I've been doing some thinking about some annoying questions in the .hack series, and I've come up with some theories to answer those questions. If I've left anything out, or missed any pieces of evidence, feel free to point it out to me. Here's my first theory.
Question #1: How do you get stuck in an online game?
Theory
In one of Tom Clancy's Net Force books, a genius programmer discovers a way to affect the way a user's body functions in the real world through a program. The programmer set up an online virtual reality simulation called the Funhouse. But underneath the sim, another program was running; a system that contained a basic template of the human nervous system, and created a new instance of this template for each and every user who entered the Funhouse. The system would then observe the actions of the user and have the template mimic the nervous impulses that went along with that action. In short, the program created a 'mirror' of the user's nervous system, and used the data it received to make that mirror increasingly accurate until the mirror nervous system and the user's nervous system were in nearly perfect synchronization.
At that point, the fun started; the two nervous systems were so synched up that actions in the mirror nervous system COULD INFLUENCE THE REAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. I.e., if you wanted to give someone the effects of a case of meningitis, you could have the mirror nervous system send impulses telling the body to produce chemicals that would imitate those effects, and the real nervous system would be fooled into doing it.
How does this relate to how people got stuck in "The World"?
In Liminality 4, it was mentioned that at times, character's files were much larger than the specs indicated they should be; it was said that they contained the character's 'persona'. What exactly this 'persona' consists of isn't specified...but it could well be a mirror nervous system model, synchronized to the character using the records of that character's actions in The World. Such data could have, perhaps, been intended to be collected and used as raw material to create the ultimate AI, Aura.
Fine and dandy, but I still haven't explained why people get stuck in "The World".
Okay. So what would happen if the 'mirror' nervous system were to suddenly be sent a command to shut down? The real nervous system would likely be synched up to it enough that it would emulate those actions; i.e., crash, sending the user into a coma. So, something (Morganna?) sends a 'crash' command to the mirror nervous system, causing the user to fall into a coma; the data up to that point would be copied into a dummy file buried somewhere in The World's file system. So what happens to this dummy file? Well, that seems to vary. In SIGN, Morganna allowed Tsukasa's persona to run around The World for awhile...in later cases, though, Morganna seems to have put the personas on ice, at least until Aura sprung them loose in Quarantine.
A piece of supporting evidence for this theory: when Mai, a first-time user, nearly falls into a coma in Liminality 1, she wakes up. This would make sense if her 'mirror' nervous system wasn't synched up to her real one yet. Similarly, when Tokuoka tries to play "The World" with Sieg's character data, he also manages to escape being sucked in; if the 'mirror' nervous system was synched to someone else's nervous responses, that would explain it.
So how do afflicted users wake up from such a coma? That's a good question. My theory on this is based on some more evidence from Liminality; this time, from Liminality 4 and Quarantine. During the Corbenik battle, Sieg shows up and kamikaze attacks Corbenik's Supreme Defense shell, coming out of whatever limbo he'd been in. About this time, it shows Sieg waking up in the hospital. How? Maybe the 'mirror' nervous system and the real one remain synched, despite being seperated. A bit farout, admittedly, but it's really the only explanation that makes sense.
This would also explain how users have any memory of the actions taken in "The World" while their bodies were in comas; the memory data of actions taken in "The World" would still have a lot of influence on the real nervous system, transcribing those memories into the real body.
And that's my theory on how people get stuck in the World.
Question #2: How is that Kite & Co. NEVER Protect Break?
Theory
First, what is Protect Break?
I belive that when Kite Protect Breaks a monster, that signifies that the Bracelet has managed to isolate the monster's data and is ready to open I/O operations on it. This also explains why you have to damage a monster in order to be able to Protect Break it. If you've ever used an emulator and run a Cheat Search, you know the basic idea already; you search the system's memory for all memory addresses containing a specific value, wait for that value to change, then run another search for the new value. Any addresses turned up in the first search that don't match the new value are eliminated, further refining the search until you have only one address left...the right one. Same idea here.
This also explains why it's so much easier for a Phase to Protect Break a normal player; being a part of the system, the Phases would have easy access to the data structure, and therefore would not ordinarily have a hard time finding and opening a character's data.
Okay. What about Restore Protect?
The system has probably got anti-hacking safeguards in place to keep people from hacking the server core and setting up private servers (not that it worked that well in the end, from what I've heard of .hack//DUSK). One such safeguard would probably be to keep the datastreams moving as much as possible, to keep anyone from being able to isolate, and therefore identify the meaning of, any particular stream of data. This would also be good design sense from Harald's point of view; he would want Morganna and Aura not to be pinned down to any single area of memory, where they could be found and tampered with. This would also explain how Harald and Morganna exist "both everywhere and nowhere" in the game. Anyway, the net effect of this is that even once you've isolated a data stream, you can't be sure you won't lose it again. THIS is Restore Protect, when the Bracelet loses its 'lock' on the target's datastreams.
So why doesn't Kite Protect Break?
