Difference between revisions of "Sword Art Online-1"

Latest revision as of 22:08, 25 April 2017

Themelist Entry

5:30 PM, November 6, 2022. Technology had reached new heights through the endeavors of the Argus company. Yet just after the world's first fully-immersive VRMMO triumphantly launched, with one tiny code change the game's creator turned it into a death game. No log out button, and no help from outside. The avatars of fallen players would be deleted... and at the same time, their VR headset would fry their brains.

Swort Art Online, the world's first VRMMORPG, was a death game, and 10,000 players found themselves trapped. The world could only watch and pray that the victims would reach the 100th floor of Floating Castle Aincrad and bring down its boss, for this was given as the only method of ever logging out.

Thousands died within the first month, but eventually disparate players came together, formed guilds, and pressed onwards.

Sometime in September 2024 (20AU by Multiverse reckoning), things turned stranger. Unification saw all VR data physically projected into the Cyber Core region in all its glory, and heroes from numerous other worlds joined the clearing effort. March 2025, the final boss was defeated (however unconventionally or early) and the trapped players were released... all save a few.

New dive gear designed to prevent another SAO had since entered the market, alongside the release of Alfheim Online. Both were produced by RCT Progress, buyer of Argus' assets. The heroes who cleared SAO exposed Fulldive division head Noboyuki Sugou's illegal imprisonment of the remaining players for mind control experiments... and seemingly crackpot ways of 'bringing data into reality'. He released his work open-source to the world during arrest, to mixed reception. It was coupled with the enigmatic open-source release of the masterwork VRMMO SDK 'The World Seed' though, propelling FullDive technology into a golden age.

Unbelievable events overturned every effort to suppress Sugou's research. April 23, 2029 (25AU), after the Multiverse fractured and reassembled, strange advertisements about a new Augmented Reality earpiece-visor, or 'Augma', promised to unite everyone with virtual reality in grand new ways. Accompanying it, a puzzling list of pre-approved beta testers: the usernames of some hardcore VRMMO players.

Beta day saw the entire world flashing with wireframe textures and 'reload.' Alfheim emerged in the Devil's Sea south of Japan. SBC Glocken and Gun Gale Online's post-apocalyptic wasteland appeared west of North America. All the most popular VRMMOs saw representation. Pockets of what have come to be called 'Game Zones' (or just 'zones') further dot the landscape of all nations, with towns, ravenous monster lairs, and fantastic environments all filled with uncannily intelligent 'NPCs' slowly encroaching on the world everyone knew. In some cases it nicely co-exists or even improves living conditions. But for others...

The world seems firmly in the grip of an unseen force, the AI 'Cardinal System' that was originally designed to automate VRMMO production, management, balance, and content generation. Now infused into the fabric of reality itself, it holds seemingly godly authority. But to what ends? And more importantly...

Who plays such a game?

The Augma Users, a growing list of VRMMO players of unusual dedication and talent, have the power to wholly become their favored avatars in a world where they were once powerless. The increasingly-dangerous and dynamic world has need of such adventurers, but players will be players - not all are scrupulous.

This theme is based on Swort Art Online as presented in the light novel and anime series, but wildly diverged after Fairy Dance. Game series content (Hollow Fragment, etc) is open to adaptation.

Digital Future

Something strange happened when the Multiverse restructured itself. Some of the Cyber Core's reality - a region of the Multiverse where data can physically manifest in an almost magical fashion - was infused into the very fabric of Earth. The specifics've proven tough to measure but the results are clear: environments and entities previously thought to be just data in a computer system are now 'real' and dangerous.

On its own, this might not be so bad. However, the merge appears to have integrated an instance of the original fully-fledged Cardinal System that maintained Sword Art Online with this fused-reality, and it appears to perceive all of reality as an MMO it must fill with content and balance.

The full extent of Cardinal's influence remains unknown, but so far it has resculpted hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of Earth as it pleases to manifest new continents and introduce in-game phenomena like magic into reality however it wishes.

