Sega lists new jobs for possible PSO3 development

[SteveCZ]

Well whatever this is maybe we can at least be hyped about a possible upcoming Phantasy Star related title.

[Gwyndolin]

Hopefully not yet another phone game.

[landman]

it'll likely be a few years before we see anything from this; but if that's the case I pray that they are finally going to make a new engine from the ground up here. I imagine that there's lots of old design decisions leftover here in PSO2 that they've long since regretted, but cannot do anything more than simply work around them *cough*quest instances being bound to lobby instances due to the block system*cough*

That's provably the last thing in their to do list, the servers have been working almost the same way since the original pso.

[wefwq]

Wow, can't wait for IDOLA Online to come out for smartphone.

[otakun]

Well, from what little I read, seems like it's going to be a console game aimed for a world wide release. I would assume it's going to be a game specifically made for the new xbox, so might be PSU2 lol.

[Zorak000]

yeah the job postings say "phantasy star series" at the end of the title of each post, and one of the experience requirements are for experience making stuff for "ONLINE" titles. but yeah if they're just hiring now, and I wanna assume they are going to be building a new engine, we probably won't hear anything about it for a few years still, much less a release date.

The positions themselves are: (according to google translate)
"Event Designer": requirements/duties seem to be about setting up in-engine cutscenes; they're asking for "Person who excels in production of camera, motion, light, etc." with bonus points to anybody with storyboard skills
"Motion Designer": the requirements on this one talks about designing animations for players and enemies alike, as well as rigging 3d models with bones for animation (skeletons tend to get re-used a lot as i'm sure you're well aware, but they still gotta make sure the vertices of the 3D model are weighted properly to the skeleton's bones.) and mocap experience
"Item Designer": 3d modeler for equipment; also has to be good at things like making sure the object lines up with how the character is holding it. (seems to explicitly be about equipment, environmental objects like desks and trees are typically the job of an environmental modeler)
"Character modeler": pretty self-explanatory; 3D modeler for characters. they're asking for some Z-brush experience here too, I kinda doubt pso2's bump/normal maps are that complex so this is most likely the biggest hint that this is for a future title.

no postings for programmers though; but I assume they might have those job postings on a different website

I did not see anything that would imply "worldwide release"; however the "Event Designer" position explicitly says they're looking for somebody who has eperience with a PS2 or later platform, and *not* a smartphone. "Item Designer" asks for somebody with experience making stuff for PC, but I assume that's just saying they're open to somebody who's only experience is something like model-replacement PC game mods or just making models and tossing them into Unity to show them off in action.

[zandra117]

[Character Image]
・Persons who are willing to play overseas games, online games, home RPGs, etc., and analyze / play them with interest

This quote from the archived UI Planner job listing is probably what makes people think of a worldwide release. it seems that job entails doing alot of research into what other games on the global market are doing.

[Eligibility for qualification (required)]
・ In-game UI planner experience
Over 2 years of experience as an outline / specification creation planner for in-game UI (user interface) in game titles of medium size or larger.
* Smartphone games are also eligible depending on the scale.

this part seems to be the big tip off that whatever they are doing it is not a phone game.

[landman]

They could have hired the event designer before episode 4 so we could have avoided the VN style downgrade.

[Uncle_bob]

get ready for another 7 years of JP ONRY before the game gets a western release

[ArcaneTechs]

get ready for another 7 years of JP ONRY before the game gets a western release

you've had since 2012 to current present day to enjoy PSO2 and you'll have the option to play the game again if they decide to do that which with microsoft bringing pso2 to the West is likely it'll be international this time around. You have only yourself to blame for not playing all these years and up until the next title release