A few tidbits of info

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Actually in Episode 3 of PSO one of the characters from the Arkz side said that the government pretty much dictates what Hunters wear, eat, and sleep. I'm just hoping in PSO2 I don't get any crazy over-extravagant clothes. I mean, wearing Miku Hatsune's clothes is a nice novelty but god damn, I don't want my human female to be looking like tentacle bait or a loli pop idol. Also would it kill to give CASTs some decent looking shells? The only shell I use for my Male Cast is that Knight looking one and for my female anything that doesn't make her look like Fornicatron-9000.

[Nitro Vordex]

In animu games, you get loli, butch, or skank. Anybody moderate or tasteful is usually not a main character, or they die.

[RemiusTA]

^ Hopefully it won't be that way.



You talk as it it was neccesary to have fixed outfits per character to make the game look real. I dunno what would you do, but in the XXI century, at least (talking about "modernity", I mean, as PS series are modern or rather futuristic), I don't believe you would dress like you were Gandalf to wield a wand. It might not fit your tastes, but in terms of being realistic or not, it's more realistic to run around in jeans and a T-shirt even if you're a wizard than dress yourself as a clown just for the sake of it. You can do, too, of course, and I don't have anything against it, I myself dress my characters in PSU in not to "conventional" ways, but I don't really like the fact that in PSO your character should to look like a latino bi4tch (almost always) to be a HUnewearl while to be a FOmarl you had to be crossdressed. The fact is that you don't dress yourself in any fashion to match any item you wear. Or do you dress in blue and black to look "even" with your nokia phone (for example)?

I understand the anime singer thing but that's also under the freedom of playing a MMO. If people like to have big-boobed lolis dressed in only a bath towel, they have the right to do it, same right than you have to play a more serious looking character.

You're missing something really vital here I think.

The original PSU did fine in terms of the different amount of garments you could wear. It had serious, casual, stylish and cutsy options all within the different clothing options that you could mix-and-match together. But what they also did was keep everything within a certain boundary, you know? There was no extra super extravagant nipple garments or outfits you would wear to one of those trashy pajama parties you only attend to find a fast & easy cute chick to sleep with. It get gradually gets worse as AotI comes out, but it's really only thanks to voloyal set, which never looked good on ANY character but the NPCs who actually wear them. They even give you breast implants. Wtf.

So, along comes PSP2. We not only see a completely different art style applied to the characters...but the 4 races look COMPLETELY different. In all honesty, i never minded the designs that much. Beast Female was sort of astonishing, mainly because i couldn't tell the portrait apart from Newman or Human anymore. Newman Female....well, at first i was angry that for some reason they defaulted you to a loli, but i figured it was a throwback to Fonewearl, so i just let it slide. PSP2i, however, has taken it to the far extreme. They seem to have all but FIRED all their talented wardrobe designers, and simply hired a bunch of random ass Manga artists through a contest for who can create the most cliche, slutty, ridiculous outfits they can think of. And, as such, we got the Default PSP2 outfits. Casts are all Deus ex Machina, Newmans are lolis, beasts are pimps/whores, and humans...well, apparently 1 Loli class wasn't enough, since Human Female defaults to a loli with a retarded outfit as well. The change in the outfits was a questionable move, but im almost positive the art direction was a marketing scheme more than ANYTHING.



.....What im getting at here is that in this little "freedom" movement they've adopted, they've lost almost ALL originality the series has built up in the process. Moreover, they've lost all hope of anyone ever taking this storyline seriously ever again, because nothing makes sense anymore. In PSO, I could look at most of the designs of the characters and say "okay, these guys actually KILL THINGS for a living." Look at the art on the case of Phantasy Star Online again. Any one of them! They don't look like Jpop stars or teen idols, they look like fighters, mercenaries. They look like if you got into a fight with them and you didn't go to the gym everyday or have mastered a martial art, they'd wipe the floor with your ass or blow you into aerosol.


