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Hi there Ultima PSO players! My name's Wes and I'm a writer at PC Gamer. A couple months back I interviewed Larva for an article I've had brewing for awhile, about the fanservers like Ultima keeping PSO alive. I've played on the server a few times and am always a little in awe of how nice and welcoming people are. It's a community worth celebrating! 

So, as part of my article, I'd like to include a few stories from members here. If you're comfortable sharing your age, that'd be great--I'm curious how old you were if you played PSO on consoles back in the day! Some prompts:

Why are you playing PSO now? Nostalgia? Do you like it more than contemporary MMOs? DO you play with friends?

Has anyone been playing continuously since the Dreamcast or GameCube days? 

If you played PSO back in the old days, what made you love it then? Do you still feel the same now, or enjoy it for different reasons?

Have you made lasting friendships/relationships through PSO?

How has PSO impacted your life in the most meaningful way?

What's your weirdest PSO memory?

Does anyone play today with that wonderfully absurd GameCube keyboard controller? (I imagine there's some way to get it working on PC)

--

Thanks in advance, y'all :)

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I actually started out new here, having only watched my brother play it on GameCube when I was around 7-8 years old. I had to struggle when I first began to learn the basic mechanics that a lot of new-comers had already learned. I'm still playing PSO because there's that drive to get better stuff/improve myself that I always have, plus I have some friends that make playing this game even more fun. I have made a lot of friends here, most of which I talk to on a regular basic(shoutouts to @KarmaTheFoney, @Auli'i, @McLaughlin86, @griffeni, @Lone Ranger, @ultrajerky, and @Sabrina. I've known all of these people for over a year now, some of them almost a year and a half.). I wouldn't say I have any particularly weird memories. Just people acting strange and me just ignoring them/reporting them.

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I suppose I'm posting here now too. I'm 19, started here on Ultima when I was 17. Similar to Mud, I had primarily watched the game prior to joining Ultima, but had played it a few times on the Dreamcast and also the GameCube. I do also enjoy PSO on Ultima more than most or all other MMOs that I've played

I only joined Ultima originally because of my Fiance, @KarmaTheFoney. He kept prodding me to try it out, until I got fed up with his begging and did it. Haven't looked back since then. The only thing that really keeps me on Ultima these days (although recently I've had a little break for various reasons) is the people. And not just any people, but specifically the people that MudkipzJM mentioned and a few more

I hate to do this to everybody else, but when it comes to the lasting relationships that I've made on Ultima, only one sticks out. @mudkipzjm has really become a great friend of mine. I cherish our friendship and our time spent talking/playing PSO/whatever else we may be doing. If it weren't for Mud, I -might- be on Ultima still, but chances are I would have left by now

As for how PSO has affected my life, I think it goes right back to the same topic I've been rambling on about thus far. I've made friends that affect my life outside of PSO, and that I think about regardless of where I am or what I'm doing. To take it to a bit of a darker place, I was very sick for 8-9 months, and only recently got better. The people I know on Ultima (along with @KarmaTheFoney) are probably the only reason I'm actually still here at all. Their words gave me hope, and that hope stuck with me. I cannot thank them enough for that

As for my weirdest PSO memory, this one is easy. A player that used to play on Ultima (Zanraizer/Atro) and I had an interesting thing happen to us while in game. We were doing CCA to get his FOmarl to level 200, and I was using his RAcast's gear (Iron Faust and Yasminkov 9000m). The server crashed at one point, and upon relogging, I found that his gear wasn't in my inventory, nor was it in his RAcast's. Also, I had gear from his RAcast bank that he never withdrew or touched. Later on, we found out that the gear was on a totally different character in THEIR bank. It really confused the two of us, and also scared us momentarily because the gear was just totally gone

-Auli'i

Edited by Auli'i
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22 years... sadly didn't play any PSO before gamecube, and it was borrowed :rf-08:
I played from time to time offline I liked the game but didn't do much on it, until 12/2013, after getting residential internet (dang), literally the first thing I did (after updating my computer) was to get PSO on PC, I didn't search too long and found Ultima's website.

What I can answer:
- Why are you playing PSO now? Nostalgia? Do you like it more than contemporary MMOs? DO you play with friends?
I don't really play much anymore, instead I support the server in the development area (and staff in general).
But why am I still here? ... I don't really know, I cannot say I like it a LOT more than something like PSO2 (which I played for a while but left aside) but was the first one of it's genre I played and still love it.

- Have you made lasting friendships/relationships through PSO?
Definitely.

- How has PSO impacted your life in the most meaningful way?
I started in programming because of PSO, and here I am.

