Nasuverse FSN + SAO: j-jam it in!
- Thread starter daniel_gudman
- Start date
So, related to the idea of [Shirou the Final Boss]...
Some sort of [Awareness of Steel], related to his current activities as the guy [Handing out Fishing Rods]. Basically, if he made it, he is hyperaware of where those weapons are during the final fight. Blind sword dodging, pre-emptive countering, perhaps even manipulating those same weapons remotely.
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And as for stats... 100 floors, 10 levels per floor soft cap = Level 1000 functional cap. (Perhaps an absolute hard cap?) Or rather, 990 for anyone just entering floor 100.
And stats are capped at 5x level, barring DDA's super special snowflake reinforcement above 5x cap, which even Shirou can't do (As stated in 7:4). Even though Shirou should, theoretically, have one of the highest reinforcement stats in the game, given how much he used it to augment his running around as the [Sixth Ranger].
That's a stat cap of 4950-5000 for each Strength and Agility, where most players will fall around 3:2 to 2:3, or roughly 3000:2000/2000:3000.
So as [EMIYA], the boss, give Shirou 'perfect reinforcement' as part of his boss package, for 6:6? Making him faster and stronger than players could hope to be, as is only fitting for a [Final Boss]?
Some sort of [Awareness of Steel], related to his current activities as the guy [Handing out Fishing Rods]. Basically, if he made it, he is hyperaware of where those weapons are during the final fight. Blind sword dodging, pre-emptive countering, perhaps even manipulating those same weapons remotely.
--
And as for stats... 100 floors, 10 levels per floor soft cap = Level 1000 functional cap. (Perhaps an absolute hard cap?) Or rather, 990 for anyone just entering floor 100.
And stats are capped at 5x level, barring DDA's super special snowflake reinforcement above 5x cap, which even Shirou can't do (As stated in 7:4). Even though Shirou should, theoretically, have one of the highest reinforcement stats in the game, given how much he used it to augment his running around as the [Sixth Ranger].
That's a stat cap of 4950-5000 for each Strength and Agility, where most players will fall around 3:2 to 2:3, or roughly 3000:2000/2000:3000.
So as [EMIYA], the boss, give Shirou 'perfect reinforcement' as part of his boss package, for 6:6? Making him faster and stronger than players could hope to be, as is only fitting for a [Final Boss]?
I'm pretty sure the [Crimson King] will just be Shirou, flat out. He doesn't need buffs.
The Awareness of Steel thing is something he already has, after all. His own Reinforcement goes way beyond merely perfect, letting him emulate even Hercules' strength for a time. And then he can literally just Gate of Babylon every sword he's ever made for a player at them. He's already going to be a nigh-impossible boss.
(Also in canon the cap is 99, and the soft cap is ten levels above the floor number, not per floor. So at floor 2 you soft cap at level 12, at level 15 you soft cap at level 25, etc.)
The Awareness of Steel thing is something he already has, after all. His own Reinforcement goes way beyond merely perfect, letting him emulate even Hercules' strength for a time. And then he can literally just Gate of Babylon every sword he's ever made for a player at them. He's already going to be a nigh-impossible boss.
(Also in canon the cap is 99, and the soft cap is ten levels above the floor number, not per floor. So at floor 2 you soft cap at level 12, at level 15 you soft cap at level 25, etc.)
Plus, they're not even 1/4th of the way trough the game. By the time the game ends, Shirou will probably have picked up some other utterly bullshit skill. He already has started to learn some new tricks, through Kirito's influence, and serial escalation plus rule of drama dictates he'll develop ANOTHER story-breaking power before the game ends, like manage to imprint his experience into the swords while telekinectically wielding them. Boom, Dancing Sword span. And for bonus Bogus Boss powers, since he's forged weapons for pretty much every frontliner, and he can copy the skill of people through looking at their weapons, he can imprint people's experience into their own weapons and everyone in the frontlines gets to fight ghost versions of themselves. I have to agree with Linkhyrule, Shirou doesn't need buffing, even if he doesn't have access to his real story-breaking stuff.
Personally, I'm not of the opinion that most people will be worried about the magecraft patch being in other games later on. Why? Because it's just the physics library for magic of course. Sure, sure, you can potentially develop your own and use that instead, but the Magecraft patch is very flexible, very highly developed, self consistent, and most of all it comes free with the Seed. Why wouldn't people use it? I mean, the giant robot game doesn't call it magecraft and uses 'Overtechnology Modules' (IE, mystic codes) and 'Psi Talents' (IE, giving players canned spellcasting routines to call upon), but it still uses the free physics library for how shiny magic stuff works because it is free and making one of their own of vaguely comparable quality would be Really Expensive.
And then for already sold/made games Cardinal just goes 'oh hey a systems patch for all those special effects, now I actually have a self contained and consistent system to figure out how they work instead of just some random decrease that guys hp commands! Time for some updating!'
And then for already sold/made games Cardinal just goes 'oh hey a systems patch for all those special effects, now I actually have a self contained and consistent system to figure out how they work instead of just some random decrease that guys hp commands! Time for some updating!'
The problem is that thaumaturgy is violently at odds with good game design. As many players noticed early in the story, it's arbitrary and unfair and unbalanced as all hell, and it hurts when you use it for no apparent reason. No muggle developer wants a terrible magic system that makes their video game physically painful to play.
There's also the issue that they don't know thaumaturgy and can't design spells and mystic codes and whatnot, but that's handwavable - Cardinal must have some ability to automatically devise magical effects.
As for existing games, Cardinal definitely won't be updating their existing magic systems to use thamaturgy - they were devised with no knowledge of what can and can't be done with magecraft, or of what's prohibitively difficult, or of which players have which elements and how that affects their options, etc., and as such they're bound to be incompatible.
