Star Wars: The Old Republic loses 25% of its subscribers

**Pulstar** · 05-11-2012, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by old man

ha ha ha, nerds are too busy playing crap like this to do anything proactive like "take control". I'm not going to dis another person's game too much though. I like action and twitch stuff, but I'm sure MMORGs must be fun to somebody.

Ironic, isn't it? A part-time nerd decrying full-blown nerds?

**TrekkiesUnite118** · 05-11-2012, 12:12 PM

Skyrim reuses data at a ridiculous level. An article about XenoBlades graphics touches on this in this quote:

Huge games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim can look pretty thanks to good art direction, but they're also damn glitchy, and have to cut corners by reusing textures and environments. They're almost pieced together like LEGO constructs, with pre-made building blocks pieced together, and you can clearly see the proverbial puppet strings if you look at it long enough. It gets the job done, but it's a very Western thing. It's not the long, huge, open, varied, handcrafted kind of chicanery we're used to from Japanese role-playing games.

In Skyrim buildings and environments may be detailed, but in many cases they are put together using the same assets and building blocks as every other environment in the game. In Skyrim you may walk into a house that has lots of detail in the floor, the furniture, the vases, etc. But when you go next door you are probably going to see a lot of the same assets. Skyrim's world is pieced together reusing many of the same assets over and over again. PSU's Maps however are custom made for each mission and each variation of the mission. They are not simply the same models being reused and pieced together. That requires a lot more space.

You are also forgetting that Skyrim is on modern systems that can handle compressed textures. The PS2 cannot handle compressed textures. Before the texture goes into the GPU, it has to be uncompressed. That also saves a lot of space. As for the reason why PSU's maps are smaller, that's simple. PS2 only has 32MB of RAM total. Everything going on in the game at a given moment has to fit in that. So you need to have the space reserved for Your character's model and textures, your action palette and all it's models and textures, as well as your inventory. Multiply that by 6 for Online mode. You also have to have the data for each enemy type in the mission. You also have to have the Map layout and the textures and models in RAM. 32MB is not a lot, and it fills up fast.

So PSU's graphics are limited by what the PS2 is capable of. PSU's map sizes are limited by PS2's RAM. And the amount of content is limited by Disc Space. Sure you might have been able to get more content if you reused the same textures and models for ever single map in the game, but then it would look bland and boring. Each map in PSU has it's own unique look and feel to it. The same is not true for games like Skyrim that reuse assets to give a larger world.

As for PSP2's sales, In it's first 2 months on sale in Japan it sold closer to 600,000 copies, with almost half of it's sales being in it's first week. That's pretty impressive, especially considering Japan is a smaller country than the US. PSP2 Infinity has sold close to about $400,000 copies in Japan as well. Combined the portable Phantasy Star titles have sold well over 1 Million copies. Not to mention that's only including retail copies, digital copies are not included in those numbers. If Sega Advertised the game, they could have gotten a decent return on it.

Phantasy Star now may be a niche product, but it didn't used to be. It's only in that situation now because Sega of America has failed numerous times to properly advertise the series. There were plenty of people who played the games. According to VG Charts PSO on Dreamcast, Xbox, and Gamecube combined sold over 1 million copies, but there's obvious gaps in the data. There's no data for the US and Europe for the Dreamcast versions, there's no data for the PC version or Blue Burst, there's very minimal amounts of data for Episode 1 and 2 plus, even though I know it was easy to find when it came out. Considering we are missing huge amounts of data, that still looks better than niche. And I know for a fact when PSO:BB was in open beta in the US, the servers were overflowing and it was at times almost impossible to log in.

If Sega made a decent attempt at advertising Phantasy Star, the games would probably sell at least on par with other JRPGs.

**gamevet** · 05-12-2012, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Skyrim reuses data at a ridiculous level. An article about XenoBlades graphics touches on this in this quote:

In Skyrim buildings and environments may be detailed, but in many cases they are put together using the same assets and building blocks as every other environment in the game. In Skyrim you may walk into a house that has lots of detail in the floor, the furniture, the vases, etc. But when you go next door you are probably going to see a lot of the same assets. Skyrim's world is pieced together reusing many of the same assets over and over again. PSU's Maps however are custom made for each mission and each variation of the mission. They are not simply the same models being reused and pieced together. That requires a lot more space.

