2013-12-30, 17:06
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Link #41 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
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People in .hack were still seeing the game from first person weren't they? Which is a big difference from a WoW style third person perspective. Also Log Horizon had no headset or other peripherals, it was just keyboard and mouse.
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2013-12-30, 17:19
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Link #42 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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It's a lot like how in .hack you run around fighting mobs to fix bugs instead of programmers pushing back end patches and updates. Even if the ALTIMIT OS is the only operating system and all computer things operate on the same code there's no logical reason for bad or conflicting code to manifest as monsters that attack players in a game... well, not unless you're a huge fan of Oh! My Goddess! |
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2013-12-30, 17:57
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Link #44 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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Krono's point is more that it has been done before and until there's an explanation writing it off as impossible/implausible is akin to writing off "magic transported them to a parallel universe with game overlays" because magic didn't exist in their original world. |
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2013-12-30, 20:05
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Link #46 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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To clarify, I am not supporting the virtual reality theory anymore then I am supporting the alternate universe theory (my actual stance is spoilery so I can't talk about it) but rather that with what we know currently there is absolutely nothing that indicates anything either way. |
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2013-12-31, 02:15
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Link #47 |
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( ಠ_ಠ)
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
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Well, the difference is.
I don't consider Mamare to be that stupid. And let's be honest, "your monitor sucking your soul into database without any supernatural means" is completely idiotic writing, and you may feel otherwise, but I don't feel Mamare is. There's gonna be explanations beyond duplicating SAO and .hack "oh they're just trapped in a virtual reality made by evil programmer/AI/thatfreakingnerddownthestreet". I can bet you my grandmother's tombstone on that. Frankly I believe the odds are in my favor. If I was to make a guess, oh I dunno, the fact the very expansion that appears to have caused this is called "Homesteading the Noosphere", my money is on the collective human consciousness voodoo mumbojumbo reality bending nonsense is somehow involved.  Then there's the classic UY Beautiful Dreamer / RayEarth / Suzumiya Haruhi / MuvLuv's Sumika cliche. 
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Last edited by aohige; 2013-12-31 at 02:26. |
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2013-12-31, 03:16
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Link #48 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Zone: Mare Tranquillitatis
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Yeah, Mamare is is writing down to the intention of every character. So it's more likely he's give some good reason for it. But then, it doesn't hurt to have some Black Technology(tm) at work.
And I guess part of it is quite Haruhi, because how did the world become the same as the game cannot be reasonably explained without all the histories poping out of nowhere. |
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2013-12-31, 03:57
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Link #49 | |
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2013
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If Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is any indication, Mamare has no problems with using really generic and silly cliches and tropes; what differentiates him from the crowd is how his characters react and deal with these generic tropes. The basic premise of Maoyuu is the most tried and true convention of all: hero vs the demon lord, and we know from the confrontation with the past demon lords, and for a lot of the human nobles, that for the most part they were all just generically evil without any deep motivations beyond "because POWER!" Did that lessen Maoyuu? Not at all because that wasn't the point, the point was to take something familiar and turn it on it's head; the issues they faced were, for the most part, generic fantasy tropes but how they dealt with them made the difference. If I somehow implied that the Catastrophe would be explained away in a single line then I apologize for my bad sentence structure and grammatical shenanigans. Allow me to clarify. - The setting of "they're stuck in a virtual world" is just as trite and cliche as "they got transported to an alternate universe." - There is nothing within the world or from Mamare that indicates one is more likely than the other. He's been asked about whether they're in a virtual world/alternate universe point blank and he just dodges the question by telling us to keep reading. - Any effort to explain either of the first two assertions well would require roughly the same amount of effort and work. On the basis of these three points there's no logical or reasonable way you can conclude that either is clearly the answer to the question of what the hell happened to cause the Catastrophe. They are both either equally valid or equally invalid. So no, the difference isn't that you expect Mamare to be smart enough to make something amazing and I don't: the difference is that I have faith that he can take a generic and over-done trope, use it without shame, and present it in a way that will still be fresh, interesting, and intelligent because he's done it before and Log Horizon has every indication of being of a similar vein to Maoyuu. |
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2013-12-31, 04:06
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Link #50 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Difference between sci-fi and fantasy is that, fantasy can get away with crazy and usualy unbelivable stuff (cause magic IS crazy and unbelivable), sci-fi in other hand has to mantain appearence of common sense and scientism (cause cause you know Sci in Sci-fi stand for science...).
