|OT| PSO2 - New Genesis | Phantasy Star Online 2-2

ezodagrom · Jul 25, 2020

Blizniak said:
So I guess they're dropping Vita at this point, or will PSO2 still live on there? I might actually check New Genesis out at some point because it looks nice. I've never played any Phantasy Star though.

Support for the Vita version is ending for good in September. Also on NA it'll only be available on XBox One and PC, though it may be released on other plattforms in the future.

Li Kao said:
Maybe I'm stupid but I still don't really understand what this is. Japanese dev have just the right way of complexifying the simplest update.

It's not a simple update.
Think of it like this:
PSO2 is Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate.
PSO2 NGS is Monster Hunter World.

NGS is essentially a completely new game, a new story, new graphics engine, fully revamped gameplay, but we'll be able to share our characters between the original PSO2 and NGS, keeping our character's appearance, our cosmetics, and even our equipment (even though that equipment will be completely rebalanced to take into consideration the state of the new game).
Character's levels, skills, the currencies that are not related to microtransactions (meseta and FUN points) and some types of items won't be converted into the new game though, those will start from scratch on NGS.

The best thing, is that the original PSO2 will remain alive (at least for a while) together with NGS and it'll even be updated with the new graphics engine (the gameplay systems will stay the same, and I bet stuff like textures and models won't be updated either, I guess only stuff like lighting, effects and such will be updated). Some of the progress is shared between both games as I said above.

Also, since NGS is a completely new game, most likely it won't have alot of content at launch, and updates will be much slower than the current NA updates, so players will still have the original PSO2 as a distraction until NGS has a more sizable amount of content to play. (Keeping the original PSO2 alive is also nice for JP players who have 8 years of progress that they're not ready to completely leave behind).

TLDR:
Players: Is PSO2 NGS a new game or an update?
SEGA: Yes

Li Kao · Jul 26, 2020

So who plays this game, and where ? US or JP ?

Li Kao · Jul 26, 2020

Where are they episode wise compared to Japan ? Do we think there is a chance they catch up ?

Li Kao · Jul 26, 2020

Hmm, so if they are speeding through the episodes I think I will play in the US.

ezodagrom · Jul 26, 2020

texhnolyze said:
We're currently in the 3rd episode still, while Japan is already in the 6th episode. The 4th episode update has been announced for August, (including more PC platforms) and we may catch up at the end of the year if things are going smoothly.

ezodagrom has compiled everything in the previous page.

A couple of notes, that list hasn't been updated with what the NA version got in the last few weeks, at the current point the NA version has everything from the Episode 2~3 part of the list except for Mining Base 2 (which has been skipped). There may be one more urgent quest before Episode 4, one that I forgot to include in that list, but there's a chance it could be skipped as well (an urgent quest with boss battles against Dark Falz Elder and Luther, the 2 of them in a row).

About reaching parity, it's definitely not gonna catch up at the end of the year. Since they're gonna reach Episode 6 part 1 in Q4, at the end of the year expect the NA version to reach the state that the JP version was at the beginning of this year.
One thing's for sure though, the NGS launch is announced to be simultaneous between JP and NA, so I'm sure that NA will reach parity with JP in Q1 next year.

Li Kao · Jul 26, 2020

Oh, they are skipping content

ezodagrom · Jul 26, 2020

Li Kao said:
Oh, they are skipping content

It's not much that they skipped. So far they skipped one of the 5 mining base urgent quests (one that no one liked on JP), and also a collaboration boss (from border break). It's also possible they could skip more collaboration bosses in the future, like Odin from FFXIV, Elzelion from Monster Hunter Frontier Z and Ramiel from Evangelion.

Li Kao · Jul 28, 2020

How are people from Europe able to install it ? I go to the english MS page and when I click install it opens my local store where it says the game isn't available.

ezodagrom · Jul 28, 2020

Li Kao said:
How are people from Europe able to install it ? I go to the english MS page and when I click install it opens my local store where it says the game isn't available.

I don't play in the NA version, so I dunno, but personally I would wait for news about a EU and Steam version. The current MS store version still has major issues, like the game uninstalling itself...

Li Kao · Jul 28, 2020

ezodagrom said:
I don't play in the NA version, so I dunno, but personally I would wait for news about a EU and Steam version. The current MS store version still has major issues, like the game uninstalling itself...

Well I guess there is always the fan installer then

ezodagrom · Jul 28, 2020

Li Kao said:
Well I guess there is always the fan installer then

Indeed. Though, worth noting that recently PSO2 got PEGI and Australian ratings, so there's a chance that an EU version could show up soon-ish?

