Sword Art Online: The Beginning

[HelixDraxzonyx]

Have any of you heard about this yet? Here's where I first heard it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiBA3qpIiBM

Obviously it's not going to be *as* good as it is in the show/manga, since we don't have Full Dive tech, but that doesn't mean it won't be good at all even so. I'm interested in seeing more about this as the news comes along, but I'm intrigued so far. I'm hoping it'll be the game as it was supposed to be played (barring the whole trapping players and killing them part, of course), so hopefully we'll get to explore all 100 floors of Aincrad and kick arse on each one. Obviously this is going to be a paradise for all the RPers, but it'll also be pretty fun to laugh at them as they fail to imitate Kirito. I should hope that PKing is allowed, since that was an element of the show. That way, if the RPers get too annoying; we can just lop their heads off until they learn to be less annoying.

My PC *should* be powerful enough to run this, I just hope I finish building it in time for the Beta. There's no way I'll be done for the Alpha, and besides, that's taking place in Japan. It'd be pretty dang cool if I could Beta test it though.

Anyone else interested in this? Any other games from the franchise you'd like to see? GGO for me, naturally. FPS in a Cyberpunk world? Shut up and take my money!

[Khaos Muffins]

I've played all three SAO titled games (Infinity Movement, Hollow Fragment and Lost Song) and beat all of them because I have absolutely no social life whatsoever and THIS sounds intetesting. My friend LOVES SAO so this makes me excited to see something new, and get an opportunity to have in game waifus. After digging into various websites and reading a bit more into it, this "Cognitive System" they're making has made me think of some questions which will probably be answered from the reviewers of when the closed alpha comes. Well, to get those who have bothered to read this post brains started, here are my inital questions.

1. Gameplay mechanics: How are we going to be moving in game? Based on their trailer your "console" will be going on your face and I honestly don't understand shit about their new technology. Before you say "its just gonna go on your face and you can move around in game by moving around in real life", then wouldn't you just be bumping into things in real life?

2. Character customization. This is key for me. Can you make your character a neko? A kitsune? Probably not but I just hope there's lots of room for customization

3. Fighting mechanics. Will it be easy as Onigiri or as button mashy complicated as BnS? Idk. Like i said, gameplay mechanics are a mystery.

4. Lag? Dedicated servers?

5. I can assume floors will be open world and have many things do like with many towns and such like Skyrim, but how big will they be? I don't wanna be taking hours to walk from point A to B.

6.Downloading, installing and updating: its gonna be a huge game if they continue it but if downloading and installing updates are as long as some games are then well, I hate waiting


What are your initial thoughts and or questions?

[HelixDraxzonyx]

Well, the Occulus Rift comes with controllers, so while combat will probably be motion based, movement will probably be via joystick. Unless they release the NerveGear (wishful thinking). Looking around with the headgear on should still be fine.

Character customisation... I don't know if it'll let you go Neko, at least not in the early days, but there should still be a lot of options available. Not that everyone will exploit that since there'll be a mountain of dudes trying to mimic Kirito, or even more dudes trying to be Silica. There wouldn't be much point in that though, since your voice would still sound male (I'm about 98% sure in-game communications are done via built-in mics, so that'll make it difficult to pretend to be a girl).

Assuming combat is as I said at the top, it should be fairly simple. Might be a bit more like Wii games such as Red Steel, featuring a little bit of button pressing (namely for Sword Skills I should imagine). If I can find the article I read about motion-control in VR, I'll link it, but I'm sure that'll be a big part of it, especially for a game like this.

Given SAO's popularity, I think it's safe to say dedicated servers are guaranteed. It's a big game too, so lag is one thing they will absolutely be working hard to minimise, if not completely eradicate.

The Floors (in the show at least) were pretty big, but I don't think it'll take that long to go from town to town. Besides, there'll probably be horses you can ride, or else horse-like monsters that you can tame and then ride.

As for downloading... that could take a while, unless they decide to release a disc for the game (like WoW), which hopefully should take less time. Even so, Aincrad was a huge world, so it could take a few hours to install. I guess a part of it also depends on your PC's specs.

And now for my questions/thoughts:

1) Guilding and parties are basically a given, so I'm wondering if there'll be special Guild Halls for these guilds to use, or whether we'd have to acquire and develop our own.

2) The show featured Silica as a Beast Tamer, Lisbeth as a Blacksmith and Agil as an Item Merchant. I wonder if these job roles would be available as well? If so, I'd balance dungeon raiding with blacksmithing. I'd like to be able to forge my own custom weapons and armour, and repair it all as well. It'd also be handy to have a job system like that to earn extra money if exp grinding gets rough.