Really? Solitude and Whiterun look nothing alike, unless you want to point out a stone wall with the same stones.

That dude is a moron. Just about every game out there recycles textures and character models. Yes, PSU is very guilty of recycling the same textures and map pieces over and over and over again. That's why every new map consists of pieces borrowed from other levels, with a color pallete swap here and there. They do the same thing with the enemies, that have pieces of other enemies glued totogether to make a new enemy. PSU is basically RPG maker with developer level tools to make new maps. Like that reviewer said in my other post, everything you see in PSU, was already on the disc to begin with. The updates didn't bring new character or texture data, it was already there.

You are also forgetting that Skyrim is on modern systems that can handle compressed textures. The PS2 cannot handle compressed textures. Before the texture goes into the GPU, it has to be uncompressed. That also saves a lot of space. As for the reason why PSU's maps are smaller, that's simple. PS2 only has 32MB of RAM total. Everything going on in the game at a given moment has to fit in that. So you need to have the space reserved for Your character's model and textures, your action palette and all it's models and textures, as well as your inventory. Multiply that by 6 for Online mode. You also have to have the data for each enemy type in the mission. You also have to have the Map layout and the textures and models in RAM. 32MB is not a lot, and it fills up fast.

So PSU's graphics are limited by what the PS2 is capable of. PSU's map sizes are limited by PS2's RAM. And the amount of content is limited by Disc Space. Sure you might have been able to get more content if you reused the same textures and models for ever single map in the game, but then it would look bland and boring. Each map in PSU has it's own unique look and feel to it. The same is not true for games like Skyrim that reuse assets to give a larger world.

Morrowind is 4 years older than PSU, and it has large maps and towns to explore. San Andreas has a whole city as well. My comparison wasn't just about map sizes. It was about how much content the Phantasy Star Online games really have. When you look at it, there's a lot of rehashed stuff and playing the same things over and over again. It's worse than grinding in a typical MMO. I brought up Skyrim, because it is an example of a game with 100's of hours of gameplay, that doesn't rely on you doing same maps and simular missions over and over again. I could replace Skyrim with Morrowind and the statement would still be true.

There are plenty of ways around system memory restrictions, the first being that the PS2, or any other system, doesn't hold the the entire map for a game like San Andreas in memory. You can also see when PSU is loading enemy data off of the disc, right before they pop up on screen; it's not all being held in system memory.

As for PSP2's sales, In it's first 2 months on sale in Japan it sold closer to 600,000 copies, with almost half of it's sales being in it's first week. That's pretty impressive, especially considering Japan is a smaller country than the US. PSP2 Infinity has sold close to about $400,000 copies in Japan as well. Combined the portable Phantasy Star titles have sold well over 1 Million copies. Not to mention that's only including retail copies, digital copies are not included in those numbers. If Sega Advertised the game, they could have gotten a decent return on it.

You mean PSP 2nd, that sold 127,000 of it's units in 2010?

You keep overlooking that the PSP userbase is larger in Japan, than it is in any other region. No amount of advertising in North America would produce that many units sold of Phantasy Star Portable 2nd here. You're overestimating its appeal to the Western audience. You don't think that Sega doesn't know this, but you do?

http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-BestSell2011.shtml

001 [3DS] Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo) {2011-12-01} - 1,082,391
002 [3DS] Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo) {2011-11-03} - 1,042,511
003 [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (Capcom) {2010-12-01} - 1,021,457 / 4,502,446
004 [3DS] Monster Hunter Tri G (Capcom) {2011-12-10} - 809,322
005 [PS3] Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Square Enix) {2011-12-15} - 697,146
006 [PSP] Final Fantasy Type-0 (Square Enix) {2011-10-27} - 696,428
007 [WII] Rhythm Tengoku Fever (Nintendo) {2011-07-21} - 633,429
008 [PS3] Tales of Xillia (Bandai Namco) {2011-09-08} - 632,151
009 [WII] Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo) {2009-06-25} - 612,807 / 2,732,655
010 [WII] Wii Party (Nintendo) {2010-07-08} - 584,545 / 2,123,773

027 [PSP] Phantasy Star Portable 2: Infinity (SEGA) {2011-02-24} - 373,309

Phantasy Star now may be a niche product, but it didn't used to be. It's only in that situation now because Sega of America has failed numerous times to properly advertise the series. There were plenty of people who played the games. According to VG Charts PSO on Dreamcast, Xbox, and Gamecube combined sold over 1 million copies, but there's obvious gaps in the data. There's no data for the US and Europe for the Dreamcast versions, there's no data for the PC version or Blue Burst, there's very minimal amounts of data for Episode 1 and 2 plus, even though I know it was easy to find when it came out. Considering we are missing huge amounts of data, that still looks better than niche. And I know for a fact when PSO:BB was in open beta in the US, the servers were overflowing and it was at times almost impossible to log in.