The New Landscape

The settings of every major VRMMO can be found somewhere on SAO Earth - they exist as new small continents and islands taking up what was empty ocean before. Oddly, Earth flora and fauna seems averse to these areas: birds don't nest there, sealife give them wide berths, and so on. Likewise, game setting flora and fauna seems happy to remain within these 'Game Hub Zones' (ICly referred to as Hubs by most folk)... with the exception of strange spots of reality that sprout MMO content merged with existing society and geography, 'Fragments' for short. (More on that below.)

As examples, Alfheim's main continent has appeared south of Japan in what most call the Devil's Sea, and Floating Castle Aincrad now drifts unpredictably across the globe, largely sticking to temperate climes. GGO's Apocalyptic Wasteland complete with SBC Glocken appeared off the western coast of North America, between it and Hawaii.

Although these areas almost perfectly mirror their original game counterparts, there are a few slight differences. SAFE ZONES no longer prevent HP loss, though monsters still avoid them. No kind of game entity - player, monster, NPC, etc - can be system-protected ('Immortal Object' etc), and even things without HP meters can be killed.

NPCs

Every NPC possesses vastly superior A.I. routines to anything seen in their origin game. They laugh, they cry, they respond to almost everything people do. These NPCs remember people, they develop philosophies and their emotional reactions to people are as driving a motivation as their role in the story is. However, they have a strange habit of 'filtering' what they hear and framing it within the context of their story roles. In other words, NPCs behave wholly in-character at all times and thoroughly ignore any evidence or convincing otherwise. For instance, they don't react oddly to terms like 'quests' or 'party' and don't ask what the hell people are doing when they futz with menus. Whenever possible they seamlessly map such terms to more in-character terms without breaking stride, while avoiding them.

They have considerable autonomy, being only loosely connected to Cardinal's Storytelling Module most of the time - it gave them a role to play, a smorgasbord of personality directives and important memories, and lets them do it however they see fit. Cardinal tends to provide nudges and suggestions to push them back on track for the quests it wants to see completed, and it CAN attempt to assume 'direct control' of an NPC when even that fails, but some very rare and special NPCs might just be able to refuse and break away from Cardinal completely.

NPCs can die. Sometimes Cardinal replaces them with a new NPC of a different name and background to fill the same role, sometimes it doesn't. It's rare to see them resurrected in any fashion. Exceptions exist for 'recurring boss monsters' and the like, though.

Quests

Real-world quests now have consequences and do not operate on a principle of being infinitely repeatable or existing in a vacuum from other players' efforts. If a quest once involved 'gather medicine from the forest to cure my daughter, in return I'll give you my family's ancestral sword,' there is now unfortunately only one copy of that sword to be given out, and enough medicine will cure that daughter. Quests are largely unique and adapt to changing conditions based on the needs and moods of the NPCs, the economic status (when an NPC blacksmith runs low on ore, he'll generate fetch quests for instance), and so on.

This, combined with other changes like 'nothing is invincibile' means that quests can be failed for very unexpected reasons (like the quest-giving NPC being killed), and have many branching paths and completely unpredictable rewards.

Admins and Updates

While the actual 'games' are still running and still played (amidst some controversy), none of the admins and developers of such games have ANY control over what happens in the 'real world' equivalents. Much as it did with SAO, Cardinal appears to be handling all matters of 'game' balance and management, quest and item generation, and so on. It seems to have no qualms with 'stealing' content and new features from the actual games as it's introduced, but does not do this dumbly: it refuses changes that don't fit its directives, seem like security risks, or could undermine it.

Fragments

Dozens of locales across the world have become subsumed into MMO-like 'quest zones.' These regions seem to LOVE small population centers with diverse environments like 'forest', 'plains', 'lakeshore', 'town territory' and so on in short reach of each other - the better to fill them with all manner of different monsters, goodies, and storytelling settings. Some examples of it subsuming dilapidated or sparsely populated city districts exist, but by and large they (SO FAR) seem averse to forming in places where 90% of the territory would be considered a 'safe zone'. New ones crop up periodically, and sometimes old ones quiet down (see Resolution below.)