I believe that it has to do with the Book of Twilight. When Kite used this item, it didn't just alter his data, it altered the very way his data was stored. Normal character files in "The World" likely contain the data pertaining to that character (level, stats, inventory, etc). But after Kite used the Book of Twilight, his character's file structure was altered (this supposition is strongly supported by Lios' inability to crack Kite's data in .hack//Outbreak; thanks to CRtwenty for this point). Instead of his data being written DIRECTLY to his file, a pointer or series of pointers was placed in that file. The real data was buried who knows where...probably scattered throughout The World's file structure in lots of very small pieces, making it next to impossible for the Phases and/or Morganna to track Kite's data down. The game can still read and access Kite's data just fine, through the pointers...but only in the ways it's supposed to, i.e. item/money/stat/inventory management, status effects, and the like. Thus, the Phases can't open access to Kite's file as they could a normal PC...thus, they can't Protect Break Kite.
But why does Data Drain work at all then?
As I said earlier, the system can access Kite's data through the pointers; therefore, it can write status effects and such (it just can't write the shutdown of Kite's nervous system). Plus, status effects aren't that hard to search for; they're just bit flags.
Okay. So that explains why Kite doesn't Protect Break. But what about BlackRose and the others? They don't have any magical books to protect them...
A tough point to answer. The only explanation I can think of is that while they're partied with Kite, the data of your allies gets backed up in Kite's data; the type of destruction caused by a Data Drain attack is immediately restored from the backup in Kite's data. Not status effects, though, as that doesn't do actual damage to the file, it merely sets a flag.
And that's my theory on Protect Break.
Feedback on either theory, or both theories, would be appreciated. Thank you.
Theories...
Yea, I've read all this before, but I think I have a bit to add to this...
You say that somehow Kite's data protects the others right? This is possibly tied into the party feature. Joining a party allows users to view and share experience points and such right? Perhaps this feature also allows the protection Kite receives to have a sort of "blanket effect" shielding anybody who is currently in a party with him from the worse effects of data drain.
Hmm, another question to ponder... is Kite's data drain identical to the one used by Morganna and the Phases? Could Kite possibly hold the power to put other users into a coma? Helba certainly wonders this, as she says in her conversation with Lios in //MUTATION.
Helba: What were to happen if the boy were to use data drain, right here and now?
Kite: I would never do such a thing!
You say that somehow Kite's data protects the others right? This is possibly tied into the party feature. Joining a party allows users to view and share experience points and such right? Perhaps this feature also allows the protection Kite receives to have a sort of "blanket effect" shielding anybody who is currently in a party with him from the worse effects of data drain.
Hmm, another question to ponder... is Kite's data drain identical to the one used by Morganna and the Phases? Could Kite possibly hold the power to put other users into a coma? Helba certainly wonders this, as she says in her conversation with Lios in //MUTATION.
Helba: What were to happen if the boy were to use data drain, right here and now?
Kite: I would never do such a thing!
"Hark he of Fair eyes, I am CRtwenty of the Azure Keyboard!"
Wow. This is pretty well thought out. The theory about Protect Breaking sounds reasonable and likely to me, but I'm not so sure about the mirror nervous system thing.
I don't know anything about the interface for the Funhouse and how similar or different it may be from the interface of The World, but I'm not sure the "coma induced by a mirror nervous system" is possible with The World's interface. A user of The World controls his character with a PS2 like controller, and receives information through a VR headset. I don't really see a way for the game to collect detailed information about a user's entire nervous system.
The only way the system can tell what a user is doing is by observing what he does with the controller. When a user makes his character attack, for example, the system knows that he's hit a certain button. But how can the system find out the exact nervous impulse sent by the body? Sure, it can assume that the player is holding the controller a certain way and sending a certain impulse when he takes an action, but there are no guarantees. Besides, a person playing The World is probably only moving his hands and arms. With data from that region only, wouldn't completing an accurate copy of a given user's whole nervous system be impossible? Without a much more advanced and elaborate interface, I don’t think the game’s system could make a mirror nervous system.
Oh, could you explain how the Funhouse works? Knowing how similar the two games are would help me figure out if things that are possible in one are possible in the other.
Dry wrote:The system would then observe the actions of the user and have the template mimic the nervous impulses that went along with that action.
I don't know anything about the interface for the Funhouse and how similar or different it may be from the interface of The World, but I'm not sure the "coma induced by a mirror nervous system" is possible with The World's interface. A user of The World controls his character with a PS2 like controller, and receives information through a VR headset. I don't really see a way for the game to collect detailed information about a user's entire nervous system.
The only way the system can tell what a user is doing is by observing what he does with the controller. When a user makes his character attack, for example, the system knows that he's hit a certain button. But how can the system find out the exact nervous impulse sent by the body? Sure, it can assume that the player is holding the controller a certain way and sending a certain impulse when he takes an action, but there are no guarantees. Besides, a person playing The World is probably only moving his hands and arms. With data from that region only, wouldn't completing an accurate copy of a given user's whole nervous system be impossible? Without a much more advanced and elaborate interface, I don’t think the game’s system could make a mirror nervous system.
Oh, could you explain how the Funhouse works? Knowing how similar the two games are would help me figure out if things that are possible in one are possible in the other.
I don't get the "Mirror" Nervous thing.. considering I never read Tom Clancy's books.. nor the fact that I don't understand the FunHouse theory either.
But.. man, you have this well thought out!
But seriously though, when games are made, they make a code, per each time somebody does something in the game, such as VB, or blah blah blah, whenever something strikes such as this keyboard which I'm currently doing right now is being sent to the computer per each word that I sent to, pretty much how can I say this.. little people sending little bytes into the computer at a such a fast rate to the point where this computer becomes a little city. This works the same way as that of that in .hack://Liminality.
