Playstation 2 Online at OnlineConsoles.com

Some of you may have noticed that quite a few of our forums look a bit light on the post count all of a sudden. This is due to a long overdue overhaul here at the PS2 site, and one that I didn't really realize was necessary until recently. This is STILL in progress, and may be for the next few days continuing into the week.

To give you guys a preview of what is being cleaned up, basically the PS2 site has had more online games obviously than the DC or GC sites. As such, everyone was constantly making "purchasing decisions" as well as just announcing to others that "hey i got this game". This in and of itself isn't terrible. However, when there are over 1,000 posts of this nature, they are choking the life out of many of our forums.

So various changes are being made to clean things up. Where OC was at just a few years ago, is very different from where we want OC to be as a community down the road.

You can already see some of the positive effects of these changes as newer actual "game" discussions are floated to the top of the Recent Discussions block on the front page.

A much more detailed news post will replace this as these changes are nearing completion. Thank you all for your patience during this transition.

-Ben

My personal site recently went live, which means 2 literary works I have been working on for quite some time have now been published.

A while back we had a thread at the Dreamcast area of OC that was about HD displays. Quite a bit of debate went on back and forth, and the thread was eventually locked down. I could get into an explanation of those who were write vs wrong in the discussion, but my reasoning for closing the thread down and keeping discussions on HD to a minimum was because of this pending article.

Please read:

Video Games in an Era of High-Definition
"An indepth look at the hurdles of playing video games on High-Definition Displays."
by Ben Pekarek

After reading this paper you will have a very firm understanding of how to approaching playing your game console(s). There are numerous links for further reading as well. Regardless of where you are at with comprehending the effects of display lag, this extensive article should bring you up to speed rather quickly. Do pass this link around if you encounter people asking about the effects of lag and degernative image anomalies on other forums.

Since this guide pretty much explains the issue in meticulious detail, and already makes a firm recommendation for how to approach the matter, we will continue to discourage topics for HD troubleshooting on the forums. So a sticky will be posted in the Lounge Forums linking to this article as well for easy access. You are more than welcome to email me to discuss the topic, but I feel we should all focus on talking about the games above all else.

A second article, relates to the nature of online games, as well as restoration. Remember the new section that was supposed to go up at OC in the future? as noted in the rules? Well, this paper brings that section one step closer to reality.

Since I started OC I have been closely watching how a userbase interacts with online games from their release to post mortem.

The Nature of Online Gaming, defines the lifecycle of internet connected player experiences. This is an important read, especially for newer members to the site.

The as yet to be named sub area to OC, will branch off from themes outlined in this article. It will include a history of milestones made in preserving and restoring software relating to the platforms we cover, as well as an FAQ section where you the user can ask questions and have them answered in detail.

Thanks for reading, and see you guys online.

Regards,
-Ben Pekarek
Site Director/Founder

A while back I put up a new list called the "Focus List" which aimed to clarrify which games OC was focusing on as a community. However a few weeks later I pulled it down, because it needed some major tweaking and revisions. I can't even remember when this was. Possibly in the spring of 2009.

I have been working hard on it over the past few weeks, and the brand new focus is list up on the site with key information on what games the PS2 site will be centering its activities around.

[ CLICK HERE TO VIEW ]

Also, a quick note to PAL players. Almost all of the games in our top 6 games, that have featured forums are not cross region compatible with PAL. The one game that is cross region via LAN tunneling is Twisted Metal Black Online. So if you see a PAL version of that game, don't hesitate to buy it. That will be the key link between PAL and NTSC players for meeting up online. I plan to have a smaller guide up on the site in the near future with advice for PAL players on how best to integrate themselves into the site.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to post in our OC Site Support forum, in the Support area.