Detailed story & event plans for MXO chapters 5.2-12.1

   Rarebit, what was your ideas about Operation Dark Storm?  During chapter 10, it seemed that neither the humans nor the Machines knew how it worked.  And if I remember correctly, CAR80N said that the pre-Matrix human civilization didn't have access to nanotechnology.  It seemed like you were going to make some kind of revelation concerning Dark Storm.

Othinn1 wrote:

   Rarebit, what was your ideas about Operation Dark Storm?  During chapter 10, it seemed that neither the humans nor the Machines knew how it worked.  And if I remember correctly, CAR80N said that the pre-Matrix human civilization didn't have access to nanotechnology.  It seemed like you were going to make some kind of revelation concerning Dark Storm.

Hm... I don't think I was going to try going into it in detail. After the Merv seeded the storm you pointed out that...I think it was the director's commentary for the Next Renaissance said it was nanomachines or something, which I hadn't been aware of, but it's all just some flavor of sci-fi magic anyway since as far as I know there's no currently known or even theoretical way that something like a perpetual Dark Storm would be possible. As far as that kind of thing goes--how is the Earth not frozen, what's this crazy fusion power with humans, etc--it's usually the less said, the better.

So much information, soooo much to read . . . . arghhh!  Overload.

With all thoughts of the original 2-year storyline, circa Jan 2005, put to the side, did YOU, Rarebit, invisage an ending for all this?

Rarebit wrote:

Othinn1 wrote:

   Rarebit, what was your ideas about Operation Dark Storm?  During chapter 10, it seemed that neither the humans nor the Machines knew how it worked.  And if I remember correctly, CAR80N said that the pre-Matrix human civilization didn't have access to nanotechnology.  It seemed like you were going to make some kind of revelation concerning Dark Storm.

Hm... I don't think I was going to try going into it in detail. After the Merv seeded the storm you pointed out that...I think it was the director's commentary for the Next Renaissance said it was nanomachines or something, which I hadn't been aware of, but it's all just some flavor of sci-fi magic anyway since as far as I know there's no currently known or even theoretical way that something like a perpetual Dark Storm would be possible. As far as that kind of thing goes--how is the Earth not frozen, what's this crazy fusion power with humans, etc--it's usually the less said, the better.

   Ah, okay.  I thought you were going to reveal that Dark Storm was something else, or created by someone else like the Oligarchs or something.

Rarebit wrote:

Mach: (after Zion event) Cypherites, Cryptos, and the Morph sim; Morph sim eventually agrees to listen when Cryptos offers to tell him why Morpheus was so obsessed with obtaining the One's remains--they go off for a little private chat [note that players are *not* going to be told what they talk about...and actually I still have to figure that out at some point, but it can wait for a later subchapter]

Was this ever "figured out"?

cloudwolf wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Mach: (after Zion event) Cypherites, Cryptos, and the Morph sim; Morph sim eventually agrees to listen when Cryptos offers to tell him why Morpheus was so obsessed with obtaining the One's remains--they go off for a little private chat [note that players are *not* going to be told what they talk about...and actually I still have to figure that out at some point, but it can wait for a later subchapter]

Was this ever "figured out"?

Oh, that's a good question. Seconded.

oh I remember that event... I can picture the screen shot of them now both looking in at the camera.

deimoslvov wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Mach: (after Zion event) Cypherites, Cryptos, and the Morph sim; Morph sim eventually agrees to listen when Cryptos offers to tell him why Morpheus was so obsessed with obtaining the One's remains--they go off for a little private chat [note that players are *not* going to be told what they talk about...and actually I still have to figure that out at some point, but it can wait for a later subchapter]

Was this ever "figured out"?

Oh, that's a good question. Seconded.

Morpheus actually told people why he needed the body.

"Neo may even have a new RSI, and walk the Matrix in a fog of forgetting.  Or one of false memories.  It may be you.  Or you.  Yes, Neo may now have a woman's RSI.  Anything is possible.  But that question waits upon the return of his body.  That is the first step.  We have devices that can inquire whether downloading has occurred.  But we need the body, and it's jacking-in sockets, to use them."

EDIT:  Screenshot!

Fen wrote:

deimoslvov wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Mach: (after Zion event) Cypherites, Cryptos, and the Morph sim; Morph sim eventually agrees to listen when Cryptos offers to tell him why Morpheus was so obsessed with obtaining the One's remains--they go off for a little private chat [note that players are *not* going to be told what they talk about...and actually I still have to figure that out at some point, but it can wait for a later subchapter]

Was this ever "figured out"?

Oh, that's a good question. Seconded.

Morpheus actually told people why he needed the body.

"Neo may even have a new RSI, and walk the Matrix in a fog of forgetting.  Or one of false memories.  It may be you.  Or you.  Yes, Neo may now have a woman's RSI.  Anything is possible.  But that question waits upon the return of his body.  That is the first step.  We have devices that can inquire whether downloading has occurred.  But we need the body, and it's jacking-in sockets, to use them."

EDIT:  Screenshot!

