f13.net

Coming out on the 24th. I'm looking forward to it mainly for the single player game. We'll see if the multiplayer will rope me in as well. I went snooping on YouTube and found this gem. It's apparently all (or most) of the ingame emotes. It gets a bit creepy about 3 minutes in at the music change when the avatar (male) starts doing very obviously female emotes. I lol'd. An enterprisiing group of sick individuals could probably put togethor the gayest boy-band ever and make comedy gold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7RAjotiqDM&mode=related&search= (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7RAjotiqDM&mode=related&search=)

I'll be getting it too. Unfortunately, I don't have a 360, so I'll get the PC version (will see if I need a gamepad or not). I'm pretty sure the PS2 version will be bleh.

From what I've read, I'm not particularly excited about the multiplayer features. Sounds highly-instanced and forced group-ish. On the plus side, it probably won't have shitty combat (or shitty quests).

The 360 beta started today. WHEE!

I didn't know the 360 was that far behind. Thought all the platforms versions were being released simultaneously.

How did you get in anyways? Did you download through XBL or something?

It's not really a beta, it's one of those marketing things.  It was available for download for a couple of days from what I heard, and the "beta" lasts a week.

I'll probably pick this up, but with a $9.99 monthly fee I don't expect to play multi-player much, especially with NWN2 coming out around the same time.

Like I said in the NWN thread, I'll buy it, but I still have my reservations. I thought NWN was the worst thing Bioware ever did.

But it's still Bioware. Gotta give them a chance.


Ultimate Alliance is coming out too. That'll be fun for.....3 days.

It's still available for download. They delayed it for this weekend and it ends on the 18th I believe. Something like that. Haven't booted it up.

It's not though. It's developed by Obsidian.

I was in the press beta for this. It was... interesting. My computer ran it like ass though, so I'm gonna play the 360 beta before posting my thoughts.

Also, you'll want to play the PC version with a gamepad and remap all the keys so they make sense.

Is it basically like Phantasy Star Online but better? If it is, I'm sold.

I thought PSO was incredibly bland and repetitive.

Your avatar is incredibly bland and repetitive.

PSO appealed to me in much the same way that Diablo did.  Damn my inner loot whore.

I liked PSO all right once they got some of the more insane exploits and glitches ironed out.  The original release was like frustration crystalized and spun into a CD.  And then they released it four more damn times and charged full price for each one.

Can you play the single player game free, or do they still have that wierd system from the XBox version where you have to pay a monthly fee and have an internet connection to even play offline?  That was a deal-breaker for me.

Single player is free and 40 hours of gameplay if I recall. You just need the Guardian Liscence if you're going online ($9.99 mo.)

I might buy a 360 controller then. All I have is a crappy PS1 clone gamepad.

Has anyone used the wireless 360 gamepad with a PC? Do I need some kind of infrared port, or does it come with something?

Supposedly there is more crafting involved in this game (down to player run shops), and less drops.

Good news for me, but perhaps bad news for you.

[edit]

Then again, it's not really a "world-y" game as far as I can tell. Highly instanced, small dungeon based, no traveling, no pvp, no guilds, no real point for widescale interaction and economy -- It's just a game centered around adventuring with small parties. In just about every respect, it's still PSO. So the crafting thing might be a bad idea.

One other thing (sorry for the triple post  :evil:):


PC users can only play with PS2 and other PC users.

360 users can only play with each other.

Is there a fee for 360 users? I can't find anything confirmed about this. From what I've heard there isn't one because you're already paying for the live fee.

Some stuff in the FAQ (http://www.phantasystaruniverse.com/support_faq.php) about a "Guardians" license.


You can purchase it through XBox Live somehow.


Also, if you buy an XBox account, the login info won't work on PC's or PS2's (while PC and PS2 accounts are interchangeable). Just like you won't be able to play with PC and PS2 people. The XBox version is practically a different game.

PSO *is* basically a multi-player Diablo. I don't understand why more companies don't make console Diablo games, a controller makes a lot of sense for the control scheme and it has a console type of feel.

Diablo does have much better loot variety though.

Yeah, that's weird. I really wasn't a big fan of Diablo per se (or the various PC clones), but I love that shit on a console. BG:DA, those recent X-Men games.....Hell, I even liked the Everquest one (but it was made by the BG guys, so....).

I'd heard that the 360 version was going to be free to play online with a micropayments model (XBL points) for things like exotic items and added character customization for the multiplayer only aspect.  I'm willing to accept that as a load, but since Sega did exactly that with Chromehounds, it didn't seem impossible. 

The FAQ (http://phantasystaruniverse.com/support_faq.php (http://phantasystaruniverse.com/support_faq.php)) says that you get a 360 'Guardians Liscense' from the Marketplace.  Since I haven't seen that yet, it looks like I'll be paying for my subscription with Points, rather than just with my card.  Which I think I actually prefer, given how fast and easy the Marketplace works compared to some websites and how much easier voice chat works with the 360 then with teamspeak. 

Server is unaccessible right now due to high load. Seems more than 100,000 people already downloaded it given some numbers accessible in game (you have a character # and I can only assume given the model of the number that we were number 66,000 and change).

Depending on cost, I'll be playing this one on the 360.

I'm a sucker for Phantasy Star, so I'll probably be playing this.  Probably on the 360 as well.

Y'know, I'm not going to bother until (read: IF) I get a 360.

I don't know anyone else who's going to play the PC version. It'll be all pickup groups. Fuck that. I already don't like LFG lobbies (in any game) to begin with, and I'm definitely not going to like it if the primary means of communication is voice. If I'm going to group and talk with people, it's gonna be you guys or other friends.

I reckon I'll play it on the PC.  It's not a good enough game to buy a whole 360 for and I've still not seen anything all that compelling to make me want one, anyway.  There will be only one 360 server, no?  I wonder how populated it'll be?  There was a time when I'd buy something like the 360 just to have it.  Suddenly, I don't need to have everything that comes out.  Ultimately, they disappoint me, anyway.

Wait, so there's a monthly fee to play PSU online? Fucking weak.

Chromehounds and Test Drive are compelling reasons for me to get a 360....But I still want to wait a bit.

I'll probably be picking up the PC version as will a few other people I know.  Don't own a 360 yet, and probably won't get one until they drop the price and a few more good games come out.


So far, official word is that the cost is $9.99 a month for the 360 version, same as the PS2 and PC (the PS2 and PC also have a 6 month sub for $49.99).  The Guardian license is supposed to be available starting on the 24th.

This is my favorite item from the FAQ:

Which version of the game should I get?(2-5)

That depends on you, but each has their own advantages. PC users and PS2 users from the same country can play together in the same Phantasy Star Universe world! Xbox 360 users will be able to play with their Japanese counterparts and also use the Xbox headsets for voice chat capabilities. It just depends on what you're looking for, and where your friends are… Maybe you should just get them all!

Best. Marketing. Line. Ever. And someone will do it too.

I'm crossposting because it's easy.

I was looking at some user uploaded Phantasy Star Universe videos over on Gamespot, and three things were apparent:

1) Single player mode (the only mode shown in the videos) is very, very dialogue heavy.  I'm talking long stretches of 20 minutes or so of nothing but talking to various NPCs tagging along.  So it seems PSO single player has a heavy story orientation.

2) All the futuristic JPop you can stomach.  Trains running on laser tracks, active Phantasy Star-esque backdrops, and at least one prepubescent chibi cat girl.

3) Episodic format.

That said, I wonder how much emphasis was placed on the multiplayer game if there's so much focus on making this dialogue heavy, episodic single player game.  Will players who go online (facing a $10/mo fee, yet) be confronted with a multiplayer game inferior to the original Phantasy Star Online?

In other news, There's a Wiki (http://psupedia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page) on PSU.

Stray, don't buy a wireless 360 controller, they aren't compatible with PCs yet.  Buy a normal wired 360 controller and just plug it into a USB port, it'll download the driver from MS if you let it go online to do so.

I've preordered PSU and am feverishly (no seriously, I'm sick and have a fever) hoping that it doesn't turn out to suck.  But from everything I've seen, it's PSO with more awesome and thus can't go wrong, as I loved PSO.  All it takes is for me to get some little elf-eared chick kicking ass with lightsabers and I'm happy.  The trick, as with all online multiplayer games, is to get a posse.  Running around with random people you don't know is just sad.

But you can give friends some kind of ID card so they can find you when you get online; so all we have to do is hook up the F13 people in the game for long enough to exchange those cards, and it should be easy from there on out to group up.

To plug the Wiki again (although it's a laggy muther because I don't think the machine it's on can handle the load) this page (http://psupedia.org/index.php?title=Differences) is fairly awesome for PSO players who want to see how PSU stacks up.

I'll have a copy for the PC at midday tomorrow.  Is the normal wired 360 controller the best one to get? 

People have reported good results with both the 360 controller and the PS2 controller.  The 360 has the advantage of being plug & play with XP, but lots of people have PS2 controllers already laying around their home and you can get a PS2-USB adapter from Radio Shack for around ten bucks.

So, go with whichever is more comfortable for you.  Or go with some third party PC controller, but honestly I've found that most gamepads built for the PC are absolute shit.  Dunno why the console controllers are always of such higher quality.

