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PSO2, Now on PC and Xbox One


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On 6/10/2019 at 6:28 PM, KHCast said:

Also given the PlayStation is usually known for its Japanese game library, how picky are they in that regards to censoring?

Following the reorganization of the Playstation brand from Sony Computer Entertainment to Sony Interactive Entertainment (and transferring control from Sony of Japan to Sony of America), everything Playstation related must be run through Sony's American headquarters in California instead of just dealing with the individual subsidiary of the region.

In the past 18 months or so (and this is secondhand information from publishers expressing frustration, so how impartial it is is unclear), this has also seemingly meant that even if the publisher of a game only intends the game for the Japanese market it must meet the standards Sony dictates for a game that would be published on the American or European marketo. This submission process also supposedly has to be done in English; and has also seemingly been more restrictive than the ones that SCEA use to impose on the American market during the PSX/PS2 years.

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Still can't believe this isn't hitting Europe. I may just start playing the the original on Gamecube to drown my Phantasy Star sorrows.

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A bit of news.

On an interview with Phil Spencer it gets casually dropped that PSO2 will eventually be available on "all" platforms (around the 40:41 mark). Notice that this comment is so off hand that I can't really tell what he means by "all" (read: Switch, Vita and the mobile versions).

Sadly, still no news about an EU servers. Apparently Phil knows nothing about the situation and it might be up to SEGA to do anything about it.

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  • 7 months later...

gxgCNqQ.jpg

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.

Spoiler

I know for a fact Apprentice doesn't, but Apprentice and Eucreta aren't quite the same person.

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. 

unknown-1-1.png

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.

Spoiler

Who is a character created by a teenage girl. Now, the boy also enters in the "exceptional" category but the fact that his entire creation is the teenage girl hitting random in the game's character creator and the kid popping out makes this weird. Why can the girl get the little boy and me, random player can't? Should I hit random until he appears? Is the little boy patch being added on 2028?

I really hope they aren't pulling a Xenoblade X and aging up the characters, the girls won't suffer from it but the scenes with the little boy get weird if he's a big boy.

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.

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Great post @gato!

I'm glad everything is turning positive so far with this atm. While I had no intention of going back either, a couple friends that used to play with me on the JPN server and an old relative that I just got in contact with after years of not talking (we used to play PSO on 56k modem....man those were the days), want to jump back in again.

Not too thrilled about making my Katana sets again (I remember all the grinding and work involved), but I think it'll be rewarding; running TACOs with a purpose again, doing money trades, English voice over, and a better connection to the story (never got through it all unfortunately).

This can't come out soon enough tbh; will be getting it on PC.

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16 hours ago, XTREEMMAK said:

Not too thrilled about making my Katana sets again (I remember all the grinding and work involved), but I think it'll be rewarding; running TACOs with a purpose again, doing money trades, English voice over, and a better connection to the story (never got through it all unfortunately

Yeah, about that... It was kinda bizarre to watch streams of the beta and find out things that used to be familiar on my gameplay sessions are no longer there, like TACOs not being a thing anymore. I mean, they still exist, but they no longer wield any meaningful rewards besides the satisfaction of clearing the quest (and even then, there are other things that are being used as a e-peen measuring stick, like the Endless Quest). Nowadays it seems like meseta mining consists of a mix of Daily Orders and a new set of Weekly Missions that feel more like a battle pass (also, people are speculating/datamining that the NA version will also have an actual Battle Pass apart from these orders).

Another thing I noticed is that some stances are no longer active, I did some digging and I've only seen a post on Bumped saying Fury/Brave/Average/Elemental have become passive skills, while the other stances (Guard/Wise/Weak/Break) remain active. For a moment I wasn't fully sure if it was a NA only thing because I couldn't find it in the patchnotes for EP5 nor 6, but apparently those lists aren't quite as complete as I thought they were... feels super weird that I'm going back into this game with very little knowledge of all the changes that occurred in my absence (unless I do a binge run of the all the blogposts made for the last 4 years and no way I'm doing that).

 

As for the story, eh. I personally felt like it pretty much ended on Episode 3. It wasn't the best one out there but the build up was good, the planets and its inhabitants felt interesting enough and the pay off at the end was actually super cool. Episodes 4 and 5 on the other hand are so detached from the game's feeling that I couldn't take them seriously, and it was pretty much SEGA just chasing trends (I will never forget nor forgive how disappointed I felt when I heard about Episode 5 for the first time and thought we were going to classic Phantasy Star, only to later find out it was just a generic fantasy universe and how SEGA just wanted to cash out on the Isekai thing that's still going to this day). People have been telling me that Episode 6 is getting things back on track but still accounts for characters and events that occurred on 4 and 5 so I don't know how to feel about it.

