I can agree with that. I honestly believe it was the rallying of players that helped it survive the transition from SOE. That could also explain the near complete absence of advertising since the transition. Though I do admire and appreciate the player-based attempts at it.
Bring Back the Lith Days.
132 posts · 2008-12-06 11:15:33 to 2008-12-21 17:28:15
It could have been that; I can certainly see the WB kicking something to the curb that doesn't have "cash cow" written all over it in blood. I can remember at launch time feeling like WB was approaching this MMO business as though MxO was going to steal half of WoW's subscriber base overnight. The "big fish" syndrome that all marketing departments can't shake.
And actually, I don't blame SOE at all for the current condition of the game. From what I remember of the various postings over the years by Rarebit and 9mmfu and Walrus, Monolith developers threw a temper tantrum when Warner announced their plans to sell MxO to SOE. They 'took home' (read: stole) storylines (Sarah Edmontons), books of code, and anything else that they felt was proprietary. And later, when MxO devs broached the idea of story changes, Warner shut them down with a fountain o' legalese.
So, we are left with all this potential, wasted.
Very well put Shin, it does sound like the truth.
deffdog wrote:
ArchDuke wrote:
I think what we have now is working because people are still playing. There's always room for improvement though.
Doesn't seem that way On Recursion these days.
Should move to Syntax then...
GREENCODE *Cough*
I agree that alot of stuff within this MMO is Rehashed so to speak but.... I for one prefer this one to any other...
I have tried alot aswell trust me.
I know people moan about the populations etc... But personally isnt it nice to log in and people say 'HI' and aknowledge your there.
Vector is a good example of this... They fight like cat and dog but at the end of the day they all know each other on a higher level than a chat screen and actually chat about things.
A massive population increase would increase lagg at busy HL's and make the game a little less community like?
Dont get me wrong a bit more pvp would be great but I like our little home.
Whoever mentioned FREE TO PLAY! Thumbs up on the cheapness THUMBS DOWN on even less content we just started to get a decent drip feed. Be it glasses with a different texture or boots that give you 1% more speed! Its something!
But back to my first point! Do something about your player experience then give something back...
Green Code Events Team!
(Wonder how many people make a pretty colourful quotation tree from my post hehe! All personal opinion!)
Zimmermann wrote:
deffdog wrote:
ArchDuke wrote:
I think what we have now is working because people are still playing. There's always room for improvement though.
Doesn't seem that way On Recursion these days.
Should move to Syntax then...
Yea like that is going to solve the problem of a dying server, move somewhere else.
odj wrote:
Yea like that is going to solve the problem of a dying server, move somewhere else.
It's a complicated problem indeed. Most new players are prone to choose the most populated server (Syntax), and the players that are already here are either going to stay where they are (no server growth) or move to the most populated server (Syntax).
Shin, I understand your grief mate. I'm only surprised it took you this much time to realize it. It's been months since i figured this game has nothing to do with the original Matrix Universe anymore, because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content. I've stated that this has just become a game, tho still nice given its combat system and all, but which has barely anything left of the Matrix itself, really. The replies were : "well, u shouldn't expect otherwise, it's an MMO." i always thought this was not just another MMO but SoE is trying to transform it into one, as you can see with the changes over these past years. This community will moarn your departure, shin, I have no doubt. I can't say I'm really jacked in anymore, except for when i'm needed and for hvcrft battles. But I promised that I'd stay till they unplug, unless i'm forced otherwise by financial issues. I don't know what will become of this game, probably nothing, but I'll be there to see it.
They got a bad box office opening because Lith did barely any beta testing. It's why reviews were so poor, if you check out the gamespot one, you want to cry. I always wanted to ask them to make another review, and it would probably work right now since it's being transformed into a regular MMO and has less bugs, but it would never undo the harm. You want Lith back? I'd want Lith dead, for setting MxO's course to hell. "Turn left in 200 meters"
NX
NeoExcidious wrote:
They got a bad box office opening because Lith did barely any beta testing. It's why reviews were so poor, if you check out the gamespot one, you want to cry. I always wanted to ask them to make another review, and it would probably work right now since it's being transformed into a regular MMO and has less bugs, but it would never undo the harm. You want Lith back? I'd want Lith dead, for setting MxO's course to hell. "Turn left in 200 meters"
NX
I wouldn't put too much on Lith. As they say, poo rolls downhill. WB wanted this game out in Fall 2004, as quickly after Revolutions came out as possible (Nov 2003). Betas didn't even open until early Summer 2004 IIRC. It was an impossible task considering what they wanted to do at the time. So it got put back to March 2005, and of course the fickle gaming world didn't immediately go ape for it...this being kind of a nichy game that lends itself better to building a following over time....WB didn't get instant box office success so they dropped it like a hot potato. SOE picked it up and promptly stuck it in their attic. I don't hold Lith at fault. I hold WB and then SOE at fault. But SOE might have been legally hamstrung in the first place by WB, I don't really know.
NeoExcidious wrote:
because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content.
This is not the case and never has been. Practically the first thing to happen was the assassination of Morpheus--that should tell you something, if nothing in recent plot developments is giving you any other clues yet. The only thing I've had shot down by the creators since the plotting fell to me was a proposal that the Machines do not in fact use humans as power sources.
