PSO2: Alpha Test 2 Players Report and Ranewearl

It's time for the Alpha Test 2 Players Report! But first, Sakai updated his blog, he took a break last week from updating because he wanted to blog about the Alpha 2 report when it was finished.

He was also on a talk show discussing the Racaseal model he previously mentioned a long time ago! Here's how his came out.

He also mentioned he's recording voices for PSO2's story and player characters!

As for the future, he will push production at a faster pace now so you won't have to wait too long between tests. In March he's going to announce some details about the Closed Beta test!

Our next porori image is the RAnewearl, you've been waiting such a long time to see it, so here she is!

RaNewearl Concept

The top of her outfit is lightweight, but the bottom is solidly protected. You should expect to see the in game model later on.

 

Players Report

There was a total of 50,811 logged in users during the duration of the alpha test. 40,245 people reached level 10. 23,097 simultaneous connections.

It seems the number of people simultaneously connected dropped off during the last days.

 

Hunters were the most chosen class. Newman females were the most chosen gender/race, and yet again Newman males were the least chosen. Why no love for the Newms? Humans overall were the most chosen race. Females were the most chosen sex. I was hoping us foreigners would have impacted the scale a bit but I guess not.

Average Height

  • Male Humans 176.2cm
  • Female Humans 163.9cm
  • Male Newmans 174.1cm
  • Female Newmans 156.8cm
  • Cast Males 185.1 cm
  • Cast Females 159.3 cm
  • Overall Males 172.0cm
  • Overall Females 167.5 cm

It seems evident that people make shorter female characters and taller males, no surprise here.

 

Each of the 4 boxes represent the most popular costume and hairstyles for their race and gender. Human Males chose the default Humar costume "Close Water" and hairstyle "Short Wolf"

Human Males

  • Close Water Costume
  • Short Wolf Hairstyle

Newman Males

  • Casual Layer Hairstyle
  • Sensius Coat Costume

Human Females

  • Casual Layer Hairstyle
  • NaverQuartz Costume

Newman Females

  • WioraMagika Costume
  • Casual layer Hairstyle

Cast Males

  • Ronia Head
  • Dista Body
  • Dista Leg
  • Dista Arm

Cast Females

  • Casual Layer Hairstyle
  • Deal Body
  • Deal Leg
  • Deal Arm

 

This chart shows the level distribution among races. It also includes the fastest time to reach level 20. About 120,000 characters were made, the average user made 2.3 characters. The fastest time to reach level 20 took less than 5 hours. It seems the development staff was surprised by this. (Alpha Test 2 spanned for 56 hours.)

 

This quest chart shows the quest name on the left side, the first column shows the number of times the quest was played, the second column shows the percentage it was completed, and the last column shows the death rate.

A very difficult quest seems to be "ダーカー調査:森林" Darker Investigation: Forest with its low 29.19 success rate. The Volcano Cavern quest seems to have a high mortality rate. Is the boss killing the players so easily?

 

This chart shows the rare item drop rates. Each item and unit featured on characters dropped the least amount.

  • Rod: Pyra dropped 909 times
  • Sword: Tarnada dropped 960 times
  • Sword: Coat Edge dropped 3229 times
  • Unit: Rear / Calveria wing dropped 4735 times
  • Unit: Sub/ Blow Resist dropped 5304 times
  • Rod: Clarita visas dropped 5842 times
  • Unit: Leg  / Heragrind dropped 6476 times
  • Unit: Arm / Calbariatol dropped 8083 times
  • Unit: Leg / Herasutra dropped 8484 times

 

The most popular items purchased at the My Room Shop

  • Mystery Egg
  • Planter
  • Sen Tak Ki (washing machine)

 

On Planet Naberius, Dynal will randomly pop up in an Interrupt Event / Emergency Trial. Here's the stats for each trial.

  • Dynal Emergency Landed 60,0620 times. (Doesn't include re-emergencies)
  • 35.75% of the time, his aircraft was safely protected by players
  • 51.66% of the time he had to do a re-emergency landing.
  • 49.01% of time, players successfully protected him during his re-emergency landing

 

Feedback sent in.

 

Bug Reports sent in.