That said, judging by the beta it seems like Microsoft/SEGA/whoever is mostly releasing things as they dub them (and even then some lines on the beta were not dubbed), so we might get content on a small but constant drip-feed basis rather than everything at once (mechanically speaking, the game is nearly up-to-date, but story/EQ/event-wise, we don't know). It feels pretty safe to assume we are only going to get the story dubbed up to the point the current anime leaves us (that being, the end of EP3).

Spoiler

But as far as this game's story goes, I've been considering just condensing it to a picture of Luther and the headline "Local Man Ruins Everything".

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

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).

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They're coming for your wallets in particular. Wonder if JP's getting these via the upcoming Movie collab event instead. 

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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...

Quote

Mission Pass Gold Ticket (x1)

In-game Subscription (Consumable)

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.

Quote

Hey guys! Just to let you know. The Mission Pass Gold Ticket is not the same as the golden bonus keys in PSO2 JP. These tickets will be explained in a separate article that will be coming soon. ヾ(•ω•`) For new players, Ragol Memories will be explained as well later on.

 

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Ragol Edition announced!

Considerably more affordable ($30), you get more Ragol Memories (10 instead of Founder's edition 5) and the valuable items are mostly there! You get your premium, you get your "whatever that mission pass thing is" and you get the same Gambling Addiction AC scratch tickets than on the Founders edition! You are mostly missing all the cool convenience items and the Sonic stuff.

More importantly tho, is this little bit on the list of items you get..

Quote

Limited to one purchase per account. The Ragol Fashion Pack will be available for multiple purchases.

Which with any luck means that Ragol Memories might not be as hard to come by as in the JP server. I'm not sure how pricey they might be tho, but at first glance they seem to be like a dollar a piece which I guess it's fine(?) for novelty items like this, certainly better than throwing money down the scratch drain in Japan until you get 1.

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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?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Playing the open beta myself, I can confirm the gold mission pass can be bought with SG. 200 to be exact.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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!

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  • 1 month later...

Game's out on PC now too. I've been playing on Xbox One X and really enjoying  it- though I haven't played much since the PC release specficially. I'm on ship 2, and doing pretty well. I have Hunter, Bouncer and Braver at 75 and am currently working on Gunner and Fighter. Sitting on a nice stash of meseta too. I got an ARKS Rappy Suit on the first PSO2 day and sold it for 20 mil.

 I really like the way they're rolling out content quickly, and think the version of the game they brought over (combination of current JP balance w/ ep 3 era game) was the best for new players. You need to establish what the world of the game actually was before the bizarre episode 4 upends everything. Having said that, I really wish we had scion classes. I used to play this on JP pre-hero release and I wanna mess around with something new already lol. Etoile and Phantom look so cool. 

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  • The title was changed to PSO2, Now on PC and Xbox One

Oh god oh god oh god, Microsoft and Sega, what have you done, you fucking imbeciles.

Sorry for the language, but as usual, the Windows Store is a disaster and half the PC userbase practically predicted the launch would be a shitshow. Oh, and here's the kicker:

iqlsyu8w8m151.png

Arks-Layer's PSO2 Tweaker now supports the NA version already, and within 24 hours has already fixed a great many issues plaguing the NA version.

Hopefully, once the Tweaker can download PSO2 NA entirely without the need for the Windows Store, being able to play PSO2 again will be significantly less of a disaster.

 

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I knew this exact shit was gonna go down the immediate moment it turned out that it would be exclusive to the Microsoft Store. I refuse to ever install UWP games on my computer due to all the problems they cause.

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it's pretty amazing how bad it is. windows 10 is a mess in general so I thought it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be uninstall the game when I rebooted my laptop and make me download 70gbs again level bad.

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2 hours ago, Remy said:

it's pretty amazing how bad it is. windows 10 is a mess in general so I thought it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be uninstall the game when I rebooted my laptop and make me download 70gbs again level bad.

Please check if it is uninstalled and not actually hidden in a hidden folder that you can't delete without messing with folder ownerships

From what I gathered, there are 2 types of issues that the game has right now - the PSO2 launcher issues and Microsoft Store specific issues. PSO2 Tweaker (at least for now) only fixes the former. Too bad my experience has been purely with the latter and I doubt Tweaker would fix it, at least in the current state. UWP and Microsoft Store are a mess.

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A good summary of a lot of why everything's so fucked up.

 

Long story short, the Windows Store is absolute trash and you shouldn't be using it for anything other than the initial install. Hopefully, PSO2 Tweaker will eventually be able to allow you to download, install and run the game entirely without dealing with the Windows Store, but for now, limit your usage of the Windows Store to installation, and just launch the game from the start menu or via Tweaker.
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I'm one of the lucky few who didn't have issue with the Windows Store or installation, but my wife had to go digging through troubleshooting and menus and all sorts of nonsense to get the game running, and then again to get Live to be convinced that she was in fact a 31 year old woman and not a child who was not authorised to play games with user-made content.

 

Other than that though, enjoying playing the basics of the game again and starting fresh without QUITE the amount of baggage that 6 years of content updates and changes have cluttered the game with, confusing the hell out of a non-RPG fan like myself.

