The Great Gurhalian Cup Returns

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. You might remember that around this time last year, PSU GMs announced a new time attack competition known as the Great Gurhalian Cup. It was basically a GM-run event in which teams of players raced one another through various missions, in a tournament-bracket format, to be declared "time attack champions" and win some prizes.

If you were wondering whether or not the competition would return in 2009, you were probably the only one. But don't worry! The second annual Gurhalian Cup time attack tournament has been announced on the official PSU forums. The team rules have changed for this year's competition, and they're pretty confusing, so be sure to read the announcement thread if you're interested in entering the contest.

Overall, I think it's nice that Sega of America does things like this to mix up the grind and generate some renewed interest in the game. However, as I've said all along, events like these really don't excuse the lack of content updates.

Last year, PSU GMs said that the Gurhalian Cup would not interrupt regularly scheduled content updates. A lot of people (including myself) were skeptical, but fortunately we were proven wrong. This year's event actually doesn't start until January 2010 -- hopefully the game will see some new content before then. At this point in the game's lifetime, when a lot of players are leaving, it would be devastating to use this event as a method of holding players over until the next update.

Here's hoping that we'll see new content alongside the Gurhalian Cup in 2010!

Little Bit Ridiculous

A point of contention in the PSU community lately has been whether or not to offer digital downloads of the PSU client to potential players/subscribers. I suppose this is because hard copies of the game have become incredibly hard to find, and console players whose discs are failing after long periods of use are losing out.

On the official Sega forums, GM Edward has started a thread in which he asks for suggestions on a digital download feature for PSU. Personally, I think it's a great idea -- it could provide a way to get new players into the game -- but that's not why I decided to write this blog entry.

A post in the thread shows that you can still get hard copies of the original PSU game on Amazon -- for a price. I couldn't believe what they were charging for the Xbox 360 version, so I had to check it out myself.

(Click the image to view it full size)

That's right. Now you too can own the original Phantasy Star Universe for the low, low price of $113.99! Honestly, who would be stupid enough to buy this?

Oh no, a new Mission Spotlight is on the way

I've noticed that there was a topic asking about Mission Spotlight with a poll for possible missions. GM Edward has allowed the poll to determine what the mission will be and unfortunately it seems that Bladed Legacy has won. Not only is the mission horrible but it has also been done TWICE already for the Mission Spotlight.
I could go into the whole thing about how it's not fun, doesn't have great drops and how having cheap monsters/attacks isn't equal to being difficult but I'd rather not beat that dead horse anymore.

I'd rather have some updates than this filler but at the very least a better mission could have been chosen for it.

In related news: There was a Mission Spotlight last week at the mission "The Black Nest" but I didn't care enough to post about it.

PSU Turns Three

And to think I almost missed this occasion! This past Saturday, PSU officially made it through its third year of existence in the United States and Europe.

Last year at this time, I put together a similar anniversary post in which I ranted about the slow trickle of content updates being made available on the US/EU servers. I argued that continuing this policy of drip-feeding content in the third year would cause many players to quit the game:

As we enter the game's third year, there's still quite a bit of content left to see. Events, S3 missions, story missions, and plenty of other stuff is out there. Sega needs to get on the ball and get the game back on track, though; otherwise, PSU may not ever make it to October 24 again.

Let's take a look back at Year Three and see what significant new content we've gotten since last October 24.

• - Master classes and new story mission (Ep3 Chapter 6) -- December 19, 2008
• - Winter Mission Carnival -- January 23, 2009
• - Desert Arms Shop -- March 27, 2009
• - Shred the Darkness -- April 17, 2009
• - Innocent Girl -- June 12, 2009
• - Protectors: Gamma/Delta -- July 3, 2009
• - First S3 missions -- August 7, 2009
• - Moatoob Relics (Citadel of Sand) and new party mission (Security Breach) -- August 28, 2009
• - Protectors: Alpha+/Beta+ -- September 25, 2009
• - New story mission (Ep3 Chapter 7) -- October 6, 2009

Along with a scattering of upgraded mission difficulties and level cap increases, those were the bulk of the updates over the last year. The slow release of content continued, with "major" updates monthly that added only one or two missions.

Sega has done a lot better with events, however. In the past year we've had four events, which succeeded in bringing back some players (at least for a little while). However, the regular population continues to decline on both the PC/PS2 and Xbox 360 servers in between these events.

The next major content update hits October 30, with the Guardians Colony GBR, the Colony rare mission, and a level cap increase to 170. However, this seems about on par with the monthly update strategy that Sega seems to be employing, so I don't expect the population situation to change anytime soon. There are certainly some interesting times in store for the next year. Will we make it to a fourth anniversary?

Honestly, I'm rather amazed that we made it to the third anniversary!

GameGuard Not Fixed for Windows 7 RTM

That's right. The GameGuard errors that first appeared in the Windows 7 Beta nearly ten months ago have still not been fixed.



Back in January I didn't really have a problem with this. Most companies generally don't develop software fixes to work with beta versions of operating systems. However, now that Windows 7 is released and available to the general public, there is simply no excuse for this. An official fix for this error should have been in production prior to the release of the RTM build, but it doesn't look like that happened.

That doesn't mean you can't play PSU on Windows 7, though. A special Windows 7-compatible version of the GameGuard executable is available for download at this site. Once it's downloaded, extract the GameGuard.des file to your PHANTASY STAR UNIVERSE Illuminus program files folder (not the GameGuard folder) and start the game. Or, if you're running Windows 7 x64, you could try the workaround we posted back in January.

In any case, GameGuard's continued lack of official Windows 7 support is a little bit irritating. INCA Internet, Sega, and anyone else responsible for making PSU work in Windows 7 should get working on it.

Of course, Sega could also do the smart thing and drop GameGuard altogether...

PSP2, PSU, and PSO: I'm Still Confused

Back in March, I commented a little about the relationship between Phantasy Star Portable and PSU. The two games are not all that different, but despite all of the critical acclaim PSP received at launch, the population of PSU remained in decline. I figured that Sonic Team would use the success of PSP to make some changes for PSU.

As usual, I was wrong. It seems instead that Sonic Team has put all of their efforts into the development of Phantasy Star Portable 2, a sequel that looks more to me like Phantasy Star Online than the current incarnation of PSU. In fact, it almost looks like a hybrid of PSO and PSU -- at first glance, the game appears to mix the best of PSU's gameplay (combat, PAs, items) with some of PSO's game mechanics (character-based PP, level-based skill disks, etc). And unlike the original game, Phantasy Star Portable 2 will have a true online mode (as opposed to just the ad-hoc mode PSP1 had).

That begs the question: what exactly are Sonic Team's plans for PSU? Is Sega content to just let the game die while the PSP games grow in popularity? Hopefully not -- I'd like to see the console version continue to exist, either through some sort of update or through the development of a brand new game. PSU has more potential for improvement and expansion than any of the portable games ever will, and it would be nice to see Sonic Team use the PSP games as a way of getting new players into PSU.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to have happened yet. Hopefully Sonic Team will figure it out once PSP2 hits retail.

GameGuard and Common Sense: Sega, Read This

Since the spring of 2005, PSO Blue Burst and PSU players have been plagued with the cancer that is INCA Internet's nProtect GameGuard. The so-called "anti-hacking" software has been bundled with each game, despite player complaints that it doesn't play nice with other software, or even other operating systems.

To make things worse, the software often fails to do its job correctly, as many of us have undoubtedly seen on more than one occasion.

While Sega doesn't seem to be ditching GameGuard anytime soon, it looks like one company has seen the light (at least for now).

