Log Horizon
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Oct 6, 2013 5:35 AM
#1
| Sorry for the long and stupid post I post few days ago, still learning how to use BBcode. This is a very rough translation of terms that use to describe players in “Elder Tale,” mainly draw the touch on the MMORPG aspect of the anime. I put this up because the anime seems to want to avoid dumping those expositions in the first novel in favor of the storyline. Apologize for the poor translation, the information here is taken from the Wiki manage by author (I post it last time but it got take out due to violation of Forum Guideline here, so I won’t put it up.), and the appendix found the end of each book of the novel. Some terminology may be up to question because I own the Traditional Mandarin Chinese version of the book, thou I do use Google translator to keep track of terms from the wiki. (I am also unfamiliar with MMO slang in English, so some explanation may not be that clear cut.) I also haven’t watched this in English sub so differences are totally expected. Anyway, hope this help. Spoiler tag consists of what become known in later part of the story unlike the main text which is translated from definition, please keep that in mind. Main Class There are total of 12 kind of main class, based on the characteristic of the classis they are categorized into 4 types of roles within a given party. Main class can’t be changed once it is selected when creating the player character. Spoiler: Main Class are designed by the American company who develop this game, and is consider fairly balance build up throughout the 20 years of history when “Elder Tale” was launch into the market around the world. However, localization among different server around the world sometimes changes the name of classes and skills here and there and items and equipment may vary among different servers around the world. <Fighter Type> Guardian Out of the 12 classis Guardian own the highest defense among all. They are allowed to equip most of the shield, armor and weaponry without problem. Their class skills and technique allow them to attract enemy attention, give invincibility for short duration of time, or pin down enemies within the area of effect. They are iron wall that support the front line of the party. Spoiler: Due to their versatility in weaponry and clear cut role, almost every guild has at list one Guardian that max out their states in the story. Some of the most famous players currently active in Akihabara play this class. Samurai Samurai is capable of using oriental (mainly Japanese) style of equipment, but unable to equip shield and thus is a bit weaker compare to Guardian in terms of defensive ability. This class is characterized by many powerful skills and technique that compensates their effectiveness with long cool down time, so unable to use their power continuously is their main short coming. Generally speaking this class focuses more on offense then defense. Spoiler: Samurai class are much more balance in its ability score, capable of fulfilling roles other than Tank that other Fighter classes aren’t capable of. Powerful player who can use Samurai class effectively can often take some daring action independent from the party in order to change the tie of the battle. Monk Out of the 12 classes Monk has the highest HP states, but they are only allow to wear light armor and can’t equip shield, so their defense are fairly week for a Fighter class. To compensate that, they are given high mobility and dodging ability. Most of the skills and technique that can be acquire by Monk has very short cool down time, and thus allow them to attack continuously by using variety of offensive skills. In fact some combination or order of executing offensive skills even gives special bonuses, triggering combo effect in some case. Therefore, in terms of offensive ability Monk is the highest among the three Fighter classes. Spoiler: Because Monk can’t make use of most of the equipment in games, they actually gain popularity among player who can’t or don’t want to participate in raid or campaign. This is because this class gains its power mainly from skills that can be acquire simply by leveling, making the need to seek out powerful item unnecessary as long as one is familiar with the skill chain and control. <Weapon Offensive Type> Assassin Out of the 12 classes Assassin has the highest physical damage per second among all the classes. They are capable of using range weapon such as bows other than melee weapon. Their skills suffer from long cool down time, but if hit on enemy’s weak spot, they are capable of doing massive amount of damage. Beside their physical attack they also have skills that allow poison use, making them a class that centers all of its ability on offense and damaging. Spoiler: Assassin is often the main damage dealer of the party, often plays the role of targeting the strongest enemy at any given time. Therefore, many MVP of the Boss raid is often found among either Assassin or Guardian, which are two classes that compensate each other very well. Swashbuckler A class that center on two-weapon fighting style, capable of using weapon in each hand but may also equip small shield. Thou their HP and defensive ability are no match to Fighter classes; they are still the better defender among the Weapon Offensive classes. Swashbuckler specialized in attacking using two weapons continuously. Thou low in damage for every single strike they can target multiple enemies or causing area effect with their skills in short duration of time. They have a wide range of utility that cause status effect on their opponent while attacking, so when facing large numbers of enemy their damage output wont lack behind from Assassin that focus on damaging single target. Spoiler: Swashbuckler are a welcome addition for almost any party due to their wide range of skills and multiple roles they can fulfilled when facing many opponent. Fending off multiple opponents all by themself is not impossible for high level Swashbuckler, so many people look up to player who plays this class well. Bard Bard can only wear leather armor and their weapon of choice only limit to bows, few tow handed pole arms and some light weapon or instrument. However, unlike the other Weapon Offensive Type they are capable of using special kind of Song base magic, which allows them to enhance the performance of the entire party during battle. Within those specialized magic, Eternal Support Song series are the only kind of buffing magic that will take effect continuously as long as Bard don’t dismiss its effect. Compare to facing the opponent heads on, this class is more of a supporting class. Spoiler: Bard is often played by players who act as assistance commander or adviser for guilds, because their ability best function when having a large party. Their Eternal Support Song typically exchange utility of the entire party over times (such as speed up HP and MP recovery rate over time), so unlike other Weapon Offensive Type Classes who focus on ending encounter quickly, their value shine when battle drags on. This is why Bards are view as needed participant in campaigns and raids, since that kind of challenge often required long time to complete. <Healer Type> Cleric Out of the 12 classes this is the class that is considering the best Healer of all in terms of all rounded ability. They are capable of equipping metallic armor and shield, thus have the highest defense among healer type. Their skill consist of all kinds of recover spell and healing magic, involving spells such as automatic healing that is trigger by enemy’s attack. Those capabilities have made them a welcome addition of the party for both small party raids to large campaign challenges. Spoiler: Because Cleric often decides the fate of the party even when challenging low level dungeons, and help ensure party free of status effect that can harm the overall performance over time (such as disease and poisoning). They are often put in roles of leadership in various guilds in “Elder Tale”. Druid Aside from Healing magic, Druid also have offensive spell and supporting spell, so they have the most utility in the party among the Healer Type classes. Their recovery spell specialized in regenerate HP over time for a time period, and such spell can be combining with other Healing magic to speed up the healing process. These characteristics allow Druid to easily claim the title of having the highest “Healing per Second” among all Healer classes. Spoiler: When found within a party Druid often works closely with the Main Tank of the party (typically a Guardian or Samurai.) to ensure keeping the front line under control. Their single target buff and battle filed control spell ensure that Main Tank can go all out with what they are good at even at low level. Kan'nagi (Exorcise or ritual keeper served in Shinto shrine.) This is the only class that get localized into a Japanese name in the Japan Server, the North America server has a class called “Medium” that function pretty much the same. May wear oriental style (mainly Japanese) style equipment, but has the lowest healing capability among the Healer Type classes. However, they specialized in status related cure, and have a unique Barrier series of spell set that negate damage for party member base on condition and degree of damage. Instead of healing wound after being hurt, focus on preventing damage and status effect before it happens. Spoiler: Unlike Druid who work best with Fighter classes, Kan'nagi work best with Weapon Offensive and Mage classes because Assassin and Wizard usually have low HP that can’t risk being damaged at all. This is why when it comes to damage control, Kan'nagi often play the roles of field commander or strategist since they are very good at keeping people alive. They are much more capable of fighting in melee then other Healer due to equipment too. <Magic Offensive Class> (Mage for short) Sorcerer Out of the 12 classes Sorcerer has the highest Magic Attack power of all. But they really suffer from low HP and Defense and can easily die in a few second if being left among the enemy along. Sorcerer are capable of casting all kinds of single target to area attack spell which making them the primary fire power of any given party. Spoiler: Sorcerer has noticeability shorter cool down time then other Mage and magic user, but are still a bit on the slow side when compare to melee such as Samurai and Assassin. Without any battlefield control skill they really need to work well with other classes to contribute their insane damage per second output to the fullest. They do have a small selection of buffing spells, but most of their spell selection consists of short term effect. Summoner Summoner has magic that allow them to summon Magical Beast and Fairy that sign a contract with the mage, but may only make up to 12 contracts with those creatures at any given time. Summoner themselves don’t have high states in direct combat, but base on what kind of creature they contract with, the may choose to focus on offense, healing, support and all kinds of different roles in the battle. This makes them a class that has most option to choose from and have high utility within the party, effectively made up for their low states. Spoiler: Summoner are consider the most all around powerful classes among the 12 by some of the players, able to solo some dungeons if the players invest a lot of thought into their selection of creatures. However, they need help to reach powerful creature and make contract with them in the first place, and the creature in summoned form are always weaker once being contracted (Depend on the player’s level of course). This make Summoner hard to advance when starting out without proper support from other classes since leveling don’t grant much advancement in their case. Enchanter Among the 12 classes, Enchanter has the highest MP state at all time, but their offensive damage ability in terms of both spells and melee are very low. Base on the skills, spell and technique they can learn, they are mage that completely focus on supporting the party. In combat, they specialized in spells that restrict enemy’s movement and casting status effect to restrict their performance. However, because their direct damage ability and combat related states are way too low, Enchanter become the least popular class among the twelve around the world. Spoiler: Enchanter arguably perform very well during raid and campaign of very large scale due to their amazing party buff, low MP cost and long effective time for those buff and control spells. The main reason that it get unpopular is because the difficulty to assess their value just by themselves. According to our main character Shiroe, Enchanter can’t function well without having good cooperation with other members of the party, so making party with strangers who play Enchanter is always a gamble consider their lack of definitive role. Not to mention that Summoner and Bard can easily made up Enchanter’s role with proper selection of skills and creatures without losing other utility. Therefore, Enchanter players usually belong to large guilds, and are typically longtime fans of the game that are hardcore in their approach. Enchanter who is independent from guild like Shiroe is fairly rare in most servers around the world. Secondary Job (Sub-job for short) There are many, many kinds of Secondary Job within the world of “Elder Tale,” because the number is expended in almost every version update, and different localization servers all have their unique kinds of Secondary Job choice. Therefore, the total number of Secondary Job is hard to estimate, but can be generally divide into three types. Spoiler: The common theme around Secondary Job is that they grant bonuses, skills, and ability that give players advantages that do not directly affect their combat performance, but due to the versatility it may grant, player’s interest still cause some Secondary Job to be immensely more popular among players then others. Production Type May create or craft items by combining materials and using tools, or utilize resource and equipment to enhance or repair items and equipment. Example: Ironsmith, Carpenter, Chief, Pharmacist, Scriber, Mechanic, Tailor, Crafter…. Etc. Spoiler: There are many players who instead of fighting monsters and challenging dungeons, they enjoy focus their effort on crafting items and supporting their comrade using various resources through trading. Guilds that dedicate themselves to crafting and trading are typically center around Production Type Sub-job and holds important influence in “Elder Tales” economy. Role-Playing Type Sub-job that focus more on playing a role rather than creating item, typically grant special bonus on action or unique skills when playing the game. Example: Berserker, Gladiator, Hunter, Scholar, Accountant, Merchant, Tamer, Tracker, Boarder Patrol, Apprentice, Gardener, Housekeeper… etc. Spoiler: Role-Playing Sub-job’s popularity can varied significantly because of their usefulness. Many Sub-jobs in this category fall in obscurity over time, for