So it would be decent fantasy premise, but stupid sci-fi. It's that simple. |
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2013-12-31, 04:11
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Link #51 | |
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( ಠ_ಠ)
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
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I'm not against him using cliche, I'm saying, everything presented so far actually indicates the SAO cliche is NOT the case. If he goes Beautiful Dreamer cliche, for example, I see no problem. Those one-girl-reality-bending are useful in that you don't have to explain anything.
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2013-12-31, 04:41
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Link #52 | ||
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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Star Trek is sci-fi and it deals with alternate universes (the Mirror Universe, heck even the current movie reboot to name just two of many more), or godly beings who mess around with people's heads because it's fun (Q). The Matrix is sci-fi and it deals with machines building a virtual reality so they can harvest energy from human bodies more efficiently. Most superhero comics are both sci-fi and fantasy in that the power origins can come from fantasty (Wonder Woman), super-science (Superman), or some form of hyper-dedication (Batman) and yet none are considered more "crazy" or "unbelievable" then the other because they're all equally ludicrous when measured to the standard of our own reality. James Cameron's Avatar deals with people remote piloting alien clone bodies and a ecosystem that has a universal neurological interface. Babylon 5 has millennia old races waging proxy wars with planet killers, mind control devices, and galactic social engineering and that's not even touching on the whole Sinclair thing... or the Sheridan thing come to think of it. The Star Child concept in 2001: A Space Odyssey is downright fantastical. Those are just the mainstream movies/tv series which are science fiction but which deal with crazy and unbelievable things; science fiction books are even more out there about it since they don't have to cram theories and explanations into a limited time frame. Look up Clarke's Third Law if you aren't familiar with it, the tenant is very relevant to how science fiction treats a "limitation" such as "must be based on science." Quote:
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2013-12-31, 04:53
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Link #53 | |
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...Is that so?
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Central Queensland, Australia
Age: 43
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2013-12-31, 06:39
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Link #55 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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I don't recall where I ever claimed anything was a red herring. The only things I believe I've ever claimed were that there is no supported definitive explanation and what the characters choose to believe has more to do with preserving their own sanity/restoring normalcy then it does as definitive fact on the nature of the Catastrophe; it's a very prominent fact that they acknowledge they know next to nothing about it and can largely do nothing about it as well. With regards to the actual statement about the SAO plot being ridiculous, I vaguely recall the line however I can't recall the exact scene nor can I find it again. Since my recollection is pretty fuzzy and my gut feeling is that the context of the chapter is important I can't comment on it directly. I can sift through more tomorrow and try to find it however if somebody can pinpoint the volume/chapter/arc it's in I'd greatly appreciate it. |
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2013-12-31, 06:59
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Link #56 |
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( ಠ_ಠ)
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
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But you're entirely dismissing the view of in-universe characters, the meta behind it, and continuous story element.
It seems to me that you somehow firmly believe you know better about the extent of the world than the characters who live it. Only thing that seem to matter is how you believe the world is, when there's no indication of it - and when there are information given against it, they seem to take less priority over your own imagination? While we may enjoy a god's perspective of the story, we are still at the mercy of the characters and text in the novel to provide us information. That takes precedence of all what-ifs we may fantasize.
