MAG

[Jumplion]

You missed my point completley. I know there is no other FPS that has 256 players. However MAG doesn't take advantage of the number of players. You are broken up into squads in which you can only communicate with other squad mates. You are mostly separated from the other squads and given your own set of objectives to follow. Any interaction with the other squads does not help to achieve your own goal.

So while there are 256 players they aren't interacting with each other. All you efforts in the game will go towards your own squad and any interaction with the other squads will be limited. So the game might as well be your squad versus the enemy squad because that's essentially all the game will be.

There doesn't need to be 256 players. The 256 players have no real interaction. The game was probably just going to be your squad versus the enemy squad, but instead they changed it to have 256 players because it would be just like any other generic FPS if they didn't.

Now if they actually did have each team operating as one huge squad then the game would have many other issues. Which is why they have to contain the large number of players into individual squads. However, by doing so MAG is just like any other FPS.

Um, the whole reason why they're separating the players into 8-player groups is to keep it organized, it would be too much of a clusterfuck if they just dropped 256 on a big map.

I don't think you know enough about this game, as it takes full advantage of the 256 players. there are 128 players on each team, each team is divided up into 4 platoons. Each platoon contains 4 squads, each containing 8 players.

There is a commander above the entire army, giving orders to platoon or squad leaders. The platoon leaders give orders to the squad leaders. The squad leaders order their men to do stuff.

People gain rewards for completing objectives the leader assigns them. Squad leaders are able to communicate with other squad leaders to plan out attacks, waves, defense points, tactics, or call in for support or letting them know where enemy squads are.

The Army Commander can speak with every squad, giving them objectives, call in airstrikes, UAV jamming, and all sorts of stuff.

I think Zipper are taking full advantage of the 256 players on the game and clearly everyone can interact with each other.

The question is, how will the true leaders be separated from the assholes?

 

[SilentHunter7]

You missed my point completley. I know there is no other FPS that has 256 players. However MAG doesn't take advantage of the number of players. You are broken up into squads in which you can only communicate with other squad mates. You are mostly separated from the other squads and given your own set of objectives to follow. Any interaction with the other squads does not help to achieve your own goal.

So while there are 256 players they aren't interacting with each other. All you efforts in the game will go towards your own squad and any interaction with the other squads will be limited. So the game might as well be your squad versus the enemy squad because that's essentially all the game will be.

There doesn't need to be 256 players. The 256 players have no real interaction. The game was probably just going to be your squad versus the enemy squad, but instead they changed it to have 256 players because it would be just like any other generic FPS if they didn't.

Now if they actually did have each team operating as one huge squad then the game would have many other issues. Which is why they have to contain the large number of players into individual squads. However, by doing so MAG is just like any other FPS.

You make it sound like each squad works in a vacuum. Any leader worth his Lieutenant bars will keep his squads covering each other, and give backup to squads that are having trouble making progress.

 

[Internet Kraken]

You missed my point completley. I know there is no other FPS that has 256 players. However MAG doesn't take advantage of the number of players. You are broken up into squads in which you can only communicate with other squad mates. You are mostly separated from the other squads and given your own set of objectives to follow. Any interaction with the other squads does not help to achieve your own goal.

So while there are 256 players they aren't interacting with each other. All you efforts in the game will go towards your own squad and any interaction with the other squads will be limited. So the game might as well be your squad versus the enemy squad because that's essentially all the game will be.

There doesn't need to be 256 players. The 256 players have no real interaction. The game was probably just going to be your squad versus the enemy squad, but instead they changed it to have 256 players because it would be just like any other generic FPS if they didn't.

Now if they actually did have each team operating as one huge squad then the game would have many other issues. Which is why they have to contain the large number of players into individual squads. However, by doing so MAG is just like any other FPS.

Um, the whole reason why they're separating the players into 8-player groups is to keep it organized, it would be too much of a clusterfuck if they just dropped 256 on a big map.