So, blame us for not having Neo in every chapter, but not for not having the ability to do that if we thought it was a good idea. Our original writer even told me that the brothers gave him a mandate to tear the Matrix apart and rebuild it. It's tricky to work from an established story in a way that will mean something to its fans without, on the one hand, seeming like you have nothing to do with that previous story, or, on the other, with relying on it so much that you're just reliving the past over and over without actually having it grow in new and interesting directions. We've probably erred more in the former direction than the latter over the years, but I don't really want to fall into the cheap trap of shouting "NEO NEO NEO" every episode.
... Oh, wait.
Rarebit wrote:
NeoExcidious wrote:
because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content.
Practically the first thing to happen was the assassination of Morpheus
So it's true!
OMG
I QUIT
Rarebit wrote:
NeoExcidious wrote:
because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content.
This is not the case and never has been. Practically the first thing to happen was the assassination of Morpheus--that should tell you something, if nothing in recent plot developments is giving you any other clues yet. The only thing I've had shot down by the creators since the plotting fell to me was a proposal that the Machines do not in fact use humans as power sources.
So, blame us for not having Neo in every chapter, but not for not having the ability to do that if we thought it was a good idea. Our original writer even told me that the brothers gave him a mandate to tear the Matrix apart and rebuild it. It's tricky to work from an established story in a way that will mean something to its fans without, on the one hand, seeming like you have nothing to do with that previous story, or, on the other, with relying on it so much that you're just reliving the past over and over without actually having it grow in new and interesting directions. We've probably erred more in the former direction than the latter over the years, but I don't really want to fall into the cheap trap of shouting "NEO NEO NEO" every episode.
... Oh, wait.
Does that mean you wanted the Pew Pew eyes? (lazer eyes) So if the proposal of the machines not using humans as a power source did go through, where did the machines get their power source?
Everyone knows this game was rushed, and to prove that fact when it was released they changed the combat system mid game, after it went gold (I think, memory isnt what is used to be). Now if only I can get those cinnamatics to work when not in windowed mode...
Ic3b3rg wrote:
Does that mean you wanted the Pew Pew eyes? (lazer eyes) So if the proposal of the machines not using humans as a power source did go through, where did the machines get their power source?Everyone knows this game was rushed, and to prove that fact when it was released they changed the combat system mid game, after it went gold (I think, memory isnt what is used to be). Now if only I can get those cinnamatics to work when not in windowed mode...
Unlimit was our original writer Paul Chadwick's invention. It fell to me to implement their "powers" in-game, and I probably would have done laser eyes if I'd actually known how to do it on my own. Best I could do was them that green eye code drip effect and use green lightning bolts from the sky.
Does the 11.3 cinematic work for you in full-screen? It's a different format (Flash rather than Windows Media Player) and might behave differently.
Rarebit wrote:
Ic3b3rg wrote:
Does that mean you wanted the Pew Pew eyes? (lazer eyes) So if the proposal of the machines not using humans as a power source did go through, where did the machines get their power source?Everyone knows this game was rushed, and to prove that fact when it was released they changed the combat system mid game, after it went gold (I think, memory isnt what is used to be). Now if only I can get those cinnamatics to work when not in windowed mode...
Unlimit was our original writer Paul Chadwick's invention. It fell to me to implement their "powers" in-game, and I probably would have done laser eyes if I'd actually known how to do it on my own. Best I could do was them that green eye code drip effect and use green lightning bolts from the sky.
Does the 11.3 cinematic work for you in full-screen? It's a different format (Flash rather than Windows Media Player) and might behave differently.
To be honost, none of the cina's worked in full screen mode even back when I was using XP home edition, I do hear Sound, but the picture is not displayed. I also could not get the 9.1 - 11.2 to even play, they were deselected.
There were no cinematics for 10.1-11.2 .
Rarebit wrote:
NeoExcidious wrote:
because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content.
This is not the case and never has been. Practically the first thing to happen was the assassination of Morpheus--that should tell you something, if nothing in recent plot developments is giving you any other clues yet. The only thing I've had shot down by the creators since the plotting fell to me was a proposal that the Machines do not in fact use humans as power sources.
So, blame us for not having Neo in every chapter, but not for not having the ability to do that if we thought it was a good idea. Our original writer even told me that the brothers gave him a mandate to tear the Matrix apart and rebuild it. It's tricky to work from an established story in a way that will mean something to its fans without, on the one hand, seeming like you have nothing to do with that previous story, or, on the other, with relying on it so much that you're just reliving the past over and over without actually having it grow in new and interesting directions. We've probably erred more in the former direction than the latter over the years, but I don't really want to fall into the cheap trap of shouting "NEO NEO NEO" every episode.
... Oh, wait.
I think its nothing to do with the content your providing rarebit, I haven't once thought to myself... this isn't plausible. It has however, now more than ever, presented itself as a problem with the way your delivering the narrative. You have to understand that this new method is failing miserably (From what i've heard and im sure you have too). Personally speaking i would be satisfied with removing the cinematic again and re-establishing the Daily live events.
For what its worth the cine's take up too much time for the end result. The narrative to time ratio is incredibly unbalanced with them, where as with live events the narrative albiet slightly restricted in particular delivery methods can actually occupy the player for longer. Which is ultimately proved to be the better situation. I'll admit, its a veil for us, and illusion but i'd rather have the illusion of money well spent than what we have now.
I think if a fusion of the two methods was created where live events dropped the items and trades could still be made we would have a more involved feel but as some have said. At least before we had a conscious being to interact with, its this interaction that most feel has caused this void of enthusiasm for the current delivery method.
