Hi all! Our Metal Gear posts are attracting so much attention that we’re popping back in ahead of schedule to answer some of your questions off the regular Metal Gear Mondays schedule.
To start, we have been getting reports that some of you are receiving partial digit UPVC’s Metal Gear Online Beta on the “Metal Gear Saga Vol. 2″ DVD inserts. We are aware of this issue and are working hard to remedy. If you’ve been affected by this issue, please contact us at http://www.konami-data.com/support/. Please be sure to include your partial code, and any other pertinent details (like a return email address, etc). We thank you for your patience.
Second, as some of you may have noticed, the download of the MGO Beta client is now available. Carefully following the instructions you received with your UPVC, you can go grab it. Once it’s downloaded and installed, and you hit the main menu, you’ll notice to proceed you need to sign in your PSN account. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see that there is an update that must be downloaded and installed. From there, the next menu is where you can sign up for your Konami ID/Game ID, which are required to play Metal Gear Online. You can also sign up for a Konami ID/Game ID at http://id.konami.net at any time using a web browser on a PC as well. Once you have signed up for your Konami ID/Game ID, and input it into MGO on your PS3, you can select the option to save the login and password and just login directly in the future without having to input it again.
Following that, until gameplay begins on the 21st, you will just receive an error if you try to sign in to play MGO right now.
As mentioned in the previous posts about Metal Gear Online and Konami ID, the Konami ID/Game ID will be used to offer community and other features with Metal Gear Online, similar to some other popular multiplayer online game web communities, except in this case the web community is directly integrated into the game client which allows for some special functionality. As you use Metal Gear Online, you will see how the PS3 web browser is seamlessly integrated into the experience, and then of course, you can go and access the community when you are away from your PS3 as well, using a web browser on a PC. We’ll reveal more about the community features of MGO at a later date.
Now we’ll just dive directly into some of your questions previous posts:
I_Love_New_York asked: Can we play this game locally once it is downloaded or is it only played through online?
@I Love New York: You must sign in to play Metal Gear Online. There is no local play option.
darkiewonder asked: Any of the Konami folks will be playing in the BETA as well?
@darkiewonder: We sure will!!! We may try to arrange some matches with you all or something like that… Stay tuned!
Sheen asked: Upon downloading the Beta on the 17th, what can the player do? Would I be able to tool around the character creation settings and all that before I play? I’d like to do that beforehand.
@Sheen: Thanks! You can set up a Konami ID/Game ID through the MGO client/PS3, or can do so right now at http://id.konami.net, otherwise character creation and of course gameplay will not be available until the 21st.
bobamuknunbabo asked: When will you take pre-orders for the Gunmetal Grey MGS4 PS3 Bundle? Where would you be able to do so? Konami America?
@bobamuknunbabo, and everyone else who has been asking: We really appreciate your excitement about the gun-metal grey “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” Limited Edition PLAYSTATION 3 Hardware Bundle. We will be revealing more information about this very soon, please stay tuned!
lawman3092 asked: Is there any mic support in the beta or in the starter pack coming with MGS4?
@lawman3092: Absolutely! Mics are supported by MGO!
Thanks everyone! See you Monday!
i cant log into the game either, says password or game id isnt reconised. and i know it is right.
For the uk version of the beta it was meant to have went live 30 mins ago at 24:00 (cest) which is an hour ahead of uk gmt.
i knew after hours of finally getting registered with kinami id portal that logging into the game wouldnt work when the servers were meant to have went live.
Least im not alone with the problem, any other gamers in the uk having the same problems?
@nhytfahl (and everyone else)
It should be live now. Since 11pm BST (I’m in the UK) that’s 10pm GMT which is 2 hours behind CEST.
I’ve managed to get to the main menu. But when i try to start a game it “disconnects me from the server” and takes me to the main menu.
I know this is probably because its busy but I’d like to know if other people are having the same problem so that i don’t have to check my internet settings!
Thanks mad.matt.666! Very helpful, especially the time tidbit!
@nhytfahl:
That’s the gazillion dollar question! Matt may have helped a little with that, too.
Error 2007:ffffff etc.. disconnected from server.
Anyone else getting this?
jameslabanks
It wont even recknise my game id or password and i know they are correct, also replied to the confirmation email on friday night,
It should be reconising my id and password, anyone else gettin the same error code?
