The Other Side of the Looking Glass - February 14, 2006

Message Edited by Walrus on 02-14-2006 03:41 PM

Message Edited by DontEatRawHagis on 02-14-200604:05 PM

Message Edited by Symmetric on 02-14-200608:26 PM

A Question of Organization
There have been some questions about new Organizations on the forums recently. Since I'm an expert on Organization (stop laughing), I wanted to address them now.

I know you're all excited about the impending storyline that seems to point at a new splinter Org. However, at this time, there are no plans to implement new player Organizations in The Matrix Online. Given the intricacies of Organization mechanics and the extra content these Orgs would require, we're not prepared to tackle that issue.

Would new Organizations for players be a cool feature? Absolutely, we won't argue that point. But we aren't prepared to go down that road right now and I wanted to give a definitive answer to that topic.

Well, I'm glad Im merv... Sucks to be a Cypherite or a Neo wannabee right now don't it? :smileytongue::

errr... What about a new Sentinel? Why hasn't that been released yet? I mean, its been done for a couple of weeks now...

Message Edited by Insertion on 02-14-200605:13 PM

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However, at this time, there are no plans to implement new player Organizations in The Matrix Online.

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Oh, dear. Now that was unexpected. I'm not going to get too upset about it, but I was certainly expecting to see the new splinter factions soon, and I know a lot of other players were anxious for it.

On the plus side, I'm really ready for this anniversary event. I think something major is going to happen that'll change the face of The Matrix...for-ev-er.

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ReguIus wrote:
Uh...

W.T.F???

youve had what....a year to say that you werent going to introduce new orgs...and now you tell us that we're doing all this for no reason while these new orgs are at the peak of their interest....

another good move by MxO.

Why was this simply not stated earlier???

I feel betrayed again.

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QFT
yup.  i am SERIOUSLY bummed about this.  you also gloss over it in the looking glass as if it's an afterthought.  i know you all play this game.  i know you all want the splits too.  i know you see how unbalanced the orgs are on vector. 

i know you will see a spike in the number of those leaving because of this, especially, i think, on vector.  I'm crushed!  how can there be no splits?  are the e plurbus and cypherites to remain npcs?  how long do you think we can take this?

you need to kick soe in the arse and get them to understand how awesome this game COULD be, how much money and people they COULD attract.  If they keep making decisions like these, I suggest you quit your jobs.  I wouldn't work for someone who kept cutting my legs out from under me.

I love this game, but they are making it difficult to stay.

I just want to say it again: take your time to get CR 2.0 right.  I just don't see any big rush with this.  Take the time you need to get everything working smoothly and satisfactorily. 

And let me encourage people to get active on the QA server.  I was there yesterday, trying out the coding, and saw veeery few other people there.

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Reiatsu wrote:

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Bethlahem wrote:

I love this game, but they are making it difficult to stay.

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Again, ditto...

This tells me one of two things...

a) the devs don't read the forums (we've kinda figured this for a while now) and don't realise that people are starting to speculate about such things to the point where it almost becomes expected...

b) the devs don't care whether or not we speculate. 

Someone finally had to mention it in a OSotLG in a blase, disinterested way.  And I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR this "sorry, I can't answer that question because it's a future release question..."  CRUD.  If someone asks something to which the answer is NO!... then tell them that before it gets out of hand as it apparently has.

you give hints without realizing it and then expect us to believe that it was all coincidental. 

Bad move devs... bad move

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i think it is wrong to accuse the devs here.  the devs play this game.  the devs (i think!) love this game as much as we do (probably more, it's their baby).  They are just not getting the support they need ie new employees etc to handle the workload that this game requires. 

I fear they never will get the support, because cutting features is no way to encourage a new player base. 

The packmaps have voice clips of other organizations heads, i.e. Cryptos saying "I'm pleased you've joined us."

So why would those clips have been made a loooooong time ago, if the plan was to not implement new orgs?

Seems to me like Lith was planning on new orgs, and SOE changed their mind about it :0

i am absolutely crushed, you devs better release some apology or a "we'll work on it NOW" or something. I know how big CR 2.0 is and all, but CR 2.0 is not what the game needs at this moment. CR 2.0 had better make me wanna self-substatiate in my seat. If it doesn't then the Anniversary had better be absolutely HUGEcuz if its not, im not sure if i can continue to pay my subscription. The whole community is willing to pay at least say $3 per month more to get some real results.

