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SerSpook posted:Only Sense Online is probably the best of them. It doesn't take itself seriously unlike the SAO like stuff. And I actually really like the Sense system the game uses. The funny thing about that one is that the skill system it uses actually seems kind of viable for a mmo. However, everyone acts as though skill points are some incredibly rare resource and that non-combat skills are worthless even though it all seems very much balanced around trying a bunch of things. You don't even have to keep the non-combat stuff equipped and leveling it provides more skill points. This results in there being absolutely no documentation on skills which are trivially easy to acquire and try out. Even the hilarious skill system from moonlight sculptor makes more sense, because the worst offenders are all locked behind a super secret quest line that Weed never explains to anyone. Still, jarring dissonance between the premise and execution aside, I rather like Only Sense. The only actively negative aspect is the gender bender bit, which adds absolutely nothing to the story.
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Jan 18, 2015 05:22
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HiveCommander posted:You've never played EVE, have you? There were always loads of carebears in high sec, but that's not the point. The skills in eve were transparent. You knew the effects before you leveled one- bonuses and sometimes something new to equip. Even then, people still experimented with weird, frequently lovely builds. Desuwa posted:I finished reading the first three volumes of Only Sense Online and gave the other novels the translator is working on a look. I didn't find the others to be very good, which is a shame because the translator is fast and doing a great job on his end. Alice Tale was okay but much more typical of the genre. No one knew why Weed was strong because he never told anyone about the shapeshifting, sculpture pets, etc. He didn't have the only secret class with its own super special class quest, but his particular flavor of bullshit wasn't available to other people. In Only Sense, anyone could level those skills given time. Heck, most of them are available on character creation. However, every other person followed the consensus which only existed on forums that these skills were worthless before they even started playing. Alchemy sounds cool! Seeds could be created with a common starter area drop and a bit of fiddling with a menu from level 1, but no one else ever figured out how to get them. It isn't even like moonlight sculptor where being a crafter meant being lovely at combat and locking them out of most of the fun content. Rather, they could freely switch between ability sets like the job system in ffxi/xiv but no one ever bothered. poo poo just makes no sense, is all. Also, Ark is a brazen ripoff of moonlight sculptor. I mean poo poo, the guy even got a special ability that lets him ignore defense with swords with a class change. It just keeps coming up over and over. I'm not sure why such a supposed misanthrope who only values money and his family (gee, sound familiar?) is so ridiculously vulnerable to schmaltzy emotional appeals, though.
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Jan 18, 2015 17:21
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Writing a young adult novel is a perfectly fine endeavor. Aping the style of a rather unexceptional type of fiction in another language is pathetic.
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Jan 18, 2015 19:02
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I mentioned this in another thread, but the basic premise of lms just plain doesn't work. Weed exhausted himself working menial jobs as his family's sole support, so exactly when did he have time for all those absurd marathon sessions in that non-vr mmo?
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Jan 22, 2015 02:02
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Ottumon posted:That's a really good point. I guess it is indeed set on another planet where a month has 6000 hours! To be honest, I didn't pay much attention and forgot most of the first chapter. Either because of the writing style or translation, the human drama of Weed having to work his rear end off in sweatshops didn't interest me at all. I mostly think of it just as a way for the author to easily give Weed an appreciation of hard work and the value of money. And sewing skills too, I guess. It doesn't really bother me much, actually. The contradictory background stuff is directly related to Weed's personality, so even though it makes no sense it is necessary to the story. Lms is a blatant wish-fulfillment fantasy, only unlike the vast majority of light novels that fantasy is to have great big adventures in a vr game so advanced it is basically magic. Most of the rest is awkwardly translated jokes and grinding. The most obvious example of the harem poo poo not being important is that Weed became good friends with his first party, but none of the girls in that group fell madly in love with him. gimme the GOD DAMN candy fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 02:33
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Raenir Salazar posted:I'm trying to find Modern Magic Made Simple as I was reorganizing my Music collection and found the OP of it, which reminded me that this was a vastly underrated anime and now that I realize there's a light novel series behind it I want to read it now so bad. I had never heard of this before, probably because at first glance it is just another generic magic high school thing. It is on crunchyroll, so I'll have to give it a shot. But man, that "viewers also liked" listing bodes ill. Edit: This show is terrible. gimme the GOD DAMN candy fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jan 25, 2015 |
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Jan 25, 2015 04:28
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I've started reading Arifureta and it is just so wonderfully terrible that it might fill the mahouka-shaped hole in my heart. Even in the 'edgelord with rpg stats' genre, it is remarkably uninspired.
