Namine

I had actually mentioned just a head-shot as that'd be easiest to keep up, just do hair and expression, but was told that part of the SAO appeal was the outfits. But for the purposes of avatars, think that'd be the quickest route to maintain SAO style while giving some customization. I've done something kinda like that before.

(le old)

Yeah something like that I'm cool with as well.

In your case Nevina, your character would be considered safe since we'd all be well aware you're busy in life at times. You'd be fine because I know you'd give ample warning if not here, you'd inform someone I'm sure. I don't see any issues with your side of things if we stuck to how the game works.

We don't have the issue of Chaos Gates and what not, if you need a quick teleport to town, bring a teleport crystal.

Also Crim if you take off your Nervgear in this part of SAO you will die :P.

Honestly I understand you want to protect someone's feelings about their character, but in the end if you AFK in a field you're going to get seen by a PKer or a monster eventually and you will die. It's like when Kirito and Asuna were taking turns napping to watch each other's bodies. In a town you're safe unless you duel, in a field you're dead unless someone's protecting you. If someone's afk for a long time gives ample notice they can arrange something like that until they're able to return (within reason). If they just drop depending on where they are, they're either dead, or safe in town. Simple, it's how the game actually works and I think if we're basing a lot of our stuff on SAO for the time being we should pretty much follow the game's structure as close as we can. I sympathize with your love for your character, but the game's rules doesn't allow us to be sympathetic to your cause. People want to play this game, they have to realize that this is how it works. If you love your character so much make your second character act exactly like your first one or bring them back when we switch to AFO.

That's the way I think it should go down.

Dueling and PVP shouldn't be predetermined. There should be a system in place that can easily tell an outcome of a duel or pvp fight.

@Sieg We could try it like TWRP where we only allowed art of your character to be used. If I'm not remembering this correctly, refresh me Edan because it's been god knows how long since those days. Also if we do do this we'd have to make it optional I'd imagine. So that it's not a requirement to have to pay someone to/draw your own character just to get into the RP.

And who should be left in charge of this? the users or the GM's? I just don't want to see 50 million Goku's, Pikachu's, etc.. being uploaded.

I don't see why the users can't handle this themselves. If there's something terribly wrong a GM can intervene if needed.

@Mythee: .hack also had a similar style and I've thought that for a long time, but Integral seemed to make it work really well. Not saying I agree or disagree on this, it really depends on if we can get staff that'll do it. Either way I plan on trying to get someone to draw my character for me :P.

The character sheet idea would seem alright to me. I've been on forums where that was an option and haven't had too many problems with it.

I fully agree there needs to be some what of a solo based RP because of what Kirito did in SAO. It'd help greatly with character development especially when you're rping in a group and your buddies aren't posting quick enough. You could do a solo rp and say level up some or just go exploring and show some background on your character's development. I really can't see any way around it.

Nevina and I have been plotting and going over stuff for the forum as far as rules structure and the rpg workings in general. This will be updated as issues come up and are resolved/we come up with new ideas etc. Here's what we have:

Forum Layout:

General OOC

> General discussion, subtopics come as needed

Staff Discussion

>For the Heathcliffs of us

SAO OOC

> Plots

> Handbook

-> Rules, how tos

SAO RP

>Journal

->Character Approval

>Quests

>Guilds

->Guild Request/Approval

>Floors 1-10

>Add Floors upon event unlock.

______________________________________________________

For posting in rp, threads MUST start with:

[PP] Private party: You have scheduled rp ahead of time with one or more designated players.

[OP] Open party: Anyone can join in this.

[sP] Solo party: Only you are posting.

Users can keep track of what types they've RP'd in their journal, who they've met, impressions, thoughts, etc.

______________________________________________________

Floors open in increments of 10.

There will be events for each individual floor beaten, and a grand-quest event at the 10th increment.

Ex:

Event for all players to join in the same thread to beat boss floor 1. Maybe some rewards involved.

Level 10 floor involves epic boss times, reward a special ability to one player?

Not sure on how these events are handled yet.

______________________________________________________

Players must post chara profile before RP'ing for approval.

Death can occur at any time, but to move on to a new chara, a player must post their character profile for approval.

______________________________________________________

Battles are handled by the players themselves; you play the monsters that you fight, except for bosses.

For PvP, you may either decide the victor ahead of time, or you can use a random number generator to see who wins/loses, or take skills/levels into consideration.

______________________________________________________

A guild should have a recommended number of 5 people to form. Guilds can seek approval in the guild thread and once approved can make their own topic.

(Subject to change not set in stone Open to Discussion etc.)

I think we should have a Journal thread under OOC SAO. That'd be a spot for people to keep track of their characters (one journal per chara I mean, not all charas crammed in one spot), write notes on who they talked to and their relations between others, etc.

I think a specific area of the forum so everyone can create their own topic for their own character.

I kinda think these ideas are all pretty much the same. Nevina's might be a little more detailed though which would be a neat idea to try out. It'd make the experience more personal and add to character development.

I'm tempted to make their titles Beaters when the RP starts :P.

The idea is though that once you're dead that's it. At least for the SAO phase. Once we start with the AFO phase users can re-create and revert to their former name if they want and maybe perhaps keep their original name in their signature so things don't get too confusing? Something to consider. I can't imagine it being that bad though. I see it like the becoming Dot Hack on dothack.org only with this you're also making a new character, not just a new name.

Also good to see ya Mythee.

If you make them look good I don't have a problem personally with altering colors and using them.

What Sieg stated is what I meant by classes.

Crunchyroll also has SAO on stream if you're looking for an official means of watching it.

Nevina and I had a nice idea we were throwing around, while I don't know exactly if it'll work it'll be worth giving a look see in the "beta" period.

Have the RP set up like you have your main towns where people are safe and you can chat and stuff. Find people (IC of course). Then Users create their own groups and field topics: For every 10x field posts we'd let them go up 1 floor. Something around that. We could tweak it as needed for PvP etc. It's something that'd need to be worked on a bit though for sure. Stats would be a different monster entirely to determine depending on classes etc.

I see what you're getting at with the immersion, but I think overall we do need some OOC areas to help strengthen bonds between players and such much like Nevina said. Maybe not go overboard by having a random spam portion, but some OOC things to discuss stuff like the SAO series, games, anime etc.

http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/style ... _air/demo/

Everything is nice and rounded, and items appear out of nowhere when brought up.

Works quite well I think. If we get that logo made it'd fit well with the color scheme too IMO.

Deluxe is nice, but I don't like that purple/orange set up though.

The one Crim posted is ehh...I've worked with that theme before on another forum and it didn't really look nice overall.

Really would depend on if we can either A) Get good spriters, or B) How we go about using player's own avatars.

If we can get a good sprite team that's willing to take on the task of creating SAO Themed sprites, it'd work out well. I've seen lots of styles of the SAO cast ranging from chibi to realistic, so it works in any aspect.

Uploading of people's own avatars is a hit or miss for me. If you want total immersion the avatar system similar to or exactly like we have on Integral would work better. Plus even with the multiple avatars you can save, making new characters would work quite well. We just need the spriters to actually draw and design the clothing for it.