Phantasy Star Online Ver.2 NTSC-U Selfboot & Auto-Connect Aleron Ives Edition 4.0 Enhancement Pack Offline Map Pack Offline Quest Pack Max Stat Patch April 4, 2015 http://psopalce.funurl.com === Table of Contents I. Introduction II. How to Burn the Disc III. Basic Features IV. Special Features V. Credits === I. Introduction Welcome to Aleron Ives's Dreamcast PSO Ver.2 Enhancement Pack selfboot auto-connect disc tutorial. Thank you for downloading this release. Please seed the torrent once your download is finished so that other people will have the opportunity to download the game as well. I have spent a lot of time trying to improve this disc as much as possible, so I hope you enjoy it. Because this disc was made with the NTSC-U ("US") version of PSO Ver.2, it is compatible with unique NTSC-U serial numbers and access keys. Players who have a unique serial number and access key from their USv2 GD-ROM case can create new characters using this disc without needing a shared serial number and access key. Unlike discs based on the PAL edition of PSO Ver.2, this disc contains a configuration screen for the Dreamcast broadband adapter, which can be accessed by selecting the "Website" option on the title screen when a broadband adapter is connected. This screen was removed from the PAL edition of PSO Ver.2, since the broadband adapter was not released in Europe. This screen allows PSO Ver.2 to configure the broadband adapter directly, which eliminates the need to use a Dreamcast web browser (such as XDP) to configure the Dreamcast's broadband settings. === II. How to Burn the Disc The disc image is in Padus DiscJuggler format (*.cdi). I believe Alcohol 120% may be able to burn CDI files, but I recommend using DiscJuggler. I have been using version 4 to rip and burn Dreamcast images, but this is no longer the current version. If you want to use the same version I use, I have it in the Dreamcast downloads section of my site. If you are unfamiliar with burning Dreamcast images, I have this burning tutorial, along with DiscJuggler 4 screenshots, in the "Guides" section of my website. 1) Once you have installed DiscJuggler, run it and select "File" -> "New". 2) In the "New Task" window, select "Burn CD and DVD images" and click "OK". 3) In the Source & Destination tab, click the disc on top of the white sheet icon which has a tooltip saying "Browse". Select the image "IVES_PSOV2_US_R2_EP.cdi" (duh? =P) and click "OK". 4) Click on the "Advanced" tab. 5) Change the "Mode" box from Audio to "Mode 2". 6) Under "Misc", check the "RAW write" box, and ensure that "Add post-gap to 3rd party images" is also checked. No other boxes should be checked. 7) Under "Method", change the speed to 4X (see note below). 8) Click Start to begin burning. -NOTE- In the DiscJuggler trial, burning speed is automatically limited to 4X as one of the demo's restrictions, so it doesn't actually matter what burning speed you select. If you have the full version of the program with no restrictions, it is very important to select 4X recording speed. Discs that are burned at high speeds are more difficult to read than discs burned at low speeds. Modern optical drives do not have problems reading discs that have been burned quickly, but the Dreamcast's GD-ROM is not good at reading such discs. If you burn the disc too quickly, it is very likely that it will be unreadable in the Dreamcast. As such, burning at 4X is imperative for a good disc. It will take approximately twenty minutes to burn the disc at 4X, so go grab a snack or watch television or something while you wait. =P Once the burn process is complete, try the disc! === III. Basic Features Several changes have been made to this disc that are not directly related to gameplay, but the main feature of this disc is that it's the first CDI release of PSO Ver.2 to be free from the crashing problems that have plagued all previous releases of the game. Unlike its predecessors, this disc does not freeze when loading player data outside of Pioneer 2. As a result, the following activities are now possible for the first time without using a retail GD-ROM of the game: 1) Playing in open teams You can now play in teams without a password, as your game won't freeze if another player joins your team when you're not on Pioneer 2. 2) Playing the offline quests You can now play the offline quests without freezing when the game loads NPC data outside of Pioneer 2. 