Just Another "What If..."

[Outrider]

I wondered what Sonic Team would do when they released another Phantasy Star Online game after Ep 1 & 2. I figured it would just be more of the same. I was wrong, of course, and they're bringing us Ep 3. My question is... what if they actually expanded upon the online RPG aspect instead? Or what if they did this for the PSO 2 that people seem to love to talk about.

What if Sega made the sequel to Phantasy Star Online a true MMORPG?

Simple enough idea. There would be one large world instead of many small games. There aren't only four players at a time working together, there are many more. Examples are of course Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, or the recently-released Final Fantasy XI. The game could take place on Ragol (of course, not if it were PSO 2, because we're supposed to be getting the end of the Ragol story with Ep 3.) and also on Pioneer 2. Flesh them out, and throw in some areas from the original game randomly placed on the planet for the nostalgia factor.

Of course, if not continuing the Ragol story, just set it on whatever other planet or spaceship they feel like using. I just wonder how it would work out.

[SpyroDi]

That's pretty interesting...sounds like a good idea to me.

[A2K]

The only problem I would have with that is that... there are so many MMORPGs out there already. I don't want a PS-themed one to just fall in with the rest of the crowd.

[ex]

There is a game coming out called Monster Hunter for the ps2, and if pso would go the mmorpg way, i would imagine it would be like that game. From what i have seen its like a massive world with hunters walking around, digging, fishing, and slaughtering giant dragons.

[anwserman]

I like PSO as it is... it is linear, with a definate movement with it. With some MMORPGs I've seen, you just run around, find people and then kill enemies. Rinse, repeat, lather. With PSO, you go to a level, kill enemies, goto boss, goto another level, etc.

With standard MMORPGs, it seems you just roam around the same area over and over... like playing Forest 1 the whole time in PSO... granted, I'd be expanded 100x but it would be so boring.

"Oh look, yet ANOTHER Booma. Yay."

[Rogue100]

That sounds like an interesting idea!

[Buuyon]

On 2003-11-18 23:48, anwserman wrote:
I like PSO as it is... it is linear, with a definate movement with it. With some MMORPGs I've seen, you just run around, find people and then kill enemies. Rinse, repeat, lather. With PSO, you go to a level, kill enemies, goto boss, goto another level, etc.

With standard MMORPGs, it seems you just roam around the same area over and over... like playing Forest 1 the whole time in PSO... granted, I'd be expanded 100x but it would be so boring.

"Oh look, yet ANOTHER Booma. Yay."


uh that sounds just like PSO actuly...in a few hours you could beat ep 1 and 2...its not a hard or long game...

[MaxBuster]

The idea is good, but I don't think it's possible. All the online RPG's that you mentioned, also Dark Age of Camelot, doesn't have the same game play as PSO. Most of those games are turn based and PSO is more action oriented. Also, just imagine 20+ people chopping Falz at the same time, or a Force Rafoieing 50+ enemies by himself...sounds kinda cool, but unlikely.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

I'd like to see PSO 2 based directly off of the setting presented in Phantasy Star 4. Maybe it takes place a few years prior to PS4, while the Hunters' Guild on Motavia is thriving. Taking a quest doesn't put you into an entirely different world, it just means you have to go find your client and do your thing. In the mean time, you've got all of Motavia to explore.

[MaxBuster]

I like what Rika said, lol. Fighting on Motavia would be nice, and Alys is there, too. And you also wouldn't need to walk as much, since you'd have the Land Rover and Hydrofoil to use...damn, kinda makes me wanna clean my Genesis and play PSII-IV again, lol.

[JohanCC]

First time I heard about PSO, I thought it was a MMORPG. There would be a huge massive world map with many different areas (a huge forest and a caves area to name a few), and the Pioneer 2 (which I thought was the CCTs from the opening video) was a meeting place where you could talk and take up side quests in the middle of everything.

