Considering that I have gotten into the PSO2 Alpha 2, I thought it would be right to make a thread to share my images, media and anything else I find along with my thoughts and such. The email for people getting in says that the Alpha actually starts this month, will be announced later this week. Did anyone else in Sega Retro get in?
No, but consider me hooked on this topic in great interest. As much fun as it is playing PSO, the whole only (technically) having three episodes to play through thing is letting the game's age begin showing regrettably. I just hope it doesn't leave a bad taste like PSU did. PSU is largely why I didn't look into the Portable series and 0, despite all the praise they were getting.
I didn't even know there was going to be a private alpha. At least there is no NDA, so I'm excited to see how it looks and to hear some feedback. The only thing I'm kind of hoping for though is a console port because I know that's the only way I could get some of my friends to join in.
Alpha 2 Test 1 starts on the 27th January 16:00 (Tokyo Time) - 23:00 I'll be recording parts and printscreening as much as possible, will post YouTube links or video links afterwards.
Share as much as you can, dude. I've loved PSO ep1 and 2, and the PSU stuff. I 'like' PSZero, but that's by-the-by. Just tell me fucking EVERYTHING. Thanks.
Will be uploading videos, but not too sure on how many they'll be. I'll probably cut down gameplay so that it isn't boring. I will have an entire video of my character creation though.
Game facts and opinions: Character creator is AMAZING. Combat is extremely fresh, focuses around building combos through technics. For once a PHANTASY STAR game that has a KEYBOARD+MOUSE setup (which is pretty equal to controller) Lobbies are like a combination of Pioneer 2 and the lobbies from PSO. All of the crappy gigantic, empty PSU cities have been removed and replaced with something that's far more easier to navigate. Skills are now upgraded by discs, pretty good change to go back to. The loot you see is all to yourself, stopping loot races and arguments. You get experience if you're close to the enemies, not if you've hit them or not. A good change I think and the range is just the right size. These screenshots are 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 was watching someone stream the game on Twitch yesterday. I cracked up when I saw the whole chat erupt into a frenzy at the sight of a red item box drop. "CHECK WHAT RARE IT IS!" "inb4photondrop" "DB Saber! FFFFFUUUUU" ...he never checked what it was.
Rares are far more common in this game, found one on the first time we went crazy. If it's the stream I'm thinking of, I was going to be a part of it but my controller messed up for long enough for my brother to decode the font used on buildings. After raging over it I just decided to go with keyboard+mouse instead, maybe it's because it's a game built for PC because it works really well.
Awww, but I fucking love Dagora City on Maotoob. Although that might just be hanging around taking in the music, I don't know. Good to hear they're easily navigable though; althought the only hub I ever disliked was PSO:ep2 - and I warmed to even that one eventually. Sounds and looks mighty good. Don't suppose I could request more pics of what's possible with the character creator?
I'll take some more pictures during the test later tonight (2am my time) because I honestly didn't think of taking any pictures in character creator.
Is the combat still click and roll of the dice, or do you actually have to connect your attacks on the enemy?
To do successful combos as a hunter, you actually have to connect your attacks on the enemies, especially if you want to do well.
Oh cool, so there has to actually be physical contact. What about positioning? Does it matter at all in this game? Can I avoid attacks simply by dodging or is it based on luck?
Hunters now have the ability to dodge and rangers and force have the ability to roll away from attacks. You can also block attacks and pull it off just in the right timing to make a counter attack. As you probably already know, Rangers now play more like Lost Planet and feel great in gameplay. Over the shoulder view can be activated for them and is pretty much a must. I'm uploading a character creation video now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfcz1hEIevg&feature=youtu.be Here's 10 minutes of my first clueless character creation. ??PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2??2??????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2?????? http://pso2.jp/
Kinda unrelated to this Alpha or the test itself, but I've been trying to get the music out of the first Alpha client. Like Generations/Unleashed/Colors, they keep music in .cpks and reference them in .csbs. They use ADX files instead of AAX files though, but with type 9 encryption. It's been recently broken, so you can extract the adx files from the cpk files and play them with vgmstream now. But the music is all fragmented, and the parts don't seamlessly play when put together (they don't have a cut off at the end). I think the only way to play them is to use CRI's audio player and open the CSB files instead. The only problem with this is that the CSB seem to be a different format. I can't get them to load them in CRI's tools, although the tools themselves are several years old now. The CPK files work fine though. I wish I had the Alpha 2 client though...
Check this topic, we can now rip PSO2 music: http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&p=65844#p65844