This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
"The cartoon of Betty Boop illustrates some human features which are sometimes labeled as neotenous, such as a large head, short arms and legs relative to total height, and clumsy, child-like movements." —Barry Bogin[1]
A caricature of a Jazz Ageflapper, Betty Boop was described in a 1934 court case as "combin[ing] in appearance the childish with the sophisticated—a large round baby face with big eyes and a nose like a button, framed in a somewhat careful coiffure, with a very small body of which perhaps the leading characteristic is the most self-confident little bust imaginable".[10] Although she was toned down in the mid-1930s as a result of the Hays Code to appear more demure, she became one of the world's best-known and most popular cartoon characters.
Betty Boop made her first appearance in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, released on August 9, 1930, the seventh installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. Inspired by a popular performing style, but not by any one specific person, the character was originally created as an anthropomorphicFrench poodle.[b]Clara Bow is sometimes given credit as being the inspiration for Boop,[12] though Fleischer told his artists that he wanted a caricature of singer Helen Kane, who performed in a style shared by many performers of the day–Kane was also the one who sued Fleischer over the signature "Boop Oop a Doop" line.[13] Betty Boop appeared as a supporting character in ten cartoons as a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons, she was called "Nancy Lee" or "Nan McGrew"—derived from the Helen Kane film Dangerous Nan McGrew (1930)—usually serving as a girlfriend to studio star Bimbo.
Within a year, Betty made the transition from an incidental human-canine breed to a completely human female character. While much credit has been given to Grim Natwick for helping to transform Max Fleischer's creation, her transition into the cute cartoon girl was also in part due to the work of Bernard Wolf, Otto Feuer, Seymour Kneitel, Roland "Doc" Crandall, Willard Bowsky, and James "Shamus" Culhane.[14] By the release of Any Rags, Betty Boop was forever established as a human character. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her black poodle nose became a girl's button-like nose.
Although Betty's first name was assumed to have been established in the 1931 Screen Songs cartoon Betty Co-ed, this "Betty" is a different character, which the official Betty Boop website describes as a "prototype" of Betty Boop. At least 12 Screen Songs cartoons featured Betty Boop or a similar character.[citation needed]
Betty Boop was the star of the Talkartoons by 1932 and was given her own series that same year, beginning with Stopping the Show. From that point on, she was crowned "The Queen of the Animated Screen". The series was popular throughout the 1930s.
Since the character was created by an Austrian Jew and eventually voiced by a Jewish actress, Mae Questel, animation fans sometimes try to pinpoint various aspects that hint at Betty's Jewishness. The 1932 Talkartoon Minnie the Moocher featured the only appearance of Betty's parents: a strict immigrant couple, who get upset that Betty does not want to eat the traditional German foods hasenpfeffer (rabbit stew) and sauerbraten. Benjamin Ivry of Forward says that any of this evidence is ambiguous, as these are not kosher foods, and the accents of the parents are comical German accents, rather than Jewish.[18]
Betty appeared in the first "Color Classic" cartoon Poor Cinderella, her only theatrical color appearance in 1934. In the film, she was depicted with red hair as opposed to her typical black hair.
The Betty Boop films were revived after Paramount sold them for syndication in 1955. UM&M and National Telefilm Associates were required to remove the original Paramount logo from the opening and closing, as well as any references to Paramount in the copyright line on the main titles. However, the mountain motif remains on some television prints, usually with a UM&M copyright line, while recent versions have circulated with the Paramount-Publix reference in cartoons from 1931.
The original Betty Boop cartoons were made in black and white. As new color cartoons made specifically for television began to appear in the 1960s, the original black-and-white cartoons were retired. Boop's film career had a revival with the release of The Betty Boop Scandals of 1974, becoming a part of the post-1960s counterculture. NTA attempted to capitalize on this with a new syndication package, but because no market existed for cartoons in black and white, they sent them to South Korea, where the cartoons were hand-traced frame-by-frame in color, resulting in the degradation of the animation quality and timing. Unable to sell these to television largely because of the sloppy colorization, they assembled a number of the color cartoons in a compilation feature titled Betty Boop for President, to connect with the 1976 election, but it did not receive a theatrical release.
