Almost all of the information below applies only to V2; however, V1 does have a few new quests that you can play. These quests are:

Online Quests

• Lost HELL PALLASCH
• Resurgent Darkness

Download Quests

• Garon's Scheme
• Hero & Daughter

• You no longer drop your weapon when you die. This is especially important in timed quests, as you can't die, run out of time, and then lose your weapon permanently anymore.
• When you fail a timed quest, you can move when you return to Pioneer 2, so you have a chance to use the bank and shop before you return to the lobby.
• Healing Rings restore your HP and TP faster in higher difficulties, so it no longer takes ages to fully heal.
• Some quests that previously had an arbitrary requirement for two players can now be completed solo.
• Some quests that previously required four players to access bonus rooms now require only two players.
• Dark rooms are no longer pitch black on PSO PC.
• Monster waves that would likely crash PSO PC have been rebalanced to reduce the risk of crashing.
• Doors in Ruins quests that open via switches, rather than monsters, have been replaced with switch doors. This makes it easier to tell which doors open from enemies and which doors require switches.

Since V2 doesn't have Photon Drops, I created a new currency called Photon Points. You are awarded Photon Points upon completing quests in Ultimate mode, which you can then spend in a quest I created called Garon's Shop. You can hold up to 1000 Photon Points at a time. See the section on Garon's Shop for information on what you can do with Photon Points. The Photon Point rewards for each quest are listed below.

• 08: Lost HEAT SWORD
• 20: Lost ICE SPINNER
• 20: Lost SOUL BLADE
• 28: Lost HELL PALLASCH
• 32: Resurgent Darkness
• 32: Fragments of a Memory
• 04: Mop-up Operation #1
• 06: Mop-up Operation #2
• 08: Mop-up Operation #3
• 10: Mop-up Operation #4
• 08: Endless Nightmare #1
• 12: Endless Nightmare #2
• 16: Endless Nightmare #3
• 20: Endless Nightmare #4
• 20: Today's Rate
• 12: Frantic Fauna
• 24: Acrid Aquifer
• 24: Christmas Catastrophe
• 32: Halloween Horror
• 12: Towards the Future
• 24: Prospective Horizons
• 20: Famitsu -Maximum Attack- v2
• 16: Triad -Maximum Attack- 1
• 16: Triad -Maximum Attack- 2
• 20: Triad -Maximum Attack- 3
• 04: Garon's Scheme
• 24: Hero & Daughter

Insane mode is a special end-game difficulty setting designed to encourage teamwork. As the name suggests, it is more difficult than both Ultimate and Ludicrous modes, and it is in fact so difficult that it is specifically designed to be impossible to solo. As with Challenge mode, it is easier to play with a well-balanced team, but there are only three requirements to activate it in the quests that support it:

1. You must be in Ultimate mode.
2. You must have at least two players in your team.
3. All players must be at least level 140.

The enemies are designed to be so difficult that you'll do zero damage without a Force to cast Shifta and Zalure, and you'll die in one hit without a Force to cast Deband and Jellen, so trying Insane mode without a Force is not recommended. On the other hand, Forces will deal minimal damage to the enemies, so you'll need Hunters and Rangers to make progress, too. The difficulty scales by area, so Ruins is considerably more difficult than Forest.

Quests that support Insane mode include:

• Lost HEAT SWORD
• Lost ICE SPINNER
• Lost SOUL BLADE
• Lost HELL PALLASCH
• Fragments of a Memory
• Endless Nightmare #1
• Endless Nightmare #2
• Endless Nightmare #3
• Endless Nightmare #4

To activate Insane mode, simply enter the hospital and talk to the NPC there. (If you don't meet the requirements for Insane mode, the NPC will be absent.) The NPC won't let you activate the side quest unless all players are in the hospital, so everyone must agree to play Insane mode by approaching the NPC. Additionally, you can only enable Insane mode at the beginning of a quest. If any player leaves Pioneer 2 before you have enabled Insane mode, you won't be able to activate it without loading the quest again.

For an added challenge, your ability to perform PB combos is also inhibited while you are in boss arenas. You may perform combos in the regular areas, but if you die during a boss fight, you'll need the Force to cast regular Shifta on you (and your teammates).

