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PSO2 & New Genesis Discussion

Discussion in 'General Sega Discussion' started by Yuzu, Jan 24, 2012.

  1. ItsBrieDude

    ItsBrieDude

    my brain is the spinning seal gif Member
    Unfortunately not possible, the game relies on OS-level Xbox Login services which only exist in Windows 10. Microsoft seems to have fully funded this localization.

    With that said, there are still legal ways to get the free Windows 10 Upgrade. Might be worth looking into that, especially since Windows 8.1's updates end in 2023.
     
  2. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    Someone mentioned on Discord that the NA PC launch was a shit-show with a bunch of people having problems. I initially did not have any problems and played the game for a few hours yesterday morning. Some of the problems sounded really dumb to me.

    When I went back in the evening to play again, the game wouldn't launch and apparently this is a common problem. When you download the game from the store, you get the 11GB base game and then the official launcher / patcher downloads the rest of the game. After rebooting, the game executables got wiped out of the hidden/locked Windows store directory and most of the game data was gone. Trying to launch the game just resulted in... nothing happening. There's also a hidden "MutableBackup" copy of the game elsewhere, which is a full copy of the game with all files. Launching the hidden copy actually runs, but you can't use it because it doesn't get hooked by the XBox Live service so it doesn't know about your account.

    Everyone who has run into this situation so far said the only solution was uninstalling the game and reinstalling. Since I have a fast enough connection I can re-install the 70GB game in about an hour, but I can see this not being feasible for most people. I reinstalled the game this morning and played for another few hours. Got to level 20 already, which is significantly faster than I did in the Japanese version. Some of this is probably due to being familiar with the game, but it's also the EXP boosts that are going on.

    I haven't played the Japanese version since Episode 4 came out, which is apparently when they made this change, but I was kind of disappointed that they significantly condensed the story for the first 3 episodes and it seems like you can't play them the way they originally were released. This is probably a good thing, but odd since they went through the effort of dubbing everything. Basically, the story mode events for Episodes 1, 2 & 3 have been condensed significantly. Instead of playing normal length quests with stuff going on, they basically cut out the quest part. You get to see the cutscenes for each story quest, and still do the story related battles, but the actual playing the quest to get to those areas is cut out. So most of Story mode is just watching cutscenes until you get caught up on the story. (Presumably, I'm still working on Episode 1) I'm guessing they did this to get people into the Episode 4 content more quickly since the story is up through Episode 6 now.


    Back on the topic of the game files getting wiped out on reboot - I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but I don't think that's what actually happens. I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling because it was the fastest option, but I noticed when I was in a broken state that data files in the subfolders were slowly re-appearing. The problem is they were appearing at a rate of roughly 2 files per second (and I'm on an SSD) and there are over 70,000 files in the folder it was populating. It was faster for me to uninstall and reinstall than to wait over 10 hours to see if eventually all files returned to the install folder. But if it gets wiped out again the next time I boot windows, I might leave it sit overnight to see if they all do come back. If it's a one-time situation, then I'll put up with it.


    Edit: It looks like PSO2 Tweaker has been updated to support the North America release of the game. https://na.arks-layer.com/
    For those not familiar, this was originally an alternative launcher for the Japanese version of the game that could patch the game faster than the official launcher, as well as install the fan translation. According to the developers with the NA release it can be used for patching and fixes some problems people were having with installing the game.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2020
  3. Candescence

    Candescence

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    The PC NA version is an absolute shitshow right now, and the PSO2 Tweaker is actually making it significantly less terrible for a lot of people.

    Apparently this stupid problem is, and I shit you not, a result of the Windows Store basically being incapable of comprehending that there can be more than one hard drive connected to a computer when the computer is next booted up. If PSO2 isn't installed on the drive where Windows is installed (or the C drive period), well, sucks to be you, because, and I quote, "apparently we install on the C:\ drive because we are ride or die for alphabetical order."

    This is partly why people were up in arms over the PC version being Windows Store exclusive. The Windows Store is absolute garbage, and has been known to cause endless problems even for highly popular games.
     
  4. ItsBrieDude

    ItsBrieDude

    my brain is the spinning seal gif Member
    Weird. I'm not having this problem at all, and my game is installed to drive D:\. I even upgraded to Win10 2003 and that didn't break it.
     