NCsoft West has announced that they will be dropping GameGuard from their newest MMORPG, Aion. The game had apparently employed the "services" of GameGuard in seven prior beta tests in the United States and Europe, and it seems that enough players had problems with the intrusive anti-cheating software to convince NCsoft to get rid of it for the final release (again, at least for now):

After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we're focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.

If only Sega thought like this! Instead, the company remains committed to GameGuard, even after 4+ years of duping, glitching, hacking, and other general GameGuard frustrations. A little bit of effective in-game monitoring would go a long way to keep hackers out -- not to mention taking action when hacking or glitching issues do arise.

Decisions like these go a long way in proving the ineffective nature of GameGuard. Though Sega may not want to get rid of it, hopefully more companies running online games will.

I heard you like your PSU dead.

So I haven't been motivated to play PSU much since that boring Moatoob GBR came along therefore I haven't bothered to post here. I'd rather have had the Summer Event/Protectors missions extended so Alpha+ and Beta+ could have been released; Sega could have just shortened the GBR or canceled it. I wouldn't matter to me the Moatoob missions from the original game suck, seriously.
Anyway it seems that the apathy created by the Moatoob GBR is contagious. The PC/PS2 servers no longer get a solid star on any universe, there is a post with an image of it from last month in a screen shot topic.

Oddly enough about a year ago I posted about how the PC/PS2 servers were passed the point of no return in regards to the population recovering; it's unfortunate that my pessimistic outlook has come true. While I knew there was no hope for recovery I secretly hoped I was wrong, after all PSU is a game that I like despite its problems; but with a failing community it gets harder to justify paying to play the game.

The Xbox360 servers also seem to have had a population drop as well according to this post, although it isn't anywhere as bad as the PC/PS2 servers. I think it's a good time to merge the servers, but that won't happen.

Well I'll see if I can get motivated to play the game before it's totally dead. Sega can help by speeding up the release of updates and cutting down the time given to boring events (ex: GBR).

I've created a crude tombstone for PSU; I'd like to think that I put more effort into it than Sega of Japan did for our updates. Lol, zing.

Update for August 28th

GM Edward has posted there will be two new missions this Friday.

They are:
Free mission: Citadel of Sand (aka Desert Stronghold)
Co-op mission: Security Breach

More information can be found on Sega's Quest Update page.

This is a decent update and certainly better than what I expected. The new co-op mission sounds pretty cool too.

I've got nothing

Well I haven't posted in awhile mainly because I've got nothing to say. I've been pretty bored lately so I haven't played too much PSU. So being extremely bored and not seeing Minus on PSU I did this last night:
And you know what? It actually worked. I didn't expect anyone to join and if someone did I expected them to tell me I suck at the game for hating "challenging" missions; because we all know that to be challenging a mission has to be boring as hell and have monsters with cheap attacks right guys!? Plus I figured everyone would be too busy getting their 50% GBR boost and booting those that didn't have it.

Instead the first person that joins agrees with me that Moatoob sucks. I did not expect this at all. One thing lead to another and the party was full, we ran a number of missions and it was fun.

Thanks for the game guys, it was awesome.

Here Come the S3's (US/EU Edition)

Back in October of last year we mentioned that the Japanese version of PSU was going to begin adding S3 difficulties to existing missions. The first four missions to receive S3 difficulties were Desert Terror, Rogues' Shortcut, Desert Goliath, and Stolen Weapon -- all from pre-expansion PSU.

On Friday, August 7, the US/EU servers will receive S3 difficulties in the same four missions, to coincide with the beginning of a new Moatoob GBR. Over time, the rest of the old PSUv1 missions should also get the additional difficulty level.

This update, which is occurring next Friday (see here for this week's "update"), also includes the Neudaiz fireworks lobby. This is also one of the few non-event updates we've actually had this year, which is nice, but it would be even nicer if we could get some more original content...

The Return of Error 65?

PSU PC/PS2 subscribers that had been looking to play this weekend were greeted by an Error 60 message at login for much of the time.

Now that it's Monday and everyone is back to work, Sega seems to be making progress in solving the problem: fewer players in this thread on the official forums are reporting the error message.

However, an old problem seems to be returning for some PC/PS2 players. The dreaded Error 65 message is now appearing for players whose subscriptions should have been recently renewed. Sega has acknowledged as much, and is apparently trying to fix the issue.

Compensation for the current network problems, if any, will be announced at a later date.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse...

Error 60 Disaster

Earlier in the month, PC/PS2 players attempting to log in and play were being hit occasionally with Error 60 messages. A few days later, Sega employees reported that the problems had been fixed. However, those fixes seem to have been short-lived, because Error 60 is back and worse than ever.

Players on the official forums are reporting constant Error 60 issues when trying to log in. As of this posting, the thread has logged more than 880 replies in just 4 days.

Not surprisingly, the thread (and the forums in general) has been devoid of any official communication from Sega regarding the issue. GM Edward posted a message on Friday saying the problem was being investigated, but there hasn't been any news since then.

In the meantime, the only way to play is to log in during the short period of time that the authentication server is online. Obviously, nobody knows when this will happen, so logging in will probably require a bit of luck.

Personally, I can't believe that this has gone on as long as it has already. It's always so nice to see our monthly subscription fees put to good use. I was forgiving of Sega during the first incident, but this is ridiculous. It's inexcusable that paying players are denied access to the game because of Sega's inability to maintain their own servers. If this goes on much longer, one can only imagine how many players will remain once the login problem is fixed.

Maybe I'll just keep my mouth shut the next time somebody writes a scathing review of PSU.

IGN Reviews PSU Again, Sort Of

PSU seems to have dropped off the radar for most people, but it looks like IGN hasn't forgotten about it. A player on the official PSU forums spotted an article on the IGN Xbox 360 site that lists the five best -- and five worst -- Xbox 360 RPGs available right now.

As you might have expected, PSU landed in the not-so-favorable category. However, the reviewer failed to give the game a fair shake, two and a half years after its release. For those who don't feel like taking a peek at the article, here's what IGN had to say:

Back in 2001, SEGA amazed us all with an MMO-light that could actually be played on a console. Years later on the much more powerful Xbox 360, Phantasy Star Universe came along. The difference between the two? Not a whole lot. While games like World of Warcraft took the world by storm and pushed the genre forward, the Phantasy Star franchise stagnated. PSU still hasn't moved beyond a simple lobby and limited instances for battle. To make matters worse, Phantasy Star Universe suffered from a severe lack of content and places to explore, yet still carried a monthly fee. When the game launched, there were even areas that existed on the disc as part of the single player game that were locked once you went online. Lame.

I will agree with the reviewer on one thing: PSU did suffer from a severe lack of content. Back in October 2006, more than two and a half years ago. Since that Moatoob locked fiasco (I love that this page is still public), the online game has made nearly all of the major PSUv1 content available, and Sonic Team has released an expansion that added new environments and plenty of new missions, weapons, armors, enemies, and other items that weren't even on the original release disc (although they probably could have been). Hopefully, the US/EU game will be receiving down the road the JP "expansion" update that added even more missions, weapons, and other items. Don't forget the fact that the level cap is now well over level 100, and that many of the game's annoying flaws (mission death penalty, obscenely low synth rates, grinding, etc) have been fixed or removed entirely.

Now, while I do think that the current version of PSU has some significant issues (the drip-feeding of content is still a major problem), I don't think it's fair that a person's opinion of PSU should be based on what is essentially a review from over two years ago. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that PSU deserves to be in the same league as Fallout 3 or Mass Effect. However, today's PSU is very different from the game released in October 2006, and it's unfortunate that this reviewer's outdated opinion will undoubtedly turn away potential players.

Is PSU one of the best online RPGs there is? Probably not. Could it have been better? Definitely. However, I don't think it's one of the worst.

Server Problems Fixed?

