Phantasy Star Universe Closed Beta, Starting this thurs! Options

[kyori]

I'm surprised no one posted about this... In any case. Here's info for those that did apply:

[Vitamin D]

God/Envy++

[Riel]

Grats Kyo...keep us posted and give us impressions,if you can.

[DarkEpyon]

Way to go! Hopefully I get mine soon, if ever. Hopefully the number of people who registered didn't go above 30000, otherwise forget about it.

[Alisha]

[Crushinator]

Congrats on being accepted, Kyori. I hope you can pull yourself away from the beta every one in a while and shoot us an update

[donkeybeatz]

Lucky! I hope I'm in the next batch... My PC's itchin' for some hardcore gaming.

[kyori]

They go live in about 3 hours! But I think I'm under NDA..

edit: It's official

[Dive]

Congratulations kyori, I admit I am quite envious, although I did not apply for the beta.

Too bad about the NDA, but since I am not in the beta and for those of you who do not have these yet, here are a couple music tracks from the beta I blatantly stole from a popular pso related internet website.

These are .ogg files and will play in Winamp.

Phantasy Star Universe Main Title

Phantasy Star Universe Menu


Have fun in the beta kyori and good luck to anyone still waiting for their confirmation mail.

[DarkEpyon]

Well, the folks at that "other site" are doing it. I mean, it's not like they're hunting anyone down like witches in Salem. Besides, technically us NA folk aren't even SUPPOSED to have this thing anyway. Of course "the hedgehog" isn't liable to go on a so-called "witch hunt".

[Dive]

For anyone who hasn't seen these.

PSU beta footage

PSU Beta footage

More PSU footage

PSU Character creation

[HC82]

Cool videos.

I noticed that the female character getting smacked in the video didn't always get her combo animation canceled when getting hit. If so, that's a good thing, because it makes for more intense battles.

[kyori]

PSU: :O :D ^_^ *_*

I might release media later if permission is given until then sorry folks. But it does not in anyway disappoint :D

[Kazicht]

*dies from jealousy*

It's good to hear that the game dousn't dissapoint. Can't wait till fall!
Also, that voice fx manipulator in character create mode is awesome, haha. I wonder if they will add western sounding voices and expressions with the NA release.

[DarkEpyon]

Well, when/if the next wave of emails comes, it won't be till next week. If they have maximum load with the current 2000 and find enough bugs, then the other 8000 could very well prove unnecessary.

This could be a boon for us imoprters (they're ready to release within weeks) or a bust for everyone (another delay).

Wah wah NDA wah wah wah....

Wah wah wah wah wah...

As I've said before, I doubt that SoJ would waste time and resources actively seeking out these kinds of leaks. If I were them, I'd be more concerned about someone reverse engineering the thing and learning how to do things like make private servers. Some "gaijin" (or even locals) telling others how the game plays and sharing some pics? You tell me which poses the greater threat.

Personally, I commend whoever's brave enough to show us the goods.

Those that are being "tight-lipped" I'm not completely without sympathy for them.

But those that wanna preach ethics should go shove their pulpit you-know-where, especially if they're among the many non-JP that signed up for this.

When and if I make it in, my photobucket account is gonna have the bandwidth sucked out of it big time.

[Dive]

[DarkEpyon]

Too bad I don't know anyone on this thing who'd allow me to play on theirs. Of course if they were afraid of getting busted, I wouldn't go buck wild with the print scrn key at their expense.

[kyori]

For me its not only a matter of getting busted, it's also the principle of an NDA. You're being trusted to not say anything and breaking that would be total disrespect with bad credentials on your own behalf. It's a huge thing for the media, but I'm not so sure about betas. Guild Wars had a mean NDA though. Now there's a reason why they have an NDA folks, but I won't get into that right now. In any case...



The next wave of acceptance letters were sent out.

[DarkEpyon]

It is truely fortunate to have one of such upstanding moral character as yourself made it in, versus someone with no qualms about giving the people EXACTLY what they want. Just look at PSOW and the PSU board.... like a pack of hungry birds just waiting for someone to drop that tasty morsel. Also, it's come to my attention that people have registered multiple emails and got more than one letter... Pure genius! Now why the hell didn't I think of that??