I'm weak, I'm buying it.   I admit, I've a certain affinity towards Jpop.

Hop online fairly early on, y'all. At least enough to provide an informed review. I'm sure the single player game will be cool, but I want to know more about multiplayer.

Single player game is apparently trash. Basically the multiplayer game is where its at.

If it's even Star Ocean quality, I wouldn't mind the single player portion too much.

*ducks in case any Star Ocean fanboi's are lurking here*

It's not Star Ocean quality.

In a good way or bad way?

Basically, the single player is awful.

You're bringing me down, man.

PS  I've been called a hippy twice now, so I've decided to be one.

I'm reserving my judgement on the single player.  I can see that it's dialogue-heavy and rife with cutscenes, but that might turn out to be a good thing if I like the way the story shakes out.

The way I look at the Phantasy Star Online is something like this:

1) If you look at it as a MMORPG, you're going to be let down due to lack of massively multiplayer level of interactions.  You're only going to see up to 6 players at a time (including yourself) anywhere that combat takes place.  This is an improvement of two players over the original.

2) If you look at it as a 3D Diablo in space, you're in a good position to appreciate the level of additional features and artistic detail on everything.

We'll see how Phantasy Star Universe holds up under this perspective.  Granted, while going with option #2 would undoubtably put one into a better perspective to judge the game on its own merits, it doesn't explain the $10/mo fee.

Gamebrink (which probably gave it way too good of a score) has a goodly collection of subscription-free gameplay videos over here (http://www.gamebrink.com/playstation-2/1128-Phantasy_Star_Universe-videos.html).

Ellen Fleiss is the best avatar you've had in a long time.

No surprise that the single-player is crap. I mean it may be ok for what it is - which is a single-player version of a primarily multiplayer game.

Curious. So the single player sucks because it's mainly relying on gameplay one would see in mmo games....But yet, the multiplayer doesn't suck?

QFT

The gameplay in Phantasy star is not hotkey based moron-combat. It's button driven, with special attacks on other buttons and the ability to dodge things. The single player is not fun because the world and game are designed to be at least a little multiplayer. Simply knowing there are other people in the world makes the multiplayer shit 9,000x times better in this sort of world.

I have a very hard time believing that PSU's single-player is anything but a step up from PSO's, which had... I don't even want to call it a story at all.  You could have played through the entire game without having activated a single one of the beacons or having the faintest clue why you were running around hacking things into bits.  Even Diablo had a more compelling story than PSO, and that's saying something.

But in PSO, you could take the character you played through the offline mode and play online with them.  With PSU the online characters are stored serverside to discourage hackers, so playing the offline game is 'wasted' as far as online progression goes.

On a console it's buttons, but on a PC it's hotkeys? Not seeing the difference, unless you have a sort of combo-tree.

Though active dodging is a nice touch.

What shild's trying to say is that the PSO/PSU characters perform precisely as the player input commands them, not with queued actions like a MMOG.  You don't hit the autoattack button and watch your little man beat on the little monster.  For every motion and every attack the character makes, the player had to input some sort of direct command into the joypad.

:mob:

Shooters are one thing.

Don't even defend hotkeying just for sake of defending PC's.

That's just fucking criminal.

I didn't explain well.  To clarify, Phantasy Star Online and Universe handle more like FPSes than MMOGs.  You can move your character to evade an attack, and if you don't aim your attacks they'll sail right by the monsters.  There are RPG elements; even an attack that's dead-on can still 'miss' if you have a crappy accuracy stat, but by and large combat hinges entirely on the player, not on the character's stats.

Oh, I'm not. Granted, hotkeys themselves are not out-and-out bad, but they have been implemented fairly shitty-like. I played the original PSO a bit. The game was boring and gave me a headache. Also, the map design was ass.

Still wish there were at least 3 or 4 of us getting the 360 version. Would really love to have a Monday or Sunday night thing of PSU whatwith built in voice chat and all.

Thanks for reminding me that I'm not missing anything!  :evil:

I kid, I kid.

EDIT: If anything, hearing Schild's voice coming from some sort of gothic killer-loli would be good for a few laughs. You all know that's the kind of toon he will make.

Most of us don't have 360s, but you ALL have PCs. 

You should do the right thing. 

I think the problem is that Schild's PC is a piece of crap.  :-P

Dude.  Teamspeak.  Yeah, it's not nearly as convenient as something that's integrated, but voice chat's easily managed on PCs too.  The only ones who're kinda fucked are the PS2 people, unless they put headset support into that one.

Oh.  Well, no help for that except some upgrades.

Eh, it's not a piece of crap. It's just not perfect. And not on a 37" LCD screen. And not in front of a couch. PC Gaming simply isn't as FUN as console gaming to me anymore.

My TV's a 27" lo-def that can handle precisely zero of the snazzy new video formats, and I'm not really looking to shell out a grand or more to upgrade it.  'Cause first you put out a thousand for a new HDTV, and that's the lowest-quality of the true HDTVs, mind you.  Then you have to buy a receiver that can actually handle the HD video signals, and that's the better part of another thousand.  Good 5.1 speakers?  At least three hundred.  HD-capable Tivo?  Eight hundred.

Much as I want a good HD setup for the living room, there is just no way in hell that I'll be affording it.

I'll be picking up this game on xbox 360..... when i actually get a 360.  Played the beta on the roomies xbox and liked it alot.

What are yout alking about? Get a Costco card, you can have an awesome 32" HDLCD for something like $600. I have the 37" version (Visio) and it is magnificent. Doesn't do 1080p, but couldn't care less.

Ya, I have a cheapo Westinghouse 27" HDLCD from Bestbuy that I got for like $600, not the greatest thing up close, but looks great with a console plugged in.

Re: PSU, Am I missing something here?  This game is based on a game that was basically Sci-Fi Diablo, but shittier right?  The one on Dreamcast back in the day?

Yes, that's it.  Why do you find it odd?  Can't you smell the desperation in the air?

Apparently, there IS a Costco in NJ, and they have 2 20" sets for $400.

Two 20 inch sets of what?  I'm confused.

HDTVs, Signe.

Here (http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11181968&whse=BC&Ne=5000000+4000000&N=4001374%205000014&Mo=32&No=12&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&Sp=C&topnav=) and here (http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11138314&whse=BC&Ne=5000000+4000000&N=4001374%205000014&Mo=32&No=13&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&Sp=C&topnav=)

I almost did it.  But then I decided not to.  Because your new avatar is so cute.

People still use 20" TVs?  Arn't those called small monitors now?

I tried to get the demo of this, but every time I made a character, when I hit complete, it would crash back to the start, after making 4 characters and having the same outcome, I deleted it.

If this is anything like PSO count me out, that game sucked sucked sucked.

Those are the skinny ones, too.  Tell you the truth, I'd almost rather have one of those than the huge one we have that takes up a whole corner of the living room.  It's not as bad as it was, though.  The living room in this house is huge compared to our last flat, so everything feels a little more comfy here.

Just posting what I found. I have zero intention of buying new sets until the units I am using become outright unusable.

Yep. For some of us, it's all we can afford/have room for. I'm 2 for 2 on that. If I ever get anything huge in the way of TVs, it's going to be a projector. When the cost comes down. When the bulbs have a life-span of years, not hours.

'Till then, it's me and my 20" Toshiba cathode ray toob.

Edit: Installing PSU now. Crossing fingers....the first time through, the installer failed saying it couldn't read from the media. Trying it now on my external burner.

I picked up the PC version of PSU today, messed around with a couple characters.  So far it's beating PSO by a fair little margin.  I beat stuff up, took their stuff, built myself an item with stuff I found from the monsters, gained a couple levels.  Everything seems solid thus far.

I'm no supporter of piracy, but apparently there's quote a hubbub over on the Gamespot PSU forums that they kinda neglected to require a CD-Key in the US release of PSU.

Tell me something...does your character run around like he's in molasses? When I first started, things seemed really slow. There seemed to be 'ghost' NPCs walking around that would disappear when I got near them and things would suddenly speed up when there were no other characters in sight (near a wall). I'm not talking framerate, just overall game speed. The framerate has been constant-quite smooth. I"m on a Dell Inspiron E1505 Core Duo. I'm wondering if the game is being thrown by the processor...timing issues and whatnot.

My desktop ran through mud also.

The 360 runs pretty fast.

Just looked on the boards. Seems a lot of people are having this problem. Apparently you have to turn down the res and up the frame skip. Unbelievable. I'm at 800x600 for gawds sakes.

The thing was optimized for the 360. I'm fairly sure you need a godlike machine to run it at full res of your monitor.

I set it for low performance and it took off like a rocket. I can't honestly tell any real difference but then I've got really bad eyes.

On a side note, made it to Chapter 2. I like this episodic format. They even have coming attractions after the ending song. :D

Oh, you're playing the single player. :P So, what class are you?

I went into Story mode and found out I was some boy on a skateboard and left.  I'm not ready to be a boy on a skateboard.

You want to be a girl with a mac mini and a bong?

*bleep bloop bleep bleep bleep*

I got no class. Just ask anybody.

How about we go out on Thursday night?
I can't, I have class then.
Well ok, then how about Friday night?
Oh sorry - I have class then too.
Well alright - how about we go out when you have no class?

