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 In the year 2022 we have managed to create a complete virtual environment, the titular Sword Art Online MMORPG. Players put on a fancy headset after which all your actions are transferred to the game character instead of your physical body. On the launch day players eagerly log in, only to soon to learn that there is no log out button and if your characters HP reaches 0 or the headset is attempted to be removed, it will fry your brain killing you in real life. The only way to survive is to clear the game.     I am a big .hack fan so maybe I'm a biased, but the first episode was solid, despite the chunk of exposition, the animation is nice and the backgrounds look really good in my opinion. Sure the main character is some pro player (anidb description says he's a "genius programmer") but coming from .hack where the main character is always a newbie I like it. So I guess if you like .hack or similar, "set in a virtual reality" series this might be for you. Demicol fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jul 8, 2012 |
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Jul 7, 2012 23:27
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 12:02 |
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Here's hoping this winds up being less .hack and more Lord of the Flies/Infinite Ryvius.
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Jul 7, 2012 23:54
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Your wishes will be granted. poo poo falls apart Really Impressively in there Wondering how far they'll get? The actual light novel series has them out of Aincrad in the first book, but there's a shitload of side-stories that have come out since that elaborate on what happened there. (Read: Very Bad Things, with a few more heartwarming slice of life (In a virtual world) bits) Alectai fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Jul 8, 2012 |
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Jul 8, 2012 00:08
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Might have to spoiler that, dude.
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Jul 8, 2012 00:29
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THIS AIN'T NO GAME First episode was a bit clunky but it looks nice and the premise is interesting. I kinda feel I might be missing out on something given my hate of MMOs though. I like that there's no magic though cuz m-m-m-m-m-m-motherfuck magic.
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Jul 8, 2012 01:07
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Forgot to mention in the OP, there's stuff after the end credits you should watch.
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Jul 8, 2012 01:55
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I really enjoyed the first episode. Looks like there maybe something worth watching this season after all!
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Jul 8, 2012 01:58
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Man, that's some pretty motherfucking brutal mass murdering going on here. I can only imagine the level of poop-socking that game system would induce.
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Jul 8, 2012 02:06
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Pootybutt posted:Might have to spoiler that, dude. Thanks for reminding me! Edit don
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Jul 8, 2012 02:18
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"You said you were seventeen!" 
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Jul 8, 2012 02:20
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An MMO that's playable on release day? This anime has ruined my immersion. Also the tone of the ED was hilariously inappropriate considering what bracketed it.
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Jul 8, 2012 02:33
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So, this episode was basically all setup, mainly to fill in holes for what's kind of a ridiculous premise that shouldn't really work under any real scrutiny, and the exposition was definitely too much, but now that they have all that out of the way, there's no telling where this'll go. Gonna give this one a shot. Despite the dire premise, nothing this episode really drives home the danger or tension, execution-wise, so I'm mainly interested to see how far they push this. I love how they talk and treat it all like an actual game, terminology, icons and all. Also, nutkicking dudes for being creepy about your sister already earns the MC some cool points. Pootybutt fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jul 8, 2012 |
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Jul 8, 2012 02:56
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I was expecting this to be completely terrible and it might very well still end up being that, but the first episode wasn't completely horrible. I think I will give this episode the three episode test.
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Jul 8, 2012 02:59
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Ghost of Babyhead posted:"You said you were seventeen!" I had a big ol' laugh at the G.I.R.L. reveal.
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Jul 8, 2012 03:14
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Sindai posted:An MMO that's playable on release day? This anime has ruined my immersion. I liked the fact that the MC was savvy enough to realise that if you want to powerlevel quickly, you need to get the gently caress out of the newbie zone ASAP, though (and had played beta to learn the shortcuts/safe routes to the next area).
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Jul 8, 2012 03:33
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I was thinking of making a thread for this yesterday. Read a good bit of the light novels and it's pretty good from my impressions
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Jul 8, 2012 16:30
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Hoping this ends up like MMO Battle Royale.
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Jul 8, 2012 16:32
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arhra posted:I liked the fact that the MC was savvy enough to realise that if you want to powerlevel quickly, you need to get the gently caress out of the newbie zone ASAP, though (and had played beta to learn the shortcuts/safe routes to the next area). I have to wonder though: Does this MMO have PvP? If so, I wonder how many of the losses from the end clip are due to the The Most Dangerous Griefers.
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Jul 8, 2012 17:32
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Cipher Pol 9 posted:I have to wonder though: Does this MMO have PvP? If so, I wonder how many of the losses from the end clip are due to the The Most Dangerous Griefers. Novel spoilers (secondhand, picked up from threads on 4chan, so may not be entirely accurate and/or complete): Yes, it does - apparently everywhere outside of the towns is FFA. There's at least one PK guild that springs up eventually, and there's probably going to be an arc involving them at some point.
