Article originally posted on MGOLeague.com
For those that don't know, I was lucky enough to visit the Konami LA studios last week to play MGO3 and here is my write up from MGOLeague.com.
MGO Community day: Konami LA Studio - 01/10/2015
This trip happened so quickly for me. It was organised over the space of a few days and I seemed to spend most of it travelling between the UK and LA. So it was a bit of a whirlwind to say the least.
I had no idea who was picking me up and taking me to the studio or when they were arriving so I just sat in the hotel lobby during the morning and luckily managed to spot a couple of people wearing MGS t-shirts. We all got on straight away and eventually spotted a big black SUV waiting outside with a little Konami sign in the window. I think he was a little pissed that he'd been waiting for a while outside and he didn't seem too impressed when I jokingly told him he needed a bigger sign. British sarcasm did not translate well it seemed.
After a short drive we arrived at the LA studios. The doors were locked, curtains covered the windows and there was not a single person to be seen. We buzzed through to what I assumed was a reception desk and were told to walk around to the back of the building. Not sure why we couldn't go through the front doors and were shuffled in through the back. The conspiracy theorist inside of me assumed they were doing something that they didn't want us to see (Chapter 3?!). Though in all honesty it was probably just a security thing.
We all worked our way around to the back of the building and could see the Youtube offices with their staff chilling out having a BBQ, then I noticed Robert Peeler (MGO Community Manager) and his team in the gardens and he waved us all over. The team gave us a fantastic greeting and spent a lot of time chatting with us, making sure that we were well fed and comfortable (free bar!).
After all the chit chat, the Konami PR lady came over to us and got us to sign non-disclosure agreements and explained what information we were allowed to release to the public. I'm not really sure why we were only allowed 1 hour to release certain information on social media, but then again, I know nothing about PR. Maybe it was to keep the hype train rolling. We were told that we were able to ask as many questions as we liked, however, all discussion of Hideo Kojima and Kojima productions was completely out of bounds. She was the loveliest person there but I'm pretty sure that she would have killed me on the spot if I ever said the K word. "Y'all gonna be killed if y'all mention Kojima". That may not be an exact quote by the way, aside for the "y'all".
We were then taken inside to a comfortable seated area and given a brief presentation on MGO3. I'm not sure if we were all listening as we'd just walked past the playing area and we could see 16 consoles all set up with the MGO start screen ready and waiting for us. Robert showed us a video that hadn't been screened to the public and talked about something else but I couldn't wait to sit down and start playing so my attention to him dipped a little (I'm so sorry Robert!).
Finally we were then told it's time. We were allowed to play MGO3! Robert pointed us over to another free bar and a huge traditional "gamer snack" selection, so I stocked up and took my place at station 10. For the rest of the day, my name was "MGOCommDay10".
We kicked off by messing around with the character and weapon customisation and once we were done, we were ready to play some Bounty Hunter. Team Deathmatch was never my favourite MGO2 mode, as my clan mates can testify, so I was never particularly hyped about Bounty Hunter when it was announced. TDM with a bit of fultoning thrown in as a novelty, yawn! How completely wrong I was....
This game had 16 people immediately hooked! The last minute of the game was swaying backwards and forwards between teams Liquid and Solid. Key fultons on high bounty players changing the game in the blink of an eye. All 16 of us shouting and screaming as a few fultons went up in quick succession. We had the game in the bag and then one of our top bounties went flying up in to the air in the last few moments and we lost the game. I had a look at the devs as the game ended and they were watching our reactions. Their faces were beaming just as much as ours were. You could tell that they were over the moon that they had created a game which 16 people had picked up and immediately got in to.
As the afternoon went on, we tested out the different maps, game modes and other customisable options. We were then given the opportunity to tweet about the game to the public for 1 hour. Certain restrictions were made on what we could say, again I'm not sure why but I'm no PR guy so what do I know? One thing I would like to make clear though, was that we could be 100% honest with our opinions. If we didn't like it, we could say so. If I wanted to pull my eyes out rather then play another moment of MGO3, I could have told you so. Luckily I don't think that was the case with anybody in the room.
