TehWhiteTiger said: Rather slow episode, just to decide what to do, but was nice all in all.
But this anime feels over dramatized, they say its dangerous to hunt high level monsters because its not a game, but they can't die, so it's not as if its a huge deal. And the exp potion trick seems exaggerated. I want to know what is behind this story, why are they trapped? they set it up as a 'sucked into a game' world, but there is no danger, so it seems a bit lacking to me.
Anyway, I will continue to watch, its quite interesting to watch.
You do realize that they actually feel pain right? Ie, it hurts to be stabbed/trampled/burnt. They actually had to tone down the violence and gore for the TV broadcast because of the channel it airs on, but in the LN their bodies take damage just like real bodies, ie, blood, guts, everything. The pain is supposed to be toned down, but getting stabbed would still hurt a lot.
Then take into account that this is probably an older MMO system where the death penalty is terrible. I remember in RO, dying at level 90+ would mean you were set back 4+ hours of work. In some MMOs dying once would mean you lost an entire day's worth of progress. In PvP, you can lose all your equipment too. Add actual pain to this scenario and you can see why dying is a huge deal.
RandomNinja said: Others have noticed, most MMO's don't allow for exp pots to be abused. If they do, then it's nothing new and there is probably a stockpile already.
The system apparently doesn't allow cooking beyond your level even without using the menu, and there are still cool-downs despite not using the menu. My point is that the system is inconsistent. Some say the new trading without the system allows this. When real world type interaction is allowed to break the MMO's rules seems to be at the whim of episode plot.
I'm not sympathetic to the heroes, they acclimated too quickly. Like they have no life outside the MMO. They can't die the true death, and apparently starving isn't an issue with food availability. Making all troubles seem small and unimportant. Trapped to force interest, and dlc for new encounters. I find the assumptions of how people will act when trapped to be wrong.
But I do like MMO based anime. MMO's wasted a lot of my time. It is cool watching them adventure and fight, even if I have lot I have to ignore and suspend.
I answered the question regarding why death is a big deal above. But the EXP pots can be explained by the idea that they're only allowed 1 character per server. Even going by the novel they never explicitly state that you can have multiple characters on the same server. Anyways, if you go by the 1 character per server rule, then there's no chance for it being abused, as most lowbies would get past level 30 rather quickly. It'd be impossible to create a farm like now because nobody would willing keep their only character at level 30.
However, now that they can coerce new players and force them to do things, they can keep them below 30 and turn them into a slave shop. The LN goes into a lot more detail on which mechanics they abuse to keep them from leaving. I don't know if they'll cover it in the next episode or if they decided to cut it because it's too dark.
Also, only a small group of players acclimatized to the new situation, and they're the ones that took control, ie formed the strong guilds, setup the rules. Everyone else who didn't just fell into line or decided to withdraw from everything (ie, like Crescent Moon).
Of course we'd be following main characters who did adapt to the situation instantly, otherwise we'd be following some low level guy who got roped into the bigger guilds or even one of the sweatshop workers. That wouldn't really be interesting enough for 24 episodes. |