*shrug* I watched it all at once too and I liked it way more in the beginning.
Badass wanderer Kirito is way more interesting than papa Kirito.
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Half of the suspense went away when "people didn't die if they are killed".
on top of that: the first half ended abruptly, pretty much at the point where things got interesting ( ~lvl 80 of 100?)...
SAO 2 Episode 2 - HS
- - - - -
I feel like I argued with LN readers when the first episode made me think the gun game was a proper game with tactics and a trace of realism, what with the interview show and only human players shown, plus the sniping scene, but then it turned out the game was an exceptionally simple shooter that doesn't even include fall damage.
This was fricking pitiful. The random monster obviously wasn't even meant to be fought with guns from a distance, it was probably some reskinned SAO thing. I guess that's realism in a sense; a lazy studio was cutting costs by not adapting the monster algorithms to a game with modern guns.
Things got so miserable when the PvP battle began that I wouldn't even want to comment on it. Anybody who thought the conclusion of Sinon jumping from the building and avoiding all the minigun bullets, then shooting the dude from midair was cool should jump themselves from a high place. Oh, well, I'm watching this show to bash it, so I guess it fulfilled the purpose splendidly.
You didn't like the minigun guy having an orgasm trying to elevate his gun (which he somehow could not manage)?
I'm shocked, truly shocked.
I don't really want to get in an argument since it is pointless, but I just can't resist saying something.
There's a reason miniguns are almost always mounted in real life, you know?
I don't even think Master Chief can aim the minigun straight up.
And of course... it is a video game.
They're mounted because it is faster to move while sweeping to the left or right mounted, because they're usually on a helicopter or other vehicle which is in motion. Not because they're heavy.
Realism is out the window the moment one can jump out of a building with a 20+ lbs rifle and even pretend it can be shot accurately while falling.
And yes, they make tiny miniguns that still fire full 7.62. They're pretty adorable. The reason you never see people shooting miniguns upward while handheld (or mounted) is because it is really unsafe and stupid, not because they can't do it. That's 50 rounds downrange in a second, flying through the air, hitting god knows where. That's why you never see people do it.
Interesting info. That mini-mini gun is pretty cool.
I still don't see why it is such a big problem when there are actual video games that don't let you do this though.
Because if Sinon is allowed to do stupid shit like that using "because it is a game" logic, minigun dude should have also been allowed to do stupid shit like that, and shot her easily.
I don't see why it is so hard to believe there could be a video game that lets you jump off a building and shoot someone but also has a maximum vertical range on a minigun.
Maybe its just because I've played games (like Halo) where this isn't that unreasonable.
EDIT:
This made me want to look up some videos, and I found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bg2LA3k29k
Pretty amazing snipe.
While I'm we're talking about crazy video game moments, this is one of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrOIgxQ--Tc
Yeah I really don't get it. In Halo 3 - Valhalla Map I would fly off the base ramp and snipe people while in mid-air all the time. Do none of you play Halo? Also in games like Day of Defeat, if you don't mount your machine gun it makes it very difficult to aim, so it's reasonable the big guy had some difficulty. None of this is unrealistic for a game, get over it.
The only part that really turned me off was when the crew leader started bitching about dying, like it's his first day playing and he's 5 years old and doesn't understand that you die all the time in video games. IMO that was the most unrealistic part - they really had no business putting something like that in there. Also the fact that Sinon was surprised to see someone smiling when playing a video game. Has she really never seen someone smiling while playing a game? Is this her first day playing PvP as well?
Well fuck you too, friendo.
Maybe the XP penalty for dying is REALLY high.
I know I was scared shitless of dying back in Everquest once you got high level, because every death cost you, like, 4-6 hours of leveling to get back the XP you lost.
Generally in a MMO, if you log out in a combat area you are still there for X amount of seconds.
So really, he would be dying either way. Sinon was chewing him out for being a pussy about it.
Granted, getting shot in a VR game is probably still pretty scary.
I hate to break it to you both, but Halo isn't even a remotely realistic shooter in terms of mechanics, and GGO clearly is trying to be, laser guns and swords aside. Halo is also one of the "slowest" shooters when compared to most PC shooters. That makes it much easier to aim and shoot a sniper rifle from the air. Not to mention the game has auto-aim because it is on consoles.
You'd never be able to do that in Unreal Tournament without an aimbot. Hell, you can barely do it in Fallout (can't use VATS in midair).
Homing .50 bullets are coming to real life. Soon, video games that will ask for precise shooting will be a thing of the past.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/13/d...t-bullet-demo/
On to my next problem with this episode: Silica getting molested by tentacles...again.
Also the fact that we'll be on the 3rd or 4th episode before Kirito actually starts the game.
what...?Quote:
You'd never be able to do that in Unreal Tournament without an aimbot.
the fact aside that it was pretty much point blank range in this episode, what makes you think that?
and why are you ignoring the BF video and how is GGO trying to be "realistic" (by today's standards) from what we've seen so far
ep2 was great, the only thing that bothered me is that Kirito keeps playing Alfheim (or whatever it was called), I want him to start the new game... it takes way to long
maybe you should just leave?Quote:
Anybody who thought the conclusion of Sinon jumping from the building and avoiding all the minigun bullets, then shooting the dude from midair was cool should jump themselves from a high place
ITT: people that obviously never played games or were at least not even remotely good in them complain about a show - about a game being a game
Am I the only one who found it interesting that this game seemingly lets you SEE bullet trajectories? That plus agility gives you doable dodging right there.
Holy shit.
I know this wasn't aimed at me, but chill the fuck out.
I'm taken aback by how two or three of the SAO LN legion flock to defend even the most minor of criticism directed at it. Given that there are maybe...25 active forum posters here these days, that's alarming. It's not just on our forum either. Any criticism on an anime forum of SAO gets immediately jumped on by LN fans. It's as pathetic as it is creepy.
Lots of shows get criticized. Shinta went on an anti-shoujo trope rampage in the Soredemo thread, most of his points valid. Mahouka deservedly gets criticized because it is incredibly dull and lacking any tension. Attack on Titan had its critics. But for some reason, SAO has the cult-like defense squad.
