Metal Gear Online: Update 1.02

Oh brother. The first update was hell. Now a second update appears. I decided to give the game a try just for fun even though the start of the beta is tommorow at 24:00. I have found a nasty surprise. Another patch. This patch changes the way the game connects with the servers. Probably a solution they came up over the week so we can finally play the beta. The peer to peer update is at 0 because no one seems to notice the patch. A network error occurs when you try to download it via http. Really konami…I know you came out with a fix but what use is the patch if we can’t download it?

Stay tuned for more.

Edit : Seeds magically appeared now. The patch doesn’t appear to be that big so once some more seeds appear then it will be smooth sailing.

Stealth

The word has come up as something very important as metal gear online comes closer. I’ve been playing much more stealthier on Call of Duty 4. I have been hiding in a room holding my breath and kneeling as I wait my dog to pass. Then the instant he turns around I move from room to room and hide again. My dog looks confused and looks again to the room I was in. He decides I am gone and runs of to search for me. I quickly but silently step over the white tiles of my house and exit my house with victory as I completely stealthed my dog.

Perhaps you might call me crazy but metal gear has been adding a adverse effect to my activities. Perhaps I am just too excited for the game’s release just a month away and the online beta being tommorow. COD4 is what keeps me entertained til then. Cod4 always keeps me well entertained. But I’ve ran out of cod4 steam. Its just not the same anymore. After months of continous playing for hours it gets boring. That is why I need a new game at the house and no its not GTA4. I don’t like GTA4. I detest being the bad guy. I like being the guy in shining armor to come to the rescue of the princess.

I’ve finally finished this months college tests and one more month of classes remain. No summer vacation for me as I’ll take some summer classes to advance faster. I must finish college the fastest if I am to become a videogame designer. My plans to learn programming on my own and learn to create a game have been thwarted by college on its own and I’ve considered more important as a priority improving my art and writing skills. I hope I can start programming soon but there are just so many things I want to do. I want to draw. I want to write. I want to program. I want to 3d design. I want even to play music! I am completely out of my mind and greedy. I surely will have trouble obtaining even one to worry about a whole lot. They are just my ambitions in life more important than anything else. They might be my goals in life.

I am lazy. Yes I truly am lazy. I have been trying to draw but I just get in a foul mood that I can’t seem to get myself to draw. Because of it I spend days without drawing and that not only stops me from improving but also deteriorates my already learned skill. Practice makes perfect. Lack of practice makes mistakes.

I have some plans regarding my drawings as well. If all goes well and I manage to control myself and draw then by summer I will begin the comic of Soul Chronicles. It is based on the same story I am writing but with a different concept in mind. It is the same when you try making a play instead of writing a novel. The media will interact in different ways with the viewer so I might have to chance a few things to fit the manga. This is as well just a scrap comic made as just drawing practice so it shouldn’t be considered as serious material but as a student’s assignment. The scheduled chapter is chapter 1 which introduces the characters and the beginning of what starts as a small quest only to turn into something much more.

If all goes well during that time then I will begin my first flash animation on august. The flash animation will feature a short teaser featuring important parts from all 3 episodes as a effort to learn to use flash. I take great inspiration from my friend Uty-Bacalaito. She is an anime artist who has made some flash works and does digital work daily on deviantart.

I am of course writing on my story as well but have found the current written story inadequate and have started it from scratch. In order to not reveal many secrets about the main characters and let them uncover themselves to the reader I have cut off some parts from the original chapter and will now be featured as memories later on the story. I will soon be taking off the first chapter I had uploaded here so if you are reading this today(which I doubt) and want to look at a early version of my first chapter(which I doubt) then feel free to grab it before it becomes only a memory without existence. Excelryu out.

Metal Gear Online Character Customization

Check out the character customization in action for MGO.

It has been a day since the horrible experience of being minutes close to playing the beta only for the servers to crash from the stress of the huge army of MG fans. Konami also was caught in the surprise as it did not expected such numbers. Had they not done the beta they would have had a angry mob of Gamers up their company demanding to play.

Some were more fortunate than others like this guy on the video who managed to get as far as the character creation screen. After he finished creating his character the server had fallen and he was met with a error. In my taste it would be worst for me if I got that far. To be able to create my character and build a immense excitement only to have it crush the instant I click continue after selecting my character gear and face. Not only that. All his choices, voices and selected gear was lost since the game wasn’t able to send back the data to the servers. The poor sap will have to redo it this friday. If it gets fixed that is. Konami pointed out that its a scheduled time. Anything could go wrong. A certain Murphey’s law says “Anything that could go wrong will go wrong.” Well everything has already gone wrong so please let us play already.

The character creation is pretty expensive and the video wet my appetite. Please understand that this is a beta and only a small portion of the content is featured. There were many people annoyed in other sites from the lack of faces and equipment. They clearly do not understand that this is not the full game and only a test version to test stress on the servers(their test found out the servers were inadequate as you we experienced) Please give konami a break. You will have tons of options at the full game and even more in each expansion. For now, PS3 beta testers enjoy the game. I am very satisfied with the character customization and am already drawing character designs of what character I will use and with what equipment. I suck at drawing soldiers.

Metal Gear Online Beta to April 25

Problems just seem to be Metal Gear Online’s best friend. First printing errors, then id problems and now delays for server crashes. The beta has been delayed to april 25 this friday. What seemed like hours now has become days. It seems MGO is in some big trouble. I do hope they are able to recover because MGO looks like a fantastic game. I want to play it and go all sneaky on my enemies.