I tried to quickly google up some of the 'no class' jokes from the old Cosby Kids show, but no luck. I'm sure there were some good Welcome Back Kotter jokes that would've applied as well.

And as for Signe...C'mon. Be that Boy on the Skateboard. I'll be that Girl in the Blue Polkadot Dress.

Fighting back the urge to quote Barenaked Ladies there...

Right, so are you a ranger, hunter, or the other thing?

Honestly, I don't know. Far as I can tell, I haven't picked a class yet. I'm just generic anime boy running around with a big sword.

Big sword? Probably started as a hunter. It actually randomly picks one of the 3 classes (well, maybe not random). Just go into the menu under personal -> status (I think) and it'll tell you which one you currently are.

Yep, Hunter. I think I'll start another game in a second slot to see what it gives me. I'd sort've like to play through the first chapter again now that things are moving at a normal speed.

As a hunter, for some reason I didn't get a special ability for 5 levels. I fear the worst or maybe I had no clue what I was doing. Have you gotten anything yet or are you just hacking and slashing. On the other hand, my friend was a ranger and had an ability at level 1.

From what I understand, you eventually unlock an "extra mode" (http://www.phantasystaruniverse.com/game_extra.php) that lets you better customize what you're doing in the Single Player mode.

Extra mode is single player online mode with party controls it would seem.

Got it, finished chapter 1 (single player).  Pretty solid space opera with high production values.  The interface is somewhat improved from the original PSO, the inclusion of the aspects such as FPS ranged attacks works out well.  Of course, it's a console game by nature and this limits the interface a bit, but it's slick enough of an implementation that I wager I can get used to it.

I just ordered the 360 version from the EB/Gamesuck contiuum so I get a free music CD (loved the original PSO's music), but I doubt I will pay for online play.  10 bucks a month for Phantasy Star Diablo?

No biggie since I spent 95% of my PSO days offline anyhow.

We will see though.

I had no problems at all with speed or framerate, have it at 1280x960 with everything set to high.  But then my computer's no slouch; I've got a 7900 GT for video, two gigs of RAM, and a 3200+ Athlon 64.  I see the ghost people in the lobby too, apparently they wanted to give the appearance of crowds without having actual NPCs around to clog up the hallways.  I would've preferred non-ghost NPCs, I think, though it does make it easy to pick out other players when you see them.

The single-player guy is a hunter, and you don't get to pick a different profession for him to the best of my knowledge.

Schild, did you skip the tutorial?  Part of the tutorial has the tutor NPC hand you a disk with a special attack on it, you just open your inventory and use the disk to learn it, then select your sword and 'attach' the special move to it.  The tutorial's very important in PSU, you get an NPC's partner card so you can take them with you on missions when you need some help, and you get a free special attack disk.  If you skipped it, you can talk to the floaty robot in your room to manually start it, I suggest you do.

Duurrrr. I'll go through the tutorial when I get the final release version then. Heh. I R NUB.

Oh, and further impressions of the game: God, I hate the Japanese.  Their user interfaces SUCK.  Any of the more advanced stuff in the game like crafting requires wading through layers of menus that really don't need to be there.  That's what pissed me off so much about FFXI when I played it; after playing US MMOGs that made ample use of the mouse and minimal menus, their interface made me want to punch myself in the face.

Fortunately, the most obnoxious UI stuff doesn't intrude in the combat portions.  If anything the quick-action menu makes it very painless to switch weapons and use items in combat.

And from what I can see, the game indeed has no copy protection.  It has no serial codes, nothing to type in, the DVD doesn't have to be in the drive, nada.  Of course, you aren't getting online without having fed Sega your credit card first, so I figure they probably aren't too worried about people pirating the software when they still have to pay to play.  If anything, I expect it'll really help boost subscription sales.  I'd worry that it leaves them without recourse against cheaters or jackasses, but if someone gets banned enough times they'll eventually run out of credit card numbers to pay with.

They must be counting on generating money from the online portion. I couldn't find any copy protection either. The only thing I noticed was that you CAN NOT alt+tab out for anything. The program will just go away. God forbid your anti-virus or in my case, iTunes updater pops up while you're playing. Instant LD. I think the safest thing to do would be to make a special user account for it that has nothing else running. I'd hate to be in the middle of a big boss battle and have AIM or something else come knocking and kill my connection.

Yeah, that's their anti-cheating protection at work.  Whether it'll be more than a speedbump to the dupers and cheaters remains to be seen.

Funny enough, PSU starts in Windowed Mode for me.  No need for me to alt-tab out of it if I wanted to boot up a cheating program.  Course', they run a anti-cheating program launcher specifically to prevent that sort of thing, which I approve of.

One of the new features of PSU is you get to multiclass.  I haven't gotten that far yet, but apparently around Chapter 3 you unlock a 5th floor to the Guardian colony that includes a means to change your character to a Ranger or Force.  (This is for Single Player starting mode.  On multiplayer or "extra mode" you can start whichever of the 3 base classes you want from scratch.)

There's a lot of talk on the forums about 'advanced classes' as well.  Apparently certain combinations of class levels allow you to pick certain class combos.  No idea what that's about - it's not mentioned in the manual.  I'm not even sure it's available without a new content release.

This game totally sucks.  Offline and online. 

Specifics as to the suckitude? 

Personally, I like it.  But then, I came into it having played Phantasy Star Online, so I knew what to expect.  Which is to say, gameplay complexity just a step up from Diablo (I, not II) with elaborate 3D Jpop Sci-Fi graphics.

I was able to run it at 1024x800 without any slowdown, but (oddly enough) setting it to High detail causes it to reset my computer.  And this is with the WinXP autoreset on blue screen option turned off.

Aside from that, my only gripe with the game so far is that the AI of the partners sucks.  They mostly stand around and do nothing while you fight.  Of course, in multiplayer mode your partners are played by other players, so that's probably why they didn't put much effort into the AI of partners that tag along in the single player mode.   It's possible that the poor AI of the partners is deliberate because the offline game is somewhat a tutorial for the online game, so making the player do most of the work is the only real way to teach em'.

I can run it fine at max settings, has nothing to do with the way it runs.  The cute sucks.  The camera sucks.  The controls suck... I've used KB and a gamepad.  The way they set up the UI sucks.   It doesn't remind me even a little bit of Diablo because Diablo didn't suck.

So, you don't like the style and the GUI is awkward.  Before the gameplay aspect even gets involved, you're turned off from it.  I can understand why that'd generate the feeling that the game sucks.

Personally, I've found that aspects of style appreciation and GUI use can be learned.  Such hurdles are not exactly something people thank the developer for, but are a distinctively different kind of suckiness from the game itself being ill conceived because if you play the game long enough these problems go away.

It's easier for me because I've played the PC versions of PSO and FFXI, so I've somewhat built the neccessary synaptic connections to deal with console interfaces brought over to the PC as well as adequately brain damaged myself as to find Japanese cartoony art to be endearing.  Thus, my interpretation would not be that PSU sucks because I've overcome the involved hurdles.

If you're still even willing to launch the thing, here's a couple tips that might help enjoyment of the game that aren't really specified well enough in the instructions:
Left arrow turns the camera the direction the protangonist is facing.
By hitting down arrow in sequence, you can perform combination attacks.  Takes awhile to get the pattern down for the different weapons.  Right arrow launches the bound learned attack for that weapon.

From what I understand geldon, the advanced classes aren't patched into the US servers yet and if the US servers follow the same schedule as the Japanese servers, it'll be about a month.

The way advanced classes work is that you reach a set class level in your base class(es) and you can then switch jobs over to an advanced class with access to better stuff.  There's:

Fortefighter - A hunter specialist that gets the best heavy weapons.
Figunner - A 'light' fighter that gets decent guns and the fast double-weapons.
Fortegunner - A ranger specialist that gets heavy guns like the laser cannon and grenade launcher.
Guntecher - A hybrid with decent guns and a smattering of magic and melee.
Wartecher - A hybrid with better melee and magic than the Guntecher but much less ranged ability.
Fortecher - A force specialist that gets all the super-duper spells along with pretty good ranged attacks from bows.
Protranser - A weird class that doesn't get access to any of the best weapons in the game but in exchange can use the best melee and gun skills and can use traps exclusive to their class.

I'm using a really naff PC gamepad right now, which doesn't help, I'm sure.   Using the KB is just horrible, horrible, horrible.  I've sent for a new gamepad.  Maybe it'll suck less.

Really, the only gamepad the games works with is the wired 360 one. Also, it's a Japanese RPG at the core. The online game has... no story and you have to Work for the Fun. Happens sometimes. But being able to press a button and swing a sword makes it instantly better than...ya know. Every other MMOG at this point. I'm going to pick my copy up now actually.

Can you solo when playing online? How does loot distribution work when grouped?

3 Loot options - forgot what they were.

Yes you can solo online. Apparently you can call NPCs in as well.

This quote is correct imo

Trying to play the game solely on the keyboard sucks, don't do that.  If only they had a keyboard/mouse setup, but as expected of a Japanese console-based game (I'm looking at you here, FFXI) they didn't bother to take the time to rework the interface to support mouse control.  My 360 controller works great on it, though it helps that I'm used to using a console controller for PSO.