I don't think you know enough about this game, as it takes full advantage of the 256 players. there are 128 players on each team, each team is divided up into 4 platoons. Each platoon contains 4 squads, each containing 8 players.

There is a commander above the entire army, giving orders to platoon or squad leaders. The platoon leaders give orders to the squad leaders. The squad leaders order their men to do stuff.

People gain rewards for completing objectives the leader assigns them. Squad leaders are able to communicate with other squad leaders to plan out attacks, waves, defense points, tactics, or call in for support or letting them know where enemy squads are.

The Army Commander can speak with every squad, giving them objectives, call in airstrikes, UAV jamming, and all sorts of stuff.

I think Zipper are taking full advantage of the 256 players on the game and clearly everyone can interact with each other.

The question is, how will the true leaders be separated from the assholes?

I guess I was wrong about the game. However your description has told me that the game will suffer from all the issues I thought the squad system would prevent.

Based on your description, I can assume that the squad will have easy access to each other position. As a result, the game will most likely be devoid of tactics. Why? You have 256 in the same general area firing at each other. It will be a constant rain of bullets on each side. You won't be able to preform tactics because most of your squad members will be dead, prevnting you from properly launching an attack.

Plus the squad leader system reeks of design flaws. In most games if you have one member on the team who acts like an idiot it won't hinder the rest of the team to much. However this game makes the fatal mistake of giving large amounts of power to one person, the squad leader. The squad leader is the only sourced of communication with other squads. The squad leader needs to plan out all the tactics.

Well what if the squad leader is a bloody idiot? Or simply someone who works better as a foot soldier and has no idea how to lead others? Then the whole system falls apart. You can't properly use tactics and communication with other squads will be fucked. So your only option will be to play the game like any other generic FPS. Charge in blindly and shoot ev everywhere hoping to kill the enemies. Other squads will be forced to do this to and then the whole game falls apart. It degenerates into mindless FPS gameplay, only magnified to encompass a player mass of 256 people.

Also what if a team takes full advantage of communication and uses it to abuse there numbers. Imagine if on one team almost everyone was camping with a sniper. Any efforts made by the enemy team would be pointless because the second they expose themselves around 128 snipers are ready to shoot them. Or what if they managed to get everyone on one team to throw a grenade at the same time? Could crash the server.

So while you may have convinced me that the game those take advantage of its feature of 256 players, it will most likely cripple itself because of it.

 

[Internet Kraken]

You missed my point completley. I know there is no other FPS that has 256 players. However MAG doesn't take advantage of the number of players. You are broken up into squads in which you can only communicate with other squad mates. You are mostly separated from the other squads and given your own set of objectives to follow. Any interaction with the other squads does not help to achieve your own goal.

So while there are 256 players they aren't interacting with each other. All you efforts in the game will go towards your own squad and any interaction with the other squads will be limited. So the game might as well be your squad versus the enemy squad because that's essentially all the game will be.

There doesn't need to be 256 players. The 256 players have no real interaction. The game was probably just going to be your squad versus the enemy squad, but instead they changed it to have 256 players because it would be just like any other generic FPS if they didn't.

Now if they actually did have each team operating as one huge squad then the game would have many other issues. Which is why they have to contain the large number of players into individual squads. However, by doing so MAG is just like any other FPS.

You make it sound like each squad works in a vacuum. Any leader worth his Lieutenant bars will keep his squads covering each other, and give backup to squads that are having trouble making progress.

If there isn't something that makes interaction between different squads difficult then the game will be one big cluster fuck, as each team will simply be operating as one big blob fighting against another big blob.

 

[Jumplion]

I guess I was wrong about the game. However your description has told me that the game will suffer from all the issues I thought the squad system would prevent.

Based on your description, I can assume that the squad will have easy access to each other position. As a result, the game will most likely be devoid of tactics. Why? You have 256 in the same general area firing at each other. It will be a constant rain of bullets on each side. You won't be able to preform tactics because most of your squad members will be dead, prevnting you from properly launching an attack.

