Talking about long term future

[wyzwun]

Well, it’s Sunday and it dawns on me that I am merely a few days from playing a new game in my beloved Phantasy Star series. To be frank, after 4 I never ever thought there would be another Phantasy Star game, fact that pso didn’t hold true to pstar of past meant very little to me… as a fan, just seeing the pstar franchise given new life really puts a grin on my face.

In pso of past, it’s always been a short (but fun) ride. Often the ride ends far sooner then I would ever like. So I began thinking about why the past PSO titles died, what sega could do to avoid those mistakes.

To explain what it will take for the PSU series to succeed sega will need to avoid the mistakes they made with the pso games.


Actually maintain the game and release content. If this game is filled with dupes and protected rooms this game is a failure. Dupes/cheats will cause the community to fragment and become introverted as it is in PSO. Sega is known for launching a game and then having a skeleton crew maintain it. They need to hire actual GMs and maintain a small dev staff to keep the game alive. I would gladly pay the standard mmo price to get this support, again it sounds strange but the fact they are charging less money concerns me.

Don’t cannibalize your base. The last pso game, we saw 3 games, 3 different communities. Sega needs to unite its user base not divide it. It troubles me that they are already starting to divide the community since the 360 servers are separate from the pc/ps2 users. It always troubled me when sega pulled support for GCPSO and to see PSOBB exist, felt like those 4 140+ toons just was a waste… and now I have to start over.. Just not fun. Nothing hurts a gamer more (mmo or otherwise) when they invest time and have to “re roll”, either due to a gimp class or the above.

Release expansion content. W/o question PSO should have went up to EP20, not ep4. They need to churn out expansions to keep the users playing and to keep money in segas pocket. Expansions will make this game; psu will not suffer from the same mudflation issues that mmos suffer from, so there is no reason not to release expansions at a higher rate then a typical mmo.

Most important, the community needs to support the game and actually represent the game properly. The community needs to shed its lazy ways and actually play the game. Before someone flames me, I will explain. The PSO community is filled with players who would rather lock themselves in a ep1 / hs room then actually work towards doing “big things”. The community is far to motivated by the exp then actually playing the game. This is my point of view from playing both GC and BB for a considerable amount of time. The pso player base is flat out lazy. I am ashamed of a community that will onry play ep1, a community that is SCARED to do new content. I believe we need a strong guild community in psu. Say a linkshell type of system, like in ffxi, if some lazy ass just wants to do sky, then join a sky only LS. Sorry I kind of ranted there.


Side comment, when I say succeeds to me that am not 100k or so users, I believe psu has the potential to be a million sellers.





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 10:22 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 10:23 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 10:26 ]</font>

[Saner]

well the thing about communities is that they are always as a whole, filled with all kinds of people.

so ya there will be plenty of good ppl to play with.

[JaiBlue]

Haven't seen you in a while Saner 0.0.

[PJ]

All I'm gonna say is, PSO didn't die very slowly

[Rizen]

Well said. Only thing I disagree with is the strong guild community part. Personally, just a community to socialize about the game is enough and try to do things together. Dont need to just have a strong base for a few select people to do things.

I think this is a good post to read through. It does hit alot of good points about SEGA and its community.

[Alexandrious1]

On 2006-10-22 10:22, wyzwun wrote:
Well, it’s Sunday and it dawns on me that I am merely a few days from playing a new game in my beloved Phantasy Star series. To be frank, after 4 I never ever thought there would be another Phantasy Star game, fact that pso didn’t hold true to pstar of past meant very little to me… as a fan, just seeing the pstar franchise given new life really puts a grin on my face.

In pso of past, it’s always been a short (but fun) ride. Often the ride ends far sooner then I would ever like. So I began thinking about why the past PSO titles died, what sega could do to avoid those mistakes.

To explain what it will take for the PSU series to succeed sega will need to avoid the mistakes they made with the pso games.