I got off my ass today, left the space station and started exploring.  The two planets that you can go to are nifty, with great atmosphere and shops and their own mission areas.  There's a third planet that's not accessible yet on the US servers, hopefully it won't take a month before it's unlocked like it did on the Japanese servers.

I played around more with the crafting, since all of the monsters in the subway area are dark, I decided to make myself a light-elemental dagger.  I bought the dagger plans off of the Japan-esque planet, had the components necessary from drops in the missions, tossed them all into my little house robot, and let it bake for fourteen minutes while I ran through the subway again to pick up more cash and another level.  (It takes time to craft stuff, apparently some of the high-end stuff can take hours.  That could become pretty obnoxious.)  When I came out, I bought the dagger's special attack from the weapon store, went back home to get the finished dagger from the robot, fortunately for the robot's continued health it didn't fuck up the crafting check and ruin the dagger, equipped it and trotted back to the dungeon.

And holy fucking shit I became the angel of death.  I was hitting twice as hard, twice as often, and the special attack for the dagger was just murdering everything in sight.  I couldn't believe the difference it made; my original sword was a toy in comparison to this thing.

This made me a little cocky, so when I found a level 5 elf chick looking for a party to tackle the level 20 mission, I signed up.  I was level 7 at that point, and it's a good thing I was, because we learned very fast that level 20 monsters are in fact pretty tough for people less than half their level.  A party of two casters and me for the tank (although 'tank' isn't a good term, four hits from most anything in there would have killed me, I was more stabbing them in the back and drawing them away from the casters than absorbing damage) and we were fighting for our lives from the very first second.  Thankfully both of them had the healing technique handy, and we actually managed to finish the mission without any fatalities despite a few close calls.

I also bought fire bullets to use on the pistol I was dual-wielding with the dagger; unfortunately the damage the fire was doing was pretty laughable.  I hear that the rangers at higher skill with fire can do a crapload of DoT damage with it, but having it on the crappy starting pistol was more or less useless except for the comedic value of setting things on fire.  I should get a better pistol and see if that doesn't make a difference.

I'm considering making some grinders for my dagger.  For anyone who didn't play PSO, grinders upgrade your weapon's stats.  Unlike PSO, though, in PSU if the grinder fucks up, it destroys the weapon.  Boosting a weapon one or two levels is supposed to be pretty safe, but more than that and it becomes a gamble between whether the power boost is worth the risk of losing the weapon entirely.  Grinders come in ranks of 1-10, with the higher-ranked ones being less likely to fail in the upgrade; safe bet that the +10 versions will fetch good money in the near future.

You can run a store in your room ala EQ2.  It costs fifteen grand to get a store, and I'm planning on putting one up when I get the cash.  Most things don't sell to vendors for squat, but the other players would probably gladly pay three grand for an item that costs five grand from an NPC.  Money does not come easily from the missions at the lower levels, so getting the other players to give me their money seems a good idea.

Anyhow, day two better'n day one.  I'm getting accustomed to how things work and getting around is less of a struggle.  Now if only those Japanese bastards would put up the Halloween decorations on the US server, I'd be a happy camper.  The Japanese server is of course ful of pumpkins and ghosts and special holiday monsters and loot, none of which they've bothered to give us yet.

If the controls or navigating the UI stinks, I've found this setup to make things rather convenient with a joypad.

(I'm playing on PC and this was from a short experience with story mode, no clue how well this control scheme will hold up though)

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9625/controlschemepi2.png

If your joypad does not have 6 buttons on the right, just ignore the use of Y and B from the example and use the direction keys on your keyboard. But if your joypad looks similar to that, and contains a select button in the center (in addition to the start button), I would recommend setting that "select" button to Right or Left arrow key.

With this setup you wouldn't have to use the keyboard aside from typing. Although I haven't played online yet so I can't guarantee  it will cover everything. =P

Two reasons why I prefer this setup.

Hold R, then press A to make easy use of the gun with gun/sword combo.

Hold Z, then use R or L to scroll through the quick weapons or quick items menus.

One of these days I'll fish out my PS2-ish pad and give it a try with that.  However, for the time being I'm actually pretty content with the Keyboard interface.  The WASD movement, E to bring up pad, F1 (or home) to bring up the main menu, arrow keys to navigate side windows, that all works pretty well.  About the only thing I'm lacking is fine movement, being able to point in more than the 8 cardinal directions.   But then, I've hours of playing FFXI with a keyboard interface, so I guess I'm unusually well adapted to this.

Luck (as in, in-game Luck) also plays a hand in it and if you wait until the right luck day for your race/sex and use the right level of grinder, you can get pretty high under the 'certain' category and have quite a ways on the 'very high' and 'high' success chance.  Grinder charts: http://www.psupedia.org/index.php?title=Weapon_Grinding

So far I'm enjoying the hell out of the game.  PSO was the game that really made me love the Dreamcast way back when, and PSU is more of the same goodness only better.  The combat system is much more fun than any other game I've played recently.  Being able to physically DODGE attacks by getting out of the way, manual attacks and so on, the console game design is obvious and a Good Thing imo, unlike say, City of Heroes where the success or failure of the attack is determined at the moment of execution.  Aiming is something that's taking a while to get used to though.

My main gripe is that it won't quite go fullscreen at 2048 x 1536 resolution, there's always these annoying little bars at each side when I drag the window open.  Technically I don't play 'fullscreen' at all, I just drag the window size to cover most of my screen.  Alt-tabbing, by the way, for those of you who mentioned it, works fine in windowed mode.  Although there do seem to be occasional hiccups (so far, the game has frozen twice on me coming back from alt-tab, out of the countless times I've alt-tabbed while playing).  Also, the mouse is completely useless.  Completely.  It doesn't do ANYTHING.  Even FFXI had some use for the mouse - it wasn't a very useful way of doing things, but you could click menus sometimes if you felt like it and such.  Second gripe is the chat system.  I seem to have run into a lot of games that have something against sentences lately because they cut off before I can type even 1/3 of a full sentence, much less the same thing.  Having to break up a sentence into multiple lines is a real pain.  Also, language filter cannot be turned off, and it seems pretty draconian.  I've had parts of my sentences get censored for no apparrent reason.  And I very very rarely swear or use profanity.

By the way, for those of you playing....don't forget to hit Z and get your mission reward when you finish a trial.  It's something I didn't learn until I was level 5 on my 4th character.  Perhaps because I crashed during the tutorial and didn't figure out how to start the tutorial again until this morning.  And Type (class), for anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, is assigned by race in multiplayer mode.  Casts start out as Rangers, Beasts as Hunters, and Newman as Force.  I have no idea what humans start as, maybe it's random.  Haven't made one.

Humans start as hunters.

It turns out that the game has a huge and wondrous chat system, they simply didn't bother to tell anyone about it.  Here's how it works:

1. Put # in front of the text to send the message only to your party.  This overrides the other animations, so don't bother adding them if you do this.  Party text pops up in a window in the corner of every party member's screen.

2. Put /alt(variable) where (variable) is f1-f12, 1-0, or a-z.  This makes the character perform an animation with the speech.  So if you wanted to wave and say hello, for example, you would type /altf3Hello!  Alternately, you can use /salt instead of /alt to use the animation of the other gender, in case you want your guy to look really gay, or your girl to not bounce around like she's twelve.  The animations don't work in missions, however; they're only useful in the cities or in a player's room.

3. Put @(number1)(number2) where (number1) is a 0-9 and a facial expression and (number2) is 0-3 and a camera angle.  This makes your character's face appear in a popup window, with a voice bubble containing the text.  So if you wanted to show an angry face while calling someone a dumbass for getting killed and ruining your mission rank, you'd type @90You stupid bastard!  Amusingly, the robot heads don't have expression, so no matter which emotion you choose you get the same face.  (The humanish heads for the robots do show expression, though.)

4. Put @s if you want the shouting voice bubble, or @c if you want a thought bubble.  This can be combined with number three, so you could get a shouting popup face with @s90You stupid bastard!

5. Add a sound effect with &(number) where number is 0-120.  I don't see a lot of use to that, since most of the sound effects are things like footsteps and beeps, but hey, knock yourself out.

6. Add a character voice effect with !(number) where number is 1-26.  1-12 are apparently only available while in a mission, while 13-26 are usable anywhere.  The Japanese version of the game actually has dialogue in these voice samples, but the US version is just meaningful grunts, hmmms, growls, and laughs, so it's not all that useful for us, sadly.

7. Change the text color by adding {color} before the text you want changed.  {blue}I hope you {red}DIE!

8. You can /random, which apparently generates a 1-1000 number, /roll which makes a six-sided die appear in your voice bubble, or /card to get a random playing card.  These commands do work with party chat, so you can #/random to pop your number into party chat if rolling for an item.


So once you start adding these commands into chat text, it can get a lot more lively than without 'em.  Of course, a lot of these can be obnoxious as hell if someone uses them too often, so hopefully the idiots out there won't ever lay hands on the chat commands.

At least you cats are able to get online and play. I've tried 2 credit cards 3 times and keep getting a 191 error saying there's inaccurate or incomplete information. I can't wait until my cards are billed $150 for 3 blown tries. You know it's going to happen. Maybe this is just the universe's way of saving me from myself.

