Pre-E3 2005: SOCOM 3 Multiplayer
Much bigger than you expected.
by Ed Lewis

May 13, 2005 - A little while ago we took a trip up to Seattle to visit with Zipper Interactive to see the single-player component of SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs. We learned about the vehicles that are going to be in the game as well as saw some of the new AI and commands and other features. But the even bigger questions are about the new direction for online. So we went back and saw that lots of new things are in the works that are going to have some major effects on the SOCOM experience both inside and outside the game. With two years to work on the game instead of the one year between SOCOM and SOCOM II, Zipper Interactive has had time to put in some sweet features and the experience will be all the richer for it.

Everybody who follows videogames loves numbers and for SOCOM 3 that number is 32. That's 32 players playing together online in a single game, double the previous limit of 16. If you thought that it was important to develop some strategies and work together before, full-size games will demand even more of this. That's a doubling in size, but also an exponential leap for the possibilities of online battles. There have been games with 32 players online on the PS2 before, but with the huge and fervent SOCOM fanbase and the huge variety of ways to play the game this will still be breaking some new ground.

The other number to pay attention to here is 12. That's the number of multi-player maps that these 32-player wars will be taking place in. SOCOM II featured some maps from SOCOM with some foliage enhancements, but SOCOM 3 is going to have maps that are all new. With the release, everyone will be starting from scratch in the online games. And the maps this time will support multiple game types so hosts can choose what map and just how they want to play it. Another reason for the new maps is that they need to be much bigger for the other additions.

Vehicles are going to be in the single-player and they're going to be in seven of the multi-player maps as well. With players able to jump into a Humvee, truck, tank, boat, helicopter or other vehicle the maps have been scaled up to support them. But don't worry about this becoming an online vehicle battle like Twisted Metal Black because the folks at Zipper are keen on making sure that the maps are laid out to support lots of on-foot movement as well. While a Humvee can zip down a road, soldiers on foot will be able to run through narrow shortcuts to move faster and several other areas will only be accessible by foot. We're not saying that foot soldiers are completely safe from the vehicles since they can be run over or shot from a vehicle's turret, but it does give them some safe ground.

To support use of both land vehicles and boats, the vehicle maps will have a mix of water and land. This will change the pace of the game up and allow soldiers on the vehicles to have access to some fantastic firepower within their own areas, but the balance is from the fact that they're still limited. The boats obviously have to stay in the ware and from what we've seen the vehicles have mostly roads and a few open areas to drive across.

While these new maps will be ideal for the 32-player warfare that will be available, they will also be able to scale down for smaller fights. Drop down some players and the playable area will be a subset of the entire map. Drop down even further to maybe eight players and the playable area will shrink down even further. This way a few people won't be aimlessly wandering about for the entire fight instead of killing each other.

Modus Operandi
To give some new purpose and direction to these bigger playgrounds there will be two new modes of play in addition to the ones from the previous games: Control and Convoy. In Control, there are control points that are spread across the map and the first team to tag them all or kill the other team wins. Getting a control point is as simple as running up to the location and planting a beacon. Once a beacon has been planted it can't be taken away. This is not like Unreal Championship with nodes only being under control of one side, but both teams can have a beacon at each spot.


And although this sounds easy in theory, getting the control points is much harder in the middle of a firefight and in Control all of this action gets directed to these points. Every player will be able to see on the map which points have been taken by both sides. Players will also have the remaining control points pointed out in the HUD so that instead of having to consult with a map to find the next spot to go to, they can quickly walk in the direction of the icon on-screen.

With the bigger maps and 32 people wandering about, what Control does is focus the fighting on the different control points. Sure, people will be taking each other out whenever they run into each other elsewhere in the map, but as the control points get taken over one by one, the fighting will boil down to just one or two areas of a large map that will determine who wins the whole game. When one team knows that the other has just one spot to go before it can claim victory you can be sure that almost everyone will suddenly be drawn to that area. Similarly, when one point has been taken by both it will essentially become dead to the game as everyone moves to the next locations.

