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Originally Posted by Clarste
Would a monster at this level even be able to hurt them? They could probably have ignored it and kept walking.
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Considering there's a little girl wandering (potentially for a while, urban stories don't pop up overnight) around without weapons, and people fishing without weapons, and Kirito x Asuna came here for their honeymoon, it could be one of those horribly boring and lame MMO zones without many monsters. It happens.
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Originally Posted by Kamui04
Just like how the japanese Yakuza originated, criminals filling in the role of guardians and keeping order in the places where the government didn't reach and at the same time extorting protection money from the people. But in the end like people say all politicians are nothing more than rats in a suit.
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Yup! Keep in mind, someone was doing Sleep PK... and the easiest spot to do that would be in the starter town. Get a few thousand people in one spot who can't afford rooms / food / are half crazed with despair and you'll find people to kill. So there could be perfectly logical reasons they're there... but after two years of 'protecting' these lowlifes I'm sure the motives aren't very pure anymore.
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Originally Posted by Wild Goose
Also, reading about something is not the same as experiencing something for yourself. I have played EVE. And the gamers treat it in the manner I have spoken. Hell, one of the US embassy staffers who died in Libya? He was an EVE player; he infiltrated one of EVE's top corporations (guild equivalent), spent a year working his way up to become second in command... And then he stole all the guild assets, returned to his original corp and helped them gut the corp he infiltrated.
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Eve Online's Vile Rat, Sean Smith... a person who enjoyed diplomacy so much that after hanging up his hat working in an embassy doing diplomat stuff, that he logged into a video game and did more of it after hours. In fact, did it often enough he was well known as one of the game's more powerful / influential diplomats, was also a player-elected official on the companies board of advisories council. There have been some pretty extensive memorial services for his character in-game. Heck, there's been some talk from CCP, the game's creator about making a permanent addition to the game in his memory. But that's terribly off-topic.
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Originally Posted by Clarste
The mechanics are a game, but the people are people. If people want to extort money from others and think they have the ability to, then they will. The fact that they're calling them taxes is interesting, since it implies that they think of themselves as a legitimate government, but I'm sure we'll see more of the Army in the future. So there's time to explain it.
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There are certainly some 'game mechanic' elements the show hasn't touched upon. Someone has to be holding all those PK'ers prison in a jail, and we've been shown that it isn't going to be the game's 'system'.
Considering a few things from this ep, and the prior:
A) The 'army' apparently isn't really named the Army, likely a player nickname? They call themselves the 'Liberation Front' or simply 'Front'. It certainly can't be two separate groups with exactly the same armor.
It's a 'town' of 2,000 people, 30% of the total population. We don't know how much a 'room' in the starter town costs, but you probably can't afford a permanent roof over your head without doing something for money. Maybe the tax is used to pay for rooms for all those people to sleep in? We really don't know.
We're assuming they are low-life scum because they're trying to get kids (one of whom is a little girl) to strip out of their clothes in the name of taxes, but who really knows their deal. It's probably fairly foul, but might have started with the best of intentions. Heck, there are real world armies in 3rd world countries that do worse.
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Originally Posted by Triple_R
But we're to believe that some pre-teen kids somehow picked up a heavily anticipated VR MMO on launch day, started playing it, and have managed to survive for two years in it? Man, that's a lot to swallow.  |
They are in the starter town... so it's not like they're brash and ballsy adventurer's risking their lives on the middle floors. Likely they've got a few levels, and farm the boars outside town for enough money to keep a roof over their head. And out of 10,000 people, at least a few of them will be kids. Those kids are going to be in for a world of pain / despair, but I don't think it's so surprising. Lots of parents are pretty shirty about how they raise their kids, sadly.
I know enough parents who have kids that play MMO's with them (in a highly controlled way), but having your under-aged children join that new awesome-sauce VR MMO on day one with you? doesn't sound too shocking.
waaah~ long post is long...
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