All my opinion and referenced opinions of others paraphrased into a polite plead to establish a more customer satisfying narrative delivery... :/
Either way im staying for now i love this universe even without the story i see this game as a tool to express those ideas (RP etc) i see that are connected with the matrix universe.
I understand (and I said this in my first post on the subject) that people who have been used to playing in daily live events will feel their loss. I think events are cool too--after all I did however many hundreds over several years. But the vast majority of our players did not make it to live events; as I eventually came to realize, it was like one or two dozen people who I was seeing over and over under different guises. So from my perspective, what you aptly call the "narrative to time ratio" looked something like
close to half of my dev time = 1-2 dozen players entertained for several hours per day
which to me is inferior to the present scheme, which gives *everyone* (possibly after some levelling or teaming) several hours of play time--probably more if they aren't charging through it--and (and this is important to me) makes the story much easier for everyone to follow.
I realize it's an apples and oranges thing--most live event regulars will no doubt say they find the *everyone* content dull by comparison--but it just felt wrong to me to spend that much of my dev time on the small number of players who were hitting up the daily live events.
Whether or not there's a viable compromise point, I don't know yet. It will mostly be finding out how many live events I can fit in around the current scheme, I think, although as I've also said, I'd prefer to keep the events I do spend time on central to the story (or the large ones that nearly everyone has a shot at attending--eh unless they work the same hours I do and can't get off--which is what the meetings and parties are for), so it will depend on how good I can get at seeing/leaving important spots in the story where vital personal player interaction is required--the recent Ghost event, for instance, came along because I realized that players weren't quite putting something together that I wanted put together before 12.1; it wasn't something I'd planned to do while I was developing 11.3. For 12.1 I already know of one event I'll need to do, and I'll have to see based on how players react to the story of 12.1 whether there's anything else I'll need to cover with an event.
I may as well mention that planning, preparing, running, and documenting even these smallish events I'm able to do on my own generally takes somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four hours of dev time; I think players generally don't realize that. Some people will say that I should just do quickies--just jump in with some character and fool around for a bit--but I don't want to get sloppier with our characters and our story than I have to; I'm just not interested in that at all, at least not as long as there's a story to maintain.
Rarebit wrote:
The only thing I've had shot down by the creators since the plotting fell to me was a proposal that the Machines do not in fact use humans as power sources.
I remember you talking about this at the time :)
Rarebit wrote:
... but I don't really want to fall into the cheap trap of shouting "NEO NEO NEO" every episode. ... Oh, wait.
Wow.. I think most of us have been living in denial for so long we didn't even give this a thought.
We feel your pain Rarebit, And I am happy to see that your becoming involved in this thread. As a person who has ran a few player events I can understand the time it takes. Thats why I would hope creating these items or story teller tools, might take some pressure off you.
It does seem like I am the odd man out here, I could really care less if any of our side stories are acknowledged by the LE characters or it to be Matrix Cannon. I just want to have some fun with stories. We have such potential in this world. I just think having story teller tools would be a great advantage to the roleplay community, and make more things to do for other players to get involved in. Just something that can help us plan events, a way to spawn specific types of NPC wether its a tool or a consumable, that would require farming. Personally if Runtimes were still around I would be farming those Runtime bits, cause I see alot of potential in that idea just need to broaden it.
deffdog wrote:
We feel your pain Rarebit, And I am happy to see that your becoming involved in this thread. As a person who has ran a few player events I can understand the time it takes. Thats why I would hope creating these items or story teller tools, might take some pressure off you.
It does seem like I am the odd man out here, I could really care less if any of our side stories are acknowledged by the LE characters or it to be Matrix Cannon. I just want to have some fun with stories. We have such potential in this world. I just think having story teller tools would be a great advantage to the roleplay community, and make more things to do for other players to get involved in. Just something that can help us plan events, a way to spawn specific types of NPC wether its a tool or a consumable, that would require farming. Personally if Runtimes were still around I would be farming those Runtime bits, cause I see alot of potential in that idea just need to broaden it.
It tends to be griefers rather than RPers who are into spending time farming repeately for things they can use on other players. I've been on the receiving end of enough Runtime Bits not to have any urge at all to try something like that on a repeatable scale.
Sati's Playground was in part an effort to establish a place where players should spawn their own bad guys. Currently your story options there are limited to ninjas and Cypherites. ;) I do want to add more variety to the boxes you can use there, but I don't want to add boxes without rewards to go with them, and that takes time, which I'll just have to make time for at some point(s) as we go along.
The other more complicated option you have currently I guess--aside from using the street gangs for your stories (and there's a great variety of those guys hanging around), or having other players play the enemies, which is probably the best solution all around, although I'm sure you've thought of that--is to track down the archive missions that drop the type of NPC you want as an early between-phase ambush--the ones that drop on your out of the sky, I mean.
I respect your choice Rarebit, its logical and makes sense. More and more I see from other companies the old mantra of do more with less, and once that starts to happen someone has to suffer the outcome of that. MxO has had this problem, we kept losing Dev's and CSR's and eventually fans but the game still continues.
To be doing what you did, and are still doing, for so many years is a testiment to your commitment to this game and its fanbase. In these lean times I think it is important to use all available resources to help aid in the story telling.
