Through the Aeon Games, I will be holding a long-term competition based on PvE (Player versus Enemy) combat: Valiant Vorpal Vanaduke Vanquishment, or V4 for short. (For those of you who may not know, vorpal is a word that was created by the poet Lewis Caroll to describe the deadliness of a sword. ;) )

In short, participants are required to defeat Vanaduke in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of deaths/damage, and only with swords. The competition will officially begin December 1st, 2011, and will last roughly three weeks, until Christmas Eve (December 24, 2011). Although you are welcome to enter a submission which was recorded somewhere between the posting of this thread and the initiation date (December 1st), please be aware that your submission may become void if certain rules are changed before the initiation date which make it incompatible with this competition.

The winning team will be rewarded with 3,600 CE, which is to be distributed evenly to each party member. There will also be two second/third place prizes of 1,200 CE each, which will be distributed in the same fashion.

If you wish to participate, whether it be alone or in a party, please read and abide by the rules illustrated below. I strongly urge you to make sure that all party members also read the rules. It would be a pity if one member made one tiny mistake and your entire recording went to waste because of it. :(

Please note that the rules are, for the most part, simple reiterations of common sense, and are not meant to be demanding in the least. You may also find the guidelines to be somewhat helpful. If you do not wish to read the rules, than please: do not waste my time, and that of every other competitor, with your submission.

Due to the wordy (nonetheless necessary) nature of the rules, I have compiled a compact checklist for the benefit of all participants.

If you would like to ask me any further questions, please feel free to mail/tell me in-game on Aecarus. :)

Rules:

1. Every single participant must read and acknowledge these rules. This is a seemingly redundant precaution to help ensure that you and all of your team mates have read these rules and (hopefully) understand their implications. Again, if you do not wish to read, let alone abide by the rules, than I do not want you competing.
2. You, and every member of your party, must not fire a single bullet nor arm a single bomb; that is, the competition is strictly sword-only! This will make things far more interesting and diverse, rather than the cookie-cutter Shivermist and Blitz combo. Although the fastest times I've seen to date do take a fair amount of skill to pull of, I'd like to see some diversity, and other variations of skill. :) In order to enforce this rule, I will require that every Knight cannot carry any weapons but swords at all. (Yes, this means you may need to run the last one or two levels before Vanaduke with only swords as well - unless you invite the other party member right before the Vanaduke level - but this is the only truly satisfactory way to enforce the sword-only rule. Also, to prove this is true, you must inspect each Knight of your party (including yourself) so that the weapon icons can be seen.
3. Play fair, and be careful of glitches. Do not use exploits or any other form of cheating the system to defeat Vanaduke faster. If Vanaduke gets stuck (especially on the mask stages), even by accident, you may be asked to start over. If your time is already significantly shorter than that of any other team, such glitches may not be as much of an issue - as, in most cases, you should be able to get Vanaduke un-stuck before the amount of time affected becomes considerably anomalous. I know this may be an inconvenience, but it is one of the few ways to ensure greater fairness for all participants.
4. Your recording must be taken as of or after the initiation of this competition. In order to enforce this rule, I am going to require every party member to mention the Aeon Games, in some form or another, before the battle commences. For example, have everyone in your party, including yourself, shout "For the Aeon Games!" before your party steps on to the Party Button. (I believe the appropriate quality for words to be readable is 480p, though a more acceptable quality is one step above to 720p.) However, if the quality of your video is too low to be able to easily make out the words, you may wish to consider mailing me and requesting another method of proving that your recording was done after the competition was initiated.
5. Your recording must be genuine and completely unedited. You are not allowed to add comments, transitions, or make any edits whatsoever to your recording. (There is only one exception to this - see Rule #9.) Those of you who have had sufficient experience with video-creation should understand that this basically means taking the raw audio/video (which may be quite large), converting/saving it to a manageable format, and uploading it to YouTube - that's it.
6. You must have all SK-genuine sound channels turned on for the entire battle. As a corollary to above: make sure all three of the sound options are turned on full so that I can hear each of them while reviewing your entry. This greatly helps to ensure that nobody cheats by, say, secretly speeding up their video. (Not to mention the eradication of the possible unintentional/unconscious bias that might otherwise be a result of my preference for your music choice. ;) ) If you really want to put music to your video, feel free to upload the same video but with a musical overlay of your preference - this has nothing to do with the competition. You can overlay the genuine sound channels with your own music in any decent video-editing program - just make sure the one you upload for the competition has the genuine sound present, as stated.
7. You must upload your recording to YouTube, public or private. If you don't have a YouTube account, feel free to make one or have a friend upload it for you. Please note that if your recording goes over the YouTube time limit, you will need to either verify the YouTube account to have this limit lifted, or aim for a better time. (I will not accept videos split in to parts/segments!) Feel free to upload your recording as private, but just be sure that I am able to view it given the address.
8. You must defeat Vanaduke in less than 20 minutes. I, among many others, have done deathless Vanaduke solos in less than 20 minutes. Admittedly, this is much more of a challenge using only swords, however it is, nonetheless, quite possible. If you cannot bring down Vanaduke within this 20-minute time frame, I can guarantee someone is going to beat you. ;)
9. You must comply utterly to the Terms of Service for the entirety of your recording. (This should also, be redundant - alas, it is not.) In short, this means no swearing, perverting, harassing, etc, throughout your entire recording. I would rather not publicize such offenses via the Aeon Games, in any sense whatsoever. This brings forth the only exception to editing your recording: if you, for example, get clubbed in the face and accidentally slip a curse word or two, feel free to censor it with a sufficiently small solid-coloured box. However, excessive use of this will result in immediate disqualification of the culprit recording. Please, use common sense: holding back from using fowl words for one battle should not be a very demanding task. :/

Guidelines:

1. Please mail me the YouTube URL of your final submission and the in-game names of all Knights in your party. Rewards will be mailed directly the the Knight(s) in the video, whether or not a request is made otherwise. This is to avoid possible future confusion, and to help ensure that those receiving rewards are in fact the appropriate players.
2. The timer starts when the lava around the Party Button is extinguished, and stops when Vanaduke hits the ground. I am in charge of timing the submissions, and so you may not feel the need to do so - unless you plan on using the same recording for other reasons.
3. Try not to get hit, and more importantly: try not to die. Please keep in mind that while the top priority is to defeat Vanaduke in the least amount of time, immeasurably close submissions may need to be judged (amongst each other) by the least amount of deaths, and possibly even least damage/hits taken. I hope that it does not come to this, but I have an unsettling feeling that it may.
4. You are allowed to battle alone, or in a party of 2 to 4 players. Although good teamwork will typically usually outdo good solo ability in this instance, some players may wish to participate alone simply for fun.
5. Remember: the reward is divided evenly amongst party members. If you do a solo and win, you get all of the reward CE to yourself. If you battle with a partner and win, you will each receive half of the reward CE. A winning party of 3 Knights means each will receive one third of the reward CE. Finally, a full party of 4 Knights means each will receive one quarter of the reward CE.
6. Submissions received after December 24th, 2011, at 11:45 PM (PST) will not be considered. Simply put: I will not accept late entries. You are being given over three weeks, which should be more than enough time to gather a party (if applicable) and take down Vanaduke.
7. Consolation may or may not be given out. Depending on the amount of entries, and the quality therein, I may decide to give away consolation prizes to those worthy competitors who have fought with honour (and uniquity). This is to help encourage players to compete regardless of other submissions.