Sword Art Online (light novel)
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SimmianPrime said: CookingPriest said: We all know every protagonist in every single narrative fiction will succeed at his goals and not die till the very end at least. What's the point in watching/reading anything? Them succeeding isn't the problem I have, it's the way the series goes about attempting to make it suspenseful. Other series (at least good ones) don't act like every single thing is life or death/world ending and then never deliver on any of the consequences. This series tries waaaaaay too hard to make us think it's the end of the world, when we all know it's not. Every decent fictional narrative starts off building up the stakes and pretending stuff is serious and anyone could die. Its literally the basic law of writing anything. |
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CookingPriest said: Every decent fictional narrative starts off building up the stakes and pretending stuff is serious and anyone could die. Its literally the basic law of writing anything. Then you don't know what good writing is. |
SimmianPrime said: CookingPriest said: Every decent fictional narrative starts off building up the stakes and pretending stuff is serious and anyone could die. Its literally the basic law of writing anything. Then you don't know what good writing is. Writing, just like music or art, isn't something you can objectively establish as good or bad. It's alright to discuss differences in taste but it's pretty stupid and useless to debate about which is superior. I'm not taking anyone's side but I just think that this debate isn't worth anyone's time since it will amount to nothing productive. |
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Shangetsu said: SimmianPrime said: Then you don't know what good writing is. Writing, just like music or art, isn't something you can objectively establish as good or bad. It's alright to discuss differences in taste but it's pretty stupid and useless to debate about which is superior. I'm not taking anyone's side but I just think that this debate isn't worth anyone's time since it will amount to nothing productive. This is aesthetic judgement, and it is based on what the stuff presented has given to the person in question so the closest to objectivity you get on it according Kant would be the method in general, however, it´s not like Kant is the owner of the absolute truth. |
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SimmianPrime said: Just enjoy the journey, man. The tension just makes it more fun to watch.CookingPriest said: We all know every protagonist in every single narrative fiction will succeed at his goals and not die till the very end at least. What's the point in watching/reading anything? Them succeeding isn't the problem I have, it's the way the series goes about attempting to make it suspenseful. Other series (at least good ones) don't act like every single thing is life or death/world ending and then never deliver on any of the consequences. This series tries waaaaaay too hard to make us think it's the end of the world, when we all know it's not. |
lx_theo said: Just enjoy the journey, man. The tension just makes it more fun to watch. But there is no tension, Kirito-kun is going to save the day. The show trying to build tension time after time after time after time is what takes away from any tension they could actually have if it didn't try to act like literally every singe thing is the end of the world or life or death. |
SimmianPrime said: lx_theo said: Just enjoy the journey, man. The tension just makes it more fun to watch. But there is no tension, Kirito-kun is going to save the day. The show trying to build tension time after time after time after time is what takes away from any tension they could actually have if it didn't try to act like literally every singe thing is the end of the world or life or death. You'll probably enjoy the next arc better than this one then. |
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Shangetsu said: SimmianPrime said: But there is no tension, Kirito-kun is going to save the day. The show trying to build tension time after time after time after time is what takes away from any tension they could actually have if it didn't try to act like literally every singe thing is the end of the world or life or death. You'll probably enjoy the next arc better than this one then. Nah man, that's forced drama and shit don't you know? |
SimmianPrime said: A big problem I have with this series in general is all the forced tension caused by all these empty stakes. Everything is either life threatening or world threatening but everytime Kirito-kun manages to save the day, thus rendering all of the tension moot. There's only so many times the show can say "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO SERIOUS" without actually having anything serious happen. We all know Kirito-kun is going to save the girl/world so it just feels cheesy when the show tries to pretend there's real danger. That's something you realize as you grow older/more intelligent. It's just a part of story telling. Like the weak somehow managing to defeat the strong through luck and placement. |
Waifu_LaifuOct 30, 2014 10:10 AM
InsertPriestHere said: Shangetsu said: You'll probably enjoy the next arc better than this one then. Nah man, that's forced drama and shit don't you know? People were insensitive to Sinnon's ptsd telling her to "get over it and stop being whiny" and you think they will react positively to MR?.... |
