PSO2 Alpha - Environment & Etc First Look

Disclaimer:

•  “This review is from “Phantasy Star Online 2 Alpha Test 2″, since this game is currently under development, the contents may not reflect the final version. Additionally, such contents may be improved upon in the future. Phantasy Star Online 2 Official Site http://pso2.jp” 

Another longer post, this one with "Environments & etc" 3rd in the series.

EXP:

Who knows how it'll be in the final. You can't talk levling in an alpha. But you get it by being CLOSE to monsters who die. You don't need to "Tag Up" like pso/psu. This frees up forces to be healers without having to tag everything with a big spell every 5 seconds to get EXP. It doesn't punish rangers for 'standing back' to shoot, like they want to play. This seems good so far & adds to the fun.

My Room:

Loads of people loved PSU's my room, it's back, and its better, but all your guys share the room. You can buy decos and maybe find them in the level as drop items. Other people can hang out in your room. There's a tub you can sit in, couches, redeco tickets etc. Basically everything PSU myrooms had you're going to get in here, so don't worry.

Environments:

Fantastic. Maps randomly reconfigure themselves to not get boring. Jumping means cliffs, hills, towers, plateaus, just on and on. There IS weather outside, including reduced visibility fog, rain that makes the river push you around, lightening storms that can hit you, sun, clouds, etc. Really good stuff here. Item drops appear as tiny dots on the map! What a nice feature! Lava burns you, stalactites can fall on you, you can chop down trees/grass/rock walls & etc. Feels real-er and interact-able more than PSO or U ever did.

Getting to missions:

All is done via space ship like PSO. No stupid lobby garbage like psu. Blocks set up like pso, so you can meet up and then team up. WAY BETTER. Team name/pass/restrictions & etc all present to customize just like every other game before it, no one will be unhappy.

Mags:

They're not in yet but they're not PM trash from PSU, all signs point to 'good pso like mags'

Scape Dolls:
Not in yet. Should work the same way as all previous

Telepipes:
They are IN! It was a big beef in psu that they weren't there. This has them, seems to work like PSO.

Drops:

Drops are unique to the player, meaning people cant "ninja ur rarz" like PSO. DropING stuff should be possible, we never figured out how to do it. There will be player shops, so that's good too. Dropping when dead? No. 

My opinion on dropping is a very big deal (to me) things NEED to be drop-able, trade-able for it to be fun to hunt weps. PSP PSUs limited this on 'very rare' things. You couldn't trade some things which made the game feel stale and stupid, like you were playing "In a bubble" all by yourself. Part of my joy was hunting with friends so if 1 person got it, they dropped it for the other. It better not be ruined here by playing in some isolationist crybaby bubble.

Rappies:

They're in. Regulars look just like PSO's Rags, so that's good. They were a well liked rappy design. They have the same behavior. Sometimes they sleep among a shower of bubbles. No idea why.

Rappy Bighead:
Some kind of brain-meltingly cute rappy.
Seriously. This will RUIN your toughguy card in about 1 second flat. I have no idea what this thing's purpose is but it is so damm adorable I have no idea what to do. Not only does it look cute by being wooly & charming, but it SINGS TO YOU at random complete with colored music notes. And it won't attack you but follows you around like some kind of puppy. It's targetable, but anyone who hits it is likely a horrid monster. I wound up protecting this thing from enemies rather than attack it. Purpose unknown. Consider me intrigued. Especially because it shows up inexplicably in the volcano as well as the forest. How did it get there?

Shops:

Yes, they're there, no they're not finalized so you can't judge them. Not all shops are in. Hopefully char details can be changed for pay later on like PSU had.

Wep detailing:

Yes there's grinding, but I can't judge because  I couldn't read enough to do it. You can also combo weps to get better weps? Without trying it, it sounds really really good. Klutter like "the 50th Varista" that PSO people will be familiar with will become useful. Will def. add depth, is all a good thing.

Plot:

There is no plot yet revealed. 

All in here looks positive, or unconfirmed/mysterious so far. Only post to go seems to be very brief 'social' and 'over-all impression'.

