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EspioKaos
Jan 26, 2011, 10:34 AM
http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2011/01/110127d.html

Posted at Shougai PSO, from an interview in Dengeki Games (pp. 58-59):

* Development of PSO2 has been running alongside development of PSP2 Infinity.
* Maybe we can expect to hear some kind of an announcement around the end of April. (The quote specifically mentions the Infinity Grand Prix finals as a time frame, which is April 24.)
* PSO2 is not set in Ragol. It's not set in Gurhal, either! Expect an even larger system with more planets as symbolized by the game's logo.

/copy-paste (http://forum.psupedia.info/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1292)

Added February 5

http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2011/02/110206c.html

A few more bits of info from the Nationwide Fan Thanks Festival 2011 that was held yesterday in Japan. This info comes from a brochure that was handed out at the event.

* Even though PSO2 will not take place on Ragol, there will still be ties to the planet.
* Field BGM will change as enemies appear and are defeated, just as it did in PSO and PSZ.

pikachief
Jan 26, 2011, 12:33 PM
Im happy that it's not in Ragol or Gurhal :D I hope it is it's completely own game in setting, design, and story, but keeps game play aspects from PSU, PSO, and PSP :)

I've said it a million times and I'm gonna keep saying it till i get it. All u want is at least 1 screen shot or 1 piece of artwork so that I could see the style this game is going to have, since PSU and PSO have very different styles.

BIG OLAF
Jan 26, 2011, 12:43 PM
Not set in Gurhal or Ragol (aww, poor fanboys). Good, I say. Phantasy Star needed a brand-new atmosphere.

That's now one of two conditions PSO2 has fulfilled for me to buy it. The other being a combat system closer to PSU/P2's than PSO's.

Darki
Jan 26, 2011, 01:11 PM
Lol I'd love to bee able to hack webcams just to see PSO drama queens crying over this.

Now jokes apart, I feel a bit sad because of that thing too, I like the idea of a brand new universe to expplore (and as it was hinted, with many planets and stuff like that), but the idea of a link between PSO and PSU with this game would have made an awesome HUGE storylline that would be very nice.

At least I hope they link the timelines somehow.

Nitro Vordex
Jan 26, 2011, 01:32 PM
I don't care if they're different systems or not. I just want the game to not suck.

Also, yes, screenshots would be nice.

Zyrusticae
Jan 26, 2011, 02:18 PM
I don't care if they're different systems or not. I just want the game to not suck.

Also, yes, screenshots would be nice.
Seconding this.

WTB relevant info on gameplay systems. Hopefully the April announcement includes something of value...

NoiseHERO
Jan 26, 2011, 02:43 PM
So far so good and how good this game is gonna be... looking at how good the portable games have come along I'm hoping we can trust this to become the ultimate Phantasy Star.

Also. Yes. In your face, PSO obsess'ors. 8D

GCoffee
Jan 26, 2011, 02:56 PM
I am beginning to think this is gonna be PSU2 rather than PSO2. (I am not whining saying that!) All that subspace business is going on in PSP2, so I would not be surprised if that new system is the one where the Gurhalians settled at some point. Would be a way to include all the races PSU introduced, at least.

But bah, I am kinda sad about it not being set on Ragol. :(
What about all that 'Arkz' and other writing we saw in the trailer back then, though? Should that not obviously point out a connection to PSO...?

pikachief
Jan 26, 2011, 03:05 PM
im sure there will be some connection to PSO, especially since its being called PSO2 (unless they change the name which i wouldn't mind... PSO2 is kinda weird and unoriginal lol)

GCoffee
Jan 26, 2011, 03:09 PM
They have a good track with their '2' games lately, so I surely don't mind. :p

Tetsaru
Jan 26, 2011, 03:14 PM
I don't care if they're different systems or not. I just want the game to not suck.

Also, yes, screenshots would be nice.

This, and there should be a good storyline (emphasis on the word "good") that helps tie elements of the previous games together coherently. PSO's story constantly drew me in with its mystery (what happened to Red Ring Rico, Heathcliff Flowen, Pioneer 1, etc.), and when you finally do find out, you're like, "WHOA, shit just got crazy!" PSU's story (at least, what little of it I even drew myself to watch) just reeked of bad Japanese influence and seemed like a shitty anime series... :rolleyes:

GCoffee
Jan 26, 2011, 03:32 PM
PSU's story (at least, what little of it I even drew myself to watch) just reeked of bad Japanese influence and seemed like a shitty anime series... :rolleyes:

I always thought PSU's story was pretty close to the spirit of the old PS games in terms of sillyness and crazyness, as far as characters go. That shittyness had flair and I enjoyed it. ;)
Though I admit I prefer PSO's more serious storystyle.

Kyrith_Ranger_Pso
Jan 26, 2011, 03:36 PM
The fact that it has multiple planets is what's really got me worried, I'm fine with it not being Ragol, but i hate jumping between planets to go to different areas, i want my teleporter back!

landman
Jan 26, 2011, 03:52 PM
Hey, I hope we at least have one race per planet! human, duman, newman, beast, cast, motavian, dezolian, numan, muscat and rappy!! I won't buy it unless it has all of them!!!

Chaobo99
Jan 26, 2011, 04:01 PM
Hey, I hope we at least have one race per planet! human, duman, newman, beast, cast, motavian, dezolian, numan, muscat and rappy!! I won't buy it unless it has all of them!!!

I doubt there will be a planet for every race. Though I would love to visit Rappy World...

AT the very least at least they gave us a time frame for possible information most likely leading to a bigger teaser video or perhaps some art work/screenshots and maybe even a gameplay demonstration if you want to push it.

I am excited about an expansive world. As much as I would love to have a killer story, if I could just get the online enjoyment I've recieved from all the PSO games and even PSU compared to most of the mmo I've played(and i've played a hefty list of them), then hell, i'll be happy.

Hopefully they do an offline story and further that with an online story again ":3

DarK-SuN
Jan 26, 2011, 04:15 PM
Very interesting, and I like the idea of having no Ragol nor Gurhal for main locations!
I still expect those areas to show up here and there during special events and hidden missions, count on it.

AlexCraig
Jan 26, 2011, 04:46 PM
I'm glad to hear that it is not in the systems of either PSO or PSU. Between the PSO players bitching about wanting it to be exactly like PSO and the PSU players bitching about the PSO players HOPEFULLY some silence can be heard now.

Arkios
Jan 26, 2011, 04:52 PM
I truly hope that PSO2 strays as far away from PSU as possible.
------
Fact:
PSO was critically acclaimed, has/had a huge fanbase, was re-released numerous times across different platforms WITH success while maintaining the same core features/gameplay upon each release.

PSU drastically changed the core features/gameplay from PSO and has received sub-par reviews, has a drastically smaller fanbase and is generally considered to be a "flop".
------

With that being said, why would anyone want this game to be MORE like PSU than PSO? They should go back to what made PSO so great and just flush that out. Add some depth, change up the story a bit and expand upon what they have already built and has been proven to be successful. PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE UP THE CORE FEATURES/GAMEPLAY!

Coming from someone that played every single release/revision of PSO and quit a month into PSU... I truly hope that they go back to their PSO roots.

Not trying to start a flame war between PSO and PSU fans. (Assuming they are even mutually exclusive)

BIG OLAF
Jan 26, 2011, 05:04 PM
PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE UP THE CORE FEATURES/GAMEPLAY!

Yeah, let's keep the dated, 10-year-old combat and gameplay, and nix the great changes made with PSP2/Infinity. Sounds smart.

Arkios
Jan 26, 2011, 05:11 PM
Yeah, let's keep the dated, 10-year-old combat and gameplay, and nix the great changes made with PSP2/Infinity. Sounds smart.

I said "CORE" gameplay and features. Nothing in my post suggested that they should use a dated combat system.

Example being the ability to roll in the newer games. I enjoy this feature and hope they continue it. Example of something I do NOT like, is the removal of "specials" from weapons.

I have NOT played much of the newer handheld versions of the games, so my comments were directed at the PC version of PSU.

Why re-invent the wheel? If it isn't broken, don't mess with it. My hope is that they do not try and "revolutionize" the combat system by completely revamping everything.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Jan 26, 2011, 05:30 PM
It's funny, because you're raging over something even most of PSU's biggest supporters would agree with you on (weapon specials, apparently).

You're also making a relatively small part of gameplay out to be an enormous issue.

And you're also probably not aware of the extend system in PSP2, which basically adds specials to weapons.

Dongra
Jan 26, 2011, 05:32 PM
I'm just going to copy and paste what I said before.

The only complaint I have as a "PSO fanboy purist" is about the expanded location. I'm all for new and more locations where you actually do some dungeon crawling; however, I'm hoping this doesn't mean a further expanded lobby system. I prefer a centralized lobby like in PSO, as it made finding friends and games simple, over the enormous amounts of rarely used lobbies that they had in PSU.

Kenbog
Jan 26, 2011, 05:32 PM
hmm... I liked every gameplay system in PS games once I got used to them.
Some are better at some point where the other fail and the other way around.
Even combat in PSO also has its flaws, like that fricking autotargeting with high level techs and guns, PSU did a way better job with removing those.

Anyway I am happy they make a new system of planets, waiting to be explored :3

Ceresa
Jan 26, 2011, 05:34 PM
I have NOT played much of the newer handheld versions of the games, so my comments were directed at the PC version of PSU.

PSPo2 (and soon Infinity) is the most refined form of PSU, you don't see PSU fans calling PSO shit for V1 only having 4 levels, doublesabering through locked doors, and nuking other people's save data and whatever else was wrong. The standard is Blue Burst. Your ignorance of the improvements on handhelds does not make a PC PSU comparison more valid.

And they tried making something as close to PSO as possible. Zero had the mags, the old combat normal heavy attacks linked to palette, no linking abilities or techs to weapons, forced race/class combos, no beasts and so on. It even mentioned Coral! And it sold 1/3 as much as the portables on the PSP, despite the DS having twice the userbase.

The fanbase that matters (hint: if you can't speak JP you are irrelevant) has spoken, and they've moved the fuck on. Join them or go farm SJS for the 11th year in a row.

Nitro Vordex
Jan 26, 2011, 05:43 PM
I'm no fanboy purist, I'm very well aware of how clunky PSO's battle system was. It was clunky, but it was simple and it made sense. Well, for the most part. It was rather slow and got rather repetitive, but PSU tried to follow PSO's basic battle idea, minus the timing and boring animations. PSU threw in some flare with the animations, and took out the timing aspect(except for hard attacks), but otherwise, it's not really that different, not including PA's. The PA's definitely mixed it up, giving it a somewhat deeper battle system, until you realized you could just spam PA's and win pretty much everything. I did like the PA arts, and wouldn't mind seeing a return to them in PSO2. However, I'd like to see some of the originality with weapons that was seen in the designs for PSO. I'm not saying the same exact weapons, I'm saying the imagination that was put behind a lot of them.

Also want to see the art style from PSO. Just because it felt more gritty than PSU's did. Hell, if they could make PSU's art style gritty somehow I think it'd be alright. Sort of.

Arkios
Jan 26, 2011, 06:09 PM
It's funny, because you're raging over something even most of PSU's biggest supporters would agree with you on (weapon specials, apparently).

You're also making a relatively small part of gameplay out to be an enormous issue.

And you're also probably not aware of the extend system in PSP2, which basically adds specials to weapons.

Huh? At what point in my post does it sound like I'm "raging"? I legitimately was not aware that the handhelds were considering a part of PSU, however after looking it up it looks like they ARE in fact a part of the same series.

It would be nice if people would differentiate between the "PSU series" and the actual game "PSU". The latter being the worst game to ever come out of the franchise.

I am not aware of the extend system in PSP2, but I would like to hear more. The only portable game I have played from the series was the one on DS and I didn't enjoy the clunky camera and controls (D-Pad FTL) so I didn't play it very much.


PSPo2 (and soon Infinity) is the most refined form of PSU, you don't see PSU fans calling PSO shit for V1 only having 4 levels, doublesabering through locked doors, and nuking other people's save data and whatever else was wrong. The standard is Blue Burst. Your ignorance of the improvements on handhelds does not make a PC PSU comparison more valid.

And they tried making something as close to PSO as possible. Zero had the mags, the old combat normal heavy attacks linked to palette, no linking abilities or techs to weapons, forced race/class combos, no beasts and so on. It even mentioned Coral! And it sold 1/3 as much as the portables on the PSP, despite the DS having twice the userbase.

The fanbase that matters (hint: if you can't speak JP you are irrelevant) has spoken, and they've moved the fuck on. Join them or go farm SJS for the 11th year in a row.

Uhmm... PSO was the same game ported from Dreamcast to Gamecube to PC. The battle system was identical, the gameplay was the same and the levels remained the same with some extra content added.

PSU for PC, Zero and the PSP series are all different games. They may follow the same series and happen in the same "universe" but they are different games. Different gameplay, different battle systems, etc.

I don't see how that's ignorance, when my comments were not directed at the portable series. It's a fair comparison.

Also, the DS suffered from gameplay issues that were noticeable from the start. See my comment above about the clunky camera and terrible controls. (Using a D-Pad for a game that is "3D" is retarded).

Randomness
Jan 26, 2011, 06:25 PM
Thank god its a new setting.

Mike
Jan 26, 2011, 06:49 PM
Yes. Now let us speculate as to where it takes place. Coral and Arca maybe? That's only two bodies though (a planet and a moon) and a game has more or less already taken place there. Maybe it's another planet that the Pioneer project found post Ragol or the result of an exodus from Ragol.

BIG OLAF
Jan 26, 2011, 06:52 PM
Yes. Now let us speculate as to where it takes place. Coral and Arca maybe? That's only two bodies though (a planet and a moon) and a game has more or less already taken place there. Maybe it's another planet that the Pioneer project found post Ragol or the result of an exodus from Ragol.

Or maybe, as others have mentioned, it's the planets that the Gurhalians found upon exiting from their subspace travels (assuming that they had perfected and initiated the subspace generator project from PSP2/Infinity). That's what I'm putting my money on for now.

Uaedaien
Jan 26, 2011, 07:02 PM
It's now you find out that PSO2 will use the combat system of PSO Episode 3!

I hope they keep the addictive combat of all the PSO/PSU games which at their core are action rpgs and not hot key games. Timing as well as the new dodge and block mechanics in the portable games will make the combat fun, hopefully without techniques being tied to a single weapon.

As with all Phantasy Star games, I just hope they release only on systems that have the storage to be patched and updated, aswell as a system to keep out the cheaters, which have ruined the online play in previous PS games.

Arkios
Jan 26, 2011, 07:05 PM
Or maybe, as others have mentioned, it's the planets that the Gurhalians found upon exiting from their subspace travels (assuming that they had perfected and initiated the subspace generator project from PSP2/Infinity). That's what I'm putting my money on for now.

I like this idea.

In theory it's their own "story" so the dev's could just make stuff up, so for all we know they could come up with completely "new" planets and find a way to tie them into the story. It would be nice though if they added some new planets, but also revisited some of the previous planets.

Arkios
Jan 26, 2011, 07:09 PM
It's now you find out that PSO2 will use the combat system of PSO Episode 3!

I would LOVE if they incorporated the card game into this game. I'm thinking something like Final Fantasy 8/9 where the card game plays as a side-quest of sorts in the main game.

Enemies could drop rare cards, some items could only be obtainable via the card game (perhaps synthesis items?).

Just a thought, I really enjoyed the gameplay in EP3, but never felt like it deserved it's very own seperate game.

Mike
Jan 26, 2011, 07:19 PM
Or maybe, as others have mentioned, it's the planets that the Gurhalians found upon exiting from their subspace travels (assuming that they had perfected and initiated the subspace generator project from PSP2/Infinity). That's what I'm putting my money on for now.

The only problem I see with this is it kinda negates the need to the call the game Phantasy Star Online 2. And since there could be a possible PSP3 (http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2011/01/110127c.html), I don't know if that destination planet would show up in PSO2 or a possible PSP3.

BIG OLAF
Jan 26, 2011, 08:14 PM
The only problem I see with this is it kinda negates the need to the call the game Phantasy Star Online 2. And since there could be a possible PSP3 (http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2011/01/110127c.html), I don't if that destination planet would show up in PSO2 or a possible PSP3.

