Report Vaffanculo_'s Profile

Nice name VAFFANCULO

hi

Hi, are you italian? I'm asking this for your nickname lol

See, there's a key difference between playing an MMO, and watching an anime about an MMO. Only one of these involves actually interacting with the game. This is something that a lot of people seem to have forgotten in the YouTube powered fervor fueled by channels like Gigguk and Mother's Basement (Which honestly is just the result of how many views they can get by doing a few hit pieces).


SAO is a game that exists in an anime, therefore I don't really care if it has a bad UI, poor encounter design, or a lackluster class system (though really, SAO has classes the same way For Honor has classes, separated by weapon type as opposed to magical ability). For all that, with it's staple MMO skill system, the utterly unforgiving difference imparted by better gear and higher level, and it's extremely punishing death mechanic it does a wonderful job evoking the feel of some of the first few MMOs. Hell, even the bad UI is a nice touch; did you know that back during the first 3 expansions of EverQuest if you wanted to regain mana as a caster you had to open a full screen spell book, and become completely blind to the world around you (save your chat window)? Or maybe you wanted to craft something? You had to place items from your inventory into a crafting container, and then use your skill while targeting the container. As for fancy things like maps? Hah, you just got to know the zones really damn well. Oh, and say you want to switch spells? That's a 30 second out of combat switch process. Equip a different armor set? Open up your character menu, open up your bags, and drag each item over one by one. I could go on, and on, and on, but the point is that the UI in SAO evokes a lot of the UI work in early MMOs, which to me is actually a nice touch.


Similarly, ALfheim is actually quite a decent game when you compare it to it's actual real world analogue. The key factor to realize here is that ALfheim is not trying to reference WoW with it's "balanced" PvP system (I played horde in vanilla WoW, on Arthas which was one of the most brutal PvP servers. Don't you dare tell me there was anything resembling actual balance there). It's more of an homage to Second Life and Entropia Universe, though there is a bit of Guild Wars thrown in to keep the action going. Everything from the tiered flight system, to the intricate crafting system, to the huge number of races with options to customize appearance, to property ownership. It all makes a lot more sense when you view it from the lens of "Social Experience."


Hell, even GGO has some nice nods to the FPS games that were popular in the western at the time. You can definite see elements of TF/TF2 and Quake 3 Arena in the game structure.


When it comes down to it, I don't really mind if the game within the anime decides to skip the endless farming quests, the spawn camping, grinding your weapon/defense/casting/riding skills. Hell, I don't even mind if someone solos an "impossible" boss; there was a hunter on my server that soloed on of the green Dragons of Nightmare, and those would wipe my entire guild on occasion (Granted, usually when too many people were on alts), and I have personally been in multiple situations near wipe situations where a small fraction of a raid managed to finish off the last few percent of a boss. One time one of our shamans managed do 3% damage on a boss in AQ40 solo, though he died when the boss was at 2% so it wasn't quite as epic as it could have been. Still, it goes to show that a well geared, skilled player could accomplish a lot of things that an average player might deem "impossible."

In any case, If I wanted all of those things I wouldn't be watching an anime about an MMO. I'd just go fire up WoW again. It's the same reason I don't mind seeing giant robots being piloted by teens, magical flying witches fighting in WW2, high schools full of kids that drop kick each other, and romantic comedies that rely on every single character being what would be considered extremely autistic in the real world. In the end an Anime is meant to be entertaining, so attempting to apply real world standards to every part of it rather defeats the purpose of watching it in the first place... or are you going to go change your rating of Steins;Gate from a 10 if I let you know that you can't actually make a particle collider with a microwave, or that they took quite a few liberties with quantum theory?


What I do appreciate is how SAO manages to capture the social aspect of old school MMOs so perfectly. Everything from specialized players (crafters, information brokers, merchants), to raiders, to casual guilds, to communal areas general discussion boards. I like the way the presented both solo and group experiences, I like the layered interactions and friendships that people formed, I liked it never tried to hide that these people are playing a game. I especially like the fact that it actually acknowledges that there are people that genuinely considered MMOs to be like home. I appreciate SAO for being the realization of the fantasy of actually living inside an MMO, and not that stupid "Magic happened, so now you're in a real world that used to be an MMO" trope. SAO is completely unashamed to rub the fact that it is a virtual world in your face, without any sort of "divine intervention" gimmicks that series like Log Horizon or Overlord rely on. When it comes to that I'm willing to accept the fact that the main character was able to ride a bike with a high skill cap without grinding the Bike Riding skill. I don't mind that he managed to deus ex machina his own death. I can most certainly overlook players being stupid in PvP, because let me be honest, I've spent a LOT of time in battlegrounds, both solo and in groups, and most average players are fuckin stupid. If you've ever been in a 8 hour Alterac Valley then you'd have no problem agreeing.


As for the Nerve Gear being banned... It's a revolutionary technology that could be applied to countless fields, from medicine, to business, to military, to exploration, to science, and countless others. That's not something you just ban unless it's impossible to make it safe. It's also fairly simple to prevent the situation like in SAO where it could fry your brain stem with a powerful microwave burst by using a complex 19th century device known as the electrical fuse. As for the Death Gun thing, that was just plain old real world murder as we discover in the series.


Finally, with the PTSD. What pissed you off about a suburbanite teenager getting PTSD after being stuck in a death game where he lost friends, and had to kill people? Or do you feel that a two year old girl that watched her father slowly die, and then had to shoot someone at nine years old in self defense is going to be psychologically well established. In all honesty, I found the PTSD thing to be one of the best parts of the series, because they didn't shy away from the fact that this shit would be traumatizing as fuck. Very few examples of fiction actually dare acknowledge this fact.

I have 200 days /played in Everquest, and 250 days /played in World of Warcraft, and a bunch more in various others I've just tried over the years. During EQ I raided up to Plane of Time. In WoW was in a top-50 US rading guild. You can talk shit about a lot of things, but you've got fuck all when it comes to my experience with MMOs'

Like the attack on titans episode I just put it an extra episode up cause I can't be bothered going to click another episode completed 🙂

... That's pretty much what I said lol

I just wanted to say that the reason why the movie's story wasn't closed is because Gen Urobuchi wanted Madoka Magica to end with that movie, but the producers wanted it to have an open ending so they can create more content.

Have you seen the concept movie teaser yet?

But what if I watch Boku no Pico AND Mars of Destruction at the same time?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES I WON'T WATCH BOTH OF THE SHIT FOR SURE ANWYAY :3

This guy and his Mars of Destruction review. xD