The closed beta has ended. This post will serve to go over a few things to act as a sort of debriefing/recap as well as a reminder where the game may be going in the future.
Testers: Don’t Uninstall Your Clients!
In previous tests you were advised to, but this time you’re going to want to keep it. The client you have can allegedly be used in the upcoming open-beta test, according to Mike of PSO-World. It seems likely that this is after all the release version of the client we have installed, which is convenient and not too surprising given that the client installed in /PHANTASYSTARONLINE2/ this time (the alpha client installation directories had names specifically linking them to their tests). I’d expect them to roll out some patches before the open beta begins of course.
There is currently no announced time for the open beta.
The data from the closed beta is going to be wiped, but the data from the open beta will be carried across to release.
Survey!
Sega would like you to fill in a survey concerning the test. You can find the survey here and a translation of it here. You have until 4pm JST on the 7th of May to complete the form. Completion of the form is not mandatory.
The data gathered from this survey is almost certainly going to appear on the official site at some point in the future, as it did for the alpha tests.
Rewards!
Reminder of the rewards you may have earned during the test:
- If you made it to lv10 you will receive a Weapon Hologram decoration for your room.
- If you made it to lv20 you will receive a FUN 500 Ticket
- If you made a character on Ship 06 and raised it to lv10 you will receive a FUN 500 Ticket.
So at most, you can begin the Open Beta with 1000 FUN Points and a free room decoration.
Importer Information
A number of you used a translation patch to make things easier and a whole truckload of kudos to a select few members of PSUmods who made it possible is due. However it should be known that there is no guarantee that such a patch will be available in the Open Beta and beyond. Use of such client side modding does also carry a risk, so my advice is to be careful with such things. If you are going to download it however, do not download the patch from anywhere other than on PSUmods.
The main importer hangout is still Ship 02, Block 20 as it was in the 2nd Alpha Test. I don’t imagine that will change much going into the future.
Closed Beta Videos
In the big ass writeup I did for the closed beta, I felt like throwing videos in there might have been overkill. So instead, I’ll be sharing a few videos here of various new bits and bobs from the closed beta. All videos were recorded by YouTube user XtremeStarfox, aka Vashyron.
Urban Area – Ranger POV
A complete run of the new urban area, which was only available during random periods of the day.
New Code: Protection variant + PSE Cross Burst
A new variant of the Code: Protection event where the party must protect some crystals from monsters. The crystals seem to spawn in waves and the party must split up to protect them all. If 2 crystals are destroyed by monsters, the event fails. If you succeed, however, it seems to significantly raise the chance of a PSE event happening.
Double Boss Encounter
Bosses spawning randomly in Free-Fields is a thing we knew could happen already. Two bosses at the same time can also happen, however! It’s extremely rare but… you know what, just watch:
Incidentally, as Vol Dragon is counted as a Native type and Dark Ragne a Darker, the bosses can potentially aggro onto each other and duke it out.
Closing Thoughts
It’s been a fun week, I’m going to find it a bit sad that it’s gone but I had exhausted the content that was available and then some and I’m sure many of you did. My gear was likely far better than any lv20 in their right mind would want to invest in on release, making the available content an absolute breeze even when soloing.
As fun as the chaos in the Caves Free-Field was, I was getting a bit tired of the scenery and would just pop into Free-Field Forest just for the heck of it.
Content!
We have got more content incoming. We’ll be seeing some of it on May 3rd with the 2nd Fan Briefing on NicoNico here, starting at 13:00 JST and 15:30 JST. You will of course need a NicoNico account to watch the live broadcast.
Datamining also strongly suggests some more content is heading our way. I still don’t expect an awful lot of content on release, but be assured that we’re not going to just be running the Closed Beta content til lv40. Some datamined info does also disturbingly present some opportunities for Sega to drip-feed content, but we’re entering somewhat presumptuous territory now. We really don’t know how Sega is going to actually handle new content releases until they do it, of course.
FUN
The FUN gacha is actually better than I expected it’d be, randomly granting you a lot of items I would have expected to be cash-shop only. Things like extra accessories for your characters, extra lobby actions, shortcut items, mag devices and even access to your room. This combined with the fact you can sell most of the items you an acquire from the cash shop in the player shops (you can buy items from player shops for free don’t forget) means a player who has more time than money to spend shouldn’t be disadvantaged all that much afterall. Quite a pleasing outcome, in my opinion.
Hacking!
There have been some hackers on the servers, but so far there haven’t been any dangerous hacks/exploits uncovered that I’ve heard of. I really wouldn’t get worked up about simple xyz hacking, walk through walls, levitation or other combat hacks as they don’t really directly affect you all that much (aside the marginal hit to the economy or if one of these people joins your multiparty). There is the potential for it to ruin rankings later, however.
As for how Sega might react to them, I wouldn’t worry. Sega is not going to IP block all foreigners, as all this would do is prevent all legitimate players from playing, whereas hackers would be able to easily bypass such a block. Plus, don’t forget, foreigners give Sega money. Sega likes money!
「画像は『PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2』クローズドβテストにおいて撮影された実機画像です。
開発中のため、正式版とは異なる内容であり、今後改良される可能性があります。」
『PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2』公式サイト
[Sources: PSO-World, PSUmods]
PSO2Blog 