To me, Phantasy Star Online 2 is just a name, and in no way signifies anything to do with the actual story. All the Final Fantasy games have the same name. Do they have the same storyline? Sometimes, but mostly not.

As for the PSP3 link, I can't read a lick of it. No idea what it says.

PrinceBrightstar
Jan 26, 2011, 08:26 PM
* PSO2 is not set in Ragol. It's not set in Gurhal, either! Expect an even larger system with more planets as symbolized by the game's logo.


Come on Algol, Alisaland, and Earth! Ya I know, wishful thinking...:-(

It would make sense if this was a new arc. Each arc has been made up of 5 chapters.

Algol: 1, Gaiden, 2, 3, End of the Millenium (Adventure has no bearing on the overall story whatsoever so it doesn't count. Text adventures are technically part of 2)
Ragol: ep1, ep2, ep4, ep3, 0
Gurhal: PSU, PSP, PSUaoti, PSP2, PSP2i

Mike
Jan 26, 2011, 11:39 PM
To me, Phantasy Star Online 2 is just a name, and in no way signifies anything to do with the actual story. All the Final Fantasy games have the same name. Do they have the same storyline? Sometimes, but mostly not.
The games that are sequels usually have the same story. FFX2 is the direct sequel to FFX, for example. I haven't played an FF game since 11 though so I can't say much. But if they were interested in creating a Phantasy Star game not connected to PSO or PSU, I would think they'd use a name besides PSO2. Maybe something like Phantasy Star Galaxy or Phantasy Star something but they aren't so it's easy to think of PSO2 as some sort of direct sequel to the Phantasy Star which includes the Pioneer Project, Ragol, Coral, RRR, Flowen, etc.


As for the PSP3 link, I can't read a lick of it. No idea what it says.
Sakai says that he thought he done everything he wanted to with PSP2 but there were a number of requests from players and so the team discussed wether they couldn't put out another game before they moved on to a PSP3.

Terada, referred to as Captain T on the PSP2/i blog, says that going on to a sequel would mean completely changing the setting so he wanted to create a magnus opus in the PSP2 setting before moving on.

Shogai thinks this may mean that a Phantasy Star Portable 3 game may be something along the lines of Phantasy Star Online 2 Portable but it sounds to me like a sequel to PSP2/i taking place after some kind of subspace travel to a new solar system.

EDIT: It's important to note that a third PSP game hasn't been officially confirmed. The above mentions about a sequel are just talk as far as we know.

BIG OLAF
Jan 26, 2011, 11:45 PM
The games that are sequels usually have the same story. FFX2 is the direct sequel to FFX, for example. I haven't played an FF game since 11 though so I can't say much. But if they were interested in creating a Phantasy Star game not connected to PSO or PSU, I would think they'd use a name besides PSO2. Maybe something like Phantasy Star Galaxy or Phantasy Star something but they aren't so it's easy to think of PSO2 as some sort of direct sequel to the Phantasy Star which includes the Pioneer Project, Ragol, Coral, RRR, Flowen, etc.

Yes, one would think. But, that may or may not be the case regarding this particular game. Just because the same name "normally" means the same story, doesn't mean it's always the case. We'll all just have to wait and see.

landman
Jan 27, 2011, 12:38 AM
But if they were interested in creating a Phantasy Star game not connected to PSO or PSU, I would think they'd use a name besides PSO2.
It's called Marketing.

pikachief
Jan 27, 2011, 01:31 AM
How about in the next one, they go into a dimensional rift that takes them to Palma, Motavia, and Dezolis!! :D lol or even the 3 planets from PSO :O lol

I think it would be cool if they revisited the Original 3 planets :)

JCGamer
Jan 27, 2011, 01:40 AM
:-) nice I cant for the big event to come for PSO2 to be announce.but we wont be the first ones to play it when they release a demo for the PC :( and the GM & Moderator will get first taste of the cake before we do :( and we gonna be the last dogs to purchase and play the game :-(

zandra117
Jan 27, 2011, 03:40 AM
Maybe it will be a sequal to PSIII where the crews of the worldships Alisa III and NeoPalm join forces to fight a Pure Dark Falz and attempt to seal him away on every planet they cross paths with in their unguided journey to the edge of the universe eventually stowing him on Ragol in the end as a PSO prequal.

Its like stargate universe with a space demon living on the ship haha.

Aumi
Jan 27, 2011, 05:57 AM
Sounds good to me. I don't mind a new setting, although some connection older stories would be great. I'd just like to see some concept image, see what style they'll use for characters. I wouldn't mind character designs along the lines of this:

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10138054

TalHex
Jan 27, 2011, 09:35 AM
As long as they keep androids as a playable race I'll probably still buy it...

Really what I want though is computer side saving and a console version. I loved gamecube 1 and 2 + with the ability to play offline with friends then take it online. I can't tell you the number of hours I spent down on ragol chasing after 'yellow penguin things'.

I'm a little sad that PSO2 won't be on Ragol, but as long as it doesn't turn out like PSU I guess it will be fine... I wouldn't even mind it being another ep 3 : P

Alis-Landeel
Jan 27, 2011, 10:54 AM
Yes. Now let us speculate as to where it takes place. Coral and Arca maybe? That's only two bodies though (a planet and a moon) and a game has more or less already taken place there. Maybe it's another planet that the Pioneer project found post Ragol or the result of an exodus from Ragol.Earth and Moon, in other words. Solar system? It has so many planets as they are the circles in the PSO2 logo.

Alis-Landeel
Jan 27, 2011, 11:10 AM
How about in the next one, they go into a dimensional rift that takes them to Palma, Motavia, and Dezolis!! :D lol or even the 3 planets from PSO :O lol

I think it would be cool if they revisited the Original 3 planets :)No one can get out of my head that Palm, Dezoris and Motavia are the same planets Parum, Neudaiz and Moatoob from PSU (12.000 years after PSO), and that Ragol of PSO is the PSU's Rykros and, at the same time, the PSIV's Rykross.

I think that Sega wants reconnect all the games in one storyline.

Lunariancrystal
Jan 27, 2011, 03:25 PM
Hey guys guess what?

Its not called Phantasy Star Universe 2. Its called Phantasy Star Online 2.

If marketing purposes are embedded in the games title then this would signify PSO being a superior game to PSU. ----just sayin.
but then again you also got to look at the fact that they've made several expansions to PSU..as well as the PSP games. Also the fact that
PSPi is coming out. I don't know if I believe its for marketing strategy or not.

(This was in reply to the whole marketing strategy of a new PS game)

Edit: Again...this is assuming that the title goes into their marketing strategy for sale of the game. It could just be a title... :)

NoiseHERO
Jan 27, 2011, 04:13 PM
"Universe" is more of a Subtitle...

"Online" is kind of general...

It's not like we're the ones making this game, if it comes out a pso clone, or a pso clone but with a new setting, or if it comes out as a turn-based mmo or a point and click (lol doubt it.) We won't know till...

Maybe april?

For now, like every other person that's not trekkie-mode about pso..I just hope the games comes out with something new and interesting and fun. Not being in ragol is the start of that good news.

The PS fanbase isn't THAT big in general...a player base to actually give mainstream face sega a reason to actually talk about this game once would be nice. *Never seen a PS commercial on tv in my entire life.*

I hated PSU just as much as I think you guys did-okay maybe not really. Regardless I still liked it more than pso at least by the time aoi came out. It had everything pso couldn't have and more besides it's flaws. PSO was epic for it's time...but that was all, Instead of "I hope they have this." I'm just hearing "I hope they have this-FROM PSO. >8D"

Last but not least...one lobby just to meet up, sounds lame...it's true psu had a lot of empty lobbies...but it still gave it that adventure-zelda like feel. I'd rather play an arcade game if it's just the end of the dungeon and back.

Kirukia
Jan 27, 2011, 04:43 PM
I am personally glad it is taking place in a new area. Don't get me wrong I loved PSO, but I don't want a copy of a game I already have and setting is a good start. I want something new that I can explore and learn about, like the first time I played PSO. I don't want to be like, "Huh this feels familiar."

Nitro Vordex
Jan 27, 2011, 06:08 PM
If there is a Pioneer 3, we may be following it. In which case, I really am excited. We get to see maybe after the events of Ragol, or maybe even occurring at the same time as Ragol.

AlexCraig
Jan 27, 2011, 06:39 PM
Well, there were many unmanned probes that went into space from Coral looking for a new planet to live on. Who is to say another wasn't found after Pioneer 2 left for Ragol? Perhaps another series of ships went to this new system and colonized there.

Nitro Vordex
Jan 27, 2011, 07:25 PM
Here's hoping for Pioneer 3 and 4.

MAXrobo
Jan 27, 2011, 09:14 PM
if it involves multiple planets, whos to say i wont involve multiple solar systems as well. the planets in the logo arent all orbiting the same thing. i think it would be fun if you could customize your own spaceship for when you where jumping planet system, it could be a sort of replacement for the "my room" thing in PSU.

also I think they should have one large lobby/city for each planet. that way we could still have a variety of lobby designs, without it getting out of hand like in PSU.

keizeh
Jan 27, 2011, 09:16 PM
Hopefully the planets will be released progressively and not all at once. That way the player base isn't divided between x amount of worlds.
Or better yet, each planet is a server.

landman
Jan 28, 2011, 01:07 AM
The problem is not the number of lobbies, if you could see all parties in that server from each mission counter it wouldn't mind if you are in a deserted lobby, first a list of the missions from the area you are at the moment, and next page a list of all available missions/parties in the server.

The only realistic way all those planets would be in the same system (and not being barren rocks) is that they are all orbiting a gas giant that happens to be in the inner orbits of the system (a Hot Jupiter).

Alis-Landeel
Jan 28, 2011, 01:16 AM
Hope to see less loading times. Then it's no matter if there's one big lobby or multiple lobby. Shall not load at every room or at every shop.

Kimil Adrayne
Jan 28, 2011, 01:18 AM
Hopefully the planets will be released progressively and not all at once. .

... NO

PSU did this, and it was a terrible idea.

Mike
Jan 28, 2011, 01:42 AM
... NO

PSU did this, and it was a terrible idea.
And it was only a terrible idea because the game had the areas available to play offline from the start. If PSU's story mode was linked to the release of content online, no one would have complained about the lack of content online. They would have instead complained about the connection of a supposedly offline story mode to online content. I have the feeling that PSO2 is going to be online only so that even if content is staggered (and it likely will be in some way) the complaining about the lack of content that happened in PSU's first months won't happen with PSO2.

People are gonna complain about something anyways though.

Googlebonker
Jan 28, 2011, 02:02 AM
PSO2 not on Ragol?! WHAT?! :O

lol

I hope its player creation system is updated and expanded. I want to make another Rhonda!

Let`s hope CAST skin doesn`t come in 500 shades of white and Caucasian this time. lol

ChronoTrigga
Jan 28, 2011, 06:34 AM
I don't even know what I want from this game. I just want it to be 10 years of addiction like PSO was/still is.

GCoffee
Jan 28, 2011, 07:02 AM
Sakai said that he would love to make PSP3, but that they would have to create an all new world then. Why would that be? Couldn't they just come up with another story for Gurhal? Seemingly this hints about Gurhal's story ending with Infinity, to a point where no mroe story would be possible. Makes me even more sure that they will use subspace to find a new universe, the one PSO2 will be in. And perhaps they even use subspace in PSO2 to find even more planets and universes. Definitely sounds big. :)

SephirothXer0
Jan 28, 2011, 11:53 AM
What I'm hoping for the most is a cohesive art style.

PSO had the same art style and design philosophy across the entire game, it made everything in the game look like it BELONGED in the game. Made it look unique and polished.

PSU/PSP look like a giant clusterfuck of whatever they felt like throwing in on a whim. It might be a cool novelty to be able to run around in a bath towel, one mission and a pair of jeans and a cowboy hat the next, but it makes the game look spaztastic and amateur from a design standpoint. Nothing in the game really fits with anything else. Especially the storytelling, but of course that's a big problem with Japanese media in general. They want to write a serious emotional story, but then want us to take it seriously when it's told by tiny loli girls with pink wings and flowers and giant shiny eyes singing pop songs.

So I'd like them to ditch the anime crap and go back to a simple, silent story with no custscenes and preferably no voice acting.

darkepyonuk
Jan 28, 2011, 12:13 PM
yes personally i want PSO not PSU based :)

Darki
Jan 28, 2011, 12:25 PM
^ Hopefully it won't be that way. :)


What I'm hoping for the most is a cohesive art style.

PSO had the same art style and design philosophy across the entire game, it made everything in the game look like it BELONGED in the game. Made it look unique and polished.

PSU/PSP look like a giant clusterfuck of whatever they felt like throwing in on a whim. It might be a cool novelty to be able to run around in a bath towel, one mission and a pair of jeans and a cowboy hat the next, but it makes the game look spaztastic and amateur from a design standpoint. Nothing in the game really fits with anything else. Especially the storytelling, but of course that's a big problem with Japanese media in general. They want to write a serious emotional story, but then want us to take it seriously when it's told by tiny loli girls with pink wings and flowers and giant shiny eyes singing pop songs.

So I'd like them to ditch the anime crap and go back to a simple, silent story with no custscenes and preferably no voice acting.

You talk as it it was neccesary to have fixed outfits per character to make the game look real. I dunno what would you do, but in the XXI century, at least (talking about "modernity", I mean, as PS series are modern or rather futuristic), I don't believe you would dress like you were Gandalf to wield a wand. It might not fit your tastes, but in terms of being realistic or not, it's more realistic to run around in jeans and a T-shirt even if you're a wizard than dress yourself as a clown just for the sake of it. You can do, too, of course, and I don't have anything against it, I myself dress my characters in PSU in not to "conventional" ways, but I don't really like the fact that in PSO your character should to look like a latino bi4tch (almost always) to be a HUnewearl while to be a FOmarl you had to be crossdressed. The fact is that you don't dress yourself in any fashion to match any item you wear. Or do you dress in blue and black to look "even" with your nokia phone (for example)?

I understand the anime singer thing but that's also under the freedom of playing a MMO. If people like to have big-boobed lolis dressed in only a bath towel, they have the right to do it, same right than you have to play a more serious looking character.

BIG OLAF
Jan 28, 2011, 12:30 PM
So I'd like them to ditch the anime crap and go back to a simple, silent story with no custscenes and preferably no voice acting.

PSO was anime style, too. It's just that the 3D graphics weren't as advanced, so it might have been tough to notice. Phantasy Star has always had an anime art style. Go take a look at the original PS games (I-IV), and notice the character/weapon/environment design. So, PSU didn't do anything "new", besides actually having customization (clothing and appearance) options, which should be standard in gaming nowadays, especially RPGs.

Though, I will agree that I liked PSO's "do-it-yourself" style of storytelling, and hopefully they go back to that, instead of PSU's Saturday morning cartoon story.

Darki
Jan 28, 2011, 12:43 PM
I agree with that, PSU was too much of boring cutscenes. But I can't say I disliked them... I'd say the answer would be to do everything in a moderate way. In PSO the story was integrated in the "free" play, they could do the same a bit in the new game, with the help of some "story" missions to get to new standpoints.

Allison_W
Jan 28, 2011, 01:57 PM
Yes. Now let us speculate as to where it takes place. Coral and Arca maybe? That's only two bodies though (a planet and a moon) and a game has more or less already taken place there. Maybe it's another planet that the Pioneer project found post Ragol or the result of an exodus from Ragol.

Only Earth and the moon were visited in PSZ, but that doesn't mean they're the only possible locations. Venus and Mars (effectively filling the Motavia and Dezoris roles, respectively, by their climates, if not their colourations) are also viable, as could be a potential space station not unlike the Guardians Colony.

I'm OK with it not being set on Ragol (or in Gurhal), but I do hope that the atmosphere and art direction is closer to PSO than to PSU (and bonus points for using the second half of Episode II as a study guide), and that the combat system takes the better elements of both PSO and PSU and sheds the dross.


Though, I will agree that I liked PSO's "do-it-yourself" style of storytelling, and hopefully they go back to that, instead of PSU's Saturday morning cartoon story.

