Today is the day that MAG fans have been waiting for as our first major DLC, “Interdiction,” is now available for purchase from the PlayStation Store for $9.99 US (prices in other regions may vary)!

If you missed our post detailing Interdiction a few weeks back, allow us to sum it up for you:
MAG Interdiction is a brand new game mode built for 128 players. In it, two rival attacking factions fight to gain control of three different command posts while using armored convoys for every squad on the map (that’s right, 16 APCs onscreen at once!). To earn the victory, teams must capture and hold as many objectives as possible to increase their score while simultaneously decreasing their opponents’ score across three all-new “faction neutral” maps (Iron Creek Quarry, Lake Bayano Spur, and Sovot Motorway).
In addition to the new maps and gametype, Interdiction will also include the most powerful protection in the game, the “Heavy Improved” armor set, as well as a number of new in-game ribbons, medals and trophies. Here’s a reminder of what you can expect:

Ribbons

• Jump Start – Capture 2 Command Posts in a round of Interdiction
• Mowing the Grass – Get 10 kills with a vehicle turret in one round
• Dashed Hopes – Destroy 2 mines with gunfire in one round
• Cannonball Rally – Become an MVP (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) in a round of Interdiction

Medals

• Roadside Assistance – Capture 10 Interdiction control points over your career
• Landscape Architect – Get 50 kills with a vehicle turret over your career
• BOD – Destroy 20 mines with gunfire over your career
• Designated Driver – Earn 5 Interdiction MVPs over your career

Trophies

• King of the Hills (Bronze) – Earn the Roadside Assistance medal while playing Interdiction
• Red Ball Express (Silver) – Earn the Designated Driver medal while playing Interdiction
• Road Runner (Gold) – Capture 3 Interdiction control points in a single round

As a special “thank you” to everyone who’s playing MAG this week, we’re also bringing back our popular “Double XP” promotion over the weekend. That means that whether you purchase our new Interdiction DLC or not, you can expect to grab twice as much experience for your battlefield efforts starting Friday, June 25 at 12:01am Pacific Time (3:01am Eastern, 7:01am GMT). Just be sure to finish any game you start in order to benefit from the additional XP, as folks who leave a game early won’t receive the bonus. Our Double XP Weekend ends on Sunday, June 27 at 11:59pm Pacific Time (2:59am Eastern, 6:59am GMT).
Oh, and one final note: All MAG players will have to download a small “Interdiction Activation Patch” starting today. It’s only 4MB in size and prepares your copy of MAG to be compatible with the Interdiction game mode. Again, Interdiction itself can be downloaded later today from the PlayStation Store for $9.99 US and weighs in at 440MB.

MAG Interdiction Trailer from Zipper Interactive on Vimeo.

"It’s been just over four and a half months since MAG released worldwide and 930,000 battles, 1.7 million players, and 1.1 billion kills later, the time to expand is now.

Yes friends, everyone here at Zipper Interactive is proud to announce that beginning June 22, our first expansion pack, dubbed “Interdiction,” will be available to players all over the world for $9.99 US (prices in other regions may vary).

“But what’s in it,” you say? Well, for starters, we’re introducing a brand new gametype that we’re calling (what else?) “Interdiction.” Built for up to 128 simultaneous players, Interdiction challenges two rival factions to be attackers and seize control of three command posts with the aid of several heavily-armed convoys on three brand new maps (Lake Bayano Spur, Sovot Motorway, and Iron Creek Quarry). To make it even more interesting, we’ve made all three maps completely faction neutral – allowing all sides to play any map whenever they want – in addition to supplying every squad with their own APC vehicle (that’s 16 APCs on the map at once!). To win, players must capture and hold as many objectives as possible to increase their score while concurrently depleting their enemy’s. In short, Interdiction mode = crazy battlefield mayhem.


MAG Interdiction Trailer from Zipper Interactive on Vimeo.


A new gametype and three new maps isn’t all we’re packing either. As an extra bonus, we’re also adding the ultimate in MAG protection, our “Heavy Improved” armor set. Trust us when we say that it doesn’t matter if you’re Raven, Valor, or SVER — if you don the Heavy Improved armor consider yourself a walking tank.

Oh, and one other thing, to reward you for spending your hard-earned dollars on our new DLC, we’ll also be including a handful of brand new in-game medals, ribbons and trophies! What are they? Glad you asked!