    Exactly.  And even if Morpheus found that no downloading had occurred he felt that, at the very least, Neo's body belonged in Zion, as he stated in Cinematic 1.2

Too obvious. Besides, if it was as simple as something the real Morpheus had said in speeches, the General's sim would've already had that knowledge. Not to mention Rare would've just included it in those notes instead of saying "i'll think of that later".

cloudwolf wrote:

Too obvious. Besides, if it was as simple as something the real Morpheus had said in speeches, the General's sim would've already had that knowledge. Not to mention Rare would've just included it in those notes instead of saying "i'll think of that later".

I would tend to agree and I'm prepared for the possibility that what was said wasn't figured out and that we won't ever know, which is a shame. The story outline for the rest of the year doesn't mention that the answer was to be revealed, but if it was to be revealed then perhaps Rarebit does have an idea about it at this point.

I somehow doubt that Morpheus would make up an excuse like that.  It's certainly more believable than 'lol morph is an oligarch'.

I chalk it up as Rarebit either forgetting or not knowing that the original LET had already explained Morpheus' reasons for wanting the body.  Rarebit is capable of making mistakes, you know (ie, Mauser).  He's also stated that the original LET never left any of their notes behind, and it's not like he can come out to the players and ask...  although, had LESIG filled it's original purpose, he could've picked their brains.

cloudwolf wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Mach: (after Zion event) Cypherites, Cryptos, and the Morph sim; Morph sim eventually agrees to listen when Cryptos offers to tell him why Morpheus was so obsessed with obtaining the One's remains--they go off for a little private chat [note that players are *not* going to be told what they talk about...and actually I still have to figure that out at some point, but it can wait for a later subchapter]

Was this ever "figured out"?

No. I wasn't interested in trying to unravel and continue the "Neo's remains" story angle that had been mostly an LET on-the-fly invention without any surviving official documentation (the story outline by Paul that we mission designers were following had Morpheus wanting to know about it, throwing up posters and causing a stir that got him killed, but that was all). The Morph sim/Cryptos meeting was on Vector on 10/24/07, and I think I may have had a feeling or two of what I might have had them "talk" about if I had to give any details about it, but I can't remember what those were. I'd *guess* it was probably something along the lines of Morpheus feeling purposeless under the Truce, and using the hope of Neo's resurrection as a way to resurrect his own dreams and motivations, but that's just a guess, and, again, it wouldn't really have been something I'd have wanted to go into.

On 7/6/07, also on Vector, the Morpheus sim had said that Morpheus was "mad" (as in crazy) when he was on the "Neo's remains" kick, and I think (another guess) that whatever Cryptos told him in their later meeting wasn't intended to change his mind substantially on that score, but it would help him get some closure on it and get his own head back together.

Speaking of Cryptos...  what exactly happened to him?  Why did he become the way he is now, when everyone else who Seraph whooped went back to normal?

Fen wrote:

Speaking of Cryptos...  what exactly happened to him?  Why did he become the way he is now, when everyone else who Seraph whooped went back to normal?

The overwriting used on Cryptos was different than the others. You'd get a better idea going back through those missions that were investigating the other overwritten people, but as far as I remember off the top of my head, their overwriting was a cruder form, where the Machine program just took control and didn't have access to the person's memories and personality. Cryptos had to be much more convincing, so they had to come up with a different overwriting scheme that left his original memories and personality intact and accessible; so with Cryptos the program and human had to coexist to an extent.

This is going back a bit before 5.2, but did you have any hand in the creation or implementation of the Antedeluvian / Boxmaker / Pandora storyline?  I found the storyline behind that to be rich, immersive and very enjoyable.

Since the last box effectively ends as a cliffhanger did you ever have any desire to continue that sidestory forward with additional quests using the Seraphitic Feather as the starting point?  (It seems to me this was the original intent, to be revisted at a later date).

Villemar_MxO wrote:

This is going back a bit before 5.2, but did you have any hand in the creation or implementation of the Antedeluvian / Boxmaker / Pandora storyline?  I found the storyline behind that to be rich, immersive and very enjoyable.

Since the last box effectively ends as a cliffhanger did you ever have any desire to continue that sidestory forward with additional quests using the Seraphitic Feather as the starting point?  (It seems to me this was the original intent, to be revisted at a later date).

The Pandora's Box concept (spawns popping out of boxes) was handed to the four mission designers we had at the time, one of which was me--HCFrog was another--by the original Live Team design lead, Archon. The four of us brainstormed the four main NPC spawn types the boxes would use.

Then came the move to SOE, and the PB design team was down to HCFrog and I (oh, and Dracomet designed and implemented the loot items you get from the box spawns). I handled most of the story and missions for arcs 1, 2, and 4, and HCFrog did most of 3.

The original PB concept included putting out more box arcs from time to time. I chose to work on other types of "quest" content for a number of reasons: mostly because the story was tricky to handle, since it sort of tied in with some existing main story characters, but not really with the main story itself, and also because the box spawn mechanism had some drawbacks. Taking it into a separate, specifically tailored construct like Sati's Playground solved some of those.

