Virtual Realities (SAO, AW, .hack, LH)

[MGarurumon]

So, after being inspired by two animes: Sword Art Online (SAO) and Accel World (AW), which actually were created from Japenese lights novels by the same person, I've been thinking about mankind. How we all have evolved and how technology has too. These two animes, which I highly recommend, deal with virtual realities. In such worlds, an approximate one second in real life is worth 16 minutes. In these worlds, one can also do and be what they are not.

Sword Art Online is undoibtedly one of the most mindblwoing animes I've yet seen. In this virtual reality game, the creator locks the 10,000 players in. They are forced to clear the game in order to "log out" and return to the real world. But you're going to have to grind up the levels, defeat monsters, and get yourself a class, in order to survive, because once you die "in game", you also die for real. I personally love the animation and drawing style.

Accel World was created before SAO. I don't like it as much, and it has some more romance in it. However, I find the virtual reality concept to be one I constantly am researching.



Even if you haven't heard or seen them yet, I just wanted to know what you others thoughts about a few things. Do you think it's possible for a virtual reality game like SAO's world to exist and be created? If so, when?

And, lastly, I'm leaving with a confession. I am horridly afraid of dying. Awfully, awfully afraid, what will happen next? Is Death really inevitable? Do we just disappear-- our bodies rottening and our soul, nonexistent? Because then I want a Virtual Reality Game where I can prolong my life. Quadriple my lifespand.




Well, I'm just ranting, and I really had to be it from my head onto some actual text. Hopefully, you won't think I'm nuts or anything. XD

[Kingmana]

A small comment about virtual worlds before I actually go to my point for replying to this. The only anime I have seen about virtual worlds besides Digimon are Megaman NT and Corrector Yui. Neither of them do really treat the virtual world itself so they aren't the best examples. As for creating a world like the SAO you are mentioning, I do think it's possible. I will give you some actual reasoning of how it could work: the human's brain. Let see, the brain only works at less than 1/8 of its full capacity. And it has been proven that time flows slower when we sleep (and at least I have noticed it as well) so maybe if the machine is connected to our sleep function and with the subconscious then it's possible that it actually exists. The only problems are, as you say, the fact that you may not be able to get up later and also, that you may not want to, if you get what I mean.

Okey, I said it was going to be small, well, consider that small for me . Anyway, the dying thing. I will be honest here, I don't care anything about dying. I am worried at losing other people and pets (I cry when I think I am going to lose my ten years old little doggy) but I am not worrying about dying myself. I just think we shouldn't care about that, I mean, life has no meaning when you think about eating, reproducing and dying; life is not just that. Life is suffering, is happiness and is sadness, there shouldn't be a fear towards dying because it's a natural process, what should be fear is not getting an actual purpose to our existence; that's our main issue. As for if there is exist a world beyond, well most people adhere to a religious believe just to find an answer but I honestly think the only answer will be the truth and there doesn't exist any kind of hurry to know that truth, unless you are a suicide, of course. I actually do believe on some religious thing, but I don't adhere no any religious because I don't want anyone telling me how I should behave. I believe on dragons, spirits and a god, no more than that and is all I need.

[MGarurumon]

Yay! A reply! I half thought people would think the idea was strange or weird. X3

I've seen/played Megaman, too (though they were my brother's). I think SAO is kind of like Lunar's Chronicle's world, which is pretty cool since I read Chronicles before watching SAO, and got totally hooked on both. Scientists and people say we only post. use about 1/8 capacity as you said, but I find that to be amazing! One day, I hope we "unlock" the rest of the 7/8ths, but I wonder what else we could possibly do or understand. I wonder if our ancestors did so, because we kind of depend on machines now more. Hehe, I hope I live to see the day when we do uncover the secrets of the brain.

And I do get what you mean! X3
I was thinking about if I were in SAO or Chronicles. I kind of wonder if I would get back up at all or want to. Kinda a SPOILER: In the actual show, some people experience the exact same thing. They forget about the real world or just become accustomed to life in game. END SPOILER.

Not that I dn't like real life, but sometimes, being online or being able to have the computer or your avatar to be your mask seems more preferable, because you can be who you are not in real life...



Anyway, yeah! I've been reading up on all sorts of things. Religions, near death experiences compiled by doctors, and all that stuff. I know how life's precious and all, but still, I'm so afraid. I think I'm afriad of not experiencing all the world has to offer, what I'm going to leave behind, and the people who I will affect by dying. I'm not a particularly strong believer in the religion my family has, but I hope that there really is a place we go to after death. Or at least, there's "nothingness" instead od pain and suffering.

