A Bad Sign? or Who is the Culprit?

[AzureBlaze]

I am the last to rain on any proverbial parade...
However, I am suspicious. But once I got to thinking about it, I began to wonder who is actually at fault.

As everyone knows, ST has been faithfully updating their difficult to load and use flash site for PSU about every week. Now, everything Sega of America has been putting out seems to say "We're going to fix our track-record with this game. This IS NOT PSO, it is all new, a fresh start". That sounds fantastic.

What is not fantastic?

It looks (for now) EXACTLY like good ol' ST is up to their old 'games'. Showering the JP side with fancy sites, info and pictures, and totally neglecting EU and USA like it doesn't exist. Fans scramble for info. Magazines bungle the facts and scare off customers. The boring English site fails to impress newcomers into wanting the game.

Sounds like another trip down bad-memory-lane. We can only hope like crazy that they don't pull the '1 quest and you're done' BS like they did with CARD....or give out JP exclusive fun weps quests that Eng. can't play, and then give all the Eng quests to the JPs. What if the PS3 and 360 and Revolution look 'too good' and PSU is dropped in the can after 4 months like card was? They'll replace it with a PSU 1.44 that's the same game with 1 more level and then support that instead...after you shelled out over 500 bucks for the game and new system.

How many updates now have we FAILED to have?
But, is this ST not giving out info because they don't care? Or is SOA ultra-lazy and just writing the game off as a 'sleeper hit' of some kind that doesn't actually need support?

Who is responsible for the neglect of English info? I mean, they could get a fan to do it for free (the translation) Bragging rights would be MEGA. Plus, whoever did it would be privy to the FIRST info fresh off the ST press, how exciting!
For years I have said it: "The fans are a company's greatest resource--to use and soar, or to neglect and fall"

Here's to hopin' this is just an early error and we will not recieve the ill-treatment we've had in the past.

[_Tek_]

Nope, sega of america is teh suk. Sega of Japan doesn't care.

But I seriously think its because Sega America is being lazy, they are in charge of the english site, and Sega Japan is being cheap.

I think the main problem is the communication barrier, as always.

[Nash]

Although I can definitely understand the worry, I wouldn't panic just yet as the situation with new information about the game seems very tied to the magazines. Everything that appears on the site seems to be appearing after it has been in the magazines, which in Japan come out weekly hence all the updates

In the West EGM got the first big article about the game a few months back, before the Japanese magazines actually, and I expect they have a deal with Sega to reveal the next info about the game which is why you aren't seeing any updates on Sega's US site yet. EGM want to be the first to reveal it. If they have any sense though Sega will add an English option to the main PSU site closer to launch.

The fact some of the cut-scenes and gameplay clips are already in English and that the US and Japanese releases are quite close this time, does suggest they are taking the Western release more seriously than recent PSO's. Hope so anyway. The PSO community has been so messed around with that PSU represents a good opportunity to start again with a fresh game. I hope Sega are taking this opportunity seriously.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nash on 2005-08-20 00:48 ]</font>

[PrinceBrightstar]

SOA doesn't suck. Remember that old flash they did for PSO?

they've just shifted things. they've gone to a video style, and most likely what's happened is that they simply don't have any flash experts at SOA anymore due to cutbacks from the hacking problems.

[Kurosawa]

Let's noit kid ourselves. PSU will be a masterful game, fun to play and brilliant in design. It'll be addictive and deep. But ST hasn't changed in all these years, and they're NOT going to change now.

They will not give US or EU players any kinds of quests. JP players will always get better treatment. And server side saves or no server side saves, the game will get hacked and hacked quickly. It's already happened to BB. ST will do next to nothing to fight this, and what they do will most likely cause more harm than good. Whoever it is that hacks the game will go unpunished as always, even though they often advertise who they are, and ST will only punish all US and EU players by ignoring them.

This is the way ST works. They'll never change.

[shinobu_seta]

On 2005-08-22 16:34, Kurosawa wrote:
Let's noit kid ourselves. PSU will be a masterful game, fun to play and brilliant in design. It'll be addictive and deep. But ST hasn't changed in all these years, and they're NOT going to change now.

They will not give US or EU players any kinds of quests. JP players will always get better treatment. And server side saves or no server side saves, the game will get hacked and hacked quickly. It's already happened to BB. ST will do next to nothing to fight this, and what they do will most likely cause more harm than good. Whoever it is that hacks the game will go unpunished as always, even though they often advertise who they are, and ST will only punish all US and EU players by ignoring them.

This is the way ST works. They'll never change.

It doesn't matter to them, because they've figured out that they're going to get our HL fees anyway. It doesn't matter what sort of abuse or lack of attention we get, we're too dumb to quit this game I guess.

I'm included. If Phantasy Star didn't have that certain charm, I'd quit it in a heart beat, but I just can't. Players of other MMO's get treated so much better...

[DarK-SuN]

Trust me, players of other MMOs (although PSO isn't really an MMO, but falls in the category of "Play to Play Online RPG") don't get treated that much better.
A bit better, yes, but not much better.
I can think of a few examples which were much worse than PSO; PSO (specially PSOBB) is bliss compared with those, I assure you.

[Cynric]

EVen if ST screws PSU support-wise like they did with PSO, I'll still have fun playing a completely new game with everyone. To me, seeing all the new terrain, fighting all the new monsters, using all the new rares, and playing the game with other PSOW-ers is worth a couple HL payments (or whatever they'll be called in PSU).

[Saiffy]

Support for most all online games is utter crap. It doesn't matter what compnay it is.

Heck, last time I was on EQ(Janurary?) I actually saw a GM, and about 50 people just sat there and gawked at him, he barely said anything, showed some of his GM powers, but we were amazed at the site