Last week we mentioned that the PSU servers were experiencing bursts of extreme lag, causing players to periodically disconnect from the game. Those problems continued to frustrate players on both the PC/PS2 and Xbox 360 servers through much of this past week.

The lag got so bad that many players took to the forums to vent. Several threads have popped up over the last 24 hours, in which players complained about the server lag that didn't seem to be going away.

Now, Sega employee and PSU GM RubyEclipse is announcing that the server problems may have been fixed. Network engineers apparently identified the source of the issue and managed to correct the problem. This is good news, obviously -- it's been damn near impossible to play the game over parts of the last few days. Hopefully this will put an end to the server problems, at least until the next event rolls around.

More Server Problems

Server problems have become a staple of PSU's in-game events. The last event, Shred the Darkness, was plagued initially with a room server error. During the Winter Mission Carnival, the game's authentication servers went down twice, preventing players from accessing the game. And of course, we couldn't forget the infamous Error 65 that cut down PC/PS2 players during MAG.

The latest server problem is actually two separate issues. Players attempting to log in on the PC/PS2 servers are occasionally seeing Error 60 messages, indicating that the game authentication servers are having some problems. And players on all of the servers are reporting unbearable lag and Error 57 disconnections. These problems come on the first day of the game's "summer event", a localized version of the Japanese Second Anniversary Thanks Festa.

Sega network engineers are apparently looking into the problem. I understand that hardware failures are not necessarily Sega's fault, but still -- is it too much to ask to have at least one event free from network problems?

On to the Next Event

There hasn't been much in the way of normal updates so far this year. 2009 began with the Winter Mission Carnival, and Shred the Darkness came only a few short weeks after that.

Now, it's on to the third event of the year. Two new missions, "Supervisor's Edict" and "The Protectors Gamma", will kick off what was dubbed the Second Anniversary Thanks Festa on the Japanese version of the game. Additional event missions should appear in the coming weeks.

In addition to the new event, the main Shred the Darkness rewards will finally appear in this week's update! The reward period will run for three weeks, ending on July 24th.

Other miscellaneous changes in this week's maintenance include the (late) return of the Sonic lobbies, a Desert Arms Shop update, a casino rotation, and some drop table changes. Not a bad update overall -- but it will be interesting to see how the recent event-driven nature of the game will affect population levels once this latest event finishes up.

Everything's Back to Normal

Straight from the official forums -

Dear Sega of Japan,

Are you there? It's me, Phantasy Star Universe.

No maintenance this week.

Windows 7 and PSU (RC2 Edition)

In January, I blogged a little about my attempts to run PSU in Windows 7. The game did not run properly with the Windows 7 Beta, mostly due to the fact that GameGuard would not start. Fortunately, that problem was solved by tweaking the GameGuard configuration, but it only worked on x64 (64-bit) versions of Windows 7.

Earlier this week, there was a rumor floating around on the official PSU forums that INCA Internet, the company that manages nProtect GameGuard, had released a patch that added support for Windows 7. Players were reporting that this new patch allowed them to play PSU without problems on Windows 7 Release Candidate 2 build 7201.

To test this rumor, I installed a clean copy of PSU on my copy of Windows 7 RC2. Unlike the players in the forum thread, though, I'm running build 7229 on my system. I managed to get GameGuard and PSU to run on the first attempt. I thought I was in the clear after that, but once GameGuard patched itself to the "Windows 7 supported" version, I was unable to get PSU to run anymore. Instead, this error message appeared:



Reverting to the previous workaround allowed me to run the game normally.

As far as running the game on build 7201 is concerned, I have no idea if that works or not. If you're running a build newer than 7201, beware.

The JP Site Is Always Right

When PSU GM Edward announced earlier this week that the non-item STD bonuses would be coming this Friday, a number of players (including myself) were skeptical.

That's because the original update announcement on Sega of Japan's Xbox 360 PSU site said that we wouldn't be getting those rewards. As I've probably mentioned before on this blog, when it comes to update announcements, the Sega of Japan site is almost never wrong.

So imagine my lack of surprise when Edward had to post this retraction on the official forums last night. For some reason, that post seemed to annoy a lot of players (all you have to do to see that is read the rest of the thread). I don't understand why, though. Sega of America and Sega of Japan reps were saying two completely different things, and we should all know by now that when this happens, the Sega of Japan information is usually right. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is.

I don't blame Sega of America or the GMs for this, since this is clearly the work of their idiot Japanese overlords. However, I do think it would be nice if the two sides could agree on the information they provide to players. To release two contradictory statements as they did this week is unprofessional, and only serves to confuse and annoy the hell out of players.

Update for June 12th

GM Edward@Sega has posted information on next weeks update.

Highlights of the update are:

• STD item rewards
• Side Story Mission: Innocent Girl
• Level cap raised to 160

More information about the update can be found here.

Not bad, it's been awhile since the game had a decent update.

Update (5/8): The Japanese Xbox360 site (translated) has been updated with information about the June 12th update. And it brings bad news! It seems this update will not have any of the two week rewards (3* luck for all ,half price clothes, free makeovers, 20% synthesis boost, 15% grind boost, 10 silver casino coins and photon arts exp boost).

Pretty disappointing but at least we are getting the Innocent Girl side mission right?

Update 2 (5/9): Apparently GM Edward@Sega said he would contact Sonic Team yesterday and today he has posted that the two week rewards will be coming this Friday.

This is good news. I hope all of the STD rewards are there Friday but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't.

Update 3 (5/11): Well it seems GM Edward@Sega has confirmed that we will not be getting the two week rewards this Friday. But now it seems that when we do get them they will last for three weeks.

Well I'll believe it when I see it now, because all I'm expecting now is more delays and only two weeks of the rewards whenever we get them.

JP PSU Cash Shop Debut

We mentioned way back in January that the PSU "expansion" update would introduce some type of additional pay-to-play game features. With this week's JP PSU content update, we now know all the details of the new "Guardians Cash" system.

Sonic Team has posted all the information you need to know about Guardians Cash on the official JP PC/PS2 PSU Web site (untranslated). Of particular interest are the cost and purchase options of Guardians Cash, which have been posted here (untranslated).

Each Guardians Cash (GC) "point" costs exactly one yen, with the exception of the last three options which have some kind of discount applied. Those prices apparently already have the tax included. As for purchase options, there are five. Players can buy as few as 500 GC (500 yen = $5.209USD), or as much as 10500 GC (10000 yen = $104.172USD = holy shit!!!).

Here's the kicker, though. Currently, Guardians Cash can be used on only two missions. These missions are started from a special part of the Guardians' Colony, and feature special bonuses or exclusive items. Players can pay individually for each mission and/or pay for other players to join in the mission as well. Sonic Team has posted the costs for each of the two missions, and they're rather shocking. The cheapest charge is for an individual player to run a C-rank mission with three other players that are also paying. That costs 30 GC (30 yen = $0.313USD) or 40 GC (40 yen = $0.417USD), depending on which of the two missions you run.

The most expensive payment -- for a party leader to cover the costs of all players on an S-rank mission run -- is 200 GC (200 yen = $2.084USD) or 400 GC (400 yen = $4.169USD), depending on the mission. That's downright ridiculous when you consider that we already pay a monthly fee of $10 just to get access to the servers! By just running these pay-to-play missions a few times, you could effectively double your monthly payment! If Sega charged for every mission the way they are for these "bonus" missions, I'd be living in a cardboard box by now (or just not playing PSU).

It will certainly be interesting to see if the Japanese players go for this. If they don't (and I really hope they don't), this little addition won't make it across the Pacific if and when the "expansion" update comes stateside.

WERES IS ARE REWARD

I linked to this thread in my previous post, but I felt that it was special enough to deserve its very own blog posting!