I think the best way to approach magecraft in other games is that it's baked into the physics engine, but most developers don't know it's there, and no one really uses it. Then the SAO players get out, and from everyone else's perspective it's like they can enter console commands. Of course, that'd probably lead to people getting banned for exploiting "glitches".
There's also the issue that they don't know thaumaturgy and can't design spells and mystic codes and whatnot, but that's handwavable - Cardinal must have some ability to automatically devise magical effects.
As for existing games, Cardinal definitely won't be updating their existing magic systems to use thamaturgy - they were devised with no knowledge of what can and can't be done with magecraft, or of what's prohibitively difficult, or of which players have which elements and how that affects their options, etc., and as such they're bound to be incompatible.
I think the best way to approach magecraft in other games is that it's baked into the physics engine, but most developers don't know it's there, and no one really uses it. Then the SAO players get out, and from everyone else's perspective it's like they can enter console commands. Of course, that'd probably lead to people getting banned for exploiting "glitches".
Well, the way you you put it, the two worst things in the thaumaturgy patch are pain and unfairness. Simulated Pain is actually a feature of the NerveGear itself that is usually disabled, Kayaba just turned it on for SAO (not only for the magic system, for the game in general). So, pain isn't a problem for other games.
As for the unfairness of it, unless Kayaba has built whatever Soul Diagnosing Gimmick he uses to know people's number of circuits and whatnot into the Cardinal System itself, it becomes just another RNG feature. And while RNG features are disliked, they are well known and tolerated amongst gamers. All you do is delete the character, make a new one, and try again until you get an Average One with 55 circuits (what makes it unfair in SAO is that they're stuck with their characters for good). Since the circuit quest can be done at level 1 without leaving the beginner town, that is a viable tactic for munchkins, not to mention not everyone will want to use magecraft (most SAOers would've been content to ignore it if Kayaba hadn't railroaded them).
That still leaves the fact that Magecraft IS ridiculously complicated and annoying to use, but that'd just make it one of those features that only pro-gamers (frontliners by any other name) use because they're Difficult But Awesome, but pretty much staples of competitive play. Consequence being that when the Survivors show up in other games, even the most unskilled SAOers will be able to go toe-to-toe with Top Players, and the Frontliners will be hailed as gaming legends . So, being a [Survivor] will become something of a Mark of Status, as the people who lived through the Ultimate Gaming Experience and came back all the Haxxor for it.
P.S.: Question, why do we keep calling them Survivors? It's not like anybody died in the game. Well, with the possible exception of the people Kayaba decided to use as test dummies. What will happen to those folk on Game Clear Anyways?
As for the unfairness of it, unless Kayaba has built whatever Soul Diagnosing Gimmick he uses to know people's number of circuits and whatnot into the Cardinal System itself, it becomes just another RNG feature. And while RNG features are disliked, they are well known and tolerated amongst gamers. All you do is delete the character, make a new one, and try again until you get an Average One with 55 circuits (what makes it unfair in SAO is that they're stuck with their characters for good). Since the circuit quest can be done at level 1 without leaving the beginner town, that is a viable tactic for munchkins, not to mention not everyone will want to use magecraft (most SAOers would've been content to ignore it if Kayaba hadn't railroaded them).
That still leaves the fact that Magecraft IS ridiculously complicated and annoying to use, but that'd just make it one of those features that only pro-gamers (frontliners by any other name) use because they're Difficult But Awesome, but pretty much staples of competitive play. Consequence being that when the Survivors show up in other games, even the most unskilled SAOers will be able to go toe-to-toe with Top Players, and the Frontliners will be hailed as gaming legends . So, being a [Survivor] will become something of a Mark of Status, as the people who lived through the Ultimate Gaming Experience and came back all the Haxxor for it.
P.S.: Question, why do we keep calling them Survivors? It's not like anybody died in the game. Well, with the possible exception of the people Kayaba decided to use as test dummies. What will happen to those folk on Game Clear Anyways?
Just because Kayaba didn't follow through with his promise doesn't mean there haven't been deaths. People died from being disconnected and it's always possible there will be complications that kill some people off for real without the system's action, like Ilya's condition. And that's excluding anyone Kayaba might choose to off, like Grimlock.
Of course it might also refer to two different types of Players - the Survivors who didn't die in-game and the group of people who ended up in beta/soul dissection hell.
Of course it might also refer to two different types of Players - the Survivors who didn't die in-game and the group of people who ended up in beta/soul dissection hell.
Magecraft caused pain even before Kayaba turned pain on for general injury. It's probably impossible to turn off, and definitely impossible to turn off without crippling its ability to train actual magecraft. Which means that, even if there are no spiritual issues making it impossible to turn off, Kayaba will have deliberately taken steps to make it impossible.
Kayaba has definitely built his circuit analysis magic into the Cardinal System itself. It'd be useless as a magecraft promulgator if he hadn't. And giving someone's avatar circuits that don't match their actual circuits is quite likely impossible, anyway.
Except that that's terrible, from a game designer's perspective. Video game magic isn't supposed to be infeasably hard to use. It's supposed to be fun, because it's a game. Hardcore mechanics that only absolute crazy people use are totally fine, but not for something as basic as "cast spells at all".
Kayaba has definitely built his circuit analysis magic into the Cardinal System itself. It'd be useless as a magecraft promulgator if he hadn't. And giving someone's avatar circuits that don't match their actual circuits is quite likely impossible, anyway.
Except that that's terrible, from a game designer's perspective. Video game magic isn't supposed to be infeasably hard to use. It's supposed to be fun, because it's a game. Hardcore mechanics that only absolute crazy people use are totally fine, but not for something as basic as "cast spells at all".
