Only Sense Online (-オンリーセンス・オンライン-) [LightNovel])

[Orpheus01]

Originally Posted by krytyk

First chapter is out, you can now satisfy your curiosity as to identity of MC ^_^.

Originally Posted by krytyk

Fairies coming out of the Thorn Tokens is exclusively a way of sharing the quest, spreading it further. There was no mention nor intention of letting anyone own more than one :3.

When will be the release date of volume 8 of the japanese raw of it?

[Eijigawa]

Volume 8 front cover with Sei nee in bikini!!!!

Spoiler for Big Image:

[obnuchious]

Originally Posted by Eijigawa

Volume 8 front cover with Sei nee in bikini!!!!

Spoiler for Big Image:

could this be......

~thy Beach Episode~?

[NWJY]

Wow like Sei in bikini..
is that ring that Sei wearing...could it be the Fairy ring that she wanted??

[ryuuya]

I just hope yun will make a legendary set also a legenday bow that use magical arrow(that use mp so he will need int). also the type of magic is wind.

he need also a gauntlets and greaves for Close encounter

a ring that give hp and mp regen, also a ring that gives bonus ATK, DEX and INT

[charasu]

you know that yun isn't type of player right

[shadowarc]

Rather than magic arrow currently he seems more likely to go further down the poisoned bow and arrow route (Remember how much fun he seemed to have making poisoned items with emily). Maybe if he gains petrification magic he'll try to combine it with the bow.

[Keila]

Originally Posted by shadowarc

Rather than magic arrow currently he seems more likely to go further down the poisoned bow and arrow route (Remember how much fun he seemed to have making poisoned items with emily). Maybe if he gains petrification magic he'll try to combine it with the bow.

• Arrows with a 'Charm' effect
• Immediately regret it when they grant the nickname 'Cupid'

[Enternal]

First of all, thanks krytyk for the translations! They're really good! I do notice a few typos here and there so I will try to send you the corrections for those later if you don't mind. Anyway I heard about this series for a long time now and it was sitting in my TO READ folder for a while (had epubs). Finally started reading and it ate all my time haha. Read 6 volumes in 2 days.

Anyway why is Yun so... girly and cute? To the point where he confuses me lol. I would have no issue with him being stuck in a girl's body even if that's evil

Anyway I can see that there's more Sei-nei in volume 8! <3 <3 <3
Actually all 3 "sisters" are just
Oh and Magi onee-san is <3 too haha

So reading through a few pages, seems like the current "offered" pairings includes.
1. Yun x Emily
2. Yun x Magi
3. Yun x Myu
4. Yun x Sei
5. Yun x Sei x Myu
4. Yun x Toutobi
5. Yun x Taku
6. Yun x Flein
and this does not include shipping of more than 1 at the same time yet lol (oh just realized I already added one with all 3 sisters lol)

Anyways back to reading volume 7! Really enjoying this since Yun to me is pretty much the "Alchemist" in the Atelier games series by GUST. I mean, his own shop is named "Atelier" (yes I know what Atelier as a word means) so perhaps the author is a fan of the Atelier games? Too bad Yun can't synthesized pies directly out of the cauldron...

[Enternal]

Originally Posted by Naole

This isn't a normal Vrmmo story though and the MC has an annoying lack of common sense even as a crafter.

also the MC tends to whine and complain a lot.

The battle sequences tend to feel kind of repetitive.

And it feels like the author is deliberately keeping the MC somewhat idiotic; I mean even a novice gamer would gain an awareness of the game after some time but after six volumes the MC seems not have had gaming growth and ignores the most obvious things which any novice gamer would notice. you could say progressive character development is weak since MC has no goals.

So in a sense the series can be frustrating and you may want to quit after 3 volumes; honestly I only read it when I'm bored

FYI I'm not a fan of Wuxia and XIANXIA OP stories; i find them similar & repetitive. so in that regard OSO is different.

I don't agree that he lacks common sense as a crafter. Lacking common sense as a gamer, yes, since he isn't a gamer in the first place. Also I don't see him whining or complaining a lot. The times that he does is because people are putting more work on him that he does not want since he merely wants to play the game as his own pace and nothing else interests him. So he's voicing his complains about it so I don't see what's wrong with that.

The battle sequences do feel repetitive at times. However the boss fights in my opinion aren't. They're very detailed and fun to read. At least for me.