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i joined this server in early 2015 and made alot of good friends here who i still talk to long after they have left this server via skype or texts/calls as they are some of my better friends even considering my friends who live near me and i dont think i would have met these great people without this place and am really glad my brother showed me this game back in early 2000s or else i wouldnt have joined ultima or met these great friends

as for responses to your questions more acuratly with bullet point

 

. i play pso now for both nostalgia and talking with friends often in lobby and havent really liked other mmos as much as this one

 

.i have indeed been playing since it released on gamecube (brother got it day 1 of release and we played multiplayer on it for years untill he moved out)

. i loved it then because i got to spend alot of time with my brother playing something we both enjoyed (still play on gamecube when he visits)  but as for ultima i enjoy it for the new friends so not really sure if the same or difrent reason to be honest

.  i have made atleast 2 dozen lasting friendships through pso alone

. pso has given me a place to come to talk to friends when im feeling down if i cant get ahold to go out with irl friends to get me off the down thoughts as either works for that

. my weirdest memory in pso has to be when i was talking to @Auli'i in lobby about her and @KarmaTheFoney getting engaged and i asked about the ceramonial positions and how karmas brother was the best man so i jokingly asked to be the maid of honor and auli'i agreed so now i get to be the maid of honor at their wedding despite being a man

 

oh edit because i missed the age bit: im 21 now and i started back in gamecube days when i was either 6 or 7 i dont remember the exact day it came out just the year being 02 so its one of those 2

16 hours ago, mudkipzjm said:

I actually started out new here, having only watched my brother play it on GameCube when I was around 7-8 years old. I had to struggle when I first began to learn the basic mechanics that a lot of new-comers had already learned. I'm still playing PSO because there's that drive to get better stuff/improve myself that I always have, plus I have some friends that make playing this game even more fun. I have made a lot of friends here, most of which I talk to on a regular basic(shoutouts to @KarmaTheFoney, @Auli'i, @McLaughlin86, @griffeni, @Lone Ranger, @ultrajerky, and @Sabrina. I've known all of these people for over a year now, some of them almost a year and a half.). I wouldn't say I have any particularly weird memories. Just people acting strange and me just ignoring them/reporting them.

 

 

shouting out to me and saying you have no weird memories. pls i all give you are weird memories lad

Edited by griffeni
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1 hour ago, Azar said:

Hi there Ultima PSO players! My name's Wes and I'm a writer at PC Gamer. A couple months back I interviewed Larva for an article I've had brewing for awhile, about the fanservers like Ultima keeping PSO alive. I've played on the server a few times and am always a little in awe of how nice and welcoming people are. It's a community worth celebrating! 

So, as part of my article, I'd like to include a few stories from members here. If you're comfortable sharing your age, that'd be great--I'm curious how old you were if you played PSO on consoles back in the day! Some prompts:

Why are you playing PSO now? Nostalgia? Do you like it more than contemporary MMOs? DO you play with friends?

Has anyone been playing continuously since the Dreamcast or GameCube days? 

If you played PSO back in the old days, what made you love it then? Do you still feel the same now, or enjoy it for different reasons?

Have you made lasting friendships/relationships through PSO?
How has PSO impacted your life in the most meaningful way?

What's your weirdest PSO memory?

Does anyone play today with that wonderfully absurd GameCube keyboard controller? (I imagine there's some way to get it working on PC)

--

Thanks in advance, y'all :)

well i played alot of mmos before my first mmo was RO and then i meet the pso,i heard about it but never played it before i joined ultima on christmas from 2008-2009 me and a friend started here but he leaves the first week, i meet alot of people  some old great friends Henry the leader Of Red Ribbon Army and a dearest friend of mine,   Jxlio leader of The magios,we created a team Named RedRibbonArmy  il miss alot those days we helped each other daily  hunting or lvlin....  well the list its big and i dont think il could put each of their profiles il never end =D.but them know who  they are and  that il miss them including ,Nahuel,Korwyn,Mario,llanx,Drago,camilo,Darkfalz,carlos.... i was banned before for being idiot and helped some assholes to do something that  never supossed to happen...old stuff, but larva  forgive me and well i returned i lost some stuff but well il love ultima and always want to be here and meet more poeple, thanks to health problems i cant do much atm but im still here wanting to play more and more =D  i also meet Mio  hes the best friend i could meet here  too  i was surprised that he become a GM but i knew  that he did alot to  deserve that title =D.

Why are you playing PSO now? Nostalgia?

nostalgia yes  miss old friends too =D  and cause thanks to my health i can do much i dont have work atm so il live my days playing pso and some cell games 

Do you likMMOe it more than contemporary s? DO you play with friends?