Among a horrifically bad season, SAO is one of the better series airing. But it's not perfect. The show has problems. We're pointing them out. It's not something to flip out over.
its not about defending SAO its about your bullshitting for the sake of bullshitting, thats not criticism...(especially since all gaming relevant criticism so far was horribly wrong)
and I'm not even aware who read the LN here, I didn't (the only LN I ever read was SNAFU) and I doubt Darthender did.
it isn't exclusive to SAO either...
Did you guys ever watch a movie with other people? I really doubt that and if anyone ever did, they probably won't do it again...
"Oh look, Expendables is horrible, see how they flew right into the bad guys hideout with their plane? pathetic... what a horrible movie"
WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED THAT IT ISN'T REALISTIC, RIGHT?! THX FOR POINTING IT OUT!
I'm all for pointing out mistakes and plotholes and inconsistency, but please don't make them up like you guys did in the last few posts. *that's* pathetic..
reminds me of the first episode of Mekakucity Actors where Ene(?) pointed out that the dude is making shit up on internet forums like "I used to work for the anime industry"
...said no one, ever. Where in the high-HP, jumping-off-building capabilities, laser guns and swords, seeing trajectory paths and sniping mid air do you think GGO is trying to be realistic and not more like Halo? It's exactly like Halo. Just because you say GGO is trying to be a realistic shooter doesn't make it so. I expect to see you on Halo threads talking about how it's failing at being a realistic FPS, or on World of Warcraft threads saying it's unrealistic because people can't do magic and giant horse-people can't speak english...or exist.
Ohh yeah okay that makes a lot more sense now. I never played EQ so I didn't think about that kind of functionality. That makes me feel better about that scene then. Still don't get the "he's smiling" shit though.
thx @Kraco, saves me some work. WOW was that bad. :D
First of all, I donīt get what makes Sinon such a famous, great sniper. That monster she killed just stood there. Anybody with a sniper rifle could have done that. Also, real (lol) videogames never allow such play. Sniping a boss to death? No, even if you can use long-range weapons at all, youīre bound to running around all over the place to evade the bossī attacks. This one stood there and was out after a few shots ... which is realistic, but not impressive.
One of my biggest gripes with this episode, though: Sinon kills the first guy, tries to hit the cloak guy, misses ... and stops. And gives up. And, to top all this stupidity off, APPROACHES the opponents. Yes, decreasing the distance between yourself and the enemy makes total sense for a FUCKING SNIPER! argh. And before anyone writes "well, cloak guy was clearly able to dodge her attacks and knew about her position": He dodges ONE bullet. And even if he had continued to doge, Sinon would have at least kept him from attacking the other guys, averting his attention to her, thus opening chances for an attack of their own. The way she acted was ANTI-support.
Then the "leader" being all scared when he lost hope. WHY was he scared? Moreover, he himself saif "itīs just a game". Fucking L O L. Yes, its just a game, so please scream and cry like some spineless douche. Even if there is some heavy punishment for dying in-game, his behavior was too out-of-place. And then thereīs the fact that IF there was a high penalty for dying, any game like that would NOT let you log out just when itīs getting dangerous for yourself. If that were possible, everyone would always just log out before dying, thus creating a shitty quitter-game. Reminds me of the times in Mario Kart DS, where quitting a game would have no negative impact on your score.
And what was it about "winning" anyway? The leader sacrificed himself to throw a grenade into the enemy group. Why? He made the conscious effort to hire Sinon, yet by being offed, he wonīt get any loot. Since it is "just a game", none of this made any sense.
The resonable complaints about the end scene between Sinon and cloak guy were already explained by Kraco.
And Silica and the girls need to get a life asap. Wasting your time in a game that has been made open to hacking and adding stuff at random, thus taking away any sort of relevance for looting and leveling, is idiotic.
Closing comment: Iīm 100% sure the author/production team made up the "Heīs strong enough to smile on the battlefield"-line only to troll everybody. Wow, that line is so dumb, it makes my brains hurt. Fuck, I cannot get over just HOW dumb it is. Arfghg
I know it was aimed at me, but I've already explained that in my wishful thinking I interpreted the scenes of the first episode in a way that made me think it's a relatively serious gun fighting simulator, not a simple-minded shooter. I believe it's not unreasonable to be disappointed when the second episode proved it was, after all, just a cheap SAO derivative with guns and laser rifles thrown in. Believe me of not, but I'd have badmouthed this far less if it was more like a VR version of Arma, perhaps with some RPG elements included to make character development more concrete.
Whilst I dislike many (too many) things about SAO, I will still watch this till the end for the high production values alone. Unlike Ryll, I also enjoy the fact there are genuine fans here who will oppose my unfairly hard criticism. I have probably been in that role myself with some other shows.
That was a rather lackluster episode. Maybe if they explained WHY they didn't want to die, it might have given me more excitement but since they didn't. All I can think of is that it's only a game and they were PKing. Of course there is going to be a risk of being killed. I guess I just didn't feel the tension they were trying to build.
To be fair, any attempt to argue realism is a REALLY dumb criticism.
Last I checked, Arma doesn't have giant fire beam shooting monsters in it...
Obviously, since it's a game where you can detect incoming fire and dodge, it makes total sense.
Less range for the bullet to travel=less time to dodge.
Hence, why the shot at close range took his visor off instead of easily being side-stepped.
Very true. But she also obviously has some kind of psychological issue. Once she saw him smiling(which, yeah, don't know why that's weird, guy is playing a video game and kicking ass, you SHOULD be smiling, or else why play?), she was insistent that she kill him. I don't know if she hates smiling guys, or she thinks defeating smiling guys will unlock the secrets of happiness, but she obviously wasn't willing to play support after that happened.
You say that, but have you never seen one of those fat sacks of shit on a livestream break down into tears on a raid wipe before? It happens. There are people who are just that lame.
Yeah, because they couldn't possibly just be playing for fun or anything. That's why everyone plays Minecraft right? For progression?
I swear, you people must be the most miserable fucks to play video games with.