Ascheroth · Jul 28, 2020

Li Kao said:
How are people from Europe able to install it ? I go to the english MS page and when I click install it opens my local store where it says the game isn't available.

Iirc you just need to set your Region to the US in windows settings to get the page to show. After it starts the download you can switch back.
But yeah, I'm also just waiting for an EU version at this point. I don't even need a Steam release, a standalone launcher would be fine. Anything that isn't the windows store.

ezodagrom · Jul 28, 2020

Well, there we go, Steam release incoming (no release date yet), they've been working on it since March 2019. Plus the store page is not region locked in Europe, so EU release incoming? (Thanks lashman for the news).

ZKenir · Jul 28, 2020

Ascheroth said:
Iirc you just need to set your Region to the US in windows settings to get the page to show. After it starts the download you can switch back.
But yeah, I'm also just waiting for an EU version at this point. I don't even need a Steam release, a standalone launcher would be fine. Anything that isn't the windows store.

You don't even need to do that, I kept my region and I just clicked on a browser link and clicked the button to get the game, the store button launched the install through windows store , similar to how you can launch steam installs from browser.
A shame the game nuked itself from my drive because it wasn't the C drive and winstore lost the "link" to the installed game or whatever.

ezodagrom · Jul 28, 2020

Rewards from playing in the Steam version, a bunch of Valve related cosmetics.

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site | SEGA

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site

pso2.com

ezodagrom · Jul 29, 2020

Episode 4 update announcement, they specifically say that with the update (and Steam release) they're adding support for 33 countries, and the total number of countries where the steam store page is not region locked is 35, so the current listed countries are all they intend to support for now... :/

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site | SEGA

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site

pso2.com

Li Kao · Jul 30, 2020

I mean, at this point, Sega handling of PSO2 oversea is like an industrial fire.

ezodagrom · Jul 30, 2020

Li Kao said:
I mean, at this point, Sega handling of PSO2 oversea is like an industrial fire.

SEGA's handling of every online Phantasy Star game overseas has been awful.

Li Kao · Jul 31, 2020

PSO2 on Steam in a few days is cool, but correct me if I'm wrong, Sega didn't announce New Genesis for Steam at release ?

ezodagrom · Jul 31, 2020

Li Kao said:
PSO2 on Steam in a few days is cool, but correct me if I'm wrong, Sega didn't announce New Genesis for Steam at release ?

From the NGS announcement:

PSO2: NGS Release Information

⬧ Available Platforms

Planned for release on Windows 10, Xbox One.
Note: If PSO2 is added to new platforms, we plan to make PSO2: NGS available on those platforms as well.

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site | SEGA

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site

pso2.com

I think that note basically implies that NGS will be available on launch on Steam.

Li Kao · Jul 31, 2020

Yeah, I very well may be wrong, but to me it reads 'don't worry about a steam version, it's coming after the MS exclusivity', like the current one.
Hope I'm wrong.

ezodagrom · Aug 4, 2020

For those that have started on the MS Store or XBox One versions and want to continue playing on the Steam version, the Steam account has to be manually linked with the MS Store/XBox One account. If a Player ID is created on the Steam account before linking, it'll be impossible to link the accounts afterwards.

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site | SEGA

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site

pso2.com

Ascheroth · Aug 4, 2020

With it releasing on Steam tomorrow, me itching to play and progress being transferable, I figured I'd try installing it again via the Tweaker, if only to mess around with character creation today instead of tomorrow.
The good news: I could actually install it without any issues via the Tweaker.
The bad news: I still can't fucking play it. Can start the game just fine, but once it signs into my Microsoft account, it just unhelpfully tells me that "I need to change my settings to play" because "You can't play with content created by other players", whatever that's supposed to mean (No it doesn't tell you, great design). I do have pretty much all my Microsoft account stuff set as private or friend online and tried setting it to something more permissive according to various suggestions, but no luck

Just stuck on the title screen.
For all their focus on services available everywhere and game pass and stuff, Microsoft is so unbelievably shit at the very basics ("the installing and playing"-basics), it boggles my mind. Have actually been playing with the idea of picking up game pass for a month or 2 to demo/play through some stuff, but then experiences like this just destroy any desire of interacting with their ecosystem if money is involved.
/rant.

The one positive is that the download (or most of it) should work with the Steam version if I've heard correctly, so at the very least I've preloaded the thing, lol.

Li Kao · Aug 4, 2020

Wait they mention a new story-line in episode 4, does that mean each episode has its own story-line ?

