.Hack//Rant – “The World” Would NOT Make a Great Game
By Jordan Hallm (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist
And no, I do not mean the “real” world. I mean The World from the hit anime series .Hack//Sign and other .Hack// series. The World is the fictional MMORPG played by the characters in the anime. It is often depicted as being played with Virtual Reality headsets and a controller, though in later iterations is shown as being played with high tech glasses and a hand-held device.
Many fans of the .Hack// series gush over how much they wish The World was a real game. How amazing it would be. Unfortunately, I am here to rain on the parade. The World would not make a great game. Maybe a good game, but not great. From what I’ve seen in the animes and various single player games, it’s a very generic game. It has your typical class system, an action-combat system, the typical progress system; it basically has everything that MMOs nowadays already have.
The only thing it has that we do not have today in many MMOs is 1) The characters from the anime and 2) The Virtual Reality headsets. Number two is easy, as we are already on the path to achieving high quality virtual reality headsets that deliver high quality graphics with motion sensing thanks to the Oculus Rift.
The Future of Gaming
Number one is a different beast. We will never get a game that specifically gives us number one. Number one is something that only we, as players, can create for ourselves. If you want to experience the amazing adventures and relationships depicted in the anime, you need to accomplish that yourself.
And you definitely can. People have been doing it for over a decade now. The easiest way to do it is join a guild. A good guild will give you an environment where you can make close friends to have in-game adventures with that will stay with you in your memories for years to come.
You too can have many women surrounding you! Not all of them will really be women, though…
Literally any game can be turned in to the equivalent of The World if you want it to. Sure, some games are better at it than others – specifically sandbox games – but any game can be made amazing by having good friends to experience it with.
I’ve argued it in the past and I’ll argue it now, The World was a shitty generic game. The only thing that made it interesting were the characters from the games/anime/manga and the Virtual Reality-aspect. You might as well play Vindictus or PSO2, or any other MMO and you can get the experience. Just find a good, tight-knit group of friends rather than going from one crappy game to another and not making any meaningful contacts/friends.
Phantasy Star Online 2 is a great game to make interesting friendships in
Please, do yourselves a favor and stop succumbing to the hype of crappy games (real or fictional) and take a real look at what we have right now. There are many games that could act as vehicles for your own adventures comparable to those that you can watch in .Hack//. There are millions of gamers out there that can be your Ovan, Shino, Pi, Subaru, Bear, Rena, Black Rose, Orca, or any of the other incredible characters that inhabit the fictional universe of .Hack//. Don’t wish for what can’t be (A real The World MMORPG) and start looking at what already is or what is soon to be. Make your own destiny rather than waiting around for some fictional game to bring it to you.