3) On the subject of custom weapons and armour: how much customisation would be available, and would it be something we have full control over, or would it be random?

4) PKing: another aspect of the show, but will it be allowed under the same rules? I'm not saying I *want* to be a red player, but let's face it: we've all wanted to kill a Kirito-wannabe. Just 30 seconds in the Rift is enough to make most people want to go on a killing spree.

5) Legendary weapons: They never appeared in SAO itself, but ALO had Excalibur, and Onigiri has those weapons as well. Will SAO: The Beginning have them, or could we forge our own interpretations of them instead? I've got designs for Durandal if the latter is the case.

That's all I have on my mind at the moment. I'll see what I can dig up as time goes on. Maybe some questions will be answered, maybe more will be raised. I'm definitely excited for this game though. I *would* say "I hope it's better than Onigiri", but that's not exactly setting the bar very high is it?

[HelixDraxzonyx]

Oh, I'm also interested in seeing if they implement the automatic quest generation and event dungeons that the show mentions. What better way to spend Christmas Eve than shredding Nicholas the Renegade?

[Riddras]

This ought to be interesting if big blue has a hand in it. I'll definitely need a better computer for it tho

[HelixDraxzonyx]

Gleam Eyes? I believe he'll be in there, waiting for us on Floor 74. This *is* supposed to be how SAO would have been if Kayaba hadn't been a dick. Guess that means we'll have a chance to take on the Skull Reaper as well then. I wonder if I'd become famous if I solo'd that bony prick. Certainly I have to solo Gleam Eyes. I can't let myself be outdone by Kirito.

[Miyano311]

Bad news folks

The cake is a lie =_=

*you guys may know this but i dont feel comfortable if not telling so yeah *

[HelixDraxzonyx]

And what's your basis for this? Not that article on roadtovr I hope? Because I've already debunked that bullcrap before.

http://www.roadtovr.com/sorry-internet-the-sword-art-online-vr-mmo-isnt-real/

If you're talking about this article; there's several places he went wrong, both about the game and the alpha event. He also fails to provide any verifiable sources that "prove" SAO:TB isn't happening. He claims to have spoken to one guy, and that's it. One person. He also claims to have been doing translation, but fails to provide the untranslated article, so how do we know he's not mistranslating? I can go into more detail, if you want, but if this is the article you're basing your statement on, it's wrong. If you have any other articles that make the same claims, I'll be glad to check those out and see where they went wrong.

Here is a different article that discusses The Beginning:
http://gematsu.com/2016/02/ibm-japan-announces-sword-art-online-virtual-reality-project

The article also provides a link to the official website. Unfortunately, my own Japanese knowledge is insufficient to read the website, but maybe others will have better luck.

[Miyano311]

i actually read it from another article. It said 'that company' doesnt really make SAO real. you can go ahead and try translating, its in vietnamese
http://www.manganetworks.net/ibm-khong- ... -thanh-su/

[HelixDraxzonyx]

I know absolutely zero Viatnamese, however it *does* link the same Road to VR article I just mentioned, so that doesn't exactly fill me with any confidence.

Alright, I just put the website into Google Chrome to get it translated, and that whole thing is based solely on the Road to VR article I've already debunked. The author of the Road to VR article is a moron. He showed poor knowledge of the SAO anime, and even less knowledge of SAO: The Beginning. The Alpha Event, as mentioned in the Gematsu article I linked, will feature an Alpha test featuring all 208 players *simultaneously*, which is then followed by demonstrations in which people gathered at the event will get the chance to try out the Alpha as well. The Alpha testers will "be 3D scanned" (not entirely sure what that entails exactly) to have their real-world likeness put into the game as an avatar, which they will then be able to further modify. R2VR's author made an error with this Alpha test, somehow believing that only four testers would be playing at a time, for about 30 minutes each. He is wrong about that. The Alpha Test itself won't last all three days, though there will probably be several test sessions, followed by more demonstrations.

Please be more careful when reading articles like these. As an SAO fan, I'm excited by SAO:TB, but it really annoys me when I have to go and debunk conspiracy theories about how it's just a marketing campaign (which makes no sense by the way. There's no point in marketing something that doesn't exist. You can't sell nothingness. Well, you probably *can*, but only to huge idiots. The point is, if it it isn't going to exist, why advertise it? That would only piss off the fans. If you lose your fans, you lose profits. If you lose profits, you go out of business).