I’ve been reading the online manual found on the japanese website translated to english and have learned finally how is the gameplay. You can find the metal gear online manual here http://www.konami.jp/mgo/en/manual/index.html .It is a good manual since it explains controls, gameplay and the overall of what to expect of the game. I was very intrigued by how the game is made and what the options in gameplay are. You can equip yourself with skills which will enhance your abilities on the battlefield. One of the skills is the introduced in MGS3 known as CQC used by Naked Snake. The greatest thing about MGO that sets it apart from other shooters is the SOP system which allows you to synchronize data with your team using the nanomachines in their bodies.

Metal Gear Online Beta Delayed…

My waiting at night was for nothing. It seems my greatest fears were confirmed. If konami had trouble registering simple usernames for people then…How would they fare hosting a game server. Just as with the usernames the server became unstable because of the amount of people. I expected Konami to know with what kind of title they are dealing with in order to count their servers right. I guess they will do the same than with the site. Add more servers….Anyway info of the beta will be given tomorrow and the end date has been extended by 5 days. This is halo 3 beta all over again but with more errors.

Metal Gear Online Beta Issues Resolved

After a shaky week my problems are over. As I reported on my earlier blog post I had received a invalid code together with the metal gear dvd. I found around the internet that the issue had been because of a printing error. This was strike number one for konami. For a error to occur like this was not common but they responded pretty well and provided new keys for the affected. Well most of them. I heard there are still some left without a replied e-mail. Anyway after I inputted the code everything went smoothly. The code took me straight to the download and so I got it.

It seems this beta was really beta like since the problems did not end with the printing error. The second greatest obstacle on my quest of preparation for MGO was….the id registration website on konami. It seems using only our psn id didn’t benefit Konami and so they created not one but two more ids. The first id known as Konami ID is to manage all future game ids for konami games. Since mgo is the only current game from them then its your only option. This usernames might be useful later on on other games. Anyway the second id is the actual id for Metal Gear. But that is not the problem. Creating ids is easy. At least it should had been. The server was completely unstable and kept crashing or was too busy to handle requests. Konami responded quickly adding more servers. But then another error of appeared. After two days the issues were finally resolved and I became ready.

Now that everything has been taken care of and I am prepared for the beta then it is only a matter of waiting. As I speak the last hours go away as the online slowly comes to a expected beginning. Will there even be more problems with the beta aside from simply registering and download? Stay tuned because I will be giving you a hands on experience of the beta.

Metal Gear Online: 9 Unfortunate digits

Today many blogs reported on the availability of the PS3 beta known as Metal Gear online already available for download by following the instructions contained on the metal gear dvd. Many were able to download it and stare at the start screen as they wait for the beta to officially begin this monday 21. But bad luck struck some unfortunate people who only have 9 digits on their ps3 voucher key. All 9 digit voucher keys were useless in redeeming the download. We are missing 3 digits. I am one of the 9 digit cursed. I have sent an e-mail to Konami trying to resolve the issue as the days get even closer towards the beginning of the beta.

My friend was lucky and had a 12 digit voucher code and was able to download the beta and stare at the start screen. Sad. I wanted to stare at the start screen too and then look as it told me it couldn’t connect to server. It is a sad event but I will not give up so easily. I so eagerly waited for this moment to be struck by lightning. I will update my blog reflecting the events of my situation. I hope all goes well and the konami customer support doesn’t has the microsoft customer support curse. I have heard scary tales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 customer support.

MGS4 DVD and Dualshock 3

Today was a splendid day for me as I got word from a friend that the MGS4 dvd finally arrived at our local gamestops. I had heard from some other sources that the dvds were slowly arriving around the United States so it would only be a matter of time before it reached here on Puerto Rico. The dvd brings several videos about the background of each snake and how they developed along the series. It has been 20 years and it finally comes to an end forever. The videos weren’t the only thing it brought. Within the case also came a code to participate on the MGO beta which will begin gameplay at April 21. The download will be available since April 17 but the servers won’t go live til 21.

April’s Solid Assasin Fool

Hello everyone and happy april fool’s day. I hope each of you all is enjoying it as I have enjoyed it to no end. Many websites had their own jokes from deviantart swtching all our avatars for pokemons to gmail creating a time machine and starting a wikipedia war of the users. But none made me laugh than Hideo Kojima’s own april joke. His great Solid Snake on mgs4 sporting a assasin’s clothing. At first I thought he was Altair but after seeing that cigarette I knew it could only be one. The Solid Assasin. You can see the video over here :

Folks do not worry….the jokes are about to end…Just a little more for the day to end.

Nyko Zero Controller Review

Click the picture to see the controller from all sides.

This month saw the release of another PS3 third party controller called the Zero controller. This is the first controller to be released with rumble functionality. Unfortunately the Zero was only looks. I bought the Zero controller today and was deeply dissapointed. The controller had an odd design on the handles which made it feel weird. The analog sticks were too high and too separated from the rest of the controller. My biggest complaint was probably the R1 and L1 controllers and the cheap imitation of R2 and L2 buttons as triggers. The R1 and L1 buttons felt incredibly hard to press. The buttons were just to uncomfortable to use. The triggers were decent but felt short compared to the sixaxis or xbox 360’s controller. It did had some nice touch with blinking lights a feature I believe should had been included on the original sixaxis. The x, triangle, circle and square buttons lighted up with red lights which was another touch. The battery is external which is good since it would mean replacing only the battery when it dies out and it had the option to use AA batteries. The rechargeable battery could be charged with the usb cable. Unfortunately the cons outweighed the pros and I will be returning the controller tomorrow to game stop having it bought it today. I ended up returning this controller the day I bought it and now await the official dualshock 3.