example, experience point bonus from Apprentice, price reduction from Merchant, and Berserker’s boosted state through skills attract more players then Housekeeper’s ability to clean up the environment when managing real estate. Not to mention that some of the task can be complete by employing NPC as long as you have money. (Such as paying a NPC Maid or Butler to manage your house or room in order to avoid penalty fees or doing it yourselves through the Housekeeper’s skill.) Title Type Titles are special Sub-job that can only be unlocked if player complete specific task or achievement. Some of this Sub-job is consider legendary among players because only limited number of people may choose this job base on server restriction. Example: Sword Sage, Dragon Slayer…. Etc. Spoiler: Many of the Title type Sub-job has already been acquired by famous and legendary players since the start of the story, and most of them grant immense advantage both in and outside of battle. Unique skill sets, cross class power and lifting equipment restriction are only small piece of the iceberg, but nevertheless Title are hardly game breaking due to the difficulty to acquire them and the cooperative design “Elder Tale’s” combat is base on. Important to know is that Experience Point for Sub-job is independent from the Main Class, and most of the skills from Sub-Job can be trained without being in a party, provided one put dedication and resources into it. (For example, Ironsmith must have a lot of ore to work with to harness their skill.) Not to mention that one can easily switch between Sub-job provided that they are willing to give up experience point and start over from scratches. However, a character can only have one Sub-job at a time. Spoiler: There are players in “Elder Tale” who prefer exploring the Sub-job system, such as collecting item synthesis manual or crafting powerful equipment. Some Sub-job may unlock special kind of mini-quest, so even Guild focus on raid and campaign look at this system with interest. Race There are total of 8 races that player may select during character creation, generally called the “Race of Good Alignment” these 8 races made up the civilization and society within “Elder Tale.” Human This is the race similar to us in the real world. Skin color, hair style and eye colors comes with variety of choice, has good balance in ability states, making them the most common choice within “Elder Tale.” Elf Long living race live among forest and ancient ruined around the world. Excellent in Archery and have advantage in terms of Will power related states, they are characterized physically by their long and pointy ears. Dwarf Well known to be the workforce in mountain and underground mine, a humanoid race that has strong physical built. They have high states in stamina and magic resistance, other ability states lean them toward Fighter Type and Ironsmith. They are characterized by their height range from 100 cm to 140 cm. Typically speaking female character of this race don’t look strong in appearance, instead look more plump and ball like in body shape. Spoiler: Player who take Dwarf as their race suffer the most from the “Catastrophe” due to the drastic changes in height, which also create strange situation where some Dwarf character become way taller than average once the Potion of Physical Appearance Modification get mass produced. Half-Aruvu The descendent of the ancient race of Aruvu which was destroyed in a pass war, they are typically born from human family due to the intermarriage of these two races in the pass. They look almost identical to human in appearance. Only differentiate from human with the strange emblem found on their tongue. They have very high affiliation with ancient magic and ruined. Spoiler: This race seems to receive storyline bonus when entering dungeons and participate in campaign of all sort. Wear Cat One of the beast-men of good alignment, they have feline like characteristic. Those characteristic give them high states in dexterity and senses. Physically they have cat ears, facial fur but not tail. Spoiler: Wear Cat gain popularity among cat loving fans among “Elder Tale” and there were guild base their theme around this race. Story setting wise all beast-man races is magically created to combat monsters, so sometimes they face discrimination or respect depending on the countries. Wolf Hair One of the beast-men of good alignment, they normally looks like human with thick and heavy hair. Through intense combat or bleeding, they may call force their wolf like characteristic during combat, receiving major boost in strength and footing and gain golden eyes, wolf ears and phantom tail. Spoiler: Wolf Hair gain popularity among dog loving fans among “Elder Tale” and there were guild base their theme around this race. Story setting wise all beast-man races is magically created to combat monsters, so sometimes they face discrimination or respect depending on the countries. Fox Tail One of the beast-men of good alignment, but instead of physical enhancement they are powerful in magic. However, they have very extreme states combination in terms of ability growth, not to mention that they are penalized by “Randomly losing a skill/technique/spell from their main class skill list when leveling.” Those characteristic make players of this race rare sight to be seen. Physically they have fox ears and phantom tails (the number of tails is depended on the character’s level), both can be hide from sight by the innate power of the Fox Tail race. Spoiler: Thou not popular, it is known that Fox Tail gain many racial only ability and power unique to their race. Story setting wise all beast-man races is magically created to combat monsters, so sometimes they face discrimination or respect depending on the countries. Race of Ritual/Ceremony/Process (Not sure how to translate this one.) A race that is clouded in mystery, but it is known for high magical power and large amount of knowledge. They have many tattoos like emblem and patterns on their body and those shapes are called “Rune.” Because their HP growth is bizarrely low, almost no player chooses this race among all servers around the world. Spoiler: There is almost no character that is from this race so far in the main story. Other character related terminology so far: Catastrophe The generalized term player use to refer to the incident where they got trap in the world of “Elder Tale.” The title of the first episode uses the Japanese equivalent of this phrase. Adventurer The way NPC in “Elder Tale” addresses player’s character in game. PC can resurrect from Temple/Cathedral after getting killed. Spoiler: Adventurers are usually view with respect (and sometimes fear) by the NPC (People of the Land) due to their superior ability, even low level character who play none Fighter type classes are physically more capable then any NPC of equivalent level. People of the Land/ Gaien How NPC in “Elder Tale” addressing them self, there population significantly increase after the “Catastrophe.” The total population is around two million within the Japanese server. Also, their name come from the fact that they born on land and die on land. (They can’t be resurrecting even player cast spell that normally can resurrect other players.)They come in all kinds of race and some of them have class level and sub-job just like player. Spoiler: Before the “Catastrophe” NPC is just NPC, repeating one line and all that. However, things change significantly after the “Catastrophe.” Also, some of them have access to special skills and item not available to player in normal situation. Ancient Ancient are the in game terms for special NPC who play the roles of the world saving hero within the game other than players. They are the defender of the world independent from most politic among People of the Land. All Ancient belongs to one of the branches of “The Thirteen Knightly Orders of World.” (Very bad translation right here...) They play key roles in the story of “Elder Tale” and are often seen by players in in-game campaigns and real life promotion items related to “Elder Tale.” Spoiler: Ancient become missing after the “Catastrophe.” Each server has their own ancient and Knight Order that comes with different names (too lazy to translate them all since they aren’t likely to show up in anime.). Ancient often has unique classes, power and states that is way beyond players, such as having level higher then permitted by the current version of the game etc. Please ask away if you got any question. There is definitely more terminology stuff going on in the first episode, but it will take some time to work with. I will try to address them in near future. |
Oct 7, 2013 1:05 AM
#2
| Wow, thank a lot. I will try to translate it to my language and credit your name. The author sure had tried to build a game online before wrote the novel. |
Oct 7, 2013 8:22 AM
#3
| Thanks for reply, glade that this work may be interesting for people who want to understand Log Horizon series a bit more. The author is really responsive to his fan online, people post question on wiki so he can address them and he even ask fan to design in-game items and equipment for each characters. He admit taking inspiration from various MMO currently in the market, but still manage to make good story out of those material. I will try to put up more translation of definition and words here. Just by looking at the episode 1 discussion I can tall that many question people ask can be easily address this way. Guess this is unavoidable problem when anime try hard to focus on action and plot. The difficulty of putting up definition is that, they can easily spoil or hint about future story line.... So I really need to work on how to use spoiler tag effectively. Log Horizon involved character's struggle of exploration, experience and learning about the world, so telling all of them here will really spoil the fun. |
Oct 13, 2013 7:14 AM
#4
| I've only seen the first episode, but are they forced to look the way they are in real life? At first I thought they were, because of the initial exchange Shiroe and Naotsugu had. But then he started talking about how his height was difference from his real height, and now im confused. |
Oct 14, 2013 9:14 AM
#5
| Haven't been able to work on the translation much, but I will try to get some question people keep on asking answered by providing information that is already provide within the novel following the same time frame as the anime on my next post. Omegadark said: I've only seen the first episode, but are they forced to look the way they are in real life? At first I thought they were, because of the initial exchange Shiroe and Naotsugu had. But then he started talking about how his height was difference from his real height, and now im confused. Quick answer here, yes and no, it all depend on what attribute. (Need much longer narration for all the detail.) Basically put, most of the stuff decided upon character creation overwrite your original body. This include gender, height, hair color (including hair style and other body hair), arm and leg length, body built,and skin color. However, facial characteristic, eye colors and for most but not all female (depended on their race and age), 3-size got change to reflect the real people. Also, most of the none-human race are effect more drastically,especially race like Wear Cat and Wolf Hair who end up typically look more like their online avatar then their real self due to their fur. I think the anime also shows us that Elf's ears become quit a common trait too. More detailed example of real life appearance switch I can pick from my head right now including Naotsugu no longer has a bad-ass looking scare across his face like his avatar (between his two eyes), Shiroe's sharp and angry looking eyes and Merrill's mouth and bust being bigger then her online avatar. (Something she make fun of herself out of embarrassment.) |
Oct 14, 2013 9:44 AM
#6
| Thanks for all the details. It seems that the author put alot of effort and thought in making the world of Elder Tale. Now i wish it was a real mmorpg lol |
Oct 17, 2013 8:38 PM
#7
| It took me longer than I expected to complete this set of translation. Other than personal business taking up my time, I found out that the author release a mega-pack of data that detailed all the possible skills and option that each class may choose and used in Elder Tale. Been debating whether I should include them here but decided that’s way too much spoiler since the anime haven’t covered enough characters yet. Also, after reading through some discussion, I decide to include section and pieces of information from the novel that the anime skip in favor of story line. Those small pieces of information are hint and hidden within the anime of course, but are spell out much clearer in novel. Episode 2 already have a lot of monolog so we may see them show up latter when it is found relevant, but I won’t consider them spoiler since it’s just a matter of rearranging when to brought up a topic within the story (Anime adaption already take some liberty on how to arrange . Those are NOT direct translation from wiki and appendix so beware that I may not be entirely accurate with them (Feel free to ask me clarify them.). Anyway, let’s start with translating appendix/wiki again. Elder Tale A MMORPG in the story of Log Horizon, the world of this online game is structured on the popular theme of sword and sorcery. There are around one hundred thousand players of this game in Japan, with the total number of twenty million players worldwide, making this the largest MMORPG ever. It has twenty years of history starting out by an American company, with several major version update to date (Including the one which is installed shortly before the “Catastrophe”.) Note: Due to the vast amount of content accumulate through twenty years, “Elder Tale” is consider being complex and depth by majority of the game reviewers, so market wise it is more on the hardcore side. The fact that it charges a considerably high monthly fee for access also push away some of the younger demography of the online gaming community too. Era of gods By the official guide book release by “Elder Tale” website, this is the umbrella term used for summing up the already extinct civilization of science in ancient time. (Refer to our current civilization in the real world.) All the ruined building, half destroyed highway and fragmented road are all ruin left from the “Era of gods” that People of the Land utilized from this pass civilization. Note: The setting of “Elder Tale” meant to tell a story happen thousands years after an Apocalypse events when many pass civilization where long gone. Half-Gaia Project (Virtual Gaia Project) Refer to the real Earth as blueprint, the company behind “Elder Tale” attempt to create a smaller Earth as the stage for adventure in this MMO. All of the continent and geography roughly follows the outline in the real world, but liner distance is decrease to one-half its original, while the areas become one-fourth in size. Note: Shiroe refer to this project as an arrogant but ambitious project that may