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| Article of the Month: The Current State of the PSO Community (Feb - Mar) |
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| In this months article I will discuss the current state of the Dreamcast PSO community. As most out there who are familiar with this great online RPG, the US Dreamcast versions were taken offline in October 1, 2003. But, with it out for the Xbox and Gamecube most gamers didn't feel the effect from the closing of the US server. But it should be noted that many such fans who moved onto the Xbox and Gamecude still thought the Dreamcast version was almost a piece of history and should stay online, proof with the signing of such gamers on our past effort to keep the US Dreamcast PSO server online with a online petition. But what about the Dreamcast community still wanting to play it on the Sega's last and greatest system? Well to the shock of some it�s still around, and even growing. While you may be thinking how is this possible and confused you shouldn't be. Sega of Europe and Sega of Japan have kept online both PSO ver. 1 and 2 for the Dreamcast. While the Japanese version is impossible to play online outside of Japan the European version isn't. Not only that but both European are free to play online! This has been a great incentive to some and the fact that since so many less people play it online there are many less hackers then the almost ruined Xbox and Gamecube versions. But importing this game from the UK is quite difficult and a new ver. 2 is almost impossible to find, even on ebay. The real news comes with the efforts by fans not wanting to give up all of the memories they had playing PSO on the Dreamcast with the creation of homebrew PSO servers. The first effort I will mention is the creation of a homebrew server by PSO Cheats (aka Schthack's Server). Who is be hide the homebrew PSO PC server. This has to be the best news; a free server for both versions players can connect to and play. Although at the time only version 2 can be used online but, you can play online with there homebrew PSO PC server too! But the problem others and we see is the fact that the group be hide the server is a well know group of PSO hackers. Remembering timeing when hackers tampered character files and weapons/items of you or your friends was quote angering and having a server run by them seems to be bitter sweet. Thankfully there has been come word that the server will have some hacking (like the ones that disconnect you while online) removed while keeping the item creation hacks and such. Onlineconsoles.com member Neo-Ice has created a DNS server to let US gamers to connect online to the PSO Cheats PSO DC-PC server. And it online and working, but it only works for people using a BBA. If you do have one use a Planet Web browser 3.0 and set your DNS to 24.159.157.185 then simple connect online with PSO. The server is online 24/7 so those lucky enough with a BBA can play your US copy of PSO online. From some reason Neo-Ice has changed it so you connect to the PSO Cheats PSO DC-PC server and not the official European servers. With the failure of DCM's online petition to keep the Dreamcast PSO servers online, even with 3 quarters of a thousand signatures, it�s quite clear having Sega releasing the official server software is very important and difficult. We have assisted onlineconsoles.com member MeltedIce with writing a letter to Sega of America asking for the software to be released with the backing of DCM and Online Consoles (most likely). We hope to get a real reply to are serious request from Sega, as attempts to contact them with e-mail has been almost completely pointless. So as you can see efforts to get the Dreamcast PSO players back online are really starting to make major progress. Dreamcast Magic will keep up updated on all of these efforts. Know turning our attention to another thing PSO players have lost. The ability to take pictures in PSO was always its best secret. After the 195 block file was made, going to this site pso.donut.dhs.org and getting it developed into a usable picture format was fun and cool. But this site was taken offline some time ago and its not coming back. But again thanks again to the great Dreamcast PSO community have fixed this problem completely. A host of sites now have online converters on their sites. All you do is simple use a Dreamcast web browser, visit one of the following sites and upload your photos. Then get on your computer and save the photos. On a side note saving the photos on your Dreamcast by pressing X and Y at the same time with a in-game browser or a Dream Key\Dream Passport (UK\JP browser) browser will let you save and use the photos in Jet Grind Radio as a Spray! To use Blue Swirls online converter simple go online using the PSO game or a Dreamkey/Dreampassport browser select the file and click upload then go on your PC search the pages as the photo replaces the oldest a 50 pic archive and save it. It doesn't support Planet Web Browsers at the time but we have contacted the admin and a update with such support may happen the in the future. The following sites are all related to this topic and are great help in getting you PSO photos developed. |
| (Please Note PSO Archives doesn't develop photos) Blue Swirl New to PSO? Want to know what its all about. DCM has done a complete review of both versions of the game, located in our reviews section. |