I've read both of the threads about the story, and if I've missed this feel free to openly berate me, but I'm just curious what Carlyne was doing with the Trinity program during the two years he had it? Did he not know how to use it, or maybe had some long term plan down the road for it? I like that he knew all along where it was while Halborn was blustering around the Matrix but I wonder why he'd leave something like that just sitting in storage somewhere.

Rarebit wrote:

Villemar_MxO wrote:

This is going back a bit before 5.2, but did you have any hand in the creation or implementation of the Antedeluvian / Boxmaker / Pandora storyline?  I found the storyline behind that to be rich, immersive and very enjoyable.

Since the last box effectively ends as a cliffhanger did you ever have any desire to continue that sidestory forward with additional quests using the Seraphitic Feather as the starting point?  (It seems to me this was the original intent, to be revisted at a later date).

The Pandora's Box concept (spawns popping out of boxes) was handed to the four mission designers we had at the time, one of which was me--HCFrog was another--by the original Live Team design lead, Archon. The four of us brainstormed the four main NPC spawn types the boxes would use.

Then came the move to SOE, and the PB design team was down to HCFrog and I (oh, and Dracomet designed and implemented the loot items you get from the box spawns). I handled most of the story and missions for arcs 1, 2, and 4, and HCFrog did most of 3.

The original PB concept included putting out more box arcs from time to time. I chose to work on other types of "quest" content for a number of reasons: mostly because the story was tricky to handle, since it sort of tied in with some existing main story characters, but not really with the main story itself, and also because the box spawn mechanism had some drawbacks. Taking it into a separate, specifically tailored construct like Sati's Playground solved some of those.

Interesting!  Among other enjoyable aspects I liked the backstory as it related to the "Heavenly" version of the Matrix and the subsequent disillusionment /frustration of the Seraphim.  It implied maybe future fleshing out of Seraph's backstory, his alliance and breakup with the Merv, and of course Flood's predecessor.

cesspool wrote:

I've read both of the threads about the story, and if I've missed this feel free to openly berate me, but I'm just curious what Carlyne was doing with the Trinity program during the two years he had it? Did he not know how to use it, or maybe had some long term plan down the road for it? I like that he knew all along where it was while Halborn was blustering around the Matrix but I wonder why he'd leave something like that just sitting in storage somewhere.

Presumably he was doing research and laying plans for how to use it. He wasn't a guy who liked to hurry things if he could help it, and he thought he had it pretty well hidden. He'd also have known that the others would come after him if they found out about it. There were somewhere near 100 of them, including Halborn, and he saw most of them as enemies or rivals, so he had a good deal of work on his hands coming up with a way to neutralize them. He wasn't very far along at all when Halborn found out about it.

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Interesting!  Among other enjoyable aspects I liked the backstory as it related to the "Heavenly" version of the Matrix and the subsequent disillusionment /frustration of the Seraphim.  It implied maybe future fleshing out of Seraph's backstory, his alliance and breakup with the Merv, and of course Flood's predecessor.

Yeah, we all thought the Seraphim were a cool idea; it was one of the other mission designers who thought of the "white Agent" angelic theme, and our art lead whipped up those keen wings and white suits. I gave them the pink shirts. ;) Hm I think I did the names for them, and HCFrog handled most of their ability balancing.

So, speaking of the Lith Halcyon Days, I found a neat little AP atricle I saved in .html format for some reason, that I thought you'd get a kick out of.  Its dated April 5th, 2005:

By DERRIK J. LANG, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Laurence Fishburne and Jada Pinkett Smith should be afraid for their jobs. In "The Matrix Online," a new massively multiplayer online game, the cast of the sci-fi film trilogy has been reprised — and replaced — by digital actors.

No hugs for Merv! Non! Zut alors!

Ya know if you just read the first half of that article--especially slippery paragraph 5--you couldn't really be blamed for coming away with the idea that it was the movie actors themselves playing the online characters.

Troy Hewitt. Heh, there's a name... good old Aether.

So many memories, and so many missed opportunities.

Rarebit wrote:

Wright abs:
"Compress" (metal meatwad?)
"Signal Jamming" (AOE massive def res debuff)

Anti-override prototype:
orbiting gold code fx
gives random of one imm: Accel, Decel, Run

So... Wright can drop Runtime bits too?

PBlade wrote:

Troy Hewitt. Heh, there's a name... good old Aether.

So many memories, and so many missed opportunities.

So thats who must have played The Merovingian at our 1st Annual Club Hel Party in May 2005

Many of the "Imps" were there that night:  Merv, Persephone, Flood, Xbalanque*, and Niobe.

Rarebit, do you remember this and if so did you get to play any of these guys and if so which one?

*Xbalanque was Merv's bodyguard at the time.  Supposedly he had a twin brother Hunahpu (both named after the Maya Hero Twins from mythology).  I dunno what happened to them.

Also Rare do you remember these characters?  I only have a couple pics of Xbalanque from that night:

(Not much of a character model, just slightly bigger than standard large male.  Gargy size perhaps?)

