I used to play PSO V2 regularly until my game broke, and while considering returning to the game I am considering downgrading to V1 to save money and because it’s more common on eBay than the upgraded version I still have.
I think my V2 disc is too broken to work because when I played it often, the game would crash and freeze and disconnect often and the gimmick is the extra content I used to play although everyone seems to play V2 more because of it.
I don’t know if V1 is worse than V2 and I have to save my money by not splurging on another copy of V2 nor if playing V1 will work completely fine.
Thoughts?
As far as I know there is no issue with legality. I don't remember the specifics at this point. I believe the psobb setup was a free download for the client and what they did was rewrote the server side so it was their own software. As far as the IP art, music, etc. IDK 100%.
I will say it has been going for nearly 15 years and widely publicized and sega hasn't ever tried to do anything to shut it down. I believe it's in some kind of loop hole where running the server is legal, and using the client is legal for PSO:BB, but for v1, v2, and I & II version you would still need to have a legit copy for maximum legality. So if you just want to play the game... PSO:BB using their modified client / server setup is a good way to do it... plus it looks nice in HD. There are other servers besides schthack, that's just the one I used way back in the day and they're still around.