Wake up, Neo.

The Matrix has you. 

If this were not the case you would not be here, scanning these forums for word on the latest goings on within this little alcove of exploration into the strangest and most profound depths of the human psyche.

This game we play is a direct continuation of a story that challenged the very foundations of the way we think about living in this world, on all kinds of different levels, a story which will no doubt have a key place in history, as future artists contemplate, in hindsight, where the leading edge of our times could be found, in search of new insight into the future of human creativity.  The Matrix series may well turn out to be one the most influential works of narrative art available in our time.  For better or for worse, Matrix Online, right now, at this moment in history, is the one and only source of its continued unfolding.

The interactive medium itself is an emergent narrative and poetic technology that makes our metaphors tangible.  Every time we take on the persona of our virtual avatar, we are plunged into the world of dreams, a world that influences our every thought, and thus our every action.  Our actions within a virtual world influence our collective narratives and thus our very concept of the human condition.  We must use this power wisely.

From what I can tell, Rarebit draws upon our constant feedback in his decisions on where he must, for his part, direct his own specific elements of the persistently emergent human narrative we call The Matrix.  And thus, our actions in the game influence, in part, the future of The Matrix.  And thus, our actions in the game influence, albeit in much smaller part, the future of all art, all human creativity.

I do not mean, at this juncture, to try to sit here and tell you exactly what The Matrix is.  This is something you must see for yourself.  All that I ask is, in our future discussions of where this game is headed, that we might put all this in the context of a much larger picture.  When we discuss specific aspects of Matrix Online’s content, we will always be the blind leading the blind unless we consistently envision and keep solidly in mind the Matrix series as a whole, and it’s place in our conception of the world around us.

I must confess that, due to specific logistic issues, I haven’t played this game in several months, but this is a situation I am seeking to remedy, and as I begin to engage the depths and contours of this game once again, I seek to maintain an open dialogue about what exactly it is that we are playing, as we are playing it.  For me, this is the only way to fly.  It’s not just a decision; it’s a way of life.

Also, in the interest of forwarding such a discussion, I’ll just say that I’ve been with Matrix Online since the beginning, so I have a lot of reference points with which to work with, as, I am sure, do all of you.  However, I am probably the single slowest leveler in the entire game, as I do not have a single level 50 character as of yet (I think Signs is in the early 40s if I remember correctly).  It’s just that this is my first and only MMO, and the whole level-grind thing never really held my interest.  This is also a situation I seek to remedy.

With that, I take my leave for now, leaving this discussion open-ended.  Where we go from here… is a choice we all have to make.

"Have you ever stood and stared at it? Marveled at it's beauty, it's genious?" -Smith

Signs wrote:

The interactive medium itself is an emergent narrative and poetic technology that makes our metaphors tangible.  Every time we take on the persona of our virtual avatar, we are plunged into the world of dreams, a world that influences our every thought, and thus our every action.  Our actions within a virtual world influence our collective narratives and thus our very concept of the human condition.  We must use this power wisely.

From what I can tell, Rarebit draws upon our constant feedback in his decisions on where he must, for his part, direct his own specific elements of the persistently emergent human narrative we call The Matrix.  And thus, our actions in the game influence, in part, the future of The Matrix.  And thus, our actions in the game influence, albeit in much smaller part, the future of all art, all human creativity.

As far as i see, we failed to live up to that that responsibility of influencing the history. Some were careless of the happenings, others craved too much. Now the decision is to drastically cut down on all and everyone's the chances to get involved, for the benefit of the quality of the linear, static storyline interaction that everyone has equal chances to access.

It just isn't personal anymore. It has lost it's... personality.

Hyperviolent wrote:

As far as i see, we failed to live up to that that responsibility of influencing the history. Some were careless of the happenings, others craved too much. Now the decision is to drastically cut down on all and everyone's the chances to get involved, for the benefit of the quality of the linear, static storyline interaction that everyone has equal chances to access.

It just isn't personal anymore. It has lost it's... personality.