Idiotic? No. Ignorant? Probably yes. But like before, he's mainly interested in crafting and experimenting with the crafting system and basically ignores everything else. Plus he does not look at guides but then again, the author seems to implied that there are not many guides on the game and most guides are for the offensive players. And because of Yun's unique selection of senses and how very little or probably no other player had level those senses up to that point, there's not much for him to read on besides personally experimenting with them himself. In addition, he does ask Cloude, Lyle, and Magi a lot on stuff so it's not like he completely isolated himself.

Originally Posted by Naole

Actually he is a novice gamer now; you don't play for months and not pick up a few things. not to mentions that he has a lot of gamers around him so he picks info that way. In a real mmo someone like Yun would never become a top crafter because rising to the top requires a lot of investment in time, and a jack of all trades build in a real MMO is trash because of the time factor; while your busy doing this and that everyone rises in proficiency while you're stuck at the bottom on all your skills. And Yun doesn't spent as much time as others in OSO.

The story gives an unrealistic depiction of an MMO environment and it's broken to favour Yun, and that's why despite the protagonist being idiotic he can still keep up with the likes of Taku.

He may call himself a "jack of all trades" but at least in my eyes, it's clear he specialized in Alchemy, Sythesis, Crafting Knowledge, Engraving, Dosing, and Cooking. Basically he's a crafter in general that focuses on recovery type items and that's the purpose of his shop anyways. He has some skills in crafting weapons and armor but he does not work on these much and when he does, usually he works with someone else like Magi. Other non-crafting related Sense that is high level includes Discovery, Hawk Eye (now Sky Eye), and Bow (now also have long bow), and Enchant Arts with the lowest level being at 27. He used all these sense primarily for his crafting as well (identifying items, enchanting his items, etc.).

Anyways I don't know what you mean about the investment in time because it's clear that he spends a lot or most of his free time in the game. He spend so much time in the game that his friends were a bit worried about him at times (even though he still continued to do his real life chores well). Not only that, in game, he holed himself up in the shop too doing experiments. Although he started late than everyone else so there is that. Finally in battle, it was never shown that he can keep up to Taku. Taku specialized in battle but Yun himself specialized in crafting. For the most part though, Yun can hold himself up in battle but barely. That's completely different compared to "keep up with the likes of Taku".

[Darius Drake]

@ Specialisation: I have to disagree with you, Enternal. Now, I'm not saying that Yun isn't a specialist, just that you spread his specialization too thin. Yun's Specialty is in Consumables, the making and crafting of any and all Consumables. These can be food, potions, pills or Enchantment Stones, but they're still Consumables. The vast majority of Yun's build is for this purpose alone, too.


@ Combat: I think that you might have misunderstood Naole there, Enternal. Either that, or I did. See, in combat, Yun's never seen as a detriment to a fight, quite the opposite, in fact. Even in some of the biggest Boss Battle's, Yun's a highly prominent member of the fighting force. Now, normally, this wouldn't make sense. Syun is ignorant of most Gaming related knowledge, doesn't spend the time focused on increasing his Combat related Senses that other players do, and yet is just as useful, if not more useful, than the Combat Specialized Players.

However, there are reasons presented in the story as to why Yun can be this useful.

- First of all, there's his unusual Sense Build of combining Hawk/Sky Eyes with Enchant/Enchant Arts, making Yun one of the few characters with useful Pure Support Type Spells.

- Secondly, there's Syun's Gaming History. Sure, Syun never really got into games the way his sisters or best friend did, but he still played them. Mostly to play with the other three, but still. And when he played, Syun focused on being a General Support Type Character, one who filled the important gaps that popped up. Now, this wouldn't seem important, until you realize what Magi did in Volume 7 Chapter 5. That Syun learnt how to spot and cover potential openings or dangers in games, regardless of what game it was, as his fellow players were making or running into those openings and dangers.

What do these two things mean? Well, it means that Yun's useful for providing support to anyone, while being highly skilled at noticing when and where that support is best needed, all while keeping watch of his own stats. Basically, he's got general skills in areas that most people have to create specifically for specific games.

[Enternal]

@ Darius Drake,
I think you're misunderstanding something but what you said is basically what I'm trying to get across. Or I just completely suck as making my point.
"Basically he's a crafter in general that focuses on recovery type items and that's the purpose of his shop anyways" meaning he's good at recovery type items, consumables, like potions, revivals, and food through his cooking ability. All of his senses are used towards making better consumables. So you're agreeing with everything I said that I failed to get across. And the list that I made are specifically the Senses that he relied on to make the consumables (Alchemy, Sythesis, Crafting Knowledge, Engraving, Dosing, and Cooking).