No swords, no cars, no apartments, no solid objects, no new orgs, no better music, no fair punishments, no lag reduction, no cinematics till April, no Sentinels till God knows when (still got the one from November 05), Tasteewheats gone so no ZionMainframe, no Parties in Club Hel without enormous complication, no new districts, no Zion construct, no use of the Construct hardline feature.............

But remember ppl, we still got CR 2.0 and the anniversary. sure.

Honestly, I reeeeeeeeeeeally wanted to join Niobe or the Kid. And RP can only distract us from the truth for so long. I can't wait to see Espi and Phrack's reactions. People like them have been trying to get peoples spirits up for some time, they've prepared them for the "promised orgs". You've failed to deliver.

Im still paying, but March 26 is the deadline. MxO dies on March 27 if nothing good happens. I'm staying just to watch because i still have a tiny glimmer of hope for this game.

You might as well blow up the world like you did in Beta, at least the game would go out with a bang instead of fizzling.

Message Edited by ReguIus on 02-14-200608:23 PM

I'm really dissapointed by this. I've always been the LAST person to blame soe. Heck, I've loved every single thing that's happened so far EXCEPT THIS.

The whole plot since the death of the assasin has been leading up to:

A. Cypherites becoming an established org.

B. Plubris Neo becoming a splinter group of zion, dedicated to morpheu's ideals

C. The General securing power as the new major Exile

D. The Merovingian loosing power, perhaps being deleted.

The fact that these will NOT effect player orgs is sad. A LOT of Zionites are split on wether they are of the MIlitants (niobe, etc) or Neonites (The Kid et al). And there are a lot of players who are geninuely interested in being cypherites (The former masked agenda, interis (sp?), and more.)

I'm not leaving MXO over this, but I am very, very dissapointed in this decision.

Message Edited by SilentW on 02-14-200608:43 PM

Ah...in response to Rarebit's informative post...and sorry if my messages are a bit jumbled, etc...but I for one am kind of extremely angry and in the middle of both ingame and out-of-game conversations.

I'd like to clear up, kind of officially, from my point of view, is this the way it was decided:

It was decided pre-launch not to split up orgs....so no official announcement was attempted to be made regarding the nullification of those events, said to happen by Paul Chadwick in various pre-launch interviews.  Thus, ignorance was kind of considered bliss (beautiful Cypherite pun there...), and the storyline was essentially planned as if the orgs were still to split, and the build up would mount until the point that it would happen.  Knowing that the orgs would not split, there were no measures taken to satisfy the response to a potential org split even though the developement team knew we would be kind of...stuck none the less.

So, I guess the essential message of the previous paragraph was:  There were never to be org splits, so there were never any plans to correct that section of the storyline to be workable within three orgs, causing quite a dilemma that I think we'll be seeing.

What's the dilemma?  It's how to work out a seperation of orgs, while being unable to be called the organization.  Therefore, no Organization is truely an Organization, since each segment is thus segmented.  "I'm a Cypherite...yet you have a Machine tag."

I'd say we at least need the tag, without the reputation system, to differentiate players...because otherwise it is a meshed and confusing little plot hole that is, and was generally unnesscesary.

And personally...about blame.  It's no ONE's fault, it should be on behalf of the developement team of both past and present.  Walrus isn't going to be hated on for this...and the digust that players feel won't be directed primarily at him...but rather the whole developement.

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RogueA wrote:
Thank you Rarebit, but I must ask... why wait a YEAR since Paul's Interview to let us know that Paul's(and subsequently the community's) "vision" isn't going to happen? Many of us are becoming angry because of this.

Many of us RPers now have to completely re-write our stories, and somehow make it seem like all the events that would lead to an org-switch never happened.

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Rarebit wrote:
I'm gonna go ahead and jump in here, since I probably can't make things much worse anyway. Well, maybe I can. We'll see. Call this fuel for the fire.

The decision not to start splitting orgs was made before launch. That means it was made before SOE was even a glint in anyone's eye. The decision was made by our lead designers. We realized that we did not have the resources, even back at the height of the team size at Monolith, to cover missions, events, etc for six orgs. It just couldn't happen, even given all the devs we had at the time.