I can certainly understand your concern.  From my understanding, the New Approach has brought us what essentially amounts to fewer critical missions and far fewer events for the sake of one cinematic per update, effectively slowing the progress of the plot to a trickle, in the name of accessibility.  However, with change comes opportunity.  I feel that, while I will miss the daily Live Events, Rarebit is right in that the game has lost much of its accessibility.  Accessibility is important, because less accessibility means fewer players.  Fewer players means a smaller audience, and less money flowing into the game and all it's creators and players seek to accomplish.  If we can aid in Rarebit's attempt to make the game more accessible, we could potentially end up with a larger audience on our hands, and thus a larger scope within which our story can unfold.  While I will, as I said, miss the small daily Live Events Matrix Online has seen in its recent development, there is something about the game I miss a lot more.  I miss the Global Live Events that were present in the game's outset.  I miss the Race for Neo and the Hunt for Morpheus.  I miss global changes in the Matrix world that actually have an impact on how its narrative unfurls.  The essential argument against this possibility is that it requires a dedicated Live Events team, but if something like the Winter and Halloween events do not require such a team, I don't see why this should be the case.  Honestly, while the Holiday Events are fun, and I enjoy them, I feel like they distract from the essential reason people play Matrix Online, and I would gladly give them up if it meant, instead, we could have similar events that had more of an impact on the unfolding story.  The recently slowed pace of the plot's denouement could give Rarebit the opportunity to do just that.  If this is not the case, then maybe it's simply more players, and thus more money and recognition, that Matrix Online needs before it can truly live up to its potential.  We, as players, can aid in this process as well by finding new players and getting them interested in the game's story, whatever medium currently exists for its conveyance.  It is of course possible that this will never happen, and that Matrix Online will soon draw to a close, but if this is the case, I'm for at least trying to make sure it goes out with a bang, leaving the door open for future chapters in this epic series we have come to know and love.

I think it's also important to keep things in perspective.  When Matrix Online started, there was a good stretch of time without any events, or much story content.  There were a few secret meetings with major characters like Niobe and Agent Gray, and a lot of us thought this was the coolest thing ever.  We knew that an episodic story would be a feature of the game, which would feature some sort of interactive component, and that is what brought most of us there, but we didn't know what form this would take.  In fact, Paul Chadwick had said in early interviews that a meeting with someone like Niobe would be a challenging thing to achieve. not something that would happen everyday.  That seemed to make sense to me.  That fit within the fiction of the game.  But the The Race for Neo hit and completely blew me a way.  Red-eyed Agents everywhere....  Competition between organizations to collect fragments of Neo's RSI....  The feeling that players of every level could contribute to the cause...  Radio Free Zion announcing the minute-to-minute events to this like a Redpill news story... And then of course, there was the big finale, and even though I wasn't there, hearing about it made me feel like I was a part of something epic.  I wonder how hard it would really be to do something similar again, changing all the NPCs to accommodate a developing story and adding some sort of collection element that offers competition between organizations.  I'm not saying I imagine it would be easy, I'm just genuinely curious as to how difficult it would be or if it would be in the realm of possibility in the near future.  I know there were reasons given against doing something like this again: player's couldn't complete various static objectives in the game, etc.  But this, to me, would seem like a positive.  It's a Live Event.  It should disrupt the day-to-day workings of the game's world.  But that's a discussion that might be better left to the Development Round Table.  Here, I only attempt to put are whole discussion of this game in a larger context of what Matrix Online was, is, and should be as a whole, and where it fits into a larger Matrix narrative.