Anyways, Morganna did what you said, and your right.. (Even though it did confuse a couple of hours trying to find that out)
character's persona... great theory, man I love you! But I'll give you some feedback on that.. For example, I am Cyral, the name indicates that I'm brave yet hotheaded. But in the real world, I'm never like that, more like, a chicken, who can't do diddly squat. Most of the character that a person has made in the game, pretty much takes the character's persona thus making it you.
I have to find the rest out later, cause It's night time.
But.. man, you have this well thought out!
But seriously though, when games are made, they make a code, per each time somebody does something in the game, such as VB, or blah blah blah, whenever something strikes such as this keyboard which I'm currently doing right now is being sent to the computer per each word that I sent to, pretty much how can I say this.. little people sending little bytes into the computer at a such a fast rate to the point where this computer becomes a little city. This works the same way as that of that in .hack://Liminality.
Anyways, Morganna did what you said, and your right.. (Even though it did confuse a couple of hours trying to find that out)
character's persona... great theory, man I love you! But I'll give you some feedback on that.. For example, I am Cyral, the name indicates that I'm brave yet hotheaded. But in the real world, I'm never like that, more like, a chicken, who can't do diddly squat. Most of the character that a person has made in the game, pretty much takes the character's persona thus making it you.
I have to find the rest out later, cause It's night time.
Chongara love info to help big guy understand .hack, eh?
CRtwenty: Makes sense; the party feature would probably be what triggers that backing up of the characters' data, or whatever other protection scheme the bracelet has in place.
And it's an interesting question you ask about Kite's Data Drain. Personally, I think it is the same as the Phases' variant; Morganna copied the DD ability from Aura, according to the Liminality 4 Easter Egg, I believe, so the one Aura gave to Kite is likely the same one.
Deimos: It's been awhile since I've read that book; I may not even still HAVE it. But now that you mention it...yes, I do believe the Funhouse had a considerably more advanced user interface, allowing for a wider variety and much greater volume of data to be gathered. It would be very difficult to create such a profile from such a limited amount of data...but if anyone could do it, Morganna could. It was, after all, her function to create the ultimate AI, so she might have some skills in that direction...
Cyral: I agree, actions taken in the game world by a PC would not necesarily reflect the actions that person would take in the real world. But when you're playing the game, you're the one who directs the PC's actions; it's your MIND that's controlling that PC. Therefore, data collected from the PC could be said to accurately reflect the person's state of mind, though only while they're playing the game. That, brings up another interesting idea...
If you think about it, doesn't it seem kind of odd that people can wake up from Data-Drain induced comas even though their bodies are totally removed from any influence from Morganna? If the persona (be it a mirror nervous system or something else) is still synched with the unconscious player's body, that would explain it...but if such a link were the case, it brings a troubling possibility to mind. If they can wake up and not be anywhere near direct influence from Morganna, just due to what's happening with the persona, why shouldn't they also be able to fall into such a coma without being anywhere near Morganna?
A possible solution: the only time that the person's mind comes into synch with whatever 'persona' Morganna has built up on that person is when that person enters the World. This would make sense; the only time Morganna is receiving data on a person is when they're playing the World, so of course any data she collects will only be accurate whenever the subject is playing the World.
And it's an interesting question you ask about Kite's Data Drain. Personally, I think it is the same as the Phases' variant; Morganna copied the DD ability from Aura, according to the Liminality 4 Easter Egg, I believe, so the one Aura gave to Kite is likely the same one.
Deimos: It's been awhile since I've read that book; I may not even still HAVE it. But now that you mention it...yes, I do believe the Funhouse had a considerably more advanced user interface, allowing for a wider variety and much greater volume of data to be gathered. It would be very difficult to create such a profile from such a limited amount of data...but if anyone could do it, Morganna could. It was, after all, her function to create the ultimate AI, so she might have some skills in that direction...
Cyral: I agree, actions taken in the game world by a PC would not necesarily reflect the actions that person would take in the real world. But when you're playing the game, you're the one who directs the PC's actions; it's your MIND that's controlling that PC. Therefore, data collected from the PC could be said to accurately reflect the person's state of mind, though only while they're playing the game. That, brings up another interesting idea...
If you think about it, doesn't it seem kind of odd that people can wake up from Data-Drain induced comas even though their bodies are totally removed from any influence from Morganna? If the persona (be it a mirror nervous system or something else) is still synched with the unconscious player's body, that would explain it...but if such a link were the case, it brings a troubling possibility to mind. If they can wake up and not be anywhere near direct influence from Morganna, just due to what's happening with the persona, why shouldn't they also be able to fall into such a coma without being anywhere near Morganna?
A possible solution: the only time that the person's mind comes into synch with whatever 'persona' Morganna has built up on that person is when that person enters the World. This would make sense; the only time Morganna is receiving data on a person is when they're playing the World, so of course any data she collects will only be accurate whenever the subject is playing the World.
Thw World is Virtual reality game, I think it as much as the Matrix.
how they got coma?
simply, their mind is in data form, and always connected to the game. When data drain comes and gets them, their data become messed, caused coma.
but still their data/conciousness is in the game.
However, Emma wants to search an info about 'Liminality' then, or, pass death experience.
how they got coma?
simply, their mind is in data form, and always connected to the game. When data drain comes and gets them, their data become messed, caused coma.
but still their data/conciousness is in the game.
However, Emma wants to search an info about 'Liminality' then, or, pass death experience.
