During the final weeks of November, I began playing Metal Gear Online, which is included with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots; also available separately in Japan. At first, I decided not to play it because my PS3 is another room (Wireless = Fail), but after re-adjusting my router, I went ahead and gave it a try.

I had a lot of fun playing MGO over the week before Thanksgiving, but that fun came to an end when a player appeared to not have liked me: a random player that I happened to have played with in the few days since I started paying. Ironically that night, I had a post in the draft folder about how much fun I had playing MGO, a part in which I will include here:

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been playing Metal Gear Online–the first (online) multi-player Metal Gear game. Not the first, but merely a “sequel” to the first Metal Gear Online that was released with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistance that was discontinued a couple of years ago.

I have never played the first Metal Gear Online, but this makes up for it. Some of the maps in MGO are based on actual areas from Metal Gear Solid 3 (Groznyi Grad), and Metal Gear Solid 4 (Middle East), as well as original maps. The modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Sneaking Mission (where players get to play as Snake), Base Capture, and Rescue (where players rescue GA-KO, Sunny’s Duck-Shaped Egg Timer from MGS4).

Perhaps I shouldn’t have thought about speaking of it so soon. The room I was a TDM (Team Deathmatch) rule on the Vamp: Beginner, and it was a very good room–too good in fact that the player in question came in 45 minutes after I arrived.

Before the first full game with the player, who I will call “Z”, and another player named “N” who also came in suggested to kick any “laggers” that appeared when playing. Z suggested that I was kicked; at first I thought he was saying hello as he said my character’s name… that was actually a request.

We played on a small map with a dark, urban setting, which was the very first map I played on when I began MGO and learned to get really good at. I came in third place at the end of the first round. In the second round, I didn’t do pretty good, but 5th place was fine with me. I didn’t have any connection problems in both rounds.

Before the next round began, N told, in all caps, to “KICK ALL LAGGERS!”. Z quickly made the notation to “kik” me. I was got upset when “kick this player?” appeared on the screen. With no keyboard, all I could say was “sry”.

I was very pissed off, of course. It wasn’t just me that was kicked: about 6 others was removed for having a low ping bar. But Z in particular seemed to didn’t like me–and I had half a ping bar before I was removed from the room. I have always been nice to anyone I meet in an online game, but this player seemed to only care about himself.

The lagging issue in MGO is mostly blamed toward cheaters, aka “Glitchers”. While I have no idea to do such a thing, it appeared he used the issue as an excuse to get rid of me because he thought he wasn’t a very good player (I actually did kick his butt a few times in previous rounds when I first ran into him).

If he wasn’t in the room and I was kicked anyway (without being pointed at publicly), I wouldn’t have made a big deal about this. I also have played dozens of games where the game is evenly matched: between Full-Pingers and Half-Pingers, and never had a noticeable “technical” problem–except when the “Glitchers” were actually running rampant.

Being very furious about this, I brought this to Konami’s attention. A day later, I got a reply back from them saying that “it’s beyond their control to take action against such issues” and I should avoid playing with the player again–which it’s a bit hard for me to do.

What am I going to do now? Simple: Just add both of these players on my Block List and play in the Automatching lobby from now on (which I probably should have done from the beginning). Even with the Automatch lobby, there would be a low chance of me running into Z again, but if I were to get kicked by anyone else (privately), I might not see them in a while.

However, after giving a lot of thought, I’ve decided Metal Gear Online isn’t worth the time anymore. MGO is a huge step forward towards an online Metal Gear (Solid) game that fans have wished for for a long time, but it doesn’t live up to expectations.

As I write this, my only character is Level 2. Very soon, I plan to get to Level 3 and quit for good. I’m not quitting just because a [kid] didn’t like me (or for whatever reason that’s NOT a “serious” connection issue), but I intend to return to World of Warcraft and explore the new Northrend content just in time for the Holidays.

In closing, I would like to thank Konami and Kojima-sensei for making a wonderful game that would eventual lead to a [separate], entirely new game for MGS fans to enjoy at the same time. But apparently, there’s still a lot to be done. For now, I’ll just stick to MMORPGs where I can get kicked for lagging automatically, instead of kids telling me where I can and cannot play for a little problem that often blamed for something totally different.

[Screenshot Source: IGN]