Anyways I always wondered about that...

(And to reiterate what I said on the ty thread, thanks again for attending every single subsequent annual soire...'06, '07, '08...It really meant a lot to us!  Our 2009 wont be the same w/o you.  Good times!)

I didn't do events with the Monolith LET. I was just doing missions at the time, and the LET was kind of doing their own thing. I didn't start doing events until September 2005 (Death of the Destroyer), when we'd come over to SOE and the LET wasn't around to do them.

Xbalanque's shoes are not familiar to me. Interesting.

Rarebit wrote:

I didn't do events with the Monolith LET. I was just doing missions at the time, and the LET was kind of doing their own thing. I didn't start doing events until September 2005 (Death of the Destroyer), when we'd come over to SOE and the LET wasn't around to do them.

Ah.  No record of Xbalanque I take it then.

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Also Rare do you remember these characters?  I only have a couple pics of Xbalanque from that night:

   I know that there's a screenshot of Persephone flanked by Hunahpu and Xbalanque somewhere.  It was from an early Monolith event, where they showed up at a dance.  I believe the dance had something to do with Scorpia and cancer (Scorpia was a beta player who sadly passed away during the early months of the live game).

   I believe I have that screenshot on one of my CDs, but my PC refuses to run it.  The CD appears to be okay, because I can run it on a DVD player I have that can read burnt CDs.  My guess is I overburned the CD slightly, because apparently there are some CD drives that have trouble with slightly overburnt CDs.

   And there's a third Merovingian Exile from the Monolith days: Xamanek.  He was responsible for taking the names of players that wanted to be invited to the Merovingian's party in Club Hel where he celebrated the death of Morpheus.  I'm not sure if Xamanek ever appeared elsewhere.

   I have the details for all three of these characters in on my site, but you'll have to scroll down a lot, or just use "Find" on your browse.

Xamanek also showed up at a Merovingian-only meeting I held back on Regression. I don't have the log anymore, but we discussed the Assassin, and whether we should claim his work as our doing or not (this is after Morpheus was killed, but before it was revealed that the Assassin's mission was a Merovingian plot).

- Void

EndlessVoid wrote:

Xamanek also showed up at a Merovingian-only meeting I held back on Regression. I don't have the log anymore

- Void

monkeymanx8 wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Wright abs:
"Compress" (metal meatwad?)
"Signal Jamming" (AOE massive def res debuff)

Anti-override prototype:
orbiting gold code fx
gives random of one imm: Accel, Decel, Run

So... Wright can drop Runtime bits too?

Is Rare gone yet? I was just looking for a bit of confirmation on these notes, as I've never heard of Wright dropping a Runtime bit.

Rarebit wrote:

Mauser having jacks was the largest continuity error I made that I'm aware of to date. I assumed he had jacks when I wrote up the part about Wright getting into him, and in the Merv crit where Merv operatives investigate the sack of Zion, in which Mauser was caught on Sentinel cam sneaking through the rubble with Lock, Flood described the footage as showing a man with jacks in his skin, and both Flood and Malphas referred to Mauser as an "operative."

Later, when I was re-watching the Colt/Mauser/Roland scenes in preparation for bringing Mauser (actually Wright) in as an actual game character, I finally noticed that he didn't have jacks in his film scenes. :o I don't think anyone had pointed it out on the forums. I did a stealth edit of the archived version of the mission, Merv 8.3.1, "Among the Missing," in May 2008, changing three lines:

Flood 1, original:
Ugh, now the General is uploading his dirty pictures to me... Yes, well... All I can make out from this is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man with jacks in him stumbling through debris. I've certainly never seen him before; he can't be that important.

Flood 1, revised:
Ugh, now the General is uploading his dirty pictures to me... Yes, well... All I can make out from this is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man stumbling through debris. I've certainly never seen him before; he can't be that important.

Flood 2, original:
It seems I can't count on competence from anyone; no, not you, [playername]--I gave up on you long ago. But usually Zion's systems work well enough to run a decent data query after you've hacked them. It's a sad state of affairs...

Very well, I can see the way the wind is blowing. We'll try for what we need from the Machines; the jacks in his skin indicate that the man was an operative, and the Machines will have surveillance records of which Zionite ships were around the old city when they sacked it. That should narrow things down considerably.

Flood 2, revised:
It seems I can't count on competence from anyone; no, not you, [playername]--I gave up on you long ago. But usually Zion's systems work well enough to run a decent data query after you've hacked them. It's a sad state of affairs...

Very well, I can see the way the wind is blowing. We'll try for what we need from the Machines; they'll have surveillance records of which Zionite ships were around the old city when they sacked it. That should narrow things down considerably.

Malphas, original:
... Machine records of ship movements around Zion at the time of its destruction were minutely precise. The human with Zion's Commander was a crew member of the Mjolnir II, also known as "The Hammer": a large hovercraft that crashed near the main gate of the city's dock, although the Machines do not record having inflicted significant damage on it themselves. According to our records, his operative name is "Mauser."

