Idea: all-time favourite character

I've only been here a few days, but I've noticed that quite a few "Your favourite character in Final Fantasy N" threads have been springing up. It's obviously a popular idea, judging by how many threads and votes there are. I like it too - it's a good platform for debate

An idea which came into my head today is this. There should be a "favourite character" poll for every FF game in the main series, excluding the online ones (so that's one to ten, plus twelve and thirteen). Then, at a certain deadline, the character leading each poll will advance to the next stage, which is a battle to see who the TLS community's all-time favourite FF character.

The latest draft of the rules and timetable can be found in a later post in this thread. The original draft is left below for reference.


Cthulhu had some ideas too, but I'll let him describe what they are.

What do you think? If people want it to happen (and the reaction on IRC has been good so far), we should make threads for all the remaining FF games - but maybe one every week, not all at the same time The post underneath this one will be reserved, to give links to the existing polls and the new ones, when they are put up.

Favourite character polls (and who made them):

Final Fantasy I (Flintlock)
Final Fantasy II (Flintlock)
Final Fantasy III (Flintlock)
Final Fantasy IV (Ishtar)
Final Fantasy V (Akise)
Final Fantasy VI (Nathan Drake)
Final Fantasy VII (Tifa Lockhart)
Final Fantasy VIII (Vixenish)
Final Fantasy IX (Akise)
Final Fantasy X (Seunia)
Final Fantasy XII (Flintlock)
Final Fantasy XIII (Akise)


I've tried to encourage the polls to contain, at the least, all playable characters and the main villain. There are some omissions, though, and you're welcome to vote for an NPC if you want to: just select the "other" option in the poll, if there is one, and post to say who you're voting for.

oh shit now I'm in for it .

I just suggested making summary articles out of the favorites thing. Maybe not even make it a definite ordered top X, just a 'favorite characters' thing where why people see character X as favorite is summarized.

[/all]

yessssss!

Ok, but I am going to campaign tirelessly for Quina. It's going to be like that gamefaqs character battle that L block won

^ You've got your work cut out - she's not even in the IX poll at the moment

OMG this is a great idea. I was waiting for an FFVII poll to pop up. xD You may be a noob, but at least you know how to actually create a poll. I've been here since 08 and just learned how

Karkat said:

You may be a noob, but at least you know how to actually create a poll.

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There's no evidence of that yet But I've done it before on vBulletin, phpBB, Invision...

Thanks for the feedback

You know where I stand on this. If you need help with anything just give a shout.

I was looking for something to make a video about for the youtube channel and top 10s have been mentioned.

1 thing though... only having 1 character from each game going forward after the first round wouldnt necessarily give a fave characters list, just the favourite out of the ones that go forward, not taking into account the votes for runners up for each game.

Am I just being nitpicky? lol

Pixel said:

1 thing though... only having 1 character from each game going forward after the first round wouldnt necessarily give a fave characters list, just the favourite out of the ones that go forward, not taking into account the votes for runners up for each game.

Am I just being nitpicky? lol

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Not at all, I would argue that the Cast of Final Fantasy VI is far superior to say the cast of Final Fantasy II and that forsaking VI characters for the sake of even numbers is flawed logic. Some of the games just have better casts.

Mr. Ite said:

Not at all, I would argue that the Cast of Final Fantasy VI is far superior to say the cast of Final Fantasy II and that forsaking VI characters for the sake of even numbers is flawed logic. Some of the games just have better casts.

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dont know how you got that from what i wrote lol

Well damn, might as well give up, Vivi will probably win.

I'd make a poll for FFV, since I'm playing it at the moment, but I'm not sure how you guys are selecting characters. I'm partial to Faris at the moment though. End of May deadline should give me enough time to play FFVI, to select my favourite there.

I dont think is should be dragged out so long. I could easily be done within a few weeks

Lots of good comments

Pixel said:

1 thing though... only having 1 character from each game going forward after the first round wouldnt necessarily give a fave characters list, just the favourite out of the ones that go forward, not taking into account the votes for runners up for each game.

Am I just being nitpicky? lol

Click to expand...

Mr. Ite said:

Not at all, I would argue that the Cast of Final Fantasy VI is far superior to say the cast of Final Fantasy II and that forsaking VI characters for the sake of even numbers is flawed logic. Some of the games just have better casts.

Click to expand...

It depends on what kind of competition you want it to be. I can completely understand why you would want only the best characters to go through, even if that means some games aren't represented at all, but how would that work? Just counting the votes from separate polls wouldn't be good enough, for this reason: even if I think there are ten characters in FFVI better than any of the characters in FFII, I still only have one vote in each poll. So there's no way I could express my opinion. The format would have to be completely different, with a nomination process, similar to the TLS awards.