Your other points is something I agree with as well. However it's probably me who misunderstood Naole. What I thought Naole said was that Yun can keep up to the likes of Taku in actual combat one on one, sword vs bow, which to him/her is a big negative. Because obviously Yun can't. Yun can hold himself in combat but what he specialized in is support roles mainly through the use of items and enhancements of allies. This is even clearer when he fought one on one with those monsters during the fairy arc where he had so much trouble. On the other hand, his items and enhancement skills during the boss fight with the giant wolf shows where he fits in with his unique skillsets.

Anyways, I did not write it here but in a PM, I basically said Yun is basically the alchemist main character in GUST's Atelier games. The alchemist main character, all girls (except in the Mana Khemia series), specialized in consumables and they do most of the damages or support in the game while the offensive players play the role of the vanguard for the alchemist since the alchemist is generally weak. In the game, you can get really good at crafting and make very powerful bombs with crazy and ridiculous effects and bad status which makes boss fights ridiculously easy. Vice versa, you can make ridiculous status enhancing consumables to support your vanguard and allow them to fight well. In other words, I'm going to guess that the author here is a big fan of the Atelier games and he/she is basically making the Atelier games into an online VRMMORPG lol.

EDIT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jahYFxmWoWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmW0nbHiREU
Here is two short videos from Atelier Totori showing what happens when you synthesized powerful items with powerful boosting traits. This is a tough boss but was taken down very easily. In the first video, we have 2 alchemist (the older one with shorter hair is the MC from the 1st game, Atelier Rorona) with one focus more on attack items and the other focus more on support items. In the 2nd video, the alchemist focus completely on offense using combination of attack items and items boosting items together with an item that allows her to go more than a few times per turn. So... if Yun gets to this level...

[Nvis]

This needs an anime bad. I haven't touched the novels, btw.

[Naole]

Originally Posted by Enternal

Anyways I don't know what you mean about the investment in time because it's clear that he spends a lot or most of his free time in the game. He spend so much time in the game that his friends were a bit worried about him at times (even though he still continued to do his real life chores well). Not only that, in game, he holed himself up in the shop too doing experiments. Although he started late than everyone else so there is that. Finally in battle, it was never shown that he can keep up to Taku. Taku specialized in battle but Yun himself specialized in crafting. For the most part though, Yun can hold himself up in battle but barely. That's completely different compared to "keep up with the likes of Taku".

As has already been pointed out that even though it's claimed that Yun isn't a gamer he clearly has a substantial gaming history.

In this story you'd have to suspend your Intelligence to accept that such a person could rise to the crafting heights. Between the cooking, cleaning, laundry and household shopping Syun does at home he gets at the most 5 hours of gaming per day since he's also the diligent student and gets plenty of sleep. How would that compare with a neet or pro gamer who spends 12 - 15 hours a day in the Game?.

The Compounded Difference in competency would be enormous!

You could claim that Yun has higher intelligence but that would be false since the MMO gaming community is primary composed of the smarter people in society; the geeks, the nerds and so on.

More importantly we're talking about what by all appearances is a normal high-schooler and not someone who possesses an acute intellect.

That's why his prominence as a Grafter is incredulous; the sort of thing that can only happen if everybody is standing still.

People notice that Enchants are useful but make no attempts to copy, they notice that Hawkeyes is useful when leveled but make no attempt to use it? And the examples go on and on.

We're talking about perhaps one of the Few VRMMO available and yet there's none of the Skills investigations all of us are familiar with in normal MMO's.

Wouldn't the Gaming Websites, Magazines and TV Channels have been all over this?

It's like suddenly your in the age of VRMMO but societal information level has regressed to the 1990's or something.

Completely Incredulous!

It would be one thing if the Author had made Yun a quirky character on the sidelines while the others are reaching the heights of the game but the Author has put Yun at the centre and able to relate and able to be a companion of the top Gamers and it make the whole thing dubious.

I can't call OSO we well though-out VRMMO series because it simply isn't.

Anyone who's been on a Raid in an MMO would tell you that what's been described in OSO isn't even almost believable.

Log Horizon does a far better job at this.

OSO is light hearted Incredulity.

[Darius Drake]

@ Naole: The only people who "know" about Hawk Eye's usefulness is only Taku's Group, who agreed to keep it a secret. The only sense outsiders would notice watching Yun fighting is that she, somehow, manages to break the range on Enchant, while also multi casting it. Remember, Yun's Sense Build is not revealed to the general public in the world.

