The Dreamcast was released 20 years ago on 9/9/99 in the US, so let’s celebrate it’s birthday! Oh yeah, and let’s celebrate the 10th anniversary of Sylverant while we’re at it.

Event Information:
Start Time: September 9, 2019 @ 09:00 EDT / 13:00 UTC (@583)
End Time: September 23, 2019 @ 09:00 EDT / 13:00 UTC (@583)

Description:
Twenty years ago, the Sega Dreamcast was released to much fanfare in the US. All this time later, we are still dreaming.
Ten years ago, the Sylverant PSO Server was first introduced to the world, and here we are still going strong.
Collect Dreamcast accessories to keep the dream alive for many more years to come. Yes, this event is open to all supported versions on all platforms, even if we respect the Dreamcast users just a little bit more.

This event is open to all versions of the game currently supported on Sylverant.

Prizes:
Like the previous events, additional trinkets will be rewarded to those that place highly on the leaderboards. Also, like the winter event, there will be various penalties associated with gameplay that might be unfair to everyone else on the server — so don’t be an asshat and try to cheese your way to higher kill counts and such.

(Not So) Fine Print:

• This event, like previous events, requires you to have enabled /trackkills on your account while logged in (with /login or /tlogin). It is only open to those with a registered account on the Sylverant website that have registered their serial number and access key on the site.
• This event tracks various statistics during your gameplay, including the number of enemies you have killed. Also, kills and various other events that happen in game may reward you with various kinds of Dreamcast Accessories (virtually, of course — nobody’s actually getting any BBAs out of this event). These accessories will be able to be traded in after the event.
• The list of prizes that can be traded for after the event will be posted at a later date.
• The /trackkills command must be run on each registered guild card in your account in order to make progress on that guild card.
• If you used the /trackkills command in the earlier events, unless you have since disabled it, you will be able to collect trinkets and track your statistics.
• Cheating of any kind (be it by way of using a cheat device such as a CodeBreaker or by abusing game bugs) is not permitted! Anyone caught cheating in any way is subject to being banned from the server. This event is meant to be fun for everyone, not for a small group of cheaters to run away with it! There have been people disqualified in previous events — don’t become the next one to be disqualified for cheating!
• Statistics will only be counted on Iselia, Altimira, and Palmacosta. Scripting support is still not quite working on Vega.
• You may use the /showitems command on a ship to see your currently collected accessory totals.
• Trinket drop rates may be adjusted as the event goes on. Also, there may be various announced and unannounced incentives for playing at different times during the event period.

The Eggcelent Easter event concluded almost a week ago, and I suppose I should probably post the results for posterity.

First up, on the Enemy Kills leaderboard, the top 10 looks like this:

1. Chuck Norris – 48046
2. Blst – 46180
3. GENESIS8588 – 23560
4. Jaxxer – 18129
5. ZANBA – 15277
6. zakmat – 12880
7. Nyte – 10010
8. MagMan – 8046
9. Aleron Ives – 7473
10. renzokuken99 – 7262

For assists, the top 10 are as follows:

1. zakmat – 10655
2. Chuck Norris – 8502
3. Blst – 7535
4. renzokuken99 – 4701
5. Jaxxer – 3649
6. mistamontiel – 2520
7. Aleron Ives – 2482
8. ZANBA – 1946
9. Tinman2428 – 1750
10. mahkbooks – 1477

Each of the placers on these lists will receive crystal eggs to trade in soon. 1st and 2nd place on each list will receive 5 crystal eggs, 3rd and 4th will receive 4 crystal eggs, 5th and 6th will receive 3 crystal eggs, 7th and 8th will receive 2 crystal eggs, and 9th and 10th place will receive 1 crystal egg.

In addition the event code was also keeping track of how many boxes everyone broke. The top 20 finishers on the leaderboard for boxes broken will receive some chocolate eggs as a prize (1st/2nd get 10, 3rd/4th get 9, and so on). Just a little easter egg that the event was keeping track of, mostly because Aleron Ives asked me to. 😉

The full leaderboard is available to view here, including all three of these tracked categories. Also, the Winter Wonderland leaderboard has also been updated to show the assists leaderboard, which was at least done soon in Valve Time. 😉

Information on how to claim prize eggs for leaderboard placement as well as how to trade in eggs for various prizes will be posted in the very near future is available on this forum post.

Since the Winter event was a success, how about an event for Easter?

Event Information:
Start Time: April 15, 2019 @ 02:00 UTC (@125)
End Time: April 29, 2019 @ 02:00 UTC (@125)

Description:
Hunt down the vile creatures who have stolen all of the eggs from the families that have ventured down to Ragol and be rewarded for returning them to their rightful owners.

