Sword Art Online - Episode 4 Discussion / Poll

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Episode 4 Question

Since Kirito has mentioned the gap between him and the other players, could that mean he doesn't need to worry fighting low level monsters? Like, just sit there eating sandwiches while monster attacks him since they could not provide enough damage to him?

Or its just PVP is different?

Kirito meant that since he doesn't play in a group and tends to be by himself for long periods of time, going orange for a few days has little to no effect on him.

[FateAnomaly]

Originally Posted by Xacual

Kirito meant that since he doesn't play in a group and tends to be by himself for long periods of time, going orange for a few days has little to no effect on him.

That has nothing to do with what Genjichan ask though. Just like in normal mmorpgs a sufficiently OP character could totally ignore low level mob. It seems though that level differences in SAO has a more pronounce effect though he probably wouldn't earn any exp or items.

Edit: Regarding the lack of reaction from the RL people i think it is more plausible that they just say "Hey this game is pretty entertaining. Lets treat it as an extreme reality show and bet on who comes up tops!" The footages are shown around the world ala battle royale. There is a multi billon industry based around this and they are currently prepared for season 2! Time to go pick up another 10k suc... players.

[Last Sinner]

Was thinking all along Episode 4 would get people back into it and it did. Converting non-linear material to linear isn't easy. But this was a better execution of it. Floor 47 was pretty darn beautiful - the artwork of those backgrounds is delish. Rina Hidaka's voicing of Silica was spot on. Kirito is quickly becoming my fave male character in years. A bit of feeling and empathy works wonders, I guess. Perhaps all along Episode 3 was to show a point in time where Kirito was cold and a bit over-confident in how he could protect others, to lead into Episode 4 where his mistakes will permanently galvanise him and make him take the steps to being the worthy hero he wants to be.

How ironic Yoshitsugu Matsuoka also voiced a character called Kirito in Hana-Saku Iroha, heh.

[Sute443]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

The problem is that that is impossible which is what is sticking in many peoples throats.As you say they have plenty of samples to practice on and the factories that made them as well.Any competent police or army bomb squad should have had them all out in a month easy.And that is if they decide they need to get everyone out at the same time in case the psycho had put a fail-safe in to kill everyone if someone was successfully unhooked.

I'm not sure it would be so easy, even if you have the designs and the chance to practice. Not every bomb has a safe way to defuse it, and the same could go for the NervGear.

What if the inside of the NervGear is completely covered with detectors set to activate the kill switch if they get disturbed? Everything important is beneath that layer, and doing anything to it will get the player killed. Could they get the players out then?

(Please note: I am not a novel reader. If the NervGear is actually set up that way, I'll be surprised.)

Remember, 2000 people died during the first month. I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that a good number of them came from would-be rescuers encountering more trouble than they expected.

Originally Posted by FateAnomaly

Edit: Regarding the lack of reaction from the RL people i think it is more plausible that they just say "Hey this game is pretty entertaining. Lets treat it as an extreme reality show and bet on who comes up tops!" The footages are shown around the world ala battle royale. There is a multi billon industry based around this and they are currently prepared for season 2! Time to go pick up another 10k suc... players.

While that might not be too implausible for a sufficiently callous populous, the fact that PKers haven't been killed in RL by the families of the players they killed in the game suggests that there's no way to see inside the game from the outside.

Unless Kayaba was bluffing about getting killed in the game killing you in real life. If the truth is that it just logs players out, then that would be another explanation for why people in the real world aren't trying to yank everyone out. You could kill a loved one by messing with a device, or you could wait for the loved one to be killed in the game and be logged out.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

The problem is that that is impossible which is what is sticking in many peoples throats.As you say they have plenty of samples to practice on and the factories that made them as well.Any competent police or army bomb squad should have had them all out in a month easy.And that is if they decide they need to get everyone out at the same time in case the psycho had put a fail-safe in to kill everyone if someone was successfully unhooked.

This is the main bit of suspension of disbelief that you need to make to enjoy the show I think.But the anime has not made any attempt to sell it so a lot of people keep finding it a problem.

