I've read this book many times already, and I'm still not getting tired of it. The story is simply amazing, also I really like virtual Reality. And Weed is awesome - he's hardworking, strong, he cares for his family and doesn't just waste money. I really sympathize with him, because I would also be stingy and all, if I had the same childhood he did. The sidestory is really nice, it's good to not only show how he slays monsters in royal road, but also how he lives outside the game

Firstly, there is nothing wrong with being stingy. He was super poor for like 1/2 of his life and lived in debt before. He is just careful with his money unlike most people.
Second of all, you forgot conversion. How much is won into dollars? Making 1 mil won is not much since he has to support his family which is his sister who goes to University and his sick grandmother. He isn't really selfish with his family.
Thirdly, most early translations were made with machine translators which don't translate word by word creating some confusion. Japtem's translations and the review translations on RRL are better than the original ones since there have Korean translators.
Lastly, I think you are mistaken about the character's personality itself and the roles of the supporter/side characters. After all, Weed is the main character and the side characters are just there to support him, there is no need for them to appear all the time. You have to think that in a VR game or in real life, there are chance meetings that only happen once or twice...

The titular hero, "Weed": anxious, selfish, judgmental, two-faced, cowardly, merciless, cruel, and worst of all: stingy! In game he is praised as vigilante savior of MMORGPs but it's yet unspoken of how he regularly rips off tens of thousands of players buying his (refurbished) vender-trash in a town of desperate beggars while at the same time tax gouging residents, tourists, and his closest friends! and only after making millions in real world money! he'll reluctantly spent that 2¢ more on 'brand name' salt ("I might be splurging a little too much...")

Within LMS I found the setting to be the writer's worst enemy (though its the series premise) as its increasing complexity snuffs all hope for a quantitative dissection after a volumes (I.E. stats, skill), surprisingly it suffers from severe Sudden Girlfriend Appearance first once then many times over, and possibly due to this plot device the characters relationships formed a tangled mess nation-wide. As far as Characters go, you'll find out early that the MC is the real driving force, seeing as every (read: all) other character gets written off-and-on until the author feels like meeting them again! even then when they show up it is usually disappointing and long overdue. Just keep in mind that the translation quality gets progressively shittier after every volume, effective volume 2.

This is my 3rd Light novel I've started to read, I'm still in the midst of reading it because I can't read Korean and have to submit myself to the English translations. It is very good, It immerses you well and if you have a knowledge of MMO's it will be much more enjoyable. The adventures that Lee Hyun (Weed) goes on are amazing and just imagining it in my head gets my heart pumping. It may be reminiscent of sword art online, but that is only the concept of virtual reality MMO, The characters are different and seeing Lee Hyun's success and failures he differs greatly from Sword Art online's protagonist. Being a fan of MMO's myself, seeing Weed's level progression is really fun, and also seeing him go through his professions are also enjoyable.

Lee Hyun is a character that most will pity, his circumstances in the beginning of the Novel are really bad. The fact that he got out of the pit of hell called debt, may be one of the best moments in his life.
He has to take care of his sick grandma and also his high-school student little sister. He's had labour jobs since the age of 10 and has always put his sister and grandma first. This is the story of him making money while playing the virtual online game called Royal Road.

I don't normally bother with reviews but in all honesty this is one of the best series I've ever come across in any literature format. The series is highly addictive! I honestly want to force myself to learn Korean just so I don't have to wait for releases.

Good Points:
Hard Working Protagonist, Endless Adventures, Interesting Story Telling, Amazing World Building, Fun Combat System, Easily Understood Rules, Decent Comedy. Rise of the Underdog!!!

Negatives:
Protagonist's Personality is a bit repetitive & evil (although it's slowly improving and sometimes his evil personality is awesome!), umm... that's all the negatives I can think of.

Rating: 10/10

A Must Read!

... Last updated on September 13th, 2013, 6:17pm

This Light Novel is definitely a must READ if you are a gamer or at least love to play MMORPG or RPG. In this novel depict how a poor gamer with families as his responsibility and how he work hard earning money and his journey to gain friends, fame, and slaves (his summons)

btw can I rate it 20?