Note that Insane mode is not meant as a true successor to the regular difficulty settings. You do get extra EXP from the monsters, but the EXP boost is not proportional to the increased difficulty, meaning that Insane mode is not meant for faster leveling. If you want to level quickly, you should play Ultimate, since it's easy. If you want a challenge for you and your teammates with maxed stats who find Ultimate mode (or even Ludicrous mode?) boring, then Insane mode is for you. You also earn 50% more Meseta and Photon Points than usual for completing quests this way.

Most quests include an extra NPC in the Hunter's Guild who will sell all 13 types of tools to you, regardless of your level or the difficulty setting. This allows you to buy the items you want, even when the Tool Shop refuses to sell them. Buying items through the Hunter's Guild costs 50% more than buying them through the Tool Shop, however.

• Quest success is no longer global; each player must enter the boss arena to claim the missing weapon and also talk to Hopkins in order to complete the quest and claim the reward.
• Lost SOUL BLADE: A Warp has been added in the second room of Mine 1 that you can use to enter the cage in the third room if you get locked out.

Lost HELL PALLASCH

This is a Japanese Blue Burst quest that I ported to V2 after Cranberry and I translated it into English. It takes place in Ruins 1-3.

• The hospital music now works correctly after you get sent back to Pioneer 2.
• Ruins 1, 2, and 3 are no longer disabled after you beat Dark Falz. You may return to the areas after the boss fight if you so desire.
• Delsabers can now parry your attacks.
• Doors are no longer visible through walls.
• Dimenian types have been rebalanced. Ruins 3, for instance, previously had no La Dimenians for some reason. Dimenian diversity has been fixed.
• The life signature computer console has been removed from Ruins 3.
• It is now possible to play the entire quest when you have at least two players in the team. If you are alone, you will still play only half of each area. If you have 2-4 players when you load the quest, you will be able to play both halves of each area without needing to set Telepipes to join your teammates. When you reach the end of the first half of each area, you will encounter a warp that will send you to the second half of the area, rather than a teleporter to the next area (as you would in the single player edition of the quest).

  Whether you activate the single player or multiplayer edition of the quest depends solely on how many players are in the team when you load the quest. If your teammates are leaving, but you want to play the whole thing by yourself, simply have them stay while you load the quest, and then once the quest is loaded, they may quit the game or cancel the quest to return to the lobby, and you will still get to play the entire quest. If they leave the team before you load the quest, then you will play the shorter edition. Which half of each area you get to play in the single player edition still depends upon which gem you are (using the original pattern), and you cannot activate the full quest by yourself.

• The time limits have been rebalanced.
• The time limit now scales based on the number of players, rather than the difficulty.
• The +60 seconds banner no longer bugs you after every room; instead, it will only show up after the first room, and you'll only get a sound effect in subsequent rooms so you don't have to dismiss the prompt over and over.
• Dreamcast players will no longer get stuck on Pioneer 2 when playing with PC players. PC players no longer need to set a Telepipe to allow DC players to leave the city; the main Ragol teleporter will work normally.
• The battle BGM will now play constantly during each quest, which matches the other timed quests.
• The quest completion music has been fixed to actually play after you clear the final room.
• Each difficulty now gives separate Meseta values, rather than Very Hard and Ultimate sharing the same reward.
• Quest success is no longer global; each player must talk to the soldier to complete the quest prior to claiming the reward.

• These quests now have a "camera button" next to the warp that leads to the final room. If you step on the camera button before you use the warp, you will automatically disable the special camera angle in the final room without needing to use a Telepipe. You'll hear a chime to indicate that you've disabled the special camera angle when you step on the button. If you want to use the special camera angle, simply take the warp without stepping on the button. Now that the special camera angle is optional, Telepipes will no longer reset the camera to normal.
• The quest completion music has been fixed to actually play after you clear the final room.
• Each difficulty now gives separate Meseta values, rather than Very Hard and Ultimate sharing the same reward.
• Quest success is no longer global; each player must talk to the soldier to complete the quest prior to claiming the reward.
• Cave 2, Mine 2, and Ruins 2 are no longer automatically open on DC in their respective quests.

Endless Nightmare #3

• Mine 1 doors are now locked, so you actually have to kill the enemies to move from room to room.
• The perpetual darkness in Mine 1 no longer randomly turns off and on as you move from room to room. The quest stays dark constantly as long as you are in rooms with darkness.
• A missing wave of Sinow Beats in the mineshaft room has been enabled.
• A missing flashing crate that made it unnecessary to unlock a laser fence to access a box has been added.

