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Topic: Planet Ring

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dreamer!
rank 10
Posted:
Wed Feb 11, 2004 1:24 pm
quote : #1
profile : pm
Posts: 133
anyone played this game i have it but its online only and i havent tried it yet anyone know what its like? Question
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[UKR]Dreamer- Proud UKR Member
http://www.ukrockers.com - Multiformat Clan
PC/DC/GC/PS2 and Xbox

character stats!
dream
lv72
greenill
rens of heavens
rank 5
Posted:
Wed Feb 11, 2004 3:39 pm
quote : #2
profile : pm
Posts: 39
Its got 4 games to play on. Shame you can't play it offline.
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.......Waiting for Shenmue 3.......and Waiting for a Sonic Adventure 3.....
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[UKR]DreamcastUK
unknown
Posted:
Sat Feb 14, 2004 5:02 pm
quote : #3
profile : pm
Posts: 233
Well it has a MIC too Smile and you can create you own little character... i never got to play this online.... who is it hosted by ,, if its SEGA then thats no good...
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DreamcastMagic
banned!
Posted:
Sat Feb 14, 2004 8:45 pm
quote : #4
profile : pm
Posts: 1248
[UKR]DreamcastUK wrote:
Well it has a MIC too Smile and you can create you own little character... i never got to play this online.... who is it hosted by ,, if its SEGA then thats no good...


Sega made it and im almost sure its a port of a similar Japanese game ... I would really need to see some screenshots of both (maybe ill look into later tonight) but they both sound the same online, mic support and a theme park game
 
Blast
rank 43
Posted:
Sat Feb 14, 2004 9:45 pm
quote : #5
profile : pm
Posts: 1285
Type: Pal
This game was made by Sega-europe as far as I know and was only released in europe. Although Sega-europe still support some other online games this server was taken down due to multiple problems. When the game was up it was good and worked weld but it did have server problems somtimes it would be offline for over 2 weeks.

If you realy want to know anything about this game then ask me as my other half played hundreds of hours of this online and held the highest ever score on the rankings for one of the games.

If you do want to know somthing reply but please IM me too as I dont realy check the board since the posts since last visit was removed.

Shame this wasent released elsewhere it was classgame/s
 
DreamcastMagic
banned!
Posted:
Sat Feb 14, 2004 11:21 pm
quote : #6
profile : pm
Posts: 1248
A review of it (and it was hard to find):
SOURCE LINK:
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/dreamcast-g ame/planet-ring-microphone/168648/

The Box set, also sold in stand alone cd if you had the mic already


Screenshots





planet ring, quite possibly the most advanced console game to date, and yet no one i know offline has actually got it (except for me of course). hmmm. i'll have to assume that you don't know what this is, so let me tell you all that i know in my opinion of this amazing adventure!

i got my issue 15 of odm back at the end of november, but unfortunately i didn’t pay enough attention to it (due to my being busy), and so i completely ignored the free extra cd game that was surplus to the standard demo disc. i think it must have dwelled in my mind that i hadn’t really bothered to try this ‘free’ game, and i usually wouldn’t have done so because i don’t expect free games to be any good, but i remembered the word ‘online’ somewhere on the magazine, and so, in my 5 minutes of free time, i managed to try the game out.

after taking a good 5minutes extra to register i was welcomed by a colourful spherical miniature world – and i was this round ‘morph’ time of clay looking virtual character! there was cheery upbeat music, and so i explored this small world whilst the dreamcast connected to the internet! i was then told to go to the information centre directly, where i could then reappear into the world and start playing – after changing my colours (of the virtual character) and making completing all the settings like ‘kindness’ ‘looks’ and ‘intelligence’ levels, which i am sure have no effect whatsoever, so i put them all to highest j!

i tried a game called soar, splash and bubble ball, and didn’t really have a clue as to what i was doing, but managed to win resoundingly at bubble ball! i tried to enter the other online game called ‘dream dorobo’ but i couldn’t enter because i needed a microphone to enter! obviously official dreamcast magazine didn’t give the microphone away, and so i had to find one, and fast! During this first adventure on Planet Ring I chatted to a few people using message chat via the keyboard, and put some people into my ‘friends’ list, and explored the whole planet – I found it all quite peculiar, but ever so funny. Who could have possibly thought of this? Sega of course…

After reading about a competition in the magazine ODM enabling 50 lucky people to win the microphone I thought I’d try and enter, in the hope that I might be lucky for a change, but unsurprisingly all the microphones had been won within a couple of hours, and I’d missed the deadline anyway! My hunt for the microphone continued – Dream Dorobo awaited, and I was itching to play it even though I had no idea about the game at all! I ventured up to Milton Keynes on Christmas Eve for some last minute Christmas shopping, with the Microphone being my priority.

