Phantasy Star Universe interview: Public Beta

Phantasy Star Universe’s online demo hit the Marketplace on October 20, much to the delight of gamers who’ve been eager to get their hands on the game since its announcement. Sega officially calls it the public Beta, and the “smoothest” one ever, that is according to 1Up.com and several other participants. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t bugs to fix. As such, 1Up went to Sega producer Justin Kuo to get some answers and hopefully a quick fix to the pesky bugs.

According to Kuo, the game is “pretty close to final” at the time of the Beta, which is why it’s released as a demo and a stress test, rather than a “major bug-crunching public Beta”. It’s basically a way to fine-tune the game before launch. With several feedback coming from gamers, Sega isn’t keen on releasing a launch day patch, not until all data from the beta test has been compiled.

One of the problems encountered while playing the Beta is the latency (ex. delays in damage status, characters stepping meters at a time, etc.). Kuo didn’t expound but the dev team will continue to minimize the latency effects. He stressed that the Xbox Live infrastructure play isn’t the problem at all.

Kuo also hopes to fix the crash issue by launch day. In fact, some of the issues have been fixed on the public Beta. He’s not discounting the possibility of releasing a patch to get the bug fixed.

Finally, Kuo assured players that the final game’s difficulty level will “give players a run for their money, particularly as they advance to higher levels.”

Pre-order: [Phantasy Star Universe]

Phantasy Star Universe’s online demo hit the Marketplace on October 20, much to the delight of gamers who’ve been eager to get their hands on the game since its announcement. Sega officially calls it the public Beta, and the “smoothest” one ever, that is according to 1Up.com and several other participants. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t bugs to fix. As such, 1Up went to Sega producer Justin Kuo to get some answers and hopefully a quick fix to the pesky bugs.

According to Kuo, the game is “pretty close to final” at the time of the Beta, which is why it’s released as a demo and a stress test, rather than a “major bug-crunching public Beta”. It’s basically a way to fine-tune the game before launch. With several feedback coming from gamers, Sega isn’t keen on releasing a launch day patch, not until all data from the beta test has been compiled.

One of the problems encountered while playing the Beta is the latency (ex. delays in damage status, characters stepping meters at a time, etc.). Kuo didn’t expound but the dev team will continue to minimize the latency effects. He stressed that the Xbox Live infrastructure play isn’t the problem at all.

Kuo also hopes to fix the crash issue by launch day. In fact, some of the issues have been fixed on the public Beta. He’s not discounting the possibility of releasing a patch to get the bug fixed.

Finally, Kuo assured players that the final game’s difficulty level will “give players a run for their money, particularly as they advance to higher levels.”

Pre-order: [Phantasy Star Universe]