If Sega made a decent attempt at advertising Phantasy Star, the games would probably sell at least on par with other JRPGs.

If the sales of Phantasy Star Portable 2: Infinity are any indication, the series is losing momentum in Japan as well.

I know for a fact that the original (free) PSO had an online userbase of 650K, during its peak on the Dreamcast. Who's to say that the sales of the game on Xbox and Gamecube were not partially filled by those that also had played the game on the DC?

**gamevet** · 05-12-2012, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Skyrim reuses data at a ridiculous level. An article about XenoBlades graphics touches on this in this quote:

In Skyrim buildings and environments may be detailed, but in many cases they are put together using the same assets and building blocks as every other environment in the game. In Skyrim you may walk into a house that has lots of detail in the floor, the furniture, the vases, etc. But when you go next door you are probably going to see a lot of the same assets. Skyrim's world is pieced together reusing many of the same assets over and over again. PSU's Maps however are custom made for each mission and each variation of the mission. They are not simply the same models being reused and pieced together. That requires a lot more space.

That dude is a moron. Just about every videogame uses recycled texture, sprite or model data. Don't even try to tell me that PSU, or any of the other Phantasy Star Online games haven't used excessive amounts of recycled data, starting with the maps and palette swapped enemies.

Solitude, Whiterun and Markarth look nothing like eachother. They're totally different styles of architecture, with Whiterun being a Nordic village, Solitude looking more like an English castle and Markarth being carved out of a stone mountainside.

You are also forgetting that Skyrim is on modern systems that can handle compressed textures. The PS2 cannot handle compressed textures. Before the texture goes into the GPU, it has to be uncompressed. That also saves a lot of space. As for the reason why PSU's maps are smaller, that's simple. PS2 only has 32MB of RAM total. Everything going on in the game at a given moment has to fit in that. So you need to have the space reserved for Your character's model and textures, your action palette and all it's models and textures, as well as your inventory. Multiply that by 6 for Online mode. You also have to have the data for each enemy type in the mission. You also have to have the Map layout and the textures and models in RAM. 32MB is not a lot, and it fills up fast.

This isn't just about compressed texture data. And the PS2 is certainly capable of decompressing data; it does it every time you see an MPEG video clip, which PSU has several of. Still, PSU on the PS2 only uses a single layer DVD, instead of the dual-layer (DVD-9) that the PS2 supports. That's a lot of unused space that could have been used for uncompressed texture data. PSU requires 8 gigs of HDD space, once it's decompressed from the DVD on the PC version of the game, btw.

I brought up Skyrim, because of how much it is doing, with the amount of space available on a DVD. I could exchange it with Morrowind (4 years older than PSU), a game that came on 2 CDs for the PC, and still had a lot more content than 5 years of PSU. You can even look towards the PS2 library, with a game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, that has a virtual city for you to explore and exploit; It has massive amounts of things to do and explore.

So PSU's graphics are limited by what the PS2 is capable of. PSU's map sizes are limited by PS2's RAM. And the amount of content is limited by Disc Space. Sure you might have been able to get more content if you reused the same textures and models for ever single map in the game, but then it would look bland and boring. Each map in PSU has it's own unique look and feel to it. The same is not true for games like Skyrim that reuse assets to give a larger world.

See above. You're making up excuses for why Sega can get away with shortcuts, on a game that people payed $10 a month to play. If that $10 payed for the added content, Sega should have shipped AOI for free to everyone that payed for a year of that game.

As for PSP2's sales, In it's first 2 months on sale in Japan it sold closer to 600,000 copies, with almost half of it's sales being in it's first week. That's pretty impressive, especially considering Japan is a smaller country than the US. PSP2 Infinity has sold close to about $400,000 copies in Japan as well. Combined the portable Phantasy Star titles have sold well over 1 Million copies. Not to mention that's only including retail copies, digital copies are not included in those numbers. If Sega Advertised the game, they could have gotten a decent return on it.