Actually, mine returned an error before it gave me a "transaction complete" but it really did accept it. 

Well, I've finally figured out how to play the offline mode, at least.  That is to say, I knew how to play, but I didn't know how to play optimally until I figured out these two things:

Rectifying the AI issue is the realization that the partner NPCs have a tiny aggro range but tend to stay aggro'd once they are.  So to avoid having them just standing around and doing nothing, manuevering them over the other side of your foes causes them to follow you right into aggro range, putting them to work.  Sometimes they inexplicably stop following and get separated from the group, but they'll eventually teleport to Ethan in the most overused developer AI pathing shortcut ever.

That you can dodge attacks in this game has been mentioned.  I didn't really bother to dodge attacks much in chapters 1-3, I just  soaked it.  However, I've since found that trying to actively dodge attacks is actually half the fun.  So, suddenly combat is a lot more interesting to me.  I actually have to observe the monster's behavior and figure out patterns - quite atypical of most ORPGs, but the hybrid console arcade game aspect is what makes Phantasy Star Online/Universe unique.

Haven't tried online play yet.  I might do that this weekend, but I'm thinking I might just complete offline mode first.  I did unlock "extra mode" yesterday, which is sort of like offline mode except it basically resolves around doing the "free" missions.  I'll have to play around with more later.  Running around as a mecha-like Cast is a little more interesting to me than the clique teen warrior.

Terrible game.  I'm returning it tomorrow.

No! Everybody must like the same things!

Heh, sorry you didn't like it Signe.  I shall prepare advance warning for any I recommend the game to that it's got a substantial interface and taste hurdle involved to those who aren't overused to console interfaces and japanese anime influences.  I do stand by it when I say that people who enjoyed the original PSO will love this game, though.

As for something completely different, synethesis in offline mode is instant.  There's also a bit more freedom in which weapons can be wielded by the various classes.  It bares the question, though: "If Synthesis is instant in offline mode, and nobody else is around to notice, does anyone care?"

I'm playing it online exclusively and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

The emphasis on synthesis kinda bugs me since it's like you get 600 of every item you need to make anything but you're always missing one ingredient.

I watched my friend play this for a while today. It's basically a souped up PSO which is fine by me.

Well, the game sounds neat to me, but this quote was a bit worrying.  As far as I can tell, the game is Diablo-ish, like the old PSO, which is fine.  What I'm worried about is how much of the content I can access without subscribing.  There is no way I am ever going to subscribe to a Diablo game, much less Phantasy Star Online (I'm still pissed off at the glitches in the original).  So, what's the single player aspect like?  In PSO, it was identical to the online portion, except (obviously) without other players.  In PSU, I guess that's not the case?  You're automatically assigned a pre-generated character?  That sounds sub-optimal...

Offline is a full story. 12 Chapters. Pregenerated characters, random loot. You can pick your classes in offline mode though I believe.

Offline has two deals.  First is story mode with the pregenerated characters where you're a boy on a skateboard who embarks upon an stereotypical Japanese adventure.  Once you've gone through some of story mode, however, you unlock extra mode, which is basically the online game available offline.  You build your own character and play through however you like.  There are differences between extra mode and online mode in that your character is more powerful to compensate for not having other people to group with, but most things about it are the same.

Is there a n00b guide to this game anywhere as in "what the heck are the blue, green and yellow objects that drop on the ground sometimes when you kill things"? The manual sucks (at least the PC version does) and the Wiki assumes you've played PSO before.

Edit: okay now that I'm into Chapter 2 I can see what I'm picking up so you can ignore that question. I'm still looking for a n00b guide if anybody knows of one.

I've searched through countless pages of wikis, message boards (we're talking from gamefaqs to IC to neoGAF to fucking PA), and official documentation.

There's obviously SOMETHING HERE and I liked PSO on the dreamcast lots. I'm missing it. It's because I suck. I know it.

Can you get a Rank S in the Story Mode trials?

I'm pretty much only playing online. One of my roommates only wants to play offline. When he finishes and unlocks Extra Mode, I may dick around with that.

Which is to say, my problem isn't the actual act of doing missions. I'm fine at that. It just seems like I'm doing something wrong. Leveling was so slow from 1-5 that at level 4 I went to Neudaiz and starting soloing the level 10+ missions.

I don't think you're doing something wrong. Me and my friends were dicking around a lot and did almost everything we could figure out to do and leveling is just that slow.

I don't get how you get more missions myself. There's like 2 missions you can run in the tube-liner system on the Guardian Colony and we just could not find anymore. Is there something you have to do? My friend guesses you need a higher type rank, but the manual was unhelpful. Still very fun though.

According to the manual of general weakness (I guess somebody wanted to sell some hint books), pg. 18, very tiny type on the top it says, "As in STORY MODE, there are two types of Missions: Main Missions and Free Missions.  In general, Main Missions start from the GUARDIANS Branch, and Free Missions from the Flyer Base Mission Center."

The Linear Line is basically a Flyer Base.  Because this is how it works in offline mode, it's a fair guess that progressing the Main Missions will unlock additional Free Missions and even planets (which come with additional cities and flyer bases and GUARDIANS Branches and whatnot).  The GUARDIANS Branch at the GUARDIANS Colony you start off at is on the 5th floor.  You might need to have the leader of the group do the talking to the space-flapper at the counter.

As for your n00b guide, though it may pain you to hear it, the offline story mode with the clique teen-boy-saves-the-universe story also doubles as a gradual tutorial covering everything from basic mission flow to exchanging partner cards, synthesis, clothing, vehicle operation, ect.

Two things that weren't apparent to me at first glance that are easy to miss with missions:

1. Get your mission rank rewards.  When you clear a mission, you have to click on the little star-ish icon that appears down by your character's health bar.  Doing so pops up a window that shows you the rank you got for the mission and gives you cash and points towards your job levels.

2. Missions have two or more parts.  When you pop into the area after you've done a mission, head into the exit door and pick 'select mission' rather than 'return to city'.  That will let you access the next branch of the mission, which usually has higher level stuff, a boss monster to fight, and waaaaay more rewards and experience.

A couple other bits of advice from someone who played PSO a bit as well:

You get XP for each enemy you have hit once. That means everyone bashing each enemy once gives WAY MORE total XP than each person focusing on one enemy at a time. You do get more XP if you get the killing blow but not that much more.

Groups get XP much much faster, and they have a much higher kill rate and the XP split rules are generous.

You should be fighting monsters at higher levels than yourself, and with a group much more so.

Itemization is very important. The $2000 weapons do twice the damage of the $800 ones. Upgrade as soon as you can.

Bosses give a lot of XP.

All that said, be prepared to do the same missions a bunch of times.

Do you have to click on it to get the reward? I'm on the 360 version and know no such way to do that.

Um.  I dunno for sure about the 360, but you do have to select it on the PC.  When you do, a window pops up showing how many monsters were killed, how many party members died, your total rank for the mission, and your rewards.  If you don't see that window appear, you probably didn't do something right.  I'm not sure if my 360 controller setup on the PC is the same as it is for the 360 version, but if so, the way I select the icon is to use the back button to hilight that little Z window, then the direction pad to pick the star icon, then X to select it.

Yeah, it's the Z icon thing, whatever button is mapped to that.

Names in game? I'm creating an online dude right now.

I'm Robo Signe but I don't think I'll play anymore.  It sucks.

Found it. Son of a bitch. Tons of missions wasted.

So, my name is Zhou Yun on Xbox Live. When in Japan...

Names are not unique and there's no way to find someone by their name (that I know of) unless they have a shop open.  You must meet up with someone and exchange Partner Cards if you want to be able to find them.

Yeah, to the best of my knowledge the only way to reliably get someone online is to arrange a meet and swap partner cards with them.  But it should be easy enough to pick a time for everyone to meet on, say, Universe 8 next to the ramp on the first floor of the space station.  Just select one of those glowy orange diamonds floating at chest height from the floor to switch which universe you're in.

To answer my question, yes you can, you need to score at least 1000 points.

Hi there.   Was looking for info on PSU and came across this site.  Interesting place and people.   

I really like the pace of this game and but it's difficult to understand.  I'm looking for info on the Adv. Types like Wartecher, FiGunner, ect.    I know about that site PSUPedia but it's always bogged down or not responding to me.


Anyway I'm wondering if I take 10 levels of Ranger and become a Fortegunner, will I be able to level up in Hunter any and maybe change my job to FiGunner someday?   Or after 10 levels and chosing my 1st Advanced Job Type, am I stuck doing that forever?




About the comments before mine, I can definately see why people would think this games sucks...  just so happens it exactly what I was looking for.  It might be a love-it / hate-it game.

Thanks

13

Not even sure the advanced classes are available in america yet.

Right, they aren't.    Just planning on what to be when they are.   Guess I'll take my chances.  :dead_horse:

Check out Kitsune's submission about the advanced classes on the previous page and you'll know about as much of them as the PSUWiki does.  Yeah, they're not available in America yet.  It'd be a month or two after release until they are.  It's just as well, it'd take a while to get level 10 in Hunter/Ranger/Force.  Those are mission levels, not character levels.

