Phantasy Star Online 2 will be Free to Play!

[TheSonicRetard]

Holy shit!! This is the first free to play PSO since the very, very first one. It seems even the client is being released for free, meaning you can download the full game on your PC, vita, or mobile device and start playing without paying a dime.

Info:

The big change from past PSO games as far as pricing goes is that PSO2 will be free-to download and play. It will use an item transaction system, meaning you'll need to pay for some items.

PC and Vita owners won't have the game all to themselves. Sega announced a smartphone version, which will be released on iOS and Android.

The smartphone version will be different from the PC and Vita version. The PC and Vita versions offer cross platform play. The smartphone version will just share data with the two versions

and some clarification by sega:

- The Vita version of PSO2 will almost certainly not support actual online play using 3G. It will support online play over WiFi, but for 3G they are working on other supplementary forms of communication hooks.

- With regards to microtransactions, there will be two types of pay content. Some content like cosmetic clothing and so on can be traded with other users in a User Shop, but there will also be pay content which cannot be traded.

In the original article they also clarify their policy regarding the free 2 play structure of the game:

- There will be no level restrictions for classes and so on to force players to pay.

- They will NOT introduce pay items at high cost which provide high stats to unbalance the game to the benefit of paying customers.

Everything that has been said about this game points to it being a smash hit, but this pricing structure is a game changer. This is going to be fucking great!

[jerry coeurl]

Ahem.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

There's plenty of fantasy elements in Phantasy Star Universe. The Communion of Gurhal has a very similar feel to the Espers and Esper Mansion in Phantasy Star IV. Their leader is Lord Rutsu, which when you take into consideration the rather literal translation of names PSU got, it's rather obvious that it's supposed to be Lutz. In fact almost all of Neudaiz has a fantasy feel to it. Then there's the ruins in PSO and Dark Falz. That's rather Fantasy Heavy. But this heavily depends on your definition of Fantasy. In my opinion the PSO games aren't entirely sci fi, as I see entirely Sci Fi as meaning Eve or Star Trek Online.

As for the environments not being the same, Moatoob in PSU is pretty much identical to Motavia, Parum is identical to Parma. The only one missing is Dezoris, but Neudaiz is rather like a melted Dezoris. PSU's environments are pretty much a hybrid of Phantasy Star 2 and Phantasy Star 4.

As for a lack of connections there's plenty of them in PSU. For example the leader of the Rogues is Tylor and the ship he has is called *gasp* the Landeel. The plot and characters of Phantasy Star Universe is could easily be interpreted as an alternate reality Classic Phantasy Star.

You're right in that they don't take place in the Classic Phantasy Star story line, but that doesn't make them not Phantasy Star games. That's like saying Final Fantasy VI isn't a real Final Fantasy because it doesn't take place in the Final Fantasy IV continuity.

[StarMist]

Are there any fan games that are based on the classic PS formula?

There are two PSII hacks by the same chap, one titled something like Numan Revolution and the other something like Evil Overload; the former being supposedly easier than the true game, the latter harder. What both add are story developments/fleshing, eg to Teim and Darum//the bandits with the dynamite scenario, much more straightforward information at the outset, Easter eggs that presumably fill out other aspects of plot, backstory (not sure if it's taken from the old online gaiden), and I believe secret endings. Equipment is also overhauled, conspicuously the guns' power being raised early on (but if you thought their weakness something to complain about you don't know how to play the game--perhaps he's just a gun fancier though), money and exp made easier to come by, levels perhaps rising faster, and so on...which sort of changes begat the Evil Overload hack to counterweight having made it too easy before. An enemy or two have been restored from unused status on the ROM whilst more have been added by way of palette swap. I don't recall whether objects in dungeons have been shuffled about. The reason I can't speak more definitely on the hacks is that all these story changes were too much for my taste when conjoined with the crude fashion in which enemy palettes were swapped to make new variants: it looks like using the inversion settings on camera lab software. Nonetheless they should be worth investigating to someone.
---Oh yes, I have also tried a fan made game done with RPG Maker and based on PS1. Don't look into it.

[TheSonicRetard]

Ahem.

Well son of a bitch. I ctrl-F'd for PSO on the front page and got nothing and thought there was no topic. My bad.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

It was literally right at the top of the Insert Coin forum.

Though I should probably tell you that the SmartPhone version will pretty much be an app to let you manage inventory, your shop, chat with friends, and play a minigame with your character. Not really the full game. And they are still skeptical on Vita Cross play. I think they mentioned in the press release that they may drop the idea if it doesn't test well or if it has problems.

[TheSonicRetard]

It was literally right at the top of the Insert Coin forum.

