Your PSO history...

[BlitzkriegAJ]

Usually this stuff goes into introductions, but some people just use it to say hi so I thought I'd make this thread for people to go into detail about their history with PSO.

Started on DC, made a RAmar called Andy (there goes the secret of the A in AJ ).
Didn't get to play for long as the DC was my Dad's.
Started again on GC, had a HUmar that I forgot the name of.
I liked Flowen stuff, and I recall grinding Seabed every morning before school to get a Flowen's Shield from Deldepth, lol. I was so happy when it dropped.
Must have lost interest after that, because I didn't play again for another few years.
Made a HUnewearl and used Red stuff for a while (knew a guy that used hacked GC stuff ) in a red themed character.
Moved on to BB after that. Played Scht for a little while but never much got into it.
Moved to Eden server, played there for 2 years or so where I met Hydro and Meredith and a fair few people, had some good times, learned a lot.
And now I'm here where I continue learning. The end.

Share your story.

 

[MudkipzJm]

I never played on GC or DC, because for whatever reason my parents didn't want me touching videogames. I did however watch my brother play in on GC I think and I remember thinking PSO looked so fun. Come November of 2015, I was watching a steamer speedrun PSO and decided to google for it. Ended up finding a BB server and I still player there now.

 

[Rune]

I started PSO to get the Tails Chao in SA2B on the Gamecube. It was fun to pretty much auto win those events lol cause I was never a fan of Chao anyway (don't burn me).

Fell in love with PS in general from the start after that and hunted down the classic PS games to try them. Granted I never went online on the cube (had dial up anyway so pretty sure that would have been horrible) and had a habit of never liking my character and starting over for the smallest reasons so never made it beyond hard mode or to even level 50. So part of the main reason I like full dressing room.

I played PSO ep3 as well when it came out, didn't like it. Then til about 2008 I was sort of away from PSO. I played PSU when it came out in 2006 as well. Never went online there either lol, didn't finish the main story either unlike with PSO at least.

Later on I heard about PSO being free on schthack on another couple of message boards somewhere (one being 4chan yes). So that was my 1st time being online with PSO in 2008 or so. Was on/off a few teams on schthack, and had my 1st major event in 2010's summer there. And got on a few teams but mostly played alone til my 1st serious teams around the xmas 2012 event one of them being "team casual" which came from another team I can't remember the name of anymore.

On those two big teams on the forum I learned about the game in general and I don't suck as much at it anymore because of it.

Being on/off pso had its plus, when I vanished after the 2010 summer event I had spent most of it hunting item tickets, and had a small stack of them. When I came about 1-2 years later those tickets sold for a mint really where as during the event they were worth 1 or 2 pds at best lol. Also I was on schthack the 1st time when the drop rates weren't made insane and it was almost impossible to find anything. So some stuff like adept that was easy to get before they made everything hard I got to avoid.

Granted I missed a few good events like the Easter event where Rainbow was 1st put on.

My old dusty computer started to crap on me close to when schthack started to end the 1st time as well. I was on/off pso more though cause I was a bit lazy about getting stuff fixed in general.

When I got a new computer I waited a bit before checking this place out even though I knew about it cause some of the people on team casual and so on went here. In general it was near the 1st year event before I started my account here.

 

[Lunabot]

*snip*

 

[raggamuffin]

Saw a tiny article in a DC magazine about PSO. A year later I was in a video game shop spending birthday money. I'd picked the games I wanted and was walking to the counter when I saw a copy of PSO. I vaguely remembered the article I'd read and Put back Unreal Tournament and bought PSO instead. I'm glad I did.

Spent a few weeks offline then asked my dad if I could use it online. Was rationed to 2 hours online a week. First time I went online I got NOL'd. Never been online before in a game and I'd never spoken to people online. PSO introduced me to online chats and gaming. This was great for me as all my life I'd lived 15 miles away from the school and colleges I attended so socializing online was what I wound up doing a lot. Saw a lot of malicious hacks during my time on DC. I think I played it for a few years. I can't really recall. I know that I quit playing before the servers closed.

