Phantasy Star Universe Open 360 Beta! Update: Now Available!

[quote name='FaintDeftone']I cannot get this piece of shit to connect what so ever. I've tried and I've tried. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrr x100[/quote]restart your system and try again. I had problems in the morning.
 
[quote name='zewone']I had the tutorial freeze on me twice. Can someone tell me where I can start missions at?[/QUOTE]
Nevermind. Found it.
 
Played through one mission and it was alright. Still have to get use to the new additions to the game.

Also, did they take out the light and heavy attacks? So there's only one attack button (the X button)? If so, it's basically just like a button masher now.

Let's get a CAG team(s) together for tonight.:D
 
A quick play by play / demo-review for all those who are unfortunately stuck at work. I feel your pain.

A preface - I have never owned a subscription to any MMO before, have only sparing played or watched people play them on a PC, and have absolutely zero experience playing them on consoles. So, to put it plainly, I am a total n00b when it comes to games like this, and my opinion represents that of the extremely uninformed casual gamer who was semi-on the fence about the game.

The demo is 940 megs, and set to expire at 12:00AM local time on the 18th. Since XBL is down on the 17th, barring any "stay logged in" tricks, that pretty much means that the 16th will be the final day to play it? Seems like a pretty short window...

Character creation is fairly robust. There are a decent amount of selections for each criteria (around 4-12 depending), and plenty of options in between the classes. Creating a realistic character ala Saints Row is not so much a possibility unless you magically look like a preset, but there's enough variation to add a personalized touch to your character. Characteristics are pretty standard: face, body type, proportions (you can make a fatty!), eyebrows, colors, etc.

After you create your character (which forces you to use the d-pad instead of the analog, as seems to be the case for most menus) the demo opens up by offering you the chance to take a tutorial. The tut was doing an adequate job of explaining the game to me before it froze, forcing me to hard-restart the 360. The loading times are fairly speedy (5-10 seconds per window). For fear of freezing I decided to skip the tutorial second time around and head directly into the lobby.

I'm pretty impressed by the character animations - they don't look all that clunky walking around. The pre-configured moves are also really amusing. "Dance 1" seems ripped straight out of the Wild and Crazy Guys SNL skit featuring Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin. One obnoxious thing is that people with laggier connections seem to be darting all over the place and occasionally "warping in" right in front of my face, but I have no problem moving smoothly throughout the environment.

The visuals of the mall lobby aren't graphically mindblowing, but individual characters have an impressive amount of detail to them, and I think the models are really well done. The rest of the mall is pretty generic futurish, kinda feels like I've seen it before. Another thing that I think is extremely well done is the camera, especially in a closed environment, the tracking seems spot on.

The controls are simple enough. The D-pad enters preconfigured speech, X opens up your lobby menu with the various character animations. Left analog controls movement, right analog controls camera, and left bumper centers camera / enables strafing. A serves as the "action" button, and everything else seems to have no purpose because I am weaponless.

The music is driving me nuts - some kind of synthesized elevator-to-the-max escalating pattern with a piano and electric violin that is making me want to turn my sound wayyy down, punctuated by static bursts whenever someone says anything.

The first mission wasn't especially engaging or fascinating, but I could see how the experience would be vastly improved if you had a lot of friends to go around playing with and leveling up.

This demo pretty much confirms my initial thought, which is that the game isn't really for me, being that I'm a casual gamer and there are simply too many things you need to learn to fully enjoy the game/warrant paying $10 a month. I'll leave it up to the true fans to weigh in on whether or not it's a good game as far as MMOs go, as I'm not qualified to answer that.

Oh god, I just saw someone running around dancing as a midget girl. Hilarious.
 
[quote name='megabadd']I miss my MAG helping me in battle, oh well.[/QUOTE]

No MAGs?!? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...

Jeremy
 
I love this game. The graphics are great on 720 P. The only thing i hate is the mag isnt there anymore, but ill wait and reserve judgements is the missing MAG...but who knows if sega is presenting to us a complete taste of whats to come in the final.
 
