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It's time... After more or less a month worth of Open Beta testing the game is OFFICIALLY OUT With as little fanfare as possible! And with less features than I expected The game will still remain an Xbox One exclusive for one more month, since PC players will be able to get their hands onto the game on Late May, as a Microsoft Store Exclusive title. Which frankly hasn't left me very hyped (lack of Steam has hurt some of my fav MS titles before and seeing the way they've been handle the Age of Empires franchise in the last year it seemed like it was a thing of the past). So much for all the platforms I guess? Or maybe people will have to wait further down the line to get other releases (some are speculating a whole year of MS exclusivity)? Some people are even suggesting that since the game requires Gold to be played on Xbox One this will also be the case on PC which is a little too much for me (not that it's expensive, but the game already has quite a bit of nice ways to get money out of me). At least these next weeks are going to be a Lutherfest... Oh Luther! How can you be so flippant! And yet so desirable!

Xbox One Open Beta comes out TODAY! And the news start rolling in! We got numerous blogposts detailing many of the game's mechanics, but the most interesting of them is the explanation of what the mission pass is. As most people expected, is kind of a season pass, the blogpost makes it sound like being a premium user gives you double the rewards but the list they used as an example clearly says otherwise, we are talking about easily three times the amount of items non paying users get, and most of them being the cool cosmetics we've gotten through the years on the Japanese server. That said, if memory doesn't fail me usually the last item on a (paid) season pass list is the item to get the cool kids season pass for the next season so here's hoping this is the case as well on this game. EDIT: Apparently, you can just straight up buy the Gold Mission Pass with Star Gems. So if true (no official word about it AFAIK), that's way more accessible than what I expected! We've also got an Open beta announcement which showcases the EQ schedule for the next two weeks and not gonna lie, it's kinda crappy. Chaos, render of tranquility (IIRC it was just called Chaotic Tranquility back in the day) is a quest where you run around the city field and face enemies from episodes 1 and 2. The Grudge of the Rampaging Dragon I believe is the Floating Continent EQ which novelty was that it was (and I believe it still kinda is) the only way you could face the Chrome Dragon with a 100% certainty, the problem is just that the items said Dragon drop got powercreeped to oblivion really fast (but hey! New item balance might change things out, apparently Elder Rifle is cool now), and I genuinely can't remember what the other EQ was except that I think it was on the coast (I believe it was also one of those Chrome Dragon quests?). Anyway, the schedule is also kinda bad because the beta opens today but apparently we aren't getting anything until Saturday... Well, I guess non-schedulled EQs will probably happen but considering the list of quests you had on the closed beta we are probably not getting any more than those 3 (and Elder might not even show up). ... I guess I'm kinda spoiled with the things that are coming eventually to the game, this is certainly a way more content filled beta than the one we got on Japan, and yet... knowing that the things that are coming are so much cooler than what we are getting now makes me feel a bit let down. (at the very least I wanted to see TD1) Also, what the hell is a Tier mission?

I'm feeling a bit sad about myself because they totally got me, I really want that Tails emote and Sonic hair... Anyway, people have been crunching the numbers and it seems like this pack is worth around $100 (give or take 10 or 20), which is pretty reasonable assuming that the Yen/AC ratio will be similar to the Dollar/AC one. The only questionable things about the pack are that (apparently) getting Ragol memories will be a pain on this server too (you get only 5 on the pack), and this... People are saying that it sounds similar to a key you can get on Japan which grants one-time access to a super quest with stupid exp and droprates, and if they are selling that as a subscription that sounds kinda iffy. Then again, this is pure speculation right now (could be something else entirely but with a similar name) but you might want to ask about this item. EDIT: We got official (from a GM) response on the game's forums regarding the ticket.

Open Beta coming up next week! For Xbox users only. I might be misremembering stuff about JP's open beta days but I'm pretty sure that if this goes on a similar direction we are not only going to get a test on the game (and region exclusive) monetization mechanics, but also the launch of the game is going to be very close to the day the beta closes, hopefully not sent to die right next to FFVII remake. Remember that if you took part of the closed beta this is going to be just an update and you won't have to download the entire game again. Also, all your progress made in the closed beta will be transferred to the Open version! According to SEGA we'll be getting more info about the beta in the coming days so keep an eye out for their social media channels (because I know I won't).