This is a Japanese Blue Burst quest that I ported to V2 after Cranberry and I translated it into English. It takes place in Ruins 1-3.

• The Ruins 1 warp roulette is properly randomised and synchronised between players.
• The quest no longer contains Dimenians exclusively. You'll find Dimenians in Ruins 1, La Dimenians in Ruins 2, and So Dimenians in Ruins 3.
• Bulclaws should no longer pose a risk of crashing PC players.
• Delsabers can now parry your attacks.
• The various Meseta rewards have been rebalanced.
• If you run out of time while on Pioneer 2, you will be moved directly to the Hunter's Guild instead of teleporting there by reloading Pioneer 2 unnecessarily.
• Doors are no longer visible through walls.
• A life signature computer console has been added to Ruins 1.
• Ruins 3 ghost durations have been changed. Instead of waiting for 10 seconds and then chasing you for 7 seconds, the ghosts will now wait for 30 seconds and then chase you for 10 seconds. The longer respite period gives you more time for fighting monsters and moving between rooms, especially if you get caught and sent back to the beginning of Ruins 3.
• Being dead no longer causes the ghosts to automatically catch you if you don't have a Scape Doll. The ghosts won't try to chase you anymore until you get revived.
• You can now use Photon Blasts without getting caught by the ghosts. They will still chase you while you're using the summon circle, but they won't chase you while you're watching the actual PB animation. This means you can now perform combos in Ruins 3 without getting caught, and you won't get unfairly caught when you're forced to watch your teammates' PB animations outside of combos.
• The ghosts will behave differently when you activate Insane mode: instead of standing still, you must attack to drive them away. This prevents you from having to sit around and get killed in order to avoid getting caught.

• The fourth Pofuilly Slime in the last room of Cave 3 has been moved to prevent PC from crashing when splitting the Slimes. The fourth Pofuilly Slime will now appear in the last wave of the first room of Cave 3 (along with the 3 Pan Arms). As much as I don't want to make arbitrary changes to the waves of existing Sega quests, moving the Slime is unfortunately the only way to prevent the crash.
• The timer is no longer blank for one second after you enter each area.
• The bright green doors in Cave 3 are fixed.
• The green gem player is no longer within targetting range of Irene at the start of the quest and thus cannot talk to her accidentally anymore.
• Various text problems with Irene and Principal Tyrell have been fixed, including the infamous Very Hard mode item catalogue showing the wrong prizes.
• The prize system has been rebalanced. Weapons now receive higher percentages than in the original quest.

• The quest can now be played in Ultimate mode. You must have the updated pso.exe for PSO PC and either use BlueCrab's boot disc or my PSOv2 CDI on DC in order to play it.
• The time limit has been rebalanced for Ultimate mode. You now get 90, 75, 60, or 45 minutes for 1, 2, 3, or 4 players, respectively.
• The quest will automatically end when you defeat every enemy, so you no longer have to sit and wait for the remaining time to expire.

These quests are adapted from Maximum Attack 4th Stage on Blue Burst and feature completely rewritten dialogue and mechanics. I've adopted the following naming scheme to make it easier to tell which quest is which:

• Triad -Maximum Attack- 1: Cave 2, Mine 2, Ruins 3 (easiest, fewest points)
• Triad -Maximum Attack- 2: Cave 2, Mine 2, Ruins 3 (harder, more points)
• Triad -Maximum Attack- 3: Cave 2, Mine 2, Ruins 3, Dark Falz (hardest, most points)

Here are the details:

• The time limit is 30, 35, and 40 minutes in Normal, Hard, and Very Hard modes and 90, 75, 60, or 45 minutes in Ultimate mode for 1, 2, 3, or 4 players, respectively.
• You won't fail the simulation if you die without a Scape Doll; instead, every death reduces the remaining time by 60 seconds.
• Telepipes are not allowed.
• Once you teleport to the next area, you can't return to the previous area.
• Monsters have been repositioned to not spawn in invalid locations that prevent them from dropping items.
• After you clear the quest, you are awarded points based on the difficulty setting and the number of kills you got.
• If you defeat every enemy, you receive exta points equivalent to having killed 100 extra monsters.
• If you run out of time, you receive 2/3 credit for the kills you got.
• Points are shared between all 3 quests, so you can play whichever one you like.
• Points are shared between your characters, as long as they have the same Guild Card number.
• You receive prizes when you reach certain point milestones.

