Phantasy Star Online 2

[indecks]

OK so I searched in this forum and I found lots of references to Phantasy Star Online Ver 1 and 2, but nothing for PSO2.

Anyone here playing the Japanese version? There's an english patch out there that turns most of the menus into English, but it's hardly ideal to play. Ive only played it for an hour or two and so far it seems just like PSO1. Granted there's not much I can read and a lot of signs are in JPN so it took me a little while to figure out what was what. It's a bit of a pain to get to play it tho.

You have to download a huge 7 gig set of files, and then install and then it updates which takes FOREVER. Literally several hours (how about just have me download the updated version there, guys?) later it finally finishes and runs. BUT you have to have a SegaID, which has to be set up on their pso2.jp website. There's a guide on Kotaku that tells you where/what to click to get set up. Though there's a captcha or two in there so you either have to read/type Hiragana or copy and paste character by character like me. Also, a few times when I finally found the characters I needed - the captcha timed out and I had to start over. It's a bit of a bitch, lol.

Anyway, gameplay is I'd say identical to the DC version. I never played the Gamecube versions or BlueBurst. But it seems pretty much the same to me. I understand the US version will be free-to-play, but I wanted to try it out and see if it was enjoyable. Like I said, the language patch is hardly ideal to play and get a story out of it, but you can still actually *play* it. I look forward to the US version. I havent played PSO in forever!

[fastbilly1]

I wasnt interested in it until now. That sounds awesome.

[Retronomy]

Phantasy Star Online 2 will never be released in the USA.
Don't believe SEGA for a second.

EDIT: also if anyone's interested, nice PSO and PSO BB private servers http://www.schtserv.com/

[indecks]

Phantasy Star Online 2 will never be released in the USA.
Don't believe SEGA for a second.

EDIT: also if anyone's interested, nice PSO and PSO BB private servers http://www.schtserv.com/

Why do you say that? I heard it was getting released later this year. I honestly didn't even know about it until about a week ago after lurking on a forum and reading about it.

Is the original PSO playable on the pc, or do you need a Dreamcast or Gamecube?

[fastbilly1]

Is the original PSO playable on the pc, or do you need a Dreamcast or Gamecube?

Look up Blue Burst, it is the first two put together with more stuff.

[indecks]

Is the original PSO playable on the pc, or do you need a Dreamcast or Gamecube?

Look up Blue Burst, it is the first two put together with more stuff.

*knows what hes doing this afternoon*

[Retronomy]

I say that because all word has been dead since PAX. And the last update we got on the status of things was oh, one or two months ago, telling us the game has been indefinitely delayed and that if any news comes up they'll let us know. Then the whole "we want to make sure we do this right" spiel.

The fact remains that the game is already finished, translation teams have done like half the work for SOA and SOE, and PSO2J has already gotten plenty of major content updates AND the PSVita release.

Literally nothing is being done with PSO2 for USA (And I assume it has a lot to do with bureaucracy) and it quite frankly has me very upset. PSO2 is a great game, I played it on Japan's servers for a while, but their attitude towards western gamers using their servers is increasingly hostile so I showed myself the door. I waited for years for the follow up to my favorite game, and now that it exists it's kind of difficult to cope with the fact that it won't ever be localized.

If, and this is a long shot, PSO2 does get a release here, you can garuntee that the service will be shut down even faster than PSOBB's was, because all press about the game stopped dead in it's tracks, and nearly all hype is gone. This will lead to an ultimately unprofitable game and a premature death.

SCHTServ deals with all versions of PSO, including some rudimentary support for episode 3 on the gamecube. The best version is easily PSOBB, with it's extra episode (ep: 4), Clan support, and anti-hack measures. I still play it on occasion.

[indecks]

Wow, that really blows. I seriously didn't even know about PSO2 until recently.

[fastbilly1]

Retronomy, has SCHTServ made any comment about possibly running PSO2 after it dies off in Japan? If that community gets behind it, I can see a full translation happening.

[Retronomy]

Not that I'm aware. I wouldn't get your hopes up, considering that they've already said no way to PSU servers, and the general opinion of PSO2 of the current staff. Schthack himself hasn't been a (active) member of the team for a long time and he's largely responsible for these private servers existing in the first place. Crono simply isn't as capable.

I don't claim to understand the entirety of the back end, but I'm pretty sure that a PSO2 server would be even more of an undertaking than PSO servers. Character data is a lot more involved than it was before, then there's in game shops to consider, player rooms, and more. That, and the servers themselves are obviously a lot more complex than they used to be.

But we can have dreams.