 

well il play with other people and il enjoy that alot. this was the first mmo with awsd  system  and i loved it  others mmo actual are shit the same thing over and over  

Has anyone been playing continuously since the Dreamcast or GameCube days? 

no il never played it before 2008

Have you made lasting friendships/relationships through PSO?

inded il did  and i know they dont play anymore but when they return i will be there atleast to si Hi my friend its good to see ya its been a while =D

How has PSO impacted your life in the most meaningful way?

in too many ways  i should say that  not be here if it were not for the PSO and the friend that il meet =P

What's your weirdest PSO memory?

well theres alot of them  to remember one i think it would be hard 

i remember the hunts with Mio on epi 4 ,my first  heaven punisher hunting i was hunting for a month until it dropped with my friend Henry and Nahuel  some fun moments

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I first played this game on Gamecube back when I was around 7 or 8 years old (2002 or so). I fell in love with it and dumped countless hours playing by myself. I suppose what made me love it so much was the fact that it was babby's first RPG for me. The mechanics are dated as fuck now, but what makes me still play it is the simplicity. It's easy to get into, the graphics are honestly still surprising sometimes considering the game is 17 years old, the soundtrack is legit and the online experience is a once in a lifetime thing.

Around 2008 I discovered SCHTserv and experienced the joy of playing this game online. It seriously cranked the fun up from like 8/10 to 11/10. Years passed and I found myself on Ultima around 2014. Here is where I learned to play the game properly and not like an idiot. It seriously fucked me up how I was still so noob after all those years.

Over the years I've made some intense connections with some of these players. One of my dude's Jason I met on this game. I've consistently kept up with him ever since 08. A lot of this game is nostalgia, even nostalgia for some of the old people I used to play with. However, looking past that, I'm still able to see there has been some truly special moments in my career of playing this game that are more than just infatuation.

Play this god damn game before you die.

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10 hours ago, Azar said:

So, as part of my article, I'd like to include a few stories from members here. If you're comfortable sharing your age, that'd be great--I'm curious how old you were if you played PSO on consoles back in the day!

I hope I'm not too late to the thread to help you.

 

I got a copy of EpI&II+ for the Gamecube when it came out, and played it with my brother and cousins.  I played about 200 hours then, before we all started to get bored of the game.

I started playing on a different private server, Schthack, a few years later.  There I met some really great people and had an amazing time re-exploring the game.  However the server went down due to hardware failure, and I once again drifted off to other things.

When I saw on facebook that schthack had come back online last year, I got really excited.  I downloaded it and registered a new account.  I wanted to reconnect with all the people I'd played with.  However, the server was very sparcly populated.  I asked around and learned that most of the people had come to Ultima after the hardware failure, so I decided to give that a try.

Unfortunately, when I registered with Ultima, I couldn't find any of my friends.  I stayed about two weeks before I decided that at the end of the 2nd week I'd move on to another game.  Then I met @Mayte and @griffeni who invited me to their team.  I quickly grew to love the team and it's members.  The community here was almost more than I could have dreamed of.  They invited me to play, showed me all the tricks of the trade, took me on whatever runs I wanted to run (even when I really shouldn't have been there), and let me borrow some top end gear to use while I found my own stuff.  I still remember running Raid On Central Tower quest (a custom tower quest made for a team of four max level players) with just @Mayte when I was only level 140.  We obviously didn't win.  But I had such fun that we ended up running that quest so many times that I ended up buying my first custom server item with pd found there.

I made some great friends on that team, a good deal of them I still play with from time to time.  Eventually, like all good things, it came to an end.  I ended up moving to a new team where I made even more friends. 

About this time I realize that I no longer wanted to be the one accepting everyone's charity.  That I needed to find something that I could do to give back.  I thought about donating to the server, but money was really tight at the time.  And I couldn't afford anywhere near what the server deserved from me.  At that point I'd played here over 600 hours for free.  During a run of Raid On Central Tower, helping one of my friends find a certain item, I had an epiphany.  If other people could make custom stuff for the server, so could I.  I searched that night and came out with some software that would edit Phantasy Star Online quest files.  Over the next few months I developed a quest of my own, now called Power Plant Plight.  It became an obsession.  I would go to my lectures, as I was in school, with a pad of paper and plan out another room or two instead of listening. 

It was a very difficult start.  There was a lot about the process that I didn't know.  One of the great things you'll hear here is that the community is small, which makes it very personal and builds long lasting and strong relationships.  However, when you're working in a development project, this can be a problem since a lot of the time no one knows what you need to know.  Between start to finish, I probably spent 300 hours testing, debugging, and building that quest.  It underwent 13 different versions.