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Last edited by aohige; 2013-12-31 at 07:15. |
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2013-12-31, 10:34
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Link #57 | ||
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Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
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To repeat myself, people have been dismissing the possibility of them being in a virtual world under the logic that it's a mouse and keyboard MMO, not a full dive MMO, and the amount of effort required to get everyone into a full dive rig without their knowledge is absurd. My point is that no such rig is required for them to be trapped in the game. People just being essentially magically trapped in the game is something that's been done before, there's no reason it can't happen on a grand scale. Nor can you just dismiss .hack as a poor comparison because it does not explain things and just leaves things at people being magically trapped. The whole reason it's used for a comparison in the first place is that it's one of the more prominent entries in the "trapped in a videogame" genre. More particularly, it's a quite prominent entry that's from Japan. Or to put it another way, it's part of the body of prior works that Mamare has to draw upon when deciding what he does and doesn't want to do with the story. You can't dismiss it as a bad comparison when he very well may have gone "Oh hey, you don't need a good explanation of how people are trapped to tell the story of people that are trapped which is what I want to do." after watching it. Nor is it like .hack is the sole example in the genre of what is essentially magic being the explanation of people being trapped. An example halfway between .hack and SAO is Tad Williams' Otherland series. In a future where large parts of the internet have become a full VR environment, something in one part of the internet is inexplicably making kids fall into comas. The protagonists quest for answers eventually leads them to hacking into an absurdly realistic VR environment with NPCs that can easily be mistaken for humans. Where they process to become trapped. Nothing to do with the equipment they're using, attempts to forcibly just inexplicably cause searing pain and crashing vital signs. Spoiler for Otherland:
In summary, magically being trapped in a more advanced version of the game is a valid possible explanation, and it cannot be dismissed out of hand simply because they aren't using any futuristic equipment to play the game. For that matter, it can't be dismissed out of hand because magic doesn't exist in our world either. Magic doesn't exist in our world, and that did not stop what is essentially magic being at play in the .hack world. Quote:
Or to put it another way, "How they interfaced with the game" is not an argument that survives, much less proves anything, by itself. Furthermore, with all due respect to Mamare, the fact that we are the ones debating exactly what's happened to them, and not the characters in the series, says that whether they're in a fantasy world or a virtual world really isn't that central to the story he wishes to tell. |
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2013-12-31, 11:50
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Link #58 |
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( ಠ_ಠ)
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
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Excuse me?
No one has made "better arguments" to explain a convincing reply to how this was even possible. Not to mention it's presented as implausible in the context of the story itself. All I see is deflection to "LOL .hack wannabe". You may claim .hack used a "soul-sucking video game without any supernatural means pulled out of ass, therefore it could apply here". Well, frankly, .hack plot was utter garbage. There. I said it. Typical sub-par video game plots with terribly inconsistent direction, and backdrops lacking any semblance of thought. A B-rated RPG plot, and below C- when it comes to sci-fi or fantasy. Also Krono, I've never said "lol because magic doesn't exist in our world". You're quoting someone else entirely, so please, tell that to whomever it actually applies to, alright? That's completely, utterly, not even remotely my point. In fact it's OPPOSITE of my point, I completely support the idea of magic being the culprit. So please, stop. If you're gonna shoot, aim the gun at the right freakin guy. I mean really, if we are gonna continue to argue for the sake of argument, rather than present actual, solid, reasoning and explanation, this entire conversation is pointless. And since it's become painfully obvious that this is impossible without facts presented in all mediums - not just anime (which SKIPS a lot of it), and monir wants none of that here, it's completely pointless for me to carry on. Cheers.
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Last edited by aohige; 2013-12-31 at 12:11. |
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2013-12-31, 12:16
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Link #59 | ||
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Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
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I'm making no arguments as to whether they are in a virtual world or a fantasy world. Certainly neither myself, nor other here are going "LOL .hack ripoff". What I'm doing is point out to the people that say things along the lines of "They can't be in a virtual world because that would require some sort of supernatural soul sucking", that .hack -one of the series that almost certainly influenced Log Horizon- did just that. Therefore you can't simply dismiss the possibility out of hand as it most certainly is one of the options open to Mamare. Whether you think .hack was garbage is irrelevant, the point is that it's "pulled into the game" functions are just as much an option to Mamare as a revelation that much like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Elder Tales has outright overwritten their world. Quote:
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2013-12-31, 12:16
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Link #60 | |
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Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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