I lied. This is another survival game, BUT not quite like the ones before. Read on.
This is a hybrid of 2 of my ideas: the Battle of Greats and Survival of the Novels. I have included characters from Jin Yong's novels taking place between Song dynasty to Ming dynasty. For this game, I have organized 6 categories / novels with 4 Greats in each category. The categories are:
1. DGSD
2. LOCH: the original 4 Greats: North, West, East, and South
3. LOCH: other emerging or preceeding Greats introduced in LOCH
4. ROCH
5. HSDS
6. Smiling Proud Wanderer
I had to expand the LOCH/ROCH categories due to the number of high calibre Greats in that era. The idea is to support your favorite Great or your favorite novel!
For this game, we will pit one Great from each category against Greats from other categories. I have pre-selected the order for the battles. I made sure that the main characters compete in the same battle, while the villains have their own as well. For example, in round 1, we have Murong Bo vs Ouyang Feng vs Qiu Qian Ren vs Golden Wheel Monk vs Yellow-dressed Lady vs Ren Wo Xing. The pattern should tell you that this round is for the villains. I am aware that Lady Yang is not a villain, but there is no Great-level villain in HSDS, so I had to substitute someone. For round 1, we only vote on these 6 individuals for 24 hours. After 24 hours, the Great with the highest score wins, representing his/her category or novel, and we move on to the next category until we finish 4 categories. I will probably let round 1 play for more than 24 hours, just to kick things off. Please read the rules for more details.
I am sorry about the lack of female representation. Blame the writer. On the other hand, there is an all-female game going on right now, so this one provides the right balance I think. For the record, 2 females are competiting within: the Yellow-dressed Lady (HSDS) and Lin Chao Ying, Founder of Ancient Tomb (ROCH). I would have included Guo Xiang, but she was already in 2 of the 3 games before. I try to give everyone a chance.
Exactly how did I pick the Greats for this game? The short answer is that I went with my gut feelings. Seriously, I wanted this to be a battle of comparable Greats -- with no superhuman characters like the Sweeper Monk, Xu Zhu, Xiao Yao Elders or Shi Potian. Specifically, within the same category, I did not want fighters with big gaps; that is why I did not include Dong Fang Bu Bai, for he is much better than the other candidates. Some may say that the people from Smiling Proud Wanderers are weak; however this is a subjective opinion that many don't agree with. The best way to settle this matter is on the battleground, and I hereby provide this kind of environment to you all. Let the competition begin
Your vote should be based on the character's coolness (to you), overall martial arts level compared to each other, martial art style, and personality.
Murong Bo (DGSD)
Xiao Yuanshan (DGSD)
Great Wheel Monk Jiu Mo Zhi (DGSD)
Xiao Feng (DGSD)
Western Venom Ouyang Feng (LOCH original)
Eastern Heretic Huang Yao Shi (LOCH original)
Souther Emperor Yi Deng Da-shi (LOCH original)
Norther Beggar Hong Qi Gong (LOCH original)
Qiu Qian Ren (LOCH emerging/preceeding)
Central Divinity Wang Chong Yang (LOCH emerging/preceeding)
Zhou Bo Tong (LOCH emerging/preceeding)
Guo Jing (LOCH emerging/preceeding)
Golden Wheel Monk, Imperial Priest (ROCH)
Demonic Swordsman Dugu Qiubai (ROCH)
Lin Chao Ying, Founder of Ancient Tomb (ROCH)
Yang Guo (ROCH)
Yellow-dressed Lady Yang (HSDS)
Zhang San Feng, Founder of Wudang and the "Taiji" art (HSDS)
Yang Ding Tian (HSDS)
Zhang Wu Ji (HSDS)
Ren Wo Xing (SPW)
Feng Qing Yang (SPW)
Abbot Fang Zheng (SPW)
Linghu Chong (SPW)
The rules are simple:
1. There are 4 rounds. Round 1 will last about 40 hours, with the 3 succeeding rounds lasting 24 hours each. During each round, you are only voting for the 6 competing contestants.
2. Each Great starts at 5 points. Either add OR subtract a point for a chosen Great. It is not necessary to place alternating votes. If a Great has a score of 0, he/she is removed from the game.
3. You may vote once every 5 turns OR every 30 minutes, whichever comes first; this means that unless 30 minutes have passed since your last vote, you must wait until at least 4 others have voted before you vote again.
4. To facilitate the tracking of the scores, please cut and paste the ENTIRE LIST of swordsmen in your post (highlighting your addition/subtraction).