You see Daniel, the problem I see with that is that at the point the Association learns about it merely seeming like he is trying (and failing epically) is literally too little too late.
What I mean is, If he is obviously using magic to hinder the Rescue Team he isn't only announcing to the Association that he is using Magecraft, he is openly using magecraft in public. Even if they believe that he is "merely" using superscience this is going to come to the attention of the authorities, the Japanese Govenrment at the very least, and probably even the EEUU Government.
Due to the involvement of the government in the Rescue Team, this will inevitably happen long before the Association is aware anything is wrong.
And governments would want to be involved. Because they would want the "technology" capable of doing what Kayaba is doing.
The scale governemts operate in is simply beyond anything that the Association can pull of, governement involvement makes this an existential threat to the Association.
By the time they learn of what's happenning the Association should already be looking to clean up Kayaba's mess.
And really, they have it very easy, it would only take a blackout on the Servers or a simple loss of conection and Kayaba's little failsafe will clean up for them.
They won't even need to fabricate anything, it's all the SAO Terrorists fault. Hell, if they really want they could just manufacture a Terrorist group with Mental Interference, it wouldn't even be hard to fool the muggles. Because they simply don't care how many people die.
Now, thinking about it there are various ways you could go about handling this:
- It's a Feaute and not a Bug: Have Kayaba brive the Japanese Government to keep it under wraps. He does have plenty of superscience to do it. I'm sure they would love to be able to make Yui grade IAs. Or just have him give them Magecraft, a government with magic has to be like the Association's worst nightmare. Or use the lives of the players to threaten it into compliance.
This has many probles, not the least that I don't think this is the direction you want to take the story. But it would make for an interesting discovery for when Diabel tries to get into the Diet.
- Bold with magic, subtle with everything else: If a Magic Server can run a simulation of the world there isn't a reason it cannot run the original server too. This way the Rescue Team spends years having Hacker offs with a legion of IAs and Old Cardinal in an old copy of the Server.
This still has the problem of not handling the hardware solution, but if Canon SAO didn't have to accout for that you haven't either. It also keeps the Association blissfully unaware.
In this option anything the Rescue Team gets it's because Kayaba gives to them. I still like the idea of Kayaba using the greed of RECTO Progress to further his goals, but I will take more about that later...
I think I should elavorate in were was I going with my game proposal:
I really, really disagree with the plan of having the Thaumaturgy System show up unanounced on any game made with the SEED. Specially if it involves keeping the Circuit Pain.
I just cannot believe people would do anything but the obvious and just not use the damned thing.
So I went for a way I considered plausible to make the Thaumaturgy System popular. Get rid of the pain, and the thing is actually incredibly interesting and engaging. Hell, we have spent a non trivial amount of time arguing about it in this very thread.
What I meant to say is that, rather than trying to forze the Thaumatury System down everyone's throats, it makes much more sense for Kayaba to try and make it the Default Magic System of Full Dive games through social manipulation, and maybe some subtle Suggestions.
Just market it normally inside a game, preferible the first to come out with a Magic System, and for good measure put a suggestion, magical or otherwise, to ensure its popular as hell and people will develop games usign it. Specially if he provides the System for free.
He doesn't need a monopoly on being the Magic System, he just need the most reach he can get. And he especially doesn't need the attention forcing the Thaumaturgy System in all Full Dive games will bring.
Hell, this way having someone like Waver find out really fast that the Secret is being broken in VR games is a minnor setback for Kayaba and gives it more meaning than a convenient way to get more Fate characters into the plot.
Personally I still think the game I described should exist as the fist game after SAO, because it's just too much of a low hanging fruit for RECTO Progress to sink development time in something else when they have it half done.
But really, who cares? your idea of having a game about androids is cool and it would fit with the Circuit theme of the Thaumaturgy System. You could fluff it as Thaumaturgy being the Super-Science discovered by the Creators of the Android before being destroyed by a misterious force that is behind the mobs. Now their old servants must inherit their legacy and defeat those that killed them.
But the truth is I'm much more interested in the way Kayaba goes on to promote the use of the Thaumaturgy System making sense.
Well, the Thaumaturgy System is obviouly a Sandbox more akin to something like Oblivion's spellcrafting system than something that has a fixed spell list. So, it isn't like game developers and gamers have no idea how to deal with something like that.
The difference is that rather than being something as artifical as Oblivion's spellcrafting system it's more like an hypercomplicated "fake-physics" engine that simulates something that "doesn't exists" as if it were natural law.
In that it's certainly different and much more involved than any other Magic System.
It requires much more involvement from the player to get good at. Someone at level 1 could slauther his way though a full high level party due to superior magecraft knowledge. Even something as basic as "Running your Circuits generates Magic Resistance" is a gamechanger.
And the thing is so complex and massive than you can't really go arround nerfing things. Is like, what would be the effect of nerfing gravity? How would that affect the rest of the simulation? How the hell do you even nerf physics?
They would probably just make overpowered things public rather than try and nerf them, it would be a faster and more effective way of making the playing field level.
How they will deal with things like not all players being born equal and things like that is much more tricky, really.
If they pay enough attention they will realize a Players spiritual Traits aren't generated randomply but rather come apparently from nowere, as if the system recieved the data from the Full Dive device.
I suppose they could experiment to see where exactly the data comes from but that wouldn't solve their balance problem.
I suppose they could try and input the Spiritual Trait data in the System themselves bypassing Kayaba's original setup. But they will previsibly fail because of Plot. Then we return to the question of "Why the hell are they even trying to sell this thing they can't control?".
