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Yasser Arafatwa posted:Yeah, the glitchiness or distortion or whatever had me immediately thinking of Aura as well. I'm kind of wondering if someone tampered with her character or something, which is why she didn't have a player "gem" or stats visible. Also pretty odd she'd be out in the wilderness way up on level 22, could be she got teleported out there by someone messing with her. Or I guess she could be some kind of rogue AI, pretty odd situation all around. It should be noted that there's technically nothing stopping players from traveling to higher floors; as soon as a floor's boss is cleared and someone goes upstairs and turns on the teleporter for the next town, anybody and everybody can come visit it. Actually walking outside of the town is a good bit riskier, but floor 22 seems to be relatively peaceful and without much in the way of dangerous areas so it's not out of the question that some relatively unleveled players might be found wandering outside of town there. Argas posted:I think their current state decently foreshadowed. From what we know, they used to be a frontline guild but sustained too many losses on the 25th floor. They're a group with many strong members and are also well-organized, considering the name and their participation in dungeon clearing. Since the 25th floor, they've stuck back and tried to recover. The Knights of Blood don't really try to rule but it's fairly clear they could if they tried. A large enough membership, hierarchy, strong leadership, etc. Main difference is that the ALF suffered a crushing loss and clearly took a blow to their confidence that they've been trying to cover up. (all this from parts of the books the show's already covered, FYI) To be specific, the Army (later renamed the Aincrad Liberation Front) is by far and away the largest guild in the game, making up 30% of the playerbase. They're based out of the 1st floor city and also function as the de facto law enforcement in the game. The jail that's previously been mentioned is in the castle that makes up their guild headquarters. It was founded by the administrator of an MMO info website with the intention of working in large groups to reduce risk to individual players, as well as promoting sharing equipment, food, and information. They kind of got left behind, in part because they suffered heavy losses at the 25th floor boss, and part because they were a big serious business MMO guild and were constantly wrapped up in stupid leadership drama and loot council bullshit. Also, while working together for safety's sake is all well and good, the greedy and reckless players are still much faster than them to level, and are the ones to set up the front lines group. The Knights of the Blood are the strongest guild in terms of overall player skill, and are some of the main leaders in the front lines group, but they're actually only about 30 players and don't have the resources to "rule" in the same sense that the 2000 man strong Army does. The front lines group doesn't actually interact with the Army all that much at this point. Partly because they're still mostly hunting below floor 50, partly because they have a bad reputation for being especially pushy and serious. It's specifically noted that they tend to assault orange players with the intention to strip and imprison them without asking any questions about the reason, and that they tend to monopolize all the good leveling areas for themselves instead of following the general camp-sharing etiquette that most other players recognize. As such, most players tend to try and stay out of their way if possible. This is one of the reasons why Kirito/Asuna get kind of nervous when the Army shows up on the 74th floor in large numbers. Anyway, we'll probably hear some more about them and their current situation next episode, depending on how much they decide to cut for time.
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Sep 17, 2012 02:49
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Yasser Arafatwa posted:Yeah, the glitchiness or distortion or whatever had me immediately thinking of Aura as well. I'm kind of wondering if someone tampered with her character or something, which is why she didn't have a player "gem" or stats visible. Also pretty odd she'd be out in the wilderness way up on level 22, could be she got teleported out there by someone messing with her. Or I guess she could be some kind of rogue AI, pretty odd situation all around. She said she's been alone in the darkness. Did that poor kid seriously spend A few years in the Nervegear not connected to any program? Sounds like hell to me. Like solitary confinement with zero stimulus. It would drive a person completely mad. She might just be a program though, IDK.