@Cwyq #300: Nope, not even on Castlevania. Never played it. When all my friends were fiddling with their NES, I was busy breadboarding an Ad-Lib compatible FM sound synthesizer card for my Apple II +. My games were Ultima and Wizardry, then Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Wing Commander, Privateer. Didn’t get a console until the PS2. Can’t recall ever owning a Konami title.
As for closing the beta process … given what’s happened this time around, it might be wise to narrow the field down just a little bit from “everybody who put in a reservation at GameStop” to a *slightly* smaller test group …
jameslabanks, I get “Unable to connect to the server” here in the US, wifh a code that does not even have the same format as yours, much less, hex characters.
It is noteworthy that I now and at first got this error immediately, but for a about an hour 5 hours ago, it took about 15 seconds to get the error. Hmm…
@ johnny77v
I had that at first but kept retrying and it worked. Try rebooting your PS3.
Basically its gonna be a pain trying to get in tonight.
I can see this site turning into an unofficial IT helpdesk for MGO!
jameslebanks, this could be a place for great info. We could use someinformation from Konami peeps at this time!
Highly unprofessional to say the least… You guys should have anticipated this kind of run on your servers… Still cant log in after finaly been able to register a konami ID (00.46 CEST)…
@ LiquidMetal14
It’d be nice if Konami could help but that’s not gonna happen if the last few days are anything to go by.
@ Cwyq – I’ve been getting the same error you’re getting but after a couple of trys i can get past it. Its the 2007:FFFFFF error thats stopping me from starting a game though.
Anyone got in yet?! (Stupid question to ask!)
@nhytfahl #308:
Alas, not just GameStop, even; mine is from BestBuy.
To my previous, it IS formatted the same, just different hex, and the word “the” is not in it (if that matters :,P )…
Aaaahh, Apple. I remember programming in Applesoft Basic on the IIe machines. I think I still have that floppy. Memories…
The exact error I’ve been getting is:
Disconnected from the network. Exiting the game. (2007:FFFFFF9D)
I’ve been getting other errors but have been able to get past these. Can’t get past this one though.
So, the Aussies have access to the server, at least. That’s a good sign, I’d say. Seems like they are working on the regional access today (yesterday for some).
*low, raspy voice* Soooooooonnn…
i donno if ppl are still having trouble with their game id and stuff but i think this will help until they fix the page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYnq_r46kIo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYnq_r46kIo
i keep getting the same id or password nor reconised error, or unable to log or connect to server (080B:00000001) or something like that.
what a pain in the arse
This is incredible for such a high profile game to have so many tech problems.
For several days I have tried to download the update and have only reached 33% this morning as I keep getting disconected from the server.
Why not make the update available through the PSN store and give me a chance to play the beta I paid to enjoy before the actual game comes out.
Hmmm … apparently the run is now on the game servers … I was finally able to get a Konami ID registered using the two-tab method previously detailed in FireFox 2.0.0.12 on FreeBSD 7.0.
Guess I’m not cancelling my pre-order just yet. I hope this game is worth the days of hassle I put in … Konami has two weeks to impress me enough to not cancel that pre-order.
An interesting thing happened when I booted up my PS3 and started the MGO app: I got a pop-up that looked like a PS3 operating system message saying it couldn’t contact a server, and that it was a DNS error. It disappeared too quickly for me to see which server it was trying to access. Anybody else see that? (All my other online apps are working fine.)
On login attempt, I’m getting “Unable to connect to server.(0901:FFFFFFE0)”, similar to what others have seen.
My best guess at this point is that the first four digits are some kind of server ID, and the rest is a four byte error code.
Also, if I quit the game after the error, and then start it up and try again, it makes me re-enter my game ID and password, even though I set it to “Save your ID and password (Auto Login to next session).”
–>Cwyq and Big Boss: This is the kind of thing that the companies I did devel and testing for had a web form that the beta testers could input that information into, including their login ID, so that we could correlate them with the server logs, build trouble tickets for them and keep the beta testers informed — and yes, often it would be as simple as putting a blurb on the form that said “we’re aware of this, it’s doing this for a lot of people, we’re working on it, try back in an hour”.
That was SOP for every beta I participated in from the devel/in-house tester side, as well as for every beta I’ve participated in from the beta tester side … except for this one.
nhytfahl, you do realize the single player campaign is what has everyone in an uproar and hyped to the roof. Don’t jump to conclusions or say things at the height of emotion. The game will be great, let them iron out the kinks in this BETA.
