MAG
- Thread starter patsu
- Start date
If anyone still plays this, I got this about a week ago. Valor clan PSN ID is fearsomepirate, Raven is fearsomepirate-2.
They had map neutrality to celebrate the anniversary of MAG, and yeah...defending a SVER map is a lot easier than a Valor map, considering you can see all the way to the enemy's spawn from the bunker.
They had map neutrality to celebrate the anniversary of MAG, and yeah...defending a SVER map is a lot easier than a Valor map, considering you can see all the way to the enemy's spawn from the bunker.
[Raise hand]
You should be able to find me on MAG almost every weekend (I usually go in randomly between 10:00pm to 2:00am PST)
Still in Raven. Have limited time so I maximize my enjoyment in 1 clan. No need to suffer as low level soldier in another clan.
EDIT: I saw Opposed in MAG a few times recently also.
You should be able to find me on MAG almost every weekend (I usually go in randomly between 10:00pm to 2:00am PST)
Still in Raven. Have limited time so I maximize my enjoyment in 1 clan. No need to suffer as low level soldier in another clan.
EDIT: I saw Opposed in MAG a few times recently also.
No matter what other games I get , somehow I still get drawn back to this game...
It`s probably because I`m with a big clan , without I would have stopped a long time ago.
Since I now can record gameplay I have made a couple of flashy montages of some gameplay highlights, don`t expect to see some of the deeper game mechanics though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHnz4rVpafs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLh8j4hZ-do&NR=1
edit:Just read that Zipper has laid off 33 devs , sad news.
It`s probably because I`m with a big clan , without I would have stopped a long time ago.
Since I now can record gameplay I have made a couple of flashy montages of some gameplay highlights, don`t expect to see some of the deeper game mechanics though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHnz4rVpafs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLh8j4hZ-do&NR=1
edit:Just read that Zipper has laid off 33 devs , sad news.
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Unfortunately, no MAG 2 as Zipper's offices in Seattle have been closed.
Don't know how bad that is. MAG had promise, but it wasn't fulfillied IMO. I think it's the first game I ever traded in, it annoyed me so much!
They can't have been doing too badly moneywise though, I guess. Sales of their stuff wasn't abysmal. Sony are perhaps, as they say, just managing heads. I'm sure Zipper's staff would find a home a somewhere, and bring their 256 player experience into another game. So I expect MAG 2 by a different name somewhere.
They can't have been doing too badly moneywise though, I guess. Sales of their stuff wasn't abysmal. Sony are perhaps, as they say, just managing heads. I'm sure Zipper's staff would find a home a somewhere, and bring their 256 player experience into another game. So I expect MAG 2 by a different name somewhere.
At least two of those guys were already working on Dust 514, right? That does make a lot of sense in terms of progressing the idea from MAG to the next level.
And I think a bunch of others already had formed their own studio?
I don't know about the can't have enough shooters part personally ... I think there are WAAAY to many.
Personally, in the end I ended up never having played a Zipper game.But yeah, hope for the team that everyone ends up at a great new place from here.
Well, that's too bad. MAG is an amazing game. In my opinion, it took quite a few massive overhauls to really turn it into a great game, but once they made the maps faction-neutral, fixed some of the terrain, and overhauled the weapon mechanics, it became one of the best shooters of this gen. It wasn't perfect, and there were a lot of ideas that needed more development, but the simple fact is nothing else on consoles comes close to what it was.
RenegadeRocks
Legend
How much did MAG sell, digital+Retail? I also loved whatever I played of it in th eBeta and the free to play till level 8 demo, but I think we are in the minority. People want brain dead twitch fun more than a "hard" game. The new generation of gamers wants instant applause with zero effort put into overcoming any kind of of difficulty. They want to appreciated for pressing buttons, not interested in overcoming obstacles and finding that pure exhillirating fun in beating an unbeatable boss. or learning to live by the rules of a game experiencing the charm.
Learning curve = boring game (for the current majority gamers)
I wonder if all gaming is just turning into "casual gaming" with hollywood production sheen n gloss applied on top to show it as a hardcore gaming. It is !
Your post caused us to take a look last night. Seemed very much the same to me on the early levels we played (Sabotage I think). And the big games seemed deserted. 256 player maps with all of 16 people a side going by the Shadow War interface.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
My only real issue with MAG was that it was just too ugly a game.
I can't imagine why any top Sony exec or producer would see an aesthetic like MAG's had and green light it given that it was meant to be a 256 player MP shooter (therefore requiring a considerable sustained playerbase to succeed longterm).
It was like they tried to place the game in between modern era and some weird quasi-near-future. It was just a bit repulsive.
Had the game had a more appealing and destinctive look, i reckon more gamers would have given it a chance.
They should have gone full on Sci-Fi in my honest opinion, with a less realistic and more stylised look. At least then it would have been easier to overlook the graphical compromises they had to make to get the game to run. It would have been much easier to appreciate the games' aesthtic had it been less "gritty realism" more "deus ex: HR" or "starship troopers". They could have then made it more interesting with more imaginative weapons and vehicles.
Hopefully DUST214 will pick up this game's slack
I can't imagine why any top Sony exec or producer would see an aesthetic like MAG's had and green light it given that it was meant to be a 256 player MP shooter (therefore requiring a considerable sustained playerbase to succeed longterm).
