Sword Art Online - Episode 12 Discussion / Poll

[Eclipze]

So...did the boss monster activate an anti-crystal field when it appeared or something? Army Girl with Yui could reach the safe point before the boss could land his 2nd hit, and the time kirito/asuna took to set up that block seemed plenty to use teleport crystals.

The way the army guys teleported away off-screen after Yui went out to face the boss feels weird as well.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Eclipze

So...did the boss monster activate an anti-crystal field when it appeared or something? Army Girl with Yui could reach the safe point before the boss could land his 2nd hit, and the time kirito/asuna took to set up that block seemed plenty to use teleport crystals.

I guess that Kirito was keeping "aggro" on the boss to let the others escape. If he had tried to run for the safe area as well, the boss may have pursued, and that scythe seems pretty long. (But, you're correct that the length of time between attacks seemed a bit excessively long due to all the talking. It would have made a bit more sense if the boss had done some minor attacks against Kirito in the meantime, which isn't impossible but we didn't see it.) Your supposition that the boss had some sort of field (that the safe area was exempt from) makes sense.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Wait... what development is it that you're having a hard time accepting exactly? The "can of woopass" isn't about "game mechanics" or "glitches or hacks". She was using the GM Access Portal to give herself a super-weapon to erase the boss. She could do this because she was the manifestation of a game system (like an NPC, but much more sophisticated). With system level-access like that, there should be no problem in spawning whatever weapon you'd like, including weapons made especially for GMs/Administrators that can kill any top-level boss. But of course, this sort of thing destroys the game balance, so the main AI that runs the game wouldn't allow that sort of "unfair" element to exist in its programming.

At first I thought you were annoyed by the fact that Kirito was able to download Yui's system from the computer (which we've talked about a lot), but then when you started talking about this I was confused. I never considered *that* aspect all that surprising....

And I'm supposed to buy this because?

Whatever that "interference" was, I really question the shoddy writing and execution of the idea it tried to portrays, because it reminds me of exactly what happened the same "asspull/deus ex" certain plot directions in Guilty Crown and Aquarion EVOL (2nd half, 1st half was just dumb so bad its good fun until it tried to turn serious) - good conceptually, but horribly in presentation. I hate to using this word, but really it was "pretentious" as heck because it's trying to be serious about it whilst being asspull at the same time.

You can't just present a poor vulnerable girl (which btw was screaming to be "felt sorry for", which I also didn't buy - manufactured drama to the max) and then suddenly do a 180 and make her into some AI program and "cheat" to erase a powerful boss. And then do a 180 again and create a melodramatic scene of her fading away with both Kirito and Asuna crying over their loss.

This is aside from the fact at the very beginning of the episode, where there was so many children in this virtual reality world. Yes underage people can secretly play MMOs, but that many of them? I thought only 10,000 got access to it iirc.

Really, I doubt I'm the only person who thought that this episode was extremely dissappointing.

[ak4allz]

Hey guys... I don't know whether someone has pointed this out in this thread, but doesn't it a little weird to think that Kibaou wanna kill someone else? Back in 2nd episode, he is the one who forced those beta testers to make a public announcement and asking for forgiveness from normal players (non-beta testers)... and then outwitted by Aegil. 2 years inside SAO is long enough to change someone right?

btw, for the Kirito's hacking skill. Yes, I do agree with some of you saying that the scene was a little bit hollywood'ed with those unreadable lines of codes. I think it might be perfect if the floating screen get replaced with a bordered-console with lines of structured command same as the one when you activated Metasploit or any other hacking tools... isn't it?

[ronelm2000]

Originally Posted by Esebian

EDIT: @ Clarste While that would be narratively better wouldn't it be the best if she just summoned a masou-shojo dress and pwned the boss with magic in terms of game breaking surprises? Well to be honest it really would have been better to see her deleting it by touching just to show that she is a GM while the boss is a normal monster. And not just overpowering it...

This. is. not. Madoka.

Originally Posted by Clarste

Speaking of which... does anyone think the scene would have been more effective if instead of summoning a giant flaming sword she'd just poked him and deleted (or rather, despawned, "deleted" is almost certainly the wrong word) him instantly? I know games are sometimes fond of giving GMs special fancy effects, but narratively it would probably have been powerful to see her completely breaking the rules rather than just having a powerful looking attack. I mean, isn't that why she's an Immortal Object instead of just having infinite HP?

