Sword Art Online and the Argument of Living a MMO

[Bells]

So, this belongs to general because it's more open ended than just a gaming discussion or anime discussion.. at least that's the intent.

the RL;DR point is this, in case you haven't watched Sword Art Online: A fully immersive MMORPG, complete virtual reality that uses your own brain to induce you to a state of mind where you can dive into this collective digital world and interact as if you were yourself in this world with other players.

The game has gaming rules, gaming physics, everything is ruled by stats and scores. You level up, your learn skills, equip weapons, have friend lists and guilds, you can't hurt people inside towns... the whole nine yards.

There is a catch though, you are trapped. There is no way out. And death is permanent. If you die, you die for real.

As a concept i thought Sword Art Online fascinating. (the world is certainly more interesting than a lot of the people in it, at least on the anime). And the idea of a perma-death, "band together or die", "clear the final boss and the game resets" format to be very interesting...

But this is to talk about being there. If YOU were in that scenario...

Just imagine for a moment, you are now living in a world of wonder and power, where you can leap across rooftops, slay dragons, cast spells and fight wizards... but the only way out back to OUR world, our family and friends is to clear the whole game. On 1 life. That's some Ninja Gaiden shit going down right there...

How do you feel you would play out in this world? Would you believe that death is permanent here? Would you PK? Would you venture the wild to risk getting rare itens?

For myself, i honestly think i would slip away from the frontline of the game.... i usually go for the ranged/spellcaster type in most MMO's. Gathering resources slowly and steadily.... but in a situation like this, i think i would find a strong guild and stay in town. Being a smith or something like that... making strong weapons for my guild to help them clear the game... in a crazy situation like that, i'm not sure if i could venture against a 15ft demon with a cleaver knowing that i only have 1 life to live in this world.

How'bout you?

[Arcanum]

The thing about SAO was that there was no magic and (I think) no viable ranged weapons (there were throwing weapons that were more supportive of your main attacks and I don't remember if they had bows in the game). So nobody could just sit back at a safe distance and shoot arrows or buff/heal teammates. If you wanted to fight you had to use a melee weapon, forcing you to be in close range and at a much higher risk of getting hurt and killed. That's what made the perma-death thing so awesome/terrifying, there was no real way to play it safe. They then go to ruin this in the sequels by adding magic and guns which is part of the reason why I stopped watching it after the first arc (but that's a story for another thread).

Anyway, with that said, if it were like the first arc of SAO where there's no magic or ranged weaponry, I would definitely take a more supportive role. I would stick with a group of friends, maybe join a guild, and focus more on support through crafting/smithing. I would still fight and level up and stuff, mostly so I could do awesome acrobatic stuff that wouldn't really be plausible for me to do in the real world, but I would never want to be on the frontlines charging into the unknown. Especially since SAO seemed like a grind-heavy MMO.

If we're talking about an MMO with a similar concept to SAO but with magic and other ranged professions/skills/whathaveyou, then I would totally be a mage and grind my ass off (despite my hatred for grinding) so I could obliterate anything in front of me with elemental fury.

[Aldurin]

Blazed through the first season, it made me feel feels. Going through the second season there's a lot less to draw me in and WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THE COUSIN-SHIPPING? Seriously, just no. It's an interesting concept, but it does remind me of the bit of story from one of the Matrix movies, about how the first Matrix was perfect, to the point that people rejected it. While we could strive for a reality that we can manipulate and perfect, it will just throw us at the cliff that is at the end of the road of human innovation.

When you reach the stars, the only thing beyond is void. It's that path to the goal that's important, so achieving something as good as a fully-immersive MMO would cut that path short (Scott Adams has some writing about how all progress of humanity will end when holo-chambers are invented, it's a good piece of thought.)

[Arcanum]

Well there's two big things that separate this from the Matrix example.

1) The Matrix was designed to keep people imprisoned and docile while they were grown and harvested. They weren't supposed to know it wasn't real life, which is why the first version was rejected (it was too obviously not real life). In a SAO situation, people would know they are entering an alternate reality, and that would be obvious inside the game as well with game mechanics being readily visible.

2)People need to eat. In the Matrix the human body is kept nourished in its pod. However in SAO you have everyone being shipped to hospitals so they can be fed intravenously since they can't leave the game and feed themselves. So if this were an optional thing (and not forced/stuck inside the game like in SAO) you would still have people logging off to take care of their bodies and work in order to pay for their home/electricity/food/etc.

