How much does PSO's story affect your motivation to play, understanding of and enjoyment of the game? Is it a cancerous little growth on the underbelly of an otherwise enjoyable game, or does it offer a depth whose absence would relegate the game to the bottom of your retro gaming pile?

I know a friend of mine who knows the story like the back of his hand and he found that the story of very deep and interesting, despite most people easily overlooking it. Really, the story is pretty easy to overlook. And I heard someone else say you can't really understand the story without playing the original Phantasy Stars.

I've heard my friend's banter about PSO's story, but ultimately, I don't know too much. Although I CAN say that "Seat of Heart" is one of those quests that had one of the biggest impacts on me. It was... pretty amazing, I must admit... I'm not... It's not like it made me cry... just sand in my eye... *sniff*

On another note, I have been interested in original storylines in quests. As a qedit newbie, I'd like to add story, but that usually involves a lot more knowledge about scripts and stuff. God, I still need to learn how to make custom NPCs and all this other complicated stuff... Making elaborate quests with story such as Seat of Heart would be pretty darn hard.

PSO has classically been a multiplayer / item hunting / finding game, and I think that without the story, PSO would do fairly well. I'd not be surprised if there were people unaware of its story, either.

That being said, I do like that the storyline isn't just shoved in your face. With PSO being the type of game that it is, an over-prevalent storyline could ruin the flow of the gameplay, and how it currently stands gives you some extra detail if you want to know about it.

The storyline is pretty dark and present if you choose to follow it, however PSO is not built in such a way to make the storyline as impacting or meaningful as it could be -- you really need to have quests explaining the story, but some of the quests (especially ep4) seem to shove a lot of dialog next to fighting and it would be rather confusing if you were unaware of any PS history.

EP1 has a pretty unengaging story. I think it's too static between "DONT GET SURROUNED BY DEMENIANS" (the loltips) and "LOOK THESE SEALS SHOULD NOT BE HERE" (the story itself). Heck, I don't get the sense that Falz is really super evil there. The single player quests are where the depth is added in. Some of them are rather hilarious, but add a nice layer of depth to what is going on (Help me lose weight! Prevent my husband from spending all his money on weapons! Help me find my master who was fighting in the ruins! Donoph! Elenor and Dr. Montague! LOLHOPKINS.)

EP1 Story:


I do like EP2's storyline a lot though. I think it builds up the creation of Olga Flow rather nicely, and does a better job explaining why we're fighting than EP1 or EP4 does.

EP2's Storyline:


Then, there's Seat of the Heart and ... Blue Star Memories, both of which are hands-down awesome EP2 Solo Quests (that we have on this server!!!) and add a lot of depth to more of the EP2 environment. Seriously, if you haven't played them, do so. They redefine what is possible for a quest to be! I got inspired by them in my own quest design!

EP4 story is a bit silly in my opinion, mainly because it's entirely quest-based, seems like an afterthought, and didn't add much to the grand scheme of things in the PS universe in terms of basic story principles. I think it suffers that PSO never was a story-driven game, because some of the quests were written with the assumption that it was very much the case.



Honestly, I would want more storyline, but that's because I've been playing PSO for ten years. The only /real/ enhancements to the storyline are shown in PSP2i, but I'm willing to bet that not everyone has/understands that :P

I'm sure I have a chatlog where Spog and I discussed story theories for a few hours lying around somewhere.
I'll agree with No one's take on it though it shouldn't be forced on the player; however, should you look into it it's quite interesting

Yes indeed! If it wasn't clear already, Sin's comment should confirm I'm bananas for the story at times.

I'd also agree with people's perception of the story's place in the game, and add that it makes it all the more gripping and organic when otherwise innocuous events that you may have seen before are paired with new meanings from the story you bothered to explore.

I'm also more of the persuasion that the first PS games do occur in the same canon as PSO and are connected in some direct fashion. While PSO's story is intricate and self-sustaining, to lend it the power of the legacy of the previous games makes things that much more interesting again.

I was introduced to this later than a lot of people, so I only really took it for the game.

Story hardly makes a difference for me, but I wouldn't mind reading up on it some day.

Wait... PSO has a story?