Themes and Intents

The locale Cardinal converts to a Fragment determines much about what it will become. A simple town and its surrounding rural areas might become a hotspot for fantasy elements from Alfheim or Aincrad to show up - a Kobold clan leader decides to move in and raid farms, and a faction of Dark Elves pursuing him set up camp in the nearby forest, various animal and plant monsters show up in forests, plains, and riverbanks, etc. A historic 'old west' town finds itself in a similar scenario as robot bandits, old war machines, and post-apocalyptic mutants from Gun Gale Online are arranged similarly.

For the most part, Cardinal arranges the scenarios so that 'minimal damage' is done - it doesn't WANT to deplete the locale's population for various reasons so events involving widespread carnage and destruction are rare and frequently easily averted by Quests. Most of its setups for 'setting the mood' and kicking off the narrative conflicts that drive local quests will not involve many deaths or destruction of critical infrastructure - though this is more of a guideline than a rule. It tends to avoid apocalypse scenarios: it may have a necromancer raise zombies and skeletons from a local cemetery and set up shop, but responders will probably have months to respond before they have to worry about him leading a devastating invasion into town. (Small raids and kidnappings for ritual sacrifices that spawn into Rescue Quests, on the other hand...)

Although VRMMO content forms the bulk of Cardinal's setting-designing aesthetic, it also draws from local myths and legends. Cryptids, rumors, ghost stories, and folklore may play a part in the Fragment's events, as examples.

World Editor Strategy

Although Cardinal does seem capable of enacting wide-scale changes to existing geography, it seems to stay on the conservative and moooooostly unobtrusive side for Fragments. Usually. An existing cave of little consequence might be transformed and expanded into a sizable monster lair dungeon, but it likes to leave towns and geography intact. This is again more of a guideline than a rule - an invasion of Giant Termites might clear a section of forest and raise a monstrously tall mound-tower that also happens to be a dungeon and the events of a Quest gone south might lead to massive changes through force of narrative.

Actors

'Ordinary people' native to SAO-1 within a Fragment - that is to say, non-Augma Users or Foreigners - are woven into the Fragment's narrative. Some might be killed in monster raids, others fall victim to a unique illness that can only be cured using Quest materials, and yet others are kidnapped and need rescuing, etc. This alone isn't special, but it doesn't end there. Cardinal's Quest Generation routines key into the desires of these 'ordinary people' and can attempt to compel them to act dramatically like spout their frustrations at nearby Players and develop into unwitting Questgivers complete with hovering [?] and [!] cursors. Cardinal likes to ensure that suitable rewards are encountered somewhere during the Quest since such questgivers rarely have the means to provide them personally.

It bears noting that Cardinal cannot absolutely 'mind control' normal people the way it can attempt to 'direct control' NPCs. It can only compel them to do something they'd be inclined towards to begin with. People who experience this describe it as just 'feeling an urge to do something. Gotta speak up, gotta ask for help,' and similar. Given this, such Quests stand higher chances of being dead ends, but they overall work.

Resolution

Since Quests have real consequences, it is quite possible for the majority of conflicts, problems, and crises in an area to be resolved. The Kobold clan leader is slain and the Dark Elves move on, to use the previous example. Such Fragments can go dormant for months and months (after which point, something ELSE might happen) or eventually dissolve entirely. It is not known if this is due to limited resources or attention on Cardinal's part, or some other factor. Some Fragments never fully 'resolve' and maintain a low level of dramatic events like monsters in the forest that need to be hunted periodically, and etc. An abandoned Necromancer's Tower might become a haven to lost spirits and dangerous to travel near.

Augma Users

When the world changed, many hardcore VRMMO players found themselves suddenly in possession of a new device, the 'Augma' (a play on Augmented Reality). The Augma is a very minimalist half-circle of durable plastic. A front extrusion ends in a microphone, the middle portion is a ring that fits over the ear, and the rear portion is a curved boom that wraps around the back of the head. The device is resistant to intrusion and scanning, and seems to not require any power. It seems to work much like FullDive devices do, using small electromagnetic detectors and transmitters to read and intercept brain waves. The difference is that Augma cannot paralyze people, and instead provides sensory overlays in real-time.