The other new mode, Convoy, focuses the action in a different way. One team is on offense and the other works the defense. The offense team has the unenviable goal of guiding a convoy through a series of checkpoints to a pick-up location to get some cargo and then through another series of checkpoints on the way out. The convoy will have some heavy armor vehicles that can attack and two cargo vehicles that are much more vulnerable. If the cargo vehicles get destroyed, the defense wins. If at least one cargo vehicle makes it all the way through, the offense wins.

Make it Your Way
If all of this talk about vehicles is rubbing you the wrong way, Zipper has provided some options. When creating the game it's possible to completely take out the vehicles so that everyone is running around on foot. This is great for those who want to keep everything the way it's been for the previous two games. And if the host wants to have a constant supply of vehicles, there's an option for them to respawn as well.

With respawning vehicles, it's possible to go on a rampage and trash a truck or two and pick up another one when it appears at its original location. There's also the option for respawning the soldiers like before, but when they respawn in SOCOM 3 they will have multiple spawn points to choose from. Spawn points can be selected within the game so if someone is spawn camping, then the players can start spawning somewhere else. Again, this also helps with the larger levels so that players can stay close to the hotspots instead of having to hoof it across a map to get to where people are fighting. Respawning will be available for any of the game types.

Clan Support
Playing online is all about playing in the clans and to serve this need Zipper has radically revamped the online system to provide much more support than before. There are clan ladders like before, but they can be changed to support a wide variety of clans. There will now be the ability to create and remove different types of ladders at any time. As players' needs change in the future, Zipper plans to be able to be there for them.

While there will still be the ladders that prove which clan is the current leader overall, the other ladders can apply to subgroups of SOCOM players. For example, there can be a weekend warriors clan ladder where the battles only happen on Saturdays and Sundays. Beyond just the days, ladders can be set up with different requirements for the battles it supports. Ladder battles can be restricted to certain hours of certain days as well as game types and maps. Basically, if there are enough people that are interested in a certain type of ladder, it can be made to happen.

Within each ladder there will be a system set up for clan challenges in which any clan can issue a challenge to another clan that is higher up from them within a certain range. Zipper hasn't finalized what the range will be just yet, but for an example if the range is 20, then any clan can be challenged by any other clan that is within 20 spots down the ladder. When a clan gets to the top they can't issue any challenges at all, but will instead be defending their title from the next 20 spots.

Each clan will only have one challenge for them at one time so as to avoid clans getting a huge backlog of challenges on their list. Once the challenge is accepted, the game will set up a private room will be set up for the challenge that is exclusive just to those two clans. Once the challenge has been done, the room will disappear and the ladders will be changed accordingly.

Ranking Up
Outside of the clans there is a new individual ranking system as well. Starting out, new players will be placed into the unlisted ranks. Moving up within the unlisted ranks will be done simply by playing games, win or lose. These are just about getting new players used to the game. Of course, to move on to the officer ranks players will have to get some mastery of the game and win a few battles. That's when the ranking system truly begins.

Once in the officer ranks, players can rise up the list by winning battles in scored games. These games have set requirements and will be fairly standard matches. The difference here is that there will also be two other sections that people can play in that will not be recorded in the stats. These are the open games that have the different maps and game types as well as the respawn games with players coming back to life as soon as they die.

With the open and respawn sections, players can have the ability to hone their skills and try out different weapons or strategies without leaving a mark on their permanent record. The open games allow practice on the different game types and maps while the respawn games allow for players to fine tune their basic skills of moving, shooting, and driving vehicles within the game without being knocked out of the action and waiting for the games to start over again. While it's likely that these sections won't have the bragging rights or as fierce a competition as in the ranked games, but it all helps towards making better players all around.

Getting Interactive
To make the whole system of the clans and rankings even more user friendly than before, Zipper will be introducing a new user interface. This will include a message center, ladders, the leader boards and a couple of other options. The message center is a place for players to incorporate their friends list, view a clan list, use e-mail, send a PM, and send invites to other players. Zipper is also mulling over the possibility of connecting all of these features, including the leader boards and ladders, to a website so that players can use these functions even while not in the game itself.