Actually maintain the game and release content. If this game is filled with dupes and protected rooms this game is a failure. Dupes/cheats will cause the community to fragment and become introverted as it is in PSO. Sega is known for launching a game and then having a skeleton crew maintain it. They need to hire actual GMs and maintain a small dev staff to keep the game alive. I would gladly pay the standard mmo price to get this support, again it sounds strange but the fact they are charging less money concerns me.

Don’t cannibalize your base. The last pso game, we saw 3 games, 3 different communities. Sega needs to unite its user base not divide it. It troubles me that they are already starting to divide the community since the 360 servers are separate from the pc/ps2 users. It always troubled me when sega pulled support for GCPSO and to see PSOBB exist, felt like those 4 140+ toons just was a waste… and now I have to start over.. Just not fun. Nothing hurts a gamer more (mmo or otherwise) when they invest time and have to “re roll”, either due to a gimp class or the above.

Release expansion content. W/o question PSO should have went up to EP20, not ep4. They need to churn out expansions to keep the users playing and to keep money in segas pocket. Expansions will make this game; psu will not suffer from the same mudflation issues that mmos suffer from, so there is no reason not to release expansions at a higher rate then a typical mmo.

Most important, the community needs to support the game and actually represent the game properly. The community needs to shed its lazy ways and actually play the game. Before someone flames me, I will explain. The PSO community is filled with players who would rather lock themselves in a ep1 / hs room then actually work towards doing “big things”. The community is far to motivated by the exp then actually playing the game. This is my point of view from playing both GC and BB for a considerable amount of time. The pso player base is flat out lazy. I am ashamed of a community that will onry play ep1, a community that is SCARED to do new content. I believe we need a strong guild community in psu. Say a linkshell type of system, like in ffxi, if some lazy ass just wants to do sky, then join a sky only LS. Sorry I kind of ranted there.


Side comment, when I say succeeds to me that am not 100k or so users, I believe psu has the potential to be a million sellers.





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 10:22 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 10:23 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 10:26 ]</font>


1. The Phantasy Star online series has always been an instanced hack and slash game with no camp spawns or 1-7 day boss spawns like most mmos are.

2. This game is ment for casual play, due to reasons I stated above and many more.

3. I never seen anyone scared to do new content, why would they be? In PSU if you die all it effects is your mission ranking I believe, thats about it. Its ridiculous to assume people will be scared to do any new content in this.

4. This game is basically a GLORIFIED version of Diablo, and I say that in a good way. Not as in how the battle system works but how players basically find game rooms, join em, do missions together, and basically get that S-Rank.

5. Their are no guilds needed lol -_- see reasons 1 and 4.

6. Thankfully to no guilds their will be a low population of elitists, which is a good thing, ive had enough of them in all the mmos ive played in the past, and rather have a break from them since ill be dealing with them again in Vanguard Saga of Heroes when it comes out.

7. If you happen to BE one of those elitists, please look at my sig and look at the links provided. Thankyou.

nuff said.

[Hajile]

The HS comment made me "lol" Thats one thing sega fixed actaully balance.

Judeging from the JP version and there patch updates i'm hopeing SOA takes the same route, to stop any exploits when they arrise ,even if it means roll-backs.

[wyzwun]

Alexandrious1 this is not about hardcore VS casual. You did not read my post.

1. The Phantasy Star online series has always been an instanced hack and slash game with no camp spawns or 1-7 day boss spawns like most mmos are. And

what is your point? i see no reason to compare what i am saying in relation to a GROUNDS BASED MMO, of which psu is clearly not. The fact that PSU is not that kind of game is even more of a concern that the community much rather do things they know how to do, that give the best xp and would not actually do new things.

[Rina]

I do hope Sega keeps this game alive and supported well, I know what you mean with PSO. (Your comment about there monthly price does concern me as well for the same reason~)

I think though, that Sega will probably keep PSU going strong for a wheil at least, it has been a wheil since PSO and this game will be netting them some good money if they keep it up for a long time. I do so hope they prevent hacking T-T

They have been promising downloadable/expansions or w/e for the next couple years havn't they? I think thats a good thing to hear from Sega since there kinda making a promise to make sure PSU doesn't turn out to be PSO in the way of the hacking and sorta "dieing out" or just the lack of support.

