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(This is Matt from Ephinea, by the way) I totally understand where you're coming from with this, but Ultima's current low population count comes from a few factors. New items and hunts can pad the game out and increase the longevity of the game to a degree, but it won't fix all the problems with the game at all, plus your proposal also causes some other issues which may even hurt the population or turn people away in the long run. During Ephinea's early days, we also had issues with low player count outside of events; in fact, we used to also hit single digit numbers on some days too, and playing outside of events was just something you didn't do. Low population begets low population, it's a bit of a catch-22 unfortunately, and getting out of that rut is hard. Many players will leave a server for another that may not quite be their cup of tea because "it has people". To fix this, we didn't do unique things between events, or added new items or anything like that, we did what you may think is unthinkable: We nerfed events hard so they stopped being powerful, and there is no exclusive or major advantage to playing them, it's just a fun time with some extra boosts. Naturally, this had some negative reactions at first, but as you can probably see, it has paid off. See, when events or boost periods (such as Happy Hours) are powerful, they are detrimental to a game's long life and population, because what they do is make the regular game not feel like it is worth playing. Why would somebody get online to hunt a Frozen Shooter now, when they can wait for Happy Hours or a Rare Enemy boost and get it in a fraction of the time? In context for Ultima, there are two issues related to this: Happy Hours / Weekend Boosts Exclusive Event Items In regards to Happy Hours, they essentially make the game not worth playing for hunts, because why get online when you can just do something else and hop on for Happy Hours, and get your item 3x faster? Because of this particular feature, it lowers the population during normal times, and as mentioned before, a lowered population creates an even lower population, because what's the fun of a multiplayer game if it's a ghost town? If normal times are unpopulated, many people will also just forget about the game too, so Happy Hours will not actually bring everyone back (like, you can see this in action in the most recent Phantasy Star title, New Genesis, they make it so you can't make progress except at certain times, and lots of people are just logging off and forgetting about it). Secondly, Ultima has a lot of extra items that are stronger than the standard official set of items, and these items are what I will call "gameplay critical". A "gameplay critical" item is one that is considered a staple, or adds some sort of extra tool or power to your arsenal. Because of this, players also feel that it is not worth playing except during events. Why bother hunting something like a 50H Baranz Launcher when it will just be replaced by Dark Meteor? You might as well just not play and wait for Christmas instead, and this also applies to so many of the custom items here, as they are just straight up better than all the items you can get during normal times. Nobody wants to invest time into something that they know will just be outclassed by something they can get later. Like, does anyone actually hunt Hard/Very Hard rares? No, they jush rush to Ultimate and skip to the final thing to not waste their time. In Ephinea, the only items that are exclusive to events are those that are cosmetic in nature. There are no "gameplay critical" items obtainable through events (except maybe Drill Launcher, I forgot about that, maybe I should do something about that). Things like Mag Cells and joke weapons are the only things that you can get exclusively, although they're not the only items of course. So, what's my point? While there is a sort of "issue" with DTs and whatnot allowing you to get perfect items, depending on how you look at it anyway, I think the biggest issue is actually that Ultima is not a very good server for pick up and play, with many boosts and items being timegated. This just keeps people away in regular times and if you're not actively playing, you are very likely to just not play again, because the game doesn't actually respect your own schedule, it expects you to play when the game says so if you want to maximise your time. In regards to your proposal, it actually fixes nothing, and actually causes more issues than it resolves. As mentioned prior, people just want to hunt for the things that are the best, so what will happen here is that everyone will just focus all their time and effort on hunting the "Ultima Photon" and its related items. Other items will just fall by the wayside, and the only content that will be ran are the ones that give you the best rate of Ultima Photon. What your proposal does is not actually increase the longevity of the game, it