Anyway, for as long as nobody complains I don't think they will even bother to look a anything like that. So, if Kayaba is subtly Suggesting everyone that the Thaumaturgy System is awesome and they shouldn't change it I don't think there'll be any problem on that front.
What I mean is, If he is obviously using magic to hinder the Rescue Team he isn't only announcing to the Association that he is using Magecraft, he is openly using magecraft in public. Even if they believe that he is "merely" using superscience this is going to come to the attention of the authorities, the Japanese Govenrment at the very least, and probably even the EEUU Government.
Due to the involvement of the government in the Rescue Team, this will inevitably happen long before the Association is aware anything is wrong.
And governments would want to be involved. Because they would want the "technology" capable of doing what Kayaba is doing.
The scale governemts operate in is simply beyond anything that the Association can pull of, governement involvement makes this an existential threat to the Association.
By the time they learn of what's happenning the Association should already be looking to clean up Kayaba's mess.
And really, they have it very easy, it would only take a blackout on the Servers or a simple loss of conection and Kayaba's little failsafe will clean up for them.
They won't even need to fabricate anything, it's all the SAO Terrorists fault. Hell, if they really want they could just manufacture a Terrorist group with Mental Interference, it wouldn't even be hard to fool the muggles. Because they simply don't care how many people die.
Now, thinking about it there are various ways you could go about handling this:
- It's a Feaute and not a Bug: Have Kayaba brive the Japanese Government to keep it under wraps. He does have plenty of superscience to do it. I'm sure they would love to be able to make Yui grade IAs. Or just have him give them Magecraft, a government with magic has to be like the Association's worst nightmare. Or use the lives of the players to threaten it into compliance.
This has many probles, not the least that I don't think this is the direction you want to take the story. But it would make for an interesting discovery for when Diabel tries to get into the Diet.
- Bold with magic, subtle with everything else: If a Magic Server can run a simulation of the world there isn't a reason it cannot run the original server too. This way the Rescue Team spends years having Hacker offs with a legion of IAs and Old Cardinal in an old copy of the Server.
This still has the problem of not handling the hardware solution, but if Canon SAO didn't have to accout for that you haven't either. It also keeps the Association blissfully unaware.
In this option anything the Rescue Team gets it's because Kayaba gives to them. I still like the idea of Kayaba using the greed of RECTO Progress to further his goals, but I will take more about that later...
I think I should elavorate in were was I going with my game proposal:
I really, really disagree with the plan of having the Thaumaturgy System show up unanounced on any game made with the SEED. Specially if it involves keeping the Circuit Pain.
I just cannot believe people would do anything but the obvious and just not use the damned thing.
So I went for a way I considered plausible to make the Thaumaturgy System popular. Get rid of the pain, and the thing is actually incredibly interesting and engaging. Hell, we have spent a non trivial amount of time arguing about it in this very thread.
What I meant to say is that, rather than trying to forze the Thaumatury System down everyone's throats, it makes much more sense for Kayaba to try and make it the Default Magic System of Full Dive games through social manipulation, and maybe some subtle Suggestions.
Just market it normally inside a game, preferible the first to come out with a Magic System, and for good measure put a suggestion, magical or otherwise, to ensure its popular as hell and people will develop games usign it. Specially if he provides the System for free.
He doesn't need a monopoly on being the Magic System, he just need the most reach he can get. And he especially doesn't need the attention forcing the Thaumaturgy System in all Full Dive games will bring.
Hell, this way having someone like Waver find out really fast that the Secret is being broken in VR games is a minnor setback for Kayaba and gives it more meaning than a convenient way to get more Fate characters into the plot.
Personally I still think the game I described should exist as the fist game after SAO, because it's just too much of a low hanging fruit for RECTO Progress to sink development time in something else when they have it half done.
But really, who cares? your idea of having a game about androids is cool and it would fit with the Circuit theme of the Thaumaturgy System. You could fluff it as Thaumaturgy being the Super-Science discovered by the Creators of the Android before being destroyed by a misterious force that is behind the mobs. Now their old servants must inherit their legacy and defeat those that killed them.
But the truth is I'm much more interested in the way Kayaba goes on to promote the use of the Thaumaturgy System making sense.
Well, the Thaumaturgy System is obviouly a Sandbox more akin to something like Oblivion's spellcrafting system than something that has a fixed spell list. So, it isn't like game developers and gamers have no idea how to deal with something like that.
The difference is that rather than being something as artifical as Oblivion's spellcrafting system it's more like an hypercomplicated "fake-physics" engine that simulates something that "doesn't exists" as if it were natural law.
In that it's certainly different and much more involved than any other Magic System.
It requires much more involvement from the player to get good at. Someone at level 1 could slauther his way though a full high level party due to superior magecraft knowledge. Even something as basic as "Running your Circuits generates Magic Resistance" is a gamechanger.
And the thing is so complex and massive than you can't really go arround nerfing things. Is like, what would be the effect of nerfing gravity? How would that affect the rest of the simulation? How the hell do you even nerf physics?
They would probably just make overpowered things public rather than try and nerf them, it would be a faster and more effective way of making the playing field level.
How they will deal with things like not all players being born equal and things like that is much more tricky, really.
If they pay enough attention they will realize a Players spiritual Traits aren't generated randomply but rather come apparently from nowere, as if the system recieved the data from the Full Dive device.
I suppose they could experiment to see where exactly the data comes from but that wouldn't solve their balance problem.
I suppose they could try and input the Spiritual Trait data in the System themselves bypassing Kayaba's original setup. But they will previsibly fail because of Plot. Then we return to the question of "Why the hell are they even trying to sell this thing they can't control?".