Kvik · Aug 4, 2020

So uh, do we know what time it'll be unlocking on Steam?

ezodagrom · Aug 5, 2020

Li Kao said:
Wait they mention a new story-line in episode 4, does that mean each episode has its own story-line ?

Yep, or, well, each Episode is a continuation of the overall story, Episode 6 of the story is still on-going on the JP version, with the final chapter releasing tomorrow there.

Kvik said:
So uh, do we know what time it'll be unlocking on Steam?

Probably during or after maintenance tomorrow.

Ascheroth · Aug 5, 2020

I did actually manage to get into the game yesterday, turned out I had to "just" make a new account. I have no idea what particular setting in the convoluted jungle of Windows/Store/Xbox-settings caused issues for my regular account, but whatever. It's just for a day anyway, so might as well make a throwaway account.
I messed around with character creation and did a bit of the tutorial mission, so mission accomplished as far as I'm considered, lol.

Looks like the maintenance is currently ongoing and ends in ~7hours? Guess that's when the Steam version will go live then (darned timezones, having a long maintenance during the middle of the day here

)
I still tried logging in out of curiosity, and ships 1-4 are currently offline while 5 and 6 are "under maintenance" - is this normal or does this mean they'll open up the other servers (for EU maybe)?.

Kvik · Aug 5, 2020

Seems like it's going to be 3 am in my TZ when it launches, so hopefully I can still get on a good ship where everyone else is by the time I manage to log in.

Li Kao · Aug 5, 2020

MetaEU should talk about which ship to settle in before playing proper.

Ascheroth · Aug 5, 2020

Li Kao said:
MetaEU should talk about which ship to settle in before playing proper.

If the 3 new ships open up and one of them is an "official" EU ship, I'd go there.
If the 3 new ships open up and none of them is an official EU ship, I'd go to one of them.
If they don't open up, I'd probably go to ship 3?
But ultimately I'll probably follow the majority, lol.

ezodagrom · Aug 5, 2020

At the very least there's no separate urgent quest schedules for NA and EU, so that doesn't bode well for regional ships, I guess ship 4 is still going to be a server located in the USA (while the game is pretty playable with high ping, I think the PVP mode is not gonna be good for EU players. Even if it's just an optional mode, it's a source of star gems, a currency that is very lacking on the EN version of PSO2 when compared to JP).

If Ship 4 turns out to be an EU server (located in Europe), I'll play there, but if it's just another USA server, I'll either just settle on Ship 1 (since I know a few players there), or I won't bother with the EN version and stay on JP.

The schedule is more spread out than previous weeks to accomodate for other regions, from what I'm seeing.

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site | SEGA

Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis Official Site

pso2.com

Blizniak · Aug 5, 2020

Looks like there are 6 ships

Ascheroth · Aug 5, 2020

Blizniak said:
Looks like there are 6 ships

There were always 6 ships, but 4-6 permanently under maintenance. Looks like they've opened ship 4 though.

Ascheroth · Aug 5, 2020

Sooo, where's MetaEU (are there even that many

) going to play?

Meanwhile, help me decide on a color scheme

Ascheroth · Aug 5, 2020

Forgot my color scheme for the character I made yesterday wasn't red/yellow, but red/black

Gonna go with that I guess. I've pretty much done nothing so far, so I can change ship if necessary, but for now I'm messing around on ship 3.

Kvik · Aug 5, 2020

I'm downloading the game as we speak. So what ship are we gathering at? #3?

Ascheroth · Aug 5, 2020

Kvik said:
I'm downloading the game as we speak. So what ship are we gathering at? #3?

Don't know. I know texhnolyze is playing on #2 and TioChuck on #3. The Era guild seems to be on #2.
I've made a character on #3, but like I said haven't really done much.

(Also, don't mind me too much, because I'm not sure how much I'll even play - I'm gravitating more towards FF 14 instead

)

TioChuck · Aug 5, 2020

I play casually, just to level up my pokemons and do some missions here and there.

Durante · Aug 5, 2020

I just gave this a try. The launcher throwing a Javascript error (one that looks straight out of Windows 98 no less) is very confidence-inspiring.

That said, I like the core gameplay so far.

And OMG I didn't think I'd get a chance to use 4xSGSSAA again in 2020. Still king.

fantomena · Aug 6, 2020

Any other games PSO2 can be compared to? Om intrigued by the game, but don't know what it is like.

|OT| PSO2 - New Genesis | Phantasy Star Online 2-2

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