[andrei]

Wow...I've never heard about those animes though but a very good anime series again with virtual reality is the hack series.

Anyway, to make a virtual world is hard.
First, the external senses(smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch/physical feeeling) are hard to make. To make the first two(smell and taste) the apparatus needs to have a huge amount of different chemicals to produce the smell/taste by combining them. Only by this, there is a huge amount of memory. Sight and hearing is already done. Here is a helmet for this senses:

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1159206/The-headset-mimic-senses-make-virtual-world-convincing-real-life.html

www.fastcompany.com/1196841/cocoon-helmet-takes-virtual-reality-smelly-dimension

About the physical interaction it's harder.
Maybe a costume for the entire body to convert the movement in binary data and make the avatar in the game move. But for that, they need to make something to block the movement, something like a conveyor. To feel the tough, the suit should press on the body in specific locations, that means the suit should be made by small robots with specific intelligence.

If we decrypted the brain, it would be different. It could decode the commands into the neural system and make the avatar move accordingly to it. And when the physical touch could be, it should just send an electrical stimulation at the specific nerves to make you feel that you actually touched it. It should have a neural needle inside your back part of the neck to have access to every nerve information. Ouch...
It think it would be nicer to detect the small electromagnetic field of the neural stimulus and send to the end of the nerve a electrical charge. But this is what I believe. I don't know how true is what I wrote.

[MGarurumon]

woot! Another reply! Thanks for the links; when I get on the computer, I'll totally check them out!

I heard of the .hack series too! I'm also pretty sure is was also made by the same guy, lol. ;_;
Anyway, wow. It sounds a lot more complicated when you get down to what humanity actually has to do to make this possible. Do you think we'll actually be able to do this type of stuff im the near future?

Replicating the senses. If a virtual reality even were created, I suppose that some people could beco,e addicted to the game and the feelings it could input into oneself. *shudders* The neural needle idea sounds cool. But painful. X3 but then again, people would probably find a way to make that painless, before somebody sued them for hurting or killing someone.



Excuse me for any spelling mistakes or whatnot. Using a mobile device. XD

[IcestarRiver]

If with technology, a virtual reality world would be created... I would definitely go. Not because I fear death (in fact, I just see it as population control), but because I'd really just want to escape reality and have an eternal chance to release all my negative energy through battles and pain. Bottling up those feelings is extremely hard, and being a girl that is usually seen as delicate, calm, and kind makes it even harder to control my natural destructive instinct. I can't just punch someone out of the blue and say they were annoying me, even if that's what I really want to do. It's against society's norms, which would be another great reason for a virtual reality. Be whatever you want, when you want, no need for happy facades or masks. The more you bottle up, the more you hurt yourself mentally and physically, and just destroying every moving thing I see would be a wonderful way to spend my weekend. It would also help with controlling those suicide attempts; those people might have bottled too much up too, with no one to tell their true feelings to. Death is used as that, isn't it? A way to get away. Away from everything. And a game would be the same way.

I apologize for the dark paragraph, but that's my opinion and it's night, which is the pessimistic side of day after all. And it makes me yandere.

[Infernape77]

Oh, lol. I thought I'm the only one here who watch/know/read about SAO and AW xD They're all interesting animes. If I could choose, I prefer to be at AW era than the SAO. SAO is really scary.

Speaking about that virtual reality, man I really really want that to be exist. But I think I will already too old for things like that if they really exist in the future xD But seriously, reality sucks, that's why I want to the anime world like Pokemon, Digimon and Megaman Battle Network/Star Force. Or maybe like Digimon/AW/SAO, there are place where I could 'run from reality'. And the time advantages thing is also really helpful, imo (SAO is not the only game in SAO world, the last game in it is like AW/Digimon, time flows differently). The disadvantage of those world is, it's surprisingly hard to survive(yeah, it's hard to survive in Digital World).

I love technology, but actually I suck at them, so I really dunno about if it's really possible or not.... Well, if something like Kinect(?) is possible, then I think it's possible. Although something like virtual reality is a very high risk, like when testing it or so.

[andrei]

The kinect is only a sensor.

[Vallsamon]

hmm, Reminds me of the Anime/Manga of Dot Hack, if you haven't heard of it look it up, it's a great Anime and Manga. it came out around 1999-2000. won't tell you much about it so i don't ruin any thing

[Prayer98]

This is quite an interesting post, and something I've thought about on a few occasions.