PSO2 Alpha GamePlay First-Look

Disclaimer:

•  “This review is from “Phantasy Star Online 2 Alpha Test 2″, since this game is currently under development, the contents may not reflect the final version. Additionally, such contents may be improved upon in the future. Phantasy Star Online 2 Official Site http://pso2.jp” 

2nd post in the series on PSO2!

This one will cover a lot of the rest of the stuff so its LONG but well worth it if you're interested at all.
This one is game-play focused so the 

"Bias Alert:
For any critic/reviewer/reporter it's important to know the biases of the person going in. It lets the reader judge the opinions better, and understand where the writer is coming from. Oddly, most critics don't announce their biases up front, forcing you to guess at what they'll prefer over many reviews. (thus creating critics who you like to ignore a lot, because they'll never agree with what you like & etc)

LOVED PSO * A console gamer at heart * Doesn't know Japanese * Prefers action games * Customization is a lot of the fun for combat/appearance/skills * Over complication/convoluted things is considered an annoyance * Making oddball strange characters that aren't mainstream or normal"

still really applies, maybe more-so here because the customization was just 1 aspect and hardly much like PSO's at all. There will be comparisons to PSO AND PSU for everyone who played it or hated them. I've done them all, for every console, every class, so......yeah experienced. First the chosen things, available areas and all:

Only used hunter gameplay
Only used android
2 available stages with boss / sub boss (forest & volcano, bosses were a ball of sticks & a dragon)

First off:
It FEELS faster. Like your guy is faster, you swing & shoot faster than PSO vanilla & PSU for damm sure
Think "god/battle"
The running is quicker meaning you get to the fun faster, which is fab.

A big beef in PSU was you felt slow. They fixed it...ish on the portables but everything's fine here in pso2. Swinging the sword around also hits all the guys not just "Set number of puny targets" like PSU so that frustration is gone.

JUMPING!
Yes, you will love this as much as you think you will love it.
Bird in the air givin' you trouble? Jump up and whack it down. The chars feel weighty enough, you fall fast, it's not some floaty phony jumping. The jumping is awesome, a mega great addition to the game play. They make use of it in LOADS of environments too. It's not forced on you all the time, but you'll want to use it to explore. Its pretty much perfectly done, and adds great dimension to the game.

Fighting:
You can charge hit (like pso heavy attack) you can do combo timing, but you're not limted to the 3 hit whack whack whack of PSO or U. There's no "Chain chain" like the portables either to worry about. Just keep hitting. You have PP (as a hunter) it regens by itself, and by doing normal hits, there's no "fluid" like pso had to re-up it...so its basically there to encourage combo variety.

Blocking/quick stepping:
I was bad at this and am unfit to review it. On a keyboard it stunk, I failed at pulling it off right. You can raise your wep/flat of the blade to block hits as a HU. You can also step-dash out of the way, force can turn invisible/teleport out of the way which is hella cool.

Why is there no FO / techs review?
I didn't play with any of them, and didn't choose it because its the "read-ey-est" class where you'd have to actually know some Japanese to pull it off well or enjoy it. I didnt know enough, neither did anyone I knew so basically fo is in the cold here. If the alpha had had more time on it,  I would have tested it out and muddled at it. All reports say 'its good' though.

Weps:
Weps are what you quest for after you've been everywhere. It's an alpha, so they're lacking. HU could use either gunslash, wire lance or giant sword. RA got gunslash or rifle...thing. Felt limited, but its the alpha so oh well. We should get at least everything PSO had which was (saber, sword, twin sword, handgun, rifle, shot, mechgun, etc) when it finally comes out. Wire lance is new, and it's fun. Things will have Photon Arts (PAs) but they're not really implemented yet. So this is one of the things you can tell will be enjoyable but isn't there yet.

ReSpawning:
Enemies can & do respawn. So do boxes and traps if an area is let alone long enough. You can shoulder them aside though, if you so choose/want to go to a diff area. There's no locked gates/doors etc that the other games had. My feeling thus far is neutral toward this. It will take a lot of gameplay to determine if this is good or a nuisance. Likely dependent on how rares will work.


