Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Japan: More PSU Teased

(Information started on October 10th)

There has been much information out of the recent Tokyo Game Show about recent Phantasy Star titles, but one small bit sure stands out for PSU fans.

Director Satoshi Sakai tells fans to be on the lookout for an additional update.  Obviously there are already various updates and additions made to the game over time, so it's probable that they will soon be giving details on a new expansion of some sort.  If not, maybe it will at least be a major functionality patch (such as one seen around the release of AOTI).  It's been often speculated that there will be a followup to introduce some of the new items and such seen in Phantasy Star Portable.  It was mentioned in an interview once that they wanted to look into new ways of linking PSP with PSU, however that now seems unlikely based on recent announcements.  I'll have more on this in one of my next few posts.

Posted by S-T-H at 11:55 PM 0 comments

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General: Sega Server Trouble

(Information started on October 8th)


Attributed to hardware issues, there were some problems connecting to the PSU servers last Wednesday.  From then until Monday, the official homepage for PSU was down.

Both problems appear to be resolved for the most part now.  As far as their services go, it seems they've been having various issues crop up since they moved offices.  Hopefully they'll get past it soon.

Posted by S-T-H at 11:47 PM 0 comments

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General: Hal's Radio Broadcast

(Information started on October 7th)

A couple times in Japan, the GMs took messages from players to broadcast using the orange/black banner to the entire server. The idea finally gets a chance to fly here as a local edition of Hal's Radio Broadcast. The deadline for submissions has unfortunately already ended by the time of this post (it was October 12th), however they'll be displayed this coming Friday (October 17th).

The times are:


Morning Broadcast - 10:00 AM PDT
Afternoon Broadcast - 3:00 PM PDT
Evening Broadcast - 8:00 PM PDT

They should run for half an hour or less each time.

Official Announcement

Posted by S-T-H at 11:32 PM 0 comments

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General: Update for October 10th

(Information started on October 6th)

First of note is that Japan asked users to send in information regarding the recent lag that many players on our side have noticed since Sega moved offices.

As for the update:

- More items at The Collector (Located on Parum in West Holtes City)
* This includes everything listed at PSUP from PSU Disc 48 to Transfer: Neudaiz
* GH490 is also one of the big additions here
- Casino rotation
- New weapons

It appears there were a couple unmentioned updates. The recent update to White Beast seems to have made it in as well as some drops to be used in future exchange missions. I'll make an update when these are sorted out.

Here's an odd note: JP retroactively put this post up dated for the 4th even though it appeared after the English page was updated.

Update: Maintenance ended and no additional changes were listed.

JP 360 Latency Report
EN Update Page
JP 360 Update Page
The Collector at PSUP
PSOW News Article
PSOW Thread
PSUPf Thread
JP 360 Maintenance End

Posted by S-T-H at 2:41 AM 2 comments

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Japan: PS2/PC Update for October 9th

(Information started on October 3rd)

To quote EspioKaos:

Seasonal event
Halloween returns! From October 9 through November 6, decorations will be up and the Rappy Latans will be out! [PSUv1]

GBR: Moatoob Boost Road 2nd
Starting October 9 and running through November 20, the following missions will be part of the latest GBR.
* Desert Stronghold (new mission)
* Desert Terror
* Desert Goliath
* Rogues' Shortcut
* Stolen Weapon
Since the new mission is AOTI exclusive, PSUv1 players will not be able to increase their boost rate in the current GBR. (sth note)

New mission
Desert Stronghold C-S2 - W. Kugu Base Camp to Galenigare Mine area
A new RELICS site that not even the rogues knew about has been discovered in the far reaches of the West Kugu Desert. Destroy the Rygutasses who protect the RELICS and investigate the site.

New mission difficulties
The following missions will receive S3 difficulties.
* Desert Terror
* Desert Goliath
* Rogues' Shortcut
* Stolen Weapon
S3 is exclusive to AOTI players, so you must have the expansion to access this difficulty, even in PSU missions.