I agree that it's possible for a virtual reality to exist. But I don't believe it's as hard as some of you think it might be. We know that the brain controls all of our basic functions. So when we feel, smell, taste, etc something, the nerves sends messages to the brain and your brain interprets those messages into sights, smells, tastes, and so on. So theoretically if they would be able to create something that stimulates the brain with the same pulses as from the nerves, the brain could interpret those as those senses. As for the time thing. Yes King, while we're asleep we lose our sense of time, but others around us stay in time. But scientists have found that an extreme source of gravity can bend time, slowing it, or speeding it up. This may sound like time travel, but it's not. It actually bends time, slowing it for the person in the extreme gravity, while everyone else is in normal speed. And if such a thing is created, I believe it should have a "Safety" feature. While this is activated, the physical body is unable to be hurt in the virtual world.

[MGarurumon]

@ Ice - Actually... what you have said is similar to how I feel. I usually throw things when in a tantrum, punch the air, or stare at something, somehow thinking that if I stare hard and long enough, it will melt and disappear... a way to get away from everything. I like the way you put it, though I think we both think "darkly".

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@ Infernape - YAY! Someone else who knows of it! Virtual Realities FTW. I was thinking about that, too. I was hoping that humanity would be able to do it while I was still alive, but I don't really want to be an ol grandma by the time something like SAO or AW actually comes into existense.

I'm not really that good atvido games, and I usually mess up my chat's stats when you've got to distribute skill points or whatever, so I'd probably die in something like SAO fast. More or less likely, I'd go to a town near Level 1 and wait for the frontliners to do their thing. X3

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@ Mike - Mhm! Andrei mentioned it before I believe. Recently, I read some reviews, and they're pretty positive. I'm checking it out soon!

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@ Prayer - Ah! The gravity thingy's interesting. If humanity ever did get to the point in which we could time travel, I don't think we'd able to alter the past. That would make it all so confusing, and maybe get into a paradox in which because someone altered the past, they were not able to, in the future, create the machine that brought them into the past and then-- well, that's only if you couldn't have two of the same selfs at a single time. Anyway, what you've said convinces me that VR's are possible.

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@ All
So. Now, I'm curious. When do you think VR's could actually become real? Near future? Centuries more?

Scientists have been exploring such fields already. We've got 3D TV's now and a whole bunch of a baloney. Yet, by opening up VR's, couldn't we quadriple the amount of things we can do, as time works differently?

[Prayer98]

I believe so yes. With what you said about 3D TVs and such, the military and the government have actually tested with holograms, and the fact that people have made (somewhat) learning machine. Cleverbot. Because of this I believe once we've fine tuned hologram technology, combining this with with AI, could make a virtual reality. But of course we'd have to be EXTREMELY careful with this technology or else something like what happened in the movie "IRobot" could happen.

And right now the first SAO episode is loading, never seen it before, but from what you said it looks good.

[IcestarRiver]

Holograms are extremely realistic and advanced already; have you ever seen clips of the Vocaloid concerts? They look extremely realistic, apart from their anime faces. It's almost creepy how real everything looks.

EDIT: SWORD ART ONLINE IS THE MOST EPIC ANIME I HAVE EVER SEEN! ...Okay exclamation over. ^^

[surbet11]

Well if you could tap into a humans brainwaves then it should be easy to manipulate evrything from the five sense to adrenaline when facing an enemy and speaking of virtual reality reading a manga about one named 1/2 prince

[MGarurumon]

@ Prayer - How's it going so far? :0 like it?
@ Ice- WOOT! I've converted you to a SAO fan alreadyyy. X3 What episode are you on?
@ Surbet - Hrm. I guess so when talking about it. But I think replicating the senses would still be pretty hard with all those chemicals and brain nerves you have to do it. I'm toally checking out 1/2 Prince later on, though! :3

[IcestarRiver]

@mg: I'm on episode 11. So I'll need to wait for a new episode after watching 12... :c

[MGarurumon]

Wooooahhhh! You're so fast! Wait... Did you just watch them all in about a day/24 hours? :0
((I loved it, but it took me about three days cuz' of school and all those hindrances.))

[IcestarRiver]

@mg: I'm an otaku, and pretty much lock myself up in my room all day. I'm not social and hate most human interaction, so I stay alone. I watched it all yesterday, from about 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM because I couldn't tear myself away. Then it froze and I was forced to go to bed.

[surbet11]

@mg good the manga is awesome don't think it has an anime thou and you might have a point about the chemicals but Its still possible hard but possible

[MGarurumon]

@ Ice - Hahhahaa! XD I know! It's just so awesomeee. And no worries, though I don't really "lock myself up" becuzicant, I can really hate some human interaction, too. Oh and just to let you know, the manga's horrid and the art style becomes messed up. Just in case if you become too eager for more, I just wanted to letcha know.