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Jan 30, 2015 10:46
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Gearhead posted:I decided to look Arifureta over and I can't help but feel like his whole eating monsters gimmick got discarded entirely too soon in favor of the writer deliberately bolting stereotypes on him. The best part is that his initial skill set was indeed weak and useless. He didn't find some clever way to make it work, but instead randomly found an unrelated method to become superhuman by accident. The author doesn't seem to understand that it takes more to make the protagonist likable than simply jamming a wide assortment of puerile concepts into one character. The protagonist isn't clever because the writer is too dim to understand what cleverness is. What's more, the actual story is intensely dull.
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Jan 31, 2015 05:40
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Oh right, I almost forgot about the funniest goddamn part of arifureta thus far- the drill instructor bit. The 17 year old boy who depends on a silly gun 90% of the time teaches a bunch of adults how to fight using 'logical movements'.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:57
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Gearhead posted:All in all, after having slept on it. The thing that actively bugs me about Arifureta is that it reads like one of two things: Why can't it be both? The only people who bother to publish edgelord poo poo are either cynically riding the trend or legitimately believe their derivative schlock is some great work of literature. Unwarranted arrogance by the writer neatly explains your problems with it.
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Jan 31, 2015 22:57
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I will always have a certain fondness for kaze no stigma because the protagonist relentlessly trolls the standard violent tsundere female lead. But I guess that might be where the arifureta guy got the idea that casual cruelty was a positive character trait.
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Feb 1, 2015 17:55
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Gearhead posted:To be fair, his cruelty was deliberate and focused to kick her out of her comfort zone. Not JUST because he was an rear end in a top hat. Oh, I'm not much for tsunderes. I think they are toxic, thoroughly unpleasant characters. Being nice once a year doesn't make up for being completely horrible the rest of the time, which is why I liked seeing one taken down a peg in kaze no stigma. For anyone unfamiliar with the show (no real reason to read the books), it was mostly just on the level of teasing. But if someone didn't quite understand the context they might simply see it as a cool guy being abusive. Since Arifureta is every vague idea of what is cool smushed into a vaguely person-like shape, that may be where the casual cruelty came from. Or maybe not! Supposedly cool assholes are found all over the place.
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Feb 2, 2015 02:50
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Zang Long is kind of odd in that the protagonist isn't especially good at the game, he just has obscene luck with drops.
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Feb 25, 2015 11:53
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I've been thinking about Zang Long despite how underwhelming it is in general. It isn't really like most of the vrmmo wankfests, because the game is just a game and not the means by which a character can live a literal second life as a fantasy hero. Rather, the guy's life itself is the fantasy, and that fantasy includes having the time and resources to play a fun vrmmo. Well, a fun vrmmo with an unbelievably lovely crafting system. I mean goddamn, a crafting skill that makes mana potions and only mana potions? That's really dumb.
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Feb 25, 2015 21:59
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Hunt11 posted:So how good is A Certain Magical Index? I watched both seasons of the anime as well as A Certain Scientific Railgun and was wondering if the light novel series would be a fun read. Oh boy. Well, the speeches seem to be a lot more frequent, and Index is even more insufferable. People seem to be highly pressurized containers of approximately 800 gallons of blood, but since blood is mostly decorative almost nothing is lethal. Otherwise, aside from railgun filler it is more of the same as the anime.
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Mar 24, 2015 09:57
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Oh god, I'm dying. I'm dying here. "Crimson Shadow Ghost", I can't take it. http://japtem.com/projects/shadow-rogue-toc/
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Mar 26, 2015 20:43
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Everyone in ST is an rear end in a top hat to some degree. I'm on the underwater arc now, and it is rather amusing how the author has no particular interest in writing about underwater combat in an arc largely dedicated to that idea. It is just the same old zwee fighting with barely a mention of the aquatic stuff. How does an underwater backflip even work?
