Hey All,

I was curious if anyone had a rough idea, based on JP Episode release frequency etc., how long PSO2 NA would be left running until eventually pulling its plug. Part of it depends on whether NGS will be released as Ep7 straight up. Or if there will be a common Ep6-ness amongst both for a little while. If it is released as Ep7 from the get go. Which I think is the likeliest of the two scenarios. I wonder how long before PSO2 NA Ep6 will be allowed to run before it simply falls to far behind with NGS to be tenable to keep up and online.

Curious what other's thoughts are.

Thanks.

o/ =^.^=

I don't see why it would be pulled when ngs is not a new game but part of pso2.

This is most likely done to get people to play ngs and not feel bitter at losing their investments over the 8 years, and they'll most likely encourage people to play both game modes.

They said you access NGS in the same way as block switching, I feel this might mean more than we know but either way they are not even separate downloads.

Short term sure. Its definitely a DOS 6.22/Windows 95 kind of a thing where at first they both co-exist. But under the hood they are not enough the same game, based on what I've ready thus far, that the block switch-eque method of traversal is a interim solution towards an ultimate NGS only existence. Window 98 to continue the OS analogy.

Otherwise I would feel like we wouldn't need to start over character growth-wise in NGS. Because of the significantly new internal game mechanics. And also having the benefit of level setting everyone at least for a while.

Offhand I also don't recall NGS not being a separate download. And it might be me confusing that with the idea of it being so different game mechanically speaking under the hood.

For sure I would love to be wrong and know that the PSO2 NA Universe will never go away. And it will be as yall are stating. One exists for Eps 1-6 and NGS for Eps 7+. That would be cool.

o/ =^.^=

NGS will be using the same client as PSO2. You'll be able to transfer between PSO2 and NGS via a block transfer-like system. This is why PSO2 is getting an upgrade too.

But, if you're wondering if there ever will be a merge of the two region's games, no. I've been told at one point that NGS in the JP version will be getting PSO2's old type weapons, which NA does not have. So that would be impossible. Both regions of the game will continue to run separately.

I can't imagine base PSO2 will be supported for less than 6-12 months after NGS arrives. They wouldn't go to the trouble of backporting the base game to use the NGS engine and limiting NGS to systems and cosmetic behaviours that still support the base game. They'd just launch NGS with an independent and fresh code base and offer account linking.

If NGS really is going to be a greater focus on open-world content with presumably longer play sessions than most base PSO2 quests, it may yet be possible that players don't take to it the way Challenge Mode and Battle Arena aren't really thought of as primary game modes. I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility that NGS doesn't take and they leave the open-world areas as a similar extraneous activity while returning focus to the base game with its new engine.

On another note, while I don't know about the Episode 5 and 6 stories to know if there's any lead-in to the "1000 years future" of NGS, they have the potential to do some really interesting things with the story if they have it use both base PSO2 and NGS and make progress cross-dependent. That would be amazing to discover, I feel.

Ultimately unless they spoil more about long-term support commitments tomorrow or any other time in the months leading up to NGS' release, we won't really get any good indication of their plans to maintain base PSO2 until NGS launch itself. So I think the intention to backport the new engine to base PSO2 is the most important information we have for now.

@KnightHarb1nger said in How Long after NGS will NA continue (community guess):

Otherwise I would feel like we wouldn't need to start over character growth-wise in NGS. Because of the significantly new internal game mechanics. And also having the benefit of level setting everyone at least for a while.

The reason for this isn't that they want to eventually pull the plug on PSO2, it's because they have two crowds to satisfy with NGS:

1. New players, who they want to get into the game with the creation of the new game type (NGS). New players are generally more averse to starting out fresh in a game with a large pre-established population

2. Old players, who would likely get real upset at having all the money they dumped into the game get wasted (and more importantly, the NA crowd who SEGA is still trying to get to spend money on a whole ton of cosmetics that would likely not happen if people knew NGS was gonna kill it all)

It's fine to start people off at level 1 again, because obsoleting levels and gear levels in online games is very common and expected. There's not a whole lot of difference from starting people off at level 1 vs raising the cap from 80 to 90 and just making those levels take forever.