Augma's main function for those rare few people who possess it is not providing communication and AR computing (though it does that too), but allowing them to transform into their avatars and become superhuman forces. (See Below)

Augmas are linked to their users' brainwaves and cannot be used by anyone but their owners.

Qualifications

Compared against the full spectrum and quantity of VRMMO players, the band encompassing 'who is worthy of an Augma' is fairly narrow. Nobody is entirely sure what SPECIFICALLY qualifies a player for an Augma, but the following correlations are immediately obvious:

A) Highly skilled players. B) Excessively high login time or sheer time in FullDive. C) Extremely developed avatars. D) SAO Survivors.

There are 'X factors' at play causing plenty of outliers. One of the biggest is strongly desiring "I genuinely want to live in these worlds."

The number of Augma Users constantly fluctuates, but easily ranks in the tens of thousands.

New Users/Replacement Augmas

The first wave of Augma Users had them literally spawn on their faces. (or failing that, in pockets, in open hands, etc.)

New Augmas can be acquired by potential new Players by attempting to enter a Hub or Fragment zone. If worthy, the system will generate one and assign the VRMMO avatar the player associates themselves with the most. There are also cases where new Augmas simply appear for people who pass the qualifying threshold, as if answering a desire.

Replacement Augmas can be obtained in the same method: walk into a Hub or Fragment zone. If the lost Augma still exists it will be teleported to the user, otherwise a new one will be spawned.

Community Features

So long as they all use Augma, it matters not what origin game an Avatar is from: they can be added to friends lists, parties, guilds, and so on.

A party can have at most 8 members, and a Raid Group can link up to 6 full parties.

Color Cursor

Except inside shops and buildings (where it would be distracting), all game entities have Color Cursors - a floating diamond mark spinning over their head. These have various meanings, depending on color. Names, however, are NOT visible - the only way to get someone's name is through window prompts like duel invites, party invites, and the like.

PLAYERS always sport a GREEN Cursor. PARTY MEMBERs see each other's with a blue outline.

FOREIGNERS have GREY cursors, which otherwise behave as player ones do.

PETS and NPCs have YELLOW cursors. Yellow is also used for non-hostile monsters.

MONSTERS provide the most variance. Not only is a monster's name always shown but their Color Cursor appears different to each viewer, depending on the COMBAT THREAT they pose. Faint pink cursors are trashily weak, not worth fighting. Standard Red cursors are for 'good matches.' Purple Cursors appear on monsters that would be a significant challenge. Dark Crimson appears for monsters with an overwhelming advantage. Black is used for monsters with an even greater strength disparity - all but instant death.

OUTSIDE HUBS/FRAGMENTS, Color Cursors are not shown to Augma Users unless they are transformed, nor can they be perceived by foreigners. In which case, they only respond to actual game entities (and untransformed Augma Users do not count), though those who possess the Searching skill will see neutral Grey cursors on everything that isn't a game entity.

Transformation

Augma Users need only wear their Augma and commandingly exclaim "LINK START" to trigger their transformation. The transformation effect is pretty snazzy: green wires lash out from the Augma and encase the user in a wireframe, followed by swirls of blue-green voxels that fill in to form textures and finalize it. This latter part eerily resembles the 'death effect voxel shatter' but in reverse. Height differences are not a problem: the Avatar's height overrides and 'real flesh' seems to smoothly adjust.

Moving around during the transformation is possible and does force the swirling to adjust. People who REALLY WANT TO can practice this and create 'henshin poses' for pure aesthetic if that's their thing, but it only takes a few seconds so there's not much to work with.

The resulting avatar is fully accurate to the original in-game avatar, with a few differences. For example, sensations like touch are not simplified like they are in FullDive. PAIN is now a seriously worrisome factor as well. (See Health below.)

The transformation can be canceled at any time using the System Menu and initiating a Log Out. The de-transformation effect is the exact opposite: the Avatar's texturing glows and wavers, then shatters into streams of swirling voxels and a wireframe that repacks itself into the Augma.