Most of the bug reports and feedback were mainly about the GamePad since on the first day it didn't work properly. There were also lots of reports about lagging. Some people had issues with My Room which may have been caused by server load.

 

Forum topics

Compared to the amount of people who played, not many participated in the forums. But even so, there were lots of topics regarding player controls and the battle system.

 

So these three boxes represent the answers given in the questionnaire. The first one shows the percentage of people who participated in the previous alpha test. The second question shows if people were able to play the game successfully. The majority of people had no problem playing but 12% were only able to play solo. 65% of people played with the gamepad.

 

PSO2 Questionnaire Grading

Compared to the last test, User Interface, Character Creation, and Communication ratings increased the most. However, BGM lost a few points. I'm sure it has something to do with the music that plays over and over when you finish a mission. Get back to work Kobayashi!

People voted on which features should be improved upon in this game. This time people wanted more weapon categories which now we unofficially know is coming.

Well that's all for now, in mid March, just like last time, Sakai will respond to user feedback informing us of what changes shall occur.

 

PSO2 Calandar March

PSO2: Racast and Hucaseal Concept

Hello, Sakai updated today, nothing really that important actually. He was really busy with postproduction work on that prologue movie that was mentioned a while back and didn't get the time to finish up the Alpha Test 2 Player report. Even though 50,000 people played the alpha test, only 24,000 people completed the questionnaire.

The effect of the improvements to character creation can be seen in that Cast usage has increased since last time. Even though the gamepad wasn't working the first day, about 65% used it. Keyboard and mouse usage increased from 23% to 35%.

The entry in the questionnaire where you had to grade each aspect of the game with a score of 1 – 5, each section got a higher grade this time.

About 5,000 people actually participated in the BBS. There's about 1,000 threads, and 18,000 replies. It was interesting to see the various opinions people had about the game to show which aspects were going in the right direction.

Just so you know, the Alpha Test 2 Players site will shut down once the report is released. But the good news is that from March, we'll have announcements almost every week.

Racast Concept

 

HuCaseal Concept

PSE  (Mini Guide Append)

Various effects may occur when you slay enemies, which is known as Photon Sensitive Effect. When these occur, can receive various bonuses like increased stats or experience points.  As it occurs, PSE levels can increase the effect of the bonuses applied.

When you reach the 8th PSE level, you will achieve a PSE Burst. The effects increase dramatically for a limited time. You can extend the time of the PSE Burst when you keep killing enemies.

Before a PSE occurs, some kind of omen is displayed on the screen.

One of my favorite things about the PSE Burst is how the battle music slightly changes reminiscent to Phantasy Star Zero's rare enemy music.

Sakai comments about 3D printing PSO2 Characters

What if you could bring your PSO2 avatar to life in a physical 3D form. Unfortunately such a thing would be considerably expensive, like 30,000 yen. Plus how many people could actually afford such a service? 

[via shougai]

Phantasy Star Online 2: Newman Ranger Male Costume

Hello! Sakai updated this morning. On the last day Sakai and the development team came out to play in the lobby!

A little more than 50,000 or 73% of players participated in this alpha test. 80% of those players reached up to Level 10. There were approximately 23,000 simultaneous connections. There is a lot more data he has to go through but he thanks you all for participating.

Be careful though, if you uninstall the game you may lose your screenshots, so please back them up beforehand.

Sakai is going to arrange a new Alpha Test 2 Player Report after he gathers the responses from the questionnaire. Here you can compare the results from the first alpha test with the second.  However, there are some new questions on this questionnaire.

You must complete the questionnaire by Feb 10th, 2012 18:00 JST.

 

Newman Ranger Costume

So we haven't yet seen the concept designs for the Newman Ranger costumes, well here it is! It has a gunner motif, protected in tight armor head to toe.

 Questionnaire

The top entry — 選択してください — is not shown in this list

Q1. What Control Scheme do you mainly use?

  • Gamepad and Mouse
  • Gamepad and Keyboard
  • Gamepad and Keyboard is only for chatting.

Q2.  Which Gamepad and Model do you mainly use?

  • I do not use it
  • Sanwa Supply
  • Logitech
  • Buffulo
  • Elecom
  • Xbox 360
  • Other

Q3. What Internet Connection do you use?