If you look back to all the scenes where Sinon fights monsters, she's never smiling. Everyone says she's strong, but she never "enjoys" her fights per se. You could argue that she let out her breath after fighting the monster boss because of sniping technique... or because she was tense. Given what happened this episode (comments about smiling, less realism than expected), I'd give the latter more weight. That's the significance of the smiling bodyguard. He's strong enough that he can smile on the battlefield. Sinon thought that if she could defeat someone like that, perhaps she'll be able to feel confident and enjoy her fights as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by lelouch
In regards to "Why did Sinon run after she missed", the guy commented before about providing Sinon 60 seconds to re-ID the opponent or something if she missed. That means missing a shot has penalties. I'm going to hypothesise that it has to do with bullet trajectories. I think it could be one of two mechanics:
1) If someone is looking in the general direction of you, they can see your shot trajectory. However, if you scope them long enough to "ID" them, then the game turns that off, as if to say that you have the jump on that guy. This goes away if you miss or if you re-locate, which takes an extra 60 seconds.
2) In general, people can't spot bullets unless they're "engaged" in a firefight. That means being shot at and surviving it. To sear off your "engaged" status, you'll have to hide out of sight for 60 seconds.
That would be what makes Sinon a great sniper: close to 100% accuracy. Because if you're sniping and you miss/give your position away, your efficacy goes way down.
As for her combating the boss monster and it just standing there, maybe she's taking it on outside of its engagement range. She's able to get shots off at it due to her gun/skill, while the monster isn't able to engage since it can't see/detect her due to either stealth, or engagement distance/mechanics.
Given that this is VR, dying might be a more daunting experience than having GAME OVER printed over your screen. Pain was reproduced in SAO, it might happen here. Imagine that the gun sounds, the earth and the atmosphere all feel real, with the only difference being that when you die, you actually don't. If you're only worried about the consequence of dying then it's no big deal. However, I'd say that the experience of dying for the most part is scarier than the consequence (after all, who knows what the consequence is besides you stop moving..).
I imagine Sinon couldn't stand a smiling guy in a battle because she could have been an original SAO player and met some smiling PKing scumbag. Otherwise, like has been said, it ought to be natural to smile when your game is going well or you expect it will go well. Especially in MP, which is social gaming.
I assume it is some real-world trauma, judging from the OP scene with the swing set and a even younger Sinon in phantom. Plus the way she's shaking when she wakes up in the real world. Combined with the mopey music and the arm over her face, it's not just post-gameplay adrenaline withdrawal. Then you have the entirety of the ED.
This series is not exactly subtle.
Aren't Kirito and Asuna always claiming that VR has the power to heal? That's why it is so bad that corrupt people keep fucking with the games. Sugu was using it for much of the same reason, to bridge the gap of understanding between her and her beloved comatose onii-chan.
(VR being used to heal is actually true in real life as it turns out.)
It didn't sound to me like she couldn't stand him, but more like she wanted to be him. Those were not words of annoyance, but more akin to admiration/desire (if you could call it such).
Ah, I'd forgotten that it actually tried shooting back. I assumed she was within range, but that she killed the monster before the monster's attack could hit her.Quote:
Originally Posted by DE
No. It tried to shoot back like some monster without a path finding algorithm from a 90's game trying to walk through a wall to reach the player. Which is why I said the monster is simply a thing ported over from SAO but never reprogrammed to understand that in a game with modern (or even future) weapons nobody (except Kirito) will engage the thing in a melee fight. So, it just stupidly stood in one place and then tried to randomly shoot around before dying. If all the monsters are like that, any serious players would only fight humanoid NPCs (assuming they at least can use guns) or other players. Unless one can only get new, better weapons by harvesting monsters, harvesting being the key word since the monsters don't fight back any more than a stalk of wheat.
I don't know why you think humanoid NPCs would fare any better.
The thing HAD a ranged attack, and while it couldn't reach her, it came close enough to blast her in the face with heat from it's dissipating attack. Which means anyone that WASN'T at sniper range could probably have easily been shot.
Any Humanoid NPC without a sniper rifle, or some kind of artillery would have been equally unable to return fire at her.
Yeah, I don't know either, but I imagine humanoid NPCs could have a bit better AI than this monster thing as they would depend on guns the same as players. Besides, a decent sniper usually gets the first shot in (unless it's a small moving target), but what happens next is a different thing. The squad or company the NPC belonged to should proceed to hunt down the sniper with some kind of rudimentary but still potentially dangerous tactics. That's how it goes in games (excluding games where NPCs don't react when the man next to them is killed, but I'm sure GGO is not that bad).
Uh, no. There's not a single game out there that has AI that's that advanced, so I don't know wtf you're talking about. Games now either have NPCs know where you are automatically located once you've opened fire the first time(90% of them do this), or they'll start a search, completely at random, wandering around looking for the player, in the area where they are, rather than in the area where the shot probably came from.
Granted SWO's games are obviously vastly more advanced than current games, and thusly should have much more advanced AI.
That PvE scene was indeed very odd.
The only thing I can come up with which could explain what happened is if Sinon exploited that Boss encounter... its not really rare in MMOs per se and since she was camping on an elevated position (with all these empty magazines next to her) I'm pretty sure that's what happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ6J_94mN9I
as reference.. kinda difficult to explain, but it happens in pretty much every single MMO and its horribly foul play of course.
Yeah, well, that's what I called rudimentary tactics. There are games that can send a group of enemies circle to your side or rear, as well. Rudimentarily that's exactly what humans players would do as well. No games so far try to guess what you would do next or would really adapt to your following actions, but that's not really necessary in cases like this, where there ought to be a whole bunch of AI controlled NPCs vs few humans, which is typically the situation (as opposed to some mega monster last boss battle).
Let's not forget, however, that this game engine already supports a highly advanced AI like Yui, so theoretically there could be NPCs that would use sophisticated tactics. I just won't believe in that before I see it after these couple of eps. GGO looks like a simple shooter, so it would have no use for intelligent enemies and likely the players would dislike them.
episode 3 is out!
-------------------
Itīs almost impressive how dumb this anime is. Having no action for a whole episode is terrible.
Yea, can't believe they would actually focus on the backstory of the new character.
