Confirmed: Separate PSO2 Servers for each region.

[alatnet]

There is an extremely long interview posted on 4Gamer (http://www.4gamer.net/games/120/G012075/20120706038/index_2.html), but near the end, it seems Sakai has been watching the international Phantasy Star community for quite some time.

Basically each area will have its own separate server. They plan to have Europe and North America share the same server.
They are also eying on expanding into other parts of Asia, but it’s not at a stage where it can be talked about as of yet.
Since the laws of handling cash items is different in each country, it’s difficult for them to have everyone share the same server.
Since game culturalization (http://books.google.com/books?id=7pYY8wH0qtgC&pg=PT15&lpg=PT15&dq=culturalization+is+going+a+step+further+beyond% 22&source=bl&ots=PMIQIOTTse&sig=TQ8dRdyYnmdAqkWucuWa-WtJ408&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S8H_T9STIsfq0gGP9KXmBw&sqi=2&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=culturalization%20is%20going%20a%20step%20furthe r%20beyond%22&f=false) will be necessary, there may be some changes to the game’s contents to reflect each nation. (PSUBLOG Comment: Find the list of seasonal lobbies that were data-mined a while back.)
Was shocked at how quickly the Character Creation demo completely translated into English through a mod.
His official blog entries are translated overnight too. (Who would do such a thing?)


Aside from that, other tidbits from the interview include:


PSO2 started development back in 2008, back then they were discussing whether the title should be PSO2 or PSU2.
They basically decided upon the cross platform play concept back in 2010.
The development progress for the PlayStation Vita and Smartphone versions are currently underway, but it’s not at a level which they can show you yet. You should wait around TGS for more information about those versions.
The Free 2 Play model was decided upon since the beginning.
Were a bit worried that people wouldn’t like meeting unknown players in multi-party areas, but the reception so far has been mostly favorable.
The highest amount of characters that can be created on each ship is around 2x the maximum number of concurrent connections.


Source: http://bumped.org/psublog/phantasy-star-producer-satoshi-sakai-addresses-his-foreign-fans/

[Sakarisei]

Yeah, i've seen it and... i would like to see the same content of JP PSO2 in Western PSO2 version... otherwise, they must effort a lot of for receiving new players in NA/EU community

[alatnet]

Yea... The whole "game culturalization" thing is a bit off putting.
Heck, in the JP PSO2 I'm looking forward towards the kimonos!

[Z a c k]

Yeah, i've seen it and... i would like to see the same content of JP PSO2 in Western PSO2 version... otherwise, they must effort a lot of for receiving new players in NA/EU community

Look who joined the forums, welcome.

(P.S. it's Rappy.)

[ShadiWulf]

#*%$

I was told differently by someone who I know that knows things, but he must of misunderstood, damn it... I was looking forward to global servers too.

Oh well, it wont stop me from having fun with the game.. just not looking forward to doing those matterboard quests over again..

[Sakarisei]

Well, i'm still interested on reading pso2 story mode so... i'll try to read it and trying to completeing any tablet event, for understanding better the npcs...

[Sakarisei]

Guys, these post has been updated. The new content:

New weapon categories and new classes are coming together. He thinks they’ll make it so that the weapon categories could be used by 2 classes, however, all classes will continue to use the Gunslash.


What Game Culturalization Means For You?

"Though this section is sort of speculating, we can piece together the puzzle left by Sakai.
In the 4Gamer interview, Sakai mentioned that contents specifically produced for overseas audiences could be re-imported back into the Japanese version. Back in March, Shougai talked to Sakai about the international version of PSO2, during that time, they didn’t publicly announce whether it was coming overseas. According to Shougai (http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2012/07/120714a.html), Sakai (not speaking officially) said that if they do release the game overseas, they’d have to consider implementing new components and make some adjustments to suit the needs of each nation. He gave an example where he’d have to develop additional parts for darker skin tones in Character Creation, etc.
Another example of this Culturalization was back when he brought the Hangul translated version of PSO2 (http://www.g-heaven.net/topics/2011/11/111123a.html) to a Korean gaming show. He mentioned in an interview how they wouldn’t implement a PVP mode initially at launch due to low demand. Though, if they decided on actually starting a Korean version of PSO2, they’d certainly consider adding it into the game."

Greetings.

[alatnet]

Says something along the lines that there's going to be region specific content and that it would be imported into the JP PSO2. Doesn't really specify if it goes both ways though which is the second best thing than global servers...

