Ben-DutkaMAG launches in less than a week and that lengthy beta phase just recently ended on January 10.
Beginning on private servers in Europe last summer, this beta came to the US in the fall (still as a private test) and then opened its doors to everyone earlier this month. And now, as shown over at the official MAG blog , the big number tallies are in: firstly, there were "well over a million downloads" of the MAG beta client (860,000 in North America) and of that number, over 619,000 gained at least one point of experience. Of course, only 143 managed to max out their character at Lv. 60 but hey, that takes some serious time and dedication. Faction stats show that membership numbers were almost split between Valor and Raven (Valor at 38.7% and Raven at 37.2%) while S.V.E.R. trailed at 24.1%. But don't feel bad for the latter group; despite their lesser membership total, S.V.E.R. actually won the Beta 5.0 Shadow War, "barely edging out Raven." Valor beat Raven for the Domination title and overall, there were more than 225 hours worth of battles played out over the week of the War. That averages out to about 3.2 hours per person!
Lastly, big props to user chennault2424, the most prolific tester for the third beta period in a row: he earned almost 110,000 experience, bringing his total to over 360,000! My_Digital_Enemy, gome-bukuro (JP), basquasher (JP), and Behike (JP) round out the top 5…does anyone else find it interesting that three of the top five are from Japan? The region that supposedly despises FPS? Who would've thought a MMOFPS would be popular over there? Well, anyway, get ready for the full launch on January 25 in the US, fellow recruits.
Related Game(s): MAG
Sad to report that I wasn't that impressed with the beta and will likely pass on this. Having 256 players is appealing but the game play isn't all that great. Felt like a generic version of MW.
Bummer. I was looking forward to a larger shooter. Guess I'll just have to stick with KZ2 for bigger maps.
yeh same im passing on this one
Do they count the fact that I, and most people I know, had to download it at least 6 times. If you started in the begining, that is.
chennault2424 probably has already pre-ordered MAG.
I'm a bit surprised by the three Japanese, the reason I'm just a bit surprised is because I once played Killzone 2 in a Japanese room and goodness gracious I was pawned by the Japanese.
it's because pretty much all japanese kids do is play on DS/PS3's, not really that surprising
Way to go SVER!!! Even though I didn't play it as much as most other people, it's nice to know that I was on the winning team.
me too
i was also sver.
it's funny because whenever i played, sver had the least amount of people online, but always had two contracts. we win 🙂
It was quite alright, didn't make it further than level 5 though… I suck at fps…
i had the beta key when it wasnt pubic and i didnt like it and i redownloaded it when it went pubic and to see the changes and for me , sad to say still dont like it and will just wait for KZ3 for my fps needs. KILMOR
I downloaded it and played for about 10 minutes. The next time I went to try it, it wanted me to download about 2gb again. Decided it wasn't worth it. It's not my type of game, though.
I hope this game does well; not cause I give two sh!ts about it cause I personally found it more boring than watching two snails sleep all day, but I do want Zipper to do well so they can proceed to Socom 4(maybe).
Looking forward to the PSXE review.
NO WAY!!!!
chenault2424?
He's an officer in my old RESISTANCE 2 clan, Extreme Aggression Elite! (Till i got kicked out, its a LONG story)
I am schocked…..
Can't wait for MAG. Too bad I don't remember him being this good in R2, LOL
Those were the days….
What's even FUNNIER is that my good friend who was also kicked from Extreme Aggression Elite, is the fact that chenault2424 revived him when he was down, in MAG
But i'm sure you guys don't want to hear much more, so i'll leave it that.
Dude, that clan was badass. Everybody there kicked everybody elses ass. You were in it? 😉
Yeah, I was in it Banky.
I was kicked from it for stupid reasons, though…
It's 256 players but you might as well play resistance. Because you deffently don't get to experience 256 players they're doing something way over on the otherside of the map
It's about the war, not the battle, Soldier.
I just pre-ordered MAG after getting hooked on the public beta. Its true that in a 256 match you aren't generally interacting with all 256 players but the fact that they're on the map, that they have an impact on the overall score and that the maps are big enough to accommodate everyone really boosts the sense of scale.
Also, the pacing of the action is more deliberate and there is a greater emphasis on teamwork and strategy. I totally understand all the flak this game is getting for long respawn times, low weapon damage etc. but I found it to be a buttload of fun anyway.
As a big COD fan, I found this MAG really refreshing. Since going back to the MW2, it feels cramped and all the criticism about it being a run-and-gunner is starting to come into focus.
It seems like there is a lot of MAG hate going on the site, just like there was for MW2, but if anyone else here is getting it, add me as friend so we can battle together (PSN: goldendutch)
Last edited by NonProphet on 1/18/2010 3:11:17 PM
valor?
Ordered MAG ages ago when I got hooked last quarter. Didn't play much else in that time apart from U2 & KZ2. Played all faction and I reckon that SVER seems to have the better defensible maps (especially Sabotage). I'll most likely play Raven, but I do prefer the entry carbine for Valor.
Lightshow:
Yeah, I'm leaning toward Valor, I played as Raven in the beta but I want to try a different PMC and I'm weary of SVER.
cool, if you go valor i'll play with you. PSN Spaceraser
I wasn't overly impressed with MAG. I think KZ2 is a far better shooter, in fact the best shooter I have played this side of Bad Company 2 (which I am looking forward to playing).
At least in MAG, the developers seemed to have fixed the shadow pixelation problem which seems to smack so many engines silly these days.
MAG game play and movement mechanics felt stiff to me. KZ2 feels right.
Q!
"i am home"
Last edited by Qubex on 1/18/2010 8:13:10 PM
this game will be one of the biggest letdowns in gaming history, if the beta is to be believed. theres one less ps3 exclusive we can use on the "good ps3 exclusive" list. damn, i was really excited for it….
MAG didn't inpress me very much it was a little to hard.
Well, I guess alot of people here in PSX are too hard on MAG. Everyone is comparing it to MW2 and KZ2. Hands down, MW2 and KZ2 beats the crap out of MAG in terms of visuals and audio. And since this is a PS3 exclusive, most people expect it to be awesome in terms of visuals. But alot of people fail to see what Zipper is trying to do and fail to realize that MAG is an almost complete different game than MW2 or KZ2. Zipper is trying to provide an experience of actually going to War. The pacing of this game is deliberate, which is much slower than MW2 or KZ2. The game requires patients. In a real war, you can expect to run in and become rambo, you will definitely be killed in no time. Therefore, you need to proceed to the objective slowly and always taking cover since there will always be snipers around. This game is all about teamwork and requires you to have the survival instinct, to know how to survive in a battlefield with such immense chaos. This game is by no means hard, if you can play other fps on the PS3, then theres no reason to say this game is hard. You just need to understand what you have to do. Like every other game, you just need to adapt to its gameplay.
The bottom line is this game is not the same as MW2 or KZ2. Pacing is much slower than those two games, but theres a reason for it. Hope you guys have an open mind about till reviews comes out.
all they have to do is force people to help out the team, and actually do the objectives instead of camping behind a bush blowing unsuspected victims.
speed up the pace of the game.
add in some spawn points, that way im not tracking 100KMs from my base to the objective every time i die.
remove the hit detection issues, i run through a corridor a sniper blows my head off i continue running, take cover behind a cement wall and my head comes off.
WTF?
another scenario, a enemy has his back to me, i pump 30 assault rifle bullets into his back, he turns around shoots me once than we both die.
WTF?
1 bullet does the same damage as 30?
WTF?
add some color to the game, i mean seriously it is depressing its like a old country western film.
black, grey, and a little brown. what a color pate!