Author Topic: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic  (Read 216773 times)

Offline CrazyT

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #195 on: January 23, 2012, 10:07:19 am »
Wow ezo you lucky bastard  8)

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #196 on: January 23, 2012, 10:12:38 am »
Wow ezo you lucky bastard  8)
Seems like quite a few english speaking players got in the alpha as well, as seen in this PSO-World forums topic:
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192851

Offline Happy Cat

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #197 on: January 24, 2012, 02:23:05 am »
I'm jealous, ezo =P not that my PC could run the game anyways.. but that won't stop me from being jealous. I wanna play PSO2 so bad.

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #198 on: January 24, 2012, 11:03:42 am »
I'm jealous, ezo =P not that my PC could run the game anyways.. but that won't stop me from being jealous. I wanna play PSO2 so bad.
PSO2 alpha 2 requirements are not really high, plus looks like the final version is going to have even lower requirements (of course to run at high settings most likely it's going to need a rather decent PC).
When the alpha 2 starts, I'll post here how well it runs on both my main PC, my brother's PC and my 5 years old laptop. :P

Looks like a 2nd wave of emails was sent today, more users in PSOW are reporting that they got in the alpha 2.

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #199 on: January 25, 2012, 08:49:23 am »
The alpha 2 schedule is here, going to start a bit sooner than I expected:
Quote
Hello guys, for those who are in the PSO2 Alpha Test, you can now start downloading the client to connect to the game when the Alpha Test 2 servers are up. The download size is about 1.2GB.

Alpha Test 2 Start Dates:
- January 27th, 16:00 to 23:00 JST
- January 28th, 18:00 to 26:00 JST (note: in Japan they add hours to "24:00" when a schedule runs a bit into the following day)
- February 1st, 16:00 to 23:00 JST
- February 3, 15:00 through Feb 4, 23:00 (32 hours continuously)

Alpha Test 2 Start Dates GMT (Lisbon/London) timezone:
- January 27th, 07:00 to 14:00
- January 28th, 09:00 to 17:00
- February 1st, 07:00 to 14:00
- February 3rd, 06:00 to Feb 4th 14:00

Alpha Test 2 Start Dates Eastern Standard Time:
- January 27th, 2AM to 9AM
- January 28th, 4AM to 12PM
- February 1st, 2AM to 9AM
- February 3rd, 1AM to Feb 4th 9AM

Alpha Test 2 Start Dates Pacific Standard Time:
- January 26th, 11PM to 6AM
- January 28th, 1AM to 9AM
- January 31st, 11PM to 6AM
- February 2nd, 10PM to Feb 4th 6AM

When it comes to me sharing my impressions from the alpha, this is what I'm planning on doing.
- After the first day of testing is over, I'll share my first impressions here, post a few pictures, and how the game performs.
- Monday and tuesday I'll try to upload a couple of videos from the Forest area, one run with a FOnewearl and one with a HUmar.
- Thursday I'll upload another video from the Forest area, this time with a RAcaseal.
- In the final day of testing, I'll try to record a duo run (with me and my brother) through the Volcano area, most likely it'll be uploaded in the following monday.

Just a note about the 3 forest videos I'm planning on doing, it depends on how many characters can be created on the alpha, if only 1 can be created, then I'll just do 1 forest video with the FOnewearl, and then the duo video of the volcano area.

Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #200 on: January 25, 2012, 08:54:52 am »
You know, this could make for some awesome exclusive SEGAbits article content. Perhaps reach out to Sharky and George and see if they would make you an official PSO2 correspondent? I'd love to see this stuff featured on the main page and not just confined to the forums.

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #201 on: January 25, 2012, 09:01:30 am »
You know, this could make for some awesome exclusive SEGAbits article content. Perhaps reach out to Sharky and George and see if they would make you an official PSO2 correspondent? I'd love to see this stuff featured on the main page and not just confined to the forums.
I'm not good at writing articles, but the info, pictures and videos that I post here in the forums can be put into the main page. :P

Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #202 on: January 25, 2012, 09:39:54 am »
Oh yeah, I didn't mean you'd be a writer, I just meant you could send one of us your pics/videos and we'd present it on the main page.

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #203 on: January 25, 2012, 11:51:22 am »
Picture of the configuration tool used in PSO2 (an user in the PSOW forums translated it into english):



When it comes to graphics settings, there are some hidden settings in the configuration file, the value of those settings is changed when changing the quality presets. If I'm not mistaken, while those settings don't appear separately in the configuration tool, some of them (if not all) could be changed in-game in the first alpha.

Quote
Shadows
- Quality: low/middle/high
- Player: false/true
- Object: false/true
- Land: false/true
- Friend: false/true
- NPC: false/true
- Enemy: false/true

Display
- Effect Draw Distance: 10~100
- Background Draw Distance: 10~100
- Simple Model Number: 12~100
- Detailed Model Number: 5~30

Functions
- Reflection: false/true
- Light Geography: false/true
- Light Shaft: false/true
- Light Effect: false/true
- Depth: false/true
- Bloom: false/true
- Blur: false/true
- Anti-Aliasing: false/true (independently of the preset, it seems to be always set to "true")

There's also a setting called "MultiThread", but it seems to be always set to "false", independently of the preset. Probably this setting doesn't matter, since even with it set to "false" all my 4 CPU cores are being used, at least when the game is in the title screen.

Another thing, the framerate. On my main PC, the title screen runs at 63fps, be it with everything on the lowest setting or on the highest setting (resolution 1440x900).
On my 5 years old laptop, at the lowest settings and resolution 1280x800, the title screen runs at around 35~50fps.

Offline Radrappy

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #204 on: January 25, 2012, 12:35:13 pm »
thats awesome ezo!  Can't wait to read your impressions.  This is probably my most anticipated game of the year.

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #205 on: January 27, 2012, 10:18:12 am »
Now that the first day of the alpha is over, here are my first impressions.

It was fun, it managed to mix elements from both PSO and PSU while being better than both, even in its alpha state.
I didn't play as much as I wanted too, had to get used to the menus, plus I had to switch to a different Ship (server), since the ship I first chose was too laggy (there were 2 ships, but characters aren't shared between them, they were like 2 separated servers).

Gameplay:
When it comes to gameplay, I only played as a Force, and when compared to PSO and PSU, Forces are much more fun to use now in PSO2, mostly thanks to the ability to charge techniques, being able to combo techs in the middle of normal attacks, the dodge teleporting skill, and being able to switch between the normal camera and TPS style camera.

When using the Gunblade weapon, instead of using the dodge teleporting skill it uses the Hunter step dodge, but now the Hunter step dodge is much more balanced than in the first alpha. There's a delay between dodges, plus after the dodge the player is forced to "walk" for a few seconds before he goes back to running.
Not only the step dodge can't be spammed like before, running now covers more distance than trying to spam the step dodge.

Controls:
I only played with keyboard and mouse, didn't try with a controller, but using the mouse to attack and control the camera is much better than only using the keyboard (PSOBB and PSU only used the keyboard). I have more control when using the mouse for the camera.

The only annoyance I have with the keyboard+mouse controls is related to the dodge skill. To use the dodge skill I have to double tap any of the directional buttons (WASD), but the time allowed for the dodge skill between the 2 taps is too high, I ended up using the dodge accidentally sometimes (for example, when trying to adjust my direction, i would be pressing forward and would slowly tap left or right, but I would use the dodge skill instead).

Music:
Not only the music is great, the transitions between calm music and battle music give a much better feeling to the game when compared to games with static music like PSU/PSPo2. So far the only music track I don't like is the quest ending/quest reward music, it's kinda repetitive.

Graphics:
The graphics are nice, but it could have had a better draw distance, sometimes things in the distance like trees, rocks, or even the background may look kinda blurry and sometimes there's some sort of flickering. Since it's still in alpha, this may improve until the release.

Framerate:
So far in my main PC only the lobby has a kinda mid~low framerate (20~40 fps range), in the parts that matter (down in the planets where we fight the monsters) it stays always at ~60fps (more exactly 63 fps), at least in the forest/jungle area, haven't played in the volcano area yet.
Haven't tried the game in my laptop yet though.

Pictures:
Here are a bunch of pictures I took today.

First, the character selection, I took a picture of each of the default Race/Gender/Class combos:
Human male:
HUmar - http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7687/pso2001.jpg
RAmar - http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3888/pso2002.jpg
FOmar - http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/4139/pso2003.jpg

Human female:
HUmarl - http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6583/pso2004.jpg
RAmarl - http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/2186/pso2005.jpg
FOmarl - http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5776/pso2006.jpg

Newman male:
HUnewm - http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/1788/pso2007.jpg
RAnewm - http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5980/pso2008.jpg
FOnewm - http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/8666/pso2009.jpg

Newman female:
HUnewearl - http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5706/pso2010.jpg
RAnewearl - http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/4087/pso2011.jpg
FOnewearl - http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/1453/pso2012.jpg

Cast male:
HUcast - http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4388/pso2013.jpg
RAcast - http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/5107/pso2014.jpg
FOcast - http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/4105/pso2015.jpg

Cast female:
HUcaseal - http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2205/pso2016.jpg
RAcaseal - http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/2650/pso2017.jpg
FOcaseal - http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/6378/pso2018.jpg

Some random pictures of my character:
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9529/pso2019.jpg
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/6084/pso2020.jpg
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/7091/pso2021.jpg
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2226/pso2022.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5012/pso2023.jpg

Pictures of basic and charged techniques:
Foie - http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/2393/pso2026.jpg
Charged Foie - http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5914/pso2027.jpg
Zonde - http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/853/pso2024.jpg
Charged Zonde - http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/324/pso2025.jpg
Barta - http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9959/pso2030.jpg
Charged Barta - http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4804/pso2031.jpg
Resta - http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/6456/pso2028.jpg
Charged Resta - http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/405/pso2029.jpg

About my plans of making videos, I'm not sure yet, but most likely I'm not going to make videos of a Ranger and Hunter character going through the forest area, might just do videos with my Force (in the end it'll depend on how I use my time during the alpha).

Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #206 on: January 27, 2012, 11:34:50 am »
Awesome stuff! Thanks! I've made a post on the front page directing readers here. :D

Offline Emmett The Crab

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #207 on: January 27, 2012, 06:42:23 pm »
It will be a big disappointment if this doesn't come west, and to consoles.

Offline Radrappy

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #208 on: January 27, 2012, 08:48:04 pm »
Great impressions.  Glad to know that it's fun to play.  Ultimately thats all that matters.  For reference, did you enjoy PSU?  As a pretty serious psu h8ter do you think I'll enjoy the game?  Does the combat feel like it involves good timing and strategy?  Those were two elements severely lacking from PSU's combat. 

Offline ezodagrom

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Re: Phantasy Star Online 2 - Official Pre-Release Topic
« Reply #209 on: January 28, 2012, 03:00:35 pm »
Now that the 2nd day of the alpha is over, I can offer some more insight about the PSO2 alpha.
I got to play from level 5 to 14, played through a bunch more quests from the forest area, tried a bit of the forest free field, and played a few quests from the volcano area.

First to Rarrappy questions, I enjoyed some things about PSU but the game had too many big flaws, and it was poorly managed in the west.

When it comes to the combat, it's possible to just button mash the attacks, they even added an "hold attack button and the player attacks automatically" feature due to requests from japanese players. ._.
But, timing the attacks properly with the "just attack" system will provide better results than those who just button mash or hold the attack button.

When it comes to strategy during combat, PSO2 is alot better than PSU. Not only players get some defensive or evasive elements (the guard skill for hunters, and the different dodge skills) instead of the only means of defense being a random number generator (there seems to be no accuracy or evasion stats in PSO2), some enemies have their own defensive methods (for example, one type of enemies has a shield in one arm, if the player attacks from the side where the shield is or from the front, that enemy will block the attack).

Anyway, here are my impressions from what I played today.

Areas:
So far I played mostly in the forest area, but also played a bit in the volcano area.
Other than the first quests, the stages are quite open, unlike the stages in PSU. I had to look at the map quite a few times to know where I was going or where I went to previously, since there's quite a few branched paths, and most of the paths end in dead ends, so I have to go back and try a diferent path (when going back, most of the times new enemies appear in the way).

Environmental Hazards:
Other than traps, there's some environmental hazards, like the lava in the Volcano area.

One hazard that surprised me, from the volcano area, I'm not sure what exactly happened since it was so fast, I probably went through a small place that had vapour appearing or something, the only think I saw was fire appearing in the place where I was and my character being thrown away a few meters, haha.

One thing that I've heard from another player but I haven't experienced myself, in the forest area sometimes it randomly starts raining, apparently someone was struck by lightning during the rain. o_o;

Free Fields:
Finally got to try the free fields, got access to them after either the 3rd quest, or after another quest that appeared in a second section of quests, a quest that ended in a boss.
Anyway, the free fields are a bit like the non-quest areas from PSO, but there's one big difference. When I was first playing through the Forest free field, suddenly some players from a different party appeared and started helping me, that was a surprise, but basically this means that the free fields are multi-party areas (basically these fields allow for up to 12 players).

Interrupt Events:
These are events that appear randomly throughout any quest or free field, they include killing a number of enemies, inflicting enough damage to rappies to capture them before they escape, protecting a NPC ship from enemies that start attacking it, or even having to defeat a boss that randomly appears throughout a normal area instead of the specific boss area.
I thought these would be annoying at first, but they're actually rather interesting and keep things fresh, plus SEGA plans on having more varied interrupt events in future tests or in the final version of the game.

Photon Sensitive Effect:
These happen rather often, but due to language barriers, I don't really know how they work or what bonuses I was getting with these, the only thing I know is that the PSE levels up by defeating enemies.
When I played during a free field I had a PSE Burst happen (according to the Phantasy Star fan blog the PSE Burst is the final level of the PSE), several waves of enemies started appearing to attack us while a timer was going down. After we killed enough enemies, a Cross Burst happened and the timer went up a bit, so we had more waves of enemies to kill. This part was quite fun. :P

Pictures:
Here are the pictures from the day. First pictures from Gizonde:
Gizonde Razonde - http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6876/pso2032.jpg
Charged Gizonde Razonde - http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/6734/pso2033.jpg

And a bunch of random pictures:
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/4462/pso2034.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/3009/pso2035.jpg
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/6867/pso2036.jpg
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/9997/pso2037.jpg
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2236/pso2038.jpg
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5321/pso2039.jpg


Unfortunately I didn't record any video today after all. I was planning on making a video of the free field, but seeing as how it's a multi-party area, I'm going to make a video of the forest quest than ends in a boss in the next test (which is wednesday).

Also, some misc news about the first 2 days of the alpha test. The peak number of concurrent connections in the first day of the test was a bit over 19000, and in the second day it was nearly 23000 (and it wasn't more than this because of the limits of the server, both ships were nearly full).