@jameslabanks
im having the same problems as you now, i finally got logged in and to the main online menu screen and when i clicked on start game i got logged out and the same error message as you have been getting :(
What an embarrassment
uh… if youre in the US trying to login, its not gonna happen until at least midnight. people in the uk are just now being able to log in.
There’s “beta” and then there’s ‘nothing actually works’.
I’ve just been locked out of my account for 3 failed logins… with the right password. Other people may wanna be careful of that if they’re being told their login info is incorrect.
I thought the Home beta was bad, but thanks to Konami, this now takes the cake. Thanks for screwing it up big time.
maybe youre being impatient. if it doesnt [DELETED] work, walk away for an hour while the server has time to boot up and try again. if not, try in the morning. jeez. its not a big [DELETED] deal to have everything run perfectly on the first second, with a million people trying to access it at once. you have two weeks to play it, so chill the hell out.
Dear Konami and Sony,
You have no idea how much this is affecting the sales of both your system and your game, holy hell. I’ve been on many message boards and many people are thinking about selling the system, and others (not hardcore Metal Gear fans) are thinking about not buying the game. I realize this cluster*#$@ is not sony’s fault, it probably isn’t even KP’s fault, it’s just Konami, but both of you are losing sales due to the inconvenience of your crappy online services. I, of course, will stick with the Playstation 3 and I’m greatly looking forward to Metal Gear, and ultimately I don’t care about sales numbers. But if your screw ups give the public the leverage to ask you to stop screwing things up, so be it.
Peace.
@ 324 325 326
you need to chill out, seriously.
not everything has to work at the first second, especially with millions of people trying to access it at once. if your stuff doesnt work, walk away for an hour and come back. still not working? wait til morning. you have two weeks to play this thing.
and 3 people crying that they cant get into the beta immediately after its available because the servers are still firing up is not going to hurt sales. rational people understand that computers/servers cant boot up instantaniously, especially not servers of that magnitude.
so chill out, seriously. its just a game.
god dam it, I took today off work so I could play the beta and have been up for 2 days trying to get an konami ID. When I finally get one the beta wont let me play (in New Zealand)
psn: ninja5897
Konami ID: ninja5897
Game ID: mogoszewski
I’m guessing it won’t work for everyone until 12:01am PST. Which would suck for everyone.
@LiquidMetal14 (and the others with whom I have been having this discussion): How good the game itself is, in it’s (more or less) finished state doesn’t really matter.
Nobody’s going to buy this game on it’s technical merits. How good the game is technologically is irrelevant.
People buy things because of how they *feel* about them. I never really understood that until I owned my own business, and experienced for myself that it doesn’t matter how good my product is, if I don’t take care of my clients and, more importantly, my *potential* clients.
To those of you who already have a longstanding relationship to this franchise, you already have strong emotional ties to it. You’re going to buy it anyway, because it’s Metal Gear. It could totally suck, and you’d probably still buy the next one, because it’s Metal Gear.
Step outside that for a moment, and see it from the perspective of someone who’s never played this series before, and has no emotional attachment to it, positive or negative.
That’s where I started, when I put in my order at GameStop. When I got the phone call offering the beta, I thought “this could be interesting”, so I took them up on the offer.
Since that point, my experience with Konami has been nothing but painful.
Beta or not, the only thing I have to base my future buying decision on, is how well (or in this case, poorly) the company manages it’s relationship with me.
If they want my money, there will have to be something *very* worth my while in the gameplay to make up for the extraordinary hassle and total lack of any comment from Konami.
I didn’t expect everything to go perfectly smoothly, it never does, even in production software, but this has been WAY over the top in the way of hassle, errors, and lack of customer care.
Konami’s refusal to update the beta test community they recruited does not inspire a great deal of confidence in me, and indeed makes me leery of giving this company my money.
That said, I expect this game to be technologically superior. I’ll reserve judgement on UI and playability until after I’ve played it a bit. The big question for me now, is will the gameplay make up for the bad faith they’ve developed with me, through what I consider to be their gross mis-handling of the player community (and especially the new player community, who are basing their buying decisions either on their experience or on the experience their friend told them about.)
And like it or not, this is a make-or-break title for the PS3, because of both it’s exclusivity and it’s promise to *finally* showcase the capabilities of the PS3’s hardware architecture. Face it, so far there hasn’t been a game for the PS3 that didn’t look as good or run as fast on the Little White Box of Many Red Rings.
