Oh hey it's that PSU/PSPo2 crossover event

...that doesn't include PSPo2 anymore. While I'm not surprised seeing how Sega has given up on the game. And even if PSPo2 did have events like the Japanese version I'm sure this event would have been separate from the Xbox version due to Xbox Live.

Still thought I should complain about it even though there is no point to it. I'm pretty sure that Sega should have focused on events to promote the game over the plan to slowly release in-game passwords. Even if that didn't work at least it would have been more entertaining than waiting for passwords to be released.

As Clumsyorchid said back then:

Having these unlockables allowed us a unique opportunity to take the Phantasy Star Series and open it up to a potentially larger audience of Sega fans through our blogs, facebook updates, twitter releases, and fansite promotions.

I disagree. Having an event where you kill stuff and get items seems way more appealing. But that may be just me. If anything the passwords were just a neat bonus.

Anyway too late for that. So lets see how this Maximum Attack X thing turns out. Will the rewards or other aspects of the event change due the the Xbox360 server being a different version of the game? Who knows. But at least I can say that no one will be surprised after seeing what happened with the last event.

Next PSU Event Begins Friday

The constant stream of Phantasy Star Online 2 news that's been provided this summer has been a nice diversion from the lack of substantive content updates in Phantasy Star Universe.

It's been very quiet on the PSU news front, actually -- before now, there hasn't been a posting about PSU updates since the beginning of June. With a new event coming, I think it's time to break that streak, if only temporarily.

PSU GM Edward announced on the official PSU forums that the new event, Maximum Attack X, will begin on the regional servers after Friday morning's maintenance. The event is scheduled to run for six weeks, ending with maintenance on the morning of Friday, October 21.

Edward also mentioned that a new lobby will also be added to the game with this maintenance. No additional details were provided, so it's anyone's guess as to whether this is a new permanent lobby or just a seasonal addition.

So that's it. I guess for the hardcore players this is a good reason to jump back into the game for two months, anyway.

The PSU and PSO2 News Roundup

After a busy start to the summer, things have cooled off a bit on the Phantasy Star news front. That could be about to change, though.

In Phantasy Star Universe, The Great Arms Race is about to come to an end. The Japanese Xbox 360 PSU Web site is reporting that the first round of rewards from that event will be added in this week's maintenance period. In addition, a new mission will be added. This mission will make up part of a GBR that includes missions The Black Nest, The Dark God, and True Darkness, which will be seeing S3 upgrades this week.

In Phantasy Star Online 2 news, the Japanese Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity blog has hinted that more PSO2 information may be released tomorrow. We haven't heard a whole lot about the game lately, so any news would definitely be welcome.

Finally, the Sega Pass outage from June continues, with the official forums still down at the time of this posting. The US/EU official Phantasy Star Universe Web site is also down with the same "essential maintenance" message that appeared at the forums for a few days in late June. There hasn't been any word on how much longer the outage will continue.

That's all for now. Keep your fingers crossed for some awesome PSO2 news tomorrow!

Today's Lesson: Be Careful What You Wish For

Guardians Cash was a point of contention among many members of the community when the supplemental update was implemented on the Xbox 360 servers. Sega of America announced at the time that the Guardians Cash system would not be coming to the regional servers, and many players worried that the content would never be seen outside of Japan. However, they were reassured by Sega that the content would make its way into the game in some form.

Recently, PSU GM Edward made the announcement that Guardians Cash content would be worked into an upcoming event, though he didn't provide further details. The upcoming event turned out to be The Great Arms Race, which started today. Players apparently forgot about the Guardians Cash comment when the event announcement was made earlier this week.

Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a shock when the event Web site showed that the manufacturer weapons being distributed were actually completely different than those handed out during the Japanese event. Oddly enough, the three reward weapons for the US/EU version aren't even produced by the participating manufacturers -- they're Kubara weapons!

How could Sega have overlooked this fact? How could they have replaced the weapons everyone was looking forward to with three Kubara weapons?

Oh, right -- the substituted weapons are Guardians Cash weapons in Japan. This is just an example of Sega doing what everyone wanted... right?