<<Immortal>> is a Game Skill, I think. And also <<Greatsword>> (wait, was is One-Handed? Or Two-Handed? I have no idea. )

Originally Posted by Mephos

The moments after Yui spawned the op magic flaming ban sword of power, I was shedding tears. It made me cry reading it in the LN, it made me cry again in the anime.

Meeee toooooo.... TT.TT

Originally Posted by Xacual

I'm happy they added in a bit showing Yui's reaction to players killing themselves and other things. Just having her tell the story to Asuna and Kirito wouldn't have been enough, though the scene was depressing. Be designed and programmed to deal with players and help them and then be denied access to doing it but still forced to monitor and watch.

If anything, Cardinal was a bitch to NOT delete Yui when she wasn't required anymore. But oh well, many lazy programmers leave traces of bugged unreachable code too anyway. (I'm one of them. )

Originally Posted by Adigard

If you're designed to heal the psyche of unbalanced MMO addicts... that super cute smile was probably there by design

I think there was a statistic that 6-year old looking girls are the most socially approachable people in society.

Originally Posted by Clarste

Well, yeah, I did say that "games are fond of giving GMs fancy effects", but in terms of the storytelling I think it would have been more shocking for her power to be a clear rulebreaker rather than something "really strong". The boss even seemed to be able to block it for a short while.

Yui isn't that strong in terms of GM powers.

So yeah, relent already said it. Oh well.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Well, there is a risk in making her too strong. By doing it this way, it shows that she is able to summon powerful objects, but still basically has to obey the game rules to defeat the enemy. She's a sub-system, not Cardinal itself. If should could just blink and the boss disappears, then why doesn't she just "blink" and release all the gamers stuck in this world? Why doesn't she just make all the bosses disappear? Why not do all sorts of other things? So her summoning a weapon to destroy an enemy is a bit of a more calculated display of power; it's localized and specific, and the inherent limits are implied.

(And, incidentally, this is also why she subsequently had to disappear. Someone having access to this sort of power destroys the balance of the game and of the story. And it's also why the console had to reject Kirito and disappear after he accomplished his objective. Otherwise, he could just keep on coming back to this place to get more power as needed.)

* * *

Originally Posted by orpheus2

Good episode.

LOL at the frog legs. Come on, Asuna just cook them. They are actually quite good once you get past the frog part.

True. You have to also take into account that the subsystem you removed must not cause errors in the main program. If Kirito had done it wrong, he could have crashed the entire or at least some parts of SAO.

If ever, the REAL question was why didn't Kirito just crash the whole server + Cardinal to disable its ability to delete Yui.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I guess that Kirito was keeping "aggro" on the boss to let the others escape. If he had tried to run for the safe area as well, the boss may have pursued, and that scythe seems pretty long. (But, you're correct that the length of time between attacks seemed a bit excessively long due to all the talking. It would have made a bit more sense if the boss had done some minor attacks against Kirito in the meantime, which isn't impossible but we didn't see it.) Your supposition that the boss had some sort of field (that the safe area was exempt from) makes sense.

I know relentlessflame will read this for some reason so...

Spoiler for Vol. 1 & 2 -- cut out detail from Blue-Eyed Demon Episode -- Game Mechanics:

Teleportation takes a few seconds to finalize and if you're attacked at the time, it will be cancelled.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

You can't just present a poor vulnerable girl (which btw was screaming to be "felt sorry for", which I also didn't buy - manufactured drama to the max) and then suddenly do a 180 and make her into some AI program and "cheat" to erase a powerful boss. And then do a 180 again and create a melodramatic scene of her fading away with both Kirito and Asuna crying over their loss.

??? Yui was a mysterious character from the get-go. She didn't have an indicator like a normal player, and she didn't behave like an NPC. She lost her memory, and thus was behaving like a helpless child. But it was obvious all along that she was no normal child. Many people speculated last week that she was some sort of AI program.