This event is open to all versions of the game currently supported on Sylverant.

Prizes:
Like the winter event, additional trinkets will be rewarded to those that place highly on the leaderboards. Also, like the winter event, there will be various penalties associated with gameplay that might be unfair to everyone else on the server — so don’t be an asshat and try to cheese your way to higher kill counts and such.

(Not So) Fine Print:

• This event, like previous events, requires you to have enabled /trackkills on your account while logged in (with /login or /tlogin). It is only open to those with a registered account on the Sylverant website that have registered their serial number and access key on the site.
• This event tracks various statistics during your gameplay, including the number of enemies you have killed. Also, kills and various other events that happen in game may reward you with various kinds of Easter Eggs. These Easter Eggs will be able to be traded in after the event.
• The list of prizes that can be traded for after the event will be posted at a later date.
• The /trackkills command must be run on each registered guild card in your account in order to make progress on that guild card.
• If you used the /trackkills command in the earlier events, unless you have since disabled it, you will be able to collect trinkets and track your statistics.
• Cheating of any kind (be it by way of using a cheat device such as a CodeBreaker or by abusing game bugs) is not permitted! Anyone caught cheating in any way is subject to being banned from the server. This event is meant to be fun for everyone, not for a small group of cheaters to run away with it! There have been people disqualified in previous events — don’t become the next one to be disqualified for cheating!
• Statistics will only be counted on Iselia and Altimira, as the other two ships do not support scripting properly.
• You may use the /showeggs command on a ship to see your currently collected egg totals.
• Trinket drop rates may be adjusted as the event goes on. Also, there may be various announced and unannounced incentives for playing at different times during the event period.

Our first new-style server event has concluded a few hours ago, so here’s the results:

For kills tracked during the event:

1. NecroRevolver – 115220
2. Modesty – 93315
3. zakmat – 44570
4. Jaxxer – 24330
5. natural585 – 21507
6. ChuChuFlamingo – 15206
7. KPG – 15022
8. Aleron Ives – 13337
9. Lutz – 11660
10. Blst – 10150

For assists during the event:

1. zakmat – 71133
2. Jaxxer – 25557
3. 68kdude – 12874
4. mahkbooks – 5258
5. Aleron Ives – 4987
6. NecroRevolver – 4508
7. dcdingo – 4259
8. ChuChuFlamingo – 4043
9. Selene – 3025
10. Kabes – 2834

Here is a link to the full results page. As of right now, the results do not show assists on the results page, but that will be corrected soon.

Prizes will be given out in the form of tokens to all of those who placed on either of these two leaderboards. I’ll make a followup here once the prizes have been distributed.

Now, as for what the tokens will be good for… Tokens will be exchangeable starting later this week. More information on exchanging tokens will be posted soon, but it will be done by way of using commands on one of the script-supporting ships (so, Iselia or Altimira).

I would like to express appreciation toward everyone who participated in this event! We had a total of 42 different hunters who registered at least one kill during the event, which is double the number that have participated in any previous events. There may have been a few rough edges during this event, especially early, but I feel that it was a rousing success. We will be having another event in this style coming up around Easter, so please look forward to it. We’ve learned a lot as we went through this event, so the next one won’t exactly be the same, but it will have a very similar structure and feel.

Prizes for those who placed on either leaderboard have been distributed. 1st place on either leaderboard got 10 platinum tokens, 2nd place got 9, 3rd got 8, and so on down to 10th place which got 1 platinum token. Apologies for the delays on leaderboard prizes and token exchanging.

Details on what can be gotten with your tokens are available on this post on the forum.

I promised another server event by the end of the year, so here it goes. This one is quite a bit different than previous events though…

Event Information:
Start Time: December 21, 2018 @ 23:00 UTC (@000)
End Time: January 21, 2019 @ 23:00 UTC (@000)

Description:
The weather outside might well be frightful, so it’s a good thing you’re probably not playing PSO out there. Collect metallic prize tokens in-game to trade in for various in-game prizes in January!

This event is open to all versions of the game currently supported on Sylverant.

Prizes:
Prizes will be given out to participants that place highly on the leaderboards for the various statistics this event tracks. More information on these prizes will be given at a later date.

