Zipper Profile: David Johnson

Our Developer Profile series introduces you to the many faces of Zipper Interactive. From designers to artists to programmers to audio engineers to producers, you’ll meet the creative minds that make Zipper what it is (and maybe learn a few surprises along the way).

This week’s profiled Zipper is David Johnson, Tools Engineer extraordinaire. David’s work affects many facets of our titles, particularly with designing the tools that allow the games to be created. Here’s what he had to tell us:

Job Title: Tools Engineer
Years at Zipper:Almost 4!
Years in the Industry: 4 in the games industry, 10 in the software industry.
Favorite Zipper Game: MAG
Favorite Non-Zipper Game: It’s too hard to pick just one! It’s got to be one of Chrono Trigger, Zelda: A Link to the Past, or Tales of Symphonia.
Motto: “Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive it isn’t.” – Richard Bach

What is it that you do specifically, and can you walk us through your typical day?
If a game studio is like an RPG adventuring party, then I would be one of the white mages: I don’t have a lot of direct damaging spells, but I definitely help everyone else out with the healing magic. My role at Zipper is largely in the support department, doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that helps keep the “more renowned” departments—art, design, and engineering—working at top speed! My main responsibility is to give our level editor all of the TLC that it needs in order to pump out new levels fast. I’ve also been helping the Cinema guys iron out the process for making cutscenes and scripted sequences.

The typical day for me right now is 9 in the morning until 7 or so on a smooth day, though not every day is a smooth day! I catch up on emails in the morning and check to see if there are any critical (or just plain annoying) issues that’s keeping others in the company from working. I do a lot of troubleshooting whenever things go wrong and then do my best to fix all of the problems plaguing everyone else. After that, I’m pretty much off to the races by making new features for our level editor, data compile process, and Maya. It’s hard to say what I’ll be working on two weeks from now because my team covers a lot of ground and pretty much affects everyone else!

How did you get into the industry?
It’s kind of a crazy story when you get down to it. My previous job was in Ohio where I worked as a Department of Defense contractor for the US Air Force. I was looking for a career change and had uploaded my résumé onto the Internet in hopes of finding another job that was software related. In all honesty, even though I’ve wanted to make video games since I was 9 years old, I didn’t even stop to think that I could get into the industry!

But whether it was luck, talent, or both, a recruiter for the games industry contacted me by phone and asked me if I was interested in getting them to bat for me, and I figured that it was worth a try, especially if it had some possibility. Within a month or so, they got me in contact with Zipper, and the day after my phone interview I was told that Zipper wanted to fly me out for a real interview. Pretty much a week later they called me back with an official offer, and so I picked up all of my belongings and moved all the way across the country.

What are some other games or projects that you’ve worked on in the past?
MAG and SOCOM 4 have been the only real games I’ve worked on (well, outside of all the TI-83 games I created during the days of high school; but alas, they probably don’t count). Before joining up with Zipper, however, I was doing DoD work for the Air Force. Our team’s main focus was to test systems the Air Force was developing. We created a simulated world and ran their programs through the gauntlet. In many ways, it was like making something like SimCity… except instead of making fake buildings, fire departments, and roads, we were creating fake airplanes, tanks, cameras, and missiles.

What’s your proudest moment?
I’d have to say getting hired by Zipper and not getting fired within the first month is certainly one of the high points of my life! I honestly never thought that I’d be here, creating video games as my day-to-day job. I can’t tell you the number of times I told myself, “I may be decent at this, but I probably don’t hold a candle to the guys who do this day in and day out.” Well, as it turns out, I am very glad to say that I was horribly wrong about that… or at least I’ve managed to convince everyone else I was wrong about that. MWAHAHA… oh wait, they’re probably reading this too. Foiled again!

Is there anything you’d like to say to the fans?
One of my biggest secrets is that, before I found myself in this fairy tale world of working on video games, I was once a guy that would post video game forums, would work on fansites, and dream about how cool it would be to actually do this sort of stuff for a living. So if you’re like me and dream about doing this someday, don’t give up on the dream, and don’t let anyone stop you from pursuing it! Sure, it’s very different from what I thought it was going to be like, but it’s crazy fun.

Also, huge thanks to everyone who’s out there supporting MAG and SOCOM. Really, it’s awesome to hear all of the comments and to see how passionate you are over our games!

Don’t forget to click this link and leave your questions to David for next week’s Zipline podcast!

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Zipline Podcast – Episode 22

We’re back with the twenty-second episode of Zipline, the official Zipper Interactive podcast! This week we’re joined by Zipper Vice President Mike Gutmann who stops by to fill us in on the future of MAG and when we can expect to hear more about SOCOM 4 (and how soon we’ll see a demo!).