Enemies/Bosses:
Good variety. Did not spot any reskin rubbish.
Wolves use the environment by jumping off trees/walls, monkeys throw rocks, nothing that takes a billion years to die and is boring to fight like some of the PSU things. Dragon was varied, with lots of attacks, goes swimming in lava to 'revitalize itself' somehow. You can knock it down & wail on it if you break the magic crystal off its tail. It's fun to fight when you're not in a panic to not die. Creative enemy entrances (dig up from ground, monkey in tree, jump out of bush, swirl o' darkness, emerge from lava) don't feel fake. Nobody felt 'cheap' either, like the Goshin Worms of PSU or the stupid "flying thing that goes out of range & makes you wait" or the turret in ruins PSO.

Events:
New to the game are events that pop up at random during missions. Protect a fallen ship, weaken enemies so they can be teleported up to the ship for study, exterminate a batch of enemies, fight a miniboss (the aforementioned ball of sticks or Rockbear (this game's Hildebear/Bil De Vear) These seem like a good thing, when they're not timed wrong. Random can mean "you're screwed" too. (if a protect the ship appears at the same time as an exterminate the billion guys...the ship one is GONNA fail because the ship becomes the enemies main target, they will ignore you and kill it off)

These seem fun, and will not be tiresome if they don't end up being super frequent in the final. The importance will be the availability of quests with various objectives like PSO had.

Over All:
Potential to be the funnest PS___ yet. If they up the wep variety, up the PA variety, & give out masses of quests that have various objectives as well as leaving the free-roam as good as it is, it'll be fantastic. Hopefully more monsters too. You know more environments are on the way.

Phantasy Star Online 2: Alpha Article Customization

Disclaimer:

•  “This review is from “Phantasy Star Online 2 Alpha Test 2″, since this game is currently under development, the contents may not reflect the final version. Additionally, such contents may be improved upon in the future. Phantasy Star Online 2 Official Site http://pso2.jp” 

I managed to get onto the the Alpha2 trial for PSO2, and can provide a review / retrospective / new info for anyone outside of Japan who is interested! Just read on...

Do you remember Phantasy Star Online?
It was the first console ORPG (couldn't call it MMO because it was instanced) and it was on the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast. Whatever the opinion on it, it'll always retain its title of 'first' and  'pioneer'. Created by SonicTeam before their heavily-bashed period of "making Sonic worse", it really was ahead of its time.
In fact, it was considered so much fun by so many people that parts of it are still being played today, right now, online---10 years later. Yes, with all the 10 years ago graphics and the same combat that lots of people put over 1000 hours into. They're still at it. That's really a testament to something special, in gaming.

A popular point in it was character customization.
You could pick your race (human, newman, android) and then male or female, and then customize the face & body as well as clothing color to get a character you could really relate to. It made it so much more fun. People role-played, wrote whole stories & made tons of fan art--because of this great freedom. Every PS game since PSO has at least attempted to expand on the famous character creation system. (the only one that didn't was ps0 for the DS--due to hardware restrictions) Anyone who played PSO will fondly remember their characters.

However, this isn't a retrospective post, it's a future-look at what's to come!
This is a "Part 1" post, with just charcreate since it's so huge a thing, the blog would become too big. There are video & photo links at the end. Other topics will be game play & "Degree of PSO-ness"

Bias Alert:
For any critic/reviewer/reporter it's important to know the biases of the person going in. It lets the reader judge the opinions better, and understand where the writer is coming from. Oddly, most critics don't announce their biases up front, forcing you to guess at what they'll prefer over many reviews. (thus creating critics who you like to ignore a lot, because they'll never agree with what you like & etc)

LOVED PSO * A console gamer at heart * Doesn't know Japanese * Prefers action games * Customization is a lot of the fun for combat/appearance/skills * Over complication/convoluted things is considered an annoyance * Making oddball strange characters that aren't mainstream or normal

The above are my biases going in. So you'll know how the review is 'flavored' by the preferences, and if you agree or not.

