Discussion why do people enjoy this type of novels.

I never got much into the .hack franchise, the only one I watched was .hack//sign... I should try the games and novels one day, it's just piling up on my list though! >.<

Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention.

Catfishing. It's really nice to see novels portraying people catfishing others, because it portrays them in a different light than the usual bad stereotype around them. I really like stories that try looking at people from a perspective contrary to the usual prejudice.

... Kinda like the same reason I like novels where there is a considerable age gap between MC and main love interest, the insight on Pedophilia is always really nice to look at~

 

It's just bother me when the AI react differently around the MC. Strangely, I don't mind watching anime about it though I didn't watch that many.

 

There needs to be a little extra to the VR setting for me to enjoy it the most. Like, in-game currency and items can be sold/traded for real-life cash. Real-life application of the VR other than just gaming would be a huge bonus. I also enjoy the gaming part - the endless grinding and leveling, hidden quests, upgrading gears, guild wars... Depends on the author's skill and imagination tho, lol. The main thing is, the VR game needs to impact the MC's life. If it's only about his gaming achievements, then realistically, that's kinda sad (the main reason I couldn't get into The King's Avatar, though it's not VR haha. Too much realism for me.)

 

This is such a great outlook that I always feel, but couldn't translate into words. Anyway, I'm gonna steal this explanation from now on. XD

 

Bc i enjoy gaming, so i enjoy a good gaming novel. Vr is a cool concept that doesn't really exist yet for these types of mmo games, so since we can't actually play, writing/reading/imaging it is the next best thing

Do you play/enjoy mmorpgs? If not, i doubt you should expect to enjoy reading about games if you don't likes to play games

The point is not to pretend it's a isekai world. It's a story about gaming.

 

I'm not even a gamer but I do find this genre is so entertaining! So it was wrong to say that this genre only targerted at gamers! Me and my sister always searching for virtual rality (game) ganre novel/anime/manga/live action!

Any novel with game elements always caught my eyes.
It doesn't have to be a Virtual Reality Game novel, I even enjoyed reading romance novel with game elements like A Slight Smile is Very Charming & You're Beautiful When You Smile (both are Chinese novel).
I really really like Legendary of the Moonlight Sculptor!

I think this genre drawn me in because of the other worldly aspects that I never experiencing myself. It just feels like fantasy~

 

It can touch upon very important philosophical questions , like when does AI stop being an AI and starts being a living being.
For instance Praise the Orc! Has such a deep Npc system and is centered about these interactions that it begs the question if they're actually real entities? (Haven't finished reading it).

What I hate the most about this genre is ,basically the fact that the authors spam stat sheets every other second, some even go into how much damage each strike makes. This is completely unnecessary as A- they have poor game design experience 99.9% of the time and B- it clogs up the pages with meaningless text that adds nothing to the story.
These novels turn into STAT sheet simulators , rather than... stories.
Praise the Orc! is my model VRMMO novel , because it does it very sensibly even more so than the classic The Legend of the legendary moonlight sculptor.

VR Kingdom Builders don't seem to fall pray to this madness.

 

I like the idea of Quests, Missions, Bosses, Classes etc... It's just the way the novel is in general..

A pity that most Video Games novel are absolutely ****

 

Think about like this: they are slice-of-life.
Back in the day, a typical person's life was about making small talk with classmates or running around with your sports club. Now it is mostly centered around playing video games. And VRMMOs are probably the most interesting games to write about.

Understanding is fun. Also, it's the same sort of curiosity that makes you want to read the next chapter.

 

Well, it's a setting that is interesting, so why not?