Randomly saw PSO Ver. 2 on Gamecube in a video game shop. I never even knew it'd been released. Bought it immediately. Didn't encounter any malicious hacking on GC but lots of duping and crazy weapon stats. Played it online for a couple of years. Also had a keyboard for online conversations - glory be. Typing text on a controller is shocking. Whenever I go round my friends and I see him using the internet with a PS4 controller I always have a smile on my face as I remember DC PSO conversations.

Sometime in the mid 2000's I found SCHT. Shed a few tears when I saw the intro cut scene play. Played on it religiously for 5+ years. I quit after I sold my prized 50% hit sphered BKB to a shop NPC. Dat rage.

Played PSU on western PC servers for many years. The day I joined the first person I spoke to said I should've joined a year or so ago. He said it was a ghost ship now. Still, I had many happy years gaming on that server. It remains my favourite PS title.

I played JP PSU for a year or so after the EU servers went offline. I didn't play in the final days of PSU. I guess I wanted to quit on my own terms and not when Sega told us the servers would be closed. JP PSU wasn't the same and I felt like an outsider in a foreign game. It was crazy to see the economy and population difference. I spent far too much money on GC - probably £1000 or more. Crazy times. Ruined the game for me.

Tried PSO2 for a good few years. Hated how much they took away that PSU had added. What I liked least was the lack of lobbies. PSU felt like you were exploring planets with all the lobbies after missions and various paths to take. PSO just felt like it was harking back to the memory of PSO and was an anime style game in a pay to win format. I don't like anime so I struggled to really enjoy this game. Never paid attention to the storyline in PSO2 or PSU for that matter. I spent a fair few hundred on AC. Again ruined the game, became OP without really doing much work. Finally capped a character (first time in any PS title). Realized there was no real end game content and the 12 player events hurt my eyes. All those horrifically flashy JP style combat special effects. BAH. I return to PSO2 every now and then. But overall I was disappointed with it.

I dabbled on Ultima, Eden and the SCHT relaunch. I quit SCHT after being conned out of a Rainbow sale. Didn't know the value of it and a veteran player took advantage.

Now I'm on here. This seems like an enjoyable server. But overall I'm a little burnt out with the PS series at the moment. The drop rates have always been rather painful. With MMO's in general I tend to solo 90% of the time. I find communities on RPG's to be a little strange and intense. Then again I am strange and intense myself, but as I get older I have less and less patience for things and people I don't like.

I'm holding out for Clementine to be finished. I tried the open Alpha twice. It was nice to see progress being made. I do long to play that game again.

Ed

 

[Kevdo]

Spoiler: I wrote this book because I started to remember things. Thanks for asking a question that took me down memory lane. I enjoyed this.

GAMECUBE

My family used to get together at holiday parties for every major holiday every year. For these, we used to bring our consoles, games and controllers to all play random games together. It was almost always exclusively Nintendo games since they just completely dominated that market with games like Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc etc.

For the Christmas party of 2002, one of my cousins was particularly excited. I remember he called me to make sure I could bring extra controllers, and he warned that this year we were going to play a new game that he knew I would love. Now keep in mind I was only 10 years old at this point, and was still rather fixated on Super Smash Bros. Melee which had only just been released the year before. I didn't share his anticipation to play this new game, because I really only wanted to play Melee with everyone.

Well, we'd arrived at the party and everyone was excited, a truly wonderful excitement and happiness that is, now that I think about it, quite rare as an adult. We set up the console in my other cousin's room (my aunt always hosted these large parties because she owned the largest house), and at first I resisted playing the new game and instead persuaded everyone to play Melee instead. We did for a while, but eventually the eagerness of playing the new game consumed everyone, so I gave in and decided it was time to try it out.

I remember being very skeptical. I just didn't think this game would be as mind blowing as my cousin made it seem. He handed me the case of the game, as he inserted the disc into the GameCube. I remember looking at the cover and thinking eh, it's just another one of those weird Japanese games like Final Fantasy (I'm not a fan of jrpgs in general). "Phantasy Star Online" yeesh. Why'd they have to spell Phantasy with PH? I just thought it was going to be lame.

