3C .vs. Dark Flock Aftermath

In a game that will be remembered more for what it didn't have that what it did, 3C easily defeated The Dark Flock winning two sabo matches in succession. But questions persist, 2.5 hours to queue up for two games? The efficiency of this (through no fault of the organizers) was pedestrian at best. Without a Clan Wars system the ability to get clans into matches is a crapshoot. Why wasn't the Flock able to defend? The randomness of the queues simply wouldn't allow it.Wouldn't a system where each clan defended once and a tie-breaker (if necessary) awarded defense based on some other criteria? We tend to think so.

Just as amazing was the fact that the amount of viewers online never dipped below 160 on UStream Yes--even with the super-long time it took to actually play the games) for a game that was outsold 20-to-1 by its competitition (MW2) is a year-old and before its arrival on PSN essentially only retained its hardcore audience. All the long-time MAG players returned (atleast to watch) as the chatroom (although extremely e-peenish, reeking of teenage male testoterone and often rude) was a virtual who's who of MAG notables. Even the players in-game stopped by from time-to-time to chat it up.

It goes without saying that the loser of this match would be violently kicked from their elite pedestal and lose much of their aura of invincibility. TDF by their own admission (i'm quoting Raptor2525) "wasn't ready" and it certainly showed. Most went negative and their tactics were dealt with swiftly and brutally. Many said that the cost to the loser of this match would be worse than the benefits to the winner and this was readily apparent as many in the chat-room were awestruck by how easily they were put down. What more can be said about 3C through all the allegations of quitting (many confirmed) you can't deny that they field a clan of elite players, and although there are already whispers of "3C Ringers" that suited up just for this match, 3C dominated, even besting TDF on their own map at Darien Network. Although he was the focus of many chat-room insults and the ever-present "PRO Sucks" reference, the debate can certainly be made for a clan of elite teamwork like ContraBanJoe's team, trumping one of elite killers based on the one-sided nature of the game. Then there's the debate that the maps have gotten "small". MAG players have played this game for a year and the sabotage maps are limited in their tactical options and strangely enough, size (boy are we spoiled)--a better game mode may have been Interdiction with its size, tactical element and amount of flanking routes, although asking each clan to have 64 players ready is a bit much.

In the end, the passion of this community is something rarely seen, and while the game itself was brilliant in concept, but flawed in many aspects of implementation, the one thing they absolutely nailed was the social aspect. It's something many haven't been exposed to before and although many players leave for extended periods of time--something keeps bringing them back, even if its just to watch. The case for a MAG 2? We think its a viable one, and its something we'll be sure to ask the developers about in our Zipper interviews. Zipper has collected enormous amounts of data on player tendencies and no doubt knows where they went wrong (lack of advertising, included mics, lack of timely content, an in-depth offline tutorial, weapon tuning and imbalanced maps among other areas) and lastly, they know there's a market for massive, communication-based, tactical shooters and even if they don't do a MAG 2. Its a certainly that someone else will.

In the odd-but-too-funny-to-be true and oh-no-he-didn't! category, MAG luminary and everyone's favorite look-at-me-player-MoeJoe crashed the party and got 2 quick kills at the end of Round 1. PURE COMEDY. You couldn't help but laugh if you were there in the chatroom to see it.