Noob (sorta) questions?

[Homehopper]

Hey all! Apologies if this is in the wrong section.

Long time PSO (DC), PSO (GC) and PSOBB player here (ok i never played DC or GC online but thats ok). I was shamefully unaware that PSO2 was already out and so im joining the party, better late than never. I do however have a couple of questions!

1) Ive got my account sorted but im not exactly looking forward to tackling "paid services" in Japanese... This is sad cause id probably end up spending alot of money on this game if it was easy. Will i miss out on anything major if i choose not to tackle this? Anyone got any experience with it?

2) From my research it seems Ship 2 is where i wanna be correct? Block 20? I have no "friends" planning on playing this so im probably gonna be flying solo... Any decent teams around looking to recruit? Im Australian so a team with people playing at appropriate times would be a bonus.

3) Ive got the english patch sitting here ready to go. I realise there is limitations with items not being translated but apart from that is the majority of the game done? Ive played several games entirely in Japanese and it was fun... But im getting too old for that stuff nowdays :P.

Im sure there is more but this is it for now. Thanks for any and all help!

[UnLucky]

1. There is some nice stuff in Premium, but you can generally go without. Most useful paid feature is your own personal shop, since there's no way to give another player any valuable items as a standard user. You can, however, receive a shop pass from FUN scratch for free, but these are pretty rare.

The other AC items mostly consist of either purely cosmetic items which can be traded on the player shops for meseta, or the opportunity to reroll part of your character without starting over from lv1, like additional skill trees, another mag, or your character model.

If you plan everything from the start, you shouldn't have any issues as a free player, but any mistakes can only be fixed with real money (or starting a new character/account).

2. There should be a sizable community on Ship 10 or scattered about, but Ship 2 should have the most English speakers, I'd say. Block 20 is more of a gathering place for everyone at all levels and the lobby gets especially clogged while the missions themselves stay barren. For actual progress, you'd be better off joining the blocks segregated by difficulty level, which should have ノーマル (normal), ハード(hard), or ベリーハード(very hard) in the name. You could also look to join a Team, but I wouldn't know any offhand.

3. Yup, the game should be largely usable. Course, people still talk in Japanese, and the items aren't translated (and likely won't be any time soon), but you should definitely be able to play the game fine.