Anyway, for as long as nobody complains I don't think they will even bother to look a anything like that. So, if Kayaba is subtly Suggesting everyone that the Thaumaturgy System is awesome and they shouldn't change it I don't think there'll be any problem on that front.
As you yourself said, Kayaba has 10,000 hostages. Even should they blackout the servers, all it takes is ONE proxy server, ONE backup generator, and everyone dies. No one wants to be the guy who got 10,000 people killed, that's bad for re-election campaigns. The government will behave themselves. As for the MA, even if they were to investigate (Magecraft doesn't have to be obvious in it's use. Kayaba is a numerologist and a programmer. Ten to one odds the magecraft is parsed so deep in code it'd take another magus programmer to even spot it), they'd either have to kill Kayaba, who no one can find at the moment, or attempt to kill all the players while knowing Kayaba is expecting them, i.e. knowingly walking into a trap. There is no "subtle" way to handle the SAO crisis, and while the MA does not care for casualities, they DO care for discretion, and everyone in the world has their eyes on the SAO thing. Not saying it would stop them, but it would slow them down enough for Kayaba to pull a contingency (and whoever doesn't believe Kayaba has contingencies, raise their hands).
The problem here is, magecraft without the pain is fully useless for Kayaba's goals. Vanigo said it better than me, an user-friendly Thaumaturgy system defeats it's own purpose, which is to teach people actual magecraft. Training magecraft without the pain is like training sprinting without muscle burn, the pain interferes with your IRL performance.
Why does the Thaumaturgy system have to be a willingly-placed feature though? It could just be sneaked in through the backdoor. At this point, the thaumaturgy system is so hopelessly entangled with the physics engine, it would actually be more troublesome to remove then not. So, the CEO's develop another, more orthodox, user-friendly, Magic System, and Thaumaturgy stays as an unpublicized hidden feature, with maybe a side-quest in a hard-to-reach spot to allow discovery of it. No one thinks anything more of it, until the SAOers join the games, and then BAM! The useless, complicated system no one wanted to use? It's infinitely more powerful than scripted spells. It's like using Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, it's pretty much impossible to learn, but once you do it's practically unbeatable. And there are always the crazy completionist players who would take a little pain in exchange for unlimited power.
The problem here is, magecraft without the pain is fully useless for Kayaba's goals. Vanigo said it better than me, an user-friendly Thaumaturgy system defeats it's own purpose, which is to teach people actual magecraft. Training magecraft without the pain is like training sprinting without muscle burn, the pain interferes with your IRL performance.
Why does the Thaumaturgy system have to be a willingly-placed feature though? It could just be sneaked in through the backdoor. At this point, the thaumaturgy system is so hopelessly entangled with the physics engine, it would actually be more troublesome to remove then not. So, the CEO's develop another, more orthodox, user-friendly, Magic System, and Thaumaturgy stays as an unpublicized hidden feature, with maybe a side-quest in a hard-to-reach spot to allow discovery of it. No one thinks anything more of it, until the SAOers join the games, and then BAM! The useless, complicated system no one wanted to use? It's infinitely more powerful than scripted spells. It's like using Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, it's pretty much impossible to learn, but once you do it's practically unbeatable. And there are always the crazy completionist players who would take a little pain in exchange for unlimited power.
Wasn't it discussed that Sugou is Kayaba's puppet? With control over Sugou the problem of "why the hell RECTO add the [Thaumaturgy Patch] into the game becomes moot. And if any game dev tries to complain, [Mental Interference] easily deals with it.
Also, other games other than not-ALO (which has, at start, a hidden [Patch] and no in-game [Circuit Activation] sequence, meaning no real pain - active magic starts appearing with SAO people and the Mystic Codes said to be 'remnants of lost civilization') will not pop up until after SAO is finished: [The Seed] is in Kayaba's hands and it, again, was discussed that he will distribute it as "I am sorry for this mess" bribe after framing Sugou. With [Patch] in it (which rejects any and all attempts to add any other magic system), with people already playing not-ALO for a year, with SAO Survivors using magic in and out of the game... and rumors [if you learn magic in not-ALO, you will gain magic IRL] running around on forums.
It was discussed.
Also, other games other than not-ALO (which has, at start, a hidden [Patch] and no in-game [Circuit Activation] sequence, meaning no real pain - active magic starts appearing with SAO people and the Mystic Codes said to be 'remnants of lost civilization') will not pop up until after SAO is finished: [The Seed] is in Kayaba's hands and it, again, was discussed that he will distribute it as "I am sorry for this mess" bribe after framing Sugou. With [Patch] in it (which rejects any and all attempts to add any other magic system), with people already playing not-ALO for a year, with SAO Survivors using magic in and out of the game... and rumors [if you learn magic in not-ALO, you will gain magic IRL] running around on forums.
It was discussed.
Sugou is a handy patsy as his actual crimes make him an easy target to blame for others. Full on puppetering wasn't discussed as far as I know.
With regards to the Thaumaturgy Patch, I imagine Kayaba's goal is to get the Seed out there and have several games live with it before the system comes to light. It's not an intuitive system so chances of somebody stumbling on it are low until the Cardinal-analogue is programmed to activate tutors. When people ask about it, Kayaba can simply explain the coding involved is so intricately tied to the Seed that he couldn't remove it without destroying the game itself.
As for killing the Players due to Kayaba being a magus, I don't think that's likely. Once the Association learns Kayaba is using magecraft to lock the Players in his game, they won't necessarily have enough of a reason to kill him or the Players. Sure, he's putting the secret at risk, but the chance of an ordinary person making the leap from "insane programmer" to "literal coding wizard" is a big one. And nobody knows what is happening inside the game so the Association doesn't know about the Thaumaturgy Patch. So far as they know it's some grand experiment that's skirting the edges of heresy, but not quite crossing the line. He'll be under watch, but for the moment the Players aren't targets.
