Where does this leave us?

I thought we should start to discuss some ideas for a canon explanation of what’s happening in the Matrix now (and forever more, apparently). Is there a war on? Where is [story character X]? Why don’t Agents ever attack us? What happened to the N30 Agents/unlimits/wireframe guys? What is acceptable canon? What’s the point?

Let me make clear that this is not a discussion of topics from other threads. We are not writing a story here, just experimenting with some ideas that are feasible for being accepted by the community as a whole. If people want to write stories based on these ideas, then they could be considered as much canon as anything else, but that's another topic for debate. This thread is not for discussing these topics:

No player-run storyline.

No LESIG-style decision-making power-grabbing mystery group.

No pseudo-story-characters by players in masks.

No changing the game mechanics.

This discussion is just for the player community to come together and toss around some ideas for how we are going to explain the current situation in the Matrix to the newly-Awakened or recently returned.

Our current situation is what happened last. Namely, Ghost is protecting Trinity/BIP from two Oligarchs, the Cypherites are being all anti-Oligarch with anti-Oligarch codes, EPN has had some interesting encounters with Oracle-like beings, and the Merovingian is... well, being the Merovingian (i.e. making the most profit out of all this mess) and flirting with the female Oligarch.

*peeks in, takes notes, leaves*

I've personally written off the entire Oligarch story, as it was utter trash in my opinion.  So, for me, I'm back to chapter eight fighting a war.

I've explained to myself that Niobe, Ghost, Colt, etc. have been assigned positions within Zion Command at New Zion, which leaves the operatives to remain active in the Matrix, and each faction leader is their own Field Commander.  Occasionally, Niobe and Ghost make it out of New Zion and try to speak with operatives (ie, graduation missions).

No idea how to explain the Agents, though.  I suppose if people don't want war, you could say that the Oligarch construct was their means of accessing the Matrix...  now that it has been destroyed by various operatives, they no longer can bother us.  The Machines and Zion agree to another uneasy truce, Agents are called off, and we're back in a cold war.

There are a few of us who feel that the game can't support a war. It's just not feasible given the fact that nothing changes, no ground can be won or lost, the real damage happens outside the game (Zion/01) and without the One, the Machines would likely crush Zion.

So, to war or not to war? That is the question. 

ShiXinFeng wrote:

There are a few of us who feel that the game can't support a war. It's just not feasible given the fact that nothing changes, no ground can be won or lost, the real damage happens outside the game (Zion/01) and without the One, the Machines would likely crush Zion.

So, to war or not to war? That is the question. 

That's a very good point.  It's just sad that the game really doesn't support war, as chapter eight was by far one of the best and most interesting chapters we've had.

Personally, I'm not keen on bringing back the war, but I think players should be allowed to make that decision for themselves and other should respect that: if people want to bring back the war, they're welcome to it, but if others don't want to they should be given space to carry out their ideas, as long as they're feasible. Sieges might be a self-styled Merovingian Paladin, but she is as much a creator as a warrior, and she's got some huge plans to try and renew the Real. Outpost Segur was a start, and her real dream is to find the way to unscorch the sky or at least part of it...

ShiXinFeng wrote:

There are a few of us who feel that the game can't support a war. It's just not feasible given the fact that nothing changes, no ground can be won or lost, the real damage happens outside the game (Zion/01) and without the One, the Machines would likely crush Zion.

So, to war or not to war? That is the question. 

There are no game mechnics present in MxO that can accomodate war, the official story couldn't do anything with it for a reason, so player led stuff has no hope.

Everything we see when we log in makes sense only in the context of the scenario established at the end of Revolutions, there's still conflict, private agenda's, organisation powermongering, propagander, espionage, terrorism, and murder aplenty going on but it really needs to be at a scale that player events can realise, to encourage them to do so (hopefully with a few new toold to boot).

Equally without an ongoing story lets have the game use the few marketting tools it has left to best effect, let Moprheus resume his place awakening new redpills, represent the orgs by figures know to a wider set of folk than long term MxO players...

There's no way I'm writing off the Oligarch story. I think it's great.

I've never been a fan of the war because it should have ended long ago with the obliteration of old Zion and a permanent blockade around New Zion. I know this is all fiction, but having this war go on this long just isn't realistic.

Mind you, if we take it as read that - for whatever reason - the war has lasted this long, we can continue to draw it out because the Machines are too busy huddling together in preparation for the wrath of the Oligarchy (which'll probably never come) to take any decisive action against Zion. But as Zion has just as few options now as it ever has, neither side will make any progress and the war will continue to just sit there achieving nothing.

In short: if you're going to scrap anything, scrap the war.

