Brainstorming and Story Theory Time

[Revy]

/rant BAAAW April 24th was the last PSO 2 info dump which came in a nice shiny video, it's now July 6th and all I've heard about is "alpha invites are sent, but damned if I know when it starts! LuLz." I think Sega did the community a huge disservice by skipping out on a PSO2 E3 announcement, even if there was no new content I think their marketing team should be taken out back and shot or commit seppuku. Just hardcore fans are aware of the existence of PSO 2 rather than building up general anticipation. /rant

So let's go over what we do know; Starting with some plagiarism from psupedia about "sorta" announcements of what to expect from PSO2 from Sega's first video back in September 2010:

* "Action" and "RPG" re-connected
* Increased variety of client orders
* Map functions changing in real time
* User-created story
* New interface for environmental interactions
* Global support
* Thorough racial balances
* Full-user participation events
* Seasonal changes
* New chat system
* New mail functions
* Drastic item synthesis overhaul
* Even wider variety of ways to raise your character
* New direction of event scenes
* Approach from NPCs (New approach maybe?)
* Silhouette changes by add-ons (Not too sure what they mean here.)
* New photon arts (This was partially obscured in the video, so may not be 100% accurate.)
* Community support content (Again, slightly obscured in the video.)
* Additional customizations when you create your character
* Category-based weapon training system (Slightly obscured.)
* Implementation of asynchronous communication
* New party system
* Consideration of enemy cooperation
* Limitless content
* New approach to the game client
* Implementation of a new "life work" (Partially obscured.)
* Daily surprises
* "Trump card" system
* Mutual interaction functionality for new and veteran users

And now for words and phrases that give hints at the world of the game:
* Awakening
* Sealed stone monument
* Pure Dark Falz (Partially obscured.)
* Apostles of _____ (Partially obscured.)
* Camp ship
* Arkz
* Why is darkness born?
* Why is the Great Light no longer here?
* A world in ruin

And we got a little tidbit [<3 Mike] from the Alpha invite e-mail which the producer Sakai writes: "Even though the stage has changed from Ragol to Oracle, I'm looking forward to being able to meet everyone again. Please look forward to the test."

I played PSO Ver.2.

I tried playing Episode 3, I still have it, but didn't get too far in the story because the card game bored the hell out of me.

Did some PSOBB and for the life of me I can't recall the storyline much from Episode 4.

Did PSU until the Computer/Playstation servers went down and took my Spread Needle/G with it [so many hours spent on that Maximum Attack G ;_; ]

Played Phantasy Star 0 on muh DS which was a fun game, but really short.

I'm trying to play Phantasy Star Portable but the button arrangement on the PSP itself makes my hand sore after a while of playing.

It's a mess of a post but to sum this up I'm sick of talking about alleged game play mechanics [that nobody knows about] and mostly want to talk about what we may expect story wise [that nobody knows about] with the new planet "Oracle" and if that means that this is a different Pioneer ship? I'm no story expert and I don't know if I over looked something in the games I have played or if there's more information in the newer games I haven't played that might hint about Oracle. I'm just assuming that Oracle is a planet. Might not be, but there's not much to go off of.

I'd also like to hear any theories about how all these stories from each game might tie into each other. [Don't care about spoilers ] PSO2 will have another "Sealed stone monument" and something about a "Pure Dark Falz." Hell, this could be the original Pioneer 2 team sending "Arkz" to investigate the home planet of the alien ship that was found on Ragol that held a "less pure version of dark falz." I'm really rusty on a lot of the story though. I'd love to hear what's been stewing in everyone else's mind about the coming story.

The only thing that can mess up a theory is fact.

[Shinji Kazuya]

* "Action" and "RPG" re-connected
* Increased variety of client orders
* Map functions changing in real time
* User-created story
* New interface for environmental interactions
* Global support
* Thorough racial balances
* Full-user participation events
* Seasonal changes
* New chat system
* New mail functions
* Drastic item synthesis overhaul
* Even wider variety of ways to raise your character
* New direction of event scenes
* Approach from NPCs (New approach maybe?)
* Silhouette changes by add-ons (Not too sure what they mean here.)
* New photon arts (This was partially obscured in the video, so may not be 100% accurate.)
* Community support content (Again, slightly obscured in the video.)
* Additional customizations when you create your character
* Category-based weapon training system (Slightly obscured.)
* Implementation of asynchronous communication
* New party system
* Consideration of enemy cooperation
* Limitless content
* New approach to the game client
* Implementation of a new "life work" (Partially obscured.)
* Daily surprises
* "Trump card" system
* Mutual interaction functionality for new and veteran users

Looking at this list, one would expect Phantasy Star Online 2 to be one hell of an awsome game.
I really hope it will be.
Let's see if "they" follow their list close enough to deliver all the stuff that's in it.

