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IBM Japan announces Sword Art : The Beginning VR MMO

Squishy3

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Trailer here, mostly animated footage from the show but you see some of the game assets.

Official website.

Alpha testing begins in March at an event where 208 people will be invited via lottery of everyone who entered, obviously only applies to Japanese residents.
 
So, its completely unreasonable to think that what happened in the anime would happen IRL...but still. The fear of PKers is real, son.
 
Sword Art: The Beginning: The End.

To be honest though SAO, at least as depicted in the anime, doesn't seem like a very good or fun game.
 
Virtual Paris Syndrome inc: people being mind-crushingly disappointed at a SAO VR game that doesn't play exactly like the anime.
 
Stealing duckroll's post from animeGAF for an explanation of the March event.

The March event is an early alpha test for 200+ participants to explore the feasibility of the technology they have right now. It will involve testers going through a scan to create their avatars, and being able to use those avatars to explore a 3D space and interact with other testers in the VR environment. I think it's basically the Town of Beginnings used as a test hub simulation the opening scenes of SAO.

Where it goes from there will depend on how much money the various sponsors think is worth investing into the project next I guess.

I'd think they have more planned for it, since they have a monster with an animation rig set up. Just probably won't see anything resembling combat for a looooooooong time, considering all the player models in that same small clip are t-posing.
 
Yep, I'd rather play The World. This looks interesting, though.

Also a VR MMO in The World I feel would also be far more easier to develop for considering we know the rules already. We have 7 games to base the game on. It crying out for an MMO and it already has the job half way done already.
 
Stealing duckroll's post from animeGAF for an explanation of the March event.



I'd think they have more planned for it, since they have a monster with an animation rig set up. Just probably won't see anything resembling combat for a looooooooong time, considering all the player models in that same small clip are t-posing.

Sounds like they practically just started the project. Well, I'm curious to see how it'll go, although it'll be best to not get too excited in case it doesn't pan out if it seems like they're still deciding how much funding it'll get at this point.
 
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