LCD Monster Soul

Discussion in 'Latest Chapter Discussion' started by jacobpaige, Oct 16, 2018.

  1. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    Sila = Stone
    Burapha = East Direction
     
  2. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    He should probably just ask Burapha to handle all of his japtem, even if only in the sense of helping him sort out the stuff worth auctioning from the vendor trash.

    What makes a dress polite?

    I wonder why they're even letting Bluebird tag along, much less including him in their plans. It's not like he's done anything to make them believe that they can trust him, and the MC has tons and tons of enemies that would happily pay for his location, especially during a boss raid.

    Also curious if he'll wind up sparing the turtle. It seems unlikely given his personality, but at the same time, it would also be odd for the MC to miss out on such a powerful pet, especially when he's got three slots in his ring.
     
  3. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    Ahh, I always end up visiting this thread. XD
    I can't help but like the way you often come up with so many opinions and ideas to be discussed.

    1. He really plans to ask Burapha.

    2. A dress can either be polite or improper, depending on its pattern and length, no? Am I misunderstanding something here? Or should it be specifically stated that it is a [formal dress]?

    3-4. No comment here.
     
  4. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    1) I meant on an ongoing basis. I doubt he'll only need this sort of help one or two times.

    2) I've never heard of a dress being polite, and an improper one would normally mean that it was very revealing or something. Though, what made it improper would depend heavily on the speaker, who would normally be quite old and conservative if they're using a word like improper to describe a dress. As for what to call it, it just depends on what it looks like really. If it's a more modern formal dress like you'd see at a cocktail party or the Oscars, then I'd call it a formal dress, if it's a poofy one like what Princes Peach likes to wear, then I'd call it a formal gown. After reading this article though, I think the actual meaning might be "conservative dress", but I could be wrong.
     
  5. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    It seems like many of the points are still left undiscussed.
    As one of the readers, I would like to join in the discussion about the story too.

    About this point, I guess Sila's feeling of depression comes before feeling indebted. If he was asked to do that, he might decline since he had no will to do anything. Only revenge can overcome his depression. (Or, it is possible that Rashane has already planned to do that. But his daughter just outright rejected, "Dad, I'm very infamous. That excuse will never work!")

    Now that you talk about it... It is very seemingly impossible to have an assistant for each player, especially when the game is first launched. Very likely to be a plot hole.

    We might as well think that they are already mentioned and accepted in "terms and agreement" before logging into the game. lol

    What are you trying to imply here? Care to elaborate?

    Ummm, obviously, there must be some reason that hasn't been revealed yet.

    Maybe some gaming words are common in that era?

    Genitalia? Now you are creative. lol. Luckily, they have already revealed. 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 eye(s?), 1 body, 1 heart.
     
  6. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    The death penalty included a loss of like 10 levels as I recall. For most games, that's a fairly extreme loss. Honestly, if you haven't got plot armor, it's pretty extreme in this game too. Just think about how long it took a normal player to get to ~180. Suddenly losing ten levels every time you die could make it very hard to ever gain any levels at all, especially if you're playing a class that involves a lot of risk.

    Though, what would get people to stop playing the game isn't just that, not unless they were dying constantly anyway. No, what would get them to drop it would be the 12(?) hour period after they die when they're not allowed to log in combined with the stated policy of supporting high level players' right to grief and torment low level players. Honestly, with a policy like that, the game's population would be nearly nonexistent as all the new players got slaughtered the moment they joined the game and then played other games while they waited, only to forget about the game they were originally playing and never come back. But, this problem is present in most of these series. I think I might just die of shock if I ever encounter one with a game that actually sounds like something that could be a real and successful game.
     
  7. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    Well, based on the translated chapters, the level isn't all that important so losing 10 of them is not a big deal. (Heck, Montra even lost 999 level in a brief period.) Players should be more concerned about the rank demotion.

    The usual waiting period when dying is 1-2 hour (assisting NPC said 1, but Varee said 2, so I'm not sure), not 12.
    Sure, there are cases when the period is longer, those cases seem to be when players get killed by boss monsters. I think this level of risk is what the players have to take into account when they plan to raid the boss monster.

    You are completely right about the game policy seems to motivate high-level players to abuse low-level players. However, isn't a real life is like that? Influential people are only restricted by laws and ethics. Though there are self-made laws and ethics in MSO too, the consequences of breaking them are not as apparent as in real life. And that's the game's concept: What will you do in the lawless world? (Sure, you can choose to free yourself from such world (=quit the game).)