Oh hell yes. At some points PSO's story just seemed dreadfully sparse (Episode IV comes to mind), but I am forced to agree with you on no Saturday morning cartoon pl0x. Unless it's going to be like the SatAM Sonic the Hedgehog series or something (though fewer petting-zoo people please); as a kid I was always bummed that while I never missed the weekday series, catching the Saturday series actually required me to not sleep in on one of my designated sleep-in days.

SLOW EDIT: After taking another look at the logo, there's apparently seven planets or at least satellites, not counting the great big blue thing in the centre, and for some reason the orbital patterns are seriously messed up. If that's how gravity works in this new game I'm half-expecting it to turn out to be some kind of trippy gravity-gimmick platformer.

Aaron22Darron56
Jan 29, 2011, 09:23 AM
Does anyone know what console this will be on? I have the original PSO Ep. 1 and 2 plus, and I loved that game. I just hope it will be something like that.

Kimil Adrayne
Jan 29, 2011, 10:53 AM
Does anyone know what console this will be on? I have the original PSO Ep. 1 and 2 plus, and I loved that game. I just hope it will be something like that.

So far, only slated for the PC.


I agree with that, PSU was too much of boring cutscenes. But I can't say I disliked them... I'd say the answer would be to do everything in a moderate way. In PSO the story was integrated in the "free" play, they could do the same a bit in the new game, with the help of some "story" missions to get to new standpoints.

Its all opinion here, but I found not a single cut scene in PSU to be worth paying attention to. In PSP, once I found out that if you quick-sleep it and turn the PSP back on it would skip movie scene (not the text ones, but the actual movie), I never watched one again. PSO's MAIN story was really just told by recording devices left by ill fated Hunters, but the side quests (from the counter) I feel added to it greatly. If you wanted more story, you could do the counter missions and get more story.

PSU had this to an extent (Bruce's Dungeon), but it focused to much on forcing the main story down your throat. In PSO2, I hope they don't have a hefty chapter by chapter story, and just have a light main story with numerous side quests that actually keep you interested like how PSO was for me (not because it has PSO in the name, but because I feel like its a better style of story telling).

Sir Green Aluminum
Jan 29, 2011, 08:44 PM
What is the Infinity Grand Prix?
To add, I also loved PSO I - III. PSU was fun until there was only De Ragan to grind and no one wanted to do anything else, that and no content. And Phantasy Star Zero was just uhgh. I did play PSOBB, but IV was not the same as the goodness of the first two.

Checkmate
Jan 31, 2011, 01:09 AM
SLOW EDIT: After taking another look at the logo, there's apparently seven planets or at least satellites, not counting the great big blue thing in the centre, and for some reason the orbital patterns are seriously messed up. If that's how gravity works in this new game I'm half-expecting it to turn out to be some kind of trippy gravity-gimmick platformer.

EDIT: Meh... forgot what was posted in the OP... the last bullet pretty much sums up what I said. :(

I was looking at that myself. Should Sega keep the tradition of 3 primary planets, the extra "planets" you see in the logo could either be alternate dimensions/subspace of the intial planets or could be a "break the mold" move and create a whole solar system.

Game title logos have always been key to clues/ideas for what goes on inside the game.

Waki Miko Syamemaru!
Feb 1, 2011, 04:57 PM
Actually in Episode 3 of PSO one of the characters from the Arkz side said that the government pretty much dictates what Hunters wear, eat, and sleep. I'm just hoping in PSO2 I don't get any crazy over-extravagant clothes. I mean, wearing Miku Hatsune's clothes is a nice novelty but god damn, I don't want my human female to be looking like tentacle bait or a loli pop idol. Also would it kill to give CASTs some decent looking shells? The only shell I use for my Male Cast is that Knight looking one and for my female anything that doesn't make her look like Fornicatron-9000.

Nitro Vordex
Feb 1, 2011, 05:10 PM
In animu games, you get loli, butch, or skank. Anybody moderate or tasteful is usually not a main character, or they die.

RemiusTA
Feb 3, 2011, 11:46 PM
^ Hopefully it won't be that way. :)



You talk as it it was neccesary to have fixed outfits per character to make the game look real. I dunno what would you do, but in the XXI century, at least (talking about "modernity", I mean, as PS series are modern or rather futuristic), I don't believe you would dress like you were Gandalf to wield a wand. It might not fit your tastes, but in terms of being realistic or not, it's more realistic to run around in jeans and a T-shirt even if you're a wizard than dress yourself as a clown just for the sake of it. You can do, too, of course, and I don't have anything against it, I myself dress my characters in PSU in not to "conventional" ways, but I don't really like the fact that in PSO your character should to look like a latino bi4tch (almost always) to be a HUnewearl while to be a FOmarl you had to be crossdressed. The fact is that you don't dress yourself in any fashion to match any item you wear. Or do you dress in blue and black to look "even" with your nokia phone (for example)?

I understand the anime singer thing but that's also under the freedom of playing a MMO. If people like to have big-boobed lolis dressed in only a bath towel, they have the right to do it, same right than you have to play a more serious looking character.

You're missing something really vital here I think.

The original PSU did fine in terms of the different amount of garments you could wear. It had serious, casual, stylish and cutsy options all within the different clothing options that you could mix-and-match together. But what they also did was keep everything within a certain boundary, you know? There was no extra super extravagant nipple garments or outfits you would wear to one of those trashy pajama parties you only attend to find a fast & easy cute chick to sleep with. It get gradually gets worse as AotI comes out, but it's really only thanks to voloyal set, which never looked good on ANY character but the NPCs who actually wear them. They even give you breast implants. Wtf.

So, along comes PSP2. We not only see a completely different art style applied to the characters...but the 4 races look COMPLETELY different. In all honesty, i never minded the designs that much. Beast Female was sort of astonishing, mainly because i couldn't tell the portrait apart from Newman or Human anymore. Newman Female....well, at first i was angry that for some reason they defaulted you to a loli, but i figured it was a throwback to Fonewearl, so i just let it slide. PSP2i, however, has taken it to the far extreme. They seem to have all but FIRED all their talented wardrobe designers, and simply hired a bunch of random ass Manga artists through a contest for who can create the most cliche, slutty, ridiculous outfits they can think of. And, as such, we got the Default PSP2 outfits. Casts are all Deus ex Machina, Newmans are lolis, beasts are pimps/whores, and humans...well, apparently 1 Loli class wasn't enough, since Human Female defaults to a loli with a retarded outfit as well. The change in the outfits was a questionable move, but im almost positive the art direction was a marketing scheme more than ANYTHING.



.....What im getting at here is that in this little "freedom" movement they've adopted, they've lost almost ALL originality the series has built up in the process. Moreover, they've lost all hope of anyone ever taking this storyline seriously ever again, because nothing makes sense anymore. In PSO, I could look at most of the designs of the characters and say "okay, these guys actually KILL THINGS for a living." Look at the art on the case of Phantasy Star Online again. Any one of them! They don't look like Jpop stars or teen idols, they look like fighters, mercenaries. They look like if you got into a fight with them and you didn't go to the gym everyday or have mastered a martial art, they'd wipe the floor with your ass or blow you into aerosol.


I dont believe there is even a reason in advertising PSP2i over here, because nobody in this country (who doesn't already have a liking to anime) is going to be drawn to it. They've molded PSP2 infinity into the Otaku dreamgame. PSU's customization was a REALLY good aspect of the game, but for PSO2 they need to do what the ORIGINAL PSU did; you can put alot of different things into the game, but please GOD stick to the wardrobe theme of the game. Nobody in real life wears what PSO people wore, but the Hunters of PSO were NOT normal people...they were just shy of mercenaries.

Forces are handwaved IMO. I never minded the robes my Fomar had to wear because i still looked badass while nuking people, and i always just figured the Newman forces had their own kind of culture to uphold. Forces in PSO get an even BIGGER handwave, as all the different races actually had UNIQUE casting animations. The odd look of the Newman forces were reinforced by the way they pretty much put their entire body into casting magic.

BIG OLAF
Feb 3, 2011, 11:57 PM
thanks to voloyal set, which never looked good on ANY character but the NPCs who actually wear them.

Going to, uh, have to disagree there.

Anyway, Sega's using a different style of outfit and environment. Sure, the PSO style was "grizzled warmonger", but that's not what the PS games are now. Going to have to live with it, I'm afraid. EDIT: Game styles, just like any other media (TV, movies, music), change. For better or for worse is all a matter of opinion. I love PSU/P2/Infinity's clothing and art style. To me, PSO's character design was innovative for it's time, but struck me as boring. PSU/P2/Infinity's character design was more frivolous, obviously, but also more vibrant and exciting to the eyes.

Corey Blue
Feb 4, 2011, 12:16 AM
Going to, uh, have to disagree there.

Anyway, Sega's using a different style of outfit and environment. Sure, the PSO style was "grizzled warmonger", but that's not what the PS games are now. Going to have to live with it, I'm afraid. EDIT: Game styles, just like any other media (TV, movies, music), change. For better or for worse is all a matter of opinion. I love PSU/P2/Infinity's clothing and art style. To me, PSO's character design was innovative for it's time, but struck me as boring.
I really didn't like PSU's style everything seemed so stereotyped and childish,PSO's was gritter,and ready for war type shit.I hope they can please both sides,because if it looks to much like PSU they can kiss the playerbase goodbye.(Oh and SEGA cant wait to see them burn if they mess this up.)

landman
Feb 4, 2011, 12:39 AM
A solution to that could be "battle clothes" so you can choose only fitted stiles for battle areas, and once you leave the mission, you can wear whatever you want, the change could even be automatic, just like weapons disappear in the lobby, and MAGs did in PSO (not PSŲ)

BIG OLAF
Feb 4, 2011, 12:42 AM
A solution to that could be "battle clothes" so you can choose only fitted stiles for battle areas, and once you leave the mission, you can wear whatever you want, the change could even be automatic, just like weapons disappear in the lobby, and MAGs did in PSO (not PSŲ)

I like this idea. Whilst in a mission, or other "official" game areas, your character could wear designated "battle attire", like N7 armor from Mass Effect or something. And, when just mucking about in the lobbies and such, you can wear your bikini top and booty shorts. That would all be fine with me, as long as you could customize both...

...or have separate clothing shops for "battle" and "lounging".

RemiusTA
Feb 4, 2011, 12:57 AM
What? Voloyal set was disgusting. It was only cute on the chicks who got the hat with the pose to match. But the fact it defaulted your proportions and was extremely slutty was pretty terrible. Example? Females can wear whatever the hell they want when they go to the club, because they're wearing it for a certian reason and situation. You can wear that same outfit in public and there's instantly something wrong with it. There was nothing wrong with the Voloyal outfit for the casino employees, but anywhere else it was just....ugh.

And dont get me wrong. There was NOTHING wrong with PSU's clothing style. But when i say "PSU", really mean Phantasy Star Universe and AotI. Not PSP/PSP2/PSPI. Not saying i liked all of them, but i actually respected the choices. PSP2i on the other hand seems to have no direction at all. It's just a bunch of random garments, and none of the characters are believable in the slightest. This was mostly adverted in Phantasy Star Universe with the inclusion of Line Shields, but honestly PSP2i doesn't even seem to care about that anymore. And "what the ps games are now" is the main reason im not even going to get my hopes up for PSO2. At the rate they're going now (over the top EVERYTHING, from combat to clothing), they'll never be able achieve what PSO did, because the marketing focus is in all the wrong areas. That, and PSU and PSO are very different combat wise.

Anyway, these are examples of what i'd like to see fixed in PSO2:

-I love over the top attacks, but with each subsequent photon art, the last one doesn't even look cool anymore. You dont have to jump through the air and fly around teleporting for an attack to look cool. And, each time you do that to your attack, you have to try and one-up it for the next one. Now we have rifle users in PSP2i blowing shit up like they're using rocket launchers, and shotgun users spraying like mechgun users. PSO's animations were nice and simple, and best of all believable. I actually felt like i was firing a gun in PSO, where in PSU there was almost no feeling of recoil in the animations whatsoever. You could actually feel the hits when swinging your weapon in
PSO, whereas PSU, even though they added some force feedback to the animation when you struck an enemy, doesn't seem to have any real feeling to it. They just kind of flail their weapons around. Worst of the lot being the Saber and Double Saber animations.

-PSO had differing animations for each of the different classes which helped keep the game fresh for each class you chose. PSO2 doesn't have to be limited to the original PSO classes, but if you're going to continue to split up the Stat differences of Races/Sexes, then do what PSO did and CHANGE THE BATTLE ANIMATIONS as well.

IE. For the Sword swinging animation, Human Male =/= Human Female =/= Beast Female =/= Beast Male. Also, Force animation =/= Hunter Animation =/= Ranger Animation =/= Braver animation. If both a Force and a Hunter can use a Staff, then the Force should obviously use it in a more efficient way than a Hunter. Likewise, if a Force can use a Sword, it shouldn't be as fluent as the way a Hunter swings it. Sounds like alot of work, but PSO did it very well. One of the reasons i even created a Ramarl on PSO is because her handgun firing animation was just fucking badass. Fomar casting animations were quick and fluid, while Fonewm casting animations were strong and put all of their body weight into the casting motion. It's the kind of detail to design like this that made PSO the kind of memorable game that it was. While PSU gives alot of choices, it still lacks the amount of depth PSO gave to its characters from the start. Lack of animations is one of the MAIN reasons they've had such a hard time balancing the classes out.

- In PSU, Newmans made lackluster fighters, and Humans were always the middle class in terms of everything. Casts and Beasts pretty much ran the game. This is half because of SUV/Nanoblasts, but it was mostly because PSU relied way too heavily on Stats, and not enough on true variety between the characters. Since Newmans were weaker, they naturally should have been much faster attackers than the other races. Humans should have been more versatile in their attacking animations. Beasts should have kept their strength, but perhaps been a bit slower, except when wielding the heavier Power weapons (Axe, Sword) where they would have less trouble dealing with the weight. I dont know what to do about Casts, since they're basically just copies of humans, but they should have exhibited a sort of finesse when it came to handling firearms, thanks to better accuracy.

Sounds like alot of work, but IIRC PSO did a very good job with it. For PSO2, since it is technically a Next-Gen game, this shouldn't be an issue to deal with. Buuuttt, since they seemed to be more focused on finding suggestive ways to show skin on the female models and combat animations that defy physics in every way possible, i doubt they have any kind of intention of doing anything of the sort. PSU found plenty of ways to show skin without making the characters look like whores.

landman
Feb 4, 2011, 01:00 AM
They could also be considered part of the armour, like having unit slots, not saing different "battle clothes" to have advantage in front of the others, because people will be wearing the same ones around like in wow, but something to motivate people to wear them.

BIG OLAF
Feb 4, 2011, 01:05 AM
What? Voloyal set was disgusting. It was only cute on the chicks who got the hat with the pose to match.

Once again, I disagree. The Voloyal Set is one of my favorite outfits, and I'm not even a pervert. I just like how it looks, and I think my character looks fantastic in it.

Dongra
Feb 4, 2011, 01:39 AM
Fomar casting animations were quick and fluid, while Fonewm casting animations were strong and put all of their body weight into the casting motion
Actually, Fomar and Fonewm have identical casting animations, but I understand your point about unique animations. I wouldn't mind seeing unique animations make a return in PSO2 as long as they are not as absurd as some of the Photon Arts. I also have to agree with the clothing options. However, I never really liked most of the clothing options in both PSU and PSO, but I could at least stand some of the classes in PSO.

Tienhan
Feb 4, 2011, 01:59 AM
That fact that PSP2 had the old Hunter's Guild uniforms tucked away was a very cool feature, if you ask me. I'd like to see them update the look and bring them back, as well as offer the more ostentatious outfits. That way both camps are happy. And I can still look remotely like my PSO character.

RemiusTA
Feb 4, 2011, 02:08 AM
Actually, Fomar and Fonewm have identical casting animations, but I understand your point about unique animations. I wouldn't mind seeing unique animations make a return in PSO2 as long as they are not as absurd as some of the Photon Arts. I also have to agree with the clothing options. However, I never really liked most of the clothing options in both PSU and PSO, but I could at least stand some of the classes in PSO.

Well, the Fomar unarmed castings were likely identical, but Fomar's were sped up a bit. They did have different walking/casting animations for Rods though, i do remember. (i'd equip one just to get the pimp walk on my Fonewm.)


