Article: Phantasy Star Portable Launch Event for PSU

[EspioKaos]

The North American release of Phantasy Star Portable is less than a week away. In celebration, a special launch event will be held in Phantasy Star Universe on March 6! Vivienne, a new lead story character of PSP, will be making appearances in Clyez City throughout the day. She needs your help to track down Helga Neumann, a suspected terrorist! Team up with your friends, locate Vivienne, and track down Helga using the clues given to you by your new partner. This event will run multiple times throughout the day, and after the event has been completed successfully, all participants will be given a unique phrase to say which will reward them with a special weapon! Below is a list of the times the event will be occurring on each server. Remember! The times listed are all PST, Friday, March 6! (If you need assistance converting from PST to your time zone, please reference this site (http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc).)

10:00a.m. - 11:00a.m. PST (PC/PS2)
11:00a.m. - 12:00p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
1:00p.m. - 2:00p.m. PST (PC/PS2)
2:00p.m. - 3:00p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
4:00p.m. - 5:00p.m. PST (PC/PS2)
5:00p.m. - 6:00p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
6:15p.m. - 7:00p.m. PST (PC/PS2)
7:00p.m. - 7:45p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
For complete details, please see the official announcement (http://www.phantasystaruniverse.com/community_quests.php?item=psppsuevent). Thanks to RubyEclipse (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/member.php?u=14917) for the heads up (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159428)!

Update: A few modifications have been made to this event. First, one more time slot has been added to each server to help accommodate more players. Second, anyone who says the phrase "Phantasy Star Portable Day" (just as it is typed here, but without the quotes) at any point on March 6 (12:00a.m. - 11:59p.m. PST) will receive a Moatoob Collectible room decoration at a later date. And finally, anyone who participates in at least one successful run of the event (i.e. Vivienne is successful in catching up to Helga), all participants of that run will be given a unique phrase to say which will reward them with a Real Hand Gun+ at a later date.

[gratefulgriz]

I pay ten bucks a month for this! I loled my self back to PSO!

[Brainwrecked]

If this involves finding a GM dressed up like Vivienne, it will be a complete CF to find her. PSU just wasn't designed to have a large number of active people gather in the same place -- character models take forever to load and as the number of people increase, so does the time it takes for you to receive updates on their movements. Regardless, at least the text speech bubbles work, but the community does a lot of spamming in the presence of a GM, making it difficult to follow the GM's part of the conversation.
Just, blah.

[Kaioken]

That was well said Brainwrecked. I'm not one to discourage new and exciting events but lets face it, they never work with PSU. If anyone still plays this game like I do that's been around for 2 years I think you all remember the Xbox 360 "Find a GM and have your picture taken" event. I logged on that day only to be kicked off because the universe had crashed from so many people being in one area. Its also hard for me to get excited about Phantasy Star Portable as well because I'm already playing a Phantasy Star game. More and more I get the feeling like Sega is more focused on PSP than PSU but whatever. We'll see how well this event goes on March 6th.

[Imatron_]

O_o
It took me a bit to figure out if this event was for the console version or not, I gues it is since the times are listed next to the pc/ps2 ... I sure hope I can get the day off and figure the times out, I wish it was a week long event rather than a single day, I already missed out on the spreed needle and Id hate to lose out on the holy ray.

[mvffin]

I would much rather have the "Innocent Girl" mission that JP got for this, but I guess something's better than nothing. Also, the article says March 6, then it says March 3... I'm assuming its the 6th though, since that's the day after the Carnival ends.

[jShazBot]

I wonder if my ban on PSU has been lifted yet...:|

[dark hello2]

this is going to be one interesting event, but its not going to be that great if it is a gm held event because theres going to be way to many people and when theres alot of people in one place theres going to be spam and lag outs

[Gaara of sv]

doesnt it seem a like sega is a little biased towards jp? i understand that it is all jp... but we should at least get the same stuff... isnt it bad enough that we get some of the stuff they do like a year and a half later? cuz seriously i was like okay cool, finally a new rod... and then when it changed cuz the jp didnt want us to have them it just didnt seem right to me... i may be wrong... and if i am im srry...

[Tunai]

Ya know that's not kool!! Them changing the prize that was given!! >.< I was wanting the Pumpkin Trick!! >.< Instead they changed it to the Real Handgun and a Room Decoration!!

[Imatron_]

Noooooo >_< My holy ray...At least I already found two on PSP.
Anyway, theres at least one advantage and disadvantage I see to the whole Japan gets things first system:
*They get things first but we have to wait a really long time to get them
*Once the updates are here stateside, weve already had long enough warning to stock up on certain items or level up the best class for the mission, and usually get good advice from Japan's side, on top of that Sega has had time to moniter the updates and tune them better for when we get them here.

[Imatron_]

Okay everyone, it WAS a GM event after all, we had to run around and try to find Helga based on clues of what area and Universes she might be in.
We had an orrange event bar keeping us up to date on certain clues, usually where "Viviene" was located and what universe and minor clues that helga might be in. The GMs had blue names and blue text for their speech, and used the Viviene and Helga models from the PSP game. When someone found her we were supposed to run over to Viviene's location and tell her where to go, and repeat the process of hunting for her until she "went into hiding"...Of course we didnt ALL have to rush over and tell Viviene, just as long as someone on the server did it at all. Once the mission finished, the orange bar gave us a code word to shout, and we have a fifteen minute period to shout it during to get the weapon. Its very likley we just have to be online when the orrange bar gives us the message and what to shout to get the prize.
The code word to shout for the first run on the US 360 servers was
Lavis Cannon

[Omega-chan]

I must say, I'm utterly appalled at Sega's ENCOURAGEMENT to spam...but I'm even more pissed at the players who laughed at the suggestion that anyone might want to, oh, TAKE SCREENSHOTS?
Ugh. This event was...there isn't even a word for it. :|

[Lucky Dearly]

Sega gave us all the ol' bait and switch
I rather have Pumpkin Trick and Holy Ray than a moatoob sovenier

[Tunai]

So when r we suppose to get these items?

[Zabrio]

2 months from now when they remember :P