And so it goes...

nynniva

Its really sad to me, because I think that SEGA had a good thing going with this game. Its dynamic and a completely different experience than anything else in the genre. The MMORPG feel with action combat, a new way to craft, a new way to do everything, a great sci fi game. I can't think of enough great reasons to play this game. But alas, it seems SEGA made a great game and then just...set it free and quit caring about it.

I stayed through the periodic "walls" they threw up, locking me at lvl 50, then lvl 60, then lvl 70, keeping me at class level 10 and then at expert class level 10 after that, limiting the content, no new missions since November's introduction of Moatoob (other than Bruce's, which was terribly disappointing, and just harder versions of the same stuff we've been doing all along.)

I kept telling myself, good things will come. I would request time off from work on patch day, get the new skills, the new clothes, try the new things. I was one of the most excited participants of this game and community.

But the hacking problem, tolerable at first, slowly grew worse, until the entire economy was bombed, and people buying B rank weapons for 'max meseta' (the most money a character can hold, lol) ...well, okay I thought. I don't need to worry about the economy, I can still enjoy the game. Flash forward. Every good drop is so rare as to be unfarmable, dropping from special 'rare' maps of missions off of 'rare' mobs that might spawn in those maps, and even then the drop isn't a guarantee. Even then, you can still fail the synth. Getting the best equipment in this game is a matter of dumb luck, plain and simple.

All of which I was willing to deal with.

But now, Hackers are selling, for just 25$ apiece, anything you want. Even items that aren't released yet! 12* weapons probably for 6, 7 months down the road are now available on ebay and other sites. It was bad enough that you could buy THE MOST MONEY YOUR CHARCTER COULD CARRY FOR 6$. Now you can buy items too. Makes it kinda hard to work for something when all the script kiddies have it for free, yknow? There's really no point in playing anymore, there's nothing to set you apart, make you special, nothing you can spend 300 hours trying to get only to see 22 other people with it who cheated. Its disheartening, and saddening, and they all say we should have known better, from PSO.

I never played PSO. I loved PSU from the moment I installed it till the moment I uninstalled it. The problem is, I don't think SEGA cared about it as much as I, or the other fans did, or did not have the foresight to anticipate the hacking problem despite 6 years of it in PSO. Did not design their game in a way that would make it difficult to hack ( client side transactions?! Even I know better than that.). And by limiting how high we can get or what we can explore, making us wait 6 more months for items that hackers can have now? I mean seriously, I feel like I shouldn't bother anymore.

If I had an XBOX 360, I might start again there, but I'm too disheartened with the game to buy a console just to play it, and I have over 1000 hours invested in my characters on PS2/PC server and I think I'm just done.

I'd still recommend this game for XBOX players, just don't expect anything from SEGA.

Gameloading

If you liked PSU, then you should defenity give Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst a shot. Its a lot better then PSU Imo. It also has a lot more content (as it is Phantasy Star Online 1+2+4 combined). its more polished, has a much more intresting theme around it (You travel around a lost planet) and is also a bit more challenging. Every boss is completely diffrent and unique, unlike PSU's copy/paste bosses.



There is a 14 day trial, go give it a shot at www.psobb.com