be the best selling point of “Elder Tale.” Under this project, the Japanese players start at the city of “Akihabara” in Japanese server, which is located at the area where Japan Islands are. The North American server use “Big Apple” and “South Angel” as their starting city. Japanese server and North American server are just terms for simple description among players and administrator, because this virtual world is constructed by connecting many servers into network. In principle players can travel to another cotenant whenever and however they want, which means that players can migrate between servers “in-game,” (A bit very difficult due to the challenges put in between.) this is something that is hard to put into practice by other MMO. Serdesea The name use to refer to the world created by the “Half-Gaia Project,” equivalent to the name “Earth” in real world. Old World/Original World The term “Adventurer”(Players) used to refer to “Earth” after the “Catastrophe,” opposite to this is the term “Alternative World/Different World” referring to the world of “Elder Tale” they found themselves in.” Street/City of Akihabara One of the five player city everyone start out at, it is also the first city established within the Japanese server. Because it is the first among the five it is also the largest in terms of player population. The other five cities under Japanese server’s administration are Street of Susukino, Street of Shibuya, Street of Minami, Street of Nakasu, each display different kind of culture, environment and are connect to different kinds of area for adventure with different design and art style. Note: Player cities are characterized by many in-game facility that help players managing their resource, trade and running their Guilds (Will be explain further in following terms.). Almost every player cities around the world are based upon real-life cities found in real world. Thou there are always exceptions and some famous cities may be excluded, such as parts of the center district of Tokyo have become a combination of dungeon and maze. (I’m not sure if Town or City is the better translation when referring to online game, care to give a thought?) Transport Gate An important facility found in every downtown district of player cities. These gates allow “Adventurers” to instantly teleport to other player cities of their choice, both in groups and by individuals. Because “Transport Gate” is the primary means of transportation between cities it is effectively the fastest means to establish communication between the five player cities in Japanese server. After the “Catastrophe,” all “Transport Gate” stop functioning due to unknown reason. Therefore, almost all means of transportation between cities are cut off. Fairy Ring Another fast way to travel within the world of “Elder Tale,” these are structure typically found in filed, with the appearance of magical circle construct by natural material such as gigantic rock or mushrooms. Basically put, by entering a “Fairy Ring” “Adventurers” may teleport to another “Fairy Ring.” The numerous “Fairy Ring” around the world of “Elder Tale” inter-connected into a giant network of transportation. However, the connections between “Fairy Rings” are effect by the shape of the moon during the time of transportation in game. This complicated equation on determining the destination of teleport is hard to figure out, but when familiar with how it works, it can provide a fast and easy ways to get on a journey. The other side of the coin is that if blindly teleport using “Fairy Ring” it is near impossible to know where you will end up with. Note: Unlike “Transport Gate” which only allow teleport between cities within the same servers. “Fairy Ring” served another function other then travel between areas within the servers. Many “Fairy Rings” in different locations around the world allow players to travel to other servers, so it is the quickest way to get to other servers such as North America, China or Korea within instants. Also, many enthusiastic players around the world take studying the “Fairy Ring” networks as a challenge and document them on guide and web-site provided online. Sadly, all of this valuable info is lost after the “Catastrophe” since players trap in “Elder Tale” cans no longer access web browser anymore. Area/Zone Area/Zone is the fundamental building block within the world of “Elder Tale.” Covering small places such as the room in the hotel, small ruined building or the Guild Hall to large places such as forest, hills, deserted, downtown and ancient ruined. Area/Zone come in large and small spaces and depend on what kind of “Zone” they are they may display different property. There are thousands or Areas/Zone under the administration of each servers, and even experience players has hard time remember all of the detail. Note: The first information session exchange between Shiroe’s party and Mariel’s Guild include attempting to draw out a web like map that shows the connection between major structure, facility and places around Akihabara as a reference to what should be investigate. The anime left this out, but Shiroe’s party actually spent a lot of time and effort between episode one and two on investigating places around Akihabara, checking out what may have changes after the “Catastrophe.” Base on the property of area/zone, they can roughly divide into the following sub-category. “Field areas” such as forest, hills, deserted, small town and ancient ruined. Everything in this world is basically constructed on top of field areas. Although some building or well-constructed but closed off space may be separate into independent area, most of the ruined and other structure may be just object place on top of field areas. One of the characteristic of field areas is that they have really blurry demarcation line. Close off area are typically connect from point to point, represent by doors, cave or stairs, but field area has no “door” like structure to connect to other areas due to their nature. By walking to the edge of a field area, it will connect to the area adjacent, so as long as people are travel over land they won’t recognize the border line between the areas, and thus not knowing consciously which area they are at. The only way to make sure which filed area players are on is to open up their status menu and look at the window, which will show the name of the area the player is currently located. Field are typically zone that is populated by monsters or wild animals that may be challenges when travel through. “Maze areas” which are places like the old subway station and the inside of an ancient skyscraper. Those are typically enclosed space found within dungeons and maze, thou not all such places are count as independent area in some case. A dungeon or underground tunnel may be count as a single zone, or break down into smaller zone in a room by room manner. “Maze areas” are typically location that is meant to be challenges, with traps and monsters station within its zone, awaiting “Adventurers” who dare to enter and uncover the treasure within. “None Combat Zone” these are areas and zone typically found in every streets and ally of the player’s cities, as well as several more civilized locations around the world of “Elder Tale.” Within those zones, use of combat skills and spell are strictly forbidden. No matter if it’s People of the Land or Adventurers, when violating such rules, special kind of “Guard” will instantly teleport on the scene and killed all of the people involved in the violence. “Guards” are typically higher level than the player’s maximum level permitted by the system so it is near impossible to break the rule. Note: Despite this, it is discover that after “Catastrophe” certain action that may be consider violence in the real world is unaffected by the “None Combat Zone” effect and rule. Those actions typically involve action that does not required activation of “skills,” such as grabbing, pushing and holding. Some of such act may be more bizarre then others, such as Akatsuki’s knee kick in the face to grouping Merrill’s boobs (which Naotsugu is force into doing by Merrill when she is getting overly friendly toward Shiroe and Naotsugu.) Guild The most represented community type within the “Elder Tale.” It is organization form between players. Mechanically, players who join the Guild will received additional special account in the ‘Bank’ in game, which allows service such as renting storage space for items and other convenient services. It also allow easy to access communication platform between guild members, so it is much easier to form a party and head out for adventure this way. That is why most players in “Elder Tale” have joined some kind of Guilds; it is convenient and holds many benefits. A players can join only one Guild at any given time thou. The actual structures of each guild are of course different. The differences between guilds are originated from the target activity and the size of each Guild. Mechanically speaking, a Guild Master is needed for running a Guild, while other members may assist or contribute in other ways authorized by the Master. Thou joining a Guild require the approval of the Guild Master, there is no limit and rule on quitting in terms of purely mechanical sense. Also, there is no limitation on minimum number of membership for keeping the Guild active. Guild can generally be group into the following kind’s base on the type of activity they build their in-game activity around. “Combat Guild/Campaign Guild”: The kind of guilds that center around one of the most entertaining activities within the “Elder Tale.” The members typically go into fields, maze and other areas and fight monsters for fun. The Guild is a place that provide easier place to find members for the parties—in other worlds comrade. It’s much easier to invite each other to form a party, and the cooperation within combat are usually better that way. Some of those Guilds focus their attention on challenging dungeons, quest, raid and campaign, with the entire group backing up the needed resource to achieve such goal. “Industrial Guild/Production Guild”: There exist players who, instead of enjoying combat, choose to explore the possibility of production type Sub-job. Most of them create items, and are called “Craftsmen” among other kinds of title, and there exist people who rely mainly on their Sub-job and stay in cities for enjoying the fun of conducting business and trade. This kind of player will join the Industrial Guild, and such guilds are typically large in size because the guild provide buying and selling of raw materials as well as other function such as storage and administration. The more membership, the better those function and services become due to the money they can make. Thou it differ between guilds from guilds, typically speaking joining Industrial Guild help improve chances of reaching high level in Sub-job, because the wealth of the guilds ensure plenty material is provided for leveling up. These in terms attract players whose goals are unlocking and discovering all the wonderful items and equipment that cannot be found in dungeons and loot, but instead can only be crafted by masters of a particular trade. Of course there also exist smaller guilds that didn’t affiliate to any trends, or varied in dedication to each kinds of activity. Because they belong to no specialty, such guild typically do not gain much profit and reputation, but player’s relationship and atmosphere of the Guilds bring members together. Anyway, even small Guilds may be great help when attracting new players, and support mid-level adventurers through their vitality. Bank One of the most important facilities found in the player cities. All of the players have bank account in “Elder Tale.” They can store not only money but also valuable items, with no interest rate and require monthly service fee if ranting more storage room then minimum provided. Items and money can be deposit or withdraw from any branch office found in any player cities. Consider that carrying capacity is depended on character’s strength and the property of carry-on equipment such as backpack, “Bank” is the most commonly used facility within the player cities. (Mid-level players may try to get magical begs that can store many, much larger items then it appears to be, some Sub-job also increase the amount of item players may carry, or be able to craft even bigger begs for storage.) Also, Guilds, once formed, has an account for managing Guild related business too. The right of who has access to this account varied depending on the leadership within the Guild. Hotel/Inn One of the least used facilities found in the player cities. It provides small, independent area/zone that can be rented by, month, days or hours. The fee it charges depended on the quality and size of the room but overall it’s fairly affordable prize (5 gold pieces per night for the cheapest room.) even among mid-leveled players. (Only require defeating a single goblin to earn that much.) However, this service only sees use when players want to have conversation in private (player can’t ‘hear’ things that’s in another zone.) with multiple other players, so it’s pretty useless consider most people can just use Guild Hall for that purpose. This changed after the “Catastrophe” when players can no longer log out and is stuck being “Adventurer.” They now need places to sleep at, and Hotel is probably the most comfortable place of all if there isn’t enough room in Guild Hall for everyone (For people who really don’t care much, sleeping bag is enough to survived in the various ruin in the city, like how Akatsuki did when Shiroe run into her in episode 1.) Market The market mansion here is one of the service provide by the NPC (People of the Land) in player cities. Players can take the items they own, give it to a specific NPC, who will then sell it at a selling price the player decided. Although most of the time players trade between each other face to face, if it’s selling large quantities of products and materials, the market is a very convenient service. Many Industrial/Production Guilds utilized this function as an outlet for the items they crafted and produced. Also, players are allowed to open up shops and street markets within player cities, provided that they are willing to pay for rent, service fee or have the proper Sub-job. Many players who enjoy running shops as an entertainment utilized this as a mean for social interaction, many other “Adventurers” look to this as an alternative mean and chance to strike a barging, instead of using the price standard set by the NPC run market. Note: The food stands Shiroe’s party visited in episode 1 of the anime is run by People of the Land, but the product is produced by players with the proper Sub-job. (Cook/Chef.) Guild Hall One of the most important benefits of the Guild other than the social interaction is the Guild Hall. Guild Halls are independent, middle size area, as small as three rooms to as large as ten to twenty rooms, which can act as either living space or office space. This facility is optional, but any large enough