[Krank40oz]

Tones of people are like oh i dont want PSO to fall into the rest of the mmorpg's. Thats such crap. There are only 3 popualr ones whgich are Everquest, SWG, and FFXI. Ummm but pso the story itself is nothing like any of these games. Yes there will be somethings that are the same but ur playing pso, which makes it 10 times better. I do hope they do make it into a MMORPG but keep some of the pso for gc and dc elements like the real time battles but not just click once and they attack for u, more on the lines of the gc and dc ver where u attack in combos of three. The game now is awsome but there is no patches or updates for it. Its never somthing new, dont get me wrong i love the gc and dc versions alot and will still play them but I just wish it wasnt so linear. I wish there were biggar worlds and other stuff to make the game so much better that a MMORPG could give it!

[A2K]

Don't tell me that my opinion is crap. It is a very reasonable and well-founded fear to have should the game tread into the genre.

[Outrider]

I thought the same thing, Johan.

I understand why you might say it would be unlikely, but it's just something that I think would be worth playing. Especially since I wouldn't want to see them creating a sequel that's just like the current PSO.

[_Sinue_]

I think PSO could work very well as an MMORPG - provided they keep the real-time combat and expand on it to give characters a greater choice over the techs and special abilities. Give Androids back special powers like Positron Bolt which they can only use a certain amount of times before resting or leveling up. Give HUnters special attacks like CrossCut - which again can only be used so many times per play session or between lvl ups. Give special attacks like that to FOrces too - but also give them a greater variety of spells. I want to see the names Effess and Tandel again - for example.

We do know for sure that PSO Ep III marks the end of PSO and the story around Ragol. PSO2 would be a whole new setting and whole new story. PSOII would actually make a great MMORPG if you set it durring the Great Collapse. You're at the peak of technological greatness - but it's falling apart rapidly. The Hunters Guild could be newly formed to help manage the resurgance of Bio-Monsters. You'd have plenty of high tech towns to explore - as well as ruins and the crashed remains of worldships. There would be enough strife and chaos as Motavia collapses to create more than enough adventures for every class to go on in an attempt to halt or slow their planet's decay.

You would also have two whole worlds to explore, as you could just jump a spaceship bound for Dezolis. Special quests could also involve you going to the artifical sattelites. There truely would be a whole lot more to explore than most other MMORPGs out there.

Rumors I've heard indicate that the next PSO will probably be a MMORPG set in the traditional Phantasy Star setting of Algo. Online mode would consist of the MMORPG, while the offline mode would simply be the Sega Ages remakes there for you to play through so as to learn a little history on the world you're playing in.

That's just a rumor though.. and the only confirmation I have is a friend who says he's been friends with a guy who works at SOA since they went to school together. Hardly trustworthy - but it does give ya a little bit of hope for what may be comming down the pipeline.

[Outrider]

Sounds pretty good.

But the Sega Ages/MMORPG sounds way to iffy to be true. It'd be nice though, to be getting multiple games for the price of one.

[Nikey-ray]

