When did you fall in love with PSO?

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5GUY

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Anyone feel free to answer! If you loved it on the Dreamcast with Version 1, or on PC with Blue Burst, or even joining the game in the modern age with private servers.

When did you know this game was for you?

For me it was when I heard this song

I played on Gamecube, but singleplayer only. I couldn't play online.

I struggled through all the single player missions and then made it to Mines.

The second I heard the song I knew this was my favorite map.

If you don't remember what you loved then, just post what you love now. Just post anything guys!
 
When SEGA had its official magazine out and was showing their pet project that was to become PSO...1999ish? The idea of playing WORLDWIDE with complete strangers both excited and terrified mew mew! Language barriers? Would mew represent her nationality with proficiency and Honor? And Holy Crap...can she do it with only ONE paw? lol Played the game online for only 5 minutes without a keyboard actually thinking the "soft keyboard" would be fast enough...after Not being able to say anything in combat effectively, mew rage quit and went straight for the nearest Best Buy and bought a dreamcast keyboard! Think this was Sept of 2000 or so. Mew had both family and friends down the street meeting up on certain ships to play...Ophelia Block 08 was mews meeting spot =3. Later...mew was the only one left playing... =(. Never stopped since <3
 
My 1st online experience. Well after fifa 98 or something where I played one or two games. But my 1st real experience (dc/psopc/BB). That and...being a young boy with huneys dancing..:wacko:
 
Harborer of Hope said:
When SEGA had its official magazine out and was showing their pet project that was to become PSO...1999ish? The idea of playing WORLDWIDE with complete strangers both excited and terrified mew mew! Language barriers? Would mew represent her nationality with proficiency and Honor? And Holy Crap...can she do it with only ONE paw? lol Played the game online for only 5 minutes without a keyboard to actually type thinking the "soft keyboard" would be fast enough...after Not being able to say anything in combat effectively, mew rage quit and went straight for the nearest Best Buy and bought a dreamcast keyboard! Think this was Sept of 2000 or so. Mew had both family and friends down the street meeting up on certain ships to play...Ophelia Block 08 was mews meeting spot =3. Later...mew was the only one left playing... =(. Never stopped since <3
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Thanks for sharing. We're lucky to have such a dedicated player as a GM on the best server around.
 
Some back story in Spoilers.
I started playing V1 when it released in the states (January of 2001) and I don't think I really loved the game until v2. I did enjoy playing online with my 2 other neighbors and one of them would once in a while come running over after I stole his meseta and weapon when he died and I took forever to give his items back looool the other would get sad when a 4th would join us and steal her items. I think I got more enjoyment out of pk'ing on the Japanese and European ships than actually playing the game once the hacking scene got ahold of the game about 2 months into v1.

A friend we had made online told us about PSO v2 coming out soon in Japan but we'd have to wait for the U.S. version unless we imported the game. So me and 1 of my neighbors imported the game from NCSX and we shared a Dricas account (similar to hunters license except the thing was all in Japanese lol). Once that barrier was passed and we had the Xploder codes to transfer our characters from the US version to the JP version we were online and the game was pretty fun but still I didn't "LOVE" the game. I was never an RPG kind of kid growing up and was always into the type of game where you went one on one against your friend. 90 minute soccer, Street Fighter 2, Marvel Vs Capcom, Powerstone, Sega GT, were games I really loved to play with friends at that time just to see how good we were against each other. So something was definitely missing for me in PSO.

Once I discovered the Japanese Battle Mode community on v2 I absolutely fell in love with PSO. I remember getting destroyed by the Japanese players since they had about a month head start and were battling since release while I had to wait for 2 or 3 weeks to get my imported copy. Ended up getting good at it and took over Io (I think that was the ship name?) with the group of Japanese players that I was mainly with. Once the U.S. version came out and the Battle Ship/Block became Miranda 7 I moved over there and basically dominated the block with this Japanese player. 200ish people battling at any given time were the good old days of PSO for me. Later on I bought myself a Gamecube for the PSO release on that system and did the same with the OG Xbox and PSO.