Guild will buy a Guild Hall because all the spaces within this area can be converted for various usages. This way Guild member can store the material they collect from fields and item they got from mobs here and with enough money and proper Sub-job, rooms can also be converted into facility that can be utilized by certain Sub-job, such as kitchen for Cooks and workshop for Tailor and Craftsmen. All of these share resources provided by Guild Hall make pursuing Sub-Job experience and sharing resources with low level members of the Guild rather easy. So it is fairly popular among Guilds consider that this is also a good spot to hang out for social event among its members. Likewise, there exist people, who simply use their Guild Hall as some sort of trophy room. Most of the good looking housewares related items aren’t cheap or easy to produce and require material and resource to make. However, not every Guild can afford a Guild Hall because they are rather expensive. A medium size Guild Hall with five to eight rooms, like the one own by “Crescent Moon Alliance” as seen in first two episodes of the anime worth forty thousand gold pieces up front with monthly administration fee around eighty gold pieces. This is no small number consider that even average, high level “Adventurers” like Akatsuki only have around thirty thousand in cash (not counting the value of items and equipment), and even Shiroe with all those years of experience have only around fifty thousand in total property value in Bank. After the “Catastrophe,” due to drastic change in living condition, “Guild Halls” kind of become the dormitory for its members. The beds and sofa that use to be only for decorative purpose now have real value and functions, and it also reduce the cost of living for individual members significantly. Needless to say that the sense of security one can get by staying close to their comrade is a big comfort in such situation. House and Other Real Estate Other than the Guild Hall, some area/zone within “Elder Tale” is up for sale and can be trade. As long as you have enough money in game it is possible to become a house owner or landlord. Player is free to buy area/zone that is put on sale and gain administration power over that area/zone. It allows the owner to decide if only a certain selected individual may enter or exit the area, is the area a combat or non-combat zone, and charging fees for people who wants to pass through. Some areas are even modifiable, so owners may installed all kinds of facility and furniture as long as he has the resource (Usually related to Sub-job.) That is why some rich players will buy a small to middle size area and use it as their personal house for training Sub-job: either run it as an in game shop, or a work shop dedicated to certain kinds of craftsmanship are possible option too. Despite it is called “buying” owner must pay fees other than the price that’s been label for the estate to maintain ownership. There is a 0.2% tax as the administration fee every months and additional “clean up” fee if the environment isn’t properly maintain and organized over time. (Environment cleaning and organizing can be done either manually, higher NPC to do it for you or through function of Sub-job.) This is why players really need to have a large allowance if they want to buy and run such an estate. Earning in game cash isn’t hard, but saving will take dedication. Consider that most player invest money on their gear and equipment, there is no doubt that player owning private estate is among the minority of the game. However, some very large Guilds who has more than hundreds of players, benefit from this function significantly. To such kinds of Guilds the twenty room limit of “Guild Hall” isn’t enough to cover the needs of all its members online. So many of those Guilds will buy building in player’s cities and modify them to fit the need of its members. For such kinds of purpose, the estate can be register under the ownership of the Guild just like Guild Hall, and the fees and required fees are deducted from the Guild’s Bank account. Such kinds of facility in player cities own by Guilds are called “Guild Zone” or “Guild Fort/Keep” depending on the characteristic and function of the structure that’s been bought. There exist Guilds that open up malls and factory using such functions. After the Catastrophe, Shiroe, Naotsugu and Merrill discover that the status menu that originally only tell player what location they are in and the information about the characteristic of the area/zone now display notification that used to only appears at locations such as small ruined building, the room of a hotel, or Guild Hall whenever they go. In short, even thou it requires a large sum of money, the city of Akihabara itself, and the field or maze areas players’ travel for adventure has now become estate that can be bought by players. Of course even when veteran players convert all of their belonging within the bank into gold pieces, it’s impossible for any individual players to pay and maintain ownership for estate that’s sale for several millions of gold pieces. Some of the larger Guilds may be able to pay for such number of money, but even then it will require tremendous effort to maintain ownership over city size area like streets of Akihabara. “Crescent Moon Alliance” has goes on separate investigation under Merrill’s order early on in the story, and discovers that pretty much every area they know of is now up for sale, as long as the land do not already have ownership… for example such as the guild hall of “Crescent Moon Alliance.” In such cases, that entry on the menu will not ask players if they will like to buy the place, instead have option that can switch the ownership into property certificate. Mount In “Elder Tale” which uses the setting of Medieval Fantasy, the players called “Adventurer,” primarily walks or ride on horses as means of transportation when in field areas. But after the “Half Gaia Project,” is installed, this Virtual Earth that is smaller than the real one are still too large to travel through in such a manner. That’s why teleportation network system such as “Transport Gate” and “Fairy Ring” were created. Nevertheless, in “Elder Tale” horses are still most common form of transportation available to almost every player who wants to avoid being attack by monsters while traveling. Players need not to train for horse riding. They can buy horses from shops, or rent them by date. In normal situation most players pass the middle level will own their private horse. Horses are considering a type of summoning item in game, the player will receive a flute/whistle item after purchasing a horse. Blowing this flute/whistle and the horse will appear instantly in front of the player any place they are. After the “Catastrophe,” this design is represent by horses appear and run toward you from a distance. There is no need of worry about where to tie the horses when going into the maze, nor is there need to worry about the safety of the horses. In the game, horses are consider item, so they can’t be killed, but it’s uncertain if such setting is represented in this world and no one has risk trying this in dungeons yet. Alternatively, there exist very expensive, but well trained “Combat Warthog” that not only can be ride, but can participate in combat. It is also known that some servers have unique types of mount, for example the Chinese server allows people to ride on “Dire Wolf” as means of transportation. All of these mountable beasts are summoned using flute/whistle item like horses are. “Summoner” can summon creature like “Unicorn” and ride them for personal use, but most summoned beast has limited times of service per day so they must be cautious if using them as mount may reduce combat utility. Also only few high levels “Summoner” can call forth creature that can fly. Unlike regular horses, summoned creature can participate in combat. The most special kind of mount available in “Elder Tale” is mount that can fly. Those are typically reward item from massive raid or large scale campaign, thus very few players outside of large Combat Guild have such kind of mount available for them. Log Horizon Have to get this out from me because I found it annoying that even some professional reviewer at Anime News Network mistake this name as the name of the MMORPG in the story. However, this is major spoiler, so read with cautious. Spoiler: This is the name of the Guild Shiroe start shortly within the second book of the novel series. The complete list of members so far is already shown numerous times in OP and ED of the anime. The most prominent picture is the last scene in OP where they look at the sunrise across the horizon. The origin of this name is probably going to be shown by the end of the next episode, maybe…. Debauchery Tea Party (Wonderer’s Tea Party) A group of legendary players activate in “Elder Tale” until two years ago. Naotsugu and Shiroe were in this group before and become close friend through the countless adventures they gone through with other members of the Tea Party. Thou small in numbers and are not run under the structure of Guild, they have create numerous legend within their active period of two years. Their tale is still told today among veterans of the game and many members are still influential among players. Note: Because Debauchery Tea Party is just a group of friends who somehow comes together, the reason that they cease being activity is actually quite simple: Many players got their real life issue to take care of and can’t go online regularly, and Naotsugu is one of them. Their achievements are well known among all servers in “Elder Tale” and even foreign players heard of their tale. Thou to the members themselves they are only a bunch of veteran players who wants to enjoy the world of “Elder Tale” to the fullest, beating self-imposed challenges that may be bizarre and foolish at time. The members belong to different guild, have different personality, and have no common between members. But overall they share one spirit: They believe that “adventuring” is more than defeat the monster to get experience point, and obtain rare and powerful items. That’s just action of fighting and earning, and true “adventuring” is more complex than that. (It’s hard to sum up all of the achievement without spoil anything…) Crescent Moon Alliance Lead by Merrill, this is the name of the Guild form in order to support medium leveled players. Merrill’s best friend since high school Henrietta is the accountant and second in command of the Guild. Note: For a medium size Guild that dedicate to no particular aspect of the game, Crescent Moon Alliance is surprisingly famous and influential among Guilds within Akihabara. This is partially due to Merrill’s personal charm, as well as the family like, new player friendly attitude that all of the Guild members hold on to. Crescent Moon Alliance has a fairly wide range of level demography and Sub-job choices, range from new players who just reach the two digit level and high level players who already max out on their states. There are tailors, cooks, craftsman, wine maker and craftsman among its members, so they are fairly well rounded among day to day dungeon crawling and adventuring. However, neither Merrill and Henrietta has much experience when it comes to raid and campaign, so despite being credited to be “good” there are no elite players among Crescent Moon Alliance. Other Information known so far into the anime, after “Catastrophe”: Because the view from the player switch from third person aided with mini-map to first person and no mini-map in field area. It became hard for front-liner to keep track of teammate’s situation in combat. Ambush become much easier than it used to be. Because first person viewpoint is significantly narrower than the third person and thus make “Adventurer” not as good at noticing approaching enemy from a distance. On top of that, because skills and fighting technique such as spells and sword art can only be activate if “Adventurer” is conscious and have the will to use them follow by physical movement (represented in anime through shouting out skill name even thou it’s not strictly required.) many of the automatic and passive technique that used to activate immediately when attacked by enemy are now ineffective unless the “Adventurer” with the skill consciously recognized the enemy before the attack happen. (Thou defense and barrier spell is an exception.) Because Akatsuki join the party later then shown in anime, and Shiroe and Naotsugu run into Merrill in person first, it become known after Akatsuki undergo physical transformation (back into being girl) that equipment and clothing no longer change size to fit the wearer like in game. The tailor at “Crescent Moon Alliance” help Akatsuki resized all of her clothing and armor after Shiroe introduce her to Merrill and Henrietta. This is the first indication that Sub-Job become much more useful than it used to be. “Adventurer’s” physical attribute match their game states, even thou part of their appearance reflect their real life look. Shiroe notice first hand that even for being a mage, he is much capable in walking and running for a long time than in real life, since he stays in front of his computer every day. Thou much more active than Shiroe in real life, Naotsugu also feel that he has superhuman strength since all his armor and gear weight more than 20 kg and he can still run and jump while wearing it with ease. However, exhaustion from physical activity and sleepiness is two different things, after being active for a long period of time; Adventurer’s still feels dizzy and want to sleep. This is different before the “Catastrophe” where player’s character has no need of sleep what so ever. This is part of the reason why Hotel become much more popular than the old day, consider that none of the player can log out now. Also being notice is the change of perception of time. Day and night time in “Elder Tale” exchange rather quickly before “Catastrophe” but now it feels like 24hr. (The exact setting of time differences between the real world and now is not mention until the third book of the novel, so I won’t include it now.) By the way, the first two episodes in anime actually cover time period of more than ten days. As long as you need to eat you also exhaust, both are necessary activity of your body function. Such thing won’t be too difficult as long as you get used to dealing it outside in the wilderness. This is of course unheard of in game before “Catastrophe.” By the way, tissues exist as an item in “Elder Tale” but it is a high level item only can be produce by player high in level for the proper Sub-Job. (Can’t find which Sub-Job produces them on the wiki thou….) So yeah, life is tough here. The “Market” becomes quite chaotic immediately after the “Catastrophe.” Like tissue many items now gain different functions then it used to be, therefore Guilds, including “Crescent Moon Alliance” under Shiroe’s advice, starts to pull items out of the “Market” in order to secure resources. Some Industrial Guilds even start hoarding