Malphas, revised:
... Machine records of ship movements around Zion at the time of its destruction were minutely precise. The human with Zion's Commander was a crew member of the Mjolnir II, also known as "The Hammer": a large hovercraft that crashed near the main gate of the city's dock, although the Machines do not record having inflicted significant damage on it themselves. According to our records, his name is "Mauser."

After that fix, Mauser showed up in the Matrix, and a lot of the story characters took great enjoyment in pointing out that he didn't have jacks. In the initial shock of realizing that he didn't have jacks, after I'd thought he had and included it in that one chapter 8 Merv crit, I was worried that it ruined the Wright-in-Mauser story. But a jack is merely a physical interface that facilitates an electrical current, and in the massive short in the Mjolnir II's jack-in systems caused by the simultaneous viral destruction of Zion's systems, to which the Mjolnir II was connected, and the entry of Wright's consciousness into their ship, the intensity of current involved could have just as well have conducted through human flesh, which isn't all that bad a conductor anyway. Whew. >_> While I'm not at all pleased that I made the error initially and had to revise the mission text, in the end I think I like her going into someone without holes better, since it's more unexpected...at least, it certainly isn't something I'd have thought of if I hadn't made that mistake and then had to fix it.

The way that Wright's end came about ended up making it more difficult to have someone in the story give the full explanation for the Wright/Mauser sequences; Wright ended up being a much more secretive character than I'd imagined initially, and she wasn't about to offer up the explanation, so I would have had to have found ways to have people find clues that would eventually piece it together--could have been very long running as a backstory puzzle, if I'd ended up doing it that way. Wright had covered her tracks by completely incinerating Mauser's body when she (still in Mauser's body) hoverjacked Carlyne, rode his Oligarch interface into the Matrix, and let his ship crash on the surface.

Seriously, this is the crap he's been forcing down your throats since Chadwick left? I'm glad I haven't bothered to get caught up.

Foxxdie wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Mauser having jacks was the largest continuity error I made that I'm aware of to date. I assumed he had jacks when I wrote up the part about Wright getting into him, and in the Merv crit where Merv operatives investigate the sack of Zion, in which Mauser was caught on Sentinel cam sneaking through the rubble with Lock, Flood described the footage as showing a man with jacks in his skin, and both Flood and Malphas referred to Mauser as an "operative."

Later, when I was re-watching the Colt/Mauser/Roland scenes in preparation for bringing Mauser (actually Wright) in as an actual game character, I finally noticed that he didn't have jacks in his film scenes. :o I don't think anyone had pointed it out on the forums. I did a stealth edit of the archived version of the mission, Merv 8.3.1, "Among the Missing," in May 2008, changing three lines:

Flood 1, original:
Ugh, now the General is uploading his dirty pictures to me... Yes, well... All I can make out from this is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man with jacks in him stumbling through debris. I've certainly never seen him before; he can't be that important.

Flood 1, revised:
Ugh, now the General is uploading his dirty pictures to me... Yes, well... All I can make out from this is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man stumbling through debris. I've certainly never seen him before; he can't be that important.

Flood 2, original:
It seems I can't count on competence from anyone; no, not you, [playername]--I gave up on you long ago. But usually Zion's systems work well enough to run a decent data query after you've hacked them. It's a sad state of affairs...

Very well, I can see the way the wind is blowing. We'll try for what we need from the Machines; the jacks in his skin indicate that the man was an operative, and the Machines will have surveillance records of which Zionite ships were around the old city when they sacked it. That should narrow things down considerably.

Flood 2, revised:
It seems I can't count on competence from anyone; no, not you, [playername]--I gave up on you long ago. But usually Zion's systems work well enough to run a decent data query after you've hacked them. It's a sad state of affairs...

Very well, I can see the way the wind is blowing. We'll try for what we need from the Machines; they'll have surveillance records of which Zionite ships were around the old city when they sacked it. That should narrow things down considerably.

Malphas, original:
... Machine records of ship movements around Zion at the time of its destruction were minutely precise. The human with Zion's Commander was a crew member of the Mjolnir II, also known as "The Hammer": a large hovercraft that crashed near the main gate of the city's dock, although the Machines do not record having inflicted significant damage on it themselves. According to our records, his operative name is "Mauser."

Malphas, revised:
... Machine records of ship movements around Zion at the time of its destruction were minutely precise. The human with Zion's Commander was a crew member of the Mjolnir II, also known as "The Hammer": a large hovercraft that crashed near the main gate of the city's dock, although the Machines do not record having inflicted significant damage on it themselves. According to our records, his name is "Mauser."

After that fix, Mauser showed up in the Matrix, and a lot of the story characters took great enjoyment in pointing out that he didn't have jacks. In the initial shock of realizing that he didn't have jacks, after I'd thought he had and included it in that one chapter 8 Merv crit, I was worried that it ruined the Wright-in-Mauser story. But a jack is merely a physical interface that facilitates an electrical current, and in the massive short in the Mjolnir II's jack-in systems caused by the simultaneous viral destruction of Zion's systems, to which the Mjolnir II was connected, and the entry of Wright's consciousness into their ship, the intensity of current involved could have just as well have conducted through human flesh, which isn't all that bad a conductor anyway. Whew. >_> While I'm not at all pleased that I made the error initially and had to revise the mission text, in the end I think I like her going into someone without holes better, since it's more unexpected...at least, it certainly isn't something I'd have thought of if I hadn't made that mistake and then had to fix it.