The release of the films on video cassette for home viewing created a new market for the films in their original form. The American Movie Classics cable television channel showcased a selection of the original black-and-white Betty Boop cartoons in the 1990s, which led to an eight-volume VHS and LV set, Betty Boop, the Definitive Collection. Some of the nonpublic-domain Boop cartoons copyrighted by Republic successor Melange Pictures (Paramount Global's holding company that handles the Republic theatrical library) have been released by Olive Films under Paramount's license, while the Internet Archive hosts 22 Betty Boop cartoons that are public domain.
Betty Boop is regarded as one of the first and best-known sex symbols on the animated screen;[19] she is a symbol of the Depression era and a reminder of the more carefree days of Jazz Age flappers. Her popularity was drawn largely from adult audiences, and the cartoons, while seemingly surreal, contained many sexual and psychological elements, particularly in the 1932 "Talkartoon" Minnie the Moocher (1932), featuring Cab Calloway and his orchestra.
Minnie the Moocher defined Betty's character as a teenager of a modern era, at odds with the old-world ways of her parents. In the cartoon, after a disagreement with her strict parents, Betty runs away from home, accompanied by her boyfriend Bimbo, only to get lost in a haunted cave. A ghostly walrus (rotoscoped from live-action footage of Calloway) sings Calloway's song "Minnie the Moocher", accompanied by several other ghosts and skeletons. This haunting performance sends the frightened Betty and Bimbo back to the safety of home. "Minnie the Moocher" served as a promotion for Calloway's subsequent stage appearances and also established Betty Boop as a cartoon star. The eight Talkartoons that followed all starred Betty, leading her into her own series beginning in 1932. With the release of Stopping the Show (August 1932), the Talkartoons were replaced by the Betty Boop series, which continued for the next seven years.[20]
Betty Boop was unique among female cartoon characters because she represented a sexual woman. Other female cartoon characters of the same period, such as Minnie Mouse, displayed their underwear or bloomers regularly, in the style of childish or comical characters, not a fully defined woman's form. Many other female cartoons were merely clones of their male co-stars, with alterations in costume, the addition of eyelashes, and a female voice. Betty Boop wore short dresses, high heels, a garter, and her breasts were highlighted with a low, contoured bodice that showed cleavage. In her cartoons, male characters frequently try to sneak a peek at her while she is changing or simply going about her business. In Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle, she does the hula wearing nothing but a lei, strategically placed to cover her breasts, and a grass skirt. This was repeated in her first cameo appearance in Popeye the Sailor (1933). A certain girlish quality was given to the character. She was drawn with a head more similar to a baby's than an adult's in proportion to her body. This suggested the combination of girlishness and maturity that many people saw in the flapper type, which Betty represented.
While the character was kept pure and girl-like onscreen, compromises to her virtue were a challenge. The studio's 1931 Christmas card featured Betty in bed with Santa Claus, winking at the viewer. The Talkartoons The Bum Bandit and Dizzy Red Riding Hood (both 1931) were given distinctly "impure" endings. Officially, Betty was only 16 years old, according to a 1932 interview with Fleischer (although in The Bum Bandit, she is portrayed as a married woman with many children and with an adult woman's voice, rather than the standard "boop-boop-a-doop" voice).[c]
Attempts to compromise her virginity were reflected in Chess-Nuts (1932) and most importantly in Boop-Oop-a-Doop (1932). In Chess-Nuts, the Black King goes into the house where Betty is and ties her up. When she rejects him, he pulls her out of the ropes, drags her off to the bedroom and says, "I will have you". The bed, however, runs away, and Betty calls for help through the window. Bimbo comes to her rescue, and she is saved before anything happens. In Boop-Oop-a-Doop, Betty is a high-wire performer in a circus. The ringmaster lusts for Betty as he watches her from below, singing "Do Something", a song previously performed by Helen Kane. As Betty returns to her tent, the ringmaster follows her inside and sensually massages her legs, surrounds her, and threatens her job if she does not submit. Betty pleads with the ringmaster to cease his advances, as she sings "Don't Take My Boop-Oop-A-Doop Away". Koko the Clown is practicing his juggling outside the tent and overhears the struggle inside. He leaps in to save Betty, struggling with the ringmaster, who loads him into a cannon and fires it. Koko, who remained hiding inside the cannon, knocks the ringmaster out cold with a mallet, while imitating the ringmaster's laugh. Koko then inquires about Betty's welfare, to which she answers in song, "No, he couldn't take my boop-oop-a-doop away". According to Jill Harness of Mental Floss, these portrayals of Boop fighting off sexual harassment on the animated screen made many see her as a feminist icon.[22]
Betty Boop's best appearances are considered to be in her first three years due to her "Jazz Baby" character and innocent sexuality, which was aimed at adults, but the content of her films was affected by the National Legion of Decency and the Production Code of 1934, which imposed guidelines on the motion-picture industry and placed specific restrictions on the content films could reference with sexual innuendos. This greatly affected the Betty Boop cartoons.
