Sword Art Online - Game Mechanics and Technology [for Novel Readers, with Spoilers]

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by styr

Like that guy in the starting city who was wary of telling Asuna/Kirito about the '5 col' piece of fruit that drops every few hours...

there is also advancing skills like cooking and fishing. you can become a fish and chip vendor. which is what i would most likely end up.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

there is also advancing skills like cooking and fishing. you can become a fish and chip vendor. which is what i would most likely end up.

Yeah, but getting ingredients would be a problem, especially at first.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Yeah, but getting ingredients would be a problem, especially at first.

better then waiting for fruit to drop and sell for 5 col.

[Jinx999]

Originally Posted by styr

Like that guy in the starting city who was wary of telling Asuna/Kirito about the '5 col' piece of fruit that drops every few hours...

Which does not provide enough to rent a room (100 coil per night).

And without adventuring you won't get the xp to level up and gain additional skill slots to learn marketable skills.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

better then waiting for fruit to drop and sell for 5 col.

True. I'm just saying, it's not risk-free.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

True. I'm just saying, it's not risk-free.

oh sure but the risk is minimal if you stick to the low level areas.

[Anh_Minh]

But then you won't get the rare ingredients, which will further slow your growth.

Originally Posted by n120cky

I don't know if okay to post it here but, I think this the best thread for it:
Would you think nervGear technology and a virtual world would be a great concept of future jail system?

1. There is no way the inmate will have chance to escape.
2. Guards can easily observe them.
3. They can have chance to rehabilitate in the virtual community.
4. The visitor can meet them in virtual world.

Hook them up permanently for the length of their sentence, you mean? Too many medical problems. It doesn't mean it can't be used, but it would have to be a few hours a day. Maybe they can sleep with it if it makes them feel better.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

But then you won't get the rare ingredients, which will further slow your growth.

rare ingredients are a matter of luck and isn't necessary to advance in a skill. Just being persistent will do it. The money will help with buying better cooking equipment which increase chance of making better food.

anyway i will be offering Fish&Chips not Shark Fin & Chips.

[Anh_Minh]

You (probably) make more skill advance making expensive stuff from high end ingredients. (Not just rare drops from weak monsters, but, more importantly, normal drops from stronger monsters.) Isn't that how most games are balanced?

Which means your competitor, who also serves fish & chips but also has a shark fin & chips dish on the menu, will increase his skill faster, and be able to afford good equipment earlier, so that with the same ingredients, his fish & chips will be better.

There are ways to make do with what you have - like obsessive experimentation with spices to really make the most of your ingredients - but that, also, takes resources. (And time.)

[styr]

Imagine having to compete with NPC food stalls/restaurants as a player? Doesn't seem very fair, although I imagine any merchant types like Egil also had to deal with this. I believe Kirito mentions that NPC's food stock is never-ending and replenishes itself when it gets low.

If you think about it, that's pretty.. "OP" compared to what a player has to do to get a food shop up and running to make a profit. Since players can run out of food stock and it does not regenerate on it's own.

I think this was mentioned in the 'Algade Showdown' story, aka ME6.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by styr

Imagine having to compete with NPC food stalls/restaurants as a player? Doesn't seem very fair, although I imagine any merchant types like Egil also had to deal with this. I believe Kirito mentions that NPC's food stock is never-ending and replenishes itself when it gets low.

actually that is no problem. It has been food form NPC are bland.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

actually that is no problem. It has been food form NPC are bland.

Not always. Silica was staying at an inn where she liked the cheesecake.

[SagaraSouske]

Originally Posted by Krono

It's pretty clear that it's not programmed that way. It's vastly simpler to program the menus along the lines of "does player avatar intersect the menu" using simple collision detection, than it is to program the menus to first check to see if a player is the one moving the arm to intersect the menu, or if someone else is moving their arm for them.

In the course of a normal game, the difference should not be a major problem, and would probably be patched if it managed to become one. Under the circumstances, it's a moderately important problem, and they don't have anyone issuing fixes for that sort of oversight.

If it was simple collision detection, a player can pretty much do a lot more the force sleeping player to accept duel. They can force them to trade all their items and money, turn off ethics code and do what they please, or even use sleeping player to kill other sleeping player, etc.

Originally Posted by Adigard

I don't recall anything in the LN that mentioned this (prior to UW at least, and even that's fuzzy).

Certainly in SAO I'd consider player actions to be directed from their mind to the nerves which SAO intercepts... we know player's don't start running IRL when they start running in SAO.

But there's nothing to suggest SAO is actually 'reading' player's minds, when it'd be much easier to assume the NERV gear is simply intercepting their muscle movements. Remember, it's a game. If the player's have to learn an entirely new way to control the game... it's not going to be very succesful, and since it was designed to be fully immersive I'd assume physical movements affecting the in-game menu's to be the most likely.

Remember, player's don't think to themselves "skill X, go!", nor do they shout "Straight slash, go!", they move their arm/hand into the proper position, pause for the system assist, then begin the skill with the system assisting their movements.

Even putting that aside, it took SOOOO long for the sleep-PK issue to be found / exploited that I'd simply assume it was never discovered or thought of during the testing process.

