quite unfair

[Lantis-of-Mages]

i think it's unfair that you can't talk to anyone besides the nurse, bank and shop people in multi-mode on the GC vers.
i think they would at least let you do a quest or two.

[HAYABUSA-FMW-]

This is their first time ever implementing a 2-4 player mode.

This hasn't been talked about much, but will XBOX's PSO also have this mode? I'm assuming yes. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif
If I'm wrong correct me as needed.

You just had to know something would be left out for lack of memory, space, and time.
Call it unfair if you like but I do believe if they had the memory resources and time to add quests to the 2-4 player game, they would have.

[Lantis-of-Mages]

lol i want a use gamecube too

[Sedric]

One thing I noticed w/ split screen is that it pushes the GC hardware to its limit. For once, I'm beginning to think that the rumor that PSO is "console killer" might be true. Why a console killer? Not because it sux. But because it taxes so much energy, memory, and power from the machine.

Anyway, you can clearly see how split screen mode pushes the hardware to its limit. One standing example is a graphical limitation that results in a door & a wall ahead in a dungeon not showing up until you're very close to it. Other example is "downgrade" back to DC PSO graphics.

Clearly, with all these things, it's easy to see why ST left out talking to NPCs in split mode, among other things.

[sonicblue]

Actually Sedric, I doubt PSO pushes the GameCube hardware that much. Stuff like what you described probably could have been fixed and improved upon had they spent more time on it.

[Lantis-of-Mages]

well sonicblue, sedric has a point, i was playing with four people in multi mode and noticed a *cough, cough* lag.. a lag of great slowness....

[Sedric]

On 2002-11-07 18:54, sonicblue wrote:
Actually Sedric, I doubt PSO pushes the GameCube hardware that much. Stuff like what you described probably could have been fixed and improved upon had they spent more time on it.



Your statement is true for single or online mode. But offline split screen is completely different. If what you're saying is true, then what is the reason behind those "graphical limitations" I said above? What about lag that Lantis-of-Mages mentioned about? Also, even if they fixed it, it can't make any noticable difference, because the hardware still remains same, unchanged. Also, they didn't spend THAT much time on US PSO. It still came out on scheduled date, didn't it?

[RavenTW]

Good point. I've noticed in the Forest that when the far-off background is nothing but sky until you get close, which then shows the "walls" when you get close. I was worried for the first few times.

It's annoying that the entire team has to go together through a porter. But if it's true that the GC just couldn't take anymore, than all I can say is that I'm glad there's a game that finally stresses a console to it's limits.

[Agent_Reav]

PSO pushing GC to it's limits?! Hah... Now you guys know I'm the first to criticize GC and it's limited hardware but this is going too far. You have to realize this game is being "emulated" to run on GC... The engine was made for the Dreamcast! Hence u get pop up (blood stains, walls, boxes, etc) even in one player! This was done to accomodate for the DREAMCASTS limited abilities... I can point you to another example, Grandia 2 was ported to PS2 and was plauged with lag and bad textures.... Why? Because the engine was made for the Dreamcast! Once SEGA completely dumps this old engine and makes a brand new one for the Xbox (Remember the sequel to PSO is coming exclusively to Xbox Source: OXM, EGM, Gamepro) you will see a far better looking game. Heck if SEGA would've scrapped the engine and made a GC specific one it would look alot better! That little lunch box has some power (ATi... We love you)

[Ruby-chan]

Well I think you're being a little harsh there. Assuming they built the engine correctly it, making the engine work on the gamecube isn't difficult at all. It's not to hard to set view distance to a variable and set it to what you can run when the game loads.

The split screen does push the console because a 4 player split screen requires four times the work it does for the one large single player screen. Therefore that's why the shortcuts are there, to limit the possiblity of slowdown, yet even then it still occurs.

[Wewt]

On 2002-11-07 18:10, Lantis-of-Mages wrote:
i think it's unfair that you can't talk to anyone besides the nurse, bank and shop people in multi-mode on the GC vers.
i think they would at least let you do a quest or two.


The active NPCs count as playable characters, and the game allows 4 as a maximum. Some quests have 3 active NPCs(such as Kireek), so if you had an extra player in there... the game would really mess up.

[Whatley]

I got lag when playing 4 players too. I also noticed the graphics go back to the DC ver. when playing in multiplayer mode.

I too don't like that you can't do quests in multiplayer mode. But you do have the option of doing challenges in multiplayer mode.

My friends need to get use to the controls more and understand the game a bit more before I have them do the challenges.

[Jeffrey]

True. It is a dreamcast engine that had lil doodads like increased texture resolution and swanky ripple/blur (prepixel?) effects added as an afterthought. I am only completely agrivated by the the fact that you cannot view item stats in two player mode... you have to bank stuff and wait or go by their sale price. It does suck that you need to rally all the players to a pipe in order to use it but there is probably not enough memory to display two locations at once... It's really bad when you have a dumbass roomate who always wanders off and gets lost or you need fluid and are at 12HP and he says: "Nah. I don't need to use the pipe. I'm fine. I'm going to keep going." http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_rant.gif

[Cloak]

I am only completely agrivated by the the fact that you cannot view item stats in two player mode... you have to bank stuff and wait or go by their sale price.

ever tried pressing X while on one of these items? =P


It does suck that you need to rally all the players to a pipe in order to use it but there is probably not enough memory to display two locations at once...
I think it's a combination of this, and the music. what would ST have done to compromise a person in town's pioneer music, a person in ruins music, and a person on de rol le's music? this is why in areas, the battle type music starts as soon as you enter it. (each area has two types of music, normal, and battle. battle music starts when with enemies, and since the game won't be able to change music everytime one single person gets near an enemy, they just play the battle music non-stop.)

also if anyone has noticed, if you look behind the item shop owner's heads, you'll see the boxes, or weapons don't move anymore like they do online/singleplayer. and there are no cars flying by in town. nothing moves anymore. even those big purple strobe light thingies at the end of town, they just stay there. =o



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Cloak on 2002-11-08 13:02 ]</font>

[Ian D]

On 2002-11-08 11:50, Jeffrey wrote:
I am only completely agrivated by the the fact that you cannot view item stats in two player mode... you have to bank stuff and wait or go by their sale price.


Just hit the X button when the item is highlighted, then you view it's stats.