goods that’s left in the “Market.” (There is at least one scene in episode one of the anime that hint on this.) This, combine with the expanding of already large Guilds as well as the merging of several smaller Guilds, cause malevolent atmosphere and minor conflict between Guilds described within episode 2. Resource competition isn’t that serious, but still can be a problem since many people refused to leave the city at all. Food item make by player with Chef/Cook Sub-job, as well as drinks and liquor sold by People of the Land (NPC) actually effect game play before “Catastrophe.” High level food items may boost temporary boost the states of the “Adventurer” in combat for hours, so there are demand before. However, food having no taste now and many players unwilling to fight monsters cause the price of food item drop dramatically within the player economy. The only motivation of eating is to fill your stomach means that wheat bread’s value will be the same as chicken sandwiches. Nevertheless quite a significant branch of population switches their Sub-job to Chief since its easier way to be self-sustainable for survival this way. Shiroe and Naotsugu experience various items, and eventually found out that, for some reason ingredient has taste, which include stuff like salt, sugar, and paper, as well as fruit such as apple, orange and more. The prices for these items of course get skyrocket overtime. They also try to cook food over camp fire, instead of using the synthesis menu like the way Chief /Cook and all the other Sub-job does to make items. This end up in failure when raw fish being grill over camp fire turn into goo like substance within instant, defying the known physical law of burning. The only solution they found is that they are able to put salt and sugar over those tasteless foods and at least has the feeling of salty and sweet. Part of the reason that many “Adventurers” are unwilling to fight monsters is because they now actually experience pain. According to Naotsugu the pain doesn’t feel as serious as in real life, the most painful thing he experience by getting hit on a head by a giant tentacle only feels like bumping into a closed door. Having less than half of the HP certainly gives you wounds and bruised that is physically appearance, but it doesn’t feel like “half dyeing.” Nevertheless many players still afraid of pain, especially the pain that can cause death (even when knowing full well that they will resurrect.), so many people try to avoid combat as much as possible at all cause. Such realization kind of cause public depression, even Shiroe gets emotional at one point. After all they are in a lawless and goalless situation with no way to escape. Nor any hint/target about the situation they can work with. Kind of like the movie “Groundhog Day.” The anime take that part out (and introduce Akatsuki earlier) but the reason that Merrill gets all friendly over Naotsugu even thou they just meet each other the first time is because Naotsugu is able to tell her and Shiroe to look at the brighter side of the situation. (They have most of the property and skills from the game intact, and have far more resource and knowledge then some fantasy novel character when they start out in an unknown world.) Akatsuki’s dedication to her role-playing attitude also helps Shiroe realized that one must choose their own path in order to take charge of the situation. (Thou Akatsuki’s hardcore role-playing style is due to a different reason of choice, which won’t be explored until much later in the story.) The “thirty thousand players got trap online” is actually Shiroe’s personal estimation and understanding about the situation in Japanese servers. “Elder Tale” has more registered members in Japan (around hundred thousand at least), and due to the expansion there are more player log in than usual. Nevertheless, based on Shiroe’s friend list, there are still quite a lot of people who haven’t log in at the time of the “Catastrophe” and no more player start appearing after that incident. In fact, friend list can only show whether a friend is log in in the same servers and are they within the same area/ zone with you. Therefore from Shiroe’s point of view, it is impossible to know what happen in other servers. (This is cover in some of the side stories, not sure the anime adaption will refer to that. Some fragmented information on the situation in North America, West and Eastern Europe, China, and Korea is elaborate a bit.) All three of our hero in Shiroe’s part actually has different view on PK activity. Their stands on such matter aren’t as well express in the anime so I will put it down here. Naotsugu absolutely HATE PK. He has strong believes that PK are bullies who take away the fun of “Elder Tale” for new players that are fresh on their road to discover the majestic content of the world of “Elder Tale.” That’s why he is the one who call the shot when PK attacks the party. Akatsuki’s view on PK is on a mix side. She pity them for the mentality they have now they got stuck after the “Catastrophe” but by her personal moral and principle she cannot tolerate people who only wants to make easy prey out of other people just because they are a little better at their skills. Shiroe has a more critical thought on the matter of PK. For him, PK is an activity that can sum up by one word: absurd. To Shiroe PK just pick the “easy way” on earning items and gold pieces, but relying on gold pieces and items gain from PK can never be on the top of the “Adventurers.” PK can only steal from other’s achievement, and are just parasite since “Robbing others for their treasure,” basicly means that they have never set foot into the high level area that allows players to obtain those treasure in the first place, which means that not only that they have never face the search and challenges contain within those mysterious location, they also never discover “treasure that have never been seen before.” Only relying on the technique of PK can never stands at the frontier of adventuring. By the way, most of the important Guilds in Akihabara are pretty against PKing even in the old day. Some Combat Guilds actually like Player vs. Player competition, but hunting and robbing other players are a different stories. After all most of the top leveled Combat Guilds put their effort on challenging Raids and Campaign that no one has beat them before, PK activity just don’t look attractive to them consider you will always better reward in Raids then mobbing some random party. For Industrial Guild who really need good trade to advance, PK also lack the charm because not having good relationship within the community basically guarantee that you will fail in conducting any kind of business around here. This, added to the technical difficulty on PK, just make PK activity unpopular until the “Catastrophe” hit. The Griffons Shrioe and Naotsugu called forth using the whistle items are reward they earn back in the day when they are the Debauchery Tea Party. The campaign event Akatsuki mention actually involved a story like this: The highest level undead—King of Necromancy slept within the deepest part of his tomb, and the Tea Party hey have stand in front of the Alter that blaspheme against the majesty of life, and fought against the fourth Death Knight under the command of King of Necromancy through a long and intense battle in order to stop their attempts to steal the life force under the Mountain of Elf, which will grant those undead eternal life. To stop him, the “King of Wing Kind” team up with human to form an army, and grant them those flutes as gift of friendship after the war. Yeah, it’s a large and epic story campaign that by default requires the combine effort of multiple parties (usually more than six, will be elaborate later when the anime covers that part.) to beat. But Debauchery Tea Party crushes this force of evil with only ten players and is the first to complete this quest within the Japanese servers, before any other large Combat Guilds who has hundreds of high level players as members did. In short, being able to ride on Griffons is the proof of Tea Party’s legend in the pass. States wise Griffons are treated as level sixty monsters and are the fastest flying mount that comes close in flight speed with some of the fastest dragon in game. The down side is that they can only be used for four hours a day so Shiroe didn’t use them at the start of the journey. Another reason Shiroe and Naotsugu avoid using them from the beginning is because such kind of reward items from major campaign usually won’t fall in the hand of player who is independent from important Guilds. Let too many people see them guarantee that PK will get attracted to them. The anime also cut back a lot of reasoning Shiroe process through his head when Merrill made the request to “take care of the Guild while she’s away.” Several points within the process, as well as several additional reasoning the author give on his wiki are here to answer people’s question: 1. Shiroe’s party actually teaches parts of the Crescent Moon Alliance on how to fight, and have fight with monsters side by side with those members. He can tell that most members are good enough to fend off monsters but still lack further training in combat to face PK that will be expected on the rescue mission. 2. It’s uncertain how long Serara can avoid being caught, and given the situation in Susukino described by Merrill it’s better to get there ASAP. So the entire mission must be carrying out fast and swiftly. Consider factor such as carryon luggage and resource management large party must be avoided in favor of speed. 3. Out of the members of Crescent Moon Alliance the highest level members also happens to be the important leaders within the Guilds. Not to mention Merrill and Henrietta, the Combat Force’s Leader Koryu (the boy talking next to the map of Japan in the first episode.) is instrumental in leading the Guilds on securing food and resource by fighting monsters. Even thou Merrill has already make arrangement and ask Shiroe’s party for help on taking care while she is absent, Shiroe afraid that the system he helps set up to ensure the entire Guild can secure their living resource may broke down while the three of them are gone. Especially under the current situation, where tensions between Guilds are tight and Merrill’s influence and Henrietta’s managing skills are most needed. 4. None of the members of Crescent Moon Alliance has high level equipment like Shiroe and Naotsugu, and flying mounts are pretty much needed if they want to travel with speed. Griffon can only take two people at a time, so a full party is impossible unless there is a third person who has a flying mount. 5. Since confronting PK is inevitable, cooperation between members of the party are very important for the success of the mission. Shiroe believe they don’t have enough time to train with a fourth party member given the fact that time is of the essence. A bit of add on, “Elder Tale’s” leveling system forbid high level players from earning experience point from monsters that is five level lower than the player currently is. This holds true even after the “Catastrophe,” so currently even all those fighting has break out between PK, players and monsters, no one has been able to pass the lv.90 mark yet. Also, the fact that item and money literary “drop” on the ground means that collecting loot and reward become a time consuming process. Some of the material type of items such as leather and fur from animal actually require players to skin and collect them with knifes, making it a lot more task then it used to be. That’s all I can figure out for now. I did left out quite a lot of stuff that is intuitive to MMO players (such as what Party do) or has already explained in anime (even some aren’t so direct.) Have to say that this end up more like dragging portion of the novel and wiki, translate, then summarized them rather than simply translate the appendix and including spoilers and end up being a time consuming process…… Hope people enjoy it. I’m not really positive if I should translate information on Sub-job (Occupation), that’s a LOT of work and more importantly the author actually let fans make up stuff on wiki and include those information as “official.” It’s hard to say if any of that will even make it into the story at all….. There must be a lot of grammar error and things that need to be clarify. Feel free to ask whatever you want. I will answer if it’s not going to be too much spoiler. P.S. I choose not to post at the episode discussion because it doesn’t seems to be the right place for long post like this. Plus quite a lot of conversation seems to get distracted from Log Horizon itself that it’s hard to make purely informative stuff turn into meaningful discussion. |
Oct 19, 2013 9:51 AM
#8
| Thanks for all the background information. Makes it easier to understand stuff that is mentioned in the anime but not that much elaborated and makes some of those mentioned things more reasonable. Just don't get discouraged by the surprisingly less amounts of replies you get here. |
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Oct 19, 2013 11:27 AM
#9
| Seconded. I liked all those complementary informations about the setting, and will keep on reading if you decide to add more. Thank you. :) Also, you said the original material was a "novel"... Are we talking "light novel" or "novel" here? (Asking mostly because I'm more used to seeing anime adapted from light novels, I guess.) |
Oct 19, 2013 11:39 AM
#10
| Yeah, the only novel that was adapted into an anime, that i can think of is LOTGH. |
| "There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk." - Tigana "The genius of Guilty Crown is that they made a show so stupid and illogical that it's almost impossible to criticize properly. I don't even know where to start." - Sleeplesstown |
Oct 19, 2013 9:40 PM
#11
nantuko said: Thanks for all the background information. Makes it easier to understand stuff that is mentioned in the anime but not that much elaborated and makes some of those mentioned things more reasonable. Just don't get discouraged by the surprisingly less amounts of replies you get here. It's a web novel that can be read free of charge online (there is a link in the official wiki and wikipedia), but is edited into light novel form every time there is enough chapter to do so. The light novel version incorporate more reader's freed back on wiki, as well as various changes to avoid copy right issue on stuff that's too heavily references. (Mainly on real online game and comic) I mainly write here base on light novel and wiki because those are the only one that got translated into other languages. SalaZin said: Yeah, the only novel that was adapted into an anime, that i can think of is LOTGH. Technically there are quite a few none-light novel got adapted into anime, some light novel also get re-release in different form that target other readers. In fact nantuko's avatar happens to be a good example where novel is adapted, then re-release in light novel form. |
Oct 19, 2013 11:48 PM
#12