Yeah, and then PSP2: Infinity sold a lot less (only 373k) than the previous title. Advertising should have kept it going strong, right?

http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-BestSell2011.shtml

027 [PSP] Phantasy Star Portable 2: Infinity (SEGA) {2011-02-24} - 373,309

The sales of Phantasy Star Portable games in Japan, does not mean that it will sell just as well to the rest of the world, especially when you consider that Japan is the PSPs best selling market. It's like expecting Grand Theft Auto IV and Modern Warfare 2 to sell big in Japan, when in fact they both sold around 100K at best there.

Phantasy Star now may be a niche product, but it didn't used to be. It's only in that situation now because Sega of America has failed numerous times to properly advertise the series. There were plenty of people who played the games. According to VG Charts PSO on Dreamcast, Xbox, and Gamecube combined sold over 1 million copies, but there's obvious gaps in the data. There's no data for the US and Europe for the Dreamcast versions, there's no data for the PC version or Blue Burst, there's very minimal amounts of data for Episode 1 and 2 plus, even though I know it was easy to find when it came out. Considering we are missing huge amounts of data, that still looks better than niche. And I know for a fact when PSO:BB was in open beta in the US, the servers were overflowing and it was at times almost impossible to log in.

If Sega made a decent attempt at advertising Phantasy Star, the games would probably sell at least on par with other JRPGs.

A good portion of those sales figures were for the Dreamcast version, that during its peak, had an online userbase of 100k + worldwide. The Gamecube version is considered pretty rare, or is heavily sought out, but I don't believe it cracked 80K sold here and the Xbox version probably didn't sell much better either.

Advertising isn't what killed Phantasy Star Online here. It was the moment that Sega decided to charge players monthly fees that killed it. I know I didn't take ver.2 online for very long, because the fees seemed unnecessary at the time. If Sega hadn't decided to start charging for online play with NFL2K2, the DC might have had even more momentum in North America with its online sports being way ahead of the competition.

**Lan Di** · 05-12-2012, 07:41 PM

I just cancelled my subscription. Too many bugs, too much time to spend on getting decent gear, and no dungeon queuing function. I'm thinking about giving up on MMOs altogether.

**Olls** · 05-12-2012, 08:14 PM

I canceled right after the free 30 day trial. The game to me feels like a single player RPG with some multi player features tacked on and I'm not going to subscribe to a monthly fee for a single player game.

**TrekkiesUnite118** · 05-14-2012, 11:57 AM

@gamevet.

Those numbers for PSO are not all for the Dreamcast version, in fact the Dreamcast version has most data missing. Half of those 1 million copies come from the Gamecube version. The Gamecube version of the game is not rare. The reason it costs so much on ebay is because it can be exploited to allow you to run homebrew apps on the Gamecube. It definitely sold more than 80k over here. According to vgcharts it sold closer it sold 230,000 copies in the US. And the Xbox version apparently sold around 110,000 copies in the US.

As for Infinity's sales being lower, you do realize that those numbers are only for the retail version right? The game is also available for download on PSN. And yes, I understand different markets buy different things, but a game selling as well as Phantasy Star does in Japan, and how well it's known, does justify advertising it.

And you're right, other games do recycle textures and what not. But Skyrim does a little more than this. Skyrim takes a bunch of pieces from it's assets and pieces them together to make the map for the current area you are in. PSU doesn't do this. In PSU each map is individually made and stored for each area. This makes maps more unique for an instance based MMO. However it also takes up space. For example, one mission area may have as many as 15+ maps. Other missions may reuse some maps, but some maps can't be reused because they are either story specific or they are boss maps and if the mission doesn't have a boss battle, that map can't be used. And if you wan't a night time or dusk mission, you can't use any maps from daytime variations of the area. You have to make new maps that use the night time textures and assets. This is simply how PSU works.

You also can't have very large maps either. The reason is PS2 RAM limitations. This is why PSU's mission areas are broken into smaller blocks with only 3 enemy types per block. The game has to have space to store 6 players, their inventories, their skills, etc. as well as maps and enemy data. That all has to fit into the PS2's puny memory. And the PS2 can't handle texture compression either. Yeah it can decompress them in software, but when they go to the GPU they have to be decompressed. Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox and up can all handle texture compression. This allows them to save lots of space in RAM that would be used for textures. This is why so many Dreamcast games have better texture quality and more texutre variety than a lot of PS2 games. PS2 the textures have to be decompressed in RAM before they can be sent to the GPU. This again hurts PSU and is why so many areas don't seem to have the texture variety that PSO had.