Defeating the boss and then being erased by the program seem pretty logical to me. An AI is a quasi-independent system; by exercising their choice and abusing their administrative powers, it's logical that they'd have their power revoked, and thus would disappear.

(And I don't see why it's so surprising that Kirito and Asuna would get attached to her even in the short time they shared together. Even though it was sudden, it was like they adopted a daughter. They saw her as their child. Is that so strange?)

So yeah... I really honestly don't understand the issue. The entire purpose of the conflict in this episode was to reveal Yui's identity as an AI. It's not like the plot developed this way because the author somehow painted himself into a corner -- the point is that *she is* a "God". I'm more surprised you didn't see this coming with all the hints last week...

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

This is aside from the fact at the very beginning of the episode, where there was so many children in this virtual reality world. Yes underage people can secretly play MMOs, but that many of them? I thought only 10,000 got access to it iirc.

I'm not sure that's "so many" -- there were what, 30-40? I don't really think it's so surprising that parents would let their kids play with the "new toy". If only they knew...

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

I know relentlessflame will read this for some reason so...

Spoiler for Vol. 1 & 2 -- cut out detail from Blue-Eyed Demon Episode -- Game Mechanics:

Teleportation takes a few seconds to finalize and if you're attacked at the time, it will be cancelled.

I hope I will read it since you were responding to my post. Thanks for using a good, descriptive spoiler tag label!

[Krono]

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

If ever, the REAL question was why didn't Kirito just crash the whole server + Cardinal to disable its ability to delete Yui.

That one's easy. Crash the server, and everyone gets disconnected without the kill switch on the NerveGear end being disabled. If the server doesn't recover for them to reconnect, everyone dies.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Eclipze

The way the army guys teleported away off-screen after Yui went out to face the boss feels weird as well.

Watch the bit where Yui runs out to join the fight -- you can clearly see Bright and Yuriel getting teleported in the background, most likely by Yui with her power.

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

You can't just present a poor vulnerable girl (which btw was screaming to be "felt sorry for", which I also didn't buy - manufactured drama to the max) and then suddenly do a 180 and make her into some AI program and "cheat" to erase a powerful boss. And then do a 180 again and create a melodramatic scene of her fading away with both Kirito and Asuna crying over their loss.

Sure you can. Her vulnerability was emotional; her strength physical/virtual. There's nothing contradictory about the two.

This is aside from the fact at the very beginning of the episode, where there was so many children in this virtual reality world. Yes underage people can secretly play MMOs, but that many of them? I thought only 10,000 got access to it iirc.

By my count there were only 19 kids in the church, excluding Yui. Assuming Sasha did a thorough job of rounding them up, that's only .2% of the population of Aincrad. If anything, I'd say that's too low.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

??? Yui was a mysterious character from the get-go. She didn't have an indicator like a normal player, and she didn't behave like an NPC. She lost her memory, and thus was behaving like a helpless child. But it was obvious all along that she was no normal child. Many people speculated last week that she was some sort of AI program.

Defeating the boss and then being erased by the program seem pretty logical to me. An AI is a quasi-independent system; by exercising their choice and abusing their administrative powers, it's logical that they'd have their power revoked, and thus would disappear.

So yeah... I really honestly don't understand the issue. The entire purpose of the conflict in this episode was to reveal Yui's identity as an AI. It's not like the plot developed this way because the author somehow painted himself into a corner -- the point is that *she is* a "God". I'm more surprised you didn't see this coming with all the hints last week...

But did it -have- to be a little girl, rush it in 1.5 episodes (couldn't someone so "important" be used to defeat say... the last few bosses of the very top floors, which I'm assuming are going to be "overpowered" and intentionally somewhat "glitchy") and on top of that be over-melodramatic and theatrical about it? This was artificial drama to the max and even on that scale, this episode was significantly bad on that. I'm not arguing about the "themes" or "concepts" behind this episode or in SAO in general... I'm questioning on how its being presented because it's both trying to be serious whilst being ridden with cliches and clumsy execution(albeit with some good shipping mind you lol, and I'm not really a shipper) which is very contradictory.

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

Sure you can. Her vulnerability was emotional; her strength physical/virtual. There's nothing contradictory about the two.