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Jul 8, 2012 17:37
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My big gripe about .hack was that they were in an MMO dungeon crawler and there was basically no cool spells or fighting. I realize that wasn't really the type of show it was so I don't think it's bad or anything, but does this seem more action-oriented or is the MMO more a vehicle for character interaction than, well, an actual MMO?
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Jul 8, 2012 17:45
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The light novels had some character and peaceful segments but also kind of a lot of action as well. I thought the beginning of the anime was rather less painful than I expected - now that the majority of the premise is established, I suspect it'll get better from here on out. I am cautiously optimistic, anyways. I think that the first light novel had a good amount of plot and is well suited to being a ~13 episode season of anime, with maybe a bit of inclusion of the second volume (which consisted of short side stories related to the first volume). I look forward to seeing how it all ends up working out - I'm going to watch at least the next few episodes. Edit: arhra posted:Novel spoilers (secondhand, picked up from threads on 4chan, so may not be entirely accurate and/or complete): Yes, it does - apparently everywhere outside of the towns is FFA. There's at least one PK guild that springs up eventually, and there's probably going to be an arc involving them at some point. This is accurate and a little bit incomplete; there is pvp everywhere outside of towns, and additionally a system for duels that can be nonlethal e.g. to first strike that connects or to 50% hp. Using the duel system requires the opponent to agree to a duel. Attacking other players directly outside the context of an agreed upon duel causes you to be designated a PKer - "In SAO, players who commit acts that are judged as criminal, such as stealing, harming other players, or killing them, have their cursors’ color changed from green to orange. Therefore, people refer to these criminal individuals as orange players and a guild that consist of them as orange guilds." (from an online translation of the second light novel). It is quite possible to harm people indirectly and get around this. There is a major series of events with a PK guild in the LN storyline, but who knows how closely they will stick to that for the adaption. Great Gray Shrike fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jul 8, 2012 |
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Jul 8, 2012 18:11
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I noticed that they're streaming this on Crunchyroll, so I might switch to a premium membership for this. I really liked .hack but I thought it had all style and no substance. I hope this series can deliver on the awesome story .hack should have had with at least half the style. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Demicol!
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Jul 8, 2012 19:54
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I understand why getting away from the starting town is a swell idea, but what's up with his rationale for doing so? "Like all typical MMOs, monsters have a finite number." what? Don't most of the major MMOs in both Western and Eastern playgroups NOT do this?
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Jul 8, 2012 20:21
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pandaK posted:I understand why getting away from the starting town is a swell idea, but what's up with his rationale for doing so? "Like all typical MMOs, monsters have a finite number." what? Don't most of the major MMOs in both Western and Eastern playgroups NOT do this? Possibly a bit of weird translation, what he means is is that everyone will be competing for spawns so it'll be harder to level up, I think.
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Jul 8, 2012 20:24
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pandaK posted:I understand why getting away from the starting town is a swell idea, but what's up with his rationale for doing so? "Like all typical MMOs, monsters have a finite number." what? Don't most of the major MMOs in both Western and Eastern playgroups NOT do this? You can see boars respawning later in the episode, so possibly he meant that the monsters would only reappear at a limited rate. In other words, thousands of players grinding boars would obliterate the population and then you'd be queuing around waiting for them to respawn. Meanwhile, as time passes, your comatose body is wasting away in the real world. edit: Beaten
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Jul 8, 2012 20:25
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Sakurazuka posted:Possibly a bit of weird translation, what he means is is that everyone will be competing for spawns so it'll be harder to level up, I think. Ah yes, I'd forgotten about crunchyroll's hyper literal sense of translation sometimes. That clears it up a lot.
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Jul 8, 2012 20:26
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pandaK posted:I understand why getting away from the starting town is a swell idea, but what's up with his rationale for doing so? "Like all typical MMOs, monsters have a finite number." what? Don't most of the major MMOs in both Western and Eastern playgroups NOT do this? I assumed he meant a limited number of monster spawns. You really have to see an MMO launch to actually comprehend what they're like. Edit: A quick GIS found this, apparently from the Aion launch. Bremen fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jul 8, 2012 |
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Jul 8, 2012 20:27
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Pretty much that, the big issue isn't "Limited Resources", it's that there's a bottleneck for them, and you need to get the gently caress out of the bottleneck before the shell-shock fades from everyone else, or you're going to slow to a crawl. I really like how they never forget that the setting is an MMO, rather then a fantasy land that pretends to be one. There's also pretty much that "Anyone who actually fights to clear the tower either dies young or becomes drat near inhumanly good. There's about no such thing as a completely terrible fighter among the people who don't just set up camp in the newbie city for all eternity." Anyway, I'm hoping this is going to be a 26 episode series, if only because The end of Fairy Dance is a good stopping point after resolving the last remaining issues from the Aincrad storyline, while ending at the end of Aincrad would probably put a bad taste in people's mouths
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Jul 8, 2012 22:09
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Ghost of Babyhead posted:Meanwhile, as time passes, your comatose body is wasting away in the real world. Yeah, I was thinking, everyone in the game would have 3 days (maybe more because they are sedentary) to live until they would die of dehydration. I'm sure if it's ever touched on we'll see people who don't get re hydrated by whoever in real life die.
