Guide of the Year Awards 2014

[BlindMango]

In my opinion, this competition has "popularity contest" and "scratching friends' backs" written all over it and I feel as though it won't be able to genuinely claim legitimacy for at least a couple more years, when each game has several guides and the guide rating system has had enough time to bear a decent amount of votes from the community of players actually using said guides.

Given the fact that 100% of the guides I've frequented this year have been riddled with different forms of errors (spelling and grammatical, incorrect information, plagiarism, etc), it gives me the impression that the first year of the guide system was rushed, individual guide reviewers were left unsupervised and their final decisions went unchecked. Hardly seems like a good reason to roll out an award ceremony for patting yourselves on the back.

The illusion of the democratic procedure is one of the more disheartening features, though. Telling the community to nominate their favourite guides but that, "you have the final say and the nominations don't affect that" seems ridiculously contradictory and wreaks of being all-powerful. I'm in no way implying that the list of winners will be skewed but, the possibility of such an occurrence appears rather great.

I'd also like it to be known that I'm not trying to pee on the upcoming parade in any way. It is my most sincere feeling that the implementation of the guide system was a monumental step forward for the website and further solidifies it's foothold on being one of the top tier gaming websites heading into the future. I will be participating in and paying attention to the proceedings and their results. These are simply my impressions and opinions.

 

Hey effdeegee. so we actually talked about the community straight voting for first, second, and third place entirely at one point but we also thought that also has the potential to be a popularity contest too (if not now, those chances increase in the future). Either way I personally don't know exactly what way is best, especially since like you said, it's still new.

 

We battled on whether or not people from the guide team should be included for days and eventually decided not to do that, we talked back and forth about voting and nominations, what would look like a popularity contest, would seem fair, etc... In the end from our perspective, us picking the true final winners seemed fair because I guarantee you the guide team will probably argue for days about it, we all don't have a same single favorite guide maker. Basically, the whole process is far more complicated than we originally thought it would be, but we still wanted to give out awards because everyone has done such a great job at making hundreds of guides voluntarily, and this is some sort of tiny way for us to say "thank you" to the community for making such amazing guides.

 

I know guides are still very early in their history on the site, and it's still not perfect by no means, but we're trying to improve - hopefully we learn from this year to improve on the Guide of the Year Awards next year. Either way, your feedback on this is much appreciated, thank you

[itzzh3lixx]

My thoughts exactly.

 

I wrote a guide, submitted it several times over nearly 6 months and finally got a reply telling me to correct a few missing full stops. Yet in that time a guide for the same game got submitted and published months before made me lose interest in writing them.

yeah lol i made a guide for Lego marvel and they unpublished it several times because of lack of information on the story trophies, then after i gave up because i would have had to either watch a guide on youtube trough the story or play the story again to meet their high standars another lego guide was published which only had Story related and cannot be missed on the trophies and it got published, got so pissed so i scrapped the whole guide. Guide team, get your shit together !!

[TwilightSpira]

Wow, that's awesome

[effdeegee]

Hey effdeegee. so we actually talked about the community straight voting for first, second, and third place entirely at one point but we also thought that also has the potential to be a popularity contest too (if not now, those chances increase in the future). Either way I personally don't know exactly what way is best, especially since like you said, it's still new.

 

We battled on whether or not people from the guide team should be included for days and eventually decided not to do that, we talked back and forth about voting and nominations, what would look like a popularity contest, would seem fair, etc... In the end from our perspective, us picking the true final winners seemed fair because I guarantee you the guide team will probably argue for days about it, we all don't have a same single favorite guide maker. Basically, the whole process is far more complicated than we originally thought it would be, but we still wanted to give out awards because everyone has done such a great job at making hundreds of guides voluntarily, and this is some sort of tiny way for us to say "thank you" to the community for making such amazing guides.

 

I know guides are still very early in their history on the site, and it's still not perfect by no means, but we're trying to improve - hopefully we learn from this year to improve on the Guide of the Year Awards next year. Either way, your feedback on this is much appreciated, thank you

Hey Blind. Thanks a million for the timely, mature response.

I can see what you're saying and yes, you would probably be right to assume that leaving the results entirely to the community votes would have the potential to be a popularity contest. Basically, whoever has the most friends or, whoever could lobby the most votes would be rewarded with the undeserved spoils of victory. I feel like, and I can safely predict that, it will end up being some hybrid form of votes and influence between the community and staff. Maybe I was a tad hasty to assume that staff having the final say would be any worse than the community having the full sway.