Too bad my old account there has been banned for almost 3 years, and I can't seem to get the password to my other one. :/

[kyori]

Yea speaking of which it is rather horrible that folks did do multiple applications. Sucks for folks that haven't been even accepted once. I wish AT best of luck though. On the PSOW note though, I've been fighting the good fight on this NDA deal. But alas.

[DarkEpyon]

Well, the multiple email thing isn't exactly a new tactic. As for their distribution of emails, I wonder if this is going to be done at set intervals? That's 4000 so far... This could very well push the servers to capacity.

[Dive]

I'm going to have to play devil's advocate here and question the principles of an NDA agreement in which one has falsified a Japanese address.

No disrespect but you must appreciate the irony.

[kyori]

Actually im using the address of a friend thats currently over there on JET :D The whole region thing isn't as much of an issue as NDA leaking though.

[DarkEpyon]

[HC82]

Let's not fiend over screenies and vids too much...

*DROOL*

Ahem... excuse me.



Here's an idea, though. I totally understand the whole moral issue, but I think the only issue is posting something on, let's say, youtube, where everyone and their momma can see it and tell all their friends about it. That would be breaking the ideal behind why this is a closed beta (it's usually crucial against competitors).

But, would there we harm in just emailing people directly the juicy vids? It wouldn't be exposed to the public and would not hurt the whole secrecy rule from a corporate reasoning standpoint for why they have closed betas in the first place.

Although, that's just an alternative. I personally have no problem waiting, though.

[Dive]

About the moral issue at hand, I think it's time to call in some legal advice.



I'll admit I was trying not to get too excited about PSU, but seeing the videos and knowing that people are online with it has really bumped up the hype. I'm thinking about importing now, but will probably wait for a US release. That is of course until the actual JP launch and we get some screens of AT players, then I don't think there is any way I can wait.

[Mute]

Some dude named Parn at GFAQs posted a few screens, and I thought one was particularly worth pointing out:

http://synbios.net/games/PSU/screenshots/0002.jpg

5 peeps in a game together. :o

The topic: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessag...&topic=27699670

[kyori]

Oh christ I'm on candid camera

[AC9breaker]

LOL look at that first pic. The monsters are flying in the air, the looks on their faces are all like, "womzg wtf weze in the air!"

Man I sure as hell can't wait for PSU. This game is gonna be intense!

[kyori]

[DarkEpyon]

[Alisha]

if it was me id say fuck the NDA but i think Kyori has a valid reason

[kyori]

My someones been busy.. I hear theres a spectacular video out there too :hack, cough:

[Alisha]

[kyori]

[Alisha]

i watched all his videos. nice partisan/spear thingy you had in the ruinsish stage. and those gauntlets Aero was using look nifty

[HC82]

Yeah, parn posted some of his stuff up on PSOW. Apparently he doesn't seem to care about regulations, so it could be his loss but everyone's gain.

Here's the link to his vids. I think they're worth checking out

http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?top...=20&start=15&28



Some comments:
I noticed some minor changes from the demo I play at digital life. Daggers seem a lot better this time around. I like how everyone is using a different weapon, which seems to be more so due to personal choice and not neccessity. It makes for a more varied experience.

The dragon's fire does long term damage. I like how everyone plays very cautiously around the dragon. I guess getting schooled a few times by its feet teaches us a hard lesson. When I fought the dragon, it was a total breeze, so I 'm glad they vamped up the difficulty.

The enemies in the open garden are far more agressive, as apposed to when I played the demo. Still, though, sometimes it seems like those tiny enemies stand around and scratch their ass. Then again, considering that these are regular enemies, it is a massive step up.

Faster paced action and smoother controls make for a superior experience, and things still seem like PSO.

I'm kinda excited about the possibility of new enemies.
Sinows and Ep2 Dels would keep the pressure on constantly, but given the new fluidity of PSU's controls, I wonder what new punishing foes we'll just have to pwn in the future?