That's great the PC version of PSU takes up 8 GB (The JP expansion client takes up around 6.8 GB btw). But you are forgetting it also has the benefit of being able to use better compression since it can decompress data during installation, and take all the time it wants. PS2 PSU has to decompress data on the fly, which means it has to be quick, and the end result must fit in less than 32 MB of RAM. Regardless of what the other systems the game is on can do, PSU still had to be designed to work for the lowest common denominator, the PS2. PS2 PSU takes up a little under 4GB when you analyze the disc.

**gamevet** · 05-15-2012, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

@gamevet.

Those numbers for PSO are not all for the Dreamcast version, in fact the Dreamcast version has most data missing. Half of those 1 million copies come from the Gamecube version. The Gamecube version of the game is not rare. The reason it costs so much on ebay is because it can be exploited to allow you to run homebrew apps on the Gamecube. It definitely sold more than 80k over here. According to vgcharts it sold closer it sold 230,000 copies in the US. And the Xbox version apparently sold around 110,000 copies in the US.

Yeah, I looked it over a bit more. The GC version's sales figures also include the plus version. Between the Xbox and Gamecube it sold about 455,000 worldwide, while the 387,457 sold for the Dreamcast are only those sold in Japan.

http://forums.sega.com/showthread.ph...to-Fairly-New)

Originally Posted by sega.com

Phantasy Star Online Versions 1 and 2 DC 387,457 j
Phantasy Star Online Part 1 & 2 (w/ Plus) GCN/XB 455,711 w

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name...sy+Star+Online

As for Infinity's sales being lower, you do realize that those numbers are only for the retail version right? The game is also available for download on PSN. And yes, I understand different markets buy different things, but a game selling as well as Phantasy Star does in Japan, and how well it's known, does justify advertising it.

The previous title was available for download as well, so that pretty much negates the fact that Infinity's numbers don't include download.

And you're right, other games do recycle textures and what not. But Skyrim does a little more than this. Skyrim takes a bunch of pieces from it's assets and pieces them together to make the map for the current area you are in.

No, it doesn't. Yeah, the game uses many of the same pieces to create small rock formations, a well placed stump or marker, a rolling hill, but there are so many unique places to explore that don't look anything like the world around it. Markarth has Elvin mines with walls made of copper, while North of the Magician's guild, there is a cave carved out of the ice. Then you have a multitude of various weapons, armor, potions and items used for crafting.

Agisbane

http://www.ign.com/wikis/the-elder-s...m/Unique_Items

I've already shown you 3 cities that had very different architectures, and set pieces unlike eachother. Yeah, small villages and farm towns use recycled buildings and set pieces, but most of the world does not. There are small side missions that have caves that use a very generic set of pieces that are obviously very simular to eachother, but those are not the majority of what you have to explore.

I honestly don't believe you have played Skyrim, so you're making judgements based on one silly reviewer that doesn't have a clue.

PSU doesn't do this. In PSU each map is individually made and stored for each area. This makes maps more unique for an instance based MMO. However it also takes up space. For example, one mission area may have as many as 15+ maps. Other missions may reuse some maps, but some maps can't be reused because they are either story specific or they are boss maps and if the mission doesn't have a boss battle, that map can't be used. And if you wan't a night time or dusk mission, you can't use any maps from daytime variations of the area. You have to make new maps that use the night time textures and assets. This is simply how PSU works.

I've played all of the Phantasy Star Online games up to Phantasy Star Portable, including Blue Burst. Those titles recycle map data way beyond what Skyrim or any of the Elder Scroll games have. Those Phanstasy Star maps are pretty much created like Dungeon Maker, with bits and pieces strung together to make maps. And yes, Skyrim does have night and daytime throughout the world, along with weather changes.