No longer a carefree flapper from the date the code went into effect on July 1, 1934, Betty became a spinster housewife or a career girl who wore a fuller dress or skirt. Additionally, as time progressed, the curls in her hair gradually decreased in number. She also eventually stopped wearing her gold bracelets and hoop earrings, and she became more mature and wiser in personality, compared to her earlier years. Right from the start, Joseph Breen, the new head film censor, had numerous complaints. Breen ordered the removal of the suggestive introduction that had started the cartoons because Betty Boop's winks and shaking hips were deemed "suggestive of immorality". For a few entries, Betty was given a new human boyfriend named Freddy, who was introduced in She Wronged Him Right (1934).[23] Next, Betty was teamed with a puppy named Pudgy, beginning with Betty Boop's Little Pal (1934).[24] The following year saw the addition of the eccentric inventor Grampy, who debuted in Betty Boop and Grampy (1935).
The transformation from pre-Code to post-Code
While these cartoons were tame compared to her earlier appearances, their self-conscious wholesomeness was aimed at a more juvenile audience, which contributed to the decline of the series. Much of the decline was due to the lessening of Betty's role in the cartoons in favor of her co-stars, not to mention Fleischer's biggest success, Popeye. This was a similar problem experienced during the same period with Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, who was becoming eclipsed by the popularity of his co-stars Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.[25]
Since she was largely a musical novelty character, the animators attempted to keep Betty's cartoons interesting by pairing her with popular comic strip characters such as Henry, The Little King and Little Jimmy, hoping to create an additional spin-off series with her pairing with Popeye in 1933. None of these films, though, generated a new series. When the flapper/jazz era that Betty represented had been replaced by the big bands of the swing era, Fleischer Studios made an attempt to develop a replacement character in this style in the 1938 Betty Boop cartoon Betty Boop and Sally Swing, but it was not a success.
The last Betty Boop cartoons were released in 1939, and a few made attempts to bring Betty into the swing era. In her last appearance, Rhythm on the Reservation (1939), Betty drives an open convertible, labeled "Betty Boop's Swing Band", through a Native American reservation, where she introduces the people to swing music and creates a "Swinging Sioux Band". The Betty Boop cartoon series officially ended with Yip Yip Yippy (1939). While Yip Yip Yippy appears at the end of the Betty Boop series, it is actually a one-shot about a "Drug Store" mail-order cowboy "wannabe" without Betty, which was written mainly to fill the release schedule and fulfill the contract.[26]
In 1955, Betty's 110 cartoon appearances were sold to television syndicator UM&M, which was acquired by National Telefilm Associates (NTA) in 1956. NTA was reorganized in 1985 as Republic Pictures, which folded in 2012, and became Melange Pictures, a subsidiary of Paramount Global, the parent company of Paramount. Paramount, Boop's original home studio (via Melange/Paramount Global), acts as a theatrical distributor for the Boop cartoons that they originally released. Television rights are handled on Paramount's behalf by Trifecta Entertainment & Media, which in turn were inherited from CBS Television Distribution (renamed CBS Media Ventures in 2021), successor to other related companies, including Worldvision Enterprises, Republic Pictures Television, and NTA.