No. In fact, this is exactly what the community didn't want. The community wanted the event to be exactly the same as the Japanese one. It expected a certain type of content (namely, the three reward weapons), and it didn't get it. Sega is doing the right thing by trying to get the Guardians Cash content to the Western servers, but this was clearly not the time or place to do it. As a result, three functional reward weapons were replaced with what are essentially novelty items. Perhaps Sega should have asked the community if this was something it wanted. If they had, they might have been able to avoid the shitstorm that is now brewing on the official PSU forums.

On the flip side, the US/EU PSU community has learned a valuable lesson: be careful what you wish for, because Sega might give it to you when you want it the least.

The Great Arms Race is Under Way

PSU's latest event, The Great Arms Race, is live as of this morning's maintenance.

An event Web site has been posted here. It lists all of the overall rewards as well as the manufacturer weapons received for participating. It should be noted that the advertised manufacturer weapons are apparently different than those distributed in the Japanese event, so head over and check out what's what before you choose sides!

As mentioned in the previous post, Sega has announced that the event will run until maintenance on Friday, July 15.

The Great Arms Race Begins Friday

The last two months have been rather devoid of PSU news. In fact, the last piece of PSU-related news on this blog was posted exactly two months ago, and it wasn't even a major update!

So what's been going on? The 3rd Anniversary Thanks Festa event ended just over three weeks ago, and since then, the regional servers have seen a new mission and a Parum GBR. The next event, The Great Arms Race, will hit the servers this Friday, June 10th. This appears to be one of the rare moments where the Western community got the news before Japan (it hasn't been posted on the official Japanese Xbox 360 PSU Web site as of this writing), so it's not known how long the event will last. (Update 6/8: The Japanese Web site has listed July 15th as the end date, meaning the event will run for a standard five weeks.)

Based on GM Edward's post on the official forums, it appears that this event will play out similarly to prior events, with enemy kills unlocking reward panels and so forth. In addition, the event will have a pseudo-PvP element to it in which players register with one of the major weapons manufacturers—GRM, Yohmei, or Tenora—and earn points for that manufacturer. Players will receive a weapon from their manufacturer for participating in the event, but the "team" that wins the event will have their weapon's stats boosted to their maximum values.

A Web site for the event will be posted at some point before it starts. This looks like it will be an interesting event; the competitive aspect certainly hasn't been tried so far in PSU, and I would assume that it alone would boost player enthusiasm. It seems like a lot of players have been clamoring for this event in recent months, anyway.

That's all from the PSU front for now. Stay tuned for more!

Rewards as Content

I don't typically post about content updates anymore. Maybe that's because I don't play the game anymore (if you think I play on the Xbox 360 you obviously don't read this blog enough). Maybe it's because I just don't care anymore. However, I spotted the update news for this week on the official forums and I felt obligated to write something about it.

The update itself is pretty minimal. In addition to a GAS update and Valentine's Day lobbies, GM Edward announced that the rewards from Absolute Zero would be arriving this week.

...That is, some of the rewards would be arriving this week. Specifically, the item rewards, PA experience boost, shop discounts, and casino bonus are slated to be added. The other rewards -- 3* Luck, synthesis boost, and grind boost -- will be coming at an as yet unannounced date.

Apparently the reward distribution news did not sit well with players, because within 20 posts Edward was right back in the forums trying to justify the decision. I can understand how Sega could spin this as a decision to "benefit the players" -- split up the rewards and the players have more time to enjoy them. That makes sense, and I don't think it's such a bad thing to do. If all the rewards were given together I bet you'd see somebody complain on the forums about having too many rewards to take advantage of in only a 2- or 3- week period.

However, if the next maintenance period comes and the remaining rewards are listed as the only content update, you can bet that the community will not be happy. Edward claims that this won't happen; whether it does anyway remains to be seen. I just don't think anybody (myself included) would put it past Sega to do such a thing to extend the life of the game another month.

In any event, the players in the forum thread raged for awhile before settling down and talking about the upcoming content. Hopefully Sega won't release the rest of the Absolute Zero rewards as a standalone update, because if that happens the player reaction will be quite different next time.