Zipline Podcast, Episode 22
31.2MB 34m:07s
Subscribe to Zipline on iTunes

You can discuss this episode by clicking this link.

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Patch Alert: MAG 2.0

The big day is here!

There is so much new content in MAG 2.0 that telling you how important or huge this is for the game, its fans, and for us seems unnecessary. Take one look at the changes listed below and you’ll understand why we’re calling this MAG 2.0.

PlayStation Move support, an increased level cap, our revamped skill tree, the new economy system, and our highly-demanded clan deploy feature are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many fantastic new or improved items in MAG 2.0 it’s almost like a whole new game!

A big thanks to all of you who have helped us get to this point with your support, your suggestions, and your mad beta testing skills. We hope you have as much fun playing MAG 2.0 as we did making it.

Patch v2.0
Available September 30, 2010 | 35MB (TPPS), 521MB (DLS)

Gameplay (General)

  • Character level cap has been increased from level 60 to level 70
  • Added new “Supply Depot” menu and in-game economy system (see “Gameplay – Economy” section for details)
  • Implemented new “Clan Deploy” feature that allows Clan Leaders and Officers to deploy into group queues of up to 128 players
  • Characters moving from MAG v1.XX to MAG 2.0 will receive an immediate and automatic Respec the first time they log in
  • Repair Kits can now inflict damage on enemy soldiers, vehicles and objectives
  • XP rate for “Repair” has been increased from 1.5XP/ 10pts to 3XP/ 10pts
  • Players can now track all “sprinting” enemies on the mini-map without the need for equipment
  • All “Damage Bar” rates for “Domination” maps have reverted back to their original (and identical) values
  • Tuned the frequency in which a player can jump to eliminate “bunny hopper” techniques
  • Reduced helicopter settle time, widened turret rotation and significantly increased health to strengthen their use as a forward spawn point
  • The “Silent Step” OIC Leadership ability now works as intended by allowing nearby squadmates to move at both regular and running speeds without detection from the motion sensor — does not stack with any related skills or modifiers

Gameplay – (Economy)

  • Added in-game currency known as “Credit Points (CP)” that is awarded for by completing objectives, earning ribbons, finishing missions, and killing enemies
  • All gear and weapons are now located by default or can be sold or purchased in the “Supply Depot” menu

Gameplay – Skills (Overall)

  • All Skills cost only one point per unlock, allowing players to purchase new skills with every level increase
  • Removed all gear and weapon attainment from the “Skills” menu, they now reside in the separate “Supply Depot”
  • Added “Engineering, Medical, Resistances, Special Ops,” and ‘Vehicles” meta-categories to the “Skills” menu
  • Removed “Electronics, Explosives, Heavy, Personal Defense,” and “Support” meta-categories from the “Skills” menu
  • Each meta-category in the “Skills” menu now has multi-branching paths
  • The “Advanced Grenades, Improved Resuscitation, Improved Shot Detection, Improved Stealth,” and “Knives Expanded Reach” skills have all been eliminated or rolled into other skills (see Skills sub-sections below for details)
  • Respec Points progression has been changed from 1K, 2K, 3K, 3K-Repeat to 1K, 3K, 5K, 5K-Repeat
  • Respec Points can no longer be “banked” and are capped at the amount needed for the next Respec

Gameplay – Skills (Assault)

  • Added the following skills to the “Assault” menu: “Assault Swap Speed” and “Rocket Launcher Reload Speed”
  • Added three upgrade tiers to the following “Assault” skills: “Assault Reload Speed, Assault Rifle Steady Aim, Assault Swap Speed, Grenade Launcher Reload Speed,” and “Rocket Launcher Reload Speed”
  • “Assault Reload Speed” skill has changed and now decreases the reload time for all assault rifles and machine guns
  • “Assault Rifle Improved Stability” skill has been renamed to “Assault Recoil Stability” and has been changed to reduce the recoil on all assault rifles and machine guns
  • “Assault Swap Speed” skill has been changed and now decreases the amount of time it takes to swap assault rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers and grenade launchers

Gameplay – Skills (Marksman)

  • Added the following skills to the “Marksman” menu: “Increased Scope Magnification, Marksman Fire Rate, Marksman Recoil Stability” and “Marksman Swap Speed”
  • Added three upgrade tiers to the following “Marksman” skills: “Increased Scope Magnification, Marksman Fire Rate, Marksman Reload Speed, Marksman Recoil Stability, Marksman Steady Aim,” and “Marksman Swap Speed”
  • New “Increased Scope Magnification” skill increases the level of zoom when using a scope on a sniper rifle
  • New “Marksman Fire Rate” skill increases the rate of fire for all sniper rifles
  • New “Marksman Recoil Stability” skill reduces the amount of recoil on sniper rifles
  • New “Marksman Swap Speed” skill decreases the amount of time it takes to swap sniper rifles