If Konami knows what’s good for their long-term profits, they’ll start letting their beta testers know WTF is up, in a timely manner.
no because some people CAN get online and play but it says there are only 78 people online at the moment
Issue like this are the reason xbox live continues to whoop a**. Why dont they just make it simple screw the freakin konami id. Why is it even needed. Its not needed at all. An attempt to stop a few bad guys has left a bus full of flaming innocent bystanders again. Its not worth it sony. Drop the id.
A prime example of what I mean in #331 would be meaningful error codes. How about “The servers for your geographic area are not available yet. Please try again at midnight your local time”, or “There are too many concurrent connections to the server, please try again later”, instead of these cryptic hex messages that don’t mean anything unless you have a Kojima tech handy who can decrypt them for you.
@nhytfahl #319:
I just imagine that they realize that there is not too much that needs to be said to end-users that have invested little to nothing in a product that is in its testing phase, except as it relates directly to the product itself and only after a baseline of operation and quality has been established. Your work experience only applies to issues, to which a minimum expectation has been conveyed from your company to the end-users. We have no such baseline, just personal expectations.
So our holding of Konami responsible for our disappointed expectations of them is not going to sit high on their list of urgent matters, especially since this is Konami of Japan getting complaints from us “westerners” (cultural differences and perceptions).
This beta is for the entire entity that is MGO. As such, if aspect of it are not working right, then good catch! That’s the whole point. They literally will not rush to fix something that is in it’s beta. Now, if this were happening during the June release, then you should expect to get some level of reparative support, because there is, then, an actual product, which we would have purchased and expected to do what it advertises, not doing so.
Remember: we are not yet “consumers” of this product, because it was not “sold” to us (pre-order money is toward the June release game). Again, it is a beta.
As a beta, also realize that way more information will go from the testers to the dev team, than vice versa. They have no obligation to fix what’s wrong in a beta for our approval of the beta. They only need to have it fixed by the time it all goes gold/live. There’ll be a version/beta history that we MAY have the good fortune of seeing, but you’re in console-world now, computer-man (read: don’t expect it).
They hear us just fine and it would be nice if we heard them more, but for them, it’s SO not mandatory and likely not cost-effective.
Two questions: Were your companies expressly SW companies, and were your testers employed (paid) by those companies?
@gamer: It was easy enough with Burnout: Paradise. First time I tried to go online, it said I had to register with their servers, and to please press the X button to use my PSN info. Been seamless ever since.
wow I finally got my Konami ID…I was using Firefox under Ubuntu (gutsy) and I couldn’ t get pass the first page of the registration process. Once I entered my country and birthday it then say that the page had been deleted due to inactivity or something akin to that. I booted up windows and used firefox and I was able to complete the registration with nary a hiccup.
Anyway I still won’t be able to play the game since I can’t seem to download the patch. I left my ps3 downloading the update for almost 2 hours and it was still at 0%!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What’s the deal?
Also…will we able to buy extra content for MGO through the PS store or will we have to use the konami website? It seems to be the latter since the terms and conditions we agreed to talk about payments…but still I hope it’ll be through the PS store.
For everyone that agrees that, not only is this beta process not going properly, but that it’s so bad that they no longer want the final product, regardless of the issues being fixed:
GREAT, glad your experiences have made you feel that way. But we don’t want to read about it anymore, so please just leave it all (including this forum) behind and don’t look (or type) back.
For those, who agree that this is bad but we’re privileged to be here FOR FREE to make it better for June (and get a stat jump on the masses. Hehehe):
THANK YOU, and see you online, kickin’ @zz and takin’ names!
I love the “This is a beta” defense. Yeah, we know, duh. Now the problem with that defense is that is has so many holes. Of course there are going to be problems, yet the sever problem shouldn’t have been a issue to begin with. Any smart person would see how many people have signed up and made sure that there servers where adequate enough to handle the load and then start the beta. Starting a beta with only a couple servers and some that won’t work is not a smart business strategy.
So stop with the “This is a beta” defense. They should have known this would happen and its kind of stupid on there part that they didn’t get it handled before it started.
So yeah, how can we accurately find problems in the game when we can’t even access this game?
I’m not dieing to play the game, its on number 1 on my list today but it still something that should have been dealt with a long time ago.
@Cwyq: “I just imagine that they realize that there is not too much that needs to be said to end-users that have invested little to nothing in a product that is in its testing phase”
Then perhaps they should not have asked us to invest our time and effort into testing their product for them.
“Were your companies expressly SW companies, and were your testers employed (paid) by those companies?”
