PSO-XBox: X-Box PSO Tribute - The Last Hurrah

[Cranberry]

As you all know by now, X-Box PSO was shut down a week earlier than the promised shutdown date. This denied all the X-Box players their final week of PSO. But X-Box will not be denied its last hurrah. X-Box's online mode is going out in style with one last X-Box PSO event:

The Last Hurrah - A Tribute to X-Box PSO

April 30th was to be the last day of X-Box service, and that shall be the date of this final hurrah. It works as follows: Throughout the day on April 30th, we go through the offline areas of the game in tribute to X-Box PSO. You post your progress here in this topic whenever you reach a fitting checkpoint, such as beating a boss, reaching a certain location you are fond of, finding a special item, anything.

Although gameplay wise your character is alone, you are not truely alone. Although you can not see them, you have an entire legion of hunters fighting alongside you, doing the same areas, and fighting the same enemies that you are. The more people we can arrange to "play together" by doing the same area at the same time, the better. Attacks on Falz and Olga, bolstered by the spirit and voice of the entire community.

This is in celebration of our X-Box hunters, and the adventures they had in their corner of Pioneer 2. This is a tribute to them, and everything they went through over the years. And this is their last hurrah. This is their chance to play with the good wishes and spirites of not only their fellow X-box hunters, but hunters from all versions of PSO, united for a common goal. And this is their chance to share their thoughts, feelings, and memories as we send X-Box online mode out in style, giving it the proper sendoff it deserved.

The X-Box PSO Tribute and Last Hurray Runs, Wednesday all day, April 30th.

[Syanaide]

Sounds like a good idea. I used to play Xbox pre-PSU, but I don't have the game anymore. But I suppose I could participate with this on the private server and post SS's, forest to falz run. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[kevlar_pso]

Cranberry, thanks for the PSO-X love. I will post as well.

[Freeze]

I would love to take part in this on the 30th but unfortunatly I'm stuck working and can't play until friday. Looking forward to seeing everyone elses adventures though.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Freeze on 2008-04-29 03:12 ]</font>

[Gabriel]

I'll try my best http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif
Any particular area/difficulty to start?

[Cranberry]

Forest to Falz. Temple to Olga. This is a 24 hour festival that will begin and end on Midnight, PST. I encourage everyone to participate as much as they like, its perfectly okay and understandable if you can't do it all. You can of course play any area I like, but I encourage you to finish up by defeating Falz and/or Olga as a tribute and sendoff to PSOX's online mode. I'll post a special message at the end of this farwell party at 4/30 24:00 PST, the official time the servers were supposed to close.

This celebration of PSOX begins at midnight tonight, Pacific Standard Time. All are welcome, and all are encouraged to share their throughts, feelings, and reactions as we give online PSOX a proper farewell party to celebrate its life.

[Ladriachan]

It's not often that you hear from me on this, but I'm definately in on this since the server got shafted.

[AlexCraig]

I will play tomorrow. Odds are it will be late at night, but I will play.

[Cranberry]

This has now officially started. The X-Box tribute is underway. Please, do not hesitate to post your thoughts, feelings, and let us know how your games are going as we celebrate PSO-X's online mode and explore Ragol, backed by the support of every hunter on Pioneer 2.

[kevlar_pso]

I turned my Xbox on and first tried to get online. Same error 101 message, so I did a quick Ultimate Forrest run w/my Blueful HUcast. During my run I realized that I would not be able to ever send some1 a cross game invite from PSO, I would not ever get a simple mail and the chat log would only ever consist of anything I typed.

I finished the run and only gained about 45K exp. I could have been in a Max Attack 1 run and doubled that in the same amount of time. Talk about depressing. . . .

[DaMan]

I started to just finish the levels I was already on, Vhard mines, beat Olga on Normal, hey I only did it once so far and that was in the online quest respective tomorrow about a week before the servers went down now that I know what to do i'll give it another go.
partway into Mines I decided why just go ahead and do the whole thing, sure i'll be in out all day, but I can just leave the xbox on.
Gained a lvl in forest, and Dragon Defeated at 610 beats.




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DaMan on 2008-04-30 11:41 ]</font>

[Cranberry]

Try not to get depressed while doing this tribute, though I can understand that there will be a lot of feelings that come up during it. But please do continue to share memories and experiences!

I'll be getting started on my own this evening after classes and work. Should be quite a big PSO night for me and I'm sure I'll have a lot to put here!

DaMan, are you just now getting into Ultimate offline for the first time? That's not a bad way to go for this. Its sort of like a new beginning.

