The judging period for the PSO-World.com Phantasy Star Swag Contest is over and the winners have been selected!

To briefly recap, the idea for the contest was to write your most memorable in-game moments from any Phantasy Star game. The top four stories were selected by the judging team based on attritutes such as composition and perceived awesomeness. The judging team consisted of Ryna, Dhylec, Dragwind, and Hunewearl_Meira - all long-time Phantasy Star players (Classic, PSO, and PSU).

There were a large number of outstanding stories and the final voting rounds were very tight. From this process, four truly exceptional were selected. So without further adieu, here are the winners:

• GreenArcher - An Epic Offline Two Player Episode 1 Challenge 9 Run
• NeoMusashi - The Rise of Team »Crescents« on Blue Burst
• Airalean - The Start of the Ethan Meme

Each of the above winners will receive a copy of Phantasy Star Portable, an inflatable GH101, and a Phantasy Star Universe wrist band! Now for the grand prize winner:

• Larian - The Lost P-Arm's Blade

Larian will receive a GH101 drawing autographed by Takao Miyoshi, a Phantasy Star Universe t-shirt, and a Phantasy Star Universe wrist strap.

The winners will need to contact me via Private Message. A big thanks goes to everyone that participated in the contest and to Sega of America for supplying the prizes! You can share your responses in this forum thread.

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Shred the Darkness continues as the second event mission is scheduled to be released this Friday, April 24! "The Big Push" will take Guardians to a RELICS site on Neudaiz where they are tasked with warding off swarms of SEED-Forms and infected creatures to protect the photon generators. Along with this comes an update to the event prologue mission to give details on the new mission, as well as the addition of new weapons and units as item drops.

Come join in the ongoing discussion of this update at the forum!

Update: The official English site has been updated with this information, revealing the official localized name of the new event mission. Formerly known as "Divine Offensive," the new name is "The Big Push." The news story above has been updated accordingly.

Update: The second version of "The Magashi Plan" is also included in this update.

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RubyEclipse has just announced that Shred the Darkness, the next major event for the local Phantasy Star Universe servers, will begin on April 17!

The Unification Point is nigh as the conflict between the GUARDIANS and SEED comes to a head. Once again united, the citizens of Gurhal are working to install photon generators across the system for a plan that could wipe the SEED's existence from Gurhal for good. The SEED, however, sense the plot against them and will do everything in their power to destroy the generators. GUARDIANS President Laia Martinez is determined to not let that happen of course, and is rallying all Guardians together to lead a massive assault against the SEED and protect the photon generators at all costs!

Be prepared the report for duty at GUARDIANS HQ on April 17!

Stop by the forum and join in the discussion of this exciting news!

Update: The official event website is now open!

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The Phantasy Star Universe and Sega of America website became inaccessible a few hours ago. At the moment it appears no one is able to connect to the PC/PlayStation 2 or Xbox 360 servers. According to the Japanese Xbox 360 page, the Japanese team is aware of the trouble and believes it is an "issue with an American ISP." There is currently no timetable for when the game servers will be accessible again. This story will be updated as new information becomes available.

Update #1: Word has come in from SEGA via momonpso, one of the moderators at the official PSU message board, that the problem is a Silicon Valley-wide internet outage caused by a cut fiber optic cable. For more information, please see the full story at CNET.

Update #2: According to a post by RubyEclipse, the Sega website and official forums are now accessible.

Update #3: The Xbox 360 and PC/Playstation 2 servers are now back online.

Update #4: A large number of people are experiencing laggy playing conditions and disconnections on the PC/Playstation 2 and Xbox 360 servers. In addition, it appears the fiber optic cable cut was an act of sabotage.

Update #5: Based on the input from several people, it appears that most of the server latency has been removed.

Update #6: Despite the servers being generally accessible, players may still be prone to disconnects and other common connection issues. After a few updates, the Japanese Xbox 360 page still mentions the possibility of problems communicating with the servers. AT&T reports that full restoration should be apparent soon to their customers in the affected areas.

Update #7: A short maintenance was reported to have been held on Friday. As of now, any issues that may have resulted from the sabotage as far as the PSU servers are concerned should be taken care of.

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Major Nelson (also known as Larry Hryb) is reporting details of a mandatory system update that has just recently starting going out to all Xbox 360 owners. While it does not contain any new features, this update is supposed to help alleviate problems with interruption while playing a few (unnamed) games.

A small percentage of PSU players have reported this being troublesome at times. Does anyone out there feel this update has cut down on their own interrupt requests?

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The newest Mission Spotlight is currently underway. The featured quest this time around is Sakura Blast (accessed from the Kugo Hot Springs lobby on Neudaiz). Players running on Leo (Guide) or Caelum servers have a chance to win a variety of items during this time. Prizes include Casino Voloyal coins, rare items, and more.

Best of luck to everyone!

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As reported in Japan and locally, the seasonal Easter lobbies will be posted starting tomorrow. They'll be running for two weeks (until April 16th). During this time, players will have a chance to see Rappy Paska out and about. Remember that the White Day lobbies will be going down tonight, so this will be the last chance to search for Jaggo Amure until next year!

Discussion is taking place here in the forums.

Update: As reported here, players have found a few previously unavailable drops. [B] Conic is a 150+ AMF Metro Linear area drop (found in the last section of SEED Express S2). Cati / Rainbow is a Phantom Fissure S clear box drop.

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The long-awaited supplemental update announced for the Japanese PC/PS2 version of Phantasy Star Universe will be hitting the Japanese servers this week! Full details of March 26's JP server update were announced early this morning. Here's a bit of what to expect from this update.

• Many new weapons, clothes, SUV weapons and materials will be added.
• The first three "conditional missions" will be added to a new area on the third floor of Clyez City.
• The new conditional missions will play in a similar manner to PSO's C-mode, whereby various restrictions will be put in place on the entire party.
• Certain photon arts and SUV weapons will receive adjustments to their power and abilities.
• A variety of stat adjustments will be made to all types. Also, Guntechers and Wartechers will be able to equip double sabers up to grade A.
• Longbows will receive an increase to their rate of fire and attack power. Grenades will a reduction in PP consumption.
• GUARDIANS advanced style will be introduced. This will allow players to customize their character's abilities.

There is much, much more to this update than what's listed above. For full details, check out this translation of the Japanese announcement. Then feel free to jump into the ongoing discussion of what's to come!

Update: Only a few short hours after the supplemental update went live on the Japanese servers, it had to be removed due to a few major issues arising. As it stands, this update has been postponed until further notice. We'll update this news story as new information comes in.

Update #2: A follow-up report was posted on the Japanese site stating that work to correct the problems with this update is progressing and that the update may be ready to go live as early as Monday, March 30. Keep in mind, however, that this date is not set in stone, and the update could occur at any point after then. Furthermore, as an apology to all players, a two week reward period will be implemented at a future date. Please see this post for full details.

Update #3: Maintenance occurred this morning on the Japanese PC/PS2 servers to implement the update, and so far everything seems to be going very well!

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