Deathloop Disaster

A worrying new trend has recently emerged in MGO, a little easy piece of glitching called "Deathlooping" (shortened to "DL"). It is a glitch which is used almost exclusively in Survival and Tournament modes, and goes as such:

• 
  
  NubSox2 kills CoolDood93
• 
  
  NubSox2 shoots at CoolDood93's corpse's head
• 
  
  CoolDood93 dies immediately upon respawn (And loses DP from the lost weapon if DP is on) and the kill comes up on the killfeed.
• 
  
  The second kill does count towards any stats.
• 
  
  Lather, Rinse, Repeat

However if you know you're about to be deathlooped, you can prevent it by pressing select at the weapon selection screen before you spawn, then press start and spawn as normal.

I'm unsure as to where and when the glitch originated, but it is likely to have started on the NA server where there is a far higher incidence of glitching than in EU. However it's usage has become very high only in the last two weeks or so and is now widespread among the the EU MGO community, with several prominent players getting banned by Konami for it and more openly admitting to using it. There have been lots of complaints about entire teams using it against them, although it's ease of use means many players retaliate in kind.
However unlike several other forms of glitching, Deathlooping is relatively easy to prove with video evidence since it's usage is obvious. Reporting players to Konami for using the glitch has seen considerable success, for example flyboy95 and Zzzonked bans likely being due to video evidence. This spate of bannings might put off a lot of players from attempting the glitch, but hopefully Konami will soon do an emergency update to remove it.*

In Other News:
The longtime EU clan Peace of Mind has disbanded, after a large roster change in the last few months, such as some players moving to other clans (Yasmin, *Yuki*, NeoN-KnighT, Manna, Sephiroth, Front Line with most of the roster getting absorbed by 2TM and FS) and others leaving MGO.

Another legendary EU clan to disband recently was White Element, who went from strength to strength only a few weeks ago to rapidly losing most of it's members to the new 2TM and FS. However there are still four players left including it's leader Raging_Snake91, and WE's clan notice reads "White Element Will Rise Again". I hope this prophesy comes true, WE have been a strong stable clan for as long as I can remember.

A new clan know as Dark Matter was briefly created by DARKLIQUID and XRAYKARMA with Tauro and Red Eight 8 also on the roster, but as of the 27th this clan has been disbanded an replaced by the more familiar DeathRainsDown, a clan which has been around sporadically since April. While Red has admitted that running a clan is difficult, the strength of the first four players (all ex-2TM) combined with the amount of clanless players available due to recent disbandings leads me to believe that this will be the most successful incarnation of DrD.

The Kings of 2vs2 Showdown was played last week, with MGOForums Doubles Tournament Champions Mlopes and Red Leopard challenging MGOForums Kings of BB CAP Tournament winners METE0RAX and Solid007. The scores were:

AA CAP - 2-0 to METE007
SS RES - 2-0 To METE007
TT RES - 2-0 To Redlopes
GG TDM - 2-0 To METE007
Congrats to all involved, matches were good so check them out here, courtesy of MGOFs favourite new recorder Gayle San

Finally last weeks poll results to the question "Final Story or To The Max" were

I only did that poll because it was the topic of the last post, not because I particularly cared about the results ^^

PS. Sorry about the long wait, this stuff is time consuming you know!
PSS. Also apparently I have to give mention to some darkie who's name escapes me =|:3

*Nevermind this is Konami we're talking about

To the Meltdown

What happened?
It appears that one of EUs top clans, To the Max (aka 2TM) has very nearly dissolved. The clan, which has dominated the EU clan scene for nearly the entire lifetime of MGO2 in one form or another, has as of this morning been reduced to three members (Zzzonked, -_[M]îGrÂì[N]_- and *Agenda*).
The various ex-members of 2TM have largely been absorbed by 2TM's co-leader TheWhite Mantis' new clan "Final Story", whose roster is essentially 2TMs best players+ Neon-Knight and Yasmin of "Peace of Mind".
The eventual rebellion of 2TM against it's leader Zzzonked has been predicted by some for a while, but whether Final Story will continue to dominate in the way that 2TM did (untill recently when PBO was acknowledged to have regained top spot) is yet to be seen.