I dont believe there is even a reason in advertising PSP2i over here, because nobody in this country (who doesn't already have a liking to anime) is going to be drawn to it. They've molded PSP2 infinity into the Otaku dreamgame. PSU's customization was a REALLY good aspect of the game, but for PSO2 they need to do what the ORIGINAL PSU did; you can put alot of different things into the game, but please GOD stick to the wardrobe theme of the game. Nobody in real life wears what PSO people wore, but the Hunters of PSO were NOT normal people...they were just shy of mercenaries.

Forces are handwaved IMO. I never minded the robes my Fomar had to wear because i still looked badass while nuking people, and i always just figured the Newman forces had their own kind of culture to uphold. Forces in PSO get an even BIGGER handwave, as all the different races actually had UNIQUE casting animations. The odd look of the Newman forces were reinforced by the way they pretty much put their entire body into casting magic.

[BIG OLAF]

thanks to voloyal set, which never looked good on ANY character but the NPCs who actually wear them.

Going to, uh, have to disagree there.

Anyway, Sega's using a different style of outfit and environment. Sure, the PSO style was "grizzled warmonger", but that's not what the PS games are now. Going to have to live with it, I'm afraid. EDIT: Game styles, just like any other media (TV, movies, music), change. For better or for worse is all a matter of opinion. I love PSU/P2/Infinity's clothing and art style. To me, PSO's character design was innovative for it's time, but struck me as boring. PSU/P2/Infinity's character design was more frivolous, obviously, but also more vibrant and exciting to the eyes.

[Corey Blue]

Going to, uh, have to disagree there.

Anyway, Sega's using a different style of outfit and environment. Sure, the PSO style was "grizzled warmonger", but that's not what the PS games are now. Going to have to live with it, I'm afraid. EDIT: Game styles, just like any other media (TV, movies, music), change. For better or for worse is all a matter of opinion. I love PSU/P2/Infinity's clothing and art style. To me, PSO's character design was innovative for it's time, but struck me as boring.

I really didn't like PSU's style everything seemed so stereotyped and childish,PSO's was gritter,and ready for war type shit.I hope they can please both sides,because if it looks to much like PSU they can kiss the playerbase goodbye.(Oh and SEGA cant wait to see them burn if they mess this up.)

[landman]

A solution to that could be "battle clothes" so you can choose only fitted stiles for battle areas, and once you leave the mission, you can wear whatever you want, the change could even be automatic, just like weapons disappear in the lobby, and MAGs did in PSO (not PSØ)

[BIG OLAF]

A solution to that could be "battle clothes" so you can choose only fitted stiles for battle areas, and once you leave the mission, you can wear whatever you want, the change could even be automatic, just like weapons disappear in the lobby, and MAGs did in PSO (not PSØ)

I like this idea. Whilst in a mission, or other "official" game areas, your character could wear designated "battle attire", like N7 armor from Mass Effect or something. And, when just mucking about in the lobbies and such, you can wear your bikini top and booty shorts. That would all be fine with me, as long as you could customize both...

...or have separate clothing shops for "battle" and "lounging".

[RemiusTA]

What? Voloyal set was disgusting. It was only cute on the chicks who got the hat with the pose to match. But the fact it defaulted your proportions and was extremely slutty was pretty terrible. Example? Females can wear whatever the hell they want when they go to the club, because they're wearing it for a certian reason and situation. You can wear that same outfit in public and there's instantly something wrong with it. There was nothing wrong with the Voloyal outfit for the casino employees, but anywhere else it was just....ugh.

And dont get me wrong. There was NOTHING wrong with PSU's clothing style. But when i say "PSU", really mean Phantasy Star Universe and AotI. Not PSP/PSP2/PSPI. Not saying i liked all of them, but i actually respected the choices. PSP2i on the other hand seems to have no direction at all. It's just a bunch of random garments, and none of the characters are believable in the slightest. This was mostly adverted in Phantasy Star Universe with the inclusion of Line Shields, but honestly PSP2i doesn't even seem to care about that anymore. And "what the ps games are now" is the main reason im not even going to get my hopes up for PSO2. At the rate they're going now (over the top EVERYTHING, from combat to clothing), they'll never be able achieve what PSO did, because the marketing focus is in all the wrong areas. That, and PSU and PSO are very different combat wise.