After the several splash screens the game usually goes through on startup, I saw the future sci-fi theme they were going for, and that unique little Xylophone/beepy intro music. It intrigued me. We jumped into the character select and I was introduced to the character creation screen. There, I spent a few minutes actually wanting my character to look cool. I remember exactly what he looked like: it was a RAcast. As tall and wide as you could make him, all orange, with that head that looks like an inverted pickaxe. Yeah, a big, badass robot. I gave him a strange string of letters and numbers for a name that meant absolutely nothing, and we jumped into the game. 4 player local play. Goddamn.

My cousin taught all of us the basics, and we spent some time learning it, but wow was it fun. This game was actually fun. I was amazed. We completed Forest and I remember just being enthusiastically lost in this world, and the dragon... so cool! We reached Caves, but at this point I was SICK of the annoying stomping that plagues the RAcast footsteps. I dropped all my items, gave them to my cousin and I remade my character. This time a HUcast. Oh, so many awesome skins, so many orange choices. I made him tall, and named him XT7001. A name and character I'd continue to use far into the future, when I'd eventually buy my own copy of the game.

I was hooked, we played PSO for the rest of the night in that party. We broke away only to go eat with everyone, and then it was back to exploring Ragol. At one point, I remember one of my more strict uncles came in and saw us playing the game. He stood behind us for a while, just watching the game. When he noticed that the monsters we slayed left pools of blood behind as they mysteriously sunk into the ground, he immediately forced us to stop playing. He said the game was too violent and we should not be playing games like that. He literally stood there until we turned off the Gamecube and swapped out the disc with Super Smash Bros. We pretended to begin to play, but as soon as he walked out of the room, we couldn't have switched back to PSO any faster. Lmao, we were hooked.

Eventually I was able to convince my dad to buy me a copy of the game, which by the way, was fucking stupid hard to find. We had to go to so many different stores until I finally found it at a Toys R' Us (I loved this store as a kid). I made that same HUcast, XT7001, identical to the one I made on my cousin's memory card. I also made a FOmar, which I eventually grew to like more than the HUcast. I started my own adventure on Ragol and spent far too many hours of my childhood glued to that game. My memory card got corrupted saves 3 times in the total time I owned that game, so I never got any character past Lv. 99 in the game, but I did play it way too damn much.

I don't remember when exactly, but one day I was taking the game and my memory card to a friend's house to show him the game. I had the game on my lap in the car, and I was holding it firmly. I can't remember why, but for some reason I opened the car door while the car was in motion. Probably to spit my gum out or something, I'm not really sure. All I remember is when I opened that car door, the game was sucked from my lap, out onto the road, where I promptly watched it get run over by several cars in the side view mirror. I was devastated. Literally broken. That game was a rare game, beyond comprehension rare. I couldn't find it anywhere anymore. No one had it.

It wasn't until several weeks later, when I'd given up hope of finding it, that I decided to give eBay a shot. Back then, buying online was incredibly sketchy, at least for us it was. I think most people felt that way. It was the early 2000s and not many people bought online. I didn't know a single person, family or friend, that had ever purchased anything online. I took that chance though, because that was the only place I could find PSO. In fact, it was a brand new, sealed copy of PSO Ep 1 and 2 plus. A game I bought for $20, now worth hundreds. I can't even begin to describe the excitement I felt when I finally got it in the mail. I lost my fucking shit. I remember that day very clearly, lol. I was walking home from school. It was sunny, bright. I saw this large, yellow envelope peaking outside of our black mailbox next to the other black mailboxes of the 2 other families that lived in our 3 family house. I didn't know what it was, but it had my name on it. I went up to our door, third floor, and set my things down on the couch. I opened the envelope and saw it: a sealed, brand new copy of PSO Ep 1&2 plus. I treated that game with love like you have no idea. Godamn, I was a nerd.

BLUE BURST

I still played PSO on the Gamecube by 2007, but it had become a very, very small part of my daily game diet. I was about 15 years old by this time. I don't remember exactly how, but I found out that there was a version of PSO on the PC (likely through YouTube), almost exactly like the PSO for GC. In this year, 2007, I still had not owned my own computer. My dad had one in his house, but I lived with my mom and we never had one. I was staying with my dad for the summer though, and while there I found out about PSO Blue Burst. I didn't really understand what the situation was at the time with that game, I just knew that the only way I could play it myself was on this server called SCHTServ. I sort of understood it was some kind of personal, private server, but I really only cared to play it. Understanding the situation was not really relevant to me at the time. I created an account and downloaded the game's installer. I was skeptical it would work at all honestly, or that it would even be the same game I played on the Gamecube, but when it was finally running on that old Windows XP machine, I was amazed. I couldn't believe this game was on PC, and that you could play online, and for free!

