I've been thinking a lot lately about the mystery and surprise that has happened over the last few years when playing MxO. From rumors and myths of happenings in-game from different players, to unexpected twists in old Live Events, there are a lot of things that I miss and remember that I thought I'd share. I'd be interested in hearing what some of your best (or favorite) memories from in-game are.
- Standing in Apollyon SE at Level 12, toying with my ability tree and talking with my wife who was standing beside my desk, when we were both startled by the sound of someone landing from a hyperjump. When I turned my character to see who or what had made the noise, we were both in awe when Morpheus was standing less than 5m from my character, offering to shake his hand.
- The day of the final conclusion of the Nightfall event, leading my faction on a search through Westview (which was dangerously high-level for many of us at the time), searching for any activity of things that were out of the ordinary. We traveled the dark alleyways of Sobra Shores, the entire time being stalked and toyed with by a member of the old LET, before working our way up to Mannsen and being attacked by hordes of Vampire and Lupine NPC's. The feeling was very surreal and creepy, traveling as a group through Westview at night, and seeing (what we thought were) other players running through the shadows around us that weren't showing up in /who.
- Our first discovery of the White Hallways, prior to their accessability via the organizational construct keys. The entire process showed a side of the Matrix that we'd literally never seen before, and upon our arrival, rumors from more experienced players of CSR's and Development Team members that frequented the hallways dressed as Agents, hunting for players that were doing things that they shouldn't. These things made the experience thrilling and very Matrixy, because of a genuine feel of danger.
- Chasing the Assassin from Apollyon to Sobra Shores and into Gracy Heights, alongside the rest of my faction. At the time I was running a 56k connection, with a video card that was barely capable of running MxO without making my computer smoke. I remember chasing him with everyone else on the server, when he gave us all the slip. I continued searching and eventually found myself in shock when I came across him /sitting in the middle of the road, in sneak. Disturbed and surprised, knowing he could kill me at any moment, I called the rest of my faction to my location as he sat and healed. No one else could see him, yet for some reason I could. He stood, still in (I suppose) admin invisibility as I took a number of screenshots. We goaded him, saying things like "I see you" and "Stop cowering." He turned and stared at all of us before eventually jacking out.
- Staking out the Probability Monument at 2am, during the Blue Sky Anniversary Event, following a tip in the Sentinel that there would be a private meeting there. Granted, whatever privacy was promised would've been pointless as the entire server had shown up to be present... imagine our surprise when time came and rather than a private meeting, we were bombarded with swarms upon swarms of Sleepwalker Cypherite NPC's and launched into a full-scale battle.
- When the LESIG program first kicked off, we'd been investigating rumors that Morpheus was still alive, and being held captive in Blackwood. Whether they were true or not was impossible at the time to determine, but we were in agreeance that the only way we knew of that we could potentially access Blackwood was the door on Ascension Monument in Rogers Way. My faction and I guarded the door around the clock, in shifts, for a week. We were involved in a number of PvP attacks from various factions and organizations. Naturally, this was a pointless move, but it was fun nonetheless.
- We'd received intelligence that claimed that there was a door hidden in the Sakura archive construct that had remained unfound by the MxO populace. The door was supposedly invisible to players except during a one-hour window in the middle of the night, and would only be visible through Data Goggles. A couple of us rolled new characters and powerleveled them to the appropriate level, to begin searching the construct... eventually the rumors were dispelled, but it still had our imaginations soaring.
- LESIG had been running an event for the Machinists on Recursion, in which their Liaison Officer TIMCAMM had been abducted and was being held prisoner somewhere in Westview. The only clue to his location was a small image that was found in one of the Scanline broadcasts, and TIMCAMM himself was only online for five minutes every 24 hours, making the window of rescue very small. After almost a month, when the situation had not been resolved, my faction and I decided that we would swoop in and attempt to kidnap the liaison ourselves, if for no other reason than just to see if it could be done. After three days of searching, our team located TIMCAMM and told him that we would escort him out of the building. He was invited to team, and upon accepting, I was waiting in the White Hallways with Team Recall loaded. The entire team was transported to the hallways, and we could tell from TIMCAMM's reactions that the poor player behind the character had no idea what to think. In the end, we were ambushed and TIMCAMM was killed by The Collective, but in the end, we still felt it was a major accomplishment on our part, and was fun as hell.