Nothing takes the past away, like the future
Nothing makes the darkness go, like the light
You're shelter from the storm
Give me comfort in your arm
Nothing makes the darkness go, like the light
You're shelter from the storm
Give me comfort in your arm
Gnosis, that is partially correct. The World is really just a front for the Emotional system created by Harald. It is designed to copy data on human emotions and the way the human mind works.
Basically when somebody is put in a coma the command to "copy" was switched to more of a "cut and paste" command in regards to their brain waves and emotional data.
Basically when somebody is put in a coma the command to "copy" was switched to more of a "cut and paste" command in regards to their brain waves and emotional data.
"Hark he of Fair eyes, I am CRtwenty of the Azure Keyboard!"
I don't think it's that simple. I believe that players of the World are only receiving sound and visual information from the game, and can only send information to the game by using the controller and a microphone in the headset (or a keyboard).Gnosis wrote:simply, their mind is in data form, and always connected to the game.
First of all, the headset just doesn't look like it's that advanced. I know, appearances don't mean much, but you'd think it would look a little more futuristic. If the mind of each user actually was connected to the game, don't you think the characters in SIGN would have discussed it and wondered if such a connection might be responsible for Tsukasa's state? Also, there are several incidents throughout SIGN and the games that show that the users of the World are still in touch with reality while playing. Mistral smells her dinner burning, Mimiru hears her mom calling her, and Bear manages to use his computer's encyclopedia.
If the minds of the users were in the game all along, the only way to break that connection would be to log out, correct? Since the users can leave their terminals to do things while logged in, they can't be connected like that.
The Nature Of The Comas
It's never stated outright that I know of, but there are numerous things throughout the .hack saga which strongly suggest that there just HAS to be some sort of direct neural interface (oh, hey, aren't some of the goggles named something like that? Neuro Goggles or something?) between the goggles and the user's thoughts and mind. For one thing, looking at SIGN and LEGEND and even cutscenes from the game, all the facial expressions and intricate body movements and so on are WAAAAY too complicated to be possible with only a voice-activated headset and a simple, dinky little controller. So either all those facial expressions and such were just made up by the people making the anime in order to make things more interesting, and in reality all those people were just standing around stiffly talking and fighting and such throughout the series... ORRRR they really are directly hooked up to The World with their mind and can actually use thoughts to control their characters. Which is both a crazy idea and the only idea that makes the slightest sense.... so.. I'm just gonna go with that for now. 's like Sherlock Holmes said... once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, must be the truth...
'course, just because the players are hooked up to the game doesn't mean that their minds are physically 'in the game.' The way their minds are hooked up to The World just explains how it's even possible to cause them to go into comas through an in-game attack, and explains how their thought patterns could have either been copied onto an AI in The World while they were comatose, or actually physically (well, mentally) removed from their bodies and placed into The World. Depending on which theory you believe for how the coma victims can still be able to control their characters in The World while they're unconscious in a hospital.
.. Speaking of which, I have a theory regarding how it's scientifically possible for Sieg and the others to awaken as if on cue as soon as events in The World seem to make it possible to do so... And it's a theory which is actually pretty horrifying and claustrophobic if true, when you think about it... The theory is, what if all the coma victims are still hooked up to The World even while they're in their hospital beds? We know from how devestating Pluto's Kiss was that in the future world of .hack pretty much EVERYTHING is not only automated, but also connected to the Internet. So, if, say, a coma patient was hooked up to an intricate futuristic life-support machine, perhaps that patient could, through Morganna's machinations, be mentally connected to 'The World'... It would require Morganna (or SOMEONE) having a degree of control over the technology in the real world which isn't currently known, since something in The World would have to track down medical records and find the right coma victim and then plug into his mind through the life-support computer systems... pretty complicated, but it makes a lot more sense than to think that there's just some magical link between the coma victims and 'The World' which allows them to feel what their in-game personas are doing in the game even while they're simply lying motionless in a hospital bed...
Of course, if true, it raises a ton of new questions... like...
1. Why no one figured something like that out! Though, even if it was figured out, it doesn't automatically mean that something could have been done about it; the coma victims would probably be instructed by Morganna to die if they were left disconnected from The World for too long, so a less advanced life support system without any sort of link to the internet would just mean death and no hope of ever waking up (because, of course, the coma victims can't wake up until they're given the cue from The World that they're 'able to log out'....).
2. What happened, then, between the time the coma victims went unconscious while playing 'The World' and the time they were hooked up to life support systems in the hospital? While in the ambulance, for instance, they wouldn't be hooked up to the Internet in any way, so would they be at risk of dying from lack of contact with their 'in-game selves'? I suppose that would make sense.. besides, they'd probably die anyway without the life support system... they're in a coma. o_O
Hm... Well, even if untrue, it's a pretty spooky and interesting concept... that the coma victims are all still secretly in the grasp of Morganna even lying in their dark hospital rooms.... eegh. The Internet gives me nightmares. XD
'course, just because the players are hooked up to the game doesn't mean that their minds are physically 'in the game.' The way their minds are hooked up to The World just explains how it's even possible to cause them to go into comas through an in-game attack, and explains how their thought patterns could have either been copied onto an AI in The World while they were comatose, or actually physically (well, mentally) removed from their bodies and placed into The World. Depending on which theory you believe for how the coma victims can still be able to control their characters in The World while they're unconscious in a hospital.