Plus the squad leader system reeks of design flaws. In most games if you have one member on the team who acts like an idiot it won't hinder the rest of the team to much. However this game makes the fatal mistake of giving large amounts of power to one person, the squad leader. The squad leader is the only sourced of communication with other squads. The squad leader needs to plan out all the tactics.

Well what if the squad leader is a bloody idiot? Or simply someone who works better as a foot soldier and has no idea how to lead others? Then the whole system falls apart. You can't properly use tactics and communication with other squads will be fucked. So your only option will be to play the game like any other generic FPS. Charge in blindly and shoot ev everywhere hoping to kill the enemies. Other squads will be forced to do this to and then the whole game falls apart. It degenerates into mindless FPS gameplay, only magnified to encompass a player mass of 256 people.

Also what if a team takes full advantage of communication and uses it to abuse there numbers. Imagine if on one team almost everyone was camping with a sniper. Any efforts made by the enemy team would be pointless because the second they expose themselves around 128 snipers are ready to shoot them. Or what if they managed to get everyone on one team to throw a grenade at the same time? Could crash the server.

So while you may have convinced me that the game those take advantage of its feature of 256 players, it will most likely cripple itself because of it.

From what I've gathered, you can personally choose if you want to be available for choosing as a leader or not. If you prefer to just be a foot soldier, then you can toggle an option that lets them know that you don't want to be a leader.

Also, the game is based around completing various objectives, though how they are issued I do not know.

I'm as skeptical and worried as you, the squad system could fail, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it does work. Hopefully it will work and it could show new ways to engage in the online battlefront, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[SilentHunter7]

I guess I was wrong about the game. However your description has told me that the game will suffer from all the issues I thought the squad system would prevent.

Based on your description, I can assume that the squad will have easy access to each other position. As a result, the game will most likely be devoid of tactics. Why? You have 256 in the same general area firing at each other. It will be a constant rain of bullets on each side. You won't be able to preform tactics because most of your squad members will be dead, prevnting you from properly launching an attack.

Plus the squad leader system reeks of design flaws. In most games if you have one member on the team who acts like an idiot it won't hinder the rest of the team to much. However this game makes the fatal mistake of giving large amounts of power to one person, the squad leader. The squad leader is the only sourced of communication with other squads. The squad leader needs to plan out all the tactics.

Well what if the squad leader is a bloody idiot? Or simply someone who works better as a foot soldier and has no idea how to lead others? Then the whole system falls apart. You can't properly use tactics and communication with other squads will be fucked. So your only option will be to play the game like any other generic FPS. Charge in blindly and shoot ev everywhere hoping to kill the enemies. Other squads will be forced to do this to and then the whole game falls apart. It degenerates into mindless FPS gameplay, only magnified to encompass a player mass of 256 people.

Also what if a team takes full advantage of communication and uses it to abuse there numbers. Imagine if on one team almost everyone was camping with a sniper. Any efforts made by the enemy team would be pointless because the second they expose themselves around 128 snipers are ready to shoot them. Or what if they managed to get everyone on one team to throw a grenade at the same time? Could crash the server.

So while you may have convinced me that the game those take advantage of its feature of 256 players, it will most likely cripple itself because of it.

The games with 256 aren't deathmatch. The objective of the Shadow War gametype is for the attacking army to push the defending army off the map. So if either side went 128 sniper rifles, they're fucked. All for the same reason everyone in the real armies dont have sniper rifles. You can't stop an organized army with a balanced kit with a bunch of bolt-actions. Especially if said army can drop a 1000lb bomb on a group of campers to open up a hole.

Of course, I'm not saying there won't be abuse. People abuse every game. But I would hope that Zipper would design the game, so that a smart commander would be able to counter abuse. The problem this would lead to is excessive meta-gaming [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metagame]. At least that's a problem for me. Some people (any fans of StarCraft, or Fighting Games, for example) like a strong meta-game.

And I share your concerns about having fucking morons in charge. IRL, we 'promote' the incompetent officers to a pentagon job to get them out of the field. I don't think it will work that way in the game I know they have a promotion system that will only allow veterans to be squad leaders, and "proven leaders" to be senior officers. How that works, I have no idea.

