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「パルムの深き場所」 (Parumu no Fukaki Basho)
“The Depths of Palm”
Shiroe & co dive into a dungeon upon which reality is encroaching, while in Suskino players-turned-brigands rule the city.
Making Tasty Food
It’s been foreshadowed a few times – particularly in the ED, where a certain werecat can be seen cooking – but this episode revealed the path to freedom in this world of sorry, mushy food, and it’s a surprisingly easy one – cook like normal! Okay, so that isn’t explicitly stated, but if the ingredients still taste like they should (the orange, not Akatsuki…but hopefully both), all they need to do is take the ingredients and combine them like they would in the real world. Which brings up an interesting question…how much of this world is real and how much is a game, or could it be that they’re in a real world that a game is impressing some of its rule on? I don’t know, and if you know the answer then shuddup. I’m sure it will be revealed eventually, so mind those spoilers. By which I mean don’t post any.
Akihabara vs Suskino – Conclave vs Chaos
It’s interesting to compare these two towns. The former is still relatively under control, and has a bunch of different guilds that look like they’re keeping things in order while they figure out what to do. What has me especially interested is Marielle’s conclave of the smaller guilds, which looks like it could give rise to some of the large-scale cooperation and raiding that excites me to a frankly inappropriate degree. I haven’t a clue who glasses-armor is, but I would put money on him being the leader of a bigger, more powerful guild. Either way, Akihabara is doing alright.
Suskino, on the other hand… I tend to have more faith in humanity than most people – a fact which constantly surprises pretty much everyone, myself included – but I don’t doubt that Suskino is exactly what would happen at least some of the time in this situation. It’s a throwback to John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which was recently updated to “Normal Person – Consequences + Audience = Total Fuckwad”. This wonderful Demikas fellow and his guildmates in Brigandia (seriously? They deserve to die for that guild name if nothing else) suffer no consequences from their actions, and while the audience is debatable it’s really only the lack of consequences that matter here. They are last week’s PKers writ large, and since they can justify all their assholery as it being “just a game”…yeah, no surprises here. They’re not even particularly evil, they’re just petty assholes. Doesn’t mean I don’t look forward to them going down, though.
Intermission: The Housewife & Her Neko-Husband
Introducing Serara (Kuno Misaki), Lv 19 Druid and Lv 44 Maid (Edit: actually, her sub-class is Housekeeper. Normally I let mistakes like this stand, but when the original creator steps in to correct the subs, I’m publishing a correction!), because why not? No lie though, this girl is already megaton cute. Her daydreaming of being a housewife waiting for her neko-husband to come home? HNNNNG~! I would put money on her actually being the little girl that everyone thinks Akatsuki is, but that doesn’t mean she’s not adorable. Quite the opposite, if that’s your thing.
As for her “neko-husband” Nyanta (Nakata Jouji), he is voiced by Nakata fuckin’ Jouji, and I’m going to stop and let that seep in. Him using his Senyuu. / Amagami SS narrator voice for anything is always amazing, but for a chivalrous werecat protecting a fragile newbie in a scary world gone mad? I have a feeling I’m going to like this guy a lot.
Intermission: Akatsuki Is How Old!?
Speaking of Akatsuki, she’s in college!? Okay, I actually expected this because the joke was too good to pass up, as was the chance of continuing with the Akatsuki x Shiroe romance (which could have gotten weird if she was too young), but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t friggin’ hilarious when Naotsugu and Shiroe found out! Related: Akatsuki is still super cute. Related x2: She’s the perfect girl for Shiroe, because she can get just as hyper-scary angry as he can. Related x3: Akatsuki says keigo kinshi, Shiroe! Related x4: Seriously though, she’s really friggin’ cute, and Naotsugu is enjoying their flirting too. I could do this all day, but I’ll stop. For now.
Adventurers of a New-Old World
I liked the fight with the big raid boss rat thing, though the actual combat was fairly textbook MMORPG boss battle fare, save no one was howling for a healer because, well, they dodn’t have one (and it was only Lv 68, so it was a bit of a chump). What I liked was the insinuation that once again, this world isn’t as “game-y” as they thought, and that the purple mist coming off the new raid boss was what was making the dungeon fall apart. It could be a feature or it could be a bug, or this all could be more real than many characters expect. Either way, Shiroe was a badass as usual. A scary, scary badass.
Really though, what I loved the most was their reward. As Shiroe’s old friend noted, the best part of an adventure is experiencing new things, and that’s exactly why I love adventure stories like this. Standing on that cliff, overlooking a beautiful sunrise after a tortuous trial in a wondrous world I will never step foot in…it’s like they’re giving us all (most) of the enjoyment of adventuring without us having to sleep outside or get thrown around by epic rats. It’s a feeling I just can’t get enough of.
Looking Ahead – Escaping Suskino
It’s pretty clear what’s next – The new bosses of Suskino want Nyanta and his lowbie “bride”, while Shiroe & co want to get them out of Suskino alive. (Hey, that rhymed!) The bonus is with Nyanta itself, because it’s already been made fairly clear that this won’t be the first time he, Shiroe, and Naotsugu meet. Old friends reunited…and one of them is voiced by Nakata Jouji. Can’t wait!