I'm glad there arn't guilds in PSU as well, I'd just want my list of friends personally, guilds kinda make things seem more like work at times. Not awlays, but some guilds... lol.

*Does a flip* There >.> I ammused someone I hope! http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime1.gif lol.

[Hajile]

You mean like constant TTF spam? I hear people PSU do lower rank missions to get exp's ..hm i was going somewhere with this , but i forgot my destingation ;d

[Alexandrious1]

On 2006-10-22 10:44, wyzwun wrote:
Alexandrious1 this is not about hardcore VS casual. You did not read my post.

1. The Phantasy Star online series has always been an instanced hack and slash game with no camp spawns or 1-7 day boss spawns like most mmos are. And

what is your point? i see no reason to compare what i am saying in relation to a GROUNDS BASED MMO, of which psu is clearly not. The fact that PSU is not that kind of game is even more of a concern that the community much rather do things they know how to do, that give the best xp and would not actually do new things.



I actually did read it, and you have been trying to compare it.

Their are no need for guilds in this game, and the problem your giving out is merely the fault of the players themselves. If some guy wants to do the same few missions to get to max lv, then get bored and leave its their own fault. I find this unlikely though since doing other missions and getting their S-Rank can net you rewards and decorations I believe that many people will wish to collect.

Thus solving the problem your stating. Players will do all the content just to try and get those s-rank awards. And so long as Sega releases new content players will keep playing that new content, just to keep up their collections.

I dunno why you even speculated to this, perhaps you played with alot of players in PSOBB who just did PoD and TTF runs all day long, but it wont happen here. Infact dont you NEED to be in a guild to do PoD? Lol...

Oh yea and another factor, the Synthesizing aspect of PSU. Players will want to do different missions in all the different areas to try and collect the raw ingrediants to make what they want. Some of these ingrediants may be exclusive to a particular mission/area only. Further solving the problem your worried about.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Alexandrious1 on 2006-10-22 10:55 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Alexandrious1 on 2006-10-22 10:57 ]</font>

[-Asheth-]

Excellent Post Im not as seasoned as many here I did love PSO for DC which was my first experience with Phatansy Star and I loved it definitely. I still followed the franchise somewhat. I believe that PSU is definitely headed for greatness. The community is strong here as can be noticed by the boards. I think PSOW should update the site to prepare for the coming of PSU if not someone else will come up with a strictly dedicated site that my start to divide the community but right now there is a buzz about this game no matter what platform. I think that besides the JP players and importers no body really knows what were going to get. But besides a patch i dont see a reason to rush the content it just needs to be coming at a nice steady pace! I think all will be fine.

[wyzwun]

all good points Alexandrious1 but i can still logon psobb or gc and only see ep1 rooms. the fact that the ratio of ep 1 content is idk, 20 to 1 ? to ep2 and 4 rooms. one would think that after doing ep1 since THE DREAMCAST one would be tired of it...

Fact remains that the pso community did everything it could to kill the game.

[ABDUR101]

The former PSOs did'nt exactly 'fail'. There would still be people playing PSO DC vers1 if the servers were still up. As well, you contradict yourself. You say Sega fucked up by splitting the servers and the groups, and then you say PSO could have gone to Episode 20? You can't exactly release new episodes on systems that don't have large storage capacity, and I'm honestly not going to pay for 20 expansions for the same game. Who the hell would? Not to mention that releasing expansions, well what if not everyone has the money, or the patience, to shell cash out for some of those expansions? Then you fragment the community even further between those who can afford the expansions, and those who can't.