I finally got online. I created a new PlaySega account and used the full zipcode (zip+4) in the address field and it worked. I have a Force named Pomm Pomm and a Hunter named Engel.

[img=http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5528/psu20061030063545002gj0.th.jpg] (http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=psu20061030063545002gj0.jpg)

What Universe are you all playing on?    I'd like to join in.

I think I was on 7, but it seems like you can jump around like Guild Wars. At least that's how I understood it.

You can jump around.  Thats why most people that play together pick one universe to meet up in.   Just wondering if you all had decided on a universe. 

It's difficult to find people in the game if you don't have their card.  :cry:

I was sick of whatever music was looping in my Gamestop today, so I popped in the PSU soundtrack. Pretty good.

Okay, so I haven't taken an official poll yet. Who's playing the PC/PS2 versions and who's playing the 360 one? I'm on PS2/PC.

I also think I made a mistake by shoving a mess of synthesis boards into my bot, because I don't think you can remove them. I don't have any repeat boards in there, but I have like a dozen-something medicine and booster items I can't make since they all want at least one of these two kinds of berries that simply do not drop.

I also have a plan for a one-handed weapon called "Florescent Tube", which sounds funny enough to make but the one part I need to make it can simply not be found.

I'm playing the PC version. And yeah there are gotchas like that syth board thing. There also appears to be a Photon Arts limit but no way of forgetting them (haven't quite bumped up against the limit yet so I don't know if it'll let you overwrite existing ones). This probably isn't a problem in the online mode since there are more PA type restrictions than in Story Mode (the main character can learn technics as a Hunter or Ranger) though of course for people who like to play all the types can still run into the limit.

Dp13, you can change jobs freely and as often as you like, there's just a fee involved with every change that increases with your level.  If you really wanted to you could max out every job, but that would be pretty insane.

Fabricated, hold on to that Flourescent Tube board, it's a rare drop and thus pretty valuable, you might want to fish around for a buyer.  From what I've heard, it makes a one-handed saber with unique appearance and sound, so you know people'll fall over themselves for it.

And I haven't tested this personally, but word is that you can freely overwrite synthesis boards and photon arts once you've hit your max.  So while you can't remove them, they won't prevent you from using new stuff.

Don't boards have a max usage anyway? So worst case you can make X of that item to finish with the board.

I'm on PC. We should arrange some time/place to meet up sometime.

Yes but if you've filled your board slots with boards that require ultra rare parts you could be in trouble.

Apparently you can overwrite them.

Here is a weird tidbit - tons of stuff is in the game but not available online yet. For example in offline mode you can apparently get all sorts of spells but in online mode only the first 2 tiers (Barta and Rabarta, Foie and Rafoie etc) are available. Japan already has access to the third planet and some more missions.

For anyone wondering, I haven't been able to find good spell descriptions anywhere so here goes:

Foie - Fire based, single target, high damage, can set guys on fire where they take damage over time.
Deega - Earth based, single target, highest damage, can silence guys. So basically best damage, crap effect.
Zonde - Lightening, can hit any number of targets in a line. About half damage of Foie. Extra effect is shock, which means enemies can move but not attack.
Barta - Ice based, can hit any number of targets in a line. Extra effect is ice, freezes enemy solid. I haven't used this one but damage is probably on par or lower than Zonde since effect is so good.

Rabarta - Area effect that will hit the nearest enemy or just explode at a certain range. It seems to me this can only hit a maximum of three enemies at a time, so it can actually hit fewer enemies than Barta or Zonde. (Although lining 4 guys up to nail them all is pretty hard with those unless you are playing solo) Takes 3x the PP of the normal Barta and does about same damage.

Other ra-spells - I don't have these yet. I'm hoping Razonde can hit flying guys, it looks like bolts of lightening that come down from the sky so maybe.

PC - settled with Universe 6 this morning. Met some mighty fine people and rolled up a new toon to match with them: Klavier Engel. I had exited a Linear Line mission and saw a bunch sitting and talking. I walked over and found two other Engels, (Guitar) Engel and (Violin) Engel. I don't remember what the german words were but I figured this seemed like a neat pack to run with so I've spun up Klavier Engel as keys and drums are all I know and I didn't know the german word for drums.

PSUPedia has a spell reference:

http://www.psupedia.org/index.php?title=TECHNICS

Yeah, the game's still missing big swaths of content.  An entire planet, missions, spells, items, classes that we don't have access to yet.  I dunno if this is according to some sort of plan to gradually roll out content to keep the game fresh, or if they just screwed up and didn't have the stuff ready for release.  The Japanese server has most of the things that the US server is missing, but even the Japanese don't have the buff spells yet, for example.  Sega has apparently said that the US server will be updated at the same pace as the Japan server was, so the new planet and advanced classes should be unlocked around the end of November.

Just finished Chapter 10 of the single player campaign last night.  I'll probably have 11 and 12 finished by tonight, and there's only online play left.  Not sure what universe I'll be on yet, but I'm playing the PC version.

Universe doesn't matter, the game randomly sticks you in a universe every time you log on.  You can switch between them freely and quickly, so long as the one you want to go to isn't full.

But I have had a brainstorm, here is how we shall get together.  I've opened a store.  It's accessible from all universes at the same time.  I'm standing in it, behind the counter, so just come to the store and we can swap partner cards.  My character's name is Cyllix, just go to the black terminal on the desk next to your robot, select search for stores, search by name, and type that name in.  It'll take you straight to my room, no muss no fuss no messing around with universe numbers.  I'll stick around in the shop tonight, so unless it's crazy late or I'm eating dinner or somesuch, you'll find me in there.

[Edit: Oh, this is on the PC/PS2 server, incidentally.  Sorry Xboxers!]

[Edit 2: In case I'm AFK and don't respond when you enter, just make some noise with a shout command in your text like: @sWake up!]

Cool I'll log on later to swap cards.

Yea for rootkit technology!

I was downloading the latest Guild Wars stuff while playing PSU and GW stole focus from PSU which caused the PSU window to go black (presumably some sort of DirectX conflict). I tried to find the PSU process to kill it but it doesn't show up in the Task Window or Process Explorer. I'm presuming the nProtect stuff uses rootkit technology by hiding the PSU process from process display programs. Fortunately PSU still shows up under the application list so I was able to kill it that way.

Sony got in trouble for doing a similar thing with their music CD copy protection system. I'm assuming GameGuard only loads when you load the game, but of course that's hard to prove since it's stealthing itself -- it could be loading itself as a hidden program on startup.

Edit: fixed typos

Edit2: GameGuard may in fact be running at all times and apparently it doesn't deinstall itself when you uninstall the game, at least in the case of Maple Story, and may it decide to reboot your machine if it doesn't like you. I'm on chapter 9 of 12 of Story Mode so I plan on finishing it but I'll probably deinstall PSU and hopefully GameGuard when I'm done. Oh well, I guess I'll have time to play FF XII now. More discussion about GameGuard:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=136414

Story Mode Game Clear!  About 26 hours of play.  Funny enough, at the end they have an auto clip of the main characters saying how everybody needs to play the network mode now.  I'm planning on giving it a spin tommorow.  I think the part I look forward to most of all is having the other members of the party played by actual players instead of dumb AI.  Who pulls the yoke in story mode is 95% you, 5% the other three AI played members.  That's about how often they get manuevered into a situation where they register it's time to attack attack.  For that reason I suspect network mode will be a lot easier than story mode, even with the tighter weapon limitations.

Yeah the party AI is painfully bad. I wanted to try the Ranger and Forces types but I gave up when I realized my party members would just stand there twiddling their thumbs if I only did ranged attacks.

How do I call my jobber NPC in online mode? I do something with their partner card?

Bleh. I've seen gameguard used in umpteen million shitty Korean MMORPGS. It's annoying, but I don't particularly see anything malicious about it. Blizzard has a similar process embedded into WoW but it's not quite as obtrusive as gameguard. It still looks hard at your running processes and shitcans what it doesn't like if I recall.

I am annoyed to find that Gameguard requires that much of a pain in the ass to kill for good after you uninstall the game though.

Edit: I don't get how we haven't seen articles on MMORPGs and heavily online games being trojans/spyware myself considering the amount of anti-cheating software out there and the disreputable companies some studios/publishers outsource stuff to. It's not like any MMORPG client couldn't look at everything you type, look at your hardware, look at your running processes, or even snag a screenshot every once and a while on its own.

You have to be solo or the party leader, and you either go into the party screen and select create a party if you're alone, which gives you the opportunity to pick partner cards to invite, or you select invite a person if you're the party leader.  In either case you should be able to then select your NPC's card and they'll come.  But be wary, the NPCs are very, very stupid, and any deaths they receive count against the party's score for the mission.

And rootkits are bad, m'kay.  But in the war between the cheaters and the anti-cheaters, I'm willing to make that sacrifice as long as it hampers the cheaters and doesn't royally fuck over my computer.

Are you people paying a monthly fee for this or is it free?

gw:nightfall, the story is much better, the AI fights well, no sub

Not that anyone cares.

Offline mode is free (at least if you've the PC version).  Online mode is $10 a month or $50 for half a year.

