Sword Art Online

[Cryum]

The story told in perspective of the creator(s) of SAO would be interesting, but pretty much impossible. I don't think anyone outside of SAO could look into the events of the world if they were not already logged in into the gameworld. So that leaves only Kayaba, while his assistant could only monitor his health. Maybe Kayaba/Heathcliff could have some funny adventures with his god-like powers, but according to the story he was a pretty much a sage who locked himself up somewhere.
A story like that does have a chance to happen in the Alicazation arc though, as the researchers of of RATH can monitor all they want on a macro or micro level of perspective. Heck, that observer creature and his master might be some RATH employee who's been left behind.

I meant during the develoment of SAO, when the NerveGear was just announced and there were only simple VR environments. The focus is more on what a virtual reality is really like, from simple avatars and objects and working up to realistic towns that are difficult to distinguish from reality. There's such a thing as Alpha testing, after all, where all of the prototyping and experiments happen, similar to the tests that Kirito did during Versus. Beta tests are only for rooting out bugs and gauging public interest. A story about the development of SAO and possible Alpha testing stories would be interesting.

[Tap]

Q. That maturity of your thoughts that is easily beyond that of a high school student is fascinating. Please tell me about an event that hasn't been told yet.
A. I believe the story about the time I confronted the KoB while it was led by Asuna will be told sooner or later.
Sounds like an awesome story and might even include when and why Heathcliff came to power over KoB (also I don't remember ever it being said she led KoB before Heathcliff.. am I wrong?)

Q. How high was your level when SAO was cleared?
A. I believe it was 94. The one who reached the highest level that I knew of was 96, and of course, everyone wanted to know if 99 was the max, but we never found the answer to that.
according to this he was 96 , also talking about someone else higher level than him? what is that about

The first one might be The Progressers. It's a Kirito vs Asuna story, after all.
As for the second, the survey was done before ME02 (and ME01) was published.

So the Progressive series is basically volume 1 and side stories but with everything in chronological order and with extra detail about the character's activities during the timeskips?

Volume 1's Aria + Rondo + whatever else he wants to put inside.
It's a retelling of the SAO arc, while mostly retconning the "never interacted much with Asuna aside from boss battles" point.
It does make their personalities (in private) a little different than from volume 1, though.

[guardianknight]

The highest level aside from him was probably Heathcliff. It would make sense that he could be a level or two higher than Kirito.

[eduardogranja]

The highest level aside from him was probably Heathcliff. It would make sense that he could be a level or two higher than Kirito.

considering your level is hidden and no one saw Heathcliff's level, i'd assume he is already at max level, or something around 110 (it's said during Silica's side-story that the player's level must be about 20 levels above the floor's number they fight, and Heathcliff was meant to be the boss of the 91th floor)

[ssdan]

The highest level aside from him was probably Heathcliff. It would make sense that he could be a level or two higher than Kirito.

considering your level is hidden and no one saw Heathcliff's level, i'd assume he is already at max level, or something around 110 (it's said during Silica's side-story that the player's level must be about 20 levels above the floor's number they fight, and Heathcliff was meant to be the boss of the 91th floor)

91st* floor? he is supposed to be the last boss which is at floor 100 tho unless i read that part wrong...

[Gohankuten]

The highest level aside from him was probably Heathcliff. It would make sense that he could be a level or two higher than Kirito.

considering your level is hidden and no one saw Heathcliff's level, i'd assume he is already at max level, or something around 110 (it's said during Silica's side-story that the player's level must be about 20 levels above the floor's number they fight, and Heathcliff was meant to be the boss of the 91th floor)

Heathcliff was meant to be the boss of floor 100. He was supposed to be the final boss. He only said he figured it wouldn't be until a floor in the 90s that people would figure out he was Kayaba.

Edit: And sniped by dan lol.

[^^OnMe]

Thanks for the link to Taps blog and the Q&A sessions!

Some funny/interesting ones i saw:

Liz
Q. After returning to reality, did you receive the payment (for the sword) from Kirito? If you did, what did you get?
A. I got a cute silver hammer pendant on my birthday. It was from Asuna too, though.

I totally forgot that he had to pay up for the sword. Pretty cheap though for the sword that won him his freedom back.

Agil
Q. Did you manage to open a shop on the fiftieth floor of the reborn Aincrad?
A. Yea, I’m working hard earning at the exact same place my original shop stood.

Almost forgot about this one too. Asuna told Kirito to lend Agil some yurudo to open up his shop again instead of buying her former house/palace back. Good to see Kirito didn't spend it all on food. ^^

Kirito
Q. Who was your first love? Also, what position would Asuna be, in order of the women you liked?
A. Someone who was in the “Black Cats of the Moonlit Night”… I guess. Basically, that would make Asuna the next person I ended up liking after her.

That's a pretty shocking revelation! I checked the red nose reindeer chapter and the story says that there was only one female member in the party of five. So that means that Kirito had a crush on Sachi (as he didn't express anything at all as far as we know) and had to see her die before his own eyes! No wonder he had such a trauma after that incident and didn't want to join any guilds afterwards... :'(

So apparently, these Q&A sessions were in 2005 during the webnovel era. I wish they did another one soon, then I would ask Argo The Rat: "Are you still alive yo?" But then again, they are probably going to answer with: "I will tell you for 100,000 col!"