It's not just that you're doubling the number of critical missions that have to be written each update, and org-specific events that have to be run; it's also that you're profoundly increasing the number of story elements that have to be prepared and tracked in order to keep the relationships between the orgs straight, and moving along in a dynamic fashion.

Yes, there was agonizing and hair-pulling over it. But that couldn't change the hard reality of the situation.

There were other considerations as well. Not that I want to spoil much of Paul's story here...but some of those new orgs were not written to be permanent. This would have meant opening up an org, then closing it, or drastically realigning it, based on a plot twist in the story. Upon review, it was pretty obvious that something like that would not fly with players.

We don't expect people to be thrilled with this situation, and yes, we do read the boards, and we do know that there were plenty of players looking forward to going to one of these other orgs. I don't think anyone on the dev or publisher side has said since launch that the orgs were going to split, but obviously you guys had that perception from info leaked in beta, found hinted at in game resource files, etc.

The reason Walrus felt that he had to take the bullet for this now was because we saw a large increase in the speculation over these orgs in the past few weeks, particularly since the revelations about the Kid's group.

Just to summarize what many have known for a while, and to stick it in a tidy little timeline that you can all wave angrily at us forevermore, here's how the org break-down was originally drawn up by Paul:


***SORTA-SPOILERS HERE!***


Okay.

Chapter 1.3
Niobe's Organization was to be playable
Leader: Niobe
Controller: Anome

Chapter 4.2
E Pluribus Neo was to be playable
Leader: The Kid
Controller: Shimada

Chapter 4.3
The Cypherites were to be playable
Leader: Cryptos
Controller: Veil

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I can understand why the decision to not implement these was made, but I cannot understand the storyline given that. The story is flawed as it is, Machine and Zion should not be hostile. I think that originally it should have been a Truce org (Machine and Zion), a Merovingian org, and a pro war/Neo anti truce faction. For some reason, the developement group decided to stray from the storyline of the movies. This could have been fixed by adding even just one more org, a pro Neo one. Now, all of Zion is stuck together. I personally follow Zion, not Neo. The majority of the immature and annoying Zion players would follow Neo. Creating this org would help PvP balance dramatically.

As someone else said, Cypherites should at least be temporarily available. Some sort of event where some players go Cypherite and all the other orgs band together to eliminate this threat to the matrix. No crits, no special LET interaction, just a continuation of the story. A

All the crits, events, and cinematics since Morpheus' death have been leading up to apparent org splits. If the plan was never to make new orgs, why did everything point that way? If CR2.0 is the only content coming I will be very dissappointed. I love CR2.0, but to be honest, the progress on it has been less than speedy. A new patch is released every few weeks. How an entire dev team can be only working on this and not adding the new orgs doesn't make sense. I could understand the slow patches when I believed other conent was being developed, but now :smileyindifferent:

I'm beginning to think the entire dev team consists of Walrus, Rarebit, HCFrog, Oar, and NoRepro.

Message Edited by ReguIus on 02-14-200609:11 PM

Message Edited by machete on 02-15-200612:21 AM

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ReguIus wrote:

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Rarebit wrote:

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RogueA wrote:
Thank you Rarebit, but I must ask... why wait a YEAR since Paul's Interview to let us know that Paul's(and subsequently the community's) "vision" isn't going to happen? Many of us are becoming angry because of this.

Many of us RPers now have to completely re-write our stories, and somehow make it seem like all the events that would lead to an org-switch never happened.

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I don't have a great answer for that. In fact, I'm not even clear on what Paul said way back when. Does anyone have a handy link to whatever interview(s) of his talked about the other orgs coming along?

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Sorry no visual, but exact quote out of the fanzine in front of me-

"Zion, the Machine Civilization (Agents), and the Merovingian all offer missions. Successfully complete them ,and you gain abilities, guns, tools, and power. As the story develops, more organizations form. Most (not all) offer missions. Some just want to kill you."

Message Edited by ReguIus on 02-14-200609:11 PM

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No no, give him the quote where he explains the new orgs and the "why" behind their creations. He doesnt name any but lists why each is made.

He also said some will be hostile to all Players, and thus non-joinable by Players or something.