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Tespith said: That's something you realize as you grow older/more intelligent. It's just a part of story telling. Like the weak somehow managing to defeat the strong through luck and placement. Forgive me if I don't take storytelling advice on maturity and intelligence from someone that has both SAO and SAO2 on their favorites list. It's just a part of BAD storytelling, which is all SAO is. |
| It was a nostalgic kinda episode with nice lil remember season 1 moments. The season is 2/3rds of the way over so i feel this was just giving a nice foundation for the last few episodes. |
| Missed kirito's sword skills, it was great to see them again. and the deja-vu! |
CookingPriest said: SimmianPrime said: A big problem I have with this series in general is all the forced tension caused by all these empty stakes. Everything is either life threatening or world threatening but everytime Kirito-kun manages to save the day, thus rendering all of the tension moot. There's only so many times the show can say "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO SERIOUS" without actually having anything serious happen. We all know Kirito-kun is going to save the girl/world so it just feels cheesy when the show tries to pretend there's real danger. We all know every protagonist in every single narrative fiction will succeed at his goals and not die till the very end at least. What's the point in watching/reading anything? SimmianPrime said: Tespith said: That's something you realize as you grow older/more intelligent. It's just a part of story telling. Like the weak somehow managing to defeat the strong through luck and placement. Forgive me if I don't take storytelling advice on maturity and intelligence from someone that has both SAO and SAO2 on their favorites list. It's just a part of BAD storytelling, which is all SAO is. This is the SAO II MAL subforum I missed |
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| Honestly. That was so fucking boring. The only thing that kept me watching it, was the animation and OST. Come on, let's be frank here, this new story line is so fucking un-interesting. |
| *insert cringey anime reference here* |
BlissX said: Honestly. That was so fucking boring. The only thing that kept me watching it, was the animation and OST. Come on, let's be frank here, this new story line is so fucking un-interesting. I agree. I almost shut off my tablet halfway through this episode. It's almost laughable and I've always defended SAO as not being as bad as people say |
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Feyfray said: BlissX said: Honestly. That was so fucking boring. The only thing that kept me watching it, was the animation and OST. Come on, let's be frank here, this new story line is so fucking un-interesting. I agree. I almost shut off my tablet halfway through this episode. It's almost laughable and I've always defended SAO as not being as bad as people say LOL |
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Rolanddeschain said: Feyfray said: I agree. I almost shut off my tablet halfway through this episode. It's almost laughable and I've always defended SAO as not being as bad as people say LOL "Oh no! The virtual map of the game we play is in danger!" *dramatic music* Yui: "Papa! You must save ALfheim! Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa!" Shut up, bitch. |
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Feyfray said: Rolanddeschain said: LOL "Oh no! The virtual map of the game we play is in danger!" *dramatic music* Yui: "Papa! You must save ALfheim! Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa!" Shut up, bitch. This isn't even an 'arc', it's simply a side story that was written to be a breather between two actual arcs so of course it will not be about anything serious. Also I don't know for you but I'd be pretty pissed if the game I'm playing many hours a day with my friends suddenly disappeared. It's not because you, as a viewer, don't care about the game that the characters that are playing it daily don't. It's not like they acted like the world would end would they fail the quest but obviously they will actually act like they want to finish it. It almost sound like you'd like for them to not care about anything unless it's life threatening. |
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Feyfray said: Rolanddeschain said: LOL "Oh no! The virtual map of the game we play is in danger!" *dramatic music* Yui: "Papa! You must save ALfheim! Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa!" Shut up, bitch. Yes. Game that thousands of people played for years suddenly imploding accounts for dramatic music. Its serious enough threat considering how much work people put in into MMOs. A few weeks of data loss can cause a community melt down and kill the game. A complete reset might as well stop ALO from functioning in the first place since its not run by some huge corporation. |
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CookingPriest said: If such shit is possible, no one would play your fucking game in the first place!Yes. Game that thousands of people played for years suddenly imploding accounts for dramatic music. Its serious enough threat considering how much work people put in into MMOs. A few weeks of data loss can cause a community melt down and kill the game. A complete reset might as well stop ALO from functioning in the first place since its not run by some huge corporation. |