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Akatsuki is legal, Serara probably isn’t, Suskino is hell, & Nyanta has the voice of a god. What a beautiful sunrise #loghorizon 03
Random thoughts:
- That’s totally not Moria at all.
- A note of concern: some of the animation was a little subpar this week. Mostly it didn’t bother me, and didn’t detract from the story at all – in fact, if I weren’t taking screencaps of the entire episode to get those lovelies at the top of the page, I wouldn’t have noticed most of it. The baddies at the end were pretty comical though, both in action and animation. Not sure whether that was just a design choice or not, but it ended up looking a bit shifty to me. Hopefully the quality won’t dip as the show goes on.
- No Henrietta, Akatsuki-chan is mine! Wait, actually she’s Shiroe’s. Okay, actually she’s her own person, but shut up.
- Dwarves need to cut it out with these massive, totally-not-structurally-unsound-no-seriously bridges. They didn’t work in Lord of the Rings, and they don’t work here, except as ways to put our heroes in danger…so I guess they’re working perfectly!
- So Shiroe is an introvert who finally found a place he felt he belonged inside of an MMO. Yup, I think I’ve heard this story before. I think I’ve lived it *whistles*
- That brow furrow…Akatsuki already knows what Shiroe looks like when he’s lost in thought. She’s such an attentive future-waifu!
- Obligatory Akatsuki knee to Naotsugu’s face. It’s going to be one serious episode when we don’t get one of those. Until then, still funny!
Check out my blog about storytelling and the fantasy novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: The subtle sexism of not killing female characters, It’s all about the characters, Beer does the spirit good, and Convenient.
Full-length images: 01, 04, 08, 14, 15.
Preview
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You guys what GANDALF would say on the bridge,
“YOU SHALL NOT PASS”
BONUS: 【Akatsuki dere Arigato】
“The Mines under the Mountain” trope goes way back, as do Lord Of The Rings so its no surprise that many fantasy MMORPG would make a version of their own or base theirs from a famous one, such as what we see here.
The bridge and the giant ratman just made everything a more obvious LotR parody.
I have a question – are the face the players are showing to other player their actual faces? It’s been bothering me and yes I appreciate the level 44 Maid.
TQ
Most of them have the same near appearance as their original. Even the height is a little bit different than the original. Shiroe quoted that Naotsugu appears the same way that he imagined him.
Akatsuki’s a college-old lass, yet she acts (and looks like?) a little girl instead of a mature teenager. I can’t blame Naotsugu for calling her small… cause she actually IS small (which is, of course, in a cute way). *looks around warily*
As someone who calls people small and/or short all the time IRL, I don’t blame Naotsugu. I’d do the same thing >:D And frequently do!
And as someone short, I can understand Akatsuki’s reactions, exaggerated as they are.
Why the hell is Maid a freaking sub-class? Scribe is already pushing it.
That’s been heavily discussed already. Many of the subclasses are “roleplaying” subclasses. This MMO wasn’t designed for powergamers (unlike pretty much EVERY modern RPG), it was designed for people who wanted to immerse themselves in the world and pretend they were actually living in it. Some of the subclasses have useful abilities that can benefit you in combat and such, but many of them do not. Other have abilities that were useless back when it was just a game, but which may be far mroe useful now that people are actually living in the world. And vice-versa.
Ah MMO’s of old before P2W cash grabs became the norm.
Yeah. Elder Tale looks more like a MOO than a MUD
Ooops. I meant MUSH instead of MOO. Been awhile since I’ve used those terms 😀
I think a scribe’s job is to sell information. Specially now that some area doesn’t allow maps to appear in the user console. And Housekeeper sub-class are people who maintain and secure guild houses.
Ayup, what they said. This is based on older MMOs that actually cared about roleplaying, not the modern casual / hardcore / FTP things that dominate today. They were a lot harder on the high end, but a lot richer (and more complex) in many of the roleplaying aspects. I miss them, to be honest ;_;
Which games were they?
Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, Asheron’s Call…basically everything after Ultima Online but before World of Warcraft (though vanilla WoW was a lot closer than its modern incarnation). Those are just the western examples that I played, though. Not sure if there were other asian MMOs that Touno-sensei was playing, but if so I bet they were similar…shit, some of those games are still making money!
Dark Age of Camelot, it had an actual RP server and for the first couple years on the regular servers players were very zealous about their realm pride (the game had 3 opposing realms to play instead of the usual 2 you see nowadays). Enough to bother making stuff like this over 10 years ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl6F14k-YQ
I would also like to add Mabinogi(of course, the version before they over-simplified the combat system because it wants to be “modern” *sadness*). In this game, you can sit around role-playing with life skills(just like WoW, tons, tons of life skills) all day, or if you feel like it, charge into a dungeon and go badass all the way, but mind you, it is hard. With average skill, you’ll still have a hard time fighting against a mob that’s around the same level as you, not to mention that mobs usually appear in swarms(which basically forces players to get into groups).