Having said that, it's really frustrating starting from scratch with regards to cosmetics.  I really want my character to look like my character again, and while in PSO2 JP it was just a case of finding out the stuff you want and then saving up for it on the player shops, on NA it's just... not even in the game yet and we don't know when it will be.  The player shops are filled with nothing but the current scratch items and all the default cosmetics.

Beyond that, I'm also disappointed that we only get an abridged form of the story.  One sub-element that the fan translation tended to have trouble keeping up with were all the optional cut-scenes you'd find on the field that fleshed out the lobby NPCs with little side stories.  I was looking forward to finally experiencing those properly, without a bunch of random cut-scenes with missing translation causing me to give up interest in them as I progressed further than the translation had managed (with regard to those cut-scenes, they were (understandably) considered a lower priority than the mandatory story cut-scenes).  But they're just completely gone in the English version, meaning so many favourite side characters just get no story at all in the English version, I guess.  I'd have been fine with these mini optional cut-scenes not having voice acting if that was the issue - new players wouldn't know any better.  But I guess if budget for translation in general was the issue there was no helping it.

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Apparently the story was streamlined a truckload even in the JP version, according to what I've heard. Unfortunately, it also makes the narrative seem disjointed and unnatural since you're literally just warping to story scenes instead of going through proper missions.

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5 hours ago, Candescence said:

Apparently the story was streamlined a truckload even in the JP version, according to what I've heard. Unfortunately, it also makes the narrative seem disjointed and unnatural since you're literally just warping to story scenes instead of going through proper missions.

Yeah this is true, and I was never keen on it there either.  However they did still provide the sub cut-scenes to watch via a gallery in your room if you wanted the full narrative experience.  That format KIND of makes sense because of the history of the game, it feels justified to have old content presented in an unusual format because you have the context that it is old content even as a newcomer - you just weren't there to experience it properly, that's not the game's fault.

It would've been nice to include that content as optional for English players too, perhaps presented in a different style (just informing you that the sub cut-scenes for this "chapter" are unlocked and viewable once you pass the relevant checkpoints in the main story) but I'm sure with how much mandatory content there was to get working and organised on the english game, it would've probably been needlessly cumbersome to create a brand new system for something so "minor"/optional as the game's story lol.

I'm probably speaking to the wrong crowd when I complain about this sorta stuff though. I'm well aware I'm in a strange minority for caring about the narrative in an MMORPG when 90% of players just want to hit stuff, do raids, and turn the small numbers into big numbers so bosses go down in 10 seconds coz that's... fun I guess.  I'll never understand it and despite my tone I'm not judging players who enjoy that lol.  If they are indeed the majority, of course the devs should prioritise their experience first.

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I didn't have an issue with installation through the Windows Store. The only problem is that my Xbox Live privacy settings prohibit me from playing the entire game. I have to wait until my mom fixes my privacy settings before I can hop onto the NA game.

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9 hours ago, JezMM said:

Yeah this is true, and I was never keen on it there either.  However they did still provide the sub cut-scenes to watch via a gallery in your room if you wanted the full narrative experience.  That format KIND of makes sense because of the history of the game, it feels justified to have old content presented in an unusual format because you have the context that it is old content even as a newcomer - you just weren't there to experience it properly, that's not the game's fault.

It would've been nice to include that content as optional for English players too, perhaps presented in a different style (just informing you that the sub cut-scenes for this "chapter" are unlocked and viewable once you pass the relevant checkpoints in the main story) but I'm sure with how much mandatory content there was to get working and organised on the english game, it would've probably been needlessly cumbersome to create a brand new system for something so "minor"/optional as the game's story lol.

I'm probably speaking to the wrong crowd when I complain about this sorta stuff though. I'm well aware I'm in a strange minority for caring about the narrative in an MMORPG when 90% of players just want to hit stuff, do raids, and turn the small numbers into big numbers so bosses go down in 10 seconds coz that's... fun I guess.  I'll never understand it and despite my tone I'm not judging players who enjoy that lol.  If they are indeed the majority, of course the devs should prioritise their experience first.

I think part of the problem is, story in MMOs have been basically treated as periphery and/or just a series of stepping-stones to get to the "real" content, aka the endgame. But that's also part and parcel with how MMO stories in general feel so out of place in an MMO, they're all single-player storylines that rarely if ever acknowledge that player isn't the only hero around.

But I guess part of my problem is that I'm not a fan of static theme park MMOs - they're unimmersive, the NPCs are all in the same places, the spawns are all the same, the world never changes, etc. And to make matters worse, the gameplay is usually rather lacking. It's kinda why I've gravitated towards pseudo-MMOs like PSO2 and Warframe. (I used to also play Destiny 2, but I dropped off that train after realizing how fucking pointless the grind is.) And I don't think there's any sandbox MMOs out there that scratch my itch of both really good real-time gameplay and a dynamic narrative.

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