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?