@ Surbet - Oh well. I usually watch anime over manga so it takes longer and I get to savor it, but I read mangas occasionally, too. Yup. I think it's possible, too. Hope it's in my lifetime that somebody creates it!

[andrei]

We're not very close to Virtual realities.

And I don't think it'll be as nice as we think.

[Vallsamon]

hmm not completely true. can't find the link but they are planing to releases a VR game based on *The World* some time in 2024 in japan, which has me a bit excited.

and watched 1-8 so far. and so far im hooked. i love the art and the concept. the first episode had me blown away that the game maker trapped them in the game. and what's funny is im some what wishing there was a game like that xD

[andrei]

The World*smiles*

Anyway, if it's a virtual reality ,it need something like a console that's probably have a high price.

And this technology can be used in other things.

[MGarurumon]

Reusing this ol' thread.

Anyone heard of, watch, or read Log Horizon? It's also set in a virtual reality world, but the premises and situation are different. Many people said it'd be a rip-off of SAO, and though I can see what they mean, I don't really agree after having watched 14 episodes. Firstly, it doesn't indulge so much in actual romance and harem stuff. Secondly, (might be a spoiler, but I really don't think it is) in this virtual reality world, players are trapped in the game but don't die if they die in-game. More classes, more history, more action, and more about the politics in a lawless virtual reality world in which players first rampage and PK (player kill). People are obviously going to act way different if they're going to actually die or not die when they die iin-game. To be honest, right now, for me, it's Log Horizon > Accel World > Sword Art Online. I think Log Horizon has more to it than a cool protagonist and a whole bunch of girls falling for the same guy-- I think the main character of Log Horizon is far more interesting. Better story line in my opinion.

In any case, I recommend folks try it out if they liked SAO, Accel World, or .hack. You might not be particularly impressed by the first episode, but give it a few to show its potential.

[IcestarRiver]

Log Horizon is... interesting. The fact that humans cannot die but still can rule makes them arrogant and extremely tyrannical. I personally did not like it nearly as much as I liked SAO. I suppose it is amusing, but there isn't much backstory from what I can see. I don't like how because they're in a new world, they're making it like their old world. It takes away the whole game aspect. The sub-classes also seem quite silly. You'd think tracker would be included in the ninja-like package. Also, maid? Why on earth was a class that could clean well included in a game?

[MGarurumon]

Ah, I see what you mean. And, yes, the maid sub-class is absolutely useless! Your points are pretty well-founded, so I understand why you don't enjoy Log Horizon that much. Also, did you hear about Gun Gale Online's confirmation? I'm pretty sure that there was also an OVA for SAO released recently. Something of the sort that a friend and many Facebook fan pages are screaming about. I can't watch it myself because of Parental Controls, but my friend said it was pretty good. He said there was too much fan-service though.

I'd be excited, but I can't watch it myself and the second part of SAO really wasn't as good in my opinion. Another friend who I told about SAO asked why on earth they kept on playing VRMMORPG's. Did they not learn their lesson and don't they know that it's dangerous by now? -- She didn't really finish the series, so she didn't understand the predicament of saving Asuna, but for Gun Gale? I forget exactly why they go into another VRMMORPG and what I do remember, I don't want to spoil.

In any case, thoughts on Gun Gale?

[IcestarRiver]

Yes, I heard about it! I am extremely excited, this should be the highlight of January along with Chuunibyou's second season! I don't really remember why they went back anymore, but don't forget why Kazuto entered SAO in the first place- to escape. Games have always been an escape. Though I personally feel quite shaky when I see guns, and don't like them at all as weapons, I'm going to watch it. If it's anything like the light novel, it'll be great. Except Kirito gets another girl in his harem... sigh.

[MGarurumon]

Surely, virtual reality technology has quickly bloomed with popularity.

Have you folks heard of the Oculus Rift? About Facebook's $2 billion buy?
Valve's virtual reality headset--though not a lot of information, supposedly lightyears ahead of the Rift?
Or what about Sony's headset?

Tons of interesting and exciting stuff happening for VR Technology!!

But what do you guys think about virtual reality now that it's a bit more in the face rather than a distant future? Can stuff go out of whack? Will life be for better or for worse, and what aspects?

[DramonFire]

Well, recently I read this article on how lucid dreaming could potentially create a virtual world, they hook you up to a device and begin using theta waves, those are for lucid dreaming, you would need to take a pill to sleep (if in the middle of the day) or just go to sleep, not sure how we could hook them up to a network though...

Anyways I really don't like it that facebook bought the rift, now we'll never see it getting used for gaming, unless Zuckerberg decides to create a Video Game company, which I doubt, they'll probably use it for creating a facebook 3D or something like that -.-