MAG details
 

M.A.G. (Massive Action Game) has been on everyone's radar lately, mainly due to it's claim to support 256-player online gameplay on a console. Some information regarding the title has been leaked, and here it is:

- 2 to 256 Players
- 'hopes' for 30FPS when all the action is going down at all times
- Dedicated servers with new network architectures to help reduce lag
- Streamline matches to reduce need to wait.
- All audio cues (planes flying by, air raid sirens) are actual players causing it or player triggered actions. This can happen in other regions and you can hear in distance.
- PunkBuster quality cheating detection. System tests for things like rate of fire/movement/damage to keep things in check
- First Person view only
- Set 20 years in future, 3 major PMCs bid for war. The power struggle of these 3 dubbed Shadow War
3 Factions, only 2 announced now: Raven(high tech weapons, most trained soldiers on planet. Will appeal to Halo/Resistances fans). Sver(fierce fighters from middle east/central Asia area. Battle harden warriors)
- 256-player Domination mode. Attackers and defenders. Outer layer of defense and inner layer. Once through the outer layer 'hell breaks loose'. Anti-aircraft and radar are vulnerable. If your faction wins alot it gets the contract for that game mode and gets XP bonuses and perks.
- 3 other game modes: Acquisition(128 player escort-style mode. Steal 2 prototype armored transports and bring to extraction zone). Sabotage(64player, control 2 points for X time then a demolition objective is revealed which must be destroyed). Suppression(64 player team deathmatch)
- Customize face, voice, armor.
- No soldier class system, but has a free-form kit creation. Can save 3 different load-outs. Depending on your choice of weapons, it can be told by looking at you so others can tell. Change your load-out to match how the battle is going.
- Snipers can get more than normal XP for killing people in designated areas of importance
- Ranking up gives access to new weapons/perks/leadership positions.
- Recognizes issues with large scale maps and the traveling.
- 8 players in a squad, 4 squads in a platoon, 4 platoons in a company (US Military)
- Certain goals for each squad/platoon etc. Have secondary goals like blowing bridges.
- Veteran ranks can enlist into leadership roles, give orders to their squad, then platoon, then their company(OIC)
- Officer only communication channel to help organize the battle
- Want to be approachable to casual yet have alot of features for the hardcore.
- Developers have been running 256 player tests since Nov. 08 and plans to have closed/open betas.

3-4 modes, made by Zipper, servers by Sony. Do we need to even talk about this any more? lol...

Yea I think socom was bad enough.

Whatever do you mean "servers by Sony"? lmao

Yea, lol its very adventurous and an interesting concept, but its all going to be in the execution. Zipper was never one for listening to player feedback or concerns and Sony obviously only does what is financially beneficial to them regardless of its consumer base. Unfortunate.


Also the only game that has ever done 64 player rooms WELL was the Battlefield series and i highly doubt that MAG can compare to the Battlefields, any of them actually. My 2 cents.

I so want to get my hopes up for this game, but everything about it is telling me to keep those hopes low, it has the potential to be a great game, but I just hope that can pull it off and everything works great (BIG WISH I KNOW)

I am sure you will be able to get online and kill the opposing 128 or so players with 128 of your own.

I would say rent before buy, but I have never done that.

Hopefully they have a demo.. I would like to feel the large scale scenario. Would be fun, but not tactical.

So what are you guys pursuing on 360 these days and the days to come this year ?

This game is just going to be a huge clusterf**k. It would be incredibly frustrating to play publicly. But I can see TONS of potential in it, kinda like what Chenzo and I came up with one night when he was drunk and I was feeding off of his drunkdeas. If there were factions of clans, allies, vs, other factions of clans it could really be a pretty fantastic war. There would be one clan working together as a company fighting to take objectives helping out other clans, clan leaders would collaborate and form coordinated attacks.... who am I kidding that's way too organized for the average gamer, it would never catch on.

We're currently playing CODW@W and looking forward to MW2. How bout you guys?

We are primarily on Socom Constipation but, have a few guys on WAW and KZ2..Leaning towards Fat Princess, perhaps COD Modern 2 or MAG but undecided next move...not looking to promissing other than Fat Princess & Ghostbusters .

I personally just don't see MAG working. Its a great concept but, if other online shooters have so many issues theres bound to be lots of headaches especiALly since we are talking 256 players at once too.

Bugs, Lag, Glitches you name it ...FAIL ?

Im interested in MAG but I really have no clue how it will work in a public setting, people cant even get along without TKing on an 8 man team...

I'm sure they'll have contingency plans for all of that stuff, but let's put it into perspective. Zippers last few games had isses with 8v8, and 16v16 and i dont know how many confrontation has 16v16 i think, but that doesnt work well either from what i'veheard and thats due to sonys servers. Who knows, they may dummy up some cash for servers to make MAG work, but honestly, i dont think the developer has enough if ANY following any more after what happened with Socom that enough people will get into it to warrant the servers from Sony.

Either way, its a wait and see. interesting concept but again, NO ONE has done an FPS with more than 16 players that's worked well since the Battlefield series on the PC which was 64 max and fantastic.

Amen.

The die hard socomers will demand it. The game is just fine a dandy for some...