Stage 9 has been fixed to be playable cross platform between DC and PC without crashing in Area 45.

The most important new quest is Garon's Shop, which contains features previously available only on GameCube and Xbox. Since Garon's Shop uses Episode II on V3, I created a new Episode I Garon's Shop from scratch for use on Dreamcast and PC. The available features are similar to what you get on V3, but I've adjusted them for use on V2.

Garon's Shop is divided into vendors who offer various services. Most services cost Photon Points, but some cost Meseta, instead.

Arms Shop (Regular Weapons):

• You can add 5% to a weapon's attribute with 50 Photon Points.
• You can add 20% to a weapon's attribute for 150 Photon Points (a 50-point discount).
• The existing attributes and grind are preserved.
• You cannot exceed 30% on any one attribute.
• The sum of all attributes cannot exceed 90%.
• You can remove an existing attribute with 150 Photon Points. Once you remove that attribute, you can start raising a different one.

For example, if your weapon has 40% Native and 35% Machine, you can only add up to 15% to a third attribute, because 40 + 35 + 15 = 90. If you don't want Machine, you can erase it. At that point you could raise the 15% attribute to 30% and add another attribute up to 20% (40 + 30 + 20 = 90).

The goal of this system is to give you a strong incentive to hunt better equipment. A 5/15/10 weapon may not be very good on its own, but it saves you 300 points on the way to getting 30/30/30 compared to a 0% weapon.

Arms Shop (ES/S-Rank Weapons):

• You can change the type of an ES weapon for 50 Photon Points. For example, if you have a "COOL SABER +50", hiding the type would make the weapon say "COOL +50". You can also reverse the process to make the type visible again, if you so desire. This mechanic replaces the need to use the "NO TYPE" option in Challenge mode to get random weapons with the type hidden.
• You can change the name of an ES weapon for 100 Photon Points. If you've hidden the weapon type, the type will still be hidden after you change the name. The new name is limited to 8 letters using A-Z only, just like ES weapons obtained from Challenge mode.

Guards Shop:

• You can add slots to armor. Adding a slot costs 25 Photon Points for V1 armor and 50 Photon Points for V2 armor. You only need to pay for the slots you need, so if your armor already has 3 slots, you only need to buy 1 slot.
• You can add DFP and EVP to armors and shields. You only need to pay for the difference between the maximum DFP/EVP and the current stats. Each point of DFP/EVP costs 10 Photon Points.
• You can combine 3 weaker units to create 1 stronger unit. Elemental units cost 50 Photon Points, physical units cost 100 Photon Points, and special units cost 200 Photon Points. The possible combinations are listed below.

Note that you will probably not want to upgrade your armor and shield DFP/EVP unless you already have decent stats. The price is high so that you still have a reason to hunt better equipment, rather than to just max out the first item you find.

WARNING: PSO PC players must have the Shield Fix Patch in order to upgrade shields! The game will erase the extra DFP if you try to upgrade a shield without the fix!

Tools Shop:

• You can buy various tools in exchange for Photon Points.
• You can combine 3 Mongrinders into 1 Trigrinder or 3 Digrinders into 2 Trigrinders for 5000 Meseta, in order to save bank space.
• You can buy and redeem Garon vouchers.

Garon vouchers allow you to store tools for later use. For 10000 Meseta, you can exchange 5 tools for a voucher. You can redeem the voucher later to get your items back whenever you want. You can have up to 20 vouchers for each type of tool, thus storing 100 of each item without needing mule characters for bank space. Garon vouchers are stored on the server, so you can deposit items on one character and redeem them on a different character, as long as both characters have the same Guild Card number.

The items you can store with Garon vouchers are:

• Power Material
• Mind Material
• Defend Material
• Evade Material
• Hit Material
• Luck Material
• HP Material
• TP Material
• Scape Doll
• Monogrinder
• Digrinder
• Trigrinder

The items you can buy are:

• Monogrinder: 4 Photon Points
• Digrinder: 6 Photon Points
• Trigrinder: 8 Photon Points
• Scape Doll: 10 Photon Points
• Evade Material: 15 Photon Points
• Defend Material: 20 Photon Points
• HP Material: 25 Photon Points
• TP Material: 30 Photon Points
• Mind Material: 35 Photon Points
• Power Material: 40 Photon Points
• Hit Material: 45 Photon Points
• Luck Material: 50 Photon Points

Principal:

You can earn Photon Points by selling unwanted rare items to the scientist in the Principal's Office. V1 (yellow name) rares sell for 1 Photon Point, and V2 (pulsing orange name) rares sell for 2 Photon Points.