It looks like somebody didn't get the memo about STD rewards, despite the fact that two or three threads had already been created regarding the subject.

The funny part about this particular thread: not only is the author unable to form coherent sentences, he feels the need to write out (poor) responses to each of the posters that replies to him (in some cases, more than once).

message to author.
learn to write and spell correctly.

Despite all this, there are actually some serious replies. I'm surprised that people actually took the time to do that!

UPDATE: The thread has since been merged into another thread. Check out the link above to see the contents of the original thread.

Shred the Darkness Ends

Shred the Darkness came to an end early this morning, with the community racking up a grand total of over 144 million creatures killed.

Now, it's back to reality. This morning's update included a lobby change on Parum as well as the delivery of the Phantasy Star Portable launch event prizes (Real Handgun+ and Moatoob Collectible) to players that participated.

Delivery dates for the STD rewards have not been announced yet, although GM Edward hinted in this post that information is on the way soon. (And although it had been pretty clear before the event ended that we wouldn't get the rewards immediately, apparently some people weren't paying attention...)

In the meantime... back to White Beast, I guess?

Server-Side Frustration

It's no secret that PSU has a lot of minor problems that annoy players every once in a while (check out this old post for one such example). However, if I had to choose one annoying aspect of PSU to change, it would have to be the server-side checking of data.

For some reason, the server insists on receiving and checking just about every action a player takes in Network Mode. If it's switching weapons, doing (and receiving) damage, dying, using recovery items, or any other similar action, you can be sure the server is checking it.

I happen to think that this is one of the game's biggest design flaws. Constant server-side checking is incredibly slow and inefficient. For example, I live on the east coast of the United States -- my PSU client has to send all of my data across the country to San Francisco to be validated, and the server has to send the validation result all the way back to my client. The delay caused by this exchange can be anywhere from a half-second to two seconds. It makes the gameplay incredibly staggered at times. I imagine that players in Europe have it far worse, since their data has to travel across the Atlantic Ocean for validation.

This design probably works fine for players in Japan, since no player is ever very far away from the servers. It doesn't work in the United States and Europe.

The delay caused by server-side validation of data causes other problems, too. In battle, for example, enemies are free to attack while the server is determining if they should die or not. Here's a personal example: I was attempting to kill a Gaozoran in one of the Shred the Darkness event missions. I eventually delivered the killing blow, but while the server was determining if my attack killed the enemy or not, the enemy attacked and killed me instead. Can you say "frustrating"?

Unfortunately, the server-side checks will probably never go away. It's too bad, because they weren't really necessary in the first place. Phantasy Star Online's battle system was fast and never caused any of these frustrations. Why fix something that wasn't broken to begin with?

Dulk Fakis: Hard or Just Cheap?

The final Shred the Darkness event mission, The Fourth System, has now been available on the US/EU servers for a week. In this mission, players must run through areas infested with dark enemies and defeat a boss monster at the end.

Overall, the highest difficulty of the mission is not terribly hard. However, it seems to have sparked a little bit of discussion on the official PSU forums about whether the boss, Dulk Fakis, is difficult or simply cheap.

One of the attacks used by Dulk Fakis throughout the battle is a large "tail" swipe. It basically covers the entire room and has the potential to do massive damage to all players in its path. In fact, many times the attack does so much damage that it's a guaranteed KO -- even with dark armor equipped.

Therein lies the question: does this make the boss difficult? Hardly. Dulk Fakis isn't difficult at all -- for the most part, the boss has specific attack patterns that are easy to avoid or defend against if you know what you're doing. The "tail" swipe attack is where the Dulk Fakis boss fight crosses into unfair territory. The attack is almost unavoidable. You can stand virtually anywhere in the room and still get hit. "Difficult" bosses use clever attack strategies and combinations to fight (read: clever AI). How is there any strategy involved in using an unavoidable attack?

Some players insist that lazy one-shot kill attacks like this do contribute to the game's difficulty. Take this comment from the official forums:

I love that he can one shot us. It reminds me of the good old days where the game was actually hard and having scapes was a Must. now people are crying in game and out that he's Hard omg he needs to be fixed the list go's on and on. I say Bring it on Sega !! I enjoy the challege !

Many people fail to realize the difference between difficult and unfair. Difficult is an avoidable attack that can cause major damage when it connects (i.e. Dark Falz's soul steal attack in PSO). Unfair is an unavoidable attack that always causes major damage when it connects (i.e. Dulk Fakis's "tail" swipe attack). Unfair bosses are not always difficult. Dulk Fakis is one such example. If Sega were to take away the "tail" swipe, would this boss be so "difficult"? I doubt it.

Sega's on a roll: Updates have been delayed an additional week

Well after Sega trolled the PSU community with Preta/D, GM Edward@Sega posted that STD and it's GBR has been extended an extra week from May 22nd to the 29th. Nice one Sega you got us twice in one day.
I don't know about you guys but 6 weeks of STD seems a bit too much.

Also were any PSOBB players reminded of the yahoo mag from MA2 when Preta/D was revealed? I know I was; at least this time they saved the most disappointing prize for last instead of making it the first prize which essentially killing off the whole event after the first week.

All STD Rewards Unlocked

For possibly the first time ever, US/EU players managed to complete an in-game event (within its original allotted time). The one hundred millionth kill came earlier today, and no additional reward panels have been revealed.

The final "mystery reward" that the community was shooting for seems to be somewhat of a letdown to most. According to the event site, the final prize is Preta/D, an S-rank RCSM. If you don't play the Guntecher or Acrofighter classes, odds are you won't care very much about this.

I admit that I am a little confused by this choice of "mystery" prize. After great prizes like the synthesis, grind, and PA boosts, this final reward is a dud. It's probably a good thing the community didn't know what the prize was!

STD's New Name

It looks as if Sega has inadvertently changed the name of the current US/EU in-game event known as Shred the Darkness.



In this morning's update announcement on the event site, Sega referred to the event as "Pierce the Dark".

This doesn't make much sense to me. How does one screw up the event name when it's displayed correctly in big letters in the site banner? It's even shown properly in the two announcement posts directly below this one! Obviously this isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it really makes me wonder what goes on over at Sega sometimes.

WTF is a "twitter" and WTF should I care?

So apparently Sega is doing some giveaway for PSU-related prizes (in after crappy inflatable partner machines and wristbands) . What I don't get is that they're using this thing called "twitter" I don't really see what's so special about it; it seems really useless compared to a blog. Not to mention I don't feel like signing up for some site that I'll forget about in a day which would defeat the whole point of registering for it.

I don't really understand why they choose to use this, especially when they have a blog and a forum to do something like this.
So yeah use those. Oh and get better prizes too.

Oh wow a new forum mod!

Looks like I am a little late to the party but the official PSU forums have a new mod.
This brings up a very important question: WHY? Seriously we don't need any more people policing the forums.

Oh hey anyone remember when the people chosen as mods weren't there to clean up the forums?
Those were the days...

STD Gets Update Friday

After a week off, Sega resumes regular maintenance this week with a major update to Shred the Darkness.

According to the Sega of Japan PSU site (untranslated), the US/EU game servers will be receiving an update to the item exchange mission Dark Crystal Seeker. The update adds a number of new weapons as well as the highly anticipated Dark Wing armor slot item. The final major event mission will also be added.

In addition, the next GBR will be added to the servers. It runs through the three event missions and will last for two weeks.

As Shred the Darkness reaches its halfway point, players have racked up over 70 million kills. The next two prize panels have been revealed on the event site, with the 100 million kill prize remaining a secret for now. With two and a half weeks to go, we'll probably find out what that is before long.

Error 53?!