The real issue is the money, which is mostly via AC scratch cosmetics, which is why they're making it so that lower-fidelity PSO2 models and higher-fidelity NGS models can exist side by side, so that the old PSO2 cosmetics can continue to exist even after people stop playing the old PSO2 game mode. It's probably not too big a worry for SEGA since they figure over time people will grow tired of their old fingerless models and decide to go with the newer NGS cosmetics anyway, so people won't stop spending just because they have a ton of cosmetics from old PSO2 anyway.

The Operating System analogy doesn't really fit well imo because old OSes die due to security updates no longer being made / programs not supporting them, etc, it's just another branch that needs to be supported constantly. But if PSO2 isn't gonna get any more content, and the work to update it to NGS's engine is already done, what constant upkeep does it even need (beyond server space)?

It's possible that they pull the plug on PSO2 after a few years anyway if NGS is a runaway success, but I think the more likely thing to happen would just be the resources committed to the PSO2 servers will dwindle more and more until each ship only has a single block, and potentially merging all PSO2 activity onto a single ship (but less likely, since that'd be work). They could probably scale back the PSO2 operations significantly without completely killing it, to make it a negligible fraction of the NGS resources without actually pissing off the diehards.

Short answer, PSO2 Original (Current version) will stop updating with anything smart so it will most likely be left to rot.

NGS will continue developing.

@Akonyl said in How Long after NGS will NA continue (community guess):

@KnightHarb1nger said in How Long after NGS will NA continue (community guess):

Otherwise I would feel like we wouldn't need to start over character growth-wise in NGS.

The reason for this isn't that they want to eventually pull the plug on PSO2

Oops, I meant to include that aspect in my earlier reply.

Base PSO2 is quite a mess right now. Thanks to 8 years of power creep we have 6 if not 9 starts' worth of rarity that are basically meaningless, which is why we have 8* items like Zax and Basileion with an equip requirement of 1.

PSU already struggled with 13* and higher content, and PSO2 JP is probably stretching 15* to its limit with how wide the quality spectrum is becoming (and heck, we're seeing that on Global just with 13*).

Let's look at it this way: Before any enhancement, the only 1* sword on Global, called Sword, gives 204 MEL Pwr and the only 9* sword, Ardillo, gives 616. A difference of 412. Meanwhile the weakest of seventeen (17) different 13* swords, Coated Edge v2, gives 978 MEL Pwr and the (present) strongest, Raven Calibur, gives 1341. A difference of 363.

That's almost 9 star ratings' worth of difference in a single rating and makes the purpose of ratings in the first place quite pointless. And that's just on Global.

Can you imagine if NGS kept this equipment system? Would we have an even crazier range of 15* weapons? Or would they expand the rating system to 18* over time by which point the first 16 would be a crazy waste of space and screen estate? And how ridiculously flashy and intricate would they need to make the visual designs of these weapons to give them a wow factor over useless 15* weapons from pre-NGS?

I needn't even comment on how annoying it is for the game to be giving us jingles and NPC chatter every time a junk 7* drops as if it's meant to be special, which already feels highly out of place.

An overhaul of the content system is the perfect opportunity to clean this all up - Old Type, New Type, JP and Global differences, everything - and have a fresh start in NGS mode. If they take that opportunity, or even if they just go with a hybrid solution of limiting what can be used in NGS at first to stagger players' progression for a while, it really won't say anything about their plans for PSO2. It'll just say that they're exercising common sense.

Aside from all the PSO2 and PSO2NGS speculation and what not, SEGA themself said they are extending PSO2 support for another 4~6 years. Support was originally only for 10 years, and this is the 8th.

Whether that extra years are meant for PSO2NGS specifically is another thing.

If they were smart they would put pso2 in maintenance mode so it just existed to play with no new content and focus on developing NG into something great. If NG has to suffer content updates at half the speed it potentially could because they're developing for the outdated game, it's not going to succeed.

I know there's this "but you could play both" mentality out there, but if someone doesn't have as much time as they'd like to play the meseta grind simulator, they sure as hell aren't going to be splitting their time between both. I personally have the time but with how nice NG systems and environments look, I don't forsee me even wanting to go back to pso2 and thus only log in to accumulate SG until it releases.

PSO2/NGS use same client, you switch to NGS/PSO2 by block switching, they will both live on for as long as the other lives and many people prefer PSO2 style of lobbies which is why we've been here so long.

Both PSO2 and NGS will be updated at the same time with new content and changes... They've promised new races and maps still to come to PSO2 and NA still needs to catch up to luster, roadmap only goes to phantom and there's quite a bit after that, so q2-q3 2021 is my estimation for catch-up.

