[Comment From Thrasher20]
Will there be a fee to play MAG?
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: Thrasher20; no MAG is free to play out of the box!
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper:
All leaders have special abilities that you get when you stay close to them :)
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: So stay close to them!
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: Yep, you can change over to different factions, but there will be an associated EXP cost
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: We specifically chose 1st person - wanted to make sure the player was super close to the action. (the guy asked if there will be 3rd person available…which means, definitely no 3rd person in this game. )
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: CmOwns -- yes, we'll have a website up where you can see stats, state of the game world, all that good stuff
Regarding a question about LAG :
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: We've put a great deal of work into the servers to make sure to minimize it. The fact that we've got dedicated servers up there forwarding the most important info will really help address LAG.
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: Joey - The larger maps have driveable/mannable ground vehicles that players can use tactically, as well as play a part of the 128-player map mission objective. Air vehicles are used for insertions and support strikes but aren't pilotable. The smaller maps don't have vehciles, we want to focus on the infantry-level experience for those
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper:
Phoniex - there aren't the traditional game modes you might expect from smaller FPS titles. Basically each map has an associated game mode. We have a more tradiitonal team v. team mode for 64 players. We have a "capture the objective points" game mode for another set of 64 maps. the 128 maps have Attackers trying to steal a vehicle from the Defending side. 256 is an all-out battle for control points.
[Comment From Kaako]
Do the guns feel more arcady or are you going for a more realistic approach(1-2 hit kills) ?
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: The weapons strike a balance between arcadey and realistic. Also, depending on your loadout you may be more or less capable of taking rounds. Ideally we want experienced FPS players to feel comfortable but also make sure the game is approachable for all players.
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: SOCOM has really helped us make huge progress in MAG. All the online things we have learned over the years -- all aspects including level design as well as engineering were big.
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: MAG servers were built from the ground up and feature lots of the features that we had wanted in previous SOCOM titles.
[Comment From silentscope101]
Will there be a way to join games that our friends are all ready in?
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper:
silentscope101 - if your friends are already on your PSN friends list and they are the same army as you (so, you'll only be able to join friends playing for Raven, if you're a member of Raven), then you'll be able to quickly join them in their game.
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: The biggest maps are about 1 square kilometre .. so big! The maps are based on three global regions - Alaska, Central Asia and Central america. How balanced are they - I'm gonna say perfectly balanced ;)
[Comment From CrimsonFox13]
What's your most favorite thing about the game so far?
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: CrimsonFox13, I think I'm most excited about the advancement system -- it keeps me coming back each day (oh, and the fact that I work here too

)
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: coolfondo, we don't have any "negative xp" system -- although your rating will drop off pretty quickly if you've got a habit of team kills... Our servers will be looking at that aspect as part of the cheat prevention tech as well.
[Comment From shootthebandit]
what defines a member of SVER from a member of RAVEN or VALOR? do they each have special abilities (if so can you provide us with examples) or is it just asthetic?
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: Each SVER, RAVEN, and VALOR have unique weapons, vehicles, uniforms -- and they've all definitely have unique attitudes!
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: Sure, we've got multiple game modes -- 32x32, 64x64, 128x128. (But, just for clarity, we don't have 256x256 which would be 512!)
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: MAG takes place in the "near future" ; roughly 20 years from now -- but I don't consider it a futuristic game (no laser beam weapons)...
[Comment From cros1625]
How will the respawn work?
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper:
Wow... respawn in a 256 is a complex thing to describe. Let me summarise... you spawn in "timed waves" and you spawn in with your squad. Some lucky squads get to paradrop into the combat zone or ride in on APCs.
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: ohrboy18 -- no sir, you DO NOT have to be a squad leader if you don't want. The leadership system is an "Opt-In" system only. You can be an uber-1337 operator and not have to lead guys around...
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper:
Yes there is a sprint button, which ties into your character's endurance. You can actively increase your sprint duraction by sinking EXP into it, if you're the kind of player that wants to get around in a hurry.
[Comment From Johnny Rzeznik]
So... how do the games played come together to affect the world of MAG?
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: Rzeznik - let's just say that every mission/game played affects the global state of the shadow War... and the state of the Shadow War conveys bonuses and advantages to those in control of different global "contracts"
[Comment From Sarobi]
ALRIGHT! you gots got me... ill trade you guys rare pokemon cards if you let me in the beta first :)
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: Pokemon cards? Seriously? Maybe yugio cards

Seriously, we'll get beta info out soon and are going to be looking for lots of players!
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: Weather will have an impact, where we try to push the atmospheric effects -- but there won't be a dynamic weather system (although it certainly isn't because we didn't think about it!)
Mike Gutmann - Vice President @ Zipper: Lots of questions there... We've been running live 256 player tests since late last year -- they're really coming along. We run them near-daily (with bots) and then about every week with real people. We take advantage of those tests to monitor all the servers and make sure the network code is working as we'd hoped.
Ed Byrne - Creative Director @Zipper: When a 256 game starts, we queue people up and you won't be stuck in a lobby with a list of names (you can tool around in the UI, work on your character etc.). when enough players have signed on to that game (we have a % for each gametype) the game will launch. Jason, our guru of all things complicated, is working on a system to make this as painless as possible.