Rarebit wrote:
The other more complicated option you have currently I guess--aside from using the street gangs for your stories (and there's a great variety of those guys hanging around), or having other players play the enemies, which is probably the best solution all around, although I'm sure you've thought of that--is to track down the archive missions that drop the type of NPC you want as an early between-phase ambush--the ones that drop on your out of the sky, I mean.
Sorry for the double post, however I wanted to comment on the new RSI capture feature with the Gangs. I have always thought a Spy would do this when the game first started. Using masks and stuff is ok and all, but a Spy should blend into the enviroment and try to gain access to secret meetings and intel through divertion and trickery.
The problem I noticed right away is even with a mask on you are still having a name and org and faction tag being displayed for the world to see (depending on what options you set) so your really not fooling anyone. I havent tried the new RSI capture tools from the Gangs but I imagine it has the same Game mechanic limitations as a mask does?
I've stated this numerous times, and I'll probably do so again, but I think it bears repeating. We do not need daily live events. In fact, given the reactions to the filler events, one could say we don't even want daily events. We do, however, want some sort of continually moving story. The way things are set up now, we do get "several hours of play time" but then we can nothing, zero, until the next update unless we want to farm items (which, of course, has no story impact anyway).
I understand that live events take up a lot of time particularly if viewed through the frame of how many players they reached, but that wasn't all we had that was taken away. We had time released critical missions that "everyone" could experience. We had cinematics, at least at some points in MxO's history, that "everyone" could experience. We had liaison interaction which, when done right, "everyone" could experience.
If we can't go back to the way things were done before, and I'm not necessarily saying we should, we do need some sort of compromise.
Rarebit wrote: Sati's Playground was in part an effort to establish a place where players should spawn their own bad guys. Currently your story options there are limited to ninjas and Cypherites. 
I do want to add more variety to the boxes you can use there, but I don't want to add boxes without rewards to go with them, and that takes time, which I'll just have to make time for at some point(s) as we go along.
I think unlimits would be a nice fit in there.
Shinryu wrote:
We do not need daily live events.
Perhaps not daily but we do need them regularly.
Cadsuane wrote:
Shinryu wrote:
We do not need daily live events.
Perhaps not daily but we do need them regularly.
Oh, of course, I was referring to the fact that the debate seems to be either A.) Daily Live Events or B.) No Live Events at all when the reality is quite different. We do not need daily live events, but we do need a story that actually has forward movement. I agree that regular live events (and not just when the story requires them) should be a part of the New Approach going forward.
ZaneZavin wrote:
Rarebit wrote:
Sati's Playground was in part an effort to establish a place where players should spawn their own bad guys. Currently your story options there are limited to ninjas and Cypherites.
I think unlimits would be a nice fit in there.
Oh God no. I'm all pew-pewed out.
Rarebit wrote:
I understand (and I said this in my first post on the subject) that people who have been used to playing in daily live events will feel their loss. I think events are cool too--after all I did however many hundreds over several years. But the vast majority of our players did not make it to live events; as I eventually came to realize, it was like one or two dozen people who I was seeing over and over under different guises. So from my perspective, what you aptly call the "narrative to time ratio" looked something like
close to half of my dev time = 1-2 dozen players entertained for several hours per day
which to me is inferior to the present scheme, which gives *everyone* (possibly after some levelling or teaming) several hours of play time--probably more if they aren't charging through it--and (and this is important to me) makes the story much easier for everyone to follow.
I realize it's an apples and oranges thing--most live event regulars will no doubt say they find the *everyone* content dull by comparison--but it just felt wrong to me to spend that much of my dev time on the small number of players who were hitting up the daily live events.
Whether or not there's a viable compromise point, I don't know yet. It will mostly be finding out how many live events I can fit in around the current scheme, I think, although as I've also said, I'd prefer to keep the events I do spend time on central to the story (or the large ones that nearly everyone has a shot at attending--eh unless they work the same hours I do and can't get off--which is what the meetings and parties are for), so it will depend on how good I can get at seeing/leaving important spots in the story where vital personal player interaction is required--the recent Ghost event, for instance, came along because I realized that players weren't quite putting something together that I wanted put together before 12.1; it wasn't something I'd planned to do while I was developing 11.3. For 12.1 I already know of one event I'll need to do, and I'll have to see based on how players react to the story of 12.1 whether there's anything else I'll need to cover with an event.
I may as well mention that planning, preparing, running, and documenting even these smallish events I'm able to do on my own generally takes somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four hours of dev time; I think players generally don't realize that. Some people will say that I should just do quickies--just jump in with some character and fool around for a bit--but I don't want to get sloppier with our characters and our story than I have to; I'm just not interested in that at all, at least not as long as there's a story to maintain.
Replied more extensively in an other thread.
But since you still are planning to do at least one event in a patch, i got an idea for you. If you want enough people to actually attend it, let people know that somethign is going on.
Previously that was done via the liaison system, wich was pretty much flawed to begin with. The liaisons are gone, hooray or not, i won't speak of that. Proposal:make a post with a set date, like you did with the org meetings. Let it be from Message_Buffer, and include nothing more than a few lines like: "Mass Merovingian operative movement predicted to occure on 25/12. Notify others." The post itself shouldn't hang there for the whole month, just submit it a few days or a week before it happens.
If you do not, you will again be talking to a small circle of people that for some reason still stayed jacked in after having done the content. Plus, the information will have a limited spread speed, and we will have the same thing as we had witht the Ghost event, where alot of Zion operatives didn't even know Ghost was around at all let alone what he discussed with the few people he met.
