Taken from http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=481714

SEGA ANNOUNCES THE WESTERN RELEASE OF PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2 SEGA’s Epic Free-to-Play Multiplayer Action RPG Coming to North America and Europe in Early 2013

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON – July 9th, 2012 – SEGA® of America, Inc. and SEGA® Europe Ltd today announced that free-to-play multiplayer action RPG Phantasy Star Online 2 will be coming to North America and Europe in 2013. For a first look at this new entry in the legendary Phantasy Star series, check out the official Phantasy Star Online 2 teaser site atwww.pso2.com.

“Phantasy Star Online was a revolutionary game when it was released, and we want to make sure that its successor in the series is every bit as ambitious,” said Chris Olson, Vice President of Digital Business at SEGA of America. “We look forward to introducing Phantasy Star Online 2’s unique, easy-to-access multiplayer action to the rest of the world next year!”

“The number one thing we want to provide players in Phantasy Star Online 2 is an adventure that changes every time they log in. Just as great table-top RPG experiences revolve around imaginative and unexpected encounters, we want players to consistently be surprised as they explore dungeons and undertake quests,” added Satoshi Sakai, Phantasy Star Online 2 Producer at SEGA of Japan.

Over ten years have passed since the release of the boundary-breaking Dreamcast hit, Phantasy Star Online, and SEGA is poised to continue the Phantasy Star series’ multiplayer legacy on PCs worldwide with Phantasy Star Online 2. In the Year 238, the New Era of Light, players will join a new band of Arcs in the fight against mysterious D-Arkers, embarking on another epic adventure of infinite possibilities!

Phantasy Star Online 2’s features include:

Deep sci-fi fantasy universe filled with lush landscapes, extraordinary creatures, and epic adventures

Revolutionary real-time combat and third-person action with devastating combos and counters to master

Flexible, class-based leveling system that lets players define their own play-style with distinctive melee, ranged, and magic weapon types

Randomized dungeon maps and unexpected mid-quest encounters that ensure each quest is different for each player

Deep character creation system with a nearly limitless number of potential appearances

Three degrees of humanity to experience across three unique races: the versatile Humans, spiritually-powered Newmen, and artificial CAST

For more information about Phantasy Star Online 2, visit the official site atwww.pso2.com.

For more news, follow SEGA on Twitter @SEGA (http://twitter.com/phantasystar) or “like” us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/sega.pso2).

Happy now? :)

Fuck yes.

I'm glad I didn't try to get into the Japanese version then. So ready to play this.

Thank God! I've been trying to play PSO2 but the language barrier is just too much for me.

Sweet to hear this, wanted to play more of this but seemed that the Japanese version would take a lot longer to play due to having to translate everything.

Glad to hear this, but I'm also glad I started playing the Japanese version yesterday. Early 2013 is still a good half-year or more from now, so I'm good with bothering to mess about with the other version.

I wonder if they will redo voice acting or just subtitle everything (and if they redo the voice acting if there will be an option to turn it back to japanese with english text if they want to)? My immediate instinct was that they would change the voice acting if they are going to spend over 6 months on it, but then I saw it was also going to Europe which adds quite a lot of languages to do voice overs for (including the fact that if they do it at the start, everyone will expect it to be continued through into all updates and expansions).

I also wonder if they will start clamping down on people trying to add English to the game (or just publishing lists of the game in English) to allow people to be able to play it now who don't play japanese; they might want to lower the number of people playing the content now so that they can make sure they get a strong and stable launch window of people in the Western market.

I'll be interested to see how they handle it, and if they change any mechanics or systems (like how the paid-content works).

@A_Cute_Squirtle said:

I'm glad I didn't try to get into the Japanese version then. So ready to play this.

Also, yay!

Finally

Also

Vegeta

@Dixavd: The F2P structure in the Japanese version is horrible, I think it'll be a major turn off for western players, especially with games like Guild Wars 2 out shortly and it seems like much of it will limit the replayability. Hopefully we see some changes to the English version.

@WinterSnowblind: I don't see how it's horrible. Apart from only Premium Sets being able to post on the auction house, everything else that's behind a pay-wall is relatively unimportant.  
 
And this is amazing news, though I fear a repeat of what happened with PSU. When they bought the game to North America, they ended up not releasing all of the extra content and events that they would do in the JP version. If they're going to bring PSO2 here, I would at least hope they do that. :(

@aurahack: Basic player trading and the auction house seem like very big features to be missing out on. Locking off player housing to subscribers also seems like a bad idea, since most of the freebie rewards and daily bonuses that are meant to keep people playing become totally useless. The core game seems playable enough, so that's something, I just don't know if there's enough to keep people around with all of those limitations. It's not like there's even an option to expand your account, you're either a basic/free player or you pay the subscription.

I'm not against the F2P model, I just think it's structured very badly at the moment.

@aurahack said:

@WinterSnowblind: I don't see how it's horrible. Apart from only Premium Sets being able to post on the auction house, everything else that's behind a pay-wall is relatively unimportant.  
 
And this is amazing news, though I fear a repeat of what happened with PSU. When they bought the game to North America, they ended up not releasing all of the extra content and events that they would do in the JP version. If they're going to bring PSO2 here, I would at least hope they do that. :(

The ability to trade items is very important.  That said, PSO2 will do fine.  Just in terms of combat and aesthetics, GW2 is not offering the same thing as PSO2.

Hot damn. I can't wait to play this. But 2013? Does it really take a year to localize a game like this?

@Turambar said:

@aurahack said:

@WinterSnowblind: I don't see how it's horrible. Apart from only Premium Sets being able to post on the auction house, everything else that's behind a pay-wall is relatively unimportant.  
 
And this is amazing news, though I fear a repeat of what happened with PSU. When they bought the game to North America, they ended up not releasing all of the extra content and events that they would do in the JP version. If they're going to bring PSO2 here, I would at least hope they do that. :(

The ability to trade items is very important.  That said, PSO2 will do fine.  Just in terms of combat and aesthetics, GW2 is not offering the same thing as PSO2.

Standard players can still purchase things off the auction house, though. If anything, it controls the auction house a bit which might end up being a benefit? I don't know, I bought a few items off it of it already and it's worked fine. The only problem it could seriously have is creating an economy inflation from Premium players hogging up all the money.

Boo 2013! But yea the game is comming out.

@Baltimore said:

Hot damn. I can't wait to play this. But 2013? Does it really take a year to localize a game like this?

Some think the date suggests they're going to record english voices and whatnot, so I suppose that's a yes.

I was jonesing so hard for some PSO that I bought both versions on the Dreamcast this weekend.

@Turambar: Oh, yeah, locking off item trading is weird. I don't know, we'll see if they fix some of that stuff on the NA release. I doubt things like that would fly here.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck yesssssssssss

cool, now i can just wait.. instead of dicking around and not understanding wth i'm trying to do in the game.