Though I should probably tell you that the SmartPhone version will pretty much be an app to let you manage inventory, your shop, chat with friends, and play a minigame with your character. Not really the full game. And they are still skeptical on Vita Cross play. I think they mentioned in the press release that they may drop the idea if it doesn't test well or if it has problems.

They've already release screenshots of the mobile version. It's not exactly the same, but it's still the full game. It's not just a companion app.

And PC-PSV cross play is already confirmed.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

That's the single player mini game they are showing. It is not the full multiplayer game. And the cross play hasn't been 100% confirmed last I checked, which was earlier today. They pretty much said they plan to do it, but if it doesn't test well they'll drop it.

[Melf]

The Portable versions are PSU and PSO side stories. Considering how many people have DS systems and PSPs I think it's a bit stupid to say Sega was alienating fans, especially when you see how many platforms the online Phantasy Star games have been on. That list includes the following:

Dreamcast
Gamecube
Xbox
Playstation 2
Xbox 360
Nintendo DS
Playstation Portable
Playstation Vita
PC

That's not alienating fans, that's making it accessible to more people.

So by offering different versions of the game (PS Ep. 2 on DC, Blue Burst on PC, etc.) on a multitude of platforms - none of which are compatible with each other and none of which are true sequels to the first 4 games in the series, that's not alienating PS fans? Does Sega expect people to buy a whole new version of the same game every time they recycle it? Sega basically made PSO, released the same core game everywhere, had no consistency in add-ons and DLC, and then took the whole series off consoles. Anyone who wanted to play anything Phantasy Star now had to buy a portable system or pay to play. That's a pretty far stretch from the series roots.

How do these games not feel like Phantasy Star? Please explain this one beyond "It just doesn't". The towns and cities feel like towns and cities from PSII and PSIV. The music in many instances has remixes of old Phantasy Star Music in it. The enemies in many cases are based on enemies from the old Phantasy Stars. The bosses look and feel like bosses form the classic Phantasy Star. The planets are obvious references to the Algol system, there are characters who are obvious references to classic Phantasy Star characters. The dungeons feel like they are taken straight out of PSII and PSIV.

The "town" (read: lobby) in PSO feels NOTHING like the towns in the original PS games. Yeah, it fits the town description by having a hospital and stores, but it's essentially a meeting place and little else. Plus, it's the same lobby every time you play, since there's only one. That's nothing like the towns in the main games, with their variety of locations and population.

The enemies and dungeons (the few that there are) are probably as close as you'll get to the original games, and they aren't that close. From what I remember, there aren't any classic enemies in the game, are there? The bosses are cool, and the final boss in PSO is awesome; I'll give it that.

The gameplay is about as far off as possible. We go from turn-based fighting with a party of 4 to three-button mashing using a single character. There's ZERO character development, and the plot is held together by the thinnest of threads. Moreover, the whole technique combination dynamic from PSIV is gone and replaced by a simple button press for a single spell. How can you say the turn-based gameplay is part of the atmosphere? It's the core dynamic around which everything else is built. Hitting "normal shot, normal shot, charge shot" doesn't remind me at all of any of the original games, because that's not at all how they played.

My main problem with these offshoots is that while they do remind you of the original games, that's really as far as it goes. The more I played them, the more I wanted a traditional RPG. You could really remove the PS name from these games and no one would notice. Your own post makes my point for me. Things are "based on" and are "references to" things from the original games; they are not FROM the original games. Anyone who plays PS2 after the first game can clearly see the connection, the same with going from PS2 to PSIV. You don't get that at all from going from PSIV to the online games. They're totally different. The references just reinforce the whole side story feel.

[j_factor]

The Portable versions are PSU and PSO side stories. Considering how many people have DS systems and PSPs I think it's a bit stupid to say Sega was alienating fans, especially when you see how many platforms the online Phantasy Star games have been on. That list includes the following:

Dreamcast
Gamecube
Xbox
Playstation 2
Xbox 360
Nintendo DS
Playstation Portable
Playstation Vita
PC

That's not alienating fans, that's making it accessible to more people.

Each of these platforms has one to three releases out of many distinct iterations of the series. It's not accessible, it's confusing. Let's review a timeline of releases:

2001: PSO for DC, PSO ver. 2 for DC and PC (Asia only)
2002: PSO Episodes I & II for GC -- Episode II is not Version 2, in fact Episode I is basically Version 2 and Episode II is new
2003: PSO Episodes I & II ported to Xbox, requires Xbox Live even for offline play
2004: PSO Episode III for GC only, PSO Episodes I & II Plus for GC only
2005: PSO Blue Burst, a way late PC port of Episodes I & II that no one cares about, along with PC-exclusive Episode IV (wtf), released only via download (wtf)
2006: PSU for PC, PS2, and 360
2007: PSU: Ambition of the Illuminus for PC, PS2, and 360, PC and PS2 versions are standalone but don't include the original PSU episode
2009: Phantasy Star Zero for DS, Phantasy Star Portable for PSP
2010: Phantasy Star Portable 2 for PSP

...How on Earth does this make sense? It's a clusterfuck.

