Phantasy Star Online Made a Generation of Gamers Insane - And It Was Amazing

You can still find relics of the past on GameFAQS, PSO-World, and more of people absolutely pulling their hair out while hunting Heaven Punisher, Frozen Shooter, Psycho Wand, J-Sword, and more. What was it about this retro Dreamcast, Gamecube, and Xbox game that made people go absolutely insane while looking for a rare weapon that they really didn't even need?

Well, the drops rates were legendary. Let's make a drop rate of 1/299593? Sure, why not. Let's make an item drop from a rare spawn of an enemy that only spawns 3 times during quests. Oh, and let's make the item not a guaranteed drop. Sure. Let's make them need multiple items that are all rare drops to make one rare item. Then let's make them need to kill 100000 enemies with the item just to make it even more rare.

All this would make anyone a minor celebrity on their server if they even just had one 9 star rarity item. It was instant status symbol and instant conversation piece in world which was new to so many people - the world of MMOs.