just changes what you are doing instead. It will only add something new for those who have played already, and those who are new will just have the same experience as before in terms of play time, because now they just skip over many other things that are staples today, and beeline for these items instead. Secondly, it is yet another timegated piece of content. This is something that is only obtainable through non-events. Since these items are so much stronger than the others, what this actually means is that events are now practically worthless, and what you'll have is good population throughout non-events, and lowered population during events (so actually the Ultima Photon is kind of the event now?). All you're doing is flipping the script (although of course there's more non-event time than event time, but still). Also while it's a scavenger hunt at first, most people do not participate in that, and just wait for everything to be found. (sauce: We run an event like this on Ephinea and it's extremely common lol) Lastly, new things are not actually new content in a sense, not with how people actually play and approach games. For a piece of content to actually be an addition, you must be careful that the new content does not replace other content in some way. This is very hard to do. To be quite blunt: If Dark Meteor Storm exists, what incentive do people have to hunt the regular Dark Meteor? All you're doing here is shifting the content that is considered "worthwhile" or "playable", while not actually adding anything interesting. I'm very careful about this on Ephinea, we add custom quests all the time, but before any of them get through, I vet them to make sure that they do not replace current quests. If a quest with 20 Girtablulus was to be added, nobody would have any incentive to play the other quests with them, such as NMU5 or WoL4 or MA4C, so what is actually happening here is that content is *replaced*, not *added* so to speak. For example I completely nuked Path to Salvation, because it was the only Ruins quest that people were playing, since obviously it's like the best for every hunt, so the game became a lot more boring after a while. If you want to add new content in the way you're proposing, it must be done constantly, which means that everything is kind of subject to planned obsolescence, because what people want is power. This is a successful model, but it requires a lot of work and also the right audience as well, and I would kind of garner that anyone playing PSO kind of does it mostly casually and wouldn't appreciate their gear being outclassed when they take a break, but I may be wrong here. So, if I had to give any advice for Ultima's player population, I would suggest the following: All "gameplay critical" items must be obtainable at all times. By putting these things behind events, it only discourages people from playing at regular times. This covers absolutely everything from tools to weapons to frames to any powerful mags or anything you can think of that changes gameplay. You can make the items obtainable in whatever way you like (quests, combinations, drops, whatever). Happy Hours and Green Name boosts are bad for the game and really should be done away with (people have asked me for this on Ephinea and I have shut it down every single time over the past 6 years without question). Obviously this will get some bad reaction at first, maybe you'd want to consider buffing all rates across the board permanently, but once you do this you cannot go back to regular rates. If people are only getting on for 3x rates, why bother having Happy Hours at all? Just buff everything or cut its throat because it's clearly not helping. A lot of people are really turned away by the concept of Donation Tickets on a game like PSO. That should probably be reworked in my opinion as it comes across pretty Pay2Win when there are unique things you can do with them. While you can trade with them, it just kinda means whoever has money can inject currency into the game (and their wallet). I've noticed on Ultima that you try to keep people around with lots of events or mini-events, but from watching my own players over the years, I don't think this is a good strategy if what you want is people playing at all hours and days. All lots of events/mini-events do is make people stop playing unless something is going on, and I expect that you don't really want to be doing things all the time. Plus, too many events can lead to event burnout as well from people feeling like they must play because something is happening. tl;dr: Exclusive Event Items, Happy Hours, Green Name Boosts and other related timegated content/boosts make Ultima a bad server for pick up and play, which just makes people stay away as they forget about the game or end up playing somewhere else that respects their time. While other servers may have 1x EXP rates, their time is respected as the progress they make will never be devalued by broken events or time periods.