I'd like to expand on _SINUE_'s post about PSO as an MMORPG. I normaly play EQ,DAoC and did AC beta back in the day. EQ i left behind..saw no point in the evercamp exp grind with no real class defineing story. Now DAoC offered something at the end game..that is Realm vs Realm combat. Now im no fan of player on player combat but DAoC offered it in the most nongriefing<--is that a true word?> way i can see it being done. I play a 50 albion cleric with many alts so i'v done the support rout and its rewarding. In most MMORPG's when ya hit max lvl normaly a payer will make a new alt and see what the outher side of the game is like..weather its a pure melee or support or caster..what have you. We also do this in PSO so its understandable and accepted play habbit. Now i like to look into how a game runs ..ya know how the math works..the to hit numbers, stats and how one interacts with anouther. In my time i'v run a few Pen & paper PRG's. Longest running was 6 or 7 years with a close party of 7 to 10 friends. I loved to tinker with the math of a given game and at times my players would cross into one enviroment from some book or TV/Movie to anouther. I'v had to have an open mind about what can and cant be done..what works and what has to be fugged. All the while makeing shure i don't offend someones point of view on a fave class/ship/world/realm..what ever http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif
Now with that said at times when my cleric is doing a camp helping guild friends lvl up things can get well tiresome.So one night i fire up PSOX and play my ranger when my cleric has nothing to do but sit and med for mana<i'm 35 so i'v built myself quite an entertainment center with my xbox/pc/dc> so i start to take note of my rangers stats..minding mats i'v eaten and my mag stats so i don't gimp myself and something hit's me. My DAoC toon had stats like DEX-OUICK-STR-CON like you would expect but what i took note was what was the added stats for my lvl..we have what amounts to an ATA stat,a DFP stat and even a ATP stat. Now mind you PSO has 200 lvl's of grouth for a player and DAoC only has 50 giveing a 4 to 1 ratio. So in my bordom i got some paper and joted down some stats from armor/weapons/stats from active players in DAoC. What i found was a corilation in class/lvl. Take my Cleric in DAoC with a weapon skill of 668 fully buffed with a good weapon.When i aplied the 1/4 rule from lvl diferance i was stuned. My PSO ATA would be 167..just 3 points shy of a FOmarl's 170 at 200. My ATP was strate foward @ 1606 with one kind of epic hammer and my Sidi droped hammer gave me a ATP of 1576. Now with the right equipment and mats + mag i know a FOmarl should be right up to theas stats if not excede them..barring shift & deband adjustment. Even my cleric DFP was in the ball park at 704..now if i had player made armor i'd have 100% con armore with a DEF total of 792. Match that with a DEF specked FOmarl at 200 with DEF maxed equiped with Brightness Circle & Regen Gear adv and you get 775 unbuffed DEF/AF. That's chain class 129 AF and something like 97% quality! Not bad! Not mind you every player can come up with something diferent. What im saying though is its in a ball park figure comming from a MMORPG game engin that i feel is tight and works well. Now i'd love to see new things added to PSO. The spell list need fleshing out. Perhaps a new class that can cast a damage over time spell.lord knows pso can do that now to players with some npc atacks. How about a short term Hit point buff? Or even a DAoC type Blade turn http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif say a HP shield that has 500 HP's but can only absorb say 50% of the damage and the rest gets tothe player<ie a hit of 100 damage dose 50 damage to the shield but lets through 50 damage to the player untill the 500 HP's of the shield is used up and can stop one hit of megid so the melee classes can get up on some of the Ult mob's that cast it =P
Add a long cast time and short area effect for play balance so as not to overpower the players and i think we have a winner =)

In short PSO as we know it can go MMORPG with some adjustments but do we realy need to go that rout? How about uping the players in game to 8 or say add lvl's to the game world that support 16 players for an epic boss fight as well as adventureing. That would retain the feel of PSO as we know it and expand player interaction 10 fold imhop.Heck i can see 16 friend from one "real guild" on a mission to take back an outpost in a open valy from some forrest mob's. After entering a new forest map built for such an encounter the party or party's zerg through killing off huge nembers of attacking mobs untill they enter a clearing the size of or perhaps 2X bigger then a boss bord. The outpost at the center or what ever with Doors that have to be taken down and npc monsters to be killed..heck lets do a clasic reuse of the board. The party in question has to fight its way to an undefended outpost with only the gear and mats on them. No way to resuply once everyone gets to the outpost area..only a few monsters are inside an open fort and killing them will triger the encounter..something clever like an npc from pioner military will spawn and say something like thank god you got here in time as monsters spawn in buckets and attack the fort door trying to get in. players in this case can enter and exit at will at a point near the doors out<somekind of short range transporter> but the trick is the outside T pad can be attacked and destroyed by the attacking mob's so its key to defend the exit's so you can take the fight out to the atackers as well as sending out a rescue party for members who get wiped out. I feel that 16 players would be plenty enough to make this work well. Yes work on the network code would need to be done. New maps made up and some new Npc's but hay it would be a gold mine for SEGA to push something like that.
well i ranted far to much. I see this game has a LOT going for it. Heck its what i play when i need cheering up from my MMORPG play time=)
I say lets expand on what makes PSO stand out. A personal experiance with a chosen group of friend and co players with like objectives in mind that YOU the player can make at wim.

