A question about fragment

[DoctorN]

Hi (first post). My name is DoctorN. And I have a copy of .hack fragment, and I am thinking of buying an imported playstation 2 (cheaper for me to get it than to mod stuff). I know the server is no longer online but I would like to play offline anyways. Although I have heard from many sources you can/cannot create characters offline? Is this true (thus making my game 100% useless) and if so, is there some way (without mods, unless like a codebreaker or something) to create a character? Thanks.

DoctorN

[Erroneous]

The offline story mode you should be able to make a character, afaik.

[Erranty]

You could try looking for people who made private servers. I know of one for the old Phantasy Star Online that hosts stuff for the Dreamcast version, Gamecube version, and PC one that they made out of those.

[Kuukai]

Last I checked there were no pirate servers but yes, I have this game and you can make your own characters for offline mode.

[DoctorN]

Really thanks. I was just looking on wikipedia and the .hack wiki and in the trivia it says "characters can be played with (but not created) offline" so I was confused. Is there anything special to get it done like go into online mode first and create or is it upon first bootup, or just go to offline and it will say something like "you have no characters, would you like to make one?". thanks again

[Kuukai]

I don't remember the exact process but it's pretty straightforward and easy to figure out. You get like 3-4 slots to save characters in, and they're shared between offline and online. It's kinda like original PSO or something. Just to warn you though, this game is balanced more like a real MMO. So even though you meet Bear and others, their ability to powerlevel you is severely limited. In fact, you'll notice your ability to level yourself is a lot slower as well. My other qualm with playing offline mode just as its own game is that there are no voices. For .hack, this feels really weird. I'm soooo glad Link didn't do this or I would have jammed the UMD into my eye socket around hour 30. Other than those two things, offline mode is pretty cool, but I haven't gotten around to completing it...

[DoctorN]

do you still have it, ya think you can try making a character in offline mode just to make sure? thanks

[Kuukai]

I don't have it with me, but I swear to you the following:
a) Even a drinking bird could make a character in that game.
b) You can do it with no internet connection or adapter of any kind.

[DoctorN]

ok, ill guess ill get an imported ps2 then so i can play it

[Kuukai]

That sounds like a reasonable course of action.

[DoctorN]

I hope most of the game is in hiragana because that is the only thing I know (rosetta stone, lol). if I cant figure out how to make a character im sure there has to be a faq somewhere.

[Kuukai]

That part's easy, the quests/story will be difficult to understand without a better reading level though...

[DoctorN]

trial and error, trial and error.

do you have fragment with you?

[Kuukai]

No, I said that already. My copy is in the U.S., or I could buy another copy in Japan, but right now I'm in Germany so neither of those things help me.

[DoctorN]

oh, i thought you were just out and about. im guessing youre on a buisness trip?

[Kuukai]

Exactly. Anyway, you should be fine as long as the PS2 you get works, is from Japan, and isn't one of the (rare) first-gen SCPH-10000 models.

[DoctorN]

rare? lol I saw one mint in the box at an import store for $75. maybe ill get a cinnabar red ps2 slim 90000 to complement my black 90000 slim.

[Kuukai]

I didn't say valuable, just rare. Like my autograph or something. I was just trying to say that even if you didn't know anything about the models you probably wouldn't end up with one so it's nothing to worry about. And that said I don't know for sure fragment doesn't work one one, either, again I was just trying to simplify the larger idea that you usually want to avoid it for full compatibility...

[DoctorN]

do you happen to have any extra import ps2's laying around XD?

[Kuukai]

Nope, just my trusty 30000