    Well, to be fair, the company needs to have some kind of incentive to keep players to play the game. The not-so-obvious one is the high amount of money this game's currency can be traded into real life's currency. (Just look at Sila, if he didn't buy the Chamber of Secret, he would be sitting in the money now. Though, it could be argued that he has the help from the Greed Card.)
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2018
  8. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    Montra has an entire guild to grind xp for him. He's not really a good comparison. Also, while level is meaningless most of the time, it does affect how other players treat you, and whether or not you can rank up if you're lucky enough to encounter an opportunity to do so. After all, those level 180ish people had the item to rank up, but they couldn't, and wouldn't be able to for something like a year. I would expect that to be highly frustrating on top of being extremely dangerous since the higher level players would, and did, try to spawn camp them to steal the item.

    Yes, well, speaking from personal experience, games that have a reputation for griefing noobs don't last. Not only do the new players, and non-a**hat players leave in droves, but new players of all types will stop bothering to buy the game in the first place. Eventually, as the playerbase gets smaller and smaller, the a**hats will start leaving too since they'll find themselves to be the victims, with no one to victimize themselves. At that point, it's only a matter of time until the game ceases to exist. Game companies don't police their playerbases because they actually care about them. They do it because not doing it heavily impacts the bottom line and the longevity of the game they poured huge sums of money and time into.

    Honestly, the odds of this game ever even breaking even seem to be basically zero with what we've seen so far. It's not like it's got a monopoly on full immersion VR games after all, and the audience it's trying to appeal to is simply too small, and generally, not particularly loyal.
     
  9. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    I disagree with you about the death penalty. Take Ragnarok Online for example (or other online games, it shouldn't matter), when character dies, the player would have to deal with a frustation with the loss of 10% exp points which you might have to grind them for days. It's a pretty similar concept to any VR novels. It's called a death 'penalty' for a reason.

    By the way, based on translated chapters, I would wholeheartly agree with you about this game won't be able to survive if it were to release in real life. Though, there will be a satisfactory answer in the future chapters.

    Btw, please tell me if I shouldn't post like this (foreshadowing future chapters, though not a explicit spoiler) at all. I'm quite new in the forum and might not know the manner enough.
     
  10. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    10% is a matter of seconds for people just starting out. It's only a matter of days once you get to the highest levels and have strong commitment to the game. At that point, it's urging you to get better, not to quit. The same goes for any other MMO really. The death penalty is easily ignored (or totally non-existent) at the start of the game, but gets worse as you get further in so that high level players don't have to deal with pig teammates that aren't afraid to die in stupid ways, and low level players don't have to fear death so much that they never learn how to become good.

    Honestly, if it's just something like "it'll be explained later", then I don't care. It's when you start saying things like "he'll get an OP flying pet" or "he'll recruit several boss monsters" or other fairly explicit spoilers that I'll get upset. As for the forum's definition of spoilers; I'm not too sure. I think they leave it up to common sense, but I don't really remember.
     
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  11. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    Now that you mentioned it, I kind of agreeing with you more.

    Well, to be fair, 10% of exp points (in a game with 99 level cap) can be similar to 10 levels (in a game with 5000 level cap). It is possible that players can grind their level pretty fast (now I'm finally aware why you mentioned this sentence) like 10-20 level in a minute when starting out. Good grief, that is unlikely if we look at Sila who took an hour just to grind 2-3 levels. Well, it might be argued that the slime is just that bad of a target. (Still, that would cause a new player to feel frustration unless we think of a slime hunting as a training ground to familiarize your movement within the game.)
     
  12. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    Again, I'd refer you to the 2 months = 180 levels thing. That tends to imply that it's not easy to get 10 levels quickly at any point in the game, unless you're fighting stuff that has a much, much higher level than you the way the MC usually does. This means that veterans with super high skills could recover 10 levels fairly quickly, but noobs would have to grind for days if not weeks. It's basically the opposite of what you'd want as a game designer.

    As for the slimes, I don't think the game designers really expected anyone to kill more than a few of them before getting bored and moving onto quests and/or tougher, more valuable mobs.
     
  13. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    C56: Honestly, it feels like Bluebird could have solo'd the dragon if he'd taken it as seriously as a dragon should be taken right from the beginning. Heck, he could probably have even one shot it.

