Sword Art Online

[Ryllharu]

Man, there are some super nitpicky complaints about this show. I guess if you really want to find something to hate it is easy to pick things out in anything, though.

Man, there are some super adamant defenders with this show. I guess if you really can't admit this series has serious writing problems it is easy to make things up to justify the issues, though.

Ridiculous hair colors I can forgive (that's easy), Kirito being a sociopath who displays disturbing admiration for the sociopath game creator...is kind of interesting actually (but he's certainly not a nice guy as others would try and have us believe), every girl being a supermodel is kinda weird but its anime, whatever.

But given the massive level of hype behind this series, I was expecting something better written than middle schooler fanfiction. They say this was his first series as part of a creative writing contest, and damn does it show. Don't try to tell us that these side stories are that much better when Kirito's full characterization from the main plot has already been presented. That's not going to fix it, and is just an excuse for bad writing and poor planning.

Maybe this anime is tailored to those who read the source material. But by no means does that constitute it being given a free pass from many of the well-deserved criticisms.

[KrayZ33]

didn't like this ep that much

- Kirito complaining about dying NPCs is super-stupid
there are tons of things that should be considered when you pull a boss into a town, but NPC casualties are not something you'd normally worry about...
something like "what about the low level players and player-merchants and blacksmiths who live in this town" would be more appropriate.. long distance pulls don't work well most of the times, one mistake and the boss hits you in the back, deaggroes and switches to some random player, and once that happens its hard to get it back in position. -> chaos bound to occur...

that aside
- At the moment it seems to be impossible to pk in towns, and in my opinion it has to be some kind of bugusing
whatever it is that allows someone to kill others just like that in town, I hope its something reasonable... and not some shit like "I hacked the system zomg rofl lololo"


also
its a shame that they don't show boss fights anymore, eps1-3 and even 4 were so enjoying to watch because it felt like a real MMO, at the moment its more like a normal anime with some fantasy setting.

I want some guild progress here, and some loot hunting there, some skill-builds on the left and some questing on the right.

[MasterOfMoogles]

It would really suck if the NPCs didn't actually respawn and you got them all killed, especially if you needed one for an important quest or something.

[KrayZ33]

well Asuna said they are going to respawn, and no-one said that they don't

[MasterOfMoogles]

Since you can't kill players in town, I would suspect you can't kill NPCs in town. Not sure how you would really test it. It still seems like a pretty terrible idea.

[KrayZ33]

only because players can't kill them doesn't mean monsters can't

[Buffalobiian]

I assumed they were going to evacuate the town of players before they did their luring, since worrying about NPCs over players would be stupid. You'd have to be a pretty big group of assholes if Kirito was the only one concerned about any vulnerable characters being killed in this plan.

Regarding the town-PKs, it could be possible that staying inside a town doesn't make you safe from attacks but instead makes you unable to kill another player outside of a duel. If that is true, then a player who has acquired a way to accurately launch projectiles from outside the town can exploit the code.

[Yukimura]

With each episode I'm believing more and more in an endgame for this story that makes out Kirito as the only 'right' person in the whole world for holding to the worldview that the game is 'real' and should be treated as such. I'm also still holding onto the idea that the final epilogue will reveal that no one was actually dying, only getting permanently locked out of the game, and perhaps that a brain bust like time dilation effect was in play such that all of this is happening within only a few hours of real time. As for how Kirito ends up being 'the righteous hero' in the end I think it's telling that so far he is the the only major character who seems to fully accept what the game is trying to sell to players, namely that it is so completely immersive that it should be treated as an equivalent replacement for the real world with all the implications that implies.

With episode 5 to contrast with Kirito's interactions with characters in the previous episodes demonstrate that he is drawn to people who encounter 'real' problems in the course of 'living' in the game. The guild in episode 3 and the girl in episode 4 seemed a lot closer to 'living' the world than the front-liners who seem much more focused on 'defeating' the game rather than living it. The people in episode 3 and 4 ran into in game problems that Kirito helped them with (or didn't so much in the case of ep 3) with his 'life' skills acquired in game because that's what he wanted to do as a person living in that world, not because it was the shortest path to victory and escape. On the other hand the front-liners behave more like SAO is very dangerous, but ultimately, just a game. They want to 'win' as soon as possible and don't seem to care about anything else or take the time to experience life within the game. Now I'm more interested in knowing what role things like eating and drinking play in the game and whether they are actually necessary to survival. If they aren't then how people approach them would offer further insight into how they are experiencing the world.