| Man I would totally play this if it were a game. Thanks for notes, Love them xD Especially the classes and sub-class, it really helped ^^ |
Oct 20, 2013 12:55 AM
#13
EternalStarlight said: Man I would totally play this if it were a game. Thanks for notes, Love them xD Especially the classes and sub-class, it really helped ^^ Same here, makes me want to play MMORPG again.. That concept of map based on real continents an cities is intriguing, as does the moving to other server through virtual trip. |
| The most important things in life is the people that you care about |
Oct 22, 2013 12:19 PM
#14
| Sorry totally forgot about my post lol, thanks for the explanation. |
Oct 25, 2013 10:59 PM
#15
| It’s been hard to determine what information I should translate or elaborate now consider that the author himself is pretty active on tweeter which greatly expend the amount of information and detail available. On top of that there is the issue of spoiler, which spoiler tag may not help in some case because the accuracy of our knowledge is gradually changing as the story expended. I mean, the Guild organization structure and all the information revealed in book 7 have already create a bunch of debate and discussion as I am writing this paragraph. Anywhere, here goes my terminology and information session again. This time it’s more of information fetch out of the novel rather than translation work. Friend List The function of Friend List didn’t change much after the “Catastrophe.” As shown and elaborate in anime, it shows that which of your friend you added to your list is online. In addition to only being able to add people onto your friend list face to face, there is several point of interest regarding how this function works. First of all, “face to face” means “in the same area/zone and the people who is adding can recognize the target they are adding.” This means that people may add another person to their list across the street as long as they can see their target. Second, “adding someone to the list need not being approved by the person you add.” Player can add whoever they want and see the person they add on the list even thou the person they add have no idea about it. (Also, the one who is added to the Friend List won’t see the one adding them on their own list.) Third, the Friend List not only informs the player if their friends are online or not, it will also inform the player if they are within the same area/zone. However, Friend List won’t tell you which zone your friends are at if they are not in the same zone as you. Fourth, Friend List will not show your friend is “Log In” if they are currently in another server. This means that player in Japan can’t tell if another player in America is “Log In” or not even if they meet in person and add each other to their list respectively. Overall, Friend List is a fairly useful tool to set up your personal social network. Even if at times it can be used as a tool for trolling and harassment too. Telepathy One of the most important functions of “Friend List” before “Catastrophe” is the function that allow players to have a one on one “voice chat” with each other no matter how far the two are apart (As long as the two of them are within the same server of course.) This function is transform into the ability of “Telepathy” after the “Catastrophe.” It remain a quick way of communicating with others in a distance but now function more like a personal cell phone that can only call people who is on your “Friend List.” Thou largely work the same, small details of how “Telepathy” changed are still observed. For example, “Telepathy” now has a virtual microphone, and may pick up voice from the environment if they are close enough. (This is shown in the anime when Henrietta pushes herself close to Merrill during the conversation.) However, the receiving side of the voice happens entirely within the receiver’s brain, so one can remain silence while listening to others. (Therefore, neither Henrietta nor Akatsuki over heard the entire conversation between Shiroe and Merrill. Akatsuki only shiver because her Assassin’s instinct is sensing that she is in dangers XD.) Unlike the chatting, the ring tone that announces that someone is calling you can be heard by players around you if they are closed enough, but it seems like Monsters can’t pick up this voice for some reason… Anyway, the receiver can choose not to pick up the “phone” as they wish. “Telepathy” only allows one on one communication, so it is unsuitable for holding conferences across the air without proper preparation. Street/City of Susukino, The most northern city under the administration of Japanese server, unlike Akihabara which has a clear sense of season it is cover in snow year round. (It is about mid-summer in the anime at episode 3.) It provides the same basic function like Akihabara as a player city, thou it is not as heavily populated as Akihabara do. Similar to Akihabara, the city is built on top of ruined from the “Era of gods,” but differ from Akihabara which is a free trading city, Susukino is a fortress city with grid like layout within the circular wall built around it. Because of such characteristic, the city utilized more three-dimensional space in order to provide more usable space for the public. The down town in this player city has a rough outline of that real world city, but the gigantic, comprehensive building within the fortress are reinforced with cold iron framework from the outside and transform into fortress like building. Because such kind of reinforced ruined with iron plate, screws, gigantic screw holes and screw caps may stand against blizzard and cold, but are not good enough to keep the cold out during winter. Resident in Susukino built smaller houses within the fortified building, and such type of houses are capable of reestablish the warmth and residency function lack by the building. Base on the livable space and its ratio to the population, this is not an efficient use of land, and thus are not a usable plan in real world Japan. However, for a world of online game in “Elder Tale” this is quite doable. In fact this means that Susukino has a more compact housing facility compare to Akihabara, where most of the ruin are left unused. Nevertheless, the total population of adventurer here after Catastrophe is around two thousand, significantly less then Akihabara. Equipment Durability (This is taken from later novel, but since anime shows this and people has been asking about this so I put it up early.) In “Elder Tale” all equipment has durability. Constantly using those equipment item may result the item gradually losing its original effectiveness, and in extreme cases, breaking the item. (Not likely in normal situations.) When the item lose too much durability, the equipment status and icon will show that it is getting dirty, dual or torn depending on what type of equipment it is and receive percentile penalty on all of the states provided by the specific equipment. The lower the durability is the more penalties it received while used. The appearance changes of equipment reflect the durability state and are easily observable by looking at the in game character Avatar. Typically, the Sub-job that can produce/ craft the types of equipment items has the ability to recover durability points. This require spending certain amount of material items depend on how much durability needs to be recover and the category of the equipment item it belongs to. Some of the Role-playing type Sub-job also has ability to recover durability point, provided that the durability of the item isn’t too low and proper equipment and material item is prepared. For example, most of the clothing items such as cape and hat are crafted by Tailor, but other than asking Tailor to mend it for you, player with Housekeeper, Maid or Butler Sub-job may also “clean” it if the durability isn’t low beyond a certain point. Finally, the equipment level also plays a part in determine durability. Most of the high level item, especially weapon and armor, has very high durability. Typically they also require rare material to fix, but most of the time they last long enough that not a lot of effort needs to be put in fixing them. Adding on the fact that most of the high level drop are obtain by top players who are members of larger Guild, it’s not difficult to find the right guy to fix things for those players. The truly rare weapon and armor, such as those of Phantasm level (It is highly likely that level of magic will be cover later episode in anime, so I won’t explain now.) are basically unbreakable and will not suffer from durability penalty, yet most of the time other penalty and benefit may also apply to such weapon too. After the “Catastrophe,” due to the difficulty of travel across land, managing durability of equipment become a fairly tricky because most players with the proper Sub-job choose to stay within player city. Forcing travelers to seek out “People of the Land” with the proper Sub-job to do the job (the location of such places usually are far apart and only exist in more civilized area.) or do fix things by yourself as you go. Consumable Items (This is taken from later novel, but since anime shows this and people have been asking about this so I put it up early.) Unlike equipment items consumable items has no durability because they only can be used for a limited amount of time. (Most people who play RPG know this so I won’t bother the detail.) In “Elder Tale” consumable items come in all kinds of form and sub-category, range from ingredient, material, spell component to magic and recovery item. Majority of items found in “Elder Tale” are within this category and the availability of each items differ between servers and region. Thou most of the basic, functional consumable, such as the lowest level HP and MP healing potion and simple antidote can be buy from shops run by “People of the Land.” Higher level items can only be found in specific dungeons or buy from specific “People of the Land” of importance (usually unlock through quest or event) at specific locations. All of this factor make high level potion unable to meet the demand by the player, since most low level items loss its charm pass mid-level. This in term provide incentive and market for players to select production Sub-job such as Alchemy, Pharmacist, Brewer etc. since those Sub-job has the ability to create high level consumable items with the right materials. Consider that most monsters has higher chance of dropping material items then other type of items, this also induce trade between “Adventurers” who focus on fighting and “Adventurers” who favor trade and crafting. Guilds establish solely for craft and trade on consumable item exist within “Elder Tale.” After the “Catastrophe” players are afraid of leaving the cities and only large, high level Combat Guild has ability to set up expedition to gather material needed for crafting material. This leads to Industrial Guilds dedicate to the trade of consumable items either being force to join the larger guild, or start hoarding material items within the market. In the end this result in potion of all kind fall in surplus, either too expensive to buy or simply can’t be make because not enough material. (Merrill actually gives Shiroe quite a lot of mid-level potion of all sorts before the trip which are result of hard work put together by all members of Crescent Moon Alliance that they originally intent to use for the expedition.) I won’t bother explaining the detail for in-game adventure location such as “Tear Stone Mountain” and “Palm Tunnel.” Other Information known so far (Episode 3), after “Catastrophe”: Most of the information regarding food is plot spoiler so I won’t put it down here. It’s likely that the anime will cover things in detail later. As mention by Shiroe, the inhabitant of most monsters are the same as before the “Catastrophe” but the content of dungeons/maze, thou largely keep the same layout and structure, has change due to the changing behavior of the monsters. The giant “Rat men” also suggest that new kinds of monster variation and level demographic for monsters are introduced. The basic instinct of monsters, such as avoiding high level player if unnecessary are still the same thou. Shiroe experience firsthand through the fall from the bridge, even for mages who is weak in physical defense has highly durable body at lv.90. “Adventurers” are cable to survive situation that will normally kill people in real life, thou pain, shock and suffocate can still lead to loss of consciousness just like in real life. HP and MP still recover slowly over time like in game thou, but it seems like they don’t necessary reflect the mental condition of the “Adventurer” other than giving them wound and pain when low on HP and headache when low on MP. “The People of the Land” change significantly after the “Catastrophe” not only their population increased, they now acting more human like, capable of complex dialog and showing clear sense of emotion and ability to express their thought. It is easy to see that some of the players like the one from “Burgundia” (not sure if this translation is correct, Google Translate says “Brigantine Tear.” For some reason.), who gain the overwhelming power of “Adventurer” over “People of the Land” now start exploiting them for fun. Thou the anime didn’t spell out all the detail clearly, slaving actually become an entertaining activity in Susukino, both in terms of hunting down “People of Land” and buying them for personal enjoyment. Before “Catastrophe” player really have no incentive to exploit “People of the Land” because they provide no experience point and typically lack valuable items as drop, but given that “The People of the Land” now more human like, slaving is really just a twisted form of entertainment. Before “Catastrophe” player’s character’s death result in loss of 50% of the item (both in terms of equipment and consumable) and money currently in their procession in the form of drop. Exception includes some high level item that has special quality so they can’t be loss in this way. The fact that “Adventurers” now interact more physically after “Catastrophe”: able to take off another person’s clothing (such as when Akatsuki take off Shiroe’s cape and glasses when he is unconscious in episode.) means the possibility to strip people clear of their item after killing them. By the way, anime is a bit miss guiding in episode 2 during the PK fight, but in most condition dead body will be left on the ground after players and monsters are killed. Most of the time drop items and material can be obtain from those dead bodies in either case. (Akatsuki actually beheaded that PK in episode 2 in the novel, guess NHK think it’s not the proper thing to show during this time slot.) Also, since all clothing are consider items. The same can be done on “People of the Land.” I will leave how to exploit them using this fact up to people’s imagination….. Reinforce Information: The Wyvern inhabitant on top of the “Tear Stone Mountain” is considering the lowest level dragon kind in “Elder Tale.” Average wise they are weaker then Griffon. Shiroe and Naotsugu