[gamevet]

These were the minimum requirements for the Alpha test version:

Minimum Requirements
Windows XP 32bit Japanese Language
Windows Vista / 7 32bit or 64bit Japanese Language
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or higher
RAM: Windows XP - 1.5GB or higher
RAM: Windows Vista / 7 - 2GB or higher
HDD 8GB or higher
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT or similar graphics card or higher
DirectX 9.0c or higher
Broadband connection

Cheers, my PC needs to be updated a little, it seems, to run it.

Both of my PCs would run this, but there's one problem....... It's for Japan only!

[TrekkiesUnite118]

First of all PSO:BB and the PC versions of PSU were free to download. Second of all the original PC version of PSO WAS compatible with the Dreamcast version. The reason the GC and DC versions couldn't play together was the game had new areas and new weapons added as well as the fact the game was completely rebalanced (Being a force was no longer pointless in Ultimate). The reason GC and Xbox couldn't play together was Xbox Live. The reason BB and GC couldn't play together was again rebalancing, new areas and weapons, and the fact that account data was now stored serverside as opposed to client side. It wasn't due to wanting to alienate the fanbase, it was due to radical changes in the game that couldn't have been applied to the previous versions due to a lack of a means to store updates. Remember GC and DC discs could only store about 1.2 GB of data. PSOBB takes up more than that last I checked.

As for PSU, PC and PS2 could play together. The only reason 360 couldn't play with them was because of Microsoft and Xbox Live. Which by the way PSU has an offline mode that's free to play. And the PC version also has a free mode to allow you to play online for free. No offense, but if you guys played these games seriously, you'd be well aware of these facts.

As for the portable games, you have no one but the fans to blame for those. Fans were begging for years for a PSO on their DS or PSP. Sega gave it to them.

As for Pioneer 2 not feeling like Classic Phantasy Star, sure it might not look like the primitive graphics the Master System and early Genesis games used, but it does look rather close to the concept art for Phantasy Star II:





And PSUs towns again feel similar to those from Phantasy Star 4 as well as the concept art for Phantasy Star 2. And there are more variations of the Cities. First of all theres the Episode 2 and 3 versions of Pioneer 2. In PSU there's about 4 different cities and countless different lobbies and hubs.

As for enemies there's Rappies, Grass Assassins, Sand Worms, Robots, and plenty of other enemies that may not be direct references, but still have a look and feel of Phantasy Star. For the record, I don't remember there being too many similar enemies in the classic Phantasy Stars either, save for a select few memorable ones and bosses.

As for gameplay, I never said they were the same. However just because now it's a real time combat online RPG doesn't make it any less of a Phantasy Star game. Does FFXI being online make it less of a Final Fantasy? Do the dramatic changes in the battle systems from FF1 to FF13 make them any less Final Fantasies? Sega changing Phantasy Star to make it work in the new era of 3D and online gaming doesn't make the games any less Phantasy Star than their predecessors. The atmosphere is still there. It's just a multiplayer online adventure as opposed to single player RPG. These complaints seem to be based entirely on PSO v1 on the Dreamcast and nothing else.

Melf, you said you put 400 hours into PSO on the Dreamcast and Xbox and beat PSU Episode 1. Well guess what, I put well over 2000 hours into GC PSO on ONE character. I put even more than that into PSO:BB and even more than that into PSU on PC and 360. I ask did you even try these games online? That's where the bulk of the games content resides. That's where all the unique quests, the rest of the story, the items, the enemies, the new areas, etc. all are. If you only played offline Episode 1 of PSU, then you only experienced less than 20% of what the game had to offer.

We are not debating whether or not these games are sequels to Phantasy Star IV. We are debating if they are Phantasy Star games, meaning do they have a distinct look and feel that can be defined as Phantasy Star. And I say they have it. Yes, they are not turn based RPGs anymore, but that's gameplay, not atmosphere and character. That's like saying Metroid Prime doesn't have the look and feel of a Metroid game because it's not a 2D side scroller.

And j_factor it makes perfect sense if you were around playing the games at the time of the release.

PSO ver 1. and 2. were released on Dreamcast as killer apps. Ver 2 was released to fix bugs and increase the level cap and content. It was done this way because there was no way to store updates on the Dreamcast.