The NPC worry is another example of separating Kirito's mindset from that of the other front-liners. In the real world, even if you're on an adventure to slay some monster (or say Hitler), you should care about the random townsfolk in some village you pass through. Ideally, you shouldn't be willing to sacrifice them in order to get your end goal. In a game this is understandable because hey, they aren't real, it's just a game so all that matters is your goal. But my hunch is the SAO creator wanted to make a game experience so real that you couldn't justify any actions with 'hey, it's just a game' and Kirito is the one person among the front-liners who has bought into that idea that the SAO world is equal to the real world and is trying to live in it rather than just survive it and finish it.

Completely changing gears for a moment, the idea of sleep PK seems to destroy the supposed fairness of the game, plus it seems quite implausible from a game design standpoint to the point that it must have either been added to showcase just how twisted the game maker is or it is a poorly thought out plot device put in b/c the author wanted some cheap drama/danger. The helmet connects directly to your brain so there is no reason anyone else needs to be able to see whatever menu screens you're looking at in game. Similarly, the designer had little reason to make your characters physical input necessary for making selections on the menu screen, that could all have been handled by reading intentions from brain signals and applying them to the screen, whether others could see the screen or not. Now putting aside the fact that the screen being visible to all is unnecessary and that physical motion being tied to menu manipulation is unnecessary the idea that a sleeping persons involuntary finger motions can translate into game actions is plausible, but simply ridiculous from a 'fairness' standpoint. The game hardware KNOWS what your brain does when you move your finger to press a button on the screen, those signals will obviously not be present when you are asleep and someone moves your finger to press a button, so why would the game accept this input except as a service to the plot convenience gods? I am willing to overlook this on the assumption that the game designer is an asshole but to me it still reeks of a poorly thought out plot device. However, if we're going with it I would expect to see gangs of muggers who go around holding players down and forcing their arms to press the buttons that would transfer all their stuff to their attackers.

[Kraco]

Now I'm more interested in knowing what role things like eating and drinking play in the game and whether they are actually necessary to survival. If they aren't then how people approach them would offer further insight into how they are experiencing the world.

If they can taste and feel what they eat and drink, then it will offer considerably less insight. After all, potato chips and candies serve no nutritional purpose in RL, yet people eat them, as well as booze can be hard to justify unless it's a part of a social gathering, yet people drink it happily (not counting pro drunkards here). Similarly people would eat and drink the virtual food and drinks if it gives them the pleasure of taste and the familiar feeling of chewing something.

[Y]

With each episode...

I really don't want this series to reward Kirito's early actions. He SAYS he feels more alive in the VR world than reality, but he treats people as disposable and lives a disconnected, empty life there as well. Rewarding that as some kind of Platonic ideal of action in this situation is a pretty sadistic and ugly ending.

The NPC worry..

Again, you want Kirito's weird moral disconnect - the fact that he cares more for scripted computer programs than humans - to be rewarded as the "correct" viewpoint to take in this situation, and not only that, for it to be a good thing because it most closely conforms to the crazy, evil game designer's ideals. Once again, what a nasty, fucked up main character.

Completely changing gears for a moment....

The sleep-PK thing is a great use of the setting, imo. Simple, gamebreaking bugs like that can't be corrected in this scenario, because it's not as though the game designer can push some server restarts and patch the game up. It does show how crazy disconnected from reality Kirito is: "This game world is fair. That's why you can kill people in their sleep by moving their hands around, and it's never been fixed. I'm fucking retarded."

[Kraco]

The sleep-PK thing is a great use of the setting, imo. Simple, gamebreaking bugs like that can't be corrected in this scenario, because it's not as though the game designer can push some server restarts and patch the game up. It does show how crazy disconnected from reality Kirito is: "This game world is fair. That's why you can kill people in their sleep by moving their hands around, and it's never been fixed. I'm fucking retarded."