On your second point, I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate on your statement "whether or not the Guide Team should be included and decided not to...". What exactly are they not being included in? The nomination process? Having their own guides be eligible? The voting? The final verdict? This topic seems pretty intriguing to me. I'll hold back my thoughts until it's further clarified.

I'd be willing to wager that any issues of these awards will be well-ironed out within a couple of attempts. The staff is loaded with intelligent, fast-learning individuals and they've proven several times over that this site's fantastic appearance, community and popularity grow at a rate worthy of all given praise.

[Xxleonardo97xX]

I wonder if the guide team could handle my 8 guides currently in production until the due date   Games with 30-50 trophies with platinum (AAA)....

[Dragon-Archon]

On your second point, I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate on your statement "whether or not the Guide Team should be included and decided not to...". What exactly are they not being included in? The nomination process? Having their own guides be eligible? The voting? The final verdict? This topic seems pretty intriguing to me. I'll hold back my thoughts until it's further clarified.

 

I think it's about rule #4

 

 

Here are the rules:

1. Starting on 1st December, the community will be able to nominate guides which are worthy to be considered for the GotY Award. A thread will be created for this purpose. You will be required to give solid reasons for your choice.
2. The nomination thread will be closed after two weeks. The top ten most nominated guides will be taken into account for the GotY award.
3. The PSNProfiles staff (Sly, mods and the guide team) will pick 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. The total number of nominations is irrelevant for our decision. The guides which get the most nominations is not necessarily going to win - the only thing that counts is guide quality!
4. Since staff will be deciding the winners, their guides will not be eligible! Co-op guides with staff members will be eligible, the non-staff writer will get the whole prize in this case.
5. PSNProfiles will provide additional prizes for all guide contributors so long as they contributed a meaningful amount to the guide. We track all edits so this will be checked.

 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Dragon-Archon

[SoIidWoIf]

Something I'd like to know about guides is what the view counter means. Does it mean ### total different members, does it include guests, does it include the same member more than once if they go back to the guide?

[X_RaceKing_X]

Hey this is a sweet idea! I wonder if ill make the top lol , hopefully a nomination at least

[BlindMango]

On your second point, I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate on your statement "whether or not the Guide Team should be included and decided not to...". What exactly are they not being included in? The nomination process? Having their own guides be eligible? The voting? The final verdict? This topic seems pretty intriguing to me. I'll hold back my thoughts until it's further clarified.

 

Dragon pretty much clarified it already three posts above ^ I was referring to the guide team ultimately deciding that we should not be eligible to have tour own guides win a Guide of the Year Award, strictly keeping all eligibility for just the community guides.

 

Something I'd like to know about guides is what the view counter means. Does it mean ### total different members, does it include guests, does it include the same member more than once if they go back to the guide?

That's actually a good question that I've been meaning to ask Sly about, I'm also interested to know how it counts.

Edited November 11, 2014 by BlindMango

[Sly Ripper]

Something I'd like to know about guides is what the view counter means. Does it mean ### total different members, does it include guests, does it include the same member more than once if they go back to the guide?

 

Just the number of times it's been viewed, it does include the same person if they view it again but only if it's viewed a decent amount of time apart, so spamming refresh won't increment the counter.

[effdeegee]

Dragon pretty much clarified it already three posts above ^ I was referring to the guide team ultimately deciding that we should not be eligible to have tour own guides win a Guide of the Year Award, strictly keeping all eligibility for just the community guides.

Thanks for the clarification, Blind.

After having our brief conversation and going back to read over the rules again, armed with a different perspective, it actually appears as though the rules are quite concise and efficient. You guys have managed to cover the majority of potential pitfalls while, at the same time, allowing the maximum amount of people to be eligible for rewards. Pretty exciting stuff.

[ZOLANTON]

Interesting idea. Too bad I will be missing the next 9 months, since I'll be in the army Anyway, I'll try to keep an eye on this thread the next few days and months.

[Platisfaction]

Thanks for the clarification, Blind.

After having our brief conversation and going back to read over the rules again, armed with a different perspective, it actually appears as though the rules are quite concise and efficient. You guys have managed to cover the majority of potential pitfalls while, at the same time, allowing the maximum amount of people to be eligible for rewards. Pretty exciting stuff.

 

Thanks! As Mango pointed out, we spent a lot of time discussing how to best avoid any popularity-contest elements. We'll see how it goes and make adjustments for next year afterwards. One thing you said earlier went unclarified:

 

 

Telling the community to nominate their favourite guides but that, "you have the final say and the nominations don't affect that" seems ridiculously contradictory and wreaks of being all-powerful.