Did they listen to the audience feedback criticism about how overly fast the beginning of SAO was with the constant time jumps and now they made a 180? This is getting fricking nowhere, except for building a character nobody really can have any interest in yet. After a full season of SAO 1 you can't just simply throw in some wacko girl with a sob backstory and expect everybody will enjoy every second of her on screen. I'm far more interested in the frickin Death Gun than this girl that gets more and more boring with every episode.
The only remotely intriguing thing about her is the trauma, which is 100% faux: She saw the absolute disgust and terror in her mom's eyes, and created instantly the trauma in order not to look like a cold-blooded killer (even if in self-defense) in her sole parent's eyes. So, she's not actually afraid of guns at all; the fact she excels at GGO makes that obvious. Instead, she's deadly afraid of being seen as somebody not afraid of guns, as opposed to a good girl. In the game, however, that doesn't matter because she's not herself in it. Thus getting better and better at gun handling will actually hurt her psyche in RL. Actually this might be the single best written character detail I've seen in SAO. Ironically enough at a first glance it seems ridiculous, which is hardly something SAO should be able to afford.
3 eps in and Kirito still hasn't been seen in GGO is beyond incomprehensible.
Damn.. Shino kawaisou. I bet she didn't get counseling or post traumatic therapy. She made herself believed being strong in the game would make herself stronger in real life because she was so desperate to be saved.
Unfortunately, any good writing toward her character is overshadowed by the fact that her trauma extends to someone making a finger-gun gesture. That's idiotic.
I'm not opposed to the idea that her trauma comes from her mother being afraid of her or hating her for committing homicide (defensive or otherwise with a gun. It's a very good character development, but unfortunately it is one that I think Kotoura-san did a lot better. The focus shouldn't be on the gun and the outcome, it should be on her mother's reaction. Perhaps the series will get back to that in time. It was a nice touch that she was on the phone with her uncle (or close family friend) rather than with her mother.
This series is really hurting by the fact that Kirito hasn't started the game at all and we're through the third episode. They are dragging it out. Even the ALO arc ended an episode with him at least starting the game and landing physically in it after character creation. They're apparently drawing this episodes out quite a bit.
Holy shit that was boring.
yeah that was a terrible episode.
Hopefully next episode, we'll see him in GGO...
thisQuote:
Yea, can't believe they would actually focus on the backstory of the new character.
ep was decent, "trigger finger"-scene was over the top though and the scene where she was holding the gun in her room was not so well done in terms of voice acting
Kirito did log in, finally
Ooh, how exciting. First we get a long scene of a sekuhara nurse hitting on Kirito, then he logged in, and the focus shifted back to Sinon, as expected. Since Kirito appearing in GGO will be such a momentous moment that they can't carelessly show it to the audience. Haha, actually I wouldn't be surprised if in the next episode we saw Kirito in RL again, reporting back to the official, then spending time with Asuna and whatnot. That would be a good way to push farther his visible GGO entrance a couple of eps more.
O-okay...
Well...its pretty obvious that Sinon will serve as a deuteragonist, so calm your tits, the show might focus on her more than on Kirito this time around and tbh I'd like that very much because I'm certainly not watching this because of him.Quote:
then he logged in, and the focus shifted back to Sinon
Do you "like" Kirito's character? I don't mind him being around but his character development is pretty much done and he is, and was, not the very likeable type in my opinion
Reading your description of Sinon reminds me of how much Kirito would've liked to be "Batman"
It's hard to say, unless it's Death Gun. He's only 99% certain that people really die in real life due to this particular individual.
On the other hand, the the "friend" of Shino smells the most like Death Gun right now. Being led to take the agility route and then being shafted could easily put him into revenge mode. I suppose saving Shino from the bullies IRL doesn't fit into the whole "jealousy" idea though.
I don't think Shino's friend is Death Gun. If someone went on a murderous rampage just because they got screwed over by a shift in game meta, that would make for a very shallow and silly series. Not that SAO plot points to date have been any more advanced than this one....it would just be a real shame.
I very much doubt it's her friend. The personality or charisma hardly seemed to match, nor the motivation. Sinon's friend wants to make a girlfriend out of Sinon, I'd say, Death Gun might be another remnant of SAO or maybe someone who wasn't in SAO but dreams of killing for real in a fictional setting (regretting he wasn't PKing in SAO). Sinon would be one of his targets since he obviously wants worthy targets, in some ways, either people who think they are tough or really are, as far as a game goes. Although I do admit that the friend being secretly Death Gun would be perfectly SAO level writing...
I don't think Death Gun really needs to be anything overly dramatic or deep character wise. Perhaps more interesting is how the way to make people die also in RL was developed and whether it was given to DG by someone else. If it was given to him, he can be even more simple, and the real deal would be the source. If that was the case, I hope the source wasn't as prosaic as the what's-his-name villain of the second half of the first season.
Regarding Death Gun, I hope it leads to touching on the topic of viruses/viri. We havenīt had those in the world of SAO, yet, despite the natural assumption of such. Have the Death Gun be the result of the open nature after the open source-ing of the first world in season one. Consequence being that virtual environments have to return to their closed nature to be safe from viruses/viri or hackers.
Anyway, I find it hard to believe that authorities couldnīt figure out how the Death Gun killed its victims, yet. This is all science. You have a device that measures EVERYTHING. Just look up what impulses/signals went to the victim at the time of death and there you have it. Even if you cannot look up someoneīs history, it is known how the device works. If it can affect the hearts somehow, you should be able to figure this out.
Really bothering me.
The pacing for Girl Girl Oral is just horrible. When you think that right after this you get Aldnoah Zero...
So we really did get Kirita... not that it was a surprise thanks to the OP and ED spoilers. Even the laser saber and all. Pretty expensive weapon it seems, I guess that supports the fact that it is fit for a Godly player...
I don't think we got Kirita. More like the kind of feminine male avatar 90% of the Japanese men would choose if they played a male character.
The light saber must be a curiosity item for players who have accumulated a bunch of extra money. Not that it wouldn't be useful in a tight spot. However, it would be useless in the majority of real fights for a player who developed normally in GGO. You pretty much would need to be a transfer character from some fantasy game and thus with high specs but no gun experience to ace anything with it. That Kirito would go for the sword route is natural in the sense that he probably has no interest in remaining in GGO any longer than he absolutely needs to. Learning gun fights would make his stay that much longer. I still consider it nonplausible that a game about modern guns could be beaten with a sword, but perhaps he doesn't even need to rise quite that high. He just needs to find Death Gun.
