| Poll | | | What game does everyone play now? | | Starcraft 2 | | 26% | [ 8 ] | | Warcraft 3 | | 35% | [ 11 ] | | League of Legends | | 19% | [ 6 ] | | World of Warcraft | | 0% | [ 0 ] | | Diablo 2 | | 0% | [ 0 ] | | No games at all | | 10% | [ 3 ] | | Other game not listed | | 10% | [ 3 ] |
| | Total Votes : 31 |
|
|
| | Log Horizon |  |
| | | Author | Message |
|---|
Serenity09
Moderator
 |  Subject: Log Horizon  Mon Feb 24, 2014 10:44 am | |
| So i got around to (yet) another VR anime called Log Horizon - tangent:
it's cold here and when it's cold anime becomes my life force, games my blood. so without a computer to play games that means im steadily watching all the good anime produced in the last 5 years.
Here's the synopsis: By its eleventh expansion pack, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Elder Tale has become a global success, having a following of millions of players. However, during the release of its twelfth expansion pack: Novasphere Pioneers, thirty thousand Japanese gamers who are all logged on at the time of the update, suddenly find themselves transported inside the game world and donning their in-game avatars. In the midst of the event, a socially awkward gamer called Shiroe along with his friends Naotsugu and Akatsuki decide to team up so that they may face this world which has now become their reality along with the challenges which lie ahead. Taken from http://myanimelist.net/anime/17265/Log_HorizonSo if you've ever watched any VR anime the start of this one will be very, very familiar ground. in fact, the first 3 or 4 episodes will be about as generic "suddenly-stuck-in-a-VR-world" as it gets. I love the premise but even i got a bit bored. The characters are pretty solid and interesting and i liked this flavor of VR combat, but the intro is hugely generic. In a way that makes sense, there aren't all that many ways a mass audience could reasonably react to being trapped in a game. For a few more episodes after that it remains generic but a bit more interesting / fun to watch. Around ep 10 it switches from pretty good to good. The main character is intelligent and tends to dig into the gears of things, and the lore / plot is well thought out enough that it works well. The show is currently airing and looks to be successful enough to warrant a second season. It airs on Saturdays and is licensed on cruncyroll (subbed and all) if you don't mind the ads. Currently it's up to episode 21 (/25) with regular updates. Overall I would rate it an 8.5/10. If you haven't gotten around to trying a VR anime but want to, this would make for a very solid place to start | |
|  | | Pat1487
Moderator
| | Subject: Re: Log Horizon Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:18 pm | |
| I started watching this last week, im on ep 16 now and intend to finish it by the end of the week
For the first 4 eps i really didnt like it, but it got much better as it went and was well worth going through those first couple episodes
My main problem is how it explains things, sometimes its fine but other times they explain game mechanics to the audience, but instead of just straight up saying it to the audience they explain it between 2 characters, when both characters should know these things by now
And sometimes they explain obvious things directly to the audience which i hate, i can forgive them explaining game mechanics but not explaining plot related things that they already showed
But thats the only issue i have with it and the rest is good enough that it doesnt matter to me
Ill post more after ive finished it
Oh wait, there is 1 other problem
There's a maid subclass, A MAID SUBCLASS, what possible benefit could a maid subclass give to the person that takes it, at first i thought it was a roleplaying thing that was put in the game for roleplay, but it has a level and you can level it up, so does that mean you start at maid level 1 and sweep floors for hours to level it up, what would a maid subclass do after sweeping, drink serving, laundry (how would laundry work in a game, does armor get dirty over time), what skills would they have, can they buff people as a support role, clean armor could give a benefit, serving a drink to someone could give a buff, maybe they can sweep dust into the enemies face and blind them
It just raises too many questions and make me want to know how the maid subclass works
Im joking of course, its completely irrelevant and isnt really a problem but this is what i was thinking when i saw that, i had to pause and go back in the episode because i stopped paying attention to the episode while thinking about this | |
| | | | Serenity09
Moderator
| | Subject: Re: Log Horizon Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:46 pm | |
| the maid subclass is actually exactly as ridiculous as pat makes it sound. im not even sure how it's explainable within the lore. the only possible way for it to have a point is if everyone were to get sucked into the game and suddenly house / character upkeep would be noticeable. short of that, it wouldnt even have an effect... which means the creators of the game had to know what was coming. welcome to the nhk! also the season finale aired last saturday and season 2 has been confirmed for later this fall! so breath easy if you werent sure about getting attached i watched the season finale it was hugely disappointing, for the same reason that the latest 8 or so episodes have been hugely disappointing. nothing fucking happens - Spoiler:
it could have been a lot worse though. i liked the new antagonist. she's the standard succubus thing going, which is tired, but she still seemed a bit like a person, which is better. my biggest complaint for this show is how long they stretch things out. the character specific gags, the love triangles, the drama, the conflicts: all of it is drawn out to have a way longer lifespan then it should. the last 8 or so eps have been stretched out when all theyre doing is setting up the new arc and continuing love triangles. yeah im pretty interested in where it goes now, but id be even more interested if it was half the length with none of the filler. overall, i would have enjoyed season 1 a lot more if it was either shorter or had more in it...