The way that Wright's end came about ended up making it more difficult to have someone in the story give the full explanation for the Wright/Mauser sequences; Wright ended up being a much more secretive character than I'd imagined initially, and she wasn't about to offer up the explanation, so I would have had to have found ways to have people find clues that would eventually piece it together--could have been very long running as a backstory puzzle, if I'd ended up doing it that way. Wright had covered her tracks by completely incinerating Mauser's body when she (still in Mauser's body) hoverjacked Carlyne, rode his Oligarch interface into the Matrix, and let his ship crash on the surface.

Seriously, this is the crap he's been forcing down your throats since Chadwick left? I'm glad I haven't bothered to get caught up.

Your disrespect for the current playerbase of this game in a number of these threads is truly amazing.  For some of us, the Rarebit story is what we had and enjoyed.  A little consideration for those who didn't get to experience the game back in 2005 would be appreciated.  Maybe the time has come for you to leave us in peace because the game will never live up to your expectations and all you're doing is creating enemies and ill will.  Let MXO live, in whatever form it has to take now.

Foxxdie wrote:

Seriously, this is the crap he's been forcing down your throats since Chadwick left? I'm glad I haven't bothered to get caught up.

Yeah, just like the Pew Pew lazorz.. oh wait, that was Chadwick wasn't it..

Admitedly some of Rare's storyline is not brilliant, but considering he only had Chadwicks outline and an even briefer full storyline outline (Rare said that the Trinity/Neo thing was ok'd early on in MxO) of the story to follow and probably noone to bounce ideas for fleshing out the story off, he didn't do too bad at all. As for the Mauser error.. honest mistake is honest, and the workaround wasn't beyond the realms of Sci-Fi, which is handy considering that Sci-Fi is the basis for the entire franchise.

Foxxdie wrote:

Seriously, this is the crap he's been forcing down your throats since Chadwick left? I'm glad I haven't bothered to get caught up.

Can I have ur stuff?

I seriously find myself wishing that I could spawn a series of tangential universes where each person thats been p**sing all over the MxO storyline could be transported back in time and become lead dev, and be responsible for fleshing out the story.

Maybe after they wrote THEIR story, and then had half the community cr*p all over it, they'd get some sense of humility about the challenge of being the storywriter for a game people are obsessed about.

Take it somewhere else Foxx, preferably the toilet...

psilody wrote:

I seriously find myself wishing that I could spawn a series of tangential universes where each person thats been p**sing all over the MxO storyline could be transported back in time and become lead dev, and be responsible for fleshing out the story.

Maybe after they wrote THEIR story, and then had half the community cr*p all over it, they'd get some sense of humility about the challenge of being the storywriter for a game people are obsessed about.

Take it somewhere else Foxx, preferably the toilet...

No offense, dude, but do you realize that this is a service that we were paying our developers to do?  I mean, some of you guys treat it as if this is some favor they're doing for us.  No, it's a service we pay for.

Like you've never gone to a restaurant, gotten a meal that wasn't to your liking or gotten bad service and complained about it?

Customer:  "Hey, I asked to hold the sauce."
Waiter:  "You think it's so easy to cook a meal!?  Well if you're so smart, why don't you go and cook it yourself?!"

Fen wrote:

No offense, dude, but do you realize that this is a service that we were paying our developers to do?  I mean, some of you guys treat it as if this is some favor they're doing for us.  No, it's a service we pay for.

Like you've never gone to a restaurant, gotten a meal that wasn't to your liking or gotten bad service and complained about it?

Customer:  "Hey, I asked to hold the sauce."
Waiter:  "You think it's so easy to cook a meal!?  Well if you're so smart, why don't you go and cook it yourself?!"

Actually, we pay to access the game, our subscriptions do not guarantee continuing storyline (either good or poor, depending on users viewpoint, as is immediatly evident) or additional content. If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to pay/play. Simple really.

Now if the servers were inaccessible for more than the necessary time for maintenance, or if some funtionality of the game was broken and not repaired promptly etc. Then you can complain about the service. By not continuing the story they lose custom, but thats their choice to make.

Croesis wrote:

Fen wrote:

Like you've never gone to a restaurant, gotten a meal that wasn't to your liking or gotten bad service and complained about it?

Customer:  "Hey, I asked to hold the sauce."
Waiter:  "You think it's so easy to cook a meal!?  Well if you're so smart, why don't you go and cook it yourself?!"

Actually, if this happened at a restaurant, I would politely ask the waiter to send it back.

I would give the waiter and the cook the benefit of the doubt. Have you seriously NEVER made a f'n mistake in your life? Who ARE you people? I suppose since you all are perfect, that would justify you belittling and berating the server, the cook, the whole establishment for RUINING YOUR LIFE by bringing you a meal that had sauce. Maybe you'd even have a case to sue them or something...