I'm honestly considering going the half year route.  Comes witrh bonus days when I sign up, so it'd be 210 days for $50.  The half-year isn't a reoccuring subscription, so I can pretty much forget it from that point out and just play it on and off whenever I feel like it until after it falls of the radar.

It also plays entirely different.

PVE all of the sudden get "not horrible"? For those of us that don't care much about or didn't enjoy the PVP, there doesn't seem to be much reason to get into Guild Wars... again.

Edit: Bleh, no reason to make this thread about GW.

And if you didn't like PSO, is there any reason to bother with this?

You might like the single-player game... but I'd just say, go get Final Fantasy XII.

It's $10 a month to play online. It's also like FF XI where they say your character may be deleted if you unsubscribe for too long.

It's not changing jobs I'm worried about, it's picking Photon Arts.  You can only pick 36 photon arts and there are more than 36 to pick from.

Also I saw someone in game with twin sabers, isn't that a FiGunner only thing or can hunters use twin sabers too?

Hunters use twin sabers. I'm using them now.

I'm a big fan of Saber+Gun myself, with a backup two-handed sword when I'm grouped or fighting weak enemies.

One Handed Melee Weapon/Wand + Offhand Pistol/Machine Gun is  great combination because both hands PP will regenerate while you have them out.

Machinegun in particular is a weapon I recommend any Ranger grab as soon as possible because, even as the energy expenditure rate is rather rapid, the regeneration rate is fast enough that you can alternate fairly satisfyingly between that and a Saber/Dagger in your other hand while the machinegun is out of PP.  I hear Rangers have a hard time online because of the massive cost of keeping their PP regenerated.  This is a method I'm going to use to try to get around it. 

My goal is actually a Guntecher, which is Ranger primary, Force secondary. I hear hybrid < nonhybrid, but hey, I think it'd be fun.  I'd like to make it a CAST to make it even more interesting, but that might not work because their capacity to be a Force is severely gimped.  Force are actually really powerful, so I'd probably make focused Force as a second character.

So, off to try to register through Playsega.  Within this hour, I shall see firsthand how the online game varies from the off.

Probably confused about a couple different weapons that sound the same.

PSU has:

Dual weilded swords
A double-blade.

The double blade I believe is not even in the US version yet. Something like that anyway.

This game has a lot more content than what is released online. A *lot* more. For example online right now there are no A-class weapons at all. There are a total of 10 spells available, out of 35+. (5 or 6 of each of 6 elements, plus buffs/debuffs) I assume a lot more missions. Also the PSO games were pretty good about adding new quests and missions over time. With the same basic scenery but different levels and such.

The plan is to dole out the content on a month by month basis. That's fine with me as it will keep me from binging.

Also the single-player is pretty fun. The first 15 minutes are so are really annoying, really talky and your character is an annoying jerk. After that it gets pretty good though. I'm only on chapter 3 but it seems fun when I don't want to play online. Also things in the offline extra mode are cheaper and easier I think, so you can experiment there a bit.

That's one of the nice things about the game, the weapon types all play differently so I'm constantly switching them up depending on the situation. I just wish each weapon had more attacks.

Yeah Lou, one of the Story Mode characters wields one of those though I haven't seen one available for purchase yet. She has this cool animation where she sort of kicks the staff back into her hand.

From my experiences in the story mode, I've found that Photon Arts advance at the level 10 and level 25ish point so you can get an extra combination on them.  [Meaning you keep hitting that right arrow or whatever photon arts button you use and it does an extra chain after the last.]

From the wiki, I see that there'll eventually be more than one type of Photon Art per weapon.  (Assuming it's not already there and just not in the story mode.)

Saw that, wasn't able to do that myself.  I did get soemthing else where Ethan took off using the two handed blade as a propeller.  Looks kinda lame due to the physical impossibility of it, but the damage was the most hardcore of all of the different photon arts of the weapons I tried.

Yeah I know about those -- I was doing them by accident for a while since I'm a button masher until I figured out what was going on. I wish, though, that there were an "A" and "B" attack, like the Raven Marvel games have. That way you can have all sorts of variations like AAA, ABA, BBA, etc. I'm not using the right trgger button on my Xbox controller so that could've been mapped to the weapon/item switch toggle which would free up one of the 4 "face" buttons to use as the extra attack.

I am having nasty flashbacks here to the original PSO.  You remember, the part where you couldn't back up your character data, to protect against cheaters?  And where it wiped your save file every time you loaded it, to protect against cheaters?  And where, if the game crashed or glitched or just lost connection, your character file would be gone, permanently, because we don't want people to dupe items? And where people could cause this to happen on your machine with a gameshark, because shockingly the cheaters did something the designers didn't expect?

I keep going back and forth with this game.  It sounds fun, but people keep saying "oh, by the way..." and then mentioning something that sounds like a deal breaker to me.  Hmm.

I don't disagree with you, but PSO got bad with cheaters.  Reeeeeal bad.  As in, jackasses could dupe every item in the game in seconds, join your team and crash everyone on it, and generally be rampant assholes with impunity.  PSU keeps the data serverside so at least you don't have to worry about it being corrupted on your end because they were jerks about the memory cards, and hopefully the serverside aspect will make it trickier for people to fuck with it.  I don't consider their little anti-hacking tool to be more of a threat than Blizzard's, or else I wouldn't tolerate it.

Diablo had the same issues, but no noticable cheaters in PSU.  Yet.  Hopefully their little punkbusteresque client, rootkit or not, keeps them as far away as possible.  I consider online game cheaters as being at the same social level as recidivating sex offenders.  At best, distasteful fellows I want nothing to do with and I really wish they'd find other hobbies.  At worst, folks whose presense makes lynching a wholesome pastime.

So, I took Phantasy Star Universe for a spin online today and it's very much a different game from offline mode.  The general lack of the story makes things seem much more open-ended.  The mission maps seem to have some randomization involved, and more mobs are thrown at you than in single player mode.  The grind is a lot slower than offline mode... I think it wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't require the player run a level 1 Linear Line mission a few dozen times before seeing a little variety.  I'm thinking introducing more variety at lower levels should be the focus of some of the early patches.  I noticed that the PP batteries of weapons are bigger and recharge faster than in the story mode.  Then, of course, there's the other players and their quirky ways.  Everybody's a newbie at this point... a somewhat refreshing experience that won't last.

In about 4 hours of play, I've made a level 6 CAST Ranger (Geldonus Omega).  Right now things seem pretty expensive and it's hard to earn the neccessary cash to pick up a photon art disk (I plan to max out his machgun and dual pistol skills in preparation for being a Guntecher).  However, I expect that Photon Art availability will be the least of my worries once I start tackling some decent level monsters, it's mostly that level 1 Linear Line mission that's holding me back.

Don't expect major new features to be added to the game beyond what's already still "locked" on the DVD. The PS2 and Xbox 360 versions don't require an HD which means all the client patches have to fit within a PS2 memory card. That was one of the reasons keeping me from subscribing to the game before I found out about GameGuard. Once you are done with the content, that's it, no expansions, no new major content, and if you unsubscribe for too long would probably can't go back to your character.

I'm on the windows version right now.
Running sweet it in 1280x960, and playing with the PS2 controller as a native PS2 game.
Smooth and satisfying experience so far (offline campaign).

EDIT: Wondering why passers by keep vanishing/fading away as soon as I approach them. Ghost syndrome?

Ok because I sort of want to play answer these questions:

-Combat is?  Auto-Attack + Hotkey or is there something interesting going on here?

-PvP is? A complete after thought?  Level biased to hell? Instanced and balanced?

-Character customization is?  Good?  Or attack of the Clones?

-Grouping is?  Team missions where you dont have to worry about the holy trinity?

-PvE is?  Bland smack foozles for dings gratz and lewtz or same thing with a variety of lil goals, timelimits and stuff (like escort the dude, protect the thingy, etc)

Thank you f13.   :-D  Yes I'm lazy, no I dont search, what is google?

Combat is like a console game/FPS, 1 button press = 1 swing.  No autoattack.


Non-existent.


Pretty good.  There aren't many options for clothing yet, though, so a lot of people are running around in the same newbie clothes.


Pretty much.  Everyone can heal themselves just fine with items; having a force user around who can heal is very useful but not mandatory.  And there is no tank class, nobody who just stands around being hit, it's in every character's best interest to avoid blows rather than absorb them.


Smack the foozles right now, the more involved 'story' quests aren't on the US server yet.


Not only do you not search, you don't read the thread!  That's a whole new level of accomplishment.

Walk through the door to the "Viewing Area" in the staging area you end up in after the level 1 mission. You can then do a level 5 mission with a mini-boss at the end. If you do the level 5 mission (or any mission at a staging area after the planet's main city) just complete the mission, get your money and points, then DO NOT GO THROUGH TO THE NEXT STAGING AREA. Go back to the checkpoint, zap back to block 1, then leave via the entrance. Walk back in to bring up the mission counter, abandon the mission (you already got the points and money), and then run it again.

Sounds complicated, but I'm just bad at explaining it.

