VRMMORPG and Unrealism.

31 Oct, 2025

MMORPGs... are bad. Everyone claps.

No, but really, those games can be pretty bad. There is a reason why so many authors write novels about fictional games, because they want to envision a game without the limitations that exists in the current world, it is in this way that fictional MMORPGs exist as fantastic perfect games. They don't have to worry about budget, or technology, or making a profit — those games can be as realistic as real life, if they wanted to.

One of the troubles that exist within MMORPG are the overreliance on META builds and plugins. Authors need to make their story interesting, if every tank player was the same, if every DPS was the same, if everyone was doing the same strategies... then that would be real life, that would be too realistic to the point that it is boring. If, instead, the author made everyone different, then they are failing at something worse than making an MMO, for the fictional MMO can be however he desires, but he cannot change the behaviors of humans; we will ruin the fun out of the game if it means being optimal.

I am a huge believer in "unrealism" — making something that is not realistic for the sake of making a better, more entertaining story. Unique skills, unique weapons, unique items, unique races. You are the only one in the game with this skill, with this quest, with this set of items, with this race. In a real game, that's terrible — having to balance all of those skills and items would be hell. Additionally, I am not in favor of the idea of a singular unique skill, that is to say; of all the players, the protagonist is the only one who is unique. It is very important that everyone has the chance to become unique, and during your story, all characters should strive to become unique!

It basically serves as a replacement for the meta, the meta is to try and get "unique" stuff that no-one else has. If everyone is trying that, then there is always hope of becoming more powerful. To me, stories about MMORPG are about that, you see a character progress — I'd love to see more than one character progress, I'd prefer to see everyone progress.

That's one of my criticisms¹ of Shangri-La Frontier; they do the whole unique quest and items thing, and it is true that other players beside Sunraku have unique things about them (this is one of my favorite aspects of the anime). But if you notice, they are always the same... the characters are unique... but they don't progress in the MMO. Yes, they do progress as characters and in their goals, but not in the autistic way one expects from an MMORPG story.

Sunraku is the one who can't equip new armor, why does everyone else always have the same armor? I can't believe we escaped the limitations of game-design budget to run into the limitation of character-design budget!

On the other hand, I hate when authors disregard gamers and their autism. Stories like: "The protagonist finds the OP build, that no one else thought about!" are the ones I hate the most. Gamers do that shit, they have spreadsheets, they will check every skill, they will try every thing available. The protagonist finding an OP build accidentally? When all of these guys are so dedicated? It is insulting!

The same thing happens to skill, as in, mechanical skill. If the protagonist is not a professional at the game, there will always be a guy who is better than him mechanically; there's always one guy who plays 24/7 and pees in a bottle, and that guy knows every mechanic in the game, and has 0.01 second reaction time — "B-B-But my protagonist is very good at Mario Kart!" Doesn't fucking matter, this grease lord only plays one game, this game... and he would eat the protagonist for breakfast in any contest of skill. You can be a "pro" at a game, not a "pro gamer" — there are shared skills between similar games, but that only matters in the context of people that play different games, and goes to shit the moment you have someone who only plays one game, professionally.

Now, I can tolerate, for the context of the story, for the protagonist to be very good at the game. But the thing I can't accept is the idea that the protagonist is the only one who can do certain task that requires skill, for, if he is not the best, and even if he is the best, there will always be someone up to the task. There may not be someone like InSec, but they can always try the InSec Kick².

Another thing that can't be disregarded about gamers... is how much they like to troll. If there is a mechanic in the game, no matter how insignificant, if it is capable of causing even the slightest annoyance to another player, they will go the extra mile to annoy everyone they can. If there is PVP they will camp the same low level guy. If there is character collision, they will get in the way. There are many logistic issues that can arise from having your MMO set in Virtual Reality (outside the Sci-Fi aspects), I don't expect writers to answer all the possible issues, but if they try, then I gladly welcome it.

Basically, this post is to say: "I hope all characters in the VRMMORPG novel get unique things!" (sometimes being unrealistic is better for a story) and "Stop taking gamers lightly!" (you can be as unrealistic as you want with the game, but you can't make the players unrealistic).

I will keep reading Light Novels about MMORPGs in search of one that caters particularly to me, but that may not exist. If that ends up being the case, then I'm going to have to write my own.