So the Xbone beta came and went, did any of you guys play it? I didn't but I managed to scout for quite a bit of footage and info and I felt the need to share the most interesting tidbits. 1) Dubbing Apparently, it's actually pretty good! The general consensus seems to be that the characters all sound pretty good and most of the arguments are tied to the process of localization (this character sounds different, rather than just bad). The most mentioned cases in this are are Afin who became Australian and swears like a sailor and Zeno, who got the voice pitch slider way lower than his Japanese counterpart. I personally really like most of the voices and I especially love Afin, I find his direction to be nothing short of genius and I'm going to be legit upset if a certain character relevant to his story doesn't follow through. Also, most surprisingly, they even went as far as to dub the concert songs! (not gonna lie, when I heard it memories came rushing down and I started weeping like that funny cat picture) Only the two first Quna singles were in the beta but who knows what that means for the rest of the game. Are we getting Dubbed Rare Drop KOI KOI? Are we getting dubbed Mamagatsu? Are the Engrish songs on the many credit screens getting dubbed as well? (Hello makes me cri everytiem) 2) Translation Translation on the other side of the coin, seems to be pretty iffy. While one can understand why people in North America would want nothing to do with the constant warring factions of the White and Black provinces and the (I guess?) properly named people living in them, the team took some other translation decisions that left people scratching their heads. The usual S-Atk (for Strike) R-Atk (Ranged) and T-Atk (Tech) stats JP players might be used to got changed to this... Which is pretty questionable to say the least, I know for sure RNG Power is not something I want to hear about on this game and MEL Power doesn't even sound like Melee at all. I don't have a screen right now but I'm also pretty sure the stat screen in the MAG menu is also different (I'm pretty sure I saw MEL Support on one section). The other weird thing I noticed is that they bothered to translate the Katana (among other) Photon Art names, which is pretty weird since most of the PAs were already on English so one could easily guess those names were universal and no translation was needed. Darkers was always stupid tho and I'm glad it's gone. 3) Version Differences I feel the need to remind people reading this post that I did not play the beta, and all I'm posting is information I heard about on forums or saw on livestreams. So don't take my words as absolute. Also, this was a beta, so things might change for the full release (unlikely as it might seen on an 8 year old game). First of all, we have a bit of a controversial possible change posted on many forums. People have been talking about how the character editor in the NA version got altered and both the minimum and maximum size for your character got increased. This means a certain very specific body type for characters got kinda deleted from this version (while including another one in its place). I have thoughts about this. I'm personally not a fan little girls and boys being in my anime sci fi fantasy beating up eldritch horrors next to my cool robot and I never liked the seemingly abundance of such characters in the Japanese server, but outright removing them seems wrong. This is especially true considering they are quite a number of canon characters who share that body type... And while one could argue that 1) Some of those characters are counter NPC's so they don't matter, and 2) Certain little girl characters are exceptional and as such should remain exceptional and not have a military kindergarden running in your game, there is one character that puts this into question, and it's a little boy from episode 4. Also, JezMM pointed this before on this thread but there is a question of how much of the content is being brought to this version, because they promised everything would be up to date (and mechanically speaking, they seem to be true, only the very last patch seems to be missing) but there is content... And there is "content". And some of that "content" is very spicy so I could understand why you wouldn't want little kids accessing that "content"... But that's making the BIG assumption that said "content" makes it over here in the first place (some people have posted of a very specific piece not coming but no evidence has been posted about it, but if true it would suck because it's not only a pervy gear but also pretty useful for some layered clothes). That said, people also pointed out that character creation in general was borked on the beta, and there is a chance some people trying to stir up drama are running with it, so it remains to be seen how much I'm blowing things out of proportion. On a more positive note, there are apparently some gameplay changes as well on this version! I was watching a stream of some dood grinding weapons and I couldn't avoid to notice that it was an NT weapon, me living under a rock assumed that at some point there was a QoL patch on the JP server which replaced all the OT gear with their NT counterparts but reading some comments about the beta that's apparently not the case. Apparently, every weapon on the game being a NT weapon is an America version exclusive! (shotouts to JezMM for predicting this as well on this very thread) So who knows if we are getting some exclusive balance and progression system for ourselves? That's something to look forward to. *Sorry for not explaining what NT and OT gear is. Just know weapon grinding used to be dumb and now it's slightly less dumb. All in all, it seems like it was a pretty positive experience. And while I mentioned on this thread that I had no intention of coming back I have to admit that the itch to go through a mini solo run and soak on all the QoL I've missed in my three years of not playing has been getting pretty strong. So maybe I will give it a go on my own once it does come out. Just, don't expect it to be a carbon copy of the fan translated Japanese version. And keep expectations low about what "all the content" means.

A tricky subject this one is. You could say even now that the Think Globally and Every Voice Matters slogans are being applied despite how disagreeable the situation looks from ones point of view. One of the problems we as a species might face when trying to apply those ideas is that some voices unfortunately are not compatible with others. And one of the voices in the argument is very loud and has very unkind things to say about the people protesting in Hong Kong. Going in favor of these people "offends them", these people are here to "cause harm", they want to bring down a nation that's standing strong (stronger than ever maybe). Maybe ActiBlizz, being North American companies, should stick to a moral code that it's more related to the one North Americans exercise? Probably. But that's not exactly "Thinking Globally". Unless you guys want to act like a certain region can be the world's arbiters, and that's a pretty tricky subject (one we ourselves can't seem to agree with, let alone including other cultures that are wildly different from ours). I feel like there would have been less of an uproar if Blizzard had just banned the player under the guise of bringing political, heated topics upon a livestream that had little to do with it. This is done ALL THE TIME on video game related events, how many times have you guys seen someone banned for "being political" and how the audience "is just here to have fun"? After all, Blizzard is Thinking Globally, considering even the sensibilities of those you don't agree with, and while they very much think Your Voice Matters, a card game tournament is not the right place for it. The tweet apologizing for the event says as much. Personally, I've grown tired of ActiBlizz' decisions across the years and this is just another one in the pile as far as I'm concerned (a very BIG one mind you, taking a BOLD stance on a HEAVY subject), so this doesn't feel like a betrayal but more like a follow up of something that was already there. They are Thinking Globally, even if such a thing means protecting the interests of those one doesn't agree with.