The Matrix Online Producer Letter

I'm sad to see the cinematics go, but considering how poor the animation quality had gotten, it might not be such a total loss.

And yay for the return of the Sentinel! :: Hopes, hopes, hopes she gets asked to help write pieces for it::

NightTrace wrote:

Vinia wrote:

Neoteny wrote:

I think, however, that we should recognize that it's not the fault of any of the devs here, nor is it the fault of the CSR team, Virrago, or LESIG. This is an issue we'd have to take up with the money movers at SoE.

I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help...

Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... ">

Then everyone can cheer that some random person said something to them and nothing changed and then they left!

.....


.......


Right.

Hey, I don't run the place  I even said then that I was simply relaying what had been told to me by those guys I spoke to, so don't go blaming me if what was written didn't live up to what you made of it

The thing is that I do have a lot of love for SOE, they have the games that I love to play. However, it's things like this that hurt that, not just for me and all of us here but if we get pissed at this stuff, we tell our friends, and they tell their friends and so on... it's the little things like this that result in SOE having the rep it does.

The good work that the company does is never heard of as no-one ever complains when things go right. It's only when the bad things happen when people hear about it (think about SWG and their biggest arse-up, that's all most people ever heard and yet that game has some truely great content)

The problem here is that SoE has never made a "good" financial decision as far as MxO's playerbase is concerned. We have always been shirked when the money and marketing train goes through.

Never have we had an announcement that "RandomGuy" is going to be added to the dev team! RandomGuy is an experienced animator and graphical designer, and will be creating new abilities for the game.

No, all we've gotten in 3 years is the firing of the LET, HCFrog's departure, Walrus's semi-departure, Chadwick's departure, a scaling down of cinematics from gold to silver to nothing and the death and revival of the Sentinel.

However, through it all, we've payed 15 dollars per month for whatever it is we get. Now, from a consumer standpoint, we should see that $15/month funded the game in its infancy, meaning the LET, the animators, the whole Monolith team and that is what we should expect when paying 15 dollars a month. For what SoE appropriates to us now? Maybe we ought to be paying 2 dollars a month. The fatcats need to recognize this and give us some *CENSORED* staff for our money.

NOTE: This is no offense to our current staff, who do a phenomenal job with the funding and staffing SoE gives 'em.

I can't say that I am surprised by a lot of this. There is some good and bad.

I haven't liked the cinematics since they switched from the original format, so no loss there for me.

I think the sentinel coming back could do some good things.

When I see cost cutting moves, as some of this is, I get nervous, but even if this game only lasts another year, it would have lasted longer than I've thought in my darker moments.

The game has perservered through a lot. Missteps at release, lagouts at the original live events, being taken over by SOE, loss of so many players, staff turnover, the lack of resources.

We still have a committed core player base, LESIG, and the efforts of the SOE members charged with this game. I appreciate everyone's efforts, am looking forward to the anniversary event and hope good things happen in the next year. 

Oh I think I'm going to vomit.  Losing Cinematics is terrible.  I'm pretty sure it has been said in the past that losing cinematics would be the first sign of SOE letting this game go.  It's only a matter of time before the fire Rarebit, and the storyline stop completely (in which case I will vomit on my keyboard, slam my face into it, and cry for 7 days).

That was exagerated.  Really, I trust Rarebit on writing the storyline, but the Sentinel better be AMAZING from now on if it is replacing Cinematics.  I'm just saying, there is alot of pressure on the Sentinel writers.  If it is done really well and the story is told well without the Cinematics things will be fine. If the Sentinel fails, my keyboard is not going to be usable any more.  Does this mean LESIG signups?

Cinematics...what can I say? I'm going to miss them because it gave the game multiple mediums to tell the story just like when they released the Movie Sequels, Enter the Matrix and the Animatrix. It allowed us to see the story in different ways and sadly it was the one thing that still felt 'Movie-like".  It was literally one of the first things you saw in-game and was always the first thing I would check after an update. I hate that it's now going to the "I remember when MxO had..." category but I guess it was necessary. Still, there's some effects that a cinematic can the achieve that I think are irreplaceable. Things like seeing Morpheus jump in bullet time over an Assasin's shot, or seeing him crack the pavement after a Hyper Jump, or Seraph jumping through a window after Sati, or Sentinels tearing apart Old Zion, or even the Oracle at her front door welcoming me into the Matrix.