Edit: and i am so tired of the whole "LOTS OF PLANETS IN UNITY" crap. One planet and a space colony should be more than enough for a storyline. I really hope they're done with that. [SPOILER-BOX]

And besides none of it ever made any sense physically...where was the Guardian's Colony's actual position among the planets? I know it's absolutely impossible for 3 planets that size to orbit something not even the size of an Asteroid, and they kept making it look like the Guardian's colony was inbetween the 3 planets. Are they all in the same orbit plane, or linearly aligned like the planets in our system? If so they should all have pretty different climates and atmospheres. Not to mention, they can't be very close together at all, or they would have all had some kind of tidal effect/ collided /thrown each other out of orbit....which means that whole Guardian's Colony incident should have NEVER happened unless it was one of Parum's satellites. But im pretty sure that isnt the case either, because for some reason they didn't even have enough time to divert the colony's trajectory / blow it to smithereens before it got anywhere close to colliding with their planet.


Or am i just thinking too much? Either way, the whole "Three Planets" thing was stupid. When the Guardian's Colony crashed into Parum within not even 24 hours of a malfunction, i literally facepalmed. There's no way it covered that much distance in that little time. Im guessing about the distance between Earth and Mars, them both being planets....But even if it was the distance between Earth and the Moon it would take days for the colony to hit the planet, possibly even months or YEARS depending on the speed. If the colony was even moon's distance away from Parum, for it to cover that much distance that fast, the energy from the speed of the colony would have obliterated the surface of that planet.[/SPOILER-BOX]

Darki
Feb 4, 2011, 05:11 AM
Well, I dunno which game you play but in the PSU I have installed in my computer the Colony indeed orbits around Parum.

In all pictures about the colony Parum is seen much larger in the background while the other planets are seen very small, Parum is seen much larger than even the Earth is seen from the Moon, so we can assume that the Colony is not only a "satellite", but it's also as close as all our communication satellites at least. Any of our geostationary satellites can "crash" on Earth's surface in less than 24 hours. Also, our spaceships 50 years ago were able to go from the Earth to the Moon in around 3 days so I don't see why you talk about years... In every art and even in the title art where the three planets are featured is seen that they orbit their sun much like Venus, Earth and Mars (probably much closer to each other as they have not so different climatics, but is still possible). Maybe you should go a bit Wikipedia before "literally facepalm".

Then, if you go to that end lobby after Fight for Food in the Colony you can clearly see in all the windows how close Parum is (the name was Aurorey Viewing Plaza, I think). No offense but you don't need to be Einstein to see this.

But anyways, I do like that the game features more than one planet. It was said that there would be a lot, at least 6, so I'm really happy with that.

I agree with the different casting-attacking and even battle stances depending on your class. I just see a bit too extreme in your opinion about clothes. It really made me laught that sentence about that PSO characters looked more like they kill things for a living... Really? Guess I gotta go get new glasses then. I don't see where ANY Force class looked like they worked on killing things, in fact they would fit more in a circus than in an assassin guild, lol. Same with RAcaseal, what part of the nurse looks is supposed to give the feeling of an assassin? It doesn't even make sense as itself, because as being a CAST she couldn't use support TECHs, so tell me what other part of the nurse outfit has anything to do with ranger weapons.

I understand that you don't like PSU outfits (as a matter of fact, I don't like most of the combinations, but I like even less PSO ones. Maybe FOnewearl for the lulz and RAcast for the badass mecha look, but the rest... meh), but please don't glorify and srtate PSO as if it was the objectively best because not everybody thinks the same.

Finally, I do like PSU super flashy acrobatic moves sometimes. I don't understand what part of them doesn't make sense in your mind when in the same game people can shoot fireballs, but, oh well. PSO moves were really boring, at least that was the thing that got me tired from the game the first, always the same 3 moves no matter what kind of attack were you using. I would like if the new game featured a way to make normal moves to be useful compared to PAs or whatever they make in their place, and I do like more conventional moves, but I also think "flashy acrobatics" make sense in a way. While most basic moves should involve very little "special moves", the mastery of photon-energy infused attacks should make moves become more and more "magical" and superhuman, that's what I believe.

Niloklives
Feb 4, 2011, 06:38 AM
I always though the RAcaseal looked more like a maid than a nurse.

Anyway I'm not sure what to expect from the game. Too many things I'd like to see changed and not sure what I'd like to keep. I agree though. PSO as amazing as it was when it first came out (one of the first games I got for my DC, got it day one for GCN and still play BB from time to time.) It's extremely dated and there's very little I can say we should keep. Ultimately the combat is fairly refined as of PS:P2. being able to block and roll whole not being able to spam PAs made for a fair, fast paced system that required far more effort than either PSO or PSU. I think normals still need to be a bit more powerful though. easier to stagger smaller enemies, more than 3 hits in a combo as you level your class? I dunno...I think PSP2's combat further refined, better balanced for race/class and with a way to tab through PAs would be about as good as it gets.

As for the costumes...I'm sick of them taking up inventory spots. they should be classified the same way as meseta and not count towards your total...I mean you're freaking wearing them. I think combat and lobby outfits are a good idea, but sometimes it really is nice to be able to just goof around and kill stuff in a towel and a cowboy hat. With that in mind, it might be a good idea to have it so you can have two sets of clothing, and if you don't define your combat gear, you enter missions in your lobby outfit, or you can toggle sets on and off from a menu you can only access in a lobby or in you room. You can gripe about it all you want, but it's a game. we should be able to have a little freedom. it's a game, not a job.

That said I think the clothing options are horrid. PSU, AOTI, PSP, PSP2...out of everything you had to pick from I think I found only 2-3 outfits per character that looked good if that. My caseal really only had one outfit cause all the others looked either too bulky, too skanky or both. nothing looked like the kind of thing an actual trained warrior might wear - particularly for melee combat, and being stuck to 2 colors like that, I felt incredibly confined.

Honestly, maybe I'm just too picky, but I was very disappointed with the wardrobe options. I'm the type of person who likes to dress my characters to fit a persona, and that was next to impossible. in fact no one I knew was satisfied with the clothing options in these games.

Lastly I would like a few more options for character customization...really just a way of refining shape and facial features just a tad. nothing too extreme cause I swear if I see something with 50 sliders for the face like demon's souls or White Knight Chronicles, I'm gonna hit random 5-10 times and say to hell with it.

Darki
Feb 4, 2011, 07:22 AM
Clothes could be items that are in your inventory as they're now, but once equipped they wouldn't appear in the inventory, much like disks that you can have there but once you learn them they dissapear.

But, talking again about clothes, I'd like to see more clothing slot options. Not only the "top", "bottom", "shoes" but also something like headgear, arms (for gloves, shields, protectors, etc), and maybe different kinds of accesories. And they could stop making "one pieces". I admit that some outfits like those PSU cowboy pants that have the boots as far as over the knees is understandable, but I dunno why I can't pick the boots of my Hanauara bottoms and use them with any other outfit.

Zyrusticae
Feb 4, 2011, 11:11 AM
But anyways, I do like that the game features more than one planet. It was said that there would be a lot, at least 6, so I'm really happy with that.
Lolwut?

Honestly, this is absurd. A single planet can provide more than enough environmental variety for a single game. This whole thing where a planet has nothing but temperate (and some ice) zones, nothing but desert zones, and nothing but jungle zones is completely, utterly silly. There is zero reason all of this variety can't exist on a single planet, and it makes more sense from a transportation logistics point of view, too.

If they DO go with more than one planet, I hope each planet has more than a single biome to explore. Goodness, do I hope...

Darki
Feb 4, 2011, 01:54 PM
Well, not that Ragol had that much of environment...

If they make it well I don't see why not having more than one planet. Also, I understand your point of a planet having more than one environment, but it would also be boring if we had six rainforests, six deserts, six poles and six mountain templates (I say 6 as an example, I didn't count how many little circles were in the title art but I read somewhere that the number was at least 6). That would stink as model reuse and I doubt you would like to see that.

And it makes sense that there are planets like the ones in PSU because of a simple matter. Not being smartass, but if Earth were closer to the sun to rise the temperature a few more degrees, we would be like in Moatoob, and if a planet has as much water surface as Neudaiz, it's not that difficult to see that planet as a jingle in the earth areas. Parum... Well, that planet sounds more like climatic control, maybe.

I'm not justifying that, is true that PSU could use more scenarios (as far as I know, we will have many new ones after they kick off the PS2 from it) but this is a game about planets, spaceships and lightsabers, damnit, I want more planets. Would you like Star Wars if all the action were in a single freaking planet? I doubt it.

In my opinion, they could play with two or three different environments for each planet, and then some different scenarios for each. Pick a "normal planet" and there could be forest, mountains, beach, cities, etc. For a Neudaiz-like planet they could do something I dunno why they didn't already, which are subaquatic areas (if a shield can protect me from a Bil de Vear smashing me to an omelette in a single blow why couldn't it keep me safe from drowning), beach, rainforests. There could be a desert like planet like Moatoob, with its desert, caves, mines, poles, and even volcanoes.

There could be the direct opposite: a frozen planet with polar scenarios, aquatic areas too, and maybe some warm, hot spring areas. Ther could be even a dead planet like our Moon, where everything is artificial and the action occurs in the complexes of some sort of spacial colony. And finally, they could explore a bit further the idea of PSO Ruins and PSU Rycross: they could make a full infected planet where all the ecosystem were taken over by the SEEd, D-cells or whatever they're called in the new game, and everything would be all creepy, purple and swarmed by bad ebil monsters (with their contaminated seas, infected forests and maybe some caves).

Dongra
Feb 4, 2011, 04:23 PM
PSO moves were really boring, at least that was the thing that got me tired from the game the first, always the same 3 moves no matter what kind of attack were you using.
Thank God PSU made that drastic jump from three moves to six moves or else its combat would have been boring. Seriously, I don't understand how you can criticize PSO's boring combat and not see the same faults in PSU. PSU's animations certainly were more pleasing to the eye since they were more fluid and smooth, but that's just the natural evolution in gaming. Overall, the combat in PSU wasn't much different from PSO. You have the same three animations for normal attacks and then you have the same three chain animation for every photon art, and there weren't any unique animations for races or classes. Once you find out which is the most overpowered Photon Art or the one you like the most then you'll be stuck spamming the same attacks over and over. The only difference is that you can button mash your combat animations instead of timing them and that you can change your "hard attack" animation when swapping out PA's, though I rarely saw people change PA's unless there was a new overpowered one or if they were a perfectionist that had to max level all the PA's and then end up using the broken one anyway. Notice I'm only pointing this out for PSU. I have never played the PSP games and I don't know how much the combat has improved, but everyone claims it's better so I'll just take their word for it.

Darki
Feb 4, 2011, 04:36 PM
Well, I don't know how people plays apart from me, but I tend to use actively at least 2~3 moves of every melee weapon I own. That makes normal 3 combos plus up to 9 more. I think that's much better than the same animation over and over and over for all three kinds of melee attacks in PSO. It's true that every character has the same moves in PSU unlike in PSO, but well, is not like you could magically transform your character from one to another... I mean that if you had a HUnewearl, she would have always the same moves. Yes, you could make more than one, of course, but would you make 8 different chars just to do melee with them? When I played PSO I was happy with just two fighters.

That still keeps PSU animations in much better consideration than PSO. But I'm not like some PSO drama queens all over this forum, the ideal is not PSU nor PSO, of course if they managed to make different combat animations depending on character's gender and class, AND make them also for PAs and special moves, that would be nice.

Dongra
Feb 4, 2011, 04:58 PM
The point I was trying to make is that not only was PSO's combat repetitive and boring but so was PSU's. Instead of repeating animations, it would be nice to see different animations when doing combos. Of course, it wouldn't be easy to make several animations and have the player blindly guess how their character would attack, but I could see it working if the animation differed based on timing or player position against a target. I wouldn't mind seeing a different saber strike if my character is behind the enemy in its blindspot but that might be asking for too much.

Darki
Feb 4, 2011, 06:46 PM
Well, I never found PSU combos boring. It might help that I never played master classes or locked myself in a single combo like many people do. I play with 3 fighter hybrids (WT, FiG and PT) and I pretty much use all existing melee weapons between those 3 (and some with my GT too). I assume that people who play only with a Fighmaster in the manner I've seen all the time (this is, Jabroga/Majarra/TB/SD) would of course get bored of it in not much time.

I find myself enjoying many skills that I've been using since day 1. It's true that some of them are already overused, but that's also because I like some more than others. That's natural, and I'm not even half the bored of them than as I was with PSO attack system when I stopped playing PSO (and I stopped very early, because there were games who attracted me much more than PSO before PSU came).

But anyways, that's of course a matter of tastes.

In any case, what I don't really see possible, I don't even see logic, is that there were skills, melee photon arts or whatever you wanna call them in the new game, different for every character. I mean, skills are supposed to be pre-learned attacks that serve a purpose. When you go to a dojo to learn karate, you learn the same moves as anybody else there, the ones the sensei learned before you. There could be more variation in normal attacks, that I believe it would make it more interesting, but I don't think that would work in PAs.

Something that would somehow refresh the attack system (inspired by the karate thing I just said), that I've seen in many games and that PS series could enjoy (but I doubt this idea would ever go to any PS developer), is the ability to chain different skills. In this new PSO2, skills could no longer be a three combo attack but a single combo. Instead of having 2~4 skills per melee weapons with 1~3 combos each, every skill would consist on a single move, a single "part" of a combo, and each weapon would have many, at least six, nine of even twelve of them. Then depending on the weapon, your class, your level or many other possible reasons, you would have a predefined "combo lenght", which would be the number of skills you would be able to chain in a row without stopping. If somebody has ever played Prince of Persia (not the Sands of Time ones, but the one of the guy with the blue and red scarf), that is an example of how could that go.

NoiseHERO
Feb 4, 2011, 11:05 PM
Maybe it could be like a mix between psu and pso battle system

Normal Attacks

Weak Attacks

and a new addition Speedy attacks

and each different attack would be more useful depending on your class and enemy, but instead slow choppy timing when you rotate between the attacks in your combos, It would be fluid and fast like PSU's.

the 3 different attack types would have different animations that would variate from the order you used it in. So if you start a combo with a strong hit it would have a slow start up, and maybe a leap. but if you end it with a strong hit, it would have a knockback finisher, or just do a full strong hit combo that'd be strong but entirely slow and easy to interrupt. Then a full speed combo would do weak hits but stun the enemies (and of course be effective for high critical rate classes.)

I'd leave the rest up to imagination.

Then after all those different combinations, instead of photon arts we'd get more combo extensions and then unlocks different finishers depending on the order you used you attacks. :0 (And them being offline games...)

Gunslingers can work the same way, maybe by changing the photon output of their attacks, with fancy gun trick finishers.

and mages can work like lost magic or something and have multiple spells you can mix together to make stronger ones.

Still... If every class has 20-30 different kinds of weapons, I don't know how all of that would cripple the rest of the game...seeing as how I got most of this Idea from final fantasy/kingdom hearts games where you're usually sticking to one weapon.

Zyrusticae
Feb 4, 2011, 11:30 PM
Or, they could look at other action games and actually implement variety that way, i.e. combo systems that use multiple attack buttons and charge attacks to create variety ala God of War, Ninja Gaiden, and the like.

Y'know, like how with only two attack buttons you can have combos like
A->A->B
But there's room for a lot more variety in there, such as
A->aB->B
A->B->B
A->(hold)B
B->(hold)A->(hold)A

Etc., etc. Using just this kind of input can produce huge variety in the available attacks and it isn't all that complicated, either. Hell, you could probably shoe-horn every single PA on a single weapon into this system and then some. Much more fun than spamming the same attack over and over and over again...

BIG OLAF
Feb 5, 2011, 01:30 AM
A->aB->B
A->B->B
A->(hold)B
B->(hold)A->(hold)A

Ugh, I hope they don't do stuff like that (the first example on the list). Slide inputs and other types of weird button combinations are one of the reasons I suck at fighting games. I wouldn't like it if they did a battle system based on those types of things, as I wouldn't be able to do it that well.

