Fan art. Source

At the urging of someone close to me, here’s my review of Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale, based on my having attended the US premiere in Hollywood.

It’s a fascinating look at a “what if” situation. Specifically, it continues the situation introduced by the series itself, so I’ll go over that briefly before digging into the movie.

In the TV show, Sword Art Online (SAO) is the newest of a near future’s virtual reality (VR) massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). In this fictional future, VR terminals, called NerveGear, completely immerse players, temporarily shutting down their real-world body’s motor and sensory functions. That means that usually, users must log in someplace comfortable, like their beds at home, or a secured location. One player does so from a place that’s not their home, but it’s a spoiler, so that’s all I’ll say about that.

 

Screenshot from SAO TV series

 

At any rate, there’s a significant event in the SAO game world, attracting all players to the same location. It’s thousands of individuals. The event is one unique to the game world, created by its lead developer. What happens is a terrifying thing: an ominous entity appears and tells them the game’s real objective. The only way to leave the game is to “win” it, by conquering the final boss in the highest dungeon. All players are affected by this condition. They cannot log out!

Unspoken is also a terrifying secondary condition. Dying in-game results in real-life death. The first season of the series is then the adventures of the main protagonist, Kirito, and the friends he gathers in-game. Kirito has gaming experience, and specifically with an early release (beta) version of SAO, which leads to his having fine-tuned skills and knowledge of the game’s behavior. He’s quickly labeled a “beater” (beta cheater) due to that when he’s found out. That pushes Kirito to go solo, refusing to team up formally with any other players. It drives him to quickly level up to be the first to conquer and progress through the massive 100-level dungeon. He later has trouble and finds out that the higher levels require huge teams, so he must have allies, and it progresses from there.

Gun Gale Online, from SAO season 2. Sinon and Kirito.

The second season takes place in a post-apocalyptic, shooting-based world, Gun Gale Online (GGO), that, while safer than SAO, had it’s own real-world connection to a problem player. It deals with a slightly different set of real-world issues as well. It’s worth a watch.

I was late to the screening (80-minute drive directly from work), so I arrived at the tail-end of the movie summarizing this 2-season plot. The film is watchable, on its own, due to that. It’s been more than couple years since the SAO game ended, and many “survivors” of SAO were admitted to a unique set of schools to complete their real-world education and (not mentioned) rehabilitation, after having spent years logged into another world. Some, like Kirito, had also joined other VR worlds after SAO or joined its newer, fantasy-based successor.

There exists in the post-SAO future an augmented reality (AR) game, called Ordinal Scale. This game exists as a separate visible (to players) overlay on top of what they see in the real world, via a less bulky head-mounted display, much like Google Glass. Unlike VR games, players must be physically conscious and, importantly, real-world locations matter. If you’re thinking of Pokemon Go, it’s a logical evolution of that type of AR game. In Ordinal Scale, there are boss battle events put on nightly, which rewards the players participating, if they manage to virtually survive and if the boss is defeated. Players receive short notice as to the location, which is usually either an existing public space, or a cordoned off space, so there’s a controlled safety factor the game’s developers are aware of.

The movie begins, however, with Kirito, and the others, noticing strong things happening to players, and specifically to SAO survivors, after some of the battles.

The movie’s worth a viewing so that I won’t go too deep into its plot. It’s related to the events in the original SAO game, but for a character not seen in the show, but with a connection to many SAO players. Ordinal Scale does touch upon a few of the current worries around AR, but the fictional world also offers some interesting solutions to some, such as having specifically planned-out places for players to safely gather. It also encourages exercise, which a VR player like Kirito quickly finds is hindering him a bit until he comes up with a creative solution to help him progress. He and others notice that the bosses are bosses they’ve seen in SAO before, giving them a useful leg up on dealing with them and also ensuring they do the most damage, which affects their ranking.

The number 2 ranked Ordinal Scale player also is a key figure and appears to be an SAO survivor as well, which quickly gains the attention of Kirito and his girlfriend, Asuna, who recognizes him first as a former guildmate from SAO. They’re concerned that this player is connected to strange happenings stemming from Ordinal Scale, and Kirito gains a rival since one can’t make it to #1 without going through #2.

There’s also a virtual idol appearing in many of the boss battles, Yuna, who also happens to be a pop singer with many fans in their real world, and who has an upcoming concert in a major arena. She serenades players as they battle, granting both a bonus buff at the beginning and granting an experience point boost to the top player for each victorious battle. There something strange about her, and many don’t know if she’s a real life person, or a virtual idol, like Hatsune Miko. This ambiguity does matter, but any more description of her is too much.