Since then I have gotten two others into quest creation; @R-78 and @orgodemir.  We've put out a total of 8 quests (I think I got that number right; PPP, CCC, BBB, TTT, Lemon's Shop, HOD1, HOD2, IDS).  And I've found a way to pay the server back for the over 1200 hours of amazingness that I've gotten out of it.  As my father always told me, "You only get out of something what you put into it."

 

 

In case you need this information for anything I'll cover it as well.

11 hours ago, Azar said:

Why are you playing PSO now? Nostalgia? Do you like it more than contemporary MMOs? DO you play with friends?

I am still playing because of the great friends I have here.  I didn't mention the majority of them in the post earlier, mainly because I'd probably leave someone out, but they are the reason I log on.  Even if we just end up talking in the lobby.

Also, I really don't like modern MMOs.  Maybe I haven't gotten far enough into them, but they tend to lack strategy, team composition, or diversity of roles.  They also lack the amazing community that PSO has.

I always play PSO with other people.  I prefer support roles, so solo play tends to be very dull and uninteresting to me.

11 hours ago, Azar said:

Has anyone been playing continuously since the Dreamcast or GameCube days? 

If you played PSO back in the old days, what made you love it then? Do you still feel the same now, or enjoy it for different reasons?

I wouldn't say continuously since Gamecube, I took a few years breaks when I couldn't find a place to play with others.

I loved the team and friendly atmosphere.  I never got to play online, but even offline it wasn't about the items or the characters, but about the people you were playing with.  In most other MMOs i've played players can almost be replaced by AI and you'd never know you weren't playing online.  PSO is the only game I've played where I felt like the person I was playing with was a real person, with real feelings and real problems and a real life.

11 hours ago, Azar said:

Have you made lasting friendships/relationships through PSO?

I'm not sure if they'll last, but I'm sure if I found myself in trouble there are people here I could contact that would give me a shirt, a bus fare, or a couch to crash on.

11 hours ago, Azar said:

How has PSO impacted your life in the most meaningful way?

I don't even know how to write about how it's impacted my life.  It's been such a huge part that It's kind of a daunting task to pick apart where it's not effected.

One of the biggest things I can think of off the top of my head is when my grandfather died.  It was a Thursday in winter.  I was living at school at the time.  When I got the phone call, I needed to be alone at first, so I went home and cried.  It sounds weird, but after that I needed to hear people talking.  So I logged onto the voice chat here, and just sat in and listed to the banter and bickering.  I logged in and did a run or two with some friends.  And by the end of the night when I went to sleep, I was feeling much better.

11 hours ago, Azar said:

What's your weirdest PSO memory?

There are quite a few of these, but none that really make good stories.

11 hours ago, Azar said:

 If you're comfortable sharing your age, that'd be great

I'm 21 years old.

 

 

 

I hope this helps you write your article.  

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Why are you playing PSO now? Nostalgia? Do you like it more than contemporary MMOs? DO you play with friends?

Heavy nostalgia feels!  This was the first online game I really got into due to the level of immersion that (as a purely console gamer back then) was unheard of before!  I got back into this just over a year ago after having a retro games night at a friends.  I had taken my Dreamcast along and we were playing lots of local multiplayer games.  I started looking into getting the console back online but it's a lot of effort/money.  Thankfully google directed me here when I was looking at private game servers and in a matter of minutes I was creating my first character!  

Like many others that have posted here I've made many good friends on the server that I play with but I'm always happy to mix it up with a room full of strangers.  Yes, we're a tight knit bunch but we're also very welcoming to any newcomers.  Etiquette that sadly seems to be lacking from many modern online games these days.

Has anyone been playing continuously since the Dreamcast or GameCube days? 

I played on the Dreamcast until version 2 came out (unfortunately bought a copy off ebay that was locked to the original account holder so couldn't play online as couldn't get back in touch with them) then took a 15 year gap from gaming in general to focus on performing and music production (my main passion)

If you played PSO back in the old days, what made you love it then? Do you still feel the same now, or enjoy it for different reasons?

As I mentioned earlier this was my first experience of walking around with an avatar and speaking/playing with other folk in other parts of the world in real time.  Blew my mind back at the start of the century :P  The only other online DC games I'd played at the time were Quake 3 and Chu Chu Rocket which both suffered a bit from the lag of the might 33.6k modem the console was rocking!  Coming back to the game now there is so much stuff I never experienced having only played episode 1 so with episode 2/4 and all the custom quests that have been created the game is so much bigger than I remember.  I'm still in awe of how little I actually knew about the game first time round.

Have you made lasting friendships/relationships through PSO?

First time round most of my friends didn't have a Dreamcast so I only played with a few folk consistently and game hopped most of the time.  On Ultima I've made several friends.  Some that I'll just talk to most of the time rather than actually play the game with.  That's one of the things that sets this place apart for me.  If you want to do some runs there will usually be some folk ready to go but if you just want a chat you can always join Mud and the rest of the lobbywhorez :P The camaraderie here is great.