RemiusTA
Feb 5, 2011, 02:43 AM
Well, I dunno which game you play but in the PSU I have installed in my computer the Colony indeed orbits around Parum.

In all pictures about the colony Parum is seen much larger in the background while the other planets are seen very small, Parum is seen much larger than even the Earth is seen from the Moon, so we can assume that the Colony is not only a "satellite", but it's also as close as all our communication satellites at least. Any of our geostationary satellites can "crash" on Earth's surface in less than 24 hours. Also, our spaceships 50 years ago were able to go from the Earth to the Moon in around 3 days so I don't see why you talk about years... In every art and even in the title art where the three planets are featured is seen that they orbit their sun much like Venus, Earth and Mars (probably much closer to each other as they have not so different climatics, but is still possible). Maybe you should go a bit Wikipedia before "literally facepalm".

Well im definitely no astronomer or anything, but it's much easier to cover distance like that with acceleration. Our spaceships achieve really, really, really high speeds. I dont know the calculations or anything, but if the moon was to fall out of orbit at the speed it's currently going now, we would have plenty of time to react to it. (And by react i really just mean find a nice spot to watch it get bigger and bigger from.) Those guys though apparently have no problem obliterating a "planet-sized hive" so that colony would have been a piece of cake. I really dont remember the state Parum was in when this happened though. Yeah, it would have been nowhere close to years if it was that distance. I dont know why I said months or years -- i think i forgot to note that all the satellites are in free fall so they'll accelerate even if they weren't moving from the jump. Or either that i was typing thinking the colony was somewhere inbetween the planets. Wutevah. Anyway point still stands that unless the colony was within the path of the planet's orbit, it still would have taken about 3-5 days to collide from the MOON'S position.





I agree with the different casting-attacking and even battle stances depending on your class. I just see a bit too extreme in your opinion about clothes. It really made me laught that sentence about that PSO characters looked more like they kill things for a living... Really? Guess I gotta go get new glasses then. I don't see where ANY Force class looked like they worked on killing things, in fact they would fit more in a circus than in an assassin guild, lol. Same with RAcaseal, what part of the nurse looks is supposed to give the feeling of an assassin? It doesn't even make sense as itself, because as being a CAST she couldn't use support TECHs, so tell me what other part of the nurse outfit has anything to do with ranger weapons.


It's less the clothing itself and more the atmosphere the game attained with the artstyle. It had less of this "o man i gotta wake up n SAVE THIS WORLD" feeling to it. As retarded as the outfits may have looked, i never had an issue with them. Except for the Fonewms. I honestly never cared for their outfits much. I guess this is an unfair comparison, but look at the art on the cards in PSOEpIII. They gave a different feeling for the effects of the battles they partook in. PSU had cutscenes, but nothing really truly felt dangerous in that game. Which is why when the Divine Maiden died, i actually kind of had my jaw dropped starting at my television. Not at the fact she died, but more at way she died. The only time you could really see what the weapons did to people is when Ethan shanked Magashi at the end of the game. Of course drawn art and in-game cutscenes cant really be compared, but it doesn't take a critical analysis to know that PSO just had a much darker feel than PSU, even in PSU's most dramatic plot points. Not to say PSO was a "DARK" game. It was just dark...er.




I understand that you don't like PSU outfits (as a matter of fact, I don't like most of the combinations, but I like even less PSO ones. Maybe FOnewearl for the lulz and RAcast for the badass mecha look, but the rest... meh), but please don't glorify and srtate PSO as if it was the objectively best because not everybody thinks the same.

I dont know how many times i stated that i do not dislike the outfits in PSU. What i DONT like are the outfits in PSP2/i. The fashion aspect of PSU was actually a really, really neat idea, and i enjoyed it alot. But like i explained before, this really has much less to do with the outfits and more to do with the atmosphere of the game in general. Outfits help with this, but it really doesn't make much of a difference. PSU was obviously going for a more upbeat, mainstream anime feeling to the storyline. It was purposefully made that way.

....Look, ill explain this the easiest way i know how:

PSU ->[SPOILER-BOX]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBC433ZKjHU[/SPOILER-BOX]

PSP2
[SPOILER-BOX]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2FA90us1N0&feature=related[/SPOILER-BOX]

PSP2i
[SPOILER-BOX]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O39MaNbxxlg&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-7-HM[/SPOILER-BOX]

PSU early production (retained that old PSO feeling) ->
[SPOILER-BOX]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qchDkrStK30&feature=related[/SPOILER-BOX]

The concept of "mortality" is much more evident in this trailer than almost ANYTHING that made it to ANY of the final PSU/PSP titles. It isn't "DARK", but even in its high-fantasy setting, it's undeniably easier to relate to "what it would be like if it was real." Everything about that trailer is on a more "serious" level than anything in PSU, from the way the Magic / Photon Weapons are demonstrated, to the way the characters look, definitely in the music (farcry from what PSU adopted), and even to the environments. Ryukros is shown in that trailer, but instead of looking like a cheezy Clam planet with an eye in the middle, its a dark pulsing sphere.


PSO was the best? Definitely not; i never said nor suggested any such thing. It did, however, fit my tastes a bit more, mainly because it was unique. The new Phantasy Star that we're getting used to is getting closer and closer to mainstream anime trash than ever. The scary thing is...i think thats what they're aiming for...Regardless, PSO had a style that only the old Sonic Team was able to accomplish. Can NOT say the same for PSP2/PSZ.




Finally, I do like PSU super flashy acrobatic moves sometimes. I don't understand what part of them doesn't make sense in your mind when in the same game people can shoot fireballs, but, oh well. PSO moves were really boring, at least that was the thing that got me tired from the game the first, always the same 3 moves no matter what kind of attack were you using. I would like if the new game featured a way to make normal moves to be useful compared to PAs or whatever they make in their place, and I do like more conventional moves, but I also think "flashy acrobatics" make sense in a way. While most basic moves should involve very little "special moves", the mastery of photon-energy infused attacks should make moves become more and more "magical" and superhuman, that's what I believe.


The argument of "they shoot fireballs so they might as well be able to defy gravity and jump over buildings" really doesn't make sense...nor does it really ever. People always try that when discussing the physics of a fictional world; just because the world isnt real doesn't mean that they should be able to do anything in the story and have it make sense...unless the writers are trash. PSU is alot more lenient when it comes to things like that, with the whole multidimensional nanospace bullshit they like to pull to explain ridiculous plot devices. When you create a world, and it ISN'T Looney Toons, there are generally a set of rules that accompany it. I dont have an issue with over the top attacks in PSU, but for PSO2 i would enjoy it alot if they would stick to more realistic battle animations. You dont need to jump off invisible walls, tunnel underground, or swim through the air like a dipshit in order for a move to look cool, powerful, or to be effective. I enjoyed all the attacks in PSU alot (minus the swimmy air dipshit one), but i find that the most simple looking ones happen to be my favorites. Also, for a matter of GAMEPLAY, i think the moves should be kept simple to keep the function of the weapons intact. Of course, im not saying they cant do this and have flashy acrobatics at the same time -- they most certainly can! But this isn't Phantasy Star Universe, and i pray to GOD it isn't Phantasy Star Portable 2/2i. What i mean is, i would enjoy it if Rifles were long-ranged weapons and not grenade launchers, that slicers were slicers and not rifles, and that Rafoie was Rafoie and not a Grenade Shot. Get what im saying?



The basicness of the attacks in PSO never got to me. In many ways, it was one of PSO's greatest aspects. IMO, the system they used (customization) was a pretty genius and innovative idea for handling combat on the game. It was simple, yet very versatile. With this being PSO2, i would love to see them take that concept and apply "photon arts" to it in a different way. Perhaps instead of "Weak, Hard, Extra" for Melee weapons, you could have "Normal, Power, Speed, Magic" or something. Different Rare or Unique Weapons (i.e. Speed Gigush vs. Power Gigush vs. Flame Gigush) could allow you to use them instead of having to equip a Photon Art.



Anyway, just because you have Combat in a videogame does not mean it has to include blocking, dodge rolling, perfect shielding, air combos and flashy finishing moves. Im really praying that PSO2 is it's own game and not just a further inbreed of PSU and PSP2i. Im sick and tired of these games feeding off eachother. I miss games like PSO that were complex in depth yet surprisingly simple when you grasped everything. And best of all, still fun. The closer "Phantasy Star" tries to get to "DMC", "God of War", "Ninja Gaiden" and "Halo", the closer they're getting to a mediocre videogame. I hate buying a game and immediately being able to draw CLEAR parallels between what it was trying to copy. (New Castlevania game? Shamelessly tried to be God of War. Failed.)

RenzokukenZ
Feb 5, 2011, 03:00 AM
Anyway, just because you have Combat in a videogame does not mean it has to include blocking, dodge rolling, perfect shielding, air combos and flashy finishing moves.

I knew someone was going to bitch about this eventually.

landman
Feb 5, 2011, 05:04 AM
And it makes sense that there are planets like the ones in PSU because of a simple matter. Not being smartass, but if Earth were closer to the sun to rise the temperature a few more degrees, we would be like in Moatoob, and if a planet has as much water surface as Neudaiz, it's not that difficult to see that planet as a jingle in the earth areas. Parum... Well, that planet sounds more like climatic control, maybe.
If you are talking about Moatoob, it has huge frozen polar caps, and know something more? a jungle in the equator.

About the Guardians Colony, what Darky says it's true, stationary satelites are very close to the surface, that's how Parum is seen from the Colony, and Ragol was seen from the Pioneer 2 (install Celestia, visualize orbits, and see). I don't even know if hives were orbiting any of the planets or if they were remote stations orbiting Gurhal.


But about Gurhal system, it's not physically possible, the planets are too close, you see each other planet from the planet surface, and they look the size of the moon from earth, each planet gravity should have affected them long time ago.

RenzokukenZ
Feb 5, 2011, 05:16 AM
That's because it's a game. It's not going to take every single drop of reality into it, so it's one of those things where you just look past it. Might as well say how you swing a sword or axe at something and they haven't been sliced in half, or shoot something in the head point-blank and it doesn't die. It's all a game. A work of fiction. Somethings will play by real laws, and other things won't. Leave it at that.

Wayu
Feb 5, 2011, 06:02 AM
A few points I'd like to bring up again.

1) This isn't PSO, it's PSO2.
2) This isn't PSU, it's PSO2.
3) That being said, PSU is newer than PSO. People like new stuff, unless you're above the age of 40.
4) This is a game, not reality.
5) It's Sega, and Sega is a Japanese company. Thus, weirdness must ensue somewhere.

-Wayu

RemiusTA
Feb 5, 2011, 05:09 PM
A few points I'd like to bring up again.

1) This isn't PSO, it's PSO2.
2) This isn't PSU, it's PSO2.
3) That being said, PSU is newer than PSO. People like new stuff, unless you're above the age of 40.
4) This is a game, not reality.
5) It's Sega, and Sega is a Japanese company. Thus, weirdness must ensue somewhere.

-Wayu

1&2) When they announced PSU to proceed PSO, they never called it PSO2 (which they definitely were considering, according to the first E3 trailer). PSU is apparently carrying the storyline of PSO, which is being made even more obvious thanks to the fanservice of Portable 2, which has gone so far as to even begin to incorporate PSO into the canon storyline of the game.

If they wanted to create a new Phantasy Star title and NOT expect us to think it would be similar to PSO, they wouldn't have named it PSO2. So, null point there. Unless they're trying to pull another Sonic 4 on us, where the only thing similar to the original title is the name. Safe to say they've learned their lesson, since the fans tore Sega's asshole apart for doing that. Lets pray they have, anyway, or this game is going to be terribly disappointing.

3) People like fun stuff. If you have to change it up to keep it fresh and fun, then by all means do so. But don't attempt to go from apples to lemonade; it doesn't work. If they went as far to name it after PSO, then they KNOW what we're expecting them to do.

4) Yeah, i know. But it's still fun to talk about. Even if the colony was a satellite of Parum, the planets were WWAAAYYYY too close to eachother. The moon is barely over 1/4th the size of the earth, and even at that distance we still get easily noticeable tidal effects. They would have been collided with eachother / had some serious tidal phenomenon going on a long time ago. The system would have probably never existed....except for maybe one huge planet. But then it'd be a completely different kind of situation....yeah lets just leave this alone.

5) True.

But you know, i dont think it always used to be like that. Am I just mistaken? I used to enjoy Japanese stuff because it was unique. Nowadays, it just seems like they're trying way too hard. I dont know what context you're applying the Japanese weirdness to, though. If it's to the nature of the Gurhal System then its more than acceptable, but if it's about the new retarded direction PSP2i is taking the fashion then i'd have to disagree with you.

Arkios
Feb 5, 2011, 05:48 PM
I really don't understand why so many people jump on this whole "customization of your character" bandwagon. It's possibly the stupidest thing I have seen in MMOs/RPGs lately.

Especially when it comes down to things like: "Eye color", "Hair highlights", "Shape of face", "Shape of ears", etc.

All of these options are garbage and a pointless waste of space.

You spend 90%+ of the game looking at the back side of your character. You cannot even see any of these subtle changes unless you specifically open your character sheet and look specifically for those changes.

AlexCraig
Feb 5, 2011, 05:55 PM
A lot of people like to make their character unique.

BIG OLAF
Feb 5, 2011, 06:05 PM
I really don't understand why so many people jump on this whole "customization of your character" bandwagon. It's possibly the stupidest thing I have seen in MMOs/RPGs lately.

Especially when it comes down to things like: "Eye color", "Hair highlights", "Shape of face", "Shape of ears", etc.

All of these options are garbage and a pointless waste of space.

You spend 90%+ of the game looking at the back side of your character. You cannot even see any of these subtle changes unless you specifically open your character sheet and look specifically for those changes.

^
Wow, this guy. Probably the most unintelligent post I've seen in a while. Hey, if you want to look like every other Joe Blow in existence, be my (and everyone else's) guest. Character customization isn't a "bandwagon" thing, either. I don't even know why the hell you would say that, as it's a staple in modern gaming, not just RPGs. Even FPSs like Halo have customization nowadays. If you don't like it, you can keep your character in the crappy default outfits in every game you play. We won't stop you, but we'll have our fun getting new, cooler looks and clothing.

Arkios
Feb 5, 2011, 06:07 PM
A lot of people like to make their character unique.

I understand that, but this can be achieved by allowing items obtained in-game to be visible on your character.

World of Warcraft allows you to change like 5 things on your character at creation. Last time I checked, it's been pretty successful without ever adding 5,000 different customization options.

Arkios
Feb 5, 2011, 06:09 PM
^
Wow, this guy. Probably the most unintelligent post I've seen in a while. Hey, if you want to look like every other Joe Blow in existence, be my (and everyone else's) guest. Character customization isn't a "bandwagon" thing, either. I don't even know why the hell you would say that, as it's a staple in modern gaming, not just RPGs. Even FPSs like Halo have customization nowadays. If you don't like it, you can keep your character in the crappy default outfits in every game you play. We won't stop you, but we'll have our fun getting new, cooler looks and clothing.

I never said that, I said the subtle changes are stupid.

Allowing for a large amount of costumes makes sense, different hair color and styles makes sense as well.

I find it appealing to earn my aesthetic changes by performing in-game tasks, rather than rattle through 50 different stupid character creation menus in the beginning.

DoubleJG
Feb 5, 2011, 06:33 PM
The Phantasy Star games have always given me the best customizable experience, minus Phantasy Star Zero.

Seth Astra
Feb 5, 2011, 06:53 PM
I honestly love having the massive selection of options for character creation, and making my character look JUST right.

Also, as I have said too many times before:

I outright dispise the idea of armor or such changing how I look. I don't want to have to look one way, just to have the best DFP/EVP/whatever.

EspioKaos
Feb 5, 2011, 07:03 PM
http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2011/02/110206c.html

A few more bits of info from the Nationwide Fan Thanks Festival 2011 that was held yesterday in Japan. This info comes from a brochure that was handed out at the event.

* Even though PSO2 will not take place on Ragol, there will still be ties to the planet.
* Field BGM will change as enemies appear and are defeated, just as it did in PSO and PSZ.

Seth Astra
Feb 5, 2011, 07:13 PM
I like, and I like.