Reality is unrealistic, then, because the usual way to dispose of bombs is to have them explode where nobody cares.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Reality is unrealistic, then, because the usual way to dispose of bombs is to have them explode where nobody cares.

This.

As someone who's had to deal with IEDs and landmines etc, the only safe way to "defuse" explosive devices is to put another explosives on top and let it rip

[FateAnomaly]

Originally Posted by Sute443

While that might not be too implausible for a sufficiently callous populous, the fact that PKers haven't been killed in RL by the families of the players they killed in the game suggests that there's no way to see inside the game from the outside.

If it is like i said, their physical bodies will definitely be well protected otherwise there is no point in betting, right? Who knows maybe the victims families are well compensated. Also, even in RL we don't see families of murder victims going to kill the murderer right?

I thought its a microwave emitter not a bomb? If so, the aoe should be only within the helmet. As long as the helmet isn't screwed onto the victim's head, they should be able to easily make a machine to pull out the helmet before the switch triggers. Also do microwave even damage that fast? But its pointless since we just have to roll with the fact that the outside world people are useless.

[Dengar]

In my opinion, considering the premise is "What would happen if thousands of people were trapped in an online game?", I don't think it's really necessary to give too much thought to HOW it is possible, because, in the end, it's simply possible, in this world.

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

A full year is a long time to clear a game, even one with 100 levels. I mean, these gamers are now literally spending 24 hours a day inside this game.

Let's say your average SAO player is awake for 16 of those 24 hours. So over 3 days that's 48 hours of conscious, continuous gameplay. 48 hours is *a lot* of gameplay time. Plenty of hardcore gamers can clear full games in that amount of time, let alone one level.

It's not unreasonable to think that 48 hours of gameplay is enough time (on average) to clear a level, presuming the gamers are working cooperatively at all (which many of them clearly are). So 3 days per level. Now times by 100. 300 days. Let's even add on 65 more days since one would expect later levels to be harder to clear. So 365 days, or a full year.


But ultimately, all this means is that I think that Reki Kawahara might have stretched out the dates a bit too much.

A few things we have to consider when we are discussing leveling up time in this environment.

1) Everyone is more cautious, hence, slower, when they are trying to level up. One major mistake and it means that they die permanently. People can't normally take the risks they normally do in a normal game.

2) Everyone now is trying to grab the same resources at the same time for an extended period of time. Hence, it would be more difficult to find resources and shared spawning grounds.

3) The area in each level is very large, and it takes a lot of time to move from one area to another. There usually is no easy teleportation magic to move around quickly.

4) The parameters could be changed and grinding could be slow to increase experience.

Although it is hard to imagine things taking so long to level up when compared to current games, it could possibility take longer intentionally by the creator by changing the parameters around to make it more like a real life experience.

[n120cky]

Did ppl in SOA need eat or they will die?
I wonder how it will taste . . .

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by n120cky

Did ppl in SOA need eat or they will die?
I wonder how it will taste . . .

Oh, that is taken care of...trust me...there's a more rational explanation for it than you might think.

[Esebian]

Originally Posted by n120cky

Did ppl in SOA need eat or they will die?
I wonder how it will taste . . .

Hmm, I don't know if you mean in RL or ingame, but for ingame: They will get hungry after some time if they dont eat anything, but they can't starve to death

For the taste: As the 5 senses are active ingame I think it tastes like how it does in RL, maybe a bit artificial because the people know that it is not real

For the episode itself: I really enjoyed it; it was a quite good and funny SS in the LN and it was adapted very well, so no complaints at all

[n120cky]

Originally Posted by Esebian

Hmm, I don't know if you mean in RL or ingame, but for ingame: They will get hungry after some time if they dont eat anything, but they can't starve to death

For the taste: As the 5 senses are active ingame I think it tastes like how it does in RL, maybe a bit artificial because the people know that it is not real

For the episode itself: I really enjoyed it; it was a quite good and funny SS in the LN and it was adapted very well, so no complaints at all

I mean ingame, you say 5 sense but they doesn't get hurt when got hit...