Additionally, there are people who use Enchant, but they use it primarily for Self Support, so while it can be believed that Yun either stumbled on a sub-skill, or found a different way to level it up that the other players. Either way, I feel like we can discard "outsiders" just working out the trick to Yun's Combat Build on their own.


Onto crafting. While your complaints make sense, to a degree, you also have to understand that almost everyone who's playing right now are hard-core gamers. This gives them a different mentality, and, probably, an incorrect base assumption. Think of how Crafting is in almost every game there is. How "Alchemy" works in games is a fantastic, and probably the best, example. You grab a bunch of stuff, you throw it in a pot, and you get out... something dependant purely on what you threw in. No variation on anything other than chance, no personal effort, no time taken, throw stuff in a pot, wait ten seconds and take out the finished product. Many of the people playing are used to THAT, and only THAT as their "crafting".

Add things like "Syun already knows how to cook quite well", "Yun has a Sense Build which is optimised for crafting, while other Crafter's are likely less optimised", "There's Hundreds, if not Thousands of Skills and Subskills", "Soft Skill Point Use Limits", and "Cost of Farming Land", and we're starting to get somewhere with why Yun's on her own level.

Basically, Yun's made her build based almost completely on Skills that the other player's don't like as much (that is the point of her build). This also means that it's the last places that the players who are doing things like Skill Investigations are likely to be going is for her senses.


Finally, I want to point something out to you, Naole, that you seem to have forgotten. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's only 5,000 players in Only Sense Online at the moment, and I believe that there's a max of 10,000 players. The vast majority of these players purposefully build "combat classes" they know from other games. And, while Yun is more than happy to get caught up in experimentation for hours on end, most player's... aren't.


All in all, I consider it excusable.

[Enternal]

Can't type a full out response right now but just look at all the crafters Sense data that we have so far. None of the crafters have Alchemy, Discovery, Dosing, Enchant Arts, and Hawk Eyes. They do all have Crafting Knowledge. Cloude does have Synthesis but low level. Magi has Engraving. There is also Emilio who does share Alchemy, Synthesis, and Craftsmanship but that is the reason why the two paired up in the first place and share knowledge since they're similar enough. Only the Cloude, Lyle, and Magi knows some of Yun's senses. His Hawk Eyes high level effects is only known to Taku's group and possibly Myu and Sei-nei. In addition, there is Linguistics which Cloude has too but the books he reads are different to what Yun reads. Alchemy, Synthesis, Enchant, Discovery, Dosing, Hawk Eyes, Linguistics, and cooking (changing now due to Satiety system though Yun's natural cooking ability makes his place pretty popular) are all unpopular. His Speed Increase, generally used for battle, helps with his speed of making items. His Enchant, generally a battle support and expected as such, is also used to help craft his items. In beta, apparently nobody leveled these senses past double digits iirc and as a result, very few information is known about their effects and advantages at high levels. Also, while Yun did not play beta, he did start on OSO the day it came out. So beta players aside, he has the same starting point as everyone else.

About the guides, it is made by players. Since a lot of things related to Yun's senses are not known since most people are offensive players and crafters generally keep their knowledge a secret (which was why there was selling and buying of crafting knowledge in the first place), they are not in the guide and Yun and co did contemplate putting them in but decided not to keep Yun's advantages.

Yun's advantage is he starts with "bad" skills and because of that, he had to make use of what he has and experiment. As a result, he finds out things such as Enchant and Speed Increase can help with crafting items.

Also, he has gaming history and that is most likely because Myu, Sei, and Taku are hardcore gamers so they have him play with them. So he is more of a casual gamer than one who comes into a game with self intentions. Until now that is...

[kaisis]

Originally Posted by Naole

and yet there's none of the Skills investigations all of us are familiar with in normal MMO's.

You mean datamining? Because that's all how modern MMOs are 'investigated'. Then you have theorycrafters who just take the math to create the highest dps rotations.

So since datamining doesn't seem to be a thing in this VRMMO, then all that leaves is manually grinding every skill, which Enternal and Darius have already stated that players are gonna grind what they enjoy which are mostly direct combat-related.

[Naole]

Originally Posted by Darius Drake

@ Naole: The only people who "know" about Hawk Eye's usefulness is only Taku's Group, who agreed to keep it a secret. The only sense outsiders would notice watching Yun fighting is that she, somehow, manages to break the range on Enchant, while also multi casting it. Remember, Yun's Sense Build is not revealed to the general public in the world.