Immediately after tweeting out on the MGOLeague Twitter feed that I was playing the game, I was bombarded with questions. I think within a few minutes I had 12 questions about text-chat. Was it appearing in the game? I asked Robert if I could tell people and it was a straight "no". After a brief chat with him where I mentioned all the tweets about it, I could see his face drop and his shoulders dip a little. This man had clearly been worn down by the infamous text-chat question. "I've known about text-chat not being in the game since last October...." he said in a tired manner. Even Robert was silenced by Konami PR it seemed? Then he cracked. "You know what? Just say it". I immediately delivered the news to you all before he changed his mind and the Twitter and forum outcry began. I didn't quite notice the extent of the reaction until I got home a couple of days later.....
The rest of the afternoon was spent playing the game even more until we were told that it was time for us to take on the development team. Easy. I racked up way too many hours on MGO2, my aim was feeling sharp and I had just enough food and vodka & cokes inside of me to be on the top of my game. We gathered our team of 8 to decide the game parameters and discuss tactics. Black Site, Bounty Hunter, 99 tickets, no special characters. We could not fail.
So we spectated as the first team took on the devs. I watched as they killed, stunned and fultoned every single player over and over. At one point I saw one of them equip a card board box, dive down a sandy hill and wipe out 3 separate players. Only in MGO would you see such a ridiculous tactic! The devs completely destroyed them, 91-0. We briefly thought about changing game modes but we new it would be futile. These guys having been eating, sleeping and breathing this game for a very, very long time. We never stood a chance.
Regardless, we stepped up and gave it our best shot. I played cautiously as I knew what they were capable of. I found myself a nice area on the map that I was familiar with from Ground Zeroes and I managed to rack up a good few kills on them, getting a bounty of 12 on my head. They knew exactly what I was doing and what I'd be worth to the score if I was fultoned. Before long I found myself being flanked by pairs of the opposition, they wanted that bounty and they duly got it from me. All it took was a small bit of teamwork and they immediately opened up a comfortable lead. We had no problems picking up kills on them, even stuns, but getting that fulton balloon in the air was the difficult part. It must feel fantastic having a buddy in transit to pop that balloon before you get whisked away. Tactical Team Operations indeed....
We spent the remainder of the afternoon playing the game before they totaled up our scores for the day and dished out some prizes. Perfect Stealth picked up this awesome print for coming 1st, while myself and Sean got MGSV collector's editions for 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
That was it, they disconnected our games and kicked us out. Luckily we were only kicked out to the decked area in the gardens for dinner. A lovely selection of Japanese cuisine was presented to us. It was served a little too cold for my liking, but it's a video game studio, I can't blame them for the cooking!
Robert and a few members of the team joined us for the meal and we all spoke about MGO and had the opportunity to ask questions about it. I really enjoyed this part, getting the chance to hear them talk about MGO and realising how 100% passionate they are to making the game a success. Their days and nights appear to have consisted of nothing but MGO for a long time now, I've noticed this previously having received tweets and emails from them in hours where they should really have been sleeping!
Robert gave us an insight on what it is like working with Hideo Kojima and as you would have guessed, he sounds like a perfectionist. Kojima would see something cool that he'd want in the game, devs would tell him it's not possible, but Kojima would insist on them finding a way to do it. I'm not sure how many of these Kojima ideas got rejected though!
Hot topics were really the lack of text chat, clans and survival. They were all answered logically and I could understand why these things were omitted, even if I didn't agree with them.
Text chat: as I mentioned briefly in a tweet, has been left out as they did not feel that it was needed considering how much more advanced communication methods are on the PS4 compared to the PS3. They really want people to utilise the voice chat which I can understand. I personally was never a huge fan of text chat and I rarely used it. Though that was likely because I was usually in a Skype call with friends so I really didn't need it. A lot of people will not be in that situation so I can really see why it will be missed. It was also mentioned that text-chat contained a lot of trolling, something they did not think adds to the gameplay!
Clans: this was said to have been left out as a lot of games rely on websites/third-party websites to organise clans and groups, I'm not a huge online player so I'm not sure what other games use this method. Luckily we all have MGOLeague.com to help with this!
Survival: I personally loved this feature as I always knew that 5 of my friends would always be on at a particular time and we could party up. They did not like the idea of forcing people to play at a particular time which probably makes sense with a freshly launched game. Maybe this view will change if player counts begin to dip in the coming months (as a lot of online games tend to do).
