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[Myname]

OK, I admit it.. I'M A VIRGIN!

OK, I've never played console games online before because I've never really had the desire to, but now I feel like it and naturally I want my Dreamcast to pop the cherry (so to speak

).

Having desperately searched the net for up to date info, I've come up with pretty much nothing so I'm going to have to ask you lovely folks to help me out.. And yes, i have searched the forum :

: .

Basically, the games I'd like to play are Bomberman Online and Phantasy Star Online V.2 with anything else a bonus. From what I gather, the official servers aren't there anymore so I'm going to have to find another way to do it. Bearing in mind I'm in the UK, here's my questions:

1. If I get the Dreamkey 3.0 with Phantasy Star Online, will that enable me to browse the net, or is it outdated now?

2. Are there other servers for the games aside from the official ones?

3. Do enough people populate any of the servers to make it worthwhile?

4. Is it worth the effort when you're on 56k?

5. Will anybody be my friend?

Thanks in advance

 

[gameboy900]

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Because I'm nice I'll help you out with most of this.

1. I'm in Canada so here we use the PlanetWeb browser. But from what I know DreamKey 3.0 (which is the latest european browser I think) lets you connect using any ISP you want. Assuming your isp is nice it should work just fine. Previous versions used a single ISP to connect and probably don't work now. Also you can try getting a US browser and see if that works.

2. There are no unofficial servers for all games EXCEPT quake 3. This one lets you enter an ip of a running q3 server and there is a patch available that allows the pc version to host dc users. All other games have their servers shutdown by now. The only exception is PSO (ver 1 and 2) which will probably be around for another few months.

3. Quake 3 generally has people playing and because you can select any server if you got friends or know others you can setup your own games. PSO is getting a bit thin with players, so unless you have friends who go online with you it might be though finding anyone to play with. All other games are being shutdown.

4. All games were designed to play at their peak with a 56k connection. So yes it is good enough. If you have broadband you can use the DC-PC server method (which I use for pso). Search for Dreamcast Server in the dreamcast forum for a link.

5. This I cannot answer.

 

[E Nice]

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What about 4x4 Evo and Maximum Pool? Both games let PC/MAC/DC users play against each other. I would assume they still have people playing.

 

[gameboy900]

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Originally posted by E Nice@Jan. 02 2003, 8:14 pm

What about 4x4 Evo and Maximum Pool? Both games let PC/MAC/DC users play against each other. I would assume they still have people playing.

Possibly. But chances are since these games are rather old now that the game servers will/have shutdown.

 

[sizone]

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using a d.c. for networked games is a bad idea as most of the servers have either closed or are totally desolate.

chu chu rocket and ooga booga were kinda fun

but if you're getting a d.c., it's real strength is in one player games, specifically jet set radio, skies of arcadia and rez.

oh yeah, pso isn't too bad, but in addition to the game you have to purchase a hunters guild card for version 2 which is an additional 15$ every three months

 

[gameboy900]

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Originally posted by sizone@Jan. 02 2003, 10:32 pm

oh yeah, pso isn't too bad, but in addition to the game you have to purchase a hunters guild card for version 2 which is an additional 15$ every three months

That's only true for the US ver 2. All other regions (euro at least for sure) are free in both versions.

And please drool to my new (created by me) avatar.

 

[Pearl Jammzz]

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Gameboy, I am gunna steal that. I like it A LOT! You make it?

 

[gameboy900]

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Originally posted by BJammzz@Jan. 02 2003, 11:24 pm

Gameboy, I am gunna steal that. I like it A LOT! You make it?

Yeah I made it. I vid caped the actual startup screen from the dc. Cropped the image, reduced the frame rate and made it into a gif. Took about 30 mins in total, most of that was finding a good gif animator progie.

I might redo it again with the full frame rate so it doesn't look so jerky.

 

[megametalgreymon]

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if you have the legit version of pso v2 then you should find dreamkey 3 in the case with it

if its a copy then you wont be able to use it online anyway, since it requires a unique serial number, which is registered to your dc on its first use

without it you cant use it online

you wont be able to play the euro version of chu chu or planet ring online because they connected using dreamarena which is now dead

unreal euro lacks the online play the us one has so thats out as well

quake should work ok still, and im pretty sure bomberman did last time i tried it

 

[Myname]

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I'm being hard pressed to find an unregistered copy of PSOv2 anyway. I think I might just give it up and wait for the GC version, at least there'll be some stuff added to make it worth paying the extra.

Cheers for the help.

 

[gameboy900]

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Finding psov2 is not hard. A used copy can work too. You just need to call sega and have them reset the serial so you can use it. Personally I would just play v1 until you hit level 100 anyway. No point wasting time and paying money for something you could do for free. After you hit 100 you can then simply move your character over to v2 and continue from there.

As for the status of various online games. This page has an up to the minute (sorta) list of online dc games and their online status. As you can see there are still alot of games that can go online for now.