[HC82]

Well, more goodies from Parn, I guess. He posted the same info to the links I posted above from PSOW, but he also did so on gamefaqs. In this thread he answered a lot more questions that the posters asked and gives some interesting insites. I'll just quote the good stuff directly:



"Parn
Posted 4/22/2006 5:30:23 PM

Note: The dragon fight looks easier than it actually is. The only reason we killed it that fast is because it was our second attempt on one mission run... we all died the first time against it earlier today, and respawned at the midpoint to give it another shot. The game seems to save the damage you've done to the dragon. The penalty was that we got -600 penalty applied to the points rewarded by the mission that gets applied to our job level. If we had not died, we would have had 1000 points... instead, we only got 100 and C rank. I'm OK with that kind of penalty.

We figured out sort of a pattern with the dragon... shooting its head a lot seems to keep it from thrashing around too much and flying around like a maniac. Anyways, enjoy."




"l2apture
Posted 4/22/2006 5:40:03 PM
message detail

Yea dude. What's the difference between the Photon color, and the color of the actual weapon (handle)?



Parn
Posted 4/22/2006 5:40:20 PM
message detail

The colors are for elements. If you notice in some earlier screens, the color of the lines and text on my shirt were green. In the later screens and in most of these videos, it is pink instead, for fire attribute. I believe green is neutral. I basically was taking less damage from the dragon in the fight than the other two (watch the numbers). Kyori was wielding a handgun with an ice upgrade, so she was doing the most damage to the dragon.

Basically, the old attribute system is gone."

[kyori]

The 3rd batch of emails were sent out.

WERE YOU ACCEPTED?


And that was the remaining 6,000.

Again AT, I wish you best of luck.

[Retehi]

I thought it was 10,000 total emails being sent out?

I'm reading at PSOW on how it's 6000, and that's that now.

Could it be Sega cutting off the rest in finding out so much stuff is being leaked outside the NDA?

Or am I spewing from my ass here and not knowing what's goin on?

Oh well, I just like watching the various people go crazy over there because they can't play the beta, and busting a nut over this.

I'm content watching the screencaps, that's all I need.

[DarkEpyon]

[donkeybeatz]

I got in too!
But I don't get home till 5PM today =(

[DarkEpyon]

IT'S RONALD McDONALD!!!!!!!!!



Sorry, couldn't resist.

[kyori]

It's over folks

http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU

[Riel]

Thanks for all the screenshots Kyo

[Akukame]

Wow, I haven't posted here since uh... that ep3 tournament... where I got owned in the finals by two indi belra. EDIT: Actually, looking back on it, I had signed up here so I could enter that tourney since I played with you all in ep3. Oh well, you get flooded with my pics anyways.

Oh well, I posted this a couple other places to try to get people into the game, but here are some pics, with how crappy it runs on my comp.

So, my journey began with me being shafted entrance to the beta. Over a week went by, and I got no acceptance letter to the closed beta. So, using a hacked version of the client, I atleast played with the character creator.


But, due to Kyori's acquaintance needing to prepare for e3, I was given a chance to play for a week. Here's me finally making it out of the newbie area.


But that new area owned me like you wouldn't believe. So I ran back to the newbie area. But I still ended up encountering some things that looked distinctly new (atleast when compared to PSO). Heres my first weapon drop, which didn't even happen till I was level 12! I also bought a Bow, because bows are cool. And even encountered a funky looking healing circle. Not that I needed healing. I also began using an earth elemental spell that was not in PSO (this is radigga, there was also a digga).


Being poor sucked. But I needed something to aspire to! So I went window shopping, tried on some clothes in the dressing rooms. But it was all so expensive. x.o A new shirt cost 40k! I was only making like... 4-5k per hour!


I ended up partying with some japanese people. Actually, I partied with japanese people alot. Got some decent japanese practice in. Though I had to make sure to start conversations with "Kanji yomemasen ^^;;" Yes I included the smilie when I said that. Though I really tried to just be quiet, unnoticed, and say the normal "yoroshiku" at the beginning of every mission and "otsukaresama" at the end of every mission. Heres also a picture of a cast doing an SUV. Its like... a robot super move.