Betty Boop appeared in two television specials, The Romance of Betty Boop in 1985, which was produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, the same creative team behind the Peanuts specials, and 1989's The Betty Boop Movie Mystery; both specials are available on DVD as part of the Advantage Cartoon Mega Pack. While television revivals were conceived, nothing has materialized from the plans. Her most recent television appearance was an episode of Project Runaway All Stars in February 2018.[27]
On February 11, 2016, Deadline announced that a new 26-episode television series focusing on Betty Boop is in production, in partnership with Normaal Animation, Fleischer Studios, and King Features. The show was to be aimed towards the tween and teenaged audiences. The show's premise, according to the article, will "recount the daily struggles, joys, and victories of young Betty Boop, who has every intention of being on stage and becoming a superstar".[28]
While the animated cartoons featuring Betty Boop have enjoyed renewed attention over the last 30 years, official home-video releases have been limited to the VHS and LaserDisc collector's sets in the 1990s. No such releases for the Betty Boop cartoons on DVD and Blu-ray were made until 2013, when Olive Films, under license from Paramount Home Entertainment, finally released the nonpublic domain cartoons, although they were restored from the original internegatives, these were altered in 1954 by a now defunct TV distributor named UM&M TV Corp. and the altered opening and closing credits appear on these discs.[29] Volume 1 was released on August 20, 2013, and volume 2 on September 24, 2013. Volume 3 was released on April 29, 2014, and volume 4 on September 30, 2014.
In 1993, plans were made for an animated feature film of Betty Boop, but they were later cancelled. The musical storyboard scene of the proposed film can be seen online. The finished reel consists of Betty and her estranged father performing a jazz number together called "Where are you?" Jimmy Rowles and Sue Raney provide the vocals for Betty and Benny Boop.[32]
Producers Steven Paul Leiva and Jerry Rees began production on a new Betty Boop feature film for the Zanuck Company and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The script by Rees detailed Betty's rise in Hollywood in the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was to be a musical with music by jazz musician Bennie Wallace and lyrics by Cheryl Ernst Wells. Wallace and Wells had completed several songs and 75% of the film had been storyboarded when, two weeks before voice recording was to begin with Bernadette Peters as Betty, the head of MGM, Alan Ladd Jr., was replaced by Frank Mancuso, and the project was abandoned.[citation needed] On August 14, 2014, Simon Cowell's Syco and Animal Logic announced they were developing a feature-length film based on the character.[33]
Marketers rediscovered Betty Boop in the 1980s, and Betty Boop merchandise has far outdistanced her exposure in films, with many not aware of her cinematic origin. Much of this merchandise features the character in her popular, sexier form, and has become popular worldwide once again.[citation needed]
In 2010, Betty Boop became the official fantasy cheerleader for the upstart United Football League. She was featured in merchandise targeted towards the league's female demographic.[36]
As of 2021, international licensing company Global Icons has acquired the licensing rights to Betty Boop and other Fleischer Studios characters, thus ending Fleischer's longtime relationship with King Features Syndicate.[37] She still appears in merchandise and social media, appealing to a 21st-century audience, using slang from the social media website TikTok, and she has various hobbies. (cyclist, recycling, etc.)[38]
Marking Betty Boop's 55th birthday, in 1985 she made her first appearance as a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.[39][40] The balloon held more than 15,000 cubic feet (420 m3) of helium and was 67 feet (20 m) tall.[41] The balloon did not finish the 1986 parade due to collapsing near Times Square.[42] The balloon appeared again in 1987[43] then returned for occasional use in the 1990s.[44]
In May 1932, Helen Kane filed a $250,000 infringement lawsuit against Fleischer Studios, Max Fleischer and Paramount Publix Corporation for the "deliberate caricature" that produced "unfair competition", exploiting her personality and image. While Kane had risen to fame in the late 1920s as "The Boop-Oop-a-Doop Girl", a star of stage, recordings, and films for Paramount, her career was nearing its end by 1931, and Paramount promoted the development of Betty Boop following Kane's decline. The case was brought in New York in 1934. On April 19, Fleischer testified that Betty Boop purely was a product of his imagination and detailed by members of his staff.[45][46]
Theatrical manager Lou Bolton testified that Kane had witnessed an African-American child performer, Baby Esther (Esther Jones), using a similar vocal style in an act at the Everglades Restaurant club in midtown Manhattan, in "April or May 1928".[47] Under cross-examination Bolton said that he had met with Kane at the club after Esther's performance, but could not say when she had walked in.[48] Bolton also stated that Paramount's lawyers had paid him $200 to come to New York.[49] Esther's name was given in the trial as Esther Jones. (During the trial, Lou Bolton, who was Esther Jones' manager, also testified his belief that she was probably in Paris.[50]) An early test sound-on-disc film (lost after the trial), was produced, which featured Esther performing in this style and introduced as evidence.[51] In the film, Esther sings three songs that had earlier been popularized by Helen Kane – "Don't Be Like That", "Is There Anything Wrong with That?", and "Wa-da-da" – which writer Mark Langer says "was hardly proof that Helen Kane derived her singing style from Baby Esther".[52]
Jazz studies scholar Robert O'Meally stated this evidence, though, "might very well have been cooked up by the Fleischers to discredit Kane, whom they later admitted to have been their model for Betty Boop."[53] O'Meally also questioned if some sort of deal existed between Paramount and Bol
This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
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Phantasy Star Online is an online role-playing game (RPG) developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega in 2000 for the Dreamcast. It was the first successful online RPG for game consoles; players adventure with up to three others over the internet to complete quests, collect items and fight enemies in real-time action RPG combat. The story is unrelated to previous games in the Phantasy Star series.