As well, you mention the LIVE servers being split, thats Microsoft's back-end. It could have been worked to most likely allow it for PC PSU, but then you'd still have the PS/2 issue. I think Sega more or less said no, keep 360 PSU by itself, that way they don't have to insure cross-platform through 360, PS2 and PC. And if they more or less said fine, no 360 PSU, do you have any idea the playerbase they'd have lost? To be honest, I don't care who I don't get to play with that aren't on the 360. It's all grand when you first jump into a PSO game, oh look at all the people I can play with, I'll never game alone again. Guess what, after you've played with item whores and idiots for acouple hundred hours, you realise it's not worth the hassle. I'm content to game by myself in locked games until my own friends come online. I'm sure thats not everyone's cup of tea, but I've played since PSO Vers 1 DC and I know how it can get.

As for PSU, they've made some fine adjustments, we'll see how things go. As for how they worked things out, thats on them, if the game sucks ass or people start finding blaring issues, they'll deal with it or stop paying and move on to something else like we did before. As it stands, the game is fun, and I haven't played any version of PSO since the GC release, so by all means, I'm ready for PSU. The way I see it, I've put up with the worst shit in all the previous versions, so PSU really should'nt have anything thats going to jar me.

[Alexandrious1]

On 2006-10-22 11:04, wyzwun wrote:
all good points Alexandrious1 but i can still logon psobb or gc and only see ep1 rooms. the fact that the ratio of ep 1 content is idk, 20 to 1 ? to ep2 and 4 rooms. one would think that after doing ep1 since THE DREAMCAST one would be tired of it...

Fact remains that the pso community did everything it could to kill the game.



As I said, I doubt it will happen here. You got all those missions each with a C, B, A and S rank difficulty setting to them along with rewards for obtaining S-rank upon mission completion.

Not only that but all those materials you need to collect for weapons will be exclusive to certain missions with certain difficulties most likely, people will have to play em all just to find em.

As for PSOBB, well what can I say, I found people scared to hell to do EP2 due to the instant death attacks and sheer difficulty, Seabed Ultimate is much harder then Desert Ultimate, and people naturally only do EP2 to find a specific item and if they just gained their current level. Since they dont want to suffer exp loss doing EP2.

I cant explain for EP4 though, I never found it to be rarely done, Ive seen plenty of EP4 rooms, its easy to do and has really good items to hunt for. Why hunt for a God Battle when you can easily hunt for a Heavenly Battle in EP4? Seriously.

[wyzwun]

On 2006-10-22 11:06, ABDUR101 wrote:
The former PSOs did'nt exactly 'fail'. There would still be people playing PSO DC vers1 if the servers were still up. As well, you contradict yourself. You say Sega fucked up by splitting the servers and the groups, and then you say PSO could have gone to Episode 20? You can't exactly release new episodes on systems that don't have large storage capacity, and I'm honestly not going to pay for 20 expansions for the same game. Who the hell would? Not to mention that releasing expansions, well what if not everyone has the money, or the patience, to shell cash out for some of those expansions? Then you fragment the community even further between those who can afford the expansions, and those who can't.

As well, you mention the LIVE servers being split, thats Microsoft's back-end. It could have been worked to most likely allow it for PC PSU, but then you'd still have the PS/2 issue. I think Sega more or less said no, keep 360 PSU by itself, that way they don't have to insure cross-platform through 360, PS2 and PC. And if they more or less said fine, no 360 PSU, do you have any idea the playerbase they'd have lost? To be honest, I don't care who I don't get to play with that aren't on the 360. It's all grand when you first jump into a PSO game, oh look at all the people I can play with, I'll never game alone again. Guess what, after you've played with item whores and idiots for acouple hundred hours, you realise it's not worth the hassle. I'm content to game by myself in locked games until my own friends come online. I'm sure thats not everyone's cup of tea, but I've played since PSO Vers 1 DC and I know how it can get.

As for PSU, they've made some fine adjustments, we'll see how things go. As for how they worked things out, thats on them, if the game sucks ass or people start finding blaring issues, they'll deal with it or stop paying and move on to something else like we did before. As it stands, the game is fun, and I haven't played any version of PSO since the GC release, so by all means, I'm ready for PSU. The way I see it, I've put up with the worst shit in all the previous versions, so PSU really should'nt have anything thats going to jar me.