You also can't have very large maps either. The reason is PS2 RAM limitations. This is why PSU's mission areas are broken into smaller blocks with only 3 enemy types per block. The game has to have space to store 6 players, their inventories, their skills, etc. as well as maps and enemy data. That all has to fit into the PS2's puny memory. And the PS2 can't handle texture compression either. Yeah it can decompress them in software, but when they go to the GPU they have to be decompressed. Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox and up can all handle texture compression. This allows them to save lots of space in RAM that would be used for textures. This is why so many Dreamcast games have better texture quality and more texutre variety than a lot of PS2 games. PS2 the textures have to be decompressed in RAM before they can be sent to the GPU. This again hurts PSU and is why so many areas don't seem to have the texture variety that PSO had.

PSO had multi-tiered levels that would load once everyone entered a transport. System memory shouldn't be used as an excuse, as I've pointed out games like GTA: San Andreas that had a whole city to map out before you.

That's great the PC version of PSU takes up 8 GB (The JP expansion client takes up around 6.8 GB btw). But you are forgetting it also has the benefit of being able to use better compression since it can decompress data during installation, and take all the time it wants. PS2 PSU has to decompress data on the fly, which means it has to be quick, and the end result must fit in less than 32 MB of RAM. Regardless of what the other systems the game is on can do, PSU still had to be designed to work for the lowest common denominator, the PS2. PS2 PSU takes up a little under 4GB when you analyze the disc.

The PS2 had the option of DVD-9, so that isn't an excuse. PSU could have just as easily been 8 gigs on the PS2, with the option of a dual-layer DVD.

**TrekkiesUnite118** · 05-15-2012, 03:18 AM

Dreamcast can do texture compression, and it has 8MB of dedicated Video Memory. That makes a very big difference. Throw in the fact that Dreamcast only had to deal with 4 characters with inventories of only 30 items each and it starts to make sense why PSU is broken up into smaller areas. All the textures have to sit in PS2's 32MB of RAM uncompressed, along with each enemy, it's data, and still have room for 6 characters and their 60 item inventories. Not to mention PSO's maps are designed for being reused. PSO's maps use a handful of unique rooms reused over and over and connected by corridors. The areas that use mostly unique rooms are also very small by comparison. PSU on the other hand uses more unique rooms that are typically larger than your usual PSO room.

PSO's drop system is completely different too. PSO's drop system is by area and section ID. Each enemy can only drop one item per difficulty, and it's determined by Section ID. So when you load up Ruins 3, only one drop table is loaded. PSU's drop system is different from this. PSU each enemy has it's own drop table. What an enemy drops is based on it's level. Level brackets are defined in 10 level increments up until around level 100, then the increment gets larger. Each enemy also has a special drop which has the ability to drop regardless of level. Not only does this make drop tables significantly larger than PSO's, it also means that you need to have multiple drop tables loaded for each enemy you use in a mission.

Combining all this it's easy to see why PSU's missions are divided into small blocks with only 3 enemy types each. You don't see more enemy types until you change blocks. As for games like GTA, those games are single player, so that reduces memory overhead a bit. Not to mention the entire city isn't really all there at once. In many cases it's broken up into smaller sections that load into memory when you cross a certain point.

Not to mention that GTAs graphics are rather basic and repetitive compared to PSUs:

As for disc space, how many individual Music tracks does Skyrim have? Looking at it's OST I count about 52 individual tracks. Looking through PSU's data I count over 165 individual music tracks. That's over 3 times as many. That takes up quite a bit of disc space. Throw in FMVs for story mode and you start to run out of space.

Close to 700 MB of data in PSU is used for FMV alone. Considering there's 165+ music tracks, which range from 3-15MB in size, that adds up quick. If we average that to around say 8MB each, thats over 1.2 GB worth of music in the game. So this means that almost 2 GB of that single layer DVD are used up in Music and FMV alone. As you can see we are left with half of the DVD space now for maps. But wait, we haven't thrown in the voice and sound effect data. That comes to about 300 MB in the US version. In the Japanese version it's even more since every bit of text dialog in story missions has voice acting to go with it. However that's not all, we still have individual quest files. All of those combined come to about 170. As you can see now, we have about 1.5 GB of data left for Maps and other graphical data. But there's still offline weapon data, as well as enemy data. When we're all said and done, I'd say there's maybe 1 GB of space left for map data.

And you didn't understand what I was saying about Night and Day variations of Maps. Skyrim uses the same map for night and day obviously. PSU does not. In PSU if you want a mission to be at night, you need an entirely new map that uses textures and data for night. Because of this one area that has about 7 different map variations requires at least double that if you want to be able to use it for night time missions. Raffon Lakeshore has daytime, nighttime, and dusk variations. That's well over 20 different maps for one area. There's well over 100 maps for free missions in the game, that doesn't include story missions and other missions that use more unique maps. And you also have to remember there needs to be space for all the textures and models as well.

