FAQ
Click here for Technical issues.
- Q. Is Ephinea really free to play?
A. Yes! Although we do accept donations, we will never charge for service nor offer any sort of incentives for donating to the server. - Q. Who runs the Ephinea server?
A. Ephinea was created by Sodaboy and Tofuman, lead developers of the Tethealla Project, an open source Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst Server. Ephinea is currently being administered by Sodaboy, Tofuman, Ender and Matt, the lead community administrator.
Helping the admins out are anime, CARNAGE, MewPlushie, Ryan, and Gori, your Game Masters and Forum Moderators.
Hailing from Japan, Gori is capable of assisting players who speak both English and Japanese. - Q. How long will the Ephinea server run?
A. The Ephinea server plans to run as long as there is interest in Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst. - Q. What is the vision for the Ephinea server?
A. Ephinea is a place to showcase the latest version of the Tethealla server, while at the same time trying to find a good balance between the vision of Blue Burst that SEGA had and some of our own changes we wanted to see made to the game. This means we’ll keep true to the original PSO formula and balances, while adding new features and conveniences to keep the game interesting.For example:
- You now have a common bank in which you can make item transfers between characters.
- Multimode switches not requiring 2-4 people to activate.
- PSO2 style drops in which monsters and boxes generate items for each player, not for the whole party. Anything you see dropped can be safely picked up by you without a rebuke from the party, as no one else in the party can even see the item to begin with. You are free to trade items after pickup. (Optional system, you’re not forced to use it.)
- PSU style “Luck” system in which a combination of Race, Gender and Class flags will influence the drop rate of the game you create/lead. (Optional system, you’re not forced to use it.)
- A “Hunters Boost Road” system which lets you run featured quests to improve your drop rates in those quests. Useful for hunting items!
- Various quality of life commands, which can be found by typing /help in the lobby in-game.
We also feature Leaderboards, a weekly rotating boost system, and the ability to use a Japanese or English game client which will translate the entire game, including quests, into the language of your choice. (The interface will be in other languages like Spanish, French, and German in the future, but that is some time away.)
We also have a “Sandbox” mode. Read the following topic for more information on that: Is PSO old to you?
- Q. What is currently implemented on the Ephinea server?
A. Most of Blue Burst is implemented, including Challenge mode! However, while playing, you may run into a bug or two, hopefully not very often, but, if you do, please remember to report it to the forum. - Q. Do you guys have a backup system in place?
A. Yes. This server is hosted “in the cloud” with a proven VPS provider with data on a RAID 10 mirror. We also do daily local and off-site database backups, keeping point-in-time snapshots for up to a year.
Before any major server changes, we typically do a manual backup should a rollback be necessary due to a critical problem introduced with the update. So far, we haven’t had to roll anything back! *knock on wood* - Q. Can I download a copy of my data?
A. We believe your character data is your own, so we don’t see a problem with that and offer you the ability to do so. Just select “Download Your Data” from the main menu of this website. This way, you can backup the time you’ve invested in your adventuring onto your hard disk, a USB key, or even your mobile phone! - Q. I’m scared of rollbacks and total resets, will your server have a lot of these?
A. We will never reset. We also don’t imagine having to rollback data very often if ever. Should a catastrophic event occur, we’d take the server down and roll back to the earliest point of time before the event occurred, patch the problem, and then bring the server back up. - Q. How can I sign up to play and/or download the client?
A. At the top of the Ephinea homepage, you will see links to download the game as well as register to play! - Q. Does this server have a common bank?
A. Yes, use the /bank command to access a bank shared between your characters. You can find more commands by typing /help in the lobby.
TECHNICAL
- Q. My game crashes when I shoot a gun or when someone in the party performs a Photon Blast.
A. Change your Windows Operating System’s Data Execution Prevention settings. You can find your current setting by going to the Windows Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> “Performance” Settings -> “Data Execution Prevention” tab.
Select “Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only” or add an exception for Ephinea’s PsoBB.exe - Q. I’m having trouble running the game. The game doesn’t launch or opens and immediately closes.
A. If you’re unable to launch the game or have some issues, try whitelisting the entire installation folder in your anti-virus program.
If your anti-virus program has deleted the executables for online, option or PsoBB, try disabling it and extracting the archive again.
If you’ve selected a game resolution that is bigger than your monitor’s resolution, the game may also not launch. Please lower the game resolution from the launcher.
You may also be missing Visual C++ Redistributables and/or may need .NET Framework installed on your system. You can download them from the following links: VC Redist x86 | VC Redist x64 | .NET Framework
Please also make sure you are always launching the game from online.exe as to have the latest patches and updates.
There is also a “Readme” file bundled with the archive that has some additional troubleshooting steps. Please take a moment to read it. - Q. The display of the game looks weird.
A. If you’re running an ATI graphics card, be sure the Raptr overlay is disabled. This definitely causes problems.
Running the game in a widescreen resolution may also cause some visual anomalies as PSO was not designed with widescreen in mind. Setting a 4:3 resolution may fix that.
If you still have graphical issues, try disabling high resolution HUD and/or Advanced Effects.
If you’re still having display issues after all of the above, launch the game via “online_compat.exe” and see if that solves your problem. - Q. I get “Failed to update files” and/or I can’t select a resolution in “More”.
A. If you’re having problems updating the game’s client, try whitelisting the entire game folder in your antivirus program. Ephinea does not contain any malware or viruses, but sometimes our new executables can be flagged incorrectly by antivirus programs. - Q. I keep getting disconnected with a “Client code integrity check failure” message. How can I stop this from occurring?
A. The Ephinea Phantasy Star Online Client has protection from unauthorized code modifications in memory. When this message appears, it has detected an edit to the code in memory. If you have not edited the code in memory, it is possible that you may have a virus on your machine, though this message can also appear when using an Xbox One Controller with the latest Microsoft drivers. Rejoice, though, as there is a fix available when using an Xbox One controller. Please refer to the following forum topic for more information. - Q. Help! I can’t type in-game!
A. Have you mistakenly enabled the IME option in the launcher? This option exists to give you the ability to type in Japanese on your system, provided you have the Microsoft IME installed with the Japanese language options installed. If you do not have the Microsoft IME installed with the Japanese options or you only need to type in English, please disable the IME option in the launcher and you will be able to type normally. - Q. I’m running Windows 10 and playing full-screen. How do I stop the game from hanging at the Ship Selection?
A. Go into the Option menu and uncheck “Advanced Effect” under the “Advanced” section of “Graphics”. Save your new settings and try again. - Q. My game seems very laggy, especially so when I attempt to talk in-game or someone talks to me, what’s the deal?
A. Your anti-virus software may play a role in this. We have heard of someone who had solved his lag program by allowing PsoBB.exe in his anti-virus software program. - Q. どうしたらゲームの文章を日本語に変換できますか？
A. ゲームの中で、Ship SelectからLanguage Selectを選び、Language Selectから日本語を選んでください。 そして、パッチサーバに接続します。 - Q. Help! My characters appear to have been deleted!
A. Your characters are fine! We will never delete or tamper with players’ characters. Chances are, you’ve accidently switched your character slot page. Go back to the launcher and change the SLOT in the top-right to 01-04 to get your character(s) back. - Q. None of these questions apply to me, but I’m still having issues. Where can I go for further help?
A. Post your problem in the Technical Support forum and someone will try to assist you as soon as they are able to.