If fantasy-based action appeals to you, this is a must-see. If you have an interest in AR or VR, I’d say give it a look as well. It’s a great adventure, nonetheless. I do want to see it again, not just to see it from a further back row, but because it is entertaining. I’m giving Ordinal Scale a top recommendation, and I do hope that more anime series get a movie if this one does well in a wider release. US release is March 9, so mark your calendars!

It was Super Bowl Sunday. I think I spent very little of it thinking about the game at all. I am not a football fan, although I do understand how the game itself works. Not having a local franchise, and having not 1, but 2 franchises leave the area during one’s lifetime has something to do with that. I have hope that the stadium under construction will change that, but it’ll be quite some time before any future team (returning or new) will be playing in my neck of the woods.

What did I do instead? It was not involving traditional television. I did a couple things, at the same time. I played WoW, working on one of the newest in-game professions: archaeology. The second, was I “tuned” into a live stream on Twitch, a bit for background, and also for something interesting during the somewhat tediuous grind of scanning dig sites.

A few streams I caught during the day:

  • http://www.twitch.tv/kylelandrypiano – musician and composer. Kyle plays piano, sometimes taking suggestions from viewers. Mostly game music being played, but some classical.
  • http://www.twitch.tv/gamej06 – Big Jon plays classic platform-style games and is pretty chill. Today he wrapped up his 18k follower celebration show
  • (as I type this) http://www.twitch.tv/monstercat – Monstercat is a music label that has stream-friendly music available for use on Twitch (since Twitch will mute the audio of recorded streams just like YouTube does when licensed music is played, this is a pretty popular label.) They’re streaming mostly EDM currently.

Back to the game, though. I have purpose in what I am doing in-game. I’m rather serious in working on adding to my account’s riding mount collection. Archaeology is actually one of the professions that has mounts available as some of its “projects”. There’s a random chance that the next one for specific types of artifacts will be for one of the mounts. My current target is a blue mount that’s a giant bug, which is summoned by an ancient scepter.

The choice of priority is not random. Years ago, I wanted a black version of this mount, but that one was time-limited, and only those able to play on a realm where the event that it is associated with not yet complete would have a chance to obtain it. Truly a legendary item.

This mount is surely a nod to those, like me, who had a fondness for Ahn Quiraj, but couldn’t be the Scarab Lord (the title awarded to those players) or level a character on a new realm that still had the event on it.

Also, I usually take my time going through the commercials since they’re usually available online for a while.

Super Bowl… blog about it. Are you watching? Ignoring? Just reviewing the cool advertisements? What are you doing today?

via Daily Post – 2.1.2015 – Daily Writing – Desk Community.

Azuremyst EU retired WoW server blade
Azuremyst EU retired WoW server blade
Found this image that I saved about a year ago. I guess I meant to post about it, but forgot.

It’s likely the name that triggered the save of the image, as I have characters on US Azuremyst currently. I’m assuming this image originated from Blizzard since the machine was theirs.

Since the realms are currently down due to some mailbox issues (I have immense sympathy for the Blizzard IT guys…), I thought I’d begin making a list of things to do when you’re in the game, but otherwise can’t be doing the things you usually do in the game (quest, level professions, gather mats, etc.) due to the crush of players that are going to hit Northrend and the Death Knight starting areas. This list will probably grow over time since there’s at least one maintenance period a week in WoW. Here goes…

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393Px-Bingo

One thing I’ll be doing at Blizzcon…playing BINGO. No! Really…

Whatever happens, make sure you print out your bingo card before you go, and then throughout the weekend, cross off everything that you see on there. If, by the end of the weekend, you’ve nabbed five across, you win!

I’m printing my Bingo card right now…

via WoW Insider

As Blizzcon draws nearer, I’m happy to see that my guild tabard from the folks at Swagdog.com has arrived! I’ll wear it at the conference so that any guildies looking to find me can do so. I think this is the first custom-made t-shirt, I’ve ever ordered. It looks pretty well made.

tabard - Ryagas of Azuremyst realm
tabard - Ryagas of Sanctity guild - Azuremyst realm

Yeah. I’m pretty die-hard when it comes to WoW…

KurkenlinePTR adventures…or, I should have just gone to Shadowmoon Valley…

A sign of things to come? This line took 2 hours and was to tame The Kurken, one of the exotic beasts that hunters will be able to tame in the upcoming patch. The long wait was due to a certain orc hunter who would kill The Kurken occasionally while another hunter was taming it. That probably won’t happen on PvP servers (it’s an alliance starting area), but I can see this happening on PvE servers. I believe that type of harassment is reportable on live servers, so it might not happen too often…

At any rate, two hours later, the job was done:
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