Metal Gear Online abbreviated MGO, is a PlayStation 3 exclusive online multiplayer spin-off of the Metal Gear series produced by Konami. Τhe "startup pack" of MGO is bundled with regional versions of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, but also received a standalone release in Japan on July 17 2008. The name Metal Gear Online is common with previous online components for Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.As of November 4, 2008, Metal Gear Online has surpassed 1,000,000 mem
bers. To commemorate this occasion, Konami has issued a bonus of 10,000 reward points to all characters who logged in from November 25th to December 9th.MGO premises up to 16-player online tactical warfare. Each player creates a character by irrevocably selecting a name, sex, race and voice. Further characters need to be purchased separately.
A character's prowess in the field is denoted by three main characteristics: grade, level and "animal rank". A character's grade ranges from A+ to ROOKIE, based on his performance in Survival and Tournament modes. A character's level ranges from 0 to 24 and fluctuates based on the score difference to other players at the end of a round, following a proprietary rating system. Animal ranks are emblems, awarded based on relevant statistics. For instance, frequently injecting enemies with the Scanning Plug (colloquially known as 'stinging') will lead to the Bee rank, while using ENVG (Enhanced Night Vision Goggles) for a specific share of overall play time grants the Owl rank. Each character can only be assigned one active rank, and an inner rank hierarchy prioritizes them. Once a rank is achieved, it remains in the character's rank history.
Characters can enhance their abilities by equipping skills. These range from the commonplace, like Assault Rifle+ that decreases reload time and recoil, to more complex, like Mοnomania which essentially turns bullets into tracking devices. Skills level up when pertinent actions are performed by, or at, the character. Out of a maximum of 4 available skill slots, each skill occupies at least 1 slot, while higher levels of a skill or special skills can occupy up to 3. This warrants balance between the level and number of chosen skills.
Rules of play
MGO provides several gameplay rules, fitting to both team based and solitary fighting styles.
Deathmatch pits players against each other. The winner is determined by most enemy kills when the ever decreasing kill counter or time reach zero. The player with the highest score is visible to others through SOP.
Stealth Deathmatch also pits players against each other, geared with stealth camo. A three level alarm informs players of enemy proximity. Eventually, the game area begins to constrict, leaving all outside it
to suffer damage. There is no respawning, so the battle continues until one player is left alive, or until time runs out.Team Deathmatch groups players into two teams, with each death decreasing the team's remaining tickets. The team to first deplete the other's tickets, or with more tickets when time runs out is the winner.
Capture Mission has teams racing to capture and hold within their goal area assigned targets, KEROTAN and GA-KO, for a cumulative period of 30 seconds. With both items in one team's goal area, the timer runs twice as fast, whereas if they are divided among goal areas, the timer is reset for both teams.
Rescue Mission premises the attacking team acquire GA-KO and place it in their goal area, while the other team defends. As there is no respawing in this mode, a team also wins by killing all the enemy team's members.
Base Mission is structured around capturing and defending small areas scattered across the map. A team wins by seizing all bases, or by having captured more bases than the enemy team when time runs out.
Team Sneaking demands from the sneaking team, equipped with stealth camo, to bring either KEROTAN or GA-KO to their goal area, while the other team defends the items. Another win condition is to kill, stun, and (only for the attacking team) hold up all enemy team members. Whenever a stealth soldier is discovered, all stealth camo is temporarily rendered non operational.
Sneaking Mission features two opposing teams, Snake, and with at least 12 participants, Metal Gear Mk II. Snake wins by collecting, through body searches, three dogtags, with each life lost resetting the count to zero. Teams claim victory by killing Snake a set amount of times, or by having scored more opposing team kills when time runs out.
Interval allows players to engage in battle with no repercussion to their statistics or skill leveling. A time bomb can be collected and passed around players to liven up the pace.
Metal Gear Online is region locked, meaning that players must be in the same video game publication territory to play together. As a result, players in Australia can only play against other Australians and European players, possibly resulting in lag. To overcome such issues, it's common practice to title matches according to the country of desired participants.
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