 

Just to avoid confusion: This is not what the rules say. Only the top ten nominated guides will be taken into account for the award, so your nominations are the heart of the whole thing. After the nomination period, however, the total number of nominations will no longer play a role. So if guide no.1 got 56 nominations but guide no. 10 only got 7 nominations from the community, guide no. 10 might still win the competition. We assumed that good guides for hyped games would probably get way more nominations than an awesome guide for a relatively unknown game. Since the guide for  the unknown game might be be of better quality it could still win 1st price, while the guide with the most community nominations might not even win a prize if there are three better guides among the top ten nominated guides.

yeah lol i made a guide for Lego marvel and they unpublished it several times because of lack of information on the story trophies, then after i gave up because i would have had to either watch a guide on youtube trough the story or play the story again to meet their high standars another lego guide was published which only had Story related and cannot be missed on the trophies and it got published, got so pissed so i scrapped the whole guide. Guide team, get your shit together !!

 

Oh, this guide you tried to write using an iPad? I did a quick search in the archives and the story related trophies were not the only problem with this guide. Far from it, actually. Lots of grammar, punctuation and formatting issues, the latter being caused by using said iPad. Your last comment on the guide is from 14 May, it reads:

 

 

I'll leave this guide for now until i buy a PC and then i get back to it

 

 

You haven't touched the guide ever since, so what has the other Lego Marvel guide to do with it, which was set up for review and published in August?

 

Guys seriously, we know especially the first couple of months were chaotic and it took us some time to figure out how to run this show. We are far from perfect and we appreciate and kind of constructive criticism. Making things up like this doesn't help anyone though, it's simply trolling imho. Oh, and the other Lego Marvel guide does not only offer "story related" and "can't be missed" for the story trophies, at least it lists the chapters, which is okay with us if the game if very straight-forward.

Edited November 11, 2014 by nauGie

[Saltyie]

The plot thickens! 

[itzzh3lixx]

Thanks! As Mango pointed out, we spent a lot of time discussing how to best avoid any popularity-contest elements. We'll see how it goes and make adjustments for next year afterwards. One thing you said earlier went unclarified:

 

 

 

Just to avoid confusion: This is not what the rules say. Only the top ten nominated guides will be taken into account for the award, so your nominations are the heart of the whole thing. After the nomination period, however, the total number of nominations will no longer play a role. So if guide no.1 got 56 nominations but guide no. 10 only got 7 nominations from the community, guide no. 10 might still win the competition. We assumed that good guides for hyped games would probably get way more nominations than an awesome guide for a relatively unknown game. Since the guide for  the unknown game might be be of better quality it could still win 1st price, while the guide with the most community nominations might not even win a prize if there are three better guides among the top ten nominated guides.

 

Oh, this guide you tried to write using an iPad? I did a quick search in the archives and the story related trophies were not the only problem with this guide. Far from it, actually. Lots of grammar, punctuation and formatting issues, the latter being caused by using said iPad. Your last comment on the guide is from 14 May, it reads:

 

 

You haven't touched the guide ever since, so what has the other Lego Marvel guide to do with it, which was set up for review and published in August?

 

Guys seriously, we know especially the first couple of months were chaotic and it took us some time to figure out how to run this show. We are far from perfect and we appreciate and kind of constructive criticism. Making things up like this doesn't help anyone though, it's simply trolling imho. Oh, and the other Lego Marvel guide does not only offer "story related" and "can't be missed" for the story trophies, at least it lists the chapters, which is okay with us if the game if very straight-forward.

i got a pc now and use it for making guides, but as said one of the complaints were lack of story related description which would have been the most time consuming and i had done half of it if i remember correctly and all of them was done on a pc, while i believe the guide was for Lego Harry Potter only haa story related and cannot be missed so that's why i abandoned it because i felt as my time was being wasted since Lego games have an extremely straight forward story which even a newborn would complete without ever feeling confused

[Xxleonardo97xX]

 

After the nomination period, however, the total number of nominations will no longer play a role. So if guide no.1 got 56 nominations but guide no. 10 only got 7 nominations from the community, guide no. 10 might still win the competition. We assumed that good guides for hyped games would probably get way more nominations than an awesome guide for a relatively unknown game. Since the guide for  the unknown game might be be of better quality it could still win 1st price, while the guide with the most community nominations might not even win a prize if there are three better guides among the top ten nominated guides.

