I got the game early. Ask me questions (No Spoilers)

Also got the game early and I really like it. I am frustrated at the game right now tho because I wanna visit the brig and some other places at Mother Base and the map does not show where anything is, except general names like "Medical Platform".

Any of you guys who got a hold of it early managed to do the Ground Zeroes save transfer yet? I didn't have a chance to try it before I left for PAX, but wondering if it's active yet. Some people made it sound like that won't work until release day.

Aside from needing to try it out for review purposes, I really want to pull my save in and get a hold of that sneaking suit that transfers in, since my R&D unit is nowhere near high enough level to research the regular one in the item tree. I've found the enemies' ability to see or hear you from a mile away to be absurdly unforgiving so far, and trying the different camo options I have currently hasn't helped much. The game seems way more strict about its stealth than Ground Zeroes, which admittedly was pretty easy, but maybe they're just creating a steep difficulty ramp here to give you incentive to research better gear later on. I only put four or five hours in and did the first handful of story missions before I had to leave town, so maybe all this is a nonissue as you progress. Dying to get home and keep digging in, at any rate.

@brad: From what I've gathered on NeoGAF from people who have it early it uses the TPP servers to pull that information over. (Don't quote me on that) So I'm pretty sure until servers go live you won't be able to do it.

@brad

This is what happens when you try to grab the Ground Zeroes save data. You can't access it or online mode until Konami put up the servers on launch day. I imagine by then you'll have the Phantom Pain sneaking suit anyway. It really doesn't take long to get it.

@brad: transfer doesn't work until servers are up as far as I can tell. Hasn't worked for me this far. I have the first tier sneaking suit and while it dampens your footsteps quite a bit (you no longer have to 'creep' up on guards when crouched) guards can still spot me from quite a distance.

The only qualm I have with the gameplay so far is that the detection indicator is really unclear. Sometimes the white glare remains even after I've clearly broken line of sight.

Remember you can game the R&D - put all your best people on the development team to raise the level, unlock the research, then auto rotate everyone back. Even though your development level will fall down you'll still have access to the items.

I'm not really sure where else to ask this and I'm too paranoid to actively seek out anything on this game until I've seen the credits roll, but is there really just the 2 open areas in the game we've seen in prerelease coverage? If there are other areas I don't wanna know the names (incase there's the equivalent of MGS4's Act 4 in this game), just a number.

@humanity: Even that sounds like a welcome improvement. Having every guard turn around and spot me when I crouch-walk up behind them has been a real pain in the ass, and a noticeable change from GZ.

@teddie: Well, you've seen 3 if you want to count Mother Base.

Strictly open areas: 2 shown so far.

Total number of areas (open and otherwise): 4-5?

@fdl: That sounds totally fine then. MGS4 spoiled me with environment variety so I'd be a little bummed if it was just desert/jungle stuff. I actually forgot MB was an actual area you could walk around/do stuff in after playing a bunch of Peace Walker this week.

@mr_misery: Haven't played The Phantom Pain yet but the cutscenes are skippable in Ground Zeroes so I imagine they will also be skippable in The Phantom Pain.

I think if the glare is still showing they are suspicious of something and might come to investige?

@brad: You just have to nudge the stick halfway forward to do the slow-walk. It takes a bit getting used to but in a way it makes you appreciate the sneaking suit that much more later on when you no longer have to worry about that.

Overall the upgrades offer a lot of quality of life improvements, like binoculars that let you know the stats of the soldiers. Hot tip: the upgraded night vision goggles are really helpful in seeing enemies from far away and you should always, ALWAYS bionic punch the last guard at a guard post just to hear that Six Million Dollar Man sound sample.

@mosdl Yah I assume it means that they're suspicious of activity in that direction, but it's really unclear unlike other games that have used a similar system.

@chaser324:

thanks!

Not spoiling anything but DAMN the opening of this game is sooooo AWESOME!!