What causes my worry is the financial aspect... As i said i feel like taking away what cost alot of My hard earned cash, along with everyone else, and (apparently) having no plans to replace it.

I guess i'm going to have to wait and see how it play's out... Unfortunatly all we have to rely on now is you Rarebit. That puts alot of pressure on your back (and ofcourse LESIG) that i hope you can handle.

WE (as a devision of the company and community) got shafted by SOE once more. To the future eh? :S

What causes my worry is the financial aspect... As i said i feel like taking away what cost alot of My hard earned cash, along with everyone else, and (apparently) having no plans to replace it.

I guess i'm going to have to wait and see how it play's out... Unfortunatly all we have to rely on now is you Rarebit. That puts alot of pressure on your back (and ofcourse LESIG) that i hope you can handle.

WE (as a devision of the company and community) got shafted by SOE once more. To the future eh? :S

In terms of our cash being sourced to other games, I really do doubt that's happening (I hope so anyway...) The budget for the game is realistically not that high. Just look at the main anniversary party last night. True that was a fair number of people but that was people from across all three servers. Admittedly, not everyone would have turned up but if we assume half of the game population did come to it, how much do you think our combined subscriptions make?

I don't think it's going to put any more pressure on Rarebit as such, the guy's been creating the critical missions and running live events himself for... how long is it anyway? True, the LESIG team create the basic setup for the events but everything goes through him on a practical basis in-game.

Whoever said it a page back or whatever it was, MxO hasn't had an in-house cinematics team as such for a while now. The images that were designed by Paul Chadwick would get out-sourced to another company to animate, then the audio gets applied by *someone I can't remember from them explaining about it on the podcast* which is internal to SOE.

I'm not sure if agree with saying we've been shafted but I think what is fair to say is that everyone's going to miss the cinematics. I guess we'll have to all wait to see what is created for the first few papers before we start really complaining " width="15" height="15">

While I can say that I will miss the Cinematics (they were always nice), I am gald to see the return of our local newspaper! There isn't much that I can say, most of it being said already, but Mr. A**hole of the Year does have a point (I <3 you Generalista). The LESIG will have to beef it up now that more time will be spent with Rarebit and Co. If they can't, then they should be replaced. It's not fair that because one memeber of the LESIG is lagging behind, the whole community will suffer. Unless I misread (it's been a long time since I last saw something like this), Rarebit, you did say you have backup LESIG incase things start to slow down. I don't know how offen it's been used, but you may have to consider creating a backup group, as a percaution.

Just my 2 $info.

Anyone trying to apply pressure to my LESIG volunteers will be heartily ignored. Have a nice day.

Danger_Frog1471 wrote:

What causes my worry is the financial aspect... As i said i feel like taking away what cost alot of My hard earned cash, along with everyone else, and (apparently) having no plans to replace it.

I guess i'm going to have to wait and see how it play's out... Unfortunatly all we have to rely on now is you Rarebit. That puts alot of pressure on your back (and ofcourse LESIG) that i hope you can handle.

WE (as a devision of the company and community) got shafted by SOE once more. To the future eh? :S

In terms of our cash being sourced to other games, I really do doubt that's happening (I hope so anyway...) The budget for the game is realistically not that high. Just look at the main anniversary party last night. True that was a fair number of people but that was people from across all three servers. Admittedly, not everyone would have turned up but if we assume half of the game population did come to it, how much do you think our combined subscriptions make?

I don't think it's going to put any more pressure on Rarebit as such, the guy's been creating the critical missions and running live events himself for... how long is it anyway? True, the LESIG team create the basic setup for the events but everything goes through him on a practical basis in-game.

Whoever said it a page back or whatever it was, MxO hasn't had an in-house cinematics team as such for a while now. The images that were designed by Paul Chadwick would get out-sourced to another company to animate, then the audio gets applied by *someone I can't remember from them explaining about it on the podcast* which is internal to SOE.