Sinue_v2
Feb 5, 2011, 07:43 PM
I really don't understand why so many people jump on this whole "customization of your character" bandwagon. It's possibly the stupidest thing I have seen in MMOs/RPGs lately.

Especially when it comes down to things like: "Eye color", "Hair highlights", "Shape of face", "Shape of ears", etc.

All of these options are garbage and a pointless waste of space.

You spend 90%+ of the game looking at the back side of your character. You cannot even see any of these subtle changes unless you specifically open your character sheet and look specifically for those changes.

Cut-In Chat makes a pretty damned good reason why you should be able to tweak facial details. C-IC in and of itself is not that necessary, but since it is in the game, having everyone's face look like the same handful of variants each time it's activated would be annoying and ugly. Now, I don't remember ever having to open a character sheet to view my PSU character's model in detail, but I have little issue distinguishing the finer tweaks to my characters models in-game... especially during storyline cut-scenes and mission briefings. If you can't distinguish any details likewise, then you should probably think about getting a TV that was made sometime in the last decade.

And you spend 99.99999% of the game actually playing, with .0000001% of your time creating your character. Are the options (of which you could easily just accept the defaults and move on) really that much of a hassle? Most of the items you listed don't take up any extra space, because they're just deformations to a mesh or variable integers on a color code/scale. It's not like new meshes or textures have to be created and stored for each individual variation. So space isn't an issue either.

So do you actually have a valid criticism of customization, or are you just being critical for the fun of it? The only thing you've said thus far which makes any kind of sense is having progression based gear/appearance modifiers... and that still doesn't negate having customization options as well.

Seth Astra
Feb 5, 2011, 07:47 PM
And you spend 99.99999% of the game actually playing, with .0000001% of your time creating your character. Are the options (of which you could easily just accept the defaults and move on) really that much of a hassle?
Quoted for truth.

Wayu
Feb 5, 2011, 07:53 PM
Well, whatever. It seems PSO purists still want to adamantly attack everything that isn't PSO, so I'll step out.

-Wayu

Sinue_v2
Feb 5, 2011, 08:04 PM
Well, whatever. It seems PSO purists still want to adamantly attack everything that isn't PSO, so I'll step out.

-Wayu

If that's the case, you might want to step out of pretty much all the conversations from here on, because it's not going to get any better over time. As more and more PSO veterans hear about PSO2 and stop by to check out the news, you're probably going to see a lot more PSO purism (and venom for PSU).

Just saying, it's a little early to start letting it get to you.

RenzokukenZ
Feb 5, 2011, 09:11 PM
And it will start getting heavier, what with the new info about PSO2 having some connection to PSO (which was never confirmed until now)

BIG OLAF
Feb 5, 2011, 10:21 PM
And it will start getting heavier, what with the new info about PSO2 having some connection to PSO (which was never confirmed until now)

Yup, as Sinue pointed out, it'll keep getting worse and worse. That is, until (hopefully) some screenshots and gameplay is released and reveals that PSO2 is (again, hopefully) nothing like PSO. Then maybe they'll all slither back into their holes. Fingers crossed.

RenzokukenZ
Feb 5, 2011, 10:39 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the purists actually cry and become depressed if the game turns out be nowhere near like PSO.

"Alright, screenshots of PSO2 gameplay! Yeah...wait, what? No more simple attacks? No direct link to Ragol? CUSTOMIZATION??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

FOkyasuta
Feb 5, 2011, 10:46 PM
Change is good sometimes. Not all the time though. I'm sure you've seen some examples. *Cough* New sonic *Cough*

RemiusTA
Feb 5, 2011, 11:51 PM
Well, whatever. It seems PSO purists still want to adamantly attack everything that isn't PSO, so I'll step out.

-Wayu

Yeah lets complain about wanting PSO things in a game titled "PSO2".

There's nothing wrong with enjoying the greater aspects of PSO over the PSU aspects. They both do things better than the other. In the long run, however, PSO seems to still be the more memorable of the network series.


I understand that, but this can be achieved by allowing items obtained in-game to be visible on your character.

World of Warcraft allows you to change like 5 things on your character at creation. Last time I checked, it's been pretty successful without ever adding 5,000 different customization options.

....Are you seriously trying to attack the depth of the customization feature in PSU? Of all things to complain about? Seriously? So you're saying we should just go back to PSO's texture-swap outfits? Or perhaps give everyone 4 different face/hair/skin choices to choose from and identical body frames like in World of Warcraft?

We're trying to move Forward here.


Anyway back to the PSO purists, yeah they're annoying but in a way you really can't blame their position. PSU seems to have "improved" upon everything PSO accomplished....but when you take a step backwards and look at the end result, it's never really done all that much better than PSO did. Where PSU has exceeded PSO in many technical senses, PSO still is eons away from PSU in terms of artistic quality and presentation. PSU doesn't have any true lead in PSO when it comes to things "done right" in my opinion.

I personally want a game that is more true to PSO's gameplay pacing, but innovates the system and incorporates the finer points from PSU. Nobody should want a rehash. Those are lame.

Shou
Feb 6, 2011, 12:09 AM
The more customization, the better. However, I would like there to be some clothes class and/or race only. Things like formalwear of a swimsuit can be universal though. :)

I don't like seeing fomars using axes and wand-wielding little forces wearing giant heavy armor.

RemiusTA
Feb 6, 2011, 12:16 AM
With the customization PSU employed, yes; Class-specific clothing choices seem like a much better choice. There is no reason any race aside from Casts shouldn't be able to wear the other's clothing. They have almost identical anatomy.

Darki
Feb 6, 2011, 12:47 AM
On a side nore about the new info... I see what Wayu said about PSO drama queens getting more and more active, but wasn't there also a supposed storyline link between PSU and PSO through PSPo2i? Or that was a false rumor/discarded idea?

Because if that's the case (and I'd love it, I love in-deep storylines), then the game would have from both, I guess,

NoiseHERO
Feb 6, 2011, 12:54 AM
Er, I dunno if you see this word a lot on PSOW but,

I think Arkios is just trolling... with all of that insane exaggerated must be a PSO clone talk. o_o

DarK-SuN
Feb 6, 2011, 01:16 AM
I think a lot of people need to re-review the translated bulletpoints from the PSO2 teaser trailer.
Photon Arts are in according to it and even more customization options are in also according to it.
I think some people should start to get the mental image that PSO2 is going to be more like a PSU2 with PSO elements (or PSP2 Infinity 2 even since it already borrows a lot from PSO) than a PSO2, or there will be many many disappointed fanboys around these parts.

PSO was amazing, a great game, I started with the Japanese PSOv1 and kept on going through every single version the game had to offer from multiple regions.
It's, however, dated, gameplay wise, even though several aspects of it (alas, not directly gameplay related but design flow related) are still applicable to this day, which both PSP2 and PSP2 Infinity are showing even though it's still a PSU core gameplay mechanic.

Don't stifle progress, PSO fanboys: just hope the game becomes the best it can be and as enjoyable (if not more) as your golden memories, not that it's exactly the same game that was released 10 years ago.

Bottom line: I'm more excited about PSO2 the more I hear about it, I really want it to succeed!

Darki
Feb 6, 2011, 01:39 AM
Don't stifle progress, PSO fanboys: just hope the game becomes the best it can be and as enjoyable (if not more) as your golden memories, not that it's exactly the same game that was released 10 years ago.

That is the point of all my dislike for PSO drama queens. I suppose in the inner core of any of their thoughs come the assumption that SEGAC won't be able to make a better game than PSO seeing how glorigied they have the game, so they "at least" with the game is PSO.

I have to say that I'm not trusting that either, I would love PSO2 to be a revolutionary game that has the best of both and not only that, but that improved those best features. Sadly, I doubt SEGA will do something right for a long term. I'm sure they'll fuck it up somehow because they have been doing that for the last years.

My real hope is that the game is heavily influenced by PSP series and their developers, who seem to have brains in their skulls and not mud llike ST.

Corey Blue
Feb 6, 2011, 01:41 AM
I think a lot of people need to re-review the translated bulletpoints from the PSO2 teaser trailer.
Photon Arts are in according to it and even more customization options are in also according to it.
I think some people should start to get the mental image that PSO2 is going to be more like a PSU2 with PSO elements (or PSP2 Infinity 2 even since it already borrows a lot from PSO) than a PSO2, or there will be many many disappointed fanboys around these parts.

PSO was amazing, a great game, I started with the Japanese PSOv1 and kept on going through every single version the game had to offer from multiple regions.
It's, however, dated, gameplay wise, even though several aspects of it (alas, not directly gameplay related but design flow related) are still applicable to this day, which both PSP2 and PSP2 Infinity are showing even though it's still a PSU core gameplay mechanic.

Don't stifle progress, PSO fanboys: just hope the game becomes the best it can be and as enjoyable (if not more) as your golden memories, not that it's exactly the same game that was released 10 years ago.

Bottom line: I'm more excited about PSO2 the more I hear about it, I really want it to succeed!
This right here,and yeah I'm a PSO fan boy and anti PSU,but the game doesn't have to be all like PSO,and I personally think it's impossible to get that feeling back again,but I dont want it to be another shitty PSU clone either,or PSO clone,but they can bring the magic back then sure,the game got my subscription.(I pray to god they don't have those shitty empty levels,horrible,horrible idea.)

Arkios
Feb 6, 2011, 02:01 AM
....Are you seriously trying to attack the depth of the customization feature in PSU? Of all things to complain about? Seriously? So you're saying we should just go back to PSO's texture-swap outfits? Or perhaps give everyone 4 different face/hair/skin choices to choose from and identical body frames like in World of Warcraft?

We're trying to move Forward here.

Once again, I never said anything at all about "reverting" back to the texture swap outfits from PSO. What I don't like is the massive amount of development time that goes into creating new "outfits" and the other ridiculous amount of subtle things that people can customize.

You cannot tell me that all these features are simple and not a problem at all for developers to incorporate. If that were the case these features would have been available eons ago.

When character customization is done right, it's pretty cool. (See DC Universe Online) I, like everyone else, like to be "unique" somewhat. However I don't need to be able to adjust the size and shape of the eye brows on my character in order to feel "unique". My complaint is that it feels like an excessive amount of focus is/has been placed on "Character Customization" and as far as I'm concerned, this is a cancer that is killing RPGs and MMOs right now.

Seth Astra
Feb 6, 2011, 02:09 AM
As was said earlier, if you don't like dealing with that, then just skip the options and go with the defaults. Problem solved.

Arkios
Feb 6, 2011, 02:17 AM
As was said earlier, if you don't like dealing with that, then just skip the options and go with the defaults. Problem solved.

Problem not solved. My complaint ONCE AGAIN is that these features suck up development time which could have been better spent adding different features to the game.

RenzokukenZ
Feb 6, 2011, 02:27 AM
So in other words, you prefer for SEGA to not go deep with customization as with PSU/PSP in order to 'spend more time on other features', which would then mean that we would be stuck with the same pallette swaps from PSO to go by as a means of a low production customization feature.

Which you said wasn't your point. All I hear is "Not too much or none at all" which falls in the middle line of...PSO.

Seth Astra
Feb 6, 2011, 02:32 AM
Also: They already developed all that for PSU and such. I don't claim to understand game progaming and stuff too well, but they could probably use large chunks of that engine for character customization, thus satisfying Arkios's demands, while still providing a wide range of customization.

Arkios
Feb 6, 2011, 03:26 AM
So in other words, you prefer for SEGA to not go deep with customization as with PSU/PSP in order to 'spend more time on other features', which would then mean that we would be stuck with the same pallette swaps from PSO to go by as a means of a low production customization feature.

Which you said wasn't your point. All I hear is "Not too much or none at all" which falls in the middle line of...PSO.

/facepalm

PSO = Not enough customization
PSU = Too much customization

My point was to find a middle ground, rather than try to provide even MORE customization than what was offered in PSU.

inb4 more twisted logic claiming I'm a "PSO Purist".

Seth Astra
Feb 6, 2011, 03:32 AM
Or, here's a really shocking idea: Why not just extend the development time to include more customization?

Sinue_v2
Feb 6, 2011, 06:32 AM
Or, here's a really shocking idea: Why not just extend the development time to include more customization?

Yeah, they're probably going to end up delaying it several times over anyhow, like usual. Or they could also just hire on a few artists/modelers temporarily from another project that's in a earlier/later stage of development where they're not needed. They could even outsource to another Sega studio or third party company. It's not like they aren't going to be making bank on monthly fees anyhow to cover the (relatively) minor budget extension... especially if it's to bolster the content for a feature which was one of the areas of near universal praise for PSU.


Arkios, I don't think game development cycles are the neat little zero sum "take a little here to add a little there" endeavors your argument makes them out to be. Especially not when it comes to inert bling and baubles that have no effect on game play mechanics... and which don't require numerous subsequent play testing sessions to tweak and modify how it effects the game the way spawns, weapons, job/race stats, even environments do.


Er, I dunno if you see this word a lot on PSOW but,

I think Arkios is just trolling... with all of that insane exaggerated must be a PSO clone talk. o_o

Probably, and I think I hinted at that, but it's not like there's people out there who aren't seriously arguing his point. It's not even that absurd of a position when you think about other kinds of topics people take seriously. I've seen enough stupid shit posted, and posted enough stupid shit myself, to pretty much just apply POE's Law to everything carte blanche.

Parody, sincerity, and trolling are pretty much indistinguishable on the web at this point.

Kierto
Feb 6, 2011, 06:37 PM
Going along with the whole tidbits thing, a few more things confirmed via WBMike and his nifty blog (http://bumped.org/psublog/). Didn't see them being bathed in bitter tears in this section yet..


2ch ID: ScEatT4J gives us some small tidbits of PSO2 which were outlined in P-SPEC Fanzine

260 :名無しオンライン :2011/02/06(日) 02:05:16 ID:ScEatT4J

P-SPECに書いてある酒井の話の要点を教えてやる
敵の総称はPSU以降モンスターだったがエネミーに戻そうと思ってる
Enemies in PSU were given the term, “Monster,” we’re considering restoring [the term] “Enemy”.

お前らには冒険を味わってもらいたいから舞台は知りすぎたラグオルじゃない、どっかでラグオルと繋がってる 世界だがな
Because I want you to taste [new] adventure, the stage is not set in Ragol which you are already too familiar with. Although, somewhere in this world, there may be a connection to Ragol.

戦闘に入るとBGM変わる
When entering battle, the BGM changes.

Dynamic music, huzzah.

Corey Blue
Feb 6, 2011, 07:15 PM
Going along with the whole tidbits thing, a few more things confirmed via WBMike and his nifty blog (http://bumped.org/psublog/). Didn't see them being bathed in bitter tears in this section yet..



Dynamic music, huzzah.

A step in the right direction.Lets see if they get the art right now.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Feb 6, 2011, 07:52 PM
Re: customization chat:


If customization monopolizes development time and resources to such an extent that other areas of the game suffer, then yes, it is bad.

However, that alone is not reason to wish for fewer options. For many people, customization is an extremely large portion of the appeal of a game like this. Does it ultimately add anything to the gameplay experience? Maybe not for you, but it's a make-or-break issue for a lot of people.


It's like I said earlier here or in another thread:

Balance > customization > everything else.

Shou
Feb 6, 2011, 07:54 PM
Oh Fuck yeah. Who else is up for reorchestrated pso music? And pleanty of new music only sega can deliver. :)

Corey Blue
Feb 6, 2011, 07:59 PM
Oh Fuck yeah. Who else is up for reorchestrated pso music? And pleanty of new music only sega can deliver. :)

Hope they can keep it up,I want to see the first concept art so bad.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Feb 6, 2011, 09:13 PM
Oh, yeah, the multiple tracks changing in combat thing is good to see back. It's by no means a dealbreaker were it not present, but it is a nice touch.

While redone PSO music would be fine, and this series has a tradition of remixing previous games' tracks, I'd like to see a lot of creative originals too. PSU's music is not bad, barring a few exceptions (fucking HIVE BGM).

Shou
Feb 6, 2011, 09:25 PM
I get nerdgasms thinking about it.

FOkyasuta
Feb 6, 2011, 09:34 PM
I get nerdgasms thinking about it.

^
That my friend, Is true. It might even cause tears ya?