Neocron was my first “crack” on PVP, then “Sword of the New World”, first we wanted to Play PvE, thanks to Dark Guilds, we was forced to go PvP. But as a working guy, you cannot beat Schoolboy with rich Parents that dont care where the child invest their Money. I gave up, until i got “Burnout” from this kind the Games
In the End, there where no Story progression. because we was on Toes of a possible PK Raid attack. It was no more Fun. We could not Enjoy “Sunrises” anymore
Elder Tale reminds me of Lime Odyssey (an actual mmorpg) with those fun to play sub-classes and various races.
this wasn’t really touched on in the anime but the only reason a maid sub-class existed in the original game is because it was cheaper then hiring a maid npc to clean up your home for you.
There’s a neat infographic explaining the show/game’s class system and it shows what the show mentioned, which is that there are a LOT of subclasses, reaching into some very weird areas (prostitute is on there).
It would be neat to get even more detailed explanations of them. Like Feudal Lord. Does that give you a castle and servants?
Yeah,like the vampire one ihave no idea,you get weaker on the sun? Transform into bats? Can suck someone blood? It’s a mystery
This picture shows there´s a difference in ´production´ subclasses and roleplaying subclasses
http://tinyurl.com/m26pkvq There might be more information on subclasses, but haven´t found that yet…
I volunteer to test to find out if Akatsuki tastes like she shoul… *gets kneed in the face* 😉
*puts his arm around Wanderer’s shoulders* We need to have a quick discussion. Ignore the knife, come on now, just step outside the guard areas…
“Stilts-kun, can I hit this guy in the face?” says Akatsuki, pointing an accusing finger at the now squirming in pain Wanderer-san.
“Ask before you do it!” :p
Maid, huh?
That’s….odd. XD
Maybe her best thing is cooking and cleaning the guild hall? =/
Nyanta is the cook :p
@Stilts, its Housekeeper not maid….. but I guess they’re also the same in a way.
I thought Serara mistaken her Maid sub-class as Maiden.
Though that shouldn’t stop her from fantasizing herself…probably.
The subs put “maid” instead “housekeeper”.
What’s the difference anyway?
Maid sounds more moe’ish, of course. Like… “Look! A maid in cat ears!”, or “Maid-chan, can you wipe the spilled coffee off my pants”?
Maid -> female only.
Housekeeper -> can be both gender.
Not to mention that the author himself tweeted about this too: https://twitter.com/marmalade_macro/status/391611936166539264
“She’s not a Maid. She’s a Housekeeper. Feel the difference in (your) heart!” XD
Yeah, I’m with the author. There’s just no sense to put maids in MMOs. It feel like it’s gender exclusive. Housekeepers are a better name for it.
Actually I think what he’s really trying to say is that there’s no way a mere Housekeeper should be compared to that being of higher existence, the Maid XD
Spliced in an edit to my post. Usually I just let mistakes like that stand, but when the original creator bothers to comment…
Now that’s one 1M-to-1 suprise comment/edit.
Was I the only one who was extremely thrown off by the shift from Shiroe falling off the bridge alone and musing on his potential death and resurrection in town -TO- Shiroe’s flashback -TO- the three walking reunited further along in the cave with no explanation at all for how he got back up? I spent the entire second half of the episode trying to figure out if we had ever returned to present time or were still in a flashback, before finally deciding they just skipped explaining it and put them all back together.
Also, nice catch on Mr. Neko-san in the flashback. I suspected he would be an old Debauchery Tea Party comrade of Shiroe’s, but didn’t actually notice him myself on the side there.
Hmm, so I just went back and tried to watch it again, and noticed that my downloaded copy skips from towards the end of the flashback to about a minute and a half forward to the three in the cave. It seems entirely possible that there WAS an explanation of how he reunited with the others in that time, so apologies if so. Now I just need to find a way to see that piece that I missed…
Download a different copy from someone else, I’d suggest.
In response to the first part of your comment, probably, because they had a whole scene where they explained that Akatsuki dove in to save Shiroe, and Naotsugu dove in to save BOTH of them, there was a bit of talking, then they got back on their journey. Since most of us saw that scene, there was no reason to be confused.
Don’t forget about Naotsugu’s Griffin tried to chomp on his head for the 2nd time in the past 2 episodes.
And another thing of note, the trio tried a chef’s handiwork before they started off, and the result wasn’t that great either (if the white-on trio was any indication).
Well, the chef was still an in-game chef, making the food using the in-game cooking skill. I suspect and Stilts seems to suspect that they would have to make the food using real cooking skills in order to get food that has taste. Actually physically do the work of preparing the food, just like you would do outside of the game.
Yeah, looks like the cooking-submenu makes terrible food, not the chef… (rewatching that section again.)
ps. the guy has the cooking subclass, not a NPC.
Yar, what Mr. knife-in-the-back-for-daring-to-come-close-to-my-Akatsuki-chan said. That guy was still using the game systems instead of a knife and fire like a real (IRL) cook.
Speaking of knives and fire, Wanderer-san, I still need to talk to you! *is totally not hiding a knife behind his back seriously trust me!*
Oh come now, I’m sure (most) everyone else was thinking it when you made that comment, I was just the first person to say anything. :p
You don’t get to claim every girl for your waifu, Stilts!
True. I only claim the best ones! >:D
Meh, they should have explained the sub-classes by now. We don’t know the significance of the maid/housekeeper sub-class and why she called it useless. If owning a home is possible in Elder Tale and homes do get dirty there, having a maid/housekeeper subclass seems like a good idea: you can clean your own home and/or have someone pay you to clean their homes. It’s not THAT useless at all.
