Greetings.

I understand this question is something that has happened around 19 years ago, who knows, maybe it’s 20 years now.

I’ll start with the story, I’ll try to make it short.

Basically, on second half of 2006, a good chunk of users started to notice players typing in a different language that we GC players could not see (blanks and squares), and when I switched to PSOv2(PC) there is no way I can play with these players.

Give it enough time and someone would find out that these are Chinese users playing on BB. Certain users would go to the message board and announce that the Schtserv team was not just only working on BB but it's playable. This would catch many people off guard because most of us thought it would take years to have a playable BB.

Yes, there was certain threads locked and/or deleted here or there … the players are getting angry that BB isn’t open to the public.

I would eventually stumble across a user in-game claiming to be playing BB, I’ve sent an e-mail to him and he reply back with instructions.

The website? http://www.psoemu.cn (Archive)

I got it setup and was able to play BB at least 2 weeks ahead of most users … but I couldn’t register a new account, I would use his test account instead. But at least I’m able to get used to the controls and everything is patched n’ ready to go. (I was still stuck with dial-up connection so it was needed, the horror.)

Eventually … we all got to play Schtserv BB. Sure the release was buggy, I can list them all but—my question is this:

Why? Why did you and your team only allowed a certain group of players to play BB early awhile the rest of the world had to wait?

I understand there are other groups that had the chance to play early: Users who donated, Schtserv staff, and players who is fluent in Chinese.

It is something I have wondered for years. I’m curious.

Short answer:

A few ppl got access to beta test
A Chinese group got access because Sega closed their BB server over there while Sega US still was providing support.

Was only a matter of not stepping in a market still supported by SEGA

Okay, I had no idea there was an official server for the Chinese players.

Well, how about another question.

What was the most difficult feature you and your team struggled to get working in BB?

I remember dealing with the following:

• C-mode is playable but cannot get the rewards (S-rank weapons)
• Cannot buy charge weapons up to 50% hit from the NPC's shop
• Dangerous Deal with Black Paper 2 wasn't out yet
• Luck stat used to provide rare drop boost (User feedback shot this idea down quick)
• Using Dressing Room at level 1 will wipe your character's inventory/bank (yes, it happened to me)
• And uhhh this ...
• I don't remember if Lavis Cannon (and similar) had the attack glitch or not?
• Finally, the most rare drops ... wasn't rare enough? (Beta players had an easier time hunting SJS for example.)

Edit: I forgot, GameGuard was still running, censor filter is flawed (example: "shoe" is censored), RR/PGF drop disabled (was eventually turned on later)

I will say the worst wasn't to get the feature working, it was to get them working like on SEGA server.
The whole drops thing took over 2 years of tweaking and to give u an idea, 3 years ago we finally got the rare enemy to match the original SEGA way.

We are still finding stuff and implementing fix as of today.

So it was attempting to create a one to one experience to SEGA's servers.

I have one more question (who knows, I may end up asking more later on):

I've heard that you managed to find a security flaw, a vulnerability, for BB. You communicated to SEGA about this issue and even went far to provide a patch for them. In the end, they decline.

Is this story true or not?

I appreciate your time.

I communicated how some exploit were done and how to prevent it to a GM on SEGA US

But i dont think it had any effect, they never explicitly refused.
anyway for some reason i feel like SEGA US never owned any of the code, they just received what ever to use as server software and ran it.