Think you’re a MAG expert? Think again! Listed below are five facts listed in backwards order of their mind-blowing magnitude.

5. The three PMCs – Raven, SVER, and Valor – weren’t always known by those names. Over time, they underwent a number of title changes. Valor was known as the “Allied Forces” and “Hammer,” SVER was “SEVER” and “SIRSAT, and Raven was… well, check further down the list to see what Raven was called.

4. Though MAG was Zipper’s first “released” PS3 game, it wasn’t always planned to be. Prior to the greenlight for MAG, we were tossing around several ideas – including an espionage-themed action/platformer that thrived on chase sequences and a shooter that would ultimately become the game due out this April, SOCOM 4.

3. MAG could be even bigger. MAG is renowned for its 256-player support – and we earned the Guinness World Record for most simultaneous players in a console FPS as proof – but that’s not the limit of our technology. Truth be told, we can support a lot more than that. We picked 256 players as our target for game design reasons (how we divide up squads, platoons, etc). However, with our architecture, we could increase the number players well beyond the 256-person limit if we wanted to – we’d just want to make sure our design fit whatever super huge number we wanted to go after first.

2. MAG began its life as a SOCOM game. Originally, we had planned to make MAG a part of the SOCOM universe. In fact, its first working title was “SOCOM: MAG.” As the game began to take shape, however, it became apparent that what MAG was growing into was much different than SOCOM. The gameplay design, while still somewhat-tactical, continued to become less “SOCOM-like.” The emphasis on character progression and large-scale multiplayer battles with three completely different PMCs sealed the deal, and MAG happily spun off into its own universe. Oh, and remember that Raven “early title” we mentioned? Yeah, they were “Clawhammer!”

1. MAG started as a third-person shooter. Because it started as a SOCOM title, MAG was a third-person shooter for a good portion of its development cycle. When the first MAG trailer was shown at E3 2008, for instance, the game was still planned as a TPS (and the teaser hints at it pretty strongly). As we continued to refine MAG, however, and pull it father away from its SOCOM beginnings, we moved it into the first-person realm to help differentiate it even more. After we played it, when knew absolutely that going first-person was the right choice for the game and the rest, as they say, is history!

We hope you enjoyed this look into the Zipper vault of secrets and hope that you enjoyed our game even more.

It may sound clichéd, but wow, time really flies! It’s hard to believe that it has already been a full year since our massive 256-person PlayStation 3 exclusive shooter, MAG, was released all over the globe. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re unveiling a handful of promotions as a thank you to our fans throughout the week.

First up, starting Wednesday, January 26 at 12am Pacific Time, we’re changing all in-game queue and “Happy Hour” bonuses to 256% until Sunday, January 30 at 11:59pm. If you’ve been meaning to level up to grab our various “level 60” trophies, our promotional time period is a great time to go for it!

Speaking of January 26, all day from 10am-5pm Pacific Time, members of the Zipper Interactive QA team (our best players!) will be online and playing MAG throughout the day. If you’ve never participated in our “Play MAG with Zipper” events, they’re great fun and offer you the perfect opportunity to show us your skills.

Our third and final promotion is a special “Faction Neutral” switch for the Domination and Acquisition modes. For the first time ever in MAG “Live,” our two biggest game types will switch from being PMC-specific to being open for defense by any of our three factions. Like our 256% XP bonus, this mode switch will be in operation from January 26 at 12am Pacific to January 30 at 11:59pm.

But this isn’t all we’re doing to wish MAG a happy birthday. We’ll also be posting some additional posts throughout the week, including a breakdown of MAG statistics and numbers on Thursday and a special “Five Things You Never Knew About MAG” article on Friday morning. It should be fun.

As always, everyone here at Zipper Interactive wants you to know how much we appreciate all the support and feedback you have given us over the last year and we hope you’ve enjoyed playing the game as much as we’ve enjoyed making and improving it. Thank you very much!

We’re extremely excited to announce that starting tomorrow, on December 21, MAG will be available in its entirety as a full game download on the PlayStation Store.

Priced identically to its boxed “Greatest Hits” counterpart, the downloadable version of MAG (4.7 GB) will run you a mere $29.99 and come complete with all the bells and whistles found in our patches up to v2.10.