Trial:
Contains the nice opening video you can see on youtube.
Once you're in you can use the charcreate to make up to 4 guys. Most people just fiddle with it, make 1 guy, and then jump into the game. The incentive is that "1 level 10 or above char gets you into the next trial, guaranteed" so there's pressure to level RIGHT away.

Charcreate:

As amazing as everyone says it is, so far. Is it complete? NO.
They have 100% confirmed MORE will be added to this, so it's only going to get better. But it's important to know NOW what's in, and what's not.

At this point, most anything here is only a minor nitpick except the cast body issue.
You'll love the charcreate anyway. Anyone can spend hours in there having fun with it.

The first Alpha, CASTS felt like they were really ignored. 

They were missing the 'look' to a whole set of them (Force/cast), and couldn't modify the body at all. They still feel short on 'costumes' as their entire body can only be restructured by mixing and matching 9 different things. (3 arms, 3 torsos, 3 legs) They only have 3 heads to choose from. (plus a plastic face with the full human range of customization) Since they were underdogs in A1, they still sort of are.

What can you customize?

Ears for newmen, any shape, but length won't modify much. (so no 'beast ears')

Boobs for girls

Body width / fatness / height / definition

To a degree arm & leg length 

Eye color / shape / size

Skin color NOTE: Androids get the full rainbow, all saturation levels. It is AMAZING.

Eyelash / eyebrow / facial hair

Makeup & tattoos for everyone, stickers for casts

Hair doodads / glasses / kitty ears / hats (Hat BLENDING)
Facial structure / shape / nose / lips /eye spacing

What can you make with it all?

Kid size to adults, you can basically reduce the boob slider to 'nothing' if you want to, or have giant boobs.
Fat people who are convincingly fat. 

Convincing kids where its not miniature adults or misplaced heads
You can get pretty big dudes, but not like you got in PSO. There can't be like...Marvel vs. Capcom Capt. America / Venom styled guys which is somewhat unfortunate.
No albinos (PSO you could)

No sumos

The "dark skin end of the slider" can have a tad of a 'gray hue' to it somehow

No grannies (yet)

It's great because you're not limited to someone else's bogus "beauty ideal" which in PSU was average slim guys and average slim girls. Yes you can make Johnny Bravo styled mutants, but really, so what. Variety is the spice of gaming. The individual parts sliders are an amazing addition. Facial fine-tuning is present and works well. 

One of my judgement tools is trying to re-create characters from previous PS games. It's an easy way to expose 'downgrades' or if something's missing. Each game should bring the custom options of the one before it, then build on top of that. The first thing to pop up in that area is hair (always...)

Pros: 

Hair physics improved. A lot.

Not so much clipping of hair through the character

More convincing / non blocky hairs

More LONG styles for male & female (long desired by fans)

Saturation slider available for hair / full color range

Hair matches eyebrows if you want it to

Cons:
So far, the hairs (remember, more hairs will be added!) are a tad lacking.
No Asian cuts or styles (blocked off, not whispy- hopefully they're not too obsessed over the new whisp ability that they forget to make other hair textures)
the cornrows are predictably bad (they're immense and look odd)
no afro (it was always really popular with male & female)
no shaved-head/close shave for the guys (you can't have "bald" for men or women because of Hitlerism)
No flat tops

No mowhawks

All the styles are solid here, as opposed to, in that PSU had it where you could mix/match bangs & rest of hair...its kind of a nill point, as that PSU feature didn't do a whole lot for many of the styles

PSU missed the flat top too, but provided loads of Asian cuts & styles, like buns, capped ponytails, looped hair & block cuts/squared ends. As you can tell, I had a guy with a flat top, and another with an Asian style.

The alpha also has less eyebrows & far less cast heads than PSU did, but they'll fix it. It also lacks the solid-color Cast eye that PSU had (it was a delightfully creepy solid color glass bead) Hopefully they fix that too. Giving them the Duman black scalera from PS Infinity would be a nice touch....