The game servers must not like these in-game events very much.

You may recall that during Maximum Attack G, the last "major" event on the US/EU PSU servers, PC/PS2 players were hit with Error 65, a billing problem that prevented people from logging into the game.

The latest numerical error to hit the PC/PS2 servers is Error 53, which occurs when players attempt to access their rooms. The error message attributes the problem to "high network volume" and even forces some players to shut down their games from the Windows Task Manager (on PC).

The game is still playable, but this latest issue could turn into a major nuisance since everyone obviously uses their rooms to store weapons, armor, and other important equipment. Sega has not yet acknowledged the problem on the official forums, though there is a thread available there for players to rant.

Shred the Darkness Begins

Shred the Darkness, the next major in-game event, is now live. The event site that had opened earlier this week is now available in its entirety.

In addition to the usual kill count and milestone kill information, the site is already showing the first four community rewards. This takes us up through the first 20 million kills:

• 5,000,000 kills: Two weeks of 3* luck
• 10,000,000 kills: "Sonic Disc" room item
• 15,000,000 kills: Half price clothes/parts for two weeks
• 20,000,000 kills: Free makeovers for two weeks

Information about more rewards will probably come later on.

As mentioned previously, Shred the Darkness will run for five weeks, ending on May 22. More missions are expected to be added as the event progresses.

I Swear I've Posted This Before

I was browsing the discussion forums of a certain PSU fansite when I came across a thread asking players if they liked the game or not.

In the first post, the thread creator had this to say about the players in general:

...do you even LIKE this game? If all you do is complain, then why are you here? Why play a game you dislike and why post on a board to CONSTANTLY deride Sonic Team?

I feel like what I'm about to write has already been written before, but just for the hell of it, here goes nothing.

Most players do not dislike PSU. Most players are simply frustrated with Sega/Sonic Team's handling of the game -- and they have a right to be frustrated.

Sure, the game is fun to play, but even fun games can get boring after awhile. Sega promised players regular content updates to keep the game fresh and interesting, but they haven't always lived up to those promises. They have not always managed this game in the best way possible, and fans have every right to let them know.

It's true that real fans of PSU should compliment Sega when they do things right. But real fans also have an obligation to let Sega know when they are unhappy with the state of the game, or of its management, or of anything else that is wrong. We do that right here on this blog. I don't mind giving Sega credit where credit is due, but I'm also not afraid to speak out against the stupid things they do.

To say that the fans should be kissing Sega's ass all the time is outright ridiculous (and wrong). If the players like all aspects of the game all the time, Sega has no motivation (or desire) to improve on the game's faults. Complaints from the Japanese players played an integral role in the vast improvement of Ambition of the Illuminus over the original V1 PSU. What kind of game would we have gotten if the players had just kept quiet? Chances are it probably would have been much different than what we have now.

Complaining is just a part of human nature. The vast majority of players complain because they want to help improve the game we play. True fandom is not simply about quietly accepting the faults. It's about enjoying the game and speaking out when something isn't right. Positive feedback is important, but without criticism, the game has nowhere to go but down.

STD Website Activated

The start of Shred the Darkness is still four days away, but the event Web site is available now.

As noted in this thread over on the official forums, Sega of Japan has already put up the event site for the public to see. Only a brief summary of the event is available at the moment, complete with localized names of the missions we'll be seeing after Shred the Darkness hits servers on Friday. Links to the kill counter and milestone kill pages are currently grayed out, and probably won't be available until the event begins.

Shred the Darkness will run for five weeks, ending on Friday, May 22.

Shred the Darkness Announced

Sega of America GM RubyEclipse has announced the start date for US/EU PSU's next major event, Shred the Darkness.

According to this post over on the official forums, the event will begin after next Friday's maintenance period. This story-driven event will feature a variety of dark-themed missions. The new event should also bring a variety of weapons and other equipment that have not been released to this point.

Not much information was provided about this event. RubyEclipse did mention that there will be progress-based rewards, so we'll probably be seeing an event Web site rolled out over the next week or so. I would also expect that Sega plans to increase the level cap to 160 (the current cap of 150 has been around for months) but there was no mention of such an increase in the announcement.

In any case, this should be good news for the game. It'll probably bring past subscribers back for a few weeks, anyway.

Servers Up; Game Still Unplayable (Updated)

As mentioned in the previous blog post, PSU game servers are suffering from the aftermath of a fiber optic cable cut in San Jose, CA that occurred early this morning.

Servers were down until about 5:00 PM EDT. Access to the game has been restored, but the game servers are now experiencing extremely high latency issues. This means that attempts to log into or play the game will likely be processed very slowly, so the game will probably be difficult to play even if your Internet connection is working properly.

Obviously, this can't be blamed on Sega. AT&T hasn't really fixed the problem yet; they're currently just rerouting traffic around the cut line. This puts more stress on the entire system, which means that Sega's normally reliable ISP is probably having some trouble handling the user load with reduced bandwidth.

I'm sure some stupid players will still try to pin this on Sega, though. For those people, I'd like to offer a suggestion: try doing something else for awhile. Go outside, do something else on your computer, play another game, etc. This is not the end of the world.

The lag and intermittent outages will probably continue for the next few hours, or at least until AT&T gets the cut lines back up and running again. Just be patient!

UPDATE: Players have reported that the lag has stopped, though connections to the patch and game servers are still being dropped periodically. Poor network conditions will probably persist for at least one more day as Internet traffic in the incident area continues to be rerouted.

PSU Problems Thanks To Cable Cut (Updated)

A fiber optic cable cut in San Jose is causing some problems for PSU players this afternoon.

For several hours this morning and afternoon, some of Sega of America's Web sites and services were down, apparently as a result of the severed cable. Access to most of these sites appears to have been restored as of about 2:30 PM EDT.

However, all US/EU PSU authentication and game servers are still down due to a hardware issue. It's not clear whether or not this problem is related to the cable issue.

AT&T, the owner of the fiber optic cable, says that it is actively working to restore service to phone and Internet users in the area. San Jose police are investigating the incident as a possible case of vandalism due to the location of the cables.

UPDATE: Access to the game servers has been restored.

JP Update Removed, Postponed Indefinitely (Updated)

As we mentioned on Tuesday, the Japanese PC/PS2 servers were scheduled to receive the first of the highly publicized "expansion" updates in yesterday afternoon's maintenance.

However, it looks like Sonic Team was too quick to push the changes to the game. Shortly after the servers went live, players reported widespread character data corruption, and the servers were rolled back.

As a result of this setback, Sonic Team has put off the update until further notice.

This shouldn't come as a major shock to anybody on the US/EU side when you consider the fact that Sonic Team has been doing this sort of thing to us for years. They seem to enjoy feeding poorly tested content to players.

UPDATE: Sonic Team's attempt to patch the JP servers with the update last night seems to have gone a little better. We'll be on the lookout for any interesting new gameplay changes.

First JP "Expansion" Update Appears Wednesday

According to the Japanese PSU Web site, the JP PC/PS2 servers will be receiving the first piece of the long-awaited "expansion" update in Wednesday's maintenance (Thursday morning Japanese time).

A news posting on the site (untranslated) details the changes that will be taking place. Some of them look to be quite interesting.

For example, Sonic Team has announced a PSU "Community Course" introduction mode. This new feature allows any PSU player with a valid ID to enter the game servers -- even those players who are not currently subscribed to the game. Players that log on without a valid Guardians' License will be subject to certain level and mission restrictions.

The second interesting feature is a new "Guardians Security" mode. In this gameplay mode, players will be able to take on familiar missions, but with several added twists. Such twists include level, weapon, item, and/or equipment restrictions. The feature will debut with special versions of Plains Overlord, Demons Above, and Desert Terror. Whether or not this is intended to be a Challenge Mode of sorts (a la PSO) is unknown at this point.