Gameplay – Skills (Close Quarters)

  • Added the following skills to the “Close Quarters” menu: “Close Quarters Fire Rate, Close Quarters Swap Speed, Improved Knife Damage,” and “Knife Frequency”
  • Added three upgrade tiers to the following “Close Quarters” skills: “Close Quarters Fire Rate, Close Quarters Recoil Stability, Close Quarters Reload Speed, Close Quarters Swap Speed, Improved Knife Damage,” and “Knife Frequency”
  • “Close Quarters Improved Stability” skill has been renamed to “Close Quarters Recoil” stability and has been changed to reduced recoil on all pistols, personal defense weapons, submachine guns and shotguns
  • New “Close Quarters Fire Rate” skill increases the fire rate of all pistols, personal defense weapons, submachine guns and shotguns
  • New “Close Quarters Swap Speed” skill decreases the amount of time it takes to swap all pistols, personal defense weapons, submachine guns and shotguns
  • New “Improved Knife Damage” skill increases the amount of damage knife attacks do to enemy soldiers
  • “Knives Improved Swipe Speed” Skill has been renamed to Knife Frequency” skill, which decreases the time between knife attacks

Gameplay – Skills (Special Ops)

  • Added the following skills, all with three-tiered upgrades, to the “Special Ops” menu: “Extended Tracking Duration, Improved Acoustic Locator, Improved Explosive Detector, Improved Motion Tracker, Improved Sensor Jammer” and “Improved Suppressors”
  • New “Extended Tracking Duration” skill increases the amount of time a detected enemy is tracked on the mini-map and CNI
  • New “Improved Acoustic Locator” skill increases the effective range of an equipped Acoustic Locator gear item
  • New “Improved Explosive Detector” skill allows a soldier with an Explosives Detector gear item equipped to approach enemy mines while prone without triggering them
  • New “Improved Motion Tracker” skill increases the range an equipped Motion Tracker gear item detects enemy movement
  • New “Improved Sensor Jammer” skill allows a soldier with Sensor Jammer gear items to move at a faster rate before being spotted by enemy Motion Trackers, as well as masking nearby squadmates
  • New “Improved Suppressors” skill increases the effectiveness of any suppressor when mounted on a weapon

Gameplay – Skills (Medical)

  • Added the following skills, all with three-tiered upgrades, to the “Medical” menu: “Heal Recharge Rate, Improved Healing, Improved Resupply Rate, Medical Kit Heal Range, Self Heal Speed,” and “Resuscitation”
  • New “Heal Recharge Rate” skill reduces the time between medical kit and first aid kit applications
  • New “Improved Resupply Rate” skill reduces the time it takes to refill your gear and ammo at supply points
  • New “Medical Kit Heal Range” skill increases the range a medical kit can heal wounded teammates
  • New “Self Heal Speed” skill decreases the time it takes to apply a first aid kit or medical kit when self-healing

Gameplay – Skills (Engineering)

  • Added the following skills, all with three-tiered upgrades, to the “Engineering” menu: “Advanced Electronics, Advanced Explosives, Improved Repair Kit Damage, Improved Repairing,” and “Mine Deploy Speed”
  • New “Advanced Electronics” skill decreases the amount of time it takes to take control of battlefield electronics-based objectives
  • New “Improved Repair Kit Damage” skill increases the amount of damage the repair kit does to enemy soldiers, vehicles and objective assets
  • New “Mine Deploy Speed” skill reduces the amount of time it takes to deploy anti-personnel and anti-tank mines

Gameplay – Skills (Athleticism)

  • Added the following skills to the “Athleticism” menu: “Increased Launcher Move Speed, Increased Move Speed,” and “Improved Sprint Speed”
  • Added three upgrade tiers to the following “Athleticism” skills: “Advanced Paratrooper, Increased Endurance, Increased Launcher Move Speed, Increased Move Speed, Improved Sprint Recovery,” and “Improved Sprint Speed”
  • New “Increased Launcher Move Speed” skill increases the top speed a soldier moves and aims while holding a rocket launcher
  • New “Increased Move Speed” skill increases the top speed a soldier moves normally
  • New “Improved Sprint Speed” skill increases the top speed a soldier moves while sprinting

Gameplay – Skills (Vehicles)