How has PSO impacted your life in the most meaningful way?

It's a massive time sink haha.  But in all seriousness it's nice to have a game I can just pick up when I need some time to unwind.  Maybe it's the nostalgia talking but I find playing this pretty therapeutic. 

What's your weirdest PSO memory?

It's kind of sad and another reason I stopped playing back in the Dreamcast era actually.  Cheating was rife back then, specifically item duplication.  I had amassed a decent enough arsenal through trading and hunts for my char to get by.  When transferring over to ver.2 the game wiped most of the trade items.  I guess they were all cheat items.  So I was left with an offline only char with more than half of my gear gone.  Sad times indeed.

If you're comfortable sharing your age, that'd be great

I am 30 years OLD

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If you played PSO back in the old days, what made you love it then? Do you still feel the same now, or enjoy it for different reasons?

I did play it back in the old days but just not online. For the longest time it was just my Dad, my brother and I playing the game split screen and then after a while my Dad stopped playing and then shortly after my brother stopped as well around level 80 or so.  I continued on every single day. I never hit 200 on the old Gamecube. I loved it then because it was my first introduction to a grinding experience. Where I had to work really hard to get what I wanted and all of that hard work was rewarded with great gear. 

Do I feel the same way now? I mean, the grind is the same but the experience is different.  I can't say I love the game the same way as I do now because back then the experience was much different. The graphics were different, the spells were different, the feel of the game was different and lots of aspects about the game, smaller aspects, were different. I don't play Ultima for an old vanilla experience. I play Ultima for the new futuristic experience. I have lots of friends here. If I wanted to play vanilla, I'd go back to the Gamecube... but I don't.. I want to play Ultima because Ultima is what PSO is to me now. 

So no, the experience is different and I don't enjoy it for the same reasons as before. I probably enjoy it much more now than I ever did before and I feel like the game is overall much more interesting and user friendly.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth.

Also, my age is 21. I started playing PSO in 2003, Blue Burst in 2008.

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I first saw pso at an acquaintances house on the dreamcast, though I did not really play it then. Back when I was a teenager and the gamecube came out, there were very few RPG games for the console (a genre I had been really starting to get into at the time). The only choices were Skies of Arcadia Legends, and Phantasy Star Online 1&2 (not the Plus version, the first one). Since I had seen PSO before and was intrigued, I got it and convinced some of my other friends to get it as well. It was relatively fun to play together, though we never got very far. Gamecube adapters were difficult to get, so I was never able to get online. I played it off and on for a few years, but it was super repetitive and very, very grindy, so after some time I actually found myself not enjoying the game that much on gamecube. I had just made it to ultimate, which completely surprised me with all new graphics and enemies, but it was quite difficult and progress was very slow.

A few years back, I was looking for a new online game to play, and I thought back to PSO and how I had been just starting to break into a new section of the game (ultimate), and how I never really got to experience the it fully, so I googled around for pso private servers. After looking at a few different servers, I decided to try Ultima as my first one. What I discovered was a really amazing community, filled with help from both players and staff. I had help from many different players, giving me a start with some leftover hand-me-down gear, and also won a few small minievents that gave me stuff too (my first 3 seals was from a minievent by magic bun). At the time I had joined it was the tail of an event, and rare monster boost was on, though I didn't quite understand what was going on there and was too weak to do much. I was having a lot of fun though; the game really opened up in a whole new way when playing online, allowing me to go to any area I wanted to without 'unlocking' them first, adding a ton of interesting quests, and lots of nice people to play with. The community was all so nice that I never looked back at any of the other servers I intended to try out.

A little over a month later, Ultima's first Triforce Event was created. Not only was I was able to work up to Ultimate difficulty again, there was suddenly a whole slew of fresh new items being added to the game. I was lucky to get one of the first Hylian Shields to drop and discovered its technique boosts entirely by accident firsthand, but I was still extremely hungry to obtain the fabled Master Sword. I still needed some help at first, since episode 4 was quite new to me and my main character wasn't quite strong enough yet, but I was making friends and getting stronger every day. Through lots of effort and practice, I actually got my first level 200 character in the event off of hunting for the master sword. It took quite a lot of time, but I also managed to actually get the sword myself too (another friend that was helping me got it first). I was quite pleased with myself, for I had been learning so much more about this game than I had ever known before, not just all the things that I was unaware of with Ep1&2 version, but also the new things of the blue burst exclusive ep4 and the brand new items for triforce event. I was a little no-nothing scrub when I began here, but I've managed to work my up to the top thanks to all of the great people that play here.

