be 'obvious' that e.g. ToME 4 would have more than 3 times as many votes as any other game a day into the poll or get more than twice as many votes as it did last year, I'm all ears. (Darren edited this episode btw).
To put this into perspective, approximately 43% of all new voters this year in the poll voted for ToME4 (assuming everyone who voted last year voted this year). This may be a rebound from a lower percentage vote last year for ToME (23%, versus 32% this year, 39% the first year it won), but it is a huge swing.
I know the structure of the poll is inherently flawed. It's in the FAQ. There is no practical way to fix this short of removing games from consideration and you are delusional if you think there is.
To put it bluntly, your poll is not fair. Why? because it happens on your blog, which is only visited by a small subset of RL players, which is made of for a good part of "hardcore" ones. So if none of the participating games would ask their players to come over it would not be a poll on RLs but a poll on RLs as seen by a small minority. How is that fair to games that try to bring in new players ?
Nothing in life is fair if you consider that criteria. As explained in the FAQ, the poll is not intended to be fair. It is intended to be interesting.
I have to agree fully with everything said by DarkGod in that tiny little quote.
I've talked about how communities affect the poll, and how it will always be heavily skewed towards games that have a dedicated forum. You have to take measures and change the structure of the poll, or just deal with it.
(Not that changing the structure to allow a special category for roguelikes with a dedicated community forum would fix anything; I believe it would turn into a forum population dickwaving contest, however that is very amusing to me nonetheless.)
"The poll is not intended to be fair" AND YET you raise a ruckus over something being...
not fair.
You're missing the distinction between being not fair in general, and being an unfair distraction to development time.
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The blog post "The power of you" (http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2007/12/power-of-you.html) is still one of my favorites. It explains why it is viable to refer to 'community' as such subset.
Thanks for reminding me about this. Rereading it was a great blast from the past to a time when digg was relevant.
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I don't get what the big deal is, but on the other hand the results are less interesting if the same game wins every year.
That said, ToME does see quite a lot of development and polishing. ADOM garnered quite a few votes and could possibly win next year if the tiles and music are finished by then.
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I for one found it very entertaining seeing ToME and ADOM duke it out this year. I encouraged it actually, in much the same way as I encouraged Dredmor vs ToME last year ;) And I look forward to seeing them fight again next year! Along with any other rising competitors, of course - who would have guessed this time last year that ADOM would even be in the poll? The poll will lose some of its excitement if it starts excluding the big games. These big numbers drawn to the poll are all part of the fun. If ToME had been excluded this year it would have been a boring easy win for ADOM.
Andrew: On that Roguelike Radio episode I pretty much said it would be a ToME/ADOM fight for the victory :P
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There's nothing wrong with asking your players to vote for your game. No one is putting a gun to their head. They might play your game, but still vote for another game. Maybe they didn't even know about the poll until they saw the message.
How many votes did the poll get in total (meaning how many people actually voted)?
Is that the number of people out there who play roguelikes? Aren't there much more?
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How many votes did the poll get in total (meaning how many people actually voted)?
It is there in the preamble to full results (http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2012/12/full-results-for-ascii-dreams-roguelike.html):
Thanks to all 5,123 of you who voted on the 283 games below.
(emphasis mine)
Most certainly there are much more people who play roguelikes. Some could not be bothered to vote, some did not know about the poll.
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I am often surprised by the silly arguments otherwise intelligent programmers have. Back to your labors! Make more free games for us muggles to enjoy.
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I have an enormous amount of respect for Andrew and the many many good things he does, plus it's his poll and he can put down whatever arbitrary restrictions he likes... but I think he's gone bat-shit loopy la-la over this.
The poll is not and never will be some kind of objective measure of quality - it's a measure of who can mobilise the biggest community. A related measure, perhaps, but not the same thing. I always assumed that was understood, and that it was just meant to be a bit of fun to get people talking and to expose people to roguelikes they might not otherwise try, and in that I think it does a good job*. Furthermore, in that regard DarkGod advertising the poll in any way can only be a good thing. Especially when the means he is using is specifically targeted to only reach those people who are actually playing the game.
The idea that huge numbers people actually give enough of a shit about winning that they will specifically alter their games to accomodate it (and as I understand it, TOME's in-game news system was pre-existing(?)) seems ludicrous to me. And if they do - well, good luck to them.
I however also don't understand why DarkGod feels the need to continue to try to get the ToME community worked up about this poll. He's already won it twice. What does winning it again prove?
What, really? You can't see that, perhaps having won it the past two years in a row actually puts more pressure on DarkGod to try to defend the title? Winning might not prove anything, but losing might make it look as if the game had diminished somehow.
If you want the results to be more interesting and don't want TOME to keep winning every year, then just make a 'hall of fame' for games that have won three times in a row or something and exclude them from the voting. Or, just exclude the previous year's winner (but let them compete again the next year) - that way you'll get some variety but still keep their communities interested.
*I think it would do a better one if all the games had links to their download locations, but I understand the massive amount more work this would require.
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I am often surprised by the silly arguments otherwise intelligent programmers have. Back to your labors! Make more free games for us muggles to enjoy.
WIN!
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I didn't even realize there were advertisements.
This year, I voted for ToME (because it's awesome), Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and DoomRL.
It was interesting to see the massive resurgence in ADOM and it's definitely on my to-play list.
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Coming late to this, but
I see nothing wrong on mobilizing your fanbase in favor of your game using whatever means you can... if tome keeps winning year after year it will only prove it remains the roguelike of the year, for having the most enthusiastic supporters and an active community. If Biskup is able to summon the hope of the people of Ancardia that believe on the future of his games, then those are the roguelikes of the year too, for so many people believe in them.
It will also encourage other game developers to seek the establishment of a community of players around their games, instead of polishing their "precious" in a dark cave for years and years.
Just a thought from a retired dev (or almost :P)
Edit: Also, if you want to check out the stability-breakers you can always look out for the "fight for the 4th position" or so, like those boring Formula 1 races