Here are the details regarding payment and Service In.
On July 15th, Service In will begin (full retail).
At this time, any Open Beta accounts must pay to continue play with their accounts, and of course must download the new retail clients if necessary.
Any accounts made aftrer Service In will have a free 15 Day Trial Period in which to play. During this period, they may have full access to the game and all available modes, but may not level past level 20 in any characters. At level 18 and 19, a message will be sent to the player much like the one shown here stating that the character is about to become level 20. Once the character levels from level 20, the player will be forced to stop playing until payment is made on the account.
Account charges are as follows:
1050 yen per month for a recurring payment (auto-payment)
1260 yen per month for a one time 30 day payment
Payments may be made with Webmoney or a Credit Card, much like current HL options.
Ruleset: 30 Minute Battle, Minimum Dice 3, Maximum Dice 5, Character HP 20, Shared HP
On 6/2-6/4 at 22:00-1:00 JP time, there will be 4 ships called G-1 GP/PRE01~04.
These ships will have special tournaments on them which, when won, will raise your Gather Points, or Gather. While you are on a Gather ship, you will be able to see your Gather Rank above your name, same as you would normally check you rank on regular ships.
Gather gained from each tournament round
1st round win 100
2nd round win 200
3rd round win 500
Finals win 1000
Tournaments start every half an hour, so there are 7 possibilities to enter.
Gather points gained are not changed regardless of facing a human or CPU opponent, so CPU bashing (in the tournament of course) is perfectly acceptable for gaining points.
On 6/5, at 1 AM JP Time, the tournament preliminaries will be over. the top 32 players will be announced on the JP Episode 3 Web Site by 10 AM JP time, and will be able to send their information to be qualified for the finals.
If you are in the top 16 according to Sega's list, you will be allowed entry into the special G-1 GP/ENTRY ship on 6/5 from 13:00-15:00 and from 21:00-
23:00 JP time.
If you are in the top 16, you are to go to the ship, and give Sonic Team your Guild Card Info, your Partner's Guild Card Info, and your Team Name to be used for the tournament. You're done after that point until the finals.
If you make the Top 32, head to the ship from 23:00-24:00 JP time. You may still get an entry. The way this works is this:
Lets say the first place player chooses the third place player as his partner. Rather than having the Top 16 people pick their partners for the 32 player finals, there are now only 15 teams. So 17 then gets to choose his partner to make up that last team. So, if you're not in the top 16, but close, you still stand a good chance, given that most high ranks will be playing in pairs.
Then we have the finals. On 6/6, from 17:30-17:50 JP time, the 32 players will be able to enter the special G-1 GP/FINAL ship. The tournament will begin at 18:00 JP time. At that point, any prospective spectators may then enter the ships and do their thing.
And now we come to the prizes...
The winning team will recieve for each player:
A years subscription to Game Gather
An award certificate in the form of your favorite card
3000 yen in Webmoney
An exclusive Episode 3 Quo card
A mystery prize
And the runners up will recieve
An award certificate in the form of your favorite card
1500 yen in Webmoney
An exclusive Episode 3 Quo card
A mystery prize
ST posted announcing that the new Ripples quest, an online quest for 2 people is up and available. This quest will be online from Tuesday, May 25th until Tuesday June 8th. This quest has the same map as the one that will be used in the Gather Cup. The Gather Cup Map is up online to play, so that people can get used to it before the Cup and plan strategies. More info will follow shortly.
Remember that Grand Prix prelimary rounds are on:
Wednesday, June 2nd starting at 10 pm - 1 am (JST)
Thursday, June 3rd starting at 10 pm - 1 am (JST)
Friday, June 4th starting at 10 pm - 1 am (JST)
Final Tournament is on:
Sunday, June 6th starting at 6 pm (JST)
The official name of this tournament is "F1 Gran Prix - Who Is the World's Strongest Team?"
This tournament, unlike the previous two, is different in that it will be a Team Tournament. So you'd better be tailoring your decks together with a friend if you want to make it anywhere in this tournament!
The preliminary point rounds will be spread over 3 days, unlike the marathons that heralded the last two tournaments. Dates are as follows:
June 2nd 10 PM - 1 AM JST
June 3rd 10 PM - 1 AM JST
June 4th 10 PM - 1 AM JST
The qualifiying teams then play on to the main Tournament date on June 6th from 6 PM JST
The winning team then also plays an exhibition match against the Game Gather Staff after the finals are over. Who knows what kind of decks these guys will bring to the field?
ST also announced that there will be additions and changes to the lobby jukeboxs. For this, there will be a server maintenance on Thursday, May 6th from 2pm til 5pm (JST). Please do not connect to the servers at this time and please end all games before the scheduled maintenance. This will affect both PSO Ep 1&2 and PSO Ep 3. There are no changes to PSO Ep 1&2. "Sonic Team has posted news on PSO's "Website" option, concerning what they refer to as "Online Abuse". The news is quoted as follows--
Online Abuse -- Action is Being Taken!
Sonic Team will be taking appropriate legal and other action against users who are in violation of the PSO Terms of Service. Specifically, there have been cases of users spamming the lobbies and causing games to crash. These actions are unacceptable. Sega regrets the inconvenience and trouble this small minority has caused the PSO Community. You can take comfort that we are listening to your calls and monitoring the logs to ensure the best possible experience for everyone!
Reporting Abuse
When reporting user abuse, please report all the information you can, including:
Location: Ship and Block.
Time of Offense: PLEASE USE PSO IN-GAME TIME!
[From XX:XX to XX:XX and date]
Username: EXACTLY how it appears onscreen: pay close attention to caps and text symbols.
Please include your username as well.
Guild Card numbers: Theirs and yours. This is very helpful, although we realize that this can be hard to get.
Optional: Screenshot of the offending complaint
[For symbol chat/language]
Email this information to:
[email protected]
This update can also be found here.
"This is a note to say that ST added online Episode 2 Challenge Mode Stage 5 (Central Control Area) on Tuesday, April 20th, thereby completing the online Episode 2 Challenge Mode Stages. S-Rank time is 5 hours for all 5 stages. We also have 16 brand spanking new Episode 2 S-Rank weapons. A-Rank prize is the Yellow Ring, B-Rank prize is a choice of one of the following: Hunter Field, Ranger Field, Force Field. We have a rough C-5 guide as well as an Episode 2 S-Rank weapons guide.
Credit: scyllav and Jazhara "ST posted more PSOBB production sketches. Looking good, aren't they? So how many people are up for BB?
Discuss this in our forums. Our PSOBB section was also updated with GM/Guardian information, staff character information and TOS Violations information.
Credit:Getintothegame "ST posted announcing that a new online quest is coming to Ep 3 on Tuesday, April 27th. "Dorimaga" is a 2 player online quest for the "Dorimaga" magazine. Dorimaga was the previous "Dreamcast Magazine" which has renamed itself when the Dreamcast stopped production. The prize from this online quest is the Dremaga (Game Magazine) card. You will cooperate with another player and face two strong Arkz characters with challenging decks. This quest will take place in the "VR" stage. This quest will be up until Thursday, May 13th.
There will be a server maintenance for this quest on Tuesday, April 27th from 2pm til 5pm (JP time). Please do not connect to the servers at this time and please end all games before the scheduled maintenance We'll post more news once it becomes available. Discuss this in our forums.
Also, there will be an EGM quest coming on Saturday, May15th. The reward for that quest, will of course, be the EGM (Game Magazine) card. The lobbies are now decorated with EGM banners for this upcoming quest. Discuss this in our forums.
Credit: navi and StrongBad"