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Rexides posted:One thing I like to do when watching this show, is consider the implication of it's premise on the characters. Take last episode's escort-knight-dude, for example. He behaves like entitled nobility, taking pride in his rank and doing everything to protect his princess from the dregs of society. He is the pretty standard character who grew up in a court blah blah etc etc. But then you consider that just two years ago he was probably just a huge nerd who bought a limited edition MMO at launch, who now gets to play out his white-night fantasies that will get him to sex up a cute girl if only he protects her hard enough. Yeah, maybe I am reading too much into this, but the show is kinda boring otherwise. I just finished the light novel. Episode 8 is pretty much the somewhat light novel spoiler: start of the end-game scenario. In my opinion, Kuradeel (our white knight) is simply a guy obsessed with a girl -- really obsessed. The light novel points out that in the first place, there aren't that many girls playing the game to begin with, and in the second place, there aren't that many attractive girls among those playing. Asuna is very beautiful and she's one of the best players in the game. She has a fan club. It would be an NPC vendor selling the houses for fixed prices -- probably based on location with the higher-level houses costing a lot more than lower level houses. The hardest part about reading the light novel was telling who said what. There was very little "he said, she said," but instead: "You take the middle." "Okay. You take the left side." "All right, I'll go down the right." Who is where? The story would've been much better if Kirito was the cook and Asuna had the awesome tasty rabbit meat. In my opinion, that setup is too stereotypical. I wonder if the male Japanese author of the story even knew what he was writing when he penned that part? Also, in most games, cooking is a way to produce items that give minor stat bonuses. The light novel does a good job explaining why cooking is an important skill, but I would not expect a high-level melee character to have a great cooking skill. Maybe a baker/cook shop in town -- just like your armorsmith and weaponsmith, etc? While I think some of the side stories we've seen in the anime were not necessary, I am glad we got the side-story with Kirito joining that guild where everyone but him died. That was probably one of the most important stories.
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Aug 26, 2012 15:49
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Why did he even get a new sword made if he still uses the old one?
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Aug 26, 2012 15:53
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Demicol posted:Why did he even get a new sword made if he still uses the old one? The same reason he didn't mention neither the blacksmith or the idol when Asuna asked if he knew any girls. Side stories 
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Aug 26, 2012 16:06
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Demicol posted:Why did he even get a new sword made if he still uses the old one? Yeah, Side Stories, don't worry, you haven't seen the last of Dark Repulsor.
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Aug 26, 2012 16:47
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Oh wait, I think I know now. (Probably major) Light novel spoilers Is that the other sword hes gonna use when he starts dual wielding?
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Aug 26, 2012 16:54
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quote:"You take the middle." While I understand that "He said" and the Tom Swiftisms tend to be invisible for most I tend to notice them and break the flow for me, what I like to do when writing is space it out a bit and only do the above when its clear the same person is still speaking, adding the "He said" when I'm switching characters. quote:But then you consider that just two years ago he was probably just a huge nerd who bought a limited edition MMO at launch, who now gets to play out his white-night fantasies that will get him to sex up a cute girl if only he protects her hard enough. Yeah, maybe I am reading too much into this, but the show is kinda boring otherwise. It's possible he might actually be some kid's father/uncle who tried it out first to make sure it was safe (irony). He looks a little old, then again this may be the future and he's simply from our generation. It also does seem to be the case as the longer you survive in the game the more you sorta get attached and your personality subtly shifts like the girl from earlier. quote:My pet theory that the front line people just have the vast majority of their income go towards equipment. They're always going to buy the best things possible, and they're the only people incurring significant equipment costs; any of their craftsmen probably has a lot more disposable income than they do. I agree with this theory, it would explain why the smith thought Kirito had "enough money". So everyone being on floors 50 to 55 or so is more or less because the housing is cheaper? Like the reverse of modern american white flight?
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Aug 26, 2012 17:01
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I'm one of those weirdos that just spent time leveling up my cooking skills in World of Warcraft. Then I would mail food and drinks to other guild members instead of just tossing them to make space. I recall being pleasantly surprised when my skill was high enough to pick up a useful cooking recipe in the middle of a dungeon, of all places. Anyway this episode reminded me of that.