What's obviously taking up a lot of space here are the assets for the offline and online story mode. PSO was able to save space by making it's story mode minimal and use all of the same assets and maps as online multiplayer mode. PSU has it's own set of specific maps just for story mode, as well as cutscene data.

As for reusing data, PSU in many cases appears to be reusing map data, but it's actually a different map file, even if the only difference is the skybox being used. It's still stored separately on the disc. PSU also doesn't reuse textures as much as a game like Skyrim does. Skyrim sacrifices texture variety for model variety (though it still reuses it's fair share of models). PSU takes the opposite approach, it sacrifices more model variety for texture variety. Textures typically will take up more space than models.

Am I saying this is a good reason? No, I am saying however that being made for a System with minimal RAM and no HDD did limit PSU quite a bit. The fact that the game has improved and grown tremendously after that limitation was removed is proof of that. As for why they didn't use a dual layer DVD, I don't know. Maybe the same reason they put Phantasy Star 2 on a 6 Megabit cart instead of a 32 Megabit cart?

**Pulstar** · 05-15-2012, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by Lan Di

I'm thinking about giving up on MMOs altogether.

Time can certainly serve you better doing other things.

**gamevet** · 05-15-2012, 11:40 PM

Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Dreamcast can do texture compression, and it has 8MB of dedicated Video Memory. That makes a very big difference. Throw in the fact that Dreamcast only had to deal with 4 characters with inventories of only 30 items each and it starts to make sense why PSU is broken up into smaller areas. All the textures have to sit in PS2's 32MB of RAM uncompressed, along with each enemy, it's data, and still have room for 6 characters and their 60 item inventories. Not to mention PSO's maps are designed for being reused. PSO's maps use a handful of unique rooms reused over and over and connected by corridors. The areas that use mostly unique rooms are also very small by comparison. PSU on the other hand uses more unique rooms that are typically larger than your usual PSO room.

The Dreamcast also has only 16MB of system RAM to work with. Yeah, PSO has very few maps, because Sega had to fit it all on 1 gig of disc space. That's why Shenmue is on 3 discs.

As far inventory goes, that's hardly 1K worth of information and it's not shared between the 6 players systems while playing online.

PSO's drop system is completely different too. PSO's drop system is by area and section ID. Each enemy can only drop one item per difficulty, and it's determined by Section ID. So when you load up Ruins 3, only one drop table is loaded. PSU's drop system is different from this. PSU each enemy has it's own drop table. What an enemy drops is based on it's level. Level brackets are defined in 10 level increments up until around level 100, then the increment gets larger. Each enemy also has a special drop which has the ability to drop regardless of level. Not only does this make drop tables significantly larger than PSO's, it also means that you need to have multiple drop tables loaded for each enemy you use in a mission.

I've already told you that I've played PSO (I was online the first week it game out in the US) and PSO Ver.2. Why are you telling me something that every player of PSO knows?

I've attached pictures of my characters from PSO and PSO Ver. 2. Yeah, they're only level 30 (Greennill) and 33 (Bluefill), but my level 50 Humar was lost with my Dreamcast when it was stolen back in late 2001. Notice the Robochao and God/Ability++, those were duped items that were given to me. People weren't selling those items, as you say, they were giving them away.

Combining all this it's easy to see why PSU's missions are divided into small blocks with only 3 enemy types each. You don't see more enemy types until you change blocks. As for games like GTA, those games are single player, so that reduces memory overhead a bit. Not to mention the entire city isn't really all there at once. In many cases it's broken up into smaller sections that load into memory when you cross a certain point.

You've pretty much mentioned what every game does. PSU doesn't hold the whole map in system memory, like you think it does. It doesn't have to, since you're pretty much stuck in one area until the battles are completed. It doesn't matter what the other player is doing, because his system is handling the graphics for what he's doing, not you.

Not to mention that GTAs graphics are rather basic and repetitive compared to PSUs:

It's still the map of a whole city within a single DVD's space. It also has other vehicles and people to account for as you run around.

This video shows exactly what I'm talking about. Did you notice the same plant popping up everywhere?