Personally, I'd like to see at least one character from every FF, and I purposefully included the best runners-up to help compensate the problem you described, but we could definitely go for some kind of hybrid system and an expanded competition. For example: the winner of each poll qualifies automatically (12), the best runners-up go through by number of votes (6), and then there's a separate nomination thread where members can argue for certain characters' inclusion (6). 24 in total, four groups of six, with the top two from each group going to quarter-finals, semi-finals and then a final.

Ghost X said:

I'd make a poll for FFV, since I'm playing it at the moment, but I'm not sure how you guys are selecting characters. I'm partial to Faris at the moment though. End of May deadline should give me enough time to play FFVI, to select my favourite there.

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Pixel said:

I dont think is should be dragged out so long. I could easily be done within a few weeks

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Here we have one person saying the deadline gives them enough time, and another saying it is too far away.

I know it feels like a very long way away, but if we make one new poll per week for the games which haven't been examined yet, that would already take us up to the end of February. Then there should be at least a month for all the polls to stay open, so I'd argue that the end of March is the earliest feasible deadline, with an April tournament. However, that would probably inconvenience some people who want time to play the games again.

As I said in the original post, nothing is set in stone yet, so keep the feedback coming And Ghost X, you can go ahead and make the poll for FFV now, if you like. I'll add your name to the list in the meantime. Thanks for volunteering!

The thing about the length of time is this: people get bored or uninterested after a while, and lose patience. I mean, when I look at the board's awards, a month is a long time and people are looking to move on.

I mean, you say June. June is 6 months from now. That's a looong way away. I mean, I'll still be here presumably. I think April is much better than June. I know you want to give people time to replay games, but I still think it's just giving too long of a deadline. Especially if we're including the front page, which would include people who aren't members. They'll forget or get bored, or w/e.


As for the characters thing, I do agree that it might be beneficial to include multiple characters from a game. But I do like the idea of including at least one character per game. So idk. Something to think about and work out. I mean, maybe the way the polls are now aren't condusive to how you want to set up the tournament. Maybe you'd have to start something from scratch. It wouldn't bother me to do that, but idk how other people would feel.

Alright, so a couple of people now thought it should be brought forward. How does April sound to everyone else?

We could also have the winner of each poll, no runners up, and 12 by nomination. That would make it much more open, but it would still tell us who is the favourite from each game, so that articles about them can be written for the front page. It would require people to actively take part in the nominations thread.

Make it Feb, I do not mind .

Well, these "favourite character" threads are popping up every other day, so if things carry on that way, it could end up being even earlier.

I added the FFVII poll to the second post in this thread.

Sorry for the double post, but I want to bump this.

After getting ideas from a few staff members yesterday, I've come up with a timetable and format for this competition.

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Firstly, the format:

The winner of each poll, for each game in the main FF series, will go through to the finals automatically and will be seeded. The eight next most popular characters will also go through. There will then be a nomination phase where people can champion the cause of their favourite characters who have not yet secured a place. Looking at the TLS awards, that phase doesn't need to be particularly long; a week or two at most. The four characters that pick up the most nominations will go through that way.

There will be a live draw for the finals on the #TLS IRC channel, where you can come along to watch the action unfold, like in many sporting competitions. The characters will be split into four groups of six based on their seedings, with the top two from each poll going through to the knock-out stage.

The knock-out stage will compose of quarter-finals, semi-finals, a final and a 3rd/4th place play-off. They will all be head to head battles between two characters.

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And here's my suggested timetable:

Ongoing: polls are made for the remaining FF games (see my second post in this thread for the list).
24th of March: the votes are counted.
25th to 31st of March: nominations.
1st of April: live group stage draw.
1st to 28th of April: group stage.
29th of April to 12th of May: quarter-finals.
13th to 19th of May: semi-finals.
20th to 26th of May: finals and 3rd/4th place play-off.
27th of May: awards ceremony

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Everything starts on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday, as those days are probably most convenient for people. It know it feels a long way away; I would have liked to have brought it even further forwards, but I have important exams in March and I don't want to be too distracted when they are happening. At least it gives you all a chance to play the games if you want to remind yourself of (or acquaint yourself with) your favourite characters, and in the meantime, there is the FFVII music competition to keep you busy.

Comments, questions?

Reminder: the votes will be counted this Friday, the 24th of March, or Saturday morning at the latest (I might be going out on Friday night). The polls will remain open, but however they stand at that time will determine which characters go through to the next round of this competition... thing.

A list of all the polls can be found in the second post of this thread, so cast your votes now if you haven't already

The FFIX poll is closed. Should I reopen it?

Oh, er, I guess Thanks, I hadn't spotted it.