One of the greatest things of reliving PSO is that this server was able to pick up where Sonicteam left off and continue innovating the game. PSO was never really a static game; it has changed pretty drastically since it's inception as dreamcast v1 and v2. The negative aspects such as extremely excessive grind (the default experience leveling is really slow compared to other games), and the lack of decent enemy scaling for higher level characters has been changed to be much more manageable to get to high levels, while also still providing a good challenge at the top level. The server holds many small minievents for prizes, and gives intermittent rare monster boosts and x5 exp for the entire server to keep things interesting, and then also holds many major holiday events throughout the year (Valentines > Easter > Summer > Triforce > Halloween > Anniversary > Christmas) that introduce new items into the game for us to hunt. Since I've become a GM, I've actually been able to design new items myself to put in, many of which have been sourced from user suggestions.

I think that aspect is truly the greatest strength that we could give to the game. It's easy to set up a private server for any old game and it will attract a select few people simply looking to satiate their nostalgia urge, but that feeling will wane and eventually lead to a dead experience with nothing left to offer. Instead, Ultima has taken this old game and built upon it, actually breathed fresh new life into it and created a new living experience. That is something that is rare and truly special.

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Oh, I've got a story I tell to everybody... even non-gamers because it's really a fought-fire-with-black magic type of story. Here's a bit of preface.

A friend of mine, let's call him by his game name, Parn, had been hunting some S-Red's Arms in Dreamcast Ver.2 for about 10 months. This was back in the day when NOL'ing was prevalent, where we frequented Miranda 3-3 as "our group's" gathering spot. Open, non-passworded games were common there, because it was usually deserted. Nobody bothered trying to bomb a non-populated area, essentially. We eventually moved to the PSO-World block, where I ended up getting NOL'ed and lost my level 135 RAcast. We decided to go back to our less-popular Miranda 3-3. On that ship, it was pretty common for people to employ the same type of decency you'd expect on this game: call out dibs on what you're after as you enter a game. Talk with people and see what they're after, what you're after, all that.

I ended up having to purchase a Pro-Action Replay device to re-create my character and all my lost items. Granted, I may have added 5% more hit here and there because I didn't remember the EXACT affinities of everything, but, whatever. I re-created my 0/0/-15/0/-5 Yasminkov 9000Ms (on english DC Ver2 they were 9200Ms for some reason). Yeah, back in DC, you could get NEGATIVE affinities on your untekked stuff. I found those as 0/0/-25/0/-15 and tekked them UP into that. But, that's how I found them, so, I made them again.

Seeing is that I had JUST obtained an MKB that I traded two Standstill Shields for. Which, might I add, the 3000 telepipes I used to acquire them added up real fast. Then, before I even had a chance to use it... whammo. You're now an Ace Reporter! Nope, time to hack my stuff back...

---

Our story begins in Mines 1, ultimate mode, only a few rooms deep. I was on my RAcast, DiosGX, and my buddy on his HUmar, Parn. I had just traded for a Monkey King Bar because I really, really liked the idea of a cool twin saber type for farming VH mode that my RAcast could wield. Now, I did have an MKB that was created with a Pro-Action Replay as a "stupid toy" MKB. A few other PAR-users had a contest to make the stupidest hex-edited weapon. A friend of mine had somehow created a -160% Hit MKB. Except, the negative hit value exceeded the game's ability to display it, and so it just didn't show any change to your ATA at all.

 

A FOnewm joins, whose name escapes me but let's called him LinkxSamus. I throw down a pipe, tell him the recent color, and wait for him to show up. Meanwhile, I put on my real MKB and am just spamming its combo because I love it so dang much. He eventually comes down as I'm swinging away at the air, waiting for Parn to come back from the bathroom break he's on. After probably an entire minute of his guy just standing idly in one place, he finally types out, all in caps, "COOL" and nothing else. I swung it around a few times on some Canabins while spamming freeze traps, I guess from wanting to actually USE the thing, and wanting to show off a little bit. The second thing this guy says, then, after waiting in the previous room we cleared a full minute ago; "I WANT" and finally resumes actually fighting with the team.

We proceed on without much discussion. The force is pretty terrible about keeping shifta and deband up, even deband on himself he seems to rarely realize is going to help him stop being oneshot. Thankfully, back in this era, HUmar had access to Reverser or we would have run dry on Moon Atomizers before Mines 2.