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T3hSource said: CookingPriest said: If such shit is possible, no one would play your fucking game in the first place!Yes. Game that thousands of people played for years suddenly imploding accounts for dramatic music. Its serious enough threat considering how much work people put in into MMOs. A few weeks of data loss can cause a community melt down and kill the game. A complete reset might as well stop ALO from functioning in the first place since its not run by some huge corporation. Still it's true. If a sudden reset were to happen for no explainable reason, the vast majority of the player would likely not return playing it because who knows when the next reset would hit. Also ALO/SAO are different from our normal MMO. We're talking about a game where people were trapped for three years and nobody even reached the maximum level. That show how much time you have to put into the game to reach a high level and find good gears, it's a game with almost infinite progression where you can pretty much always get stronger. It's not like WoW where you can reach max level in a week and get good gear under a month playing casually. The company would suffer huge loss and except in the case of big company (ie Blizzard), it'll means the end of the game. |
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| I missed that part where it showed the fire giants below the frost giants. Eventually they would invade after Frost giants sounds very interesting. |
Caleb8980 said: T3hSource said: If such shit is possible, no one would play your fucking game in the first place! Sometimes I ask myself how one can generalize such a statement. The same applies e. g. to free climbing, I mean you could die any moment so why are people doing that in the first place? There are many MMOs out there in which you can lose everything in any moment and those have hundreds of thousands of players. Also the world map being altered by events is nowadays more and more the norm. GW2 e. g. has events which fall under the category "Living World". Those events can be failed if the players don't fulfill them in a certain time limit and can alter things close to the situation in ALO. The first one of those was e. g. an invasion of kraken like monsters (which would have persisted if the players failed the event). The result was the first time that GW2 lagged for me since the Launch Day cuz of the amount of people who wanted to play this one time event. Another point is that many of the older MMOs didn't have fast travel outside of big cities and the only players who could teleport were high lvl mages. It was common practice there to teleport people, who commited some sort of crime (or if you are mean anybody) in high lvl areas, out of which those players couldn't escape anymore on their own (unless ofc their lvl was high enough). This could lead to you making a new char if you couldn't get anybody to teleport you back. And yet another example is Eve Online, one of the biggest MMOs of this time. In this game acts like stealing, murder or cheating (as in you cheat sb, not hacking) is not only allowed but to some degree even encouraged; the motto basically being "Anything Goes". Just search for big events in EVE Online in Google and you will get things like bank robberies, fraud and even assasinations on a incredible big scale, sometimes even involving thousands of dollars. Not without reason there also exists a big illegal RMT business for Eve where people even earn money with their frauds... Still that is no reason for many people to stay away from those MMOs. ;-) While I agree with what you said the situation is different here. Not only was that event not announced, it is also something that is out of control from the GM which will make everyone wonder about their actual control over the game. The game also haven't been marketed as such so a great part of the player base might not enjoy this kind of stuff. |
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| lol what if yui said punch unblockable. Good advice Kirito |
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Feyfray said: BlissX said: Honestly. That was so fucking boring. The only thing that kept me watching it, was the animation and OST. Come on, let's be frank here, this new story line is so fucking un-interesting. I agree. I almost shut off my tablet halfway through this episode. It's almost laughable and I've always defended SAO as not being as bad as people say at least freyja has a nice rack. how can this uncultured japanese swine not know who fucking freyja is. |
Shangetsu said: T3hSource said: If such shit is possible, no one would play your fucking game in the first place! Still it's true. If a sudden reset were to happen for no explainable reason, the vast majority of the player would likely not return playing it because who knows when the next reset would hit. Also ALO/SAO are different from our normal MMO. We're talking about a game where people were trapped for three years and nobody even reached the maximum level. That show how much time you have to put into the game to reach a high level and find good gears, it's a game with almost infinite progression where you can pretty much always get stronger. It's not like WoW where you can reach max level in a week and get good gear under a month playing casually. The company would suffer huge loss and except in the case of big company (ie