In case you haven't been following this week, here are some of the current hot topics to check out:

- ARKS "United Front Festival 2014" Triple Campaign
Campaign Period is between Maintenance 15th January 2014 and Maintenance 12th February 2014 with rewards being sent out in March 2014. The three campaign are as follow:
&nbsp - New Player Campaign: free present for new players
&nbsp - AC Charge Campaign: rewards for charging 500AC & more
&nbsp - Friend Campaign: rewards for players with more than 4 or 12 friends

- Arks Bingo Web Panel Event 2014!
This year, there are 20 panels to unlock. Currently, 14 panels have unlocked at 2.25 million points.

- Favorite NPC Elections!
Vote for your favorite NPC and we could get items based on the election winner(s).

- Electifinis gun camo sound problem.
Due to a lot of complaints from this weapon's sound, Sega and will adjust the gun's volume. For your curiosity, we have the gun's video - courtesy of member final_attack.

Check back for new information as they are added. Thanks to Pyrii, Dnd, Maninbluejumpsuit, TaigaUC, and final_attack for the updates.

We're looking to make the news page a bit more active, despite the lack of PSO2 Western release news these days. The forums continue to be a great source of PSO2 information and discussions, so we'll be trying to post regular highlights of some of the most popular discussions. We hope to do this at least weekly, while we work to get back into a more regular news-posting routine. Here are some of the current hot topics for you to check out:

- PSO2 Episode 2 - Deluxe Package for both PC and PS VITA. Member Meji has just picked up this little news piece from Sega.

- Also, due to a serious issue from PSO2 JP's weekly update, there is an Emergency Maintenance.
Edit: Maintenance is over. Servers are back online.

- Next, check out Sega's new trailer of future content.

 
 

Check back for new additions as they are added. Thanks to Meji, Horo The Wise Wolf, AIDA and Shinamori for the updates.

Once again, the PSOW Phasion Group is back to present their biggest Art Contest yet.

This contest will open from July 4 to August 4. Its unique reward style is having more prizes available when there are more submissions. There are three categories to enter: Photoshop, Artwork, and Portrait. Contestants can enter one in each category for more chances to win.

Although the contest is mainly about PSO2, the contest is open to all PSOW members, whether playing PSO2 or not. For more details, follow the link.

From the official blog, the closed beta will extend until 11pm on the 30th of April. Testers will receive an additional 1000 AC to use during this extension, after today's maintenance is over.

Additionally, Ship 6 will become available during this time. Anyone who creates and levels a character to 10 on Ship 6 will receive an item code for a 500 FUN ticket, that can be used from the Open Beta and on. Any player who raises a character to level 20 on any ship will also receive a 500 FUN ticket for the Open Beta.

To recap rewards:

• Raise a character to level 10 on any ship: Weapon Hologram room decoration
• Raise a character to level 20 on any ship: 500 FUN item code
• Raise a character to level 10 on Ship 6: 500 FUN item code

Thanks to Mike for the update. Feel free to join the discussion in the forum.

From Mike's earlier post, the official blog has a huge list of what is actually going on in the closed beta. It is more or less as follows:

• There will only be 5 ships (servers) in the closed beta. Ships 6 - 10 will also show up but these ships are not online so you won't be able to log in to them.
• A "premium set" will be available in 30 day periods. This includes the use of your room, the ability to open a shop, expanded storage, and the ability to trade.
• Buying items via a player owned shop is free (as in you don't need to buy access to it)
• Players who purchase the premium set can join a block especially for those members and get bonus FUN from activites that provide it (kinda sounds like PSU)
• The game has bee tuned so you don't gain levels as quickly as you did in the second alpha.
• A menu option has been added for cash shop and FUN related purchases.
• Scratch terminals have also been placed around the lobby
• Since the AC cost of cash shop items has been set to 10 AC, the amount of AC given to testers has been reduced from 10,000 to 1000.