Ribbons

* Jump Start – Capture 2 Command Posts in a round of Interdiction
* Mowing the Grass – Get 10 kills with a vehicle turret in one round
* Dashed Hopes – Destroy 2 mines with gunfire in one round
* Cannonball Rally – Become an MVP (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) in a round of Interdiction

Medals

* Roadside Assistance – Capture 10 Interdiction control points over your career
* Landscape Architect – Get 50 kills with a vehicle turret over your career
* BOD – Destroy 20 mines with gunfire over your career
* Designated Driver – Earn 5 Interdiction MVPs over your career

Trophies

* King of the Hills (Bronze) – Earn the Roadside Assistance medal while playing Interdiction
* Red Ball Express (Silver) – Earn the Designated Driver medal while playing Interdiction
* Road Runner (Gold) – Capture 3 Interdiction control points in a single round

And that’s the Interdiction Pack. Again, you can pick it up for $9.99 starting June 22, but don’t think that we’re stopping there – we still have a lot planned for MAG in the coming months. Be sure to check out your favorite gaming sites throughout the week for glimpses at what we have in store!"
Source: http://blog.mag.com/blog/2010/06/mag-interdiction-dlc-on-june-22/

Labels: DLC

"This is a big one.

Our latest MAG update is undoubtedly the most comprehensive yet. As we mentioned last week, MAG v1.06 is packed with updates and upgrades that our dedicated community has been waiting for. Expanded Medical Kit functionality, better “team kill” prevention, improved vehicle physics, weapon updates and credit adjustments, altered medal and ribbon requirements, and additional gun ports for our APCs are just a few of the several new additions that players can expect alongside a number of needed bug fixes. But reading about it isn’t enough — you’ll just have to download it to see how much it has improved the game for yourself.

MAG v.1.06 will be available starting Tuesday, June 8 at 1am Pacific/ 4am Eastern/ 8am GMT. You can check the list below for the total catalog of items included with the patch. For the complete history of MAG fixes and patches, don’t forget to visit our official patch notes page at http://blog.mag.com/blog/patch-notes/.

Patch v1.06
Available June 8, 2010 | 40MB (TPPS), 99MB (DLS)

Gameplay

* Player knife attacks no longer deal damage to members of own PMC
* Headshot damage bonuses no longer apply to friendly fire
* Changed rewards for the resuscitation of an incapacitated ally to 5XP for partial health revive, and 10XP for full heath revive
* Added functionality to Medical Kit so that players can now heal themselves with L1 in addition to using R1 to heal or revive a teammate
* Added three gun ports to APCs of all factions
* All vehicle handling has been improved and been given more realistic physics
* Slowed down the rate of fire for the APC’s primary gun, but increased bullet damage
* Primary APC gun can now damage enemy APCs
* Shadow War contract turnover rate shortened by 75%

Weapons

* Adjusted damage for the AM50, Rollins LRRS, and AGVK sniper rifles vs. vehicles and emplaced turrets
* Increased rate of fire for all pistols (Raven’s F57, SVER’s IZ-443, and Valor’s M9)
* Improved close-range effectiveness and decreased long-range effectiveness for all Pistols, Machine Pistols, SMGs and Shotguns
* Made all LMG foregrips less effective at stabilizing fire
* Made improved stability skills less effective at stabilizing fire for machine guns
* Added “Hit” indicator to rocket launcher reticules
* Credit cost for Pistols has been changed from 100c to 0c
* Credit cost for Machine Pistols has been changed from 300c to 200c
* Credit cost for SMGs has been changed from 400c to 300c
* Credit cost for Shotguns has been changed from 600c to 400c
* Credit cost for Improved Rocket Launchers has been changed from 1000c to 800c
* Credit cost for Smoke Grenades has been changed from 300c to 200c
* Credit cost for Poison Gas Grenades has been changed from 600c to 500c
* Credit cost for Explosives Detector has been changed from 600c to 300c

Interface

* Lowered requirements for most Medal Awards
* Added progress bars to all Medal Awards
* Added messaging to main menu and all sub-menu screens that notify users of the following unlocked items: Apparel, Skill Points, Weapons/ Gear, Medals, Ribbons, new Leadership levels and new Ranks
* Added new comparison text to Stats menu for every category that allows users to compare their own stat to all other MAG players instantly
* Clan list functionality now works properly and displays online friends alphabetically first, followed by offline friends also listed alphabetically
* Clan and in-game Friends lists now leave highlighted selection on a player’s name if they change status as they move between “online” and “offline”
* Changed vehicle icon visibility on the map to reflect its current status of visibility instead of its previous map state of “always seen”
* Repaired display problem in the “Community” tab’s “Player Search” screen that improperly presented names that contained multiple non-alphabet characters
* Statistics for “Enemy Vehicles Destroyed Assists” and “Enemy Turrets Destroyed Assists” are now correctly listed in proper category “Objectives”
* Group panel now display icons to illustrate who is currently speaking
* Fixed infrequent bug that would incorrectly change sidebar and queue panel status indicator to 1 when the queue size exceeded its maximum
* Patched display problem in post-game stats screen that would incorrectly sort the “Assists” statistic
* Eliminated problem that allowed FRAGO’d objectives to continue flashing red and blue after they are destroyed in Acquisition for defenders