For the leader boards, Zipper will be including 90 different stats for each player. Going well beyond just the number of kills and deaths, there will be stats for the number of kills with each individual weapon and a host of other information so that players can get see trends within their own styles of play. This also enables other players to see just who uses the shotgun all the time and who gets the job done with just a pistol. These leader boards can be show total stats or be broken down even further into monthly and weekly stats.

With all of the new features this fall can't come soon enough for SOCOM 3 to be released. Throw in the crosstalk features that the single-player game will use with SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo on the PSP, which is also coming out this fall, and Zipper has a whole lot of shooting goodness that it's going to be dropping on fans this year. For more information about that, check out this preview. For a couple of movies showing off some firefights in the new multiplayer, head on over to the Media Page to see some of the vehicles in action.

A 32-player match in action and the possibility of the older maps in SOCOM 3.
by Ed Lewis

May 18, 2005 - Sony Computer Entertainment America is showing off both the single-player and multiplayer modes of SOCOM 3 here at E3. While I was briefly tempted to try out the single-player, sort of, I made a beeline for the multiplayer section instead. With 12 units on the floor and another 20 off at SCEA's QA center, we had the chance to see some full-on 32 player battles. The good news? It works, but you're going to need a good connection.

With two groups of PS2s playing SOCOM 3 playing on a solid connection the action was smooth and without any noticeable lag. Players were able to team up on the vehicles, drive through the environment and pull off some coordinated group attacks on the other team. Many of the players on the floor were already doing so well with the game that one Zipper Interactive employee said that some people were already doing better than the Zipper guys. And that's with the show floor open for less than two hours.

When I asked about how well lag would be handled for the true online test of 32 people playing through 32 different internet connections, I was told that that was basically something that Zipper couldn't do much to help. Essentially, if people have a great connection and can pull off the 32-player battles, then they should go for it. But if there's a bad connection in the bunch, then that will still slow the game down.

I also asked about what the situation would be for the maps in the game. Currently, there are plans for 12 multiplayer maps and none of the maps from SOCOM or SOCOM 2 will be included. Ever since we published our story about the new multiplayer features last Friday, fans of the series have been e-mailing Zipper and posting on several forums about how they desperately wanted the old favorites to be brought back. Zipper might be bringing back the old maps in the future, but it's not likely to be out this fall and this could lead to the old maps appearing on discs to be stored on the HDD.

The main reason for the old maps not being brought back is that Zipper has changed the format that it develops the maps in. With its streaming technology in place for the new maps it's not just a matter of drag and drop to put the classics into SOCOM 3. They will have to be redone in the new format and Zipper's current push is to make the 12 maps they have now as good as possible in order to make the ship date. Any other time would take away from making the new experience as good as they want to make it.

As for the 12 maps, other issues as to the subsets of maps have been cleared up as well. Instead of the game choosing how big the map is, from the full map to the smallest subset, that decision is entirely in the hands of the host. If the host wanted to, he could cram 32 people in a tiny map or leave 8 folks wandering around a huge area, it's up to him.

As for the subsets, these are not just a chunk of the map that feels randomly generated. Instead, they are areas that are naturally set off from the rest of the map. One small subset could be a couple of houses with a clearing and some trees and is bounded by some hills around it. The same approach is being taken with all of the maps so that the personality of the different maps will remain intact.

Right now, the different maps have one single subset for each size that's needed. So if there is a need for an eight-player map, there is just one of those available in a map. The same thing goes for the 16-player map. Zipper is looking into the possibility of multiple subsets for the different game sizes and will hopefully implement that into the final game.

We had also reported earlier that helicopters would be available for use in the game, but in fact they are going to be used for air-strikes. Multi-player will have vehicles with trucks and tanks and boats and such, but no helicopters. This keeps the vehicles within their areas that are defined by the bodies of water for the boats or roadblocks and hills for the road vehicles.