Our 3rd post for today is a recap of information updated on the official site. Some information has become clearer.

 

Mags are mechanical life forms that support the player in battle and serve as pets.  When you give them items they grow up and acquire special abilities. Mags that grow up will have various effects.

 

Don't mess with the unicorn.

After you accumulate a certain amount of damage, your mag will transform into a mythical creature (like this Unicorn type Photon Blast.). Now the AI takes over and the creature will attack on its own,  players can also fight alongside with it.

 

The Arks Lobby Upper Level

There's an elevator in the Arks lobby that divides two main areas.

 

The upper level is called the Gate area, you can access the quest counter and Camp Ship from here.

 

 

Arks Lobby Lower Level

The lower level is called the Shop area. This lower area can also be used as a rest and relaxation spot where players can meet and hang out.

 

 

3 New Weapon Classes

Hunters can now use Partisans. They can do quick attacks,  have extended reach, and can attack surrounding enemies. It has a special action simply known as dance/twirl which fills up the gear gauge.

 

Rangers have access to Launchers that shoots a missile which gives an explosive blast. You can't shoot while moving though. (In screenshots it appears you can shoot while in the air.)

 

Talis is a card throwing weapon for forces. You can throw them to attack enemies and cast technics from them. Throw them to enemies in the air and your technic could have wider range.  Or you could throw it and cast resta to provide support from long distances.  

 

Dengeki Event

Well now that twirl thing makes more sense! She spins the partisan around to boost the gear gauge. If you're wondering what "gear" actually is, I believe it's the gauge that Hunters have on their action palette. Unfortunately there wasn't much documentation about the inner working of this and was left up to players to figure out.

• Mags have their own behavioral pattern.

In this particular case in the Mag status screen there were two areas called, "Auto Action" and "Trigger Action." Unfortunately they were too blurry to make out, it looks like healing was one of the behavior patterns when the HP is low.

Mags can also attack enemies.

The tekker shop was mentioned, the guy from PSO who decides what your ???? item is.

You can ride the launcher. You can aim where you shoot the Talis and techs spark out. It looks as though you set the technics to the palette similarly as you do to the rod.

The mag status screen had each stat listed Striking, Range, Tech, Ability, Striking Defense, Range Defense, and Tech Defense. From the video he showed, there was a different mag at level 50 called Raira (blurry) and there was an icon below it which said "Helix Proi/Broi" (blurry) which I can assume is the photon blast. He gave his mag a "striking ?? device" which gave the mag a lot of striking stat.

Keep in mind this wasn't the REAL media briefing, just a short preview. The 2nd media briefing is coming later this month.

 

PSO2 @ Dengeki Specs

There were Alienware PCs with specs listed at the Dengeki Event, this is a combination of the specs they used to play the game and Shougai's experience with using the related machines.

 

Tidbits

The cool guys at Shougai wrote a little transcript so now I'm able to read some things that I missed.

Beta Test Features

• Makeup Counter
• Tekker Shop (He said it MAY appear, not definite yet.)
• Medical Center (towards the gate area).
• Get a taste of the Story
• Client Orders (a feature from PSP2)

The medical center is kind of a mystery, when we die we go back to the camp ship. It's possible the medical center may have something to do with Mags instead.

The Medical Center's signboard was in the alpha test version of the game but nothing was implemented there and we couldn't reach the counter.

Although the mags have similar stats to the players, they have a different suffix. 支援, or support/aid is written after the stat. So it would be Striking Support, Range Support, Tech Support, etc.

When the mag evolved after eating the striking support device, it added a new "trigger action."

• HP Low / HP Recovery 1
• Incident / (Performance)* Increases 1

Maybe it attacks more or the stats get stronger?

Sakai told Vita owners that it may be required for you to purchase a Memory Card so you can receive the large scale updates or whatever he's planning. To recap, the PlayStation 2's memory card supported 8MB of data, whereas the Playstation Vita memory cards can support 4 – 32GB of data currently. So you don't need to worry about it being un-updatable like PSU was.

[via shougai + mags + vita]

Commentary + Feedback

I didn't really see much feedback on the blog about the whole not being able to sell/trade very rare items to other people. It's not a concept I'm familiar with but people have mentioned that it exists in lots of modern day MMORPGS. So to summarize this is called "Item Binding" although there are various forms of item binding, for PSO2's sake, when you pick up a very rare weapon/unit you can choose to sell it in your shop, NPC it, or trade it. If you equip the weapon one time, you are no longer able to sell or trade the item to others. In most games you can NPC your items which sounds like a fine alternative but there's a catch.

In Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity, when you get a very rare item, you can NPC it in the shop for less than 20 meseta. It's not always consistent though, there are some rare items that sells for a good amount of meseta but by the time you reach that level, it isn't of much significance. If Sakai follows the guidelines laid out by Infinity (which he has been pretty much doing throughout PSO2's development) there would not be any incentive to NPC your very rare items. 

The best thing to do for you money makers is to watch the market, see what very rare items are selling. If you get one in a drop, just bite the bullet and set up a trade or put it in the shop immediately.

From what others have been saying about this, this Item Binding method lets everyone focus on getting rare items themselves, so you won't rely on player shops to get weapons for you. For now I will just wait until a future blog post on the exact details on how Item Binding will work and what we should expect.

Selected Japanese player responses

• Personally I felt the length of the quests were short. I wish there would be plenty of highly difficult missions like PSO's ULT ruins and seabed.
• I'm not very satisfied with the user demands. Future requests could be about improving the character creation, having different animations per race/sex, further review of the trading system, higher details for top of the line PCs.
• I was surprised by some of the responses. I think character creation is somewhat lacking… I wanted things like adjusting the hair length.
• Regarding turning on and off the auto words, I don't know if your response was directed towards the whole entire auto word feature or each and every individual auto word. In addition will there be a way to turn off another player's auto words?
• You should closely evaluate the map sizes because the quality of our adventures is at risk if the map is too narrow.

Sakai updated his blog today. There's more changes in store for Phantasy Star Online 2. In the Alpha Test, the title and character creation sequences were only temporary. Now we push ahead to the new changes in store for these areas.

The new PSO2 Title Screen

Well it doesn't look like much of a change but if you notice the background, it's more spacey.

The new Ship Selection screen with blurred ship names
and a wireframe model representing the ship.

 

The character selection screen!

First you'll see a prologue movie, then switch to the screen to create your character. The background gives it more of a SciFi game feel. Afterwards the tutorial and story begins.

The closed beta test news starts by the end of the month. There's going to be a 2nd Media Briefing which will show what new things are in store for the Beta Test. This test plans to have 100,000 players!

 

Today a long list of responses to users feedback was submitted on the site, they will be added to this post below. Sakai has planned to move ahead to the closed beta test. This beta test will add a bunch of new content since the Alpha Test 2.

Story, quests, and weapon categories will be added. You could also play the new city area. More information will be revealed by the end of the month in a special presentation. This test plans to have 100,000 players. If you've already raised your character to level 10 in the second alpha, you are automatically given priority in this test. There is no need for you to apply again.

Sakai is planning a 2nd Media Briefing which will announce details about the Closed Beta Test. This will allow for details and the schedule of this test to be clearly explained to you guys through media outlets.  It will be something similar to the last media briefing event.

BATTLE AND QUEST

The lag is pretty bad, can you guys do something to improve it?

• During updates in Alpha Test 2, we improved the lag to some extent but it’s completely difficult to have no lag whatsoever. We will continue to make adjustments so you can play comfortably.

I wasn’t really able to meet other parties in multiparty areas, can you do something so it’s easier to meet the other parties?

• Since it was hard to understand the way you set up a multiparty quest, people generally didn’t cross paths with other parties. We’ll review this area and make it easier for you to meet them

I felt the attack power and HP of low level enemies were too high.

• We’ll adjust it so that beginners can play without much stress.

I felt soloing was too difficult.

• We'll adjust it so that even if a few people are playing it won't be extremely difficult.  Like previous games, we'll let you add NPC characters to your party.

I think there’s a problem with PSE Bursts, when it happens you can stay in one area endlessly and gain levels very quickly.

• We’ll adjust the rate and duration a PSE Burst occurs so that it does not ruin the balance of the game.

In an emergency trial, the enemies kept re popping up endlessly, can you adjust it so that there can be a limit of how many enemies show up.

• In this particular case, it was a bug. we’ll correct it.

I felt some quests were too long. Could you make smaller maps?

• We’ll look into adjusting all quests, by looking at the average of their clear times and the length of maps they utilizes and make them smaller.

Like in the previous games, I think bosses should drop containers after they are defeated.

• Containers will appear and after breaking it you’ll get the boss drops.

I want it to hold more significance when you destroy a certain part of the body on an enemy.

• Only for boss enemies, if you destroy a part of the body, you’ll get additional drops.

My personal feedback: When you return to the camp ship area, the quest clear music should stop and change to the normal BGM.

• We’ll do it after the quest results are shown.

Grinders and Synthesizers come up in a red box, but because of this you are less excited to see rare drops.

• Grinders and Synthesizers and consumption items less than 6 stars will now be shown as regular drops.

 

CONTROLS AND SETTINGS

I want you to do something since I can’t play with specific gamepads.