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Sep 17, 2012 02:59
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The Knights are only about 30 players? That really seems to be too few to not have all its members undergo a more extensive process for joining. And too few to start having the manpower for bodyguards.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:00
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Yeah, both the LN and anime give depictions of the KoB that don't really make sense for a 30-man guild. (What in the world are 30 people going to do with such a huge castle?) Maybe there's some sort of pet guilds they hire? Asuna's cooking skill aside, they probably don't want to spend any time mending equipment and crafting things when they could be clearing floors.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:37
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Bakanogami posted:It should be noted that there's technically nothing stopping players from traveling to higher floors; as soon as a floor's boss is cleared and someone goes upstairs and turns on the teleporter for the next town, anybody and everybody can come visit it. Actually walking outside of the town is a good bit riskier, but floor 22 seems to be relatively peaceful and without much in the way of dangerous areas so it's not out of the question that some relatively unleveled players might be found wandering outside of town there. Yeah I guess that's true. Her whole situation just seems so bizarre though. I guess she could've just wandered there through a portal from the level 1 town on her own. It didn't seem like her family was on the 22nd floor, at least. She just didn't even really seem like a typical player was what made me suspicious of it all, with the lack of that icon and whatnot. Seemed like her character had been tampered with or something. Nathilus posted:She said she's been alone in the darkness. Did that poor kid seriously spend A few years in the Nervegear not connected to any program? Sounds like hell to me. Like solitary confinement with zero stimulus. It would drive a person completely mad. She might just be a program though, IDK. Yeah if that's the case it's even sadder.  I just kinda figured her explanation was more of an ~anime amnesia~ kinda deal more than your explanation. Yours seems possible though. Amarkov posted:Yeah, both the LN and anime give depictions of the KoB that don't really make sense for a 30-man guild. (What in the world are 30 people going to do with such a huge castle?) Could be lots of new recruits recently that she's not including in like the 30 "official" members or original ones? Dunno, I agree the math seems off.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:57
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Dexo posted:The thing is if this poo poo happened, and Kirito was the one who beat the final boss, freeing everyone who hadn't died. Kirito would be pretty much the biggest hero in the world. Everyone would know his name and what he looks like. Oh god, it would almost be like stopping/averting a Japanese 9/11 (and about three and a bit times the people involved as well?). In real life he would be carted in front of so many news organizations, ask to write a bunch of books, go to conventions, get a bridge named after him in Hungary, and would otherwise be one of the world's most famous people. What happened on floor 25? Was that animated? I don't remember.
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Sep 17, 2012 04:09
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Raenir Salazar posted:Oh god, it would almost be like stopping/averting a Japanese 9/11 (and about three and a bit times the people involved as well?). Minor Spoilers Every 25th floor there is a super boss, The 25th floor was IIRC the first time a Boss room was an anti teleporting field. Which as you could imagine would wreck poo poo while they were scouting his abilities. So they essentially had to bring as many people as they could and learn the fight as they went. Which is also why Heathcliff wants Kirito in his guild as well as everyone on top of their poo poo as they just finished clearing the 74th floor and are now on floor 75. Dexo fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 04:31
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Dexo posted:Which is also why Heathcliff wants Kirito in his guild as well as everyone on top of their poo poo as they just finished clearing the 74th floor and are now on floor 75. The horrifying thing here being, if Floor 74's boss was such a monster, imagine how AWFUL 75 is going to be by comparison. That's probably what's going through the mind of everyone involved in clearing at this point.
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Sep 17, 2012 05:08
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Gearhead posted:The horrifying thing here being, if Floor 74's boss was such a monster, imagine how AWFUL 75 is going to be by comparison. In fairness, wasn't the problem with 74 being the Army being overconfident/careless?
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Sep 17, 2012 06:10
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Raenir Salazar posted:In fairness, wasn't the problem with 74 being the Army being overconfident/careless? They note that the bosses of recent floors (70+) are becoming less and less predictable. They also couldn't use any crystals with The Gleameyes. Beyond having some unique effects such as teleportation, crystals also seem to be more powerful than potions and are more easily used on yourself and others. Bosses don't exactly let players escape very easily once combat starts. Disengaging and running leaves them open, and a fighting retreat still leaves people to face the boss. The recent bosses are more difficult because they can't assume they have thorough knowledge of the boss' mechanics, and that's not counting whatever surprise (No crystals, no healing, etc.) each one may have. The way the frontline fighters have been dealing with bosses for a long time now is practice. Individual skill helps but they've been taking things slowly and cautiously. The recent fights are shifting things towards just being a good fighter. Obviously, preparation always works but learning and adapting fast are now more important than before. Furthermore, given the every 25th floor trend, 75 will likely be a massive jump in difficulty.