choice to avoid them due to two reasons: First their party lack experience in battle in air, and consider the possibility of falling and for the sack of mission it’s not the best thing to try out now. Second has to do with the fact that Wyvern comes in pack and are highly territorial, even if they choose to hike through “Tear Stone Mountain” it is likely that they will get ambush by those dragons. They did consider taking the ocean route or go around through the forest too, but in the end “Palm Tunnel” is the shortest route. “Rat men” may be consider humanoid beast men by the setting, but behave like savage so are consider monsters. They know how to use simple tool and weapon, but the most deadly ability they have is their numbers and the spread of disease. This is much more deadly than getting poisoned considers that disease won’t wear off over time, gradually take away your HP and your ability to recover naturally. Normally this will require a Healer for treatment, but Shiroe’s party lack such person. The party isn’t entirely unprepared against disease thou, given that diseases are level dependent so it’s unlikely for lv90 “Adventurer” to contract them, and the fact that they prepared “Vaccine Potion” and consume them before they enter the tunnel. Nevertheless, this is only a method of prevention, not a method of healing, so they still play safe and avoid combat while venturing through the tunnel. The conferences among middle to small size guilds host by Merrill as the Guild Master of the “Crescent Moon Alliance” has to do with the increasing tension building up within the city of Akihabara. The continual expansion and annexation of smaller Guilds by larger Guilds to secure power lead to increasing hostility between Guilds within the city. The fact that larger guilds has more men power also means that competition on the now limited living resource become tough for smaller guilds. Large Combat Guilds secure easy to reach spawning point for monsters, and Large Industrial Guilds hoarding goods and monopolize necessary food for survival and consumable for combating monsters build more and more pressure on smaller Guilds just for surviving. Merrill and several other more reputable Guild Masters realized that something must be done to change this situation, so they set up this conferences and call for alliance among smaller guilds in order to defend their right of living. The “Cook” show up in the scene where Shiroe’s party is talking about food is from the “Crescent Moon Alliance.” Thou not the most popular Production type Sub-job, almost every Guild, even small one like “Crescent Moon Alliance” have at least one or more “Cook/Chef” that reach high level. This is because before “Catastrophe” the dishes and meal “Cook/Chef” prepared can give daily bonuses on ability score to the people who eat them, the higher the level of dishes the more bonuses it grant. So many Combat Guilds likes to take advantage of this for their party’s adventure. The bonus those dishes grant still stay true after the “Catastrophe” but as we can see the tasteless dishes really throw depression on top of many “Adventurer.” The reason that Serara shut herself in Nyanta’s house is because members of the “Burgundia” has add her to their Friend List, meaning that if Serara stays in the same zone/area as those members they can tell where she is. Consider that it is suicidal for a low level Druid (a Healer class) to travel away from the city along. The only way she can keep herself safe is to stay in Nyanta’s house, which is an independent, none-combat area from the city, and remain hidden. As the anime shown, Nyanta also take care of most of the shopping for living resource since if Serara leave the house, members of “Burgundia” will notice immediately. “Burgundia” can’t storm the house thou, consider Nyanta has the administrative right over who can access the house, and during episode 3 most members of “Burgundia” haven’t notice the location of Nyanta’s house yet. Serara complains that she should of take “Tailor” or “Craftsmen” as Sub-job in the episode. This is because unlike most players, Serara joins the game of “Elder Tale” because she wants to experience the feeling of conducting business and running a small shop. Merrill think she is truly special in that quality and suggests those Sub-job to her because crafting items and put things on sell as venders are the fastest way to gain such experience. The down side is that those kinds of Sub-job require certain amount of capital to level up, since one must earn enough material in the first place. That is why Serara pick the easy entrance Sub-job “Housekeeper” since it requires little to no consumable in the level up process. She originally plan on gaining enough level in “Druid” and earn enough money before switching Sub-job before she got stuck in her current situation. “Housekeeper” is not a popular Sub-job because there is “People of the Land” with “Maid” or “Butler” Sub-job who can be hired for a small amount of fee and do the clean-up work for within the real estate. The reason that Serara is cleaning none-stop and get such a drastic level spike in her “Housekeeper” level is because “she is board.” Think of this for a moment, you are being chased and force to shut yourselves in another person’s house for weeks, and in a world where there is no video game, TV, radio, and even books to read. What are you going to do for killing times all by yourself while the kind hearted men going out to buy grocery for you? So yeah, poor Serara get so much experience point from cleaning because she is agitate, desperate, and have nothing to do. Adding one more example that when death isn’t an escape, boredom can really eat up your spirit. It’s only because of Nyanta’s kindness and her attempt to distract her attention by constantly cleaning that she can remain strong. A little nit-pick about Shiroe’s timing for casting “Keen Edge” in the anime. By the definition in the novel “Keen Edge” is a spell that boosts party’s physical attack by 30% per hit and lasted for hours. It’s described as a buff that is more useful in long time or continual battle rather than being a buff for a single attack. Given Shiroe’s skill it’s more likely that he will cast it early during the combat rather than that decisive blow at the end. I guess the anime took some liberty on that matter there since the entire Boss fight with the giant Rat men does not exist in the anime. Still a pretty good action scene overall and it can easily be overlook with proper explanation. One of the strategic technique Shiroe’s party develop while venturing is to let frontline players like Naotsugu and Akatsuki ignore using the status menu completely and leave the HP and status managing to rearguard like Shiroe. That is why Shiroe notice that there is a zone change much faster than Naotsugu when they enter the Boss fight. “Burgundia” is already a PK enduring Guilds back in the day before “Catastrophe” hit “Elder Tale.” Their activity is shame upon by most of the larger Guilds and thus they are chase out of Akihabara and settled in Susukino. Now that “Catastrophe” has put them in a lawless world and grant them immense amount of power, they become real criminals and outlaws that goes by the rule of power, terror and violence. They first exploit “People of the Land” for fun, hunting them (thou not with skill and power of the class because that is forbidden within city.) and selling them in slave trade for fun. Torturing and force them to labor as shown in the anime. (Needless to talk about the kind of violence can be doing upon woman.) Since Susukino only has a population of two thousand, it is near impossible to establish Guild base order like what happen in Akihabara (even if there remain several problems there too.) The power hunger “Burgundia” soon starts taking the violence against fellow “Adventurers” as well, forcing some of the smaller guilds to be annex into “Burgundia” and join their activity, or in Serara’s case, outright bullying on low level players (on top of being girl). Demicrase (again, not sure of the translation.) the leader of “Burgundia” is of course the most violence and most powerful of all within the guild consider their “rule by the powerful” mentality. Under such gang mentality, anything defying “Burgundia” must be eliminating. Therefore, it’s not that Demicrase has much personal interest in Serara, it’s more like Nyanta is the only one who are capable of throw off “Burgundia’s” violence and Serara being the only one escape their wrath that put him in high interest on this pair. “Burgundia” and himself has to remain the undefeated power in Susukino to maintain their rule, so any failure, no matter how small it is, is unacceptable. That’s it for episode 3. There are increase difficulty on translating names and terms that I hope someone will point out things for me from time and again. (Spell check or simply sharing how some of the fan-sub translates those terms may be very helpful.) Sorry for being so late that episode 4 will be out soon but hope you can enjoy it more since I speculate that there isn’t that much to translate and explain in that episode. Again, more elaboration will come as appropriate with the plotline and I hope people enjoy reading them. P.S. I feel that there are many people who keep on asking the same question or making statement again and again. (Especially related to SAO and stuff which I don’t really want to talk about here) I really suggest reading through this thread a bit and think about what the anime is trying to show us. Did attempt to answer question one at a time but figure that it may be more interesting if people can find out them self that Log Horizon got more than just MMO stuff to offer for us. |
Oct 26, 2013 7:19 AM
#16
| Since ep 4 is out may I ask: _ From what I heard Thorn Bind Hostage doesn't have the bind mechanic in the LN (too OP) and it is just a visual effect, is this true. _ Does Shiroe and Nyanta combo against the monk guy considered a bug?! _ Will Serara level up more later? Really appreciate your answers for these btw. |
TalukitaOct 26, 2013 7:34 AM
Oct 26, 2013 2:33 PM
#17
| Man this really makes me wat that Elder Tale is a REAL mmo D: I played PWI, Rift and Tera but none of them have like these boss fights u see in Elder Tale or SAO taking more than 10min... |
Oct 26, 2013 2:35 PM
#18
| Man this really makes me want that Elder Tale is a REAL mmo D: I played PWI, Rift and Tera but none of them have like these boss fights u see in Elder Tale or SAO taking more than 10min... |
Oct 26, 2013 3:48 PM
#19
| In one episode, Shiroe remembered the kids he saw getting recruited in a guild and decided to pay heed to them when he returns. One is a Kannagi, the other is a Samurai, they're siblings, would those two kids be part of Log Horizon? Can you also please divulge more spoilers on Debauchery Tea Party's individual members and accomplishments? Also if any of the prior members aside from Nyanta are going to join Log Horizon. In the OP, there are two people shown smiling while circled by enemies. One is blonde with glasses, while the other has red hair with white highlights. Who are these two? It seems like the other members are of Log Horizon are merely kids and teenagers, a samurai, a Kannagi, a bard and a druid, are there no veterans beside Nyanta who are going to join Log Horizon? I count twenty DPT members during the first episode, Nyanta, Naotsugu, the female sakkat-wearing leader who loved adventures, Shiroe, a monk with gangster hair, a fat dwarf, an old man with a huge halberd, an assassin with a ponytail, a guy with an M-shaped headgear, a guy who looks like he's wearing a cape and sporting a cowboy-shaped hat, a guardian clad in iron armor with a sword (no shield) and what seems like a wing or cape, a guy with a scroll in his back, three women (one is an elf) and three guys in the far back but during Shiroe's flashback, I count only ten. Female leader with sakkat, Naotsugu, Nyanta, Shiroe, Souji, a female sorcerer/summoner with a long staff with a purple orb at it's head, a fat small person (seems like a dwarf) with a balding white hair and a lance of some kind, a female Fox tail (seems like a Monk), a female in armor with twin-tails and a bard with a skirt. These same ten are who seems to have completed the Hades Breath raid on the Fields of Death. So how many exactly are the members? Does Akatsuki have a sister, one with brown hair and a hairclip? Or is this her real world self? In the OP, I see two kids. One is a human Swashbuckler dual wielding short swords and the other is a Wolf Hair with a bow (Assassin? Bard?) Are these two going to be part of Log Horizon? And were they previous DTP members? I also saw five players in the OP, a homosexual with purple hair, a female with a pink top, a shorty short, and twin tails, a female ponytailed samurai with a jacket draped over her shoulders, a female guardian (?) with heavy armor and brown hair, and a female red-haired monk. These resemble the silhouettes of the DTP members I mentioned earlier: Purple haired homosexual = Bard with the skirt Brown haired female Guardian (?) with heavy armor = a female in armor / guy with M-shaped headgear Female red hair monk = Guy behind Nyanta and Nautsugu (Ep 1 silhouette) Female ponytailed samurai = Farthest to the right (Ep 1 silhouette) So are they DTP members? In the OP, I saw 8 Log Horizon members: Nyanta, Naotsugu, Shiroe, Akatsuki, Kannagi young kid sister, Samurai young kid brother, blonde teenaged Druid, ponytailed female brunette bard with polearm (who's in love with the Druid?). Are there only 8 LH members? Is Akatsu a Shrine Maiden? Or does she just come from a very rich family? How famous is Shiroe? Certain classes can't equip X armor / weapon / shield in Elder Tale. After the "Catastrophe", what happens what they try to use weapons they can't? Please spoil everything you know, I love getting spoiled. If they're too spoilerific for other people, you can just PM me the answers. Pretty please. |
Oct 26, 2013 4:45 PM
#20
