METAL GEAR MONDAYS: New MGO Beta Content!

Hi all! Welcome back to Metal Gear Mondays! It’s certainly been a busy week, and once again, we’d like to take a second to thank you for all the great compliments and feedback from our previous installments – and of course, your enthusiasm for all that is Metal Gear!

We’ll pick up where we left off … As many of you know, gameplay of the Metal Gear Online Beta for the PLAYSTATION 3 is well underway as of the time of this post – please see the last bunch of Metal Gear PS Blog posts for full details on the Metal Gear Online Beta program and content to date.

First, we’d like to clarify, once again, because we see people still asking about this – Metal Gear Online comes with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. It is not a separate product. Metal Gear Online is the online multiplayer component of MGS4. We will be expanding MGO over time through new downloadable content (DLC), such as, maps, weapons, skills, and much more.

MGO is not a paid subscription service, you can play online totally free right out of the box – we know some of you thought there might be some payment because of the last step of Konami ID registration, but that is to confirm your identity for future potential microtransaction content updates (you don’t have to register any payment info right now anyhow). There is no payment necessary to play, and – again – that is for future potential microtransaction content updates, when that content is available, should you want it.

Good news – for those of you who might not have yet received a Unique Product Voucher Code (UPVC) to download the MGO Beta client, there are still a few opportunities to obtain one from the very limited batch of UPVC’s being given away now through our promotional partners at IGN, Games Radar, and the Mad Gamer Network – and some of you PS GAP members should have a special surprise in your inbox too J. Please carefully follow the instructions on our partner’s sites for your chance to win! Again, this batch of MGO Beta UPVC’s are available in an EXTREMELY limited quantity, so don’t wait, hurry and register now!

Next, we are happy to announce NEW content for the MGO Beta is LIVE NOW!

We have included one new map Midtown Maelstrom

This is a part of the Middle East stage in MGS4. This consists of some main streets and alternate routes. Numerous alleys are in between buildings, and are dark, narrow, and very confusing.

Next, we have released a new gametype rule, Sneaking Mission.

In this rule, there will be one character and two teams in the game. Snake, Red team, and Blue team. Snake’s mission is to collect a certain number of dog tags, by having other players stunned or held up. Red and Blue teams’ mission is to defeat Snake certain times or defeat more players in the opposing team. If more than 10 people are in the game, another player may play as Snake’s mini robotic sidekick Mk. II, to assist the Snake player. If you are playing as Snake, you have many of his incredible abilities available to you – such as the camouflage!

There are some other random things about MGO and the MGO Beta that we’d like to address:

You may not have noticed, but in the MGO Main Menu, you can access the Community Site right from in game. You can also access it here http://mgo2web.konami.com/us/community/ from a PC/web browser at any time. You need to have created a character to access the site. Once inside, you can manage and view your friends, clan, profile, stats, blog, and there will be many other features introduced over time. Additionally, you can post feedback in the forum, and this is really the best place to get your MGO feedback to us (yes, we do also try to read all the comments here at the PS Blog and elsewhere – and, I’m sorry, I wish we had time to respond to each and every one – we try to address as much as possible in these posts).

Another issue is it seems some of you have had issues activating your mics – please make sure you have connected your USB/Bluetooth mic correctly via the PS3 system settings. If you have, then simply hold down the select button in-game, and you will see a message appear that your mic is on as well as a mic activity status message with your name (if you’re speaking), if you are in a lobby you will see a flashing mic indicator next to your name.

Please also try out the training modes in game thoroughly, as they can be helpful for newcomers and veterans alike. Here you can learn the intricacies of CQC, weapons, movement, and just about any other gameplay question you might have. There are also extensive options in game for tweaking your controls (e.g., inversion, camera speed, weapon shortcuts, etc), ui, and much more – please be sure to take some time to set up MGO exactly how you like!

Lastly on MGO, to add a friend, you want to do a player search by their character name (not Konami ID or Game ID), which are case sensitive (e.g., Hideo and hideo could be separate characters). Please note, your friend must be logged into MGO at that time to appear (otherwise you’ll get a “not found” error). To check up on your friends, just go to your Friend List inside the Personal menu. Your added friends will appear here, and if they are online, it will show what lobby they are in too (if its unranked and they’re in game, you can join them immediately, if there’s room in their game).

Please don’t forget to check out the latest KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS REPORT from Ryan Payton at Kojima Productions in Japan!

We’ll see you here next week on the PS Blog, for the next installment of Metal Gear Mondays!