I'm hoping they are prepared this time for the Steam release, when quite a few people who quit, are now coming back ... Let alone those who were just waiting for the Steam release. Honestly, it might not be so bad since you have people thinking New Genesis is PSO3 and are just waiting till next year, despite the info presented. Still, it will be interesting if this is when we get a new ship opened, even though I have no interest in leaving Ship 02. Thoughts?

Only time will tell if we get more ships. I'd say the ships have calmed down population wise so opening up all the others probably isn't worth it. I'm sure it will get a big influx for a month or 2 then level out again with those that want to play the game and love it.

As for New Genesis there is no reason to wait for it. The PSO2 we have now will still be getting supported. and I expect crossover type stuff where doing stuff in 1 rewards you in the other and vice versa.

I also don't think it's likely a new ship would open, since it seems they've responded by increasing blocks instead. Yet I don't want to discourage a new ship opening for those that want more, but don't see it as the case if it isn't necessary. I can't say much else without knowing if an entire ship is more costly than simply increasing blocks. Really, their reasoning for not including additional ships is just our own speculation. This is where I agree that, lack of communication hurts us. We just have to guess.

@GM-Deynger Thoughts?

New ships opening is a definite possibility, especially since they are adding official support for 33 new countries, I think it was. They would be incredibly dumb to not increase the amount of ships. Another thing to note is that they never really added more blocks to the current ships. The blocks are actually added automatically up to a certain max capacity. When there aren't enough players to need so many blocks, they automatically disappear.

That is a fair point. I underestimated how much players we will get with 33 countries.

Considering the steam version doesn't need you to login to the Microsoft Store / etc. I'm sure a lot more people might drop their Microsoft-based progress in favor of steam only if they're free to play and/or don't care about anything they've already progressed on.

What I'm betting on is initial troubles linking existing Microsoft accounts with Steam. Some people have expressed worry over the whole "Product Key" rumor reddit gave. Currently, there's no information regarding a "Product Key" on your Microsoft Account, not even in purchase history or on the game's information.

@Ranmaru said in So who is taking bets on the Steam Release?:

I underestimated how much players we will get with 33 countries.

One of my friends is from the UK, and he had a really annoying time getting the MS Store version to work. Now he'll be able to use it without problems. However, his computer is pretty low end, so he won't be able to play it anymore once the graphical updates come next year alongside NGS. So he's hoping for a PS4/Switch release, as he doesn't own an Xbone nor plans to get one nor an Xbox One X.

I've been taking it easier till episode 4. But I still log in and do the odd bits but will probably get a lot more active for episode 4, anddd to take in new recruits from Steam and the wider regions. But i'll instantly be ditching my xbox account for a Steam one assuming there's a way to merge one into the other. I'd much rather have the friends list on Steam.

With the release of a major expansion, release in 33 additional countries, and release in a popular platform like Steam, all happening together, I really don't think the current 3 ships are gonna be enough.

@GM-Deynger If more ships are to be added, please bring up the possibility of having a few of them as regional ships with the relevant team, ships that would be set up in the Azure servers for those regions, and also they should have arranged urgent quest schedules for the regions timezones (since the current NA urgent schedule is awful outside of NA).

Also, if regional ships were happen, I think it's really important for them to be announced before the release (since alot of announcements so far have been made very late), and should be labeled in-game for the relevant region (for example, Ship 1 [NA], Ship 5 [EU]).

@PhantasyStar369 said in So who is taking bets on the Steam Release?:

I'm sure it will get a big influx for a month or 2 then level out again with those that want to play the game and love it

Yea that's generally how it works with online games and releases and major content updates. The real numbers are revealed after a month or two.

@coldreactive said in So who is taking bets on the Steam Release?:

What I'm betting on is initial troubles linking existing Microsoft accounts with Steam. Some people have expressed worry over the whole "Product Key" rumor reddit gave. Currently, there's no information regarding a "Product Key" on your Microsoft Account, not even in purchase history or on the game's information.

Didn't the official twitter announce the MS store account can be linked to steam?

@Ranmaru said in So who is taking bets on the Steam Release?:

That is a fair point. I underestimated how much players we will get with 33 countries.

I think it has less to do with the number of players and more the number of time zones. With how many countries the game is being opened up to, and thus the larger variety of time zones that the game will now officially support, I do feel that regional ships with UQ's matching that region's timezone should be considered. With how blocks can be added automatically based on demand, ships should be used more to deal with time zones.

The dynamic allocation of resources is a huge advantage of cloud servers. There is a limit of course, as resources are finite, but it does not really cost microsoft anything to increase the number of blocks other than that those resources for those blocks just can't be used anywhere else. It doesn't really matter where those blocks are created, they pretty much draw from the same pool of resources. I'd imagine setting up an additional ship is probably a bit more expensive than just adding blocks as you need to set something up to manage that ship, but I don't think it is anything significant.

@Archetype-Luna said in So who is taking bets on the Steam Release?:

I'd imagine setting up an additional ship is probably a bit more expensive than just adding blocks as you need to set something up to manage that ship, but I don't think it is anything significant.

The 3 inactive ships (4, 5 and 6), for them to be listed, they should already exist, I guess? Since they were reluctant to use them when the MS store version released, I really hope these 3 are regional ships (like, 1 or 2 of them for EU, 1 for Oceania + Asia or so?).

@Ezodagrom Well, showing up on an interface doesn't necessary mean what is managing them exists. You can program an interface to display options but do nothing when they are selected. Remember that the front end can look however the programmer wants and doesn't necessary reflect the back end.

@Archetype-Luna Hmm, true, though there would be no point in listing something that doesn't exist for all these months.

@Ezodagrom said in So who is taking bets on the Steam Release?:

@Archetype-Luna Hmm, true, though there would be no point in listing something that doesn't exist for all these months.

It's more likely that they are planned. If anything, what ever manages them is virtual rather than actual hardware, remember that Azure supports the creation of virtual machines in their services. So they don't necessary need something physical existing to manage it.