I'm not sure if agree with saying we've been shafted but I think what is fair to say is that everyone's going to miss the cinematics. I guess we'll have to all wait to see what is created for the first few papers before we start really complaining " width="15" height="15">

I never said it was being sourced for other games, atleast i didnt imply that when i said it. The money we pay hasnt changed, yet the things in this game that cost money have been taken away slowly but surely. Test server, animator, cinematics, Chadwick, countless devs the list goes on...

Through all of this we still pay £10 ($15) for it... I just feel like its not worth it anymore no matter how special the story is conveyed. I'd like to be proven otherwise but its tough...

As for getting player help to make cinematics, I know you guys can make awesome stuff, but there really is a ton of work that goes into these things--quality voice acting in particular is not something that can be taken lightly--and I just don't think we have the capability of coordinating a production of that scale with you guys. Also, it would require giving you, the relative public, intricate story details like...probably two or three entire chapters in advance, and the spoiler/leak potential there is a way higher than I feel comfortable with. Even LESIG got only a skeletal summary of the next cinematic, like, a week or two before it came out. I know you guys are dying to pitch in, but we are a commercial enterprise, using a heavily protected intellectual property, and there are very real limits on how much public outsourcing we can do. I hope you'll take the energy you're bringing here and put it into cinematic productions of your own, because we really do love seeing those around here...maybe nearly as much as you liked getting cinematics from us.

Rarebit wrote:

As for getting player help to make cinematics, I know you guys can make awesome stuff, but there really is a ton of work that goes into these things--quality voice acting in particular is not something that can be taken lightly--and I just don't think we have the capability of coordinating a production of that scale with you guys. Also, it would require giving you, the relative public, intricate story details like...probably two or three entire chapters in advance, and the spoiler/leak potential there is a way higher than I feel comfortable with. Even LESIG got only a skeletal summary of the next cinematic, like, a week or two before it came out. I know you guys are dying to pitch in, but we are a commercial enterprise, using a heavily protected intellectual property, and there are very real limits on how much public outsourcing we can do. I hope you'll take the energy you're bringing here and put it into cinematic productions of your own, because we really do love seeing those around here...maybe nearly as much as you liked getting cinematics from us.

Ok lets go over these points I've highlighted...

Quality Voice acting: Granted I'll give you that getting clear crip voice acting is difficult but like ZaneZavin said there is talent around here.

Co-Ordination: Again I can understand this even when you are paying people for stuff they sometimes let you down so if your doing it for free what incentive is there for you to get it in on time? Well there's the fact that we love this game and to make cinematic for it would be a incredible privilege and I don't think anyone who would be on the team (if there was one) would take advantage of that.

Spoiler/Leak Potential: Again I totally get your point here there are leaks in LESIG even if people want to ignore them, people knew the truce was going to break days before it happened. But the idea I have would have no leak risk.

Energy: Well I cant speak for all the other video creators in the MxO community but I think my posts speak for themselves in this thread. I'm going to fight as hard as I can to keep some form of cinematics in this game.

The Idea:

Similar to LESIG get a group of video editors, audio mixers etc together, heck mix them with LESIG to increase extra's numbers for videos if you want. When chapter 10.1 comes out, no cinematic will be released. In the time between 10.1 and 10.2 the 'team' will work on cinematic 10.1 and when 10.2 is released a cinematic for 10.1 is released.

The only input you would need to do Rarebit would be to hop in game when we need disguises and give us the appropriate attire. Granted its not the most ideal situation but at least we get to keep the cinamatics, there is no potential spoiler release, co-ordination will not be a problem (refer to the "Energy" section above) so all that is needed to be worried about will be the voice acting...

Comments/Criticisms?

Tytanya will have a field day.

I guess Tytanya can have more of a field day with the storyline now, eh?

Anyone trying to apply pressure to my LESIG volunteers will be heartily ignored. Have a nice day.

Rarebit wrote:

Anyone trying to apply pressure to my LESIG volunteers will be heartily ignored. Have a nice day.

Applying pressure and speaking the to the leader of the group about possible changes are two completely different things, and I'm a bit surprised that you've decided to just boil anything I've said down to "He's being a *CENSORED* and trying to be mean to LESIG". Far as I know I actually even get along decently well with the members of LESIG...oh well whatever makes you have fun doing things in a more clear state of mind I suppose.

