MAG developer on player griefing, using XP as a “carrot”

It’s a wild world out there when it comes to multiplayer gaming, especially on the consoles. The PlayStation 3 exclusive MAG will bring up to 256 players together to fight in massive battles, with players leveling up and being given the ability to lead their own troops into battle. But still, won’t that simply devolve into madness as everyone goes off and does their own thing?

“We wanted to ensure we took every logical step to deter player griefing,” Ben Jones, a designer at Zipper Interactive, told Ars. “Features like protected spawn areas, vote-kick and auto-kick at a certain team kill threshold help to preserve the ideal gameplay experience. You’ll also receive negative experience points for TKing, and in a game where XP is vital to progressing your character, we feel that’s a solid deterrent.”