  • Added the following skills, all with three-tiered upgrades, to the “Vehicles” menu: “Improved Smoke Screen Rate, Improved Turret Cooldown, Improved Vehicle Awareness, Improved Vehicle Impact Damage, Increased Vehicle Speed,” and “Vehicle Mine Resistance”
  • New “Improved Smoke Screen Rate” skill reduces the amount of time between smoke screens activated by the driver of the vehicle
  • New “Improved Turret Cooldown” skill reduces the time it takes for the soldier’s turret weapon to cool down after it has overheated
  • New “Improved Vehicle Awareness” skill makes the mini-map visible while a soldier is manning a vehicle or bunker turret and can be upgraded to add base Acoustic Locator and Motion Tracker functionality
  • New “Improved Vehicle Impact Damage” skill increases the amount of damage inflicted on enemy soldiers when impacted by the driver’s vehicle
  • New “Increased Vehicle Speed” skill increases the top speed of the vehicle the soldier is driving
  • New “Vehicle Mine Resistance” skill decreases the amount of damage a vehicle the soldier is driving takes from enemy anti-vehicle mines

Gameplay – Skills (Resistances)

  • Added the following skills, all with three-tiered upgrades, to the “Resistances” menu: “Chemical Damage Resistance, Extended Bleedout, Explosive Damage Resistance Flashbang Resistance, Impact Damage Resistance,” and “Increased Health”
  • New “Extended Bleedout” skill increases the time a soldier can remain incapacitated before he bleeds out
  • New “Flashbang Resistance” skill decreases the duration a soldier is affected by flashbang grenades

Weapons

  • Increased base damage on most automatic weapons by an average of 15%
  • Improved the spread rate of Assault Rifles and Submachine guns when auto-firing so that they remain accurate longer
  • All suppressors now reduce shooting detection range by half of their old default value
  • Knife tuning: Reduced range by roughly 30 centimeters and decreased default “facing” damage bonuses
  • Knife tuning: Changed knife attack angle so that a hit requires target to be closer to the center of the screen
  • Shotgun tuning: Corrected issue that prevented all shotguns from reloading when the player was still holding the “fire” button
  • Explosive tuning: Anti-personnel Mines now have a “line of sight” check for detonation and have been given a more realistic damage cone
  • Explosive tuning: Increased “Anti-tank Mine” damage to vehicles by 50%

Gear and Apparel

  • Explosives Detector no longer beeps when in proximity of a teammate’s mines — only when near an enemy’s; beep frequency has also been adjusted
  • Motion Tracker has been updated so that it is no longer based on an enemy’s speed and is now based on an enemy’s stance, detecting movement for all un-jammed players
  • The Sensor Jammer had been updated so that all prone movement by the equipped player is masked; can be enhanced with “Improved Sensor Jammer” skill to mask crouched movement at level 1, walking at level 2 and sprinting at level 3
  • Light/ Improved Light Armor base speed has been reduced by nearly 3%
  • Heavy/ Improved Heavy Armor base speed has been increased by nearly 3%
  • Light and Heavy Armor types have been given “bonus” modifiers when used in conjunction with “Speed” skills so that Light Armors receive greater benefits and Heavy Armors receive lesser benefits

Interface

  • Added “Community News” page to better inform players in-game of all MAG-related events or promotions
  • Different grenade types now show specific in-game icons when thrown
  • Repaired bug that would sometimes result in the post-game results screen displaying the incorrect amount of earned XP
  • Added “Total Awarded Currency Points” to “Bonuses” section of the character “Stats” page
  • Added Interdiction and Escalation Concept Art to “Extras” menu

Audio/ Visual

  • Thrown or launched grenades now have a “trail” effect as well as an updated overall appearance to make them more visible on the battlefield
  • Solved issue that prevented equipped grenades to appear in the player’s hand prior to throwing them
  • An assortment of camera and animation optimizations for various scenarios including but not limited to iron sight/ laser sight zoom, ladder climbing, mine placement, self-healing, and weapon swapping
  • Improved presentation of the character “jump” animation
  • Updated various pieces of artwork with newer versions for better performance
  • Fixed issue that sometimes prevented medical device appearance and/ or animations from displaying properly
  • Increased the Sensor Array’s animation time to match the duration of its usage
  • Repaired bug that prevented the “Alarm” audio from being played when charges were planted at “Objective C” in the “Syr Daria Uplink” and “Darrien Network” maps
  • Slightly lowered the amount of camera shake from air strikes, explosions, and when firing weapons
  • Repaired camera “pop” problem that would sometimes occur when sprinting out of a parachute drop
  • Removed “shiny” graphics that would randomly appear on bridges for all maps in which a bridge is present
  • Fixed issue that prevented win/ loss voice-over from being played when game clock expires in “Interdiction” mode
  • Improved visual appearance of the Ribbon awards

