MAG
- Thread starter patsu
- Start date
Maybe because it's made by Zipper and people expect it to be good. I really don't see the problem to troll it and say slow news week. Pics were supposedly leaked.
18 posts about nothing (well complaints about how brown it is). The pics are obviously not from game play and no new information has been released. This is like a Seinfeld episode :smile:
but you just said lots of talk.Complaining about brown color in a war game how sad.Maybe they should make the soldiers have pink and light blue armor?
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Complaining about brown color in a war game how sad.Maybe they should make the soldiers have pink and light blue armor?
An unamed FPS that has sold millions is big on bright green and purple, maybe MAG could go that direction? Wait, now you have me adding to this Seinfeld episode!
Some high level info on MAG:
http://ps3.nowgamer.com/news/377/mag-to-offer-deeper-multiplayer-that-cod
Distilling the marketing speak, I am guessing they are going to innovate on RPG-like skill + rank tree, and weapon customization. Unfortunately, unless it's something obvious for casual observers, it may be hard to tell.
EDIT: Possible war theaters: http://us.playstation.com/mag/
http://ps3.nowgamer.com/news/377/mag-to-offer-deeper-multiplayer-that-cod
Distilling the marketing speak, I am guessing they are going to innovate on RPG-like skill + rank tree, and weapon customization. Unfortunately, unless it's something obvious for casual observers, it may be hard to tell.
EDIT: Possible war theaters: http://us.playstation.com/mag/
The network/server layer will be no problem as long as they have good engineers and load testing. 256 players isn't much even for a low-latency shooter (and besides, it's probably 30hz at most, maybe less server-side).
The real trouble will be with game balance and getting that many players to cooperate. It can definitely happen -- like in many MMOs -- but this is usually only accomplished with strong in-game social structures. This may not be practical if the design also calls for low barrier to entry. I know it can be frustrating playing GoW2 Horde on public servers where the random people you're matched with don't know how to use shields or hold and defend ground. And that's a 5 person game where everyone has a headset.
EDIT: Oh, and let me apologize for replying to a year old post. I saw this thread and started reading from the beginning without looking at the timestamp!
ManuVlad3.0
Regular
A year may have passed but the issue is still valid
Lets say they can pull off the netcode for 256players. Then you really get into the meat of the problem. Balancing. Balancing in shooters is real tricky as is. Even in a much smaller scale like CS, only a handful of maps are played routinely/well liked since their balance is good. Fail to balance your game and keep it balanced and it'll die quickly. This is assuming that all other aspects of the game are well received, btw.
The issue only extends further with larger scale games like Battlefield. The larger the scale, the more options a player has, the harder the balancing becomes. I don't agree with the MMO association since that MMO's are very different in execution. You form parties to take on in-game NPC monsters. Get loot, level up your character, use key board shortcuts for micro and other things. A shooter at it's core is rather simple. Eventually you're going to face another player and have a shootoff which will end quickly. It's point and shoot, all said and done.
Saying its going to be 30hz is irrelevant in regards to multiplayer lag. 30hz is still a refresh rate @ 33ms.
Having even less server side would just mean that the whole game would be laggy as hell.
At least they're being ambitious I suppose...lots of cool possibilities "if" it could work right.
I can imagine this thrilling scenario of having to take some goal (a flag or something) and you with a band of 30 or so blitz charge it..slicing through the hapless defenders for the brilliant tactical win
Basically 128 per side could allow real large scale battlefield tactics for the first time in a fps..and thats very intriguing.
I just wonder about respawning in a game like this..on a basic level I dont like the idea of respawning in a true wargame sense, but if you dont then a lot of people are going to be bored a lot..maybe just allow dead people to leave immediately, or continue watching if they want to see the outcome?
I can imagine this thrilling scenario of having to take some goal (a flag or something) and you with a band of 30 or so blitz charge it..slicing through the hapless defenders for the brilliant tactical win
Basically 128 per side could allow real large scale battlefield tactics for the first time in a fps..and thats very intriguing.
I just wonder about respawning in a game like this..on a basic level I dont like the idea of respawning in a true wargame sense, but if you dont then a lot of people are going to be bored a lot..maybe just allow dead people to leave immediately, or continue watching if they want to see the outcome?
Not to encourage gambling but you could have a betting system for those that are knocked out of the game. You could also sub game it and have the dead people giving information on troop layout from a virtual battle field.
