MAG (PS3)

[Shojin]

I just recently got the machine gun that costs 5 points on SVER (The PSK) and I have to say it is a little underwhelming. I'm thinking of respec'ing and getting shotgun instead for close combat as it is crazy powerful close range, and stick with regular LMG for medium/long range combat.

[zoobernut]

I think I am going to try to unlock the shotgun too and make two loadouts one with the shotgun for defending and one with the AR for attacking.

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/11/in...resent-and-fu/

The folks at Zipper Interactive have been in an unenviable position for the past eighteen months. Ever since the studio's flagship PS3 title MAG was revealed during Sony's E3 2008 press conference, the gaming populace's collective expectation (or, alternatively, apprehension) for the title set an impossibly high bar for the developer to clear.

We first spoke to the game's producer, Alan Van Slyke, during PAX 2009, when he explained a bit of the techno-wizardry which powers the game's internal servers. Yesterday, we got a chance to speak with Van Slyke once more -- this time about the pressures associated with developing a game of this (forgive the pun) magnitude, whether the game's rigorous beta testing paid off, and how one of MAG's three factions has evolved into an unstoppable victory machine.

Joystiq: When did Zipper Interactive decide on making a multiplayer game with 256 players? None of your studio's earlier games are nearly that large in scope – what kind of factors led to that decision?

Alan Van Slyke: Well, I think that specific number actually came more from design than it was just an arbitrary number -- but definitely the early thinking was we want to build something big.

We wanted to replicate the scale of a real battle, you know, in first-person. That was the initial goal, and then we started looking at what we'd need to do to organize that: Organize people into squads, have an OIC and have squad leaders. You know, I think 256 just kind of came out naturally. It was more "we need something massive" than it was "we want a specific number."


What kind of things did you learn while working on the SOCOM series that you brought to mind when working on MAG, and what things did you want to do differently?

Well, actually I and a lot of the team came on specifically to work on MAG, so we actually post-date the SOCOM series. But there's definitely a lot of experience and veterancy in the studio with third-person shooter games. And so we took a lot of the existing knowledge that people had, and I think Zipper was also known as a networking-strong, networking savvy studio. We took that and we really built upon it.

We hired even more people with complementary strengths, and hired on even more networking people specifically for this project, and started prototyping the networking stuff out early. And so I think we had a lot of core design and technology strengths to draw from in the beginning. And then of course as we're trying to push the boundaries and go beyond, there's a lot of learnings as well, right?


What kind of challenges did the game's size present? How did it affect the usual multiplayer shooter concerns that developers face? Like balancing and mapmaking?

Yeah, mapmaking presented a lot of new challenges for us. We really had to come up with lots of new tools, technology, processes, and design thinking. I mean maps, for instance, you bring that up, our earlier environments were assembled in Maya for the SOCOM series.

And we knew for MAG, just by sitting down and looking at the scale of environments and the number of objects we were going to have in them, that we actually needed to build a new tool chain, a new pipeline that included a new world assembly tool, and libraries of assets that we could assemble in a more traditional map authoring paradigm. So we really had to start from scratch with the tools and the way that we assemble them.

And then once we have a new tool that means art is no longer doing all of the assembly – now we have a tool that's both available to design and art. And so we need all new processes to figure out how art and design can essentially be cohabitating, working with each other to build great maps with a single tool.

You know, the scale of the game brings a lot of challenges unto itself; I mean, testing, right? So we are a 100+ person studio, and we have 256 player maps. We had to really beg, borrow, steal a lot of resources to fill up games and to stress test the game and make sure it was stable, and to make sure it played well at high densities. We used a lot of clever ways to do that, too. A lot of time, what we would do is we'd break the platoons up and test individual platoon areas. With less frequency, we would fill the entire game up by employing other Sony development studios.

We also used beta probably more than we have in the past as a testing tool, to give us a lot of high player load, high game counts that we could parse through all the data, and look at the heat maps, and see exactly what's going on. It's something we just couldn't replicate internally as you could with a smaller game or a single player game.