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Mar 29, 2015 07:45
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In ST, most immortals seem to be psychotic. Only the failures who couldn't cut it out in murderous island country ever concern themselves with anything other than their own power. That isn't really their fault, though. Having more and better stuff makes them more likely to survive when the universe periodically tries to murder them. Once they get started on the path to true immortality they can't ever stop. And why would they, even? Not even mortals willingly accept mortality. Thus, they betray, murder and steal in order to seize any advantage. In other words, the very nature of their universe encourages people to be assholes. So yeah, goddamn it, Linley.
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Apr 1, 2015 14:05
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Arkeus posted:If it was only that they wouldn't be such assholes. The issue is that the best way to get power is to eat other people. You can literally be given insight and special techniques don't matter compared to just the power you get from eating others. And insight you steal, too.. Saints like having treasures and they are useful when they fight each other or go dungeon diving, but they don't absolutely need them. Saints already live indefinitely unless killed, and the majority seemed to spend their time quite peacefully. There is no inherent reason for saints to fight (to the death, at least), so they generally don't bother. They don't bother with a lot of things, really, and that aloofness is what generally keeps them from being assholes like ST immortals.
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Apr 1, 2015 20:00
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Awright, time for another absurdly funny chapter of Shadow Rogue. http://japtem.com/sr-volume-1-chapter-7/ This time, we learn that having gear in a mmo makes you more attractive to women.
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Apr 7, 2015 18:40
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In zang long, the mc has recently started fighting werewolves and learned how to project his consciousness to detect every person and their power level for miles around. This is in the real world. The game part has devolved into beating up historical figures for sweet sweet loot. I'm not familiar with chinese history at all, but it seems safe to say that there is some serious revisionism going on even without the whole undead boss aspect.
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Apr 18, 2015 08:47
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Well, SR is pretty bad regardless of the translation. The latest batch of chapters included a rousing thanks to the clever government officials who decided that the dumb game could only be played for 8 hours a day. It is too bad, really. It limits the time people can worship the living god who has newbie gear in a newbie zone. I also love the references to what's-his-face being an expert gamer based on his extensive experience of watching videos of people playing different mmo's.
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Apr 20, 2015 02:31
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Well, um.... huh. I haven't ever seen ancestor worship taken quite so literally before. Zang long is very strange, but this time it is less amusing and more perplexing.
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Apr 21, 2015 01:39
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Shadow Rogue mentioned in passing that fresh air just plain no longer exists, which is too bad but at least there is a vrmmo! That was the most chinese goddamn thing so far in that entire hilarious webnovel.
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May 1, 2015 15:08
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Ha ha, no. It is a pure wish-fulfilment fantasy, only a large part of said fantasy is the ability to play a vrmmo. What's more, the ladies can't get enough of his mmo skillz and seem to respect his game accomplishments more than anything in real life. In short, zang long is really loving dumb, but in an occasionally endearing way.
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May 1, 2015 16:40
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It is a very sad fantasy, yes. It isn't even wow- the mechanics are garbage and the economy is dependent on rmt.
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May 1, 2015 18:12
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The writer is a straight up slavery fetishist.
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May 1, 2015 21:25
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Plus there was that whole extended period where he kept taking little girls to bed as a preventative measure against one little girl that wanted to jump his bones. Everyone involved was a slave, of course. Who else but a pedophile would write that poo poo?
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May 2, 2015 14:52
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I think it is just cultural, rather than explicitly religious. Also, something common a lot of bad fiction is shallow characterization of villains. A villain without any real motivations can end up being ridiculously evil in lieu of any effort spent developing them. So, because they are so incredibly, absurdly evil they end up warranting extreme punishments. Of course, I don't know enough about wuxia to completely chalk it up to laziness. Maybe it is just a narrative convention to have every opponent be Satan von DoubleHitler.
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May 18, 2015 12:10
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I've been reading Magi Craft Meister lately. There really isn't much to it, just a dude with the magical power to make stuff out of raw materials hanging out and generally being nice. Kinda the gallant to arifureta's goofus, in some ways. https://natsutl.wordpress.com/
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May 21, 2015 09:39
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So I was clicking on random poo poo from aho updates, and I found this: https://lygartranslations.wordpress.com/novels/himekishi-ga-classmate/ What the loving gently caress gently caress. I really didn't expect something titled as innocuously as "My classmate is a princess knight" to have such a remarkably vile premise.