As far as MMOs go, PSO has comparable short lifespan. This is commonly cited as by veteran players as the reason they no longer play, or no longer play as frequently as they once did. And while there are some that suggest that "time-attack is the real endgame," for many, if not most, speedruning PSO is just not appealing. So what can we do to keep players playing after they've checked all the boxes of a couple dark weapons, cent/battles, and lvl 200 characters? The problem is not just the lack of things to hunt for veterans, but also the massive investment required to model, test, and implement new items for the community. So here's what I propose: Every other MMO that I've played has an endgame currency that is used to purchase/craft/build best-in-slot equips. These usually require massive time investments, but in exchange you are granted very exclusive weapons or armor that make you an overpowered freak. Ultima would immensely benefit from a similar system, and would require very little effort to implement. The system would be to add a drop called "Ultima Photon" which would ONLY drop between events, not during. This is to address the ghost town the server becomes between events, and to also keep event drops the main focus of events. After every event the item would be added to the drop table *under a random enemy and section IDs*, different after each event. The purpose of it being random is to promote community cooperation and coordinating. Very simply, it would bring the community together in a way that the events have less and less recently since the drops are mostly unchanged year over year. This would be a very difficult drop, something around the rate of an STA. These Ultima Drops would be the currency uses to to exchange for those god-tier I detailed above. There are weapons already designed and implemented in the game that the community has no access to. I'm referring to the weapons made a decade ago given to specific members of the community that donated in a time of need a very long time ago. Here's how it would work: once players acquire a certain amount of Ultima Photons, they can exchange them either through Gallons shop (if it can be implemented) or through a GM, and can acquire one of the following items based on how many Ultima Photons they have. The prices listed are a rough suggestion Adding charge to an S-rank weapon - 1 Photon Rainbow Petrik - 5 Photons Frosty icicle shooter - 5 Photons Den's hand cannon - 8 Photons Combat Cannon - 10 Photons S.T.A.R.S. spread - 12 Photons Dark meteor storm - 15 Photons The weapon would be redeemed with the same stats as any weapon purchased with DTs, no hit and 50% enemy% to be placed wherever the player wants. Now to address some concerns: 1. This would be unfair to the players that donated all those years ago to get these exclusive weapons - The majority of the players with these weapons are no longer here, and they haven't been for years. I think a decade+ of exclusivity is reasonable, and to continue to prohibit current players, who currently support and maintain the server and community, from any means of acquiring these items makes no sense. And actively hurts the community. 2. These weapons would break the game and make it too easy - These weapons would take an extremely long time and investment to acquire, so much so that to the people that are acquiring these weapons, PSO would already have lost any challenge whatsoever. So allow them to enjoy all the the server has to offer 3. This would require even more work and redeems from the GMs - The system is intentionally designed to make it very difficult to acquire these weapons. Redeems for these weapons would be rare, by intention, and hopefully they can be done through the gallons shop systems so GMs would have no added work 4. There are players that would get 10 of these Ultima Photons in a week and it would ruin the economy. - There are several things that would prevent this. What drops these Photons would be a secret until the community discovered it on their own, this could take a significant amount of time depending on RNG as well as the mob, and the quests the community is running between events. Secondly, the break between events is not very long. The longest period between events is before and after summer event, and not surprisingly, it's also the lowest population point for the server throughout the year. Players would have a very short period to farm these drops. And lastly, the drops would be somewhere around 1/300 on bosses or 1/2000 on mini-bosses. I'm giving rough estimates of course but the point is that this is a process that will take veteran players years to finish. 5. New players would get discouraged seeing these items and then finding out how difficult they are to acquire - the emotional overreaction of new players should not dictate how the server operates, and the increased number of active players and community cooperation would be a net positive that would keep way more players around. People hang around Ultima because of the people, and if we can increase the number of people that new players interact with, they are more likely to stick around. 6. If these weapons were added they would invalidate other weapons - Shut up nerd. One final addition that I think would really make these weapons special is if once the weapon is acquired, the name of the owner can be added to the wiki for said item. Kind of like a hall of Fame. If we are serious about maintaining Ultima for another 11 years, and fixing the population drought, we need to actually give players a reason to stick around. I know for me personally, this would keep me playing for years.

