Sometimes I think this community is terrible

So I was browsing the internet and came across this PSO2 topic about a rumor of the English version of the game that wasn't actually a rumor. That isn't the terrible part though; this post is.

Ok let me see if I get this right. You waste Sega support staff's time with a question that would obviously not be answered and actually expected and answer back. Sega hasn't released any information about the game to anyone and you thought they would make an exception for you and tell you? And you are unsatisfied when they didn't? Please give me a break. You should be happy you got a reply at all, because that email should have been sent strait to the trash.

Then of course you have PSO-world forums agreeing how terrible Sega of America is and it's not just that topic; you can see other topics where people recommend not even bothering with the English version. While I'm not saying Sega of America is innocent or anything I do feel that Sega of Japan is also partly to blame. For those of us who played PSU I'm sure you guys can remember how the GMs announced content for the game a few times only to be proven wrong by SoJ when they updated the Japanese PSU Xbox360 website (with less content) or how they took forever to organize that whole 'MAG2' thing which ended up delaying updates even more.

Sure Sega of Japan is great at running the online Phantasy Star games, but only in Japan. They don't really seem to motivated to care for any of the other regions. Truthfully If Sega of America were to handle the English server's updates I can't see them being anywhere as bad as SoJ's handling of PSOBB and PSU. I will admit that the only exceptions were the Dreamcast and Gamecube versions of PSO but that was only because we played on the same servers as the Japanese. Even then they managed to exclude us from content (download quests from the DC PSO and Episode 3, Maximum Attack prizes and that Episode 3 tournament being Japan only come to mind - inb4 Episode 3 sucks).

Don't get me wrong: I want information about the game, but I'm going to have to wait until Sega is ready to give that information. Whining about it like a bunch of babies isn't going to accomplish anything. Anyway I just assume the delay is from Sega of Japan doing the usual when it comes to Phantasy Star outside of Japan aka not caring.

Welcome to Early 2013

The new year is finally upon us. That means it's time for Sega of America to open up and provide some details about the upcoming Western release of Phantasy Star Online 2.

Back in July, Sega announced that PSO2 was coming stateside, but provided only a vague "early 2013" release date. However, in the following months, Sega has been completely silent about the game (except for the appearance of a demo version at PAX).

As "early 2013" crept closer, I thought it would be a good idea for Sega to start talking about the game a little bit, if only to remind players and get them more excited about it. However, nothing happened; Sega's official PSO2 Web site has not been updated since August.

Now the lack of PSO2 news seems to be making the rest of the community a little jittery. Threads have popped up on the PSO-World forums and even at Sega's own official PSO2 forum, each questioning the lack of information on the game. Not surprisingly, Sega representatives have been silent.

And now it's 2013. When is Sega of America going to start talking about this game? When are we going to get a firm release date? I don't expect the servers to go live tomorrow, but any shred of news would be nice just for reassurance. An update to the Web site or even a post on the forums would go a long way in letting players know that Sega is actually doing something.

Everybody panic!

I hope you all are ready to assume the worst has happened for non-Japanese players on PSO2. I know I have! I was looking around the the internet and I found this thing about the Sega ID registration site blocking non-Japanese from registering.

If this post's title didn't make you panic; I now assume you all have panicked from hearing this news. This is horrible because now we are stuck with the confirmed to be terrible US/EU version. You know how it works, no news = THE MOST TERRIBLE NEWS YOU WILL EVER HEAR, therefore the US/EU server will be terrible.

Anyway this ends up being bad news for the anyone outside of Japan that currently plays since it means the English community will slowly deteriorate. That is if it is permanent unless this is some temporary thing while Sega deals with RMT/hacking or something...

PSO2 Improvements Planned

Here's another instance where the delayed release of the US/EU version of PSO2 might actually benefit players. Sega has announced that the game will be receiving some upgrades and improvements that have been heavily requested by Japanese players.

One such improvement (which I happen to agree with very strongly) is the reduction in the number of items needed to complete the level cap client orders. This is a great decision by the developers; the level cap orders are incredibly tedious, and any improvement here is welcomed. Currently, the required items drop far less frequently than I would expect for the number needed (90, in each of three different areas). I would suggest that the developers also improve the drop rates of these items, but some progress is better than none. Regardless of what they decide to do with these client orders, US/EU players will certainly appreciate not having to endure these quests in their current states.

Other requests from players include drop rate and rare enemy spawn rate improvements, as well as class rebalancing and system-related fixes. With any luck these fixes will be incorporated into the US/EU game on day one, so players won't know that they were ever a problem! Let's just hope it's enough...

Where's the Western PSO2 News?

Back in July, Sega of America revealed that PSO2 would be coming west. However, there has been virtually no news or information about the game since then. As November approaches and we get ever closer to the vague "early 2013" release, I can't help but wonder why Sega has not started to provide players with a taste of what to expect in US/EU PSO2.

