Awakened Radio Hardline Episode 2
DJ Jester talks with Mx0 SOE Producer Andy Kaplan
September 2005
Approx. 18 minutes
A friend sent me the audio file of the early Sept. interview with Andy, and many have asked for a transcript. Here's a brief rundown, typing out his answers for you.
DJJ: We want to know more about ya.
AK: AOK are my initials. Andrew Owen Kaplan. I started with the project back in 2002 as an engineer on the client team. I worked my way up the ranks to be a lead engineer and am officially the producer for The Matrix Online.
DJJ: Our listeners have sent three priority questions, lets do those first...
AK: The AOL Instant Messaging System was removed from the game as part of our transition into SOE which allows us to lay the groundwork to allow us to integrate the SOE Chat System. This, in turn, allows us to open up access to the SOE Mail System for a future update. The SOE Chat System allows you to chat with anyone playing any SOE game at any time -- EQ, SWG, etc. and coming up, MxO. It's the same chat system as you can see now in the other SOE titles.
In-game email will be restricted to the same world, and it will let you send items in-game to people in MxO.
AK: Patches are set to come to you every two weeks. Based on testing of course.
AK: Live events will continue. They're an important means for us to continue the story. But things are changing. You'll likely not see day to day live events from the team. But you will see and be able to participate in live events going forward.
DJJ: Here's some more user questions for you...
AK: You can expect a live event in about a month once the current story arc two completes. The next event will be big, can't go into detail. But about the end of September.
AK: The live event timeline... They'll be less frequent. Not day to day. More likely weeks between them that involve live actors.
AK: We're looking for ways to recognize the people who've been in the game the longest time. [Live events/interacting with Morpheus in-game, etc.] And it's a bit of a balance. We want everyone to get involved -- the uber players and the casual gamers.
AK: Flash traffic for live event chats. We'll be using SOE in-game chat and flash traffic messaging to keep in touch. It's in place and will continue to be used for the live event messaging as needed.
AK: Server merge and previous live events and continuity of the story... We've been in touch with Paul Chadwick, he's crafting story that will bring things together.
AK: The live events special interest group. First round of applications are complete, are in review. Will be a way for people to participate in the live events and what direction they'll take in the future.
AK: Glitch fixes are coming... again every two weeks is the plan for upcoming patches.
AK: Zen Master discipline slipped out. It wasn't tested fully or balanced. Before we released it we wanted it to be tested. We're looking at a whole set of new disciplines and we have a lot of work to do before they're ready for everyone.
AK: Interlock changes are coming. Lots of work going on. Combat will be a lot of fun -- I've played it internally and it's really great. A lot of fun.
AK: Buff unbuffed clothes/unbuff buffed clothes? We're talking about this, but no plans as of yet. We do have a series of silenced weapons that will have a smaller noise radius are coming.
AK: Loss of beta gear. First I've heard about this. Something we can verify and create some tools to allow CSR to refund the items. Petition it and I'll look into it.
AK: Will you expand the local contact content/collectors? Yes, they're a huge part of the game, and will become even bigger coming up.
AK: Archives/Constructs. We do have some long-term plans for some new archives. Not something short-term, but longer-term you'll see these coming.
AK: Crews/Faction functionality changes. We want to find a way to simplify this. We're kicking around ideas for how to do this. No hard plans yet/timelines.
AK: There's a lot of energy internally here at SOE. We're working on a lot of great things and we want you to play a game that you really enjoy, tell your friends about, and have a blast.