[That's interesting. I'm imagining like a gigantic, cross-Sony championship –

[Laughs.]

Rest of the talk in the link.

[Eggroll]

Has anyone experimented with the side arm fire rate skill or either of the 2 knife upgrades? I'm only shy of 2 ribbons, the 15 knife kills and 30 sidearm kills in 1 battle and I don't want to respec only to find them to be largely useless.

[recuperi]

The knife swipe reach skill is definitely worth it if you plan on getting that ribbon. I never really noticed a difference with the speed of the swipe, but the reach was very noticeable. Also, how did you get the 3 bunkers repaired ribbon? That thing seems almost impossible to get for me

[Eggroll]

I got mine from aquisition against Raven, although it was entirely through luck in beating out everyone else to plant the charge. Could try domination though if your going against a team with engineers, every now and then people return to the bunkers to try to repair them and they're a lot easier to destroy.

[Dylon]

finally got the game and joined S.V.E.R. PSN ID is SupaStupidHIGH

[Shojin]

Updated PSN list, I'll send invite when I get on tonight

[Insanecyclone]

Ok I said I would get this with white knight but I forgot. So tomorrow I will get it then.

I hear SVER is going to get balanced in a patch soon but I'll go anyway since everybody on bg is on it.

[Ziero]

It's not so much SVER getting a balancing patch specifically, it's just general game issues that will be fixed "sometime soon"

I think they already fixed the bug where you can run over your own teammates with the APC though, even if the APC is stationary (you used to die if you walked into the front of a parked APC). I was playing some matches yesterday with some terrible drivers, and instead of crushing me outright, they would just run me over and shove me out into enemy turret fire...

[Logain]

It's really frustrating when you get stuck with a squad leader that doesnt use FRAGOs for anything other than the main objective. RRAAAAGGGEEEE

[Ollieyk]

Most people on BG on S.V.E.R? Picking this up tonight.

Edit - Completely missed the big list on page 1. See you on S.V.E.R!

[Shojin]

Yeah. And to those of you that want to join the BG clan, I can only send invites to those that aren't already in a clan.

[dejet]

Yeah. And to those of you that want to join the BG clan, I can only send invites to those that aren't already in a clan.

Just leave your psn here or pm someone who can invite you.

Ya it sucks when you have a bad leader. Most times you end up wih crap points and lose.. I try to tell them what to do but it seems a lot of the time they don't speak english so that makes it hard. One game I got platoon leader and had a leader who did not frago or talk... got me so pissed had to lead with no fragos for my squad and the platoon.

If the leader is not doing his job I tend to take over and call out targets

[Logain]

I really need to get a headset for this game, but I doubt I'll have the marital currency to buy any more gaming accessories for at least 3 months lol!

[dejet]

I really need to get a headset for this game, but I doubt I'll have the marital currency to buy any more gaming accessories for at least 3 months lol!

Almost any usb if not all usb work with the ps3, people think they need a bluetooth; far from true, hell bluetooth mics suck if you ask me. Only use one because I have one from my phone.

[Insanecyclone]

Gamestop here was out of MAG and I don't feel like going to target for it.

[Biddinger]

The one thing I want fixed are the freaking LMG's. Shit's too accurate.

It's really frustrating when you get stuck with a squad leader that doesnt use FRAGOs for anything other than the main objective. RRAAAAGGGEEEE

This times a MILLION

[dejet]

The one thing I want fixed are the freaking LMG's. Shit's too accurate.



This times a MILLION

Its really only raven who needs a fix to their LMG. they dont need any add on I don't think to make them that good. Anyone that I pick up off a dead person I can shoot from a mile away and it doe snot move.

SVER you need a ton of adds ons to make them work well from far.

once thing I am very happy with is how snipers work in this game. like a sniper is something to fear lol

[Hiryo]

Dejet must be pretty popular. After an awesome Domination he had, like, 4 people trying to get into our group