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Aug 26, 2012 17:21
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ConanThe3rd posted:Honestly, If I knew how (and time wasn't a factor) I'd jump in and take that weight on. It's a lot of work for not a lot of improvement when it's just a fan thing and not, say, a retail release, so I can see why editing tends to be so low priority. Raenir Salazar posted:It also does seem to be the case as the longer you survive in the game the more you sorta get attached and your personality subtly shifts like the girl from earlier. You can probably make the case with any persistent VR game. You begin to play a role and because it feels like you're controlling your own body, it's more difficult to separate you from your avatar. Factor in the sheer amount of time people have been playing SAO and it's no surprised that many of them are likely acting more like themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if, upon returning to reality, they'd try to use the VR UI or make sure they only sleep among people they trust, etc. Raenir Salazar posted:So everyone being on floors 50 to 55 or so is more or less because the housing is cheaper? Like the reverse of modern american white flight? It's probably a cost/convenience thing. Cheaper housing there than higher, and if that's where the rest of the market is, it hurts to be elsewhere unless you have the reputation to attract people. Daler Mehndi posted:I'm one of those weirdos that just spent time leveling up my cooking skills in World of Warcraft. Then I would mail food and drinks to other guild members instead of just tossing them to make space. I recall being pleasantly surprised when my skill was high enough to pick up a useful cooking recipe in the middle of a dungeon, of all places. Another thing to consider is just how you raise the skill. You have to use it a lot. Your weapon skills will naturally be very high if you're just actively playing the game simply because you use it all the time. But things like Kirito's tracking is probably a borefest.
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Aug 26, 2012 18:08
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Argas posted:It's probably a cost/convenience thing. Cheaper housing there than higher, and if that's where the rest of the market is, it hurts to be elsewhere unless you have the reputation to attract people. The purpose for food in most MMO's goes beyond the simple fact of eating; however, in SAO, it seems to be pretty much that you must eat to live (EverQuest was similar) and you can choose to eat stuff that tastes like cardboard or really good stufff. If you want the good stuff, then learn to cook or marry a good cook, etc. because the only way to get really good food is to have someone cook it. And, since everyone is stuck in this world with no way out until the game is beaten, then eating has become one of the few true pleasures in life. Kirito has put his time and effort into skills that are more essential to survival as you can buy cardboard tasting food from any NPC. Maybe being a loner-solo player requires he keep more combat essential skills going whereas Asuna can afford to "waste" skill points on something like cooking because she can count on being in a group most of the time. If I knew I would always be in a group with someone who had maxed-out tracking skills, I wouldn't bother training tracking. I'd train something else to complement that skill set with my own. Just like as a crafter, I would only train one craft and have a friend train the other complimentary craft. I can make the cloth he needs and he can make the leather components I need to create my awesome cloth-caster clothing, etc.
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Aug 26, 2012 18:39
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That presumes a more limited crafting system like WoW's though where your limited to about 2 crafting and two gathering was it? If its more like EVE's you could probably have the minimal combat skills to participate and avoid being one shotted while being an indispensable omnicrafter/industrialist who single handedly keeps the guild armed and armored. I'm inclined to think its a mix, probably some kind of skill point D&D styled tree system and you get a set amount each level to spend however as it opens itself to most flexible amount of skill monkeying about.
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Aug 26, 2012 18:54
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Raenir Salazar posted:That presumes a more limited crafting system like WoW's though where your limited to about 2 crafting and two gathering was it? If its more like EVE's you could probably have the minimal combat skills to participate and avoid being one shotted while being an indispensable omnicrafter/industrialist who single handedly keeps the guild armed and armored. It's more that you have a limit on how many skills you can have and everything counts as a skill. Daggers, one-handed swords, two-handed swords, cooking, blacksmithing, tracking, hiding, etc. They're all skills. And yeah, Kirito's solo play definitely forces him to pick up a lot of skills that can be better split up amongst multiple players. He can track people as well as detect them (Not sure if it's rooted in the same skill). I can't exactly remember where it's noted, but Kirito's skills mean he can nap without being scared of someone sleep-PKing him because it'll wake him up if someone approaches. Obviously it won't thwart a really elaborate scheme but use of a passive skill shouldn't thwart player ingenuity. As for eating, it's not required to live but you will feel the hungry even if you aren't actually hungry. The LN notes that the bread in episode 2 cost only 1 col so it's pretty clear Kirito's expenses primarily go towards combat. Considering he has no one to back him up, his expenses are going to be even higher for an effective safety net.
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Aug 26, 2012 19:27
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Argas posted:Editing will always remain the unloved position in anything and everything. What's that? Someone needs go over my creative masterpiece/genius translation/life's work and then tell me that I did a less than stellar job because it's difficult to read? The nerve of some people. No idea about the SAO translation in particular but a common problem with LN fan translations is that they split up the work between multiple translators and editors, making it pretty tough to get a consistent voice set up (and it goes without saying that it really enhances the usual problems with the quality of most LNs).
