yay, story time!
bought PSOv1 DC day it came out for DC. already had a keyboard (free
from AT&T ISP deal - 2nd best dial-up ISP i ever used), and was rarin'
to go.
in the first few months PSO community was wonderful. game shark (for DC
importing along with cheats) was just about to come out 1 month after
PSOs initial release; it took several more months before evil codes were
created and spammed across the universe. the worst people could do was
pick up your weapon and meseta after you died. most people were
incredibly helpful, europe and japan were at peace with american
players, and teamwork was a norm.
having AT&T dial-up i experienced very little lag, but i signed up for
Sega.com ISP soon after getting PSO. when i finished the switch i
experienced next to zero lag (we are talking extremely rare speed and
reliability issues - they were, by far, far further than even AT&T
dial-up, the very best dial-up ISP i have ever used, and i used a lot!
earthlink, aol, juno, netzero, freei, freeinternet, AT&T, sega.com, etc.
on and on i experimented with). with that deal with Sega.com i got my
2nd free DC keyboard (i have 2 dc keyboards, 1 dc controller o_O you
haven't lived until you played Typing of the Dead as a team with a
friend in the room). the isp was so good that browsing with my dc and my
pc was a breeze. in fact i had better 'net reliability at the time than
my friends on cable (y'know, peak hours hell, especially back then.
cable has been getting better, but back then there were the early
evening choke times where they just crashed and disconnected from IM. so
irritating). naturally their speed was faster, but the sega.com isp was
incredibly fast, faster than any other dial-up i've ever used -- and
more importantly, reliable.
well, cheaters came and ruined the game, as we all know. people kept
talking how server side save is really the only way to go online,
because people can't be trusted. the jerks ruined american players'
reputation so bad that japanese players would flee in fear and disgust
pretty much upon the mere entrance of a US player into a lobby or room.
EU players would marginally tolerate us and harbored deep suspicions
that were hard to alleviate. team work evaporated in most US games,
vulgar lobby spamming became the norm, the game went to hell...
from what i hear xbox has voice so you can now hear the vulgar chipmunks
screech their newfound obscenities to the four winds, thank god they put
a block feature on there, though. considering PSOBB (blue burst) is free
from japan, and in about 1-2 months should be in north america for an
equally dirt cheap price i'd just wait and get it for pc. they are
trying to sell liscenses for ep4. so get the downloadable english
version about to come out. atop of that PSOBB is server-side save and
they've been working really hard to kick out cheaters (server-side save
complicates things for most cheaters, most script kiddies haven't the
foggiest idea where to begin to mess with that). from what i hear from
the japanese players and PSO World forums is that most cheating is gone
from PSOBB, there's a few stragglers here and there, but nothing like
the hell psov1 on dc suffered and far cleaner than gc and xbox now
suffers. supposedly there's like 1-2 straggler hackers who are desperate
to mess with those servers. they've had their isps blocked, but are back
with another. even still, it is breathtakingly less than what people
have to suffer now on horrible ships like vega. hopefully when the NA
PSOBB comes out it'll retain being mostly clean, and i think the
server-side saving has much to do with it.
PSO is a great game. one of the best dungeon crawl rpgs i've ever
experienced, with a story ideally placed in the sidelines not to get in
the way of the action. i miss online play, but i still love offline play
-- learning to fight alone helps sharpen your skills and teaches you
valuable tactics of retreat, positioning, self-reliance, etc. things
that caught way too many online characters off-guard because they take
things for granted. also offline i can try alternative strategies
without worry of my learning curve getting in the way and trying to keep
up with a blitzkreig style team. if you haven't played a tech-focused
RAmar, or a melee FOnewearl i suggest you try it, a lot of fun (and
surprisingly powerful if you know what you are doing)!
>> Stay informed about: ... Not as bad as I would've thought-- PSO editorial. 
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