Actually, we pay to access the game, our subscriptions do not guarantee continuing storyline (either good or poor, depending on users viewpoint, as is immediatly evident) or additional content. If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to pay/play. Simple really.

Now if the servers were inaccessible for more than the necessary time for maintenance, or if some funtionality of the game was broken and not repaired promptly etc. Then you can complain about the service. By not continuing the story they lose custom, but thats their choice to make.

And what Croesis said. I'm sure theres nowhere that our subscription fees demand a storyline, let alone one with every detail in it perfect to the satisfaction of every single player.

Anyone, I'm sorry if I'm a little sick of every thread on the story being hijacked by haters. I've never said that I agree with everything Rare did, every element of the story, etc. But he was just a human being, the last Dev we had, and I'm sure all the negative feedback from the playerbase made it pretty easy to walk away from this game.

So why don't you guys all go write up your amazing edit of the MxO story and publish it. I'm sure you'll feel great too when half the community sh*t's all over it.

Economics 101:

Money is exchanged for goods and services.

In a marketplace, if Vendor A is selling poor services for too high a price; where Vendors B though Z are selling appropriare services for a reasonable and fair price; it is fair to ask Vendor A how he justifies his fee when the services are far substandard to all the other vendors in the marketplace.  If he doesn't give a good justification, then it should not be unexpected if Vendor A goes out of business.

We are asking Vendor A to justify his fee.   Nothing wrong with that.  If he can't justify it, he should lower it, at the very least.

psilody wrote:

Anyone, I'm sorry if I'm a little sick of every thread on the story being hijacked by haters. I've never said that I agree with everything Rare did, every element of the story, etc. But he was just a human being, the last Dev we had, and I'm sure all the negative feedback from the playerbase made it pretty easy to walk away from this game.

So why don't you guys all go write up your amazing edit of the MxO story and publish it. I'm sure you'll feel great too when half the community sh*t's all over it.

Not our job.  I pay X for Y services.  If I have to do it myself, I shouldn't be charged full price.  End of story.

Croesis wrote:

Fen wrote:

No offense, dude, but do you realize that this is a service that we were paying our developers to do?  I mean, some of you guys treat it as if this is some favor they're doing for us.  No, it's a service we pay for.

Like you've never gone to a restaurant, gotten a meal that wasn't to your liking or gotten bad service and complained about it?

Customer:  "Hey, I asked to hold the sauce."
Waiter:  "You think it's so easy to cook a meal!?  Well if you're so smart, why don't you go and cook it yourself?!"

Actually, we pay to access the game, our subscriptions do not guarantee continuing storyline (either good or poor, depending on users viewpoint, as is immediatly evident) or additional content. If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to pay/play. Simple really.

Now if the servers were inaccessible for more than the necessary time for maintenance, or if some funtionality of the game was broken and not repaired promptly etc. Then you can complain about the service. By not continuing the story they lose custom, but thats their choice to make.

Maybe that's what you pay for and that's what you're content with.  But it sure as hell ain't what I'm paying for.

Villemar_MxO wrote:

psilody wrote:

Anyone, I'm sorry if I'm a little sick of every thread on the story being hijacked by haters. I've never said that I agree with everything Rare did, every element of the story, etc. But he was just a human being, the last Dev we had, and I'm sure all the negative feedback from the playerbase made it pretty easy to walk away from this game.

So why don't you guys all go write up your amazing edit of the MxO story and publish it. I'm sure you'll feel great too when half the community sh*t's all over it.

Not our job.  I pay X for Y services.  If I have to do it myself, I shouldn't be charged full price.  End of story.

I agree with both your posts, Villemar.

psilody's really off the deep end here.  He keeps taking criticism for hate.

I do not hate Rarebit.  I don't care for his story, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the work he put in for us.

However, since I'm paying for a service, I have the right to question it if it doesn't meet my expectations.  If you have ever been in any position of sales, you would know that the goal of customer service is to try and exceed their expectations.  Something that SOE has not done, even remotely so.

psilody...  seriously, dude.  You're the one that needs to calm down and take a chill pill.  It's hard to carry on a civil discussion with you flipping out and screaming text in our faces.

And you never addressed my point to begin with.  All you've done is flame and insult.  *shrug*

Fen wrote:

Croesis wrote:

Actually, we pay to access the game, our subscriptions do not guarantee continuing storyline (either good or poor, depending on users viewpoint, as is immediatly evident) or additional content. If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to pay/play. Simple really.

Now if the servers were inaccessible for more than the necessary time for maintenance, or if some funtionality of the game was broken and not repaired promptly etc. Then you can complain about the service. By not continuing the story they lose custom, but thats their choice to make.

Maybe that's what you pay for and that's what you're content with.  But it sure as hell ain't what I'm paying for.

Pretty sure that's basically what the EULA says. Never said I was content with it, but I'm not going to complain about lack of specific services when the contract we all agree to doesn't state we are entitled to those services. If it was in the agreement then that would mean SOE are breaking it and opening themselves up for lawsuits.