Thank God for June 15th.

Imagine writing admitting that you didn’t even bother to check to know what’s up with these weapons. Obviously never tested them in game either. literal clown show 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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Henlo bois and gurls, here's my latest and up-to-date TRADELIST. Everything is listed with price. Every price is open to negociation and trades of course. Most of items are sorted by type and by price for more clarity. Do not hesitate to PM me here on forum, answer this topic, ask a question or to contact me directly in-game ! ( = Kushito / MartiKush ) ❤️ Accepting PDs, DTs and a mix of both. Last Update : 10/24/2021 Units : Centurion/Battle 170 PDs // 20 DTs Centurion/Arms 9 PDs // 1 DT Centurion/Power 6 PDs // 0.75 DT Heart Container 6 PDs // 0.75 DT Centurion/Ability 3 PDs Trap Search 4 PDs Cure/Shock 2 PDs Cure/Freeze 2 PDs Weapons : Panzer Faust [35/0/0/0|35] 144 PDs // 18 DTs Panzer Faust [0/70/0/30|0] 16 PDs // 2 DTs Master Raven [45/25/0/0|0] 16 PDs // 2 DTs Master Raven [0/0/0/50|0] 12 PDs // 1.5 DTs Last Swan [0/0/0/30|15] 12 PDs // 1.5 DTs Last Swan [50/0/0/0|0] 8 PDs // 1 DT Rianov 303SNR-4 [0/0/25/0|35] 10 PDs // 1.25 DTs Rianov 303SNR-2 [0/0/0/40|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Rianov 303SNR-2 [35/0/0/0|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Red Scorpio [0/0/0/40|50] 8 PDs // 1 DT Red Scorpio [0/45/0/0|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Rage De Feu [30/0/0/0|35] 16 PDs // 2 DTs Rage De Feu [0/0/0/20|0] 3 PDs Ophelie Seize [0/0/50/0|35] 8 PDs // 1 DT Ophelie Seize [0/0/0/15|35] 7 PDs // 0.8 DT Ophelie Seize [0/0/0/0|30] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Ophelie Seize [0/0/0/20|25] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Ophelie Seize [0/0/0/0|30] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Bomb-Chu [0/0/0/0|45] 120 PDs // 15 DTs Bomb-Chu [0/0/25/0|0] 7 PDs // 0.8 DT Heaven Striker [25/40/0/0|0] 20 PDs // 2.5 DTs Guilty Light [0/20/0/20|45] 16 PDs // 2 DTs Water Gun [0/0/25/20|0] 4 PDs Diska of Braveman [0/0/0/0|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Slicer of Fanatic [0/0/30/0|0] 4 PDs Boomerang [35/0/0/40|0] 3 PDs Boomerang [0/0/25/50|0] 3 PDs Boomerang [0/0/40/0|0] 2 PDs Daylight Scar [0/0/0/0|55] 16 PDs // 2 DTs Silence Claw [35/0/0/50|45] 8 PDs // 1 DT Silence Claw [0/0/0/30|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Angry Fist [65/0/0/45|45] 10 PDs // 1.25 DTs Meteor Cudgel [0/45/0/0|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Meteor Cudgel [25/0/0/85|0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Power Glove [0/45/0/0|0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Imperial Pick [0/15/0/0|30] 12 PDs // 1.5 DTs Sword of Ultima [0/0/0/30|0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Gae Bolg [0/0/0/0|50] 4 PDs Ultima Reaper [30/0/0/45|0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Red Sword [40/35/0/35|0] 12 PDs // 1.5 DTs Red Sword [0/0/40/0|0] 8 PDs // 1 DT Red Sword [0/40/15/0|0] 8 PDs // 1 DT Red Sword [0/0/10/15|0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Yamato [0/35/0/0|45] 8 PDs // 1 DT Partisan of Lightning [30/0/0/0|40] 8 PDs // 1 DT Demolition Comet [40/0/0/0|30] 3 PDs Lindcray [25/0/0/40|0] 10 PDs // 1.25 DTs Lindcray [15/0/0/50|0] 10 PDs // 1.25 DTs Angel Harp [35/35/0/0|45] 8 PDs // 1 DT Angel Harp [0/0/0/0|40] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Rambling May [0/0/50/35|0] 2 PDs Fire Rod [0/0/0/50|0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Samba Maracas [0/10/0/0|0] 8 PDs // 1 DT Armors : Samurai Armor [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] [Slots: 4] 72 PDs // 9 DTs Mother Garb [DEF: 7/EVP: 1] [Slots: 2] 24 PDs // 3 DTs Guard Wave [DEF: 41/50 EVP: 20/20] [Slots: 0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Crimson Coat [DEF: 12/EVP: 10] [Slots: 0] 2 PDs Spirit Garment [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] [Slots: 4] 2 PDs Electro Frame [DEF: 35/50 EVP: 8/20] [Slots: 0] 2 PDs Kroe's Sweater [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] [Slots: 1] 2 PDs Crimson Coat [DEF: 9/EVP: 3] [Slots: 0] 1 PD Shields : Ganondorf Shield [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 80 PDs // 10 DTs Anti-Dark Ring [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 60 PDs // 7.5 DTs Rupika [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Rico's Earring [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Rico's Glasses [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] *2 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Kasami Bracer [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 3 PDs Resta Merge [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 3 PDs Secret Gear [DEF: 0/EVP: 0] 1 PD Striker Plus [DEF: 1/EVP: 1] 1 PD Tools : Psycho Black Crystal 88 PDs // 11 DTs Soul Booster 40 PDs // 5 DTs Chromatic Orb 40 PDs // 5 DTs Photon Booster 12 PDs // 1.5 DTs Blue-Black Stone 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Magic Rock "Heart Key" 12 PDs // 1.5 DTs Magic Rock "Moola" 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Magic Water 2 PDs Magic Stone "Iritista" 1 PD Syncesta 3 PDs Berill Photon 2 PDs Star Amplifier 1 PD Amplifier of Rafoie 5 PDs // 0.6 DT Amplifier of Blue 3 PDs New Year Card 1:1 DT Mats : Luck Material 1:1 Pd TP Material 3:1 Pd Power Material 6:1 PD HP Material 6:1 PD Mind Material 7:1 Pd Evade Material 8:1 Pd Techs : Megid Lv: 27 Grants Lv: 28 Grants Lv: 29 Gifoie Resta Zonde Lv. 15 1 Pd Barta Zalure Deband Resta Razonde Lv. 20 1 Pd Foie Gifoie Rafoie Barta Rabarta Gizonde Zonde Lv. 29 1 Pd Resta Jellen Deband Shifta Zalure Lv. 30 2 PDs

10 DTs

15 pds

11pd

10pd

25pd

Lil' Willy's rich parents used their golf resort money to give him 7k of DTs, so there's at least one.

7 pds

LMFAO

nice eyelashes sis. do you brush them daily?