Before Phantasy Star Online, online gaming was limited to western PC games, particularly RPGs such as Diablo, Ultima Online, and EverQuest. Believing online play was the future, Sega chairman Isao Okawa instructed Sonic Team to develop an online game for the Dreamcast, produced by Yuji Naka. Sonic Team's experiments led to the development of ChuChu Rocket!, the first online Dreamcast game. Using what they learned from the project, and taking significant inspiration from Diablo, Sonic Team built Phantasy Star Online. As Japanese internet service providers charged for dial-up access per minute, and high-speed connections were not yet widely available, Okawa personally paid for free internet access bundled with Japanese Dreamcasts.
Phantasy Star Online was highly anticipated and launched to positive reviews and commercial success; critics praised the online gameplay as addictive but criticized the single-player mode. It received the Japan Game Award for "Game of the Year" and is recognized as a landmark console game, influencing multiplayer dungeon crawlers such as the Monster Hunter series.
Phantasy Star Online was ported to Windows and rereleased on the Dreamcast as Ver. 2 with expanded content. Following Sega's exit from the console business in 2001, the game was ported to GameCube and Xbox as Episode I & II, featuring new characters, environments and other features. Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution, released for GameCube in 2003, was a turn-based card game. The online series continued with Phantasy Star Universe (2006) and Phantasy Star Online 2 (2012). Sega decommissioned the last official servers in 2010; Phantasy Star Online is still played on private servers.
A player battling enemies in the forests of Ragol with three other players
Phantasy Star Online is an action role-playing game primarily played with other players cooperatively over the internet. Players take on the role of adventurers sent to explore Ragol, an uncharted planet.[8] To create their character, they choose between a handful of races and classes, which define their abilities and statistics; for example, some types are better with "techniques" (magic spells) while others are more skilled with ranged or melee weapons.[9]
Players can play either online or offline. Online, players are brought to a lobby where they can chat and organize teams of up to four.[10][a] Team members can communicate by typing using a physical or onscreen keyboard,[9] even when in different environments.[10] Preset phrases are automatically translated between languages, and custom emoticons are also supported.[9] Players can also exchange "guild cards" to exchange private messages and see when the other is online.[9]
After organizing a team, players are transported to their own instance of the hub spaceship Pioneer 2, where they can buy and sell items, store money and items, heal, and browse quests.[10] At any time, they can transport to Ragol, where combat and exploration take place.[10] The four environments – forests, caves, mines, or ruins[10]– comprise winding passages and large areas where enemies spawn.[10] Players fight enemies in real time, using weapons and techniques and collecting items.[13] Attacks can be chained for more accuracy and speed.[14][15] Typically, all the monsters in a room must be defeated to advance.[9] Each environment ends in a boss battle, which rewards the team with a large sum of experience points.[10] Quests, taken on Pioneer 2, task players with specific challenges; once completed, the team returns to Pioneer 2 to collect their reward.[10] Higher difficulties reward players with more experience points and better items. Some items can be used to feed the player's mag, a small creature that follows the player character and aids them in battle.[10]
The story of Phantasy Star Online is unrelated to the original Phantasy Star series,[10] and is less substantial.[8] Threatened by the imminent destruction of their home planet, thousands of refugees arrive at planet Ragol aboard the spaceship Pioneer 2. As they establish contact with colonists sent ahead on Pioneer 1, an enormous explosion shakes the planet. Adventurers from Pioneer 2 land to investigate the explosion and search for Rico Tyrell, daughter of the head of Pioneer 2. They discover the planet overrun by monsters, and follow messages left by Rico leading to an ancient evil, Dark Falz.