I spent a lot of time playing PSO that summer on SCHTServ. I met some very interesting people, and learned so much about the game I never knew before. It was like rediscovering a new game all over again. My dad didn't like me hogging his PC all the time, so he bought me a used laptop from a guy who I'm pretty sure just stole it from someone else. It was a Dell Vostro 1000, and it had countless viruses on it and was basically just not in any form of usable condition. At least the laptop itself wasn't broken or scratched in any way. I taught myself how to clean install the operating system on it, and then I had to teach myself about how drivers worked, but after I figured it out, the laptop ran beautifully. I used it for a very long time, and mostly just to play PSO lol.

As many of us know though, SCHTServ went down the drain. I had eventually met and played with several of the admins there, including Crono114 and Lee. I thought of them as good people, but I think we are all only human. So despite all the things that happened behind the scenes there, I still enjoyed the game and the opportunity to play together in that community. In its prime, that server had over 300 people online daily. It was quite an experience for me, since it was my first time ever playing PSO online with other people. After so many years of time and trading in that game, I'm pretty sure I was one of the wealthiest on the server. I had trade lists and items up with some really stupid gear lol. I eventually sold my account to someone who offered me a dumb amount of money for it, and the year after that, the server was completely wiped.

By this point, I had almost completely lost my interest in PSO. I didn't play the Gamecube version at all anymore, and I didn't think I'd ever get to play online again, as I refused to keep playing on any of the other servers at the time. I tried them all, but they were all so different it bothered me. I knew that if I ever had the itch to play it, I could just use an emulator or play the Tethealla server I had set up for myself and some friends, but the drive was almost completely gone. It remained that way for a while, until Tofuman and Sodaboy decided to do something about this empty space we had. NDW and I were good friends on SCHTserv in its late years before its demise. He and I, along with another player named Aly, had started The Agency, the largest team on the server at that point. When Ephinea started to become more than just a rumor, we jumped on here.

NDW and I played for a bit here when everything was so new, we were all just babies. We tried convincing people to join us, but it was a weird time. I eventually just felt the fire die, and I didn't care to continue investing time into this game. It's a cycle for me, and I've been through this part before, where I completely lose interest in PSO for some time. NDW went on to transform The Agency into PSG, now the largest team here on Ephinea, and I just kind of faded away for a while to deal with real life. I'm not even sure what sparked my interest again, but something brought me back to PSO. So here I am now, again, ready to play the game for an undefined amount of time until I get bored of it once again.

I think we all go through something like that, probably some more than others, but at this point I also think everyone knows: You just don't quit PSO. For those that truly did stop, perhaps it's just that PSO quit them. Whatever it is, this game is a large part of who I am, no matter how much I don't like to admit that fact.

TL;DR

I've played PSO GC since 2002. Blue Burst since 2007. I've met countless people and lived countless experiences because of this game, all things that have shaped the person I've become to this day. Not exclusively because of PSO, I don't feel strongly about this game, it's just the fact that I've played it so fucking much.

 

[Harborer of Hope]

Same as most People....had read an article in SEGA magazine. Was intimidated at first at the idea of playing with other players Worldwide. Having only ONE good paw to play with made mew immediately doubt her effectiveness and ability to even be able to Play.... Was 2 weeks late joining the release Just because mew was dubious. Then friends here convinced mew to buy it and simply play with Them online at a certain Ship named Ophelia. After using the Dreamcast PSO Soft-keyboard for only a few seconds...Mew facepawed and ran out to BEST BUY to get a DC keyboard! Played on SEGA DC....Til they closed it down and went to SEGA GC...til they closed it down....Went to SCHT....*Winces at what happened...* Then came...HERE! <3

 

[Annie]