How did it happen?
Why? I tell you why...
Okay wait I'll tell you why later...

Update (18.08.09)
It turns out my prediction about future of 2TM was quite wrong indeed. Intitially, after making amends with most members, Zzzonked joined Final Story. However this was only for a short stint as, fed up with the sporadic glitching and lagging that several members are purported to have used as well as arguments within the clan, he left to make the "new" To The Max, with bUnnY and flyboy95 in tow.
The clan, with a new (not so great) emblem of a black dragon on a white background, is currently in the process of recruiting, having already recruited several members of White Element (Arben2, HeavenSoldier X, The_Fear91 and Dell Girl ) among others to bring the total roster to 9. Meanwhile, minus the two previously mentioned members, Final Story has seen some strong new recruits and has 14 players in it's roster including the "whothehell?" Claire_hawk.
It seems that the surprising strength of the new 2TM, and the stability, at least so far, of Final Story lends itself to a good healthy rivalry between the two newest big clans on the scene. However what is certain is that the reign of 2TM in MGO EU is over, it's roster split in half, and so evening out the competition to currently reigning PBO.
Or is it certain? The multitude of old allegiances, friendships and enemies between the members of both clans makes the future quite unpredictable. Will they be seperate for ever? Will one destroy and dissolve the other? Will they merge? Who knows, lets give it a month or so.

Btw who are Inbred and Tila?

Other News
The identity of "sudden pro on the scene" HaO was confirmed by his longtime friend and ex clanmate XRAYKARMA to be, not "Pendulum" (as he LIED to me about >:C) but the fresh out of retirement headshot connoisseur -Flash0ver-, having retained his affinity for zeros instead of o's. After a short stint in White Element, Ha0 is now in Final Story, with many of his old clanmates (-Flash0ver- was a 2TM first team regular for as long as I can remember before he got randomly* kicked).
The similiarly named Pa0, said to be his apprentice by some, and a "Ha0 bumlick" by METE0RAX, is Me-Ox.
Another "reveal", or at least to me and a few other people, is that Comeback Kid is NerD. Or maybe it isn't a new reveal, maybe I'm just slow and retarded <[o.O]>
Finally I have found out who Inbred is, it's Fisher aka ____ from Valhalla, a player that Zzzonked has always rated highly.
Also White Element finally got a new, good emblem: a Cartoonish letters WE, to replace their "Pink bunny in a KJPro style" emblem, although I still think the "Element Logo" emblem was the best!

*as in I don't know the reason, not C4RNIF3X picking a random member to say byebyes.

PS I will eventually update this with the story of 2TM's downfall!

'Appy Anniversary!

To celebrate the one year anniversary of MGS4 and Metal Gear Online, Konami has gifted us with a new update (1.33)on the 16th and a few cool new features. Since the NA region had previously not received the 1.32 update, this was their first update to introduce the nerfed Mk.23 and subsequent damage reductions of SMGs and handguns.

The most important is probably is the introduction of a new map; Icebound Inferno.
This is the map on which you fight Sniper Wolf in Metal Gear Solid, and Crying Wolf in Metal Gear Solid 4, and is a large blizzard stricken desolate map, with plenty of open spaces, large towers and incredibly low visibility once the storm kicks in. Personally I liked II because of it's different "feel" from the other maps, with lower intensity warfare and lots of sniping aswell as the ability to sneak effectivley with white or snow camo. However the map lends itself quite well to camping, and without Monomania the storm makes it almost impossible to see who you're shooting.


Secondly was the introduction of the championship lobbies, which has helped to increase competition among top clans while helping lower tier players to get berets and rwd points.

