Farewell to a Friend: Paul Chadwick Jacking Out of The Matrix Online - Discussion

MXO has been one of the highlights of my life.

There goes the last remaining shred of an argument for MxO being the "official continuing story".  Maybe now everyone will wake up and do something useful.

While I am certainly looking forward to seeing how MxO evolves without Chadwick being the.. compass, so to speak, I still think Paul deserves our thanks and best wishes. 

Best of luck in the future, Paul, and thank you for all you have done for The Matrix Online. 

so will we go back to the old format for cinematics now?

Pyraci wrote:

even if we didn't get it at times.

More times than not during Chapter 8 unfortunately.

Pyraci wrote:

I really wanted to meet the man while he was around, but oh well...

As an amateur/freelance comic artist, I wish him lots of luck with wherever he goes in the industry.

Thanks Paul, for fleshing the story out, and working with Rarebit to get the point across, even if we didn't get it at times.

Peace.

Heh, Part of me was hoping to run into Andres Bonifaciaeo too someday. Ah well, Best of luck to him. I thank him for his work with MxO and also his Matrix Comics stories. I still enjoy reading those.

so will we go back to the old format for cinematics now?

XRontix wrote:

so will we go back to the old format for cinematics now?

No. The reason they switched to the hand-drawn format was time/resources.  Seems to be the same reason for dropping them.

kou_urake wrote:

XRontix wrote:

so will we go back to the old format for cinematics now?

No. The reason they switched to the hand-drawn format was time/resources.  Seems to be the same reason for dropping them.

I wonder if a proposal for perhaps extending the time between missions and things to allow for the old style cinematics to be made again would be possible? We know that the devs have the stuff to do them, just that they take a lot of time to do...

Again, that was the point of the hand-drawn ones - to save time the devs could use on gameplay. I guess funding's just not there for them anymore either.

If they can get out a sentinel with every subchapter in place of a cinematic, I won't mind too much.

Not really a suprise, I guess most of us were just waiting for this news to be made "official".

Good luck with whatever your doing Paul Chadwick, and thanks for the time you did put in, even if we as players expected/wanted/wished for more from you.

Not really a suprise, I guess most of us were just waiting for this news to be made "official".

Good luck with whatever your doing Paul Chadwick, and thanks for the time you did put in, even if we as players expected/wanted/wished for more from you.

I wonder if this means Rarebit's getting a raise considering he'll be doing more...

I think we'd all like to think so... who knows though.

I think people now look forward to chapter 10 (which'll be the first time without cinematics I presume, unless there's some already done) to see what you get from the sentinel paper

Sir Chadwwick, thank your for the unlimit it was like they were running off rockstar making the whole scene sick with their unlimited ways. 

/bowhead

What, no more cinematics?! Grrr...

With what little content we see every so many months I can't imagine that it really took that long to develop. With so many up-and-coming illustrators/animators, etc. you must be joking if you don't believe you can continue on fan support alone.

To say that Chadwick's comic book style is not "of the matrix" is ridiculous. The W bros would laugh at you (like we are).

So what are we looking at Dan? If you're going to give us the straight poop, why not all of it?

I for one would be very curious to look behind the curtain and see exactly how many levers there are, and how many are pulling them. I've donated to other sites so why not this one.

A brief P&L with subscriber base will suffice. This MMO is pretty much a club endeavor anyway...so why not?

Sincerely, 

Ward Massey

Dude, I totally understand why you're leaving. However , you should look at how many of us have stayed despite rough times.  Goodluck, man.

/peace

What, no more cinematics?! Grrr...

With what little content we see every so many months I can't imagine that it really took that long to develop. With so many up-and-coming illustrators/animators, etc. you must be joking if you don't believe you can continue on fan support alone.

To say that Chadwick's comic book style is not "of the matrix" is ridiculous. The W bros would laugh at you (like we are).

So what are we looking at Dan? If you're going to give us the straight poop, why not all of it?

I for one would be very curious to look behind the curtain and see exactly how many levers there are, and how many are pulling them. I've donated to other sites so why not this one.

A brief P&L with subscriber base will suffice. This MMO is pretty much a club endeavor anyway...so why not?

Sincerely, 

Ward Massey

Ingus isn't here to be loved

I'd like to wish Mr. Chadwick well in his future endeavors.

He once quoted something I wrote in a Sentinel issue and that was very exciting and special to me. I'm not sure if he ever knew how much I appreciated it.

I think, despite what people might say, he was very good for the development of the Matrix Online and he played an important role in making the story what it is. Farewell, Mr. Chadwick.

I wonder if this means Rarebit's getting a raise considering he'll be doing more...

any of u guys who post negative posts regarding the paul chadwick situation have no idea how important this really is. the w bros. asked chadwick to continue the story after they conveyed to him what they wanted. now that chadwick is gone, he was the only link we had with the brothers so i fear matrix online might completely go to crap especially if there is not a direction to go provided by the brothers for they are the only ones that can provide the direction. no one else can or even should.

any of u guys who post negative posts regarding the paul chadwick situation have no idea how important this really is. the w bros. asked chadwick to continue the story after they conveyed to him what they wanted. now that chadwick is gone, he was the only link we had with the brothers so i fear matrix online might completely go to crap especially if there is not a direction to go provided by the brothers for they are the only ones that can provide the direction. no one else can or even should.

I wish him well, his comic work is well worth checking out.