Basically I was in the mood for a MMORPG and PSO was something I always wanted to try out.
Fast forward four months since I made that decision and for sure this the most fun I ever had on a online game.
Anyways,thank you guys

 

[ChiveyX]

Found the game for gamecube in a box in the back of a store, said "it looks cheesy and old, but hey it has local co-op". Played it and enjoyed how the combat worked as it was different from other games. Then I find out it was one of the first 3D ARPG MMO's. Noticed there was online mode, and looked for ways to play online. Came to the conclusion I was going to pay 50 dollars for the network device for GC. Found Eden Server and after that found Ephinea. Read about scht, and said nty.

 

[Ryan]

What a good thread!

Some background: I wasn't really into video games at all until sometime in second grade, when I got introduced to a Genesis at some after-school program I was involved in. They had Sonic 3K there, among others, and I picked it up and was instantly better than everyone else at it. Somehow. Not so long later, I got a GBA and a Gamecube, along with Sonic Advance and Adventure 2: Battle. I was pretty new to the internet at the time, but I managed to find Chao World (it's still up, I think), a super detailed collection of information on Chao raising.



Then I came across this.

Now, being the cool kid I was, I actually did own an Action Replay, but being the even cooler kid I was, I wasn't about to hack in a Chao. I spent like a week calling GameStops across my county (and a couple others) looking for this stupid Sonic Team game nobody cared about, got it, took like a day to figure out how to get the Chao, did that, and then promptly started obsessively playing PSO instead of SA2 with my brother. A lot. We never got online since we didn't have the adapter, but we ended up making memes anyway out of the tiny weapon pool we had that ended at VHard Mines.

There was a brief period of time where I knew official BB existed, but I wasn't about to pay a monthly fee to play a game I'd been having plenty of fun with for years already.

I found Schthack at some unspecified point in time (sixth grade?) and hopped on. It was a blast. I figured out that I knew nothing about PSO, despite looking at drop charts and random guides on PSO World on and off for the few years I'd been playing it. I made a lot of friends really quickly, joined a few teams, and got some kickass weapons that were obviously duped now that I look back on it. I got my other brother (Arcane/Wall/"Other Matt") on it and we had a bunch of fun. Nice. Then a bunch of shit happened in real life, and we kind of fell out of PSO for a while.

I played on Scht for a few months from late 2013-early 2014, but it wasn't really the same as it was before. The sense of community I'd had before was completely gone. I was just playing to... play. Since I'd really enjoyed the groups I'd hung out with before, and couldn't get back into the same swing of things from before, I left Scht for good.

I found this tiny server called RevPSO and played on it with Wall for a little while, but it had weird broken drop tables and XP multipliers, so it got boring really quickly.

Then I found Ephinea in 2015 and played on it, and the rest is history. wew!

 

[Shagami]

My friend Alex had GC ep1 & 2 and during the summer of 2003 me, his girlfriend and I would play multi whenever we were at his house (which was often but we also played other GC games like timesplitters and smash bros) We found out another friend had it as well and that he played online for a bit. That Christmas I asked for a gamecube for my gift and yay i got it. I then had to ask for a memory card and when we went to buy it i say PSO there and managed to convince my grandpa to get it.
So 2004 rang in with me getting blasted at lv 10 with the dragon and my step dad laughing cuz he was watching. All through the rest of the winter I would play by myself offline. Sometimes after I graduated high school that spring i managed to convince mom to upgrade the net to DSL. I also got to get online. I spent that whole summer and fall online. I did get ep3 but i never really beat it
Eventually the official servers closed and PSO went away until PSU came out. I just started my first job. I bought my PS2, online adapter, and the game. Played offline until i cleared it and then with the magic of my own bank card finally went online. It was sometime shortly after Mortoob become available, as that is where everyone was.
I played PSU and the expansions until the servers finally closed again. I also picked up PSzero, portable and Portable 2. I knew about the private serves rolling around for PSO but the computer at the time was just shit and couldn't run it.
eventually i bought a new laptop and could play again. I tried other private servers but could never get into it until here.
I had googled something about PSOBB and the 1st link was that forbes interview and I had heard good thing about Soda through the friends i had made on PSOGC and so
here i am I might only pop on once in awhile right now but i still love the game.

