WE LOVE PSO!

WELCOME TO EPHINEA

Hello and welcome to Ephinea, our Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst private server. We’re a group of fans trying to recreate the classic PSOBB experience, and building around that core with new content and features.

Getting Started

Getting Started

Are you new to Phantasy Star Online?

CHECK OUT OUR BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO PSO

Or you're already an expert hunter?

FIND OUT WHAT MAKES EPHINEA SPECIAL

Recent forum activity



Latest Updates -

PSO and PSO Community Appreciation Thread

Hello, Hunters of PSO!

I've been doing some reflecting and noticed that, wow, it's has been quite the journey with PSO for me.

I've been in the PSO scene for quite some time! Online AND offline, I've played every release of PSO so far... JP PSOv1, US PSOv1, JP PSOv2, US PSOv2, JP EP1&2 Trial, US EP1&2, US EP3, JP PSOBB, US PSOBB. I've even tried all the game's potential successors such as PSU, PS0, and PSO2. But none of the more modern titles ever captured the magic of the "OG" PSO.

I think we can all agree that PSO is truly a lifestyle. Once you dive into this Hunter life, it's truly hard to ever get out of it. Sure, you may take a break from time to time, but we all seem to find our way back to the planet of Ragol.

I also made my way around the various PSO communities... As a member and eventually admin of the classic PSO-world PSO fan site, as a member and eventually admin of the classic Schtserv, as a member and admin of the Pioneer2.net PSO community, and as a member and admin of the Ephinea PSOBB server.

I've met so many great people from so many places. I've made some great PSO and now real life friends throughout the years and I feel we'll always remain friends for life. I'm truly thankful for all of you!

I remember wanting to learn how the game works on a technical level and making friends with various programmers. People like Kohle (now known as fuzziqersoftware), Myria, and Schthack really helped me to understand this game more. With the knowledge learned, I developed a very popular PSOGC proxy that is still used to this day.

I also remember getting the phone call on the day after my 27th birthday in 2008... I got the call that my father had been murdered the day before.

I became pretty depressed at this time and, wanting to find a way to push through it, wanting to find a way to focus on something else, I started to develop the PSOBB server software Tethealla, which the majority of private PSOBB servers, including Ephinea, also still use to this day.

When a certain PSO server started to use my software to make money, I became upset, stopped working on Tethealla, and left the PSO community for some time. It was @tofuman who managed to pulled me back in some time later and get me working on Tethealla again. tofuman also joined the development team officially.

Shortly after I started working once more on Tethealla, I became passionate about PSO's development and, sometime shortly after that, the Ephinea PSOBB server was born!

I think, at that time, the PSO community really needed a GREAT PSOBB server since also at that time, another server had fell due to staff negligence.

I wanted to create a place where players could enjoy the game again. I wanted to create a place where players could feel safe and that their data was safe. I wanted to create a PSOBB server that was mostly, ahem, "vanilla", but I wanted to also improve the quality of life for Hunters who decided to play on the server. I just wanted to do things RIGHT.

At that time and for several years after, Ephinea did not take donations to keep things running, everything was financed from my own pocket. I did this because of how much of a negative impact money coming in had on both the popular PSOBB servers at the time.

The other servers let players buy items, gave them double experience, and other things, for cash, which effectively makes the game pay to win to line the server creators' pockets. And, even with that money coming in, a server still managed to not backup any of the user data and lost everything. It was truly a "Wow" moment.

One of the very first things I made sure to implement was a way players could download their character data so as to not totally rely on the server, even though we had multiple backup locations for Ephinea.

People began to play on Ephinea and I was lucky to find great staff members who wanted to help moderate the game and also provide input on ways we could improve the server experience for players as well. And, even though I may have not always heeded to the input given to do things my own way, I did actually appreciate the input.

I know sometimes, it can seem like I can get emotional or angry at some things sometimes. I want to apologize for those moments, but it's really because I do have passion about this game and it's development. I want to do things to improve the game, but I also don't like upsetting people. I can also get stressed about things not working.

Thanks to the birth of my son in December of 2022, I'm more busy with real life than ever, though I'm still around day-to-day. But, you can ask Ender, when he says "Hey, this isn't working" or "I need you to do this", he always follows up with "BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT RIGHT NOW", because he knows I always want to fix things right away and I can get stressed out.

Oh yeah! On that note, although I'm thankful for ALL of my staff, I'm so especially thankful for @Ender as well. He has definitely improved development here with his own ideas on things and implementing new features. Ender comes up with things I didn't think were possible... He even comes up with things I didn't even think about to develop myself. He's an actual genius. Ender is definitely the real MVP lately.

Ephinea has evolved so much over these years. We've put servers in multiple locations, implemented so many quality of life changes, and so much more to become what many see as the definitive PSOBB experience. It has truly been one wild ride.

I'm so thankful to everyone who has joined up to explore planet Ragol here on Ephinea. I'm so thankful to the people who, day to day, choose to make Ephinea their server of choice to level up their characters and find the rare items of their dreams.

I'm also very thankful to our Patreon and Ko-Fi supporters who, now that we've opened up donations (which don't give donators any benefit except a Discord role), help to keep Ephinea running for, hopefully, years to come.