Zyrusticae
Feb 7, 2011, 01:12 AM
I am loling that someone is seriously arguing for less customization. I did not think it possible, but I guess I am simply narrow-minded in that regard.

At any rate, customization, as said, requires less development time than new abilities, levels, races, or gameplay types, and also requires almost exclusively a programmer or two and a team of artists, resources that are hardly going to sap from the rest of the game's development.

Hell, Aion and Champions Online both have some of the most ridiculous character customization in the business, and you know what? The games don't suffer for it. (They DO suffer from design snafus that have little-to-nothing to do with the art, however.)

NoiseHERO
Feb 7, 2011, 03:19 AM
I hope daft punk is making the sound track...

That is all...

LOL but seriously

Sonic unleashed and Sonic colors didn't have a bad soundtrack, as long as it's better than psz and psu, I don't mind a pso influence...but psz seemed pso influenced in the wrong way...and I definitely like the techy sound...but psu did THAT in the wrong way... Just give me some epic tracks that I can remember, and some tracks that would actually want to make me want to run up and rave kick an in the face.

Apparently psu didn't have dynamic music because the gameplay was too fast paced, which sounded like BS but... Hopefully this doesn't mean slow clunky pso/psz battles...

I mean c'mon the kingdom hearts series even on the DS is way faster than PSU, and ALL of their games had dynamic BGM.

Also by the thigns we're attacking going from "monster" to "enemy" I'm assuming it means instead of fighting mutated brained/possessed animals and psypathic cyborgs/foot soldiers... we'll be fighting people/space animals with a conscious/self defensive instinct...? Iono-just make sure theres still grass assassins and tokusatsu men to be killed.

RemiusTA
Feb 8, 2011, 05:00 PM
They had all the PSO composers do the music for PSU. It wasn't good. Take those same composers, and tell them to go back to their roots. Oh, and give them incentive to make the music awesome again.

(Inb4 the battle music no longer transitions and simply defaults to one theme ala Final Fantasy)

I hope this game trashes SEED and goes back to D-cell. Even though they are essentally the same thing, SEED forms never looked nearly as dangerous as the D-cells.

landman
Feb 8, 2011, 05:09 PM
D-cells looked like disco bots, nothing close to the dead-meat zombie-like dark monsters from the original games. SEED were something like this with lots of jelly.

RemiusTA
Feb 8, 2011, 05:13 PM
They just looked darker. Deminians never looked very menancing to me, but they WERE pretty mysterious. SEED forms just...never looked much more dangerous than the other enemeis in the game.





Once again, I never said anything at all about "reverting" back to the texture swap outfits from PSO. What I don't like is the massive amount of development time that goes into creating new "outfits" and the other ridiculous amount of subtle things that people can customize.


"Massive amount of development time?" It's a staple feature of the game, no different than the amount of time put into weapons or something similar. In fact, they're likely done by completely different people on the team. Are you meaning to imply that if there were fewer customization options on PSU, it would have had more content?

A valid argument would have been "time spent on cutscenes" or something. Like creating a new weapon, costumes on this game are usually nothing more than a simple model swap. You're complaining for absolutely nothing.




You cannot tell me that all these features are simple and not a problem at all for developers to incorporate. If that were the case these features would have been available eons ago.


Uh, yeah, i most definitely can. If anything, these things were limited by horsepower, memory and storage space. Back on the dreamcast, the most customization you could get out of a character's face was out of the texture, since the face had so few polygons on it. It's almost the exact same method with PSU, save for the fact you have proportion options mapped to the face as well.



When character customization is done right, it's pretty cool. (See DC Universe Online) I, like everyone else, like to be "unique" somewhat. However I don't need to be able to adjust the size and shape of the eye brows on my character in order to feel "unique". My complaint is that it feels like an excessive amount of focus is/has been placed on "Character Customization" and as far as I'm concerned, this is a cancer that is killing RPGs and MMOs right now.


1) i dont know too many RPGs that allow the amount of cosmetic customization PSU does. In fact, aside from Fallout 3, i dont know any.

2) Customization is an integral point of MMOs today anyway, and usually a very nice selling point. On top of being seperated by equipment, you can also seperate yourself through other visual aspects and connect to your character better. PSU allows a huge amount of customization options WITHOUT a cash shop tied to it. What the hell are you complaining about.

3) If you want, i can give you a HUUGGEEE list of issues plauging MMOs, RPGs, and MMORPGs today if you want me to. CUSTOMIZATION of all things is nowhere close to the top of my list, granted it's even on the list, and if it is, it's extremely close to the very bottom. And usually if im talking "customization", im not talking visual aspects of the character.

The fact you're so hung up on one of the things PSU actually did correctly is baffling the shit out of me right now.

BIG OLAF
Feb 8, 2011, 05:20 PM
The fact you're so hung up on one of the things PSU actually did correctly is baffling the shit out of me right now.

I don't know why he's so rowdy about it, either. Usually the more options the better, no matter how subtle or "unnoticeable" they are.

The only complaint I have about PSU's customization and clothing features are the fact that you had to go to a designated "dressing room" to change clothes, when, if I remember correctly, all Ethan had to do was slap a little Nanotranser chip on his back and the clothes would just appear on his body.

Why couldn't we do that? Why can't I just go to the "clothing" slot in my inventory, select an article of clothing, select "wear", and have the game reload my character wearing my new outfit? Doesn't seem like it would be that difficult. Hopefully PSO2 changes that.

landman
Feb 8, 2011, 05:26 PM
I remember a time I left a field with my team, well, my character lost his pants, could that be considered similar to what Ethan does in story mode? :wacko:

RemiusTA
Feb 8, 2011, 05:29 PM
Back during the production of the game, IIRC we were told the Nanotranser on the characters was something that we could actually have upgraded to increase storage space and whatnot. Similar to Gliders and Vehicles, it was just one of many features they just didn't add into the game.

Yeah, that would have been really neat. Especially since they took up inventory space, you know.

If they incorporate guarding into this game again, i'd like it if the barriers we equipped are shown while holding down Guard, and the lineshield/armor we have equipped does something when we evade. Granted they still are doing Lineshields in PSO2 anyway.

NoiseHERO
Feb 8, 2011, 06:07 PM
I thought the nano transer only really set you up with clothes you had equiped... going unnecessarily deeper into the concept..I guess...Set? to the nanotranser? I don't remember ethan magic'ing up other clothes besides his square-eni- I mean braves hoody.

Hopefully our newer monsters will look more gruesome...the only thing that caught my eyes for a little bit in psu was the mutated grassassin that shot babies out of it's womb when you killed it.

Arkios
Feb 9, 2011, 03:50 PM
Well... whatever, I'll get off my customization rant.

Can we at least agree that PSO2 costumes should not consist of ridiculous outfits that look like you're running around in street clothes?

I do not want my character running around in a hoodie and jeans...

BIG OLAF
Feb 9, 2011, 03:56 PM
Well... whatever, I'll get off my customization rant.

Can we at least agree that PSO2 costumes should not consist of ridiculous outfits that look like you're running around in street clothes?

I do not want my character running around in a hoodie and jeans...

No, we can't agree on that, either. Some people like the general "urban" look of PSU's clothing.

If some people want to walk around dressed in PSO-style clothing, looking like wacky battle jesters, or in some skin-tight, fluorescent-colored leggings, then that's cool. If others want to walk around looking like something out of The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, then they should also be allowed.

Once again, Sega should make sure that there's something for everyone, no matter what their preference.

Corey Blue
Feb 9, 2011, 04:07 PM
Well... whatever, I'll get off my customization rant.

Can we at least agree that PSO2 costumes should not consist of ridiculous outfits that look like you're running around in street clothes?

I do not want my character running around in a hoodie and jeans...

It depends on what art style there going for this time.(Cant wait to see what the concept art looks like,please oh please have Akikazu Mizuno doing the art.He's perfect for PSO,and always will be.)

Seth Astra
Feb 9, 2011, 05:04 PM
I say just give a variety of styles, from "urban" to "sci-fi" to "ridiculous anime".

Corey Blue
Feb 9, 2011, 05:06 PM
I say just give a variety of styles, from "urban" to "sci-fi" to "ridiculous anime".

DO NOT WANT. well knowing Sega they'll do it anyway.(Urban Clothes and Armor seems about right though.)

Seth Astra
Feb 9, 2011, 05:14 PM
Eh, I ain't too into it either, but I just figure including a bit of everything would be the best option to appease everyone.

Nitro Vordex
Feb 9, 2011, 05:24 PM
They did ridiculous anime with the entirety of PSU.

That said, I would like that as part of the styles as well. Maybe some steampunk inspired stuff too.

NoiseHERO
Feb 9, 2011, 06:08 PM
They're not dropping rediculous anime no matter how you look at it, what kind of company do you think sega is? They stop trying to be original after jet set radio died... D:

That being said...I don't think psu's clothing style was urban enough... If urban didn't look cool in fantasy games, tetsuya nomura would be broke... but something for EVERYONE shouldn't be a complaint, I'm sure a lot of people like me like to change things up.

Not everyone wants to run into the forest dressed like a helmet-less storm trooper, either.

Though I think more cameo clothes, like outfits from classic PS would be cool, I'd definitely wear ralph's outfit.

BIG OLAF
Feb 9, 2011, 06:16 PM
Wren's armor from PSIV...

Or Lutz' robes from the original PS...

Good ideas. But, what about...

A Myau suit (like PSU's Rappy Suit)? BAHAHAHA.

FOkyasuta
Feb 9, 2011, 06:26 PM
As long as theres High Definition PSO parts, i aint complaining.

Corey Blue
Feb 9, 2011, 07:44 PM
I hope they bring back Section Id's.(Wont be PSO without it.)

RenzokukenZ
Feb 9, 2011, 08:13 PM
It's not PSO. It's PSO2. And if they do bring them back, hopefully they'll have another purpose.

And I agree with Olaf on bringing back some of the Classic PS outfits. And I'm sure many will agree that the PS series always had an anime style. Just not very ridiculous.

BIG OLAF
Feb 9, 2011, 08:20 PM
Yeah, it's actually quite agitating when people go "Get rid of PSUs anime style! OMG PSO didn't have an anime style!!1!"

Yes, it did. Phantasy Star has always had an anime style. Take this screenshot from PSIV:

[SPOILER-BOX] http://ui18.gamefaqs.com/1649/gfs_45475_3_1.jpg[/SPOILER-BOX]

^You can't tell me that doesn't look just like an early-90's anime. As for PSO, It's just that its graphics were so low-tech (obviously), that it might have been hard to tell what "style" they were going for. But, it was a general anime style. Sure, PSU's was a little more "modern" and "trendy", but I saw no problems with it.

Like I said: just put in some clothes from every avenue. Make everyone happy.

NoiseHERO
Feb 9, 2011, 08:50 PM
It's not PSO. It's PSO2. And if they do bring them back, hopefully they'll have another purpose.

And I agree with Olaf on bringing back some of the Classic PS outfits. And I'm sure many will agree that the PS series always had an anime style. Just not very ridiculous.

Wait, whut? I brang up the classic outfit thing...
-Bah whatever...

Corey Blue
Feb 9, 2011, 09:22 PM
It's not PSO. It's PSO2. And if they do bring them back, hopefully they'll have another purpose.

And I agree with Olaf on bringing back some of the Classic PS outfits. And I'm sure many will agree that the PS series always had an anime style. Just not very ridiculous.

Oh don't get me wrong,I hate having to choose a name because of a section Id,always did hate that.(Though I got my favorite one bluefull,and my last name is blue.)So yeah if they implement it with another purpose that would be nice.:-)

landman
Feb 10, 2011, 12:36 AM
Instead of section ID (if we are talking about drops) we should have more different enemies to hunt the weapons from :wacko: I liked the idea of knowing a Vanda would drop a shotgunt, whatever level he was, the higher lvl the enemy the higher rank the weapon, and of course, all areas should have plenty of hunter-ranger-force weapons variety to hunt.

Linka
Feb 15, 2011, 02:41 PM
after reading everything, i got some things to say.(INCOMING WALL OF TEXT!)

one, if there's a rappy planet...i imagine that means a playable rappy-based race. imagine how that'd be.

two, what was said about the lobbies for PSU. ok, yeah, alot didnt get use for reasons far and wide, but it was also kinda nice how you could actually explore safe areas. i mean...really.*points at PSU:AOTI's paracabana beach area*...its a freaking beach. i actually go there sometimes and just have my chara put on a swimsuit, sit in the shallow water, and just stare out into the ocean. relaxing.

three, these 'specials'. i dunno much of PSO that i hadn't learned from PSU, its players, PSPo1, PSPo2, its players, and info so far on PSPo2i and its players...but i did read afew of the fanfics on this site. specials are techniques and other stuff linked to specific weapons from the get-go, right? seemed like a cool idea, really, if these 'specials' could ONLY be used this way. but maybe mix in the Extend system from PSPo2, and have it extend the integrated special into a stronger form as well might be nice.

four, exploration. again, never played PSO, but i enjoy exploration. so in that regard i'd likely love PSO. so, an expansion on that in PSO2 would be loved. so long as the rank gotten from a mission never was affected by the time taken, and each mission area being one big static one, leaving you able to explore, and even find ways to expand each area's known...area...i'd be happy. also, an ability to go into a mission area without having a mission in effect....just to explore. early on it wouldn't be appreciated, which is intentional, but the better and stronger people get, and more they can afford healing items, the better this idea becomes, as the more people explore, the more can be explored, allowing more missions, harder missions, better ones, and more epic exploration.

to restate point four's ideas...basically each planet has a static area of unknown actual spread. at first, only a small area can be utilized due to it being mapped already. as people play, they can explore further and further in, adding to the mapped area, allowing more, harder missions. the longer this goes on, the better the exploration aspect becomes. once certain exploration completion percentages are hit, the story progresses, and more area is added on to be discovered...leaving endless exploration, and endless story potential, in theory. probably hard to handle coding such an idea, though. yet, you DO have to admit it's the epitome of upgrades to the PSO system of exploration. it's open world...how PSO should have done it. sorta a PSO twist on the second continent of the Free To Play MMORPG Mabinogi, with some nice tweaks to provide endless exploration possibilities.

five,clothing and character appearance customization. ok, some say its going 'slutty mcslutslut' as of Infinity, but some people wanna look good while they kick ass. since everyone's different, their definition of 'looking good' differs as well. basic fashion clash thing. honestly, instead of how it's been going, i think we should be able to have what's been done from PSU TO Infinity, plus the ability to send in pictures of outfits we like, pay some money, and get an account-bound unique outfit based on the one in the sent picture. ok, yeah, we'd get alotta Cloud characters, Squalls, maybe a Zidane or two, and a slew of various anime characters, but the truly creative will draw up their own new outfits, and send em in. also, same idea for hairstyles too.

six, 'flashyness'. ok, yes, more and more combat in PSU got flashy, all the way down to PSPo2, and maybe infinity, not sure there, and i agree with the whole 'different race/sex combo equals unique animation in everything' from PSO, but i say emphasize on what PSO did, then put ten to thirty percent of PSPo2/i flashyness in.

7, planet count and amount of climate difference available per planet. both sides have excellent points, but the fact of the matter is which way to go is a game-to-game basis. if there's enough room for a story to span ONLY one planet, it'd have to have a diversive climate. if not, multiple planets. so while both are right, so are neither. which is why i have an idea related to my ideas for point four. keep point four's ideas i mentioned, but also add in each planet has its OWN story, plus one BIGGER story spanning ALL the planets. each smaller story ties into the bigger one, like a tree trunk to its branches. that way, each planet has diverse climate, plenty of story, but it all ties into a big story affecting all these planets.

seems after this i ran out of points i could come up with a compromise or answer to, or ones big enough to bother with. so...with this information in mind, just remember that instead of arguing over which of two games is better...JUST FIND A MIDDLE GROUND, AND WORK ON HOW TO ENHANCE IT!

NoiseHERO
Feb 15, 2011, 04:41 PM
four, exploration. again, never played PSO, but i enjoy exploration. so in that regard i'd likely love PSO. so, an expansion on that in PSO2 would be loved. so long as the rank gotten from a mission never was affected by the time taken, and each mission area being one big static one, leaving you able to explore, and even find ways to expand each area's known...area...i'd be happy. also, an ability to go into a mission area without having a mission in effect....just to explore. early on it wouldn't be appreciated, which is intentional, but the better and stronger people get, and more they can afford healing items, the better this idea becomes, as the more people explore, the more can be explored, allowing more missions, harder missions, better ones, and more epic exploration.

