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The Tragedy of MAG

I think it reviewed pretty poorly when it came out and was a bit buggy/poor performance. Also really lacked an identity

I dont think it ever became big enough to bring back unlike SOCOM.

SOCOM could be a big deal if they brought it back in a big impressive reboot
 
online only game turning it's servers off is as if it never existed, that's why i never bought a game that can't be played offline and has an expiration date on it.
 
MAG had a hard road that it never was able to navigate, but one factor against it is that it was released back in the boxed-copy era, before the GAAS and Season models came into play.

A title like MAG is too big to ship perfectly; something will not work out exactly as the developers intended it, and it will take time and testing to find what the right solution needs to be. A game now, it has the time (until it doesn't...) to adjust its original assumptions of what it should be, and to react to player demands or interests. They can iterate quickly to fine-tune or overhaul the experience, and the whole game can even be replaced (if it manages to last long enough.) If you look at Fortnite as an example, the "Save the World" game they originally made it to be is barely even a thing anymore; Fortnite sort of sat there with middling success until Battle Royale made it a phenomenon and a juggernaut. And games can evolve naturally within themselves, without splitting the player base, whereas back then they could have patched MAG but to really make it work, they would have needed to wait for MAG 2 to implement the transformative changes and then hope the sequel retained and gained on the player base... and of course they never made it to MAG 2.

I personally didn't love MAG and so can't bemoan its demise, but if I were to think about what they could have done to improve it and win me over, it's hard to think of how that'd be possible in the PS3 era. Yes, it had a HDD and so the app could have been patched or improved, but the model wasn't there yet for them to work it over as it probably needed.

Of course, GAAS has its own issues, and MAG might not have been well-received (or remembered) if it had tried in 2010 what it takes to make an online game work these days. If MAG had launched as a F2P experience, maybe it could have reached that player saturation needed to sustain itself, but then probably that would have been even less the type of game that someone like me would have wanted to play.
 
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There was nothing like it at the time for so many simultaneous players on console. It worked surprisingly well with the roaming objectives and command leader coordination. I enjoyed countless hours and made many friends playing MAG, still in touch with some today. Parachuting onto the battlefield gave a great overview but you were floating ducks hearing bullets whistling by and watching helplessly as teammates got picked off.
 
Easily my favorite MP game of that gen. leading a squad of eight from objective to objective, healing everyone and then going behind enemy lines to wreck havoc taking out AA, Mortar and Sensor Artillary never got old. It was insanely frustrating at times due to the dumb design choices giving SVER the easiest bases to defend. A lot of matches simply ended in a stalemate because of that.

But when it worked, it was amazing. My favorite thing to do was change the spawn of my team to attack alongside another squad of 8. 16 v 8 and by the time the other team caught on, we would have taken their bunker and outflanked them to take out the AA guns. And just like that we had everyone parachuting in behind enemy lines.

It's a shame Sony sent this game to die. The beta was only a week before launch and a pain in the ass to download. Sony was so fucking bad at marketing games back then. This game needed a long beta months before release not just to fix common sense design issues like the SVER maps, but also to generate hype and build up a fanbase.
 
MAG was bad.

There are two kinds of people who like MAG.

1. People who got MAG as a kid and didn't have access to many other games.

2. Content creators who understand "Remember MAG" content can be made.
 
From what I can remember there were the choke points on maps where players were dropping like flies (So many Grenades!) but the medics going for saves like they were possessed 😄. Thought it could turn into something bigger with a follow up game that never came. So I just went with Battlefield games instead.
 
It was janky but a lot of fun if you care to invest the time in to it. I wouldn't mind seeing a return or at least have someone renew the concept and improve on the controls.
 
Was a brilliant game with plenty of flaws. Played it a lot with friends. Would love to see a revival of something similar to it, but now days with battle royale games, you tend to get a similar feel (although at a smaller scale). Also if they released it now, it would 100% be a gaas game and quite frankly there are just too many of those going around.
 
I recall playing MAG and it was dead so fast there was no way to even know its potential. Luckily Planetside 2 dropped about 1-2 years later and those large scale battles were fulfilled. And its still going.

PlanetSide 2 holds the record for the biggest first-person shooter battle, with over 1158 players being recorded in a single battle.
 
Played MAG at a buddy's place. Not terrible, but not great either.

- 30 fps tops
- Had a COD feel to it, but at up to 30 fps
- Fake weapon names
- Game textures werent great
- Everyone was tossing green gas grenades at each other's spawn points and spawn camping. There is one map in particular where you spawn and you have to make either a hard left or right. Enemies spawn camped both chokepoints and tossed gas grenades as well. Was mpossible to get out clean
 
MAG had potential but it was literally ahead of its time. Too bad Sony won't give it another go. The faction wars was interesting to me. Still sad it couldn't survive.
 
It was an ok game, but not good enough to be a big success. So I assume it won't be back because they are too busy working with more successful IPs and releasing new ones.
 
The concept sounded cool, the reality is it kind of sucked. I tried a few times to get into it and just couldn't. I think it was a game you had to really commit to but it didn't seem very welcoming. I'm sure there are some hardcore fans but it sure didn't grab me at the time.
 
great idea at the wrong time.

in this era of everybody connected all the time MAG would surly find a fanbase.

The Pleasure said:
They misspelled WARHAWK.
Click to expand...

Warhawk managed to find a solid fanbase in the challenging PS3PSN way back then. it would a massive success if it was remade for the PS5.
 
meg GIF
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
MAG was bad.

There are two kinds of people who like MAG.

