First Time JP PSO Question, What To Expect In Beta?

[Mankool]

I played a good amount of PSO back in the day, but never the JP version. The announcement of PSO2 rekindled the Booma within me and thus I signed up for the beta and feel honored to have received the acceptance e-mail. I was just wondering what it's going to be like playing the closed beta since it will be the JP version, all Japanese text, etc. A couple main questions come to mind if anyone and everyone could reply with some insight:

1) Players will be able to type using English characters as well as Japanese correct?

2) Assuming there will be no translation patch of any sort (I read in another thread that it seems like this won't be happening for beta or prod release?)... How much of a deterrence/pest is it for people who can't read Japanese to play the game?

3) I'm assuming there will be a decent amount of helpful English documentation around the forums etc. like some of the various things that I have already come across like helpful phrases and menu/character-creation guides (also if anyone had a set of a couple core links to threads/pages that they think are the best guides for stuff currently and could reply with those that would be quite wonderful)?

4) It sounds like the ship everyone speaking English (at least on these forums) is headed to, is ship 2... is the idea that there will be enough English-speaking people that it won't be hard to party up with English-speaking people? If the player wants to play with people who are speaking Japanese, is it one of those things where if you don't speak Japanese there's a good chance you'll get booted from the party (hopefully not booted from the beta)?

5) What are some other helpful things to know going into my first JP version experience or more specifically my first PSO2 Beta JP experience?

[r00tabaga]

1-yes
2-in portable 2 it was hard but very playable
3-???
4-Ship 2
5-keep up on forum trans guides

[shiink]

1) Yes and Yes

2)/3) If you can't read any japanese. I am sure that someone will have pictures with translations in the coming time. Just keep a look out around the forums. As far as the very early hours of the beta. Most things can simply be figured out via "trial & error". I mean its just a test so its not like you will accidentally ruin 100s of hours of hard work. Just click around and see what happens. After a while it just becomes muscle memory and being able to recognize what certain things look like in japanese even though you may not be able to read/understand it

4) I'm sure that it won't be that hard to meet up with any of the players from the forums here. There is a PSO2 Community Chat thread (that will hopefully get a bump soon) that has links to access the IRC channel as well as the Mumble server (voice chat) that will be hosted for the test. You probably won't get booted from the beta, but just as a discretionary thing its usually a good idea to use the party chat option so its not screaming Engrish in the lobby. Very rarely will you get booted from a party unless you are being a nuisance of some sort. Just be polite.

5) Just be patient and have fun. Don't get discouraged by all the moon runes. There are a lot of us on the forums that will be on the test so don't feel free to ask questions if you are stuck :D

[Mag-X]

Memorize Katakan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana). It'll make the game a lot easier to understand. 99% of the item names will be written in Katakana and will match the names in the english version. The rest is just reading guides on the forums and memorizing which things to select on the menus to join parties and such.

[February]

I'm planning on just Muddling my way through the menus until someone makes a translation guide.

[Wayu]

Memorize Katakan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana). It'll make the game a lot easier to understand. 99% of the item names will be written in Katakana and will match the names in the english version. The rest is just reading guides on the forums and memorizing which things to select on the menus to join parties and such.

Katakana, you mean.

Although most of the weapon names and whatnot are katakana, there is a great deal of hiragana and kanji in the game as well. If you want to understand the story, you'll have to take years of Japanese classes to full comprehend what's going on (and fully understand which buttons do what and which stats are what).

-Wayu

[BIG OLAF]

Hooray for wanting to understand items, locations, and the story in real-time (without reading a translation days or weeks later), but being unable to do so. Fucking fan-tastic.

[LaMBtRon]

Ugh, looks like I'ma have to learn Katakana, and everything else japanese in like 48 hours..Looks Like I'll be snorting redbull, and munching on encyclopedia pages for nutrition..

[Mag-X]

Katakana, you mean.

Lol. Yes.

[Priest]

Ugh, looks like I'ma have to learn Katakana, and everything else japanese in like 48 hours..Looks Like I'll be snorting redbull, and munching on encyclopedia pages for nutrition..