Signs wrote:

I can certainly understand your concern.  From my understanding, the New Approach has brought us what essentially amounts to fewer critical missions and far fewer events for the sake of one cinematic per update, effectively slowing the progress of the plot to a trickle, in the name of accessibility.  However, with change comes opportunity.  I feel that, while I will miss the daily Live Events, Rarebit is right in that the game has lost much of its accessibility.  Accessibility is important, because less accessibility means fewer players.  Fewer players means a smaller audience, and less money flowing into the game and all it's creators and players seek to accomplish.  If we can aid in Rarebit's attempt to make the game more accessible, we could potentially end up with a larger audience on our hands, and thus a larger scope within which our story can unfold.  While I will, as I said, miss the small daily Live Events Matrix Online has seen in its recent development, there is something about the game I miss a lot more.  I miss the Global Live Events that were present in the game's outset.  I miss the Race for Neo and the Hunt for Morpheus.  I miss global changes in the Matrix world that actually have an impact on how its narrative unfurls.  The essential argument against this possibility is that it requires a dedicated Live Events team, but if something like the Winter and Halloween events do not require such a team, I don't see why this should be the case.  Honestly, while the Holiday Events are fun, and I enjoy them, I feel like they distract from the essential reason people play Matrix Online, and I would gladly give them up if it meant, instead, we could have similar events that had more of an impact on the unfolding story.  The recently slowed pace of the plot's denouement could give Rarebit the opportunity to do just that.  If this is not the case, then maybe it's simply more players, and thus more money and recognition, that Matrix Online needs before it can truly live up to its potential.  We, as players, can aid in this process as well by finding new players and getting them interested in the game's story, whatever medium currently exists for its conveyance.  It is of course possible that this will never happen, and that Matrix Online will soon draw to a close, but if this is the case, I'm for at least trying to make sure it goes out with a bang, leaving the door open for future chapters in this epic series we have come to know and love.

In terms of how quickly we are advancing through the story outline, the plot is still going at the same speed as before. The number of missions or events per update doesn't necessarily (in this case, it doesn't) affect the pace of the overall plot, although it can affect its perceived speed.

The annual events we have (Anniversary, Halloween, Winter Holiday) are there because it's sort of expected that an MMO will be doing those types of things, rather than for any connection to the rest of this game's development--it's really mainly a "hey look, we're having a party here on this traditional occassion, come check the game out" type of thing that many of the live games in this genre do.

Rarebit wrote:

Signs wrote:

I can certainly understand your concern.  From my understanding, the New Approach has brought us what essentially amounts to fewer critical missions and far fewer events for the sake of one cinematic per update, effectively slowing the progress of the plot to a trickle, in the name of accessibility.  However, with change comes opportunity.  I feel that, while I will miss the daily Live Events, Rarebit is right in that the game has lost much of its accessibility.  Accessibility is important, because less accessibility means fewer players.  Fewer players means a smaller audience, and less money flowing into the game and all it's creators and players seek to accomplish.  If we can aid in Rarebit's attempt to make the game more accessible, we could potentially end up with a larger audience on our hands, and thus a larger scope within which our story can unfold.  While I will, as I said, miss the small daily Live Events Matrix Online has seen in its recent development, there is something about the game I miss a lot more.  I miss the Global Live Events that were present in the game's outset.  I miss the Race for Neo and the Hunt for Morpheus.  I miss global changes in the Matrix world that actually have an impact on how its narrative unfurls.  The essential argument against this possibility is that it requires a dedicated Live Events team, but if something like the Winter and Halloween events do not require such a team, I don't see why this should be the case.  Honestly, while the Holiday Events are fun, and I enjoy them, I feel like they distract from the essential reason people play Matrix Online, and I would gladly give them up if it meant, instead, we could have similar events that had more of an impact on the unfolding story.  The recently slowed pace of the plot's denouement could give Rarebit the opportunity to do just that.  If this is not the case, then maybe it's simply more players, and thus more money and recognition, that Matrix Online needs before it can truly live up to its potential.  We, as players, can aid in this process as well by finding new players and getting them interested in the game's story, whatever medium currently exists for its conveyance.  It is of course possible that this will never happen, and that Matrix Online will soon draw to a close, but if this is the case, I'm for at least trying to make sure it goes out with a bang, leaving the door open for future chapters in this epic series we have come to know and love.

In terms of how quickly we are advancing through the story outline, the plot is still going at the same speed as before. The number of missions or events per update doesn't necessarily (in this case, it doesn't) affect the pace of the overall plot, although it can affect its perceived speed.