I assume that Sega chose not to release PSO2 in 2012 in order to avoid having the game buried in a deluge of other holiday game releases. If that's actually the case, then I would expect the final release of PSO2 to be sometime in January or February (possibly with a short open beta test several weeks prior to test server loads and things like that). In my mind, that means it's time to start reminding players that the game is on the way. Maybe that's why I expected that Sega would have started talking by now. Perhaps they consider "early 2013" to be a bit later than that, though.

Regardless of what's going on with the game right now, it would be nice to see some acknowledgment that it still exists. A more specific release date would be great – maybe not an exact date, but one at least narrowed down to one or two months when we could expect to start playing. At the very least, some new information would probably go a long way in maintaining players' interest in the US/EU version of the game.

PSO2: (Temporary) King of the Grind

This week's content update for the Japanese version of PSO2 added a new difficulty and raised the level cap to 50. However, apparently not all went as planned – thanks to an oversight on Sega's part, players were in for a nasty shock upon reaching level 41.

The XP required to go from level 40 to 41 is 92,000 – a pretty hefty amount but generally in-line with the game's experience curve so far. (I probably won't make it that far in the Japanese game, so I can only report based on what other players say.)

However, to get from level 41 to 42, a player needs to earn a staggering 2.8 million XP (roughly) – an almost 3000% increase over the previous level! If you thought 20-30 was a grind, then this one's guaranteed to make you jump with joy.

Sega is aware of the problem and has planned an emergency maintenance this evening to correct the error. The issue apparently stems from the fact that the game's experience table was created at launch, with the expectation that the level cap would not need to be raised so soon. That's what Sega says, anyway.

So there's proof that Sega doesn't always screw solely with the English community. In fact, there's a good chance that the English game will never see this little glitch. Yes, the English game is being released several months after the Japanese game, but look at it this way – the Japanese players are helping iron out all the mistakes so that the English game can be perfect! (Yeah, right)

Xbox 360 PSU Done

As promised, Sega has shut down the Xbox 360 Phantasy Star Universe servers for good.

The servers went down at approximately 2 AM EDT this morning. Some players were apparently not able to enjoy the final hours due to some sort of miscommunication between Sega and Microsoft (the entire PSU experience in a nutshell, I guess).

Now it's on to Phantasy Star Online 2, which launches in the West sometime in early 2013.

Players hoping to jump ship to the Japanese PC version of Phantasy Star Universe are out of luck: that game is going dark at the end of September. Time to start playing PSO2!

If At First You Don't Succeed...

...try, try again. Or in Sega of Japan's case, try, try, try again.

Folks over at PSO-World are reporting that Sega has attempted to push the much-maligned Windows-breaking GameGuard update for a third time. Not surprisingly, people that have received the patch are reporting unexpected crashes and operating system lockups.

I can only report on what other people are saying because, although I am still playing PSO2, I did not get this patch and never will. If this is actually true, then I can do nothing but sit back and marvel at Sega's unwavering commitment to achieving new levels of incompetence. Truly unbelievable.

What Are These Morons Smoking?

Last week the Phantasy Star Online 2 community was in an uproar after Sega of Japan pushed a GameGuard update that caused all kinds of nasty side effects on players' PCs. The update was pulled back shortly after.

So what do you do if you're Sega of Japan and you have this broken GameGuard patch sitting around? Try to push it out again, of course! The update reappeared earlier today and is now wreaking havoc on user PCs for a second time.

The effects of the patch were immediately visible on my PC:



After that, pretty much everything stopped working. I had to do a hard shutdown of my PC because I couldn't even get Windows to reboot!

What the hell is going on here?

There is absolutely no excuse for this level of incompetence. NO EXCUSE. Hell, there is no excuse for this piece of shit GameGuard software to even be allowed to shut down processes without the user's knowledge or permission, especially when those processes are critical to the proper function of the operating system!

So this is the bottom line: until Sega of Japan gets their shit together and fixes this problem, I am done with PSO2. Since I'm an American, I realize they probably don't care about what I do, but I'm confident that there are plenty of Japanese players saying the same thing.

In the meantime, I will spend my time looking for a way to play PSO2 without running GameGuard. I am tired of putting up with this shit and I will not tolerate it fucking up my PC anymore.

Also, I sincerely hope that Sega of America is watching this debacle and taking notes. If this situation is allowed to repeat itself on the US/EU version, then fuck it – I won't play. And I'm probably not the only one saying this, either. GameGuard is a renegade piece of shit malware program and should be wiped off the face of the earth forever.

Rant over. I'm out of here.

GameGuard Rollback

After the PSO2 GameGuard update earlier this week, I posted a small rant about GameGuard's incredible ability to protect users from their own PCs.

It turns out that not being able to open Volume Mixer was the least of my worries. Other PSO2 players reported BSODs and frozen computers. The update apparently even caused Windows to report itself as "not genuine" in some cases.

Thankfully, Sega noticed the problem. A GameGuard update was issued today that appears to roll back this week's Windows-breaking change. Sega is encouraging players that experience problems with GameGuard to send a report; details can be found by clicking the link above.

I'd like to hope that this is the first step in getting GameGuard removed entirely, but I'm not holding my breath.