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Jul 8, 2012 22:27
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The ED shows the guy he was with in the beginning with a different outfit and he said he lives alone, so maybe it wont come up. Besides after episode 1 it's been one month and 2000 people are dead you would assume most of those are the people who had nobody to take care of their physical body.
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Jul 8, 2012 23:10
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For those of you asking whether its worth it to stay with the series. Know that the Author of the LN series pretty much squander the whole premise and is full of wasted potential, and felt it necessary to insert as much trite anime element as possible including the harem elements (in a sort of one way James Bond type of way). Randomzx fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jul 9, 2012 |
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Jul 8, 2012 23:53
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I was honestly expecting to hate this because of how overhyped it was and how dumb the premise sounded (that, and the fact that it was written by the Accel World guy), but the first episode was surprisingly not-terrible. I guess I'll stick with it for a bit and see what happens. I guess it helps that Yuki Kajiura did the music and that the OP is by LiSA and pretty awesome.
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Jul 9, 2012 01:45
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So is this streaming somewhere or what?
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Jul 9, 2012 01:55
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Dickeye posted:So is this streaming somewhere or what? Crunchyroll has it, they're simulcasting it iirc
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Jul 9, 2012 02:18
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Having read the light novels, I'm equal parts excited and leery about the anime adaptation, mostly because this is a chance to do the first two volumes *right*. If they play their cards right, the adaptation of the first arc could absolutely blow the original out of the water, because the first arc in the original is hamstrung by problems the anime doesn't have. (The following has no spoilers whatsoever; I'm just putting it in tags in case anyone's especially spoiler-adverse, since I'm writing it having read the novels.) Volume 1 was pretty obviously the product of trimming the story down to absolute essentials, thanks to a contest's 120 page limit. That basically forced the author to start in medias res and abuse flashbacks, and volumes 2 and 8 do a lot to make it feel like a more complete story. Volume 2 is especially important, because aspects of it are referenced and at least one of them is a pretty important plot point from volume 3 onward. A straight adaptation is going to go Volume 1 -> flashbacks to Volume 2 (and maybe 8) material that happened during Volume 1's arc -> Volume 3. A less straight adaptation will sprinkle those through the Volume 1 material. An even less straight adaptation will do the story in chronological order. The next couple of episodes are going to be really important ones. Here's hoping someone in the production staff is a fan...
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Jul 9, 2012 03:13
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(probable actual LN spoilers) Don't the LNs cover other games as well? What do you think the likelihood is of the anime only focusing on the original Sword Art Online game and telling the story in chronological order with additional material?
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Jul 9, 2012 03:32
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Xythar posted:(probable actual LN spoilers) Don't the LNs cover other games as well? What do you think the likelihood is of the anime only focusing on the original Sword Art Online game and telling the story in chronological order with additional material? Buh?!? Who on earth would develop or even touch the prospect of another SAO game after that? People would ban NerveGear technology entirely.
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Jul 9, 2012 05:29
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Actually... That's exactly what happens, NerveGear technology is downright illegal after this. There's a derivative built off of the technology though that has some very heavy safety measures hard-coded in though, but one of the plot points of the Fairy Dance arc is that the game going on there is more or less the very last chance for the VR games to thrive as an actual commercial thing Really depends if this is going to be a 2-cour or not. They can fit all of the Aincrad storyline including side-stories in 13 episodes, and Fairy Dance would fit rather elegantly in another 13, as well as be a good closing point for the series--Aincrad ends on a bit of a cliffhanger that's resolved in Fairy Dance. Everything beyond that is pretty standalone. Alectai fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jul 9, 2012 |
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Jul 9, 2012 05:56
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Randomzx posted:For those of you asking whether its worth it to stay with the series. Trite anime elements in our Japanese Light Novels? 
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Jul 9, 2012 06:43
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 12:02 |
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This is written by the same guy as the Accel World fellow? I will enjoy this then, because I love the former show.  "Next time: Beater" 
Mordaedil fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Jul 9, 2012 |
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Jul 9, 2012 12:41
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