  5. ItsBrieDude

    ItsBrieDude

    my brain is the spinning seal gif Member
  6. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    Although that might be an issue for many people, it wouldn't have been the cause of my situation because I just left my Windows store settings on their defaults so it was installed to my internal SSD, which is C. I normally do install things to another drive and my Steam and EGS installs aren't on C, but I decided to keep PSO with default store settings because I had enough room for it since Windows isn't my primary OS.

    When I rebooted today for Day 3 the game files were still intact. So I ran PSO2 Tweaker and let it "fix permissions" for me. As it turns out, PSO2 Tweaker cannot launch the NA game for you right now, it just does patches and configuration. When you click Play it launches the Windows store page so you can run the game from there. But anyway, my 3rd day of playing turned out fine. I ended up buying the Sonic founders edition of the game because I was satisfied things were working. I didn't buy it for the Sonic costumes, I'm not wearing those, but I saw it included 50 additional (permanent) inventory slots on the character you apply them to and that seemed worth it to me just to avoid having to sell or discard items after every single quest because I like to pick up every single item drop whether it's good or not.
     
  7. Mecha Sally

    Mecha Sally

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    The whole "Windows forces you to install it to C drive!!" thing perplexes me. Am I the only one who was given a choice where to download the installer? No file corruption so far either. I did click "Check File" after it was done downloading for the first time so maybe that helped.

    Going back to the game itself, Braver class is awesome. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do for skill and mag build. Also, I think I'm leveling way too fast because I'm already level 20. Maybe it's a booster buff I have on that I don't realize I have on.
     
  8. Sappharad

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    There's a server wide EXP boost for launch, and they also give you a bunch of exp boost items just for joining but you'd have to use those. I also hit level 20 in less than 4 hours, but after level 20 it starts to feel closer to expected. Some of that is probably intentional though, and I indirectly touched on that in my post on Thursday. Because NA missed Episodes 1 through 3 while those were the main game, they basically streamlined the early content to get you caught up to Episode 4 where the Main Story plays normally again. This is how it is in the Japanese version now, so US players can never experience the initial story the way it was first presented. Some of that is probably a good thing though, the original story progressed using something called a "Matter board" which was sort of like a bingo card for each area. Specific events were crossed off the board as you encountered them during normal quests, and once you filled up the card for that area (forest, caves, desert, tundra, etc.) you opened up the next matter board and more story content. Some of the board spaces were literally just small events with a single NPC cutscene appearing inside of a normal quest and you had to do a lot of generic quests just to get the story.

    I recall reading that the don't use the matter board system for newer episodes, so I'll be interested in seeing how the game progresses once I catch up. I've been working my way through the main story, because I only played up to the last matter board in Episode 1 in the Japanese version before I stopped playing. I'm probably 2/3rds of the way through episode 1 now if I recall the story correctly.
     
  9. Mecha Sally

    Mecha Sally

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    Ah ok, I figured it was a buff for launch. I do remember the Matter Board from when I played JP briefly, though I didn't get far enough to see the full story for Episode 1 either. I didn't even get through the Forest one, and the fan-made translation patch didn't have all the story stuff done right away so I had no idea what was going on. I was very curious about that girl you find who can only say your character's name, so hopefully I finally learn what her deal is.

    Haven't touched the story much mainly because when I tried to tackle the next story quest (where you fight that masked dude) I got my ass whooped lol. I might be okay now though since I gained levels since then and I think I have my skill tree/mag builds figured out and can finally build up more strength.

    Speaking of which, if anyone needs some help with figuring out skill tree point allotment for your class/subclass, use this tool: http://arks-layer.com/skillsim/index.php
     
  10. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    The part I liked from PSO2 ended with episode 3, both for plot and progress. I completed all matter boards actively, and didn't have a problem in repeating, since PSO2 is the kind of that always has you grinding, whether you like it or not, so at least I had purpose for doing so. From what you're saying, they've basically killed what I liked from the game, then: everything from the anime onwards is padding plot-wise, well, half-padding for episode 4 since part of it makes some sense and the part that doesn't is at least funny (except for the very end). I stopped playing when episode 5 came out, the new gameplay concepts and the generic sword and sorcery elements felt the opposite of what I wanted to play in that game, so I left and never looked back.
     
  11. Diablohead

    Diablohead

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    since us pc launch i've had to reinstall it three times, and one of those times the game corrupted somehow just from turning my pc off and on again normally overnight.

    I've not needed pso tweaker yet but the next time I get issues i'm using it.