I believe the event with Ghost was meant to be small and credit where it's due, those who were present did a great job in their responses, especially PS10N, it really made the event seem natural and spontanious.
Rarebit wrote:
I may as well mention that planning, preparing, running, and documenting even these smallish events I'm able to do on my own generally takes somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four hours of dev time; I think players generally don't realize that. Some people will say that I should just do quickies--just jump in with some character and fool around for a bit--but I don't want to get sloppier with our characters and our story than I have to; I'm just not interested in that at all, at least not as long as there's a story to maintain.
I think the majority of your doccumentation is wasted effort, if you spent less time doccumenting and more time doing events the difference in general knowledge could be balanced out. The sloppiness of impromptu events is relative to your effort and action, considering how people normally react to utterly simple and uncomplex dialogue of the majority of past events and meetings i have difficulty accepting you could do the job any more sloppily then what we've come to be used to.
As for the doccumentation i appreciate that the effort is made in order to share the story with everyone, but it shouldn't be priority- the matrix is a lot more enchanting when there are secret aspects to it - a few screenshots and a quick writeup with the names of the operatives involved could easily spare you hours of formatting logs and screenshot spamming.
If you make your workload needlessly larger, your explanation of how long it takes to do your work is nullified.
Again this is my opinion only - i just tend to feel that people would probably like more events and less LE posts, then less events with posts. People don't have to go to every event, but the more that happen, the more likely it is they'll get to go to one. More effort should be spent on free form interaction in the game rather then trying to make sure everyone understands what's going on, it's an elitist system, but honestly the majority of people don't know what's going on anyways.
Besides- if you stick to your means this way - it basically means we'll never have random encounter events with say ghost wanting to spar, or random agent attacks or chances at dialogue unrelated to the current story. Not everything needs to happen to tie into this bloody oligarch and BIP business, if things were more spontaneous and constantly happening people would jack in more often and try to be more aware of what's happening.
If people think an event might happen - they jack in and stay jacked in - more people perpetuates a more active community.
Rarebit wrote:
as I eventually came to realize, it was like one or two dozen people who I was seeing over and over under different guises. So from my perspective, what you aptly call the "narrative to time ratio" looked something like
close to half of my dev time = 1-2 dozen players entertained for several hours per day
Ah-hah! I see the flaw in your calculations. It wasn't one or two dozen players you were entertaining and putting in the effort for; it was one or two dozen, plus however many people read the resulting threads in the Live Events forum. I'd wager that's a lot of people.
Granted, it's not interactive content for these other people, but it's content nevertheless and the removal of live events hasn't resulted in much more interactive content in its place, so there's no improvement there anyway. More importantly, perhaps, it's these live event threads which provided the sense of continuing story that many people think is missing now.
I propose advertising for events. The more that know, the more that will go (provided the timeframe is manageable). The recent org meetings had a great turnout since people knew in advance. Perhaps something to that affect could be done for other events.
Remember the old event banners? Great turnouts.
Darminian, you are one of the loudest people when it comes to having a go at Rarebit for plot holes, the recent party is a prime example. The documentation that Rarebit is talking about is not just the LE posts but the planning and prepping of what is to be told in an event, what should be given away in the upcoming event, what people should already know, what hints have been dropped but not picked up on yet etc... in order to try to cut down on plot holes as much as possible. Without the plans a slip of the wrong info, which can happen (Rare is only Human after all), could spoil the planned story for the next update, possibly more.
Also being secretive with the LE posts is a kick in the teeth of those people who are still unable to attend LE's regardless if they're advertised or not.
Besides, I hear the Bretheren had an encounter with Ghost recently...
Rarebit wrote:
I understand (and I said this in my first post on the subject) that people who have been used to playing in daily live events will feel their loss. I think events are cool too--after all I did however many hundreds over several years. But the vast majority of our players did not make it to live events; as I eventually came to realize, it was like one or two dozen people who I was seeing over and over under different guises. So from my perspective, what you aptly call the "narrative to time ratio" looked something like
close to half of my dev time = 1-2 dozen players entertained for several hours per day
which to me is inferior to the present scheme, which gives *everyone* (possibly after some levelling or teaming) several hours of play time--probably more if they aren't charging through it--and (and this is important to me) makes the story much easier for everyone to follow.
I realize it's an apples and oranges thing--most live event regulars will no doubt say they find the *everyone* content dull by comparison--but it just felt wrong to me to spend that much of my dev time on the small number of players who were hitting up the daily live events.
Whether or not there's a viable compromise point, I don't know yet. It will mostly be finding out how many live events I can fit in around the current scheme, I think, although as I've also said, I'd prefer to keep the events I do spend time on central to the story (or the large ones that nearly everyone has a shot at attending--eh unless they work the same hours I do and can't get off--which is what the meetings and parties are for), so it will depend on how good I can get at seeing/leaving important spots in the story where vital personal player interaction is required--the recent Ghost event, for instance, came along because I realized that players weren't quite putting something together that I wanted put together before 12.1; it wasn't something I'd planned to do while I was developing 11.3. For 12.1 I already know of one event I'll need to do, and I'll have to see based on how players react to the story of 12.1 whether there's anything else I'll need to cover with an event.
I may as well mention that planning, preparing, running, and documenting even these smallish events I'm able to do on my own generally takes somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four hours of dev time; I think players generally don't realize that. Some people will say that I should just do quickies--just jump in with some character and fool around for a bit--but I don't want to get sloppier with our characters and our story than I have to; I'm just not interested in that at all, at least not as long as there's a story to maintain.
