If this was already posted within another thread, you'll have to forgive me.

http://bumped.org/psublog/

FEATURES (I'm not doing ALL the markup. Just go to the link!):

Frozen Tundra Area

Mag’s 3rd Form

(God this site has the worst "image" markup ever. JUST LET ME PUT IN LINK AND POP OUT AN IMAGE FOR CHRISSAKES.)

But that helps alleviate some of my concerns about mags not being too terribly unique. Looks like they've got some good early variety going on.

Time Attack and Class Level 40

A new type of quest has been added! In Time Attack Quests, several gimmicks are laid out across the field. In normal quests, the maps are completely random, but time attack quests have preset maps.

In the first time attack quest, you will run from the forest to the tundra. A new ranking system called “Time Attack Ranking” will also be added to the game. You may receive a medal based on where you place.

You can now reach Level 40 by completing a client order.

Story Quests: Chapters 2, 3, and 4!

In Chapter 2, you receive a request from “Rodeo”, a scholar, who is questioning the origins of the Planet Naberius. In Chapter 3, you and Furie will investigate the creatures on Planet Lillipa.

Chapter 4 takes place on Planet Amduscia. Arks Researcher “Aki” and her assistant “Light” makes a request to cooperate with the Dragon tribes, but the dragons aren’t going to be won over that easy.

New Costumes and Hairstyles

The Open Beta ends July 3rd at 11:00 JST’

• July 2nd at 10:00 PM Eastern [THIS ALREADY HAPPENED]
• Other Time Zones

The Arks Cash purchasing site open July 3rd at 15:00 JST

• July 3rd at 2:00 AM Eastern
• Other Time Zones

The Official Release Starts July 4th at 14:00 JST

• July 4th at 1:00 AM Eastern [THIS IS WHEN WE'RE FREE TO PLAY AGAIN!]
• Other Time Zones

I find this part in particular funny:

Those who purchase the Premium Set will have access to the Premium Block. A certain number of blocks will be allocated only to premium users and it may look as if there are less blocks available for non-premium players. The number of premium blocks available will change based on the ratio of players who purchased it.

Like... who would use a premium block? That's just silly.

This sounds more useful, though:

Block Names:

Based on user feedback, some players are having a hard time finding parties around their level. Sakai will make adjustments to the names of some blocks based on Play Style and Level ranges.

Shame we can't READ JAPANESE! (Except like, those two guys.)

How about just consolidate all games in a given ship across all blocks like in the original PSO? What was wrong with that?? Segregating the population is hideously dumb.

That said, I can't wait! I can wait even less for a FRIGGIN ENGLISH RELEASE!

man thats crazy that there releasing it straight after open beta. usually the games go away for a couple of months after that, but none the less im hyped!

Nothing is more American than Sega.

Wow, wasn't expecting a turn around this fast, open beta must have gone pretty well. Here's to hoping for an English version soon.

Yeah, the stats for this game are ridiculous

http://andriasang.com/con1r8/pso2_service/

Registered IDs for the PSO2 open beta, which began on June 21, has crossed the 500,000 mark, Sega also said today. This, according to the company's own figures, makes it the largest scale open beta test in Japanese history. The game has reached a maximum simultaneous connection total of 80,000 players.

That's goddamn massive. I wished there were sub-classes though. I haven't played the first one so I am not sure if they were there then. Personally I think the Ranger could diversify to a sniper class, heavy support etc. That would be awesome.

The prices for shit are absurdddddddd.

$12.50 to reset your skill tree. It is literally cheaper just to buy a new one ($6.25). Same deal with mags. $6.25 to reset it vs. $3.75 for a new one. Also having to pay $8.75 a month to be able to sell stuff on the AH (or $16.30 as it comes with the premium pass) is pretty lame too.

Disappointing.

@kyokushin_nanaya said:

Yeah, the stats for this game are ridiculous

http://andriasang.com/con1r8/pso2_service/

Registered IDs for the PSO2 open beta, which began on June 21, has crossed the 500,000 mark, Sega also said today. This, according to the company's own figures, makes it the largest scale open beta test in Japanese history. The game has reached a maximum simultaneous connection total of 80,000 players.

That's goddamn massive. I wished there were sub-classes though. I haven't played the first one so I am not sure if they were there then. Personally I think the Ranger could diversify to a sniper class, heavy support etc. That would be awesome.

The classes are based on the weapons, and the weapons determines your playstyle. They're a lot more freeform than getting stuck in to a subclass.

@Anomareh said:

The prices for shit are absurdddddddd.