[DaMan]

Sadly no ultimate here yet the bulk of my playing was online so i'm running through VHard ep I by the end I should have ultimate unlocked, and hopefully i'll beat normal ep II and try it on a harder level.

[Cranberry]

The good news is DaMan, that as soon as you unlock a difficulty level, it's available in both episodes. You won't have to unlock each episode seperately. Go for Ultimate!

[Ladriachan]

Falz just got smacked in the face royally hard on Ultimate. Time to start on Ep. 2

[Gabriel]

Just did a quick run on U. Temple and I think I got a new and "safer" way to pipe for lilies. Found two mil lillies after 10-15 minutes and some 18 telepipes.

I think I'll take my Lv18 FoNewearl for a strall in Normal Mode, if you'll excuse me... http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

[DaMan]

In the caves found a Addslot.
Grass Assasin's Arms
took me awhile to get back to playing Defeated De Rol Le @858 beats

[Pballer42]

well i juss got home from my trip to find out that the servers got shut down early. dang man i cant believe that online is over.

well im definately gonna do this

[Gabriel]

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/3175/millily03lz2.jpg
First screenshot?
http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[Ryna]

Does it count if I played some Episode 3 today on the Mountains stage?

[DaMan]

On 2008-04-30 10:13, Cranberry wrote:
The good news is DaMan, that as soon as you unlock a difficulty level, it's available in both episodes. You won't have to unlock each episode seperately. Go for Ultimate!


Doubtful for Ultimate ep II its taking forever to get this far.
Mines
Havoc Gatling with 50% Dark and 40% Hit
KALADBOLG
Photon Drop (yeah I know)
Vol Opt beat @ 974 beats

[Jaspaller]

GTA4 has been taking up so much of my time as well as other games. I'm going to try to see if I can squeeze some time in later.

[Pballer42]

im game for this

[Cranberry]

On 2008-04-30 14:37, Ryna wrote:
Does it count if I played some Episode 3 today on the Mountains stage?



Yes it does Ryna, as long as its done in tribute.

Now that I'm home from work, I too am about to begin my runs as well. If anyone would like to join me, I'll be starting in the forest in just a moment. I plan to do all of Episode 1 before moving into Episode 2. Expect updates along the way! I look forward to having you all fight along side me.

[DaMan]

Ruins
DB'S ARMOR
VHard Falz was put to sleep @134 beats



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DaMan on 2008-04-30 19:31 ]</font>

[Cranberry]

Into the forest, I decide to read Rico's messages along the way. It takes me back to the first time I played. Rico, alone on Ragol. Us hunters following after her. Bartles, I still think they look like deranged Ninja Turtles. Remember how strong these seemed the first time you reached Ultimate?

Under the setting sun I fight my way to the dragon. How menacing he seemed the first time I ever saw him. Especially the Sil Dragon, what a change from Normal through Very Hard!

Soon, the Sil Dragon falls to the ground in defeat. It just wouldn't be PSO without the dragon would it?

[AlexCraig]

I'll play in a bit. Had business to handle today. Not sure what I am going to do, but I'm hopping on now.

[OmegaLegend]

I took my L170 HUmar WarPhoenix onto Episode 1 Ultimate and I found:

A Silence Claw
A Dragon's Claw (my first ever!)
A Stag Cutlery
An L&K14 Combat
About 300K EXP
Maybe three dozen Materials
Myself near tears

RIP PSO

Thanks for the memories and thanks to all who helped me along my journeys.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: OmegaLegend on 2008-04-30 21:06 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: OmegaLegend on 2008-05-02 20:24 ]</font>

[Cranberry]

Ah the Cave. Who can forget their first time in there. Especially on Ultimate. Ob Lilies. Your first few times through the cave you are looking left and right for these things!

De Ro Lie, this is the true anti-force boss in the game. This thing is resistant to techniques. My Double Saber defeated it but I may as well have stuck to techniques. Would have been faster. A Vulmer left me a Photon Drop parting gift though as I fought through the cave.

[Cranberry]

And so, April 30th, 2008 comes to an end. The day that was to officialy mark the end of official online PSO not only on PSO-X box, but in America. PSO-X box has the distinct honor of being the last man standing in America as far as PSO goes, beat only by the Japanese version of Blue Burst. Shut down a week early, Sega and Microsoft broke their promise to the PSO-X hunters and refused them their final week online. But PSO-X still got its farwell party, and still had its final hurrah.

