Phantasy Star Online 2

I've been playing the Japanese version of PSO2 for about five days, and can say that mechanically it's a damn fine game. It's now been announced for North American and Europe, citing an early 2013 launch.

Here's the official English website.

And here's the Japanese registration site, if anyone's interested in playing now. Google translate handles it pretty well, and once you're in-game there is a PSO blog on bumped.org that has a number of very effective guides to playing despite the language barrier. I have been led to believe the English version of the game will simply be applied via patch, so accounts will most likely carry over. There's a pretty large English-speaking contingent on ship 10. The largest is on ship 2, but that ship has been locked for character creation.

It's more akin to Diablo or Monster Hunter than an MMO, hence this section and not the other. It plays smoother than MH, and with more agency than Diablo. If people think it should go in the MMO board instead, so be it.

Rather than type a bumbling explanation of the game I'll just post the Giant Bomb Quick Look of the beta.

As badly as I want to play this, I just don't want to deal with translating it from Japanese. I'm stoked that they finally announced there will be a US release though.

Also, in your opinion: does it feel more like PSO, or like PSU? I preferred PSO, personally.

I've played neither, but Jeff Gerstmann is a huge PSO fan and has called it the true sequel to PSO.

Sounds good. To be honest I wasn't that impressed with the class introduction videos I've seen. The force user I think is one I will gravitate to. Its the one with the chain swords that is reminiscient of God of War combat.

But that preview you just posted addresses a lot of concerns I had. The first thing is the mouse targetting. I may switch back and forth between lock on and mouse targeting but I like having the option and the mouse targetting including the ability for head shots has me much more excited.

The second thing is it looks like the areas are tightly designed (not a lot of mindles wandering and lengthy back tracking) but not claustrophic either.

Hopefully you can turn off the bubble chat in the lobbies. That will get annoying really quickly.

I can't wait to find out more about skill progression and mag development. I would also like to find out more about turning your friends characters into AI party members when they are offline.

I will try to figure that stuff out and post more details here over the coming months as I play. There's a temptation to just wait til the translation, though.

So, despite my obvious disposition towards the franchise, I still haven't made up my mind whether I want to dive in now or wait for the localization. I'm definitely liking what I'm seeing so far. The sound effects in particular are familiar in a very cathartic way.

it took some doing but I just started my download of the Japanese beta. gonna be fun trying to bumble my way though the actual in game menus.

It's actually not the beta anymore, they've been in full release since July 4th.

I haven't played in five days or so, as it came out that the servers will likely be divided into JP and NA/EU.

I played some PSO back in the day on the Dreamcast and really had a good time. I would like to try this out, but I haven't heard that it's coming to anything relevant to me... Vita and PC?

Sony, Y U no bring to PS3? That quicklook got me excited for a game I'll probably never play.

Most likely an issue with the game being free-to-play and microtransaction based. Hasn't been done on either 360 or PS3 yet as far as I know. The Vita already has a similar free-to-play MMO-esque game in Japan called Samurai and Dragons. I'm not a PC guy either, but I bend for games that aren't on anything else.

The Wii U will support that sort of thing, so I'd think the next Sony and MS boxes will as well.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Most likely an issue with the game being free-to-play and microtransaction based. Hasn't been done on either 360 or PS3 yet as far as I know. The Vita already has a similar free-to-play MMO-esque game in Japan called Samurai and Dragons. I'm not a PC guy either, but I bend for games that aren't on anything else.

The Wii U will support that sort of thing, so I'd think the next Sony and MS boxes will as well.

I don't think it has ever been done successfully on 360, but DCUO is on PS3. No idea why they would bring it to Vita and skip the PS3... Unless it's some business model thing with the market in Japan. Then again, I don't think DCUO even has much microtransaction stuff. Also, by Sony, I meant Sega...

Is DCUO free? I don't keep track.

Might be that Sony wanted it to be on Vita but not PS3. The handheld really needs some help. Half the time when I see an intriguing Vita game I see that it's also coming to PS3 and wonder what kind of sense that makes for nurturing a new handheld.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Is DCUO free? I don't keep track.

Might be that Sony wanted it to be on Vita but not PS3. The handheld really needs some help. Half the time when I see an intriguing Vita game I see that it's also coming to PS3 and wonder what kind of sense that makes for nurturing a new handheld.

For some reason they were throwing around cross play, but why would you ever play on the Vita when you could play on the PS3? Unless you didn't have to buy both versions, and that's not gunna happen. DCUO went free a few months ago, but I booted it up and there really isn't anything to do there.

I may need to find a copy of Windows so I can bootcamp this macbook pro, though. I need to feed my mag.

Apparently this page is saying that you can't connect to PSO2 from outside Japan anymore, according to Kotaku. I would test, but I just uninstalled. Decided to quit and just save my effort for the localized version next year. I don't guess this is a big deal here, as I was the only one playing, but it's an odd happening.

Thinking again about it, this seems like a foolish move on Sega's part. You've got some people excited enough to jump through a couple hoops to play the game in a foreign language, then you burn them by making all their progress null and void? Not smart. I imagine that the Giant Bomb forum people I played with for a bit are frothing at the mouth right now.

Reading now that it's just an update to the TOS, so you can get banned for it, but they're not hard-locking IP addresses yet.

Also, a seemingly bogus fire alarm is what has me reading about Japanese game news this late.

JillSammich wrote:

why would you ever play on the Vita when you could play on the PS3?

