The Phantasy Lives On
Gamers find a community on a game all but forgotten
Brendan Flood
Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: Entertainment
PSO is one of my favorite games to this day, but the Dreamcast version and subsequent Gamecube and Xbox follow ups were deeply flawed. To play online, in the Dreamcast and Gamecube versions, you had to buy a broadband adapter and pay a monthly fee for the game. On the Xbox, you had to pay for an Xbox Live subscription and a monthly fee on top of that.
Due to the fees required to play the game and difficulty involved in hooking any of my consoles up to the internet, I never got to play the game online. That didn't keep me from hearing some pretty awful things about some individual's online experiences. Whichever gaming magazine featured the Gaming Geezer had an article where he complained about having a bunch of thirteen year olds ask him is he was a hot girl. In addition to that, the console versions of the game had no real economy whatsoever because any item could be duplicated with relative ease. So there was no real incentive to find new items on your own.
In 2004, Sega released a PC version of the game called PSO: Blue Burst. The game fixed some problems, and added a new episode. Sega's servers stayed up until 2008. Then, a group of fans made their own private server, and fixed many of the biggest issues with the game. Of course, online play was free. Also, only hardcore fans of the game would even bother to do enough research to find out how to access the private server. So, that kept out the horny thirteen year old boys. They also managed to remove the item duplication glitch, and through their forum, they created a stable and functional economy.
What's truly amazing about this private server is how the fans have managed to make the game's experience better than it ever was on the consoles. The server often has around 500 players on it, which might be way too few for something like World of Warcraft, but it's plenty for a game like PSO. PSO isn't the only game to have a fan community this impressive. Valve fans have created some pretty impressive games as well. Some companies have even recognized the value of fan created content. Spore and LittleBigPlanet's both have creations tools and ways for other players to download the creations. So whether you're a fan of an older game, or just looking forward to future releases, you can expect to have the opportunity to play a bigger part in the game's experience.
Due to the fees required to play the game and difficulty involved in hooking any of my consoles up to the internet, I never got to play the game online. That didn't keep me from hearing some pretty awful things about some individual's online experiences. Whichever gaming magazine featured the Gaming Geezer had an article where he complained about having a bunch of thirteen year olds ask him is he was a hot girl. In addition to that, the console versions of the game had no real economy whatsoever because any item could be duplicated with relative ease. So there was no real incentive to find new items on your own.
In 2004, Sega released a PC version of the game called PSO: Blue Burst. The game fixed some problems, and added a new episode. Sega's servers stayed up until 2008. Then, a group of fans made their own private server, and fixed many of the biggest issues with the game. Of course, online play was free. Also, only hardcore fans of the game would even bother to do enough research to find out how to access the private server. So, that kept out the horny thirteen year old boys. They also managed to remove the item duplication glitch, and through their forum, they created a stable and functional economy.
What's truly amazing about this private server is how the fans have managed to make the game's experience better than it ever was on the consoles. The server often has around 500 players on it, which might be way too few for something like World of Warcraft, but it's plenty for a game like PSO. PSO isn't the only game to have a fan community this impressive. Valve fans have created some pretty impressive games as well. Some companies have even recognized the value of fan created content. Spore and LittleBigPlanet's both have creations tools and ways for other players to download the creations. So whether you're a fan of an older game, or just looking forward to future releases, you can expect to have the opportunity to play a bigger part in the game's experience.
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