Blizzard), it'll means the end of the game. The problem with that sort of game design is the eventual power creep that will happen as the game ages. After a point there's going to be a such a huge gap that it gets dumb, and new players are most likely not going to reach current content. Not to mention how hard it will be to balance and develop content if there isn't a set baseline to work with (in this case a level cap), because of how fragmented the population can be due to the difference in levels. And as for why they probably never reached the max level is probably how the world is designed. They probably can't reach higher levels because they will need access to reasonably level'd mobs (in this case maybe after being above 10 levels grants 0 exp since they went for being 10 levels above the mobs in that zone before bossing) to level up, else they would prolly just hardcore AFK grind low level mobs in a raid group with 0 risk. Not to mentioned they prolly had to be careful when grinding to not suffer casualties in current content. SimmianPrime said: A big problem I have with this series in general is all the forced tension caused by all these empty stakes. Everything is either life threatening or world threatening but everytime Kirito-kun manages to save the day, thus rendering all of the tension moot. There's only so many times the show can say "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO SERIOUS" without actually having anything serious happen. We all know Kirito-kun is going to save the girl/world so it just feels cheesy when the show tries to pretend there's real danger. I find it annoying on how bad of a raid leader Kirito is. Either the group has no fucking clue on basic positioning, or his shot calling sucks. Mechanics wise, that boss was a fucking joke. (see next episode)To be honest, if the game was reasonably tuned, they should've wiped on that frost breathe because they decided to eat it as a whole raid group, and the fact that Asuna sucks at healing (should be power healing the raid group if they are taking heavy AoE damage like that, not after the fact). |
RockerXDNov 2, 2014 8:33 PM
RockerXD said: The problem with that sort of game design is the eventual power creep that will happen as the game ages. After a point there's going to be a such a huge gap that it gets dumb, and new players are most likely not going to reach current content. Not to mention how hard it will be to balance and develop content if there isn't a set baseline to work with (in this case a level cap), because of how fragmented the population can be due to the difference in levels. Still, however how badly such a game would fit into our society, that's the type of game it is. The Aincrad expansion have been up for a while and a quarter at best have been explored, the rest being too hard for the player base yet. ALO have been open for two years and nobody reached the max level. SAO/ALO is also a skill based game, not a level based one. Stats are one thing but since you fight in real time and can block/deflect/dodge your opponents attack depending on how well you fight yourself, it's possible for someone to completely destroy a higher leveled opponent (Except in extreme case like in the first season where they couldn't even damage Kirito due to his health restoration). RockerXD said: And as for why they probably never reached the max level is probably how the world is designed. They probably can't reach higher levels because they will need access to reasonably level'd mobs (in this case maybe after being above 10 levels grants 0 exp since they went for being 10 levels above the mobs in that zone before bossing) to level up, else they would prolly just hardcore AFK grind low level mobs in a raid group with 0 risk. Not to mentioned they prolly had to be careful when grinding to not suffer casualties in current content. It is not how the world is designed, it is simply that it takes far too long to reach max level. Nobody in ALO even reached it as far as I remember. Yes there were parties that were grinding safely in lower level in SAO but that was hardly viable due to the exp curve. If a monster of your level would be worth a whole day of slaughtering monster ten level under yours, I don't think much people would be grinding those lower level monster, especially if you could die against those as well. Note that I made up that example, it's probably not that extreme but it has been suggested that it wasn't worth it except if you wanted to safely grind for the rest of your life and never leave the game. RockerXD said: I find it annoying on how bad of a raid leader Kirito is. Either the group has no fucking clue on basic positioning, or his shot calling sucks. Mechanics wise, that boss was a fucking joke. (see next episode)To be honest, if the game was reasonably tuned, they should've wiped on that frost breathe because they decided to eat it as a whole raid group, and the fact that Asuna sucks at healing (should be power healing the raid group if they are taking heavy AoE damage like that, not after the fact). Kirito is a solo player at heart so yes he is pretty bad when it come to leading a team, that's why usually Asuna is the one that design the battle plans. Also you seem to forget one thing: They aren't in front of a computer screen. They are literally fighting. When they don't face their enemy they have no way to actually see what happen behind them. When the boss use a dust attack, it literally cloud their visions. They have to judge distance and dodge themselves. What seems like simple mechanic for a normal MMORPG can be pretty hardcore if you have to manage it yourself. The battle are shortened for the viewer but they spawn over a much longer time. Asuna couldn't simply power heal without stop because she would have lacked mana and it would have meant a complete wipe. They got a hard time against the boss of the first floor and had to use more supplies than expected so she was basically short on mana for a dragged fight. |