.. Speaking of which, I have a theory regarding how it's scientifically possible for Sieg and the others to awaken as if on cue as soon as events in The World seem to make it possible to do so... And it's a theory which is actually pretty horrifying and claustrophobic if true, when you think about it... The theory is, what if all the coma victims are still hooked up to The World even while they're in their hospital beds? We know from how devestating Pluto's Kiss was that in the future world of .hack pretty much EVERYTHING is not only automated, but also connected to the Internet. So, if, say, a coma patient was hooked up to an intricate futuristic life-support machine, perhaps that patient could, through Morganna's machinations, be mentally connected to 'The World'... It would require Morganna (or SOMEONE) having a degree of control over the technology in the real world which isn't currently known, since something in The World would have to track down medical records and find the right coma victim and then plug into his mind through the life-support computer systems... pretty complicated, but it makes a lot more sense than to think that there's just some magical link between the coma victims and 'The World' which allows them to feel what their in-game personas are doing in the game even while they're simply lying motionless in a hospital bed...
Of course, if true, it raises a ton of new questions... like...
1. Why no one figured something like that out! Though, even if it was figured out, it doesn't automatically mean that something could have been done about it; the coma victims would probably be instructed by Morganna to die if they were left disconnected from The World for too long, so a less advanced life support system without any sort of link to the internet would just mean death and no hope of ever waking up (because, of course, the coma victims can't wake up until they're given the cue from The World that they're 'able to log out'....).
2. What happened, then, between the time the coma victims went unconscious while playing 'The World' and the time they were hooked up to life support systems in the hospital? While in the ambulance, for instance, they wouldn't be hooked up to the Internet in any way, so would they be at risk of dying from lack of contact with their 'in-game selves'? I suppose that would make sense.. besides, they'd probably die anyway without the life support system... they're in a coma. o_O
Hm... Well, even if untrue, it's a pretty spooky and interesting concept... that the coma victims are all still secretly in the grasp of Morganna even lying in their dark hospital rooms.... eegh. The Internet gives me nightmares. XD
Perhaps they could stay connected via cell phone waves? Even today people can use cell phones to connect to the internet with a satellite, so the same thing would probably be possible with the coma victims... Coma via Sattelite connection.
"Hark he of Fair eyes, I am CRtwenty of the Azure Keyboard!"
Eh. I'll say it again, if the minds of the users actually are connected to the game, why on Earth did no one mention it? You'd think that would be the starting point for any discussion on why some players can't log out. However, absolutely nobody, not the characters in SIGN, not the news reporters, and not even the doctors in the .hack world theorize that a connection between the minds of the players and the game is to blame. Since the World was the first online game after the big network crisis, I really doubt they'd allow a system that risky on the market. What if somebody hacked into the game and used the direct connection to harm the players? Even if they used the best security available, the possibility exists that it could be breached. (And it was... just look at Helba.) All it would take is one user being hurt in the real world to financially wreck CC2. They aren't completely stupid, and in a world that experienced major problems with cyber-terrorism, they would be aware of the potential for disaster that exists with such a system.
Okay... the Neuro Goggles. Probably just a catchy name. Nothing on them jumps out as being a connection to a person's brain, and special equipment would naturally be required. After all, we're not just broadcasting our neural impulses for receivers to pick up. If they did offer that kind of connection, why not advertise it? Unprecedented realism! New neural hookup allows you to experience your favorite games like never before! ...or something along those lines. Also, if the users have the ability to control their characters with their minds, what's the point of the controller?
As for the detailed movements of the characters in SIGN and in the game's cutscenes... well... that one's tough. Most likely it was just to add flavor, unless there are a lot of hidden buttons on that controller. The theory that the minds of the players are connected to the games would explain a lot, but it seems unlikely because it's never discussed and the interface just doesn't look that advanced.
Okay... the Neuro Goggles. Probably just a catchy name. Nothing on them jumps out as being a connection to a person's brain, and special equipment would naturally be required. After all, we're not just broadcasting our neural impulses for receivers to pick up. If they did offer that kind of connection, why not advertise it? Unprecedented realism! New neural hookup allows you to experience your favorite games like never before! ...or something along those lines. Also, if the users have the ability to control their characters with their minds, what's the point of the controller?
As for the detailed movements of the characters in SIGN and in the game's cutscenes... well... that one's tough. Most likely it was just to add flavor, unless there are a lot of hidden buttons on that controller. The theory that the minds of the players are connected to the games would explain a lot, but it seems unlikely because it's never discussed and the interface just doesn't look that advanced.
Neuro Goggles
I guess cell phone waves interacting with the brain could work just as well for keeping people connected to The World ^_^ I was just trying to be dramatic~~
The first instinct of most people who hear the name 'Neuro Goggles' in the .hack games will probably be to write off the names as just being a catchy technobabble name. Most people probably won't even give much thought to the Goggles, considering information about them to be some of the many miscellaneous news reports used in the .hack games to give a general idea of happenings in the real world. And maybe that IS all there is to that name.
But, the more I think about it, the more I don't think that's the case. Considering the ENTIRE .hack series revolves around the concept of computers and humans interacting, somehow I seriously doubt that the script-writers just randomly threw a name which directly alludes to mind-related technology when naming the VR headsets most (if not all) players of The World use. They're more clever with their sources than that, they don't throw out random 'cool-sounding' names from science and mythology like many RPGs do without even checking on the sources. Sometimes a little name analysis can shed light on extremely subtle but extremely important facts...