I want you to know, I love you all, and I hope all you Hunters of PSO continue to rock with Ephinea as well.

If you'd like to share your own PSO or Ephinea reflection, feel free to share it in a reply to this post.

Thank you for playing on Ephinea!


Posted Mar 8th, 2024, 15:53 (UTC) by Sodaboy's avatar Sodaboy (59)

 

Valentine's Event(バレンタインイベント開始!)

The Valentine's Event has begun!

During this event, players will gain extra rare drop rate for playing with other people:
- 2 player party: +5%
- 3 player party: +10%
- 4 player party: +20%
Furthermore, the daily forecast boosts will combine in a party, so if one player has +3% and one player has +5%, both players will receive +8%.

The Valentine's Event will end on 21st February.

We hope you enjoy playing on Ephinea!

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バレンタインイベントが開始しました!

イベント期間中、2人以上のパーティでプレイすることでレアドロップ率がアップします。
- 2Pパーティ:+5%
- 3Pパーティ:+10%
- 4Pパーティ:+20%
さらに、デイリーラックのブーストもパーティ内で合算されるようになります。
例)あるメンバーが+3%、もう一人が+5%の場合、合算されて二人とも+8%になります。

バレンタインイベントは2/21までとなります。

Ephineaでのイベントをお楽しみいただけますと幸いです!


Posted Feb 7th, 2024, 08:37 (UTC) by Matt's avatar Matt (8)

 

Server restart complete for December 22nd, 2023. (サーバ再起動完了 12/23)

Update: Restart complete. Sorry to keep you waiting! (Update was just to fix a minor bug with unit drops from previous update, but took longer than usual due to personal reasons.)

There will be a quick server restart at 20:00 UTC on December 22nd, 2023 to apply an update.

Thank you for understanding.

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追記: お待たせして申し訳ございませんでした、再起動が完了しました!
アップデートは、前回のアップデートで発生したユニットのドロップに関する小さなバグを修正するためのものでした。個人的な事情により通常より少し時間がかかってしまいました。

日本時間2023/12/23 05:00にアップデートを適用するために、サーバの再起動を行います。

ご理解とご協力のほど、よろしくお願いいたします。


Posted Dec 22nd, 2023, 14:55 (UTC) by Sodaboy's avatar Sodaboy (0)

 

Server restart complete for December 20th (サーバーの再起動が完了しました12/20 )

Update: Server restart has completed. Thank you for your patience.
Update 2: Forgot to mention that certain units can now drop --,-,+, and ++ versions. For English players, you'll need to update your unitxt file through the launcher to see proper values on the item descriptions.

There will be a quick server restart on December 20th at 06:00 UTC.

This restart will address the issue where quickly closing the client will sometimes keep your character logged on for a few more minutes. (Hopefully the last of the recent Linux port bugs. :'))

Thanks for understanding!

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日本時間12/20 15:00にサーバの再起動を行います。

この再起動により、クライアントを閉じた際にキャラクターが数分間ログオンしたまま残ってしまう問題について修正する予定です。(これがLinux移植で発生した最後のバグであることを願っています)

ご理解とご協力のほどよろしくお願いいたします。


Posted Dec 19th, 2023, 21:49 (UTC) by Sodaboy's avatar Sodaboy (0)

 

Server maintenance completed for December 15th, 2023 (2023年12月16日にサーバーメンテナンスが完了しました)

Thanks for your patience. Server maintenance has been completed for December 15th, 2023.

The following changes were made to the game:

- I made some back end changes that allow the other admins to admin better.

- All of the login and patch server messages were finally translated to Japanese. Some more strings on the ship that were missed were translated as well.

- The sorting bug on the ship counter should also be fixed. Although you could see all 128 games refreshing before, the sorting wasn't occurring properly. It should be sorting correctly now. :knock on wood:

- A change occurred in the Bluefull Ultimate Episode 1 drop chart. The Heaven Striker drop from Del-D has been changed from 1/5851 -> 1/4255.

That's all for now!

Thank you for playing on Ephinea!

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大変お待たせいたしました、2023/12/16のサーバメンテナンスが終了しました。(Sodaboy-sanありがとうございます)

ゲームに次の変更が加えられました。

- 他の管理者がより適切に作業できるように、バックエンドにいくつかの変更を加えました。

- ログインおよびパッチサーバーのメッセージがすべて日本語に翻訳されました。 シップで見逃されていたいくつかの文字列も翻訳されました。(何か不自然な点があればご指摘ください!)

- カウンターでのソートバグが修正されました。以前から128の部屋すべてが表示できていたものの、正しくソートが出来ていませんでした。これらは現在は解消され、正しい順番になっているはずです。

- ブルーフルについてアルティメットEP1のドロップチャートに微修正を加えました。デルディーの
ヘブンストライカーのドロップ率が1/5851→1/4255に変更されています。

以上です!
いつもエフィネアでプレイしていただきありがとうございます!


Posted Dec 15th, 2023, 18:29 (UTC) by Sodaboy's avatar Sodaboy (0)

 

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