Absolute Zero is Live

Absolute Zero officially began today, and an event site listing the kill count and unlockable rewards is now available. This event differs from recent ones in that much of the reward information is already displayed, but the kill counts required to earn the rewards is unknown.

In a move that I found to be surprising, Sega of Japan has decided that Absolute Zero will run for a ridiculous seven weeks, until January 21, 2011. That's just enough time to get bored with the event missions about five times over. Whatever happened to the short (i.e. month-long) events, anyway? Is Sega just trying to get players to hang around as long as possible?

Oh, and one last thing -- it seems the Xbox 360 is incapable of handling some of the Absolute Zero missions, as evidenced in this warning by PSU GM Edward. Apparently you might (read: will) experience massive slowdown in the first block of Frozen Flowers. According to Edward, the mission is "much better" by Block 2 (though I'm not really sure what that means).

Of course, to fix the slowdown problem, simply play the mission with the camera pointed at the ground the entire time. That's a lot of fun! Or, you could play the PC vers- oh, I'm sorry, I forgot -- you can't. What a shame.

For more information on Absolute Zero, check out the event page linked at the top of this post.

Time for Absolute Zero

When Sega has good PSU-related news to announce, it doesn't take very long to get it out to the masses. So when PSU GM Edward took the unusual step of announcing a content update on a Monday afternoon, it should have been pretty clear that this would be no ordinary maintenance week.

Friday's maintenance period will kick off the long-awaited Absolute Zero event on the regional servers. PSU GMs had been hinting at the arrival of this event for awhile, and it doesn't really come as a surprise that Sega chose this week to start it.

Though no end date for the event has been announced as of yet, my guess is that it will probably run for five weeks, until January 7th, 2011 (unless Sega enjoys doing maintenance on New Year's Eve -- I know I wouldn't). By doing this, Sega can basically finish any mid-event maintenance on the 17th or 24th of December and then take off for the holiday. This also gives Sega the chance to reel some former players back in for awhile during the hectic holiday release season. (Of course, whether they stay after the event ends is another story altogether, but...)

On the other side, players will be happy to know that they'll actually get something to do during a month where Sega has not typically been forthcoming with new content for PSU. Absolute Zero is a Maximum Attack-style event with a global kill counter and unlockable rewards, which might help keep players motivated. An event Web site, which normally accompanies this type of event, will not be available until after Friday's maintenance.

Only one question remains to be answered: Can Sega hold this event without some kind of catastrophic failure or server problem? Based on the current track record, I wouldn't be too sure, but you never know!

PSU Network Lag, Now and Forever

After several weeks of no updates, things might be temporarily looking up again on the US/EU PSU servers. Friday's maintenance period kicked off another GBR -- this time on the Guardians' Colony -- and added the autumn lobbies. Plus, with the Absolute Zero event looming on the horizon, there's some hope that players might be able to stay occupied through the holiday season.

However, it's not Sega's style to hold events without some kind of huge server issue, and it looks like we have the potential for another one here. For the last month, players have been reporting irritating lag spikes that have dropped whole universes in some cases.

Things were so bad last weekend that there were actually prolonged server outages. Compensation is planned but so far nothing has been announced.

Call me crazy, but I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to play a cooperative online game without fear of being randomly disconnected or dropped from the server "just because". PSU GMs have apparently been making an effort to pinpoint the problem by surveying users, but it's been almost a month now and very little has changed.

Periodic network outages and connection drops are nothing new, either. PSO: Blue Burst players will remember the infamous 906 errors that occurred for months leading up to the shutdown of those servers.

The bottom line is that Sega should be doing more to ensure that players don't leave the game because of annoying network problems. The upcoming event will bring idle players back, but only if Sega can get things in order before then.

"New" Content This Week (Updated)

Last week, the Japanese PC/PS2 PSU servers began their fourth anniversary celebration with a new event while the regional Xbox 360 servers skipped regular maintenance. A lot of players were annoyed and frustrated at the lack of updates and expressed it loudly on the official forums.

Fear not, everyone! Sega does in fact care about its Xbox 360 players and doesn't want them to quit.