Possible story reasons it is never discussed that Neuro Goggles are able to process peoples' thoughts: Maybe earlier versions of the Goggles have been around for many years already in the .hack world (probably at least 4 years), and are by now such old news that people don't feel the need to randomly rave about how awesome it is that you can just think something and it'll happen? Heck, in the .hack universe there's every indication that human-computer interactivity goes back many years further than that - Harald's creation of a system to gather information on all of humanity's thoughts and feelings, while surely a huge, brilliant achievement no one else could come close to equaling or even understanding yet, that doesn't mean he didn't base his work on earlier discoveries. It would make perfect sense if, for example, in the .hack world, it had been known for quite a while how to feed human thoughts directly into a computer (and maybe computer thoughts back into a human), in a very simple way. Harald's creation of Aura, as well as the Neuro Goggles, are just advancements on the concept. So it's not ENTIRELY unrealistic that no one discusses it... just about 95% unrealistic ^^;; And there's nothing we can do about it, 'cause that's the way the programmers made the games and the other .hack expansions - ambiguous to an excessive degree regarding how the user-computer interface really works.
Why'd they do THAT? If there's an amazing technology in the Neuro Goggles that lets people only have to think they want to spit for it to happen in the game, or feel joy for them to smile in the game, why never explain that anywhere in the series? Many other important details are revealed. The only things really left ambiguous are a lot of the details which have no relevance to the stories. Still, several possible explanations exist, if the Neuro Goggles really DO work with someone's mind rather than ONLY their eyes and ears...
1. They figured it was obvious. Anyone watching SIGN would immediately realize that there would be no way to control a character in an online game to that extent unless you were able to do it either with your mind or with an actual full-body suit in a VR room or something. And the latter possibility is disproven when we get a glimpse of some (probably somewhat out-of-date) goggles in the first Liminality. So yeah, that's one psosibility - they just didn't explain it because everything in all the series made it clear as crystal.
2. They weren't sure themselves of how they wanted to make the VR technology work in the .hack series, so they were ambiguous about it entirely to avoid having some genius scientist fans come up to them someday and explain exactly how and why the stuff that happened in the .hack games could NEVER happen in the real world, ever. Instead, because they were so vague, they get to have the smart fanboys actually thinking up theories for how these things could work FOR them. Smart fanboys like Dry. You tool you.
3. They just wanted it to be a mystery. One possible explanation for this is that they were trying to make the .hack games seem like a futuristic PS2 game since it was being released on the PS2, but they didn't bother to make that comparison with the stuff other than the four .hack games and the four Liminalities. There ARE a LOT of disparities between the .hack games and all the other .hack stuff... lots of compromises were made to make the .hack games seem like a modern MMORPG rather than the ultra-high-tech futuristic one it seems to be in .hack//SIGN and .hack//LEGEND and so on. It really sucks that the .hack games are so unreliable for genuine information about the way 'The World' really would be if it existed... because everything except the .hack games is so damned vague. >__<
Another explanation for why they wanted it to be a mystery is just 'cause they wanted fans to figure it out for themselves as an easter egg - hence they only drop hints at it, like naming the headsets 'Neuro Goggles.' But this seems a bit unlikely (though kinder to the game developers) to me, because they didn't bother to force people to figure backstory info like that for anything else... they practically force-fed us info on the WNC and Pluto's Kiss and so on via the Extras on the .hack//SIGN discs, and via the message board conversations in the games... so it wouldn't really make sense to only be vague on this. Not if that's the reason.
But despite all that, it still seems more likely to me that the games are able to pick up on your thoughts via the headset. It's really not THAT unlikely, and it clears up tons of mysteries that are otherwise left unexplained in the games. The fact that no one is at all worried that it could cause a really horrible virus to be able to put people in comas, isn't TOO surprising on its own - most people seem to have absolute faith in ALTIMIT just because it's been so heavily endorced by the WNC, so they don't even worry much about new viruses anymore - even when people start falling into comas while playing 'The World' they don't make the connection to the Goggles and issue a warning not to use the Neuro Goggles anymore lest you get Data Drained and be trapped in a coma.
But then, they don't give warnings about a LOT of things they should be giving warnings about, so just writing off the Goggles as being simple visors that only give you visual and audial information is at least as bad of an explanation. And people with doubts about the mind-reading technology of the Goggles could easily have been soothed years ago if, like I suggested above, the Goggles are not exactly ground-breaking new technology in the .hack world. In their early days of testing they could have been scientifically proven to be completely safe to the user - all they do is pick up scans from the user's brain and process them, what possible harm could come from that? When the harm does come, it's not directly from the Goggles, but rather from the degree of control The World gains over the player's nervous system as a result of getting regular brainscans from the player. The Neuro Goggles give The World the power to know exactly what colors to flash and sounds to make and when to put anyone who's been playing the game long enough into a coma...
And hey, maybe a feature of gaining a complete scan of someone's brain is that it makes it easier to lock onto that person with cell phone waves or radio waves or whatever, so that even when the comatose person is taken away from their headset, signals from The World can still be beamed into their brain now that every cell in their head is mapped and archived in The World's memory banks...