Until they feel like explaining it, which probably they won’t, the show focus on even more fantasy: The Mines of Moria, parodied, which isn’t really surprising.
We also get to see the former members of the Debauchery Tea Party and the show seems hinting that Shiroe might have to gather the disbanded legendary party once again. We see that the cat-dude who rescued the little girl is a member, so the probability of meeting up with Shiroe again could hint toward that path.
Wait a minute… Serara is a Lv 19 Druid and Lv 44 Maid? Shouldn’t those class levels be swapped? Just how much cleaning has that girl done? Given that even the basic rat-men were a relatively “low-level” 40-43, unless the Maido-sub class has some really awesome hidden combat skills (“Heavenly Broom Lightning Sweep!”), no wonder this girl needs rescuing.
Could have done without the obvious Mines of Moira copy (including breaking ramps/stairways), but at least the mega-rat wasn’t close to a balrog.
Overall, a pretty good EP. The RPG stuff is fine, but personally at some point in the near future, I’d like to see added attention paid to what I considered the main plot/story line -> how they ended up in that situation (trapped in the game), and what can they do to get out of it. A LOT of episodes left so no rush yet, just hope that isn’t something left alone for too long and ends up being rushed.
I did like the fact that we get glimpses of the “people” behind the characters. For example, I am curious as to what happened to Shiroe and the Tea Party. Whatever happened, it doesn’t seem to be a good ending.
Looking forward to watching Demikas and his band of Bridiots (yeah, I know, but at least it’s not any worse than the actual guild name :P) get thoroughly pawned, stripped of all items of worth, and forced to restart the game at level 1. Not expecting that last one, but the first two would be satisfying enough.
Re Serara’s level: nope. We saw her level back in episode 1 as well. She’s 19 in her base class. Which is why she’s trapped so completely. The teleport system isn’t working, and she can’t survive through any of the higher-level zones she’d need to cross to get back to Akiba going overland. Even without the seriously screwed up situation in Susukino, she would need help. She hasn’t been able to level in it because that would involve going outside and using it in combat and such, which right now is far too risky for her.
Her maid level, on the other hand, can get constant use, because she apparently has nothing else to do when she’s stuck there in the house except clean. That was really a bit of a joke that she’s been stuck there doing nothing but cleaning so much that she’s basically been powerleveling her relatively useless maid subclass while her base class is stuck at low level.
@Wanderer – thanks for the reply.
FWIW, I wasn’t being serious about them accidentally swapping the class/subclass levels. Poor attempt at sarcasm I guess on my part. I had forgotten/didn’t pay attention when her stats were shown the first time, so I was really surprised when I saw lvl 19 for her main class. It’s just so much lower than the other player’s we’ve seen so far. Even the briar weasels were lvl 28.
And I did get the maid/housekeeper subclass joke (thus “how much cleaning has she done?” comment). Reminds me of my lvl grinding days.
also probably the reason those bad guys are after Serara for her cleaning skills.
their guild probably needs massive cleaning or something
They are all bachelors, most likely, and that means they can’t clean for shite. Which is probably why Serara is so important for them.
Or she just annoyed them by not getting caught when they were chasing her. But you never know, maybe the housekeeping thing too!
There was that maid in Dog and Scissors during the summer, she had some pretty good combat stats, especially with that broom/spear thing.
On the other hand, maybe a high maid level lets you do stuff with buildings? Like, maintain a larger house, or maybe you need one for a guildhouse? That would make her important in more than the ‘damsle in distress’ manner she seems to be at the moment.
As a former MMO Addict, I’ve loved this show. This however, is the first time in the series I felt that the show lacked a tiny aspect of MMO mentality. When you kill a boss, in a new expansion, that you have never seen before, I don’t care if it is 22 levels under the cap, the first thing you check when it dies. . . WHAT IS THE FRIGGIN LOOT! I STILL WANNA KNOW AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Though I will admit, in my career on wow, I didn’t take in the scenery as I probably should have, but it did throw me back to my days playing EQ. In EQ, The scenery was as much a part of the game as the combat was for me for the first like . . . 7 or 8 expansions. I had to see every zone in that game, and explore every facet.
WHAT IS THE FRIGGIN LOOT! LOL, totally agree with you.
Depending upon the game (non MMO for sure), it might also be “WTF!? That’s crap!” *loads game save prior to boss fight in attempt to get better item drop*
Ahaha, I’ll admit I was wondering after the loot too. I wanted them to at least show that it dropped like they’ve shown potions and money drop before, even if they don’t go into what it is (since it’s probably crap). Loot is important!
Though considering that even level 85 items are liable to be crap to them, maybe it’s for the best. Wouldn’t want to waste our time on something that even the characters would think is a waste of time!
It really does depend on the game though. In Wow, anything from a previous expansion is considered crap in 2-3 levels. In EQ, a single item might last you 2-3 expansions and still have uses beyond from right click effects (spamable life -> mana, mana free dots, nukes, and buffs etc.)
They were also “tighter” with raising the level cap, yet had a near infinite amount of ways to develop your character.
I feel that log horizon “plays” like an EQ/FFXI crossbreed.