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Aug 26, 2012 23:53
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Dan7el posted:"You take the middle." I haven't read the light novels, but I'm guessing it's very obvious in the original text given the overtly masculine/feminine speech patterns Japanese allows for. It's much simpler to give a character a unique voice in Japanese prose than it is in English. I'm really liking this show more than I should. I feel like it's completely ridiculous and unwatchable to anyone who doesn't play MMOs, and my favorite parts are when they show the game's systems. In that respect it's way more interesting than .hack was. Episode 8 was probably my favorite so far, simply because there was a lot of UI interaction and we got to see the cooking and duel systems.
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Aug 28, 2012 04:26
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Sylvyfish posted:I'm really liking this show more than I should. I feel like it's completely ridiculous and unwatchable to anyone who doesn't play MMOs, and my favorite parts are when they show the game's systems. In that respect it's way more interesting than .hack was. Episode 8 was probably my favorite so far, simply because there was a lot of UI interaction and we got to see the cooking and duel systems. Some of my family (Non-gamers, all of them) are enjoying it. It's simple enough and engaging, though they haven't internalized all the terms yet. They also enjoy some of the gags that we're sick of because every single anime ever does it. Strangely, they also enjoyed Legend of Galactic Heroes (Having names for everyone and not suffering from sameface helped, and it also more closely resembles the Chinese period dramas they enjoy). I'd say the biggest draw thus far is that the setting reminds you that it's a game and all the limitations that entails. The show has been good about setting up and explaining rules, and then following them. Exploits like sleep-PKing make perfect sense as something that goes against the rules set forth by the game without being plothax. In comparison, .hack just kind of set itself in a game and then ran far, far away (The games more than the show). How does your mind remain in the game even though you've been removed from it? How does a purely visual interface suddenly shove you into the game? Etc.
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Aug 28, 2012 09:59
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Yeah, I wouldn't really call this the most revolutionary anime ever, but it's pretty inoffensive and easy for people to identify with. I've been watching it with my brother and friends and they all enjoy it despite not being regular anime watchers. It helps that A-1 have really stepped up their game lately and done a great job of adapting it as well. I'm not sure exactly when they went from "that studio with the bad animation" to being one of the better quality ones currently around, but it's pretty cool. And yeah, I think the frequent acknowledgement that they're in a game and the consistency of the game rules / internal logic make it a lot more interesting. You have to suspend belief pretty heavily with regards to the basic premise (I thought this show would be pretty terrible based on what I read about it before it aired, but it surprised me) but after that it's an enjoyable enough ride. I liked stuff like how instead of cooking being something you'd do completely realistically in a 1:1 virtual world, it was just done by pulling a knife out of the inventory window and touching it against the ingredients, and then Asuna went on to complain about how cooking was too boring. It was a nice touch. Xythar fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Aug 29, 2012 |
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Aug 29, 2012 00:09
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Xythar posted:Yeah, I wouldn't really call this the most revolutionary anime ever, but it's pretty inoffensive and easy for people to identify with. I've been watching it with my brother and friends and they all enjoy it despite not being regular anime watchers. It helps that A-1 have really stepped up their game lately and done a great job of adapting it as well. I'm not sure exactly when they went from "that studio with the bad animation" to being one of the better quality ones currently around, but it's pretty cool. Xythar posted:And yeah, I think the frequent acknowledgement that they're in a game and the consistency of the game rules / internal logic make it a lot more interesting. You have to suspend belief pretty heavily with regards to the basic premise (I thought this show would be pretty terrible based on what I read about it before it aired, but it surprised me) but after that it's an enjoyable enough ride. I liked stuff like how instead of cooking being something you'd do completely realistically in a 1:1 virtual world, it was just done by pulling a knife out of the inventory window and touching it against the ingredients, and then Asuna went on to complain about how cooking was too boring. It was a nice touch. I especially liked the durability mechanic from earlier. This feels far more like a video game world than .hack//SIGN (which was awful) ever did to me, and the premise of being stuck in a video game world isn't *that* contrived. Still, I think the plot's moving too slowly. :/ Better than watching grass grow, though.
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Aug 29, 2012 00:27
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I think the menu is probably the most subtle yet ingenious aspect of them showing it's a game. It's too easy to depict a "we're in a game" situation without every depicting the menus. People just seem to stare off in the distance for a little bit or something and bam, they've done something. The menu makes perfect sense too. It's a VR game so you aren't interacting with a mouse and keyboard. It could be invisible like certain UI elements (Party display, your own HP bar, etc.) but it'd make interacting with the UI more awkward to look at. It's this great blend of show and tell.