• During an update in Alpha Test 2, we supported a variety of gamepads. We’ll expand the gamepad setting functions and support more types of gamepads.

I think you should allow us to immediately change from Direct chat to normal chat somewhere else other than the options menu.

• We’ll allow it through the scroll lock key.

I want to be able to switch the map display while in Direct Chat Mode

• We’ll let you be able to switch maps while in this mode by pressing CTRL+M for area map or CTRL+N for radar map.

The sub-palette should be accessed through the F keys, not the number keys when in direct chat mode.

• We’ll allow you to choose what keys you want in the options.

You can rotate the camera very quickly and it makes you feel dizzy, you should adjust this.

• We’ll allow you to adjust the rotation speed in options for both right/left and up/down

I felt the camera that faces the front of the character rotation speeds were too slow.

• We’ll make it faster.

You should allow us to use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Even gamepads should have this option.

• We’ll add a setting in options so you can control this with the mouse wheel. Additionally you can set it from the quick menu when you are using the gamepad.

Sometimes I push the autorun button by accident, I’d like there to be a setting where you can change it or not have it set at all.

• In the initial settings, the gamepad won’t have a autorun button but you’ll be able to set this button in the options menu.

Even for gamepads, I’d like there be a way to change what you are auto-locked on to.

• In the options menu, we’ll allow you to change the settings to whatever button you’d like to use.

The game doesn’t really play in full screen mode. I’d like you guys to add a REAL full screen mode.

• Due to some circumstances we had to do a fake full screen mode in the alpha test 2. but now we’ll change it so you can actually play in full screen.

Can you make it so that that the number of detailed character models is higher than 50.

• Yes, we’ll increase it.

Can you make us save screenshots something else other than BMP

• By default you’ll save them as JPEG but we’ll offer support for PNG too.

 

USER INTERFACE

I want it so that you can clearly know what item categories are supported for the Photon Arts and their disks.

• On the first line of the item’s descriptions, we’ll show what categories are supported.

I want the icons of learned PA disks in the Item Pack and Storage greyed out

• We’ll do so.

In the same way as weapons, I want equipped units to be able to utilize item customization features in the Item Lab.

• We’ll do so.

In the quickmenu’s shortcut word list, I want you to show the first part of the message.

• When the list is shown, we’ll make it so that the first line of the shortcut is shown.

You should make it easier to know what mode you are in when using weapons like the gunslash

• The center icon in your palette will clearly show which mode your weapon is using.

The icon when you receive mail is small and inconspicuous.

• We’ll make it so that you can see it better.

When showing the mail you received, I want a different tab to show system mail messages like when you register new friends.

• We’ll make a new tab that shows all of your system mails.

While taking screenshots, I’d like to know if the screenshot was taken.

• We’ll show a message informing you that a screenshot was taken.

I want there to be a ON/OFF function on whether or not you’ll use Auto Words

• We’ll do so.

I want there to be chats where you can talk to any player 1 to 1.

• We will implement a Whisper chat that allows you to do this.

For people I have been in parties with, I want there to be something where you can add them to your friend or black list.

• We’ll make a player history function that allows you to see who you’ve played with in the past and you can decide whether to add them to your friend list or black list.

I want a feature where you can know whether your friends are logged in.

• As an optional setting, when your friends log in, you’ll see that information displayed on your screen.

 

MY ROOM

I want a room lock function added to My Room

• We’ll add room lock functions where you could also set it to allow only friends to visit.

I want a function in My Room, that shows you what weapons I’ve acquired.

• We’ll implement a room item that shows the weapons you have.

I want you to add a jukebox to my room so I can change the BGM that plays in there.

• There will be a room item where you can change the BGM for your room.

I want to be able to perform actions when you access room items in your room.

• Though it was temporary in Alpha test 2, only sit was available, but we plan to add a variety of actions.

I want to be able to put accessories on top of room items.

• Again, we’ll allow you to place accessories on room items like desks and shelves.

 

MY SHOP

Like the My Shop, I want to be able to directly trade items between players.

• We’ll allow you to trade directly with players with the item trade functions.

I want there to be a search criteria where you can search for specific abilities attached to items in the My Shop.

• We’ll do so.

I want to make sure I don’t sell very rare items in shops and such.

• We’ll make it so that if you equipped it once you won’t be able to sell a very rare item in shops or trades.

 

CHARACTER CREATION

In Character Creation, I want to be able to save the character I made as a character base model to work off of.

• We’ll add a function where you can save character creation data to the PC.

In Character Creation, I want to be able to make male faces more square jawed, and female faces more round.

• We’ll add more variations to facial shape structures.

After I create characters, I want to be able to customize them.

• Like previous games, we will implement a makeup counter to customize your character again.