Fanfic help?

[bloodcandylove]

As you probably guessed by the subject, I'm writing a .hack fanfiction. I was wondering something and I wanted to see if anyone here had any thoughts on the matter. My character is an American and so, plays on the American server. Would the American server have different Root Towns than the Japanese server? Or would they be based off the same thing (like an American version of Mac Anu etc)? I'm trying to make this as accurate as possible. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

[Helbaworshipper]

I wish you luck on yours. I'm working on revamping one I made years ago. It's a lot of work and right now I really can't help you out. If there are some pointers you need though, pm me and I'll do the best I can.

[Ranylyn]

As you probably guessed by the subject, I'm writing a .hack fanfiction. I was wondering something and I wanted to see if anyone here had any thoughts on the matter. My character is an American and so, plays on the American server. Would the American server have different Root Towns than the Japanese server? Or would they be based off the same thing (like an American version of Mac Anu etc)? I'm trying to make this as accurate as possible. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

y u want it 2 b realistic becuz all da fkn noobs wil tok liek dis

*shoots himself for impersonating a noob*

Sorry about that. Anyways, I'm pretty sure the game would in fact be a direct port, just with different players and thus more western references in the dialogue, etc.

[bloodcandylove]

Helbaworshipper: Thanks! Good luck with yours, too! Out of curiosity, are you considering publication?
Ranylyn: Thank you! That's very helpful. Now I'll know better how to approach this.

[Helbaworshipper]

Ah, that would have a lot of copyright issues.

[bloodcandylove]

That's true, but there are some publishers that specialize in publishing fan fiction. I'm guessing you would have to pay royalties to prevent law suit, but people do publish fan fiction.

[Helbaworshipper]

The publishing industry is complicated. As far as I know, publishing fan fiction is pretty expensive. Usually it's illegal to do something without the rights.

[Ranylyn]

I just thought of something you may find useful to know for a fanfic about MMOs.

I've played a few, and I just remembered one in particular. Unlike some games where all servers have the same game, this one was several versions behind in some localizations (Like the difference between V 5.50 and 75, increasing by .01 every time. This meant that whenever the starting areas changed, the versions varried (Example: Adding a new tutorial dungeon that leads to the first town, rather than starting at thr first town already) as well as often not having access to new towns and dungeons.

So point being, if you wanted to make an American server fanfic, you could potentially have a lot of creative license, and joke about patches and adding new areas.

[bloodcandylove]

Thanks again for the tips, Ranylyn.

Lately I've just been using the internet as a research tool for my fan fiction, but more recently I actually started re-reading some of the books/mangas instead of just relying on my memory of what happened in them. It's a good thing I did, because it's been awhile since I'd read them, and there were things that I'd missed or forgotten. I started my fan fiction so I could create my own character and give her an adventure in The World. But I decided that if I was going to be serious about writing this (by which I mean sharing it with others after I was finished, be it official or not), I would tie it into the plot of the franchise. How I was going to do that was going to be tying in the birth of Zefie into the storyline. I didn't remember LotT saying how or why she was born, so I figured I could use my creative juices to come up with that myself.

Then of course we run into the problem that Zefie tells Shugo her data is only 3 days old. I had forgotten about that little detail. As everyone knows, LotT takes place in the year 2014; my story was going to take place in 2012 (which was going to be interesting in that I was going to tie Zefie's birth in with the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar). Thinking about it more, I decided, "Heck, why not ignore that and do it anyway? Between all the mangas, novels, games and anime in .hack, there are numerous contradictions! It won't matter that much, will it?" And, from what I understand, LotT establishes that Zefie exists in The World because she has a desire to exist. As she may partly be Lycoris, maybe this signifies Lycoris' wish to stay alive, even though "God" didn't want her. But I think Zefie was created partly because of Shugo's emergence in the game, and I don't think Aura would have created her 2 years prior. I mean, maybe, because she apparently met Shugo in 2010... Still, I don't think Zefie would have been roaming around The World for 2 years before the events of LotT. So I guess maybe I could just tie in the process of Zefie's birth as opposed to her actual awakening? Another thought was that Zefie was going to be born (maybe with a different name), but Kamui deleted her and she was born again in LotT.

Another problem I ran into was that I was going to have my character adventure with Hotaru. I thought maybe AI Busters 2 contradicted LotT about when Hotaru started playing the game, but now that I've re-read them, I realize that isn't true. In AIB2, Hotaru experiences The World for the first time; in LotT, he/she says he/she's been playing for about a week (if memory serves). So both could be true, meaning that she wouldn't have been playing in 2012. Anyone here reading this probably knew that already, I'm just pointing it out, because now it's back to the drawing board for me. ^.^;; I never really liked LotT as much as earlier works in the franchise. I thought it to be full of contradictions and not much more than a knock-off (Obviously I've been referring to the manga the whole time; I like the anime even less). Who knew just trying to use my story to clear up information on one character from it could lead to me looking back at it so much? It's probably stupid, but I thought I would just be looking at older stuff given that what I want to write happened before LotT.

Sorry for the long rant about things that everybody already knew. I just thought I'd show a little bit about what I'm writing, the troubles I'm dealing with and maybe get some more insight on it.