The question I have is *if* loot will come into play. They have hinted at it (the bad guys in this episode talking about grabbing gear, and the poor man of the land carrying all that stuff). My theory since they haven’t talked about it much, is that they won’t talk about it much due to the balance issues that it might bring about. It seems to me that most MMO stories dodge the importance of gear because it “detracts” from the skill of the hero because they would gain an unfair advantage over the average joe. They do not consider that the skill part is clearing events/raids/dungeons. This might be because the author is trying to make the story more accessible to readers and viewers that do not have a deep understanding of MMO culture.
I do hope they go into gear like they did with the griffons. That was a good example of how to demonstrate how special they were because everybody is not flying around on one of those. I hope they give gear the same treatment because it is such a vital part of MMO culture.
True, in EQ some items were so awesome you could keep using them forever (I kept my Druid epic around for friggin’ ever, and that’s not even talking about the Cleric epic, which was mandatory), but those were usually top level raid items from the past expansion, not lower level items from a named that could be three-manned. I think that’s why Shiroe and Naotsugu are still walking around like badasses, especially since Naotsugu hadn’t played in two years – they’re pimping high-level raid items, so they’re still good to go. Something off a Lv 68 named? Not a chance in hell that’ll be an upgrade.
Yeah, any gear would be only useful to lower level players. Nongear loot, like potions/quest items/consumables might be interesting, though. Rat meat, anyone?
Even if the stuff is useless to them, they are off to rescue a level 19 who’s probably not tanked to the limit on Raid Boss rare drops.
From what we know Akatsuki probably isn’t pushing the limits of best gear since she used to solo rather than do the big event raids. Though that is probably more a matter for Shiroe pointing out that he remembers where to pick up a mid season upgrade for her.
The scale of this game seems to be on an entirely different level, when you take a couple of factors into account.
1. They haven’t raised the level cap in 2 years apparently, and the entire population of the game is not at the cap. This implies it takes a fairly huge amount of effort to reach the cap.
2. The game world is half the size of the planet. Even when you say half, that so completely destroys any other fantasy MMO that has ever existed that it’s not even funny. EVEN if we imagine you’re trapped in your part of the planet (i.e. Japanese ‘server’) that’s still unbelievably huge.
At that kind of a scale the gear treadmill probably works a little different. Normal MMO treadmills are designed to make you experience most, if not all, of the content as you go through. That would be impossible, or at least unfeasible, in a game of this size.
That said, I do hope that here and there we see our heroes acquire a new piece of gear or two. It’s half the fun of MMOs, and if they do it at a reasonable rate it wouldn’t be too hard to animate.
Aww, come one. Mostly these Bosses dropped Monk Loot 🙂 (Running Gag in EQ)
In our guild, everything was ranger loot. Because there was always a ranger that would bid on whatever chain/leather/sword/dagger/axe/ranged . . . EVERYTHING THAT DROPS BELONGS TO THE RANGERS.
Yup, it was definitely all ranger loot. That’s why we made them take all the Death Touches, because we were jealous! And also because rangers were useless and it was funny seeing them get instakilled ^__^
Ahhhh, good times good times.
Our monk pullers were @holes. Our raid leader when we were still doing fear/hate was a bard named Genil. Almost every time he asked who would take the DT, the mob would answer him with “GENIL”. They would agro the mob with bard song affecting them and feign death, poor guy.
That sucks! We were always good to even out who got the DTs. I mean yeah, rangers got them like 70% of the time, but that’s because it was their JOB…they expected it. I know I took a few DTs in my day though, and I was a friggin’ healer, lol. Gotta spread the love, especially on those easy raids!
Well Boss monsters don’t drop things from time to time. Drops are random after all.
If playing games (mainly online games) have thought me anything it’s that it’s the players that are the real monster. Immortal killing-machines, unshackled by most limits that would normally keep our egos in check in the real world. Hell, we actual have entire new sub-field of philosophy being developed on how the virtual world affects human mentality and morality.
Going to get interesting going forward, that’s for sure. I’m guessing the first half will end with the re-establishment of the Debauchery Tea Party (look no further than the flashback) and the second will deal with why everyone ended up in the game. In between that insert a showdown between our friendly neighborhood enchanter Shiroe and armoured glasses man, there was some subtle rivalry hinted at there.
The food thing was strange though. The way I understood it was all natural ingredients by themselves (ex. sugar, salt, fruit, vegetables) had their expected taste; it was only when you combined them or cooked them that they then became tasteless (Naotsugi mentioned at one point how they literally eat tasteless food they created by combining ingredients plus an orange on the side). Also noticed the lack of fatigue and injury. Their “lives” are in effect tied to their HP bar: anything which does not deplete it cannot affect them life-wise.
I’m not sure on the mechanics of Elder Tale, but if it’s like the old school MMOs it’s based on, them eating the same tasteless food over and over again makes sense. I remember in Everquest my character had to eat or he’d fall over…so I just summoned him the same crappy food every time I logged in, and only ate other foods when I wanted the stats. In the game food is strictly to keep the character going, so taste is unimportant.
But yeah, that’s only when you cook through the game system. Oughta be different if you go au natural.
I’d say above and beyond any mechanics they just get hungry. They showed Naotsugu’s stomach growling. So I think it’s another case of leaving us questioning how real and how gamey this world really is.