With regards to the Thaumaturgy Patch, I imagine Kayaba's goal is to get the Seed out there and have several games live with it before the system comes to light. It's not an intuitive system so chances of somebody stumbling on it are low until the Cardinal-analogue is programmed to activate tutors. When people ask about it, Kayaba can simply explain the coding involved is so intricately tied to the Seed that he couldn't remove it without destroying the game itself.
As for killing the Players due to Kayaba being a magus, I don't think that's likely. Once the Association learns Kayaba is using magecraft to lock the Players in his game, they won't necessarily have enough of a reason to kill him or the Players. Sure, he's putting the secret at risk, but the chance of an ordinary person making the leap from "insane programmer" to "literal coding wizard" is a big one. And nobody knows what is happening inside the game so the Association doesn't know about the Thaumaturgy Patch. So far as they know it's some grand experiment that's skirting the edges of heresy, but not quite crossing the line. He'll be under watch, but for the moment the Players aren't targets.
(Not sure why, but the site won't let me quote things correctly anymore, so none of these link to posts)
They're called survivors for the same reason people in abusive households would be referred to as survivors. Even if most of them aren't gonna die from it, for a lot of them, it's still incredibly traumatic. Plus, IMO, it's a synonym for "victim" but with better connotations.
In the event that a later MMO is sci-fi based, I'd love for there to be a scene where kirito tries to get a lightsaber for real this time and be once again denied because the developers ran into some copyright issues when implementing them. It would be such an OTL moment for him.
My idea for how "patching thaumaturgy into the game" is similar. Since Cardinal's a massively advanced AI with the ability to generate new content easily, any developers who used it would probably do just that, with the settings tweaked from to make it thematically appropriate.
So, in the example of Alfheim, there's already the in game magic system. But when the [Thaumaturgy Update] hits the servers, the next time Cardinal is queued up to generate some new content, it sticks in a magic instructor NPC in some random town. Any players who found it might be turned off by the pain and complication of it, but would also be tempted because it's insanely versatile and potentially gamebreaking compared to the standard magic.
as a sidenote, unrelated to the thread: I only really pop in for these threads, but has anyone else experienced a weird thing where the avatars are all broken & the +quote button not working? Last couple times I figured it was just a small glitch, but now I'm wondering if the site is borked.
They're called survivors for the same reason people in abusive households would be referred to as survivors. Even if most of them aren't gonna die from it, for a lot of them, it's still incredibly traumatic. Plus, IMO, it's a synonym for "victim" but with better connotations.
In the event that a later MMO is sci-fi based, I'd love for there to be a scene where kirito tries to get a lightsaber for real this time and be once again denied because the developers ran into some copyright issues when implementing them. It would be such an OTL moment for him.
My idea for how "patching thaumaturgy into the game" is similar. Since Cardinal's a massively advanced AI with the ability to generate new content easily, any developers who used it would probably do just that, with the settings tweaked from to make it thematically appropriate.
So, in the example of Alfheim, there's already the in game magic system. But when the [Thaumaturgy Update] hits the servers, the next time Cardinal is queued up to generate some new content, it sticks in a magic instructor NPC in some random town. Any players who found it might be turned off by the pain and complication of it, but would also be tempted because it's insanely versatile and potentially gamebreaking compared to the standard magic.
as a sidenote, unrelated to the thread: I only really pop in for these threads, but has anyone else experienced a weird thing where the avatars are all broken & the +quote button not working? Last couple times I figured it was just a small glitch, but now I'm wondering if the site is borked.
Putting on my mod hat,
Yes it's borked, and yes avatars (and to a lesser extent) quotes are broken. Ditto the rating system, it has a lot of problems, you may have noticed.
We're in the process of migrating from Icyboards to Xenoforums, but the Admins are tripping over hurdles, so please be patient.
re: Ravraxas
The first part of your post re: Statute of Secrecy
I feel like we're starting to rub up against where the assumptions of a Wainscott setting just don't make any damn sense. I'm not saying your points are wrong so much as I'm saying I want to think about what you've said, broadly and with a bit of depth; and then the next time it comes up in five more pages or whatever, you'll notice my opinions have subtly changed.
This however really gave me pause.
"It doesn't have to be absolutely best, it just has to be most popular"; this has really challenged my assumptions about what what Kayaba is trying to do... in a good way. I'm really going to have to think hard about this, because it feels viscerally right.
Re: Circuit Pain
So because the "Activate Circuits" thing is a reflection of the real world, the pain is inescapable.
However... how much of a problem is that, really?
What I mean is,
What makes games fun is the obvious correlation between effort and reward. By putting in the effort, you get observably better at the game, and a good game rewards you for that. Dark Souls is for masochists, but the people who like Dark Souls, they really like Dark Souls.
Meanwhile, Rin said that she kept practicing Magecraft because it was rewarding, even though it was painful and hard.
So let's turn that into a question:
Let's do the SI thing. You are some rando who picks up a VR game, and in it is the Magecraft System. It causes physical pain to use it, but it definitely puts you into the next tier up compared to other Players.
Would you still use Magecraft?
Because Ravraxas' talk about "features vs bugs"... does that also apply to Magecraft's Circuit Pain? What I mean is, if the System is using Pain as part of the Skinner Box so that you feel even more rewarded by results, is that a bad thing?
Because I do things despite or even because they are painful -- why do people run marathons? -- and I think the "pain" of Magecraft might be positioned as exactly that kind of sensation.