 

 

I really hope this goes into consideration because some people can't afford new games day one, therefre can't write a guide for those hyped, new games.

 

You have really thought in every aspect to make this fair and square!

[Platisfaction]

I really hope this goes into consideration because some people can't afford new games day one, therefre can't write a guide for those hyped, new games.

 

You have really thought in every aspect to make this fair and square!

 

Thanks mate! If there are any other questions just feel free to ask, otherwise just happy guide writing!

[Xxleonardo97xX]

Thanks mate! If there are any other questions just feel free to ask, otherwise just happy guide writing!

After consideration, don't you think 10 guides are a low number? I'm seeing 4-5 AAA games there so they're more popular taking half of the space that could hold spots for less known games, whose guides might be extraordinary.

This being said why not a bigger number like 15, or only The Guide Team could vote for these because they,re the ones who have seen every single guide, so the popularity factor would disappear. (Yeah I trust you Guide team )

[bpmotard]

I was thinking, the top 10 guides will be chosed based on how much votes that guide had on the course of two weeks correct? So it is more likely to a shooter (Call of Duty or Battlefield) getting more votes than a racing game or a puzzle game or a rhytm game since players' favorite genre at the moment is either RPG's or FPS's. With this in mind won't other genre's guides be in disadvantage comparing to the others? By the way, this just occured to be I'm not implying that an FPS guide will win but seeing that gamers love FPS, for example, they will vote for a guide of a game they like and not how good/bad that guide is...

[Xxleonardo97xX]

After consideration, don't you think 10 guides are a low number? I'm seeing 4-5 AAA games there so they're more popular taking half of the space that could hold spots for less known games, whose guides might be extraordinary.

This being said why not a bigger number like 15, or only The Guide Team could vote for these because they,re the ones who have seen every single guide, so the popularity factor would disappear. (Yeah I trust you Guide team )

 

 

I was thinking, the top 10 guides will be chosed based on how much votes that guide had on the course of two weeks correct? So it is more likely to a shooter (Call of Duty or Battlefield) getting more votes than a racing game or a puzzle game or a rhytm game since players' favorite genre at the moment is either RPG's or FPS's. With this in mind won't other genre's guides be in disadvantage comparing to the others? By the way, this just occured to be I'm not implying that an FPS guide will win but seeing that gamers love FPS, for example, they will vote for a guide of a game they like and not how good/bad that guide is...

 

Another point concerning the fact that community votes aren't that good idea, because there will be biased decisions. 

 

To actually make this fair, the people that review the guides (Guide Team) should be the ones picking the top 10 guides because no one else on this website has seen all the guides, period. People will vote on guide they used that were actually good, but those people might not know about the existence of top notch guides for less known games. I, myself, am included in that list, because, like I said, no one has read every single guide.

[SoIidWoIf]

Am wondering how many people are actually going to see this and vote. Guides are very popular on this sites, with up to thousands of views but not that much people browse all of the forums. I don't think I would have seen this announcement thread if it wasn't for the status posts mentioning it at the time I went online.

Edited November 18, 2014 by SoIidWoIf

[Hamburger Helper]

Awesome, I like this. It's a great way to encourage people to do their best.

 

Haha, there's no way anyone can top your guides, man. I know whose guide I'm using for Sly 4 and Dragon's Dogma 

[Dragon-Archon]

Haha, there's no way anyone can top your guides, man. I know whose guide I'm using for Sly 4 and Dragon's Dogma 

Thnx  , it's great to know all that work helps other people .

Edited November 17, 2014 by Dragon-Archon

[razizo41]

Awesome idea!

 

382 guides?! I remember just yesterday when there were only one page worth of guides, look how far it's come I'm happy to have contributed 7 (Edit: 9) of those guides, and hopefully many more in the future .

 

 

 

 

[Dragon-Archon]

I was thinking, the top 10 guides will be chosed based on how much votes that guide had on the course of two weeks correct? So it is more likely to a shooter (Call of Duty or Battlefield) getting more votes than a racing game or a puzzle game or a rhytm game since players' favorite genre at the moment is either RPG's or FPS's. With this in mind won't other genre's guides be in disadvantage comparing to the others? By the way, this just occured to be I'm not implying that an FPS guide will win but seeing that gamers love FPS, for example, they will vote for a guide of a game they like and not how good/bad that guide is...

While this is absolutely true, it does gives me hope that a FPSRPG guide like Borderlands 2 will make it to the top 10.