Welcome! The purpose of this thread is to discuss what you would do if confronted with the life and death situation of being stuck in an RPG where your character dying means your own death. What strategies would you undertake to survive? Would you party? Would you solo? Would you form a massive guild?

Remember the point of this thread is what you would do if your very life rested in an RPG. This isn't simply a hardcore playthrough where you start over if your character dies once. If your character dies, you die as well so keep that in mind. Feel free to debate and contrast your strategies and techniques as your very survival would depend on it!

Try to keep spoilers to a minimum and do your best to put yourself in the shoes of the characters in SAO. For those of you who have read the novels or manga, don't try to use advanced knowledge of abilities or enemies if possible when deciding what you would do because those stuck in the actual SAO world do not have that advantage. However, if you want to claim you're a beta tester you can but you also must realize the beta is not the same as the actual release. If you base things on the beta, that could very easily kill you if it is changed for the actual game so be VERY careful if you want to take that point of view.


Mod Note About Spoilers:
Anything that has not been shown in the Sword Art Online is a spoiler, and must be placed under properly-labelled spoiler tags. (Properly labelled means that it indicates the purpose and context of the spoiler, i.e. why you're posting it and where it comes from specifically.) As it says above, please try avoid unnecessary spoilers to ensure the most possible people can participate.

I'd start training crafting skills and play the auction house until I can make uber gear for the playerbase.

Probably almost never leave the safe city, and start planning for a super extended stay in my new MMORPG life.

Ill fight and level up and enjoy the thrill of everything :D

I'd start crafting the very first night. There's going to be plenty of resources pouring in, at knock down prices- best level up your skills fast, wait for the crowd to die down, then after that, train a little. Basically

Eh? My opinion would be that....many people will think like you, staying in starting city. With a death game that it is, raw material should be quite scarce. Not many people farming.

If it is pvp-free game like SAO, I do agree with Kirito that you need to be at top tier level, to defend yourself from PKer, at very least.

I won't rush off to next village like Kirito, that is a bit too reckless. Better start from starting city field, It may be crowded but that in itself offer you some safety. You don't have to worry about monster ganging you. It will be the opposite. Yea, I do sacrifice some efficient for safety here. For the better or worse, I do believe in my skill at competing for mobs (aka KS ^^"). When you played many crowded MMO games with Asians you gain that kind of skill :p
Now, grind away until you outlevel the content or the crowd become unbearable .

Assume I don't have any RL friend or friend from other game who stuck with me. I would hold off partying with anyone until I reach area with sparse (player) population because this is where you start to need party (monster outnumber player). This way you can also screen the players off and don't get too crappy party members. At least they are good enough to come this far. And it really is more efficient to play solo in crowded area anyway.

As for build, I'm not sure if I will go with tank-build or long range polearm build. both offer different benefit. I will probrably go for tank build as it will leave me with more room for mistake.

I don't know if I will be brave enough to join the boss raid. If someone like Diabel persuade me to join boss raid that suppose to be killable at level 5 when I'm level 10 with solid strategy may be, just may be, I will join. The main factor here would be if I meet dead end and can't grind anymore level in this floor then the only thing left to do is face the boss.

Yes, my train of thought is that of typical MMO veteran. So chance are I either join clearer group or join the 1st 2000 :p (perhap the latter ^^")

Level up, craft and master my skills. No party just to be sure, but it depends.

As much as possible i want to establish a guild, being the head of a large guild would make my life much easier.

It would take a long time, a lot of work, and my life will be hanging by a thread the whole time but it's a long-term investment.

In other words, I'm going all-or-nothing...if my all doesn't work then I die.

I'd probably stay in the Safe Zones most of the time and slowly but surely level up, take up a crafting skill to make money/healing potions, take up some form of in-combat healing, and try to join a trustworthy guild like Klein's.

If playing safe fails or I get attacked by some PK'ers well.......I can only hope my martial arts training can give me enough of an edge to run/fight

I'm totally not confident enough in my skills to think that I'd be fighting my way up the tower. I'd still go out to get what XP I can, but I guess I'd spend most of my time gathering information. Maybe help set up a guild with the sole purpose of being an information network. The types of information to look for would be powerful monsters with good drops, resource locations for possible item crafting, also information on players themselves and their activities. If all WOULD go according to plan, I'd be some sort of information nexus who people visit to find (and tell me about) items, good places to level up, and allies.

Get away from people because they're your worst enemy. But stay close enough to watch them die so you can learn from their mistakes :heh:

If there's no restrictions in PK, I'd say it doesn't matter what strategies you employ. In mmo games, there are always people who do things they do just for the lulz. Even if everyone playing knows that if dying=dying for real, there will always be nutjobs. And these nutjobs will be very determined to kill you. Just because they can. Such is the nature of anon. You wouldn't even dare go out to hunt lvl.1 monsters because there's a high risk of noob-hunters.

While this won't stop people completely, there's very little anonymity in a game where your avatar has your face and is basically you.

Link up with my bros - there's a bunch of us who know each other from Outer Cadia on the Nanoha boards - and anyone else i know from here that's in SAO. Then we figure out as it goes along.

And die horribly. Based on our success rates in ME3 MP, I'm not very hopeful. :p

I'd run the moment I hit 50% hp :P

It may not be the best source, but I'd have to rely mostly on my knowledge of DoTA.

You know, because controlling a single main unit with a set of skills isn't too far-off.

Dig a hole and punch trees.

Oh wait, this is not Minecraft. :heh:

First of all, look for a safe haven and second, learn how to be self-sustaining.
I'm mostly used to playing alone, and I tend to store whatever I get until my backpack gets full.
My problem is when someone thinks that I'm a walking piggy bank that he should break to get the lewt. :heh:

Also, I'll try to not reach the level cap immediately. Gathering street smarts and learning how to evade attacks or combat against players in general is much important than racing to the final boss.

Establish a clearing a guild but keep it a small close knit group and avoid just letting anyone in. Also would work with other clearing guilds for larger boss fights but what we could do by ourselves would be best to limit the number of fighters that the XP is shared amongst.

Another thing would be to set up contracts with various craftspeople. Such as supplying rare components for enhanced equipment and accessories and work to increase our force multiplier.

But I would lead my comrades from the front too. I'd focus on a sword and shield fighting style.

I'd probably stay in the first town and never leave. :p

Note that this is mostly what ended up happening.

Or I could wait for someone to beat the game. Unless the bosses respawns after getting killed or there is a time limit or something. Then thats the time when I must do something for my self...:uhoh: