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Zimbabwe
Oct 10, 2009, 02:38 PM
Hey guys, do you think if more people opened up a little bit and gave PSU more of a chance, then the game would actually turn out better than how most people view it?
Or do you think a small player base and lot's of criticism is exactly what this game deserves?

pinkace
Oct 10, 2009, 02:42 PM
Its a classic catch 22;

Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because

God_Shiden
Oct 10, 2009, 02:45 PM
Pinkace Could not have explained it better.

The_Brimada
Oct 10, 2009, 02:45 PM
Its a classic catch 22;

Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because Sega doesn't maintain the game well outside of Japan because not enough people play the game because

Nailed it.

Zimbabwe
Oct 10, 2009, 02:46 PM
So is that a Yes or a No? :wacko:

pinkace
Oct 10, 2009, 03:08 PM
Let me rephrase:

The game is under-appreciated because Sega doesn't maintain it because not enough people play it because the game is under-appreciated because Sega doesn't maintain it because not enough people play it because the game is under-appreciated because Sega doesn't maintain it because not enough people play it because the game is under-appreciated because Sega doesn't maintain it because not enough people play it because the game is under-appreciated because Sega doesn't maintain it because not enough people play it......

Mikura
Oct 10, 2009, 03:09 PM
So is that a Yes or a No? :wacko:

Simply put: No, it's not underappreciated. It deserves every bit of the criticism it receives. Although I will specify that the criticism should be directed towards the maintenance and service of the game rather than the game itself.

Ruru
Oct 10, 2009, 03:11 PM
Simply put: No, it's not underappreciated. It deserves every bit of the criticism it receives. Although I will specify that the criticism should be directed towards the maintenance and service of the game rather than the game itself.


agreed

Mikura
Oct 10, 2009, 03:18 PM
agreed

Btw Runa, guess what this 060 crap has forced me to do. I'm...*shudder* on FFXI now seeking a party on my 56 MNK. And having absolutely no luck whatsoever. You'd think on a Saturday, there'd be more people online partying, but I guess everyone is watching college football. ._.

Ruru
Oct 10, 2009, 03:20 PM
Btw Runa, guess what this 060 crap has forced me to do. I'm...*shudder* on FFXI now seeking a party on my 56 MNK. And having absolutely no luck whatsoever. You'd think on a Saturday, there'd be more people online partying, but I guess everyone is watching college football. ._.


lol wth is football? :p
and ouch good luck with FFXI. i was just informed about a week ago that my old einherjar LS just broke because someone didnt get their adaberk >.> pretty sad if you ask me but that's FFXI for you.

and to stay on topic >.>;

PSU "is" and could have been a great game. if only the people responsible for its upkeep and content updates actually upkept and updated its content. i love PSU to death. everything about the game initially screamed awesomesauce, but sadly the people responsible for keeping the game in a playable state just suck at their jobs.

this game is just another victim of bad management aka sega(C).

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 03:24 PM
Simply put: No, it's not underappreciated. It deserves every bit of the criticism it receives. Although I will specify that the criticism should be directed towards the maintenance and service of the game rather than the game itself.

I agree. Those of us that still play the game obviously enjoy it. I just with the game was maintained a little better with or without a strong community.

Zimbabwe
Oct 10, 2009, 03:49 PM
Simply put: No, it's not underappreciated. It deserves every bit of the criticism it receives. Although I will specify that the criticism should be directed towards the maintenance and service of the game rather than the game itself.

That was the kind of response I wanted to see. :-P

Keilyn
Oct 10, 2009, 04:37 PM
PSU is not a "Common Game" nor a "Mainstream Game" so it will face criticism from being different. You don't have big corporations spending millions on their MMOs to make players believe that grinding for 3 - 9 months endless is a great thing. ^_^

The same is true to Guild Wars...People love and hate the game for the SAME REASON....that reason being you have to actually think in PvE and PvP...Its not a grinding game and teamwork actually pays off...

My point is anytime you have a different game...It will be under-appreciated but those who do appreciate the game will get something better out of it than most mainstream games. Its love/hate...You either are going to love it completely or want to completely destroy it.

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 04:41 PM
Well I love the game period...enough said. Probably because it's a nice anime look to it in my opinion.

KainDarkfire
Oct 10, 2009, 04:42 PM
Definate extremes though, it's like Sega has ADHD when it comes to Phantasy Star right now, they get into it and make it, and then forget it's existance after the fact. Later down the road they wonder why it's not working out so well while they're (re)making the game.

If they put the effort into it like Blizzard, it would (almost) be as big.

I think it's ironic as hell that a Japanese based gaming franchise should take lessons in effort from an American one.

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 04:53 PM
Definate extremes though, it's like Sega has ADHD when it comes to Phantasy Star right now, they get into it and make it, and then forget it's existance after the fact. Later down the road they wonder why it's not working out so well while they're (re)making the game.

If they put the effort into it like Blizzard, it would (almost) be as big.

I think it's ironic as hell that a Japanese based gaming franchise should take lessons in effort from an American one.

Good point. I always wished that Sega did put a little more effort into making the game kinda like WoW. Hmmm....just thinking of if it were like WoW, what would it be like to play such a game? How many people would still be around? An would the game have been advertised then?

Keilyn
Oct 10, 2009, 05:11 PM
I like the instanced maps and the small groups of PSU though ^^ This is pretty much the game I play most.

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 05:19 PM
I like the instanced maps and the small groups of PSU though ^^ This is pretty much the game I play most.

PSU is also the only thing I play as well. But now that I can't play today, I don't know what to do lol...

Tianna
Oct 10, 2009, 05:26 PM
PSU is also the only thing I play as well. But now that I can't play today, I don't know what to do lol...

I'm in the same boat. This is the only game I play and I have been in and out of computer room all day long trying to log for the last 12 hours...nothing else to do today, it's raining outside and I am getting tired of watching my son play Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest and Battlefield...lol

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 05:31 PM
I'm in the same boat. This is the only game I play and I have been in and out of computer room all day long trying to log for the last 12 hours...nothing else to do today, it's raining outside and I am getting tired of watching my son play Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest and Battlefield...lol

lol and now I wish I had a PS3 or a 360 to play some Street Fighter 4 to fill the void. ^^;

Zimbabwe
Oct 10, 2009, 05:44 PM
Now people are saying interesting intelligent things.
I like where this thread is going. ^^
The first 3-4 posts had me worried.

Mikura
Oct 10, 2009, 06:14 PM
lol wth is football? :p
and ouch good luck with FFXI. i was just informed about a week ago that my old einherjar LS just broke because someone didnt get their adaberk >.> pretty sad if you ask me but that's FFXI for you.

and to stay on topic >.>;

PSU "is" and could have been a great game. if only the people responsible for its upkeep and content updates actually upkept and updated its content. i love PSU to death. everything about the game initially screamed awesomesauce, but sadly the people responsible for keeping the game in a playable state just suck at their jobs.

this game is just another victim of bad management aka sega(C).

Good ol' FFXI drama. How I miss thee. (Not)

Tetsaru
Oct 10, 2009, 06:33 PM
I pretty much agree with everything that's been said so far about the game. If anyone wanted a ghost of a chance of reviving this game and bringing more people in, Sega would need a completely different development/management team to oversee the game as a whole, and give it the proper care it deserves...

Iow, Sonic Team needs to be erased from the face of the universe. <_>;

DAMASCUS
Oct 10, 2009, 06:47 PM
Newer players have very little to complain about and usually don't. Even when we do get an update its just one more thing for them to have fun with before they get caught up on everything else.

For those of us who have stuck with it since the beginning its a lot easier to get cranky. Many of us just have made it a way of life. Sometimes the good stuff gets boring too and then we have to just separate ourselves and try something else.

It's amazing how much more I appreciate how fun this game can be when I've had a good solid break from it.

P.S. The basic billing server maintenance has been the biggest thorn...especially right now.

rdg galvatron
Oct 10, 2009, 06:55 PM
how can u have fun on this game i think it needs more weapon and units and mission to do that's what i think of it. my psu name is RX-78-2 if any of u want to do mission with me and talk about stuff on psu it would be cool!!!

Keilyn
Oct 10, 2009, 06:55 PM
I don't see much of problem with Sonic Team as they have already made in three years AoTI, PSPo I, PSPo II, PSZ....and they even made a supplementary update to the game (which we havent gotten yet) and are working on new content to the game that of course will be released in Japan first....

..not to mention the Guardians Cash Missions...

Don't blame the design team as they have been busy...

Blame the department in Sega which takes care of the distribution and actual handling, marketing and promotion of the game itself....

It's people like you which made me get out of game development and modding for a while...Spending years of my life to program and model different things, just to deal with people like you who think that knows...but when the chips are down you blame the development team itself instead of the actual marketing team. You make me sick. ^_^

At least I play the game and endure with the blasted errors that people shouldn't have to deal with...but im still subscribed and I still play unlike you who canceled and like to post your two-cents everytime something happens even if you don't play anymore....

PSU has potential and I like the animation and the gameplay. ^_^ I normally don't defend games since I know how companies are......but I'll defend any game that is different than most of the mainstream trash I've been seeing lately....

Mikura
Oct 10, 2009, 07:02 PM
I don't see much of problem with Sonic Team as they have already made in three years AoTI, PSPo I, PSPo II, PSZ....and they even made a supplementary update to the game (which we havent gotten yet) and are working on new content to the game that of course will be released in Japan first....

..not to mention the Guardians Cash Missions...

Don't blame the design team as they have been busy...

Blame the department in Sega which takes care of the distribution and actual handling, marketing and promotion of the game itself....

It's people like you which made me get out of game development and modding for a while...Spending years of my life to program and model different things, just to deal with people like you who think that knows...but when the chips are down you blame the development team itself instead of the actual marketing team. You make me sick. ^_^

At least I play the game and endure with the blasted errors that people shouldn't have to deal with...but im still subscribed and I still play unlike you who canceled and like to post your two-cents everytime something happens even if you don't play anymore....

PSU has potential and I like the animation and the gameplay. ^_^ I normally don't defend games since I know how companies are......but I'll defend any game that is different than most of the mainstream trash I've been seeing lately....

Most intelligent post I've seen in awhile. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 07:41 PM
I don't see much of problem with Sonic Team as they have already made in three years AoTI, PSPo I, PSPo II, PSZ....and they even made a supplementary update to the game (which we havent gotten yet) and are working on new content to the game that of course will be released in Japan first....

..not to mention the Guardians Cash Missions...

Don't blame the design team as they have been busy...

Blame the department in Sega which takes care of the distribution and actual handling, marketing and promotion of the game itself....

It's people like you which made me get out of game development and modding for a while...Spending years of my life to program and model different things, just to deal with people like you who think that knows...but when the chips are down you blame the development team itself instead of the actual marketing team. You make me sick. ^_^

At least I play the game and endure with the blasted errors that people shouldn't have to deal with...but im still subscribed and I still play unlike you who canceled and like to post your two-cents everytime something happens even if you don't play anymore....

PSU has potential and I like the animation and the gameplay. ^_^ I normally don't defend games since I know how companies are......but I'll defend any game that is different than most of the mainstream trash I've been seeing lately....

Well said lol

Alexandros
Oct 10, 2009, 07:44 PM
Take it from someone who just quit WoW.

When I got frustrated with WoW, I got frustrated with the gameplay of it. I found the game itself is boring. But when people complain about this game, they don't seem to be really complaining about the gameplay of it do they? I havent seen a post on the general boards here or on the official site which complain about the gameplay. Just about the company that handles it.

If you wanna check out what I mean go here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=10001&sid=1 People complain usually about the gameplay.

Now, if you want to see something about classes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=13395581&sid=1

Refresh the page about every 30 seconds and you'll see more people crying about stupid things. People complain A LOT about gameplay because the game works in a way that people know. You don't wake up and then find out you can't play for 2 days cause SEGA doesnt work weekends.

TL : DR PSUs main problem is that it's not maintained properly, if the same effort for maintaining it was put in for this game that something like WoW gets, I promise you this game would have never dropped off in population.

EDIT: Stupid emoticons >_>

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 07:49 PM
Take it from someone who just quit WoW.

When I got frustrated with WoW, I got frustrated with the gameplay of it. I found the game itself is boring. But when people complain about this game, they don't seem to be really complaining about the gameplay of it do they? I havent seen a post on the general boards here or on the official site which complain about the gameplay. Just about the company that handles it.

If you wanna check out what I mean go here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=10001&sid=1 People complain usually about the gameplay.

Now, if you want to see something about classes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=13395581&sid=1

Refresh the page about every 30 seconds and you'll see more people crying about stupid things. People complain A LOT about gameplay because the game works in a way that people know. You don't wake up and then find out you can't play for 2 days cause SEGA doesnt work weekends.

TL : DR PSUs main problem is that it's not maintained properly, if the same effort for maintaining it was put in for this game that something like WoW gets, I promise you this game would have never dropped off in population.

EDIT: Stupid emoticons >_>

Well hell no we wouldn't complain about PSU's gameplay, it's very simple to work with like PSO was. The gameplay is more fast paced; I think that's what makes me love it even more. :)

Alexandros
Oct 10, 2009, 07:51 PM
Haha, I enjoy the gameplay a lot too. I just mean that the game is wonderful, just needs a little more TLC from it's parent. =P

Rhea-Licious
Oct 10, 2009, 07:54 PM
Haha, I enjoy the gameplay a lot too. I just mean that the game is wonderful, just needs a little more TLC from it's parent. =P

Oh I couldn't agree with you more lol

necman
Oct 10, 2009, 07:54 PM
I don't see much of problem with Sonic Team as they have already made in three years AoTI, PSPo I, PSPo II, PSZ....and they even made a supplementary update to the game (which we havent gotten yet) and are working on new content to the game that of course will be released in Japan first....

..not to mention the Guardians Cash Missions...

Don't blame the design team as they have been busy...

Blame the department in Sega which takes care of the distribution and actual handling, marketing and promotion of the game itself....

It's people like you which made me get out of game development and modding for a while...Spending years of my life to program and model different things, just to deal with people like you who think that knows...but when the chips are down you blame the development team itself instead of the actual marketing team. You make me sick. ^_^

At least I play the game and endure with the blasted errors that people shouldn't have to deal with...but im still subscribed and I still play unlike you who canceled and like to post your two-cents everytime something happens even if you don't play anymore....

PSU has potential and I like the animation and the gameplay. ^_^ I normally don't defend games since I know how companies are......but I'll defend any game that is different than most of the mainstream trash I've been seeing lately....

I won't argue with you but your only partially right. Tetsaru thou his rants get tiresome he is not entirely wrong and has a right to express his opinion. You entirely did what he did in your rant. Marketing was not the only guilty party in sega's company. They sure did not help out any that's for sure. This game only started off as strong as it was due to it's fan base and it's growth was extremely small. But the game suffered from alot of problems carried over from pso. Also it's the only game you can never find a game master(of all the games I played anyway) unless some silly and meaningless event is being hosted and if someone hacks items off someone they never get them back, ever!! I will stop there before I end up writing a bible on the errors of there ways. I would much rather write the peom of what they did right.

Eidolus_Dyne
Oct 10, 2009, 08:24 PM
Keilyn has some really good points. It IS the marketing and service that has dumped PSU in the trash. The system that PSU uses to release content, unveiling it bit by bit, wouldn't even be a noticeable issue if they'd keep us up to speed. I don't pay much attention to the Japanese side of things, but from what I can tell the game is still pretty popular over there. So it comes down to the lack of support and, I think to some degree lack of interest in the western gaming community. To my knowledge there's a bigger appreciation for cooperative oriented game play in Japan... which is not so pronounced in western gamers. Obviously, a lot of us really like co-op otherwise we wouldn't be here, so I'm not talking about you.

I'm not quite sure what the people in charge of PSU's support are thinking, but the western player base is pretty much in consensus, the lack of earnest support and updates is pushing a lot of people away. If they sped up the updates to the point that we could get back on track in like the next... say 5 months, I think you'd see a lot of return customers.

I say this rather ignorantly, I don't know what is necessary to get this updates ready. They may actually be working as fast as possible. However, I doubt it. I think there's some miscommunication and mismanagement involved. I say this because there have been incidental situations that set the updates back... things like MAG2 of last summer, and there was no effort to speed things back up in compensation.

Service aside, I think there are really great things in store for Phantasy Star Universe. PhSP:2 is evidence of that. The development team has a pretty good idea of what to improve.

I appreciate PSU's gameplay a great deal. However, I always finding myself making the same criticisms.

-Leveling systems, not at all necessary for action based gameplay. Ditching the leveling mechanic is something I see as the omega point of PSU's evolution. Evident in the changes being made in PhSP:2. I find that an ideal use of levels is one of impermanence. Instead of levels, rank players based on behavioral statistics the way that online arena based games do.

-Diversity of equipment ought to be based the unique qualities of each item, not bigger and bigger numbers. PSO had it right, at least the weapons with bigger numbers also had unique properties. PSU has in some way done this, however it's much more homogenized compared to PSO's approach. PSU uses a system for unique properties and all things can be predicted within this system... making each weapon's unique feature seem so much more bland.

-More team based missions. I feel that PSU caters way too much to solo play without really presenting anything novel or unique about it.

-In game social networking functions. PSU's communication mechanics are already top notch, however as the community thins out, problems arise. I think everyone on the PC/PS2 servers can imagine how useful a player location board would be. Even if it didn't tell you direct info, like player names etc. If it told you where players at your ability level were playing.

I love PSU, I'm hanging on to see how things go. Rather loyally actually. However, if there ever arose an online action adventure game that did not utilize leveling and had lots of unique components to cooperative and even group versus gameplay... I'd probably ditch PSU in a second. PSU at the moment is the closest thing to this ideal, so I'm gonna see where it goes.

Keilyn
Oct 10, 2009, 08:30 PM
You mean the thread I started in September when Tetsaru had canceled in August? You know, the one he replied to after he quit while I was dealing with in-game problems at the time?

Sorry, but PSU did not start strong. The singleplayer had more maps and options than the multiplayer when the game started. I could go anywhere in the singleplayer in version 1 while moatoob wasn't even open and A rank weapons were the max during launch.. Lets not forget all the plains overlord and unsafe passage runs the community did..as well as the horrendous level cap :)

Not to mention that many people were so bored that they were playing "digital dress-up barbie" with their characters and spending most of their meseta changing clothes daily and showing off in lobbies how great they looked ^_^.

...and the smart players knew that the game was so empty that they went back to PSO and kept on playing until they raised the level cap in PSU and announced the first events. The first 20K accounts came very fast and to have less than 55K accounts in a three year period since launch is poor in numbers....

I came back later and was surprised at the improvements.

What makes me love and appreciate PSU the most is that I don't have to worry about keeping 20 - 30 players in my list to get a large party together to run. I only need few people due to the party size limitation and the fact that I can join an open game and be in the party without spending 1 - 2 hours in games like FFXI to set up party, have everyone meet me and then actually do something...Its really nice.

You can't start threads in other game forums about your individual experiences and share well because those games are persistent games. In PSU you can talk to each other about your party experiences due to the # of parties doing the same run and that is something I find to be amazing. ^_^

pinkace
Oct 10, 2009, 08:51 PM
At least I play the game and endure with the blasted errors that people shouldn't have to deal with...but im still subscribed and I still play unlike you who canceled and like to post your two-cents everytime something happens even if you don't play anymore....



Yes, Tetsaru's and other's whining and complaining gets to me sometimes, but what you just said above makes you a textbook example of a fanboy (or girl rather).

See, I am a Sega fanboy. When Sega first went third party after the Dreamcast, I bought every single game they released for Playstation2, Gamecube, Xbox and Game Boy Advance, even the bad ones, and would not stop talking about Nightshade and Panzer Dragoon, to get people to buy the games. I still own them all too.

I have since moved past that and although I am still a fanboy, I have a better understanding of how business works. You see, it is evolution, survival of the fittest. If Sega cannot keep up with other publishers out there, then they should go bankrupt and die, that is the way it is.

If they do not deliver the very best games, the very best servers, and maintain them perfectly, then they will not (and more importantly, should not) get my dollar. You said above that you "endure with the blasted errors"... my dear Keilyn you should not have to endure anything. You are the paying customer and if Sega (yes, I am looping in the whole company) wants your money then they must be perfect. That is the way of the world, the weak die and leave the strong their market share.

I love Sega with all my heart and my Dreamcast is still plugged in and in fact I talk about it any chance I get (like now), but with all of the amazing games that are being released every Tuesday, to forgive Sega or any other company mediocrity is wrong and unnatural. Like homosexuality right? ;) :razz: :lol:

Tetsaru
Oct 10, 2009, 09:17 PM
Keilyn, I would MUCH rather have one single EXCELLENT game that lasts over the course of 3 years and holds my interest with good management, updates, balancing, and content, than several mediocre games that just get churned out a few months in between each other, and are limited to whatever content is programmed into the game from the get-go. All of those games that you hear about, like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, or Final Fantasy 13, that always have their release dates pushed back months at a time - sure it's annoying, but it's a good indication that the game is being developed properly. I never see Sega doing anything like that - just the dreaded "Sonic Cycle" over and over again, where they tease us with a new game that HOPEFULLY will be good, but since they didn't really put that much time into it and throw in a bunch of random elements no one wants to see, they always end up horrible. No one wants to see Sonic in the Olympics or running around with a sword; they want the fast-paced platforming games of the Genesis and Dreamcast eras.

But yes, I agree that Sega's marketing team sucks ass too. I NEVER see Sega advertise their games on TV anymore. The last TV ad I saw with Sonic in it was produced by NINTENDO. If anything, it's one-page ads in gaming magazines, or maybe a web ad here or there... nothing that really makes their games seem like a big deal anymore.

Also, I agree that innovation is important, but it has to be meaningful. Things like the rumble pack, the analog stick, the transition from 2D environments to 3D environments - things like that revolutionized gaming and are still mainstream. Things like all the Wii's motion control peripherals... I don't see those carrying on in the future, unless they can be implemented into a standard controller, similar to the PS3's Sixaxis. All those things just become novelties at best later on down the line (although the technology may remain) because a lot of developers simply hate going out of their way to create games for them, and then you usually end up with so many shovelware games that are so similar to each other. Yes, PSU has collision-detection combat, customizable characters, different weapons/classes/races to choose from, but so do a lot of other games... :confused:

I know party formation is a major problem in FF11... I hate it too because I often can't get anything done in the time frame that I have available to play. However, I feel that this problem lies within the facts that 1 - FF11 relies HEAVILY on party cooperation, unlike PSU, 2 - FF11 jobs are much more specialized, 3 - FF11 doesn't have a room/lobby system to set up parties like PSU does because the areas on FF11 are MUCH more expansive and everyone shares the same environment; however, FF11 DOES have a party search function where you can type descriptions of the parties you are looking for, although I doubt everyone uses it to its full extent, and 4 - all real-world regions are shared on FF11's servers, and although language barrier problems are common, at least FF11 has an auto-translation function, which helps immensly. Sega can't even spell "replica" or "Nei" right... That said, Square Enix has said that, in FF14, they are working on easier ways for parties to form, or even solo play, through its Guildleve system. I very rarely see Sega addressing the public on similar matters in their games...

Finally, I have to agree with pinkace on this: why are you "enduring" the constant errors Sega makes if they're so annoying?? You REALLY have to weigh the game's worth against that, and after roughly 2.75 years of "enduring" it myself, that balance was finally tipped AGAINST PSU's worth. I hated doing the same runs over and over again just because everyone else was doing it and it was new... at least in FF11 you can usually find people in every area. I hated the monotony of spamming a mission trying to find that one rare item I wanted at the end, and I hated how the boss fights were so laughably easy and reskinned. It got to the point where, along with Sega's constant screw-ups, you KNEW what was going to happen next all the time, because the game was so mind-numbingly repetitive in its grinding, and cake-walk easy in its overall difficulty. It made you just want to sell everything you owned just so you could buy your way out of everything, because it was just so much easier to, and there wasn't much of a system to prevent players from doing that, save for stuff like PA Fragments... >_>; I'm sorry, but stuff like THAT is why I blame Sega/Sonic Team's development team the most in my arguments... it's just horrible game design overall, and I just got fed up with "enduring" it all the time.

Keilyn
Oct 10, 2009, 09:26 PM
Yes, Tetsaru's and other's whining and complaining gets to me sometimes, but what you just said above makes you a textbook example of a fanboy (or girl rather).

I don't side with individual companies...I side with their products. Phantasy Star is one of my favorite series. I liked Shining Force and the early Sonic Games...with Sonic CD being my favorite.



See, I am a Sega fanboy. When Sega first went third party after the Dreamcast, I bought every single game they released for Playstation2, Gamecube, Xbox and Game Boy Advance, even the bad ones, and would not stop talking about Nightshade and Panzer Dragoon, to get people to buy the games. I still own them all too.

I only buy games I am interested in playing. Never do I buy a game because of a "company" it comes from. This is exactly why I did not buy a Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360. I wasn't interested in the games and there were not enough exclusive titles to warrant my taste. I'm happy with my PC so far....though I do have the complaint that most games have too much thought on eye-candy and graphics and not enough thought on concept and gameplay.


I have since moved past that and although I am still a fanboy, I have a better understanding of how business works. You see, it is evolution, survival of the fittest. If Sega cannot keep up with other publishers out there, then they should go bankrupt and die, that is the way it is.

Evolution huh? It's not always Survival of the Fittest...Sometimes its natural selection. This is what is happening today to both...PC and Console markets...Sometimes a group just runs out of ideas for a while and in that time...they can fail or be prosperous..

Sega leans towards Phantasy Star and Sonic the Hedgehog
Nintendo leaned towards pokemon games for years
Square-Enix leaned on Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Konami leans towards Metal Gear Solid games
Capcom leans towards Street Fighter...

Its like everyone is on stationary ground playing it safe hoping their franchise best win rather than try something new....Simply make a sequal and strap a franchise name for it sell. If its survival of the fittest, you go all out...and risk.


If they do not deliver the very best games, the very best servers, and maintain them perfectly, then they will not (and more importantly, should not) get my dollar. You said above that you "endure with the blasted errors"... my dear Keilyn you should not have to endure anything. You are the paying customer and if Sega (yes, I am looping in the whole company) wants your money then they must be perfect. That is the way of the world, the weak die and leave the strong their market share.

I like Phantasy Star for the same reason I liked the Dot Hack games....They aren't perfect games...Nor do they offer super high resolution eye candy...But they have a decent story and completely different graphics and engines in use...In short...They are different than the rest and I call that "innovation."

If there is something wrong with gaming communities its too many people saying that the mainstream is garbage, but at the same time paying their money to fuel the release of more mainstream garbage....I will endure for the sake of promoting something different over the mainstream ^_^


I love Sega with all my heart and my Dreamcast is still plugged in and in fact I talk about it any chance I get (like now), but with all of the amazing games that are being released every Tuesday, to forgive Sega or any other company mediocrity is wrong and unnatural. Like homosexuality right?

I still own my dreamcast for Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue.

Hiero_Glyph
Oct 10, 2009, 09:38 PM
It's people like you which made me get out of game development and modding for a while...Spending years of my life to program and model different things, just to deal with people like you who think that knows...but when the chips are down you blame the development team itself instead of the actual marketing team. You make me sick. ^_^

It's hard to market a poorly supported game though. That being said, SEGA has spent almost no money on PSU other than having the franchise displayed at booths that are promoting Phantasy Star Portable.

With the newest 060 error the Regional PC/PS2 servers are almost dead at this point and SEGA has only themselves to blame for it. The worldwide 360 servers still have a decent population size but these numbers will take a hit when Modern Warfare 2 is released and continue to dwindle as not enough new players are offsetting the ones that are leaving.

To summarize, pinkace nailed it in the very first reply. The Regional servers do not generate enough revenue for SEGA to properly support PSU and many of the players have left or are getting frustrated with the lack of support. In the end SEGA deserves all of the criticism as they could have provided an amazing product like they continue to do with SoJ's servers. Then again they actually market the game in Japan since it is being properly supported.

EDIT:


Evolution huh? It's not always Survival of the Fittest...Sometimes its natural selection. This is what is happening today to both...PC and Console markets...Sometimes a group just runs out of ideas for a while and in that time...they can fail or be prosperous..

Sega leans towards Phantasy Star and Sonic the Hedgehog
Nintendo leaned towards pokemon games for years
Square-Enix leaned on Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Konami leans towards Metal Gear Solid games
Capcom leans towards Street Fighter...

Its like everyone is on stationary ground playing it safe hoping their franchise best win rather than try something new....Simply make a sequal and strap a franchise name for it sell. If its survival of the fittest, you go all out...and risk.

Most of the companies you listed are exploring other titles though. Capcom is working on Lost Planet 2, Dark Void, etc. Square-Enix has Nier, Front Mission Evolved, etc. Nintendo has their Wii so they haven't tended towards anything but success lately (saying that they have only worked on Pokemon is hilarious). Konami has their new Castlevania title but they are easily the weakest company listed other than SEGA.

Speaking of SEGA, they even messed up the textures on the PS3 version of Bayonetta. Don't forget that they cancelled their Aliens project too (Gearbox was handling this for them). Even Alpha Protocol was delayed until 2010. Their success has been limited to Japan and most of the international releases have met with lackluster sales.

necman
Oct 10, 2009, 09:42 PM
You mean the thread I started in September when Tetsaru had canceled in August? You know, the one he replied to after he quit while I was dealing with in-game problems at the time?

Sorry, but PSU did not start strong. The singleplayer had more maps and options than the multiplayer when the game started. I could go anywhere in the singleplayer in version 1 while moatoob wasn't even open and A rank weapons were the max during launch.. Lets not forget all the plains overlord and unsafe passage runs the community did..as well as the horrendous level cap :)

Not to mention that many people were so bored that they were playing "digital dress-up barbie" with their characters and spending most of their meseta changing clothes daily and showing off in lobbies how great they looked ^_^.

...and the smart players knew that the game was so empty that they went back to PSO and kept on playing until they raised the level cap in PSU and announced the first events. The first 20K accounts came very fast and to have less than 55K accounts in a three year period since launch is poor in numbers....

I came back later and was surprised at the improvements.

What makes me love and appreciate PSU the most is that I don't have to worry about keeping 20 - 30 players in my list to get a large party together to run. I only need few people due to the party size limitation and the fact that I can join an open game and be in the party without spending 1 - 2 hours in games like FFXI to set up party, have everyone meet me and then actually do something...Its really nice.

You can't start threads in other game forums about your individual experiences and share well because those games are persistent games. In PSU you can talk to each other about your party experiences due to the # of parties doing the same run and that is something I find to be amazing. ^_^


I never said the game started strong and it was as strong as refering to the population thou great compaired to today was not that good at all. I only said the majority of the users when it came out were mostly old fans of pso. And the pso maps were not that big and nobody liked it the way it was as the gamesharked weapons kept apearing from tired hunters. And eventually people were so bored they started player killing people. Nobody wants to spam a run half a million times to get some weapon they want. My friend spends hours daily trying to get a stupid milla. Sorry but one weapon is not worth so much time. people still only do a few missions so not much has changed there either. I never played ffxi so I don't know anything about that but I can start any other game I play without taking hours which unless someone I know is on or there is an event I can't do without soloing in psu so that is not any different either.

Anyway to answer the underappreciated question yes and no. Mostly no

Keilyn
Oct 10, 2009, 09:43 PM
Keilyn, I would MUCH rather have one single EXCELLENT game that lasts over the course of 3 years and holds my interest with good management, updates, balancing, and content, than several mediocre games that just get churned out a few months in between each other, and are limited to whatever content is programmed into the game from the get-go. All of those games that you hear about, like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, or Final Fantasy 13, that always have their release dates pushed back months at a time - sure it's annoying, but it's a good indication that the game is being developed properly. I never see Sega doing anything like that - just the dreaded "Sonic Cycle" over and over again, where they tease us with a new game that HOPEFULLY will be good, but since they didn't really put that much time into it and throw in a bunch of random elements no one wants to see, they always end up horrible. No one wants to see Sonic in the Olympics or running around with a sword; they want the fast-paced platforming games of the Genesis and Dreamcast eras.

But yes, I agree that Sega's marketing team sucks ass too. I NEVER see Sega advertise their games on TV anymore. The last TV ad I saw with Sonic in it was produced by NINTENDO. If anything, it's one-page ads in gaming magazines, or maybe a web ad here or there... nothing that really makes their games seem like a big deal anymore.

Also, I agree that innovation is important, but it has to be meaningful. Things like the rumble pack, the analog stick, the transition from 2D environments to 3D environments - things like that revolutionized gaming and are still mainstream. Things like all the Wii's motion control peripherals... I don't see those carrying on in the future, unless they can be implemented into a standard controller, similar to the PS3's Sixaxis. All those things just become novelties at best later on down the line (although the technology may remain) because a lot of developers simply hate going out of their way to create games for them, and then you usually end up with so many shovelware games that are so similar to each other. Yes, PSU has collision-detection combat, customizable characters, different weapons/classes/races to choose from, but so do a lot of other games... :confused:

I know party formation is a major problem in FF11... I hate it too because I often can't get anything done in the time frame that I have available to play. However, I feel that this problem lies within the facts that 1 - FF11 relies HEAVILY on party cooperation, unlike PSU, 2 - FF11 jobs are much more specialized, 3 - FF11 doesn't have a room/lobby system to set up parties like PSU does because the areas on FF11 are MUCH more expansive and everyone shares the same environment; however, FF11 DOES have a party search function where you can type descriptions of the parties you are looking for, although I doubt everyone uses it to its full extent, and 4 - all real-world regions are shared on FF11's servers, and although language barrier problems are common, at least FF11 has an auto-translation function, which helps immensly. Sega can't even spell "replica" or "Nei" right... That said, Square Enix has said that, in FF14, they are working on easier ways for parties to form, or even solo play, through its Guildleve system. I very rarely see Sega addressing the public on similar matters in their games...

Finally, I have to agree with pinkace on this: why are you "enduring" the constant errors Sega makes if they're so annoying?? You REALLY have to weigh the game's worth against that, and after roughly 2.75 years of "enduring" it myself, that balance was finally tipped AGAINST PSU's worth. I hated doing the same runs over and over again just because everyone else was doing it and it was new... at least in FF11 you can usually find people in every area. I hated the monotony of spamming a mission trying to find that one rare item I wanted at the end, and I hated how the boss fights were so laughably easy and reskinned. It got to the point where, along with Sega's constant screw-ups, you KNEW what was going to happen next all the time, because the game was so mind-numbingly repetitive in its grinding, and cake-walk easy in its overall difficulty. It made you just want to sell everything you owned just so you could buy your way out of everything, because it was just so much easier to, and there wasn't much of a system to prevent players from doing that, save for stuff like PA Fragments... >_>; I'm sorry, but stuff like THAT is why I blame Sega/Sonic Team's development team the most in my arguments... it's just horrible game design overall, and I just got fed up with "enduring" it all the time.

Great post :P I mean it! ^_^

I chose to endure as a measure to support innovation and show my resistance against the mainstream. If I spent money on the mainstream and said it was garbage...then that would make me a hypocrit for giving them my money to make more mainstream stuff...

I don't mind putting up a bit if the game is good and actually offers something different. ^_^

KainDarkfire
Oct 10, 2009, 09:59 PM
...and the smart players knew that the game was so empty that they went back to PSO and kept on playing until they raised the level cap in PSU and announced the first events. The first 20K accounts came very fast and to have less than 55K accounts in a three year period since launch is poor in numbers....

I came back later and was surprised at the improvements. I have a similar story, I bought the game on release, played the single player, and later that week got online.

I was in the 17000s. After only 4-6 days, I can't remember exactly.

That's a quick boom of dissapointed people, quickly hitting the lowly (50?) level cap after farming the De Ragan over and over. Those were the pioneers of the game that suffered and have reason to complain about gameplay. We only have reason to complain about the ADHD of Sega (in general) when supporting their own launched games, perfering to launch new versions of the game (to later leave in the dust) over keeping tabs on their current games.

Sorry, all of the content and such they're releasing now as PSP and PSP2 could have been viable expansion material for PSU. Yes, there was some overhaul being done. It wouldn't be the first time an overhaul was tacked onto an expansion. Infact, WoW is about to overhaul alot in their next one, instead of releasing a "WoW2".

Oh, and on that topic, I would like to reply that when I was talking Blizzard, I meant Post-WoW Blizzard, quality has been on a downhill slope since then, though not as bad as Sega's terrible trend.

*throws two pennys*

EDIT: More pennies here (http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?p=5300379&posted=1#post5300379).

RemiusTA
Oct 11, 2009, 12:02 AM
Hey guys, do you think if more people opened up a little bit and gave PSU more of a chance, then the game would actually turn out better than how most people view it?
Or do you think a small player base and lot's of criticism is exactly what this game deserves?

Theres no reason to give chance to something that is hopeless. Take any good thing and give its well-being to people who dont give a shit, and it essentially becomes shit itself.

PSU happens to be something with great potental in the hands of people who...well, dont give a shit. And thats what it has become. You cant expect it to be given anymore of a chance than it has now. PSU is, however, something very unique. I have yet to EVER play an MMO with gameplay as immersive as PSU's is. Bottom line, if PSU was developed by someone like Square Enix, it would be the best shit smokin. Sega, however, like i said, does not give a shit. Their initial sells is all that matters, and even now that doesnt matter because they've essentially taken the "F2P Cash Shop" route with PSUjp.

Phantasy Star Portable 2? That has tons of potental to be great -- it is the only addition to PSU that has actually added something NEW to the gameplay and has advanced the engine. Evasive manuvering (dodging, blocking) with a BATTLE mode addition, Charged shots and Technic Chaining, and FINALLY a fucking race ability for the newmans and humans. All crap that is WAY overdue. And who gets it? The version of the game that sold the most -- NOT the version with the loyal, paying fucking customers. Sega has simply pulled a Nintendo on its PSU fanbase and said "hey sorry those guys over there are eatin it up, but dont worry we'll deal with you when we feel like it."

They simply dont care about this game as much as they should, and it shows. Watch, when PSP2 comes out and this game is the inferior version, i guarntee they'll find a way to bullshit the content over instead of giving the console versions the proper workover they require/deserve.

Shou
Oct 11, 2009, 12:07 AM
They skipped 2 lame updates and put them together with the most recent one which is awsome. Keep stacking updates ST!!!

And like everyone said, good game, bad support. I don't expect the support for such a small MMO to be perfect but I think they could do a much better job.

str898mustang
Oct 11, 2009, 12:15 AM
good game, loved it since it's release and will continue to love it even with it's bad mistakes. Tell me a game that doesn't have a mistake?


also some of u people type WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY too much. Keep short and simple. Dont type a damn book.

RemiusTA
Oct 11, 2009, 12:23 AM
Its a discussion, sir. Thats what we do.

Squirrel3D
Oct 11, 2009, 12:40 AM
Its a discussion, sir. Thats what we do.

That's right, so ether deal with it and read everything that is said, or skip the post altogether.

I think the gameplay of PSU is underappreciated in many ways even with it's pathetic AI when you have the game's characters playing in your party. Would you rather spend weeks...months...looking for say, level 30 resta in PSO? Or would you rather have it leveled up over time in PSU?

But everything else about PSU is not underappreciated....see the most broken censor filter ever in a videogame.

DAMASCUS
Oct 11, 2009, 12:57 AM
Appreciation for PSU is not going to be enough at this point. Problems like the recurring 060/065 errors worry me greatly. I want to continue playing with my four characters because they are all fun in their own way, regardless of those problems.

At what point will the recurring errors not be worth preventing, let alone fixing...any day now.

KainDarkfire
Oct 11, 2009, 01:05 AM
But everything else about PSU is not underappreciated....see the most broken censor filter ever in a videogame.No, that would be Runescape.

Volcompat321
Oct 11, 2009, 02:27 AM
To be honest, I hated this game when I watched my friends play form day 1.
My account was made October 06', but only because my friend bought and paid for my account.

Once I got into it, and started playing, I loved the game.

Since then, both my RL friends quit, and I continued playing.
They quit because the lack of support compared to JP.

I kept playing on principle, I put so many hours into the game, why the hell would I quit?!
I refused to quit, and I made some great friends, as mentioned in the other topic about fallen comrades made by Tianna.

I don't think this game is under-appreciated though. Maybe over if anything.
I'll explain-

IMO, JP doesn't care about the US/EU server much.
Why? Simply because it's not a Japanese server.

Like mentioned by someone on the first page, it's a huge loop.
It all started from the very first month on.
I wont go into the loop, because that person did already, and it's been the same horrible loop since then.

To end this, I'd like to think I'll be playing til the end, but this game has gotten really boring to me lately.
I don't have a debit card anymore, and the last time I tried paying for PSU, my card was declined, and will not work.
I submitted tickets and the only explanation I got was the card isn't working on the card side, not SEGA, so they cant do anything.
They said they will look into it, but whatever.
They gave me a free 30 days, which I think is great, but it really means nothing if my card doesn't work with SEGA or PSU. :(
Anyway, I'd love to keep playing, but I think it's almost time to call it quits for me.
On top of that, I hate playing on the slow PS3, compared to my laptop, and my laptop died, so I cant play on that anymore. I just cant keep it up.

Finalzone
Oct 11, 2009, 04:08 AM
Btw Runa, guess what this 060 crap has forced me to do. I'm...*shudder* on FFXI now seeking a party on my 56 MNK. And having absolutely no luck whatsoever. You'd think on a Saturday, there'd be more people online partying, but I guess everyone is watching college football. ._.
Looking for party in FFXI is so bad? It has been a while I played FFXI, I left the game as LV55 Paladin (tough to find party at that leve) because it is very time consuming.

Back to the topic. PSU is definitely not underappreciated. From the post, many players are pissed with bad management from Sonic Team. One thought they have learned from their mistake in PSO, apparently not.

Delete
Oct 11, 2009, 06:34 AM
Hey guys, do you think if more people opened up a little bit and gave PSU more of a chance, then the game would actually turn out better than how most people view it?
Or do you think a small player base and lot's of criticism is exactly what this game deserves?

I would think a lot of people appreciated Psu at one time. It's just right now, Psu is not doing anything exciting. I still like Psu, don't think I'm bashing it guys, I just like having new content but not in the form of reskinned stuff all the freakin time. Psu is still my favorite MMO game at the moment, for now anyway.

Darki
Oct 11, 2009, 06:55 AM
I appreciate PSU a lot. If PSU wew better managed I wouldn't care of paying my 10 bucks each month to pay the developers' coffees to make their work happier. The problem is that they're taking the bills and cleaning their a$$es with them.

Let's put an example: Tech rebalancing. You can find posts from me about this matter (like making WTs aggro techers, giving techs multi-hit boxes, etc) with all the people in the other forums for many months. they did nothing but that limit break stuff that well, it fixes something a little but not too much. We've been worrying about this stuff for A LOT of time, and many suggestions and discussions from the damn OFFICIAL forum had much more sense than half of the game plot.

But what did they do? Kakwane suits. There's a time in which you have all the equip you want, your char can do most missions, well, you have all your techs at max~cap level, and honestly, for me is not worth paying 10€ for levelling my PM and trying to get my 9/9 50% ice caliburn into a 10/10. It feels BORING after like 5 months in that way.

If PSU was given a little love from now on, I'd come back, ut is a shame it seems they won't. Maybe I decide to play on the japanese servers, who knows.

pinkace
Oct 11, 2009, 01:54 PM
I only buy games I am interested in playing. Never do I buy a game because of a "company" it comes from. This is exactly why I did not buy a Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360. I wasn't interested in the games and there were not enough exclusive titles to warrant my taste. I'm happy with my PC so far....though I do have the complaint that most games have too much thought on eye-candy and graphics and not enough thought on concept and gameplay.

So you only play PSU, nothing else, ever!? but you did play PSO before PSU right? Therefore the reason you bought PSU in the first place; reputation. I haven't played The Last Guardian or Heavy Rain, but the games made by those two studios before were fantastic. They established a reputation with Ico, Shadow of The Colossus, Omikron and Indigo Prophecy. The same thing with Sega; they created in my mind a reputation for amazing gameplay, and almost every game they released as at third party was great.




Evolution huh? It's not always Survival of the Fittest...Sometimes its natural selection.

....

They are the same thing :)


This is what is happening today to both...PC and Console markets...Sometimes a group just runs out of ideas for a while and in that time...they can fail or be prosperous..

Sega leans towards Phantasy Star and Sonic the Hedgehog
Nintendo leaned towards pokemon games for years
Square-Enix leaned on Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Konami leans towards Metal Gear Solid games
Capcom leans towards Street Fighter...

Its like everyone is on stationary ground playing it safe hoping their franchise best win rather than try something new....Simply make a sequal and strap a franchise name for it sell. If its survival of the fittest, you go all out...and risk.

Why are you only looking east for your games? Have you seen the stuff being made in the West? Of course there is repackaged trash like ODST that everyone buys into, but look a bit closer, you will have to sift a little bit but the rewards are there.



I like Phantasy Star for the same reason I liked the Dot Hack games....They aren't perfect games...Nor do they offer super high resolution eye candy...But they have a decent story and completely different graphics and engines in use...In short...They are different than the rest and I call that "innovation."

If there is something wrong with gaming communities its too many people saying that the mainstream is garbage, but at the same time paying their money to fuel the release of more mainstream garbage....I will endure for the sake of promoting something different over the mainstream ^_^

I don't think PSU is innovative in any way. It is not original either. It is an online hack and slash dungeon crawler, with a bit of grind-fest sprinkled about. The game works because as always the combat is excellent and the phantasy setting (instead of the fantasy setting of other MMOs) is just better. But innovation? not here. I think your definition of innovation as 'different' is dangerous.

Don't get me wrong, Phantasy Star Universe was worth the initial $60 ten times over for me, and if my disc somehow went missing today I would buy the game again in an instant. But the complaining, the whining, the bitterness... none of it would be here if the game did not have a monthly fee.

Keilyn
Oct 11, 2009, 06:59 PM
I never said that PSU is the "only" game I play. Also, making assumptions that I've only played eastern games is equally dangerous and your assumption of what you believe my definition of innovation is. Seems like you missed my point.

You are entitled to your own opinion of things ^_^ and to each their own.

RemiusTA
Oct 11, 2009, 08:36 PM
Why are you only looking east for your games? Have you seen the stuff being made in the West? Of course there is repackaged trash like ODST that everyone buys into, but look a bit closer, you will have to sift a little bit but the rewards are there.

The "lets sift through stuff" idea actually is the reason people like to look to the East. Although he never actually said he only plays eastern games, I can relate, because personally 90% of the games i buy happen to come from Japan.

However, calling ODST "repackaged trash" is quite an opinion. Something about it tells me you've never played Halo 3, or happen to be one of those "everyone likes it so ill just be a douche" kinda people. I could be totally wrong, though.




I don't think PSU is innovative in any way. It is not original either. It is an online hack and slash dungeon crawler, with a bit of grind-fest sprinkled about. The game works because as always the combat is excellent and the phantasy setting (instead of the fantasy setting of other MMOs) is just better. But innovation? not here. I think your definition of innovation as 'different' is dangerous. Oh I hope you're joking.

PSU is innovative and original in TONS of ways. There are things PSU incorporates that almost no other MMO you'll play has incorporated, and for the most part it does it very well. Its art direction, gameplay....almost everything about PSU deviates from the usual MMORPG. Just because Sega has screwed over our version, or doesn't use the game to its potental doesn't take away from its achievements. We all know the game is dead, but that doesn't make it a bad game. If that was the case, we wouldn't be here. Runescape? Yeah, its bad. Maplestory? Yeah, nothing too innovative there either. PSU, however actually has a very special thing going. Hell, PSU is more innovative and original than World of Warcraft....its just that WoW is backed by a company with far better work ethic than PSU is.



Don't get me wrong, Phantasy Star Universe was worth the initial $60 ten times over for me, and if my disc somehow went missing today I would buy the game again in an instant. But the complaining, the whining, the bitterness... none of it would be here if the game did not have a monthly fee.Yeah, it would. Ever play an F2P MMO before? People dont pay to play and they still bitch.

pinkace
Oct 11, 2009, 10:24 PM
I never said that PSU is the "only" game I play. Also, making assumptions that I've only played eastern games is equally dangerous and your assumption of what you believe my definition of innovation is. Seems like you missed my point.

I was being sarcastic! I know PSU is not the only game you play, I was making a point that as a gamer, you should know that some companies deserve your money while some don't. Also, you said that looking at what Konami, Square-Enix, Nintendo and Capcom (all Japanese, your words) are doing seems like they aren't taking risks, well then my dear, you simply need to turn your head around and see the stuff being made in the West and get excited. Very excited! :bday:



The "lets sift through stuff" idea actually is the reason people like to look to the East. Although he never actually said he only plays eastern games, I can relate, because personally 90% of the games i buy happen to come from Japan.

However, calling ODST "repackaged trash" is quite an opinion. Something about it tells me you've never played Halo 3, or happen to be one of those "everyone likes it so ill just be a douche" kinda people. I could be totally wrong, though.

I played the snot out of Halo 3, I bought it the day it came out because all my coworkers were getting it and we all wanted to play together. Same thing with Halo 2. I got peer pressured :( but I rented ODST and it feels just like H3, has a lot of the same environments, weapons, enemies... its classic repackaging.


Oh I hope you're joking.

PSU is innovative and original in TONS of ways. There are things PSU incorporates that almost no other MMO you'll play has incorporated, and for the most part it does it very well. Its art direction, gameplay....almost everything about PSU deviates from the usual MMORPG. Just because Sega has screwed over our version, or doesn't use the game to its potental doesn't take away from its achievements. We all know the game is dead, but that doesn't make it a bad game. If that was the case, we wouldn't be here. Runescape? Yeah, its bad. Maplestory? Yeah, nothing too innovative there either. PSU, however actually has a very special thing going. Hell, PSU is more innovative and original than World of Warcraft....its just that WoW is backed by a company with far better work ethic than PSU is.

If you replace the word Universe with Online and the acronym PSU with PSO in the above post, we would be in total agreement. As it stands, the world of Phantasy Star was a giant innovation... years ago. PSU was simply built on that brilliant concept. Not complaining, again, I think Sega and ST did a great job. Just because a game doesn't reinvent the wheel doesn't mean it cannot be great.


I wanna get back to the point of a game franchise going wrong and the consequences for the creators of the game. Let's use a specific example. Dino Crisis 3 for Xbox. The game's camera was broken. You would consistently find that you would get lost and the camera would be looking at were you were before. Let's not even talk about the camera and the enemies, it completely left you at their mercy over and over again. So when that game brought the end of the franchise and effectively killed it worldwide, should we have been upset? should we sympathize with the financial pain suffered by Capcom? NO. Make a better game next time, maybe your intellectual property won't be destroyed again.

I am not saying that PSU is DC3; PSU is far better. But the way this IP has been handled... It is because of fans like Keilyn the game is alive. True fans. But don't judge the fans that walk away from a losing team.

Mega Ultra Chicken
Oct 13, 2009, 05:46 PM
I would have to say that the game itself is better than people make it out to be. The gameplay is pretty awesome and the community beats the noob-infested mainstream games. However, Sega's management hasn't exactly had the best track record, so that lessens the appeal. All in all, PSU is pretty underrated. Not quite as challenging as other MMOs, but still fun.

Neith
Oct 14, 2009, 09:50 AM
PSU deserves all the negativity it gets- or rather the development team do.

It can be a good game, and some updates are really fun. If PSU had a team who weren't afraid to experiment with new ideas, it could be so much better. Every time I look at a new update on PSP2, I think "why doesn't PSU have any of this". Sakai's team seem to be putting their all into PSP2 (even if I don't agree with some things, like tacky product placement for Fanta and Pizza Hut). When you look back to PSU and Miyoshi's team, everything seems incredibly bland.

Unfortunately, because 90% of PSU missions are 'defeat the [monster name here]' with barely any variety, it becomes dull very quickly. You can't play as a rare item hunter because aside from a couple of items, everything is so easy to get (whether it be normally or through events that pop up way too often). If more attention had been paid to the dropchart in the first place, maybe more people would still be around, hunting items like we did on PSO.

All PSU needs is a few changes to its system (rebalance the enemies/PAs so that we're not walking all over enemies 30 levels higher than us etc), and more variety in its missions and it'd be a much more interesting game.

At present though, I wouldn't recommend PSU to anyone (even my close friends), because there's so little to do once you reach the level cap. Hell, I resorted to deleting Lv100+ characters JUST to give me something to work on. I shouldn't have to do that, and the only reason I still stick around is because I have a few friends who are sticking with the game and I don't want to leave them with less people to play with.

So, no- I don't think PSU is underappreciated- it shouldn't be hyped up until it has good reason to be.

DragonStriker
Oct 14, 2009, 10:05 AM
Hey "Pie-kuri" *waves* Also I think from what PSU was supposed to promise when it was released a lot of people use that for comparisson. PSU mind you is a pretty good game and very enjoyable. Yet it probably didn't live up to the hype it was given in the beginning.(Not many games do) So for that I think people tend to critisize it more often. I personally believe PSU is indeed underappreciated although SEGA's support is not. They have handled this game almost as badly as you can. Getting rid of the 2 GM system was in my opinion the death of this game. I don't feel you can support this game with only 1 GM (Poor Edward)

Maelstrom 180
Oct 19, 2009, 04:44 AM
Know somthing i think would help from a marketing standpoint? Re-releasing the game, and if possible bundled with an AOTI disk, they have the right idea in japan with the PC version being able to be obtained through online purchase and download. Do you wonder why the community is small? Well sure to a point yes, its lack of updates and poor support and rampant errors. But more regularly and this is from what ive heard from other players and seen in my experiance, is availibility. Used copies are a rare resource and purchasing online makes some uncomfortible. What do you do? Re-release the game as a (United states examples) PS2 "Greatest Hits!" or 360 "Platinum Hits!" version, maybe even with a second online only AOTI disk or maybe even with the SUPP content so when they make the conversion to AOTI+ we dont need to download anything. Sure this wont solve all the problems but it can encourage population growth...

Edit: Silly me, mispelled platinum...hope that was it...

Keilyn
Oct 19, 2009, 10:13 AM
The game community is small not because a lack of updates or support...but because of poor advertising. The game also is very different in terms of style and look....

...I helped a new player yesterday who was in the 52K - 53K ID range. I am sorry, but that is a poor track record for a game over three years old. The first three days of Guild Wars and WoW had over half a million to a million gamers signed on to them. I can't find one RPG I have played that has not had over 200K people at launch that has been on the PC platform.

So many of these MMORPGs do not offer some of the options found in PSU for players, but you see people subscribed and paying more to play those games than this one...

The failure is that Sega failed to appeal well and advertise to western audiences. Ask anyone in the west what Sega is and they will answer "Sonic The hedgehog."

If you want to increase the population the best thing would be to make another stand alone expansion to cover all the material up to the end of Episode 3 (when we get it) and have one final chance to really make the game a hit by massively advertising it and spreading it.

Put some effort into it so the game gets a good review along with something pleasing for game trailers and I'm sure the game can get a population because i'm sorry...Todays gamers are not going to spend money on a three year old game without some assurance that its solid and running with 52K - 53K subscribers in a three year period where very few play is horrible...

...Hell the new player's first words were "PEOPLE!!!" and "this game is empty" and I told him about hangout spots...but unfortunately it hit me...In any MMO or non-mmo that has a multiplayer, I can go to any open area and find people playing there....while in PSU out of all the maps and lobbies you find like 5 lobbies are visited the most. I know the hangout spots, but I shouldn't have to go to a hangout spot to meet people...

Its not that PSU is "Underappreciated"

Its that PSU is not on the map because Sega made no effort to put the game on the map and most who picked up the game were PSO players to begin with and nothing more.

Darki
Oct 20, 2009, 05:02 AM
^ That would be in the case of "the rest of the world". You can see here those awesome commercials they made for PSU, AOTI, PSP, PS0 and PSP2 in Japan, but I have never seen those in my TV. In fact, I played PSU because I played PSO, and when I was looking for guides in internet I found the information about this game (more precisely, I found main homepage when it wasnt released yet). And, I played PSO because I had a Gamecube and some day I had money and decided to look for a game that fitted my tastes.

If some day I were watching TV and they popped PSP2 commercial Id surely freak out and want it. but now I am so bored of not getting anything new for my AOTI game that I dont even feel like playing the others.

In the other hands, you can see here, in Spain, commercials for WoW made even with spanish famous actors and stuff.