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| [quote=Shangetsu] RockerXD said: The battle are shortened for the viewer but they spawn over a much longer time. Asuna couldn't simply power heal without stop because she would have lacked mana and it would have meant a complete wipe. They got a hard time against the boss of the first floor and had to use more supplies than expected so she was basically short on mana for a dragged fight. Except the fact that Yui acts like a pseudo bigwigs/dbm. The bosses attack pattern was very simplistic from what i observed, mostly attacking a single area or target. Easily fixed by spreading out to see what the boss targets, then collapsing as it fixates on the target (since it looks like there is aggro mechanics in the game). That frost breathe was also telegraphed as hell, and given how fast the cast can actually move, 3 seconds is PLENTY of time for them to spread out so only 1 person gets hit. It's more of the fact the she didn't heal while they were getting hit is what really I'm really nitpicking. If someone is taking damage, you heal them so they don't get gimped in the duration of the ability. The heal also doesn't look like its targeted given it's an AoE heal. She doesn't have to be shown to be throwing out a healing rotation, but gotta be reasonable here on MMO healing. |
CodeZwei said: lol what if yui said punch unblockable. Good advice Kirito If she said that she went rampant |
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| Asuna draws her sword. Yes! Finally! Fun battles. |
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| SAO's really lost it's touch or maybe it was never good in the first place and I never realized it when I watched the first season. Pretty mediocre episode. The fight scenes were pretty dull nothing special. 3/5 |
EmiLu-chan said: OKAY THEY BLEW IT!!!!! WTF... don't misunderstand i really like sao, and i loved first half of the series, but i think they should have continued with focusing on GGO... like there's so much to be clarified, or at least that's how i feel... that i thought there was a big conspiracy or something, maybe the guy who contacted Kirito was a bad guy and the firm he's working for was bad or maybe the corporation of GGO did not have good intentions with the game... and the LC muders was planned by them?... well, i really had some high exspectations, but they go back to focus on ALO... okay i've only seen up to EP 17 so it can get better, but im disappointed... + yeah i am a girl, so i would say they could fill in a bit, just a bit more romance Uhhh... how da fuck should I answer this... |
| at first i thought those minotaurs were normal enemies, they looked so generic, then again SAOs enemy designs are shitty, the fight was well animated i guess but once again 0 sense of dangerthen for the final boss i was expecting something more ominous like Ganondorf on the final battle for OoT or maybe something different like Gwyn or Vendrick in the Soul games which makes one feel bad for killing them but instead we got another normal looking enemy, just bigger at least i can expect a well animated fight |
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Stark700 said: Lmao, Klein falls in love or rather always likes girls with beauty. Not that I blame him though....  lol love that part. and I agree with you. Can't blame him.... |
| Pfffff...again the sh**** with the fairies....boring! I don't know why they have to do a pretty good 1st part of the season and then such a boring 2nd part? And not only once, but twice?!? I hope it wont be as bad as I expect it to be :( |
| Klein just couldn't resist hahaha |
| Confirmed, every villain in SAO is a rapist. At least this is still fun though, Klein made a good call. |
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| The GGO arc was very good. The excalibur arc is rather boring in my opinion. I just felt its unnecessary episodes. However I did enjoy some laughter from Kleins romance with an NPC. I prefer the gang just creating a new acc and play GGO as it seems more serious and action. |
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| Pretty nice development, let's find out what's next! |
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| Klein please. Another battle, another quest, another party member. That's a massive boss. Kirito's scream yeah. Deja vu from season 1 lol. |
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| Well, another pointless cheesy MMO generic quest with no impact and consequences for players whatsoever. If I wanted to see some group-play I would play some MMO myself. This has to be the most boring and fillerish act of SAO ever. |
Stark700 said: Yeah, but it's only a NPC..Lmao, Klein falls in love or rather always likes girls with beauty. Not that I blame him though.... |
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| Awesome action scenes! It's been a long time since I watch this kind of scenes. |
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