So I came back to play around with PSO2 again after being largely inactive since 2012. I'm planning to play in the western servers when they open, so I wanted to try out some of the content that wasn't around when I used to play. I originally left because there was a notable fear of region locking the game early-on, but that that obviously didn't happen. I didn't want to sink time and money into something that would potentially kick me out. A bigger problem, though, was the feeling that the NA community just didn't belong.

While they added a bunch of content to the game, it feels... empty, socially anyways. In early PSO2, people used to actually interact in the lobbies, now its just... silent. I feel very alone in this game this time around, and its not that fun as a one player game. Maybe its just that I don't know where people go, but I don't want to draw attention to the fact that I'm a non-JP player, so I just keep to myself, which compounds the problem.

I hope that the NA release feels more like early PSO2, or even PSU. People talking and messing around in the lobbies, joining random parties (met some great people that way, even a few I later knew IRL), dance spamming, and just hanging out. I had 1500 hrs+ in PSU back in the day on PS2/PC, and way over half of it was just interacting with people and team members (the Loli Express, and which became the VCC). PSU had its negatives, but I'm starting to get rose-coloured glasses for it and JP PSO2 isn't what I want.

Here's hoping for the NA PSO2 servers to feel like early PSO2, and PSU (rip).