Internet Connection

  • ADSL
  • Fiber Optics
  • Cable (CATV)
  • Other

Internet Method

  • Wired
  • Wireless

Q4. Please checkmark the titles you have played before.

  • Phantasy Star Portable (PSP)
  • Phantasy Star Portable 2 (PSP)
  • Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity (PSP)
  • Phantasy Star Online Series (DC/GC/PC/XBOX)
  • Phantasy Star Universe (PC/PS2/XBox360)
  • Phantasy Star Zero (NDS)
  • I did not play any of these.

Q5. Did you participate in the August Alpha Test 1?

  • (x) Participated ( ) Did not Participate

Q6. For each of the following entries, please rate from 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest.

  • Game installation including the Launcher     great! (5 4 3 2 1) terrible!
  • The whole title sequence from title to login.
  • Character creation
  • User Interface
  • Character Operation Scheme
  • Quest Contents
  • Enemy Behavior
  • Game Balance
  • Character, field, enemy graphics
  • Motion (animation)
  • Effects
  • Communication Functions
  • My Room
  • My Shop
  • BGM
  • Overall

 Q7. From what you played in Alpha Test 2, which aspect should be strengthened the most?

  •  Character Actions
  • Increase the number of weapons
  • More weapon categories
  • Increase the variety of PA and Skills
  • More luscious graphics
  • Improve Character Creation
  • Improve Enemies
  • More Map Variations
  • Improve Chat Functions
  • Add Something you can raise other than characters like Pets.
  • Improve My Room Functions
  • Improve Story and Setting
  • Improve elements where lots of people can play.
  •  Improve areas other than battle
  • Add Competitive elements

Q8. Please choose a service that you would like us to coordinate with the game.

  • Facebook
  • Mixi
  • Twitter
  • Mobage
  • GREE'
  • Amoeba
  • Youtube
  • Nico Nico Douga
  • Other
  • Nothing in particular

Input Other service here:

Q9.  Please choose the service you currently have an account with.

  • Facebook
  • Mixi
  • Twitter
  • Mobage
  • GREE'
  • Amoeba
  • Youtube
  • Nico Nico Douga
  • Yahoo Japan
  • Livedoor
  • Google Account
  • Other
  • Nothing in particular

Other Account:

Q10. From the following, please select the online game and portal sites you use.

  • Capcom Online Games
  • Game Chu
  • mgame
  • MK-Style
  • NEXON
  • play nc
  • gamania
  • Gungho Games
  • Gamepot
  • HanGame
  • Other
  • Nothing in particular

Q11. Please write 3 console games you find most interesting.

Q12. Please write what PC online games you usually play

Q13.  Which game consoles and handhelds do you have?

  • Playstation 3
  • Playstation Portable
  • Playstation Vita
  • Wii
  • Nintendo DS
  • Nintendo 3DS
  • Xbox 360
  • Dumb Phone
  • Iphone
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Desktop PC
  • Laptop
  • IPad
  • Android Tablet
  • Windows Tablet
  • Other
  • None in particular

Please type in what other platform you use:

Q14. Using your character data from the PC version, which other platform would you like to use it to play the Phantasy Star Online 2 "Series".

(Of course with this particular question, it is alluding to the relationship between Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Portable 2. You can import character data from PSU into Phantasy Star Portable 2. )

  • Playstation 3
  • Playstation Portable
  • Playstation Vita
  • Wii
  • Nintendo DS
  • Nintendo 3DS
  • Xbox 360
  • Dumb Phone
  • Iphone
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Desktop PC
  • Laptop
  • IPad
  • Android Tablet
  • Windows Tablet
  • Other
  • None in particular

Input Other:

Q15: Were you able to play this test normally?

  • Yes, I could play the game normally and play with other people
  • I could play the game normally, but was only able to do so solo.
  • I downloaded the client but the game did not even start.
  • I wasn't even able to download it.

Q16: What comments would you like to give the development team in 1000 characters or less.

 

Additional Comments

We recommend not typing any comments in English. Anyway, this is yet another hint of a console Phantasy Star game in the pipeline that may use character data from PSO2. However I strongly believe Phantasy Star Victory will be highly related to PSO2 in every shape and form.