From what we know of Kayaba from the novels (although I do not like the way his character is used in the murder SS) I get the feeling he wouldn't really care enough to change it, and the <<Cardinal>> system likely would not consider it a bug nor exploit to 'fix'

LN didn't go in detail behind the nerve gear tech. But when you are talking about moving arm, leg etc commanding your muscle to perform actions, that is still a result of your brain sending out neural signals. Remember how kirito told klein on the first day that nerve gear intercepts all your neural signals so that your cannot use your hand in real life to remove nerve gear yourself, or get up. It is most likely all actions in game are direct translations of what your brain wants to signal your body to do by nerve gear.

Nerve gear certainly isn't reading player's mind. It just replaces the player's neural pathways and transimission system (aka central nervous system) and makes the actions your brain commands occur on your virtual avatar as suppose to the real body. At least that's how I understand it. If that is the case, no one else should be able to make your avatar do anything, even accepting a duel since there is no command coming from the sleeping player's nerve gear, basically equivalent of game controller or command input device.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by SagaraSouske

If it was simple collision detection, a player can pretty much do a lot more the force sleeping player to accept duel. They can force them to trade all their items and money, turn off ethics code and do what they please, or even use sleeping player to kill other sleeping player, etc.

And they do. At least for the trade. The killing players with a sleeping puppet bit seems overcomplicated.

[Clarste]

Well, killing other players with a sleeping puppet has nothing to do with the menu anyway, based on how they've explained the attack system.

[SagaraSouske]

Using sleeping player to initiate duel with second sleeping player, force second accept with his or her hand, then use first player hand to auto attack till second is dead or even use sword skills by swing the first sleeping player's arm to get system assist.

You could then also in making players that are awake perform actions in their menu by simply forcibly grab their arm with more strength and open menus. If you invest in strength and the other player didn't, you pretty much can control the other player by brute force if such was the case, even in safe areas.

[Clarste]

And... what exactly would the point of that be? Duels don't flag you orange, and if they could just check the name of the killer in some combat log somewhere they wouldn't be having a murder mystery, now would they?

[Awrya]

Originally Posted by SagaraSouske

Using sleeping player to initiate duel with second sleeping player, force second accept with his or her hand, then use first player hand to auto attack till second is dead or even use sword skills by swing the first sleeping player's arm to get system assist.

You could then also in making players that are awake perform actions in their menu by simply forcibly grab their arm with more strength and open menus. If you invest in strength and the other player didn't, you pretty much can control the other player by brute force if such was the case, even in safe areas.

There is no auto attack in SAO, otherwise Klein wouldn't have had so much trouble against a boar. You have to initiate all normal attacks yourself, so far only sword skills got system assist. No need for a duel, simply use sleeping player A's sword to attack sleeping player B. A would be orange and if you continue he would become red.

There is a harassment function, originally intended to prevent other players from moving your avatar against your will. If he is awake, all he has to do is press yes when harassment message appears and the culprit is teleported to the prison.

[SagaraSouske]

If I hold both of your arms, how are you going to click yes on the pop up menu for harassment? And what if I have an accomplice as well? What if I turn off your ethic code first so harassment pop up will never occur?

What I mean by auto attack is normal attack that is not a skilled attack, which you can forcibly create with the sleeping player's arm if equip it with a weapon.

@Clarste, duels do generate a system message on who the winner is. That's why Kirito asked everyone check for Duel Winner message when Kains died. If I perform the duel in an alley between two sleeping players and then go in a room that is near by before people who saw the message and come investigate, those that show up will think sleeping player 1 killed sleeping player 2 through sleep PK. In fact, I don't even need the players to be asleep if I have partners. I can grab anyone that doesn't look too strong off the street, muffle their mouth, tied them up and then use their hands with a dagger to stab another player that is tied up to death using duel system in town. Essentially Pkers are like kidnapper/murders in RL.

Anyways, the point is that a pure collision based system has too many issues and even more loop holes. The way nerve gear was described in the LN point more towards control through player's neural signals.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by SagaraSouske

If I hold both of your arms, how are you going to click yes on the pop up menu for harassment? And what if I have an accomplice as well? What if I turn off your ethic code first so harassment pop up will never occur?

They can also shout.

@Clarste, duels do generate a system message on who the winner is. That's why Kirito asked everyone check for Duel Winner message when Kains died. If I perform the duel in an alley between two sleeping players and then go in a room that is near by before people who saw the message and come investigate, those that show up will think sleeping player 1 killed sleeping player 2 through sleep PK.

Anyways, the point is that a pure collision based system has too many issues and even more loop holes. The way nerve gear was described in the LN point more towards control through player's neural signals.

They generate the Winner message halfway between the players. It only works as a clue if one of the players is visible, as in the case of the murder. The theory being that the murderer started the duel and started running after impaling him, and therefore they might be able to catch him by seeing which direction he ran.

If you're in a situation where you can freely do whatever you like to two sleeping players, it's safe to assume there are no witnesses in the first place. So you can do whatever the hell you like and no one will ever know. It's not like they leave behind bodies or any other kind of evidence. After you kill someone they disappear in a bunch of sparkles and light. No one would even know there was a murder unless they happen to check the tablet on the first floor. So the "manipulate one to duel the other" is completely pointless.