Harborer of Hope said:
When SEGA had its official magazine out and was showing their pet project that was to become PSO...1999ish?
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Was this it? This was when it was releasing in the U.S. since they shipped out the magazine in January so it might not be it. I have a ton of ODCM magazines in my game room that I'd have to dig through once I finish expanding it.
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It was the year 2001. I was in high school, doing high schooler things. I saved up some money and got myself a Dreamcast at some point earlier, and that summer I had decided I wasn't going to spend it playing video games and instead I was gonna build my body and work out and be on the beach all summer.

Day one of summer, I was playing on the beach with my niece and fell backwards into a tidepool on the beach. I landed on my ankle and broke it. No weight on my ankle, says the doctor, for 8 weeks. Well, that's the entirety of my summer.

My mother wanted to get me something nice, so she went to the local video game trading store and called me while she was there, and read off the names of some games the clerk thought were pretty cool- Chu Chu Rocket, Unreal Tournament, Tokyo Extreme Racer, and Phantasy Star Online. Well, the word Online stuck out to me pretty nice, so that's the one I picked. Mom being mom, she bought all 4 of them and brought them home for me to play.

So I played a lot of all of the games but Phantasy Star Online was really the ONE that stuck out to me. I played it offline for quite a while, got myself to around level 40-ish, then spent some of my money and subscribed to a dialup ISP, and finally got myself online to check out the community.

The Dreamcast had a browser disc that came with one of the demo discs, so I used that and hopped online to Gamefaqs to find a group of people to play with and to help me learn the ropes. I didn't have a dreamcast keyboard but they helped me as much as they could- One of them even gave me a ton of Meseta, a fully-levelled Mag, and a Lavis Cannon!! I was having a blast, tearing through enemies and talking with new friends. I even emailed a few of them later, and we arranged a time to play together! It was so cool. This was my game, this was MY world!

About two months into all of this, I went into the wrong lobby, and got my character NOL'ed, which is to say, someone used a gameshark and rewrote my save to make me look like Nol, which was the NPC from the quest Journalistic Pursuit. It wiped my entire inventory, my level, my guild cards, everything. I was heartbroken, but I started over- I emailed my friends and told them what happened, and they helped me to power level and get me back up to speed! It was pretty great, but then someone joined my game and I had the same hacking done to me again, but it also caught one of my high level friends... so I decided I was going to just play offline from now on.

I played the Gamecube version later, when a friend told me to come over because he got this cool new game and wanted me to try it- It was PSO Episode I and II! So I played the hell out of that splitscreen, and we got tons of progress done, but then his mom sold his gamecube and then he moved away. Lame.

I played it later on Xbox as well, but I was never enthusiastic about playing it there. But when PSO Blue Burst came out, THAT was the gamechanger! I paid for my hunter's license, logged on, and played that game from the day it came up into Beta until the day it shut down- aside from a brief stint in WoW. (I do still play WoW, but PSO has recently recaptured my heart and I'm loving every second of this.)

I've tried out PSO2 using the english patch, and while it's good, it just isn't PSO1.
 
Started on the GameCube, playing it at an after school video games club, (one of the cool teachers would stay after to moderate). People would bring their systems in and we would group up. Loved the co-op modes to start. Ended up buying it when I got a GameCube myself and fell in love with the single player mode... Kinda. Liked doing single player quests but never made it above 130 lvl. Time split with 1 1/2 other brothers and we put so much time into 3 characters, a humar, a fonewm, and a ramar (me). Thought about getting a modem for the thing and playing online but cost and availability derailed that. There was a 8-9 year drought for me when I picked up the gamecube version again where my saves had left off, but single player wasn't any fun.
Started considering online services for PSO, found sylveraunt, Ultima and then ephinea. Sylveraunt was the most interesting but again availability shot that down,. Didn't like the paid item system idea for Ultima so logged in here. I love the community here. It is fun and awesome that everyone helps here.
 
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I was so young when I started PSO. I guess, compared to a lot of players, I'm still young now. But I was about 10, and I saw my brother and his friend playing it, and I had never seen anything like it; it was my first experience with an RPG. I fell in love with the idea that finally, I could play a video game with my older brother instead of against him (and always lose). So I started a character, and of course it was a little HUney because I thought she was cute. I didn't really understand a lot about the game at the time, like which weapons I should have been using or how to effectively use techniques. But I knew that I loved exploring Ragol and I really wanted to find out what happened to Red Ring Rico. And I wanted to be a part of my brother's world.