Thanks and hear's the soap box back http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

[ShadowFOrce]

Um...OK? But I think that the 4 person thing does get annoying and it would be awesome to have a MMORPG with portals all over the place leading to different places, but of course a huge world to go through. I mean The levels kinda keep you going in one hall way. I wish you could journey out in the fields and into caves and all kinds of cool things. And if one chose to they could simply go out and collect Photon drops and make weapons out of them, themselves. I wish the PSO world was much bigger. I wish you could play with at least 8 people. Battling in open fields and tall grass fields, Corn rows, etc... I am simply suggesting something that is easily posible and there is no telling how many copies this game will sell it would be great. And also I would love it if you could customize your character way more. And that there were tons and tons of more classes. Also they should ( even though they already have a ton) add more more more weapons and make them alot more detailed. They should seriously add onto the game. But I mean I am just dreaming but the tall grass in the open field thing would really make me happy if they did that. I think that some other (bigger company with more money) would finish what SC greatly started.
But these are all just wishes, Even though this will never get to SC I wish this would happen so much.I would live on the game if it ever did. I mean how great would that be? tons of characters choices, so taht you never look like someone else out there. More weapons. And they would put some kind of program on the game that if you somehow cheated the game it would delete all ur items and start you with nothing. It would be an awesome legit game with....Aw I am just dreaming way to much

[Lord_Sloth]