There are a number of other changes arriving in this JP server update. Two of the more notable changes include nerfs to the notorious axe PA Anga Jabroga, as well as the spear PA Dus Majarra. Several PA-enhancing items are being added to the game, but not much is known about them right now.

Of course, this update is only for the Japanese servers at this point. It'll probably be 5-6 months (maybe more) before we see any of this stuff on our servers.

As it turns out, there's not much of anything being added to the US/EU servers this week. Friday morning's maintenance will include the addition of the Desert Arms Shop, an item exchange mission.

Mission Spotlight Returns

Here's a bit of disappointing news from the official PSU forums.

For the first time since November of last year, a Mission Spotlight has been announced for the US/EU PSU servers.

News of this event is available on the official PSU Web site. From March 17-23, players can run Duel in the Ruins on Parum for a shot at prizes handed out by Sega of America GMs. This is the first Mission Spotlight of the year (and probably not the last), and is also the first one held on the US/EU game in nearly four months. The previous Mission Spotlight ran from November 21-27 of last year.

I say this is disappointing because since its inception, the Mission Spotlight has been used as a subtle way of telling players not to expect any new content for awhile. That probably won't change anytime soon.

In addition, while I like the idea of an event that brings the community together, the Mission Spotlight in its current setup doesn't cut it. Players won't leave the popular missions (read: White Beast) unless the GMs come online, and they'll leave the Spotlight mission once the GMs log out.

Of course, the obvious solution to this problem would be to turn up the drop rates and/or EXP payout for the selected Mission Spotlight mission for the duration of the event. That might just quell complaints about the lack of new content that inevitably come once the Spotlight begins.

Unfortunately, our game is still controlled by Sega of America's clueless Japanese overlords, which explains exactly why that will never happen.

Slightly Off Topic: Virtual Worlds Lawsuits

Back in December, we passed along some information about an intellectual property lawsuit filed by virtual worlds company Worlds.com. Apparently, that company holds a patent to protect avatar-based interaction in a virtual world, and they've decided to enforce it.

The first target of Worlds.com was South Korean developer NCsoft. The civil case has not yet reached court.

Now, according to this CNN Money article, Worlds.com is now taking aim at other companies that manage virtual worlds-based games. Linden Lab (the company behind Second Life) and Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft) are apparently next on the lawsuit list if the NCsoft case is successful.

It goes without saying that the results of these cases could have serious implications for the online gaming world. Avatar-based online games have become ubiquitous throughout the industry. I still find it amazing that this patent is even allowed to exist.

Worlds.com lawyers claim that these suits aren't intended to constitute a "legal shakedown", but that's exactly what's going on here. Obviously the company has been holding this patent for awhile. Why wait until well after the explosion of online gaming to sue? Sounds to me like some greedy executives over at Worlds.com have dollar signs in their eyes.

Fortunately, their plans may be thwarted yet -- as we also mentioned before, there are a number of avatar-based online games out there that predate the Worlds.com patent ("prior art" in the legal world). This whole situation is still ridiculous, though. If Worlds.com loses (which I obviously hope happens), the USPTO should revoke their patent. It should never have been awarded to begin with.

Here's the CNN Money article again: Worlds.com CEO: We're 'Absolutely' Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft

PSP Impressions and PSU

In the days since Phantasy Star Portable was released for PSP in the United States, I've been reading a lot of community forum sites to try and determine how players are receiving the game.

Oddly, PSP has received little criticism from players so far. Even players that have expressed a dislike of PSU are finding PSP to be an enjoyable game.

When these players are asked why this is the case, most say that PSP is a less annoying version of PSU, and thus more enjoyable. I suppose you could make a case for this argument: there's no synthesis in PSP, and some of the most valuable equipment drops in the field. A lot of the Phantasy Star Online purists might say that PSP is closer to PSO in that regard.

If I worked for Sonic Team, I'd be paying close attention to this. PSP is getting good reviews and praise from players, while PSU got battered. Since PSP is basically a watered-down version of PSU, I'd have to ask myself: what's going on here?

It's clear from player response that Sonic Team managed to do something right in PSP. If they were smart, they'd try to implement some of the gameplay changes they made for PSP into PSU. Then they could get PSP players to try PSU by marketing it as a more expansive, immersive form of the portable game. And if PSP players bought into the idea and found the two games to be similar, they'd probably stay on PSU.

Such a scenario unfolding would have the potential to revive the game. Sonic Team doesn't seem to be able to figure out what the players want, though, which would explain why they've instead decided to base PSU's future on gimmicks such as pay-to-play missions in a subscription-based game. Yikes.

In any case, I'll end with one final thought for anyone who might eventually find this post: If you find yourself enjoying PSP, consider giving PSU a try. Despite what reviews you may read, the two games are very similar in terms of gameplay. The synthesis aspect of PSU might be a turn-off for some, but it's considerably better than what it used to be.

And if you quit PSU a long time ago only to find yourself playing PSP now, consider coming back to the game. You'll find that much has changed since the days when Moatoob was locked. There's much more content, and many of the annoying "features" that plagued the release version of the game have been removed. If your opinion of PSU was formed based on what you saw for the first three weeks after release, maybe it's time to give the game a second chance.

Japanese Server Reduction

Just in case you weren't sure if Sega was succeeding in killing PSU or not, here's a little bit of reassurance straight from the Japanese PC/PS2 servers.

According to the official site, Wednesday evening's update (Thursday morning in Japan) will bring a reduction in the number of universes. A total of 16 universes will remain after maintenance, down from 26. The number of universes available on the JP PC/PS2 servers had been as high as 40 at one point.



This will officially make the international Xbox 360 version of PSU the "largest" of the three server groups, although that version itself only has 20 universes available.

The Japanese PC/PS2 population has been in steady decline over the last few months, largely because of Sega/Sonic Team's inability to provide interesting events and substantial content updates (sounds like the US/EU game in a nutshell!). News of the "supplemental update" coming to those servers later this year hasn't done much to stop the exodus, either -- Sonic Team's DLC model for missions and player equipment has not resonated well with Japanese players.

Mission Carnival Finally Over Tuesday

The official Sega PSU Web site has announced that the game servers will be taken down Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM EDT for maintenance.

Details of the maintenance were not provided. However, since this is obviously not Sega's normal maintenance window, it's almost certain that this downtime will remove the Winter Mission Carnival for good.

Two modified event missions will remain on the servers after the Mission Carnival versions are removed. Airboard Rally, the racing mission, is available at the Moatoob Guardians Branch, while Explosive Arena, the "battle" mission, is available on Parum.

As for regular maintenance this week, the Japanese Xbox 360 PSU site (untranslated) reports only a change of lobbies from Valentine's Day to White Day, as well as a casino rotation update.

Lobby Access Glitch Now Public

In a very bizarre move, Sega of America GMs have decided to allow all players to re-enter the Winter Mission Carnival event lobby if they wish to continue playing the event missions.

However, the door to the lobby is still locked. To get around that little issue, GM Edward actually posted the glitch that allows players to force their way into the event lobby.

The instructions can be viewed in this thread on the official forums, or you can read them below.

Hello, GUARDIANS!

As many of you now know, although the Winter Mission Carnival is officially over, the content is still accessible. This was due to an oversight on our part & so until the issue is resolved, we want to make sure everyone has access to it. Re-opening the door at this point through maintenance would require that the servers be taken down, which isn't an option right now. So, we're going to help you all get into the area as-is!