Add things like "Syun already knows how to cook quite well", "Yun has a Sense Build which is optimised for crafting, while other Crafter's are likely less optimised", "There's Hundreds, if not Thousands of Skills and Subskills", "Soft Skill Point Use Limits", and "Cost of Farming Land", and we're starting to get somewhere with why Yun's on her own level.

Basically, Yun's made her build based almost completely on Skills that the other player's don't like as much (that is the point of her build). This also means that it's the last places that the players who are doing things like Skill Investigations are likely to be going is for her senses.


Finally, I want to point something out to you, Naole, that you seem to have forgotten. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's only 5,000 players in Only Sense Online at the moment, and I believe that there's a max of 10,000 players. The vast majority of these players purposefully build "combat classes" they know from other games. And, while Yun is more than happy to get caught up in experimentation for hours on end, most player's... aren't.


All in all, I consider it excusable.

Really? your gonna go with the MC just happened to pick skills that are useful and nobody knows about them?

Let's take mixing yet everyone ignores it and she ends up as a top Mixing user despite the fact that she/he spends far less time in the game than most of the hardcore gamers; some of them crafters. given that the betas knew about less effectiveness of NPC potions after leveling mixing would have been an obvious target. the reason given for less interest in mixing is completely bogus.

The point is that once People see Yun's success the Guilds would copy her; and since no special skill is required they would quickly surpass her given his limited game-play time.

And that's my point it's too convenient. an MMO with 5000 isn't an MMO it's a Multiplayer Game.

So what you are saying is that a corporation with a technological level higher than google or Apple can only produce 5,000-10,000 units in the 6 months or so and they're able to keep the price low enough for teenagers to afford the purchase of a unit. Do you see something wrong with this Picture?

There's that Snake eyes in V2? so you mean the only ones who find out about Hawk-eyes targeting are the bunch of teenagers? a mage wouldn't have noticed the extension of range and the effects on targeting? I find that hardly believable.

This is what I mean about examples of Yun having and advantage because everyone else is standing still and apparently they don't do any thinking of their own.

If we're talking about one of the first VRMMO then the investigation would be far more through just as we see with the most highly anticipated current MMOs.

OSO is a half-assed in its premise and it makes the Yun character Incredulous.

Originally Posted by kaisis

You mean datamining? Because that's all how modern MMOs are 'investigated'. Then you have theorycrafters who just take the math to create the highest dps rotations.

So since datamining doesn't seem to be a thing in this VRMMO, then all that leaves is manually grinding every skill, which Enternal and Darius have already stated that players are gonna grind what they enjoy which are mostly direct combat-related.

Investigation is determined by the level of interest. if we're talking about one of the first VRMMORPG then the investigation would go far beyond a cursory exercise in Data mining.

The assumption that there wouldn't be people actually paid to investigate skills or staff from media organizations playing the game show the extent of the lack of imagination.

I for one would be hard pressed to lob accolades where they don't belong, and OSO just doesn't meet the standard of incisive writing. Even Daybreak on Hyperion is far better than OSO; this despite the fact that it has none of the resources provided by the publishers of OSO.

OSO gives a narrow perspective characteristic of insular Japanese thinking so it falls short of offering true well thought out insight and reduces itself to the mindless drivel masquerading as foresight.

[Enternal]

Really? your gonna go with the MC just happened to pick skills that are useful and nobody knows about them?

Yes. People know that these Senses are not very good because it's true. These Senses are inefficient and not very useful... at lower level. This is still a new game so they don't know the Senses' additional skills and potency at higher levels which are not documented and since most are interested in fighting rather than crafting, they don't choose these Senses. The people who are most likely to pick these Senses are those who wants to be crafters. It's implied that they are fewer in numbers. Yun precisely pick these Senses because they are unpopular with the majority of players. Yun also happens to pick all of them in one fell swoop as that was her intention. Yes there are many crafters who must at least have one or more of these Senses in and definitely discovered its capabilities. However, it has also been implied multiple times that they often keep it a secret to keep their advantages in the game if it helps them develop rare items. However it also most likely not in the same combination as Yun and therefor their crafting results will more than likely be different. Once again, Yun happens to pick them all up in one go unlike the usual "crafting players with common sense", learned about their strengths and their uses and the optimum ways they can be all be used together. These combination of Senses happens to be really helpful in crafting powerful consumables.