$12.50 to reset your skill tree. It is literally cheaper just to buy a new one ($6.25). Same deal with mags. $6.25 to reset it vs. $3.75 for a new one. Also having to pay $8.75 a month to be able to sell stuff on the AH (or $16.30 as it comes with the premium pass) is pretty lame too.

Disappointing.

Those are Japanese prices, who knows what they'll decide on for a NA release.

Yeah, the stats for this game are ridiculous

http://andriasang.com/con1r8/pso2_service/

Registered IDs for the PSO2 open beta, which began on June 21, has crossed the 500,000 mark, Sega also said today. This, according to the company's own figures, makes it the largest scale open beta test in Japanese history. The game has reached a maximum simultaneous connection total of 80,000 players.

That's goddamn massive. I wished there were sub-classes though. I haven't played the first one so I am not sure if they were there then. Personally I think the Ranger could diversify to a sniper class, heavy support etc. That would be awesome.

@Anomareh said:

The prices for shit are absurdddddddd.

$12.50 to reset your skill tree. It is literally cheaper just to buy a new one ($6.25). Same deal with mags. $6.25 to reset it vs. $3.75 for a new one. Also having to pay $8.75 a month to be able to sell stuff on the AH (or $16.30 as it comes with the premium pass) is pretty lame too.

Disappointing.

If you really think the non-Japanese prices will be that high, then you're crazy! The Japanese prices are that high because Japanese gamers always pay premiums for this kind of stuff. Addiction to the gacha (scratch card) stuff is high, prices are also expected to be high for any of the pay-items.

I'd be surprised if a U.S. release had the prices even half as high.

Releasin' gamez on MY 'merica day??

Those red bastards need to pay!

I hope this comes out over here soon. Maybe I'll just go through the whole translation walkthrough thing. I can't remember the last time I had to do that, but there's something very exciting about diving into a foreign language MMO with a few jpegs to guide you through.

I really dislike your misuse of the word markup.

@Fattony12000: ? Pretty sure my use of the word markup was fine in both cases. I refused to do the markup code to get all the images and videos in the original post, and I don't like Giant Bomb's markup code for images, since I just like to do "[image=imagelink]". For a specific size "[image=imagesize]imagelink[/image]" also works.

@TheHT said:

I hope this comes out over here soon. Maybe I'll just go through the whole translation walkthrough thing. I can't remember the last time I had to do that, but there's something very exciting about diving into a foreign language MMO with a few jpegs to guide you through.

Its absolutely worth it if you have any interest in it. And once you actually get past the menus and into the game, a lot of the interface is pretty intuitive.

@coakroach said:

Nothing is more American than Sega.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega#Company_Origins_.281940.E2.80.931982.29

Technically they are quite MURRICAN at heart.

If previous Asian MMO launches are anything to go by, the NA release is at least a year off. So considering or even thinking about NA prices right now is kind of nonsensical imo.

@Anomareh: Um. The main difference here is that PSO2 isn't an MMO. Like, at all. There's a very small number of quests, hence only a very small amount of localization is needed.

Our Founding Fathers died so we could have the right to sit inside and play Japanese MMOs. God bless America!

I feel compelled to ask this stupid question because I wanted to continue playing the beta: I would have to pay for the official release to continue playing now, right?

@ViciousAnchovy: No, it is a free to play game.

@xbob42: Not sure how the amount of quests available makes it not an MMO? You should probably alert Wikipedia and nearly every video game news site reporting anything about PSO 2 .

@Anomareh said:

@xbob42: Not sure how the amount of quests available makes it not an MMO? You should probably alert Wikipedia and nearly every video game news site reporting anything about PSO 2 .

...You miss the point of my post.

The amount of quests has nothing to do with it being an MMO. The amount of quests has everything to do with how long it would take to localize the game.

Most MMOs take a long time, because they're big open worlds full of hundreds and hundreds of quests. PSO2 maybe has a few dozen.

Further, PSO2 isn't an MMO because it's like Diablo. You take 4 people, go into instanced areas, and maybe you'll see another group or two on "team" areas.

There is no persistent world, there is no giant groups of people on raids or anything. It's Diablo in third-person, just like PSO1.

The closest thing to an MMO you get with it is the lobbies, and even those are heavily instanced. It is absolutely, 100% not an MMO.

It has some MMO elements... but so do most games. And you could TECHNICALLY define it as an MMO, the same way you could define Call of Duty as an MMO. (Lots of people online playing together.)

@xbob42 said:

@Anomareh: Um. The main difference here is that PSO2 isn't an MMO. Like, at all. There's a very small number of quests, hence only a very small amount of localization is needed.

Not sure how I could miss the point of the bolded part which was the only part of your statement I was challenging.

PSO is more akin to Guild Wars than it is Diablo. Guild wars lacks many of the same things you say PSO does that makes it not an MMO yet it is widely accepted as being an MMO. And if you feel so strongly that PSO is not an MMO you should really get on letting a large portion of the internet know.

Also, for posterity, I bet we don't see an NA launch of PSO 2 before Jul 4, 2013.

Diablo, Guild Wars, whatevers, I'm just glad to be playing PSO in some fashion again. It's still rolling through the updater. I can't wait for it to wrap up.

@Anomareh: Are you actually telling me that because people call PSO2 an MMO, that makes it one? Like I said, MMOs have definitions. PSO2 is not one. And Guild Wars 2 was akin to PSO and Diablo... so I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about. Hub town, get quests, go out on quests with group of 4. That is both PSO and Diablo. Both are about going on higher and higher difficulties as you level up and getting better and better loot.

As for when PSO2 comes out in NA... Not sure what that would prove, exactly? MMOs take a long time to localize because they have hundreds of quests with written text. That is a fact. There is no "it's just a random ass year delay," so if Sega actually manages to take a year to release it, then they've got the slowest localization team in the universe.

I don't even know what you're arguing. Everything I'm saying is facts, based in reality. Not hearsay or second-hand info.

@xbob42 said:

@Anomareh: Are you actually telling me that because people call PSO2 an MMO, that makes it one? Like I said, MMOs have definitions. PSO2 is not one. And Guild Wars 2 was akin to PSO and Diablo... so I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about. Hub town, get quests, go out on quests with group of 4. That is both PSO and Diablo. Both are about going on higher and higher difficulties as you level up and getting better and better loot.

You mean, like the internet? I think I'd kind of take the internet's word over just yours? And are you saying Guild Wars is not an MMO now? If so, you should get on fixing the GB wiki(after you get around to fixing the rest of the internet of course).

@xbob42 said:

As for when PSO2 comes out in NA... Not sure what that would prove, exactly? MMOs take a long time to localize because they have hundreds of quests with written text. That is a fact. There is no "it's just a random ass year delay," so if Sega actually manages to take a year to release it, then they've got the slowest localization team in the universe.

Takes a hell of a lot more than translation to release a game in other areas. From my experience, games that are released in Asia first, generally take quite some time to come out elsewhere (regardless of genre).

@xbob42 said:

I don't even know what you're arguing. Everything I'm saying is facts, based in reality. Not hearsay or second-hand info.

Seems more like you're opinion to me, and there seem to be very few that share it.

will the open beta client update to the release game client?

@Anomareh: Wow. Now you're calling Guild Wars an MMO "because the internet said so."

Alright dude, now we know where you get your info. Clearly there's no difference between Guild Wars 1 and 2 then, especially since the developers themselves said "The first game wasn't really an MMO, we want a full-fledged MMO with Guild Wars 2." But you go ahead and cite "the internet."

My God what a stupid argument. And games taking a long time to be localized "just because."

Talk about argumentative just to be argumentative.

@xbob42 said:

@Anomareh: Wow. Now you're calling Guild Wars an MMO "because the internet said so."

Uh, yeah? If all of the sites reporting on video games and the majority of the people playing that video game consider it an MMO, it's probably an MMO? Not sure how you're even debating that? People comparing all of those pricing models of MMOs to Guild Wars for years because it's obviously not an MMO but is somehow still relevant to that discussion?

@xbob42 said:

Alright dude, now we know where you get your info. Clearly there's no difference between Guild Wars 1 and 2 then, especially since the developers themselves said "The first game wasn't really an MMO, we want a full-fledged MMO with Guild Wars 2." But you go ahead and cite "the internet."

From the description of the game on this here very site at the core it sounds pretty much exactly like PSO 2. Pretty sure it was obvious that by saying "the internet" I was referring to the majority of the people playing it, and nearly every game site in existence, and even non-gaming related sites such as Wikipedia (I even linked to them). Sorry that I'm not taking your word over Wikipedia, Giant Bomb, and <insert any other large well known gaming site>?

@xbob42 said:

My God what a stupid argument. And games taking a long time to be localized "just because."

Not sure how you've come to the conclusion that I have a stupid argument when you haven't even bothered to read it? Pretty sure I said games take a lot more than localization to get released elsewhere.

@xbob42 said:

Talk about argumentative just to be argumentative.

Wat? Pretty sure the guy (who started the argument in the first place) trying to tell me that his opinion is fact and that everyone else besides him is wrong is being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.

@Anomareh said:

From the description of the game on this here very site at the core it sounds pretty much exactly like PSO 2. Pretty sure it was obvious that by saying "the internet" I was referring to the majority of the people playing it, and nearly every game site in existence, and even non-gaming related sites such as Wikipedia (I even linked to them). Sorry that I'm not taking your word over Wikipedia, Giant Bomb, and <insert any other large well known gaming site>?

Not sure how you've come to the conclusion that I have a stupid argument when you haven't even bothered to read it? Pretty sure I said games take a lot more than localization to get released elsewhere.

Ah. If you're going to cite Giant Bomb as a source, I'll do the same. On this very day, Jeff Gerstmann said quite clearly "PSO2 is in no way, shape or form an MMO, at all," during Thursday Night Throwdown. So, please, stop pretending a bunch of people saying something (about something they most likely don't know about, no less) magically makes it fact. Otherwise we'd be shooting locks off doors with guns because most people believe that actually works and isn't dangerous, or other such nonsense. Lots of people saying something has no bearing on the reality of whether it's true or not.

Secondly, no, it doesn't take a LOT more than localization. Maybe if you're dealing with the transference of rights to a property (like a game that is many different brands that are owned by one company in Japan and many in America.) or a company that has very little funds, but we're talking about a 100% digital game here. No physical aspect, no rights issues, nothing. Just translate and distribute.

Yeah, PSO2 isn't an MMO. Also the original Guild Wars isn't an MMO. Guild Wars 2 is an MMO though.

@Istealdreams: It already has I mis-read, yes it will update. Just load it up, patch it and you are good to go.

There was a time when "MMORPG" meant something very particular. And then a time followed where all sorts of games were coming out, that didn't fit that model, but called themselves MMOs, which has led us here, arguing about it.

It's a pretty shitty argument to have. You've got games like the Cryptic ones out there that are heavily instanced but still MMOs. And you got games like Global Agenda that weren't really MMOs but are now starting to add instanced open areas like an MMO. And then you've got the classic persistent open world games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 that are definitely MMOs. But games like PSO2 or the first Guild Wars are pretty much just dungeon crawlers with glorified lobbies. PSO2 is closer to those heavily instanced style MMOs with those areas where you can come across other teams, but I wouldn't say that's enough to justify calling it an MMO.

Of course there are those who will argue to the death that by virtue of MMO meaning "Massively Multiplayer Online" games like that count, as well as games like Battlefield 3, or Modern Warfare 2, or StarCraft 2. Those people, while being hands down the worst, also bring up a good point: arguing about genre classification is a waste of time.

But I see that this particular argument has put that on hold and descended into one about the merits of a majority determining what's true. So by all means, have at it. That's an argument definitely worth having. Maybe not here though.

@TheHT: It really comes down to expectations and definitions keeping some semblance of meaning. If an MMO is just any game that's online that a bunch of people play (regardless of whether they can actually all interact at once, which is what the "massively multiplayer," part really means. This ham-fisted twisting of the definition is like saying a game has split-screen if you stack four different TVs and consoles on top of each other to give the illusion of split-screen.) then the term loses all meaning.

And while the meaning of that term isn't terribly important in, well, any circumstance (compared to actually important things, of course.) it is a descriptor. It helps you explain the features or merits of a game. The term MMO invokes a certain thought process into what kind of game it is. Watering down the definition just turns a slightly helpful descriptor into totally meaningless jargon that gets tossed around by clueless people that will bafflingly argue it for no real reason.

Diluting descriptors by trying to be reductive about the literal meaning of individual words instead of what the term (which is already established and understood.) actually means just helps create confusion about what any of it means to begin with. If I'm looking for an "MMO," I'm looking for a very specific style of game, and if I got pointed to PSO2 I'd have had my time completely wasted and thought you were quite lacking in basic comprehension on the subject.

I would never consider PSO & PSO2 MMORPGs. They're online action RPGs (like Diablo 2&3).

Everquest, FFXI, EVE - now they're fully-fledged (massive) online worlds.

@xbob42: Absolutely. That's the whole point of genres. But we've gotten to a point where some games come around and are perceived as falling under the MMO banner without neccesarily matching what was presumed to be the features of any MMO. The fact that for a long while a good lot of people actually called Guild Wars 1 an MMO and that you two were even having that argument about PSO2 goes to show that the term "MMO" has gotten pretty fucked.

You can try and reclaim it or you can just start using more refined descriptors/subgenres.