Though there totally still could be game mechanic tied to it as well.
It’s one of the quirks I am enjoying about this. I can relate through my Runescape days where the only real purpose for food was either to use as HP or sell (cooking was the first skill I maxed just so I could bake cakes :P).
As an aside I also put some thought into the mechanics of what’s been presented so far. Standard HP and MP, where 0 HP is death; resurrection upon death at standard location. No indication of how MP is used, but the game screen clearly shows it; I expect it can also run out and similarly recovers through walking (unless Shiroe hasn’t been showing us his best spells yet). Characters are divided into a known class and sub-class which appears to bestow all the expected things: strength, HP/MP pool, abilities/magic, equipment options differences to encourage specific play styles. Levelling up of the respected classes is done through repetition rather than division of points from one XP pool (Serara’s levelling up during this episode through housekeeping confirms this).
Except for the guild mechanics there’s not much else needing to be figured out. Loot appears to be the standard money and potions, equipment and weapons can be purchased from shops in towns. Not clear yet if there is treasure in dungeons, but then we have really only seen one.
Hopefully next week we will see some more on how the mechanics of guilds and the towns work.
Flyff was the first MMORPG that I enjoyed the scenery in a game.
You can explore places by flying and go to places were people usually don’t go and find unknown place with nice scenery just by flying to map edges.
Also it was the first MMORPG that I didn’t care of my current level but the only the skill level(Job: Cleric) just by spamming the skill. Everyone was really relaying on me since I almost max out all my skills to 20 but until the system change and the skill was base on the level.
I think getting Serara out of there is probably critically important. I don’t know what exactly that crazy leader wants with this girl, but I’d really rather not find out. Though considering his activities, it’s probably creating some harem for himself. Cute girls who are actually girls and not just guys stuck in female bodies are probably not insanely common there.
Was going to make a joke about what “legal” even means in a world like this, but I guess that’s the point. These people have been thrown into a world where the rules are uneasy. They are pretty much immortals and the higher level characters are practically gods. Thrown into a world where all the structure that kept people orderly has mostly been lost. Thus I’m not surprised either how that place has gone to hell. No fear of death, no goals, nothing to restrain people from doing just whatever the heck they want, limited consequences.
On a lighter note did love the reaction to Akatsuki’s apparent age. Will admit I found the potential romance awkward until this was really confirmed though I had my suspicions. Though I suppose if you consider that Shiroe is actually a bit shorter than he looks they match up a bit better.
Also year Serara’s scenes were pretty damn cute. She’s really working that maid level up pretty quickly XD.
The food solution is a godsend as well. I guess this would mean that people who actually picked up a cooking skill would have an easier time physically cooking? If a high maid skill lets Serara clean at hyper speed (assuming it wasn’t just for comedic effect), then these skills should transfer tangibly. I guess Shiroe’s scribe skill is also a good example of that.
Suddenly I think people who picked up that cooking sub-skill are going to be hugely popular in this new reality.
Not sure on the cooking skill. Actually, I’m almost certain it probably wouldn’t help. Think of it like this…if the housekeeping skill makes your character (when your character was on the other side of the screen) to a few little housekeeping emotes, it would still be useful, which would hold true for the scribe as well. Cooking though, if all done through a menu, so that might be less useful. Maybe? The logic is a bit screwy, but then again the logic of this world is a bit screwy (as games are apt to be), so I’m not sure.
All that said, I’d like to see the chef skill help people cook better so long as they stop using the menus. Cut faster, better at flipping and stirring foods…I think access to actual IRL-style recipes is probably too much, but maybe they can write some kind of recipe book from what people remember, or just experiment. Either way, whoever can make the food not taste terrible is going to be rich, that’s for sure!
Anybody noticed the black-white contrast between Shiroe and the glasses-armor?, apart for the fact they both uses glasses (do they really need them?), everything is the reverse of the other:
-the clothes: armor vs robe,
-the glasses: round vs square,
-the situation: big fancy room inside a city while drinking tea vs ruins outside a city and drowning.
-Leader of guild vs no guild
-maybe even their classes and fighting styles.
i gonna laught when i see them talk and adjust their glasses at the same time 😉
Good points. I sense a rivalry incoming!
Why do I get this feeling that the glass-armor guy has a grudge on Shiroe because the latter alway beat the former in the Elder Tale annual badass glass adjusting competition?
yeah, perhaps a rival Raid Guild, at time when Shiroe was still Active raiding
I found out just now that that babe in nice Chinese attire’s name is Kanami. Anybody else senses a special vibes between her and Shiro?
She is
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Sometimes these “PK Ass Holes Guild” see them as a necessary. The Black side, that help to build the White side on the Server. the Yan that helps the Yin to survive, or give them a reason to life.
The Bad Guys, where Good Guys Raids are created to kill them, yes to keep the Server Alive, just for being the Bad ones…
No Joke, they really thing about themselves, they are needed for the Server keeps running. Or the GMs would just kick them out, or running Company. These are the real Persons that can turn their Mind, not the Server Population.
In short, they need the negative Fame to justify their Actions.