Although it lacked the online aspect, I think here we still gave online PSO-X a respecable tribute, and an appropriate farewell party. As has been shown by what has been posted today, PSO is more than just a game. It's an experience, it's a community, dare I say its a family? Think about it, you've faced countless dangers, trusting your companions to back you up. You've laughed, you've cried, you've struggled, you've failed, you've succeeded, and you've enjoyed it all. Good times, bad times, Ragol has shown you the entire spectrum of human emotion. Perhaps it even showed you love. It's hard to say goodbye to something that has brought you so many experiences. Though you may have had 1 week taken away, no one can take away the memories, the experiences, the adventures, and the friendships.

The closing song to Episode 1 is "Can Still See the Light." This song seems to be even more meaningful now, doesn't it? Even surrounded by darkness, I can still see the light. Today, that light was our fellow hunters on PSO-X. Faithful hunters, that will remain loved members of this community. An offline hunter is still a hunter, and is no less a hunter than he or she was before. Although this farewell party didn't have a lot of posters, I hope many of you still enjoyed this little farewell party. I did forest through mine tonight as my tribute. Brought back a lot of memories for me of the Gamecube servers. It was a nice image though to image the X-Box hunters on the field with me.

In closing, while the servers may be gone, the spirit of being a hunter lives on. Take everything you experienced and hold it inside. Remember all the people that shared it with you, perhaps you'll meet them all again down the road. Farewell online PSOX. We thank you for the years of memories, and the years of friendships. May the hunters of Pioneer 2 live forever, online or off.

~Cranberry

[Freeze]

Thank you Cranberry, and thank you to all the hunters who participated tonight. Know that while I was unable to join you, Deepfreeze and Amanda were with you all on the battle field in spirit.

[Gabriel]

Beautiful post, Cranberry... I'll reply again when I have the psychological strength to do it, I'm very tired right now.

As an offline-only xboxer (foreign connection thingamabob never allowed me to play it OL), but former avid DC on/offline player, the only things that I can say right now tha might make sense are...

Thank you for the idea. It was a good run today. Just opening up the stages for my recent fonewearl, and exploring overall. I'll post the reports when I'm sane again, lol

I don't mean this to sound gay or weird, but I wish I could have met you guys online. Playing with the community and all... I really miss that from the old, old ver1 days. With PSU out and the servers shutting down, it really feels like one more thing that I love is being buried and I can't do anything about it.

But taking these runs "alongside" everyone else here brought a bit of the best pso memories to the surface again, and I sure am glad that I took part, even if the nostalgia also brought a bit of hurt due to the sad part of the news.
Thank you all. *sniff

I got something in my eye -- It's just allergy, I swear xD

[kevlar_pso]

Well, I played this past morning but did not have a chance to post until now. 1st things 1st, I tried to connect to Xbox Live. I got through, but of course I got an error 101 message again. Something about the server "possibly undergoing maintenance"? l0l I handed my son an extra controller and off we went into Ultimate Forrest. Guilty Light, Alive Ahqu and Elysion! were my drops. I have given away more Elysions than I care to admit though. Managed to level my FOmar Kevin Nash up to 93 in the run. I wanted to go a little farther but well, ya know my kids got in the way. l0l

A good portion of the ppls I played with on PSO-X are still on my Xbox Live Friends List so I am still in contact with them sending messages over Xbox Live and text messages on our mobile phones. I can not say the same for anyone I have played with on the Dreamcast, the Gamecube or Blue Burst (well, my HUcast in BB only hit level 2 l0l). For this reason, the Xbox version will always sentimentally be at the top as my personal favorite version of Phantasy Star Online.

TO EVERY HUNTERS OF PSO. Truer words have never been spoken during the end credits of any game. Thank you to Cranberry and all who posted here.

[OmegaLegend]

*sniff* Man, Cranberry, that was the perfect send-off. I'll never forget the times I had online - the friends (and enemies) I made and the things I discovered. I wish I had more time to explore this world and make more friends and discoveries, but now it's too late. If anyone else is like me, they're probably harboring some resentment at Sega America and Sonic Team. They could've added onto the PSOX servers and made this thing last longer, but no, they took the lazy man's way out and pulled the plug on the most addicting game I ever played other than Pokémon. Sega America and Sonic Team should follow Nintendo's example with Pokémon - they released a different version of Pokémon every 18mos. to keep that franchise fresh. I think what killed PSOX is SA and ST didn't keep it fresh. I hope they don't make the same mistake of not keeping their franchise fresh with PSU, then we won't have a "last hurrah" for that game in 3yrs.

[Cranberry]

Thank you everyone who participated. It was an honor to be able to host this for our fellow X-Box Hunters. I am glad that we were able to give PSOX's online mode a more proper sendoff than Sega and Microsoft.