[Bells]

The good thing on the second season of SAO is that it gave me what the first season didn't have. A Villain to hate. And oh boy you can hate the guy from season 2... i mean, the villain from season 1 was a maniac and a psycho, sure... but he was always in the shadows, so you don't get to connect to hate him... second season though? You just want to see the guy truly, truly die.

As for living it... would be weird though, cause the thing on SAO is that there were gaming physics and conventions and that kept everyone a step back from reality. While knowing for a fact that you would die just cause some dick wanted to roleplay a villain on your ass... that's scary. Anybody who has played an online game or MMO knows the feeling of that... livining it? Terrifying.

[Menarker]

Well there's two big things that separate this from the Matrix example.

1) The Matrix was designed to keep people imprisoned and docile while they were grown and harvested. They weren't supposed to know it wasn't real life, which is why the first version was rejected (it was too obviously not real life). In a SAO situation, people would know they are entering an alternate reality, and that would be obvious inside the game as well with game mechanics being readily visible.

2)People need to eat. In the Matrix the human body is kept nourished in its pod. However in SAO you have everyone being shipped to hospitals so they can be fed intravenously since they can't leave the game and feed themselves. So if this were an optional thing (and not forced/stuck inside the game like in SAO) you would still have people logging off to take care of their bodies and work in order to pay for their home/electricity/food/etc.

Your number two example is pretty much exactly the same sort of situation as the manga Yureka (http://www.mangareader.net/1583/yureka.html), another Virtual Reality MMORPG manga.

But yeah, I'd imagine that in a fantasy setting similar to SAO, certain combat roles will be given out-of-combat special treatment. I mean, a competant priest/ess would be lauded with all sorts of gifts and favors if it would get them in the deeper portions of the dungeons that gives them higher rewards and wealth. Similar with tanks and protective roles. Essentially, several classes would gain a certain degree of social influence that is more "obvious" than in reality (although it does exist here to some extent as well). This would eventually lead to elitism of sort.

[PyrosNine]

I had an idea for a story about a deathmatch style MMO in the vein of most modern multiplayer shooters these days, though in it's basis it's based on Gunz, but taken to Planetside Levels.

There's this kickass shooter game with people using guns and swords, ranging from semi-automatic pistols to full on rocket launchers, and running and jumping on walls, but no real super powers or magic.

However, there are "styles" and "techniques" which use the suspended reality and game physics to perform superhuman and impossible actions, which take training and a degree of specializing a person's brain to process sensory and input data at ridiculous levels. (Think K-Style and E-style for any major third person FPS these days)

So a lead protagonist would be able to slash a person into the air with their sword, jump up to meet them, slash them again, upwards, dash into them to slash them again upwards, and continue until their air-stuck opponent is out of health, or block a small army's worth of fired bullets while still having the time to shoot all of his opponents in the head, to after images, massive explosions, pseudo-flight.

Players join up into gangs, which control a specific section of the game world, however players ability to control a given area depends on how many of them are online at any given time- a gang that plays in the same timezone is in peril of losing their stuff because while all of them are offline and sleeping or working, another gang can move in with little resistance.

Furthermore, the world does not have fast travel unless you're willing to pay real money, and most pros prefer to pay money for better weapons and armor and other useful things, so the act of traveling from one area to another can take people on foot days of online game time. When a player dies, they also respawn at their home base, and if they have no home base...they respawn at the last uncontested public center which can be in more or less a different country.

So the plot would be about how for the most part, intergang wars are regulated by simple deathmatches for turf instead of straight out war for territory, however once a season, there is a "paradigm shift" where the standard rules of combat are lifted, and it's open season on other gangs with eased rules on combat: one round, instant elimination, and no limitations. THE goal is for any gang to conquer as much territory as possible before the season is over as well as score a lot of kills and accomplishments, so that when the shift is over, the map has dynamically changed in terms of who is in control.

The other thing is that those who performed exceptionally well are given the chance to enter a grand tournament of sorts, to determine which team and which player is the best.

So, after an enemy gang uses leaked information (the announcement of the beginning of the paradigm shift is supposed to be a surprise) to launch an early surprise attack on the player's gang when most of the bulk of the members are offline, and an unregulated hacker takes out their ace by erasing his account, the gang loses all their territory, and most of the members leave and join other gangs to get back their supplies and esteem, and only a few original members of the gang are left.

So they decide that win or lose, they're going to try and get their old spot back before the shift is over, and plan a trek across an in-game continent to do just that, having to fight daily gang wars to ensure that they aren't all sent back to the starting point. Their only card is that their ace returns as a Level 1, forced to login as his sister's account due to the GM's being jerk asses with a hidden agenda about recovering his original one.