[nightreader]

Spoiler! :

Kirito earned his levels, not having them programed in as God mode.

[Skeptic]

The oldness of those interviews only makes them more interesting... the inconsistencies tell us things that got changed before formal editing and publishing.
Like at the current book (10), the floors past the 20s aren't even open yet.

Kirito's romances, too... seems like he was closer to Sachi in the original than in the published second book. (also, poor Liz wasn't even mentioned ) But that says nothing about Progressive, since Kirito's already building his revised harem differently from the start...

And my extremely delayed reaction to interviews that got posted earlier: ! Sugu's mom's answers! She ships Kirito with Suguha!

[ssdan]

hmm ronnie and teiza... if teiza is the red hair one then ronie is the... not so gloomy version of sachi... or at least thats what it feels like when I see pix o.o;;

[alienvx0]

hmm ronnie and teiza... if teiza is the red hair one then ronie is the... not so gloomy version of sachi... or at least thats what it feels like when I see pix o.o;;

Since Kirito passed Ronie the bag, the "not so gloomy version of Sachi" should be her.

[mythu]

I'd like to found more about the (against LC) raid's leader who's courage and initiative Kirito (some SAO survivors and me) were precious. If he was one of the 3 victims the autor will indeed push that tragedy to it's extremes.(because of a similar experience with <Diabel> the first to attain knight status going IMO for a knight crusade guild later and great candidate for "Holy Sword" blade skill.)
This being a vague opinion since I haven't been at all through volume 1,2 & 8.
Thank you so much for translating Underworld 2nd series and keeping this community alive.
"I hope for great support for.. SAO game edition that is developed by the makers." Kawahara Reki (last Author's Notes)
I'd rather play Underworld but wait, we are already at a slower 1/1000 speed(more or less living our present lives) just we still need to research on how can we skilfully move towards eternity or where to we aim.

[gn_x00]

I actually wonder how Heathcliff plan to battle in floor 100 though.
The boss usually is a Gigantic monster, so having a 48 people attacking it is possible (with switching/tanking/etc).
but Heathcliff is player sized... surely a 48 vs 1 doesn't like possible (at least for me)... even though it is possible for him to still win (due to increase of HP and str/def to compare with boss monsters), the 48 vs 1 doesn't sounds like an Art at all...

and I don't want imagining Heathcliff suddenly turns into a giant like an ultraman or something >.>

and to think that Heathcliff said that he plan to reveal the last boss name in floor 90-ish... <.<
IMO, having the floor 100 empty and he suddenly walks casually to the center of the room (without any defensive stance or anything) and sit on the throne (which is in the room) and reveal that he is the last floor boss is much more interesting XP
Or maybe add a fake boss first in the room...

maybe he's just interested on how people will react and want to observe them >.>

[alienvx0]

I actually wonder how Heathcliff plan to battle in floor 100 though.
The boss usually is a Gigantic monster, so having a 48 people attacking it is possible (with switching/tanking/etc).
but Heathcliff is player sized... surely a 48 vs 1 doesn't like possible (at least for me)... even though it is possible for him to still win (due to increase of HP and str/def to compare with boss monsters), the 48 vs 1 doesn't sounds like an Art at all...

and I don't want imagining Heathcliff suddenly turns into a giant like an ultraman or something >.>

and to think that Heathcliff said that he plan to reveal the last boss name in floor 90-ish... <.<
IMO, having the floor 100 empty and he suddenly walks casually to the center of the room (without any defensive stance or anything) and sit on the throne (which is in the room) and reveal that he is the last floor boss is much more interesting XP
Or maybe add a fake boss first in the room...

maybe he's just interested on how people will react and want to observe them >.>

Hmmm I thought he said that he didn't expect his true identity to be discovered until floor 90-ish?

I may be wrong though, can't really dig out the novel to check at the moment.

[Sludge]

I actually wonder how Heathcliff plan to battle in floor 100 though.
The boss usually is a Gigantic monster, so having a 48 people attacking it is possible (with switching/tanking/etc).
but Heathcliff is player sized... surely a 48 vs 1 doesn't like possible (at least for me)... even though it is possible for him to still win (due to increase of HP and str/def to compare with boss monsters), the 48 vs 1 doesn't sounds like an Art at all...

and I don't want imagining Heathcliff suddenly turns into a giant like an ultraman or something >.>

and to think that Heathcliff said that he plan to reveal the last boss name in floor 90-ish... <.<
IMO, having the floor 100 empty and he suddenly walks casually to the center of the room (without any defensive stance or anything) and sit on the throne (which is in the room) and reveal that he is the last floor boss is much more interesting XP
Or maybe add a fake boss first in the room...

maybe he's just interested on how people will react and want to observe them >.>

Well considering he is normal sized , there are only limited amount of people that can attack him at once without hurting each other. (The entire concept of switching is based on that)
So as long as he can handle 5-6 at a time coming from different angles he should be able to put up a good fight , he might even had some extra stuff lying around or skills he never used.

And I think he didn't say he plans to reveal his name , he said he thought people will only figure it out that it was him around the 90's .. basically praising Kirito for being smarter than he considered

and that last line of your is obviously true, since that is the entire purpose of SAO