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Jun 9, 2015 10:33
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I seem to remember someone mentioning a story where a common soldier dies and gets sent back in time, but his only advantage is how military technology progressed over the course of a huge fantasy war. Anyone remember what that was called?
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Jun 13, 2015 02:23
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This slavery fetish fad is gross as hell, but it won't actually affect real women. At most, someone might make some money off of these pathetic delusions. Also, japan's negative population growth is due to a combination of hosed up social pressures. Otaku aren't nearly numerous enough to affect the population much one way or another.
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Jun 14, 2015 10:05
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Endorph posted:'fad?' It shows up a lot in web novels lately, which then become light novels or manga, which could in theory become an anime given enough time. Or it could simply never attain any mass appeal, I dunno. It isn't like I'm an expert on the subject, but in general I believe that you should never bet on people having good taste. I don't believe I ever said that women couldn't have disgusting fetishes. There has long been a tiny population of people who dedicate their lives to slave roleplaying. For example, goreans (whipcrack) at one point included plenty of doughy middle aged white women. But lol if you expect otaku to do anything involving the real world.
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Jun 14, 2015 13:21
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Hagop posted:I thought this as well, but then some goons where going on about it being the best show in some unrelated thread. So I powered through the first 3 or 4 eps and it gets good, maybe that's to strong of a word, but I ended up enjoying watching it. If you stop trying to parse the whole world setting and just focus on the story presented it gets a lot less confusing. See, I have no real problem with the bizarre historical reenactment thing in theory. In a ridiculously advanced society, why not do any weird poo poo that comes to mind? However, the anime eventually revealed that while they were post-history, they were not post-scarcity. They had to worry about running out of food. So while a society dedicated to historical reenactment might work when functionally infinite resources are available, it is just plain stupid with limited resources. There is no real thought put into the setting because it is just an excuse to cram in loads of standard anime girl archetypes from a bunch of genres in with vague japanese history references.
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Jun 30, 2015 01:23
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In the latest translated chapter of moonlight sculptor, the most amazingly improbable thing happened. Seo Yoon did something entertaining. I never expected such an event.
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Jul 4, 2015 21:06
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I tried reading the legendary thief, the first work by the author of zang long. It is somehow worse than zang long. For one, the protagonist isn't a thief. For another, he is a horrible monster. The basic premise is that a madam and her girls decide to start playing a mmo as professional goldsellers along with their lackey. You would think that when most of the cast are prostitutes, they would be portrayed positively right? Nope. The lackey, whose position was lower than a pimp, makes it abundantly clear how much he looks down on them all the drat time. Rampant misogyny in lovely webnovels (chinese or otherwise) is nothing new, but it is baffling how the author went with this premise when the mc keeps on yammering on about how non-virgins are innately inferior and no one could ever have a relationship with one.
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Jul 15, 2015 05:23
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Weed eventually starts actually achieving awesome poo poo (well, awesome for an mmo) instead of doing mundane stuff while the narration fellates him. But no, while LMS does get better (and then worse, and then better again, what with how absurdly long it is) it is always cheesy as hell. As for Xian Ni, it gets bogged down for a long time with all of this meaningless babbling about cultivation that probably wouldn't make sense even if it was competently translated. I rather like I Shall Seal the Heavens by the same author, though. It is just dickbag immortals screwing each other over at every opportunity, but it is also occasionally kinda funny. Intentionally funny even, and not the usual wuxia webnovel silliness. gimme the GOD DAMN candy fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 13:41
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Well, ISSTH starts with the protagonists entry into an immortal sect. Instead of the usual prestigious admissions process, that sect just abducts people at random to pad out their numbers. It gets weirder from there, what with all the butt explosions.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:54
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Cynic Jester posted:All the stuff currently being translated on wuxiaworld is pretty good. ISSTH, BTTH, MGA and ATG are all great . Coiling Dragon is a bit more eh, but after 20 volumes, I'm suffering from a severe sunk cost compulsion to read it. Well, I have to disagree about MGA. The protagonist is a vicious sociopath and a rapist.
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Aug 15, 2015 00:26
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