In fact it is fair. People can and should be possible to kill more easily during their sleep. What is not fair is that towns are supposedly safe places. Why exactly should it be impossible to slay somebody in a straight-forward manner in a town when you can do it just fine outside of the arbitrary border separating a town from the wilderness? Rather than the sleep duel being an ugly bug, I'd say making the towns safe from direct PvP is a compromise the designer had to make to draw people in in the first place. Whatever method was used to kill the two poor saps in the latest ep was another crack in the unreasonable safety of the towns, and I'd bet the designer left such gaps there fully on purpose.

[Y]

In fact it is fair. People can and should be possible to kill more easily during their sleep.

You're confusing "realism" for fairness here.

[Kraco]

You're confusing "realism" for fairness here.

Not really. How Kirito could just stand still on the bridge while a bunch of guys were exhausting themselves trying to beat his auto-regeneration speed with their lacking damage was hardly fair and even less realistic. Being able to slay a careless sleeper is realism but it's also fairness in the sense it allows a less strong character to get even with a strong one. In my opinion if you aren't wise and watch your back, it's only fair someone will exploit that carelessness without the game engine getting too much in the way.

[Yukimura]

Again, you want Kirito's weird moral disconnect - the fact that he cares more for scripted computer programs than humans - to be rewarded as the "correct" viewpoint to take in this situation, and not only that, for it to be a good thing because it most closely conforms to the crazy, evil game designer's ideals. Once again, what a nasty, fucked up main character.

I agree he'd be a nasty fucked up main character if the series tried to justify his behavior through plot convenience, but even if the creator tried to reward him with the moral high ground or some other sort of vindication, we don't have to agree and decide he's a great guy. That said I would value the show more if they tried to pull something like that than I expect to if it turns out the story is just another rehash of the hero's journey type redemption/maturation story and Kirito learns the value of friendship and teamwork through the adversity of grinding his way to floor 100 to defeat the big bad boss.

[Y]

the story is just another rehash of the hero's journey type redemption/maturation story and Kirito learns the value of friendship and teamwork through the adversity of grinding his way to floor 100 to defeat the big bad boss.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

[fireheart]

Well they probably can taste things judging by the conversation that Kirito and Asuna had about the bread in episode 2.

[Buffalobiian]

If the game is trying to simulate a world, it makes sense for the menu to be physically accessible instead of making everyone feel like they've got telekinetic powers. Your finger motions will make menu navigation more akin to flicking through a journal/inventory/manual that's in the game rather than interacting with an interface that lies outside the game.

[deathnightwc3]

Well if this game takes in reality's way of 'beta to finished game', there will always be a niche group of players who can and will exploit bugs without reporting them. So I'm not all that surprised that the game has a few bugs here and there.

[Kraco]

Besides, if they can build a direct neural interface device, you'd think they would have figured out already how to patch a game without a need to reboot. The fact it's now necessary is only due to programming conventions stemming from the ancient 80's. It's a different thing, though, if there are anybody around to patch anything anymore. The big evil designer should be either in police custody or hiding in some third world country. Who knows about other programmers, but one would guess they never knew about all this and potentially could still be available to fix things. But then again, the designer must have disabled the necessary outside monitoring and editing capabilities from everybody or else the code could be fixed to include the quit button.

[Kraco]

That's only a detail dictated by the game mechanics. It equals perfectly to simply catching somebody asleep and thus completely vulnerable and slitting their throat (which the game engine doesn't happen to allow for whatever reason). I fail to see how that's not fair. Surely it's every bit as fair as some high level mofo one-hit killing a lower level player in the wilds. There's nothing at all preventing players from taking precautions against sleep duels, like choosing a decent location for the nap or having somebody on guard when others sleep.

I don't know why it should be a great shock to anyone that bad things can happen to a sleeping person found by a villain. They at least believe they are inside a lethal game, so it would make more sense to doubt any gaming convention they learned from normal games.