As for disc space, how many individual Music tracks does Skyrim have? Looking at it's OST I count about 52 individual tracks. Looking through PSU's data I count over 165 individual music tracks. That's over 3 times as many. That takes up quite a bit of disc space. Throw in FMVs for story mode and you start to run out of space.

Skyrim is loaded with voice samples for all of the conversations you have with NPCs and the NPCs talking as you walk through towns and areas.

The OST for PSU is 69 songs, some of which aren't that long.

69

http://www.ffinsider.net/soundtracks...-universe.html

Close to 700 MB of data in PSU is used for FMV alone. Considering there's 165+ music tracks, which range from 3-15MB in size, that adds up quick. If we average that to around say 8MB each, thats over 1.2 GB worth of music in the game. So this means that almost 2 GB of that single layer DVD are used up in Music and FMV alone. As you can see we are left with half of the DVD space now for maps. But wait, we haven't thrown in the voice and sound effect data. That comes to about 300 MB in the US version. In the Japanese version it's even more since every bit of text dialog in story missions has voice acting to go with it. However that's not all, we still have individual quest files. All of those combined come to about 170. As you can see now, we have about 1.5 GB of data left for Maps and other graphical data. But there's still offline weapon data, as well as enemy data. When we're all said and done, I'd say there's maybe 1 GB of space left for map data.

If that is true, what does that tell you? That the meat of the game is recycled textures and models, since they don't have much room left on the disc. This game should have been on a dual-layer DVD, especially when you consider that people were paying $120 for a year of playtime.

And you didn't understand what I was saying about Night and Day variations of Maps. Skyrim uses the same map for night and day obviously. PSU does not. In PSU if you want a mission to be at night, you need an entirely new map that uses textures and data for night. Because of this one area that has about 7 different map variations requires at least double that if you want to be able to use it for night time missions. Raffon Lakeshore has daytime, nighttime, and dusk variations. That's well over 20 different maps for one area. There's well over 100 maps for free missions in the game, that doesn't include story missions and other missions that use more unique maps. And you also have to remember there needs to be space for all the textures and models as well.

You obviously don't understand how it works then.

Did you notice how you can see dark patches in the Raffon fields, as the clouds pass by? That's call light sourcing. A map being darker isn't new textures, but the amount of light the object reflects is dimmed to the lowest levels. The ground, the enemies and even your characters are darker, but that is not new textures. The map layouts pretty much remained the same as well; I don't recall them being any different during night and day, but I remember hating that I couldn't see the enemies until they were right on top of me.

What's obviously taking up a lot of space here are the assets for the offline and online story mode. PSO was able to save space by making it's story mode minimal and use all of the same assets and maps as online multiplayer mode. PSU has it's own set of specific maps just for story mode, as well as cutscene data.

As for reusing data, PSU in many cases appears to be reusing map data, but it's actually a different map file, even if the only difference is the skybox being used. It's still stored separately on the disc. PSU also doesn't reuse textures as much as a game like Skyrim does. Skyrim sacrifices texture variety for model variety (though it still reuses it's fair share of models). PSU takes the opposite approach, it sacrifices more model variety for texture variety. Textures typically will take up more space than models.

Until you have played Skyrim, you're grasping at straws. The variety of textures and models is far beyond what PSU is doing and even Shenmue with its 3 gigs of disc space shows more variety than PSU.

PSU is very guilty of reusing assetts throughout multiple maps. It's not as bad as what PSO does, but it's very obvious, and way beyond what any RPG has done in the past 10 years.

Am I saying this is a good reason? No, I am saying however that being made for a System with minimal RAM and no HDD did limit PSU quite a bit. The fact that the game has improved and grown tremendously after that limitation was removed is proof of that. As for why they didn't use a dual layer DVD, I don't know. Maybe the same reason they put Phantasy Star 2 on a 6 Megabit cart instead of a 32 Megabit cart?

That's an apples to oranges comparison. Putting Phantasy Star 2 on a 32Mb cart would have been very expensive back in 1989, as was putting PSIV on a 48Mb cart 4 years later. Using a dual-layer disc would have costed maybe an additional 50 cents in manufacturing costs, but Sega didn't need to, because they didn't want to put the extra resources behind adding additional texture and model data. The additional map data isn't exacty a space hogging amount at all, and it's just a more advanced version of RPG maker, in the way it goes about making those maps.

**gamevet** · 05-15-2012, 11:48 PM