- Standing in Apollyon SE at Level 12, toying with my ability tree and talking with my wife who was standing beside my desk, when we were both startled by the sound of someone landing from a hyperjump. When I turned my character to see who or what had made the noise, we were both in awe when Morpheus was standing less than 5m from my character, offering to shake his hand.
- The day of the final conclusion of the Nightfall event, leading my faction on a search through Westview (which was dangerously high-level for many of us at the time), searching for any activity of things that were out of the ordinary. We traveled the dark alleyways of Sobra Shores, the entire time being stalked and toyed with by a member of the old LET, before working our way up to Mannsen and being attacked by hordes of Vampire and Lupine NPC's. The feeling was very surreal and creepy, traveling as a group through Westview at night, and seeing (what we thought were) other players running through the shadows around us that weren't showing up in /who.
- Our first discovery of the White Hallways, prior to their accessability via the organizational construct keys. The entire process showed a side of the Matrix that we'd literally never seen before, and upon our arrival, rumors from more experienced players of CSR's and Development Team members that frequented the hallways dressed as Agents, hunting for players that were doing things that they shouldn't. These things made the experience thrilling and very Matrixy, because of a genuine feel of danger.
- Chasing the Assassin from Apollyon to Sobra Shores and into Gracy Heights, alongside the rest of my faction. At the time I was running a 56k connection, with a video card that was barely capable of running MxO without making my computer smoke. I remember chasing him with everyone else on the server, when he gave us all the slip. I continued searching and eventually found myself in shock when I came across him /sitting in the middle of the road, in sneak. Disturbed and surprised, knowing he could kill me at any moment, I called the rest of my faction to my location as he sat and healed. No one else could see him, yet for some reason I could. He stood, still in (I suppose) admin invisibility as I took a number of screenshots. We goaded him, saying things like "I see you" and "Stop cowering." He turned and stared at all of us before eventually jacking out.
- Staking out the Probability Monument at 2am, during the Blue Sky Anniversary Event, following a tip in the Sentinel that there would be a private meeting there. Granted, whatever privacy was promised would've been pointless as the entire server had shown up to be present... imagine our surprise when time came and rather than a private meeting, we were bombarded with swarms upon swarms of Sleepwalker Cypherite NPC's and launched into a full-scale battle.
- When the LESIG program first kicked off, we'd been investigating rumors that Morpheus was still alive, and being held captive in Blackwood. Whether they were true or not was impossible at the time to determine, but we were in agreeance that the only way we knew of that we could potentially access Blackwood was the door on Ascension Monument in Rogers Way. My faction and I guarded the door around the clock, in shifts, for a week. We were involved in a number of PvP attacks from various factions and organizations. Naturally, this was a pointless move, but it was fun nonetheless.
- We'd received intelligence that claimed that there was a door hidden in the Sakura archive construct that had remained unfound by the MxO populace. The door was supposedly invisible to players except during a one-hour window in the middle of the night, and would only be visible through Data Goggles. A couple of us rolled new characters and powerleveled them to the appropriate level, to begin searching the construct... eventually the rumors were dispelled, but it still had our imaginations soaring.
- LESIG had been running an event for the Machinists on Recursion, in which their Liaison Officer TIMCAMM had been abducted and was being held prisoner somewhere in Westview. The only clue to his location was a small image that was found in one of the Scanline broadcasts, and TIMCAMM himself was only online for five minutes every 24 hours, making the window of rescue very small. After almost a month, when the situation had not been resolved, my faction and I decided that we would swoop in and attempt to kidnap the liaison ourselves, if for no other reason than just to see if it could be done. After three days of searching, our team located TIMCAMM and told him that we would escort him out of the building. He was invited to team, and upon accepting, I was waiting in the White Hallways with Team Recall loaded. The entire team was transported to the hallways, and we could tell from TIMCAMM's reactions that the poor player behind the character had no idea what to think. In the end, we were ambushed and TIMCAMM was killed by The Collective, but in the end, we still felt it was a major accomplishment on our part, and was fun as hell.