Arks Cash

• All Arks Cash (AC) items are set at 10 AC for the closed beta
• Each tester will receive 1000 AC to use.
• You can't purchase more AC during the testing period
• The items in the store and scratches (Gatcha) will be limited during the beta and will change for the official launch

FUN

• FUN can be gained by logging in, using AC, using certain aspects of the game (Good Job!), and as a reward for being in the top three for the weeks ranking
• FUN can be used in a FUN scratch
• The contents of the FUN scratch will change for the official launch

Races

• Human, Casts, and Newmen will be available, just like the official launch

Character Creation

• Only a limited amount of costume items will be available in the closed beta
• Players will only have one character to begin with.
• New character slots can be purchased with AC
• New costumes, accessories, and character voices
• The "Cat Ears" accessory will now match your hair color
• Characters can be saved and loaded as files on your computer
• New facial variations for male and female characters
• The Beauty Shop will allow you to change your character in game
• You can now get parts and clothing in game (you couldn't do this in the alphas.)
• Parts and clothing can be equipped from the equipment menu

Classes

• The max level for the closed beta is 20
• Classes can be changed at the class counter
• Raising a character to level 10 in any class will mean that account will receive a "Weapon Hologram" room decoration in the open beta

Skill Trees

• Skill trees for all classes have been completely changed
• New skill trees can be added by spending AC allowing you to take you character in a different direction

Play Records

• Titles are now available from the title counter
• Item collections and player records are visible from a visi-phone

Player Related Battle

• Partisans, launchers, and talis weapons are now usable
• On death, you can choose to return to the camp ship or use a scape doll if you have one
• You can now switch between different sub-palettes like you could with your main palette

Enemy Related Battle

• Several new enemies including the new boss Dark Ragne
• Boxes appear after defeating bosses instead of bosses dropping items
• Destroying parts of boss enemies increases the number of boss boxes
• Boost enemies will appear
• Starting enemies are weaker because they were found to be too strong
• Some enemies have been tweaked graphically to better fit the PSO2 world
• Some dragon-type enemies now have voices

Mags

• By raising any class level to 10 and completing a specific client order allows you to obtain a mag license. This lets you own and use a mag
• Mags evolve in to their second stage at level 50
• Mag levels are capped at 99 in the closed beta

Lobby

• New lobbies have been implemented in the closed beta

Quests

• 2 new quest types: Story and Emergency
• You can invite NPCs and friend characters from the new Partner Terminal in the camp ship
• It is now easier to join other parties in an MPA than it was in the second alpha
• You can see more information about quests at the quest counter, including 7 days worth of data on drops, special effects, and enemies
• The Medical Center will sell temporary (1 mission) stat boosting drinks
• Certain missions now feature smaller maps than before

Interrupt Events

• There are new and different types of Emergency Trials
• A bug where enemies spawned indefinitely has been fixed

PSE

• New PSE variations exist
• The various PSEs have been renamed
• An "omen" system has been added to predict PSEs
• PSE effects, chances, and PSE bursts have been rebalanced

Story

• The prologue and first chapter of the story will be available
• Starting a new game starts a tutorial story quest
• The matter board will be available
• Story events can happen anywhere

Client Orders

• The client order system will be available.
• Rewards for completing client orders include things like items, exp, and expansions to your palettes
• Accessed by completing parts of the matter board

User Interface

• The main menu has been made easier to navigate
• PAs now say what weapon they are used for on the first line of the item description
• Disks for PAs and techs already learned will appear grayed out in your inventory and storage
• Units can now be customized while equipped
• Chat shortcuts will now show the first line of their settings when displayed with the quick menu
• An icon in the middle of the main palette will show what mode weapons like gunslashes are in
• The "message received" icon was made larger
• A tab for system messages has been added to the message system
• A message will appear in the chat box after a screenshot has been taken to assure you it actually happened

Controls

• More compatible game pads
• You can now switch between normal and direct chat with the scroll-lock key
• Holding control and pressing a number key will let you use your sub-palette while in direct chat mode
• Camera speed can be changed in the options menu
• Sped up the switch to character front function
• Added the option to change zoom setting for the mouse wheel
• Removed auto-run as a default for game pads
• Added a "switch targets" option for game pads
• No more virtual full screen
• Increased the number of player models that can be displayed on-screen to 160
• Added several formats for screenshots
• Added the option to not use auto-words or show auto-words in the log

Communication

• Arcs Cards
• Ability to create teams added
• Can send "Good Jobs" to players with comments
• Symbol Art system
• Whispering added
• Friend Partners, the ability to take friend's characters on missions
• Item trading is now possible for those who spend purchase a Premium Set with AC
• Items that you equip are bound to your character and can not be traded or sold in player stores
• The ability to imitate another player's lobby actions has been added
• New emoticons have been added
• Added new rule variations for auto-words
• New lobby animations
• When word bubble combine, they now use the last person's word bubble
• A party history function has been added to let you see who you played with before
• You can now receive notifications when specific friends log on