Health

Since a transformed player is a fusion of flesh and digital matter made manifest, Augma Users do need to eat and drink and deal with other bodily needs. Death from starvation and dehydration are problems, and lack of sleep is crippling as always. However, the transformed state's 'heroic health' powerfully contests mundane health hazards like disease through sheer vitality. Thus, chronic health issues are held at bay and missing limbs are restored - since the avatar does not lack them.

This does have its limits though. Avatars cannot fully protect the flesh underneath them from damage. Although avatars can APPEAR to endure cartoonishly exaggerated injuries like being cleaved straight through vertically (and remaining entirely intact, the damage showing only as a decal) such blows are partially reflected upon the underlying flesh. A stab through the gut might result in a shallower cut. Being buried under tons of rocks can mean bruises, even broken bones.

The avatar serves as perfect prosthetics for arms, legs, fingers, toes, but while its own limbs regenerate from amputation as appropriate, the flesh 'beneath' does not. In other words, it's possible to lose a 'real' limb when you lose a transformed one. The limb grows back transformed, but the real one stays gone.

Injuries mount up, becoming ever more severe. Pain mounts up. Even the greatest of Augma users cannot fight forever, no matter their Avatar's HP meter. Game effects such as Healing Magic and curative items are much more effective at keeping avatar HP up than fleshy health - they provide very diminishing returns for the latter, and are no substitute for proper rest and recovery.

At 0 avatar HP the transformation comes undone, and cannot be used again for the next 24 hours. Without the transformation's power, users must deal with the reality of all their pain and agony, which by this point might well be life threatening on its own even without an enemy looming over them.

Multiplaying

Isn't a thing. When the Augma is first used people get to pick one of their appropriate avatars, then they're stuck with it. Unchosen avatars are available as special costume items as consolation.

There could be 'reincarnation' quests and the like for changing game base, which work much like transferring an avatar from one game to another, but these are not OOCly meant to be a revolving door of powersets.

Inventory and Gear

Any Augma User's inventory can store objects from any Hub Zone or Fragment no matter its origin game. However, these still obey the same rules such as weight limits and stacking sensibilities.

Oddly enough, objects that have absolutely nothing to do with any game can ALSO be stored in one's inventory. This only works for personal-sized odds and ends comparable to the things that ALREADY go into the inventory, so be reasonable here. It also only works for objects that have been left unattended by anyone else for an hour, so you cannot just rip a weapon out of someone's hands and stuff it in your inventory, etc. (Of course, once you are its registered owner then it behaves like a normal inventory item.)

Foreign items have names as recognized by Cardinal, which is really easy to do if it's a bottle of shampoo with a label and not so easy if it's a random magic sword. The system allows players to assign their own names to objects in case CARDINAL gets it wrong. Foreign item names do not have stats (aside from weight) or descriptions. Foreign clothing and armor does not auto-reshape on equip and so cannot be auto-equipped, but weapons do function as weapons for all intents and purposes including using game techniques like Sword Skills.

Powerful artifacts and important objects from other worlds are highly resistant to being stored in the inventory. Attempts simply fail, time after time. It may be possible to eventually shuffle them in by spending enough time with it - but this is wildly unreliable.

The Monument of Life

The Black Iron Castle of Aincrad is once again host to a grisly monument: A massive slab of black granite with the names of every Augma User's avatar. Augma Users who die have their name striked through and a 'reason of death' added. As with the original SAO these reasons are not fully informative: being stabbed in the back by X will result in 'killed by X.' Dying to a monster will show the monster's name and location. Indirect causes are not registered - if someone's pushed off a cliff, the fact that they hit the ground is the cause of death.

This monument does not replace the Monument of Swordsmen, which continues to record the contributions of those clearing Floating Castle Aincrad's floor bosses - it is found directly across from it.

Unique Skills

A phenomenon hearkening back to SAO, 'Unique Skills' have appeared for a rare few Augma Users. These simply show up in the Skill List one day, along with a System Message. Who has designed them, what their ultimate purpose is, and the unlock requirements are all ICly a mystery. What IS certain is that everyone who has one is exceptional in some way, and these Skills are 'gamebreaking' within ALO's context. Unique Skills must be leveled up like any others, but do not take up a Skill Slot and can only be Disabled, not Deleted.

