This is a pretty niche thing, but wondering if anyone here has played (or still plays) on the PSO server Sylverant. Against my better judgement I’ve been tempted to buy a BBA or build a Dream Pi, and playing PSO would be at the top of the playlist. (I also have a soft spot for player built/run online games, having run one myself for over a decade.)
The site looks moderately active with occasional updates still. Does the game hold up? I could post something on their forum, but would rather get outside opinions if at all possible. And normally I wouldn’t give this kind of thing a second thought, but there is some significant time/expense involved to get everything set up and working.
I’m a huge PSO fan and collector. Been active since the very start but due to differences in opinion with BlueCrab a fair amount of long term players have been very loathe to use Sylverant.
Feels like a decade since I last went deep into PSO private servers. Probably because it has been about that long at this point. Got to be one of my most played games, what with the DC version then GameCube and then finally PC, and going balls deep each time.
Best thing about them was being able to finally play all those events that never came to NA.
Sylverant’s Ship Gate that is required to use a server is under the lock and key of Bluecrab and his global rules (more on this in a moment) who has made it clear several times he does not intend to let anyone outside of his “group of friends” connect to it thus making calling it “open source” a complete farce.
Regarding the global rules:
Bluecrab legitimized the use of Aleron Ive’s hacked drop rate patched Dreamcast ISO’s on all the servers.
This is a HUGE problem to players who wish to play legitimately as close to as originally intended as possible.
The drops you get online are based on the ID of the person who created the party and if that person is using modified drops and drop rates all players that join that party will also be forced to have those as well.
When Bluecrab first brought up the change a fair few of old time players complained including myself. Instead of listening Bluecrab ridiculed everyone called us all “anarchists”, then got all topics regarding it on various forums deleted and implemented it anyway.
Yeah, I ran into the open source issue when I started digging into what it would take to just host my own server. Spent some time looking through the docs and found it mostly incomplete. There was a post on the forums where someone asked about a how-to guide and was told basically “why would you want to run your own server, just use Sylverant”. Kind of discouraging to see that when compared to the much more open options with something like UO.
With some time off around the holidays this year, I decided to treat myself to an xmas present and revive this project. This little guy showed up in the mail yesterday courtesy of pcwzrd13:
After some tinkering around I was able to get the built-in wifi adapter working with DreamPi.
Then it was on to logging into PSO successfully. I’ll admit to having some challenges here, mostly around what was needed to burn a bootloader disc (Imgburn + cdi drivers) and then getting the account stuff worked out. But after a couple hours, success!
Sort of. My original plan was to go with Schthack, but I haven’t been able to successfully connect yet. (Bootloader appears to work, but I’m unable to make the final connection to the server.) Not sure if there’s a technical issue on their end. Their support forums seem dead and the discord link didn’t work. I also haven’t seen anyone listed online playing from a DC, so not sure what’s going on.
I had zero issues getting Sylverant running, though. They had ~15 DC players online the other night, too. Based on the feedback above, I’d prefer another option, but might not have another choice at this point.
I may be looking at replacing my Xbox copy at some point considering you have to have an unlock key from the LIVE service (which has been gone for years now)
If anything Schtserv is a smoldering lump of feces. It used to be a great place when Schthack was still around, but it went downhill after he left and Chrono took over administration. Heck even Alveron Ives abandoned Schtserv for Sylverant.
Sad matter of fact is there really is no great place to play online anymore. Slyverant is likely the best for Dreamcast and Gamecube users as the few good servers that exist are dedicated to Blue Burst.
There is the Izakaya Japanese server but they sadly don’t seem to welcome foreigner players.
There is also the old Gamecube server software that Fuzziqer wrote and released for free, which I have used in the past to host private online games that isn’t too bad, but was abandoned a long time ago. But…it seems Fuzziqer did a quick rewrite of his newserv source sometime late last year, which I didn’t know about till just now!
You can use an Exploder disc and a few lines of code to change where a retail version of PSO connects to by the way.
Thanks for the quick run-down, and yeah, I discovered Schtserv’s situation after a bit more digging around.
I’ve settled on Sylverant which seems like best option considering there are no others. I’ve been using the Ives “Enhancement Pack” image which I didn’t realize was the main source of disagreement until I went back and reread your post from last June. Oops. Is the change in drop rates significant to the point of feeling like cheating? I definitely want a challenge, but as a new player starting for the first time it seemed like the original Sega drop rates were insanely terrible. (Based on the commentary I read.) Any room for a compromise on it?
I started a HUmar last week and have gotten to level 11 - It’s just getting to the point where everything is starting to click and I’m genuinely excited to play. (You know, when a game hooks you.) Last night I played through Caves 1-3, made it to the boss, but after a 30 minute battle I realized I didn’t have the DPS to kill it before I ran out of HP/TP items. Doh! My plan is to get a few more levels and better gear, beat the Caves, then switch to playing online a little more. Trying not to be that classic clueless newbie.
Really glad people have made an effort to preserve this game and keep it running.
Were can I find the Ives Enhancement Pack I have looked every were so I can play this is have the CDI version (Because my real copy of v.2 is ver baldy beat up). And well I cant use his patcher and I cant use code breaker). Can someone please help!
You didn’t look too hard then. I won’t link to it here as it would be against the rules but just search for Aleron Ives website and you will find his PSO Ver. Super Cheat.
Hey guys so I lost my game case the pasty star online v.2 and bought a new dreamcast and through my old one out. So I heard of the dreampi and ordered a compatible modem (I have every thing else). But than I wanted to play it online (offline) how can I play it now because they said I can’t use a shared a serial. Please help me guys!
The only way you are going to get a serial and access key is by buying a copy of PSO ver.2. They aren’t tied to regions so you can buy whatever is cheapest.