AUTOMATCHING also saw a well needed update: The prize for every round was increased from 5 rwd to 20rwd. Also every 3rd or so match from AUTOMATCHING lobbies would be a "REWARD MATCH", where each player on the winning team would receive an extra 200rwd at the end of the macth. DeathMatch games resulted in an extra 200rwd for the winner of each round, or for all players in a draw. However this was exploited for "farming", where players "skipped" a map untill a REWARD MATCH came up, then left their characters to idle until the round ended, resulted in a winning of 440rwd every 10 minutes. Konami altered the system on June 23rd 2009 to have all matches be REWARD MATCHES, with a lower prize of rwds for both winning an participating.


Among other minor gameplay updates such as weopon damage balancing, Old Snake was introduced as a playable character outside of SNE, albeit without his "invisibility" effect of the OctoCamo, resulting in the high popularity of Snake vs Liquid games (since they are the most balanced special characters relative to each other)


Finally Konami announced a special "MGO Anniversary Tournament", a tournament which turned out to be a 20 ticket TDM Tournament played out on the four SCENE maps (HH, II, RR and OO). Many of EUs elite entered, however the lobbies were full within a few hours and not all of the best teams were able to play. The "EU Division" had only one lobby, and it was won by a 2TM consisting of The Whitemantis, TheEnd, flyboy95, Mandator, Zzzonked (C4RNIF3X), REDWINGS who beat Fight or Flight. The prize was a white gasmask for the ingame character akin to the one Psycho Mantis wears. (The WhiteMantis won a white Mantis Mask, how appropriate) which will be awarded at a later date. However the tournament was criticised for being unfair due to it being a "campfest", with most matches ending with fewer than 5 kills, and some on a draw (which are abitrarily decided). The list of NA winners was posted here




In other news:

• A new clan, Skyper Rifle, was formed by Exodizzle, and has quite a few power players such as MeteoraX, Red Leopard, Captain-Cod etc
• Revolution disbanded and a new clan, Atari, was formed by Toy Doll and seemed to have absorbed most of Revo's old members. This clan then dissapeared when Revo reformed led by RM11.
• Revo's previous leader, DiscoMad, joined 2TM along with new recruits -Kurosaky- and bUnnY over the course of the week
• The 2TM tribute trailer, made by "Alex94", was released, followed by "Chapter One- CAP". Yeah it's not very good, but the logo at the end is quite nice.

Berets, Bosses and Blood Bath

Beret-for-Pay
Recently there has been a bit of a furore over the selling of Tournament Berets (uniquely coloured berets that can only be had by those who have won an in game tournament) by 2TM's C4RNIF3X, now known as Zzzonked. The scheme was an offer of an tournament beret for €15, or €5 for every 10,000 rwd points made. This is done by giving C4RNIF3X your GAME ID and Password, which he'll then play on in a tournament with the rest of 2TM.

While intitally the idea was met with praise for it's business potential, quickly things turned sour, and soon the thread was locked and the situation reported to Konami. However like they say any publicity is good publicity and word quickly spread about the beret offer. It is unknown how many berets have been sold but C4RNIF3X has been reputed to have made over €500 from the scheme, including the purchase of his own MGO ID by an unknown player for a supposed €300. MGO can now be considered a part time job with a pay rate of a €1 per hour.

Big Boss Emblem attained
As of the weekly update today, Tuesday 2nd June, Raging_Snake91 of White Element on the EU server is the first and only player to acheive the Big Boss emblem. His weekly stats are unrecorded since they were reset after the update, but he has a rough estimate of them. I'll post details on the requirements as soon as SaberBlade cracks it.
More information can be found here.


Kings of BB
MGOForums' latest tournament plays on the recent popularity of 2vs2 Capture on the map Blood Bath . It was initially abandoned due to lukewarm reception and the large amount of effort involved, but it was restarted and signups started on May 1st. While there is no GB ladder (it was deleted due to inactivity in mid-May) MGOForums' record with tournaments means it looks promising. The current Roster and matchups can be found here. In keeping with the theme of prizes being clothing of famous MGO players, the prize will be a thong worn by RevolutioN's RM11. No really.

Update
The tournament was eventually won by 2TM's Solid007 and Skyper Rifle's MeteoraX, who beat 2TM's Fawzi and «F¢rarrï»