I’ve worked as an in-house professional tester for both software and hardware/firmware companies. Those companies both beta-tested with early adopters who, like you and I, got a “freebie” for agreeing to act as guinea pigs.
I’ve also done several software betas as an unpaid early adopter, taking on the converse role that I had previously had as a devel.
So to answer your question, yes, I’ve been on BOTH sides of this equation before.
Granted, this is my first experience with beta testing a console game, so some of the variables may be different — that does not, however, negate the software vendor’s responsibility to keep their testers updated.
So far, Konami has learned from their testers that “it doesn’t work, we can’t get past X”. So far, Konami has said nothing to us in the way of a “try this” or “ok, try it now”.
If they want us to test for them, they really shouldn’t leave us hanging like this.
Regardless of this being a “free” beta, it’s not really “free” is it? We may not have paid money to get the software, but we are investing a great deal of time and effort on behalf of the game. This is still an economic transaction, with responsibilities incumbent upon both parties — Konami agrees to give us software for no money, we agree to test it and report back any issues we find or any kudos we have for it.
For the process to work, the devel team has to make tweaks, change the codebase, and then re-test, to make sure it doesn’t break the same way again.
By not giving us an “ok, we changed something, try it now” cue, Konami is causing us to waste a great deal of time and energy on something that ain’t fixed yet. Not efficient. Not a wise investment of the beta test community resource they’ve spent a great deal of time and money building.
They may not have us on their payroll, but this could cost them more money in the long term than they would have shelled out on a room full of 1000 paid testers.
@nhytfahl:
“Konami is causing us to waste a great deal of time and energy on something that ain’t fixed yet.”
You determine how much time you put into trying it, not Konami. I bet that’s why they haven’t said anything but that the site is down. If you want to keep trying, then good; if not, it’s your choice. It’s not cost-effective to just throw money at web servers when it’s not certain how many people will actually test it the whole time, and since expensive server/bandwidth-overkill is the only real way to make sure this issue won’t happen, then it looks like we might have this issue (and what do you know? We DO). Since you want it to work when you try it, you should wait until the last beta test day for optimal results.
I STILL agree that more info would be very nice and beneficial, even moreso that everything working perfectly all of the time is even better, but I refuse to have a cow over this; there’s too much livestock in here already.
PS: I never ask you on what sides of this thing you’ve been; ’tis inconsequential.
“for all of u who have problems with konami id, its really simple, go online at a time that no one is.. i open my acound like at 11 pm or later and it was really fast.. after trying for the last four days at normal time with out making it…”
This idea makes no sense. Besides, I’ve tried early morning, middle of day, evening, late night. You name it and I’ve tried it. And nothing. No matter how far I get into the process I eventually get the timeout error. I live in California. What’s a good time for me to do it?
@327
We wouldn’t have this problem if we could just use our PSN names now would it? But because they wanted to control this content we have to suffer with it. Konami should not of made this an open beta if they did not have the servers or resources to handle this traffic. In the end, this looks bad for them and the game.
I wonder from where the rest of the world got this insane idea that the “west” 6!tc#3$ and moans too much over what they think is due them and when they should have it, while billions more do fine with much less. I just can’t put a finger on it.
Friggin’ cry babies. Konami owes you NOTHING, and you need not buy a thing from Konami.
Next, you’ll all want to complain to the Pope and file a class action lawsuit at the UN. GEEYAAAD DAHYUM! We need a big bag of baby pacifiers in here!!!
@343 on PSN names:
Agreed, and hopefully they’ll make that change for the live release.
official launches of things go awry like this all the time even after testing. i almost wish this was a closed beta test (and i was chosen to test of course) because then there wouldn’t be all this incessant whining. as for konami not saying anything about it….uh, yes, they have. what you’re proposing is them saying the same thing over and over every hour. they said they’re working on it. who knows what they have to do, but, jesus, patience please. i understand why things have intensive closed beta tests now. i’m very, very glad that PS HOME isn’t being publicly open for beta any time soon after so much closed testing because everyone would be crying all over the place.
Site is just flying for me now. I got my ID in seconds, and I also got one for my friend who is on slower net.
Two ID’s in two minutes. Looks like it’s fixed, if only for a short time.
I’m w/ Big Boss on every word of #346!!!!!!! (Well, maybe “geez, instead. LOL!!!)
@Big Boss:
I try not to tell too many ppl too many details about Home Beta, ’cause I know that when I say that it doesn’t have a particular feature (yet), they’ll go crazy and jump off a cliff. Ppl just can’t handle the truth…