(Not So) Fine Print:

• This event, like previous events, requires you to have enabled /trackkills on your account while logged in (with /login or /tlogin). It is only open to those with a registered account on the Sylverant website that have registered their serial number and access key on the site.
• This event tracks various statistics during your gameplay, including the number of enemies you have killed. Also, kills and various other events that happen in game may reward you with a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum token. These tokens will be able to be traded in after the event.
• The list of prizes that can be traded for after the event will be posted at a later date.
• The /trackkills command must be run on each registered guild card in your account in order to make progress on that guild card.
• If you used the /trackkills command in the earlier events, unless you have since disabled it, you will be able to collect tokens and track your statistics.
• Cheating of any kind (be it by way of using a cheat device such as a CodeBreaker or by abusing game bugs) is not permitted! Anyone caught cheating in any way is subject to being banned from the server. This event is meant to be fun for everyone, not for a small group of cheaters to run away with it! There have been people disqualified in previous events — don’t become the next one to be disqualified for cheating!
• Statistics will only be counted on ships running at least Git revision 562 (check by running “/ver” in-game). As of right now, this means that kills on Palmacosta and Vega will not count (this will be updated if/when the administrators of those ships update the code).

I will be posting more information about the event as time goes on on the Sylverant forum. The post where such information will be posted is here.

The Leaderboard on the website will not show results right away, as I have to update the website code to look at the new data for the event. However, you can check your progress in-game by using the commands /showkills and /tokens.

Well, I decided (or rather life decided for me) that having another “Haunting Halloween” event was too boring… So, how about a post-Halloween event instead?

Event Information:
Start Time: November 3, 2018 @ 00:00 UTC (@041)
End Time: November 17, 2018 @ 00:00 UTC (@041)

Description:
Monsters are running amok on Ragol, fueled by stolen candy from Halloween. Hunt down the offenders and help make the surface a little more peaceful again.

This event is open to all versions of the game currently supported on Sylverant.

(Not So) Fine Print:

• This event, like previous events, requires you to have enabled /trackkills on your account while logged in (with /login or /tlogin). It is only open to those with a registered account on the Sylverant website that have registered their serial number and access key on the site.
• The /trackkills command must be run on each registered guild card in your account for any kills made with that guild card to be counted (results are aggregated across all guild cards in your account).
• If you used the /trackkills command in the earlier events, unless you have since disabled it, your kills will be tracked for this event.
• Only enemies killed in free-play will be counted — no enemies killed during quests will count toward your totals for this event.
• Cheating of any kind (be it by way of using a cheat device such as a CodeBreaker or by abusing game bugs) is not permitted! Anyone caught cheating in any way is subject to being banned from the server. This event is meant to be fun for everyone, not for a small group of cheaters to run away with it! There have been people disqualified in previous events — don’t become the next one to be disqualified for cheating!

It has been 9 years since I publicly announced/released Sylverant as of today, which also means it has been 19 years since the release of the Dreamcast in the US. While I regret how quiet I’ve been around here lately, the relative quiet certainly doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been stuff done.

For instance (for those who don’t pay attention on twitter), after a bit of a false start, I’ve rolled out online runtime patching of PSO version 2 for the Dreamcast and PSO Episode I & II for the Gamecube. There’s still more work to be done with that particular feature, but it’s still functional and available to bring some interesting and useful patches to Dreamcast and Gamecube users (at least those not using PSO Episode I & II Plus).

I seem to have promised people there’d be at least one more event incoming before the end of the year, so I’m going to make good on that promise. This one will at least start before the end of the year anywhere in the world. 😉

Event Information:
Start Time: December 31, 2017 @ 05:00 UTC (@250)
End Time: January 14, 2018 @ 05:00 UTC (@250)

Description:
No matter how you wish to celebrate the arrival of the new year, let’s see some fireworks down on Ragol. Take out some baddies and fight on for another year!

This event is open to all versions of the game currently supported on Sylverant.

(Not So) Fine Print:

• This event, like previous events, requires you to have enabled /trackkills on your account while logged in (with /login or /tlogin). It is only open to those with a registered account on the Sylverant website that have registered their serial number and access key on the site.
• The /trackkills command must be run on each registered guild card in your account for any kills made with that guild card to be counted (results are aggregated across all guild cards in your account).
• If you used the /trackkills command in the earlier events, unless you have since disabled it, your kills will be tracked for this event.
• Only enemies killed in free-play will be counted — no enemies killed during quests will count toward your totals for this event.
• Cheating of any kind (be it by way of using a cheat device such as a CodeBreaker or by abusing game bugs) is not permitted! Anyone caught cheating in any way is subject to being banned from the server. This event is meant to be fun for everyone, not for a small group of cheaters to run away with it! There have been people disqualified in previous events — don’t become the next one to be disqualified for cheating!