Sigh, I really enjoy this anime at times, but thereīs just so much stupidity mixed into, itīs aggravating. Positives first: I love how theyīre putting a lot of effort in showing and explaining the ingame-HUD and its functions. Feels like the producers are very aware of the Oculus Rift-hype, and thatīs a good thing. Also, Kirito not really being a girl, yay.
On the downside, why does he have this female-ish body to begin with?! And why would anyone pay for such an account? Anybody could just create a hot girlīs body, eh?
The light sabers being so expensive makes no sense when itīs explained how useless it really is. From the looks, Kirito is now the ONLY person in GGO who uses it.
So that dodging mini-game starts a 0000. What idiot is going to pay a whopping 1000 credits for ... nothing?
Shinon helping Kirito only because heīs, apparently, a girl is super sexist. And spending half a day for that is just unrealistic, especially on an important day with that BoB-event.
If Kiritoīs long-range weapon is supposed to distract the enemy, why not go for a beam gun? Half damage, sure, but super accurate. And it feels silly to have a whole class of weapons thatīs damage can be halved by wearing some inexpensive accessoire that everybody wears. Why not just make it half damage per default, then?
Anyway, this should have been episode 2. Letīs hope the pacing gets better. And letīs hope Shinon finds out about Kirito being a guy. Sheīll probably gain a rape trauma from that, too, lol.
Wich makes sense, since 90% of the players we saw looked feminine ... oh wait.
http://youtu.be/0yTEyB4q9EE
Maybe not the flashiest, and maybe not the best players, but I think it gets the viability potential across the best of what I could find.
It's certainly possible. Honestly, the whole, "I'm gonna use a laser sword in a gun game!" is actually one of the things I have the least problem with.
What I do have a problem with are the mechanics of GGO itself. It's a VR FPS, that completely ignores how guns function on the most basic level.
1. Why can't you use iron sights?! You are forced to use the random circle bullshit. With the way the sights were lines up on that pistol, there was no way Kirito couldn't at least have hit the target. Sure, probably wouldn't have gone perfectly center, but it should have at least been in a 15cm circle.
2. If Sinon recommends 5.7mm over something like .45ACP, so apparently stopping power (damage) means nothing. From what we can see, you get shot three times and you're Out. You can lose a leg, you can get shot in the chest, but as long as it isn't three times of penetrating ammo, you're safe?!
3. No one else in the entire game figured out that you can (and probably should) ignore the predictive paths? That game seems like less of a gambling minigame and more like a trainer.
I get that there are abilities that make a difference. Strength means you can carry heavier weapons without too much difficultly. Agility means you can dodge bullets better. Fine.
The predictive paths have their place, but it was made clear that you can't rely on them to compete at the best level. Watch your opponent closely, look at where they're aiming. Looking at the thing's eyes was a bit over the top, but you can certainly watch the barrel of their weapon in a more open battlefield.
But why is everyone forced to ignore how guns work and rely on the stupid pulsing circle reticle? The game has realistic depictions of weapons. They should actually function. The pulsing circle should be an Assist, not a requirement. Sword Art itself worked better if you knew how to play along with the skills. Push harder, does more damage. ALO, same deal. The player's own ability to use a sword helped. That's why Suguha was good at the game, why Kirito was better than he should have been, etc. According to Sinon, no matter what the player does, it will hit randomly in that circle.
No wonder she's a sniper. Quick-scoping is the only way to not be screwed over by the game itself.
He imported from a Japanese MMO fairy game. It's only natural that he has a character straight out of a recent Final Fantasy game...or most other Japanese RPGs or action games.
And when exactly did you see Kirito create a new avatar? He was as surprised by it as everybody else. The ugly dude tried to pay a huge amount of money for it (millions, which makes Kirito's prize from the game look like pocket money). Why would he pay if he could just create one for himself? Obviously the avatars are randomized on account creation and most people get ugly ones. I'm sure the rare female players all get cute ones, though, since Sinon is cute.
Because monsters don't visit shops to buy shielding devices. Monster hunting seems profitable with the droppings from bosses being rare guns and possibly other nice equipment.
Like I said, the light sabers might be just curiosities. They would go well along with beam weapons in style. If you have got money, you can buy a sports car or a Rolex, even though a normal car would get you to places just fine and a normal watch shows time no problem. You know, if I was playing that game, I'd also buy a light saber. Just because I like Star Wars a lot. Sure, it wouldn't be my primary weapon, that would be stupid, but it would be cool to carry around.
Umm... Yeah, if some sucker runs right next to you, a light saber would be much, much better than any guns since you wouldn't need to aim anywhere, just swinging it around would be enough. But just how hard would it be to defeat all the opponents with a melee weapon when they start to fire at you from hundreds of meters away? The most appropriate weapon is the best weapon.
You haven't been watching the OP Kraco.
It's a lightsaber, and just like any lightsaber, it can deflect blaster bolts. And apparently bullets. I guess it vaporizes the latter.
Since the two are obviously going to end up in some kind of team arrangement, Kirito uses his Mary Sue powers to cause havoc on a massive scale downrange, and Sinon covers him from snipers or others attacking his blind spot.
Kirito needing somebody to cover his back and not being able to do everything by himself would be novel enough to be worth seeing. But yes, I'm not actually arguing against Kirito being able to do whatever he wants, I'm just speaking generally. If everything else failed, Kirito would just summon an admin console out of his ass and hack the game to suit his needs. If all the opponents are as lousy as the company with the minigunner, the tactics you described would be nice, since they would never even know Kirito was there before he was lopping off heads. They would just be covering from sniper fire and shooting wherever.
And no, I haven't been watching the OP, I admit that.
You guys remember the prediction lines? Yeah, just play "join the dots" with your lightsaber to parry bullets.
Seeing Kirito be good at something again was nice to see. As for the game though, I'd imagine that most people porting from ALO to GGO would be in a similar situation to Kirito (so the fantasy thing doesn't impact on his avatar). They might not be as high in sword skills though since even back iin ALO Kirito was considered unbalanced and lacking in magic skills.