But there are other Dark Guilds…
Example, there are Guilds that are Top Gear Class. They monopolize these raids that drops the Best Armors, they know the Time of Boss Re spawns, and originate just Raids to kill the Boss, even if they do not need the Loot. They sell it for a High Price, or put in Guild bank for New Recruits or Destroy it. Just for that other Guilds stay weak on gear. Or Blocking Entrance to good Level Places, or go PK there the weaker ones, not taking care of the Mobs. Just kill Players.
So they are Top Guilds by force. Just Kicking down the other Guilds or destroy their Boss Raids, just to stay on Top and for Entertainment.
There are many Dark Guilds
Glasses leader guy is…
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Oops that became little heavy on spoiler wise, open wisely.
Didn’t open it, just wanted to thank you for labeling your spoilers clearly : ) Always appreciated!
Why doesn’t Serara just kill herself to get back? Am I missing something here?
If i remember correctly, in episode 2 it was mentioned that of you die in game, you will be teleported back to the last town you visited, which in serara’s case, susukino, the same place where she is now.
Apart from what anon said (that makes it completely useless), would you just kill yourself, when you can’t tell the differnce from reality ?
I mean, consider this:
– the rules of this world are still not clear, what if you don’t respawn for some reason ?
– it could be incredibly painful, for what Serara knows
– a little girl would get scared just by thinking about killing herself
Well, I would try everything else before killing myself in that situation, expecially when I know that someone is coming to rescue me 🙂
Not only you are teleported back to temple, the bastard PK’s use this to keep anyone trying to exit the town to become respawned back in the towns temple, making them effectively prisoners of the city.
Mostly it’s just that she’s bound in Suskino though, so she’ll just appear right back there. It would be no help.
This is a funny series of posts, because everyone keeps saying interesting things that are pertinent to the show as a whole, but don’t really matter to this situation. Your point is the only one that really matters to Serara.
It was explained in episode 2 that this city is where she’s stuck for now unless she physically moves to a different one, which at her level is impossible, and then in this episode they make very clear that Brigandia is just killing anyone that tries to leave the city and they resurrect again in the cathedral.
I don’t believe they’ve explained a concept similar to binding yet. So far the implication is that you auto return to the last city/cathedral you were at or the closest.
We dont know yet, if there are some Penalty with Death. In EQ you would lose some Experience. And look like in the Anime, the PK can loot your Gear. So, looks like you re spawn naked in the Church, and must run to your corpse to loot your stuff, so they just need do “Corpse camping”.
late in EQ you cold use an Summon Corpse tool (mostly statues in a hall), to summon your corpse full with your gear
..and do the Clerics in the Anime, have the “Holy Power” of Resurrection? So, you spawn at your corpse, gain some Experience back, and loot right away your stuff. That would make a Cleric more Valuable to PKlers then anything else. They just need to Kill Clerics on their Watch, so others will be no threat
Yes. yes.. The Dark Side is deep
Le Me, discovering Akatsuki’s real age.
Grabs Reality by the neck.
“REALITY! WHY YOU NO HAVE LEGAL LOLIS?!”
Gotta look harder bro, I know a couple cute college girls about 4’7″.
you WILL introduce me to them.
on another unrelated note, I just discovered that Log Horizon is gonna be a 25 episode anime… 2fuking5 episodes of pure loli, Akatsuki goodness! FUK YEAH!
Or just be taller. The average height of adult women is something like 160cm, and that looks pretty short when you’re up at 200cm. Legal lolis everywhere~!
Or neck problems when I lean down to kiss em, but whatever. At least I can call everyone Chibikko >:D
I used to work with a Chinese woman who had to buy her clothes in the children’s section. 😀
Yeah, one of my co-workers at the school I just stopped working at was about 4’9″ or so. She was hilarious. The upper middle-school kids all had crushes on her because she looked their size. It was fun.
Nobody noticed this, or maybe, everyone is pretending not to. It’s about Akatsuki. She might be a girl IRL, but, consider something like this:
Girl “A” died and was sent to “heaven” and managed to reincarnate. But she made a mistake of entering a male’s body. When she was growing up, she remembered her past life as a female. Now, she wanted to return to her previous female body and she lucky enough to managed to find a genie that can turn her into a female. Well something like “Cheeky Angel” if you know that manga/anime.
My point is, in Elder Tale, Akatsuki is “born” as a male, took a gender bending potion to turn into a female. And everyone is unconsciously fine about it.
Oh, and I got nothing against 3rd sex.
It does not bother anyone because the game Akatsuki is/was just an roleplaying avatar for someone who was always female.
Yeah, like what the hell are you talking about?
Are you trying to start a weird hate discussion?
It’s a game. Most gamers have played the other gender a few times, whether by choice in an rpg or by force in tomb raider or bayonetta or something. It’s not a transgender thing. My big, football-player brother played female blood elf paladin in WoW cause he thought they had the best animations.
Akatsuki is a college student……
All right, guys! I won’t comment any further. I don’t want her to kick my butt.
You can see the classes on seaslugteam
http://www.seaslugteam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/3uki.jpg
Or on Random Curiosity last episode. Thank you again, Xacual : )
Those dwarves should learn to build better bridges, and maintain them… someone might fall down. Just like Empire forfeiting safety railings on their spacestations…
Serara, there is nothing wrong with being maid, actually it raises your Charisma in relation to 90% of players in Akibahara at least…
Nyanta is a cat and a gentleman in every inch. And he makes great apple tea!
