The GHZ Forum

IGN has posted a new interview with Sonic Team regarding Phantasy Star Universe. On top of that, they've also uploaded a few interesting photos of the Sega and Sonic Team offices, viewable on pages three and four of the article.

Additionally, there is a new trailer of the game available; PSO World has a subtitled version available for your viewing pleasure. The game, if I may say so, is actually looking fairly promising.

I am still wary. They need more pictures of that girl with the horn thingies, though.

ya where is SHe??? As well as her companion that male android with the sword shown in the teaser! Those were my favorite character designs and they're no where to be found. But on the other hand I think the game is looking fantastic.

They need more pictures of that girl with the horn thingies, though.

more pictures o fher NEKKID!!!

Wow, his first post in a PSU thread that's not about the customization of boobie sizes.

Is the world going to end soon?

I am actually slightly interested in this game as long as one, my computer can run it, and two, it isn't pay to play.

I think it's already been stated that it is indeed pay to play.

Through what magical business plan could you offer an MMO game service that's not pay-to-play?

Isn't Guild Wars fee free?

Green Gibbon! wrote:Through what magical business plan could you offer an MMO game service that's not pay-to-play?

Phantasy Star Online.

Free PSO was a temporary thing and was planned as such. Sega was trying to coax a fanbase because they knew that console players wouldn't be so quick to "subscribe" to a game. I think the US was the only territory it was free in for any length of time.

Are you serious? From what I heard the UK didn't even have to pay for Version 2, unless you are saying that the DC was a long term strategy to get people to pay for the Xbox/GCN (and V2 in Japan and US).

Was Ver.2 free in the UK? Because the plan in the US was certainly to coax people into paying for V2. Even the original was pay-to-play in Japan, except for like a 2 week or something trial period.

Free online play isn't feasible long term, because it costs money to maintain servers, monitor players, and create upgrades, patches and whatnot. And then there's the issue of profit which is, of course, why the game was made to begin with. Offering an ongoing free service without payback is, from company perspective, absurd.

Dark Crow wrote:Isn't Guild Wars fee free?

Not really. ArenaNet released Guild Wars with the intent of releasing expansion packs at an accelerated rate compared to other online games. Their original goal was to release an expansion every 6 months as opposed to about a year or more with the standard MMORPG.

You don't have to buy said expansion packs, but anyone genuinely interested in the game would end up buying each one, since friends would undoubtedly want to play in new areas and enjoy new features.

ArenaNet cashes in while the playerbase tells themselves that they're "playing for free". So long as you do not buy anything beyond the core game, then yes... it is "fee free".

Oh and, PSU will have a monthly fee. And PSOV2 for the UK was indeed, free... and strangely enough, the Japanese and UK servers are STILL running from what I hear. Only the US segment was completely shut down.

Currently am online with PSO on GameCube, and the lobbies are amusingly barren, with the occasional person still trying to crash lobbies. Have my PC acting as a proxy for my GameCube and am running some software to keep those dipshits from crashing me but... consider this foreshadowing for online play on PSU three months from launch.

consider this foreshadowing for online play on PSU three months from launch.

"Dude, nice Spread Needle! Oh, you... you have how many?"

It's funny, really. I join a non-passworded game, and the first thing I get is, "woah, a legit?"

.....yeah. PSU will be fun, and I'll probably play it as much as I have PSO, but I'm expecting yet more cheating. If Sonic Team has wisened up, they'll host all the games on their servers instead of player 1's console (which is responsible for half of PSO's problems).

I thought they did announce something about keeping the player data on their own server...

Yeah. But I'm talking about hosting the actual game itself. Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst for example, saves all character data on their servers. However, the game has cheating problems because it is still the same barebones client that released on Dreamcast... the person who started the game hosts the game data. Their section ID for their character determines what items drop. All items are basically created on player 1's client... not Sega's servers. This is how people who really know their stuff are able to make the most powerful items in the game spawn out of boxes in normal mode of forest 1.

If Phantasy Star Universe does not host games on the servers themselves, then it will meet the same fate. Saving character data on the servers is only half a step in the right direction. Hopefully Sonic Team has realized this. Security through obscurity has never worked.