I found that in GAME a store assistant was discussing the game to two customers who clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, and I overheard him saying something ‘ the game is superb, simple and great fun with the microphone but sometimes can be confusing when you’re playing with foreign speaking people’. I didn’t really care what he was saying and so proceeded to the counter after picking up the second to last game in the shop – complete in a Dreamcast controller size box, which accommodates the Dreamcast microphone. At only £19.99 I thought this was a bargain, although I had already got the game…

All my Christmas shopping later, I got home and found that the Planet Ring game was actually in a full Dreamcast box, and packaged very well indeed – something that I now consider the normal from Sega products. I tried to go online, and managed to connect! I slotted the microphone (and simple, yet stylish VMU shaped device with a stick at a right angle that plugs into the main part, and a turquoise foam ball at the end) and was told to go to the information centre, which is used to see all the information on the attractions, Online rankings and really as a starting point where everyone can chat to each other. I found that I was stuck in the info centre along with around 30 other people! I was told ‘attraction is under maintenance’ and so couldn’t play online in any of the mini games L, maybe someone had fallen off one of the rides or something, and they were fixing the track!

I kept trying to leave to the world, but the same message kept appearing. This didn’t really bother me because I wasn’t really ready to talk to complete strangers in whatever game I was about, or not about, to play. I talked to ‘SteveUK’ and ‘November’ via the keyboard messaging, and was pleasantly surprised to here that Dreamcast sales were very high this Christmas from Steve (who worked/works in a retail gaming store). But the best part about not playing any games online was to run about around the information centre as the little virtual character! There was no point in this, but the info centre resembled a kind of space pod – superb lighting effects inside, subtle as they were they still impressed me. I change my virtual colours a few times, and tried to get out yet again into the Planet Ring world, but no luck. Line Disconnect…

I tried testing to see if the server was still down on Christmas Day, it was still down, and so I left the game on the shelf until and got down to some serious Christmas food eating and present giving/receiving! I tried the game again on the 29th and at 1:30 am I was delighted to see that the server was up and running! I played online for around 2 whole hours, and the microphone worked! I went straight to Dream Dorobo and played the game with ‘Big Tom’ from Merseyside – seeing that I had never played before we did appallingly! I could hear him clearly through the TV speaker, and obviously he could he me! I then played with Technophobe who had been most helpful in giving advice about the microphone before hand, but we still did poorly as he’d never played before, and this was my second go. I now knew what the actually objectives in the game were, and looked for some other people to play with.

Sega’s idea is to get people communicating whilst playing the game, and co-operating in order to succeed – it’s all about teamwork, and it is superb! There are only two people playing at once, each of you are assigned a virtual character, different to the Planet Ring virtual character, and one person has to control their player round one of many different mazes in order to collect treasure! There are special pieces of treasure that can be collected, as well as smaller treasure. The virtual player can carry up to 3 special treasures, but gets a lot slower as the load increases. The player that is not controlling this virtual character has to direct the other player to get all of these treasures – you have to speak clearly giving instructions like ‘up, down, left…watch out!’ and so on, and has to direct the active player back to a car without them being caught by ‘police’ in the form of virtual dogs and whistle shaped characters! It is very strange, incredibly difficult for me to explain, but is great fun to play. When one player makes it back to the car, the roles of both people are reversed. When a player returns to the car the treasure is converted into $, which represents your score.