The annual events we have (Anniversary, Halloween, Winter Holiday) are there because it's sort of expected that an MMO will be doing those types of things, rather than for any connection to the rest of this game's development--it's really mainly a "hey look, we're having a party here on this traditional occassion, come check the game out" type of thing that many of the live games in this genre do.

First, I greatly appreciate the thoughful tack you are taking with this thread Signs, thanks for your thoughts.

In response to Rare, what I wonder is, WHY do we have to do what "this genre" does. I think this genre is kinda dying, almost all the people I know who left, left to play action games. I think the change in technology that makes action oriented online games more accessible is killing off MMO's especially ones like ours with a farily small playerbase. Soo...

Maybe its time to truly shake things up? Break some MMO rules? The biggest one in my opinion is that leveling has to be an eternal grind. I still think thats the single biggest thing that turns people off from this game, and many other MMO's. Its why i left way back in the day, and only came back when i had more free time than money.

And secondly, the LE's were the single thing that did make this MMO truly unique. Besides free time, the reason I came back was reading the story summaries and player events and thinking "wow, there is some cool s*** going on, maybe I'll try again."

As i've always maitained, you've done a heck of a job overall making MxO happen essentially on your own. I just wish there were some way that we could have a balance between enough Live content to keep things spicy, and enough new play content to keep the game fresh, without you putting in 80 hour work weeks. If that means dropping cinematics and "Holiday Events" I think most players would go for it. So, yeah, lets NOT be like the rest of the Genre. Lets look at some ways to make this game more accessible, not story wise, but game-play wise.

psilody wrote:

WHY do we have to do what "this genre" does.

That's too broad for me to try to answer here. As far as it relates to the annual events, all I can say is that the decision to keep or remove those isn't left up to me.

psilody wrote:

I think this genre is kinda dying, almost all the people I know who left, left to play action games.

Oh well supposedly there are umpteen billion people playing some of these games, so I don't know. The universe might be dying too, according to some theories, but at the current rate of attrition it will be around for much longer than we will.

psilody wrote:

Maybe its time to truly shake things up? Break some MMO rules? The biggest one in my opinion is that leveling has to be an eternal grind. I still think thats the single biggest thing that turns people off from this game, and many other MMO's.

On the other hand, levelling is precisely the reason many people play MMOs, whether they realize it or not. At any rate, it's a moot discussion for us, as it isn't within our capacity to change something that fundamental to the game's structure at this point.

Rarebit wrote:

psilody wrote:

WHY do we have to do what "this genre" does.

That's too broad for me to try to answer here. As far as it relates to the annual events, all I can say is that the decision to keep or remove those isn't left up to me.

Hopefully, no matter who does make the decisions on them, they do stay.  While it would be nice to get a little more variance in them from year to year, I don't think I'm alone when I say that the yearly events are something I look forward to.

Thank you for the feed back Rare.

lol Even if it was a little sarcastic. Seeing as I usually am, I can hardly complain

Rarebit wrote:

psilody wrote:

Maybe its time to truly shake things up? Break some MMO rules? The biggest one in my opinion is that leveling has to be an eternal grind. I still think thats the single biggest thing that turns people off from this game, and many other MMO's.

On the other hand, levelling is precisely the reason many people play MMOs, whether they realize it or not. At any rate, it's a moot discussion for us, as it isn't within our capacity to change something that fundamental to the game's structure at this point.

Ok, sorry for the double post, but this one rolled in my mind for a while before I could think of how I wanted to respond to this. I see your point about the levelling having its draw. But I wasn't specific about what I want to see changed.

All I'd like to see is an increase in the XP value of killing NPC's. Are you saying that this is impossible? Because i think this is a change that places the point value in its proper place. The heart of this game is in combat, but for the time it takes to battle an NPC, there is a relatively low point payout. By contrast, you get much better XP by standing around while a level 50 breezes through a mish for you, and its faster, and its technically speaking easier. And thats always seemed... wrong.

So thats all im asking here. I wont go into all the rest of my argument for this. And if changing the XP value of NPC's is impossible, than i shall shut up about this subject for ever and ever.