Mission adjustments
White Beast is being adjusted to further combat AFK leveling.

New items
Many new weapons, line shields, and room goods are being added.

Reform ticket (sth note)
The Halloween room decoration ticket will be available from October 9th to November 6th [PSUv1]

System updates
* Adjustments will be made to the Photon Fortune for all races and sexes. [PSUv1]
* Item drops for some enemies in AOTI missions will be changed.
So it would seem they are finally pushing out a new difficulty for various missions (S3). There are still actually a handful of 'normal' missions that don't have S2 ranks yet.  I'm guessing they'll show up in future GBRs.

It would seem the GBRs are getting longer.  This one happens to be six weeks.  I don't think that it's really necessary to give that much time for one myself (four might be long enough), but I suppose as long as content still arrives along the way it's fine.

Update: Maintenance ended and the client is still the same version.  Deljabans no longer use Megid when silenced.  This was a bug reported in an earlier posting.  Like a few others, I think the mention of this bug was not actually a mention that it was fixed.  From time to time, they will acknowledge that they are aware of certain issues and intend to fix them in the future.  They also mention that the copy of the terms of service that is viewed prior to entering the game has been updated.

Update: The change to the terms of service was mentioned in a posting.

JP Update Page
PSOW Thread
PSUPf Thread

Posted by S-T-H at 1:39 AM 0 comments

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Monday, October 13, 2008

Podcast: PSU Community Podcast Season 2 Episode III

(Information started on October 5th)



The interviewee this time around just happens to be Edward. This is the guy that handles much of the billing support for Sega. If you've sent in a support ticket for the PS2/PC version of PSU, you've probably already had some communication with him.

In other news, it seems that Iceman is moving again and they'll need a temporary co-host to step in for a bit. Send a message to PSU_Castor if you're interested.

Awhile ago I switched all the podcast related posts over to a new tag (Podcast instead of Community). The links haven't changed, so no need to update any if you have them. I meant to do this earlier on, but better late than never.

Season 2 Thread
Season 1 Archive Thread

Posted by S-T-H at 7:29 PM 0 comments

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Community: Fan Site Links on Official Homepage

(Information started on October 2nd)

chillaura has posted notice of a future community links page for the official PSU homepage.  A similar section had been started on Japan's PSU homepage awhile back and it's something that seems obvious enough to have.  For the full details (including where and what to submit), please check out the thread linked below.  Later in the thread it is mentioned that non-English sites will be accepted too.

I haven't submitted this site's details yet, but probably will sometime soon.  I never got around to getting together a site logo, so I may want to do something about that before making up a smaller version.

Update: The first version of the page is now out.  They'll be continuing to take submissions as time goes on, so make sure to submit your own if you have one.

Posted by S-T-H at 7:04 PM 0 comments

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General: No Maintenance for October 3rd

(Information started on October 1st)


There was no maintenance for either set of servers this week.

Posted by S-T-H at 4:01 AM 0 comments

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Japan: No Maintenance for October 2nd

(Information started on September 29th)


To start, there was a maintenance early in the week (September 29th) that took down the option to buy a GUARDIANS License using WebMoney for about an hour.

The normal maintenance period was skipped for October 2nd.

There was also a notice that a Phantasy Star Zero trailer was added into rotation on the PSU Live! homepage.

Posted by S-T-H at 3:53 AM 0 comments

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General: Downtime for October 11th and 12th

(Information started on September 30th)


SoA had planned maintenance of their electrical systems for this past weekend.  It was said to need about 15 hours and was scheduled to start at 9 PM Pacific on the 11th.  However, it has not begun as of yet.  I'll be sure to give an update when they manage to have the maintenance rescheduled.

This appears to mark my 100th General article (Japan is getting up there too).  I may look into how I can best split the posts up.

Posted by S-T-H at 3:27 AM 0 comments

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