Now that's more like it! Just good ol' fashioned Kirito being badass in defiance of expectations.
I don't like that it looks like Kirito is going directly into this tournament. It means there won't be any cool badass drifter stage of this arc...
Because it's a fucking LIGHTSABER! Even if it sucks, people would spend a bunch of money on it, because lightsabers are the fucking bomb yo!
Because the different weapons are meant for different roles obviously. The beam weapons are for fighting monsters, who don't have shields. The ballistic weapons are for PvP.
I wonder if Kirito's sword will be half damage against shields since it's an energy weapon.
This. So much this.
Keep in mind though that, unlike anyone else porting over from ALO, that Kirito's ALO abilities were ported all the way from SAO. So his character's sword skills are probably about twice what any other player in existence's are.
But this isn't a musket era game. There could easily be dozens of lines coming from a fully automatic gun. Multiply that if there are many opponents. It's easier for him to dodge or never to get shot at in the first place.
Yeah, if simply creating an account in ALO and porting it over to GGO would automatically grant a pretty boy avatar, then nobody would be offering millions for it, I reckon. They would just first create an account in ALO themselves. It can't be so expensive considering the number of players. Kirito was just lucky, and why wouldn't he be; luck seems to be one of his major skills.
It would. The better question is what half-damage actually is, along with any other max mitigations. In Skyrim armour could at best reduce 80% damage. That meant my sneak attacks were guaranteed to do at least 2000 damage to your HP, which nothing ever had.Quote:
Originally Posted by DE
They could be, if "sword skills" were a common thing between everything. Currently I'm more inclined to think that Kirito's base stats encourage physical close combat while he swings a sword because that's what he knows how to do, as opposed to because he's got 5000pts invested into the 'melee weapons' stat or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by DE
Yeah, his Str stat is probably insane as well given that he said Dex was his secondary stat and he's already doing things with Dex that other people can't. So if the swords damage is at all based on his Str, he'll probably be one-shotting everyone regardless of shields.
Doesn't stop Jedi or Crouching Tiger characters from doing it. Seriously doubt an anime character in a VR world will have any trouble.
I'm cautious in bringing in Jedis into comparisons because they have the aid of the Force. Without it, normal people end up cutting themselves with lightsabers. Having no mass doesn't help as your muscles can't use their proprioception and stretch feedback to inform you of the beam's orientation.
Though I've said it about 100 times already, but this is supposed to be a game about gun fights, not about Jedi or... Crouching Tigers, uh. If this wasn't sao-shit writing that only serves to make Kirito look more perfect, the other players would never suffer a dude running around faster than sound, deflecting bullets with a sword, and owning everybody while he's at it. They would report him to the admins as a cheater of some sort, and if nothing happened, they would terminate their subscriptions and move to better games. Plus all the bad rep spread in (social) media damaging the game's reputation. You wouldn't tolerate such a thing in cod, bf, arma, or whatever gun fighting game you'd play. If these fellows tolerate it in GGO, it's only because they would all like to suck up to a god called Kirito.
Which is why I hope it won't be that easy for him and he'll need Sinon's help, for example.
if it has the same hit detection than BF4 than that won't be a problem, because only 3 bullets out of a full magazine will actually hit/be dangerous, hehQuote:
But this isn't a musket era game. There could easily be dozens of lines coming from a fully automatic gun. Multiply that if there are many opponents. It's easier for him to dodge or never to get shot at in the first place.
to be fair, I can't convert my Mass Effect Character to BF3/CoD and own everyone with Adrenaline Rush... but in every game made from the "World Seed", I can.Quote:
you wouldn't tolerate such a thing in cod, bf, arma, or whatever gun fighting game you'd play.
It's pretty much cheating from the start and this show doesn't even try to hide it.
I can't even blame Kirito for doing this, because he didn't join that game to have "fun" but to solve something more important. (The goverment is obviously way to stupid to handle things on their own... like visiting Death Gun's home or something like that)
That's very true. I wouldn't blame him either, and he probably doesn't care if he gains some kind of notorious reputation either (as long as he doesn't get banned) because the sooner he gets dangerous enough to meet Death Gun, the better it's for his mission. In the end it's also far too early to say just how big of a boost he inherited from ALO here. We haven't even seen a single fight yet (the cowboy robot doesn't count). Maybe he will never act like a jedi but in a more believable manner using the prediction lines to deflect a few bullets but mainly stealth, cover, and speed to get close enough.
Obviously they don't know who Death Gun is.
Again, none of those games have monsters or lasers or force fields in them. You continue making this argument, and it continues to be retarded.
This game isn't Modern Warfare, and it sure as shit isn't ARMA. It's Halo with RPG elements(which makes it Destiny I guess).
Well, I guess that's fair. It's not like anime is full of samurai-type characters cutting through bullets or anything.
Oh wait...
And this is relevant how? This game isn't a Star Wars game either, like Bill said up there, so it shouldn't have supermen with light sabers. The monsters don't mean shit in this case. The beam weapons are properly handicapped. If 99.9% of players consider the light sabers to be fancy toys of no real combat relevance (though most likely handy in a really tigh spot if you want to drag one around), then it's kind of statistically safe to say that's how the game has been built. Or would be if the author knew the first thing about game development. If you try to cater to every taste, you end up satisfying nobody.
Except it DOES, so that means it IS. The game IS the genre that is is. You thinking the game is something that it's not and then saying "It shouldn't have this because this other game that it's nothing like wouldn't have it" is fucking dumb.
The game HAS light sabers that can block projectiles, so obviously it IS like a fucking Star Wars game. The game DOESN'T have realistic shooting, or damage modeling, or mechanics, so it's NOT like a CoD game, no matter how much you keep saying that it is.
Fact is, you were WRONG about what kind of game it was from the very start, but you refuse to shift your point of view away from your original wrong impression.
Kirito even called it a fucking Cyberpunk game this week. So basically, it's a Ghost in the Shell setting more than anything. You know, the series where characters block bullets with other BULLETS, nevermind fucking swords.
