More PSO2 Alpha Test News

Sega of Japan has opened a site to allow players to sign up for the second Phantasy Star Online 2 alpha test. Potential test participants can now register at the site, and registrations will be accepted until Tuesday, January 17. Sega is apparently looking for 50,000 test participants.

Anyone that signed up for the PSO2 mailing list rolled out last month are already eligible to participate in the alpha test. However, as expected, you must be a resident of Japan. (It was worth a try, I guess...)

Also announced today were a few changes made to the PSO2 client. Unfortunately, player status UI has been moved to the bottom-left corner of the screen, a change that brings the UI more in line with that of Phantasy Star Universe. I don't quite understand why this change was made — the status UI was at the top-left in Phantasy Star Online and nobody complained. Learning to watch the status information at the bottom-left corner of the screen after years of playing PSO was somewhat difficult (though I suppose it's made a little easier when you play a Force). Of course, by 2012 you'd think we would be able to click and drag that kind of thing around the window, but I'm not holding my breath for that feature.

Sega also announced that the My Room feature from Phantasy Star Universe would be coming back in PSO2 with some enhancements. This feature will be available in the next alpha test.

That seems to be all there is for now. It looks like the alpha test won't be starting until late January or early February 2012 at the earliest. Hopefully we'll get some more information before then.

Some PSU Event Starts Soon

Yeah. That's right. According to the Japanese Xbox 360 PSU Web page, the servers will be seeing an event beginning this Friday. It runs until maintenance on Friday, January 27, 2012. That's six weeks for those of you keeping track at home.

It looks like some seasonal lobbies will also be going up, and Sega will also do whatever it is they usually do during maintenance periods (casino rotations, etc.)

Honestly I don't care anymore. It's been three months since we've posted anything PSU-related on this blog. Just waiting for some significant PSO2 news...