The concept is a good idea though, will be nice if it turns out for the better and works...

yeah, Ill be trying it for sure...I am very interested to see how it works

Exactly. I would like to check it out for the experience to see if it works.

Let me know cause im all sorts of meh about it. Looking forward to the next battlefield actually

Whether I buy or not will depend on what else is going on in my gaming world at release time. What's depressing is I already know there will be a lot of disappointment involved if I do. So, why would I buy? That's a good question. I should know better by now.

Interesting. A battlefield style game optimized for consoles.

(ALtho, in those shots... did anyone see more than 30 people?)

meh, looks ok on the outside, but we all know that Zipper pretty much kinda fills their stuff with sawdust. Im sure it will be the little details they skimped on to push this out that will alienate the community if it gets one.

I cant see the embedded video, do you have a link?

I see it working just fine in a MASSIVE clan match, but publicly it's going to blow. I say this because it really looks like it would be cool if everyone was working together, I've said this before because I really believe that it exactly how this game is going to work.

This is a good point.

How well are you gonna attack when 123 people that are on yer team want to be snipers and just sit behind the lines.

That always pissed me off in battlefield.

'How come we're losing? I've got 40 kills and 0 deaths.' says a sniper

'cause yer a fucking smacktard, staying behind the lines and NOT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING TO HELP US COMPLETE THE FUCKING OBJECTIVES.'

It looks shiny and I want one. I know. It's just chrome paint and it'll rub off real quick. I can't help it.

I think Zipper is giving too much credit to the character of people that play online, I still cant see how its not just gonna be a big clusterfuck

Yep looks cool, and I'm sure I'll buy it and more than likely dissapointed just like I did with Killzone 2

.......... but you're still gonna buy a copy to check it out right?

oh for sure Tagger, its too interesting not to check out

Once again VERY AWESOME idea the developers sound like they are doing some cool stuff and zipper has always done that, but with the youth and stupidity of the world it's going to go to shit. I really hope that these people I speak of prove me wrong because I've thought about this concept long ago and was really hoping that a company would do it.

HUGE ARTICLE with lots of info here http://boardsus.playstation.com/play...9952#U42189952

Thanks Justin. Sounds promising. The part on bandwidth doesn't ring true to me. I don't know enough to dispute what he claims about non peer to peer and excellent connections to the server. But, there's only so much water in a waterhose at one time. Bandwidth, when it comes to a home connection to the outside world, is a finite resource.

Well what these guys are trying to do is use servers like PC games do I assume. Almost all console games in the past, "Gears of War 2" was the worst, used a players connection as a hosting connection and that player became the server. This was sort of picked at random so if a player with a slow connection was picked, happened way too often, the entire game became laggy. So now I believe they are focusing on everyone playing off of the main server thus minimizing lag and maximizing bandwidth potential as much as possible.

I think on paper its a really good idea.. but IRL it will FAIL.

Conceptually it would be awesome if they could actually pull if off, but there's just no way in hell that PSN can handle the amount of load that this would require on the servers.

Even if they're "DEDICATED" I dont think that would make much of a difference, unless they change their entire network infrastructure to use this new "technology" or what have you.

I dont know... im definetly gonna wait a few months before even considering buying a copy.

Ive learned to stop trusting in anything a Dev promises...

Its not the servers..........its slant 6............the engine is instable and their online interface is garbage.

If nothing else, Killzone 2 proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sony is capable of supplying ROCK SOLID servers.

oh, and Warhawk, as well as REsistance 2 back that up.

If you judge Sony on Socom: Confrontation, you are placing your blame on the wrong group, aside from them picking a psp dev to do a ps3 game.

I see potential in MAG. It has the chance to be a genre defining IP, but only time will tell.

How many times can you rehash 8 on 8 or 16 on 16 with a different IP and stay interested? Whats the point of that?

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I know that the problem lies with socom, and not the servers, because a client patch fixed the framerate (mostly) and 16 on 16 is unstable on 2 maps, and 2 maps alone....Fallen and Urban Wasteland..........

Sony can provide stability beyond a shadow of a doubt. It has been proven irrefutably. And this is the problem with stereotypes........relying on them leaves you subject to being wrong.

Not judging anything yet really or sterotyping anything, just making observations based on the past. I hope it plays well and am curious to see what happens actually.

As am I. I mean, if i had to put odds on this thing being successful.........I'd say 50/50. You do have some valid points about Sony, thats for sure. I just think that any time there is a possibility of a birth of a new genre (and this is really what it would be), I just can't help but get a bit excited. All of us probably started on Missile Command for Christ's sakes. I fear the current generation of kiddies don't know how good they have it.

We shall see. I'd be a fool to say "oh man, I have a ps3, and Sony is God! this game is going to be the cat's ass!" No sir.................not going to happen, but all the same, the glimmer of hope is there.

We all know Sony can mess things up on a grand scale.

Last thing I'd like to touch on. I actually give credit to zipper for trying something so bold. There was a when when they were lauded for their pioneering ways............maybe they can reach that status again (as I have visions of shooting a guy 42 times in socom 2, or playing harvester small in socom 3)

Peace.