Sword Art Online

[Buffalobiian]

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

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.

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..).

[DarthEnderX]

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.

It was definitely just that the monsters ranged attack couldn't reach her(which would make sense against a sniper), because it shot RIGHT at her. It simply dissipated before hitting her.

[Kraco]

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.

[Buffalobiian]

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.

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).

It was definitely just that the monsters ranged attack couldn't reach her(which would make sense against a sniper), because it shot RIGHT at her. It simply dissipated before hitting her.

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.

[Kraco]

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.

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.

[DarthEnderX]

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.

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.

[Kraco]

I don't know why you think humanoid NPCs would fare any better.

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).

[Ryllharu]

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.)

[KrayZ33]

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.

[Kraco]

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.

[MFauli]

episode 3 is out!
-------------------


It´s almost impressive how dumb this anime is. Having no action for a whole episode is terrible.

[MasterOfMoogles]

Yea, can't believe they would actually focus on the backstory of the new character.

[Kraco]

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.

[Ryllharu]

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.

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.

[oyabun]

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.

[DarthEnderX]

Holy shit that was boring.

[lelouch]

yeah that was a terrible episode.

[deathnightwc3]

Hopefully next episode, we'll see him in GGO...

[KrayZ33]

Yea, can't believe they would actually focus on the backstory of the new character.

this

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

[lelouch]

Kirito did log in, finally

You mean Kirita