4gamer posted up a few photos from the 2nd part of the presentation, which was not broadcast to the public.
New Miniboss: Tranmizer
A new enemy was revealed during the secretive presentation:
It has melee capability with something that looks like claws and I’m going to guess those rockets aren’t just for show. It spawns in an area that hasn’t really been revealed properly yet, but it is part of the newest planet, Lilipa.
As with other minibosses, you will end up fighting more than 1 at once if your party is over a certain size
Seems we’re going to have a fair selection of mini-bosses on release, assuming this underground content is going to be present. So far we have:
Rockbear – Naberius forest
Caterderan – Amduscia caves
De Malmoth (the emergency code has 0/2, minibosses spawn in pairs for groups of 4 players). – Naberius snowfields
Gwanada – Lilipa desert
Tranmizer – Lilipa unknown area (looks underground)
Of actual bosses, so far we have
Vol Dragon – Amduscia caves
Dark Ragne – Where-ever the fuck it pleases, but has an arena in Arks Ship – urban area.
Snow Panther/Banshee – Naberius snowfields.
Should note those are not the official area names outside of Forest and Desert. Datamining loosely implies there may be one more miniboss and boss
Another Closed Beta?
According to Bumped here, the staff are considering conducting another closed test. The purpose would apparently be to serve specifically as a stress test to ensure the stability issues during the first CBT have been fixed.
Now, this paragraph is pure speculation, but I don’t expect this 2nd CBT, if it happens, to last all that long. They do seem intent on making sure this game still comes out on schedule, after all, plus as they’re only interested in testing the servers under stress a shorter time window would potentially cause more people to log on in at once. I also expect that as they want as many people on as possible, that they’ll choose a weekend to do it. If the staff really feel like they could use another test, that’s perfectly fine. I’m sure people wouldn’t mind a more stable product and LET ME PLAY.
Rumour also has it that the data from the 2nd CBT, if it were to happen, would carry through to the Open Beta. Will have to wait on an official announcement about that to be sure. The data from the CBT will still definitely be wiped.
Weapons
Sakai and Kimura confirmed that double sabers and knuckles are weapons that will be added to the roster, as well as mentioning that more will be coming. In fact one of the NPCs in the story footage (namely, ゲッテムハルト) was in fact wielding knuckles.
I rather hope, given that weapon gears (a sort of charging ability that has various effects on Hunter weapons, depending on the weapon) now have to be unlocked through the skill tree, that free skill tree resets are handed out when they add said weapons.
Anyway so this is the weapon roster so far. Weapons that will be present on release are in bold. Weapons that are datamined but not confirmed weapons are in italics:
This post is gonna be mostly sharing videos captured from the 2nd Fan Briefing just earlier, as well as sharing a little of the information that was revealed.
Thanks to YouTube user XtremeStarfox, aka Vashyron, for uploading these videos.
New Weapons, Mags and Snowy Mountain
This video reveals a number of new weapons, many of which are creature themed. The tradition of monster parts being turned into weapons continues, then. It also shows off various new Mag forms.
The new snowy area of Naberius looks rather suspiciously like they just coloured the forest area white, at least in some areas. It’s not too nonsensical seeing as it’s the same planet but still on first impression comes across as quite lazy. Other areas of the snowy mountain seem different enough.
Two new bosses in the video as well, Mammoth (Malmus? De Malmus? Malmoth?) and Snow Panther. Both of whom, as you’d expect, reside in the new snowy area. Datamining suggests a non-snowy version of the panther exists, so perhaps the forest area will be getting a new miniboss as well. We shall see, I guess.
New Planet: Lilipa
The newest planet to be revealed is the desert world Lilipa. It’s crawling with mad machinery, being invaded by darkers (like everywhere else so far..) and is also inhabited by little rabbity Ewok type things.
Aside the robots that are clearly reskins of Dagans. I’m not really all that opposed to re-skinning as long as the behaviours of the reskins are different enough, which from what we’ve been shown appears to be the case.
We’ve also got the return of what look like Gilchics/Dubchics from PSO but re-imagined.
Also showcased is a new mini-boss, namely Gwanada. Gwanada actually first appeared in the benchmark, where it got shot in the face by a RAcast. It appears to be based on an antlion larva, going in particular by its large mandibles and its penchant for burying itself in the sand.
New Story Content Teasing
This video teases us with upcoming story content. Main thing I can really take away from it, given my lack of Japanese language skill, is that the native lizardmen (aka Dinians) of the volanic planet Amduscia can talk. Well we knew they could talk kind of, or at least they screamed when we killed them in the CBT!
Other Tidbits
The closed beta’s lag issues were apparently caused by a faulty network adapter. Fun stuff, but I guess it may mean they don’t have as much to fix as was thought, potentially.
The closed beta client was downloaded 147,000 times
The test had a total of 131,000 participants, a fair amount more than the 100,000 they were going for. Not bad!
There was an average of 61,000 logins per day during the tests. Again pretty darn good.
The most amount of simultaneous players at once was 23,500. For reference, the peak during the 2nd Alpha was 23,000. This is pretty good too, given that the CBT had relatively unlimited playing hours.
There’s a chance that there might be another test period before the OBT begins. In any case the Open Beta is apparently delayed due to player feedback, but they still want to aim for an early summer release. Good luck to them, I guess.
“Time Attack Quests” – Details are nonexistent as of now.
The Open Beta will be capped at lv30, as well as granting access to hard mode (lv20 requirement).
You can watch a complete recording of the 2nd Fan Briefing here, uploaded by YouTube user RemiusTheAwesome
Finally, you can find a selection of high-quality screenshots of the new content on 4gamer here and a bunch more on Gpara here.
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.
The tests ended with an impromptu dance party in the importer block. So many player models were loaded that the graphics engine started to glitch out.
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。」
It has melee capability with something that looks like claws and I’m going to guess those rockets aren’t just for show. It spawns in an area that hasn’t really been revealed properly yet, but it is part of the newest planet, Lilipa.
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