This argument is just as dumb. As if there were no games in existence that didn't have suboptimal game design. Somehow, an MMO with a useless weapon type is somehow unbelievable? Have you ever PLAYED a fucking MMO before? And do you know how many garbage ones there are in the world? Who the hell ever said that GGO had flawless game design?
Yeah Kraco in all seriousness I don't really understand how you don't understand this. It seems like a really basic concept. No flaming intended honestly, but I'm really questioning whether you've been drunk every time you watch this series. It just seems really unbelievably stupid to compare a game that is obviously nothing like CoD to CoD, and say that it obviously isn't like Halo and Star Wars, when it obviously is... In fact, in the right context, I think it would be reasonable to assume you're either trolling or inebriated. Like this really isn't that complicated, I'm not sure why you're making it seem like it is.
Sinon's first sniping shot in the only fight we have seen (the monster fiasco doesn't count) was like one of my better shots in Arma. Seemed pretty realistic in many ways, provided she's a levelled up sniper (since it's also an RPG that ought to allow such skill ups).
But you are right in the sense that I'm basing a lot on nothing but my opinions and first impressions. And so are you because this show is starting slower than Nanoha Strikers with absolutely nothing worthwhile to judge so far. We simply haven't seen enough yet, especially not a single fight from Kirito.
I don't know why I need to repeat this but according to Sinon, who's apparently an elite player, nobody uses the light sabers and they play little role in the game. Since I'm a Star Wars fan, you won't ever catch me calling them garbage weapons, but according to Sinon most GGO players must view them as expensive toys. I'm not sure what sort of Star Wars games you have been playing if you are under an impression they are useless in SW games, but Governor Tarkin would have commended you.
To put it in simpler words: It's not an SW game if every other player isn't carrying a light saber. Or in reverse: If every other player isn't carrying a light saber, they aren't worth it in the game. Yet suddenly they will be worth it if Kirito decides to use one.
Well, let's see. X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron, Pod Racer, Bounty Hunter. Games where you do even use Light Sabers.
Or maybe you want to limit it to RPGs and MMOs. Like Knights of the Old Rebublic, Galaxies, or The Old Republic. Where there are as many characters/classes that don't use lightsabers as there are that do, if not more.
Galaxies is a particularly apt comparison, because almost nobody had a light saber early on, 99% of players didn't use light sabers. Was it because they sucked? No, it was because nobody had the skill to use one(because becoming a Jedi was a retarded series of quests instead of a class you chose).
A similar situation could be in play here. Where light sabers are awesome, but only if you have the skills necessary to use one at a high level. And nobody uses one enough to GET those high skills because, as you said, it's a shooting game. But Kirito is entering the game with insane levels of sword skills, so that's not an issue for him.
It's like starting the game with a level 90 character in an insanely niche build that is useless for the first 80 levels. Nobody wants to spend 80 levels getting mowed down to get to the point where it starts getting good.
That sounds quite plausible. Though I still maintain my opinion that it wouldn't make the old players who levelled up in GGO using guns any happier if somebody suddenly transferred in from a different kind of game and started owning everybody with a sword. In the end they should and would be unaccustomed to fighting a master swordsman, but somehow I doubt Kirito would be as unaccustomed to fighting gunslingers as he should be (because he's Kirito). The cowboy robot already showed it's as if he had played the game for 600 hours already despite not knowing enough of it to fill the backside of a dvd case.
I'm aware of that... and thats the very problem.Quote:
Obviously they don't know who Death Gun is.
you'd think that the police/goverment has its ways, you know.... and a gaming company that distributes and runs games in different countries with an unknown adress/e-mail/phone number? nah..
To use a sword in GGO you need to dodge. No one is as good as Kirito, and it's safe to say that no one had been
effective at it enough,
sucked at a gun enough and
didn't have the drive to learn how to shoot
to warrant using a sword as a primary.
I just want to see Sinon's face when he starts batting away bullets fired at him.
She would get just like all the other girls he's ever played with. Gooey and stupid. Except that she thinks he is a girl, so it will be something different! Normal admiration? Surprise?
The suspense is killing me!
(Not really.)
I suppose. Though character transfers have supposedly been possible through any game that uses the Seed. So it's not like they can complain they didn't know about it.
And at the end of the day, the GGO devs still decided to put swords in the game, which nobody was forcing them to. So it's not Kirito's fault that he's deciding to use them.
I'm assuming that if someone is a good enough hacker to kill someone in real life through a video game, he's probably good enough to avoid having his IP traced or whatever.
Oh, you mean...the best part of the first season!
I'm not sure why this matters so much, in the first episode they already showed a shift in the meta from AGI builds to STR builds so all the old top elite players got outdated and ended up more or less useless. It just means most find the light saber to be a toy and therefore find it useless, to be fair most probably don't have the reaction needed to do something like Kirito do with predicting the prediction line. It's really first when people break the mold and try things out that you actually find out it's worth and it just seems that most people haven't yet so I wouldn't believe everything she says.
So I guess that leaves us with the question, why hasn't anyone else done it yet? Besides the reaction needed to be as proficient as Kirito I'd say the most plausible explanation is time. It's been less than a year since Kirito came back from SAO (Nurse ep3), he'd probably have needed a month (complete and utter guesswork) or something of rehab before they let him out of the hospital + some moping around waiting for Asuna to wake up and the whole ALO thing. So the seed has probably only been on the net for around 10 months, GGO has been around long enough to have pro players that earn money playing and on their second or third major tournament. For the sake of it let's say they have one each month so it's a game that's been around for around 3-4 months? Been in development for around 6-7 months? Yup those pro player must absolutely know everything there is to know about every weapon and how useful they are. Bad writing from the author? I'm inclined to think so. But yes this is the biggest reason why I think nobody really knows how useful light sabers are because the game has most likely not been out for long enough.
A game would have balancing issues if it was filled with (serious) weapons and/or skills nobody tested in PvN and PvP, developers, hired alpha/beta testers, and open beta testers naturally included. But then again, considering how so many games even today seem to be more or less beta versions upon release, only patched to something resembling a full game months later with patches (if the players are lucky), I guess anything's possible. However, somebody would still know at least if they are useless or not. I find it a bit hard to believe that would remain a secret until many months later when a random dude transfers from another game and tries to use a light saber.