 

[GHOSTS]

Started off on DC v1. It was fun online and I never got hacked. Managed to get the almighty S-Beat's Blade and Delsaber's Buster, though the Spread Needle had to wait for many, many years.

Never played V2, so my next game was the GC version. Was hyped for it, but the year it took to head over to the USA was pain for me back then. In fact, I had a dream that I found it in a store before it was officially released. The hype was real.

Anyway, GC version comes out and I have a great time online. Since i didn't play V2, it was my first time in Ult, and it was a bit nerve-wracking when I played it. I managed to get a Lavis with a RAcast via piping red slimes, and got an nice little S-rank weapon of my own. Had a good time overall and managed to avoid getting hacked. Was there for MA1 and when Tower was released. I never got any of the uber weapons or anything, but i had a good time and managed to set up several sec ID alts to hunt for things like Yas9k (which I finally got here). I think my highest level was 150ish. I had a HUcaseal, RAcast, and FOnewearl, though the FOney was mostly for farming Purplenum. Had some friends, but mostly jumped into pubs.

I got Ep 3, but never progressed past the first part of one of the storylines. Played some online and won, but that was it. I should get an emulator and beat it one day.

PSU was interesting before it was released, but I never played it. Lost interest in the series.

Fast-forward 10 years later, I'm browsing 4chan archives looking for Chao-related posts and I see a post talking about PSO. I remember how much I enjoyed it and I was in the need for a good co-op game after Killing Floor 2's slow and boring Survivalist update, so I went server shopping. Ultima's player count was appealing, but the P2W aspects of it put me off. Schtack had a bad history and wasn't very active, so I avoided it. I went here because it was mostly vanilla and had a decent player count.

And now I'm here. I am one of the few known people on here that never played on the Sega servers nor Schtack. Cool.

Fun fact: PSO inspired me to play the classic games, but I never beat PS1, PS2, and PS3 until two years ago. I beat PS4 back then, though.

 

[ealonzo]

Not reading anything

Pso article on mag about v2

Dc v2 then gc then plus then online corrupted character then psobb on ephinea

 

[dewdadash]

Started on gamecube offline, I don't remember the year anymore, maybe 04? Got to ultimate mode maybe like lvl 130 or so
Then found out about PSO:BB us server back during beta. Played it a bunch lvl 200, etc. Then when that server went offline moved over to schthack. Played on it for awhile maybe lvl 150s or something around that, then server got wiped. Tried scht again beginning of this year, got to ultimate mode just to realize the server is too dead for anyone to join my ult games. Then moved to ephinea and here I am.

Oh also played PSU a bit but didnt get all too far, maybe lvl 40 or so dont remember. Tried PSO2 but couldnt understand it so I stopped that.

 

[emoticon]

tripped over ephinea in 2015 and been slippin down the slope ever since

 

[Rune]

It is kind of funny, unlike our Internet History we have no issue sharing our PSO history.

 

[menarus]

While not technically ps"O" history. I played the phantasy star original back to sega master system. Then PS2. Saw PSO on dreamcast and wanted to buy it but didn't get a dreamcast until much later. By when PSO had been rereleased on the gamecube... which I scooped up and dove into a version of phantasy star I couldn't imagine. Never got to play online until much later on scht. Then PSU came out and I participated in my first pay to play game. Got caught in the massive server ban even though I didn't hack or break TOS. That was super disappointing because I was super engrossed. Then I tried PSO2 on the japanese servers when it came out and was equally dissapointed. Moved to Eden server had tons of fun but eventually quit due to some of the members. Tried to get back onto Eden but it seems its not doing very well. So I just started playing here a few days ago... already brought at least one of my friends with me. Anyways, cheers!

 

[kipsauce]

The end.

Delet this

 

[Rune]

Got caught in the massive server ban even though I didn't hack or break TOS. That was super disappointing because I was super engrossed.

Sega went nuke em all in PSU?

Damn did that bite them in the ass?

 

[Lunabot]

It's super interesting to me to see how many people got hooked on PSO just because of the Tails Chao. That crossover really worked in Sega's favor, huh