Hmm I have played several MMO, but none of them with hungger attribute except for pet, I bet SOA is hell hard MMO, for them to use some of their GP for food.

[gunzblitz]

Holy shit. I just noticed this in EP4. I don't know if this was mentioned already but.

Spoiler for EP4:

Scilica was at Lv 44, and she was in combat with those monsters in floor 35. 1 direct hit from them and her HP went from 4765->1869.

Her max HP was at 9342.

Wow. That hurts. 3 Direct hits and you're a goner, and that's with almost 10 level above the floor level. I'll bet it wasn't even a critical hit if the damage takes the body parts into account (like hitting the head or something)

I wonder how much it hurts in the higher floors. ._.

[n120cky]

Originally Posted by gunzblitz

Holy shit. I just noticed this in EP4. I don't know if this was mentioned already but.

Spoiler for EP4:

Scilica was at Lv 44, and she was in combat with those monsters in floor 35. 1 direct hit from them and her HP went from 4765->1869.

Her max HP was at 9342.

Wow. That hurts. 3 Direct hits and you're a goner, and that's with almost 10 level above the floor level. I'll bet it wasn't even a critical hit if the damage takes the body parts into account (like hitting the head or something)

I wonder how much it hurts in the higher floors. ._.

Well for my experience in playing MMO her job not designed to take too much direct hit, there is some factor for it, her job is beast tamer, that's mean her attribute may not focus on defense, and job has a specific equipment that also mean, may be her equipment doesn't focus much on defense.

Apart from that that forest is still too much for her to go solo. Sometimes you after higher monster level than you to get faster level up, but in return you must done it as party.

[Clarste]

There are no jobs in SAO. Beast Tamer just means she has a beast, which I guess is a rare item or something? She was using a short sword without a shield though, which I guess probably uses squishy stats.

[n120cky]

Originally Posted by Clarste

There are no jobs in SAO. Beast Tamer just means she has a beast, which I guess is a rare item or something? She was using a short sword without a shield though, which I guess probably uses squishy stats.

May be there is no job class explicitly but your character build depends on skill you want to master, and that's indirectly give you job class.

[styr]

I really wish the author would have included ranged weaponry and magic, with both using a degree of skill to wield aim and fire with neither having good hit rates past medium range of say ~15m. Silica would have been much better off using a bow, xbow, or magic...

Alas, what could have been.

@n120cky, Diabel calls himself a 'knight' class in ep2 and everyone laughs and mentions there not being a job system at all. You can pick skills like a knight would getting heavy armor and 1h+shield, or a thief would with dagger+hiding/etc, etc, but at the same time you are never truly "locked" into a job with SAO's system. This gives players the opportunity to reroll so to speak by dropping skills and relearning, something the Black Cats wanted Sachi to do in ep3. Imagine if Sachi had picked Knight class in the beginning (if SAO had gone with job system)? She would be a horrible knight

If SAO did have a job/class system I imagine it would be very frustrating if you picked something you didn't like after a month and were stuck with it. This is why I presume the author decided to opt for a skill-based system to let the players decided without locking them in. With no rerolling possible if you had made a bad class/job choice you would be stuck with it for 2 years. Without magic or ranged weapons though there was little need for a true job or class based system though. Letting the players decided and choose as they go would give the players the highest amount of customization.

[Clarste]

Given that the designer of the game made it to kill people (or at least put their lives in danger) it's no surprise that they don't have relatively safe ranged attacks.

[Endless Soul]

I think part of the reason why viewers are debating whether or not the outside world has tried to do anything to free the trapped players, is the fact that we haven't seen or heard anything about it. We haven't seen a scene where some random guy is having a refreshing drink and chatting with his gamer friends at the local in-game cafe, then he suddenly de-rezzes for no apparent reason. So, we're left to wonder and speculate.

I don't think we're going to get a proper explanation until the finale, if we even get one at all.

Endless "Speculative" Soul