i wouldnt have been so annoyed by the season finale if it didnt share that exact same problem, it was a pretty good episode in its own right. still not a good season finale though, but i guess with season 2 coming so soon that was on purpose...
i came up with a slightly alternative time line that i woulda loved
the biggest differences from the story so far: the kids dont serve a major role and never star in any ep. oh and the show is rated R. but those are more editorial
the only main difference in the world is that "PvP" goes way more in depth. this is the main thing i wish the show had done, it doesn't need to be part of an alternate timeline at all. but in my timeline it would exist: players would be kidnapped (or seduced or poisoned or tricked or whatever equivalent) and brought to a different "slaver" aligned town. a "slaver" town is really just any town where the cathedral has been purchased (as established in the season finale) and the owner aint a good guy. once the player entered the town their spawn point would change and the owner could set it so they weren't able to leave the cathedral. they would either be threatened to give items (including property), services, etc or be killed over and over, losing their real memories. no one would be safe since the game's system makes it so easy and possible. people who have had that happen and return to the world (having lost all thoughts) are referred to as "hikikimori" as a kinda sorta pun
otherwise, the premise can stay the pretty much the same. without the kids serving as the focus, the 25ep season would be happily condensed to being just the first 13 episodes of season 1. shiroe would be largely the same character but wouldnt be restricted by the whole pg-13 happy goody-goody thing as much. his use / discovery of world changing magic would be a little more self serving to fill in the whole left by the kids no longer being main characters.
similar to the story, shiroe's discovers a way to send everyone back and, after some interesting story, does so for the town of akibahara. shiroe chooses to stay behind so that he can help other people do the same. sometime later, and many people sent back later, shiroe is kidnapped (this would be the end of season 1 in my version) and repeatedly killed in an attempt to get him to sign his property claims to the guild hall and other buildings away (this is left unclear)
season 2 picks up with him as a "hikikimori" X time later without any idea who he is or that he was originally from a different world. at this point, most other players have returned and most of the "old" conflicts he was familiar with have changed. it would have to be careful where it went from here; it couldnt just be him traveling to find his original identity (he'd never regain his original memories, for example)
and there'd have to be a good reason to keep things aloof. maybe a different major world changing magic was released
| |
| | | | Serenity09
Moderator
| | Subject: Re: Log Horizon Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:01 pm | |
| season 2 is almost wrapped up so im going to add some of my thoughts 1. the kids have, maybe, 10 minutes of screen time total. which is great for my current sanity, but makes me even more confused as to what the fuck they were doing there in the first place 2. i re-read my thoughts on the season finale for s1 and i honestly cant remember who this new antagonist is. did i miss something? 3. episode 10 was without a doubt the worst episode of anything ive ever seen. its literally 1 guy monologuing awkwardly for 23 minutes. 23min is unacceptable even if it was a braveheart level monologue - Spoiler:
it wasnt
4. this season would have been way more enjoyable if i had waited and then watched it all at once all in all, i've been enjoying it more than season 1 - Spoiler:
what do you think of the kunai clan? at first i thought they were the things that brought the players over (acting as admin characters), then i thought they were the past heroes mentioned so often in season 1, and finally i thought they really might just be spruced up npc's
i dont think its the last theory purely cuz its not headline-y enough and it's pretty much already how they're presented. its hard to say at this point, but im guessing next ep will explain a lot
| |
| | | | Pat1487
Moderator
| | Subject: Re: Log Horizon Wed Dec 17, 2014 1:28 am | |
| Season 2 isnt even half way over yet lol, its a 24 (23 or 25, one of those) episode season Much like SAO there will be a week where theres no ep the week after ep 15 airs I couldve sworn i made a post after yours to talk about season 1 back in march or april, but not only is it not here but i dont have a rough draft saved so maybe we talked about it in chat, i cant remember Maybe i started typing it but didnt save it 1. The kids never really bothered me so i didnt notice the difference 2. I remember the end of season 1, sort of - Spoiler:
There was a new antagonist, there was a threat and/or a bribe or something, i think he refused and left then went to the others talking about changing the world
So i assume that will be a thing later, but for now it hasnt come up, other than the spies thing