Some users may be able to access the event area if the door is already being held open by another player. If you can't access the event area, here's how:

1. Enter the Makeover Shop on the 3rd floor (the shop opposite the Event Area).

2. Exit the Makeover Shop, with the camera facing towards the Event Area.

3. Camera cannot be rotated (must face forward entire time).

4. Player can then approach the Event Area (with the camera facing towards the Event Area)). They will still receive the "tenet wanted" message, but then should be able to proceed into the Event Area normally.

5 ...

6. Profit!

It should be noted that another player must already be standing in front of the door when you attempt the glitch. Forcing your way into the lobby solo does not work.

There is still no word on when the event issue will be fixed, but for now, the Winter Mission Carnival continues (into an unprecedented seventh week).

Mission Carnival Continues...Sort Of

Sega may have locked the door to the Winter Mission Carnival during last night's maintenance, but it seems that they forgot to remove the event.

In this thread on the official PSU forums, players are reporting that all Mission Carnival events are still available to play in the event lobby. It's no longer possible to access the lobby by normal means -- so you'll only be able to get back there using a special glitch.

Sega GMs say that they may start banning players caught trying to force their way in.

According to Sega, this minor oversight does not warrant a rollback. The problem will probably be fixed within the next few days.

In the meantime, the event remains playable for anyone who can get to it. I'm not sure why anyone would want to continue playing it, though. Wasn't six weeks enough?

Launch Event Rewards Changed

PSU GMs have decided to (slightly) change the rules for tomorrow's Phantasy Star Portable launch event on the PSU servers.

The most notable change is that the event rewards have been modified. Replacing the Holy Ray/D and Pumpkin Trick will be the Real Hand Gun+ and Moatoob Collectible. GM Edward attributes the swap to the fact that the items "aren't yet available for our servers". Likely translation: "Our Japanese overlords won't allow us to give that stuff to you yet so here's something crappier instead." Chalk another one up to Sega of Japan incompetence.

As for the other event changes, check the forum thread linked above or visit the event page on the PSU site.

Sega's PSP Launch Party

Sega is celebrating the release of Phantasy Star Portable in the United States with a special event on the PSU servers.

According to Sega GMs, the event will span various time periods throughout the day on Friday, March 6. Participants in the event during the designated times will receive a phrase to say in-game, which will allow players to receive the Holy Ray/D and Pumpkin Trick weapons.

Event details are available here. It will be interesting to see how the "special phrase" part works. I imagine it will probably be similar to the "Happy Birthday Sonic!" event Sega runs each June -- and if that's the case, what stops participating players from receiving the phrase and spreading it around to everybody?

Finally, I'm going to use this space to pick on an event page typo:

Helga could be anywhere across Gurhaul

Gurhaul: the moving company used by Guardians across the galaxy...

Name the Next Event

The end of the Winter Mission Carnival is still two weeks away, but Sega is already looking to the next major community event.

In this thread on the official PSU forums, PSU GMs have set up a poll that allows you to vote on the name of the next event. Known as Shred the Darkness on the Japanese servers, this dark-themed event ties in closely with the Ambition of the Illuminus storyline and features special story-based missions for parties and solo players.

Voting ends Monday, so head over to the forums to see the choices and cast your vote!

Script Kiddies Attack

In other PSU news, a small pack of monkeys has escaped from the zoo. The monkeys are allegedly stealing valuable high-end weapons from open player shops.

PSU GMs say that they are looking into the issue. In the meantime, just lock your rooms for awhile and wait for the bans to come. The monkeys will be back in their cages before long, and everything will be fine.

Whining About Bans

Earlier this evening, a thread popped up on the official PSU forums in which a player claims he/she was unfairly banned from the game. This spawned a new debate about Sega of America's banning practices.

Many players are claiming that the actual account owners are not the ones getting banned; instead, phishers are using the players' account information to take control of the account and get it banned. When the actual player contests the ban, Sega upholds it without providing further information. This, apparently, is "unfair" and "unprofessional".

Sorry, folks, but I'm afraid I side firmly with Sega on this one. That argument is a load of bullshit. If you're stupid enough to give away your private account information to a complete stranger on this game, you deserve anything and everything that happens to you. It's not like these phishers are hacking into Sega's servers to access account information. If that were happening, then players might have a case regarding unfair bans. As of now, you only get phished if you physically tell someone your account information via in-game mail, e-mail, PM, voice chat, etc.

You wouldn't willingly hand your credit card information over to strangers. Why would this be any different?

So for the people that were dumb enough to give away their account information: get over it. You screwed up, and you paid for it. Take it as a learning experience, and start over. Just quit bitching about how you were "unfairly" singled out by Sega.

One final point: Sega's bottom line is to make money. PSU is one of the methods through which they try to make that money. For each player they ban, Sega loses another monthly fee and potential profit. Do you really think they would ban somebody just because they "felt like it"?

Good lord. Get a clue, people.

Authentication Servers Down Again (Updated)

For the third time in two weeks, the game's authentication and login servers are down. Attempts to access the game servers are resulting in the familiar "Error 60" message.

This issue was first reported on the official forums at about 3:30 PM Eastern time, and has not yet been fixed. Sega has not provided any information on the cause of the downtime.

You'd think that at some point somebody at Sega would try to come up with a permanent fix for this problem. People do pay to play this game, so these kinds of mid-afternoon outages really are unacceptable.

UPDATE: Access to the servers was restored around 7:30 PM Eastern, four hours after the problem was initially reported. Do I really have to say what I think about that?

Carnival Extension

In this thread on the official forums, GM Edward has announced an extension of the Winter Mission Carnival. The event will now run until Friday, March 6.

Apparently the reason for the extension was primarily to keep the length of our event on par with the Japanese version, which also ran for six weeks. I'm also willing to bet that Sega didn't feel like doing maintenance two weeks in a row.

According to the thread, "many" US/EU players had also requested the extension, but I haven't seen much support for an extension among forum posters since the event began. Personally, I think six weeks is too much for a one-dimensional event like this. Let it die and move on.

No Surprises This Friday

As expected, Sega will be adding the final Winter Mission Carnival update this Friday. World of Illusion: Alpha will be rejoining the mission lineup this week, and boss stages will be added to the end of both bonus missions.

The complete set of Crystal Central exchange items will also become available after Friday's maintenance.

The Winter Mission Carnival comes to a close on Friday, February 27. No information has been given on post-event bonuses at this point.

In addition to the Carnival updates, Sega will also be adding (late) the Valentine's Day lobbies, meaning that seasonal Rappies will be appearing in missions for a limited time.

PSU Kart 64

Boredom can make you do some interesting things sometimes.

After running the main Mission Carnival mission a few times earlier this evening, I decided to kill some time in the airboard racing area. Then I thought it might be mildly amusing to replace the race music with something else.

To demonstrate the results, I've created my first-ever PSU video! Other than showing off the fact that I might play the racing mission a bit too much, it shows the mission music replaced with the theme from Mario Kart 64's Kalimari Desert (complete with final-lap music).

Apparently I forgot to disable the cursor when I shot the video, so try not to get distracted too much!

Auth. Server Outage (Updated)

According to this announcement posted on the official PSU site, the PC/PS2 authentication servers are currently offline. Players attempting to log in are receiving Error 60 messages.

Apparently this outage started at about 1:30 PM Eastern time. No word yet on when access to the servers will be restored.

So how many more times is this going to occur before Sega finally decides to permanently fix the issue? It's not like this is the first (or second, or third) time that this has happened...

UPDATE: The servers are back online as of 7:00 PM Eastern.

Stage 7 Bug

Continuing with our latest theme of update screw-ups, a new and more ridiculous bug has cropped up in one of the bonus stages in the Winter Mission Carnival.

According to posts in this thread on the official PSU forums, many players' games are either crashing or freezing during Stage 7 of World of Illusion: Alpha. Sega has not said much at this point other than that they are looking into the issue.