The idea of introducing clans and survival in the future did not seem to be ruled out. Text-chat on the other hand is as good as dead. Angry Tweets, petitions or holding the dev's pets as hostages are unlikely to change this. So mic up!
Our day was coming to an end and we knew that our car was waiting outside from 9pm onwards to pick us up. The person next to me whispered about the car being there and we agreed to keep quiet about it so we could stay as long as possible. A less savvy person then let slip about the car and we were swiftly told it's time to get going. We said our goodbyes, took a few photos and agreed that we will all be returning for the pre-launch of MGO4. They laughed, but I wasn't really joking.
I thought about doing a review score for the game, but I don't feel you can really rate an online game without playing it for more than a week. Though I'm pretty sure it's going to keep me hooked for a good while and I trust the developers to keep the game well maintained. One thing for sure is that those hoping for a shinier version of MGO2 are going to be disappointed, which is always understandable as nobody likes change! This game is a almost a complete rebuild. If you thought the changes between MGO1 and MGO2 were big, then the MGO3 changes are on a whole other level. All the maps are new, all the game modes are new, 99% of the weapons are new. The game is instantly accessible to new players, but in a good way. If you felt untouchable on MGO2, your ego is going to be dented in this game as you find new players CQC stunning you and then fultoning you out of the game.
Though despite all of these changes, this game still feels like MGO. It is clear that these guys have huge confidence in their ability to build an online game from scratch, they even had a confident arrogance in how they spoke about the game which I really liked about them. I also sensed maybe a stubbornness in their approach to the game. They've have thought of some fantastic new ideas and they want them implemented to get "their version" of MGO out there rather than releasing a COD/FIFA style copy and paste of previous game versions. Sometimes change is good.
All in all, I can't speak highly enough of how Konami and their staff treated me. I don't think I could quite explain my gratitude to them for giving me to opportunity to visit their studios, try out the game and chat with them. This man was one of the most helpful as I had the sun in my eyes when playing and he positioned his afro nicely to stop the glare!
I also have to give a shout out to the people that I met there, especially Sean, Tyler, Denise, Perfect Stealth and TricksSavvy who were at my hotel. Top people! I am hugely grateful for the experience and will never forget it.
-Payno
*All information in this post is my own opinion and is based on a currently unreleased version of the game
For those that don't know, I was lucky enough to visit the Konami LA studios last week to play MGO3 and here is my write up from MGOLeague.com.
MGO Community day: Konami LA Studio - 01/10/2015
This trip happened so quickly for me. It was organised over the space of a few days and I seemed to spend most of it travelling between the UK and LA. So it was a bit of a whirlwind to say the least.
I had no idea who was picking me up and taking me to the studio or when they were arriving so I just sat in the hotel lobby during the morning and luckily managed to spot a couple of people wearing MGS t-shirts. We all got on straight away and eventually spotted a big black SUV waiting outside with a little Konami sign in the window. I think he was a little pissed that he'd been waiting for a while outside and he didn't seem too impressed when I jokingly told him he needed a bigger sign. British sarcasm did not translate well it seemed.
After a short drive we arrived at the LA studios. The doors were locked, curtains covered the windows and there was not a single person to be seen. We buzzed through to what I assumed was a reception desk and were told to walk around to the back of the building. Not sure why we couldn't go through the front doors and were shuffled in through the back. The conspiracy theorist inside of me assumed they were doing something that they didn't want us to see (Chapter 3?!). Though in all honesty it was probably just a security thing.
We all worked our way around to the back of the building and could see the Youtube offices with their staff chilling out having a BBQ, then I noticed Robert Peeler (MGO Community Manager) and his team in the gardens and he waved us all over. The team gave us a fantastic greeting and spent a lot of time chatting with us, making sure that we were well fed and comfortable (free bar!).
After all the chit chat, the Konami PR lady came over to us and got us to sign non-disclosure agreements and explained what information we were allowed to release to the public. I'm not really sure why we were only allowed 1 hour to release certain information on social media, but then again, I know nothing about PR. Maybe it was to keep the hype train rolling. We were told that we were able to ask as many questions as we liked, however, all discussion of Hideo Kojima and Kojima productions was completely out of bounds. She was the loveliest person there but I'm pretty sure that she would have killed me on the spot if I ever said the K word. "Y'all gonna be killed if y'all mention Kojima". That may not be an exact quote by the way, aside for the "y'all".