Forgive me for using the phrase, but to me it's no less than "vulnerable loli pandering" with subpar presentation. She was screaming to be felt sad for, which ultimately has the opposite effect...

[Haruyasha]

Holy moly budgeting! How not very surprising that A-1 Pictures starts to budget every single freakin' anime they make right at the half-way mark.

* Recycled ambient sound (hint: children saying things like "sensei", etc)
* Slideshow combat (toads)
* Wtf is wrong with this scene? (09:33) The floor and walls look like they're goo.. I don't even know how the hell they managed that. I don't even recall Celsys Retas having such a cheesy and terrible way of making 3d corridors.. God awful.

[Maxtro]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

(And I don't see why it's so surprising that Kirito and Asuna would get attached to her even in the short time they shared together. Even though it was sudden, it was like they adopted a daughter. They saw her as their child. Is that so strange?)

Actually yes, it seems very strange that they got so attached to her in such a short amount of time. What was it, two days?

And then the whole adopting thing is just crazy. I'm assuming that both Asuna and Kirito are teenagers. I can't imagine a couple that age coming across a lost child and thinking of it as their own. Maybe if enough time passes, but that's really stretching it.

Moral of the story: Kirito needs to watch out because Asuna's maternal instinct is off the charts. She'd be pushing for a baby right away.

[ronelm2000]

Originally Posted by Haruyasha

Holy moly budgeting! How not very surprising that A-1 Pictures starts to budget every single freakin' anime they make right at the half-way mark.

* Recycled ambient sound (hint: children saying things like "sensei", etc)
* Slideshow combat (toads)
* Wtf is wrong with this scene? (09:33) The floor and walls look like they're goo.. I don't even know how the hell they managed that. I don't even recall Celsys Retas having such a cheesy and terrible way of making 3d corridors.. God awful.

I'm totally fine with the budgeting for this show. At least it's better than SHAFT's budgeting department.

Originally Posted by Maxtro

Actually yes, it seems very strange that they got so attached to her in such a short amount of time. What was it, two days?

And then the whole adopting thing is just crazy. I'm assuming that both Asuna and Kirito are teenagers. I can't imagine a couple that age coming across a lost child and thinking of it as their own. Maybe if enough time passes, but that's really stretching it.

Moral of the story: Kirito needs to watch out because Asuna's maternal instinct is off the charts. She'd be pushing for a baby right away.

Oh God... lol indeed.

OVA Chapter 16.5, anyone?

On a serious note, though, Yui was designed. Yes. designed. to be totally approachable and cuddle-able... and talkable... and... you know......

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

But did it -have- to be a little girl, rush it in 1.5 episodes (couldn't someone so "important" be used to defeat say... the last few bosses of the very top floors, which I'm assuming are going to be "overpowered" and intentionally somewhat "glitchy") and on top of that be over-melodramatic and theatrical about it? This was artificial drama to the max and even on that scale, this episode was significantly bad on that. I'm not arguing about the "themes" or "concepts" behind this episode or in SAO in general... I'm questioning on how its being presented because it's both trying to be serious whilst being ridden with cliches and clumsy execution(albeit with some good shipping mind you lol, and I'm not really a shipper) which is very contradictory.

[...]

Forgive me for using the phrase, but to me it's no less than "vulnerable loli pandering" with subpar presentation. She was screaming to be felt sad for, which ultimately has the opposite effect...

She had to be a little girl, yes. Because a) she was an AI designed to provide psychological care to the SAO players, and a cute, cheerful girl like her is designed to be disarming and non-threatening in a world full of monsters, and b) she was being presented here as the adopted daughter of Asuna and Kirito, in the context of their progressing relationship. But despite this non-threatening appearance, this doesn't change her level of administrative power. Of course, her being an independent AI means that she has the ability to defy the rules, but not without consequence. She could only abuse her power once. In reality, she isn't someone "important" -- she's an AI built for player psychological care who was forbidden from doing her job once the game launched. But obviously she's important to Kirito and to Asuna, and she was a part of the system until she was excised. Beyond that, we can only assume that she'll have an as-yet-unknown role in the story going forward.

I guess I can just say that I clearly didn't have the problem with it that you had.

Originally Posted by Maxtro

Actually yes, it seems very strange that they got so attached to her in such a short amount of time. What was it, two days?