Like you, I would rather play everything possible on a console. But there's a gaggle of people in the Vita thread that want nothing more than Vita ports of games we already play on consoles (Fez, Dark Souls, for example). And I wasn't saying I personally want PSO2 to stay on Vita. I'm saying it makes sense for the Vita business wise to secure some software that makes it unique.

I think they might have shut out non Japanese players because of the accusations I heard about involving hacking on the servers that were primarily American. If I remember it right it had something to do with some American players finding ways to move the npcs around and using photon arts in the lobby. But thats just speculation on my part.

Zembonez wrote:

I think they might have shut out non Japanese players because of the accusations I heard about involving hacking on the servers that were primarily American. If I remember it right it had something to do with some American players finding ways to move the npcs around and using photon arts in the lobby. But thats just speculation on my part.

I left that out because nobody knows. There's been speculation that non-JP players did it, there are others that think JP players did it to spite the non-JP players. I played Final Fantasy XI with Japanese players for 5 years and they were always slightly xenophobic. Some wouldn't accept English speaking party members because of communication or cultural issues (Japanese online gaming etiquette is very different), some were insecure about their own mastery of English. Whatever the reason, they were always polite and helpful when possible, so I don't quite know what to think in this case.

I'm sure there were any number of reasons as to why they cut off non Japanese players. the possible hacking, the different cultures; maybe they just want us foreigners to play on our western servers when they go live next year.

Either way I'm sure they'll come out with a press release concerning the issue sometime soon to explain their reasons why.

It's likely the same reason you have region locking in games at all - making sure money gets to the right branch of a company, and making sure you're not getting boned on currency valuations.

It's disappointing to me on a level deeper than just, "man, I lost about 20 hours of progress." As I said I played Final Fantasy XI for years and years with fully integrated servers. The multiculturalism of each server made things a lot more interesting. I am also pretty sure Sega already had some autotranslation tools in the game, so it's a bit puzzling.

I'll keep an eye on this, as well as tell the wife.

Old discussion, I know, but I wanted to respond to this:

JillSammich wrote:

For some reason they were throwing around cross play, but why would you ever play on the Vita when you could play on the PS3? Unless you didn't have to buy both versions, and that's not gunna happen.

For the few games I have that have crossplay (I might own all of them atm lol), I actually play them more on my Vita than on my PS3. Sure, things look better on the PS3, but I also have to contend with other people for the tv and the fact is that laying in bed playing with myself Vita is a wholly enjoyable experience.

As far as buying both versions, well, there are a few smaller titles that allow you to purchase one game for both platforms, but since this is F2P it's a moot point anyway. AFAIK they're still allowing you to login with the same ID for the PC and Vita versions (once it's out) and if I had a 3G model of the Vita I might actually care about taking it on the go. We'll see if the Vita version gets canned or not, but I don't see why a F2P MMO wouldn't allow you to use the same account. It certainly makes sense for the Japanese market. Why limit yourself to an income from just PC players when you can also rake in the money from people who play on two systems? I mean, they could play 24 hours a day. THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Ahem, I meant, think of all the money they could spend in your game.

garion333 wrote:

if I had a 3G model of the Vita I might actually care about taking it on the go.

Almost assuredly you won't be able to play the core game over the 3G connection. Maybe just mag-feedings and inventory management, VMU-style.

Blind_Evil wrote:
garion333 wrote:

if I had a 3G model of the Vita I might actually care about taking it on the go.

Almost assuredly you won't be able to play the core game over the 3G connection. Maybe just mag-feedings and inventory management, VMU-style.

Yeah, it didn't occur to me that there might not be a fast enough connection.

Do we know what all they're doing with the Android and iOS stuff yet?

I haven't heard anything about it, but from what I played I have a hard time seeing it translate in a satisfying manner to a touch-only interface. It's pretty fast paced and combo driven.

garion333 wrote:

Do we know what all they're doing with the Android and iOS stuff yet?

Not yet, but I can't imagine they would be able to much more than:

Blind_Evil wrote:

just mag-feedings and inventory management, VMU-style.

It sure feels great knowing that my iPhone will soon be able to fill that VMU-shaped hole in my heart.

Arise thread!

I've been playing for about a week with some English players. Recently, SEGA nerfed the sale prices for items making earning currency a slower process. Players' take on it was that this was a move to 'force' players to buy more from the cash shop in order to advance. Lots of stuff requires the AC you purchase from the cash shop. For instance, if you want to list items for sale, rez when playing solo, inventory/storage expansion, player housing, and more. None of this is necessary to advance but it's definitely detrimental to the experience if you don't use these services. I'm not sure how well this is going to go over with players in the West.

Slowing the whole process sounds like it sucks, but the game does need to make sense for Sega financially. The rest of those things you mentioned were always paid services, but IIRC they're for a one-time fee. Is that true? That'd be in line with some of the other good F2P games I've played.

Anyone seen / heard news about an impending release date? The official site has been rather devoid of updates.

I was hoping to see something of it at PAX East, but it doesn't look like Sega even has a booth in the exhibition hall.

psoplayer wrote:

I was hoping to see something of it at PAX East, but it doesn't look like Sega even has a booth in the exhibition hall. :(

That's rather disappointing. I was assuming we'd be pretty close to release at this point. "Early in 2013" makes me think within the first 4 months of the year, but perhaps I am wishfully projecting.

This bit of news slipped by a while ago, but at this point it's completely obvious: PSO2 delayed

I loved the atmosphere and the set up of the original Phantasy Star Online. The music still makes me feel strongly nostalgic. The combat left me cold but then I kept trying to play it alone when it was very much balanced for parties.

I may give this a try if it comes to Xbox.