How so? I can't imagine any sense of large-scale war that isn't managed as well with 32 players and respawns. Unless you actually have 128 soldiers lined up facing each other! But hidden around a town, taking up positions, the sense of 'soldiers everywhere' is solely a matter of player/map density. Unless you ahve the option to attack en masse and overwhlem - 'I'm going to take my 50 troops to capture that outpost' - and for that you need high-level battle management, I can't see how having hundreds of players can add to the experience. Above 30ish, it'll surely feel much of a rub.
How do R2's 64 player battles compare? Does it feel noticeable different to 32 players?
R2's 64 player battles actually feel smaller than other 32 player games by watering down the complexity of the battle too much. Yes, there is a need to manage the battle but it's not about the game restricting the players to only one objective at a time or keep them from being aware of the overall goal. Yes, the game is going to need squad management but it's about dividing the maps into key areas so players have to divide and conquer. It's always going to be about the more organized team winning the war, the key is that the game needs to reward overall strategic victory much more than kills or even individual objectives being accomplished.
At least they're being ambitious I suppose...lots of cool possibilities "if" it could work right.
I can imagine this thrilling scenario of having to take some goal (a flag or something) and you with a band of 30 or so blitz charge it..slicing through the hapless defenders for the brilliant tactical win
Basically 128 per side could allow real large scale battlefield tactics for the first time in a fps..and thats very intriguing.
I just wonder about respawning in a game like this..on a basic level I dont like the idea of respawning in a true wargame sense, but if you dont then a lot of people are going to be bored a lot..maybe just allow dead people to leave immediately, or continue watching if they want to see the outcome?
Once you're dead and aren't allowed to respawn, you're out of the game, taking the player out of the game is probably just about the worst thing you can do in terms of keeping the player playing the game, because the player might or might not watch or join another game. Die a few times, a player might just put the disc back into the box, not many people are as hardcore as SOCOM fans.
It's much better to spawn the player right back but it would work better if the player is spawned back at points where the team has captured or home. The game is better off to have the player in the game, working his way back to where he has died than die once and then be completely knocked out of the contest.
RenegadeRocks
Legend
Well, there's a game mode in MGO, where you don't respawn once you die !
In a game like this, at the minimum you should have an option for no-respawn, at least in custom games.
The problem is, due to the size of the maps and player count, games could take ages to finish. For that very reason, I'm not particularly interested in this game.
R2's _60_ player matches are very different. TDM is generally chaotic but rarely awesomely chaotic ( when it's, it's truly great). In my opinion Skirmish mode works pretty well but the main problem is you have little control over the global battle and the objectives feel pretty random. Your squad may be doing great yet you may be loosing by a large margin.
MAG needs to solve this via better communication, a meaningful ranking system that's also effective during a match and a more integrated objective system. If it was me, I would try to make objectives "selectable" from somewhat preset pool of objectives.
Due to the size and player count don't you think Zipper will come up with a system that will counter this issue? It's not really hard to limit game time. That would be to easy though. I'm thinking ticket system like BF.
you could have teams start out with a certain number then after like ten mins have them count down evenly unless one team holds more bases or whatever.
There are alot of things they can do, and they have to do. I agree, you can;t have like 1v1 at the end of a match with a few hundred people in the dead channel lol.
I don't see how they can manage small armies without reprimands and rewards, as in RL. If an objective would be served by a player camping in a defensive spot, and they don't want to, how are they to be controlled? Should they be?! It's a game after all, they should be allowed to have fun, right? Typically bad players can get kicked. Managing 128 on your side is going to be hard! Perhaps squad leaders can award ranking points to team-members? Nice in theory, but favouritism will play a big part I'm sure. Maybe leader-points can be awards by the rest of the team also. But then you'll get miffed players who were rubbish and gett no team points from the team leader who will reciprocate unfairly.
I can't see it working. At least maybe not with my pesimistic view of online gaming. Even in a team, get lumbered with a bunch of wazzocks and it's no fun. This is true from KZ to LBP - the players you're with can make or break the fun of the game. If the game is seriously team-based, that becomes even more important. In WH, you can go solo and have fun even if your team are a bunch of morons (and note, I can be a prize moron in WH with my lousy skillzorz!).
That's why I prefer the idea of creating long-lasting teams with known people. The Agency looks good in that respect. If MAG enabled players to assemble teams that could always work together online, it could be very good.
