Anima: what are we expecting?

[Mateus Luz]

Hi guys,

Anima were announced and we know a lot about it, but what else are we expecting?

We know:
- Hard tech is the thing, there is no biotech.
- Japan is probably on a lower Tech level than in Aeon, probably on the same level as the rest of world hard tech in Aeon.
- Much like Aeon, FSA is mostly broken, probably more paranoid and more closed on itself.
- Europe is in better condition than in Aeon.
- South America and Africa are not highly developed yet, but they are in a better situation than FSA, Europe and Russia.
- China is the economical center of the world.
- Australia is in the growing, but not there yet. In a good situation but not the cultural center of the world, as in Aeon latter.

What I expect:
- Cyberpunk 2020 style cybernetics for the veterans and accident survivors, not popular and not beautiful, just chrome.
- Bladerunner 2049 style agents and cities, with the first archeologists already built and working, but still brute, not the nice living or colorful ones from Aeon.
- Some space colonization to Mars and Moon and some exploration of the belt.
- People leaving shelters after 20 years isolation (it would be interesting, sure there were many that locked themselves to scape the war and now are out of supplies).

[Penelope]

Are you certain it’s Anima?

[Dataweaver]

Yes: Anima is the announced name for an era set after Aberrant and before Æon, where mind-manipulation hard-tech ran rampant.

[Mateus Luz]

Are you certain it’s Anima?

http://theonyxpath.com/onyx-path-pub...ity-continuum/

[Florin]

I'm curious about the integration of the MMORPG. Is there going to be meta-mechanics like in They Came From Beneath the Sea! inside the game?

[LordHeru]

Okay so yeah, this sounds awesome.

Though I have to admit to honestly hating the fact that they are keeping the Aberrant metaplot (really really don't like that). Especially there being the FSA, which I put in the big nope category.

That said the whole idea of cyberpunk and powered MMO is brilliant, like BRILLIANT, to me and so I am def willing to look past that.

Oh, who am I kidding, of course I am going to kickstart back it and buy it in physical and pdf and all that stuff - there is negative a thousand chance I would not.

I do wonder what the power suite for the players will be, I mean obviously its gotta be something somewhat lowkey but still it gotta be good. i wonder if they will be called Anima, hehe.

Oooh, I wonder if the MMO has 'magic' in it and if there will be rules to play such avatars in the game.

Also, oooh, I wonder if the MMO world is actually some sort of parallel dimension - real and yet different - and the players get to go between the two. Maybe digitally at first but eventually through body movements.

Really, like really, this looks interesting.

[Dataweaver]

Two things that come to mind here, with respect to the MMO:

1. Sword Art Online/Gun Gale Online/Accel World animes.
2. The Guilded Age webcomic.

[Lady Gray]

This really interests me because there's only a 20 year space between The Crash and the point where mind-altering hardtech was restricted, so this is working under a far less extensive timeframe than the other gamelines. I'm guessing that rather than focusing on the big, expansive, world-changing stuff that Aeon, Aberrant and to a lesser degree the core book deals with the scope of Anima will be more personal and street-level. The fact that an MMORPG is going to play an important part in the game also lends itself to this idea. I wonder (and hope) that they make it so you can interact with both aspects of the setting independently, so if you want to play a game that focuses on the MMO aspect and not on the corporate espionage stuff or vice-versa, you can.

An alternate possibility is that they're focusing the game on the mystery of the MMO and everything kind of rotates around that by default. The MMO aspect seems to be the big, really unique hook of the setting since you can still go cyberpunk in Aeon if you set your game in the FSA or somewhere like it so it would make sense if that's how they approached it.

[Florin]

Two things that come to mind here, with respect to the MMO:

1. Sword Art Online/Gun Gale Online/Accel World animes.
2. The Guilded Age webcomic.

.hack also comes to mind.

[Firanai]

What I hope to see is in-depth rules to create awesome cyborgs like those on the deus ex series, as for the mmorpg it would be cool if there is a special type of inspired that could interact with the virtual world like the technomancers from Shadowrun.

[glamourweaver]

The 1 season we got of Caprica prominently featured an immersion MMO as central to the story.

i hope the memory tech ala Total Recall and Remember Me still features.

Dollhouse comes to mind as a creepier inspiration, including things like the “tech heads” we saw in the neuropocalypse future, who voluntarily swapped in and out different skills as needed.

[glamourweaver]

Besides the setting specific features, I hope we also see the wider corruption zones having not yet been healed by SK’s experiment, and more frequent Eruptions that “need” to be hunted down.

(more frequent than Aeon that is, much less frequent than Aberrant)

[Dataweaver]

.hack also comes to mind.

I chose the two that I mentioned for specific reasons. The SAO/GGO/AW one because one of the things the setting has been getting into is the notion of the MMO world having a certain reality of its own, in the form of technology that interfaces with and exploits “fluxlights” — in TC terms, it's a sort of primitive noetic science, a hard-tech interface with the human soul.

Guilded Age deals with the notion that the MMO has a reality all it's own.

As far as I know, .hack doesn't get into anything like that; please correct me if I'm wrong.

[wyrdhamster]

We know:
- Hard tech is the thing, there is no biotech.
- Japan is probably on a lower Tech level than in Aeon, probably on the same level as the rest of world hard tech in Aeon.
- Much like Aeon, FSA is mostly broken, probably more paranoid and more closed on itself.
- Europe is in better condition than in Aeon.
- South America and Africa are not highly developed yet, but they are in a better situation than FSA, Europe and Russia.
- China is the economical center of the world.
- Australia is in the growing, but not there yet. In a good situation but not the cultural center of the world, as in Aeon latter.

Is it me, or is this prefect setting for Westworld Season 3 like chronicle? Just looks on those scenes, they seem to work perfectly with this descriptions...

You have dystopian, hyper-corporation future. 'Virtual' reality entertainment ( Westworld project ). And corporate espionage and social revolts all you need for it!

[Shepherdboi]

Hi guys,

Anima were announced and we know a lot about it, but what else are we expecting?

We know:
- Japan is probably on a lower Tech level than in Aeon, probably on the same level as the rest of world hard tech in Aeon.

At this point, aren't all the Mega-Intellect Japanese Novas who built their country into a technological powerhouse still alive? That'd mean they're producing and maintaining Nova tech that is no longer available in the Aeon era, although this'd only be used by highly placed government agents.