By the late 1990s, the popularity of online gaming on personal computers had grown substantially in the west, but was almost nonexistent in Japan, where consoles were more popular. Sega chairman Isao Okawa believed the internet was the future of gaming and wanted a flagship online game for Sega's Dreamcast console. None of Sega's development studios wanted the project, as they were occupied with their own ventures, such as Jet Set Radio (2000) and the Sakura Wars series.[16] Okawa gave the responsibility to Sonic Team, led by Yuji Naka.[16][17] Sonic Team was not particularly receptive to the decision, but continued with development.[16] After Okawa became ill, Naka sent reports to the hospital to update him on progress.[16]
Sonic Team began experimenting with the Dreamcast's network capabilities after completing Sonic Adventure in 1998.[18] They saw the creation of an online game for Japan, a nation of console gamers, as a serious challenge, akin to creating a new genre.[16] Much of their time was spent learning the basic elements of online gaming; they wanted to make sure the network functionality worked before developing the gameplay, setting, and story.[16][19] Their network experiments became ChuChu Rocket!, released in 1999 as the first online game for the Dreamcast.[19][20][21][22] Sonic Team used the lessons learned from ChuChu Rocket! to implement network technology in the larger project.[19][21][22]
Because of the lack of Japanese online games, and the developers' experience with the genre, Naka looked to western games for inspiration,[16] and studied three online RPGs popular at the time: Diablo (1996), Ultima Online (1997), and EverQuest (1999).[16]Diablo in particular impressed him on a gameplay and technical level; he enjoyed how smooth the graphics and action were despite requiring significant system memory.[19]Diablo was a 2D game, however, and Sonic Team wanted to develop a 3D game with the same degree of smoothness and gameplay. This concerned Naka, as he did not want his game to use the cheap and bland graphics associated with online games.[16]
Naka decided against creating a massively multiplayer game similar to Ultima Online and EverQuest, which would handle many players simultaneously in a persistent world; the necessary servers would have required two years of programming, and the Dreamcast did not have a hard disk drive to support continuous online patches. Naka was also more interested in working on new projects instead of continuously updating the same game for years, and doubted Sonic Team would be able to keep the game interesting.[11] The team therefore adopted Diablo as their main inspiration, determined to outclass it.[16]
Sonic Team built a science fiction-fantasy game under the working title Third World.[16][19] The art style was "comic-like" at first, but became more realistic. One of artist Satoshi Sakai's early concept drawings of a dragon reminded Naka of Sega's Phantasy Star series; which had been dormant since Phantasy Star IV (1993) for the Genesis.[16] Naka had served as main programmer on Phantasy Star (1987) and Phantasy Star II (1989).[23] He had always wanted to develop a multiplayer Phantasy Star game, but previous hardware did not allow for it.[24]
With the Phantasy Star series chosen as the setting, Sonic Team continued developing the gameplay and story. The team was given freedom not to adhere strictly to elements from earlier Phantasy Star games.[16][19] The game would not continue the story from the previous Phantasy Star games, something that made Naka feel liberated.[18][24] Since few of the Phantasy Star IV staff still worked at Sega, the art team felt little obligation to adhere to the previous games' style, retaining only the science fiction look and some enemy and item names. Naka and Sakai believed factors such as the change in graphical fidelity and genre were enough to differentiate it from previous Phantasy Star games.[16]
The soundtrack was composed by Hideaki Kobayashi using a Roland JV-2080 synthesizer, with live orchestration on some tracks, including the theme song. Kobayashi composed ambient music for calm scenes, and incorporated more rhythm and melody for battles. He composed short four-bar melodies that are sequenced depending on gameplay; for example, when an enemy appears, the system plays music associated with that enemy. The process was a drain on the Dreamcast hardware, and gained the nickname "the crasher" among staff for how often it would crash the game during development.[25]
Sonic Team had conceived their 1998 Saturn game Burning Rangers as an online game for four players, but abandoned the idea due to insurmountable network problems.[26] They used the ChuChu Rocket! networking system as a template for the online functions for Phantasy Star Online.[19][21][22] This presented new challenges, as the new network would connect players between different countries.[19] Sonic Team ran experiments with different internet service providers, dial-up modems, cable modems, and other networking configurations to ensure the game would work for all players.[23] In Japan, Sonic Team gave beta versions to 10,000 users who pre-ordered the game, so they could work with a variety of equipment and internet services to eliminate problems.[23] They wanted to run a worldwide test but did not have time.[23] 90% of the testers were able to play online.[27] Despite technical success, Sega was concerned that the high cost of internet access in Japan would be prohibitive for gamers and reduce sales.[24] Japanese internet service providers charged per-minute fees for dial-up access, and high-speed options such as broadband were not yet widely available. To combat this, chairman Okawa personally paid for free internet access for one year to be bundled with each Dreamcast.[16]