Yeah i remember now, it was the guild leader from the town that has spies in their town, she(?) confronted shiroe about his research on going back to the real world at the end of season 1 and thats how he knows there are spies at the start of season 2
Everything they are doing now is unrelated to all that though, they are focusing on w/e shiroe's world changing plan is
3. Lol yeah, i was like "Hmm, a soliloquy, cool" 5 minutes later "Ok, its time to say something badass that rallies everyone and start kicking ass now" 10 more minutes later *is playing hearthstone in a window under the video, with the video in a window thats just large enough to show the subs* 5 more minutes later *the sound of movement* "Oh shit, did i miss them doing something" *maximize video* "Nope" *ED* 4. Luckly i saw ep 10 and 11 together, so ep 10 not nearly as bad to me, if i saw ep 10 right away id be very pissed that they wasted a week on that, but watch 11 right after made me forgive ep 10 Watching it all at once would be better, but i dont think watching it weekly was bad (other than the ep 10 thing) - Spoiler:
- Seren wrote:
- what do you think of the kunai clan? at first i thought they were the things that brought the players over (acting as admin characters), then i thought they were the past heroes mentioned so often in season 1, and finally i thought they really might just be spruced up npc's
i dont think its the last theory purely cuz its not headline-y enough and it's pretty much already how they're presented. its hard to say at this point, but im guessing next ep will explain a lot Shiroe and the others know of the kunei clan from back when it was a game, so they would know if they were GMs/admins and since they havent said they are they must not be Most likely its just a powerful NPC group that was a part of a kind of flavor text/lore back when it was a game to explain why monsters dont enter town and have loot and all the other core game rules that only games with a ton of lore/flavor text bother to explain I doubt they had anything to do with bringing them there since they are NPCs My theory on who brought them there is that no one "brought" them there Id have to watch the first ep again but im pretty sure everyone there was logged in and playing at the moment of the Apocalypse So at that moment someone made Elder Tale into a reality, and because the players existed there (as their in game character who now became real at that moment) their mind (and soul if you want) were merged with their character in the new reality So they werent brought there per say, their existence there is a consequence of the creation a new reality, its possible the person responsible for it had no idea that would happen Also i think their real bodies in the real original world are in a comma (maybe dead) since their mind (and soul i guess) is in the Elder Tale reality and every time they die in the game its kind of like a snippet of your life flashing before your eyes as you die So they are very very slowly dieing with every respawn (their memories are all they are now) I think that if someone dies enough times (1000s, 100s of thousands maybe, i dont know, could even be millions of deaths, theres been no way to keep track of someone's deaths, unless they only died like once or twice) they will eventually become a vegetable as there will be almost nothing left of the original person they wont remember anything, not just about who they are but basic stuff like how to talk/eat/pee, i dont know what will happen if there is actually nothing left, maybe they stop respawning completely Im kindve surprised there wasnt some psychopath that just kept killing someone over and over again (100s of thousands of times), im hoping that happens at some point so we can see what will happen when they lose all their memories Also its been shown that time in this world is much faster than time in the normal world, so in the normal world probably less than a day has passed since the Apocalypse happened, i could figure out the exact amount of real time that has passed, and i might at some point, but i dont think it has been that long, at most a week, and thats really over estimating it I cant theorize on who/what made Elder Tale into a reality though, or how they did it Theres not enough info, ive ruled out the Kunei clan (as i said above) and that NPC mage who seems like he could do it but i dont think it was him because his level is like in the 20s where as rudy's level is in the 50s so NPCs seem to obey the same level system that the players do and a level 20 something wouldnt be able to do that Also i dont think an NPC did it just in general since there were all made real when Elder Tale was made real, so he cant be it Most likely either a player did it or the game developers did, but i cant back that up with anything so its not a theory, and i dont even know where to begin on the how it was done part, world changing magic only goes so far
| |
| | | | Sponsored content
| | Subject: Re: Log Horizon | |
| |
| | | | | | Log Horizon | |
|
| | Permissions in this forum: | You cannot reply to topics in this forum
| |
| |
| |