3) Playing Challenge mode You can now play Challenge mode without freezing at the beginning of each stage. After extensive research and testing, we finally have a CD-R release of PSO Ver.2 that matches the original GD-ROM in terms of game stability. With this disc, you no longer need to use your US GD-ROM at all, and if you would normally be using a PAL or JP GD-ROM, the only time you would need your original disc is to take a new character online for the very first time. Any PSO Ver.2 character that has been online at least once is fully compatible with this disc. Other features of this disc include: 1) Auto-connection This disc is patched to automatically connect to the Sylverant PSO Server. PSO normally requires CodeBreaker codes or special configuration of the broadband adapter to connect to private servers, but this disc will connect automatically. No codes or boot discs are required. 2) Fast loading This disc is optimized to load character data faster than a GD-ROM would. This prolongs the life of the Dreamcast hardware by eliminating the grinding of the GD-ROM drive that normally occurs when loading character data on PSO Ver.2. This disc contains an improved character loading scheme that is even more efficient than the one used in my previous PSO Ver.2 discs. This disc is also specially formatted to decrease the seeking during loading screens, which is normally worse on a PSO Ver.2 GD-ROM than on a PSO Ver.1 GD-ROM. The effeciency of the sound test and web browser were reduced to maximize the in-game loading efficiency, but both features still work, although the web browser boots slowly. The configuration screen for the broadband adapter still boots quickly (when a broadband adapter is connected instead of a modem). 3) Improved sound All of the game's BGM has been upgraded to use the 44.1 kHz BGM from the Xbox version, instead of the 32 kHz BGM contained on the Dreamcast GD-ROM. The "La-La" version of "Can Still See The Light" (the game's ending music) has also been replaced with the lyric version. This disc also replaces two of the unused BGM files with the BGM for Spaceship and Palace, which allows the correct BGM to play in Spaceship and Palace quests which occur outside of Battle mode. 4) Ultimate Map Fix This disc contains the Ultimate Map Fix to allow quests which use the previously broken maps (such as Famitsu -Maximum Attack-) to be playable in Ultimate mode, which is not possible on a GD-ROM without using a boot disc to patch the game in memory. 5) Hunter's License patch The Hunter's License check is disabled on this disc to allow the game to go online without using codes or boot discs. 6) Removed content In order to accomodate the other features within the space constraints of a CD-R, the French, German, Japanese, and Spanish intro movies have been removed. The English intro movie will play regardless of which language is selected, but it is still at full quality. === IV. Special Features This disc has several gameplay-related features not present on other releases. 1) The Enhancement Pack This disc contains the PSO Ver.2 Enhancement Pack set of game patches. These patches are also available for PSO PC as a patch download that can be applied to a previous game installation. Since the Dreamcast reads its files from an optical disc, a new disc had to be created to apply the patches. The EP does several things: -Drop rates have been altered to be much easier, and some drops have been moved from one enemy to another or removed from the drop table for use as quest rewards. Anyone who has played PSO Ver.2 for some time knows that its drop rates are absolutely atrocious. The majority of the items in the game are so rare that they are statistically impossible to find, and as such nobody has them without hacking them. With this patch, rares can actually be found, so players will have a far greater variety of equipment to use. -Ultimate mode has become "Ludicrous" mode. While Ultimate mode is difficult at level 80 with Ver.1 weapons, it becomes ridiculously easy once a character's stats are maxed and Ver.2 weaponry with high percentages has been obtained. Even a FOnewearl can kill Ultimate Forest enemies with ease, so the purpose of this modification is to make Ultimate mode challenging even when characters have maxed their stats and obtained good equipment. Ludicrous mode is quite difficult at lower levels, so players who have not acquired good equipment may not want to use this disc until they feel comfortable with the more difficult enemies. -The statistics and requirements of many items have been altered. While the drop modifications make rare items obtainable, many of those items are from PSO Ver.1 and consequently have Ver.1 stats. These items are normally far too weak to be used in Ultimate mode, as they give low ATP and even lower ATA. Many Ver.1 weapons have been made stronger so that they will work in Ludicrous mode, Ver.2 weapons with poor stats have also been edited, some weapon specials have been changed, level requirements for some Ver.2 shields have been altered, and many units have been improved as well. -NOTE- The Enhancement Pack for PSO PC also contains a fix for the text used in the game, so items with typoed names and incorrect descriptions are fixed. Due to the changes made to special attacks and equipment requirements, some of the original item descriptions are now incorrect. Unfortunately, there is no tool that can be used to edit and automatically rebuild the text file for the Dreamcast, so I was unable to apply the text fix to this disc. As such, since all of the text is in its original state, not all of the descriptions are accurate. 