I managed to find a player all the way in Holland called Tsunami, who was quite drunk I think, but still able to concentrate on the game. He had just had a party with all his mates there – shouting down the line a few times, apparently – he’d had his own ‘discotheque’ their! I think I must have played with them about 15 times! Some of the time it was his friends, but they all spoke English well, so it was easy to play and understand – and really quite funny. After some great navigation on both our parts (you get a joint score) we managed to rank in at 5th in Europe! We rose from the grade ‘Mugger’ (a low grade reflecting a small amount of money stolen), to a ‘Robber’ (a ‘B’ grade) and made it to the ‘Thief’ (A grade) on many occasions, raking in a superb score of $3275!!!

The game is absolutely hilarious thanks to the design and aspects of the game that happen during play – such as ‘heliuming voices’ this is the computer trying to make you get caught (where a police dog or whistle catches you and sends you back to the start, losing all you money on that trip), because your voices become really squeaky as though you’d just inhaled a few balloons worth of helium! This means that you can’t understand the instructions given, but is just so funny it doesn’t matter. Planet Ring is definitely a game that you have to play to appreciate! After reaching 5th in Europe, I disconnected, and will soon go back online to play some more!

At present there are 3 other games in operation. To enter each one you must direct you virtual character to the chosen online game, which will be obvious to find, and then sit down at one of the online game tables. You can either hope that there’ll be someone sitting on their own, so you can join them, or you can send a message to anyone online at the time, and invite them to a particular online game! I have played all four games available now, but there should be some more arriving soon!
· Splash! I was useless at this virtual 3D battleships game, and lost every single time – so I haven’t gone back there since! I think you can actually use the microphone in this game. It isn’t essential, although this option may be in the other game Soar.

· Soar! There are many separate games in this online game: either have a Grand Prix, or play a game where you have to get to the top of a spiral thing in an air capsule/pod. This is very hard to control, but is available for many players – I think eight players can join in!

· Bubble Ball: I couldn’t believe that I won this game on my first go! I have never played this since seeing that it wasn’t that much fun, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing! This is for 4 players, but I really cannot describe what the game is about! I won though – yeah!

· Dream Dorobo: As you can probably tell, I like this game, and think it’s one of the most original and innovative online games that has ever been created. It’s a treasure hunt type of game, with 8 different levels of difficulty – the higher the level, the higher the amount of money each piece of treasure is worth!

The general overall presentation is excellent. It’s invitingly simple, and boasts bold, colourful lively graphics and a superb sound track! You can choose all your options including the virtual characters body colour and trousers colour; your age; the languages you speak (so that people can look at your profile if they are from another country – useful for communications purposes in dream dorobo); as well as your kindness, intelligence and looks levels.

Planet Ring is a superb addition to the growing online world of gaming brought to you by Sega and is exclusive to Dreamcast. This is an experience that you simply cannot miss out on! It brings people from different countries together and makes them play together, which is a good thing. The actual world revolves as you move round it and one half is actually day whilst the other is at night! The little touches make the game that little bit more special than the rest, and shows the designers genial and creativity – from the fish to the trees and actual gameplay. Even if the graphics weren’t that good it wouldn’t matter because the gameplay is superb, but the graphics are great – there is no time lag at all, and so it’s even better!

The online downside is that my phone bill will rise each month rapidly! Superb. 10/10 100% Essential gaming!

...ok end of review but I have a question what can you do now that its servers are gone you can't play even part of the game? I would import it if I could maybe getting sega to give the server program could be a new fight to add to the list
 
darkooga
rank 19
Posted:
Sun Feb 15, 2004 1:09 am
quote : #7
profile : pm
Posts: 369
nice info
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Dreamcast: Its Thinking
[UKR]DreamcastUK
unknown
Posted:
Mon Feb 16, 2004 5:20 pm
quote : #8
profile : pm
Posts: 233
no you cannot get online with the game at all...

As soon as you load it up ... a screen comes up as a world and you are a little colourful man and in the top left hand corner it says "now Dialing" and you can run around the map for a little bit seeing everything then it says "Servers cannot be found" then another screen comes up "Disconnecting" ...

Seem really because I got this cheap of ebay and this game was sold out in my local game stores all the time when Dreamcast was bigger over here..... but i never heard anyone doing a review about it,.....

