E3 2008: Sony Unveils the Enormous MAG

Sony gave us our first glimpse of MAG, an enormous shooter that can support up to 256 players in a match.

Participants will be broken into eight-player squads, led by "players who have proven themselves to be good leaders," explained Zipper Interactive's Andy Beaudoin.

We saw a brief trailer for the game, which showed soldiers using what appeared to be contemporary weapons and armor. It's unclear whether the game is set in a fantasy or alternate-reality setting, or actually takes place in some sort of real-life locale.

Ongoing faction-based campaigns will motivate players to check in on a daily basis, said Beaudoin, a concept that reminds me unnervingly of Tabula Rasa.

Jack Tretton himself said that MAG pushes the PS3 to its screaming point, which could either mean that it'll be a technological marvel or a broken mess. Perhaps a bit of both.

No release date was given, but we'll try to get some more detailed info this week.

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Something along the lines of planetside? Why does my brain scream "LAGGG"

well, if the game doesnt lag, it will probably be so full of clustered stuff that it wont be fun... but we have yet to see

If it avoids the above problems of lag and being a clusterfuck. This could actually be extremely enjoyable if the maps are suitably large enough.

Skrapt:
If it avoids the above problems of lag and being a clusterfuck. This could actually be extremely enjoyable if the maps are suitably large enough.

Agreed

this would be great...until you factor in 256 people and since ps3 doesnt have internet speed requirements (i dont think) it will lag beyond belief. and unless they have the maps so large there are pretty much loading screen between sides i can see people getting huge groups, going only sniper and not allowing people to leave the spawn.

...Explosives (Rocket Launchers, grenades) will be your friend in this.

I don't think it will be too much of a cluster fuck, there's the squad thing with 8 players in each squad and a commander. Though, i doubt that that will prevent people from going off and trying to be a hero.

I wouldn't imagine too much lag, most 1st/2nd party titles for the PS3 online run very smoothly, and example would be Warhawk with so many things happening at once.

Though i wouldn't be surprised if they downsized the player count, it is a pretty big number triple-digits an all.

IF executed well, this'll be alot of fun - BUT I have to wonder how they indeed to make it work when the only PC game that manages that many players is Armed Assault, I heard. Just seems to me that the odds of it working without lag are low. Or very simple combat, heh.

Still, hats off to Sony in they manage it!

AlphaWolf13:
Something along the lines of planetside?

That's exactly what I thought. And then I thought "Why the hell would anyone think that's a good idea?"

i cant wait this is going to be epic

Indigo_Dingo:
Because we haven't seen any evidence of lag on any of the other Ps3 games?

I was actually referring to the "like Planetside" part, not the lag part.

Indigo_Dingo:
Agreed. The only problem will be excruciating waiting times for people to join in. Really this game seems good until you remember that Online Multiplayer is only good while there are other people online who are playing it.

Oy, i can only imagine how long the battles would be! But on the plus side, it would mean that there will always be a game with some space for you and you could easily find a game with friends so you won't all be separated.

Jumplion:

Indigo_Dingo:
Agreed. The only problem will be excruciating waiting times for people to join in. Really this game seems good until you remember that Online Multiplayer is only good while there are other people online who are playing it.

Oy, i can only imagine how long the battles would be! But on the plus side, it would mean that there will always be a game with some space for you and you could easily find a game with friends so you won't all be separated.

I assume to avoid this it would be quite similar to the Battlefield franchise, objective based gameplay so that if 1 person disconnects the overall game won't be affected much. If they manage to do it with 256 players without lag I'd be surprised and the game if the maps were large enough would most likely be extremely fun. However the cynic inside me is saying that some time in development they'll either half the max number of players or simply slowly decrease it. And I wonder how much a server running this would cost?

I think it's a very interesting premise, and it looks good, but I have my doubts. Still, if they can pull it off...

Virgil:

Indigo_Dingo:
Because we haven't seen any evidence of lag on any of the other Ps3 games?

I was actually referring to the "like Planetside" part, not the lag part.

As long as the game is... Nothing... Like Planetside at all, it could be fun!!

wow, 256, only 1744 less than planetside.

I'm always optimistic when it comes to things like this. Let's see some code running first before we make any sort of real judgement on the outcome, but that is a seriously large number and it wouldn't surprise me if they scale it down sometime in the future.

suck it huxley

there's always going to be that one person that lags the game up. Always. Probably more.

You have to wonder how they'd handle the world or maps or whatever they do. If they go the map route, then the maps have to be big enough that 256 can play with plenty of room, but not to the point where 24 people spend most of the battle trying to find each other.

Finally! A shooter that feels like a true war!

Susan Arendt:
...it'll be a technological marvel or a broken mess. Perhaps a bit of both.

Dev #1: You got your technological marvel in my broken mess!

Dev #2: You got your broken mess in my technological marvel!

Narrator: Two great dev states that states great together.

Cue music...
--

I think they bit off a huge chunk here and Zipper should be held to the fire to keep those specs real. LBP will have a wider appeal, in my opinion, but MAG looks like it could be a load of fun for a group of friends to play regularly.

Indigo_Dingo:

Lvl 64 Klutz:
You have to wonder how they'd handle the world or maps or whatever they do. If they go the map route, then the maps have to be big enough that 256 can play with plenty of room, but not to the point where 24 people spend most of the battle trying to find each other.

My guess is that if thats the case, they spawn relatively close.

Bear in mind its a Squad based game. Those 256 are going to act more like 32. Acting like the well coordinated teams in Metal Gear Online (I've seen them, I've been part of them, we're awesome), they'll cause much less strife and clusterfuckage, moving like packs.

I'd assume they would have "Small, Medium, and large" maps, just like most other games. So I'd highly doubt you'd have to deal with the "HOLY CRAP WHERE ARE THEY?" Unless you were cool enough to do 10v10 on a 256 map, lol.

I seem to recall this game being announced before.. Or perhaps it was resistance 2's 64 online play mode?

what I remmeber was takling about 'squad based' multiplayer, with each squad having a different spawn point, and each squad with a different objective.

Aka
Squad 1
kill as many enemies in your vicinity
Squad 2
Defend this area
Squad 3
destroy that bridge
Squad 4
Flank that enemey
ect.
I could see it being 'impossible' to win a game, with out completing said objectives, so 'lone wolves' like my self, wouldn't be able to 'win' the game for anyone, and probably would be detrimental to the entire thing.
And since its 256 players, that leaves us 128 vs 128, with 16 sqaud vs 16 squad games. Assuming each map can support 256 players, they should be quite large...
Though, I'm suddenly reminded of the Battlefield 2 Series of games with maps that altered in size depending on the number of players.

Another reason for me to drag my sorry behind into the current Gen.

Dammit Dad Lemme Buy it

So, half it from the un-fucking-believable 256 players, to the still un-fucking-believable 128 players? And you think that will make it bad?

Definitely not bad, just below expectations, and it would just hand more food to those shouting about how the Xbox is the be all and end all of console gaming.