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Aug 29, 2012 05:18
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Xythar posted:Yeah, I wouldn't really call this the most revolutionary anime ever, but it's pretty inoffensive and easy for people to identify with. I've been watching it with my brother and friends and they all enjoy it despite not being regular anime watchers. It helps that A-1 have really stepped up their game lately and done a great job of adapting it as well. I'm not sure exactly when they went from "that studio with the bad animation" to being one of the better quality ones currently around, but it's pretty cool. Looking at their rap sheet, there doesn't seem to be a set point, I don't remember Big Wind up, one of their first shows, having bad animation and they seem to have a fairly stable Good-Bad Ratio as far as shows go. Argas posted:I think the menu is probably the most subtle yet ingenious aspect of them showing it's a game. It's too easy to depict a "we're in a game" situation without every depicting the menus. People just seem to stare off in the distance for a little bit or something and bam, they've done something. The menu makes perfect sense too. It's a VR game so you aren't interacting with a mouse and keyboard. It could be invisible like certain UI elements (Party display, your own HP bar, etc.) but it'd make interacting with the UI more awkward to look at. Honestly, the best idea they thought of was having the POV Scenes where you're looking though the character's eyes. That one bit where Silica was about to get the HP Beat out of her by a pack of Wild Gorillas was a really effective way of showing how loving scary that would be in both the real life idea of being beat to death by said animals and the implications it had in the Game of Death. ConanThe3rd fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Aug 29, 2012 |
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Aug 29, 2012 06:46
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Demicol posted:Oh wait, I think I know now. (Probably major) Light novel spoilers Is that the other sword hes gonna use when he starts dual wielding? Yep, he even shows Lizbeth his dual-wield technique in the LN, which is why he asked for a sword that is roughly equal/better than his current sword.
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Aug 29, 2012 08:03
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A year or two ago I stopped watching any anime, I got the feeling I was outgrowing it and none of the newer shows were interesting me, and some anime cliches started grating on me where before I could tolerate them. I am a pretty big MMO nerd so sword art online got on my radar and I decided to catch up on the first 7 episodes. I am really, really enjoying this series. Whoever wrote this is a big MMO fan and he gets all the details right. He sucked me in so badly that the day after watching the first 7 episodes, I searched baka-tsuki.net for a translation and read the first light novel. So I highly recommend this and I'm anxiously awaiting the next episodes. I'm not sure if anyone who wasn't interested in MMOs would get any enjoyment out of it, but who cares about them? I'm loving it. For the record, I thought .hack was awful.
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Aug 31, 2012 00:45
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It's probably been said many times in this thread, but this show is excellent. It is to the "you die in the game, you die in real life" genre what Hunter x Hunter's Greed Island arc was to the card game genre. It's so good, I stopped watching Accel World because it's garbage in comparison. Before the season started, everyone in the season thread was pessimistic about it (myself included) because the setup is incredibly cliche, but it does everything right where every other series fails. 1/2 Prince, for example, was good until it just started tossing game mechanics out the window in favor of escalating the action. Compared to this show where they did a murder mystery that hinged on game mechanics. The focus on the culture and psychology is great. I don't think I've enjoyed a series this much since Madoka. The worst part is waiting a week. Just one more day though until the first boss fight since floor 1 and it's going to be worth the wait.
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Sep 1, 2012 03:47
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I stopped reading 1/2 Prince when the main character began doing concerts in-game which people actually attended for some incomprehensible reason. Seriously, what the hell?
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Sep 1, 2012 04:00
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I found the series lacking for some of the reasons you praised it, which is bizarre. The MMO aspect of the show was pretty much immediately thrown away to tell a series of boring, generic vignettes about characters the series had absolutely no interest in getting us to care about. Like the murder mystery episode. The solution was that the people getting "killed" were just teleporting away. Except... they very obviously were not. No teleport effect.
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Sep 1, 2012 04:15
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Y posted:I found the series lacking for some of the reasons you praised it, which is bizarre. The MMO aspect of the show was pretty much immediately thrown away to tell a series of boring, generic vignettes about characters the series had absolutely no interest in getting us to care about. Playing MMOs is mostly a lot of grinding, so spending 5 episodes doing what's basically filler was probably more interesting than showing Kirito clearing floors 2-73. And it explained the setting in more depth, about the mechanics and sociology of PKers, marriage, etc. People attended the 1/2 Prince concert because the avatar was dreamy, as computed by computers. That's about the point it got dumb in several ways.