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Sep 17, 2012 06:20
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Argas posted:Beyond having some unique effects such as teleportation, crystals also seem to be more powerful than potions and are more easily used on yourself and others. Everyone always talks about how expensive crystals are but I don't remember hearing or reading how much they cost. Also, (novel) the one poor mid-level guild leader managed to buy a corridor crystal to send the red players to jail, but then later the clearing group was surprised that Heathcliff would use one. Seems strange that the low level guy could buy something that is really expensive even for the very top players. Probably just slightly sloppy writing.
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Sep 17, 2012 07:19
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cooldude2.0 posted:Crystals heal you instantly, so unless you're oneshot you can safely get through the fight as long as you stock up. Potions heal over time. Coupled with the lack of healers in SAO, not having crystals available is a big deal. It's probably similar to housing. Gear, particularly weapons, tend to pay for itself. A new weapon means you'll be killing monsters faster. Crystals probably suffer from typical gamer behavior and item hoarding. Unless it's absolutely necessary, they don't use it. Exceptions being teleport crystals because of the unique role they serve. Regarding the type of teleport crystal used to take Titan's Hand to the player prison, I imagine the guild leader had enough pooled to buy it. He had a definite use for it so it made sense. It's a very open-ended item so just how you use it determines its worth. Going from A to B instantly and bypassing everything inbetween is helpful but probably not worth whatever it costs. Now, using it in the arrest of orange players who would have plenty of opportunities to run away if they are personally escorted to the prison justifies the cost. Using it to sneak into someone's room to PK them in what is otherwise a safe and secure area is also a rather smart use of it. Frontline players don't really have much use for it. Solo players like Kirito are the exception, so going around in a dungeon is relatively safe.
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Sep 17, 2012 10:23
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The guy who wrote this series is pretty familiar with MMOs and how people operate in them. Of course, considering the timing, the two biggest things on Japanese shelves were Everquest and Final Fantasy 11. Volumes 3 & 4 spoilers (Later volumes in particular seem to owe a lot in terms of structure to FF11 to help flesh out ALO.) Consumables were precious, precious gold. But the more powerful you got, the easier it was to get them.
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Sep 17, 2012 10:52
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It looked like crystals were reusable (like with a cooldown or some mechanism for repeated use). The guy asks Kirito and Creeper McBodyguard to hand them over, but it doesn't make sense to hand over every single potion you were carrying.
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Sep 17, 2012 14:18
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Might be that you only hold one but you buy more uses for it instead of just more crystals.
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Sep 17, 2012 16:24
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AnacondaHL posted:It looked like crystals were reusable (like with a cooldown or some mechanism for repeated use). The guy asks Kirito and Creeper McBodyguard to hand them over, but it doesn't make sense to hand over every single potion you were carrying. Crystals seem to break on use, or at least, I'm pretty sure I've seen them break before.
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Sep 17, 2012 16:44
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Gearhead posted:Crystals seem to break on use, or at least, I'm pretty sure I've seen them break before. They do. Asuna uses one on Kirito and it crumbles afterwards. The training is probably intended to have them in situations where they may be tempted to use crystals. It'd have them in situations where they'd be tempted to use a crystal but be able to rely on their teammates to cover them while the potion takes effect.
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Sep 17, 2012 17:01
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I was pretty sure you could trade items in a stack. It'd make sense to just show it as a single item to outside viewers, though. In game you'd probably see, when looking at the crystal handed to you, something like "99x" slapped on it to tell you that you're actually holding a stack of 99 crystals instead of just one.
