M.A.G is coming… Will you be ready?

M.A.G is coming… Will you be ready?

Oct 07

Creators Zipper Interactive have been working away in secret on their latest creation until now. They have taken it upon themselves to revolutionize the world of multiplayer first person shooters once again.

Some of you may already be aware of Zipper Interactive from their previously groundbreaking release of SOCOM: US Navy Seals and the sequels that followed. If you have not played this franchise but other online first person shooters you have Zipper to thank for bringing about the revolution way back on the PS2. SOCOM created the format that we have all come to expect in any multiplayer online shooter such as the multiplayer coop campaign, the ability to customize your arms kit, and of coarse the ability to form clans. Now the only question is can they do it again?

M.A.G or Massive Action Game (yea its going to be that awesome that they didn’t bother coming up with a more clever name) is going to be… well… MASSIVE! When approached by Playstation to create a game on the new platform they jumped at the chance. Wait that was years ago… Why haven’t I played this game yet? Well that was all part of their plan. Zipper didn’t want to rush things and create a decent game to release early. They examined the Cell processors of the PS3 and wanted to use them to their fullest. What they envisioned was a 256 online multiplayer first person shooter. On top of that they are making it very clear that they intend to make sure that the game will run at over 30 fps no matter what is going on in the game.

This bold level of scale took a lot of creativity to the questions that will baffle most of us. How can you get 256 player on one map and not just have an all out frag fest? How will I keep track of what is going on in the game around me? Why should I play this game since cheaters always find a way to ruin my fun it 32 person games and now I have 256 potential cheaters? Well Zipper has come up with a very good solution to all of these and looked far beyond.

There are three main factions that will make up M.A.G. Valor is the faction that you would expect out of this game. They will most closely resemble the US Army. S.V.E.R is seems to be like a coalition army that resembles that of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Their weapons may be a bit behind on technology but their characters are promised to be very adaptable. Then there is Raven. This game takes place approximately 20 years in the future. This is the military group where it will show the most. They are decked out with all the latest tech. Each player will declare their allegiance to one of these three groups and their actions will help determine the overall standing of their faction. The faction who is in the lead will be the one who will defend in any given game. Players will be able to change factions later in the game if they choose so if you prefer being on the offensive or defensive this will hopefully keep you changing your allegiance changing the face of the game as you progress or you can stand fast and fight for the honor of your chosen side. The struggle of the three factions of domination has been dubbed the Shadow War.

Now that the players have chosen sides Zipper found a way to minimize the chaos. Each team will be broken up into 8 man squads. The squads are then broken up into 32 man groups, or 4 quads, to form a platoon and then the 4 platoons make up the entire company. On top of that each squad, platoon and even the company will each have a leader. Players who have leveled up enough and have shown that they have sound strategic demands will be given the opportunity to become a leader. The top candidate can become the Officer In Charge and gains special perks to go with the title. They will issue commands to the 4 squads to keep them on their overall objective and to help them do this they can use special abilities such as precision air strikes or call for artillery support. The lower level leaders will also have perks such as being able to set waypoints for their squad or platoon and even calling in UAVs provided that their squad has taken out the anti-air batteries first of coarse.

Given this sound start they took it one step farther and went above and beyond. To help keep track of all these separate squads and platoons Zipper has come up with a very practicle solution. They have eliminated all ambient firefight noise from the background tracks. If you hear shots fired or an explosion off the east it will be coming from a real player or fire support. They have even added air raid sirens which will let you know that your base is being over run or on the flip side that your team is overcoming the defenses. If you can keep your head about you I’m sure there will be other audio clues that will let you know how your team is doing or when to duck and cover.

The final thing that Zipper has done for the sake of gameplay was to create a system to help control the cheaters who will inevitably pop up their ugly faces. Actually they created an algorithm. They created a program that seems to be modeled after the PunkBuster program that many PC players have become accustom to. Basically Zippers program is one that will run a series of probability filters over each player. If you are shooting at 100% accuracy or taking more damage that is to be expected from this game their program will notice you and monitor you. If your actions are decided to be outside of the normal accepted probabilities then you will be removed, and one can only hope, permanently removed. PunkBuster has been welcomed by many player on the PC platform and I believe it has been long overdue to make its transition to the platform world.

Zipper got all the behind the scene stuff together but on top of that they have also found a way to overhaul the front as well. M.A.G will offer 4 game styles to choose from. Domination is the one that will define this game. This will be to only game to offer the full 256 player limit. In this game the attackers will be spread across the perimeter of the map and have to infiltrate the enemy base taking out key outposts along the way. The defenders of coarse have to defend their base and keep from being over run. Then there is Acquisition. This game will feature 128 players and its objective for the attackers is to attack and steal two armored transports from the opposing team and then make it to the objective area before the clock runs out. Sabotage (which seems to have a lot of hidden potential in my opinion) will be made up of 64 players. In this game the attackers have to infiltrate an enemy communications facility and take control of 2 objective points. Once they have control a final objective will be added which must be completed for victory to be achieved. The fun part is the final objective is that you will be given a target which must be destroyed to win. I’m hoping that this final mission will be chosen randomly from a list of possible final targets which will keep the defenders on their toes rather than just digging in. The final game type is Suppression. This is another 64 player game with the twist of it will be a pure infantry death match. The downside to this game is that it will not effect the overall Shadow War standings.

Zipper has also decked out the customization in M.A.G. You will be able to fully customize your character from their looks and voice all the way to their gear. M.A.G has done away with the familiar class system which sticks you will a gear set with maybe a few options of what to carry and created a customizable class system. You will choose from a list of primary, secondary, and perk weapons and once you have chosen the game will assign you a class that you most resemble to help others identify what abilities you will bring to the team. You will be able to create and save 3 of these weapons sets which you will then be able to choose from at each spawning so you can adapt to the changing game scenario. As you level up and rise in the ranks new weapons and perks will become available to you and Zipper does appear to be adding trophies for those of you interested in that.

This game will be massive and has me drooling at the potential that it is promising. If you check out the official game trailer you will be in awe too. Zipper has spent almost 3 years now developing this game and it looks like it will be worth every minute of it. They have announced it will release this fall and I will try to get you the exact date and more details as they are released.

See you all on the battlefield!