Technical

  • MAG now fully supports the PlayStation Move peripheral
  • Fixed “Spooning Elevator” bug that allowed players who revived downed teammates while laying on top of them to float upwards and reach areas not intended to be accessed
  • “MVP” criteria no longer considers bonus XP modifiers in its equation
  • Repaired issue that disconnected some members of large-sized clans from the MAG game environment when logging in
  • Fixed issue that would sometimes halt the patching process at 99% of the install period
  • Resupply Depots have been optimized so that the meter accurately reflects what is being resupplied and the resupply process itself is more efficient
  • Players can no longer take the driver’s seat in vehicles that are not their squad’s “spawn” APC, but can take any other seat in the vehicle regardless if their squad “owns” the APC or not
  • Repaired issue with “Happy Hour” timer that would sometimes shave a few minutes off the correct total
  • Solved problem that sometimes caused incapacitated players to rotate and move around
  • Players are now prevented from spawning inside a helicopter that is headed out of the map
  • Mended problem that caused the “Primary Objectives Completed” stat to sometimes double for various game types
  • Made additional fixes for rare “game crash” scenarios
  • Various localization updates and changes

Want to discuss MAG 2.0? Visit our official thread on the MAG forums and do it right now!

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MAG Joins PS3 Greatest Hits Library

Everyone here at Zipper Interactive is extremely proud to announce that starting today, September 28, MAG is officially a PlayStation 3 “Greatest Hit!”

It’s truly an honor to be recognized as one of the PS3′s best-selling titles and knowing that we can make it available to even more people at the lower price of $29.99 (MSRP) across the United States and Canada is equally satisfying.

Now is a great time to start playing MAG once again too — as we inch closer to the release of the MAG 2.0 downloadable patch. Packed with stellar new features, like PlayStation Move support, a deeper and more advanced skill tree, and an in-game economy system, MAG 2.0 takes an already-addictive game and makes it even more so! Plus, we’re also working hard on the release of our next DLC add-on (due sometime after 2.0) that includes our super-hot three-faction game mode “Escalation” and nine new weapons!

On behalf of the entire Zipper team, thank you once again to our fans and supporters and we look forward to seeing you again with news as to when you can expect MAG 2.0 fairly soon.

Excited that MAG is now a “Greatest Hit?” Talk about it with fans just like you on our official MAG forums!

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Zipper Profile: Mike Gutmann

Our Developer Profile series introduces you to the many faces of Zipper Interactive. From designers to artists to programmers to audio engineers to producers, you’ll meet the creative minds that make Zipper what it is (and maybe learn a few surprises along the way).

This week’s profile introduces you to Zipper Interactive’s Vice President, Mike Gutmann. Mike has been with the company basically since the start, and he’ll be on this week’s Zipline podcast to answer your questions!

Job Title: Vice President
Years at Zipper: 14
Years in the Industry: 14
Favorite Zipper Game: SOCOM 2
Favorite Non-Zipper Game: Uncharted 2
Motto: “Be prepared.”

What is it that you do specifically, and can you walk us through your typical day?
For the longest time I’ve felt like my days are anything but typical — I really just try to fill in the gaps and make sure everyone here has what they need to make great games. I try to get in relatively early and I like to grab the latest build to take a look at the current state of the game. Then I spend a better part of my day bouncing between teams, talking through features, and generally trying to keep everyone well informed about where we are and where we need to be.

How did you get into the industry?
Before joining Zipper I had worked with Brian Soderberg so I had an idea about what he was up to. It wasn’t long after that that I decided to give game development a try. 15 years later, here we are…

What are some other games or projects that you’ve worked on in the past?
I’ve had a hand in about every title Zipper has made, including Recoil and Mech Warrior 3 for the PC and all of the SOCOMs.

What’s your proudest moment?
Oh man… That’s a tricky one. The moments that really stand out in my mind all boil down to my participation as part of the team. Whether it be debugging issues, brainstorming ideas, or just flat out solving problems — I’m proud of the team we’ve got here and what we’ve been able to accomplish over the past 14 years.

Is there anything you’d like to say to the fans?
Thank you for all the support over the years! One of the things that makes game development so exciting is having the opportunity to put a title out, have lots (hopefully lots!) of people check it out, and then to hear what they think. That is one of the most rewarding aspects of game development and wouldn’t happen without you fans!

Don’t forget to click this link and leave your questions to Mike for this week’s Zipline podcast!

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