    BTW I am on ship 2 just search for my name :D
     
  12. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    PSO2 Tweaker can now install the game on its own, outside of the Windows Store. It got that feature sometime in the past week. I switched to using it to patch and launch the game (still installed via Windows store) and haven't had any problems since Tweaker "repaired" it for me. Played it every day for the past week and hit level 40 yesterday.

    Note that even though PSO2 Tweaker can install it and patch without Windows store, Windows 10 is still required because of the Xbox Live integration needed to log in and you need the Windows store to buy stuff like AC or the bundles. But the game won't live inside of the store's protected directories if installed with the Tweaker thus the game won't get accidentally broken by it.
     
  13. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    Still sucks, that Xbox Live integration.
    My brother, the gamer, still uses Win8.1, but wants to play the game nonetheless.
     
  14. Mecha Sally

    Mecha Sally

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    Is he still using it because he doesn't like Win10 or because he can't afford the upgrade? If it's the latter, it's still possible to upgrade for free.
     
  15. RDNexus

    RDNexus

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    He seems used to Win8.1, and doesn't seem eager to upgrade.
    He's stubborn on that front, there's not much I can do about it.
    And this is the first game to raise issues due to the OS version.
     
  16. Mecha Sally

    Mecha Sally

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    Ah ok, I can't really blame him. Sucks that it's locked to Windows 10. Maybe someone will find a workaround soon like they did with using the Tweaker to get around the issues the NA version has.
     
  17. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    For the past 2 weeks, PSO2 NA lobbies were Sonic themed for the 29th anniversary. That ended this morning. Here are some screenshots I took while the event was happening:
    Phantasy Star Online 2 6_10_2020 7_25_24 PM@0.5x.jpg The rings could be collected, and getting all of them made a special noise but I don't think anything actually happened when you collected them all.
    Phantasy Star Online 2 6_10_2020 7_37_41 PM@0.5x.jpg Phantasy Star Online 2 6_10_2020 7_37_57 PM@0.5x.jpg Phantasy Star Online 2 6_10_2020 7_40_29 PM@0.5x.jpg

    The PSO2 NA servers were updated this morning with an independence day event to celebrate the upcoming holiday in the US:

    The theming is pretty ridiculous IMO and I am impressed. I have never seen any game promote the 4th of July this much, or at all before. For those who don't want to watch the trailer, lobby decorations include US Flags, the statue of liberty, liberty bells, an NPC dressed up in one of those weird outfits you'd see at a BBQ restaurant, etc.

    At the moment at least they seem to be committed to supporting the NA version.
     
  18. Mecha Sally

    Mecha Sally

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    Sonic would get a Chaos Emerald in his hand if you collected the rings. I took a screencap of that:
    [​IMG]

    Haven't logged in to see the changes for the July 4th stuff but it's good that they seem committed to this game for the NA version. Episode 4 will be out in August and they also said the game will be coming to other PC platforms in the future, but didn't say which ones. I finally had the Windows Store install of this game mess up on me so once this comes out on some other platform (hopefully Steam) I'm totally jumping ship.
     
  19. Beamer the Meep

    Beamer the Meep

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    I've been seeing some minor, (if honestly a bit stupid imo) criticism for such a patriotic event happening at a time of unrest and are accusing Sega of "not reading the room". It's fairly isolated thankfully, but I figure it worth pointing out.

    I find the event a delightfully outrageous as well, but honestly as an American I'm kinda flattered. It's quite endearing seeing a Japanese attempt at Americana with so much enthusiasm without realizing they might have turned up the dial past the level Americans might embrace it normally and into 'Merica territory. I imagine they generally feel the same way about those of us in western countries who get so into Japanese culture. The only other example of an Independence Day event in an MMO that I'm aware of would be Disney's Toontown, but that had country specific servers.
     
  20. Yuzu

    Yuzu

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    I'll have to admit that it's really crazy to see my thread with the Alpha 2 impressions back in early 2012 still bumped and updated!

    I haven't really checked out PSO2's western release too much, I tried out the Xbox One beta back in February and it was alright on a base XB1, performance wasn't really what I was expecting with frequent freezes and resolution drops at default settings. Although I appreciated the ability to adjust graphics settings on a console, for sure.

    I'm probably going to download the PC version at some point and give it a spin. Not the world's largest fan of PSO2, but I have some fond memories of it at the very least.