On 2003-11-20 13:28, Nikey-ray wrote:
I'd like to expand on _SINUE_'s post about PSO as an MMORPG. I normaly play EQ,DAoC and did AC beta back in the day. EQ i left behind..saw no point in the evercamp exp grind with no real class defineing story. Now DAoC offered something at the end game..that is Realm vs Realm combat. Now im no fan of player on player combat but DAoC offered it in the most nongriefing<--is that a true word?> way i can see it being done. I play a 50 albion cleric with many alts so i'v done the support rout and its rewarding. In most MMORPG's when ya hit max lvl normaly a payer will make a new alt and see what the outher side of the game is like..weather its a pure melee or support or caster..what have you. We also do this in PSO so its understandable and accepted play habbit. Now i like to look into how a game runs ..ya know how the math works..the to hit numbers, stats and how one interacts with anouther. In my time i'v run a few Pen & paper PRG's. Longest running was 6 or 7 years with a close party of 7 to 10 friends. I loved to tinker with the math of a given game and at times my players would cross into one enviroment from some book or TV/Movie to anouther. I'v had to have an open mind about what can and cant be done..what works and what has to be fugged. All the while makeing shure i don't offend someones point of view on a fave class/ship/world/realm..what ever http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif
Now with that said at times when my cleric is doing a camp helping guild friends lvl up things can get well tiresome.So one night i fire up PSOX and play my ranger when my cleric has nothing to do but sit and med for mana<i'm 35 so i'v built myself quite an entertainment center with my xbox/pc/dc> so i start to take note of my rangers stats..minding mats i'v eaten and my mag stats so i don't gimp myself and something hit's me. My DAoC toon had stats like DEX-OUICK-STR-CON like you would expect but what i took note was what was the added stats for my lvl..we have what amounts to an ATA stat,a DFP stat and even a ATP stat. Now mind you PSO has 200 lvl's of grouth for a player and DAoC only has 50 giveing a 4 to 1 ratio. So in my bordom i got some paper and joted down some stats from armor/weapons/stats from active players in DAoC. What i found was a corilation in class/lvl. Take my Cleric in DAoC with a weapon skill of 668 fully buffed with a good weapon.When i aplied the 1/4 rule from lvl diferance i was stuned. My PSO ATA would be 167..just 3 points shy of a FOmarl's 170 at 200. My ATP was strate foward @ 1606 with one kind of epic hammer and my Sidi droped hammer gave me a ATP of 1576. Now with the right equipment and mats + mag i know a FOmarl should be right up to theas stats if not excede them..barring shift & deband adjustment. Even my cleric DFP was in the ball park at 704..now if i had player made armor i'd have 100% con armore with a DEF total of 792. Match that with a DEF specked FOmarl at 200 with DEF maxed equiped with Brightness Circle & Regen Gear adv and you get 775 unbuffed DEF/AF. That's chain class 129 AF and something like 97% quality! Not bad! Not mind you every player can come up with something diferent. What im saying though is its in a ball park figure comming from a MMORPG game engin that i feel is tight and works well. Now i'd love to see new things added to PSO. The spell list need fleshing out. Perhaps a new class that can cast a damage over time spell.lord knows pso can do that now to players with some npc atacks. How about a short term Hit point buff? Or even a DAoC type Blade turn http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif say a HP shield that has 500 HP's but can only absorb say 50% of the damage and the rest gets tothe player<ie a hit of 100 damage dose 50 damage to the shield but lets through 50 damage to the player untill the 500 HP's of the shield is used up and can stop one hit of megid so the melee classes can get up on some of the Ult mob's that cast it =P
Add a long cast time and short area effect for play balance so as not to overpower the players and i think we have a winner =)
In short PSO as we know it can go MMORPG with some adjustments but do we realy need to go that rout? How about uping the players in game to 8 or say add lvl's to the game world that support 16 players for an epic boss fight as well as adventureing. That would retain the feel of PSO as we know it and expand player interaction 10 fold imhop.Heck i can see 16 friend from one "real guild" on a mission to take back an outpost in a open valy from some forrest mob's. After entering a new forest map built for such an encounter the party or party's zerg through killing off huge nembers of attacking mobs untill they enter a clearing the size of or perhaps 2X bigger then a boss bord. The outpost at the center or what ever with Doors that have to be taken down and npc monsters to be killed..heck lets do a clasic reuse of the board. The party in question has to fight its way to an undefended outpost with only the gear and mats on them. No way to resuply once everyone gets to the outpost area..only a few monsters are inside an open fort and killing them will triger the encounter..something clever like an npc from pioner military will spawn and say something like thank god you got here in time as monsters spawn in buckets and attack the fort door trying to get in. players in this case can enter and exit at will at a point near the doors out<somekind of short range transporter> but the trick is the outside T pad can be attacked and destroyed by the attacking mob's so its key to defend the exit's so you can take the fight out to the atackers as well as sending out a rescue party for members who get wiped out. I feel that 16 players would be plenty enough to make this work well. Yes work on the network code would need to be done. New maps made up and some new Npc's but hay it would be a gold mine for SEGA to push something like that.
well i ranted far to much. I see this game has a LOT going for it. Heck its what i play when i need cheering up from my MMORPG play time=)
I say lets expand on what makes PSO stand out. A personal experiance with a chosen group of friend and co players with like objectives in mind that YOU the player can make at wim.
Thanks and hear's the soap box back http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

I'm nopt even gonna pretend that I actaully read a post that large!
I tthink that a PSO MMORPG could be a great idea!

[Nikey-ray]

Thanks for the reply..sorry for the size of the post but if its worth saying....
Anyhoo PSO is fun in its current form but it is getting a bit stale compared to outher online games comming down the road. If we expand on player limits and adjust mob's stats to compansate for the added damage as well as offer new or adjusted play form PSO can still compeat and grow for a long time to come.

Thanks for reading http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif