Hey all,

I'm downloading the PSO2 Beta right now and I've been thinking about where I should make my character in the game as it seems you can only have 1 character by default.

So where you all at? I hear there is a fair amount of English players rolling on Ship 2, but do you guys have a great group on another ship?

I'd like to meet up with others to discover this game together with people I can understand if possible!

Also, for those of you already in the game, how is it?

Watching all the trailers I go back and forth between feeling really excited for what seems to be a really cool Co-op action RPG game to feeling sleazy looking at weird robot lady boobs being resized (I know its just the character creation but they show it so much) in skimpy cyber clothes.

So how's the game play feel and where you playing at?

thanks for reminding me about the beta

Still waiting for the damn thing to finish. The download only took an hour but patching is taking soooo long.

Even with the guide I can't even do the download process properly. I have the installer but it looks different than the guide I'm looking at.

I iz dumb.

@GooieGreen said:

Even with the guide I can't even do the download process properly. I have the installer but it looks different than the guide I'm looking at.

I iz dumb.

What part are you stuck on? The button with the "N" on it is the "yes" button. If you are on the screen with the 2 bullet options, just pick whatever option lights up the N button at the bottom and keep jamming on that until it goes.

I've been using guides from this site.

I think we should just pick a ship so if others want to it'd be easier to meet up.

@Max015: I'll roll with you dude, if you don't mind a PSO scrub. I just randomly picked a ship.. but I don't mind remaking on ship 2. As for how the game is, I think it's pretty fun. I find it more fun to play with a controller. Dunno if that's the norm or not.

I'm gonna go for Ship 2. That seems to be the thing. But the game won't let me make a guy right now, so I figure I'll wait 'til tomorrow.

Hey, I've tried to make a character on ship 2 but it is not allowing me to continue. I'm guessing maybe the server is either too busy or full?

Anyone got any ideas what's up?

@Max015:

i just tried remaking on ship 2 with no luck. I could remake on other ships though. I think it's probably full. I guess I'll remake on ship 7?

Also a small tip for anyone that hasn't made a character ctrl Z totally fixes stuff while you bumble through sliders and buttons.

Edit:

Never mind apparently I can't make anything on ship 7. 9 it is.

@Enns: Oh nice, I'll try making a character on 7 too then, that ctrl Z tip is nice too, I hate messing up a character's face and then not being able to make it look human again!

Edit:

I totally ended up in Ship 9 too, seems to be the only one now locked right now.

Game's offline for an hour now for maintenance.

@Max015:

I named my dude McRib Prime. Although I've no idea how to friend anyone. I'll try to hang out in ch1 or 2.

I'm on ship 9, name's Tunguska, looks like Ship 09 is going to be the Giantbomb open beta location

Ship 2 (and others) were closed off temporarily before SEGA expanded the capacity. All servers should be open to everyone, now.

I rolled on Ship 2 since it already has a huge NA/EU contingency. Also, open beta progress will carry over when the game officially launches.

i think i'm on ship 2, or maybe in hell, i'm not really sure.

So seems like people are on on Ship 2??

@Rapid said:

So seems like people are on on Ship 2??

Yep, ship 2 is full with English speaking players. Ship 10 is also apparently doing well.

Seems to specifically be Blocks 20-22 on Ship 02 if you're looking for English players.

I tryed to sign up but fucking sega put in one of those fucking captchas where you have to type in the words icant fucking read those things in english 99% of the time and my japanese keyboard dont have the characters it wants on it. The key to switch characters dont change ,o the characters it wants.

Cant patch my client cos of the http-error so I'll need to put my beta plans on hold.

I wanna play it but i cba to deal with Japanese to English translation patches and w/e else so ill just wait for the game to come out in English proper.

I'm totally on-board when it does hit though.

I dig the gun mechanics with my crazy robo gun girl. I missed PSO!

And yeah, ship 2 definitely seems to be the place where the whole PSO2-playing-English-dudes community has settled on.

The English speaking players sure keep things classy >,>''

Is the beta in English?

Is the beta in English?

Nope, its a visual barrage of Kanji.

But fortunately, the beta is already well-documented with translated tutorials, (registering, menus, quests etc).

Two good sites I personally found immensely useful, are -
 
bumped.org/psu
PSO2 Blog
 

@Rapid said:

The English speaking players sure keep things classy >,>''

My character's name is Phatnastystar

@StrikeALight said:

@Barrock said:

Is the beta in English?

Nope, its a visual barrage of Kanji.

But fortunately, the beta is already well-documented with translated tutorials, (registering, menus, quests etc).

Two good sites I personally found immensely useful, are -

bumped.org/psu
PSO2 Blog

Is it worth getting into now? And easy to get into the beta?

I keep getting this thing when I click play, with what looks like 3 loading bars, but they don't move, and the game doesn't launch...

Anyone want to give me some advice?

@adoggz: Huh, I figured it was something like that but it literally hasn't moved at all. I'll let it go overnight- thanks.

Gah, damn server maintenance. Well I am on ship 2, character name is jking47 (it might be jking_47, one of the fields when signing up would not take the normal name) feel free to add me. Having fun so far!

@TooWalrus: In case if you were curious, the first bar is Total Progress, the second Download Progress and the third, Installation Progress. It takes a bloody long time though.

@Rapid said:

The English speaking players sure keep things classy >,>''

Better than the lame Japanese players. Their lobbies are like almost constantly silent and boring. Ugh.

PSE BURST!

Good times.

Does it want SEGA IDs or character names when adding friends? My list is empty right now. But I'm "A-Robot" on Ship 02. Maybe I'll register some AI data and you can play with a robot version of my robot?

Does it want SEGA IDs or character names when adding friends? My list is empty right now. But I'm "A-Robot" on Ship 02. Maybe I'll register some AI data and you can play with a robot version of my robot?

Now you can click on other players to open up the Character Menu. The easiest way to do so is to press the ESC button so the main menu is open and use your mouse to click on a character. With this menu you can perform the following functions:

• ウィスパーチャットを送る Whisper Chat
• パーティーに招待する Invite to Party
• グッジョブを送る Send Good Jobs
• アイテムトレードを申し込み Request Item Trade
• キャラクター情報を見る View Character Information
• アークスカードを見る View Arks Card
• ブラックリストに登録 Blacklist
• フレンド登録に申し込み Friend Request
• マイルームへ移動 Go to their room.
• モノマネ Mimic

I'd also like to mention that missions that you can select from the mission counter are tied to which block you're in. So it's not like PSO where you'd have 800 blocks in a ship, but you'd see all the missions for that ship no matter the block.

Oh. Also I'm Xbob42, account name Xbob45, which if you haven't noticed yet for missions will show up as Xbob42(Xbob45) in the player list.

Typically on Block 22. Sometimes 20.

So before I download that huge game and what not, can anyone tell me how it compares to PSO 1?
I still play it on the NGC pretty often and I've been to mental healers to erase PSU from my mind (not working so far), but how is this game?
 
Especially interested in the combat.

Think of it like a combination of the fundamentals of the original PSO, with versions of the PSU ideas that actually work and are fun. (PSU was an abomination. I mean... it had SOME redeeming qualities, but MAN.)

The combat is still timing based if you want to deal extra damage, or you can just hold the button down if you're lazy and don't mind dealing less damage. You can chain attacks for an unlimited amount of time, but to get the most out of this you have to combine your regular attacks with your Photon Arts. For melee characters at least, you get some PP back every time you land a normal attack in sequence, more if it's properly timed, so you want to hit until you get enough PP to perform an ability, then use the correct ability. (You've got ability 1, 2 and 3, and depending on where you are in your 1, 2, 3 combo of attacks (Regular or photon arts, they're both on the same "combo") you'll perform a different ability.)

Mags are back. Feedin' 'em is still fun! They evolve and all that good stuff. Your first is free from a quest, but after that you'd have to use Arks Cash to get more, or trade others for them I suppose. At least that's what I've heard.

Anyway, the zones you go to (At least the first two.) are the same types of zones as PSO 1, a forest followed by caves. But they're not really at all similar to the originals. These are brand new from top to bottom in both design and partially aesthetic. The actual areas you go to are randomly generated (Which is good.) and don't feel like it. (Which is better.) The mission structure is a little weird at first if you don't speak Japanese (And I don't!) because it's not just "Beat forest, go to caves," it's "Do several different missions in forest, unlock caves," which I think may have been what the PSO single-player is like if I remember correctly.

Long story short, it's very good, reminiscent of PSO, while feeling much more modern, and while it has some similarities to PSU, they're just the ideas of things that could've been good in PSU had they been executed properly.

It's a damn good game, I think.

I show off a little bit of the combat here:

(Mute it if you don't want to hear my abominable voice!)

I roll on Ship 4, a ranger by the name of "Iris" and have soaked hours into the game already. I really enjoy on how they broke out the components of the game, As someone who jumped on at the Gamecube version of the game, I'm loving this game on the TV with a 360 pad. Despite requiring me to sit with the iPad to look up the translation blog I would gladly pay a monthly fee for this. Hell that isn't far off from SmartGlass anyways ;)

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

@xbob42: You just air juggled a Rappy. I'm sold, thanks for the info!

Oh, I forgot to mention. You can air-juggle groups of enemies almost indefinitely if your timing is down. It's SO fun!

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

@xbob42: That sounds rather boring, I think I preferred the 'hit it twice and then run before it murders you' approach in PSO.

Haha. You can't juggle everything, though! Also I got grabbed by a boss and he tried to squeeze me to death, then he slammed me violently to the ground. It was particularly impressive because I had fought that boss (I think it's more of a mini-boss.) at least a dozen times prior to that and never saw that move. Good stuff.

The most exciting part is the patcher! It's SO fast! It's almost like I had a 56k line all tricked out!

Rolling on Ship 2 with a hunter named "Ydell"

I'm really liking the cut of this games jibb.

@Jeff: You can use either one, the guides from that one site are hugely important/helpful.

http://bumped.org/psublog/pso2-opening-up-player-shops-and-arks-card/#arks for using the "Visiphone" (everything has such great names) for searching people by either character name or Player ID, then you can send friend requests.

My character name is Auria, Player ID Doktor, if anyone wants to add me.

Also if anyone's at level 10 yet (I'm not quite, 9 3/4) you could make a GB Team (guild): http://bumped.org/psublog/pre-open-beta-starter-guide-for-phantasy-star-online-2/#teams

p.s. I am having a blast. Copy-pasting into Google Translate is now a way of life, but that plus reading kana seems to be good enough to get by. Two friends & I got into an "Emergency Quest" earlier, something about being attacked -- your "campship" (the thing you go to before quests) goes to a space location instead of the sky, there's a cutscene, and then you beam down to a city. There are piles of huge mobs and then a (pretty difficult!) boss fight, plus the entire area, boss included, has a 20 minute time limit. We ran out of time the first time, had to beeline it to him as much as possible (there are gated areas) the second time and even then it took a damn long time. Tense. Hugely rewarding.

I'm loving the drops, too, somewhere along the way about 15 minutes ago I got a technique, I think from a disc, that lets me do a ridiculous fuck off shot with my heavy weapon (I think of it as a bazooka, but I the Japanese item name is "gripper" -- I have no idea) that does 350 a pop, AOE, for about ~50 PP. The animation's long, but damn. Damn.

I can make the Team if you want. What would we call it? Duders? Bomb Crew? Jartimers? I'm bad at making reference-names.

Anyway, I was loving that Emergency Quest. We ran it a few times and I got a sweet rare pike! My first rare. I knew it was a rare by the way it had an awesome solid red outline and friggin' SPARKLED! Everyone was pretty peeved that they didn't get one, hehe.

And yes, Copy-Paste + Google Translate is how I've gotten around in the game.