Episode 1 and 2 would have most likely been released on the Dreamcast if it had not been for the Dreamcast failing in 2001. It was instead released on Gamecube, the system Sonic Team preferred after the Dreamcast. Episode 1 and 2 Plus is like PSO Ver. 2. It fixes some bugs and adds some offline content.

The Xbox version was done to probably try and make the game available to more people. Since the Gamecube's online support wasn't that good.

PSO Episode 3 was a throwback to the turn based Phantasy Stars and had a bit more of a single player story aspect to it.

Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst was done in response to the hacking incidents on GC PSO. There were dramatic changes done to the server structure to prevent hacking that couldn't have been cleanly put on the Gamecube due to the lack of a means to store updates.

PSU was released on PS2 and PC due to the PS2 being the most popular online console in Japan. The 360 port was an after thought for the US market.

Ambiton of the Illuminus isn't a brand new game, it's an expansion pack. The PC/PS2 version is stand alone simply to make it easier for people to get into the online game, and the fact the PS2 can't really do an expansion pack without HDD support. Oh, and the Version 1 content is there in AotI, it's just only available online.

And I already explained the portable games. Fans begged for it, Sega gave it to them.

Both of my PCs would run this, but there's one problem....... It's for Japan only!

You can play the Japanese version on a US PC.

[j_factor]

And j_factor it makes perfect sense if you were around playing the games at the time of the release.

PSO ver 1. and 2. were released on Dreamcast as killer apps. Ver 2 was released to fix bugs and increase the level cap and content. It was done this way because there was no way to store updates on the Dreamcast.

Episode 1 and 2 would have most likely been released on the Dreamcast if it had not been for the Dreamcast failing in 2001. It was instead released on Gamecube, the system Sonic Team preferred after the Dreamcast. Episode 1 and 2 Plus is like PSO Ver. 2. It fixes some bugs and adds some offline content.

The Xbox version was done to probably try and make the game available to more people. Since the Gamecube's online support wasn't that good.

PSO Episode 3 was a throwback to the turn based Phantasy Stars and had a bit more of a single player story aspect to it.

Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst was done in response to the hacking incidents on GC PSO. There were dramatic changes done to the server structure to prevent hacking that couldn't have been cleanly put on the Gamecube due to the lack of a means to store updates.

PSU was released on PS2 and PC due to the PS2 being the most popular online console in Japan. The 360 port was an after thought for the US market.

Ambiton of the Illuminus isn't a brand new game, it's an expansion pack. The PC/PS2 version is stand alone simply to make it easier for people to get into the online game, and the fact the PS2 can't really do an expansion pack without HDD support. Oh, and the Version 1 content is there in AotI, it's just only available online.

And I already explained the portable games. Fans begged for it, Sega gave it to them.

It still doesn't make sense that they made Episode III a Gamecube exclusive, and then Episode IV a PC download exclusive. Especially when they didn't already have a base of PC users (why didn't they port Eps I & II to PC in 2002 or 2003?). Why put Episode III and PSO Plus on Gamecube and then snub the system immediately after? Why no Gamecube release of Episode IV? Or ANY console? They could have made "PSO Complete" containing all four episodes for Wii or Xbox 360 or PS3. Why not even have a retail release of Blue Burst? Why was it so low-key and poorly promoted?

[jerry coeurl]

And I say they have it.

Well, obviously Melf and myself disagree.

Yes, they are not turn based RPGs anymore, but that's gameplay, not atmosphere and character. That's like saying Metroid Prime doesn't have the look and feel of a Metroid game because it's not a 2D side scroller.

This is a bad example. The gameplay in Metroid Prime is pretty much identical to the earlier games, it's just been transplanted into a 3D environment. Whereas Phantasy Star Online plays nothing like PS I - IV. Metroid Prime does have the look and feel of a Metroid game, it just isn't 2D anymore (it still has just as many platforming elements, though).

PSO is not a good replacement for Phantasy Star because it's not the same type of game.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

PSO is still an RPG. It still has the Phantasy Star look and feel. It still has everything it needs to identify itself as Phantasy Star. It's just multiplayer now.

We are not talking about gameplay here, we are talking about look and feel. Your entire basis for what defines Phantasy Star is Sci-Fi turnbased JRPG. Going by that logic that puts so many random games into the category of Phantasy Star it's not even funny. There is more to Phantasy Star than it being a turnbased JRPG. And it's those aspects that the online Phantasy Stars still have.

The online Phantasy Stars still have the distinctive Phantasy Star Art style, they still have the Phantasy Star lore (items, spells, races, names, classes, organizations, etc.), they still have the same style of music, and they still have the same style of setting. The character the games have is defined as that of Phantasy Star. If you were to take Phantasy Star IV and rip out the turn based battle system and replace it with something like an action game, you'd still have a game you could call Phantasy Star IV. I fail to see why the online games are any different.