Like those MMORPGs that I've played in the past, this novel is highly addicting. I read chapter one and it kept me reading and before I knew it I'm now in volume 6 and I still haven't lost my craving to read more. There are flaws in it though. For those of you who loves intricately formed plots in their novels, you'll find this a bit lacking. Its plot is too simplistic. I honestly didn't care about his main quest. But what captured me is the RPG style adventure. Royal Road is simply a paradise of escapism. And although the mc has a bit of a twisted personality (and he's a little marty stuish too, haha) you'll find yourself rooting for him. The constant stat screens also makes it easy to follow his progress. All in all, despite its flaws, you'll find it hard not to like this novel. Atleast, I'm sure that if you like RPG games, you'll simply love this!

UPDATE:
Okay so this is the first VRMMORPG series I've read. And now that I've read several other titles with similar genre(Ark, SAO, LH etc.) and also read up to vol.21 of LMS(had to read through GTs @.@) I've changed my views on LMS so I feel like I have to update this comment.

First of all, LMS still is the most addicting VRMMORPG title I've read, enough to make me swim through GTs, which I haven't done with the others. Still, the flaws of LMS have been made much more clearer to me; the technique of the writer of LMS is quite lacking, something that he hid behind the sheer addictiveness of LMS. The story is full of inconsistencies.

Like the irregular appearances of other characters. It made the novel's universe revolve solely around the mc, resulting in a marty stu mc because it seems like every cool idea the writer thinks of is applied to him. The writer would sprinkle some minor negative trait for him here and there(twisted nature, greedy, cheapskate etc.) and tries to hide the fact that he is making a "Mr.Perfect" character that can do anything, a genius, popular and incredibly lucky. I say minor because they aren't really all that pronounced and is mostly used for comedy, except his greed which, let's face it, isn't really uncommon in MMORPGs. To me this is what makes the novels so addicting. But it's also the novel's greatest weakness. It makes the mc "soulless" and robotic. And in the writer's love for the mc, he is forgetting about his other characters. Then it would circle back to the beginning of this paragraph. It results in a hollow, albeit slight and very vague, feeling of unsatisfaction. Part of it is also the plot itself that isn't driven by any higher goal than the mc's self-improvement.

In retrospect, the mc isn't even that brilliant. It's just that almost everyone around him is incredibly stupid. It would seem incredible that he would think of great breakthrough ideas. But what should be incredible is the fact that in his handicap(he started playing the game a year, iirc, after the release), nobody has run into the same idea before him. The game has millions of players online so why not?

And luck. The mc is one lucky sonnuva... Haha! The writer would make you think that all of the mc's "fortune" stems from his hardwork. But to me it mostly stemmed from luck...



Again, all of this would be hidden in its addictiveness.

In the end this is still a very good read despite its flaws, and is still highly recommended. Somehow, the writer can make it all work AND make it an enjoyable and highly addicting read. At first I thought that the addictiveness just came from my nostalgia of reading something about MMORPGs. But no, after reading other titles I found out that it's almost all LMS's. I would still eagerly await new releases and continue reading this. After all, I feel like its just me nitpicking.

... Last updated on February 1st, 2014, 2:12am

I wouldn't expect a masterpiece (no pun intended ahem) but this is a nice read to pass the time. For those interested in the genre, it is a little hard to put down. That said though, there are rough edges and the side character development could use some work - but I am only up to volume 9, so maybe that will change. The pacing is nice, so over all, it is definitely an enjoyable read.

Its good. I am a bit bored by the main story: explore new place, level up, gain new items. Though the side story bought my interest. Translations could have been better (not to mention typos) and lack of page breaks. But otherwise pretty darn good. Read volume 1-13 for 48hrs straight....thats how addictive it is. (26 more volumes to go...waiting for all chapters to be released).... Need more scans of it......... So good

... Last updated on May 6th, 2013, 11:00pm

I started reading this a couple days ago and I am addicted! The main character is a total boss I love him lol (no homo) but he is a caring, hardworking, and intelligent character. You just can't hate anything about him. The story gets more intense and interesting every chapter I read I just can't stop reading. I definitely recommend people to try reading this!