Another english speaking person needed to level (Skidean), so a few of our higher level friends came to help us. It ended up being a 4 FOnewearl party of craziness. Level 30 was the max level for the beta btw.


Look, I bought some new clothing :D (Put me out almost 40k too. I also bought glasses and green lipstick) Then I ran to group up with some more people, and I found that midori and radix communicate in alien speak.


You know that place I wandered into when I was level 9? Well, it was pay back time. I got a party together, and we went to go kill the boss of the area! But wait a minute, whats this!? I died!? Oh well, I'll just get another group together and go kill the boss! Wait, what the hell!? I died AGAIN!? Actually, over the course of maybe the 7 times I fought that boss, I only managed to stay alive the entire fight once. And between the other 6 fights... I probably died about 20 times. Its not my fault he deals like 1200 and my max hp is barely over 500.

Kyori's perspective:
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060509_234209_022.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060509_234631_025.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_000824_026.png (just before boss)
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_000933_027.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_000952_028.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_001317_032.png (different perspective of me dead)

We decided to finish the second to last day by beating the first dungeon again. It was a massacre. But we got a nice group shot there at the end.

Kyori's perspective.
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_002927_038.png (dancing outside of mission area)
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_003601_039.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_004410_041.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_004738_045.png
http://www.taleschannel.org/PSU/psu20060510_005055_046.png (group shot)

And finally came the last day, one last run through the final boss. Yes, I ended up dieing. But they gave us free money on the last day, so everyone could res. We got some final group shots, including some nekkid posing in front of the onsen. Also, note I changed to a ranger instead of a force for the last day. Guns instead of Magic.

[Riel]

Good stuff Aku,thanks for sharing...as you can imagine we are all pretty anxious to play this game this fall,hope to see you on board then also

[Akukame]

I might be, who knows. Really depends on if I have enough time to play when its released. To tell you the truth I had kind of forgotten about you guys until I noticed Alisha posting on psow. And then after speaking with Kyori I was like " Wait a minute, DarkEpyon was AT too? " And looking back, Nisshoku was in ep3 and that tournament... wonder if its the same one <.< Probably is, that doesn't seem like a common name >.>

[DarkEpyon]

I had no idea you were registered here, Aku. Guess that low post count says it all then. But yeah, I've been here a while.

[Henge]

I've been trying since the beta started to put a finger on just what the clothes remind me of, Akukame's pics helped me to finally nail it on the head, Bladerunner!

[DarkEpyon]

Read 'em and weap, folks.

Sega pisses on us "filthy gaijin" yet again.

[Crushinator]

What is there to "weep" about in that article? Besides PSOW's incessant dick-sucking of course.

Good to hear that the JP and US servers will be seperate, that way we will at least have even ground when the game launches. It's stupid that there is no Challenge or Battle mode built in from the start though, you'd think that would be a no-brainer to add (or should I say 'keep in').

I also like the prospect of riding on fire-breathing dinosaurs

[Retehi]

Oh well, so we can't play with the JP, it's not like they are superhumans, and make everything better when we're in their presence.

I like the customization of vehicles.

I'm not going nuts over the game, but I am as sure still gonna pick me up a copy when it gets here, whenever that is.

Till then, I have lots of things to keep me occupied.

[Alisha]

i think its retarded that us and japaneese servers will be sperate. due to my playtimes i know for a fact id be sol on ffxi without jp players.

[Henge]

[Knightsword]

[Crushinator]

I wouldn't normally have a problem with playing with the Japanese, but it looks like they will have this game at least 5 months before we get our hands on it. So it will be a lot like the situation when FFXI started, where the game was already filled with people that were leagues better than you and had everything "figured out."

It will be a lot more fun to discover the game from the beginning with everyone else in America. It should also cut down on the "jp are so awesome and skilled and honorable" dick sucking that was so bad in the PSO community.

[Alisha]

i got my hands on the psu beta and a hacked exe that lets you mess around with character creation so heres what you might see me looking like

[Frosty]

Hmm...looks pretty cool...I ca't wait x_X