The setting automatically comes with a bunch of interesting(to me) things.
1. the main character is intentionally entering a world different from the one they live in. This automatically creates the question of what their motivation is for doing so.
2. you have them entering a world that the MC does not know well at all and has to learn and adapt to. I personally enjoy seeing an MC adapting to outside circumstances that are difficult to predict. It's one reason I was addicted to survivalism stories at one point as a kid. With a game world, the rules can be more unpredictable, things do not have to work in a way that makes sense, and the situation can change drastically from one area to another, and the MC has to try to use their brain to predict the unpredictable and adapt to the new as quickly as possible.
3. social interactions with other players go differently from how they do in regular life. The whole need to earn money to survive is taken out of the equation, so people are willing to take more risks, or to do things for silly reasons. The motivations of the characters can be more varied and still make perfect sense because of the setting.
4. if you have ever played any mmo, some of the situations feel familiar and make you empathize with the characters from your own memories, or what you would feel if you had been put in a situation like what the characters are going through.
5. the concept of anonyminity removes the judgement of the main character by other characters being based on their real life background or status, and instead they are judged in the game based only on how they act in the game. So you have the potential to have a main character who acts differently in life and in the game. Seeing two different sides of the same person, two different facets, as long as the author makes them feel like two parts of one cohesive whole, is very interesting to me.
6. again, there is a relation to the readers own experiences, this time for anyone who has ever used the internet with a name or picture different from their real ones (which includes everyone on this forum).
7. seeing a character figure out the rules of the world they are in entertains me. It has to do with reading alot of fantasy novels where the magic systems were different. I got in the habit of quickly switching my thinking from one set of rules (reality) to another (the one in the novel). So seeing a main character having to learn them bit by bit just like I do while reading or learning a new game, is kindof entertaining. More entertaining is imagining actually being able to use the ability to switch rule sets if full VR is completed sometime in the future.
8. It's a near future thing, so it's interesting exploring the different ways that reality could go through these fictions
9. Knowing that the character cannot die in the game does not remove the suspense. There are still stakes worth caring about. Maybe it's a friendship, or something in-game that the character has worked hard for and does not want to lose, or it is a goal they are working towards but the time and the competition mean that they could lose their goal at any time.
10. The idea of NPC's bring up the question of what it means to be human, which is always an interesting topic for me, and also brings up the author's idea of what the near future could be like with robots and/or AI.

The biggest flaw with stories with this setting is when the author focuses too much on stats, or stuffs the main character with so many skills that the reader stops bothering to read the massive list of them.

I think VR game stories are just a new type of sci-fi-fantasy, and have as much a right to be the setting of a story as the older magic-fantasy we are used to, or any other setting. If you do not like them, there is no problem, but I hope that you do not discount every single story with this setting as being automatically bad. For example, I have not had good luck with the xianxia novels I have read, but I still think it's a setting with plenty of potential, I just haven't found a very good one yet, but it's out there somewhere, or will be written someday.

 

I enjoy it a lot because for some reason i find it in a way relatable like not that i'm like but that they experience things that people today experience not just like an isekai where it's all about another world and that they have to things in the regular world as well.
My first VR novel was Legendary moonlight sculptor which is very nice like domdomdom said i recommend that you read it if you haven't yet or want to read a VR novel, just expect that it's a long read considering the fact that there are 50+ volumes

 

There are two big reasons that I like Vr genre when it comes to novels.
One is the belief of the VR from the novels actually happening in our near future. Either a person gains the inspiration to break the current limits or such. The isekai situation feels more like a wish or dream then a possible situation like future VR. Even if isekai does happen, you still need to complete with billions of others for those lucky spots but with VR if you got enough money then you can easily get it. So the isekai world's would be less appealing then VR worlds that could be our future gaming.

Still requires the author to make an interesting VR game/World.

Second reason is that isekai usually have you drop in with random cheat or no cheats. No cheats isekai I find very unappealing since if you can be that great in another world that you have no knowledge of then you should be a successful person before crossing.
It just feels like the author had to give the mc cheats but crying out that he didn't get cheats but mc was naturally like this. It is annoying.
Isekai with cheats can be appealing but it depends on the cheats and how the mc uses them.

VR if done right has the MC making his own cheats in acceptable reasons. Those same means feels very possible for anyone to do. So it appeals to readers because they could see themselves doing the same cheats in possible future gaming.
It the fact that VR novels make it possible for a MC to earn his status with natural abilities. Anyone could get lucky in a game by finding a bug or unique item that leads them to be an overlord.
Isekai on the other hand is usually handed to them by initial cheats or somehow burst out hidden talents that there was no sighs of before crossing.

Isekai = more wishing or dreaming.
VR = more possible and relatable.