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MAG: No gameplay compromises, shooting people and grenades confirmed

3:25 PM on 07.22.2008, Brad Nicholson 26 comments

MAG: No gameplay compromises, shooting people and grenades confirmed photo
     Sony

If you happened to be hiding under a rock during E3, or just entirely too disappointed by Nintendo’s conference, you may have missed Sony’s unveiling of MAG. The game is being proposed as a multiplayer juggernaut, with the possibility of 256 players simultaneously taking the battlefield. Naturally, after hearing about its scope, you begin to question its complexity or the amount of compromises that Zipper will have to maintain to make this game possible. Rade Stojsavljevic, Senior Producer at Zipper, recently implied on PlayStationBlog that MAG would not have to compromise its action or gameplay elements:

Though it’s early to talk in depth about MAG, we can definitely quell some fears we’ve already heard from you about how MAG will need to compromise on gameplay to support its size. Well, it may be massive but it is an action shooter at its core. You can run around and shoot enemies, throw grenades, and drive vehicles just like any other shooter except with MAG you’ll do it with up to 256 players.
Rade then goes on to say that Zipper’s work with SOCOM has given them the knowledge to make MAG a working title. Also, Rade totally let it slip during the interview. We now know that you can shoot people and throw grenades in MAG. We would even be willing to suggest that you can throw grenades at people, or even shoot a person while another person throws a grenade at him.

Next page: More PS3 stories




Danmartigan's Avatar
Danmartigan at 07/22/2008 15:30
What happens if you throw a grenade into the 4th dimension?
Cheeburga's Avatar
Cheeburga at 07/22/2008 15:44
Shooting!?
Rainbowblack's Avatar
Rainbowblack at 07/22/2008 15:56
I'm still skeptical of this game, but if all goes well, this might be a nice title to pick up eventually,

BUT!!! I'm going to call Sony out of this one. before long its 256 player battles will be lessened
Corncobtacular's Avatar
Corncobtacular at 07/22/2008 16:01
If this game is out in 18 months i'll be impressed
Robbo the hood's Avatar
Robbo the hood at 07/22/2008 16:04
I won't feign interest in an idea that stands to become a game in the future. This game was announced 2 years too early based on some of the other "flagship" titles Sony's unveiled in the past. Can we expect a game of such incredible ambition, and of course promise, to somehow fall from the sky before 2010? This is the kind of hype induced waiting that turns me away from gaming sites. I want all eyes on LittleBigPanet, Resistance, Gears 2, Banjo and Kazooie etc. That doesn't even mention exciting download titles coming out soon. Enough of the 3-4 year media slog for games like this, honestly.
king3vbo's Avatar
king3vbo at 07/22/2008 16:19
I call bullshit. It won't fly. Just watch, they'll keep cutting down the max players
savagesaladin's Avatar
savagesaladin at 07/22/2008 16:20
@Snakedude

Lets not get ahead of ourselves, now!
Volomon's Avatar
Volomon at 07/22/2008 16:27
@king3vbo Its not hard all they have to do is put most of the information on the server side lowering the PS3 load. The only real load on the PS3 would be movement transfer, graphics, and basic input. It shouldn't be to hard. Not something every system can do but I don't see why the PS3 couldn't. Probably the only reason Xbox 360 doesn't have a similar idea or plan is because server side ran games cost the company out of pocket and in order to maintain these servers they would have to sell content on a regular basis, meaning multiple expansions in a year.

Since Microsoft tends to be a little more greedy than the average company/publisher. The idea probably never occured to them. This is nothing but taking Warhawk expanding the ground works and players. Hopefully though they don't use the same graphics.
Tuskentheraider's Avatar
Tuskentheraider at 07/22/2008 16:29
lol i think its safe to say that every single person watching the gaming community is skeptical about this game

saying so does not give you an interesting individual point.
Volomon's Avatar
Volomon at 07/22/2008 16:33
@Robbo_the_hood Hate to double post but, I think this game won't have the production time as long as you assume. For one its most likely a multiplayer ONLY game. Comparing it to the development time of a single/multiplayer game doesn't make sense. The average development time for a multiplayer game is probably right around/under 2 years. Since we don't know when they started which might have been a year or two ago. It could be possible they are purely working on details for perfection at this point and it can arrive any time in the next two years.

The hardiest part will be working the networking codes more than anything else. Taking that into account theres most likely to be a beta eventually announced.
Timmeh's Avatar
Timmeh at 07/22/2008 17:35
While this sounds interesting, I can't see a company footing the bill for server hosting and bandwidth to keep this going without charging subscriptions, and I can't really see the target audience springing for a monthly sub. This isn't the average MMORPG player, this is shooter fans, who migrate in large numbers from game to game every time a new big title comes out.