We were then taken inside to a comfortable seated area and given a brief presentation on MGO3. I'm not sure if we were all listening as we'd just walked past the playing area and we could see 16 consoles all set up with the MGO start screen ready and waiting for us. Robert showed us a video that hadn't been screened to the public and talked about something else but I couldn't wait to sit down and start playing so my attention to him dipped a little (I'm so sorry Robert!).
Finally we were then told it's time. We were allowed to play MGO3! Robert pointed us over to another free bar and a huge traditional "gamer snack" selection, so I stocked up and took my place at station 10. For the rest of the day, my name was "MGOCommDay10".
We kicked off by messing around with the character and weapon customisation and once we were done, we were ready to play some Bounty Hunter. Team Deathmatch was never my favourite MGO2 mode, as my clan mates can testify, so I was never particularly hyped about Bounty Hunter when it was announced. TDM with a bit of fultoning thrown in as a novelty, yawn! How completely wrong I was....
This game had 16 people immediately hooked! The last minute of the game was swaying backwards and forwards between teams Liquid and Solid. Key fultons on high bounty players changing the game in the blink of an eye. All 16 of us shouting and screaming as a few fultons went up in quick succession. We had the game in the bag and then one of our top bounties went flying up in to the air in the last few moments and we lost the game. I had a look at the devs as the game ended and they were watching our reactions. Their faces were beaming just as much as ours were. You could tell that they were over the moon that they had created a game which 16 people had picked up and immediately got in to.
As the afternoon went on, we tested out the different maps, game modes and other customisable options. We were then given the opportunity to tweet about the game to the public for 1 hour. Certain restrictions were made on what we could say, again I'm not sure why but I'm no PR guy so what do I know? One thing I would like to make clear though, was that we could be 100% honest with our opinions. If we didn't like it, we could say so. If I wanted to pull my eyes out rather then play another moment of MGO3, I could have told you so. Luckily I don't think that was the case with anybody in the room.
Immediately after tweeting out on the MGOLeague Twitter feed that I was playing the game, I was bombarded with questions. I think within a few minutes I had 12 questions about text-chat. Was it appearing in the game? I asked Robert if I could tell people and it was a straight "no". After a brief chat with him where I mentioned all the tweets about it, I could see his face drop and his shoulders dip a little. This man had clearly been worn down by the infamous text-chat question. "I've known about text-chat not being in the game since last October...." he said in a tired manner. Even Robert was silenced by Konami PR it seemed? Then he cracked. "You know what? Just say it". I immediately delivered the news to you all before he changed his mind and the Twitter and forum outcry began. I didn't quite notice the extent of the reaction until I got home a couple of days later.....
The rest of the afternoon was spent playing the game even more until we were told that it was time for us to take on the development team. Easy. I racked up way too many hours on MGO2, my aim was feeling sharp and I had just enough food and vodka & cokes inside of me to be on the top of my game. We gathered our team of 8 to decide the game parameters and discuss tactics. Black Site, Bounty Hunter, 99 tickets, no special characters. We could not fail.
So we spectated as the first team took on the devs. I watched as they killed, stunned and fultoned every single player over and over. At one point I saw one of them equip a card board box, dive down a sandy hill and wipe out 3 separate players. Only in MGO would you see such a ridiculous tactic! The devs completely destroyed them, 91-0. We briefly thought about changing game modes but we new it would be futile. These guys having been eating, sleeping and breathing this game for a very, very long time. We never stood a chance.
Regardless, we stepped up and gave it our best shot. I played cautiously as I knew what they were capable of. I found myself a nice area on the map that I was familiar with from Ground Zeroes and I managed to rack up a good few kills on them, getting a bounty of 12 on my head. They knew exactly what I was doing and what I'd be worth to the score if I was fultoned. Before long I found myself being flanked by pairs of the opposition, they wanted that bounty and they duly got it from me. All it took was a small bit of teamwork and they immediately opened up a comfortable lead. We had no problems picking up kills on them, even stuns, but getting that fulton balloon in the air was the difficult part. It must feel fantastic having a buddy in transit to pop that balloon before you get whisked away. Tactical Team Operations indeed....