To celebrate its release, PlayStation Plus users can try MAG out for free with an exclusive full game trial! Members can play the game and any of its original modes at no charge for as long as their PlayStation Plus membership lasts, with their only limitation being a level 8 character cap. However, members will continue to earn experience as long as they play the game, allowing them to automatically receive credit for time played once they’ve purchased the full product.

Membership has its benefits, yes?

Otherwise, it’s been a big week with the launch of God of War: Ghost of Sparta on PSP, plus MAG: Escalation and The Walking Dead debuting on PSN. Next week’s shaping up to be a real earth-shaker with The Fight: Lights Out hitting PlayStation Move and Call of Duty: Black Ops landing on PS3. What are you looking forward to?

• I’m playing: Fallout: New Vegas, Hoard
• I’m watching: The Walking Dead episode one, Fringe, Beware! The Blob (watch the first five minutes: OMG) on Netflix PS3 Watch Instantly
• I’m reading: A Theory of Fun by Ralph Koster

Courtesy of Jeremy Dunham

Courtesy of Arne Meyer

The MAG Escalation Pack is now live on the US, Canada and Mexico storefronts.

The PS3‘s massive, ever-changing global war just got bigger! Starting today our “Escalation Add-on Pack” introduces the exciting three-faction “Escalation” game mode that throws Raven, SVER and Valor into simultaneous battle on three brand new maps. As an added bonus, Escalation owners also get their hands on nine exclusive new weapons — including assault rifles, sniper rifles, and machine guns! The best part? All this can be yours for the low, low price of $9.99.

To commemorate the release of our new DLC, we’re also unleashing a variety of special offers to our existing and future fans. Here’s our list of deals:

• Escalation Add-on Pack: $7.99 Through November 9 (until 11:59pm Pacific), anyone who purchased our previous DLC pack, Interdiction, prior to Midnight Pacific Time on October 28 gets 20% off the Escalation asking price!
• Interdiction Add-on Pack: $4.99, reduced from its original price of $9.99; this is a permanent adjustment
• MAG Starter Kit: $14.99 Valued at almost $30, it’s everything new MAG users would want: Both the Interdiction and Escalation Add-on packs, a 30-day trial for MAG character slots B and C, six official MAG PS3 avatars that sport Raven, SVER, and Valor characters and badges, and three dynamic PS3 themes (one for each PMC).
• PlayStation Plus Members receive special bargains as well. Through December 14, “PS+” members can purchase Escalation at the discounted price of $7.99 and Interdiction at half price, for only $2.50!

But we’re not done yet. Gamers that play any of our add-on packs between November 2 and November 14 get additional XP bonuses. Specifically, anyone who plays Interdiction or Escalation within that timeframe earns a +200% bonus with every finished match. We’re also including an all-around +100% bonus for playing any MAG mode within the same time frame. In other words, it’s going to be a MAG XP frenzy!

One last thing we want to mention before we go, is how Escalation fits into MAG‘s storyline. Followers of the game’s mythos have been asking us, and it goes a little something like this:

The Neuvonics Corporation has collapsed in the wake of rapid expansion and spending on cutting-edge energy facilities around the world. Three of their most prized investments are up for grabs after on-site personnel walked out late last week. It stands to reason that the security contract for these facilities will go to the company who possesses them, which is why Valor, Raven and SVER operatives are currently en route. Once the dust settles, if their energy production remains intact, the PMC in control stands to make a fortune from these contracts in the years to come.

For additional details regarding Escalation’s gameplay, including a detailed description of the game mode itself and the maps within, check our list of links below. Enjoy the new content!

• MAG Escalation Announcement (w/ Weapons)
• Escalation Map Video Flythroughs
• Escalation: A Closer Look

Want to talk about it? Visit our official MAG forums by clicking this link and discuss Escalation with your fellow fans!

Needless to say, I’ll be dressing up as a “social media blogger guy” yet again this year. Anyone dressing up as a PlayStation character?

• I’m playing: Fallout: New Vegas, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Vanquish, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, Killzone 3 Beta
• I’m watching: South Park, Burrowers and Legion on Netflix PS3 Watch Instantly
• I’m reading:Wired, November 2010, PlayStation: The Official Magazine – November 2010 (God of War: Ghost of Sparta cover)

MAG Escalation DLC Coming November 2 – Jeremy describes Escalation as a “three-faction gunplay whirlwind.”