Forgive me Rarebit, for being a paying customer and being worried that the latest changes have put 90% of the onging storyline of the Matrix into the hands of some volunteer PLAYERS, and hoping that this meant there would be some actual strict guidelines for them to follow.

To be honest, I haven't valued the cinematics much at all ever since they changed from CG into extremely budget, predominantly black and white.....things. They were never overly useful in regards to the storyline - merely pieces of the puzzle, and not even very big pieces like the CG ones.

I LOVE that the Sentinel is going to be playing a more vital role. It has always been one of my favourite game-related resources.

I'll echo the many concerns over the obvious budget cuts, but griping here to Rarebit, Walrus and the devs will never get us anywhere. They do their jobs perfectly well, with all our gratitude and respect. What we should be doing is making copies of this entire thread (and all others like it) and blanket-mailing them to SOE in the form of petitions to show how much we love our MxO and want the company to start treating it like the valuable MMO it is/should be.

I don't buy the excuse that declining subscriptions have spurred the company to SWG-ize our MxO. It's like TuS said - you have to spend money to make money. If this game got even one significant expansion with a marketing push, they'd see subscriptions skyrocket. Even if it were just a new neighbourhood or two and some new (not re-hashed) clothing items.

I've also always been seriously concerned that our subscription fees aren't specifically ear-marked for MxO by SOE. I have a very strong suspicion that all of our station pass account monies just go into one big huge cash-pool that SOE then doles out in whatever fashion it sees fit to whatever MMO's they happen to value the most. This suspicion is only more and more strongly confirmed every time MxO takes yet another serious budget/staffing cut.

As for community-made cinematics, I think this is a brilliant idea, and I'll put this out to all our movie-makers: Who said you need official sanction from rarebit et. al.? You've been doing wonders so far without it. If you're that enthusiastic to make them, do it! So what if they'll be after the fact, story-wise? Use the Sentinel and Live Event specifics for your story-lines. Speaking personally, I'd still love every second of them, especially if you added in some voice-over stuff!

Am I so pissed that I'm going to cancel my account? Not a chance! I never would have left 9 months ago if we had received the indoor lag/graphics issue work-around back then instead of only recently, but at least we got it! So I'm back!

I love this game, and the few staffers SOE has given us are fantastic. If only another company, one that actually knew how to successfully manage an MMO, would express interest in taking over our beloved MxO.....Monolith come back!!! Blizzard? NCSoft? Anybody?

I don't think players should do cinematics if it means potential story leakage. No sir.

ThePigeonKing wrote:

I don't think players should do cinematics if it means potential story leakage. No sir.

Agreed.  We all want the cinematics back... but this isn't the way.

I am frustrated that the cinematics are being removed, however there are other means.  In fact it would be more realistic to hear what has happened from the horses mouth as it were.

However with the loss of Chadwick and the cinematics, would it be such an expense to hire on 1 of the old members of the Live Events Team.  Take out a feature and bring an old one back in.  This would seem that it could help Rarebit out so he wouldn't be double clienting all the time durring events.  To me, just the ability to interact with the character in a small group or a one on one would be fantastic replacement.

 In fact I can give a good example of how they can replace the cinematics.  Way back in the first year, Niobe popped in on me and an firend just sitting around conversing.  She told us about the Cryptos Boxes weeks before that cinematic released, it really made me feel like part of the story.  So to me More Interaction with players > The cinematics.

kou_urake wrote:

ThePigeonKing wrote:

I don't think players should do cinematics if it means potential story leakage. No sir.

Agreed.  We all want the cinematics back... but this isn't the way.

Did you 2 even read the suggestion?

However with the loss of Chadwick and the cinematics, would it be such an expense to hire on 1 of the old members of the Live Events Team.  Take out a feature and bring an old one back in.  This would seem that it could help Rarebit out so he wouldn't be double clienting all the time durring events.  To me, just the ability to interact with the character in a small group or a one on one would be fantastic replacement.