I haven't tried the mission yet, but I do have this to say: Does anyone at Sega actually test things on the servers before they go live? Testing probably could have identified the Stage 7 glitch, and it probably could have fixed the disappearing mission glitch that came up yesterday afternoon.

Because the maintenance periods are so late in the evening, I bet that Sega of America employees skip extensive testing so they can get some sleep. This is absolutely no excuse, though. Some level of detailed testing is always necessary. Just because it worked on the test server doesn't mean it automatically works on the live servers. Putting out buggy content doesn't do much for customers, either (especially in this case since the last event we had was MAG and we all know how well that turned out).

For now, I imagine that it would be a good idea to just continue collecting Event Tickets. It's not worth anyone's time or effort to spend tickets on a mission that is randomly impossible to complete. Fix it, Sega!

Colony Free Mission Bug

Just when you thought Sega finally managed to pull off an update correctly, we have a new issue courtesy of this thread on the official PSU forums.

Many of the free missions on the Guardians' Colony, the HIVE, and Rykros are currently not appearing on Universe 1 (Leo) and Universe 2 (Caelum). On PC, selecting a free mission that does show up causes the game to crash to the desktop.

If that wasn't enough, there are a few reports that the Colony rare mission is randomly appearing at some of the bugged counters. Selecting it also causes the game to crash. This rare mission has not yet been released nor was it announced for the past update, so it's safe to say that this was probably an oversight.

Similar problems have occurred with other missions in the past, and they were fixed by taking the servers down for a little while. The same thing will probably happen here, so a rollback is not likely. I imagine that the only reason it was not noticed sooner is that everyone is busy with the Mission Carnival.

UPDATE: Sega apparently is aware of the problem, but is choosing not to deal with it at the moment due to a Carnival-related bug which occasionally freezes the game at Stage 7 of the bonus mission.

Winter Mission Carnival Underway

The Winter Mission Carnival kicked off on the US/EU PSU servers this morning, and unlike the past two maintenance updates, it looks like things went off without a hitch.

This event is slightly different from its Japanese equivalent, which was held almost seven months ago. Unlike the Japanese event, in which new missions and rewards were unlocked through achieving certain point total milestones, it looks like the content in our event will be released on a set schedule.

As a result, there is no English Web site for this event. There is a site for Japanese players, which is available here. It only contains basic information for the event, which suggests that there is no player-unlockable content.

The Winter Mission Carnival will run for five weeks. The last day of the event is Friday, February 27.

Rare Mission Notification Not Working

PSU GM Edward has confirmed that the rare mission notification feature supposedly included in Wednesday's patch is not working properly.

Sonic Team is apparently aware of the issue, but there's no information given on when or how the bug will be fixed. In the meantime, players will have to continue checking for rare missions the old-fashioned way.

PSU "Expansion" Details Revealed

Sonic Team has finally provided details of the forthcoming "expansion" update to Phantasy Star Universe. The information was posted on the official Japanese site, and a translated version has been provided by players over at Sega's official US/EU PSU forum.

The update, which is specifically targeted to PC players, will be made available to the Japanese as a free download sometime later this year. According to Sega, the download will completely overhaul the game by rebalancing races, classes, Photon Arts and SUVs. Players will also be able to customize their characters' abilities using extra EXP.

As far as new additions, the update page states that a number of items will be added to the game, many from Phantasy Star Portable.

Interestingly enough, this update could also begin the era of Phantasy Star Universe DLC. The translated page mentions the addition of "PSU Tickets", which can be bought on Sega's billing site. The tickets can then be used to download additional content for the game, such as new weapons, armors, clothes, missions, etc. Not much appears to be known about this addition at the moment, so we'll see what happens. I have to say that I'm less than thrilled with this idea, though, because it could fundamentally change the way Sega handles updates to the game.

In any case, this "expansion" is most definitely many months away for US/EU players, so more information will probably be revealed before we even come close to seeing this update hit our servers.

More rollback compensation and Winter Carnival coming January 23rd

I'm impressed, we're actually getting some content this week.

First off, RubyEclipse has announced additional rollback compensation. This time we get 10x casino coins each day from the 23rd to February 6. Not bad.

Second Edward@Sega has announced the Winter Carnival will finally be arriving on the US/EU PSU servers.

This should be an interesting time for PSU and hopefully it stirs up some server activity.

Wednesday Maintenance Scheduled

Looks like the full story has finally come out.

Tonight's previously announced maintenance period has been cancelled. The maintenance has been rescheduled for 1 AM Eastern time on Wednesday morning.

No new playable content is being delivered in this maintenance. Instead, Sega is delivering a gameplay update that will improve a number of features and fix some bugs.

Notable changes coming in this patch:

• Photon Charges fully refill weapons in both hands
• Mission counter party list sorting
• Rare mission notification at end of trial
• Another machine gun glitch fix
• Other minor bug fixes

More information is available in this post on the official Sega PSU forums. Stay tuned for news on the weekly Friday maintenance period.

Tuesday Maintenance Scheduled (Updated)

According to this post on the official PSU message boards, an additional maintenance has been scheduled for next week.

The servers will be taken down at 2 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday morning. It's not known at this point whether or not new content will appear after this maintenance -- no details are available yet.

In addition to this new Tuesday maintenance, it was announced earlier this week that the regular Friday maintenance period will begin three hours early, at 11 PM Eastern Time Thursday.

Stay tuned for more information.

UPDATE 1/19/08: This server downtime has been cancelled. Maintenance that was to be done tonight will now be part of Friday morning's regularly scheduled maintenance.

In another post, however, GM RubyEclipse seems to be hinting at a maintenance period scheduled for 1 AM Eastern on Wednesday morning. We'll attempt to sort out the details when more information is available.

UPDATE 2: See this post.

PSU in 64-bit Windows 7

On Saturday, I blogged about my results testing PSU in Windows 7. All of my attempts to run the game were foiled by GameGuard's inability to want to run in the new OS.

However, those tests were run in the x86 (32-bit) version of Windows 7. Yesterday, I tried the game on an x64 (64-bit) version of the OS, and for whatever reason, GameGuard actually runs. This means that you can play PSU in Windows 7, if you're lucky enough to have a 64-bit processor in your computer.

You do have to slightly tweak GameGuard to run the game, however. The instructions to do so have been provided by another player on the PSU official forums. It seems that the problem is caused by a new version of the GameGuard updater that isn't compatible with the current beta build of Windows 7 (yet an old version is? How the hell does that happen?).

Note that you must have a fresh, unpatched copy of the game on your computer to make this work. If you've already tried to run PSU before doing this, you'll probably have to uninstall and reinstall the game.

Once the game is installed, open up the PSU folder and look for a GameGuard.des file in the directory. Right-click it, then select Properties. In the window that appears, look for a Security tab. Click that, then select the Edit button under the "Group or User Names" box. The following window should appear (without the little red markups, of course):



For each user in the "Group or User Names" box, set Write permissions to Deny. Once you've finished, click OK to save your changes. Doing this tells Windows that the GameGuard updater is permitted to run, but that it is not allowed to modify itself, meaning that the updater can never update to the new, game-breaking version.

This fix is within the Terms of Service -- GameGuard is still allowed to patch itself and run -- so you don't have to worry about getting banned if you do this.

Note that the game may still not run perfectly after you apply this fix. Some players, after downloading the game patches and restarting, complained that there was no sound in Network Mode. I did not have this problem, however, so if you have trouble with the game it may be a hardware-specific issue.

Finally: this fix applies only for the 64-bit (x64) version of Windows 7. You'll continue to get the same old "initialization failed" error if you try it in x86 Windows 7.