And then the whole adopting thing is just crazy. I'm assuming that both Asuna and Kirito are teenagers. I can't imagine a couple that age coming across a lost child and thinking of it as their own. Maybe if enough time passes, but that's really stretching it.

Well, if it weren't for the nature of the specific situation they're in, I might agree. This is also the couple who got married the same day confessed to each other, this after they saved each others lives from a psychopath aiming to kill them after two years of fighting in this crazy death game. So they take a break from the frontlines and start finding "family life" really, really appealing. I can't say that I blame them...

I'm not sure they have much of anything in common with "normal teenagers" anymore.

[Swordstriker21]

Originally Posted by Maxtro

Actually yes, it seems very strange that they got so attached to her in such a short amount of time. What was it, two days?

And then the whole adopting thing is just crazy. I'm assuming that both Asuna and Kirito are teenagers. I can't imagine a couple that age coming across a lost child and thinking of it as their own. Maybe if enough time passes, but that's really stretching it.

Moral of the story: Kirito needs to watch out because Asuna's maternal instinct is off the charts. She'd be pushing for a baby right away.

The factor of time doesn't really count in some instances if we're talking about getting attached to somebody. There are those times when people totally hit it off the first time they meet and have a hard time parting a few days (or hours even) later. Yui was like a welcome breather from all the tension our SAO couple face constantly. She's also designed as a cute and loveable little girl. Our couple just got married and started living a relaxed life in a family-like atmosphere. Yui completed the ideal picture. Is it really that much of a stretch?

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by jpwong

I think the thing is that SOA was probably built on some standard coding language. If you know that language you'd be miles ahead of normal people.

Not really. The console commands have little to do with whatever language the game was programmed in. (To take a recent example: the commands in Skryim's console aren't C++). Which makes sense: the console is there to edit an existing game, not program the server.

There's also that as has sort of been pointed out, it's doubtful a GM console is going to just be a command prompt window.

And yet he was using a keyboard to type commands...

It's almost certainly set up in a way that's easy to use.

Easy to use for the GMs - who could be expected to know a handful of commands, and not work with Kirito's deadline - and flexible. At best, that means that Kirito could be expected to figure it out with a little time to look at man pages, but he didn't have that time.

Originally Posted by itoastmysocks

Also I would imagine that being part of such an exclusive Betatest as it probably was for SAO, they should have weeded out those that are not tech-savvy or don't understand their basic code, simply for finding errors, bugs, and what not ([randommmorant]but again they made the same mistake as every MMO developer does these days, THEY FORGET TO TEST THE ENDGAME[/randommmorant])

It's not the testers' job (especially the ones drawn from end users) to know the code.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Well, I guess that was just how I interpreted the dialogue:

Asuna: If the game is cleared and this world ends, what will happen to [Yui]?
Kirito: Yui's data is set to save to my NerveGear's local memory.

So my assumption was that, in the game, she's stored within the item. When the game is over, obviously the item will be gone, so at that point she needs to be stored within his local memory.

You're right that the in-game item might be a pointless bauble designed to appease Asuna, but he did actually explain to her that he "split off her main program and turned it into a game object" and that object was "Yui's Heart". I think it makes more sense to assume that he meant it. I don't think he had the time to create an extra item just to make Asuna feel good; saving Yui was all there was time for. Perhaps we can say that the item itself is bound to Kirito's local memory, and is just manifesting itself through that in-game item right now.

Speculation: non standard objects have some freespace where the code for their special abilities and quest-related behavior resides. Kirito wrote Yui's data there. It won't actually give the bauble any special ability, but it'll be preserved. And he copied that object to his nervgear's cache (and set it to not be deleted under any circumstance).

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

Spoiler for Vol. 1 & 2 -- cut out detail from Blue-Eyed Demon Episode -- Game Mechanics:

Teleportation takes a few seconds to finalize and if you're attacked at the time, it will be cancelled.

Spoilers

Spoiler for Game Reference

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

The family that wasn't meant to be was shorter than I thought. It was a nice breather, but having someone that over-powered would be counter-productive for the story. Imagine Yui at the front lines with Kirito and Asuna. Monster, bad, hurt daddy. Insta-kill level 99 boss.