 In fact I can give a good example of how they can replace the cinematics.  Way back in the first year, Niobe popped in on me and an firend just sitting around conversing.  She told us about the Cryptos Boxes weeks before that cinematic released, it really made me feel like part of the story.  So to me More Interaction with players > The cinematics.

NightTrace wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Anyone trying to apply pressure to my LESIG volunteers will be heartily ignored. Have a nice day.

Applying pressure and speaking the to the leader of the group about possible changes are two completely different things, and I'm a bit surprised that you've decided to just boil anything I've said down to "He's being a *CENSORED* and trying to be mean to LESIG". Far as I know I actually even get along decently well with the members of LESIG...oh well whatever makes you have fun doing things in a more clear state of mind I suppose.

Forgive me Rarebit, for being a paying customer and being worried that the latest changes have put 90% of the onging storyline of the Matrix into the hands of some volunteer PLAYERS, and hoping that this meant there would be some actual strict guidelines for them to follow.

Lol, I love how you think that comment was purely for you, and you think TUS has an ego! Rarebit was making a general statement to everyone about his LESIG team after Danger_Frog said something about possible pressure on their backs from other players. If anyone has concerns about anything to do with LESIG then the only way it should be done is with Rarebit via PM

You know something MotorZ, you might be onto something there

I think the party for the anniversary shows that the players will turn up in large numbers for any event if the word is put out about it by the MxO team.

People always enjoy talking about when they tried to track down the Assassin or fought those sleepwalkers in the blue sky event around the concert places in the parks.

Those are things that I read on here, memories from players that keep popping up. It's things like that which make a game great. The problem is right now they're only that. Just memories.

I was online for hours lastnight, soaking up the fun of that party. It's the best thing that I've been witness too. It wasn't a story event but I will now be able to say, "Yeah, I was there when we had an anniversary party and the lag was so bad we could do slow-mo jumping and there was en-masse meatwadding."

The Matrix Online needs things like that.

...the cinematics had a special place of their own.  They weren't just a means of telling the story ... they were a different way of being shown story material. They had aspects of art, motion and sound that expressed scenes better than ... the Sentinel could... It wasn't even a scene with much motion or action, but just seeing and hearing it played out ... was something that could never be duplicated in simple written/typed text.

The Leo wrote:

kou_urake wrote:

ThePigeonKing wrote:

I don't think players should do cinematics if it means potential story leakage. No sir.

Agreed.  We all want the cinematics back... but this isn't the way.

Did you 2 even read the suggestion?

Yeah - its still players making the cinematics. No go.

   Well I've never been a man of many words (as indicated by my post count), but I've played MxO since Beta, and I feel the need to say a few words now.

  I was amazed by this game when I first saw the trailer on the Matrix dvd and still when I actually started playing it. We had ingame AIM, a MP3 player, Movie character likenesses/voices, awsome cinematics, a very unique combat system, an awsome story, live events, and a very large and vibrant Dev team.

  Slowly these things were taken from us. First AIM was removed (no big loss there, thought it would have been a nice tool for story progression), and interlock combat was dumbed down (or rather removed in my opinion, the joined animations were not in my opinion what made interlock). All these things were removed when SOE bought the game from Monolith (who truthfully didn't have a clue as to what they were doing in the first place.). These things were acceptable though because we were told then (like we are now) that these losses would eventually make the game better.

  Next to go were the actor likenesses ( Most like Ghost and Niobe were due to other companies already owning the 3D likenesses) Slowly but most unnoticably the voices of the character began to change as well though the new voices were just as good so that was no big issue. Though while this was all going on our Dev team was being "cut back" to an almost unfimiliar shell. Then things like bug fixes and major issues began running rampant without being addressed..(Like floating static objects in the game world, unbalanced classes, broken animations, Vista incompatibility, and 8800 series incompatibility.). Though to be nice the remaining QA dept. Did TRY to fix some of these things, but mostly were relegatated to fixing typos in mission text...Now some will say that there are "work-arounds" for the major issues like the Vista problems and the 8800 lag, but I say to them it is not my hardware that is at fault, we pay for a working game. Players who paid $50 for a game and then $15 a month for service should not have to use a "work-around" for it to funtion, and sadly these issuse have not been address in a timely manner.