2) Offline Map Pack This disc contains the Offline Map Pack, which provides the full enemy spawns used in online mode to the offline versions of Forest and Cave. Normally, Forest and Cave have drastically reduced enemy counts in each room offline, which makes playing those areas quite boring. With full sets of enemies, offline mode becomes much more entertaining and challenging, plus it also gives more chances to find the rare drops in those areas. ;) 3) Offline Quest Pack Now that it is finally possible to play the offline quests on a CD-R without crashing the game, this disc brings the Offline Quest Pack to the Dreamcast for the first time. This patch has three main features: a) The death of an NPC partner no longer results in quest failure. Instead, the NPC will automatically revive after dying in the same manner as NPCs in Phantasy Star Universe. This feature is particularly useful in Ludicrous mode, as NPCs are mostly helpless against the more powerful enemies that come with the Enhancement Pack. b) Dr. Montague can convert Ver.2 monster parts into weapons in the quests "Dr. Osto's Research" and "Unsealed Door". As in PSO GC, Montague can now convert all monster parts into usable items in offline mode. Without the patch he can only convert Ver.1 monster parts, and Ver.2 monster parts must be converted in the online quest "Today's Rate". Converting monster parts in "Today's Rate" is still possible, and the benefit for doing so is that converted weapons have the chance to receive percentages. Monster parts converted into weapons in "Dr. Osto's Research" and "Unsealed Door" will always have 0% on all attributes. c) The quests "Seek my Master" and "From the Depths" now have the special cutscenes which Sega added to the GC version of the game. -NOTE- Whenever an NPC partner gets revived, the screen will will turn black for a fraction of a second as the NPC comes back to life. This appears to be normal on DC and not a cause for concern, as it happens even on a GD-ROM. 4) Max Stat Patch This disc contains the Max Stat Patch, which rebalances the maximum stats of the classes so that they are all comparatively good, instead of the previous situation where some classes were so weak that they were essentially inferior to their counterparts. For more information about these changes, please see the PSO Palace website and forum. Including an in-depth description of all the changes would make this README far longer than it already is. =P === V. Credits This disc would not have been possible without the help of the following individuals. -Echelon: for their many tools and tutorials for Dreamcast ripping and copying. -Lee: for devising a method to study how to improve the loading times, as well as for devising a method to obtain unpacked PSO Ver.2 binaries. Lee also gets the credit for figuring out how to modify all of the various files that needed changing to make the Enhancement Pack and the Max Stat Patch possible. -Leo: for discovering the MAG'94 binary encryption technique. I would also like to thank everyone who still plays this game and who has downloaded or decides to download this disc. It's been a few years since I released my last Dreamcast disc, but I knew that discovering a way to make PSO Ver.2 work on CD-Rs without freezing warranted making a new release. I didn't expect that I would be the first person to fix this problem (especially considering how many other people have made discs for this game before I did), but it's satisfying to finally have the infamous CD-R FSOD problem fixed. Fixing CD-R FSOD also gave me the opportunity to make the Offline Quest Pack available on DC for the first time, as there wasn't much point in including it previously when most of the offline quests would crash the game. I hope people enjoy the changes I've made and put this disc to good use. At last we can bid our GD-ROMs farewell and enjoy the benefits of increased loading speed and decreased motor stress that using a properly sorted copy of PSO Ver.2 brings to the Dreamcast. Don't forget to visit my site and drop by my forum if you're enjoying this release! ;) http://psopalace.funurl.com