It was in that Mines 2, in the very last room in fact... from the second to last enemy in the room. It was still just a 3-man team, and our FOnewm had been AFK for roughly 15 minutes without any word from him. I figure it would have likely taken him too long to relay why he had to AFK and didn't bother. All that remained was a Baranz and a Sinow Red. Parn kills the Sinow Red... a green box (reds weren't a thing until episode 2!) drops at his feet, and he stops, being bombarded by missiles before my frozen shooter re-freezes it, and he types, and I quote:

"aouskdhfopi;asdhfoinb nxojnasio;faio'vnyepfiahfpfhsadfasdp y8w9fjsjdapfnapaewfn hafasifhas8ifn payp89fywpsdoudfu suyfads89-y 8i8yhsdif h8p Y*hihjefseihoppioy hfdiaofhaewpoi Hdfpish"

For roughly three years straight or so.

 

Then, out of nowhere, that most ugly-looking FOnewm I've ever seen to this date, still after playing this game for 15 years... walks up, and takes the S-Red's Arms from under him. Parn, unfortunately, being a massive idiot, just spammed random crap on his keyboard instead of PICKING THE DAMN THINGS UP OFF THE GROUND... and they got swiped.

Parn types out "........................................" about thirty times. At which point, the FOnewm says, after standing still for nearly 2 full minutes; "FAIR" and nothing else.

We entered the boss fight, and I could tell Parn was absolutely furious. Normally he talked shit to the bosses as we fought them, telling them to "eat cake" and the like, as he was wont to do. However, he said nothing during the boss fight, and wouldn't rez the Force. I did, because I wanted the fight to end sooner. But I could tell he was beyond livid... because, you see, here was the major crux of this whole story: This was Parn's 28th birthday.

 

After the boss dies, and before that disgusting abomination of a disgrace to forces can dip out of the party, I tell him; "I'll trade you my MKB for those S-Red's Arms. You can't even equip those daggers. But you can equip the MKB." He says "K" and I tell him to go down to the forest. I stopped by my bank real quick, and exchanged my actual MKB for the, ahem... "toy" variant my friend let me have since he didn't want it clotting up bank space. We go down to the forest, and in "good faith," I tell him, I drop the MKB first. He picks it up... stands there. Still standing there. Not doing anything... equips the MKB. Starts to swing it around a bit. Hits a few boxes with it. I was panicking that it somehow wouldn't be able to break the boxes, but thankfully you cannot miss boxes.

He then finally drops the S-Red's Arms, which I snatch up immediately. Parn loads in behind me as this jerk-ass I just counter-swindled runs into the first room of Forest 1 and attempts to attack some Bartles. Doesn't J/Z, doesn't S/D himself, just Rabarta to CC... and starts swingin' away at level 120 multiplayer ULT enemies on Dreamcast. For reference, DC V2 enemies were about three-to-four times as buff as they are currently, even on Ultima. He would have dealt 0 damage anyway, however, that's not what happened.

Through the closed doors and the mossy walls, the two of us can see crimson justice plastered across our screen:

MISS MISS

MISS

MISS MISS MISS

Followed up by him getting one-shot by all three Bartles unfreezing at the same time and striking simultaneously. We teleport back up to P2, see him coming out of the Hospital and I just tell him "thanks buddy have a good day" and we leave.

 

Now, interestingly, back on DC V2, there was an online only quest where, if you completed it and did some arbitrary nonsensical objective, Dr. Montague who appeared over near the telepipe/bank area in that quest, was how you converted the NEW monster parts into weapons. I believe, at the time, there were only a few. Baranz Launcher, S-Red's Blades, and something else? Rappy Fans and Booma Claws weren't around until Ep2. I can't really remember what the last one was, but, the real kicker here was that he could also forge older monster parts into weapons and they HAD RANDOMIZED AFFINITIES ROLLED ONTO THEM.

You could get legit S-Beat's Blades with hit%s, things like that. Parn, upon forging his S-Reds on his birthday, got a completely LUDICROUS 55% A.Beast 45%Hit on his S-Red's Blades. Keep in mind, affinity percents worked a bit differently in DC V1 and 2, and capped out at 60%. This was because of how it calculated the bonus damage being ridiculous as all heck. In ep2, a comparable number to 60% I believe is closer to 110% in our current system. So, 55% is equal to having 100% in the current model. Hit% worked the same as always though.

 

I will never forget that day, because I helped my best friend at the time get the one weapon he wanted more than anything on his birthday. Even if I had to be a little underhanded to do it, I've never once felt any regret for doing what I did. Those blades were my buddy's and nobody else's. Ironically, and I kind of wanted to punch him in his dumb face for it, by the time we'd reached level 170s, he stopped using them in the caves because "it's boring" he would say. He could kill (Go)Vulmers in 2 strikes, not even completing a combo. One button tap would outright slay nearly anything in the caves. 