Congrats @SinowNeo617 ! You won at last minute ! Lets meet in game when you're available

15DTs 40pds

Disclaimer: This guide is still a work in progress. It is quick and dirty writeup for those who do not know how to do this, partly compiled from memory of a now unavailable guide, as well as much testing today. It will be updated with more detailed information and pictures in the future, I just wanted to get this out there for now so people have an idea of how it works. So you want to try and work towards getting a beach laughter type weapon? Are you really willing to subject yourself to this much work? If you are the masochistic type, then here is the method for doing so. There are 4 relevant quests. AOL CUP -Sunset Base- (ep 1, event), Maximum Attack 1 ver 2 (ep 1, event), Maximum Attack 2 ver 2 (ep 2, vr), and Beach Laughter (ep 2, event). Sunset Base must be done with ONLY ONE player in the room, or the quest will crash. 1. Sunset Base - Obtain Cell of Mag 502 reward (on Hard difficulty, cannot do Normal). Since there is already a guide on how to do this, read here for a walkthrough of the Sunset Base quest with pictures http://www.phantasystaronline.net/forum/index.php?/topic/2576-how-to-obtain-cell-of-mag-502/ or use the mini-guide below step 2. 2. Sunset Base - Speak to the Delsaber in Ruins. After you give the pretty butterfly to the rappy in the final room of forest 2, the warp in the previous room will be available (the rappy will move off the warp). The warp will lead to a small room with boxes and a warp to ruins. The delsaber is behind the waterfall. Sunset Base Mini Guide 3. Complete Max Attack 1 ver 2 (under event) with other players of all character classes. Everyone who has completed step 1 will get a special cutscene at the end and receive "Hearts of 'Class'" of everyone (including themselves) who make it to that cutscene. I have managed to find some maps for the aol cup quest (an different version of ma1v2, which does not give the required hearts) here: http://www3.big.or.jp/~fujikko/pso/bb/map_edy1.html, as well as here http://pso.ffsky.cn/ep1xy3.htm and here http://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5102. Notes: The weapon badges do not exist in this version of the quest, so some of the markings are unnecessary. The bridge in forest will go up when the timer hits 20 minutes which a 3rd/4th player can wait for (caves orange line). The center west alcove of forest has a warp to caves which a 2nd player can go to clear (caves blue line 2p map). The final room of forest has the standard warp to caves (caves red line). To clear all of caves, all three of these must be taken. There are several baranz in the mines and they like to spawn in each corner of the room so stay on guard. The mission will automatically end when all 587 monsters have been killed. 4. Complete Max Attack 2 ver 2 (under VR) with other players of all section ids. Everyone who completed step 2 will get a special cutscene at the end and receive "Hearts of 'ID'" of everyone (including themselves) who make it to that cutscene. I do not know of a full map for this quest, though there is a guide for the yahoo cup: maximum attack 2 on pso-world (a bastardized version of ma2v2 which does not give the required hearts and stops at cca instead of continuing into seabed and tower like ma2v2 does) http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=668 . The mission will end when all players reach the computer at the top of tower. 5. Beach Laughter - Inspire the Rappy's Song, and claim your reward. You can check which Hearts you have already obtained by talking to this rappy: This rappy by the beach is looking to write a new song and needs your help getting inspiration for it: He will ask for lyrics for his next song. Normally, you would have to speak to the talking rock to find out what the correct lyrics are, however this is not necessary if you know the correct answers, and it will only tell you 1 of the 4 answers anyway (you are supposed to ask other players for other answers). Instead, simply choose the correct answers listed here: "On the hill" "Through my body is" "I feel envious" "But" After you tell him these lyrics, you will see a short music videos of the rappy's singing. After the video is finished you can go to this rappy to receive your choice of Type Weapon and a Blue Ring: Rewards: Types marked with * are obtainable in Beak's Cafe much, much easier, in about 15-20 minutes. Do not waste your Beach Laughter rewards on these. Type weapons often mix different weapon models and attack animations. The first two initials say which Attack Animation it uses, the full word says which Weapon Model it uses, and is also often related to which classes can equip (e.g. Type RO/Halbert uses Rod Attack Animations and a Halbert model, usable by hunters and rangers. Type HA/Rod uses Halbert Attack Animations and a Rod model, usable by forces). All Slicers are Melee Weapons and do not throw a ranged blade of any kind. Hunter Ranger Force

If only this were accurately true Well, you can't just go to war without any preparations [Also who doesn't go VHard to farm Crush Bullet and Bloody Arts with hit, here? ] (And maybe Branch of Paku Paku with hit ;] Idk about green names, though. The rare monsters spawn rate Is just waaaay too ridiculous