He never was interested in playing with me much, seeing as I didn't have a very good grasp of what was going on in the beginning. But I played offline extensively. The idea of a world where you can be whomever you want was incredibly appealing to me. I loved how easily you saw improvements in your character; if you put in enough time, you'll get enough experience points. Your skill at the game increased linearly.

I've been playing PSO since 2006, and I've learned so much about the game since I was 10. I've made some of my best friends from PSO. It's a big part of my childhood, my adulthood, my family life, and my inner monologue. I'm kind of tearing up, thinking about how much this game has changed my life. I'm crying now, look what you all made me do.

I hope this game touched others as much as it has to me.
 
conenubi701 said:
Some back story in Spoilers.
I started playing V1 when it released in the states (January of 2001) and I don't think I really loved the game until v2. I did enjoy playing online with my 2 other neighbors and one of them would once in a while come running over after I stole his meseta and weapon when he died and I took forever to give his items back looool the other would get sad when a 4th would join us and steal her items. I think I got more enjoyment out of pk'ing on the Japanese and European ships than actually playing the game once the hacking scene got ahold of the game about 2 months into v1.

A friend we had made online told us about PSO v2 coming out soon in Japan but we'd have to wait for the U.S. version unless we imported the game. So me and 1 of my neighbors imported the game from NCSX and we shared a Dricas account (similar to hunters license except the thing was all in Japanese lol). Once that barrier was passed and we had the Xploder codes to transfer our characters from the US version to the JP version we were online and the game was pretty fun but still I didn't "LOVE" the game. I was never an RPG kind of kid growing up and was always into the type of game where you went one on one against your friend. 90 minute soccer, Street Fighter 2, Marvel Vs Capcom, Powerstone, Sega GT, were games I really loved to play with friends at that time just to see how good we were against each other. So something was definitely missing for me in PSO.

Once I discovered the Japanese Battle Mode community on v2 I absolutely fell in love with PSO. I remember getting destroyed by the Japanese players since they had about a month head start and were battling since release while I had to wait for 2 or 3 weeks to get my imported copy. Ended up getting good at it and took over Io (I think that was the ship name?) with the group of Japanese players that I was mainly with. Once the U.S. version came out and the Battle Ship/Block became Miranda 7 I moved over there and basically dominated the block with this Japanese player. 200ish people battling at any given time were the good old days of PSO for me. Later on I bought myself a Gamecube for the PSO release on that system and did the same with the OG Xbox and PSO.





Was this it? This was when it was releasing in the U.S. since they shipped out the magazine in January so it might not be it. I have a ton of ODCM magazines in my game room that I'd have to dig through once I finish expanding it.
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That doesn't look like the one, but Dayum...Feb 2001??? Mew may have been off by 6 months lol. TY TY TY!
 
I didn't have a gamecube.

One day i found a good childhood friend playing this game i had never seen before, and he let me create a HUmar (which i later changed for a HUne when i knew more about the characters) on his memory card. Our other neighborhood friends saw the game too and those with GC's bought it as soon as they could. We were like 8 friends playing with 4 GC's, and we all lived in the same area, so those were awesome days: We would hunt stuff together, run to the other guys houses excited when a good item dropped, we made battle tournaments with linkin park music on the background... Those were the days. Later i had good experiencies on two PSOBB servers (not sch/ultima), but were low population servers and they died (altought the last one has recovered from death several times but is still pretty empty).

I ended up here on a sudden urge to play a game that i knew was good, and i'm just happy i found such a good place.
 
Linkin park while playing was me too [n.n]

I remember one summer where I grinded the fk outta it with my cousins, complete noobs but we'd sit there all day doing our runs over and over.
[because one of us usually wanted to remake with a different character lol] Make it up to falz before we'd get pooped on and take a break, lol never made it to hard mode until I grinded my racast to lvl 80 [on normal lol] was to scared to fight falz. [n.n]

Never played online until I joined ephinea a year or two ago, loved how awesome the community was and have been plushie-ing ever since. [n.n]
 
How I personally came to enjoy Phantasy Star Online. Let's see...