Seriously fuck you if you read this Parn I fought so hard to get those for you and THEN YOU NEVER USED THEM unless you were really mad... then we'd go to the caves in B-Mode, don our S-Ranks and S-rank attack teach other until we had S-Rank S/D on each other. Real annoying cuz S-ranks might also HELL PROC YOU and kill you forcing you to try again, but man... level 120~ S/D that lasted for like 50 minutes. I think his best crit broke 4000 damage at one point. God that old system was broken as hell...

 

Anyway that's my most fondly-remembered PSO story. 
Even though I had the most epic cheating device for that game, I rarely used it other than to make toys, re-create people's lost gear if THEY got NOL'd, edit photon colors and re-create stats of people's weapons they liked with cooler-looking colors. That type of thing. I preferred FINDING stuff, because that was, and still is, the thrill of this game for me. I'll confess the only thing I never earned but made for myself was a Sealed J-Sword... however, it was only to use on my RAcast as a VH farming toy. I never actually wielded it on a hunter. ;p

I don't condone cheating, but I do condone protecting your own stuff. You worked hard for it. You deserve to keep it. o3o!

 

On 4/12/2017 at 3:13 PM, Fyrewolf5 said:

I think that aspect is truly the greatest strength that we could give to the game. It's easy to set up a private server for any old game and it will attract a select few people simply looking to satiate their nostalgia urge, but that feeling will wane and eventually lead to a dead experience with nothing left to offer. Instead, Ultima has taken this old game and built upon it, actually breathed fresh new life into it and created a new living experience. That is something that is rare and truly special.

I had to respond to this, because it's how I feel. Like I mentioned, I've been a PSO addict for a very long time. It was my friend Parn who first uploaded some footage from the Japanese version of PSO DC V1 that got me interested in it. I'd never seen anything like it, and couldn't wait for it to show up on American shores. When it did, I knew it was going to be "my game." I got a Gameshark so I could play imports, and got JP Version 2 shipped overnight from NCSX. I had to play it NOW, because it meant starting over from LVL1... again. Had to set up that awful Dricas ISP account in Japan to even play the thing online, but it was worth it.

Then, years later, modded my Gamecube for Zelda: Wind Waker JP (brother bought the game, I paid for the mod), and of course, EP1/2 JP on 'Cube. Even bought one of those silly keyboard controllers for it! Then I got the US EP1/2, started over yet again. I ended up reaching level 190 RAcast before giving up. But, a few years later, PSO on the original Xbox came out, and a friend of mine from Dreamcast V2 had started playing it... well, guess it's time to start over from LVL1 AGAIN! Played that for about three more years, and then, I never played PSO again. I used Macs at the time, and wasn't ever able to play Blue Burst, see any of BB's new gear, or even a single enemy in episode 4. It was like I had spent my whole life reading a book, and the last three chapters were thrown into a fireplace before I could read them.

I've had an Alienware Alpha for about a year now, and a friend of mine... from Dreamcast V1, 15 years ago, tells me about two PSO private servers I should check out. I'd tried playing on Schthack by messing with my Gamecube, and played it for about a month. None of the server commands were really working, and eventually all my gear ended up deleted so I just quit. I haven't touched PSO for a long time, even though I've been following its every step for nearly half my life (I'm 32). So, I ended up deciding to play on Ultima, and it was definitely the correct decision.

Just as you say, this server feels like it carries on the traditions, thematics, "coolness factor" and thrill of the hunt that I, and everyone I knew, loved and love so much about this game. I do not want to talk harshly of other servers, because I'm sure everyone has their preferences, but, this one feels "right" to me. Eventually you run out of things to hunt. Either you make a new account to play with new section IDs or pay to change your ID... or... just wait for an event when the drop tables change. The hunt thrill is heightened from knowing your time is limited. It's exactly the kind of excitement I play this game for.

I apologize for gushing a wall of text out as a response, but I agree with it so powerfully I couldn't just be like "yeah +1 rep I agree" and move on. ;x

Edited by DiosGX
added quote cuz i didn't wanna double post o3o
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I'd also type a wall of text if there weren't already a lot of great stories written out and if I wasn't at work (lol). My story is pretty similar to Soly's although I already was into programming before I joined this server. I think the biggest impact ultima has made on my life is making me meet my wonderful girlfriend whom I live together with now. I've seen a lot of people come and go on this server but I'm still in touch with several veterans of this game (mainly other staff members). 

I remember failing a couple of exams after discovering this server right before the study period haha, but I still made it in the end. No regrets!

 

Good luck with your story. (I'm 25 now if you want to know)

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  • 1 month later...

Started off on the GameCube. first game I had ever played online. One of the first few times playing the game I was running away from my MAg thinking that it was an enemy. In my GC days, I would try to play on the Japans ship, but they would usually tell me to get out. Must of been burned by other people state side.

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