Graphics

* Fixed display problem with player’s left hand placement when using foregrip and bipod on the Raven Apex 100 light machine gun
* Fixed issue that prevented repaired roadblocks from “shining” to indicate that they can be interacted with
* Lowered instances “Death Twitch” jitter that sometimes occurred in dead characters that were close to/ or interacting with geometry
* Repaired problem that allowed flashbang effects to penetrate through solid objects and geometry
* Fixed occasional problem with second and third tier Sniper rifles that would sometimes result in the reticule not appear correctly when scoped

Technical

* Previously-released downloadable content (Fast Attack Gear Pack, Trooper Gear Pack, Raven’s Spyder Body Apparel, SVER’s Hazard Body Apparel, and Valor’s Bulldog Body Apparel) is now accessible to all users without PlayStation Store access
* Drastically lowered instances by which players could be resuscitated inside objectives, walls, and other geometry.
* Patched problem that prevented users from saving a loadout with DLC weapons following a “Respec” action
* Repaired issue that caused renamed PSN IDs to be incorrectly identified as its previous name when logging in
* Fixed bug that prevented Valor players from selecting all unlocked uniforms when wearing “Augmented Fiber Mesh” light armor
* Fixed rare bug that would result in thrown grenades bouncing off of dead bodies
* Repaired an occasional “undefined” message that sometimes occurred when a vehicle was FRAGO’d
* Fixed issue that sometimes prevented leaders from setting FRAGOs when riding in vehicles
* Patched occasional glitch that prevented the progress bar from appearing when activating an objective out of a sprint
* Various text localization updates

Server

* Updated patching system to allow for faster download speeds when retrieving in-game updates"
Source: http://blog.mag.com/blog/2010/06/patch-alert-mag-v1-06/

Last week, we revealed a large portion of what you can expect in our forthcoming MAG patch, version 1.06. What we didn’t tell you, though, was when you could expect to download it – that bit of info we’ve saved for today.

Beginning Tuesday, June 8 at 1am Pacific/ 4am Eastern/ 8am GMT, MAG v1.06 will automatically download to your PS3 the moment you sign into the game. Medal and Ribbon updates, all-new vehicle behavior, modified weapon performance, and brand new medical kit functionality are just a few of the several revisions that MAG v1.06 brings to the table, so don’t forget to log in and take advantage of it.

Check back with us again on patch day, June 8, for the full list of updates.
Source: http://blog.mag.com/blog/2010/06/mag-v1-06-on-june-8/

"Though we’re still several weeks away from its release, we thought it prudent to give everyone a head’s up on what we’re working towards for our next MAG patch – and it’s a big one!

Slated for sometime next month, MAG v1.06 will add a number of requested new features to the game that should please fans regardless of their play style. Not only have we made it much harder to accidentally kill fellow teammates, for example, we’ve also expanded the Medical Kit’s functionality to give users total control over who they heal (allies or themselves), while updating the experience system that surrounds it. Other new goodies include improved vehicle handling and physics, new gun ports for APCs, weapon efficiency adjustments, credit cost changes, and updated medal and ribbon requirements.
Another nice addition is that we’re also giving users who are currently without access to PlayStation Stores the ability to get all previously-available DLC immediately in-game.


We’ve listed a number of planned fixes on our index below, but this by no means the complete list of changes coming with v1.06 next month. We’ll have additional details on the full list of updates in the coming weeks in addition to the awaited news regarding our next bit of DLC (which is our biggest yet!). In the meantime, enjoy what we have for you so far and stay tuned for more specifics as we get closer to the patch’s release.



MAG Patch v1.06
Available June 2010 | Size: TBD

Gameplay

* Player knife attacks no longer deal damage to members of own PMC.
* Headshot damage bonuses no longer apply to friendly fire.
* Changed rewards for the resuscitation of an incapacitated ally to 5XP for partial health revive, and 10XP for full heath revive.
* Added functionality to Medical Kit so that players can now heal themselves with L1 in addition to using R1 to heal or revive a teammate.
* All vehicle handling has been improved and been given more realistic physics.
* Added three gun ports to APCs of all factions.
* Slowed down the rate of fire for the APC’s primary gun, but increased bullet damage.
* Primary APC gun can now damage enemy APCs.