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Sep 17, 2012 17:10
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Argas posted:The training is probably intended to have them in situations where they may be tempted to use crystals. It'd have them in situations where they'd be tempted to use a crystal but be able to rely on their teammates to cover them while the potion takes effect. That bit sort of got to me. In a game where a crystal can literally save your life, would you voluntarily hand them over because some random guildie asshat tells you to? gently caress him. "Sure, here's my lifeline, random redshirt rear end in a top hat. Durrrrrrr."
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Sep 17, 2012 17:59
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Bakanogami posted:There was a thing from a talent agency in Japan the other week who tweeted something about being surprised that because they thought a certain show was only going to run for 2 cour (~13 episodes) but was apparently going on for more. Process of elimination by the Japanese blog that reposted it narrowed it down the likely contenders to SAO, Accel World, Eureka 7 AO, or Kuroko's Basketball. So who knows, maybe they are going to jump on it. Maybe I'm just misreading what you've typed up, but 1 cour is one 3-month "season" of 10-13 episodes (winter, spring, summer, fall), so there's a series out there that will be up to 52 episodes rather than the presumed 26.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:06
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darkgray posted:Maybe I'm just misreading what you've typed up, but 1 cour is one 3-month "season" of 10-13 episodes (winter, spring, summer, fall), so there's a series out there that will be up to 52 episodes rather than the presumed 26. Hmm, so, is it a 1 cour series that's gone 2 cour? Or a 2 cour that's gone 4? We always knew from the start SAO would be 2 cour.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:07
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Gearhead posted:Hmm, so, is it a 1 cour series that's gone 2 cour? Or a 2 cour that's gone 4? 2 -> 4 (with shows like Accel World and Kuroko no Basuke being on the list of candidates, this should have been obvious)
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Sep 17, 2012 18:11
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Nathilus posted:That bit sort of got to me. In a game where a crystal can literally save your life, would you voluntarily hand them over because some random guildie asshat tells you to? gently caress him. Yeah, really. You don't take away their lifeline, you just fail them if they panic and use it. He was just a stupid fool after all.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:12
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darkgray posted:2 -> 4 God I hope it's SAO.
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Sep 17, 2012 19:08
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Gearhead posted:Hmm, so, is it a 1 cour series that's gone 2 cour? Or a 2 cour that's gone 4? Sorry for the misleading wording, I meant a 2 cour series that's going 4. My guess is it's probably going to be Kuroko or Eureka 7, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's one of the others. AnacondaHL posted:It looked like crystals were reusable (like with a cooldown or some mechanism for repeated use). The guy asks Kirito and Creeper McBodyguard to hand them over, but it doesn't make sense to hand over every single potion you were carrying. Crystals are single-use, and while a number's never directly put to their cost, it's said to be prohibitively expensive to use the good ones outside of emergencies, and even the not-so-good ones aren't really used if there isn't a good reason to. Potions are used for healing 90% of the time, with the difference being that they take a long time to work while crystals are instant. There are a bunch of different varieties, with teleport and corridor crystals allowing transport, a variety of health crystals (with the most powerful being the pink full-heal one Asuna used last episode), and status effect cures for paralysis/poison/etc. If there are any WoW players around, think about it like there being a hearthstone that costs over 100g to use, or a full-heal potion that costs over 1000g. Not exactly something you have to break the bank to buy, but expensive enough that you're not going to waste it if you don't have to.
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Sep 17, 2012 19:18
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Bakanogami posted:If there are any WoW players around, think about it like there being a hearthstone that costs over 100g to use, or a full-heal potion that costs over 1000g. Not exactly something you have to break the bank to buy, but expensive enough that you're not going to waste it if you don't have to. Going to WoW for parallels is useful for folks who haven't been around the block a few times. But a lot of this has its roots in older games like EQ and FF11. Or more sadistic ones like EVE. Since the death penalty in those games is so savage (and the SAO death penalty is the most savage of all) anything at all that could help turn a death into a survival was essential. Volumes 3 & 4 Novel Spoiler: People asking for somebody to come in and rez Eugene is straight out of Everquest or FF11, trying to use a resurrection spell to offset the punishment for death and respawning. It wasn't like WoW where death was a small gold price or none at all in PvP. You could lose actual levels. In ALO you can lose skills, so it's probably more like saying ALO is EVE Meets Aion.