It just makes sense to me. I don't care how little information in the games support my theory, as long as it makes more a little sense than the other theories and as long as nothing in the games really completely contradicts it, I'm gonna stick with it over horrendously dull explanations like 'people can't really do any of that stuff you see them doing in The World, that's just stylization used to make the cutscenes and anime episodes and so on seem more interesting than they actually are.' If that IS true, then The World is a hell of a lot worse of a game than the fans have been led to believe... So nothx~
Oh, BTW, almost forgot: an explanation for why some people might need controllers even though supposedly the Neuro Goggles can simply pick up on what they're thinking and control their character that way... maybe the Neuro Goggle is an optional extra feature you can purchase to make your experience in The World a thousand times more realistic and enjoyable and in-depth? All you REALLY need, technically, is the controller - you can use it to move in different directions with the control pad, to attack enemies, to jump, and so on... the basic stuff that everyone has to be able to do to play the game... the Neuro Goggle, though, adds to all that you do with the controller by combining it with what you're THINKING. So if you select 'attack that Lizardman' with your controller and purposefully think into your Headset 'stab it in the chest until it dies, MUHAHAHAHA!', you'd basically just do what you had the game do with the controller, but in The World you'd also be doing it in the style of how you'd been thinking of doing it - you'd run at the monster and attack it in the chest, laughing maniacally. Stats-wise, the controller would be the most important thing - that is, the gameplay-determining factor. The Neuro Goggles would just add realism and make things more interesting by letting you control in greater detail exactly what your character does. Of course, since the Neuro Goggles are probably required for other things, like voice-recognition for talking to people, maybe they aren't optional after all and everyone does need one (or something similar) to play The World.. that would explain why people who find out about the Neuro Goggles scanning people's brains into The World don't bother to not use Neuro Goggles or whatever, 'cause they can't keep fighting the virus without the Neuro Goggles since they'll be unable to even play The World... Something like that, y'know? :O
Whatchathink? And don't just assume I'm wrong because my ideas are new, please. ^_^ Give actual REASONS for why I'm right or wrong... I'm just trying to contribute a possibility, one I've been pondering for a while... so la~~
The first instinct of most people who hear the name 'Neuro Goggles' in the .hack games will probably be to write off the names as just being a catchy technobabble name. Most people probably won't even give much thought to the Goggles, considering information about them to be some of the many miscellaneous news reports used in the .hack games to give a general idea of happenings in the real world. And maybe that IS all there is to that name.
But, the more I think about it, the more I don't think that's the case. Considering the ENTIRE .hack series revolves around the concept of computers and humans interacting, somehow I seriously doubt that the script-writers just randomly threw a name which directly alludes to mind-related technology when naming the VR headsets most (if not all) players of The World use. They're more clever with their sources than that, they don't throw out random 'cool-sounding' names from science and mythology like many RPGs do without even checking on the sources. Sometimes a little name analysis can shed light on extremely subtle but extremely important facts...
Possible story reasons it is never discussed that Neuro Goggles are able to process peoples' thoughts: Maybe earlier versions of the Goggles have been around for many years already in the .hack world (probably at least 4 years), and are by now such old news that people don't feel the need to randomly rave about how awesome it is that you can just think something and it'll happen? Heck, in the .hack universe there's every indication that human-computer interactivity goes back many years further than that - Harald's creation of a system to gather information on all of humanity's thoughts and feelings, while surely a huge, brilliant achievement no one else could come close to equaling or even understanding yet, that doesn't mean he didn't base his work on earlier discoveries. It would make perfect sense if, for example, in the .hack world, it had been known for quite a while how to feed human thoughts directly into a computer (and maybe computer thoughts back into a human), in a very simple way. Harald's creation of Aura, as well as the Neuro Goggles, are just advancements on the concept. So it's not ENTIRELY unrealistic that no one discusses it... just about 95% unrealistic ^^;; And there's nothing we can do about it, 'cause that's the way the programmers made the games and the other .hack expansions - ambiguous to an excessive degree regarding how the user-computer interface really works.
Why'd they do THAT? If there's an amazing technology in the Neuro Goggles that lets people only have to think they want to spit for it to happen in the game, or feel joy for them to smile in the game, why never explain that anywhere in the series? Many other important details are revealed. The only things really left ambiguous are a lot of the details which have no relevance to the stories. Still, several possible explanations exist, if the Neuro Goggles really DO work with someone's mind rather than ONLY their eyes and ears...
1. They figured it was obvious. Anyone watching SIGN would immediately realize that there would be no way to control a character in an online game to that extent unless you were able to do it either with your mind or with an actual full-body suit in a VR room or something. And the latter possibility is disproven when we get a glimpse of some (probably somewhat out-of-date) goggles in the first Liminality. So yeah, that's one psosibility - they just didn't explain it because everything in all the series made it clear as crystal.
2. They weren't sure themselves of how they wanted to make the VR technology work in the .hack series, so they were ambiguous about it entirely to avoid having some genius scientist fans come up to them someday and explain exactly how and why the stuff that happened in the .hack games could NEVER happen in the real world, ever. Instead, because they were so vague, they get to have the smart fanboys actually thinking up theories for how these things could work FOR them. Smart fanboys like Dry. You tool you.
