For those who played in the DC/GC era, what was it like?

I like reading all these stories about the beginning of PSO. I never really played on the official servers, I was too young but I remember wanting to play V2 for the longest time when I first saw it on a gaming magazine. I remember signing up for the JP PSOBB but never got around to play it. (My cousin's PC was faster than mine at the time with a whopping 128mb of ram! and I saw him like every other week)

You guys are the last of a dying breed.
 
Offline mode was a godsend. But truthfully in most MMO games I tend to solo. I enjoy party play every now and then, but usually I find people come and go from games quickly. They don't tend to have the stamina or desire to play for hour upon hour.

Plus the online community in MMO's can be a little intense for my tastes. So I tended to avoid lobby chats. My initial instinct on any MMO is to find a quiet place and enjoy the game in peace.

Ed
 
Played a little bit of online in the GC days. Never managed to pick up a Dreamcast while the community was alive but was jealous of the title. Mostly played couch co-op because we had a house full of hardcore rpg nerds. Got plenty of online time in GC.

If I could sum up GC online: A lot more people hanging out playing soccer. :)

Blue Burst was interesting when it first launched, but I honestly don't remember a whole lot about those days.
 
Some of my random gameplay memories from v1/v2 in no particular order:
  • Figuring out the dricas account setup, purchasing my hunter's license dropping into Ultimate Mines and finding out all my 9* rares were nearly worthless.
  • Actually finding a spread needle on v1 only to wonder if mine was defective when damage done was so much lower than everyone else's. Most needles were 60% (the max at the time, till people figured out how to stack 3x and create 180% items) and percentages were applied to base atp in addition to the weapon.
  • Seeing Sodaboy's purple costume'd humar look pretty cool with his flame garment, tripolic shield and elysion, importing the game, only to find out that the only reasonable to way find neat rares in v2 was from the seemingly ubiquitous enemy called Xploder D:
  • You couldn't truly hunt any thing. Look at the 1/lol rates on pso world. Not sure if they are accurate like the gc ones but rare item drops were literally disabled in quests XD Enjoy running ruins free mode till they they close the server trying to get your yas 7k
  • If you didn't trade in v2 like myself you had a handful of weapons that could actually be used in ultimate. Imperial pick, and red handgun were what I used 95% of the time. If I was lucky enough to have a force I could break out my srank twin psychoguns or needle in areas like ruins.
  • Clearing c mode with Japanese players
  • Soloing TTF when it just released to get SS rank an get a huge plantain fan for my fomarl
  • People playing only in locked games for fear of being pk'd and having their weapons stolen or being nol'd or FSOD'd till all hell broke loose when passworded games could be broken into.
  • Logging back in frantically at those sweet dial up speeds and being relieved when you just lost your unequipped items from FSOD instead of your whole character.
  • Creating unstoppable enemies with Srank special attacks shifta and deband :cool:
 
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To the OP: I would say that we're actually in the "heyday" of PSO now. We have a consistent population, the game has more content than ever before, and it's virtually impossible to cheat. There were great memories from Official GC / BB and Scht GC / BB, but after raising several characters to Lv. 200 on multiple platforms, I believe Ephinea is the best experience.
 
I played PSO for the first time on the original xbox, I was 16. It had a voice chat everywhere in game. So the first time I logged in to the main ship I was greeted with a wall of nu metal and hip hop blasting through my headset. The audio would get degraded and often lag out, so you'd hear this mechanical buzzing, glitch sound. Adult Swim was at it's prime back then, so a lot of kids were named after whatever Anime was airing. I saw a lot of Vash and Inuyasha. You'd see a lot of emote text related to family guy and other stuff as well. At times, the lobby sounded like a daycare. Most of the users that did voice in lobby were younger, so lots of squeeky voices. Also lots of robot and lowpitch voices because you could alter your voice on xbox.

The hacking and duping was pretty bad. Although no one could corrupt your game or anything crazy like that. Within my first 3 or 4 games some dude with an Afro came in and dropped a J-Sword and a mag for me. This was pretty common, I eventually made a legit character (more on that later). But I was so new at the time my first character was pretty corrupted with dupes etc.

I remember leaving my room unlocked a lot. I swear every time I did i'd get at least one younger player coming in asking for either max level techs or God/something. Like actually asking because remember, voice chat. So you'd be completely immersed, running some level and just randomly hear this tiny voice "Can I please have a _____".

I was so addicted to the game at that time. It was my first real online rpg. Once I realized you could get random rare loot, I just couldn't stop... it was over. I wasted my whole summer playing, some of the next summer too. My girlfriend at the time played as well, so we'd have 2 televisions hooked up in my room and just play for hours. For me, there was just this feeling in the air that summer. Being "in love" for the first time. Having that extreme first time online RPG addiction, basically that urgency to keep playing. Also socializing on PSO at the time felt like "more", it felt real. I think because back then social networks hadn't really taken off yet. All we had was email, forums and AIM (in the US). So I think it made the connections you made in game feel stronger, especially with the voice chat. The only way I can really describe it is, back then it didn't feel muted. We are desensitized now I think. Anime at that time was really starting to take off in the US as well. Adult Swim was airing a bunch, Samurai Champloo, FLCL etc. And I think that new exposure to what was going on in the east, at least for me, Left a cool feeling or awareness, an inspiration of sorts around me.

So I played on the xbox servers for 2 years? Maybe a little more. But into the second year, there was this huge divide. The legit players (me being one) basically got fed up with the hackers and took the rules into our own hands (to the best of our ability.) We broke off into a separate ship, Davburite I think? Basically, and I didn't really approve of this but, anyone who was caught hacking on that ship would be verbally attacked/flamed out of the lobby via voice and text. It got really toxic towards the end. But, it was nice playing with 25 or so players you could trade with safely etc. We often left our rares un tech'd. Not sure if that really helped us but we did it.

Anyways, it was extremely addicting because the whole concept of random loot and leveling with other people was new to me. I met some really good friends that I still keep in touch with today. I remember even occasionally talking to a friends mom via the voice chat on PSO! She was really rad. I also miss the fuzzy CRT look of PSO. Playing it on the TV was fun.
 
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