It also came free FULL VERSION game with a UK Dreamcast Official Magazine... I got that too ... Smile
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dreamer!
rank 10
Posted:
Wed Feb 18, 2004 8:35 am
quote : #9
profile : pm
Posts: 133
yeah cool info i got mine with the DC mag too!
  _________________
[UKR]Dreamer- Proud UKR Member
http://www.ukrockers.com - Multiformat Clan
PC/DC/GC/PS2 and Xbox

character stats!
dream
lv72
greenill
idrepublix
banned!
Posted:
Wed Feb 18, 2004 12:07 pm
quote : #10
profile : pm
Posts: 65
DreamcastMagic wrote:
A review of it (and it was hard to find):
The Box set, also sold in stand alone cd if you had the mic already
[



Planet Ring was an EU-only release and devloped entirely by Sega Europe. The game was never sold independent of the mic in Europe, as the mic was never sold in Europe except with Palnet Ring. The GD-only game came free with ODM.
I definitely count it as one of the top three games I could shoot msyelf for not playing online. Sad That, AFO, and Daytona.
  _________________
pso, i miss thee with an ache beyond words. mine heart is cleft in half; should shenmue III not show, it will burst, and I shall die.
DreamcastMagic
banned!
Posted:
Wed Feb 18, 2004 5:02 pm
quote : #11
profile : pm
Posts: 1248
idrepublix wrote:
DreamcastMagic wrote:
A review of it (and it was hard to find):
The Box set, also sold in stand alone cd if you had the mic already
[



Planet Ring was an EU-only release and devloped entirely by Sega Europe. The game was never sold independent of the mic in Europe, as the mic was never sold in Europe except with Palnet Ring. The GD-only game came free with ODM.
I definitely count it as one of the top three games I could shoot msyelf for not playing online. Sad That, AFO, and Daytona.


Thats werid I have seen the CD alone for sale in many places, maybe they just opened the boxs.
 
Blast
rank 43
Posted:
Thu Feb 19, 2004 10:36 am
quote : #12
profile : pm
Posts: 1285
Type: Pal
Hey DCM thanks for the PM thread update. Havent been online for days hence the slightly late post.

No theres nothing to be done on PR now the servers are gone, what somone said above is exactly correct. The server finaly went down around the same time as Sega-europe became no longer accesible by DC's. I forget when that was exactly Lonewolf if you know him may be able to remember that. The server had been down for a very long time before that perhaps as long as 3 months. After we qustioned Sega on the Sega europe board they did pu the PR server back up for a short while about a mnth maybe. During that time the server was very buggy worse than it had ever been. Dreamdorobo hardly ever worked, it crashed lots on starting games and everyone on the planet would get mass DC'D and have to reconnect. Perhaps thats why theygave up on it.

I dunno about asking sega-europe for server info you may get more luck than with Sega america as Sega Europe seem far more friendly. I would offerto ring sega europe and ask about any possible chance of getting the server software. However there is one small thing stopping me from doing that and its the 60p amin call charge to call sega europe Sad

Laters
 
DreamcastMagic
banned!
Posted:
Thu Feb 19, 2004 2:35 pm
quote : #13
profile : pm
Posts: 1248
that would be great if they were open to the idea of releasing the server software ... they did give the game away for free ... I see some hope in getting it ... but sending a professional (and non-fanboy) letter is only thing going to get some real responces
 
NiktheGreek
rank 6
Posted:
Fri Feb 20, 2004 3:35 pm
quote : #14
profile : pm
Posts: 43
This is where I may be able to help. I've been meaning to write them a letter for a while now, and studied both English and Business Studies at school (with an A in the former). I've already got something written up, but if there's anything anyone wants me to ask, I'd love to hear your suggestions.
  _________________
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Blast
rank 43
Posted:
Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:08 am
quote : #15
profile : pm
Posts: 1285
Type: Pal
Would be nice to see what youve written but in all honesty I think any attempts to get server info from either sega europ or sega usa must be done firstly on the phone. Its far to easy to just write a very nice no you cant have it reply. On the other hand its harder to argue that you cant give away somthing to you dont need anymore to somone on the end of a phone line. Its gonna be hard work if you are gonna try the most important thing to fnd out is who exactly in sega europe and in sega america is in charge of the server software, its goa come under somones job description. Once youve found out who that person is then thats who youneed to pester and I do expect it will take a lot of pestering.

Laters
 
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