I got the message on the first try.  It still sounds a little complicated just because I have to walk but, then again, there's a save point right in the last room with the SEED boss so that shouldn't be so hard.  The tough part will be getting joe pickup group member to not run through that last door.  Nonetheless, having tried Section B and found level 10 mobs still kick my arse, and the initial level 1 mobs prior to the viewing area to give only 2 xp points where they once gave 10, it'd be in my best interest to try this tactic.  What's taking the planet Parum so long to unlock?  Why the developers decided that I'd be doing the same mission for the first 10-15 levels is beyond me.

When I play, it honestly feels just like final fantasy to me.   You know,  I run out fighting, i see my life get low, i down a heal potion, i keep fighting, happy music... we win.     


...now if only i could find that raccoon tail.

Unless you're Force, you dont worry about anyone in the part but yourself.   Don't have to.

Also the level range and how many people in your party of what types is flexible. Basically start a mission or join a pickup group, not a big deal. The difference between an awesome group and a sucky one is not huge.

The main thing that determines what I group I join is if they have items set to "finder." If so count me out.

Agreed.  Unfortunately that's the default setting and the n00bs on my server (and they're all n00bs in a game released last week) generally don't know to set loot settings to something else.  Personally I set my normal loot on the "in order" setting and my rare loot on the "random" setting (to prevent people from deliberately looting lame things in order to get the rares). 

Tonight I got my robot to transform into a little shotgun-wielding robot girl.

(http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7865/transformlu7.jpg)

Didn't get much of a chance to go out fighting with her, but she was pretty good with her stash of guns, swapping between a shotgun and dual pistols.  Unfortunately her AI was as crappy as the rest of the NPCs, so she wasn't exactly a dervish of decisive action.  Once anything got close, though, she started putting out some hurt.

1.  What level does your partner machine need to be before it evolves into human form?
--mine is currently in the second evolutionary phase at level 21.

2.  What ingredients have you found to increase it's armor rating?
--Obviously all armor does, but also the Linear Line room decoration does. Anything else that others have found? I'm desparate to increase that level on my PM.

3.  Does the strategy guide have any real useful information? In other words is it worth the money if a couple people go halvsies on it?

4.  Sometimes I don't press the button to get my mission reward screen (tend to forget) but I was under the impression you still got the reward behind the scenes. Is that not true? Do you really have to collect it after each mission? That seems messed up.

3. Strategy guide is shit.

4. You don't get the reward on the 360 version if you don't press L-Trigger and then A.

2. Check psu-pedia. It has a list of what increases what PM stat.

97. Psu-Pedia's hosting sucks.  Expect to try again several times until you see the page.

I'm having a hard time just isolating the stuff I need to feed my PM because I'm going for the Ranged route.  Not easy to find the materials for that in missions, unlike the Strike/Technic route with all the mate potions laying around.

I did, however, figure out the main drive to power in the game.  It's in the equipment - there's a big difference between a one and two star piece of gear.  Basically, the perpetual goal becomes to try to get the weapon and armor that you can just barely equip with your current stats.   (Something I haven't been able to do due to lack of Meseta.)  It looks like the higher level weapons and armor may only be available through other players or from drops, judging by the store inventories.  Dependance on the player economy?  How MMORPG-like.

You can also grind your current weapon.

A 2 star weapon that has been ground 4 or 5 times will be about as good as a 3 star weapon. Each time you grind there is a chance a weapon will break. Apparently it is nearly impossible to fail the first one but after that it gets more dangerous and to make up for that you have to user higher quality grinders.

I haven't even started feeding my PM yet. I play as a force so I might want to make a PM that is good at making force weapons, but getting your PM good at that is tough if you want a pure force PM.

For armor you can raise it with armor, clothes, and room decorations.  For ranged, two-star traps only cost 100 meseta a pop and give a good boost, try those.  The PMs evolve into a humanoid form at level 80.

My PM is like level 2, so I won't worry about a new form for it any time soon.

Of course my main (Alex Stewart) is only level 9 and she just now started linking Photon Arts to her weapons.
She likes to cap mothafuckas in the face with pistols!  Gun PAs are wierd though.  The gun uses a little more
Photon, but does 10-25% more damage.  Its always on for the gun.  I need to save up money for the double
blade PA too.

And a side note.  Unless you like wielding wands and such, don't bother with TECHNICs.  From what I have seen
you need one to use them, even healing spells.  This is VERY different from PSO.    It could be handy for after battle healing,
but in combat weapon switching can be tricky, even on the 360 where the controls are pretty intuitive.  (Other note:
SWITCH WEAPON AND LOCKON MODES TO CLICK.  YOUR HANDS AND SANITY WILL THANK YOU.)

I haven't played online but in the single player game I've seen party members wield a staff (the one handed one) and crossbow at the same time (crossbows aren't for sale yet for me so I haven't been able to try it myself).

Yeah, the wand takes the one-handed melee slot so you can put a one-handed ranged weapon in the other slot.

I'm planning on going Figunner, and the main reason I want the Technics is just for the buffs.  Being able to apply boosts to my offense or defense can be pretty handy.  Should be pleanty of room for the buff technics and my bullets.

I've been following Margalis' advice about the grinding and, while it's really no match for a full start upgrade, it does help to bridge the gap a bit.  Grinders are pretty cheaply manufactured (the boards make 5 at a time and grinder bases are common loot) and help the weapon a bit.  So far I haven't broken any, but then, I haven't risked grinding on anything less than a Very High chance of success.

Figunners can't use techniques.  Only Forces, Guntechers, Fortechers, and Wartechers can use techniques.  This is not, unfortunately, a FF5-ish job system where once you learn something from one job you can still use it in another; if you aren't one of those four classes you can't use techniques at all.

I know, but I got the name wrong :P.  I meant a Guntecher - the one that gets S-Rank dual pistols and machinegun in addition to Force access.  (Naturally, with the PSU Wiki being ever lagged, it was too much effort to verify (http://www.psupedia.org/index.php?title=Expert_Classes) earlier.)  I hear some people saying that hybrids < focused classes, but considering the way S-Rank weapon access works in PSU I'm not so sure that's the case.

So far I've been enjoying this game more than NWN2, although I haven't got too far into NWN2's storyline yet and PSU Network mode is pretty damn grindy.  I've probably put about 20 hours of effort into my Ranger and am putzing around at level 11-12, with mission level 1 or 2 Ranger, and a level 0 Partner Machine.  I took a 55% chance of synthesizing a Stellaline Line Shield and succeded, but all my other gear is far behind my stats.  I only have four Photon Arts - ice/fire bullets for my machinegun and the dagger and saber photon arts.  No worries that access to Expert Classes aren't out yet, it'll easily be a month before I reach mission level 5 ranger, mission level 3 force.

Gamespy has one of the few reviews (as well as the most lengthy) I have seen thus far for the game.  They gave it a 2.5 out of 5.  And that came from a PSO fan. 

http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/phantasy-star-universe/746420p1.html (http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/phantasy-star-universe/746420p1.html)

" It's like a training simulation for obsessive compulsive disorder, not a game you'd actually play for enjoyment."

Nice quote. I really enjoyed PSO back in the day, but this game seems rather outdated, and certainly offers nothing to take me away from WoW.

The third planet was unlocked today, along with a new batch of missions and all of the weapons and armor unique to Tenora Works.

That was sooner than I anticipated.  Hrmph, I think I'm still stuck at Ranger level 2, but then I've been a tad distracted from PSO this week, what with my old video card exploding and being replaced by one that suddenly makes things run far too smoothly.  It's like I have nothing to live for anymore.

I'm gonna get back into Phantasy Star after The Shiny of Christmas Gaming wears off.

The advanced classes and weapons are being released onto the US servers on the 8th, with Sega promising weekly releases of content from there on out.  Whether they can deliver or not remains to be seen, as they haven't been providing weekly content to the Japanese servers as far as I know.  I suspect we'll be seeing 'weekly content' of things like a new color of shoe in the clothing store after the first couple of months.

Hm. With enough quest areas, the game could very well become Very awesome. My only real gripe was... well, aside from the grind, the repetition. I expect it to be more varied than the ones before it.

Turns out that they also did the Christmas update with that patch, so now there're trees all over the colonies, pink rappies that drop tree decorations for rooms, and seasonal stuff on the room decor vendors.  Good stuff.  And next week's update has been announced, four S-rank missions unlocked.

Did they ever get around to tweaking mission rewards so it's worth moving on to doing level 15 missions instead of just grinding the De-Ragon over and over again ad nauseum?

Yes, some of the newer missions work out to have better rewards than grinding on the dragon.  Of course, that just means that people are grinding on those missions instead.  Yay, let's ruin the fun by grinding the same mission over and over to level 60 so we can... um... do nothing.  More people should just play and let the levels and cash come as a secondary thing rather than a goal.

So what do you predict? Will this game have some actual "content" by the end of 2007? Will it be a game or just remain a skeleton of a game?

Can't really say.  A lot was added this last week, but next week is only some S-ranks for existing missions.  They say they'll be adding stuff every Friday, so there're two more 'content upgrades' before the year's out.  If they actually put out new missions in any of those upgrades, the game will be in decent shape, I think.  This last patch had the first story mission, with things like dialogue and plotline, and those are definitely a step up from the missions without.  Unfortunately only the first story mission is currently available, so it doesn't go very far.