Rarebit wrote:

In terms of how quickly we are advancing through the story outline, the plot is still going at the same speed as before. The number of missions or events per update doesn't necessarily (in this case, it doesn't) affect the pace of the overall plot, although it can affect its perceived speed.

The annual events we have (Anniversary, Halloween, Winter Holiday) are there because it's sort of expected that an MMO will be doing those types of things, rather than for any connection to the rest of this game's development--it's really mainly a "hey look, we're having a party here on this traditional occassion, come check the game out" type of thing that many of the live games in this genre do.

Thanks for the response, Rarebit.  It was probably incredibly unfair of me to comment on the pacing of the new approach without actually getting a chance to play it, but I will be able to do so shortly.  It seems to me like you are doing a heck of a good job of making the ongoing Matrix Online narrative as compelling and interactive as possible within the framework which currently exists.  I've been rather disappointed about how much of the traditional MMO architecture the game has adopted from the get-go, but there's not a lot we can do about that now, and a compelling, interactive story, which, from my perspective, seems to still exist in spades, can do a lot to make up for that.  It doesn't fix the underlying problem that the game's central architecture was never as ambitious as it should have been for all that its creators were trying to do, but I would consider this part of the birth pangs of what may well turn out to be a completely new way to experience the human story.  If we show the powers that be that this kind of format can work, even if we're a relatively small group of players and creators, who knows what could happen?  The Wachowski Brothers may one day decide that Matrix Online needs a complete reboot, and we could end up with an entirely new game that actually does have the architecture best fitted for what we're trying to do here.  Right now, we can only work with what we have.  Currently, this is the ONLY new content left in the entire Matrix series, so I think its important we make the most of this experience we have together.  I feel like, despite what endless forum complaints would have you believe, we've all been doing a pretty good job of this, but we could always do better.

As far as the Holiday Events go, even though I would gladly see them go in favor of some more plot-related content, I must say that I do enjoy them.  If there were some sort of way to integrate just a tiny bit of plot-specific content into the mix of these Events, I'd say we'd have the best of both worlds.  Holidays are, of course, philosophically relevant to The Matrix as a whole.  A core element of The Matrix series is the evolution of religion and spirituality, and what stresses that more than what are essentially tribal, pagan celebrations adopted and re-adopted by numerous traditional, modern, and post-modern institutions existing today.

psilody wrote:

All I'd like to see is an increase in the XP value of killing NPC's. Are you saying that this is impossible? Because i think this is a change that places the point value in its proper place. The heart of this game is in combat, but for the time it takes to battle an NPC, there is a relatively low point payout. By contrast, you get much better XP by standing around while a level 50 breezes through a mish for you, and its faster, and its technically speaking easier. And thats always seemed... wrong.

So thats all im asking here. I wont go into all the rest of my argument for this. And if changing the XP value of NPC's is impossible, than i shall shut up about this subject for ever and ever.

The difference there is that a level 50 is required for the higher XP payoff.

I am doing things here and there like making drops that you can trade in for extra XP. But to do it across the board would be reckless, and against the design intent of much of the game. The focus was supposed to be on the mission system, and that's why it has the payoff it does. I'm willing to add things here and there to accumulate some semi-alternatives, but I'm also facing the overall problem that you can get to 50 too quickly in our game--a matter of a few days, if you're doing it in the most efficient way possible. That way probably doesn't get much of its XP directly from NPC kills, but it is getting too much XP too quickly from somewhere. So if I was going to contemplate an across the board increase in some XP reward mechanism, like NPC kills, I'd also have to nerf somewhere else to avoid further exacerbating the too-fast levelling problem, because the way a levelling game like ours tries to pay for itself is to keep people paying a subscription fee while they work their way up; that's our financial model and it isn't something I'm free to muck with.

Aside from doing the archived critical missions, or finding some trick along the way somewhere like you can do with the robot drops in 01 once you get high enough level, I have a feeling that there still isn't enough non-standard-mission content to get you to 50. That's a problem, and I think the reason why it feels like levelling takes too long; it is supposed to take a while, but it isn't supposed to be boring.