Here are a few more items of note:

• You must carry only ONE of the item you want to upgrade. The quest will take the first one it finds in your pack, so if you have more than one, you might upgrade the wrong item. This is particularly important for selling unwanted rares. If you have a Red Handgun you want to sell, make sure it's the only one in your pack, or you might sell the wrong one!
• The quest must delete your items in order to read their current stats. This means the item you're upgrading isn't in your pack while you're performing the upgrade. If you get disconnected during the upgrade process, the item you're trying to upgrade is permanently deleted. There is no way to avoid this limitation, so if your connection seems laggy or unstable, you shouldn't shop until it improves. As always, remember to create local and server-side backups!

This is the second quest I created in collaboration with Jodin: he created the Ruins 2 map, while I created the maps for Ruins 1 and 3 and wrote the script. Originally titled Lost HAVOC VULCAN and released in 2006, I reworked it in 2008 after Sega released Lost HELL PALLASCH on PSOBB.

This is the third quest I created and the first I created as a solo developer, back in 2010. It takes place in the Battle mode areas of Spaceship and Palace, which makes it the only quest in V2 where monsters of different attributes appear together. Since the Battle mode maps weren't meant to be used in freeplay, there are some problems, such as monsters not staying in the rooms where they spawn, and JPv2 players not being able to use Photon Blasts in Palace, but overall the quest works quite well and is probably the most popular one I've made. If you know the right people, you can also unlock an extra challenge...

This quest has the distinction of being the first quest with custom monster spawns ever created, and it's also a case study in why you probably shouldn't let teenagers make quests: it has too many monsters, annoying Megid traps, and juvenile dialogue, but it's also a small piece of PSO history. I created it in 2005 in collaboration with Jodin: he made the Mine 2 map, while I made the Mine 1 map and wrote the script. The quest is available on Altimira every December. You can also get various Mag items through a certain side quest...

This is the second event quest I created, back in 2011. It takes place in Forest 1 and 2, and your mission is to battle speedy monsters that have been enraged by the radiation from a crashed probe. The quest is available on Altimira in April and June. This quest has multiple side missions which allow you to get various items...

This is the third event quest I created, back in 2012. It takes place in the Ruins, where you'll be chased by terribly spooky ghosts as you fight speedy monsters. If the ghosts catch you, they'll inflict various curses upon your character to impede your progress. The quest is available on Altimira every October. You can get certain Mag parts if you manage to unlock every door...

This is the fourth event quest I created, back in 2014. It takes place in Cave 1-3, where you'll be battling speedy monsters as you try to secure Pioneer 2's water supply. Unlike the other event quests, this one is not tied to a particular time of year; instead, it's available whenever Frantic Fauna, Halloween Horror, and Christmas Catastrophe are not.

This is a Japanese Blue Burst quest that I ported to V2 (and V1!) after Cranberry and I translated it into English. It takes place in the Forest and sees you working once again with Alicia Baz to track down a Rappy's egg.

Unlike the default offline quests, Alicia will revive in the hospital if she dies, instead of causing you to fail the quest.

I released this quest in 2009 as an adaptation of the Government quests from Blue Burst. Many Government quests feature repeated areas, which V1/2 do not support, so I took various unique maps from those quests and compiled them into a single quest that spans Forest 1 - Ruins 3. The map for each area came from the following Government quests:

• Forest 1: 1-3
• Forest 2: 1-2
• Cave 1: 2-1
• Cave 2: 2-2
• Cave 3: 2-3
• Mine 1: 3-1
• Mine 2: 3-2
• Ruins 1: 4-1
• Ruins 2: 4-3
• Ruins 3: 4-4

Many quests contain special prizes, as well as secret side missions. I've documented the secrets and prize information that people have discovered over the years to ensure that the knowledge isn't lost, but if you're new to PSO, I encourage you to play without reading this information right away. PSO is an old game, and old games tend not to get new secrets added very often, so once you know everything, there won't be any surprises left for you to discover.

If you hate discovering secrets yourself or just can't figure something out, click here to view the list of documented quest prizes and secret side missions.