[Edward@Sega]

Let me see if I can respond to this a bit. Please note it's tricky because while I can clarify some things, until news becomes official for us -- and until we actually announce further details -- I can't discuss it. While these are good sources on all of this, I can't rephrase what they say or report on it more. Hope that makes sense.

+In terms of content, what I think these quotes are about, primarily, is the microtransaction/currency shop portion of the game, something we haven't even discussed here in the West yet. Different countries do have different laws with regards to how online transactions work -- I believe this was mentioned in one of the interviews -- and we need to make sure the game can meet these requirements in all regions.

Beyond that I think we will want to make sure that pricing and items in shops make sense for each region. It may mean that nothing is changed, but pricing of cosmetic/convenience items is obviously a huge deal for a F2P game so we need to make sure to get that right. Exchange rates and norms for in-game purchases may not be the same in all regions, even beyond simple currency conversion. Ultimately it isn't a comment on items being made available or not based on some perceived Western/Eastern cultural preference -- if anything it would mean, "is there something we can offer here which our players might respond to more." Look at those comments as SEGA Japan being interested and invested in how we respond to things.

I think the message we have sent over the years, as a community, is that the game's art style and features are appealing and compelling and something we are thrilled to see. In other words: Rappy Suits Now, Rappy Suits Forever.

+The larger issue in discussing servers is getting content in a timely fashion, and also not getting some partial version of what is available in Japan. When people talk about really wanting global servers, that is what I think is being communicated. Yes?

Two things:

1) It's a huge issue; for me it's been the number one community issue to convey for as long as I've known that PSO2 was going to be released here. Our team in Japan does understand this. We are all proud of PSU, but we also know how important it was to see all available content released here, and in a reasonable amount of time. The fans of this game are all very much aware of what's going on in Japan and worldwide. The goal for this game is definitely to address issues of content delivery in PSU.

2) I'm not here to make promises, in part because until the game arrives, and you can see what we're doing and how, those promises don't mean anything. But I can say what I know our strategy to be, at this early stage. I can't really speak to more than that, just that I know it has been discussed from the very beginning how to make sure that different servers doesn't mean different content, both in terms of the substance of the updates and the timeliness of their delivery.

Hopefully this helps the discussion -- I will answer anything else if I can. There really isn't any news in what I'm saying, I realize, but I can try to clarify anything if I'm able.

[_Ithildin]

I'd love it confirmed that EU/AUS was seperate from US.

[Edward@Sega]

I'd love it confirmed that EU/AUS was seperate from US.

We don't have any information about that at all right now; whatever we do will be to maximize content delivery and minimize latency for all regions.

[Merik2013]

I'd love it confirmed that EU/AUS was seperate from US.

Why on earth would you want to cut people off from their international friends more so than they already are? We all speak English, so short of possible technical reasons, there's no good reason to do that.

[xXx]

Why can't we all be friends? ;D
http://easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/613/3386907079.jpg

[Kokonoe]

Since this game is going to have separate regions, I expect the NA/EU will shut down after 5 years and we'll be behind in content by 2-3 years.

I hope I am proven wrong.

[Inheritor]

Seems like the trend doesn't it?

We may be cutely naive about PSO2 surviving much better than PSU or we may be disturbingly unenthusiastic about the support from SEGA for PSO2, either way we will play it, we will have fun and we will have good memories.

The game is free to play so if you don't enjoy the game, if you don't agree with SEGA's methods of support, at least we won't lose anything. Playing on PSO2-JP without spending any money on it proved no issue either. Free to play is still very enjoyable in my opinion.

Myself I can't wait. I do hope SEGA does a better job this time around however. I won't go all out and berate their work for PSU but I do hope and honestly feel they will do a good job this time around.

[Novajone hiron]

Since this game is going to have separate regions, I expect the NA/EU will shut down after 5 years and we'll be behind in content by 2-3 years.

I hope I am proven wrong.

This Might not happen because remember this is pc not xbox. I allso want to say what do they mean by this (Basically each area will have its own separate server) dos this mean that eu and na can still see each other even though there on the same server or are they trying to be like nexon with there mabinogi game

[hologrand]

Phantasy Star has been one of my worst customer service experiences ever. I will not play unless there are international servers. I am sure Japan doesn't care about this, but I really don't either as there are plenty of other fish in the sea.