Courtesy of Jeremy Dunham

Courtesy of Arne Meyer

This past summer, many of you took part in our latest MAG Beta program to help us test out a number of new features slated for our recently-released update, MAG 2.0, and future DLC. Thanks to your devotion, we gathered a surplus of fantastic data that allowed us to make MAG a better game… and we’re not done yet!

Though the MAG 2.0 patch has been available since the end of September, the DLC portion of the beta has remained unreleased — but not for too much longer. Starting November 2, our three-faction gunplay whirlwind, the “Escalation” Add-on Pack, will be available for download from the PlayStation Store for $9.99 (US)!

But we aren’t stopping there.

To celebrate the release of the Escalation DLC, we’re offering two other deals to existing and would-be fans. Check this out:

• Interdiction Add-on Pack: Now $4.99 (US); reduced from original price of $9.99 (US)
• MAG Starter Kit: $14.99 (US): An almost $30 (US) value and everything new MAG users could want: Interdiction and Escalation Add-on packs, a 30-day trial for MAG character slots B and C, six official MAG PS3 avatars that sport Raven, SVER, and Valor characters and badges, and three dynamic PS3 themes (one for each PMC).

If you didn’t get a chance to play it in our MAG Beta, the Escalation add-on supports up to 96 players, or one 32-man platoon for each PMC, as a separate in-game mode that pits the forces of Raven, SVER, and Valor against each other at the same time. The aspirations for each PMC is to earn the requisite number of points before time runs out or, if time does expire, to have the most points overall. Whichever team meets this goal wins the map and additional Shadow War points.

Escalation gameplay is set up in two phases: For phase one, all three teams battle to hold the map’s A, B and C objectives — but when any of the three PMCs gains control of two of the three objectives, phase two begins. In this second phase, the original three objectives are locked and a new fourth objective (D) opens up. Now, the PMC that forced the phase shift must defend objective D against both attacking groups as long as possible; if D is lost, then play reverts back to phase one again and the war continues on until we have a winner or time runs out.

As beta players have already seen, Escalation offers three completely different environments (maps) to the MAG universe, including the volcanic beaches “Isla de Magma,” the mountainous “Silverback Ridge,” and the desert wasteland of “Radiant Barrens.” As an added bonus, our new add-on pack isn’t just made up of new maps – there are also nine previously-unavailable weapons we’re throwing into the mix too:

Raven: Gotha Elite (Assault Rifle) | KP21 (Machine Gun) | Kinmark SRS (Sniper Rifle)
SVER: Tamsen MK2 (Assault Rifle | Ariet SFW (Machine Gun) | Rubakho SVR (Sniper Rifle)
Valor: M31 CIR (Assault Rifle) | M245 (Machine Gun) | Sentinel M421 (Sniper Rifle)

If this sounds like your brand of DLC fun, we’ll see you again on November 2!

• I’m playing: Dead Nation, Time Crisis: Razing Storm, Costume Quest, Split/Second PSP
• I’m watching: Frontline: The Vaccine War, National Geographic: Inside North Korea on Netflix PS3 Watch Instantly
• I’m reading: The Famous Writing Advice That Could Seriously Mess Up Your Game on io9.com, Title Update 1.05 for Red Dead Redemption

Courtesy of Arne Meyer

Yeah, my next few weeks are pretty much screwed.

• I’m playing: Dead Space 2 multiplayer beta, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer beta, Enslaved, Super Stardust HD.
• I’m watching: Repo Men, The Social Network, Jackass 3D
• I’m reading: The Descent by Jeff Long

Courtesy of Jeremy Dunham

Courtesy of Arne Meyer

Now that Jeff and Rey have returned from the community meetups in Toronto and New York City, much of next week will be spent with me distracting them as much as possible with work talk while secretly trying to suckle away as much of their sweet pilfered Canadian maple syrup as possible. Look for some cool game announcements, too.

• I’m playing: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (amazing first level!), Split/Second PSP, TRON: Evolution
• I’m watching: Fringe, The Power of Nightmares
• I’m reading: Not much, to be honest. Well, except this.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Beta Open to All PlayStation Plus Subscribers Today – What are you waiting for?

Courtesy of Jeremy Dunham

Courtesy of Arne Meyer