Wednesday March 28, 2012 07:35
Phantasy Star Online 2: Cash Items
Morning folks, Sakai updated with a very long post. Unfortunately I’m pressed for time today as it’s not a usual day the blog updates on. I covered most of it already in these last three posts but here’s what you need to know.
Closed Beta details
- In the closed beta test movie it was written that you can go up to level 30. Well Sakai states it is actually level 20, there was a change in the game’s balancing so they had to make the adjustment. Sorry for the mistake.
- The character creation demo in April does indeed work offline.
- If you’ve applied for Alpha Test 1 or Alpha Test 2 or the Email newsletter you are already in the drawing to participate in the Beta test.
- The closed beta expects to have 100,000 players and already 10,000 new entries were sent in. If you reach level 10, you can get a weapon hologram room item you can use in the Open Beta.
- They understand your concerns for cheaters in F2P games and will do what they can to provide a safe community.
As of now, their plans is to start the PC game officially in early summer. The smartphone version uses the same play data as the PC and Vita version. You can play a single player game that includes character creation, raising your character, go on an adventure with your friend’s character, check mail from your friends, or confirm sales from the shop. The smartphone version is aiming to start in Winter 2012. Since there will be some interlocking connection to the PC version of the game, smartphone users will undergo a test to ensure quality.
PC/Vita/Smartphone users can download the official game fore free. On each version the standard game is free. It will be supported by cash items.
Their game policy is to ensure that by playing for free there will not be any restrictions on what class level you can go up to. They will not allow the direct sales of highly over powerful weapons (and such) for large sums of cash either.
For example, there will be a campaign to receive select game items from purchasing particular Microsoft and Intel products. These items are not intended to rob the motivation of players since these weapons are not powerful, and the same kinds of items will eventually drop sometime after the official game starts.
System type items
- Storage and Skill Tree expansion (Instead of skills costing money, you could acquire a new skill tree.) Add-ons like allowing you to set up a My Room/My Shop, and expanded features in Item Trade services, etc.
- (Clarifying note: Sorry, since it was causing confusion, I incorrectly worded the sentence. The basic sentence was to say that these are features that you add or expand upon your game by purchasing these services. )
Consumption Items
- The sales of some consumption items like Scape Dolls. You can of course revive other players for free by using moon atomizers.
- Some cash items can have larger effects on health restoration.
Limited Time Effect Based Items
- Items that can increase the success rate of grinding, drop boosts, and experience rate. And drop and experience rate boosts will have an effect for a limited time.
Avatar Items
- You can purchase items that affect your character’s appearance, including variations of clothing and accessories and costumes. Only certain areas of the makeup counter will be charged.
Some cash items are available in “Arks Scratch”. It appears to be some kind of lottery game. With items you acquire from “scratch” you can sell most but not all these items in your player shop and even use them in meseta transactions. There are two styles of scratch. The cheap version consists of various cash items including clothing and accessories. In the slightly expensive version, it only consists of clothing and accessories. (As explained above, weapons are not included here.)
Tomorrow he wants to talk about the Character Demo releasing on April 5th.
PSO2′s higher quality main visual designed by Mizuno
who also did artwork for PSP2 and PSP2i.
- Category: Phantasy Star Online 2
- (30) Comments
gemzero
Manta
Ricardo
Nami
weeaboo
March 28th, 2012 at 3:40 am
System type items
Storage and Skill Tree expansion (Instead of skills costing money, you could acquire a new skill tree.) Extended functionality in regards to setting up My Room/My Shop, and Item Trade services
this one is a little vague. mainly the part related to skill tree expansion. "instead of skills costing money, you could acquire a new skill tree,"?
what's that supposed to mean? you can buy new skill trees with cash?
Ricardo
March 28th, 2012 at 3:57 am
He didn't explain.
It could be
A. New Skill tree meaning new class, so character can switch classes
B. New Skill tree meaning, multiple skill tree variations you can switch to, like one tree focuses on stance while the other focuses on boosted stats. Remember that a long time ago it was said you couldn't max out all the skills.
Nilok
March 28th, 2012 at 4:42 am
not unlike other F2P games in terms of the cash shop, but still.
-Called it
IamGodsGift
March 28th, 2012 at 4:47 am
Questions on this post.
1. If you buy the expansion for storage, does that mean like how many items you can carry with you without putting it in your storage box / or expanding your storage box. And if thats the case, will this effect all your characters or will you need to buy it for each of your characters?
