Dragon Quest Online (SAO/Worm)

A tiny girl, maybe ten years old, with long black hair and a white dress. She curtsies adorably.
[] [Meet] Yui
Little girl who's secretly an AI that is Too Good for This Sinful Earth and exists only to die tragically and fuck with something that might have actually saved people's lives.

A young teenage girl, maybe twelve or fourteen, wearing yellow leather armor and sandy pigtails. She offers a friendly smile.
[] [Meet] Silica
Small cute girl who has/will have a pet dragon. Might see Kirito as a big brother.

A pink-haired girl wearing a red coat and carrying a warhammer as tall as she is. She grins excitedly as you turn to face her.
[] [Meet] Lisbeth
Player Crafter whom Kirito goes on a wacky adventure for advanced crafting materials with. (It's actually Dragon shit.)

An older girl in a white hakama, leaning on a spear. She smiles warmly and encouragingly.
[] [Meet] Asuna
The successful Waifu who will die but not really.

A girl taking down her hood to reveal green hair and whisker marks. She seems to be laughing at some kind of private joke.
[] [Meet] Argo
No idea either!
 
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

SAO is full of design decisions that would flat-out destroy a real-life MMO.

The most hilarious part is that SAO is practically a masterclass in game design compared to GGO.

You might not have known this, but the author of the SAO light novels isn't actually an MMO player.

This...isn't really an excuse. A fundamental part of good storytelling is an internally consistent, believable world. If you're going to write a story centred around gaming, especially one focused around a pro-level player, then you are absolutely and unquestionably obligated to learn enough about the subject to make the setting halfway believable. And none of the games presented in SAO are believable. It's not even nearly SAO's worst problem, but still.

But, back to the point!
[1] [Meet] Yui
[5] [Meet] Silica
[4] [Meet] Lisbeth
[3] [Meet] Asuna
[2] [Meet] Argo

Lord of the Flies Simulator 2024

I almost fell off my chair laughing, you bastard. I'm stealing that as my official term for SAO. :rofl:
 
@Vebyast You might not have known this, but the author of the SAO light novels isn't actually an MMO player. In fact he designed Kirito based on how he thought of a cool MMO player that he wanted to be, without actually knowing the ins and outs of MMO's.
[LE GASP] MY LIFE IS A LIEEEEEEE!!!! *overdramatic sobbing*

Never seen SAO beyond the first couple episodes, so I have no idea who any of these are, save Asuna, who I think is the deutagonist.
She's the one who had interesting character traits, didn't know what was going on, figured out what was going on, became a major player in the game, and then fell in love with Kirito and lost all of her interesting traits.

Wait, I should probably specify a bit more.

EDIT: Aw dammit. Edit ate my rant.

Erm. She was the one he married, in game? I dunno.

EDIT II: To summarize the rant, shortly after she left Kirito's presence, she started to act like a character again, and nearly escaped the other VRMMO she got stuck in. She got done in by devs/mad scientists acting like idiots, got molested by one of said devs(who were in tentacle monster form, for some reason), and then Kirito entered the same town/server shard/map/whathaveyou as her(which had expectable, if highly disappointing, results).

My point was that, with absence, Kirito-induced Bland Haremmite Syndrome will slowly go away! Just be aware that it's seemingly AOE with map-spanning range after it first takes hold.
 
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@Vebyast You might not have known this, but the author of the SAO light novels isn't actually an MMO player. In fact he designed Kirito based on how he thought of a cool MMO player that he wanted to be, without actually knowing the ins and outs of MMO's.

I heard that on Digibro's youtube videos. That man has a lot of passion for saying how terrible and utterly shit SAO is. I liked SAO, but even I know that it's not a realistic MMO.
That's very obvious. Still not excusable though. I mean, I hacked out a better mechanics system in a day and I cannot into math.
 
[1] [Meet] Yui
[2] [Meet] Silica
[3] [Meet] Argo
[4] [Meet] Lisbeth
[5] [Meet] Asuna

Still cheesed at how Alice casually fell in love with Kirito, in Alicization. The end of Alicization was also such a mess -.-
But at least we got the pleasure of watching her beat the crap out of him that one time.
 
Whelp. I'm out.
SAO may be one of my favorite settings, and I do acknowledge Kirito has loads of problems in terms of a story's character... but the "its cool to hate" bandwagoning in this thread is getting to me.

Remember: by virtual of being the focus character of a story, Kirito's the best and/or the most central character out of 2 thousand players stuck in SAO (except Hit-cliff)... with "central" being "part of the front liners".
I'd shout "unbelievable!!" more if he's a combat wimp but still manages to be the key character to collapse SAO's death game... not without the first big arc ending very, very differently.

On another note, have some in-universe lampshading (paraphrased) : "It is more enjoyable to play a game than to simply watch others play..." - Kirito, when ousting Heathcliff's true identity.

The point being: IF SAO (and its copy/paste Log Horizon) is a working MMO with MMO mechanics... we'd be likely BORED out of our minds, or the story would have to add on LOADS of something else other than "guys, MMO iz wonderful, rite?" to stop that (Log Horizon did that with inter-factional politics and the new world's mystery... poorly at that).


(Edit: I also greatly disagree he's oblivious to the Harem around him: while he just can't stop himself from throwing himself into harm's way and thus accidentally swiping affections, he is also singularly unlike most (if not all) male Anime Protag in the fact that he pretty much chose Asuna almost from the start, and stayed by his choice almost all the way to the latest chapters... he even apologized to Liz after he knew her infatuation, instead of most anime's "would he, wouldn't he" male leads.

But I do agree on Asuna's increasing plot irrelevance as the series continues however. That, and a government agent seeking out a SCHOOLING CHILD to solve murders, no matter how good said kid is in a game. )
 
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[3] [Meet] Yui
[5] [Meet] Silica
[4] [Meet] Lisbeth
[2] [Meet] Asuna
[1] [Meet] Argo

So is this Dragon or Pandora or some other iteration of Worm's white hat AI?
 
@wkz Hey, I'd like to apologize for my (heavy) contribution toward driving you out. However, please remember that what the players say has little to no effect on the quest itself. I suspect the Kirito/mechanics bashing will settle down when we get more to do and discuss.


(and its copy/paste Log Horizon)

As I don't wish to derail the thread, I will merely point out that the creation dates for the two aren't nearly sufficient to make it a copy-paste. .hack was a thing in Japan before SAO, too, and by that logic, SAO is a copy-paste of .hack. (Which it really isn't.)
 
(Which it really isn't.)
Yeah. For all it's problems, SAO does seem to be a genuine attempt to do something new with the whole trapped in a vidja game thing. and Log Horizon is even more different.

@Vebyast does Dragon retain any degree of her multitasking, processing capability or other AI based doodads? I'm assuming she won't have all of it, because that would be ludicrously OP, but even a little?
 
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