Then while our Dev team was being mangled by SOE, the linear evolving story began to suffer..The loss of the Sentinel...the loss of net based puzzels/websites (though the AB team has renewed some of these features), and instead of being linear became a revolving loop of ...This is the new bad guy for the next 6months to a year...He is trying to destroy/harm the Matrix you must stop him, this though was interrupted by the renewing of the war, and then quickly the Matirx returned to buisness as usual... here is your bad guy for the month...But on an upnote we do still have our live events, though they do not sparkle like thay once did, due to the cut backs on our beloved DEV team.All the while we were told by SOE and our DEV teams that these things in the long run would help to make the game better.

 Now we lose our cinematics...the only link some of us players had to the story, (because lets face it unless your a high school kid you're not going to be able to make it home at 5pm EST to make it to a live event.). And now we are told as we were back then after losing so much and seeing no real improvements..the loss of the cinematics will in the long run make the game better...

  I'd just like to say to the DEV team you guys are some of the best I've ever seen you've been fighting an uphill fight since the beginning. Datamine is proof of that and I salute your work on it...though in my opinion resources could have been directed elsewhere had you just made Downtown a free for all pvp zone, and upped the taps and spawns.

Now on to a fwew summary bullet points..

THINGS REMOVED

-AIM

-INTERLOCK

-UNIQUE CHARACTER/VOICES

-99% OF OUR DEV TEAM (and with it the "feel" of the Matrix in the story and quality.)

-QA TEAM

-CINEMATICS

-95% OR OUR PLAYER BASE

THINGS RETURNED FOR OUR LOSSES

-DATAMINE

-MASSIVE GAME BREAKING BUGS AND LINGERING "SMALL" ISSUES...

It truely makes me sad to look at that list, I love this game or did....It use to be the highlight of my day to get home from work and jack in with the other Broodies, and the large community, but both have disappeared along with most of the games features. I mean if I wanted to play by myself, grinding missions in a nearly empty world, with a mission only driven story. I'd play one of Acclaim's free mmorpg's, atleast there they have regular content updates, large DEV teams, and are nearly bugless. Sure these games make most of their money from adverts, but what does it say about MxO if we can't even keep ingame advertisers?

This brings me to my final topic...What exactly are we paying for? As far as I can see it is this...

 -A stagnant game world, reskinned equipment (using the same models over and over), no variety in activities..(either you mission, mine, pvp, or stand around)

Now what does a Free to play MMO offer?

- Reskinned equipment, endless grind with nothing else to do and a vague overall story driven through mission grind.

Those two lists look pretty similar to me, and it saddens me to see how far MxO has fallen, in the beginning the game was 100 times more than what it is now, but still we are told that we must sacrifice what little we now have so that the game can become better...So I ask SOE we have paid our sacrifices in content so when do we "get blessed" with this elusive "better"?

It is rediculous to think that we are paying for a game that has been stripped down to nothing more than a fighting simulation, and we say thank you when they remove even more content with the promise that this is the price we must pay inorder to improve the game.

Now I know it was stated that the story would continue in Live Events and now in the Sentinel, but for those of us that can not attend lives events that leaves us reading one incoherent piece of a short story a month for $15, and that is just NOT acceptable. That would be like authors charging you by the chapter to read their book....And what if we have to unsubscribe for a while and the Sentinel is replaced with a newer version...When we come back are we suppost to jump around asking what happened while we were gone?

 And now to the comment that MxO was not shutting down...Do you really believe that if the hand full of active accounts dwindles below 1000 in the next year or so, that SOE will continue to fund (what little they do now) this game....I say no they wont, but they may not shut down the servers, they will just leave players in a DEV-less, broken world with an unfinished story in the hopes that another notch in their game belt will lure some station access players to purchase a "game".

Seriously I don't see MxO making it until its next anniversary, though SOE may be nice enough to allow this little community drama to play out until then if just to give us a nice send off, but I doubt they care that much.

Thanks for reading my novel..

V

Vedren, that's the best reply I've read on this thread /salute to you Sir!

Agreed.