In fact, Sega of Japan cares so much that it has rewarded the US/EU community with rehashed content. Four Parum missions -- Train Rescue, Endrum Remnants, Dual Sentinel, and Duel in the Ruins -- will be receiving S3 difficulties this week to go along with the Parum GBR that begins after Friday morning's maintenance.

The news was somehow posted on the Sega of America site first, so we're not sure how long this GBR will last, but odds are it will stick around until sometime in mid-October.

UPDATE: The Japanese site has been updated and it looks like this GBR will run for a ridiculous five weeks, until Friday, October 29. I guess the folks at Sega of Japan are planning some long vacations next month!

Bizarre Surprise from Sega (Updated)

Much to my surprise, Sega has done the unthinkable and managed to string together two consecutive update weeks!

Despite this fact, this week's maintenance won't actually add any new content. Friday's update introduces a Guardians Boost Road period, in which players can run a mission chain to increase drop chances.

The five missions announced for this GBR are System Defense, Desert Terror, Tunnel Recapture, Caves of Ice, and Awoken Serpent. If this sounds familiar, it's because this is a repeat of the US/EU game's very first GBR way back in February 2008. The only real difference this time around is that we have the S3 missions. Exciting.

This maintenance will also add the wedding-themed lobbies and a new casino item rotation.

According to the official JP PSU Web site, all content introduced during this maintenance will remain until Tuesday, June 22, at which time the servers will be taken down to remove PSU V1 support. There's no word right now as to whether or not additional updates will appear during this GBR, or if the first part of the supplemental update will be added in the June 22 maintenance (hint: no).

Speaking of the supplemental update, GM Edward indicated in this thread on the official forums that the first of several articles previewing the update would appear this week. Stay tuned, because I'm sure we'll be posting (and critiquing) that article if it's interesting!

UPDATE: The first of the supplemental update preview articles has been posted at the official Web site. It doesn't detail anything interesting -- just some class and PA balance changes -- so there's not really anything to talk about...

Quality over Quantity

While I was busy writing up the last post, GM Edward posted an announcement on the official forums that this week's maintenance period would be skipped.

He also basically finalized the winners of MAG+, indicating that those players would get their medal rewards soon. I haven't looked at the MAG+ TA leaderboards lately, but I did after reading this announcement.

I was delighted to see that players of the soon-to-be-dead PC/PS2 servers claimed the top two team spots in the Time Attack rankings (including a team of two which beat out the top Xbox 360 team, a group of four, by more than 20 seconds.)

Well done, PC/PS2 players. It just goes to show you that the platform with the most players doesn't necessarily have the best players (or community).

MAG+ is Bored

...according to this thread on the official forums.

But I suppose that's what happens when you stage an event with content we've already seen twice before. I wouldn't expect any updates until after MAG+ is over, and with the PC/PS2 server shutdown coming at the end of March, there's probably not much (if anything) coming until after those servers close.

Personally, I wouldn't expect much in the way of new content even after the PC/PS2 servers do close, so enjoy your bored MAG+ while you can!

(New?) Content: MAG+ Begins January 29th

Happy New Year! It's been nearly two months since anything has been posted on this blog, but that's not without good reason. Since the last post on November 23, Phantasy Star Universe has seen a new party mission, a new story mission, and difficulty updates to The Egg Thieves and The Dark God.

A small patch to fix some bugs was also released in December.

Not much else has really happened, other than the GM-run Great Gurhalian Cup time attack competition. There hasn't been much true "new" mission content to hit the US/EU servers in the last few months.

It doesn't look like that will be changing within the next two months, either. GM Edward announced today on the official forums that the first event of 2010, Maximum Attack G+, will begin on January 29. This has been hotly anticipated by the US/EU community for some time now.

However, MAG+ isn't really itself new: think MAG with an additional difficulty level and some small new bonuses. There will be only one event mission (not counting the boss), as was the case the first (and second) time around. I understand that it will be a nice diversion from grinding the same old mission locales, at least for a little while. How long will the community's interest in this version last, though?

In any case, while I'd rather see Sega implement some other things (like the new "expansion" content -- minus the cash shop), it's nice to see that the US/EU community continues to get the content the Japanese got -- even if it is months/years later.

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!

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!

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...

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?