The threat's still there, though "your mind makes it real" bullcrap only occurs in that doing extreme gamer-fu can fry your brain if you strain it too hard, but that their plight is hopeless from a single lost battle- they can't control more than one area at once on their way back, because they don't have enough members, and once they leave an area for the next, that area's fair game, so a single battle where everyone on their team is defeated results in loss.

And maybe have a few groups that prefer to battle with "pain simulation settings" that simulate the effects of bloodloss and blunt force trauma, without the possibility of actually dying (but the trauma of seeing and experiencing your body hacked up).

The main story would be told from the perspective of a secondary player who is a kind of "free time warrior" who can only play when not in school/work" but tries his best to hang with the group, but isn't particularly notable in his skills, though they develop over time. The meat of the story would be his perspective of the Ace, who has an almost superhuman Vash the Stampede/Alucard/Rushuna skill with a gun and sword, and quickly recovers lost levels and fame against tough opponents despite being level 1 and playing as his sister's virtual image. The story would kind of be how what it's like to know a particularly skill prodigy of a given game or sport in our time, and how despite their skill they're still flesh and blood, and yet still stand above us in a way like gods.

The other thing would be that obviously, when they're offline in their campaign, life still goes on as normal, and not everyone around them cares about what goes on their silly video game, or feel that they shouldn't be spending so much time devoted to it now compared to before. Have some nods to E-sports, with people behind the scenes pushing certain match-ups or whatnot in their gamble to recruit skilled players for a lucrative team, product sponsorships, and a televised finale.

And other cool stuff, like spending money on using simulations and synthesized food for players to taste food and drink while in a virtual setting, allowing noncombatants or players on their day off to be in a Paris analogue sipping tea while enjoying a cozy afternoon.

There's still so much not done in MMO's these days, and we're only scratching the surface of what's possible, especially if you compare games like Planetside 2 and Day Z, and even Minecraft, where you can do almost all you can do in a real life situation, but way more fun and interesting.

[Aerozord]

plot

so thats what its about. Sadly that makes me unfairly dismissive because it reminds me alot of Yureka (iD_eNTITY in the US) one of my favorite manwha. But seems to lack alot of the things I like about the premise. Such as how one of the things they keep trying to drive home is even within the strict confines of code there are ways to tweak things in your favor. Furthered by hidden easter eggs and even hacking, which in turn have their own limits. Having lives outside the game also adds to complexity. This was something addressed well in Digimon's season 2. There are drawbacks to not being constantly in a virtual world.

See my issue with you being trapped, with one life, is concept becomes kind of arbitrary. With no separation, for all intents and purposes it IS the real world. Yea there is the existential knowledge that it isn't, but I mean from a storytelling perspective it might as well be. I mean there are certainly fantasy stories that just have what is essentially leveling and classes simply as a fact of life.

[Bells]

That much is true. At that point there is very little separation between "trapped in a death game" and simply "stranded in another dimension" plot


There's still so much not done in MMO's these days, and we're only scratching the surface of what's possible, especially if you compare games like Planetside 2 and Day Z, and even Minecraft, where you can do almost all you can do in a real life situation, but way more fun and interesting.

This is also very much true. i always found it interesting how a game coonveys certain real life aspects the more immersive it gets... i mean, games like WarZ/DayZ and Planetside, its pratically an advantage to be able to use a microphone to communicate with people. In DayZ it can be the difference between a bullet in the head or not! ANd i can assure you that rallying your forces with a MIC is ways better than caps lock in local chat... believe me.

In other games, like WarFrame, the Mic option is there... but there is little use to it. Doesn't even feel thematic with all the rogue space ninjas and their in-and-out missions...

I would imagine in a really immersive MMO the social aspect would be crucial. Something like roleplaying a character is trully acting in that momment and i can see it easily messing someone´s brain real quick.

EDIT: And let me tell ya... if you want to see a immersive game, instead of "end game raids" give me a world reset battle. Just imagine this... 2 or more factions in a open map like Planetside. In an area of the map where death is turned to Perma Death. Like a big tower dungeon or something else just as menacing... on the top of that tower, there is a "world crystal" If its destroyed, the world is destroyed. Everybody dies. But they faction that did it gets some sort of big prize that carries over to the new world.

Human nature being what it is.... you can now see a huge faction of dicks who want to destroy the world while another wants to protect it, while daring stepping into the only dungeon in the game where death is permanent for your character. Now THAT is tense...