Being a GM for Phantasy Star Universe means a pretty huge amount of time and work — and the thing is, I still very much enjoy just playing the game. The irony is that being a GM for the game means you don’t have nearly as much time to actually play anymore, but I’ve been doing my best to chip away at my “for fun” characters here and there.

We’re in the middle of an event mission now: In the storyline of the game, it’s a ‘virtual reality’ battlefield training program preparing the GUARDIANS for a major upcoming battle against the SEED. So in my capacity a GM I’ve been running the event missions & dropping in a bit with players — in my capacity as player, though, I’ve been doing some much needed leveling, taking advantage of the missions’ boosted experience point gains to finally give some much-needed oomph to my fortegunner.

By rule I’ve always been a fan of melee in any sort of fantasy / RPG / MMO game that even remotely allows it: preferably dual-wielding, and preferably with swords or daggers. That’s just how I’m wired: I like to kill monsters in a whirling storm of precision-wielded sharp objects. But Phantasy Star Universe, wouldn’t you know it, is a blast (pun intended?) to play as a gunner-type character. So in the interests of gunning down SEED-form monsters & expanding my GM knowledge of the game’s classes, I’ve been leveling my aforementioned gunner character. Here she is, ready to kill some bad guys and take their stuff:

What with the day-to-day business of Phantasy Star GMing I don’t get a chance to level her (or for that matter, my higher-level melee character) nearly as much as I’d like. Event missions for this game always bring out a nice crowd, though, and friendly GUARDIANS have been happy to run missions with me. Just one nice part about event missions like the one that’s going on now is that they offer substantially boosted experience from normal missions.

Why this particular event has been fun: in addition to the experience boost, the missions are fast-paced and feature lots of changes of scenery. Each of the two main event missions have multiple available routes you can run, lots of little secrets & spots to explore, and fast-paced tours of different zones to do battle in — since it’s a “virtual reality” simulation, every time you change spots in the level you get a different area from the game that loads up.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to run with a GM, and helped me level my “for-fun” character. She does still need work, though: I even got a comment at one point that my gunner’s Photon Arts were “terrible”. This was a fair point: For the record, though, my melee character’s Photon Arts are awesome. Consider my gunner a work in progress.

Incoming news item! Although the Protectors Alpha/Beta+ event missions will be gone at the end of this week, there’s a new update coming right on the event’s heels. Three new missions will be updated to S2 rank (each mission has multiple difficulty levels, from C — the lowest — to S2 — the highest), and, perhaps most excitingly, we’re getting a new story mission.

The Phantasy Star Universe story has been quite epic so far, as your player-character goes from a GUARDIANS neophyte to — well — there’s some new details revealed in this story that are definitely worth playing for, if you’ve been a fan of the game. The story mission has unfolded in gradual chapters since the release of the game, making it a true investment for the fans who have been following the narrative from the beginning.

For anyone who wants to see the full details for what’s coming this week, here’s the update page.

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