    I wonder if anyone in his party will compare his loot drops to their own and realize that there's something seriously fishy about him getting almost a dozen items while they got 0-1.

    C57: If there's an item that will make a permanent portal, then wouldn't it be much easier to get that item than to find and defeat all the dragons?
     
  14. MarSprite

    MarSprite <Impossible to Gauge>

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    A few things.

    I always assume that these full dive pods contain waste disposal mechanisms. It's not that the users aren't evacuating, it's that the author isn't explicitly writing about it. What exactly is the purpose of a pod setup if not to deal with these things? Otherwise you have people lying down on a regular bed. An alternative being some kind of suspended animation with a mind upload.

    I certainly find alot to nitpick in VRMMO design in novels. OP game breaking gear that only one player in the game gets. Character classes that only one player in the game gets. Skills that only one player in the game can ever learn. The matrix has you intelligent AI that only exists within the game within the setting.

    Some of the really silly things are actually drawing on real world events though. Like companies setting up within the game, that happened in Second Life. Or game currency translating to real money in large amounts, it's not a crazy jump from the current diffuse setup where some games have currency worth small amounts of real world currency via legitimate or illegitimate trading. Games where griefing isn't policed by the game developer, just look at Ultima Online a game without which we might not even have MMOs as a genre. Games where established players have advantages are actually ubiquitous, in fact most real mmorpgs usually are complex enough in their systems that an experienced player can level much faster than an inexperienced player, and all without potential advantages of stored currency or gear.

    It's hard to say what might be considered par for the course in a world where VRMMOS were a thing. Many ideas that are now considered ok, or even appreciated, were not well recieved when first implemented in modern games. Looking at microtransacion funded MMORPGs, you can see that the mechanisms have evolved but also the public outcry has weakened. Games like Warframe that literally sell you the upper tier gear are now lauded as being great examples of how you should do microtransactions in a game. Once upon a time the player base would have called it a pay to win game, even with the ability to aquire most of what they have sold within the game via grind. Massive world based play is now largely being abandoned in favor of instance based play which isn't really an mmo at all imo, more of a hybrid multiplayer squad based game with massive lobbies. You wouldn't call a car solar powered just because it can get some electricity from the sun if it still got a large part of it's fuel from gasoline, you'd call it a hybrid.

    VRMMOs are a very interesting SciFi subgenre. I certainly would like to see a story written in a vrmmo where the author put more effort into the SciFi consistency and possibility, but even in fully edited and published western novels you don't get that very often anymore.

    TLDR:
    Writers don't usually cover their characters pooping. Real games do dumb things too. I would sell one of my extra organs to play a full dive VRMMO.
     
  15. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    C56: True enough. Well, Bluebird can fly and he has chosen the lightning element, he has all the advantages against it. Nevertheless, if the dragon isn't foolish enough to spend time talking, it might be able to resist or run away.

    C57: Well, it's not sure if such an item is out there. It might be super rare or even unobtainable.

    Yeah, it's safe to say that most novels don't even care to mention characters going to the toilet. Well, I can get the feeling of a frustration that it wasn't mentioned even when charaters stay in the same motion for days, but, well, I can let it go.

    Well, about the realisticity of the game, you have to keep reading to see whether the game is fun enough for you to want to try playing one and keep playing if it were released in real life. (Notice that I use 'fun', not 'fair', as I think every online game is unfair in one thing or another. Be it being earlier to play, injecting more money into the game, having more connection, etc.)

    If you are interested in a novel that does a good job at the game building system and design, I can only think of one. It's also very well written. Author delicates 15-17 chapters to MC who has a dream to build an online game. He builds a company to do that with his talented friends. The novel excliticly explains what happens during the process: how he gets the fund, what type of energy is likely to be enough to processing such a game, how the media reacts, etc. Then, there is a time skip, and the author switches MC. The second MC is the one who actually plays the game. It is Thai. Unfortunately, the series is dropped long ago, otherwise I would consider translating it after I finish this series.
     
  16. canaria23

    canaria23 『  』

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    From the story so far the mc can be considered as God of disasters much worse than other Mc's. The other mc's from other stories only get their hometown destroyed and their family/lovers killed but our mc gets everybody killed almost all the places he goes to. Good thing monster soul online is a game.
     
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  17. Sinless

    Sinless Well-Known Member

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    Plot-wise, he had a certain card that brought disasters *cough* I mean, special events, to unfold.