My Shop

• Must rent the ability to open a shop with AC
• You don't need a room to open a shop
• The lowest price you can set on an item is 1000 meseta
• You can search by special ability when searching player shops

My Room

• My Rooms need to be rented with AC
• 3 Day room tickets are available in the FUN scratch
• Player rooms now have locks where groups of players can be prevented from entering
• New Scenery Passes allow you to change the view from your apartment
• Weapon Hologram items allow you to display a weapon you have as a decoration in your room
• A juke box room decoration will allow you to change the background music in your room
• Some decorations now have special actions when you use them
• You can now place small decorations on tables or desks
• The Shop Counter decoration allow players to access the shop of the owner of the room it is placed in

Item Lab

• The option to use an item to reduce the failure penalty when grinding items has been added
• An item to change the element of a weapon to whatever you'd like when strengthening elements has been added
• An item to add an additional special effect has been when moving special effects has been added

Tekkers

• Weapons that drop during a mission have a chance to show up as "SPECIAL WEAPON"s
• Tekking these weapons allows you to pick the element and a special effect for it. An additional special effect will also be added to the weapon at random

Rankings

• Only a portion of the ranking system will be available in the closed beta
• Players are ranked against other members of the ship they play on
• Two rating types exist: "Interrupt Ranking" and "Weekly Ranking"
• Interrupt Rankings are rankings announced randomly several times a day. In the beta, these will be who can defeat the most of a certain enemy in an hour.
• Weekly Rankings include things like number of room visits and number of rare containers destroyed
• The top three players in any ranking receive FUN as a reward

Specs

• The game has been optimized to run better on PCs that meet PSO2's minimum specs

Balance

• The balance in the closed beta represents what will likely be the balance for the launch version of PSO2 but this is subject to change

Character Data

• Character data from the closed beta will not be carried over in to any upcoming version.

Check out more information, updates, videos and screenshots at the PSO2 forum.

According to Shogai, there was a playable PSO2 demo at the Dengeki Thanks Festival 2012 in Akihabara on the 18th. There was also a talk show with Sakai and some new footage too.

Here is the main footage video from the show:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaJszSQ5aKw[/ame]

Some information known so far:

• Mags can attack by themselves based on their stats.
• Mag feeding works like it did in Zero. You can feed them weapons and armor.
• SPECIAL WEAPONs may return since a techer (tekker) is a possibility in the new city
• Mags have the same stats that characters have + an "energy" meter
• Additionally, mags have an "Auto Action" and "Trigger Actions."
• Trigger Actions look to be similar to what mags did in PSO when certain conditions were met (boss, low health, PB full).
• Auto Actions are things like physical attacks, shooting, or techs.
• Mags can be given "devices" that accelerate their evolution.

Credit goes to Mike for bringing us this news, and Vashyron for the video. You can discuss this news and view more videos in the forum thread.

As usual, the official Japanese Phantasy Star Online 2 site was updated with results of requests sent in during the second Alpha test. In addition, there has been a new gallery section opened for the new lobby and mags! The screenshot gallery has also been updated with some of the images from this week's Famitsu. Also, there's also a letter from Sakai on the "after" page. He says, among other things, that the closed beta will proceed on schedule. Here is a summary of the request and response information:

Battle & Quest Related

• Lag
• Multi-party area (MPA)
• Starter enemies
• Solo-play
• Grind by using PSEs
• Emergency Trial spawn
• Quests length
• Bosses boxes
• Destroying parts of enemies
• "Quest clear" music
• Grinders and synthesizers
• Sub-pallet settings

Controls & Settings

• More supported gamepads
• Chat modes
• Radar map styles
• Sub-pallet in direct chat mode
• Speed of camera
• Zoom camera
• Auto-run key
• Switch targets
• Full screen option
• Details on characters
• Screenshots format

User Interface

• Item pack
• PA descriptions
• Learned PAs
• Customize equipped items
• Shortcuts in quick menu
• Shooting or slashing mode
• Message icon
• Different tabs for messages
• Screenshot taken

Communication Related

• Auto-words option
• Whisper feature
• Chat bubbles
• Be friend or black-list players
• Notified when friends log on

My Room

• Lock My room
• Display weapons
• Jukebox music
• Interact with room goods
• Desk for smaller objects

My Shop

• Trade items between characters
• Non-sellable rare items
• Search by special ability

Character Creation

• Base character
• Facial variations
• Beauty shop

Credit goes to Mike for bringing us this news. You can view the entire response translation and discuss this news in the original forum thread.