What I did personally:

Go to www.realkana.com then click the hiragana tab and uncheck the first box, then go to the katakana tab and you'll see the first box is checked also, thats the 5 to pracctice. Look at them for a few minutes memorizing the 5 then go practice. Keep on it for 5 or so minutes until you never miss any. Then go back to the katakana and unclick the first box and click the second one. Repeat. Then try doing the first+second boxes, or any combination until you can do all boxes together. I learned katakana in only hours this way.

[DoubleJG]

Katakana is incredibly easy to learn. Make yourself some flashcards and get to it!

[LaMBtRon]

What I did personally:

Go to www.realkana.com then click the hiragana tab and uncheck the first box, then go to the katakana tab and you'll see the first box is checked also, thats the 5 to pracctice. Look at them for a few minutes memorizing the 5 then go practice. Keep on it for 5 or so minutes until you never miss any. Then go back to the katakana and unclick the first box and click the second one. Repeat. Then try doing the first+second boxes, or any combination until you can do all boxes together. I learned katakana in only hours this way.

Yo, if I'm not half as dumb as I think I am; I just might be able to do this. Thanks so much for such a big tip, priest.

[Mag_Launcher]

It's probably not going to be much of a problem identifying weapons and items this time around, as they all have their own unique visual icon. Not like PSP2/i where the only icons you got where "this is a sword, this is a gun" etc., but actual visual icons for everything, so you can identify by sight only if you need to. Maybe not when picking anything up, but thanks to these icons, you won't be wondering what you actually have in your weapon inventory for long.

[Zeota]

Wouldn't hurt to learn a few kanji too tbh. Mainly the base stats and a few basic terms. As others have stated, all you'd really miss out on is the plot.

[Clessy]

I know next to no japanese at all. I've got a level 156 on psu and have been playing since Japanese launch on 360. Very easy the games just not that complex. The only issue is you have to type item names in Japanese to search for them even though psu has a english version :( Gets annoying. I'd say you'd at least wanna pick up the basic of typing words in Japanese. Will take you about a weekend to learn the katakana and hiragana alphabets.

[Rizen]

Katakana = Can you sound our a word?

If you think the word sounds like a word you might know...9 times out of 10 it is. There are some exceptions were a few words may as very similar.

[shiink]

モノメイト　"mo-no-me-i-to" *clicks button* "Woah it heals me and stuff"

[TelleT]

Made a translation sheet for some of the items if anyone needs it :D

https://sheet.zoho.com/public/telletswe/pso2items-1?mode=html

[Xenobia]

What the heck is a moonrune?

[kyuuketsuki]

What the heck is a moonrune?
Not sure if this is serious, but it's a term people use to refer to Japanese writing, e.g. hiragana, katakana, and kanji. It's not technically accurate in any sense since neither Japanese nor Chinese characters are actually runes. However, it's generally used for the sake of amusement and isn't meant to be taken seriously.

[Xenobia]

Of course its serious... never heard about. Its some US slang i guess.

[ClothoBuer]

What the heck is a moonrune?

Internet humor, likely 4chan with the cause.

[Xenobia]

Moonrunes? Nah. Its the slash of a katana. Kanji is when attack is freaked out, Hiragana is when its drunk, and Katakana is when its fully focused in a straight wado ryu line.

[Mankool]

Thanks for all the good info! The sad part is I did take a couple semesters of Japanese, but then didn't use it at all afterwards so of course that knowledge is damaged in my head... but I'll def give that practice site a try and see if I can get back into it. Don't think there's any hope for Kanji but I think I can handle refreshing my Katakana and matching up item names... Hiragana is probably going to be a stretch since it would require me to remember/refresh/re-learn sentence structure and all kinds of other stuff. The other sad thing is that I always love getting into the storyline of things, so I will definitely cry myself to sleep a couple nights over that (the fact that I won't be able to understand the words), but I think as long as it has a PSO feel to it, I will be able to 'feel' the story, and with PSO that's all I'll need.

Maybe I'll just make up the story on my own and fill in the chat bubbles with whatever I am feeling at the time. Maybe a little MUUT DITTS POUMN here, and some Olga Flow and Dark Falz references there... and the feeling that you get when you go through the ruins and seabed for the scary parts... I hope they bring back a musical theme or two, that would definitely give me that great tingly feeling that is invoked by all intense and emotional games.