"It's painful, but it's painful so the results are that much sweeter" -- like that, if it was "common sense of gamers" that the VR pain served that purpose, would you go along with it? That the the game was rewarding you for putting in effort, and suffering for you effort.
Yes it's borked, and yes avatars (and to a lesser extent) quotes are broken. Ditto the rating system, it has a lot of problems, you may have noticed.
We're in the process of migrating from Icyboards to Xenoforums, but the Admins are tripping over hurdles, so please be patient.
re: Ravraxas
The first part of your post re: Statute of Secrecy
I feel like we're starting to rub up against where the assumptions of a Wainscott setting just don't make any damn sense. I'm not saying your points are wrong so much as I'm saying I want to think about what you've said, broadly and with a bit of depth; and then the next time it comes up in five more pages or whatever, you'll notice my opinions have subtly changed.
This however really gave me pause.
"It doesn't have to be absolutely best, it just has to be most popular"; this has really challenged my assumptions about what what Kayaba is trying to do... in a good way. I'm really going to have to think hard about this, because it feels viscerally right.
Re: Circuit Pain
So because the "Activate Circuits" thing is a reflection of the real world, the pain is inescapable.
However... how much of a problem is that, really?
What I mean is,
What makes games fun is the obvious correlation between effort and reward. By putting in the effort, you get observably better at the game, and a good game rewards you for that. Dark Souls is for masochists, but the people who like Dark Souls, they really like Dark Souls.
Meanwhile, Rin said that she kept practicing Magecraft because it was rewarding, even though it was painful and hard.
So let's turn that into a question:
Let's do the SI thing. You are some rando who picks up a VR game, and in it is the Magecraft System. It causes physical pain to use it, but it definitely puts you into the next tier up compared to other Players.
Would you still use Magecraft?
Because Ravraxas' talk about "features vs bugs"... does that also apply to Magecraft's Circuit Pain? What I mean is, if the System is using Pain as part of the Skinner Box so that you feel even more rewarded by results, is that a bad thing?
Because I do things despite or even because they are painful -- why do people run marathons? -- and I think the "pain" of Magecraft might be positioned as exactly that kind of sensation.
"It's painful, but it's painful so the results are that much sweeter" -- like that, if it was "common sense of gamers" that the VR pain served that purpose, would you go along with it? That the the game was rewarding you for putting in effort, and suffering for you effort.
The big issue with pain is that there's no clear proof that magecraft will provide a benefit to outweigh the cost. It takes a lot of experimentation and time to get spells that really distinguish a person using magecraft from a normal Player. Without seeing somebody like the Sixth Ranger breaking the game's balance over his knee or the developer with a gun to their head, people will be a bit leery of the system.
Which is why I mentioned a while back having Survivors pioneer magecraft in the new game will help Kayaba. Once the first Survivor starts stomping the game and mentions it was due to the Thaumaturgy system everyone dismissed, people will start paying attention.
The big selling point of Thaumaturgy over any competing system will be it's more flexible and creative. The other systems should be static like in standard RPGs, with tiers of spells and set effects. Thaumaturgy has non-standard effects that vary widely, giving it more play and making it a perfect counter to somebody expecting a standard spell loadout. And Kayaba can always add a clause to the magecraft guiding developers that it should never be balanced against to "promote Player creativity".
Which is why I mentioned a while back having Survivors pioneer magecraft in the new game will help Kayaba. Once the first Survivor starts stomping the game and mentions it was due to the Thaumaturgy system everyone dismissed, people will start paying attention.
The big selling point of Thaumaturgy over any competing system will be it's more flexible and creative. The other systems should be static like in standard RPGs, with tiers of spells and set effects. Thaumaturgy has non-standard effects that vary widely, giving it more play and making it a perfect counter to somebody expecting a standard spell loadout. And Kayaba can always add a clause to the magecraft guiding developers that it should never be balanced against to "promote Player creativity".
If you had to hit your hand with a hammer every time you wanted to play Street Fighter, would you stick with it, or would you say "fuck this" and go play Mortal Kombat instead? Would hitting your hand with a hammer make playing Street Fighter more rewarding?
No.
No, it wouldn't.
Some people actually have experimented with video games that involve electrical shocks. I think it's telling that these haven't gone past "one-off art installation".
Maybe if it was an MMO I was already deeply involved in, and suddenly hitting my hand with a hammer was the only way to stay relevant? But even then I'd be mad as hell about what looks, from my perspective, like stupid arbitrary sadism. And a game that has magecraft pain but no other pain turned on looks incredibly arbitrary. It might be believable in a super-hardcore game that already has pain from injuries and muscle fatigue and whatnot enabled, but in a mainstream VRMMO that has pain otherwise turned off, it just looks like some asshole slipped the dev team crazy pills.
Actually... maybe that's the way to do it. Most games don't really use the magecraft systems, but there's this one hardcore MMO that caters to adrenaline junkies - cyberpunk parkour battles in Coruscant, maybe - that decides that it fits the brand of crazy they're going for. Then word gets out that the magic from this game works in other VRMMOs, and suddenly everyone's either quitting or scrambling to keep up.
Regarding concerns about "who would use it if it just showed up and hurt": I think a lot of people would use the system once it became clear that it was pretty game-breaking - I probably wouldn't, but then I'm not someone who spends his whole weekend playing MMOs to begin with. Much larger numbers of players would avoid it - but that's inescapable. If some games use magecraft and others don't, the players who don't want to use it will simply abandon the former games in favor of the latter. Honestly, even if the pain is turned off, the sheer complexity and obtuseness of thamaturgy would drive most players away. Reaching the non-super-hardcore player base will probably have to wait until rumors about it working IRL start to float around. And... I think that's okay?
No.
No, it wouldn't.