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Sep 17, 2012 20:18
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Huh, I read just recently that the author wrote the first novel when he was 15, SAO is actually pretty good considering. They say you should write about what you know, but who knew playing MMOs could help you get a TV show.
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Sep 17, 2012 20:58
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post posted:Huh, I read just recently that the author wrote the first novel when he was 15, SAO is actually pretty good considering. They say you should write about what you know, but who knew playing MMOs could help you get a TV show. Hrrm, I don't know. Wikipedia has no age or birth year listed, and while he started writing SAO "web novels" back in 2002, they only got published in 2009 after what I'd assume to be heavy editing.
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Sep 17, 2012 21:08
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post posted:Huh, I read just recently that the author wrote the first novel when he was 15, SAO is actually pretty good considering. They say you should write about what you know, but who knew playing MMOs could help you get a TV show. You got a source for that? That's kinda amazing if true.
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Sep 17, 2012 22:21
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ConanThe3rd posted:You got a source for that? That's kinda amazing if true. Here's a picture of him on SAO's english wiki. Author Profile Doesn't look that old.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:01
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Gearhead posted:Going to WoW for parallels is useful for folks who haven't been around the block a few times. But a lot of this has its roots in older games like EQ and FF11. Or more sadistic ones like EVE. Since the death penalty in those games is so savage (and the SAO death penalty is the most savage of all) anything at all that could help turn a death into a survival was essential. Just for the record, here's a list of the MMOs Kawahara has played that he listed on his twitter last month: Ultima Online Phantasy Star Online Ragnarok Online Dungeons & Dragons Online Perfect World World of Warcraft Dragon Nest He's also mentioned the Diablo series a couple times when tweeting about the boss fights, and (light vol. 5 spoilers) also mentioned in the Gun Gale Online arc that he's an FPS fan, though he hasn't expounded on what games he's played there.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:08
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Bakanogami posted:Ultima Online Holy poo poo. That explains EVERYTHING.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:33
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In fact, it's probably where he got flagging/murderers from. I had a hunch because it was so familiar, but there you go. Waiting for someone to break into and loot Kirito's house.
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Sep 18, 2012 01:09
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Gearhead posted:Holy poo poo. That explains EVERYTHING. Hahaha, no poo poo. Glad no evil genius ever made UO a death game because I'd be dead approximately ten billion times already.
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Sep 18, 2012 01:36
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Gearhead posted:Here's a picture of him on SAO's english wiki. If he started writing and publishing it online when he was 15, in 2002, he'd only be 25 now. So no older than most of us, probably, only he has a hugely popular light novel and anime series.
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Sep 18, 2012 02:39
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ConanThe3rd posted:You got a source for that? That's kinda amazing if true. Sorry, I don't get much when I google for it. Mostly forum posts like this: some anime forum posted:Kirito is an obnoxious overpowered angsty Gary Stu self-insert for the author, who was 15 when he started writing it. He wears an edgy black cloak and is the only one in the game that can use a special skill. ...
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Sep 18, 2012 21:43
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Because we've been dealing with weenies so drat long that when someone arrives and goes 'Excuse me, I am going to be a man about this.' (or at least try drat hard to) he's automatically an author insert. 
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Sep 18, 2012 23:08
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Gearhead posted:Because we've been dealing with weenies so drat long that when someone arrives and goes 'Excuse me, I am going to be a man about this.' (or at least try drat hard to) he's automatically an author insert.
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Sep 19, 2012 05:17
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Though I agree with your point, in all honesty if he really did write it when he was a 15 year old MMO nerd, the chances of Kirito not being a self insert are slim.
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Sep 19, 2012 08:47
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Blhue posted:Though I agree with your point, in all honesty if he really did write it when he was a 15 year old MMO nerd, the chances of Kirito not being a self insert are slim. Sometimes people shock us. Sometimes.
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Sep 19, 2012 10:41
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