A few months back, I decided to pop my copy of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle into my Wii and play a bit, for old time's sake. While I was caring for one of my Chao, I remembered that the Tails Chao was a thing for the GC version of PSO. Before, I had just shrugged off the thought of PSO every time the Tails Chao came to mind, since I was unlikely to ever get the game PLUS everything I would need for the Tails Chao (even a GBA + link cable was something I felt I would never have for other games with a GBA function). But something that day convinced me to look into the game beyond that one quest required for SA2B. Soon enough, after watching a couple gameplay videos for the GC version, I had enough interest to want to give PSO a try, but it wasn't until I found out about PsoBB for the PC that I actually went for it. A couple Google searches for private servers and a coin toss later (not really for the latter, but it was ultimately a choice between Ultima and Ephinea (hell no to the-server-that-shall-not-be-named), and I chose based on how much of the original experience I wanted for my first time into the series), and I have not once regretted playing PSO. A couple spots and times that caused some frustration, sure. But that's something to expect in games that don't hold your hand the entire way, if at all. So no regrets.

Edit: I guess the whole Sci-fi setting for the series also helped. I've had a liking for the Star Wars series, and I already have/had plenty of games/RPGs/MMOs that have the medieval/Eastern/fantasy settings, so adding a Sci-fi game to the mix was a refreshing change.
 
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I saw it in a gaming magazine before it was released in the west. The aesthetics and futuristic setting of PSO really sparked my imagination, even what little of it I saw in a magazine. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I saved my money and bought a Dreamcast + PSO when I was a wee little one, and it consumed my life.

Even when I haven't played PSO much, it has been a constant fixture in my life for almost sixteen years now. The soundtrack has probably stayed the most constant feature — as soon as I learned to drive, I made sure I had the soundtrack CDs in my car.
 
Matt said:
It was an MMO but with a good gameplay system (and instanced). All I needed to get addicted.
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Yep. The instanced part is one of the things I like, since you don't have to worry TOO much about someone suddenly rushing in and taking your kill + loot (gotta be cautious of team members if not using the PSO2 drop system, but you don't have to worry about a random coming in at the last minute/second of a boss fight on Ultimate and stealing that rare your team was going for), but it definitely has a lot of things a good MMO needs. A system that punishes senseless button-mashing/poor positioning/reckless aggression (one of the reasons I like PSO and Monster Hunter), combat that's more skill-based than gear-based (see: last note), GOOD boss mechanics that keep the game challenging even when you're a higher level than recommended, good soundtrack (Olga Flow's 2nd phase definitely has one of my favorites for PSO, and will possibly have a spot among my top 10 favorite final boss themes), AND more actual focus on team play (by which I mean it's very difficult, if not impossible, to have an equipment/stat combination that will let you breeze through the hardest difficulty solo, and it's generally better to have an ally that can cover an area your class may be lacking in (ex. pretty sure HUcasts always enjoy having a Force around for that Shifta buff to let them more easily make quick work of whatever they come across)). That latter is the big one, as many MMOs today are giving enough stat boosts that you can solo anything without difficulty with maxed equipment and the right bonuses (ex. high lifesteal, multiple element-stacking methods, etc), and thus kills any challenge endgame might give, especially if you go in ALREADY decked-out. Can't really do that in the Phantasy Star online games (at least not without lots of healing items and plenty of Scape Dolls for insta-kills).

It's similar to what I wish Dragon Nest had been, but Eyedentity (Dragon Nest devs) went a little too far with the stats of cash costumes and made it impossible to find that safe middle ground with stats/difficulty (thus why DN 80 cap was difficult/impossible for F2P players, and everything was made easy after that), while Sega made sure that PSO didn't have any paid content (which, iirc, was commonplace for P2P games during PSO's time, before the F2P model became more common and aspects of it invaded B2P and P2P markets) and maintained some form of balance (impossible to have perfect balance, but it's good enough that every class is viable in some way). As you said, all that's left to play PSO is the desire to play it as long as possible.
 
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