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Sep 1, 2012 06:14
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cooldude2.0 posted:It's probably been said many times in this thread, but this show is excellent. It is to the "you die in the game, you die in real life" genre what Hunter x Hunter's Greed Island arc was to the card game genre. It's so good, I stopped watching Accel World because it's garbage in comparison. Before the season started, everyone in the season thread was pessimistic about it (myself included) because the setup is incredibly cliche, but it does everything right where every other series fails. I don't know, the first episode opened up pretty fantastically and helped set the bar high, I still like Accel World so I didn't really feel pessimistic other than in the "Lets hope they can keep it up" sense. Really if they had the exact same premise as an HBO or SciFy show I imagine it opening the exact same way for the first episode. To what extant it keeps going the same way as a Western live action thing depends if they have Joss Whedon at the helm. I really wish I didn't have to compare anime to a western show when I want to as a short hand quickly state how "good" something is.
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Sep 1, 2012 08:09
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Y posted:Like the murder mystery episode. The solution was that the people getting "killed" were just teleporting away. Except... they very obviously were not. No teleport effect.
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Sep 1, 2012 09:02
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What the gently caress is up with Crunchyroll and SAO? It seems like every other week or so they just decide to skip putting up an episode and then put up two the next week. To make it worse, up until the day it airs they still acknowledge with the timer that one is coming.
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Sep 1, 2012 17:28
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:What the gently caress is up with Crunchyroll and SAO? It seems like every other week or so they just decide to skip putting up an episode and then put up two the next week. To make it worse, up until the day it airs they still acknowledge with the timer that one is coming. Ah, well. At least Kokoro Connect is up.
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Sep 1, 2012 18:17
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atholbrose posted:They've now got an apology up saying that the episode is delayed due to production delays. At least they're saying what's up this week. And yeah, at least Kokoro Connect hasn't missed a beat.
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Sep 1, 2012 19:06
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ConanThe3rd posted:The "Teleport" effect was covered by the "Object Destruction" effect. To make it look like they were murdred Chrimeny, it's like the thing they say out loud for goodness sake. They never say that, but the point is that the mystery is solved by something randomly happening that you had no way to determine from the game mechanics, since we've seen people teleport and there was no such effect when these people died. It was obviously not just their armor breaking, the effect was the same as if they were dying.
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Sep 1, 2012 19:11
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:What the gently caress is up with Crunchyroll and SAO? It seems like every other week or so they just decide to skip putting up an episode and then put up two the next week. To make it worse, up until the day it airs they still acknowledge with the timer that one is coming. You say that as if Crunchyroll doesn't intend to release as soon as contractually possible. Crunchyroll is at the mercy of licensors. The first delay was because of the Olympics; some but not all stations delayed it. The more recent one is probably a cascade of a delay along the line.
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Sep 1, 2012 19:12
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:You say that as if Crunchyroll doesn't intend to release as soon as contractually possible. Crunchyroll is at the mercy of licensors. The first delay was because of the Olympics; some but not all stations delayed it. The more recent one is probably a cascade of a delay along the line. I actually didn't know that about the first one, though in hindsight it makes sense. And I know full well they'll release it as soon as possible, it's just I've only seen this problem with SAO. Granted, I'm only watching two shows as they air on Crunchyroll so that's not exactly a big sampling but still. I suppose my wording was a little harsher than it needed to be, I was really mostly just curious if anyone knew. SAO and Kokoro Connect are the first two shows I've ever watched like this.
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Sep 1, 2012 20:02
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Yay dual swords. Also the solo'ing the boss part
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Sep 2, 2012 01:12
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And here I thought we wouldn't have hear someone shout the name of their attack-skill.
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Sep 2, 2012 01:14
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Daydream posted:And here I thought we wouldn't have hear someone shout the name of their attack-skill. 
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Sep 2, 2012 02:32
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That was cool to see animated, looking forward to how they do the duel.
Demicol fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Sep 2, 2012 |
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Sep 2, 2012 02:58
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The Holy Queef posted:
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Sep 2, 2012 03:30
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I do like this show, but I'm kind of irritated that Asuna just sort of stood there while the other two bickered about her future in the guild. Considering that it's actually her choice, you'd think she'd want to take a more active role in determining things.
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Sep 2, 2012 06:05
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bahamut posted:I do like this show, but I'm kind of irritated that Asuna just sort of stood there while the other two bickered about her future in the guild. Considering that it's actually her choice, you'd think she'd want to take a more active role in determining things. You see, all Japanese women belong in the kitchen like Griselda.
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Sep 2, 2012 07:15
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bahamut posted:I do like this show, but I'm kind of irritated that Asuna just sort of stood there while the other two bickered about her future in the guild. Considering that it's actually her choice, you'd think she'd want to take a more active role in determining things.
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Sep 2, 2012 09:34
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