Some people actually have experimented with video games that involve electrical shocks. I think it's telling that these haven't gone past "one-off art installation".
Maybe if it was an MMO I was already deeply involved in, and suddenly hitting my hand with a hammer was the only way to stay relevant? But even then I'd be mad as hell about what looks, from my perspective, like stupid arbitrary sadism. And a game that has magecraft pain but no other pain turned on looks incredibly arbitrary. It might be believable in a super-hardcore game that already has pain from injuries and muscle fatigue and whatnot enabled, but in a mainstream VRMMO that has pain otherwise turned off, it just looks like some asshole slipped the dev team crazy pills.
Actually... maybe that's the way to do it. Most games don't really use the magecraft systems, but there's this one hardcore MMO that caters to adrenaline junkies - cyberpunk parkour battles in Coruscant, maybe - that decides that it fits the brand of crazy they're going for. Then word gets out that the magic from this game works in other VRMMOs, and suddenly everyone's either quitting or scrambling to keep up.
Regarding concerns about "who would use it if it just showed up and hurt": I think a lot of people would use the system once it became clear that it was pretty game-breaking - I probably wouldn't, but then I'm not someone who spends his whole weekend playing MMOs to begin with. Much larger numbers of players would avoid it - but that's inescapable. If some games use magecraft and others don't, the players who don't want to use it will simply abandon the former games in favor of the latter. Honestly, even if the pain is turned off, the sheer complexity and obtuseness of thamaturgy would drive most players away. Reaching the non-super-hardcore player base will probably have to wait until rumors about it working IRL start to float around. And... I think that's okay?
I have to say that I would absolutely, without hesitation, use the magecraft system even with spiritual pain, assuming I didn't critfail my RNG roll and end up with [Zero Circuits]. But that's because a huge huge magic-physics nerd who would absolutely adore a simulationist magic system like, well, magecraft is.
I like the parallels we've been drawing between painful magecraft and physical exercising, so I'll try and add to it. As someone who regularly exercises (I know, an internet forum member that exercises, shocking right?), I'd have to say half the reason I exercise, and a lot of others I talk to have similar feelings; is the feeling of real accomplishment, of making yourself better, which is debatable wether it applies to magecraft or not; but the other half is the actual euphoria of exercising. There comes a time where the muscle burn feels awesome, because of the endorphin releases your brain triggers when you exercise. And THAT is totally something Kayaba's could implement, to make magecraft more attractive. The entrance bar would still be high, but the learning curve would be less brutal.
On the topic of pain and gaming in general: VR gaming doesn't allow you pain, but it doesn't really give much in the way of pleasure either. It allows you minor sensorial indulgence (eating without getting fat, etc), but it cannot reproduce something like the thrill of battle, the fear that gets the adrenalin pumping, the acute awareness of reality pain brings. It's like the difference between playing paintball and playing CoD on your couch. I don't know about you guys, but when I was a kid, the reason I went into games was that I wanted to live epic adventures, like Tomb Raider and Snake did. I think we all wanted to be those guys, but none of us had the power to, so we contended ourselves with sitting behind the remote and guiding the real heroes. But with VR gaming, you could actually do something like that, feel the pain, fight the enemies, explore the setting, do the needless parkour, without ever being in any actual risk.
So, would I participate in a game where you had to feel pain to stay competitive? Doubtful. Would I participate in a game where pain is part of the challenge? In a heartbeat. Plus, I think the "adrenaline junky" players, as Vanigo put it, are closer to the concept of "to be a Magus is to walk with death", which I think is very essential to the setting.
On the topic of pain and gaming in general: VR gaming doesn't allow you pain, but it doesn't really give much in the way of pleasure either. It allows you minor sensorial indulgence (eating without getting fat, etc), but it cannot reproduce something like the thrill of battle, the fear that gets the adrenalin pumping, the acute awareness of reality pain brings. It's like the difference between playing paintball and playing CoD on your couch. I don't know about you guys, but when I was a kid, the reason I went into games was that I wanted to live epic adventures, like Tomb Raider and Snake did. I think we all wanted to be those guys, but none of us had the power to, so we contended ourselves with sitting behind the remote and guiding the real heroes. But with VR gaming, you could actually do something like that, feel the pain, fight the enemies, explore the setting, do the needless parkour, without ever being in any actual risk.
So, would I participate in a game where you had to feel pain to stay competitive? Doubtful. Would I participate in a game where pain is part of the challenge? In a heartbeat. Plus, I think the "adrenaline junky" players, as Vanigo put it, are closer to the concept of "to be a Magus is to walk with death", which I think is very essential to the setting.
Magecraft was only unusual in feeling pain at launch as it was the only way to feel pain. Following the anatomy updates, pain is now present for all injuries. That should help take the metaphorical sting out of magecraft being painful. Kayaba just needs to make sure you can't adjust the sensitivity ratings like in ALO. The big thing is making it a core concept of VRMMOs that pain is something that can't be separated from the gaming experience. People will initially complain, some will leave, but eventually people will accept it as a fact of this type of game.
Of course it's a lie, just like it's a lie that Thaumaturgy is a core part of the game system. The key is making the lie as believable as possible, such as explaining that his updates to prevent people like Sugou from manipulating future games involved this as a consequence or that it's a result of the Amusphere.
That's totally implausible, though. The whole point of the Amusphere is to reduce the interference with your natural senses, and I can't imagine how he could justify it as a security measure. Lies are expected, but blatant lies that plenty of muggle VR researchers can call him on are not. (Yes, he's no doubt the world's leading authority, but he can't be the only guy who understands how these things work - the government would never clear them for sale if he were. Given what they do to brains, they probably had to go through an approval process normally reserved for medical equipment.)