His approach to MxO was very much to rewrite it, and present it as a story for us to read, perhaps that was his remit. Personally I didnt want or expect a new take on the Matrix and I did want to feel my character was a part of what was going on rather than a helpless disconnected observer. We are losing creative input and resources here but hopefully the opportunity is to realign the approach to the story in a manner more sympathetic with its MMO base and grab some of those players who have lost faith in the process.

POwedMxOplayer wrote:

What, no more cinematics?! Grrr...

With what little content we see every so many months I can't imagine that it really took that long to develop. With so many up-and-coming illustrators/animators, etc. you must be joking if you don't believe you can continue on fan support alone.

To say that Chadwick's comic book style is not "of the matrix" is ridiculous. The W bros would laugh at you (like we are).

So what are we looking at Dan? If you're going to give us the straight poop, why not all of it?

I for one would be very curious to look behind the curtain and see exactly how many levers there are, and how many are pulling them. I've donated to other sites so why not this one.

A brief P&L with subscriber base will suffice. This MMO is pretty much a club endeavor anyway...so why not?

Sincerely, 

Ward Massey

Anome, Unlimiteds, green beems shooting out their eyes, the wire-framed cats is matrix? please. The matrix aspect of mxo died when morpheus was wacked.

"k"

I'm really curious to hear the Wachowski's opinion on this game sometime.

Their "appointed writer" having done a not-so-busy job "since recently", now gone, and so on, about the rest. Maybe in a few years, they'll slip a word or something.

Oh well.

Good luck in the near future Paul.

I wish him well, his comic work is well worth checking out.

His approach to MxO was very much to rewrite it, and present it as a story for us to read, perhaps that was his remit. Personally I didnt want or expect a new take on the Matrix and I did want to feel my character was a part of what was going on rather than a helpless disconnected observer. We are losing creative input and resources here but hopefully the opportunity is to realign the approach to the story in a manner more sympathetic with its MMO base and grab some of those players who have lost faith in the process.

"k"

I'm really curious to hear the Wachowski's opinion on this game sometime.

Their "appointed writer" having done a not-so-busy job "since recently", now gone, and so on, about the rest. Maybe in a few years, they'll slip a word or something.

Oh well.

I'm qouting you both as what you both ask is two parts of a whole (in a way). I'm only going to say certain things as, although I'm no longer part of this, I still respect the work that goes into the whole storyline in regards to LESIG and Rarebit overseeing.

The simple fact of the matter is this; Paul Chadwick was employed to create the main storyline pointers. The brothers had ideas of where they'd like the first year (and only the first year) to go, after that it would be primarily Paul's job to create the story. Yet that's not all. Increasingly (and this is where I'm not sure about timescales at all, as I don't wish to disrespect the work of Paul or Ben) Rarebit is the man who's been fleshing out the storyline, as it's him who plays with the characters daily and who effectively goes into their shoes for every event, so he's the guy who knows where this story is at the best and where it's going. It's mainly why I myself, although sad about Paul leaving, aren't overly troubled about the story, as it's Ben's poor job to sort everything out anyway

Let me be clear about the story, when the Brothers created the "after-story" from the films, they had a lot of ideas, some of which were pulled into this mmo. The only problem is (and Paul has admitted this, very honestly) in his own blog site, that certain things are simply beyond that which are possible. True, if the game had really kicked off and ended up with a massive budget then sure. Yet it didn't. In general terms, it flopped. Sure, you'll get people who are totally in love with the game and at this point now, I'd say there's a high number of people who will see this game through to whatever end.

Now, with that being said, I'll say why I quoted the above. This first pile of text is for Tytanya, who I've only ever spoken to a few times in the past, and not as anyone you'd remember probably... I do get around  

[Edit by Rarebit: We don't talk about LESIG development here, thank you.]

To Zeroone, your reply is a slightly shorter but not no less unimportant. Naturally, it's hard to say what the brothers think of this game now. Maybe they look in on it, perhaps not. Was is known, if you want to believe what has been said (and I'm not going to dispute it) is that for serious plot changes or events, the Brothers are still questioned about it to get their pointers. I'd guess the only guy who'd know that is Ben and (understandably) he doesn't have to tell us anything. Don't feel like you're being hard done by, although many of us love this game, it's not our job to decide what's done in it, regardless of where you get to (which is where I admit to going wrong). To be honest, this game would have been long gone, without those we have breaking their backs and everything else, to keep us going. Do remember, that without this game, there will be people without jobs, so they do have an interest in keeping us going and trying to keep the entertainment value up, no matter what people think. Yet perhaps I'm going a touch off track. If the Brothers were to respond about this game I'd be so amazingly impressed, as they're known for keeping to themselves and understandably so. I don't blame them for their choices in any way, shape or form. Perhaps, when this is all over, they might make a comment on how the story has been through all this time, perhaps not. That is for them to decide. Anyway, I'm rembling along giving speculation about things I don't know, so I'll stop there.

The Matrix Online is what it is. Those who actually work on it can only do what they can do, creating the story and layering in the live events (through the help of LESIG.) Players potentially have the ability for more, yet who would be willing to put in all the hours on top of a normal life to do it? It would be a full time job in itself really. The algorithm black stuff is proof of what can potentially be created, yet even something like that required more time I think than was ever possible through the player base.

I think I've said all I need to say, I wonder how much of what I've said will remain?