2. Do you think we will be able to purchase the ability to have all the skills at one time?
3. When it said no weapons, did he mean that you cant buy weapons with cash shops?
Thx!!!
Nilok
March 28th, 2012 at 4:50 am
BTW that new skill tree thing probably means you can pay to respec.
djecliptik
March 28th, 2012 at 5:09 am
I swear, Sakai must have been eavesdropping on me and my friends conversation last night… Because he is saying the same things we were talking about. Mind=blown o.o
Ricardo
March 28th, 2012 at 5:43 am
1. Well this one is good because it was brought up in the datamining. Everyone gets limited amount of items they can place in storage. There's also a temporary storage box that holds a few of your items if the item pack is full. When you buy storage boxes you can store more items, not necessarily in the item pack, but he could also put a cash item to expand that if he wanted to.
2. It looks like he's shying away from having you purchase skills at all. I don't really like that idea either because it makes players over powerful in a short time span if they can purchase all the skills at once.
3. It looks like he was talking about weapons in the expensive Arks Scratch. Because only costumes are going in that one.
IamGodsGift
March 28th, 2012 at 6:42 am
Ok thats for clarifying that for me
i was hoping that he would have a cash item that would allow all the skill slots to be opened so you could eventually have them all filled
Nilok
March 28th, 2012 at 6:48 am
you could say the same thing about them reading the blog. it's much simpler than that though:
This is standard fare for F2P games. That's how it is in just about any other f2p games with the exception of weapons, like clothes and storage are to F2P as Number 2 pencils are to the SATs. The rest is elementary.
@IamGodsGift. You can send items to storage from your item menu IIRC, so it would make more sense that your actual storage box can be expanded. whether it affects the account or just the character depends on if they have a common box and only a common box for storage or if they have storage on a character level. if each character has their own storage AND a common box, they will likely sell "expansion tickets" for each type of storage. It's also not out of the question they would sell you something that lets you hold more items of one type. like increase the number of consumables by 10. so for example rather than hold 10 of each mate you could hold 20.
It's unlikely they will let you pay to max the skill tree if only because they don't want to make for a grotesquely unbalanced experience between people who pay into the game and those that dont as made evident by the fact that they wont sell weapons, but instead make your chances at upgrading weapons better. I could see them selling single skill points down the road at increasing costs up to 5 or so though. so say the first one was $2 and by the time you get to 5 it cost $10. this would in effect be $6 a skill point if you bought all 5 and while 5 extra skill points might alter your experience in a somewhat meaningful way, people who don't pay for it won't feel like they're being punished for not paying $30 for buffs.
And yes, for now it means weapons will not be available in the cash shop, but paying to eliminate the risk of failure when grinding is most assuredly in. They will also likely make you pay to unbind weapons and armor. I imagine down the road what they'll likely do is make it so you can RENT variants of high end weapons that can be equipped by low level players. Like a J sword that is nearly as powerful as a normal j sword but can be equipped by a level 10, but you'd have to pay $10 to use it for a week and it can't be upgraded. Then it disappears from inventory when time expires.
PissedOffPSOFan
March 28th, 2012 at 9:54 am
This is bullshit. Alpha2 was awesome, but everything I've heard since then has been awful. This game had so much potential during the alpha and they are making their best efforts to ruin it. The other changes were bad, but this takes the fucking cake. Now I need to rant.
F2P? This is the business model companies choose when they lack faith in their product. 99% of free games are shit…and everyone knows it. That is what people are going to think when they hear about PSO2. "More F2P crap" "If its free then its probably lame or else it'd be P2P" Is this what you want people to think about PSO2? All that hard work you put into to make this game awesome will be wasted. There is a reason why some products are "unnecessarily" expensive. It has nothing to do with greed. This is all about product positioning. People see the higher price and think there must be a reason for it (to a certain extent) but I'm gonna stop here before I go into marketing theory.
Worried about hackers? PS series has always had issues with them, but they've been minor compared to what some online games have dealt with. Sega are you ready for the shit that Nexon constantly goes through? I doubt you are, considering you're still using Gameguard to "protect" your game. Hacker, botters, cheaters you're gonna get it all and they are gonna trash your game. You're going to get nothing but headaches from this game until it finally dies in a couple years due to an overload of hackers and botters.
Sorry about the rant. It just makes me sick to see the game I've been waiting for to get ruined by repeated bad decisions like this. I really hope I'm overreacting and Sega becomes the exception rather than the rule. Time will tell.
I hope Sega hires several people to watch for cheaters and strictly enforces the rules.
Anonymous
March 28th, 2012 at 11:25 am
You know, you just said EVERYTHING I was thinking guy above me.
Turom
March 28th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
What's the situation of Spiral Knights, which is made by the same team ? Is is trashed by bots, ruined shit game because of its F2P model ?
I didn't play it myself so I wouldn't know but I'd like to hear about it. If Spiral Knights was managed nicely and works till now, there's no reason they wouldn't make it with PSO2 – even better with their experience they earned with it.
And well, PSO is a type of game you play in instances only, with PVE mechanics, I don't think botters and hackers would annoy much people in this game, exept by flooding the economy at some levels maybe.
There's no PVP, you can just go in missions and instances with people you choose and you like.. Who cares the hackers and RMTs ?
I heard about Nexon, yes they're having huge issues with this type of things, but I can tell : I play Vindictus and it's the same mechanic as PSO, you play in instances, it's PVE content, hackers and RMTs.. no one cares. They just show off their PvE bosses they can kill faster than you with some dumb hack on youtube and no one gives a shit about them, they can't annoy you in game.
I'm not worried at all by these choices personnaly.
Yuki-chan
March 28th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
@ Turom: I play spiral knights and I can say, I've never found any hacker in that game. Meh. People is overreacting as always.
Nilok
March 28th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
This sounds more like xenophobia than a thought out argument. how many MMOs and MMO style games are actually P2P now? even WoW is F2P up to a point. Think about it. if you had to compete with WoW or vindictus, which would you pick? F2P is a much easier market and it actually helps give us a shot a better support in the states if they don't go with universal servers. And even if they do, why complain?
Admit it, that part that bothers you is the cash shop. I hate to break it to you, but the F2P model is just more lucrative these days. As much as I was against the F2P model months ago, I actually gave it some thought and you know as much as you wanna hate on Nexon, I played Vindictus off oand on for the last year. I have two characters that are at or around lvl 70 and the worst I ran into aside from the people selling gold were the guys selling farmable resources in quantities of 100(max) and multiple sets, indicating they had run game speed/respawn script. Not the worst thing you can see considering that in PSU we had our rooms hacked, the economy ruined due to hacking (remember when Ray-Photons sold for 100k meseta each?), and before that we had PK hacks, character deletions and Nol? Come on. Compared to gameguard, hackshield is a godsend.
As I mentioned before, i agree that F2P has a stigma around it. Like as soon as you make your game F2P it somehow makes the game SEEM cheap. But all MMO style games have a cash shop even if it's P2P. So look at it this way: Sega believes the F2P model will actually generate more revenue for them than a P2P model. it's the only reason they did it. Like I said in a previous post, Sega puts a lot of their games on steam. Steam has a genre subset specifically for F2P which people can get instant access to. That's a huge community they're tapped into just for having their game available there,
So dont play the game if it's been tainted by F2P, but here's a thought: play the game and see how it works for you. I'll personally reimburse you the price of the game and a year's subscription if you don't like it…oh wait.
djecliptik
March 28th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
@Nilok
That would even be more awesome if they put PSO2 on steam, since it's a huge community in and of itself. Totally agree with your post.
djecliptik
March 28th, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Here is a thought… And I want to address those who are complaining about not seeing an Xbox360 or PS3 release…
No offense, but name one F2P MMORPG that was released on 360 and PS3 that was cross-platform.
djecliptik
March 28th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
I understand Microsoft is trying to get into the f2p model… And we have yet to see one… however, they want the micro-transactions to be based off Microsoft points. The new Tribes was suppose to come out, and even Nexon's Mabinogi on the 360, but they still have to wait for some reason.
Nilok
March 28th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Well I don't see why it won't be on Steam. Spiral Knights is on Steam, Sonic Generations is on steam. Lots of other Sega games are on Steam. It seems like Sega has already found how potent of a tool Steam can be and it only makes sense that they'll continue to use it. That said, if they do even minimal advertising in the US, this game should instantly do better than PSU.
-Z-
March 28th, 2012 at 6:29 pm
one, to hell with steam and valve.
two, enough with the grotesque assumptions about F2P as a whole.
three. "skill tree expansions" sounds like even though you won't have restriction on your level cap, you're still going to be gimped compared to the rich guy who can feed a paycheck or two into the game every month. that's…. worrisome. free-only peasants will probably be shunned from parties in no time.
four. sounds like all the non-default outfits will be cash only. no suprise, this sort of thing already happened to PSU. if you're not rich out of game you're a clone ingame. if you're rich out of game you're slightly less of a clone ingame, but still a clone thanks to one piece outfits, much like most games. maybe this time they'll at least keep the outfits from controlling your character's figure.
five. ugh, cash randombox-isms. the REAL evil of F2P games that nobody here complaining about F2P thinks to mention. prepare to spend whole paychecks failing to get that awesome new outfit/accessory that you want.
five. cashshop-only scape dolls? definately going to turn into a "Grind on things weaker than you so you don't die because if you don't have a party you're shafted" situation there. especially if PSU's lopsided imbalance of monster-to-player-at-level-X strength should rear it's ugly head again.
WhyAreYouDoingThisTh
March 28th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
What is this? This will soon turn into that awful hacked Gunz the Duel within a month. P.O'd PSOFan HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. Why are you doing this. I would rather this even be RUNESCAPE(unless even Jagex has real-life cash shops)…
eidolus
March 28th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
…free to play with a cash shop. I can think of one awesome game that is F2P with a cash shop. Team Fortress 2. Frankly, PSO2 could learn a thing or two from those OTHER super popular long lasting online games with extremely strong communities, FPS.
Things like, instead of item tiers, balancing all your unique & special weapons against the default set. Bonuses that come with trade offs. Difficulty through better AI tactics in gameplay, not cheap and arbitrary stat increases.
Fuck, if PSO2 gets released on steam, I am hoping that it does some sweet cross over with TF2.
High fives for all you folks who don't play just one genre or one franchise. Gonna go play TF2 to distract myself of the excitement for this game.
Nilok
March 28th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
@-Z- or don't suck at the game? Or here's a thought: everyone brings moon atomizers? Don't play the game if it's such a big deal. You clearly don't play many games online or you'd know that the stuff you're talking about is pure nonsense. F2P is NOT synonymous with "fat cash or the game sucks". You're also jumping to way too many conclusions about the skill tree stuff. The word used was "new". In a rough translation they could have meant to reset your skill points to reassign them – AKA respec. Stop throwing tantrums and wait to see what they do. You sound like a child.
djecliptik
March 29th, 2012 at 3:55 am
@eidolus
"High fives for all you folks who don’t play just one genre or one franchise. Gonna go play TF2 to distract myself of the excitement for this game."
I actually play TF2 as well. Look up SN: Zen Sandwich
@nilok
"or don’t suck at the game? Or here’s a thought: everyone brings moon atomizers? Don’t play the game if it’s such a big deal."
I 2nd that.
weeaboo
March 29th, 2012 at 5:11 am
i think you could hold 10 moon atomizers in pso 1+2 right?
wonder if they're gonna put a limit on that ha
Nilok
March 29th, 2012 at 7:20 am
IIRC it was 5 in PSP2 and PSP2i
zwei
March 29th, 2012 at 7:41 am
(u have forgot the h by http:// ..for the link to pso2 blog !!!
Anonymous
March 29th, 2012 at 8:12 am
LOL TF2 sucked the moment they added crafting
djecliptik
March 29th, 2012 at 11:34 am
@Anonymous
Crafting is what made TF2 even better! Plus, it provided a business opportunity for creative programmers outside of Valve to make weapons and accessories for the game. Haters gonna hate, however there is no denying the truth that TF2 is making over 300% profit AFTER making it F2P.
Nilok
March 29th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
what people really don't get is that cash shops exist even in PSP models now. Last I checked, WoW charged $15/mo to play on their servers. they also have cash items not unlick what is being described for PSO2. Many gammers feel that sort of model is double dipping.
I think it was Penny Arcade that said something like "They want to have their cake and then sell you a cake and then they want to eat both cakes" …something like that.
Point I'm making is the F2P model is scarcely different from today's P2P model. So by wanting the game to be PSP, you're really just saying that you want to pay to give them money, rather than just give them money. If you're familiar with Costco, you have to spend $100 on membership just to be allowed inside to shop. Doesn't really make sense, does it?
eidolus
March 29th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
@djecliptik
Friended you on steam.