The real way for me to correct that is not to rush you through it, but to give you more to do while you get there, which means making varied sub-level-50 content. That's something I've been doing around the game for a while now, and continue to do.

Let's assume for the same of argument that I fill up the "get me to 50" content hole eventually. That's good, but I still have the problem that someone can power level to 50 in a few days by certain means--that isn't good. So really I should nerf that, but I think we can all imagine the outcry if I did. So I won't. But I'm not going to add other ways of levelling too quickly to try to add variety for our already overpowered power levellers. If the fastest possible speed is really what you insist on, it's always going to be a grind, because there will be one thing that gives the most XP, even if just a fraction more than some other way, and that will be the thing you do over and over.

Rarebit wrote:

psilody wrote:

All I'd like to see is an increase in the XP value of killing NPC's. Are you saying that this is impossible? Because i think this is a change that places the point value in its proper place. The heart of this game is in combat, but for the time it takes to battle an NPC, there is a relatively low point payout. By contrast, you get much better XP by standing around while a level 50 breezes through a mish for you, and its faster, and its technically speaking easier. And thats always seemed... wrong.

So thats all im asking here. I wont go into all the rest of my argument for this. And if changing the XP value of NPC's is impossible, than i shall shut up about this subject for ever and ever.

The difference there is that a level 50 is required for the higher XP payoff.

I am doing things here and there like making drops that you can trade in for extra XP. But to do it across the board would be reckless, and against the design intent of much of the game. The focus was supposed to be on the mission system, and that's why it has the payoff it does. I'm willing to add things here and there to accumulate some semi-alternatives, but I'm also facing the overall problem that you can get to 50 too quickly in our game--a matter of a few days, if you're doing it in the most efficient way possible. That way probably doesn't get much of its XP directly from NPC kills, but it is getting too much XP too quickly from somewhere. So if I was going to contemplate an across the board increase in some XP reward mechanism, like NPC kills, I'd also have to nerf somewhere else to avoid further exacerbating the too-fast levelling problem, because the way a levelling game like ours tries to pay for itself is to keep people paying a subscription fee while they work their way up; that's our financial model and it isn't something I'm free to muck with.

Aside from doing the archived critical missions, or finding some trick along the way somewhere like you can do with the robot drops in 01 once you get high enough level, I have a feeling that there still isn't enough non-standard-mission content to get you to 50. That's a problem, and I think the reason why it feels like levelling takes too long; it is supposed to take a while, but it isn't supposed to be boring.

The real way for me to correct that is not to rush you through it, but to give you more to do while you get there, which means making varied sub-level-50 content. That's something I've been doing around the game for a while now, and continue to do.

Let's assume for the same of argument that I fill up the "get me to 50" content hole eventually. That's good, but I still have the problem that someone can power level to 50 in a few days by certain means--that isn't good. So really I should nerf that, but I think we can all imagine the outcry if I did. So I won't. But I'm not going to add other ways of levelling too quickly to try to add variety for our already overpowered power levellers. If the fastest possible speed is really what you insist on, it's always going to be a grind, because there will be one thing that gives the most XP, even if just a fraction more than some other way, and that will be the thing you do over and over.

interesting...

Getting to level 50 is easy?  That's news to me!  I guess I'm just not doing it right, which probably comes from being new to MMOs when I started this one.  In all seriousness though, I completely agree that filling the level-grind with more interesting content is a much better solution than making the grind faster.  Though for some reason I've been enjoying the random, procedural missions  more and more.

Signs wrote:

Getting to level 50 is easy?  That's news to me!  I guess I'm just not doing it right, which probably comes from being new to MMOs when I started this one.  In all seriousness though, I completely agree that filling the level-grind with more interesting content is a much better solution than making the grind faster.  Though for some reason I've been enjoying the random, procedural missions  more and more.

Took me 10 months to get to 50 the first time.

On 56k, no less.

Thank Neo my connection's been upgraded since then.