It's also questionable whether an action MMO could provide the depth and longevity to actually encourage people to subscribe in the first place.

I suppose you could work with microtransactions but would Little Johnny Shooter Fan really give a shit if his helmet is the same colour as everyone elses?

As for revenue generated by regular content releases, I don't think any studio could churn out good, quality content at a rate necessary for long. Sure Guild Wars has lasted on this kind of model but I'm not sure that it isn't propped up just a little by NCSoft's subscription based games (especially when an expansion has been out a while).

Then again, it has SHOOTING!!
Volomon's Avatar
Volomon at 07/22/2008 17:55
@Timmeh Warhawks a good example the required servers really isn't as high because each server would be handling 256 players also its a good example of how they maintain the costs of the servers with regular content. I think warhawks runs around 20. They won't even need that, maybe 1/4 of that infact at start. I seriously doubt they will need 5k slots for people to join. Unless its that popular. Which it could be. You also have to remember that server costs are minimized when using the PS3s as a server hub, which no other console is capable of doing and gives PS3 an edge in server power. Its a major reason why these games have such an online advantage when it comes to servers.
Tet's Avatar
Tet at 07/22/2008 18:11
I remember playing JO with 150 people, good luck with that. Even when it was running well enough to play, the game was just one giant clusterfuck with that many people running around.
Nyteshade's Avatar
Nyteshade at 07/22/2008 18:13
To PC gamers this isn't really groundbreaking, Joint Operations had 150 max on hosted servers back in 2004. It was a decent game, but you'd spend all night finding a game that wasn't full of lagging people.

While playing with 150 people sounded pretty amazing, the map sizes were huge to fit that many people and not make it a cluster-fuck. When the expansion was released they had a lot of smaller, (imo cooler) urban maps, but they all had 64 maxes because more than that ruined them.
AaronLindes Neighbor's Avatar
AaronLindes Neighbor at 07/22/2008 18:26
What about the one fuck who uses a lag switch or some other cheating method? He screws over 255 peoples game? Gonna have to have a mighty strong banhammer there.

Will there be a mega vehicle with a cannon that can take out 20+ peeps?
Matthew Blake's Avatar
Matthew Blake at 07/22/2008 18:59
Sounds like fun, but the visual style looks too brown for my tastes. Seriously, do none of these game companies understand color theory? Or, more importantly, do they think that a brown-and-grey color scheme is nice to look at? Sheesh...
Face's Avatar
Face at 07/22/2008 19:07
Sounds generic. But I'd like to see how they will handle 256 players. If it's not structured properly it will just be a big clusterfuck.
brainderailment's Avatar
brainderailment at 07/22/2008 19:44
Why would they have to compromise, GTA is fucking massive. Battlefield is pretty damn impressive. I know they haven't seen 256 players, but if that's their goal, I don't see why they'd have to compromise big things.

Either way, put some fucking color in there please, and for god's sake, don't let the 256 players be the best feature, that's just lame.
Crapsh00t's Avatar
Crapsh00t at 07/22/2008 20:05
As someone who used to play RTCW multiplayer on hacked servers running with 64 players, let me tell you that you don't know epic until you've battled for an hour or more over a 125 sq yard area for a single flag with neverending death and explosions around you. When you finally take the point, inches at a time, it's like nothing else.

I love games that allow for grenade clusterfucks, random deaths add to the fun.

This would be a system seller for me.
whormongr's Avatar
whormongr at 07/22/2008 20:53
can you throw a person at a grenade as well?
MechaMonkey's Avatar
MechaMonkey at 07/22/2008 22:43
Despite my wariness over the quality of the game, 256 players is still enough to keep me interested in hearing how development progresses. I'm a multiplayer whore.
Eschatos's Avatar
Eschatos at 07/23/2008 00:45
I liked this game better when it was called Planetside.
PixelJunky's Avatar
PixelJunky at 07/23/2008 07:30
This game, if they pull it off like they are planning, is going to be amazing. Love all the pessimistic fanboys of the PC and Xbox loyalty.....stop the hating already. Enjoy your games and let other people enjoy theirs.
ChronicLogic's Avatar
ChronicLogic at 07/23/2008 12:02
Joint Operations had 150 players maximum. But the International Conflict mod for Joint Operations increased the player cap to 250 players. I would advise you to play International Conflict, good game in general, there's even a real time campaign mode on the website. Lag is bitch by the way, but hey what did you expect?

http://ic.totalgamingnetwork.com/
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