It was like they tried to place the game in between modern era and some weird quasi-near-future. It was just a bit repulsive.
Had the game had a more appealing and destinctive look, i reckon more gamers would have given it a chance.
They should have gone full on Sci-Fi in my honest opinion, with a less realistic and more stylised look. At least then it would have been easier to overlook the graphical compromises they had to make to get the game to run. It would have been much easier to appreciate the games' aesthtic had it been less "gritty realism" more "deus ex: HR" or "starship troopers". They could have then made it more interesting with more imaginative weapons and vehicles.
Hopefully DUST214 will pick up this game's slack
Nah. People avoided it because it didn't work for most folk. You were dropped into situations with no guidance, often underpowered (you started with limited weapons and skills, making you cannon fodder for all the vets of which there were many in such large games), and with truly mental situations like the base swarms where you got far more XP running around healing/rezzing people than killing the opposition. There always waasn't any enforcement of objectives that worked in the early days. Well, this thread documents my many rants! It just didn't work too well, so people moved on. Whatever changes may have taken place came too late. Maybe the weapon balance is spot on now, but we've all dropped the game so would never know.
Also, the requirement for huge games made player count even more important. MAG was only relevant with loads of players. The moment you weren't getting enough online to populate the big maps, they became irrelevant and the key aspect to MAG was lost. I imagine that's a serious lesson for any follow-up. 256 player maps needs a very active playerbase.
Also, the requirement for huge games made player count even more important. MAG was only relevant with loads of players. The moment you weren't getting enough online to populate the big maps, they became irrelevant and the key aspect to MAG was lost. I imagine that's a serious lesson for any follow-up. 256 player maps needs a very active playerbase.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
That's only really those that played it.
Most saw the screens and promotional material and just thought, "another generic looking FPS".
There was nothing visually destinctive about the game, so barely anyone played it to get a handle on the gameplay mechanics in the first place.
Most saw the screens and promotional material and just thought, "another generic looking FPS".
There was nothing visually destinctive about the game, so barely anyone played it to get a handle on the gameplay mechanics in the first place.
Perhaps, but I thought it had a good start? Sold okay to begin with, and it it was great, would ahve grown from word-of-mouth, surely?
Prophecy2k
Veteran
I don't think MAG sold well at all. I may be wrong but I don't think it even charted in its launch week for the major regions.
I know it had a little growth spurt later on when it was patched in with Move support. There were active playerbases for a good while, but they slowly tapered off as the bigger games got released.
The game is one of the few where i'd say that Sony actually marketed and worked to build up hype pretty well. It was just a shame that the actual game simply didn't live up to the promises. I know that lot of gamers who overlooked it merely because of the game's seeming lack of appeal.
I think a better aesthetic would have heled greatly to draw more attention to the game, then if they'd been able to solve the gameplay issues before launch, it could have been done much better through word-of-mouth sales. I agree with you though, that the game failed in simply being fun for the majority as it was too damn hard to play for anyone but the most seasoned MP players.
I guess it would have been a solid learning experience though, as It was obvious that the game was gonna have teething issues (no-one had attempted to do something like that before on console). Balancing the game would have been impossible for such an inexperienced team, and only with the considerable player input long after release would it have taught them enough to be able to fix the game. It's unfortunate that Sony dissolved the team, as their experience with the game could have benefitted Sony doing anything on that kind of scale in future (which is something I can see alot of potential for).
The skill trees are completely different, and when the game launched, weapons had no recoil, making LMGs way, way, way OP. The way it works now, LMGs are true support weapons; you can't just use them like ARs and expect to live long. You also can't just spray anything full-auto at range and expect to hit much. They also tweaked the radius and power of some of the electronics.
SW interface tells you how many people are in a queue, not how many people are in a game. Yeah, it's dumb.
I think there's some truth to what everyone says. I think the biggest problems were:
1) Not obvious what the "theme" of the game was if you haven't played it. There are...uh...guys shooting each other? I guess? I will admit that nothing about the box, videos, or screens made the game look fun or exciting. It wasn't obvious at all what kind of weapons you'd be using or who you'd be fighting or what you'd be doing. Frankly, I was unwilling to risk money on the game until I found it for I think $15. If it had a more appealing, obvious, theme--even if it just ripped of Modern Warfare's "Arabs vs Russians vs Americans" theme.
2) It's just plain hard to learn how to play. The learning curve is incredibly steep, because it's not a twitch shooter--teams with middling marksmen, excellent leaders, obedient troops, and proper loadouts will win any match of MAG 99% of the time against a random group of twitch-shooter gods running with ninja electronics.
3) It's not very much fun by yourself If you never got into a big clan, the experience was going to be constantly frustrating. I made a point of trying to get into the biggest clan I could (KEQ on Valor), and frankly, the game wasn't very much fun until that happened. I don't play MAG any more because I never see more than about 6 to 8 KEQ online. It was glorious back when we could reliably get 16 on a weeknight and 32 on a weekend.
4) Having 3 persistent factions with the global reward system is intrinsically unbalanced. If each faction wins 50% of its games, the biggest faction will fill up the reward bars the fastest...attracting more players...becoming even bigger...etc. Hence SVER's unquestioned dominance.