1. People who got MAG as a kid and didn't have access to many other games.

2. Content creators who understand "Remember MAG" content can be made.
Click to expand...

3. Those who see past flashy graphics and enjoy barebones multiplayer.

I was 37 when MAG released and I played it religiously for months until my mates jumped on BF Bad Company 2 so I jumped too. Wish I didn't, I only went because I didn't like being paired up with randoms in the squad. Sure the game could've done some things better but it's biggest fault was at the hands of the Devs with lack of support and patches. One of my favourite online shooters, definitely in my top 5 in terms of enjoyment and time played.
 
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I own a copy of this game on disc. Only played it about a week though. Its a coaster now.

It was interesting. But the progression was way too slow. They built it more like an MMO with content and features locked behind hours and hours of level progression. It wasn't that fun for new joiners right out of the gate.

It only got good if you put the time in.
 
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I sank so many hours into this game and remember easily dropping 100+ kill games pure insanity and good gunplay (that I remember) Also I'm a huge Zipper/Socom 1-2-3 fan. MP ear of PS2 was godly and MAG brought that feeling back for awhile along with MGO on MGS4.
 
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i loved mag..it was a game which seemed like a clusterfuck when you first started playing but after a while it just clicked and you found yourself working as teams and completing the objectives
it was a shame it was effectively buried with the sony hack stuff and a reminder of how shit sony managed some of their first party studios
 
More =/= better. The game never made you feel you are taking a part in such a huuuge battle, whereas the action that was going on the given area around you was simply weak, the gameplay was average, there was really nothing that made the game stand out of the MP crowd (which was really large and competitive at the time) other than the 256 players number, if you took that out you were left with a 5/10 game.

Really, why would you want to play this instead of BFBC2 that came out the same year, but actually did made you feel there's something much bigger than the usual console's 6v6 going on, with vehicles and destruction on top.
 
Marcellus Wallace said:
MAG was awful. Just pure shit. It's not a tragedy.
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Agree 100%

I remember the hype at the time, it was all about the player count but when you actually played the game, it was god awful.

MAG is one of those games that sums up PS3 for me, the huge load times, the black/grey colours and horrific frame rate, it was one of those walking though mud ps3 games much like Resistance.
 
Sybrix said:
Agree 100%

I remember the hype at the time, it was all about the player count but when you actually played the game, it was god awful.

MAG is one of those games that sums up PS3 for me, the huge load times, the black/grey colours and horrific frame rate, it was one of those walking though mud ps3 games much like Resistance.
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You shut your fucking mouth ok? Jesus, how can people put Resistance in the same sentence as MAG, this forum is going downhill...
 
CitizenZ said:
I recall playing MAG and it was dead so fast there was no way to even know its potential. Luckily Planetside 2 dropped about 1-2 years later and those large scale battles were fulfilled. And its still going.

PlanetSide 2 holds the record for the biggest first-person shooter battle, with over 1158 players being recorded in a single battle.
Click to expand...


And it's still active today. I can log on ps5 and still get in 200+ player battles. There was one going on at midnight with 2 other 50+ player battles, and several 30+ all at the same time.
Locked 60fps during the 200 player fights too, none of that bullshit sub 20s MAG had. PC is even better.
MAG looked like shit too, no mics, servers disconnecting. Planetside 2 is just waaay superior, even more so after years of updates and the new NSO faction.
 
Why are there sooooo many haters for Sony franchises that have gone down in recent history?

- Driveclub was shit
- MAG was shit
- SOCOM was shit
- Killzone was shit
- Jak & Daxter was shit
- Twister Metal was shit

Like fuck, you can't make anyone happy these days.
 
SlimeGooGoo said:
If companies didn't focused on graphics alone, 256 players online would probably be the norm for multiplayer FPS.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the gaming community, where the majority didn't mind 30 fps for the last ten years for getting a few better pixels.
 
Fahdis said:
Why are there sooooo many haters for Sony franchises that have gone down in recent history?

- Driveclub was shit
- MAG was shit
- SOCOM was shit
- Killzone was shit
- Jak & Daxter was shit
- Twister Metal was shit

Like fuck, you can't make anyone happy these days.
Click to expand...

Well there's a reason the mentioned franchises are dead you know....

- DC - aside the awesome graphics the game was just decent, and that's after all the updates because we all know how unfinished the game launched. It was basically Sony's NFS, which is also dead now.
- MAG - as per the comments in the thread, an interesting concept but badly executed.
- SOCOM - it had a dedicated fanbase for sure, but for everyone else it was just an average game, I'd personally put it in the same bag as Starhawk/Warhawk honestly, like yeah those games were there, but there were better 3rd party alternatives when it comes to shooters.
- KZ - the series never really took the market by the storm, never even had its own identity as each installment is different than the others, KZ2 was just a pleasant accident, but that's all.
- J&D - that's a PS classic, don't see how anyone could complain about it, did I missed something?
- TM - it was dope AF back in the days, but the 2012 revival was an outdated game with new coating.


Sybrix said:
Resistance was black/grey, on PS3, sluggish and bland.
Click to expand...

But nevertheless it had great gameplay, setting, story, and one of the best MP modes on PS3 for quite some time. Basically it was the complete opposite of MAG.
 
Fucking loved playing this game. There was something about the atmosphere that was really fascinating.
 
I fucking loved MAG. The final objectives on every map were pure chaos. It was insane, especially on a PS3.
 
This game was SO good for someone like me who didn't play many online games and hated how competitive COD and BF were. It was perfect, you could jump in and just be a soldier in what felt like a massive battlefield with tons of objectives. I love how you could go up in rank and give orders, it really was something else.
 
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