Expansion packs, no matter what form of distribution (or price point)is the life blood of online rpgs, for reasons I said above. Not sure I understand your point; you can still stay in the locked HS room … even if there are xyz expansions. Why should the fact that someone wants to close himself off from the community allow the game to wither away?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wyzwun on 2006-10-22 11:13 ]</font>

[Wheatpenny]

Well being a former FFXI player and coming over to PSU (GOD ITS BEEN A LONG WAIT)I can say this in FFXI The leveling takes too long.It took me 2 years to get from 1 to 75,that game has people farming money and jacking up the economy,to get missions/quest done you have to yell like hours on end for people to help only to have them leave as you gather people together.Never being able to solo at all because practicaly everything outside fighting in a party will rip you.People camping rare monsters 24/7 and never getting a chance to earn good stuff with your own merrit and skill.Now I made that point to make this point......

PSU -Merits- compared using FFXI as a basis of comparison/

Casual Play-This is the bigest draw here,I can play whenever I have free time and can level rather fast (provided the leveling is as quick in PSO) and not have to spend hours uppon hours just to get one level,IMO Meaning I can play the game,have a good time and still have a life unlike FFXI where I have to spend almost every non work moment to get anything done.

Gameplay-Action Action Action I have played 2 different MMORPG and this whole click on attack and sit there untill it dies thing bores me to tears.PSU I get to dictate how much of a beating I hand out which would explain the reason to this day me and my friends still play PSO on GC 4 player split screen.To me that never gets old.Alexandrious 1 I totaly agree with the glorified Diablo thing,its awesome just finding random stuff kudos for the good analogy.

Community-OK now I am not gona say this is ALL the players of FFXI but there is definitly an eletist attitude in that game, no one that is higher up there wants to help out people on the lower end of the spectrum do things that require help,seems like they all forget that they were once new too after a certian level.I played PSO on GC online for a month up untill i got my first Black Screen of Frozen Death and I quit..(Having all my data eaten wasn't fun lol and that was my only turn off to playing the game online.)But the short time I spent in PSO the people there were freaking awesome so much more laid back.When I asked questions I didn't get berated for not knowing.

I just used the comparison to illustrate the point on how well PSU oughta' do as a MMORPG contender.It is far different from the standard fair in all points, just that simple.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wheatpenny on 2006-10-22 11:34 ]</font>

[wyzwun]

psu is not an mmo tho. I only mention ffxi ls system as an example of how it helps group people who are interested in the same goals. And thats it.

[Wheatpenny]

Naw man I wasn't targeting you lol I was just using my own experience from FFXI as a basis to compare on how much more awesome PSU is gona be lol.

[BigBadWolf]

I really found this thread interesting Wyzwun and I wanted to add my 2 cents into it.

Now, I've played FFXI for almost 3 years myself, so I can fully understand all the potential evils that come having a linkshell/guild based system. Too many times have I come online and got slapped in the face with some LS drama or another.

But I do believe that PSU would ultimately benefit from a guild system. I can tell that most people in here already have a set group of friends to play with, and so don't care or need a guild system to enjoy PSU. But what about all the new players that picked up PSU for the first time, and want to go online to have fun, but don't know anybody?

I've done pick up parties in PSU and to very lacklaster results, too many times have players joined my game only to knock out a few mobs (in which I don't get party exp for) grab my rares, and leave without saying a word. I'm glad that I'm in an unofficial guild where I can party with people that actually talk to me and actually aren't just after my rares.

My last comment will be on the players migrating to only a portion of the games content and not bothering with the rest of the game. I've noticed that the planet of NewDaiz is practically ignored by players in the game, and most people tend to do Dragon boss and Relic mission runs over and over. But I thought that this was simply due to the overall lack of content in the game.

[ChocoboChad]

Heh. The Playstation 2 is the system "least likely to be hacked," or at least, so claimed SEGA/Sonic Team/Whoever when deciding on the platform. We shouldn't worry about this issue.