3. They just wanted it to be a mystery. One possible explanation for this is that they were trying to make the .hack games seem like a futuristic PS2 game since it was being released on the PS2, but they didn't bother to make that comparison with the stuff other than the four .hack games and the four Liminalities. There ARE a LOT of disparities between the .hack games and all the other .hack stuff... lots of compromises were made to make the .hack games seem like a modern MMORPG rather than the ultra-high-tech futuristic one it seems to be in .hack//SIGN and .hack//LEGEND and so on. It really sucks that the .hack games are so unreliable for genuine information about the way 'The World' really would be if it existed... because everything except the .hack games is so damned vague. >__<
Another explanation for why they wanted it to be a mystery is just 'cause they wanted fans to figure it out for themselves as an easter egg - hence they only drop hints at it, like naming the headsets 'Neuro Goggles.' But this seems a bit unlikely (though kinder to the game developers) to me, because they didn't bother to force people to figure backstory info like that for anything else... they practically force-fed us info on the WNC and Pluto's Kiss and so on via the Extras on the .hack//SIGN discs, and via the message board conversations in the games... so it wouldn't really make sense to only be vague on this. Not if that's the reason.
But despite all that, it still seems more likely to me that the games are able to pick up on your thoughts via the headset. It's really not THAT unlikely, and it clears up tons of mysteries that are otherwise left unexplained in the games. The fact that no one is at all worried that it could cause a really horrible virus to be able to put people in comas, isn't TOO surprising on its own - most people seem to have absolute faith in ALTIMIT just because it's been so heavily endorced by the WNC, so they don't even worry much about new viruses anymore - even when people start falling into comas while playing 'The World' they don't make the connection to the Goggles and issue a warning not to use the Neuro Goggles anymore lest you get Data Drained and be trapped in a coma.
But then, they don't give warnings about a LOT of things they should be giving warnings about, so just writing off the Goggles as being simple visors that only give you visual and audial information is at least as bad of an explanation. And people with doubts about the mind-reading technology of the Goggles could easily have been soothed years ago if, like I suggested above, the Goggles are not exactly ground-breaking new technology in the .hack world. In their early days of testing they could have been scientifically proven to be completely safe to the user - all they do is pick up scans from the user's brain and process them, what possible harm could come from that? When the harm does come, it's not directly from the Goggles, but rather from the degree of control The World gains over the player's nervous system as a result of getting regular brainscans from the player. The Neuro Goggles give The World the power to know exactly what colors to flash and sounds to make and when to put anyone who's been playing the game long enough into a coma...And hey, maybe a feature of gaining a complete scan of someone's brain is that it makes it easier to lock onto that person with cell phone waves or radio waves or whatever, so that even when the comatose person is taken away from their headset, signals from The World can still be beamed into their brain now that every cell in their head is mapped and archived in The World's memory banks...
It just makes sense to me. I don't care how little information in the games support my theory, as long as it makes more a little sense than the other theories and as long as nothing in the games really completely contradicts it, I'm gonna stick with it over horrendously dull explanations like 'people can't really do any of that stuff you see them doing in The World, that's just stylization used to make the cutscenes and anime episodes and so on seem more interesting than they actually are.' If that IS true, then The World is a hell of a lot worse of a game than the fans have been led to believe... So nothx~
Oh, BTW, almost forgot: an explanation for why some people might need controllers even though supposedly the Neuro Goggles can simply pick up on what they're thinking and control their character that way... maybe the Neuro Goggle is an optional extra feature you can purchase to make your experience in The World a thousand times more realistic and enjoyable and in-depth? All you REALLY need, technically, is the controller - you can use it to move in different directions with the control pad, to attack enemies, to jump, and so on... the basic stuff that everyone has to be able to do to play the game... the Neuro Goggle, though, adds to all that you do with the controller by combining it with what you're THINKING. So if you select 'attack that Lizardman' with your controller and purposefully think into your Headset 'stab it in the chest until it dies, MUHAHAHAHA!', you'd basically just do what you had the game do with the controller, but in The World you'd also be doing it in the style of how you'd been thinking of doing it - you'd run at the monster and attack it in the chest, laughing maniacally. Stats-wise, the controller would be the most important thing - that is, the gameplay-determining factor. The Neuro Goggles would just add realism and make things more interesting by letting you control in greater detail exactly what your character does. Of course, since the Neuro Goggles are probably required for other things, like voice-recognition for talking to people, maybe they aren't optional after all and everyone does need one (or something similar) to play The World.. that would explain why people who find out about the Neuro Goggles scanning people's brains into The World don't bother to not use Neuro Goggles or whatever, 'cause they can't keep fighting the virus without the Neuro Goggles since they'll be unable to even play The World... Something like that, y'know? :O
Whatchathink? And don't just assume I'm wrong because my ideas are new, please. ^_^ Give actual REASONS for why I'm right or wrong... I'm just trying to contribute a possibility, one I've been pondering for a while... so la~~
Wow... you made several good points. While it is improbable that such a connection exists, I guess it isn't impossible. They could always use some new non-invasive scanning techniques to gather information from a person's brain. Sort of like X-rays. With advanced technology of the sort that could exist by 2010, the equipment could even be small enough to fit inside that little bar on the goggles that goes over the user's head.
The more I think about this, the more I believe that the creators didn't put a whole lot of thought into exactly how the system would work. They probably just decided to wait until a fan came up with a good explanation, like you said. My keyboard is starting to go haywire on me, so I'll have to cut this short here. You've convinced me, though, that there has to be something special in the interface.
The more I think about this, the more I believe that the creators didn't put a whole lot of thought into exactly how the system would work. They probably just decided to wait until a fan came up with a good explanation, like you said. My keyboard is starting to go haywire on me, so I'll have to cut this short here. You've convinced me, though, that there has to be something special in the interface.