The point is that once People see Yun's success the Guilds would copy her; and since no special skill is required they would quickly surpass her given his limited game-play time.

Only if you're assuming that they know her Sense build from the beginning. Or assuming that whatever methods to make items are instantly posted online (which it's not at least for crafters). Once they do eventually find out, she would still be ahead of them at least for a while because she's been continuously developing those Senses and skills from the very start. Since they don't know, they will need to continue to figure it out or buy the information like Magi, Lyle, and Cloude suggested before with Yun.

There's that Snake eyes in V2? so you mean the only ones who find out about Hawk-eyes targeting are the bunch of teenagers? a mage wouldn't have noticed the extension of range and the effects on targeting? I find that hardly believable.

People did noticed. They noticed it which is why they had Yun participated in battles. Taku's group however knew of the precise Sense that allowed this since Yun talked to them about it. Others do not so they will need to figure it out first. It is very likely there are other players who knows about this but they, like Taku's group, decided to keep quiet about it. They definitely will recognize Enchant since it's relatively common. Not as easy with Hawk Eye since most assumed it's only for ranged vision. And the times that she used it in battles, it's not the free time where players can sit around and stare at Yun to see the conditions that is required to use it to figure out what they are like in Taku's case.

People will eventually figure things out. But while they try to figure it out, Yun's ahead of the curve in consumables because of the combination of Senses that she picked. Since very few knows her exact combination of Senses (and those that do hide it for Yun), they will first need to select the right Senses and combination, then level them up to the appropriate level that helped Yun to develop the specific items, then know the right combination of items and actions to generate those consumables. The crafting of items is not a simply click a button here and there to generate an item (like how cooking and crafting is presented in SAO), the items are actually handmade and this add a larger and more complex component to the crafting system and increase complexity of the crafting of items with those desired traits.

The crafting system presented here is much more complex than in the Atelier games even. In the Atelier games, crafting items can be difficult for high quality items. You need to find the right items with the necessary quality (which degrade over time as you can carry them), necessary traits, and as well as the traits you desire, and then combine them in the right way with the right skills and level for it to be successful. Then you will need to find ways to mass produce them. Fortunately, you generally have the recipes that are easy to find unlike here in OSO where you must have the Linquistics Sense to read them. Or you can find the recipes in books that are sold, from event quests, and dungeons. Therefore what I see presented here is the flexibility of the game system. How many people would actually think that a supposed battle type Sense like Enchant Arts, would work on an item? Or Speed Increase could actually be used to help you speed up your crafting? These are simple things but when if you're a gamer, you played many games that have restrictions such as battle skills are for battles and crafting skills are for crafting. Therefore these thoughts are not the exactly the norm. Therefore the fact that Yun thought of them showed that she's not a heavy gamer and therefor isn't bounded by a gamer's "common sense".

With the introduction of Emilio, also a famous crafter, who has quite a few similar combination of Senses with Yun, it's clear and expected that there are definitely other crafters who knows about these Senses or has a Senses build a bit similar to Yun. On the other hand, Emilio's Senses are optimized towards taming and controlling of crafted mobs. Therefore her build, too, is unique just like Yun. Just like Yun, she can craft quite a few of the items that Yun can, but just not as high level as Yun since Yun's build is optimized for consumables. So clearly there are more players that have similar combinations but probably optimized for what they like to do more in the game.


However all that said, it seems like you already have thought out strong opinions about this series. Unfortunately it also seems you were not able to find much or anything else at all in this series that you could enjoy and neither do I know how many volumes you have read thus far. I, for one, am a very casual MMORPG player so I know very little of the deeper aspects of it. However other than the flaws that you have stated, I still found many of other aspects of this series very enjoyable and will continue to do so. This includes the battles and crafting system as the way it's presented, is very similar to the Atelier games which I highly enjoyed.

[kaisis]

Is OSO one of the first VRMOs in its universe? I don't recall any background of MMOs in general being talked about, but then again it's been a long time since I read vol 1.

And in the end Naole, I think your problem is that you're trying to take OSO too seriously. It's not SAO, where real deal life and death shit happens. It's not Ark or Moonlight Sculptor, where the MC wants-to-be-the-very-best-like-no-one-ever-was for the sake of money and greed. It's just SoL (Slice of Life). It's been like that since vol 1 and it has continued to be so. So all your hullaballoo about OSO 'not meeting the standard of incisive writing' or it 'falling short of offering true well thought-out insight' doesn't matter, because it never aimed for that to begin with.