JP Servers

[Bupon]

I tried the JP servers before but it was hard... I could not read anything and had no ideal what was going on. I see lots of people here who play on the JP servers. Do you all know how to read Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji fully or somthing. How do you look for items in player shops and if you did this going in with little to no Japanese how long did it take you to get used to it? I want to come back because of how many more players it looks like JP has it seems like you will get treated better. Im just scared about not know whats going on and all. What do you guys think?

[_Vyser_]

Luckily, lots of stuff (items, weapons, etc.) is written in Katakana, and story is not a huge factor in this game. Between Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, Katakana is generally the easiest the translate. As long as you can sound out the characters, you are more than likely able to understand the word. A lot of Katakana words are taken from the English language, so if you can translate Katakana to Romanji, you should do ok.

I only know about 150 or so Kanji, and I can get by pretty well. Knowing the common Kanji can really help you figure out what's going on.

If you're having issues understanding other players, well, hope they can understand English. I translate lots of stuff for my friend who plays on the JP servers, and he seems to be doing ok not being able to speak Japanese.

Basically, I suggest memorizing all of Hiragana and Katakana (pretty easy compared to the thousands of Kanji) and look up the common Kanji you see and memorize those. If you need helpful study/reference links for this stuff, let me know. Hope this post was helpful in some way.

[Bupon]

I know a lot of Hiragana, some Katakana and no Kanji but what im worried about is just being able to do normal things in the game. What would you do?

[FOnewearl-Lina]

If you want the honest and blunt truth, there's only like 5 importers left who play on a regular basis, don't bother :)

[Bupon]

Why is that?

[FOnewearl-Lina]

Because there's hardly any importers left?
Unless you don't mind soloing or playing with random Japanese most of the time.

[Bupon]

No I mean why are their hardly any importers left?

[FOnewearl-Lina]

Got better things to do I suppose...
You'd be bored too if you were lvl 180 fighting lvl 140 enemies dropping the same rares they've been dropping for 2 years.

[Bupon]

Would you say that their are more people playing and people are nicer?

[_Vyser_]

Ah, good, you know Hiragana. That can be helpful to know (especially for grammar). I suggest learning all the Katakana characters if you wish to continue playing in Japanese. Pretty much all the items and equipment are written in Katakana, so it's as simple as translating it to Romanji and looking up the weapon/armor/item, etc. if you don't already know what it is supposed to be. Yes, kanji are going to pop up in items (materials most likely), but that's why the database here is so helpful.

Being able to read Katakana will at least allow you to identify items and do some menu navigation. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, there's a very handy (and free) app called, "Kotoba!" that is a Japanese dictionary. If you have that option, I highly suggest using that as a reference. This website has useful charts to help learn the Kanas: http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/self/self.en.html

[Inazuma]

Lina sama is right. There are usually only around 5 active importers. Sometimes when there is a big event or big update, we will see a surge in the number of players but it never lasts for very long.

As for the Japanese, knowing katakana should be enough to play the game and understand the menu/items but you should probably learn some basic Japanese so you can communicate with the other players. Personally, I learned most of my Japanese from actually playing with JP players back on PSOBB. Do it enough and you will keep getting better.

[Kazemi]

Got better things to do I suppose...
You'd be bored too if you were lvl 180 fighting lvl 140 enemies dropping the same rares they've been dropping for 2 years.maybe to those that immediately rush to get capped end up getting bored. there's still quite a few importors that are no where near capped and are still enjoying the game because they aren't rushing things.

there's alot more than just 5 importors around. contrary to popular belief, they don't all hang out together in one huge community. people play with those they enjoy playing with and not simply because they speak english.

[FOnewearl-Lina]

there's alot more than just 5 importors around. contrary to popular belief, they don't all hang out together in one huge community. people play with those they enjoy playing with and not simply because they speak english.
They don't count.

And you spend all your time playing innocent girl (or with Ian), so you're one to speak.

[VectormanX]

There's plenty of people that play, but due to time zones, it's rather difficult to catch people on all the time. Life happens.

[AxelgearVII]

::shows face after 6 months::

Im not surprised at that small number seeing as it's been so long...any game would be in decline as far as population goes. I wonder how many are left in US? I'd imagine it's like PSOGC towards the end where all that's really left are the individual cliques in the desolate universes and that one universe that everyone plays on.

Oh yeah...[insert rant about lack of level 200 cap after 3 years here]

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Hello, Axel.


So uh, yeah. All you really need to be able to play on JP is a Katakana chart printed out next to you, and half the time you don't even need that.

Also, I really wish I had more time to play JP, since I was having fun with what I played after the supplemental update, but I just haven't had the time lately. Maybe in a month of so.