But you have to take into account that those few dozen 'regulars' that consistently show up for LE's are the people who are either a) truly keeping up with the story, or b) looking to score a LE reward. Most of the rest of the players have given up on LE's over the years because they had become boring and repetitive, but moreso because they realized that they had almost zero impact on the story. Their questions went unanswered. Their interaction with the characters were generally one-sided or "scripted" (and I'm using that term loosely). Their battles counted for nothing (with the exception of a precious few notable instances like the hovercraft battle for Lock). All of which rendered immaterial their own personal connection with the story or the characters. Using my snowglobe analogy again, it's nice to look at the world under the glass for five minutes, but most of the time it just sits on a shelf unnoticed.
I know your hands have been tied due to the nature of story-progression and trying to avoid derailing the whole thing. I get the issue that allowing people to make choices with regards to the story will eventually lead away from the planned progression. Maybe that's one of the largest contributing reasons to this "new approach". Maybe now that events aren't being held daily there can be more interaction and players can have more effect on the story. Maybe now that the main delivery vehicle for the story is a static part of the world, you'll have more flexibilty inside it to explore the tangents and create a meaningful experience for the player.
Delivery of the story has always been an issue with this game, since the early days of its conception, because it has a unique feature that most other MMO's don't have: live interaction with established character artifacts. The only other games to attempt this have been Lord of the Rings and the upcoming DC Online. It'll be interesting to see how SOE handles Live Events with Superman and Batman. I think it will look a lot like MxO's early days. But I digress...
Character and story interaction is what we crave, as you well know. Those of us that are still here didn't pick this game up for any other reason. Since we first met Morpheus and Neo and Trinity and Cypher and Agent Smith, we have wanted to be a part of that struggle, we have wanted to fight the war. If you tell us it's just not possible, then I suppose we'll have to live with that. Or move on.
Garu wrote:
I propose advertising for events. The more that know, the more that will go (provided the timeframe is manageable). The recent org meetings had a great turnout since people knew in advance. Perhaps something to that affect could be done for other events.
Remember the old event banners? Great turnouts.
DO WANT.
Why can't *everyone* be able to attend in-game functions that involve more than just standing around talking about the last month in hindsight but progressing the storyline in a meaningful way?
I think, in general, the argument is less about the loss of constant stimulation through daily events and weekly crits but more about how we've gone from extreme to the other with no real progression between 6 week intevals.
The gaps gotta be filled somehow. Either with a quicker patch schedule or a return to at least some events, preferably, as highlighted above, that are pre-advertised in at least some fashion.
Bringing up the old 'banner' events is interesting though. With all this dev time thats apparently been freed up due to getting rid of daily events, why cant it be refocused on more involved 'large scale' events like we've had in the past? You know, develop some scenary changes or a new boss or type of spawn or something that'll be used in these big announced events that, with proper announcement, everyone will be able to experience and enjoy.
ShiXinFeng wrote:
since the early days of its conception, because it has a unique feature that most other MMO's don't have: live interaction with established character artifacts.
I thought that was why most of us played this game????
Certainly used to be why i played.
Perhaps it would be best to have a few well advertised events per org between updates events that start at different times so that players in most timezone should be able to make the time to attend.
Many people have alts now so those that turn up as the wrong org either have no slots left for an alt of that org, hope that the event will allude to some PvP or just plan on causing (OOC) problems. But those troublemakers can be dealt with.
If this is possible I would be willing to trade it for the Operative Parties which, although fun, can be done at anytime by us players (albeit with lack of Effy). If I had to trade something in addition to the parties it'd be a few of quest item rewards. I would have said the Org meetings but they should be good for discussing current story and what happened in the events or to 'plan' an upcoming event etc.. plus they are good for allowing people to catch up on what they may have missed... although the LE posts could do almost the same job, players who use the LE posts to catch up just wouldn't be able to ask the LE character any questions.
Also, even though I've been against it and it's not on the cards, if it meant making it easier to implement then I would become in favour of a Recursion-Syntax server merge, but only if.
But as I said before, I'm going to wait for the update after Christmas to fully and appropriately judge what I think about the approach.
Darminian wrote:
Rarebit wrote:
I may as well mention that planning, preparing, running, and documenting even these smallish events I'm able to do on my own generally takes somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four hours of dev time; I think players generally don't realize that. Some people will say that I should just do quickies--just jump in with some character and fool around for a bit--but I don't want to get sloppier with our characters and our story than I have to; I'm just not interested in that at all, at least not as long as there's a story to maintain.
I think the majority of your doccumentation is wasted effort, if you spent less time doccumenting and more time doing events the difference in general knowledge could be balanced out.As for the doccumentation i appreciate that the effort is made in order to share the story with everyone, but it shouldn't be priority- the matrix is a lot more enchanting when there are secret aspects to it - a few screenshots and a quick writeup with the names of the operatives involved could easily spare you hours of formatting logs and screenshot spamming.
Again this is my opinion only - i just tend to feel that people would probably like more events and less LE posts, then less events with posts. People don't have to go to every event, but the more that happen, the more likely it is they'll get to go to one. More effort should be spent on free form interaction in the game rather then trying to make sure everyone understands what's going on, it's an elitist system, but honestly the majority of people don't know what's going on anyways.