/phormalcurtsey

I go away for one weekend, ONE WEEKEND, and this game goes to pot. Party resulting in Syntax blowing up, no more cinematics, I mean come on!

Why did we ditch the cinematics? Is it money? Is it that the higher-ups just don't want it? For crying out loud, they're one of the most enjoyable things about this game. Now where do we look do for an introduction into the chapters? The Sentinel? Right, right... *sigh* A bluepill newspaper telling us redpills about major threats to the Matrix.  Storywise, that just doesn't make much sense to me.  I'm super PO'ed that they're getting the axe.  I mean, do we not even get a cool ending cinematic if we're pulling the plug on them?  Or are those two wireframed yahoos cavorting around the last gasp of our cinematics? 

There better be something good about Chapter 10, because this Producer Letter is scaring the *poop* out of me for our community and this game.


Remind not to take the weekend off ever again.  I might come back and they've moved our servers over to The Agency (where they've taken everything else from us to).

ArchDuke wrote:

I go away for one weekend, ONE WEEKEND, and this game goes to pot. Party resulting in Syntax blowing up, no more cinematics, I mean come on!

Why did we ditch the cinematics? Is it money? Is it that the higher-ups just don't want it? For crying out loud, they're one of the most enjoyable things about this game. Now where do we look do for an introduction into the chapters? The Sentinel? Right, right... *sigh* A bluepill newspaper telling us redpills about major threats to the Matrix.  Storywise, that just doesn't make much sense to me.  I'm super PO'ed that they're getting the axe.  I mean, do we not even get a cool ending cinematic if we're pulling the plug on them?  Or are those two wireframed yahoos cavorting around the last gasp of our cinematics? 

There better be something good about Chapter 10, because this Producer Letter is scaring the *poop* out of me for our community and this game.


Remind not to take the weekend off ever again.  I might come back and they've moved our servers over to The Agency (where they've taken everything else from us to).

Pff you're just jealous you missed the blow up party. =P

And as I said earlier in...hm I think it was this thread, maybe not...the Sentinel is not coming back to try to do what cinematics did. It's still the Sentinel.

ArchDuke wrote:

I go away for one weekend, ONE WEEKEND, and this game goes to pot. Party resulting in Syntax blowing up, no more cinematics, I mean come on!

Why did we ditch the cinematics? Is it money? Is it that the higher-ups just don't want it? For crying out loud, they're one of the most enjoyable things about this game. Now where do we look do for an introduction into the chapters? The Sentinel? Right, right... *sigh* A bluepill newspaper telling us redpills about major threats to the Matrix.  Storywise, that just doesn't make much sense to me.  I'm super PO'ed that they're getting the axe.  I mean, do we not even get a cool ending cinematic if we're pulling the plug on them?  Or are those two wireframed yahoos cavorting around the last gasp of our cinematics? 

There better be something good about Chapter 10, because this Producer Letter is scaring the *poop* out of me for our community and this game.


Remind not to take the weekend off ever again.  I might come back and they've moved our servers over to The Agency (where they've taken everything else from us to).

Pff you're just jealous you missed the blow up party. =P

And as I said earlier in...hm I think it was this thread, maybe not...the Sentinel is not coming back to try to do what cinematics did. It's still the Sentinel.

   If I may ask then...What is going to pick up the slack that the demise of the cinematics leave if not the sentinel? If we don't get a static (non live event) formal introduction to new events, most players will not be able to follow the storyline....We are use to having to piece the details of the story together from riddles in the Sentinel and other sources (ie missions), but to hinge the story on a one time event is not the answer...because players want to see the story unfold before them not come here and read a posted summary and screenshots just to know the current state of things.

Perhaps a new type of Archive mission could be implemented, one that "replays" the high points of a live event to a player or group of players...These reenactments would ofcourse lack interactivity other than fighting and clicking the npc's to "talk" to them, and would also be shorter in time frame. For example if Flood called the mervs in to combat a force of accleterated exiles at a sensitive point in the system..Flood's dialogue and the combat could be reasonably reenacted in mission format, and with it another added bonus...Players of all servers could enjoy the lives events no matter their server of origin or timeframe...Also the oppertunity for more archive rewards...

V