If player ranking is based on PvP, then the shift from AGI to STR could be explained easily enough. The old AGI builds would be only used to fighting other AGI characters, mainly, but the new STR players would be used to beating AGIs (if that's the old majority). Although personally I think that whole thing was mostly bullshit. The pro player tried to appear wise in the interview, that's it. Guns are heavy things to lug around. Everybody would have always invested in STR a lot.
Gaming with Tor..... okay brah! That aside, would you pay your monthly connection fee through Tor too (as if that'd help)? Just follow the money..
and I wasn't talking about Death Gun, they don't even know where this company is located or how to contact them. What kind of shady business is this? Didn't they learn anything from what happened in the past year(?), like the SAO or RECTO incident?
How the fuck are people still watching this show.
That was kinda the point, GGO has approximately been developed, alpha/beta tested and marketed all in 6-7 months there's bound to have been major updates etc. I find it ridiculous to expect a huge shooter VRMMO with tons of weapons would be balanced at this point or be perfectly balanced roughly 3-4 months later with the development time in consideration. Honestly I'm more surprised people haven't complained about how famous and bug free the game seems to be considering the short development time, that's what I find most unrealistic about this game.
But yes you're right somebody probably tested light sabers, but tested is pretty different from investing the time needed to get good and develop a play style centered around light sabers. I just don't think someone invest that time and develop a style centered around light sabers in the short time it's been out considering how much a light saber costs. It also depends on the business model if it's p2p which I'm guessing it is and only one character per account then you're usually more careful with it. If the game had been out for a year then I'd say it's ridiculous that people hadn't seriously tried to make a melee build yet. Also the majority if not all the people in this game seems to be sheep that follows the trend and nothing else.
I'm curious about the convertion system, what do they do about names? If you convert from ALO to GGO what happens if your name is already taken and what happens to the name in ALO is it free to take? Can you play an easy f2p game and max your stats and then convert to a game like GGO with those stats? What about games that have rebirth systems so you can push your stats even higher, do you keep those stats when converting and end up with a character with max stats in everything? In fact what's keeping people from making some kind of mod like VR world where you get 999999999 in every stat by stomping a flower and then convert to a VRMMO? It's a really nice idea and all but I do not in any way buy that someone hasn't abused it yet.
Episode 5 is out
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Fuck, if it wasnt for animation, music and setting, Iīd drop this shit so quickly.
Kiritoīs attack run was super awesomely animated.
So Death Gun is an SAO veteran, huh? That doesnīt answer anything, but itīs interesting at least.
Kinda getting sick of the typical "old guys = random idiots, young avatars = heroes" concept, though. And GGO is supposed to be a popular game, so why is there only a single female player? At a tournament no less.
I wouldn't have expected anything else but a SAO survivor or a nutcase who wished he had been in SAO, able to kill for real. To carry that PK guild symbol, he likely is a SAO veteran, as it seems likely nobody would know of the symbol outside (surely the surviving PKers didn't go around advertising they killed players in SAO, and thus also for real). Maybe he's now disgusted by people who think they are the real things by playing a game with real RL prizes, and thus pro players as well.
I found two things strange in this episode: How Kirito was almost all the time such a nervous wreck, except for the short scene when he left Sinon's company, and how he fought so stupidly. You'd think that a melee fighter would stick to the cover, not walk in the open. I really hope he will change that in the rest of the fights, as otherwise dodging and blocking hundreds of bullets will get a bit too nonplausible. No, make it three things: How on Earth did the blade vaporise bullets instantly but took ages to drain the dude's HP?
I also still cant get over how overpowered the death gun itself is. You dont even have to aim at someone, no, itīs good enough to just aim at someoneīs footage running on a tv. He could have killed Kirito easily during his match. It being this powerful makes the plot somewhat boring, because the only reason for anybody staying alive is because Death Gun chooses so.
LOL at any weapon that needs to be plunged in the opponent's chest for upwards to 45 seconds to kill.
Doubly so when it is a lightsaber. There is no way a weapon that takes that long to kill could be practical in any way.
Kirito being tortured by the other dude back in SAO itself was one thing, the guy was trying to draw it out before Asuna saved him.
I wonder why the assault riffle just didn't throw a hand grenade at Kirito. I guess they have those right?
Because that's a logical move we didn't have.
Back when Kirito was hiding behind the pillar? Yeah. Perhaps he was saving them for a later fight, and didn't want to start the first fight by wasting one. I mean, if I had been properly ambushing someone with an assault rifle, and the target was a dude sporting a pistol and walking in the open, I wouldn't be hugely impressed. He also scored some lesser hits before Kirito got himself behind the cover.
During the dash it would have been too late. He would have risked killing himself as well.
Lol, the light saber straight up uses light saber sound effects. Awesome.
So...Kirito goes undercover, uses his world famous character name. Brilliant.
So none of those guys that saw Death Gun kill that guy from the bar bothered to give a description of him to the cops? And if they did, nobody bothered to give that description to Kirito before he went into the game?
I'm also pretty annoyed that he goes right into this best of the best tournament before ever fighting a single real battle in this game before. We couldn't have had SOME period of him out practicing on some monsters first?
I did think it was funny that even though Kirito is here for a specific life-and-death purpose, he still balked at the proposition of forfeiting his awesome prizes. It's hard for a power gamer not to power game. :p
I don't understand Sinon's attitude of expecting to meet Kirito in the finals. Why would she think a brand new player, using a weapon nobody uses would even get close to the finals?
Well, A. That whole scene was running on bullet-time, so there's no way that was 45 seconds, and B. The guy didn't seem to have any ability to act while being stabbed, so provided it's a 1-on-1 encounter, it seems plenty practical.
No, it wasn't running in bullet time unfortunately.
That was the problem and why I was complaining. It cuts back to real-time when Kirito makes the stab, the guy yells out in real-time, and his health bar slowly goes down in real-time, like it does in all SAO-based games. You can tell from the audio for certain, but the visuals alone will tell you that wasn't slowed down anymore. Kirito's luscious locks would be flowing at dangerously oscillating speeds if it was still slowed down.
It's 20 seconds when you time it out, but I feel the point stands.