I agree with the belief that at the moment we are paying too much for what the game is now worth but as I said, we know what we're buying, there is no other commercial Matrix MMO out there so the only choice available is to carry on or stop paying.

Oh we can ask them to justify their costs with the view that before we were getting 6 weekly updates and story and content and now we're not but if the updates, story and content weren't stated as entitlements that we were paying for in the agreement we all make with SOE in order to play the game, then we have no comeback.

I'm hoping though that if we are to continue like this, as it seems we are, that SOE will lower the monthly price if only to try to stem the flow of unsubscribers.

It's about more than a contract. This game was billed as giving its players the ability to continue the story of the Matrix. Look at all the old marketing videos and box art. That's what sold MxO, not the EULA.

Every player still here bought this game to experience the story of the Matrix. Some have stayed because the PvP and social aspects are more suited to them. The rest of us want what we originally started paying for. 

ShiXinFeng wrote:

It's about more than a contract. This game was billed as giving its players the ability to continue the story of the Matrix. Look at all the old marketing videos and box art. That's what sold MxO, not the EULA.

Every player still here bought this game to experience the story of the Matrix. Some have stayed because the PvP and social aspects are more suited to them. The rest of us want what we originally started paying for. 

Which is why MxO is losing subs.

I'm not trying to defend what they are or aren't doing. MxO has changed a lot since its first release. In fact I recall that the packaging said something like players would shape the story itself, since I joined a couple of years back, we've been following a scripted story with the only influence on it being whoever got the last shot in on the bad guy or saying or doing something to cause a main event character to adlib a comment here or there. The only dynamic bit of story in recent times, something where players actually influenced the story, was the hovercraft battle over Lock.

Time to face facts, since SOE bought the rights to MxO any promises and ambitions made by Monolith died there and then. The story was always going to end at some point in fact this year was going to be it's last according to the plans posted by Rare. In the end, you can still experience the story of the Matrix, there just isn't any more of it.

Now, I don't wanna stop people from complaining about lack of story, I'd love for someone to take the reigns and will throw my 2p into any thread complaining about it.. but as I mentioned previously, using the line that we're paying for a continuing story and content etc.. doesn't carry any weight according to the EULA whether we like it or not.

However as what we have left is old story and nothing new, a subscription price drop is not an unreasonable request especially in light of falling Sub numbers.To be honest though I don't think SOE really cares too much, as long as they have the title to pad out their station pass.

Fen wrote:

Villemar_MxO wrote:

psilody wrote:

Anyone, I'm sorry if I'm a little sick of every thread on the story being hijacked by haters. I've never said that I agree with everything Rare did, every element of the story, etc. But he was just a human being, the last Dev we had, and I'm sure all the negative feedback from the playerbase made it pretty easy to walk away from this game.

So why don't you guys all go write up your amazing edit of the MxO story and publish it. I'm sure you'll feel great too when half the community sh*t's all over it.

Not our job.  I pay X for Y services.  If I have to do it myself, I shouldn't be charged full price.  End of story.

I agree with both your posts, Villemar.

psilody's really off the deep end here.  He keeps taking criticism for hate.

I do not hate Rarebit.  I don't care for his story, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the work he put in for us.

However, since I'm paying for a service, I have the right to question it if it doesn't meet my expectations.  If you have ever been in any position of sales, you would know that the goal of customer service is to try and exceed their expectations.  Something that SOE has not done, even remotely so.

psilody...  seriously, dude.  You're the one that needs to calm down and take a chill pill.  It's hard to carry on a civil discussion with you flipping out and screaming text in our faces.

And you never addressed my point to begin with.  All you've done is flame and insult.  *shrug*

K first, pill taken.

But second, I want to point out that this is a thread about the previous storyline, NOT the current economics of the Matrix.

My original comment was basically directed towards Foxx, and others who have been bashing the PREVIOUS storyline and its writer, and basically what I said was hes a human and drop it. (and, btw, text in general makes it challenging to infer voice character. In my mind, this was not "screaming", but rather a sarcastic diatribe. My apologies, as I stated in the other post, for being a little peeved.)

 I FULLY agree, that now that we have NO dev, the price we pay for this game is ridiculous.My comments are NOT a defense of SOE. I don't see anywhere in my original post where I indicated I was defending SOE, nor directing any flaming of any sort directly towards Fen.(I will admit that I probably mildly flamed Foxx.Soz) Your comments, Fen, seemed more to indicate displeasure with the work provided by our previous Dev, and to be defending Foxx for bashing his work. Sorry if I took that IN the context of the discussion at hand.

So... really though... again... these threads keep getting way out of hand. What started as people DISCUSSING the story, turned into people bashing the STORYWRITER, turned into me bashing the basher (guilty as charged), turned into other people bashing the basher of the basher, turned into a discussion of what we should be paying.

I personally will be canceling at least one account, as I no longer regard it as worth my money. I may stick around to RP and PvP, as i still regard these activities as fun.

I apologize for my role in derailing the thread.