Accessories:
No eye covering ranger 'mask'

No helmets

No ninja masks

No bandit or pirate style items / scarves / cloth bands / veils etc

No earrings (yet)

There is an eyepatch, but only 1 & its mechanical in nature

Hopefully, all this stuff gets fixed. PSU had gorgeous female android faces, and loads of them. Everything from creepy dolls to ninja faces, to wonderful styles like the RAcaseals of PSO. Just import the whole set of PSU's female android heads / hairs & a wonderful base will be formed.

Everything here is an easy fix.

Even if the game doesn't launch with something you want (EX. PSO costumes/exact replicas) doesn't mean it won't show up later. This is a PC game, THAT is the advantage of the PC. You can patch in goodies whenever to please the fans. If everyone wails because the afro didn't make it in, well...expect it later. That's not something a console would do until an expansion pack or something.

* you can test the facial expressions before you finalize!

* cut-in chat (comic book style panel with facial close up) still present in-game

* you can choose 'no voice' for your char if you want to keep silent or hate all voices

Videos & photos

See a HUnewm http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192999

Screen shots of various people http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192948
To see charcreate videos, basically go to youtube & search 'pso2' 

There are too many to link here, but they'll give great ideas.

The Web goes Dark

Most of this is Copypasta, but it isrelevent to what's going on. Obtained from Raspberrypi.org

Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing, and others are going to 'go dark' Wenesday Janurary 18th to protest against the proposed introduction of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the USA. SOPA will not just affect those in the USA; its knock-on effects would touch every website in the world. Under the proposed legislation, it would be illegal for us (or you) to link to any website – any website at all, including community-driven behemoths like YouTube, Flickr, Blogspot or WordPress – without checking first that nothing on that site infringes copyright. And we’d have to review those sites continually after a link was made.

Under these Acts, every person making a link to such a site would have to check the millions of other pages on that site to ensure that nobody, anywhere, is breaching copyright. Even search results would be covered under the proposed law. And if a website like ours were to be prosecuted for linking to another site where copyrighted material was hosted, our domain could be confiscated and our IP address added to a USA-wide blacklist, even though we are UK-based and have servers hosted outside the USA – all this without legal process.

So far, so ridiculous. It’s censorship and shifting of responsibility on a grand scale. But despite a loud chorus of opposition to the Acts from legal experts, internet experts, journalists, website owners like us, human rights activists (want to publicise the next Arab Spring using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or another site that potentially infringes? You’ve just provided the powers that be with an instant excuse and mechanism to shut you down) and ordinary people who just surf the web, the Acts stand a genuine chance of being pushed through. Lobbyists like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the movie and music studios have much louder voices and deeper pockets than we individuals on the internet do; but by joining together on January 18 we hope that we can make enough of an impact to be noticed by those voting on the legislation, and by the news outlets that they read and watch.s going dark for a day to protest against the proposed introduction of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the USA. SOPA will not just affect those in the USA; its knock-on effects would touch every website in the world. Under the proposed legislation, it would be illegal for us (or you) to link to any website – any website at all, including community-driven behemoths like YouTube, Flickr, Blogspot or WordPress – without checking first that nothing on that site infringes copyright. And we’d have to review those sites continually after a link was made.

Under these Acts, every person making a link to such a site would have to check the millions of other pages on that site to ensure that nobody, anywhere, is breaching copyright. Even search results would be covered under the proposed law. And if a website like ours were to be prosecuted for linking to another site where copyrighted material was hosted, our domain could be confiscated and our IP address added to a USA-wide blacklist, even though we are UK-based and have servers hosted outside the USA – all this without legal process.

So far, so ridiculous. It’s censorship and shifting of responsibility on a grand scale. But despite a loud chorus of opposition to the Acts from legal experts, internet experts, journalists, website owners like us, human rights activists (want to publicise the next Arab Spring using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or another site that potentially infringes? You’ve just provided the powers that be with an instant excuse and mechanism to shut you down) and ordinary people who just surf the web, the Acts stand a genuine chance of being pushed through. Lobbyists like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the movie and music studios have much louder voices and deeper pockets than we individuals on the internet do; but by joining together on January 18 we hope that we can make enough of an impact to be noticed by those voting on the legislation, and by the news outlets that they read and watch.