Weapons

* Adjusted damage for the AM50, Rollins LRRS, and AGVK sniper rifles vs. vehicles and emplaced turrets.
* Increased rate of fire for all pistols (Raven’s F57, SVER’s IZ-443, and Valor’s M9).
* Improved close-range effectiveness and decreased long-range effectiveness for all Pistols, Machine Pistols, SMGs and Shotguns.
* Made all LMG foregrips less effective at stabilizing fire.
* Made improved stability skills less effective at stabilizing fire for machine guns.
* Credit cost for Pistols has been changed to 0c from 100c.
* Credit cost for Machine Pistols has been changed to 200c from 300c.
* Credit cost for SMGs has been changed to 300c from 400c.
* Credit cost for Shotguns has been changed to 400c from 600c.
* Credit cost for Improved Rocket Launchers has been changed to 800c from 1000c.
* Credit cost for Smoke Grenades has been changed to 200c from 300c.
* Credit cost for Poison Gas Grenades has been changed to 500c from 600c.
* Credit cost for Explosives Detector has been changed to 300c from 600c.

Interface

* Adjusted requirements for most Medal Awards.
* Added progress bars to all Medal Awards.
* Changed vehicle icon visibility on the map to reflect its current status of visibility instead of its previous map state of “always seen.”
* Repaired display problem in the “Community” tab’s “Player Search” screen that improperly presented names with multiple non-alphabet characters.
* Statistics for “Enemy Vehicles Destroyed Assists” and “Enemy Turrets Destroyed Assists” are now correctly listed in proper category “Objectives.”

Graphics

* Fixed display problem with player’s left hand placement when using foregrip and bipod on the Raven Apex 100 light machine gun.
* Fixed issue that prevented repaired roadblocks from “shining” to indicate that they can be interacted with.

Technical

* Previously-released downloadable content (Fast Attack Gear Pack, Trooper Gear Pack, Raven’s Spyder Body Apparel, SVER’s Hazard Body Apparel, and Valor’s Bulldog Body Apparel) is now accessible to all users without PlayStation Store access.
* Patched problem that prevented users to save loadout with DLC weapons following a “Respec” action.
* Repaired issue that caused renamed PSN IDs to be incorrectly identified as its previous name when logging in.

Server

* Updated patching system to allow for faster download speeds when retrieving in-game updates."

Source: http://blog.mag.com/blog/2010/05/patch-alert-mag-v1-06-coming-in-june/
Picture Source: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2794/4072926966_3b1f05b688.jpg

Basic Tips

• You always want to maximize your points at the end of a round and using your field support abilities greatly contributes to that cause. So listen to your squad leader and get those FRAGO multipliers. Is the AA down and your squad leader has FRAGO’ed it? Don’t walk, SPRINT TO IT, and grab that multiplier!

• Use your skill points early for field support skills. These GREATLY contribute to secondary XP.

• Heal from the field. Get a resuscitation kit ASAP. Your squad will love you for it. So will your XP bonus.

• Improved Repairing is key! Basically another way of saying score XP faster!

• Wanna make friends the easy way with your squad? DON’T BLEED OUT! At point of death, first use your analog stick to scan the immediate area for a medic. If one is visible, call out on the mic and wait on the countdown timer as long as possible. Your pain is your squadmates’ reward. And please say thanks — courtesy is still appreciated on the field of blood and destruction.

Advanced Tips

• If on defense during a Domination match, and you are spawning at your rear point, flank the outsides of your quadrant and reach the forward destroyed bunkers. Repair and move on to another destroyed bunker if possible to repair. Repairing a bunker before repairing an AA will spawn teammates that can help in the job of repairing an AA. Team trumps Rambo every time.

• While repairing a forward bunker and notice that other bunkers are destroyed, pick the farthest bunker away from your current repair. Once the repaired bunker is up, the opposition will swarm that area to investigate. If you repair far enough away from THAT focus, you’ll have a greater chance of success in getting multiple bunkers repaired. Eliminating predictability is the key to survival.

• While repairing ANYTHING, always be aware of being vulnerable to an easy line of site from the opposition. Don’t make yourself a target. Don’t be a clothing mannequin with a target on your back.

• Healing around ANY, yes ANY FRAGO’ed targets doubles XP. Take advantage. Be an XP shark.

Labels: tips