Been playing quite a bit but waiting now I think till release as I want to experience all the online functionality but tempted to just keep on doing missions arghhhhh

Are the mission handlers as chatty as the guy in Ground Zeroes? I forget his name but the guy who would talk to you during the mission/side ops I found incredibly annoying because he just wouldn't shut up, replaying missions was especially aggravating. Now the missions in GZ were short and I replayed the hell out of them until I got 100% so it was something that was partly unavoidable hearing the same thing over and over, but there were times where I was like 5 minutes into the mission already, crawling along my belly and he was still spouting nonsense at me.
Is it still that bad? Are there any mission handlers really?

@humanity: @mosdl yea the glare will indicate the enemy who kind of saw you is still investigating the position that he saw something strange at. so if you move away and still see the glare it doesnt mean hes following you or still seeing you but that hes investigating the position you were in still

@zolroyce: Its only annoying when im trying to play music tapes and they talk over it ARGH!!!! Damn you Kaz let me play BOWIE!

@humanity: oh yeah I've pulled it off cleanly, I just find it unnecessarily tedious to have to move that slowly. I'll fast track the suit ASAP

The Pre-load is live for PS4. If you've got it preordered on PSN restart your PS4 and it should start to download.

@brad: I've only played GZ. But the key to not being seen generally is just staying low; there's really no camo mechanic like I'm MGS3 or 4. Always be crawling if you're afraid that someone will see you.

It's also like AC in the sense that bushes and shadows will make you harder to spot. But again, this is just the experience I have from GZ.

@demoskinos: Is it only preloading 4.5 GB for you as well?

@marc: The 4.5 GB is the minimum you need to launch the game. Most larger PS4 titles do this they will download the minimum amount needed to launch the app at that point (assuming the game isn't locked on preorder like MGSV) you can play the game while the rest of it is still downloading. It continues to download after the 4.5 GB though. If you go to the game after the 4.5GB installs press options and then go to "information" it will show you the progress of the rest of the download.

@demoskinos: Perfect thanks for the info!

It's gonna suck if their servers are down on day 1 and you can't import your save. I have no idea why you would have to be online to import a save file.

I've been playing a lot of GZ lately to get ready for TPP, and guards definitely turn around if you "crouch run" up to them from behind. The cure for this is to just hold your gun out at them as you do it, as you'll hold them up before they get the chance to turn around. Then you can just tell them to get down, and that's the longest neutralization option available (aside from just killing them, of course). Holding up seems like the best course of action, in GZ at least.

I got the game early, too. Wishing not to spoil anything, while they don't spell it out, I think it's incredibly obvious what's going on with the bandaged dude.

@sunbrozak: That's what I was thinking of. Oops!

You really won't need any of those things from the import at the start of the game, maybe with the exception of the sneaking suit but the missions are incredibly easy in the beginning compared to GZ. The people you rescued will come in handy but only after you unlock several parts of Mother Base which doesn't happen for a while.

Excuse me. No Hideo, no sale.

Can you play as Snake without a ponytail?

I got the game on Thursday and I'm about 30 hours in.

I'm posting to say I am NOT ashamed of my words and deeds. In fact, the explanation is so hokey and benign that I have to wonder why the hell he said that. By saying that, he built it up to be this grand revelation, but no, at a certain point Ocelot's like "Here's the explanation. Weird, huh?"

@lucien_lachance: Honestly, all of his tweets are badly translated. And a lot of them probably sound a lot different in English than he intends them to sound. But he did essentially say "when you know the reason, your evaluation of the character will change".

He also said it like, 3 years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if his explanation for the character changed since then.

Another question: how is the script written? In particular Snake's lines in the tapes. Basically I just want to know if there is stuff like this, cause it always makes me laugh.

@shinboy630: He says almost nothing. The tapes are hardly codec calls. He did repeat a word at one point though, and I got pretty excited about it.

@ttthrasher: I wonder what his stats are going to be like.

