Getintothegame writes, "At the moment, nobody can register a new HL or renew a HL on PSO GC's Game Webite. It's due to their own server's fault, if you think it's your browser's fault, it isn't.

SEGA should have it back up soon.

Discuss it here."

Thanks for the info. I did some quick checking and this appears to be a legitimate problem as many people are reporting it even on Sega's own boards. Just be patient. The server should be back up soon. EDIT: supadjxis, site admin for Sega.com has posted that they have issolated the issue and it should be back up ASAP.

Yes, Sega has revealed a page for Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst USA. you can check it out here. They've put up 12 pictures as well, although like the one above, they seem to have a enemy debug mode on. Release date still set at Spring 05

Phantasy Star Online has been confirmed for Nintendo Revolution, however its not how you think it would be.

Today Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo confirmed that Nintendo Revolution will be backwards compatible with Gamecube games and the system will come with built in wireless standards at his keynotes speech. As such, PSO is confirmed in a compatible sense (EDIT: I got a note back saying the wireless capabilaties should not hinder GC PSO versions and online functions should still work), and this is hot on the heels of the recent notes I was passed by Armion that SEGA is stepping up its online policies on cheating. There is still no confirmation on Episode IV however. You can read the source news here.

The Good I have recieved information on new policy on the current situation in online activities and it appears ST will now be taking care of things.

{User abuse}
We are now encouraging user abuse reports to be sent in for all incidents. Representatives are expected to give this notice to their respective locations. We will be cracking down on all cheaters, "hackers", "coders", and/or reverse engineers. These reports will be investigated thoroughly and without prejudice. Those found guilty of extreme acts including but not limited to : Interfering with in game code, causing ill affect to any server to the extent of small instances, disrupting another subscribers data, hosting pirate or private servers for active games, "stream gaming", or using a proxy address to obtain information: will be subject to the full punishment of law as listed in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the User Agreement all subscribers must agree to.

{Pirate Games}
It has come to our attention that some players have began creating "Pirated Game Discs and Streams". These streams are illegal. If you access our servers with these illegal copies, you will be disconnected, and your subscription halted indefinitely. Furthermore, you will not be able to participate in any Sega/Sonicteam/Sammy Corp. online server subscription services at the discretion of these individual companies.

Here's to hoping this new attention works.

The Bad It appears that a quest that was being worked on, the quest known as 多くの大きい物の退職 or Retirement of the Greats has been cancled due to problems in the coding of Episode I&II, and as such it is unlikely this will be seen any time soon, if at all.

The Ugly Apparently Phantasy Star Universe is still only in the story board development stages. No indication of if the game engine has even begun to be worked on.

For those of you who have been waiting for the download edition...wait another week.

Sonic Team announced today that the game will be ready for download come March 15th through the online software dealer Bitway. Here's what you get with the download version.

A registration code to activate Episode IV, this can not be replaced if lost.
A 500 Megabyte download
Version 1.19.1
Item claim ticket (for one of the new episode IV weapons/items

This comes at a price of 3000￥ or about $30 US. Make sure that your computer can handle this game. Early reports from the goof Sonic Team made a few days ago with the Desert area indicate that at least 64 mb graphics may be required to run it without having to drop the framerate from 30 to 20. (The boxed version did have a label as well saying no laptops as well, although I think that's for laptops that use the Intel Extreme Graphics standard.) The only thing that is missing is the soundtrack CD. You'll have to buy that separately.

There has been an update on the drop rate issue. Turns out that the area in question was the Forest area of Episode I. An update on March 15th will adjust the drop rates for this area. More adjustments may be on the way as well.

Also coming up on March 13th, the GM White Day event will take place. GMs will be coming around to the various blocks to give out items to players. The GMs will be located at the following places at the following times.

15: 00 - 15: 50 Ship 3
16: 00 - 16: 50 Ship 4
17: 00 - 17: 50 Ship 5
18: 00 - 18: 50 Ship 6
19: 00 - 19: 50 Ship 7

To get the GM to come, you have to wait around inside of a game with a party of 3 people. The game name must be "ホワイトデー" on Normal with no password. The player will have 2 minutes to accept the item or else that player won't get the item. ST recommendds that players set up in blocks that are empty. Also make sure that the person who comes in really is a GM. You can check this in their name, the color will be blue. That's all for today.

Last week Sonic Team made a huge error when it downloaded the new episode IV maps to Blue Burst. Apparently, the area wasn't supposed to be activated yet, and yet people were able to get inside of it. This error was corrected on thursday, however the damage was already done.

As such Sonic Team has apparently bumped up the release dates for Government quests 9-5 and 9-6 to thursday. Here's the info on them.

9-5 The Chosen People part 1

Accompanied by General Leo, you head down into the crater and the crater has formed into a series of caves where the meteroite crashed. This has something to do with MOTHER, but no other details are known.



9-6 The Chosen People part 2

Head deeper into the crater, but beware as monsters strength increases a lot. Montague will now make his grand reappearance, where he was last seen during the Ult incident.

White day will soon be on Episodes 1&2 for Gamecube.

The first quest, gift of the principal takes you into the mines where you and your loved one will be racing against the clock to make it to the end. Make it there, and Tyrel will give you a gift.

The second quest is The White Day Event. In this, a male player will go down to Ragol to go and help the Naura sisters to get some flowers.



The update happens on the 8th and will go until March 22nd.

A number of bug fixes occured in this morning's maintenance.

A bug where some of the new weapons were crashing the game was corrected.

Drop rates were corrected on a few monsters in episode IV.

A problem where if the enemy got between the character and the camera was corrected, the enemy will now stay on screen.

Certain weapons had their descriptions redone.

A problem with Ba Boota's rush attack was corrected.

Enemy shadows were corrected for episode IV.

Required stats of certain items has been fixed.

A bug where a player was supposed to be able to go somewhere, but couldn't has now been fixed.

Just a reminder folks, the next two principal quests won't be released until late march. Sorry to everyone who was hoping to play them now. White Day and Phantasmal World #4 have been released.