I'd have to disagree. The fact that events are properly logged and made available to everyone always was, and always has been, an awesome idea. Take it from someone who spent a good long time trying to document an undocumented storyline over 9 servers with massive pre-arranged events. It was not easy. The Live Events forum is a god send. Thank you Romav.
cloudwolf wrote:
I'd have to disagree. The fact that events are properly logged and made available to everyone always was, and always has been, an awesome idea. Take it from someone who spent a good long time trying to document an undocumented storyline over 9 servers with massive pre-arranged events. It was not easy. The Live Events forum is a god send. Thank you Romav.
I don't dispute it's a valuable tool and i appreciate it's existance, but am i wrong in thinking it'd be better to have more events and less detailed live event posts, i mean everyone seems to have the same general point quality and quantity of events, i understand it's hard to doccument the story if you don't have every exact detail and all 15 screenshots - but i mean effectively rarebit could still just include a log and throw on some screenshots still save himself plenty of time and get it over with.
===
"The documentation that Rarebit is talking about is not just the LE posts but the planning and prepping of what is to be told in an event, what should be given away in the upcoming event, what people should already know, what hints have been dropped but not picked up on yet etc... in order to try to cut down on plot holes as much as possible. " - Vinia
Considering the state of his dialogue and the number of plot holes already present i'm inclined to completely disregard your point and say to you despite your unending view of a flawless rarebit that you can't possibly convince me that it takes hours of work to decide your not going to talk about x, and your only going to talk about y. especially when he can take all the time in the world to reply and suitable answers consist of "i don't know", and "you don't need to know".
It might all just come down to arguing about shaving off an hour or two, but an hour off of every event done can generate another event - that's what im for, i'm pro events - i'm on board having movie charachters jack in to give off the feeling that city isn't dead to help perpetuate the community - maybe breathe some life into this dead city.
I still like the idea of seeing the event person show up as online in your friend's list. Mix that with the banners and people will at least know when something is going on...you don't have to tell them where it is, but people will something is going down somewhere on that server...
Server. Org. Timeframe.
Thats all thats needed, system messages and org locks can do the rest.
Darm, many of those plot holes existed in Chadwicks story. Plus I don't regard Rare as flawless, despite what you may think, I know he can make mistakes but I just don't believes he deserves the verbal attacks you constantly throw at him.
If Rare responded with answers like "i don't know", and "you don't need to know" to a large number of questions I daresay you would, once again, be one of the first to call BS, claim he's being lazy and probably decide to have your character follow the LE character around naked attempting some purile attention grabbing.
Vinia wrote:
Perhaps it would be best to have a few well advertised events per org between updates events that start at different times so that players in most timezone should be able to make the time to attend.
This is something I've wanted since the beginning. Just one a week, different days, different servers, and at different times. Spread it out, but let everyone know when and where. Once a week is still enough to keep the story going regular, and be consistant. Consistancy is a big big phactor to me.
Timezones have ALWAYS been a problem. Even I've made very phew events because I work odd hours. The only ones I've made happened to be on days I took off work.
Vinia wrote:
Darm, many of those plot holes existed in Chadwicks story. Plus I don't regard Rare as flawless, despite what you may think, I know he can make mistakes but I just don't believes he deserves the verbal attacks you constantly throw at him.
If Rare responded with answers like "i don't know", and "you don't need to know" to a large number of questions I daresay you would, once again, be one of the first to call BS, claim he's being lazy and probably decide to have your character follow the LE character around naked attempting some purile attention grabbing.
Firstly the party is an out of story out of context event where in which absolutely nothing of value or connection to the story occurs so throwing my desire to leg hump the effectuator out there is null. Also i got my attention im in the center of a screenshot - it's not canon it's literally for fun so i get my fun how i elect to get it - heaven forbid someone comment on how RP wise a bunch of operatives supposedly at war are all drinking and dancing.
Secondly - I choose my methods of criticism based upon the lack of effort i see, i've given him his share of praise too i've just got high standards, besides he doesn't even read 4/5ths of what i post by the time i start bashing him i'm on ignore.
Thirdly - He does use those answers, for the love of god know what your talking about before you start, as a machinist the answer you get the most, or the majority of most of what you get is that there are things you don't need to know he can say it in a different way but you can't tell me it's not the case i was at the machine meeting for crying out loud.
Also the niobe meeting was the one where he answered several questions with the words i don't know, he has the complete means to control the story and conversation through simple direction controls and charachter answers, your complete arguement with the exception to your points about my criticisms and your views of rarebit is null.
The fact remains while some of us try and defend how hard his job is when he's all alone, and how difficult it is for him to spend time in the matrix with no team and such a small budget, there are still those of us who recognize how easily people who want more events can be sated while still strengthening and progressing the storyline.
cloudwolf wrote:
Bringing up the old 'banner' events is interesting though. With all this dev time thats apparently been freed up due to getting rid of daily events, why cant it be refocused on more involved 'large scale' events like we've had in the past? You know, develop some scenary changes or a new boss or type of spawn or something that'll be used in these big announced events that, with proper announcement, everyone will be able to experience and enjoy.
YES PLEASE.
Even if its something not detrimental to the story but could result in lots of fun. It could things relative to what is already there. For example:
- Svannhild appears warning operatives that the Valkarja/Valfreyja are on the loose. Mass level-respective swarms spawn on players. There could be a small expansion on their story. Maybe even a Pace appearance?