OOCly, Unique Skills are inspired by the original concept in SAO but are now meant to be much more commonplace where PC's are concerned. Any PC Augma User is a candidate for a Unique Skill, but this should definitely be derived from and a part of the character's Defining attributes. For instance, Lisbeth is primarily a Crafter - her Unique Skill will have to do with crafting. The 'unlock requirements' can be considerably more abstract and narratively flexible than the original Unique Skills of SAO's design, such as emotional investment or freakish devotion time to some task or Skill.

KIRITO: Celestial Blades

TYPE: Weapon Skill, Dual One-Handed Swords
Born (RE-born?) from Kirito's sheer dedication of endlessly trying to re-create the 'Dual Blades' Unique Skill of SAO using the Original Sword Skill system, Celestial Blades is a Weapon Skill for equipping a One-Handed Sword in each hand. This configuration boosts parry notably and attack power through the roof, slightly lowers the cooldown time of One-Handed Sword Skills, and enables a slew of special dual wielding Sword Skills such as Cross Block (defensive), Locus Hexedra (7-hit), Starburst Stream (16-hit), and The Eclipse (27-hit).

LISBETH: Weapon Ascension

TYPE: Crafting, Weapons
Year after year, Lisbeth's put her whole heart and soul into every blow of her blacksmith's hammer. She has proven worthy of the Unique Skill 'Weapon Ascension', which confers numerous abilities ordinary Crafters do not receive. Though a pain in the ass to grind, at maximum level it grants a +20% success rate to enhancing Weapons and raising the maximum success rate cap to 98% from 95%. She may also choose to 'Reforge' a Weapon, improving its tier/rarity for a massive stat boost, and resetting its Enhancement status for a new round of reinforcement attempts. Reforging cannot fail, but requires phenomenal mounds of rare materials and Yrd.

TOMOE: Righteous Cross

TYPE: Weapon Skill, One-Handed Sword and Shield
(to be written)

REKER: One Man Army

TYPE: Weapon Skill, Firearms
(to be written)

SILICA: Beast Master

TYPE: Support Skill, Beast Tamer Enhancement
(to be written)

Foreigners

Whenever any intelligent entity crosses the borders of a Hub or Fragment Zone, they are given a floating window prompt to enter a username they want to be known by. These names must be grammatically sensible things that NPCs could pronounce, though it need not be an ordinary name. (Canon examples of oddball names include: Musketeer X, Pale Rider, and Red-Eyed XaXa.)

People with registered usernames can be added to friends lists, parties, and guilds, and participate in quests. They are provided with a gesture-controlled menu similar to what Augma Users get, but with far fewer features. Obviously, CARDINAL cannot figure out their HP, so their bar in a party is filled in with diagonal lines for N/A.

Foreigners CAN see Color Cursors and monster names and the party HUD information, though the system is incapable of simply KNOWING what a foreigner's combat skill is like and thus Color Cursors for Monsters are not an accurate gauge for threat level until they have killed about ten or so - at which point it will start to adapt based on things like kill speed and observed powers for an empirical measurement.

Reality Interaction Principles

There is essentially no difference between things originating from 'the real world' or 'a game world.' For example, ordinary people can eat food sold by NPCs or Cooked by Augma Users (and... the buffs actually work in addition to it being filling.) Weapons and armor made by a Smith can be wielded by Foreigners (though they do not gain Sword Skills) and are quite serviceable, but still explode into pixels when they eventually wear out.

Similarly, just as items like shampoo bottles can e stuffed in an Augma User's inventory, players can use offworld gear that's comparable in nature to their own - if you have the Dagger Weapon Skill, then grabbing a random knife off the shelf at a store will in fact result in a functional weapon you can use Sword Skills with - albeit, a flimsy one.

Following this logic, an ALO Smith could use ores and other materials not found in Alfheim Online in their work. The only trouble is the system can't provide any info on what's going to happen. Items made this way (and vice versa) can be a little weird but are perfectly functional.