[AzureBlaze]

Story Theory Contribution / Question:
Ok so I have "heard" that Infinity was supposed to have "HINTS FOR PSO2" contained in it. It seems reasonable enough. They were developed alongside for some of their time. There was some early screencaps that showed something that looked like Pioneer 2 (from Ragol etc) in an Infinity setting. You also had all the PSO weps showing up magically / thru a portal /whatever in the relic areas as an excuse to bring back pso cool stuff into psu.

I have religiously avoided inf.spoilers despite pre-ordering the JP ver. of the game and getting it. However with the megadumb news that there won't be an Eng. release of Inf (BS! RAGE!) It still doesn't mean I can understand the story of Inf....ever...I come to ask:

What ARE the PSO2 hints inside of Infinity?
What's up with Pioneer 2 showing up in Infinity?

It's useless for anyone to avoid spoilers now on Inf.

[blace]

It doesn't have anything about why it shows up, but that it contained the great evil, Dark Falz. Besides we can't forget that in the true ending in episode 1 that they decide to be the test subjects for their first manned sub space test.

[Revy]

It doesn't have anything about why it shows up, but that it contained the great evil, Dark Falz. Besides we can't forget that in the true ending in episode 1 that they decide to be the test subjects for their first manned sub space test.

Episode 1 PSO? Whats the story line behind this "first sub-space test" if you don't mind me asking?

[blace]

Episode 1 PSO? Whats the story line behind this "first sub-space test" if you don't mind me asking?

I meant to reply to AzureBlaze, Infinity is also split into 2 episodes. Episode 1 being that you're a mercenary and episode 2 where things like the pioneer like ship comes up from the ground.

[Revy]

I meant to reply to AzureBlaze, Infinity is also split into 2 episodes. Episode 1 being that you're a mercenary and episode 2 where things like the pioneer like ship comes up from the ground.

If you could, since apparently Infinity won't be translated, do you think you could sum up the story/plot?

[RemiusTA]

There is no point to this topic, we dont know anything and probably wont be able to spectulate much aside from the regular ol' japanese cliches


And i pray to G O D this has nothing to do with PSP2. If so this story is going to blow balls

[Revy]

There is no point to this topic, we dont know anything and probably wont be able to spectulate much aside from the regular ol' japanese cliches


And i pray to G O D this has nothing to do with PSP2. If so this story is going to blow balls

Opinion noted. Carrying on with the notion that the topic isn't pointless and no matter how minor it may seem the games do have some sort of tie in. Strained for content or not.

[ARASHIKAGE]

Man I love this post, it gets me all excited about the story location and the cool fighting system. Great job Revy!

As I'm looking at that list I'm noticing most of the "improvements" are just upgrades to the PSU format; Drastic item synthesis overhaul, New photon arts... I know this road is well traveled so I wont focus much time here. But why would PSO need a drastic item synth overhaul? Combining two weapons into one and getting Dr. Montague to turn an enemy body part into a weapon, is hardly worth mentioning for an "overhaul". They are clearly talking about PSU here, It's like saying PSU2 is going to get a "card battling overhaul!" (ok I'm done)

That's just me being nit picky though in the end that list is packed with "new" additions, and great changes and ideas. I'm hoping for the best, I really want to see them succeed in making an awesome game!

To the story! PSOs story was very very bland. We only got tidbits of info and even then it was really left to the player to piece it all together, in our minds. We know Dark Falz took Red Ring Rico's body as some sort of vessel. We killed Falz and Rico died too, yay end of story... Then In ep. 2 we get to kill an organic computer possessed dark force named: Olga Flow, I don't really remember much from that other than he was similar to Vol Opt's story. They basically recycled a few ep. 1 enemies for ep. 2 and made connections to the previous game. Anyway it would be interesting to get a real PSO story in PSO2 and that's whats exciting me most right now.

Btw wouldn't it be cool if they went back to calling the great evil: Dark Force again? But I guess I'm sure a lot of people are waiting to see the "Dark Falz" tens years later, in HD! Since you can never truly kill the Dark Force he will return in some form in PSO2.

I forget what the Arkz were, can someone refresh my memory?