[xphos]

The OG phantasy Star was a little before my time but the GameCube version of Phantasy Star online was so good. They even have community servers for it today as Phantasy Star Blue burst. The game is now dated but honestly I could still play it because it had a good grind formula

https://www.phantasystaronline.net/

[AdmiralAsshat]

To clarify: Blue Burst was actually the PC port. [0] I put alot of time into that one, once an English patch became available on Schtserv. They made a bunch of the perks/models available to everyone that were previously only available to Sega employees and holidays. Running through the game with a trio of friends, all skinned as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, is one of my treasured gaming memories.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Online#Blue_Burs...

[xphos]

Thank you for the clarification! When you say you put a lot of time in do you mean as a developer or just game time? I find it facinating how that worked. I personally enjoyed the game cube version but the time to actually port it and get it work on PC most have been fairly interesting!

[AdmiralAsshat]

> When you say you put a lot of time in do you mean as a developer or just game time?

As a gamer, not as a developer. I can only dream of accomplishing some of the reverse-engineering those guys have to do to setup private servers and the like!

[NoLinkToMe]

Uff Blue Burst, fantastic online game, it's one of those blasts of sheer nostalgia that is almost unbearable, I'd give everything to go back. It's partly the game, and partly my life around the time I was playing the game, a time of constant wonder and exploration and true excitement. There are times every few years that I just put the games' music album on a loop to relive the memories. Though just watching some gameplay is also fantastic with the sound and graphic design.

[matheusmoreira]

> partly my life around the time I was playing the game, a time of constant wonder and exploration and true excitement

It's those feelings that I miss the most. Sometimes when I replay old games or rewatch childhood stuff I only end up destroying my memories because it's not as good as I remembered it being.

[mountainriver]

Phantasy Star Online was so far ahead of its time. I remember connecting it up to my early modem via phone jack.

Gameplay was amazing, story and graphics were great, the community was really fun.

Oddly it’s also the last MMO I ever really played. As I got into high school I focused more on music and whenever I would try a new MMO game they never felt nearly as good as PSO.

[rybosome]

This brought back a flood of wonderful memories. Tying up my parents phone line with the Dreamcast's 56k modem was a formative experience for me as a nerdy middle-schooler.

- The Dreamcast keyboard made communication so much better - I was studying French, and joined European servers sometimes for the thrill of using the language with real Francophones (VERY rudimentarily)

- I once met someone whose job was composing jingles and writing slogans for a greeting card company, which I found really fascinating for some reason, and I spent an hour peppering them with questions about it

- The lore of the "gladius spike", a supposedly really rare dual-saber weapon that never actually existed

- Being given a treasure trove of the rarest items in the game by a duper named "Cap'n PooBeard"; the drop rates were so ludicrously, absurdly low that I would never have seen some of this stuff otherwise (Chain Sawd, Spread Needle...)

- The fear and thrill of playing with strangers, due to the mechanic that you drop your weapon when you die, allowing others to steal it

- The vibey, synth-heavy soundtrack and diverse biomes

I haven't played it in decades, but I bet that it still holds up. :)

[jjk7]

It went beyond duping, you could construct your own completely unique weapon stats with gameshark codes at the bank.

Prototypal item crafting

[rybosome]

I had no idea. Did you take part in it?

Typically I would feel that this sort of thing is "cheating" and takes away from the fun of a game, but in this case it didn't have that effect on me. The rare loot hunt wasn't what pulled me in so much as the simple joy of grinding away at monsters and hanging out with friends.

The drop rates on dreamcast were absolutely broken, some weapons had a literal one-in-a-million (or worse!) chance at dropping. I spent over 200 hours playing the game, and the only legitimate rare I ever found was a double-saber, which isn't even that rare.

[NDlurker]

I spent so much time playing PSO on the DC. I'd start the night playing with Americans, then Europeans, then Japanese. When the Japanese guys started getting on I knew it was far past my bedtime. My whole sleep schedule was messed up from it, but that's ok, I had fun. I made a bunch of online friends and we'd chat on MSN messenger and the PSOtakus message board.

[hnlmorg]

I still play PSO weekly online with a small guild of friends.

[mountainriver]

How can I play with you all!?

[hnlmorg]

If you already have a copy of PSO for the Gamecube and a GC or modded Wii, then sign up to https://schtserv.com/forums/app.php/welcome

It's free and they're almost always some open parties available for people to join (or create your own team and randoms will almost certainly join and help you level up).

I'm usually around on Tuesday evenings (UK timezone) but the guild meets other days too.

Do you have any characters already leveled up? Or would you be starting from scratch?

[mghackerlady]

what version do you play? I believe that affects it. There are custom servers for pc and gamecube, but there's more work on dreamcast

[hnlmorg]

I use https://schtserv.com which supports both GC and Xbox versions of PSO.

The Dreamcast has it's own community servers and isn't compatible with Schtserv. Though I believe that might just be because Episode 2 wasn't release on the DC. I do have an account for the DC servers too but I wouldn't recommend them. The DC takes too much hassle to get online for the value when most people on the DC PSO server are there for the novelty rather than the grind.

Blue Burst (PC) has it's own community servers too. But I've never owned nor played PSO on the PC.

[mghackerlady]

I've played a few hours of the gamecube version online. I honestly would rather play the dreamcast version, I'm not a big MMO person so the novelty is why I'm playing

[hnlmorg]

I'm a massive DC fanboy but even I have to concede that the GameCube version of PSO is better:

- you don't lose any unequipped items when you die (this is super annoying on the DC)

- you can level up your character to 200 instead of 100 (or 150, I forget which). Which is very useful in Ultimate campaigns (as well as lengthens the game)

- GC also comes with Episode 2, which is something like 6 extra dungeons. Some of them look absolutely gorgeous too.

The DC PSO is a fantastic game, but he Sonic Team basically doubled the scale of game when they released it on the GC.

---

Edit: thinking about it, `Ultimate` mode might not even be available on the DC version. Or if it is, it's only available on the v2 of the DC version (there were two versions available for the DC). Ultimate is like another mod for Episode 1 because it comes with new skins for the mobs and the campaigns happen at different seasons and/or times of day.

[aperrien]

Is there a server for the PS2?

[mghackerlady]

Did it ever release on the PS2? Regardless, I think there are a few games with fan servers up (particularly final fantasy xi).

[hbn]

The only reason I'm familiar with this game is that insane Gamecube controller that had an entire full-size qwerty keyboard on it.

Or perhaps it should be understood as a full-size qwerty keyboard with the two halves of a Gamecube controller glued onto the sides.