The episode we wont get a Naotsugu getting kicked by Akatsuki will be probably start of things going REALLY SERIOUS.
I see you failed to mention that the music is still as amazing as ever =p.
I got a feeling that Female Monk Tea Party Leader will be Akatsuki’s main love rival.
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Thank you know i can sleep in peace, knowing that this part will not happen…..
I guess most of the budget for this episode went to animating the sunrise scene. Not too bad a decision imho, since it’s a waste to give random scum good animation =3
On a side note, I wonder if the so called “Tea Party” have any real world references…
@Actus, probably not. The first LHor novel is from 2000, before the real Tea Party appear. DTP possibly is a reference to Alice in the Wonderland.
somehow, a boring episode for me.
but I understand evading enemy-invested area is wiser than take them head-on
That was quite better than the previous weeks. Lack of exposition sure helped things. Cute housewives too.
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He was such a pretty cool guy too. I hope we didn’t scare him.
One of my big questions with this show so far is if we’ll ever get an explanation as to why certain character’s appearances changed to reflect reality and others didn’t. Naotsugu and Shiroe specifically mention in the first episode that they now look ‘real’ while there are still were-cat people running around.
The show has made a tone for itself where it’s not serious enough that I truly care whether I get an answer for that, but I’m curious.
Lastly, I’d like to mention how awesome it is that we’ve got a brainy caster as the main character. He just continues to be badass in a way almost totally different than 97% of anime leads. And his cloak makes him look epic while doing it.
It all boils down to preferences. Some people ore only comfortable with avatars that look very similar to themselves in real life. Others like to look entirely different, either because it looks cool, or because they want to make an idealised self. This is common in any MMO with great character customisation depth. Considering that this is a fantasy MMO, there’s probably different races to choose from. Our power trio just happens to play as humans.
That’s not true (I’m not fighting, your response is nicely written). Shiroe is a half-alv, which he mentions in the first episode. And when he and Naotsugu meet in the first episode, they mention that they look exactly how they thought they would. Which I thought meant that their faces had changed and now look like they do in real life. Shiroe then complains that he’s a half-alv (so he should look like a normal human I guess).
If this is how their characters always looked, then what were Naotsugu and Shiroe talking about when they met up?
You neglect to understand that the game was not always in 1st person mode. From what I understand, the game had always been 3rd person so they do not really get to really see each other’s face for much longer than a few seconds before raiding a dungeon. Now that everything is now 1st person, they actually have a very good look of one another.
Also, you also notice that Shiroe did trip a bit back in episode 1, because apparently, he couldn’t quite get used to the height because he was actually shorter in real life. Same thing with Akatsuki. Her game character is originally male, and when she’s stuck in the game, she decided to change appearance to something very similar to what she looks in real life, again, because she’s not used to walking around in a male body.
I’m aware of all that. But there’s a couple of things.
1. We have no idea whether it was first person or third person or could be switched like most mmos. We just know that it was on a monitor. And even if it was 3rd person, you can see a character’s face in MMOs. No, that doesn’t explain why they’re surprised by each other’s appearance. These are not accquaintances, these are two people that know each other well enough that Shiroe knew about Naotsugu’s work situation in real life. They would have seen each other’s characters before.
2. It isn’t his real body, that’s true. But he doesn’t comment that his race is half-alv, not human, and seems confused that he just looks like a human. Though we haven’t seen any other half-alvs that we know of, so it’s hard to say what he/they are supposed to actually look like.
I’m thinking that the conversation between Shiroe and Naotsugu was just weird though. Poorly chosen words. Maybe that is how they looked. But then they really shouldn’t have been surprised by each other’s appearances. They clearly know each other really well, at least in game.
Sorry, he *does* comment that his race is half-alv. Oops.
I think he might mean ‘half-alv’ as in ‘half-elf’ or a similar half-breed race. It’s likely in this game the ‘half-alv’ just look closer to humans than whatever an ‘alf’ looks like, which might be similar enough to humans.
I thought that too, but according to that infographic floating around that explains the classes/subclasses and races, half-alv is related to Alvs, a dead race that doesn’t exist anymore, and they have some kind of relation to the plot of the game and being near ruins has special effects on them. Elves are something different, and are in the game.
I wonder if that will end up being important, that Shiroe is such a weird race.
while I liked and enjoyed the episode, and series as well, I am a bit mixed about what’s going to happen. it set up too much expectedly so it’s clearly gonna be good guys vs bad PK guys. and let me spoil you a secret – the good guys usually win that way or another.
So?
Seriously, I never get this issue. Yeah the good guys usually win. Though that’s not actually true; the PROTAGONISTS usually win, whether they are good or bad just depends on the story.
And this is almost impossible to get away from. The very nature of a story generally requires a protagonist, and the story would end very quickly, possibly be very boring, or at the very least be really weird if the protagonist was just an ineffective nobody for the entire story.
And even if the current arc is good gamers vs PKers, obviously there are bigger fish to fry. The underlying conflict to the whole story is a simple mystery. Why are they there? What happened to them? The PKers are just an incidental on the way.
So the baddies were after Serara because… they need a maid?
yup, Maid Loli is very dangerous class