One of the biggest challenges was bridging the language barrier between global players.[18] Sonic Team felt that developing a universal language system would be the largest barrier to a global gaming network.[19] The team started by developing the word select system, which allows players to select predefined expressions to be translated to other players.[17] The system had about 2000 words near the end of development, and Naka found it difficult to add more words to satisfy all player needs.[11] Sonic Team built support for five languages: Japanese, English, Spanish, German, and French.[28] They omitted Italian and Portuguese due to time constraints. Korean was also considered because of the internet boom in Korea at the time.[11] Japanese and English were easier to implement because the only concern is the word location in the sentence, whereas Spanish and French have grammatical gender. The language system had to be fully redesigned at least once.[11]
Each server could accommodate one thousand players.[29] Sega initially prepared 20 network servers to accommodate 20,000 online users for game's launch, with room to add more servers as necessary.[30] This was increased to support up to 36,000 players right before launch.[27] Sonic Team partnered with Swatch to use Swatch Internet time (or "beat time") as a universal clock for the game.[19] The clock was implemented so players could coordinate with those in other countries on when to play online.[31] The clock system divides each 24 hours into 1000 beats, with one beat equaling one minute and 26.4 seconds.[31][32] The time was maintained directly on the server and not based on the user's clock on their system.[19] Sonic Team decided not to add jumping to keep the levels simple and simplify the network code.[26]
Naka joked that future gamers would laugh at the word "Online" in the title, as he believed that online gaming would become standard; it was included as the concept was new and so important to communicate.[19]
Phantasy Star Online was planned for release in March 2000, but was delayed so more features could be added.[11][23] The team planned 18 character types, and had male and female sketches for each, but settled on nine.[23] A player-versus-player mode was included in beta versions given to journalists, but this was omitted in the final version because it distracted players from the cooperative focus and introduced game balance issues;[23] additionally, as the console-playing audience was younger than the PC audience, Naka did not want to evoke competitive behavior.[19] The development team had more ideas for features to implement as development came to a close, with Naka wishing he had six additional months to add more features.[11]Phantasy Star Online took two years to develop.[18] Naka found it difficult to make a networked game for consoles, and developed an appreciation for Microsoft for supporting online games so well.[19]
"As one of the most anticipated games for RPG fans and Dreamcast owners alike, Sonic Team's Phantasy Star Online represents what could be the pinnacle of current next-generation gaming, roleplaying or otherwise."
Sega unveiled Phantasy Star Online at the 1999 Tokyo Game Show with a gameplay demonstration.[24][34] Naka called it the "killer app" for the Dreamcast as it used all aspects of the system, most importantly the modem.[11]
As the first online RPG for consoles, Phantasy Star Online was highly anticipated.[11][28][33][35] Journalists saw it as the next evolutionary step in console-based role-playing games.[11][13] Francesca Reyes of Official Dreamcast Magazine proposed that it would be an "industry-changing title", a landmark in the history of console gaming.[11]Computer and Video Games wrote that the Dreamcast was quickly becoming the platform for innovative games, and wrote that Phantasy Star Online was "arguably the most revolutionary - not the mention most ambitious - console game ever".[36]GameSpot believed it would "change the way we think of RPGs" and could possibly be "the most exciting console RPG ever created".[13][37]Edge wrote that the multiplayer mechanics "would lay the foundations for a new era of console gaming".[17]Video Gamer called it the "Dreamcast's most ambitious project yet".[35] Some journalists had concerns about the viability of the online modes, and saw the single-player option as a fail-safe should it not function correctly.[32][35]
To promote the game, Sega bought a star on the International Star Registry and named it "Ragol".[38] The first 100,000 people to pre-order the game in Japan received Phantasy Star Online branded dog tags.[39] A limited edition in Japan including a branded memory card was canceled and the memory card sold separately on Sega's website.[40][41] Early copies of the game included a demo for Sonic Adventure 2.[42]
Phantasy Star Online was first released for the Dreamcast.