Anyway, these are examples of what i'd like to see fixed in PSO2:

-I love over the top attacks, but with each subsequent photon art, the last one doesn't even look cool anymore. You dont have to jump through the air and fly around teleporting for an attack to look cool. And, each time you do that to your attack, you have to try and one-up it for the next one. Now we have rifle users in PSP2i blowing shit up like they're using rocket launchers, and shotgun users spraying like mechgun users. PSO's animations were nice and simple, and best of all believable. I actually felt like i was firing a gun in PSO, where in PSU there was almost no feeling of recoil in the animations whatsoever. You could actually feel the hits when swinging your weapon in
PSO, whereas PSU, even though they added some force feedback to the animation when you struck an enemy, doesn't seem to have any real feeling to it. They just kind of flail their weapons around. Worst of the lot being the Saber and Double Saber animations.

-PSO had differing animations for each of the different classes which helped keep the game fresh for each class you chose. PSO2 doesn't have to be limited to the original PSO classes, but if you're going to continue to split up the Stat differences of Races/Sexes, then do what PSO did and CHANGE THE BATTLE ANIMATIONS as well.

IE. For the Sword swinging animation, Human Male =/= Human Female =/= Beast Female =/= Beast Male. Also, Force animation =/= Hunter Animation =/= Ranger Animation =/= Braver animation. If both a Force and a Hunter can use a Staff, then the Force should obviously use it in a more efficient way than a Hunter. Likewise, if a Force can use a Sword, it shouldn't be as fluent as the way a Hunter swings it. Sounds like alot of work, but PSO did it very well. One of the reasons i even created a Ramarl on PSO is because her handgun firing animation was just fucking badass. Fomar casting animations were quick and fluid, while Fonewm casting animations were strong and put all of their body weight into the casting motion. It's the kind of detail to design like this that made PSO the kind of memorable game that it was. While PSU gives alot of choices, it still lacks the amount of depth PSO gave to its characters from the start. Lack of animations is one of the MAIN reasons they've had such a hard time balancing the classes out.

- In PSU, Newmans made lackluster fighters, and Humans were always the middle class in terms of everything. Casts and Beasts pretty much ran the game. This is half because of SUV/Nanoblasts, but it was mostly because PSU relied way too heavily on Stats, and not enough on true variety between the characters. Since Newmans were weaker, they naturally should have been much faster attackers than the other races. Humans should have been more versatile in their attacking animations. Beasts should have kept their strength, but perhaps been a bit slower, except when wielding the heavier Power weapons (Axe, Sword) where they would have less trouble dealing with the weight. I dont know what to do about Casts, since they're basically just copies of humans, but they should have exhibited a sort of finesse when it came to handling firearms, thanks to better accuracy.

Sounds like alot of work, but IIRC PSO did a very good job with it. For PSO2, since it is technically a Next-Gen game, this shouldn't be an issue to deal with. Buuuttt, since they seemed to be more focused on finding suggestive ways to show skin on the female models and combat animations that defy physics in every way possible, i doubt they have any kind of intention of doing anything of the sort. PSU found plenty of ways to show skin without making the characters look like whores.

[landman]

They could also be considered part of the armour, like having unit slots, not saing different "battle clothes" to have advantage in front of the others, because people will be wearing the same ones around like in wow, but something to motivate people to wear them.

[BIG OLAF]

What? Voloyal set was disgusting. It was only cute on the chicks who got the hat with the pose to match.

Once again, I disagree. The Voloyal Set is one of my favorite outfits, and I'm not even a pervert. I just like how it looks, and I think my character looks fantastic in it.