- SSR Security invades the city. Claims of theft are thrown around. Raedar/Dernick appearance?
- Mission Contacts appear asking for assistance.
There's tons of lore to expand on that doesn't affect the current story. From the collectors to the contacts, MxO is filled with things that can be fleshed out. Read Tyndall's city guide and ideas jump out at you.
Just a thought.
Garu wrote:
Even if its something not detrimental to the story but could result in lots of fun. It could things relative to what is already there. For example:
- Svannhild appears warning operatives that the Valkarja/Valfreyja are on the loose. Mass level-respective swarms spawn on players. There could be a small expansion on their story. Maybe even a Pace appearance?
- SSR Security invades the city. Claims of theft are thrown around. Raedar/Dernick appearance?
- Mission Contacts appear asking for assistance.
There's tons of lore to expand on that doesn't affect the current story. From the collectors to the contacts, MxO is filled with things that can be fleshed out. Read Tyndall's city guide and ideas jump out at you.
Just a thought.
Exactly - exactly this - just random encounter events - they don't need to be tossed together to wrap up into a nice neat little package or be some super involving storyline encounter (because most of the ones that try to be that fail) - just give people more opportunities to show up and fight off or fight with the LEC's - and the nice thing about events like these is the ease of doccumentation - he doesn't need to do anything but post a quick write up and show some screens.
And anyone who wants to run around claiming it takes too much of his time, do me a favor - if every event takes 4 let's say 5 hours dev time, we've had 4 events in 5 weeks? - the party doesn't count cause it's literally random and the effectuator shows up and talks about his shoes.
So that's what - 20 hours out of 5 weeks.
Of course to make the implication that he could do more work in the matrix is completely off base - to say that he could jack in more is just completely absurd.
Darminian wrote:
Thirdly - He does use those answers, for the love of god know what your talking about before you start, as a machinist the answer you get the most, or the majority of most of what you get is that there are things you don't need to know he can say it in a different way but you can't tell me it's not the case i was at the machine meeting for crying out loud.
Also the niobe meeting was the one where he answered several questions with the words i don't know, he has the complete means to control the story and conversation through simple direction controls and charachter answers, your complete arguement with the exception to your points about my criticisms and your views of rarebit is null.
Your comment in the recently posted Zion LE meeting seems to show that my argument is far from null:
Darminian wrote:
but don't ask me to refrain from commenting on your poor dialogue abilities, i'm only human - and frankly they're so bad
~Darminian
Or was that just about the rhythm, tone or diction of the LE's character's text?
He answered quite a few question without stating I don't know, or you do not need to know in the Machine meeting, but yeah, I know he said that to a few, I didn't say he doesn't use the answers, I said if he kept on saying to a large (read majority) number of questions, then you'd be amongst the first to have a pop at him.
As for the party, context was never an issue, it was the verbal attacking of him and the harrassment that you seem to constantly send his way at any possible time you can that I was addressing.
So before you get on your high horse with your firstly and secondlies, perhaps try to actually respond to what I say and not what you think i'm saying.
Perhaps we sould move this to PM's as were highjacking this thread, also because essentially the majority of your arguement seems to be about me being mean to rarebit which i don't really care about. I think he's mean to mxo, so im standing up for it as far as im concerned.
"I didn't say he doesn't use the answers, I said if he kept on saying to a large (read majority) number of questions, then you'd be amongst the first to have a pop at him."
I'll be the first to pop at him as soon as he does something i think if foolish, or lazy or bad.
Also you should follow your own advice, i didn't say he always uses those answers, i said they were acceptable answers, my point before you missunderstood me in the first place was that he has the means to control where the event story goes really easily, he controls the direction of the conversation because everything else is just spam, so there isn't a great deal of time that needs to be spent on making sure he doesn't give the players too much.
I have to agree that both the merv and machine events had some valuable questions answered, but i stand by my criticisms of the zion event because niobe literally showed up and seemed to prove she had less of an idea of what was going on then the players- of course maybe that's just really good acting i'm sure. Then again as my arbitrary rare bash - i think rarebit has had a lot of practice in regards to not having an idea what's going on.
This is something I posted in the "Minority" thread, but I thought it fits here too...
If Rarebit wants some constructive feedback, if you want to free up some time and not have live events everyday... that's fine. But you should look back at what was awesome about Monolith's events. Back then, each month we had a large week-long event, which usually included killing special event mobs and grinding for items to turn in (Race for Neo, Hunt for Morpheus), which also drove the meat of that chapter's story. Also, there were often changes to the environment that made it interesting... like the N30 Agents in place of gang mobs, the corrupted monuments, the flies in the sky, etc. Then, there was also a smaller weekend event, that often revolved around a side story (Invalesco, Choice & Consequences, etc). These usually were more character-based and puzzle driven. All the while, LE characters would just jack in and shoot the *crap* with the players, and even get involved with some player events.
So, basically... the month would be like this:
Week 1 = New Patch and new critical/quest missions
Week 2 = Occasional random LE character interaction... not to advance the story, but just to give players the interaction.
Week 3 = Weekend Event (or small one-three day event; similar to your daily live events)
Week 4 = Occasional random LE character interaction
Week 5 = Occasional random LE character interaction
Week 6 = End of the chapter week-long major event... drives the story into the next chapter.
Just an idea.
Don't forget the time consuming unrewarding beast that is the cinematic.
~Darminian