Not sure if I'm correct yet since I'm at work, but I believe EGM said something about certain races able to have followers like mags but that actually can even become mini humans that help you fight or something?
 
[quote name='anomynous']I have no idea what to do in this game, I just go around dancing[/QUOTE]

Don't fret, there are literally thousands that feel the same way in World of Warcraft as well.
 
missions are on the 4th floor. go to the back near the elevator and then to the right.

This game is pretty fun. I got to level 7, and I have had a blast. The higher level challenges are really hard. I need some better equipment.
 
Is it confirmed that the Tutorial will freeze your 360? I don't want to take the chance of having to manually re-start my 360. Anyone go through it smoothly?
 
[quote name='Kendro']Is it confirmed that the Tutorial will freeze your 360? I don't want to take the chance of having to manually re-start my 360. Anyone go through it smoothly?[/QUOTE]
It just froze the PSU game. I was able to go to the dashboard and log in again.
 
[quote name='Kendro']Is it confirmed that the Tutorial will freeze your 360? I don't want to take the chance of having to manually re-start my 360. Anyone go through it smoothly?[/QUOTE]

it froze mines too. I just went back to the dashboard and loaded the demo up again.
 
[quote name='Sporadic']*download completes*

Hooray! \\:D/

*awaiting response from Phantasy Star Universe Server*

:cool:

*connection to Phantasy Star Universe Server failed*

:whistle2:s

*retry*

*connection to Phantasy Star Universe Server failed*

:whistle2:k

*retry X 10*

*connection to Phantasy Star Universe Server failed*

:cry:

*retry X 25*

*connection to Phantasy Star Universe Server failed*

:wall:

*retry X 50*

*connection to Phantasy Star Universe Server failed*

[/QUOTE]

this suxx i'm getting the same fucking messages... grrr!!
 
Is this constantly booting anyone off Live or is it just my connection? quick answer would be much appreciated.
 
agreed, this game plays horribly, tutorial is horrificly boring, and the lag. This beta plays more like an alpha.

Honestly with this horrible a beta, I doubt they're going to take the time to fix the cheating that was so rampant in PSO I And II. Really really not worth a monthly fee
 
Wow, why are the graphics so EFFING bad? I know it is a port of the PS2 version, but the low-res textures and massive jaggies ruin it. For god sakes, even the fucking startup screen when the Sega and Sonic Team LOGOS pop up have jaggies and are low-resolution.

The tutorial froze on me and I had to perform a hard-reset as the guy above. Game wise the lag is unbearable. I couldn't follow my teammates because they were all teleporting like Nightcrawler (they can't all have bad connections, and it couldn't be mine, I have 5 mb cable). I finally resorted to looking at the map / radar to find them.

We had 5 people in the party so it was a little "fun." Co-op can make Pong fun so I don't give PSU that much credit. I only gave the game about 2 hours so my opinion might be premature, but this shit ain't worth $10 a month. All your doing is walking around fighting enemies.

I'd rather pay $10 a month for 6 player co-op of X-Men (the arcade game). ZOMG. How fucking awesome would that be if it landed on XBL Arcade?
 
Still no luck connecting. Seems like this Beta is just gonna end up alienating people who can't even connect, and who see no answers to this problem from SEGA. Jesus, SEGA needs to just go out of business, they have been making nothing but pure $hit for the last 5 years. Just die already.
 
Originally, I deeply sorrowed that I couldn't take part in the online realm of Phantasy Star Universe, due to the subscription fee...

... after playing this, I'm no longer lusting for the online play.

Hell, I was going to buy it for single player... This beta saved me $60.
 
Anyone know how to activate voice chat? me and Rolento are on a mission-- he can hear me but I can't hear him, help please?
 
[quote name='Apossum']Anyone know how to activate voice chat? me and Rolento are on a mission-- he can hear me but I can't hear him, help please?[/QUOTE]

that's a connection issue that happens quite often on live.
 
Played for a little over two hours around mid-day. No freezing during the tutorial; no connections issues any of the 3 times I logged in.