@Kurumi-Tokisaki said in How Long after NGS will NA continue (community guess):

Both PSO2 and NGS will be updated at the same time with new content and changes... They've promised new races and maps still to come to PSO2 and NA still needs to catch up to luster, roadmap only goes to phantom and there's quite a bit after that, so q2-q3 2021 is my estimation for catch-up.

Have they? Because from what I'd heard, SEGA mentioned that Episode 7 wasn't gonna happen (and that "something new" which ended up being NGS would be the direction instead), so I would think PSO2 would be entering into the kind of "maintenance mode" type of gameplay the guy above was talking about. If there's new races, I wouldn't be surprised if that's just because it's NGS content and you need to be able to share a character between NGS and PSO2, rather than being an indication of actual PSO2-specific new content.

@Akonyl You are actually correct about this.

PSO2 is basically going to run old events, scratches etc and just have basic updates like bug fixes, translation errors etc.

But probably not going to have anything new in regards to the story as they would rather focus development on NGS.

What that means for global?

It means it's gona be a shitshow considering our current items and state of the game.

This also hints that NGS will not use a unified service so if you are playing on JP you would have to continue using the JP client and you will not see your fellow global players utilizing the global client.

@SleeprunnerInc It was announced a long time ago that they wouldn't be a unified server though. It was gonna have a Global launch in the sense that we wouldn't have to wait several months for it to release on PSO2 Global (so a Global launch not a Global service).

Now I wouldn't be all doom and gloom with it... admittedly there is a lot of room for speculation given that we don't know when is NGS launching or what JP has planned.

But... well here's my take on it.

So updates in PSO2 can best be described as falling under different sets of layers (I want to say 'categories' but you'll find that multiple layers get covered with a single update). These layers are as follows:

• Primary Updates: New Maps, New Classes, New Story, etc (mainly for the MAIN game though)
• Secondary Updates: New Quests, Microtransactions, Seasonal Events, Campaigns, etc
• Tertiary Updates: Bug Fixes, Quality of Life Features, etc

With the end of EPISODE 6 on the JP version comes an end to Primary Updates with the Episode 6 story completed and the Luster Class released. Updates from here on out will most likely mainly be Secondary and Tertiary Updates (the NGS update falling on a class of its own though) with maybe some overlaps with Primary Updates (e.g in Japan there's been some collabs which had their own storyline like the Phantasy Star Portable 2 or Evangelion collab).

Now one thing that people keep forgetting when discussing Global updates; the updates on the Global version don't really follow the JP chronological order, after all we not only launched with EPISODE 1-3 but also technically had EPISODE 6 balancing, Summoner Class, etc. Taking this into account, the following is my own take on what may happen:

• So recall how EPISODE 4 had its storyline gradually made available through updates? Given that we know we'll reach the Phantom Class by the end of this year (as EPISODE 6 Part 1), its more than likely that with each new maintenance update to EPISODE 6 the other Scion Classes (Etoile and Luster) will be added; essentially Luster being made available with the same update that releases the end of EPISODE 6.

• By the time this happens Global and JP would basically be in sync with one another and updates may happen simultaneoously. That said, I have my doubts that all the eight years of AC and SG content would be gone through so I believe that while there may be some overlap with certain content releases, these will be squeezed between older content that had yet to be released. Opportunity for releasing said older content on Global is present such as forinstance... whenever JP's running a Collaboration event that can't be released Globally (we know that those based on department stores and brands are a no-go...,) or events which might be different (remember that our PSO2 Anniversary Event falls on a different date from that of JP's, JP is celebrating its 9th anniversary next year in Japan on the 4th of July while PSO2 Global will be celebrating its 1st Anniversary on the 15th of April).

• With NGS' release... due to the Global nature of the release (in-spite of being separate services), would naturally mean that both the Global and JP client would be in the same spot update-wise and updates would naturally be simultaneous here on the NGS side. Once again, its a bit unclear what may happen on the JP and Global side of things. An interview did indicate that new content for PSO2 may not end entirely once NGS releases; the devs had plans to do some adjustments on the Casino and Challenge Mode. Depending on how far along PSO2's gotten with covering past content, Global might use this opportunity to also release more old content. This is no problem since again... NGS and PSO2 run off of the same client and changing between the two would be as easy as changing blocks and given that costumes and weapons would be usable in NGS... i doesn't make such updates pointless just yet.