| I would like to offer some knowledge that I know of, so here goes. Talukita said: Does Shiroe and Nyanta combo against the monk guy considered a bug?! No, it is as explained by Akatsuki, in which Shiroe cast Thorn Bind Hostage once, Nyanta distracted Demikas for 14 seconds, and then executed a 10-hit combo. Shiroe cast another Thorn Bind Hostage (it has a 15 second cooldown) while Nyanta is in the middle of his combo, thus giving the illusion that Nyanta one-hit KO Demikas. The only gripe I have is that the anime didn't show the 14 seconds delay properly. Talukita said: Will Serara level up more later? Yes, she will. Artstyle said: In one episode, Shiroe remembered the kids he saw getting recruited in a guild and decided to pay heed to them when he returns. One is a Kannagi, the other is a Samurai, they're siblings, would those two kids be part of Log Horizon? Those two kids are twins. The Kannagi is the older sister Minori and the Samurai is the younger brother Touya. And yes, they will eventually join Log Horizon. Artstyle said: Can you also please divulge more spoilers on Debauchery Tea Party's individual members and accomplishments? Also if any of the prior members aside from Nyanta are going to join Log Horizon. I don't know much about the full extent of the Debauchery Tea Party, so I will leave this to someone more knowledgeable. However, as far as I know, only Nyanta and Naotsugu are ex-DTP members that joined Log Horizon. For now. Also, later in the series another ex-DTP member will appear, a Samurai by the name of Soujirou. He is guild master of his own guild, the West Wind Brigade and is extremely popular with the ladies. Artstyle said: In the OP, there are two people shown smiling while circled by enemies. One is blonde with glasses, while the other has red hair with white highlights. Who are these two? They are respectively Krusty, guild master of D.D.D., and Isaac, guild master of the Knights of the Black Sword. Both of them are Guardians and both guilds are among the largest combat guilds in Akihabara. Artstyle said: It seems like the other members are of Log Horizon are merely kids and teenagers, a samurai, a Kannagi, a bard and a druid, are there no veterans beside Nyanta who are going to join Log Horizon? From what I know, that appears to be the case for now (my knowledge only extends to volume 5 of the LN -.-). Artstyle said: Does Akatsuki have a sister, one with brown hair and a hairclip? Or is this her real world self? I'm not sure about Akatsuki's family. But that girl with brown hair and hairclip is the above-mentioned Minori. Artstyle said: In the OP, I see two kids. One is a human Swashbuckler dual wielding short swords and the other is a Wolf Hair with a bow (Assassin? Bard?) Are these two going to be part of Log Horizon? And were they previous DTP members? I believe you are referring to Shouryuu and Hien, both from the Crescent Moon Alliance and not ex-DTP members. Shouryuu by the way is the Swashbuckler and his character is a wolf-hair (yes I know he doesn't look like it) and Hien is an Assassin and his character is a werefox. Artstyle said: I also saw five players in the OP, a homosexual with purple hair, a female with a pink top, a shorty short, and twin tails, a female ponytailed samurai with a jacket draped over her shoulders, a female guardian (?) with heavy armor and brown hair, and a female red-haired monk. These resemble the silhouettes of the DTP members I mentioned earlier: If I am not wrong, they should be members of the above-mentioned West Wind Brigade, since you can see Soujirou and Nazuna (another ex-DTP member) appearing immediately after them. Artstyle said: In the OP, I saw 8 Log Horizon members: Nyanta, Naotsugu, Shiroe, Akatsuki, Kannagi young kid sister, Samurai young kid brother, blonde teenaged Druid, ponytailed female brunette bard with polearm (who's in love with the Druid?). Are there only 8 LH members? Short answer: yes. In fact you pretty much nailed their relationships, although the blonde teenager is a Sorcerer, not a Druid. Artstyle said: How famous is Shiroe? From what I understand, Shiroe is pretty famous within the veteran community, but that is about it. Not many beginner or mid-level players know him since he is not in any of the major guilds, and even though he makes an effort to assist beginners, there's a limit to how much he can make himself known. This would change though as the series progresses. =) That's about all for now. Questions which I didn't answer are those that I don't know about. Sorry about that . =( |
MagiarcaOct 26, 2013 5:01 PM
Oct 27, 2013 1:52 AM
#21
| I love you. Some more... Why is the guild named Log Horizon? Do low to mid level players know of DTP? In the OP, Shiroe and Krusty were with this white-haired little girl clad in armor (Guardian?), who is she? In your estimation, when is sakkat-wearing DTP female leader going to have an appearance in the anime? What is Elder Tale's level cap? Up to what you've read, which are the strongest guilds in Elder Tale at the moment? Do they age in Elder Tale? Are the four kids that are part of Log Horizon, actual kids in real life? What is the significance of the Half-Gaia Project in the plot? Are there any Gamemasters in the game? Shiroe's character is a Half-Aruvu (or Half-Alv), how come the marking on his tongue isn't show? Why does Shiroe call Nyanta 班長 (Hancho)? Are the guilds in Akihabara going to form some kind of council to act as a government? Is there a marriage and adoption system in Elder Tale? I assume that it feels the same when people have sex in-game, do females get pregnant? Besides Summoners, can a player tame wild monsters? Would Akatsuki's feelings for Shiroe ever come to fruition? Are they ever going to get out of the game? Has Shiroe (and in extension members of the DTP) ever traveled to other servers before? Are Shiroe and his companions going to travel to other servers (countries) in the story? Is Londark and Demikas ever gonna show their face again? What is Marie-nee's class? Is there an in-game guild alliance system? |
Oct 27, 2013 4:14 AM
#22
| I'm surprise that this thread suddenly get so many attention. But I have to restate the fact that my source of information are from translated work in Traditional Mandarin Chinese, so it may not be entirely accurate. And thanks for MagisterArcanum who fill in those information for me. Having said that, Artstyle, I have to tell you that many question you ask is very likely to be cover by the anime and is plot relevant. I will prefer not to spoil too much of it and keep this threat for elaboration and explanation of concept and terms. That is why I attempt to work on information episode by episode instead of throwing everything out all at once. I will put as much as I can on the next information post, OK? But, yes I been thinking of translate and introduce information regarding some of the characters who already shown up in the anime, and probably a little more on each Sub-job and important Guilds in the story. This will take time to organize thou so please wait for me while I work on it. Episode 4 mark the end of the first book of the novel, and the story will start to build up to its first climax. Just for a heads up, it will be a lot less "fighting" but more "planing" involve. Politics and economy are not something we should overlook after the "Catastrophe"..... |
Oct 27, 2013 4:33 AM
#23
lunknown said: Artstyle, I have to tell you that many question you ask is very likely to be cover by the anime and is plot relevant. . I know, I like getting spoiled. I do understand though that it's out of bounds with the point of this thread, if you could though, I hope you could send me a private message. |
Oct 27, 2013 4:51 AM
#24
lunknown said: I'm surprise that this thread suddenly get so many attention. But I have to restate the fact that my source of information are from translated work in Traditional Mandarin Chinese, so it may not be entirely accurate. I would like to thank you as well for your effort in putting up all these information! They helped to clarify quite a lot of stuff for me too. =) Now, for the questions, I will try to answer without being too spoiler-ish plotwise. Artstyle said: In the OP, Shiroe and Krusty were with this white-haired little girl clad in armor (Guardian?), who is she? She is Princess Renetia, of one of the dukedoms (and thus a Person of the Land) that comprise the Eastal League which Akihabara is located in. I won't spoil the reason why she's there though, but she's definitely important plotwise. Artstyle said: Are the four kids that are part of Log Horizon, actual kids in real life? They are all between 14-18 of age. Artstyle said: Are the guilds in Akihabara going to form some kind of council to act as a government? Short answer: yes. As for how, stay tuned for the next few episodes as that will be the focus of the next arc. Artstyle said: Would Akatsuki's feelings for Shiroe ever come to fruition? The romance in this series is actually fairly slow-paced, which is fine for me. Akatsuki for one only realised her (romantic) feelings for Shiroe in volume 5. I don't know how Shiroe would react though as I don't have access to volume 6, but chances are it won't be resolved too quickly. Artstyle said: What is Marie-nee's class? She's a Cleric. It is shown when she first appeared in episode 1. =) |
Oct 27, 2013 10:43 AM
#25
| Awesome thread. I really appreciate all of the supplemental information you guys are giving us about the classes/sub-classes/the world/etc. |
Nov 5, 2013 3:02 AM
#26
| Sorry for not being able to update more information, got a lot of exciting things going on (Such as Log Horizon's author response to fans and decide to write out some rough setting for Taiwan- where I come from) and been unable to sort out enough accurate info for translation and answering questions. Beside that, some event show up in my life so I have to go to some place that has no internet for a month, so I will not be able to update until December.... Hope this threat is still alive by then. Anywhere, the following is the translation info I come up with that I have more confident about at this point: Carrying Capacity In “Elder Tale” basic carrying capacity of “Adventurer” is directly related to character’s strength, meaning that most of the time Fighter Type classes can carry much more stuff then Mage Type classes. Nevertheless, there exist various items and equipment with the property that allows players to carry more items at any given time. For example, simple backpack and baggage allow players to carry more items with them by providing more spaces on their carryon menu, while some magical items and high level backpack are enhanced with magical property that neglected the weight of the items store within the package. Mount can also carry items for “Adventurers” as well, if they have equipped packing stash or mounting begs on those creatures. After the “Catastrophe” most of the system associate with carrying items remain unchanged. But it also creates divergence from real life physics because even lack of appearance for begging and backpack on character avatar is covered. Magic backpack becomes as small as a purse, able to hold up much larger volume then its physical appearance, on top of being able to neglect the effect of weight. On top of that since now “Adventurer” is able to physically interact with object with their hand, it also become possible to carry a lot of additional stuff by hand without taking up space in the inventory provide that you have the strength to do so. Because the operating menu allow “Adventurer” to manage their inventory and equipment, it actually isn’t hard to call forth the item you need at any given time despite having a large amount of stuff stuck in a very small beg. Even potion can be call forth and use directly this way, without taking it out and un-cap them physically. Skill, Skill Level and Class dependent Ability In “Elder Tale,” spells and sword arts are group together as “Skills,” all skills has specific name and effect, and consume MP when use with specific activation time (Casting Time) and cool-down time (Recast Time.) Skills can be categorize into many sub-category, but basically put there are skills that is consider magic and thus effect by other spell related property, and there are skills that is consider innate power or martial art that are effect more by physical attribute. Activation time (Casting Time) refers to the amount of time needed to make the skill come into effect after use, the so called “charging up” time. Cool down time (Recast Time) on the other hand refers to the time one must wait after using the skill for the same skill to be able for use again. One can do other action while waiting for the cool down time to pass, it just forbid one to use the same skills again and again, typically powerful skills can’t be use revealingly because of such limit. Skills, once activated, can be intercept and thus nullify by opponent’s skill during its Activation time (Casting Time,) which still cost MP as if being used. What Skills “Adventurer” can learn depend on their classes, for example “Samurai” is classes where most of their major skills need long cool down time, in other words, a fighting style that do heavy blow in every strikes they make. In compares, most of the primary skills use by “Monk” has shorter cool down time. On the other hand, Sub-Job grant more additional Skills, such as Tracker’s “Silence Move” that also obey similar rule as the one granted by main classes, the difference between Skills granted by main class and Sub-job is only in their functionality where Sub-job typically don’t have direct attack or defense skill. Most of the Class Skills are acquired directly by level up, but some require spending certain amount of point to unlock them from the entire skill lists provided by the class, this means that different kind of build exist for every single classes base on their skill choices and thus have different style of play. (Will not cover character option and build since they are not plot relevant at this point.) The power of individual Skills can be increase by raising the “Skill Level,” which is advance through point buy by level while providing a type of consumable item call “Technique Manuscript.” Points can also be accumulating by completing quest and dungeons even after you level are max out. There are five level totals for each skill, with increase numerical advancement in terms of effective time, casting time, recast time and output of the spell. (I took translation liberty on what skill level is called because can’t think of suitable term from my RPG experience.) 1st Level: Learned- Most skill is learned automatically, while some is acquire by point buy per level. The skill retains its basic effect while it is learned. 2nd Level: Adept- By spending more points on the already learned skill the power of the skill increased. It’s not hard to get this as long as you been doing quest and challenge dungeons on regular bases. 3rd Level: Skillful- By spending more points on the already learned skill, and provide the “Adept Technique Manuscript” player can raise the power of the skill further. “Adept Technique Manuscript” can be obtaining from mid-level monsters in various field areas. With the proper Sub-job, some high level players may also craft the “Adept Technique Manuscript” so it is fairly easy to reach this skill level for most players. 4th Level: Internalized- To reach this level player need to provide even more points after continually use this skill repeatedly. On top of that the “Skillful Technique Manuscript” is needed. However, this kind of manuscript only exists as reward for high level quest and dungeons typically drop by the Boss monsters, so not a lot of people are able to get to this level. 5th Level: Mastering Secret Art- Require the “Masterful Manuscript” which only appears in massive Raid and campaign on top of a whole chunks of points. Very few players are able to get to this level unless they are in some of the larger Combat Guild. The above is what I am sure about for now, may edit them if future with more information for the sake of accuracy. So, so long and see you again one month later./ |
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