I can understand how people who didn't enjoy PSO probably won't like the game since that game was definately not for everyone. To me this seems like an updated version of PSO with a slightly more in depth item creation system.

If they put any effort into controlling the cheating that ran rampant in PSO, I will be picking this up shortly after launch.

By the way, has anyone read what the level cap is for the game at this point ? Not the demo, just the game as it hits retail.
 
I really enjoyed PSO, but this almost seems like a step back, the problem is sega previous track record doesnt really give any hope that the game will improve. of course maybe the game does have a deeper appeal than it seems, but it would be a difficult desision for me to buy it and give it the chance to improve simply because this beta completely underwhelmed me (excluding any dcs and other problems) the gameplay in general just didnt hook me the way PSO did.
 
My download has been going like all day, luckily too since i had work to do.

I want to like this game even though i wont pay for it even if i do. I play ffxi and theres no way im paying for more than 1 game a month. Wish they would make this free to play online or at least add multiplayer offline :(
 
just played for a few hours...
okay, so it's the same thing as PSO, pretty much, except it's faster and you can hit multiple enemies at once and you don't have a mag.
let's not forget there's 10x as much neon. and a makeover store. ???

gotta love the continuing Phantasy Star tradition of giving you weird item names with no descriptions at all too.
 
This really looks like a dreamcast game, a very good looking Dreamcast game but still. I can very easily understand how players not familiar with the first PSO on Dreamcast could wonder what the big deal over this game is.

I'm really disappointed that there are monthly fees for this. If it were free, I'd be all over it because it brings back fond memories.
 
[quote name='Apossum']just played for a few hours...
okay, so it's the same thing as PSO, pretty much, except it's faster and you can hit multiple enemies at once and you don't have a mag.
let's not forget there's 10x as much neon. and a makeover store. ???

gotta love the continuing Phantasy Star tradition of giving you weird item names with no descriptions at all too.[/QUOTE]

Actually you could hit multiple people in pvious PSO's as well with certain weapons.
 
Yeah this looks like a big expansion the PSO for the DC. The graphics are fugly and the lag was horrid, but it looks like a decent game if it weren't for the monthly fee. I don't plan on getting it unless all my friends start playing like it was WOW.
 
[quote name='Zoglog']Actually you could hit multiple people in pvious PSO's as well with certain weapons.[/QUOTE]


great, so then it's pretty much the same game :lol:
 
I played it briefly last night. Got fed up after it locked up once, then when I couldnt find my way out of the endless city zones. I want to fight something dammit!
 
Having loved PSO on the DC, I really like the Beta. I haven't been having a lot of the problems you guys have been having (save the demo freezing). I played for about 6 hours straight yesterday and got to lvl 8. I'm definitely picking this one up when it comes out.

Plus, I didn't think the game looked that bad. I really like the outdoor levels.

Also, after doing some research, if you evolve your Partner Machine enough, it can fight alongside you like another character (it gives you a Player card and everything).
 
[quote name='infamyRISE']I played it briefly last night. Got fed up after it locked up once, then when I couldnt find my way out of the endless city zones. I want to fight something dammit![/QUOTE]

Go to the 4th floor of the starting city. Head toward the opposite end away from the elevators and stairs. Look for lots of people milling about. You will see a glowy cube near the entrance to the mission center. I think its called like a line connector or something.
If you step into one and it asks you which planet you want to go to that is not the right one.
Pick the C class mission and when you finish that,rinse and repeat till you can handle level 5 creeps. Then next time when you finish the first mission, run across the room to another door and do the level C mission where you fight the seed boss. Everything in it is level 5 plus.

-----
I also didn't have all the trouble that everyone else is having. No lag or discons except for the ocasional lag spike and no jaggies at all. I play on a regular tv and try to pick a server high up in numbers with less people. The game was fun but I can't see myself paying for it. If it was free or like 5 monies or less a month I'd get it.
 
Thanks, Noodle.

I plan on giving it another go with a buddy after I get off work tonight.
I refuse to write it off completely yet. PSO supplied me with countless hours of fun.
 
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