This is the quickest relationship I've ever seen. It went from kiss, to bed, to marriage, to honeymoon, to child, and finally to loss of child. That's usually reserved for half a lifetime, and they experienced it in... ummm.. about a week?

Yui will be missed, but I'm guessing she will show up again someday.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

It's not like the plot developed this way because the author somehow painted himself into a corner -- the point is that *she is* a "God".

I think that's much of the problem for Pocari Sweat.

Yui is a literal Deus ex Machina. A lot of people just flatout don't like Deus ex Machinas (there's a reason why the term has a negative connotation amongst literary critics).

Now, yes, the concept behind Yui is fine and makes some sense. So that makes her a bit easier to take than some other Deus ex Machina.

But still, I personally would have preferred to have seen Asuna and Kirito not get saved by a Deus ex Machina but rather figure out how to handle this hidden boss themselves. I mean, hidden bosses are loads of fun in all sorts of games, but having them be defeated by a Deus ex Machina really takes the fun away, imo.


Now, there are things I really liked about this episode. I've really come to like the romance between Kirito and Asuna. I found it kind of beautiful, really, when Asuna placed her sword in front of Kirito's just before the hidden boss made his attack. They really felt like a couple standing together as one, and Asuna felt like a mature woman proudly and strongly protecting the man she loves. The way Asuna and Kirito confronted the hidden boss was very compelling, which is partly why I wish it had been allowed to continue (even though I will admit that Yui's flaming sword of death was cool. ).


But while there's a lot to like in SAO, I can see why the complaints keep mounting from week-to-week. The writer just pushes some things a bit too far (honestly, all those kids is a bit much - yes, 2 or 3 would be fine, but this number really is needlessly pushing things), and the writer (or at least, the anime) just pushes things too fast, imo.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

But still, I personally would have preferred to have seen Asuna and Kirito not get saved by a Deus ex Machina but rather figure out how to handle this hidden boss themselves. I mean, hidden bosses are loads of fun in all sorts of games, but having them be defeated by a Deus ex Machina really takes the fun away, imo.

Now, there are things I really liked about this episode. I've really come to like the romance between Kirito and Asuna. I found it kind of beautiful, really, when Asuna placed her sword in front of Kirito's just before the hidden boss made his attack. They really felt like a couple standing together as one, and Asuna felt like a mature woman proudly and strongly protecting the man she loves. The way Asuna and Kirito confronted the hidden boss was very compelling, which is partly why I wish it had been allowed to continue (even though I will admit that Yui's flaming sword of death was cool. ).

What could they have done though. Kirito and Asuna both got reduced to about half health in one attack and they blocked it. What do you think would have happened if they had tried to turn their back on the boss and ran, I don't think one or both of them would have made it.

I also don't think Yui can be consider DeM. We saw she wasn't a normal character last week when she affected that area when she got upset.

[thundrakkon]

That flaming sword. I'm wondering if Kirito and Asuna will eventually pick up something of similar strength and power? They will definitely need it later when the level bosses are too high.

[Rakshasa]

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

I think there was a statistic that 6-year old looking girls are the most socially approachable people in society.

This explains so much...

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

Sure you can. Her vulnerability was emotional; her strength physical/virtual. There's nothing contradictory about the two.

She was an entity with the immortal flag set, so don't really see the issue.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Not really. The console commands have little to do with whatever language the game was programmed in. (To take a recent example: the commands in Skryim's console aren't C++). Which makes sense: the console is there to edit an existing game, not program the server.

And yet he was using a keyboard to type commands...

Easy to use for the GMs - who could be expected to know a handful of commands, and not work with Kirito's deadline - and flexible. At best, that means that Kirito could be expected to figure it out with a little time to look at man pages, but he didn't have that time.

He did have time. What was he looking for? How to transfer 'yui' into a heart/soul item.

He knew the keywords, and the scripting / admin language does make sense it would be based on some defacto standard of the day. Being 10 years in the future we should expect a host of game engine components, and generic tools, to become so mature, flexible and optimized that developers wouldn't bother reimplementing them.

Especially considering Kayaba did a lot of it by himself suggests there was very little reinvention of wheels involved.