We spent the remainder of the afternoon playing the game before they totaled up our scores for the day and dished out some prizes. Perfect Stealth picked up this awesome print for coming 1st, while myself and Sean got MGSV collector's editions for 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
That was it, they disconnected our games and kicked us out. Luckily we were only kicked out to the decked area in the gardens for dinner. A lovely selection of Japanese cuisine was presented to us. It was served a little too cold for my liking, but it's a video game studio, I can't blame them for the cooking!
Robert and a few members of the team joined us for the meal and we all spoke about MGO and had the opportunity to ask questions about it. I really enjoyed this part, getting the chance to hear them talk about MGO and realising how 100% passionate they are to making the game a success. Their days and nights appear to have consisted of nothing but MGO for a long time now, I've noticed this previously having received tweets and emails from them in hours where they should really have been sleeping!
Robert gave us an insight on what it is like working with Hideo Kojima and as you would have guessed, he sounds like a perfectionist. Kojima would see something cool that he'd want in the game, devs would tell him it's not possible, but Kojima would insist on them finding a way to do it. I'm not sure how many of these Kojima ideas got rejected though!
Hot topics were really the lack of text chat, clans and survival. They were all answered logically and I could understand why these things were omitted, even if I didn't agree with them.
Text chat: as I mentioned briefly in a tweet, has been left out as they did not feel that it was needed considering how much more advanced communication methods are on the PS4 compared to the PS3. They really want people to utilise the voice chat which I can understand. I personally was never a huge fan of text chat and I rarely used it. Though that was likely because I was usually in a Skype call with friends so I really didn't need it. A lot of people will not be in that situation so I can really see why it will be missed. It was also mentioned that text-chat contained a lot of trolling, something they did not think adds to the gameplay!
Clans: this was said to have been left out as a lot of games rely on websites/third-party websites to organise clans and groups, I'm not a huge online player so I'm not sure what other games use this method. Luckily we all have MGOLeague.com to help with this!
Survival: I personally loved this feature as I always knew that 5 of my friends would always be on at a particular time and we could party up. They did not like the idea of forcing people to play at a particular time which probably makes sense with a freshly launched game. Maybe this view will change if player counts begin to dip in the coming months (as a lot of online games tend to do).
The idea of introducing clans and survival in the future did not seem to be ruled out. Text-chat on the other hand is as good as dead. Angry Tweets, petitions or holding the dev's pets as hostages are unlikely to change this. So mic up!
Our day was coming to an end and we knew that our car was waiting outside from 9pm onwards to pick us up. The person next to me whispered about the car being there and we agreed to keep quiet about it so we could stay as long as possible. A less savvy person then let slip about the car and we were swiftly told it's time to get going. We said our goodbyes, took a few photos and agreed that we will all be returning for the pre-launch of MGO4. They laughed, but I wasn't really joking.
I thought about doing a review score for the game, but I don't feel you can really rate an online game without playing it for more than a week. Though I'm pretty sure it's going to keep me hooked for a good while and I trust the developers to keep the game well maintained. One thing for sure is that those hoping for a shinier version of MGO2 are going to be disappointed, which is always understandable as nobody likes change! This game is a almost a complete rebuild. If you thought the changes between MGO1 and MGO2 were big, then the MGO3 changes are on a whole other level. All the maps are new, all the game modes are new, 99% of the weapons are new. The game is instantly accessible to new players, but in a good way. If you felt untouchable on MGO2, your ego is going to be dented in this game as you find new players CQC stunning you and then fultoning you out of the game.
Though despite all of these changes, this game still feels like MGO. It is clear that these guys have huge confidence in their ability to build an online game from scratch, they even had a confident arrogance in how they spoke about the game which I really liked about them. I also sensed maybe a stubbornness in their approach to the game. They've have thought of some fantastic new ideas and they want them implemented to get "their version" of MGO out there rather than releasing a COD/FIFA style copy and paste of previous game versions. Sometimes change is good.
All in all, I can't speak highly enough of how Konami and their staff treated me. I don't think I could quite explain my gratitude to them for giving me to opportunity to visit their studios, try out the game and chat with them. This man was one of the most helpful as I had the sun in my eyes when playing and he positioned his afro nicely to stop the glare!
I also have to give a shout out to the people that I met there, especially Sean, Tyler, Denise, Perfect Stealth and TricksSavvy who were at my hotel. Top people! I am hugely grateful for the experience and will never forget it.
-Payno
*All information in this post is my own opinion and is based on a currently unreleased version of the game