I can finally put words to PSOer's arguments against PSU!

[Zorafim]

Forgive me if this is old. And, forgive me for restarting the whole PSO vs PSU thing (the correct answer is WoW anyway). But I simply had to state this.

There is a saying among musicians that goes "improving on Mozart". This means, making changes to a classic. If people go to see a concert of Mozart's music, they want to hear what he wrote, and played how he wrote it. If someone makes changes to this, then these changes will be out of character, and may end up being worse than the original. It would, instead, be better if the music were inspired by Mozart, but not considered a concert of his music. Or, if Mozart himself created a new piece.

This is what I believe happened with PSU. Sega tried to improve on PSO. This would probably seem like a great idea at the time, as a better version of a loved game seems ideal. However, many of these changes were out of character. Many things just didn't sit right on top of each other. The mindset of Sega changed, but they still tried to fit in things they had in their old mindset. I'm sure if the game were called something else, or if they were to somehow recreate the exact environment PSO was created in, then things would have gone smoother.


That being said, excuse me while I hunt of an Igg crown, get my HUnewearl to Ultimate, and finish this heroic up before my raid starts.

[Kent]

More or less, yeah.

...Though the correct answer is not WoW - that's kind of an unrelated thing, in the sense that it's a very different genre. :/ Some of us have an Online Hack-and-slash-y action-RPG hole that needs to be filled, and honestly, WoW doesn't do that. It does provide a nice medium for MMO-styled gameplay that lasts... A while.

In the end, they tried to make PSU more complex than it needed to be, and ended up with not only a horrible, horrible system based around weapon classifications and binding photon arts, but also something that is widely considered to be a technical abomination, rife with inefficiency.

[Leviathan]

Opinions.
Some people like PSO some like PSU and even some like WoW.

One being better than the other will never happen.

Frankly I happen to like PSO more because I don't have to pay a fee for it, and my computer can handle it without dying. Had PSU been in the same circumstances as PSO I would like both equally.

inb4someshitstorm

Neutrality & whatnot.

[Kylie]

Hmm. I don't think that's a very good argument. I'll state the obvious and say that music =/= vidya games, but I also think you're wrong about where PSU went wrong in the first place. Your logic implies that PSU was doomed from the start, and I disagree. PSU as a game is absolutely fine; things were great in its original days. The problem has been with the shitty service on the EN servers and the slow nature of the update system. It would have been a lot more successful without those and more advertising.

[Kent]

Hmm. I don't think that's a very good argument. I'll state the obvious and say that music =/= vidya games, but I also think you're wrong about where PSU went wrong in the first place. Your logic implies that PSU was doomed from the start, and I disagree. PSU as a game is absolutely fine; things were great in its original days. The problem has been with the shitty service on the EN servers and the slow nature of the update system. It would have been a lot more successful without those and more advertising.
It was a metaphor - that is, improving an established, quality product (that and, like music, games are also art). The point being that if you're going to try and improve on something that is already well-established as being very good, then you'd better tread lightly unless you know exactly what you're doing (which is widely-considered to not be the case with Phantasy Star Universe).

In a sense, it was doomed from the start - they simultanously catered the game's announcements and previews to cater to their existing PSO audience, while at the same time, changing things enough to alienate them once they finally got into it. Being that the existing fanbase wasn't exactly massive in the first place, it doesn't bode well to turn them away. The end result being an amalgamated mess of trying to appeal to new players as well as the old... And not really succeeding at either.

This, coupled with some of the technological decisions (i.e. PS2 version as the basis for the rest) severely limited the ways in which the game can be updated. No live content updates, no big patches, or anything like that, without creating a divide between servers - and the only real updates come in the form of expansions being released, with nothing in-between. Though, I think people would complain about this less if the added content of an expansion (and of course, the original base game) wasn't witheld and unlocked over time. There's not really a reason to do that.

And of course, PSU was also a technological mess when you look at the obvious rush-job done with the PC and Xbox 360 versions, and how poorly-optimized they are for their respective platforms. I don't think it was really a good idea to do any of these things, from both a development perspective and from a business perspective. I think the rush-job was done for the purposes of getting a "working" product out the door as fast as possible, while putting quality on the wayside.

After all, quality products perform much better than your zerg-rushed programming in almost all cases (the only real exception that comes to mind is post-Harmonix Guitar Hero games).

[Sinue_v2]

In the end, they tried to make PSU more complex than it needed to be

They tried to mix story-based offline RPGs, with dungeon crawlers, as well as compete with contemporary MMORPGs. This odd chimera CAN work... but Sonic Team doesn't have the talent, and Sega sure as hell didn't give them the budget, to pull it off. In the end, the dev team couldn't develop a proper title because they didn't know what the hell Sega wanted them to develop - they were handicapped by the shortsighted decision to make it for the post-HDD PS2 and they didn't have the funds to fully support the development.

Couple that with poor JP/US division cooperation and steep monthly fees while waiting for content on the disk to be unlocked was a recipe for disaster. As I've often said - part of what makes PSU bad is that you can see the obvious potential it had to be a really stellar grade-A title... but that was pissed away or not fully developed in order to produce a money sink for investment into future Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Part of it also is just poor timing. PSU would have likely had a better reception if they had released it a few years earlier instead of making Blue Burst, and built it to within the PS2's specs - rather than trying to play the middle ground between generations. That would have left them open for a rework/re-release... or better... a sequel on the 360/PC with more acceptable graphics, gameplay, content distribution method, etc. I think it would have also put them closer to MS's announcement of XBL for Windows - perhaps enabling PS3/360/PC interconnectivity.

[rayner]

You make some good points, but in the end I believe it's the "wait for *insert item*" that destroyed PSU... for me at least. It's not even the fact that these items are "on" the disk and we're waiting for the to be unlocked. It's basically the entire community finding an item then moving on to the next best item to come out, coupled with having PP on an item instead of a character attribute spells out disaster. I have to have 6 weapons... hell in PSO I was fine with 1 Demolition Comet.

I also was dissapointed with the character development in terms of leveling-up. When events came around you wanted to raise your Alternate characters quickly, then when said event was over that character's PA's were so under-leveled you wouldn't stand a chance, then it was back to crubby missions until you could raise the lv of your PA's.

The pacing in PSO was much better... and basically all the items you could get outside of the "online shop" were available at the start, as long as you could survive.

[Rasputin]

In the end I believe it was "where did my friends list go" that made me quit.

[Kylie]

It was a metaphor - that is, improving an established, quality product (that and, like music, games are also art). The point being that if you're going to try and improve on something that is already well-established as being very good, then you'd better tread lightly unless you know exactly what you're doing (which is widely-considered to not be the case with Phantasy Star Universe).I know that; I just don't think it's a good one.