Either way, though I dont have a PS3, I have high hopes for this game. It seems ambitious, and if they can find a way to make organizing a bunch of sweaty gamers into a professional virtual army a fun experience, more power to them.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I guess I was wrong about the game. However your description has told me that the game will suffer from all the issues I thought the squad system would prevent.

Based on your description, I can assume that the squad will have easy access to each other position. As a result, the game will most likely be devoid of tactics. Why? You have 256 in the same general area firing at each other. It will be a constant rain of bullets on each side. You won't be able to preform tactics because most of your squad members will be dead, prevnting you from properly launching an attack.

Plus the squad leader system reeks of design flaws. In most games if you have one member on the team who acts like an idiot it won't hinder the rest of the team to much. However this game makes the fatal mistake of giving large amounts of power to one person, the squad leader. The squad leader is the only sourced of communication with other squads. The squad leader needs to plan out all the tactics.

Well what if the squad leader is a bloody idiot? Or simply someone who works better as a foot soldier and has no idea how to lead others? Then the whole system falls apart. You can't properly use tactics and communication with other squads will be fucked. So your only option will be to play the game like any other generic FPS. Charge in blindly and shoot ev everywhere hoping to kill the enemies. Other squads will be forced to do this to and then the whole game falls apart. It degenerates into mindless FPS gameplay, only magnified to encompass a player mass of 256 people.

Also what if a team takes full advantage of communication and uses it to abuse there numbers. Imagine if on one team almost everyone was camping with a sniper. Any efforts made by the enemy team would be pointless because the second they expose themselves around 128 snipers are ready to shoot them. Or what if they managed to get everyone on one team to throw a grenade at the same time? Could crash the server.

So while you may have convinced me that the game those take advantage of its feature of 256 players, it will most likely cripple itself because of it.

The games with 256 aren't deathmatch. The objective of the Shadow War gametype is for the attacking army to push the defending army off the map. So if either side went 128 sniper rifles, they're fucked. All for the same reason everyone in the real armies dont have sniper rifles. You can't stop an organized army with a balanced kit with a bunch of bolt-actions. Especially if said army can drop a 1000lb bomb on a group of campers to open up a hole.

Of course, I'm not saying there won't be abuse. People abuse every game. But I would hope that Zipper would design the game, so that a smart commander would be able to counter abuse. The problem this would lead to is excessive meta-gaming [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metagame]. At least that's a problem for me. Some people (any fans of StarCraft, or Fighting Games, for example) like a strong meta-game.

And I share your concerns about having fucking morons in charge. IRL, we 'promote' the incompetent officers to a pentagon job to get them out of the field. I don't think it will work that way in the game I know they have a promotion system that will only allow veterans to be squad leaders, and "proven leaders" to be senior officers. How that works, I have no idea.

Either way, though I dont have a PS3, I have high hopes for this game. It seems ambitious, and if they can find a way to make organizing a bunch of sweaty gamers into a professional virtual army a fun experience, more power to them.

I know it's not death match, however it can still very easily degenerate into mindless FPS game. Especially if you have to attack a target, like in the game you just said.

Also everyone camping with snipers would work in a defend gamemode. So long as they don't cluster together in the same area they can still all use sniper rifles to defend their territory. A bomb to flush them out wouldn't matter because they can spread out.

 

[Slash Dementia]

I really hope this can work some how. I don't even own a PS3 and I hope it does. It sounds like it would be fun.
Also...knowing Microsoft, I think they would try to take that idea and take it a little step up. So the 360 only users can have that experience too.

 

[SilentHunter7]

I really hope this can work some how. I don't even own a PS3 and I hope it does. It sounds like it would be fun.
Also...knowing Microsoft, I think they would try to take that idea and take it a little step up. So the 360 only users can have that experience too.

No, they'll just take that idea, and buy it.

 

[TNYSLMN]

Are they making a MAG 2????