Phantasy Star Universe discussion thread

Originally Posted by Lady Miyomi

Will they have the same lobby system going on as it was with version 1?

No. Everyone is in towns with everyone else.

If any of you want to see actual gameplay and not trailers, here's some footage from the beta. Also, I took a lot of screenshots. Lastly, I extracted all the music hidden in the data files for the beta which were encoded in .adx format, and transcoded them into Ogg Vorbis files which you can download here.

I barely scratched the surface in what PSU's going to have as far as content goes, and a lot of those cool looking attacks that you see in the trailers weren't accessible in the beta, and it already was better than PSO. The AI in the game wasn't brilliant, but it was a step up from PSO, and when I got up in the mid 20s with my level, the A-rank missions were pretty rough.

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This game > all MMORPGs. True story.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Guest

I heard PSU beta has been hacked already.

You're missing the rest of the equation, there. The PSU Beta client was floating around on the internet and the old PSO hackers were able to get access to character creation with it, and that's it. It means very little.

PSU uses server-side saving. Even combat is handled server-side instead of client-side like it was on all versions of PSO. They ran into the standard early online game launch issues, but they're all being resolved.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Online play: it's got PSO's core mechanics, but the combat is fleshed out a lot more. Things are faster paced, and all the tweaks and adjustments make for a really solid online action RPG. Juggling enemies in the air may seem like a simple improvement, but it really adds some character to the game, and makes PSO seem so pathetically boring in comparison. It's definitely not a MMORPG though, as everything is instanced for 6-man teams, though large amounts of people can be seen in towns.

Offline: It's very JRPG in its presentation, with tons of voice acting and cutscenes. The story and characters are pretty stereotypical, and so it's best to go in expecting everything to be fairly straight-forward, with little to no complexity behind the plot. If you go in with that mindset, you'll enjoy it. After all, Skies of Arcadia wasn't complex in any way, shape, or form, and it was one of the best RPGs made to date.

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1. Everything in Phantasy Star Universe is fast-paced, aside from perhaps leveling progression, which doesn't feel much like a grind because combat is very involving and active. There is no waiting. Finding a group to play with is simple, because level gaps don't matter. You find someone to play with, and then you play. Experience is awarded based on who killed a monster... those who helped damage it get 2/3 of the experience value. That's another thing... in MMORPGs, players swarm a single monster that's usually half the size of a single character and fight it for a minute or two... in this game, you're fighting groups of monsters and constantly roaming. There's no downtime to speak of.

2. There's not a PlayStation 3 version because the PlayStation 3 isn't even out yet.

I was speaking idiomatically.

There's no lobby soccer in Phantasy Star Universe, at the moment anyways. I do know that there's supposed to be a dance club on the third floor of the Guardian's Colony, though it's currently locked out.

How ya doing, buddy?

You can take screenshots on the PC version. You cannot on the PlayStation 2 release.

All interaction is done in towns, and there are various NPCs scattered throughout. You exit towns at various locations to start missions/join missions in progress.

FELIPE NO

MST is for defense against techs. Technique attack power is the driving force for technique damage. Cast forces would seem to be more support oriented, while newman forces are geared more for offense. Support techs seem to not really take technique attack power or MST into account, and so a hunter/force or ranger/force hybrid would work well for a cast.

We'll see in the long run... just don't discount cast forces entirely, especially since I've watched the dragon one-shot newman forces on many occasions.

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Originally Posted by SOLDIER

Last time I checked, FFXI lets you stop your account up to 3 months, in which you have to renew it by that time or lose your character for good. How long do they let you sign off in PSU?

Forever. You see, every other online game in existance* doesn't delete your character data in the hopes that someday, you might want to come back to the game, and not deleting your data helps make the decision that much easier. Square Enix on the other hand, decided they'd dictate how things will be run in the online gaming world and made stupid decisions with Final Fantasy XI, such as worldpasses, character deletion after 3 months, charging extra per character, and so forth.

* note that I have not played every online game in existance, but I've played a lot of the major ones, and none of them delete your character data after unsubscribing because doing so is stupid.

How ya doing, buddy?

The voice acting's kind of rough around the edges at first, but it does get better as you progress. I think the actors were getting more comfortable with their roles as things went along.

It's interesting to hear the pink power ranger's voice in the game. GOOOOOO KIMBERLY!

There's nowhere I can't reach.