@redhotchilimist during the Phantom Limb mission when you rescue Miller and he asks "c'mon, I've been waiting all these years for it, 'kept you waiting huh?' c'mon just say it" and Snake doesn't actually say it I was pretty bummed.

• Is using the prosthetic arm as a weapon unlocked from the "start" (i'd guess you'll get it somewhat immediately after the hospital stuff)?
• How does the "most story is told via cassette" actually work? Is most of the story set actually before most of the gameplay stuff? Will the tapes be recordings of in-between mission stuff the game "skips" over?
• Are there missions with time-limits?
• Are Fulton Balloons as plentiful as in the official gameplay videos?
• How much can you do with creating emblems?

You know what, nevermind, just got the Collectors Edition from the mail...already at work though...but i'll be able to answer CE related questions later (i'll be home in about 7 to 8 hours)

@frybird: Well to get you ready I can answer some of that stuff.

You get a basic prosthetic arm ability from the start and then need to research a quite expansive upgrade tree that culminates in a typically Kojima-ish ability.

A ton of story gets relegated to the tapes. Cutscenes show very broad strokes of whats going on, and then the tapes you get fill out all those details.

You start off with 12 fulton balloons and then can research to upgrade that to 24 and so forth but at any time in the mission you can call for a supply drop and get more balloons.

The Emblem editor is pretty decent. 4 layers, outline and fill colors, rotation, sizing, placement. You unlock emblems through gameplay.

@humanity: YES! I actually stopped for a couple of seconds hoping to hear him say it.

@decibel: Huge let down! Why didn't he say it??!

Hey, uh, ProTip: There's something I just happened upon that no one told me to do that led to some CRUCIAL story stuff. I'm pretty sure you can miss this entirely.

1) Construct a medical platform. (EDIT: Actually, I think Miller does this for you.)

2) Do the side op where you extract the old Mother Base member.

3) At some point after doing those things (not sure when), explore the medical platform. You will have no incentive to do this as Mother Base is empty and lifeless, but go ahead and do it. Look for a door with blue lights that you can go into. There's another door inside with a button. Press the button.

@kasaioni: I guess? He also said she was designed to be the antithesis of female game characters, and when you think about that, it actually makes sense why he thought Quiet would be a good idea. How I imagine it went was, he saw all these game characters wearing impractical, revealing outfits and thought to himself, "In what situation would an outfit like that actually be practical?" But there are two problems. One, that's not an antithesis. An antithesis would be Samus, or even Meryl. What he has there is a justification. Two, the character of Quiet was revealed just when feminist critique of games was picking up steam in a real way. If Quiet existed in MGS1, there's a decent chance people would actually love her. That's not to say that Quiet is a feminist character, cause she's not. What I'm saying is games are in a different place than they were 10 years ago.

There's an easter egg associated with that. If you press triangle/Y, when Miller asks you to, he will in fact say it. This is coming straight from the guide (of which my copy arrived earlier today).

16 Hours left... *waiting intensifies*

@lucien_lachance: WHAT THE FUCK?!?!? That is some major story shit that is pretty well hidden! I wonder how many of these are in the game.

@sunbrozak: Oh man.. how many other things have I missed??

It's weird cause on motherbase everyone salutes you and stands at attention but pressing the action button doesn't do anything. Is there a way to salute them back? I feel bad that my response has always been a judo throw to the floor.

@lucien_lachance:Btw, In the trailer you see quiet being tortured. Did you come across that cutscene?

@decibel: Not yet. Do you know if it's some you can miss?

@humanity In true Metal Gear fashion, there seems to be a lot of inconsequential mechanics that are hidden from the player. For instance, and without giving away how to do it, I'll say that you can make the horn on your head grow larger.

@decibel: @sunbrozak: @humanity: So that's what it was. I did get him to say it, but only on my first escape attempt. Thought it was because I was being chased and ran faster.

@sunbrozak: Fuck dude how do you know all this stuff?!