We've kind of already had that PSO was SORT of like that but smaller and repetative and then you'd goto certain chunks or different paths of the area in quests...

The thing that made this cheap in PSU was that there were missions like story mode and then free missions...Technically online mode only had free missions going on so everything felt fast pace walk-through-it cheap. but then there were special missions, story missions and event missions. But people like me hated the story plus it wasn't multiplayer. and the special missions felt just as repetetive but timed and had traps.

So yeah a little more freedom would be nice, and I'm still hoping they'll keep visual/goal lobbies/my room as well.

I actually don't see a reason to get rid of "my room" gave the game a little more customization and kind of a trophy-Animal crossing like system in a way where you put all your unlocked music, Actual trophies, and Rare furniture and set the place up to look nice and hang around with your friends when lobbies aren't enough or got too hectic. >3>

Linka
Feb 15, 2011, 05:11 PM
well, that's just it. my idea takes PSO's system of doing it to the true next level. actually having to explore in order to map out areas for everyone else. the more area explored, the more missions available, and the harder missions can be. so in the end, it beneifits everyone. more area to explore, the more possibilities for how an adventure would go. also, parties of up to 12 people instead of 6, on certain missions and general non-mission exploration. its basically an endless multiplier theory. greater the number of players the game has, the greater the rate of game expansion, eventually leaving too much stuff to do.

Slyster
Feb 17, 2011, 12:18 AM
The main things I want are..

1. No more timed missions unless its at the Hunters desk inside a game already.

2. I want it like PSO where when joining a game you had could do stay in that game for a long time. I always did Forest - Ruins each time I played. I really disliked the whole mission setup of PSU.

3. Better graphic capabilities including physics for hair and clothing.

I realize this isnt a wish thread :).

SephirothXer0
Feb 17, 2011, 04:06 AM
Yeah, it's actually quite agitating when people go "Get rid of PSUs anime style! OMG PSO didn't have an anime style!!1!"

Yes, it did. Phantasy Star has always had an anime style. Take this screenshot from PSIV:

[SPOILER-BOX] http://ui18.gamefaqs.com/1649/gfs_45475_3_1.jpg[/SPOILER-BOX]

^You can't tell me that doesn't look just like an early-90's anime. As for PSO, It's just that its graphics were so low-tech (obviously), that it might have been hard to tell what "style" they were going for. But, it was a general anime style. Sure, PSU's was a little more "modern" and "trendy", but I saw no problems with it.

Like I said: just put in some clothes from every avenue. Make everyone happy.

PSO had a Japanese art style. It did NOT have anime style cliches and trends, it did not have a generic anime story with generic anime characters like PSU and PSP does. It had its own world and its own style, and that's what made it endearing to those who played it.

Those who don't understand design will never understand why "just put everything in the game!" is a terrible choice. It waters down the atmosphere and takes away any kind of uniqueness or visual identity the game could have had. It takes away part of what made it special when you try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

And no, I'm not talking about the drawing style of the game, I'm talking about the design. The outfits, the machines, the weapons, the environments. PSO had all of these elements designed together with a coherent space theme in mind, everything fit together because it was made to be in the same setting. Space suits, androids, advanced armor, neon cities, technological magic, professional mercenaries. Where does a cowboy hat fit in all of this? It doesn't. Where does a bath towel fit in there? It doesn't. Where does an anime pop idol fit in there? She doesn't. Where does runway J-rock fashion fit in there? It doesn't. Where do crying little loli girls with whiny voices and moeblob fanservice fit in there? They don't.

That's what I'm trying to say. Don't put things in PSO that don't belong in PSO. Since they named the game PSO, they know what the fans are going to expect: more of PSO. Not PSU, not PSP, not PSV.

NoiseHERO
Feb 17, 2011, 12:24 PM
PSO had a Japanese art style. It did NOT have anime style cliches and trends, it did not have a generic anime story with generic anime characters like PSU and PSP does. It had its own world and its own style, and that's what made it endearing to those who played it.

Those who don't understand design will never understand why "just put everything in the game!" is a terrible choice. It waters down the atmosphere and takes away any kind of uniqueness or visual identity the game could have had. It takes away part of what made it special when you try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

And no, I'm not talking about the drawing style of the game, I'm talking about the design. The outfits, the machines, the weapons, the environments. PSO had all of these elements designed together with a coherent space theme in mind, everything fit together because it was made to be in the same setting. Space suits, androids, advanced armor, neon cities, technological magic, professional mercenaries. Where does a cowboy hat fit in all of this? It doesn't. Where does a bath towel fit in there? It doesn't. Where does an anime pop idol fit in there? She doesn't. Where does runway J-rock fashion fit in there? It doesn't. Where do crying little loli girls with whiny voices and moeblob fanservice fit in there? They don't.

That's what I'm trying to say. Don't put things in PSO that don't belong in PSO. Since they named the game PSO, they know what the fans are going to expect: more of PSO. Not PSU, not PSP, not PSV.

NNnnnnooooo... It's still anime style. :\

Recent "trends" aren't anime that's just modern japanese pop culture being annoying in general.

BIG OLAF
Feb 17, 2011, 03:10 PM
PSO had a Japanese art style. It did NOT have anime style cliches and trends, it did not have a generic anime story with generic anime characters like PSU and PSP does. It had its own world and its own style, and that's what made it endearing to those who played it.

Those who don't understand design will never understand why "just put everything in the game!" is a terrible choice. It waters down the atmosphere and takes away any kind of uniqueness or visual identity the game could have had. It takes away part of what made it special when you try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

And no, I'm not talking about the drawing style of the game, I'm talking about the design. The outfits, the machines, the weapons, the environments. PSO had all of these elements designed together with a coherent space theme in mind, everything fit together because it was made to be in the same setting. Space suits, androids, advanced armor, neon cities, technological magic, professional mercenaries. Where does a cowboy hat fit in all of this? It doesn't. Where does a bath towel fit in there? It doesn't. Where does an anime pop idol fit in there? She doesn't. Where does runway J-rock fashion fit in there? It doesn't. Where do crying little loli girls with whiny voices and moeblob fanservice fit in there? They don't.

That's what I'm trying to say. Don't put things in PSO that don't belong in PSO. Since they named the game PSO, they know what the fans are going to expect: more of PSO. Not PSU, not PSP, not PSV.

Well, then they'll be alienating a lot of the people that liked PSU's modern, punk-anime style over PSO's "super-serious space theme" (a lot more people than you think). Also, "don't put things in PSO that don't belong in PSO"? Ok, they won't. This is PSO2, a new game. As I've said many a time before:

Same game "title" (PSO) =/= inherent need to not include anything new.

I guess that's a hard concept for some to grasp. I can only imagine how they felt when they found out that "Halo Wars" was actually an RTS, not an FPS like the other "Halo" games. But, it has "Halo" in the name!! It has to be the same!!

Oh, and PSO was in a Japanese art style? So, it looked like this:

[SPOILER-BOX] http://blue-butterfly-art.webs.com/japanese-art.jpg[/SPOILER-BOX]

Uh, no. It didn't. ^That is "Japanese art". PSO was animated toons. It was anime.

Arkios
Feb 17, 2011, 04:35 PM
Well, then they'll be alienating a lot of the people that liked PSU's modern, punk-anime style over PSO's "super-serious space theme" (a lot more people than you think). Also, "don't put things in PSO that don't belong in PSO"? Ok, they won't. This is PSO2, a new game. As I've said many a time before:

Same game "title" (PSO) =/= inherent need to not include anything new.

I guess that's a hard concept for some to grasp. I can only imagine how they felt when they found out that "Halo Wars" was actually an RTS, not an FPS like the other "Halo" games. But, it has "Halo" in the name!! It has to be the same!!

Oh, and PSO was in a Japanese art style? So, it looked like this:

[SPOILER-BOX] http://blue-butterfly-art.webs.com/japanese-art.jpg[/SPOILER-BOX]

Uh, no. It didn't. ^That is "Japanese art". PSO was animated toons. It was anime.

1) PSU alienated all of the players that came from PSO that did not like the "new style". I don't see why the opposite is so hard to grasp.

2) Your comparison to Halo, is actually extremely flawed. If they had called the game Halo 4, then I'd agree with you... however they didn't. It used the name Halo, because it revolves around the same game universe. Note that Halo 1, 2 and 3 are all FPS and very similar games with improvements after each sequel.

Heck, look at Final Fantasy. If you look at the games that had MAJOR core changes to the game, they all stray from the main game naming scheme. Final Fantasy Tactics was not like the main Final Fantasy games. Same goes for Mystic Quest, Crystal Chronicles, etc.

It's a Phantasy Star game, but by calling it Phantasy Star Online 2, it's safe to assume that the CORE game will be similar to the original Phantasy Star Online.

3) Yeah, it was Anime. No argument there, it's Japanese animation.

Jinketsu
Feb 17, 2011, 04:52 PM
Actually I agreed with her comparison with Halo. But if you want a good example of not getting the same game from a direct numbered sequel, we can go to the basics of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II. Zelda II was actually a very good game, but because it was so different from the first game people wrote it off, having expected way too much from the first.

And with that, this thread has really derailed from its original intention. Do we have any more tidbits of information about PSO2, or are we going to continue arguing about our views and opinions?

Arkios
Feb 17, 2011, 05:02 PM
Actually I agreed with her comparison with Halo. But if you want a good example of not getting the same game from a direct numbered sequel, we can go to the basics of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II. Zelda II was actually a very good game, but because it was so different from the first game people wrote it off, having expected way too much from the first.

And with that, this thread has really derailed from its original intention. Do we have any more tidbits of information about PSO2, or are we going to continue arguing about our views and opinions?

Uhmm... can you provide an example of a game that is NOT from the 80's?

Jinketsu
Feb 17, 2011, 05:12 PM
Grand Theft Auto II to Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy XII to Final Fantasy XIII, Fallout 2 to Fallout 3...

NoiseHERO
Feb 17, 2011, 05:16 PM
LOL more PSO vs PSU into PSNEW controversy...

It's not like only one group of fans can be appealed to, especially if this is going to be the next major game.

But arguing the small evidence we have until April would seem like the ultimate way to keep patience in check.

Arkios
Feb 17, 2011, 05:18 PM
Grand Theft Auto II to Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy XII to Final Fantasy XIII, Fallout 2 to Fallout 3...

Those games don't have a game universe to revolve around, they also do not have other games with separate titles. If there was a Fallout 2, then a Fallout: (Insert random name here) that was completely different... and THEN they made Fallout 3 and it was nothing like 2... I'd agree with you.

Final Fantasy XII to XIII is a fair point. Although the FF series is really an exception to every rule, so I'm stupid for even including it in my original reply.

BIG OLAF
Feb 17, 2011, 05:22 PM
If there was a Fallout 2, then a Fallout: (Insert random name here) that was completely different... and THEN they made Fallout 3 and it was nothing like 2... I'd agree with you.

Fallout Tactics. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_Tactics:_Brotherhood_of_Steel)

EDIT: I don't really want to be part of this debate anymore. I was just it pointing it out.

Jinketsu
Feb 17, 2011, 05:22 PM
With all the lore from Fallout 3 and Fallout:New Vegas, I could argue with you about there not being a universe of sorts. And Grand Theft Auto definitely has a universe, haha.

EDIT: and yes, Fallout Tactics.

Arkios
Feb 17, 2011, 05:39 PM
Well, disregard my argument. I'm an idiot... lol.

Well played, well played.

I'm now worried for PSO2. :-(

BIG OLAF
Feb 17, 2011, 05:48 PM
I'm now worried for PSO2. :-(

Don't be! Like I said, I'm sure Sega will find ways to cater to fans of any and every Phantasy Star game that's come out in the past 10 years. Change is good. Embrace it! ^^

NoiseHERO
Feb 17, 2011, 05:52 PM
EMBRACE IT!!!

Jinketsu
Feb 17, 2011, 06:02 PM
EMBRACE IT!

I'm not scared for PSO2 no matter which direction it takes. I know that I'll give it a shot, and if I like I'll stick with it. If I don't, then it's not for me. There will be plenty of people that continue to play this game even if I don't.

I wonder if we really have to wait until April, or if they'll satiate us with a bunch of info right before E3's gameplay footage trailers.

Nitro Vordex
Feb 17, 2011, 06:56 PM
Uhmm... can you provide an example of a game that is NOT from the 80's?
PSO to PSO Episode 3. CARD GAMES.

NoiseHERO
Feb 17, 2011, 07:16 PM
PSO to PSO Episode 3. CARD GAMES.

Yeah but it wasn't card games on MOTORCYCLES.

Nitro Vordex
Feb 17, 2011, 08:48 PM
Yeah but it wasn't card games on MOTORCYCLES.
CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES?!

RemiusTA
Feb 17, 2011, 11:04 PM
If PSOepIII was a new game from production to finish (as in, they just made new models and animations) it would have been MUCH better received. But it was a wonderful game in its execution. Sonic Team today would be completely incapable of designing such a game. It got bad fan reception, but none of the critics of the game denied it was a pretty well in-depth strategy game.

Honestly, it cant be very hard to take the base of everything PSO did and simply improve it / add a few things to it. Redo the physics engine, add some fresh stuff, MAKE GOOD MUSIC, and give us some nice environments.

Dont go OD on the storyline, dont go half-ass on the presentation. POLISH the game, and dont cut corners to stretch the lifetime with limited content. Make the programming flexible to accommodate gameplay tweaks, additions and rebalancing. Take notes from PSO's art style. Hell, re-hire all the old artists to make sure you get it right. Keep the cutsey cliche tropey i-wish-this-was-an-anime cutscenes to a sheer minimum.

SIMULTANEOUSLY develop content for all the regions playing the game, please GOD.

Arkios
Feb 18, 2011, 12:55 AM
CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES?!

Just play the new Yugioh! games if you want that. ;-)


If PSOepIII was a new game from production to finish (as in, they just made new models and animations) it would have been MUCH better received. But it was a wonderful game in its execution. Sonic Team today would be completely incapable of designing such a game. It got bad fan reception, but none of the critics of the game denied it was a pretty well in-depth strategy game.

I loved Episode III. I'm actually a little surprised that it didn't do well, I thought it was really fun and certainly a nice way to take a break from playing Episode I & II back in the day.

Although I'm a little biased since I really enjoy TCGs.

NoiseHERO
Feb 18, 2011, 01:36 AM
I never played EP3 but it would be interesting if they made a handheld equivalent.

I find card battle strategy games make 100 times more sense on handhelds... but that's just me.

The game kind of looks like megaman battle network mixed with yugioh... so it would probably interest me...

@ Remius... I think that's asking too much from sega, sadly...look what they did to sonic 4... >_>;;;

Jinketsu
Feb 18, 2011, 08:07 AM
I think it would be pretty cool if they released the Phantasy Star Online episodes on the upcoming 3DS. It would be pretty cool, I think.

and I liked Episode III. I was never much of a fan of TCGs, but something about PSOe3 held dear to me. I think it was the amount of time I spent in PSO eps 1 and 2 for GC.

RemiusTA
Feb 18, 2011, 03:16 PM
@ Remius... I think that's asking too much from sega, sadly...look what they did to sonic 4... >_>;;;


im almost 100% sure they didn't give a damn about Sonic 4. It was just quick revenue for them.

At least, it HAD to be...that game was a farcry from the originals. They just advertised it as such because it was "2D".

Jinketsu
Feb 18, 2011, 03:21 PM
I don't know, I thought Sonic 4 was a pretty good addition to the 'original' Sonic platform. The homing jump was a little odd to get used to, but other than that I was pretty satisfied.

Ieora
Feb 18, 2011, 11:06 PM
Hmm, a new land to explore. I like it. Now to see if they screw up gameplay mechanics.

NoiseHERO
Feb 19, 2011, 12:28 AM
Hmm, a new land to explore. I like it. Now to see if they screw up gameplay mechanics.

I won't last long if the battle and controls are slow and clunky and nerve wrackingly patience killing like PSZ's homage to PSO's gameplay...