Phantasy Star Online was released in Japan on December 21, 2000.[40] The language could be changed to English or any of the other supported chat languages, making it "import-friendly".[43] Naka had hoped for a simultaneous global release, but the western release was delayed for beta testing and marketing reasons.[17][40] While subscriptions would be free in North America,[44] in Japan the game included a 30-day free trial, after which Japanese players were required to purchase 30-day or 90-day subscriptions.[45] Immediately after the Japanese release, Sonic Team began maintaining the overworked servers and investigated network problems in Hiroshima and Okayama.[16]
Sonic Team hoped that Phantasy Star Online would be successful in Japan; international sales were seen as a bonus.[16] In North America, which Naka believed would be the biggest market, Phantasy Star Online was released on January 30, 2001.[46][47] It sold 75,000 copies there on the first day and was the bestselling game that week.[48][49] Sega's North American online gaming service SegaNet was not required for online play.[31] While the Japanese version supported the modem and broadband adapters,[27] the North American release did not support the broadband adapter, but IGN explained how to use it by swapping discs with an import copy.[50]
Phantasy Star Online sold 500,000 copies in Japan and one million worldwide, meeting Sega's expectations almost exactly.[30] Naka had hoped to sell more, but believed the servers may not have carried the load.[16] Before its western launch, nearly 100,000 players had registered.[18] By April 2001, over 235,000 players had registered worldwide: 130,000 in Japan, 70,000 in North America, and 35,000 in Europe.[51][52] By May, over 270,000 had registered.[53] The peak number of users connected simultaneously was 26,000.[52]
Phantasy Star Online suffered problems common with other online games, with players cheating and selling rare items online.[54] Several weeks after launch, Japanese players began exploiting bugs to duplicate items, enhance their stats, and kill other players.[55][56] Sonic Team announced they would ban players found cheating or disrupting other players, starting in May 2001.[56][57] According to IGN, cheating was prevalent because Phantasy Star Online used a peer-to-peer communication system. Blizzard Entertainment had similar problems with Diablo, but after moving to a client-server system for Diablo II, cheating became more difficult.[55]
Sonic Team added more quests for players to download, translated into the five languages used in the game.[23] In Japan, a special "Fan Cup" quest was held from March 23 to April 6, developed with the game magazine Famitsu. In the event, over 70,000 players[52] competed for the fastest time; the winner received a cash prize and a rare game item.[51] As he had with ChuChu Rocket!, Naka played online[11] and was happy to see American and Japanese players playing together using the communication system.[23]
In April 2001, Sega announced Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2, an updated version of the original game with new content and improved features,[58][59][60] including an increased level cap (to 200),[61] a new difficulty mode for players over level 80,[58] a battle mode that pits players in one-on-one or team battles, a soccer minigame with balls shaped like characters from ChuChu Rocket!,[58] new weapons and monsters, gameplay balance alterations, day and night effects, an improved user interface, and two new areas exclusive to online quests. Ver. 2 also adds a challenge mode, which places teams in a stage with starting equipment and stats; if a teammate dies, the mission ends.[58][59][60][61][62] Players could import their character from the original game or create a new one;[61] characters registered for Ver. 2 could not be used in the original game. Any illegal items were also deleted during the upgrade.[62]
Sonic Team worked a tough schedule to develop Ver. 2 in under six months,[16] releasing it on June 7, 2001, in Japan and September 25, 2001, in North America.[61][63] Unlike the original North American release, Ver. 2 required subscription fees to play.[31] Three months of unlimited gameplay could be purchased at a time.[64] The game still had no dependencies on SegaNet, however.[65] In Europe, DreamKey 3.0 was required.[58]Ver. 2 was ported to Windows in Japan and released on December 20, 2001.[66][67]
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