Mmm, I can't write off the Oligarchs, either, as they had this whole "who watches the watchmen?" vibe going on that I found irresistable after we found out the whole backstory. I'm about to attempt rewatching The Animatrix: Second Rennaissence, and I don't think I'm going to see it quite the same way now that we have an idea of who was really pushing the buttons of both the Machines and the humans and pitting them against each other....

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Our current situation is what happened last. Namely, Ghost is protecting Trinity/BIP from two Oligarchs, the Cypherites are being all anti-Oligarch with anti-Oligarch codes, EPN has had some interesting encounters with Oracle-like beings, and the Merovingian is... well, being the Merovingian (i.e. making the most profit out of all this mess) and flirting with the female Oligarch.

This. At least for now.

Fen wrote:

I've personally written off the entire Oligarch story, as it was utter trash in my opinion.

Sucks to be you. It's there, deal with it.

I think the biggest thing we need to let go of is the concept of a dynamic, updating, progressing story. Most other MMO's drop an update or an expansion that provides content that propels the story. And then, until there is another update or expansion, the story stays static with the only variations coming in the form of player-run events or annual festival events.

If we consider as set-in-stone this concept for MxO, It'll be easier to adapt a widely palatable explanation for the current (perpetual) state of the Matrix. 

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Fen wrote:

I've personally written off the entire Oligarch story, as it was utter trash in my opinion.

Sucks to be you. It's there, deal with it.

It sucks to be me because I don't buy into a ridiculous plotline?  I'm sorry if it takes a little more than all-powerful bubblegum and wireframe people who are chasing a resurrected glowing code woman to interest me.

I mean, have you actually watched and enjoyed the Matrix films?  Or are you one of these people that want transforming mecha in the Mega City and vampires in the Real?  Come on.

ShiXinFeng wrote:

I think the biggest thing we need to let go of is the concept of a dynamic, updating, progressing story. Most other MMO's drop an update or an expansion that provides content that propels the story. And then, until there is another update or expansion, the story stays static with the only variations coming in the form of player-run events or annual festival events.

If we consider as set-in-stone this concept for MxO, It'll be easier to adapt a widely palatable explanation for the current (perpetual) state of the Matrix. 

I think the thing that would be difficult with that view, is just simply because of how we've experienced MxO thus far.  The static story in other games is what has always made them hard to roleplay in.  If you want to roleplay the story, you're pretty limited to enjoying it only with people that are at the same point in the story as you are.

The Oligarch story made perfect sense, actually. What, you don't believe that there could be people that would betray the rest of humanity just to get rich and get on good terms with an army of angry, sentient, and intelligent robots?

As for now... Well, the machines have sacked the weaker agents to cut some ressource usage. Perhaps they are saving up power for something, like assemling more sentinels for anti-oligarch defense or somewhat.

The new oligarchs didn't find anything and left. They left some programs in Union Hill white hallss though, perhaps to passively dig some data for them while theyre gone.

Machine redpills are busy getting rid of them and the remainder of the overrides.

Zion redpills are bored, hovercrafts ascend to broadcast range only to extract and train recruits.

Merv is depserate for a dispute to exploit. His redpills jack in only to get their cranial jacks sore from all the EJPing around Mara hardlines.

Dull times indeed.

Fen wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Fen wrote:

I've personally written off the entire Oligarch story, as it was utter trash in my opinion.

Sucks to be you. It's there, deal with it.

It sucks to be me because I don't buy into a ridiculous plotline?  I'm sorry if it takes a little more than all-powerful bubblegum and wireframe people who are chasing a resurrected glowing code woman to interest me.

I mean, have you actually watched and enjoyed the Matrix films?  Or are you one of these people that want transforming mecha in the Mega City and vampires in the Real?  Come on.

Seriously if an official storyline were to continue it should be set a couple years from now, a while after the whole Oligarch story arc, long after they're gone.  And the whole "Two Matrixes" idea in Ch. 14 should be scrapped.

Either that, or we all go back to Ch. 1, and everyone wakes up and says, "Oh, it was all a crazy dream!"

Fen wrote:

It sucks to be me because I don't buy into a ridiculous plotline?  I'm sorry if it takes a little more than all-powerful bubblegum and wireframe people who are chasing a resurrected glowing code woman to interest me.

Yes. Yes, it does suck.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's stupid, too (if I were suddenly given charge of the storyline I'd write them out within two sub-chapters). But we're stuck with it. We'll have to deal with what we're given with until we can move on past it.

Fen wrote:

I mean, have you actually watched and enjoyed the Matrix films?  Or are you one of these people that want transforming mecha in the Mega City and vampires in the Real?  Come on.

lolzrage

[This post has been edited upwards of 20 times within 5 minutes. Personal record!]

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Fen wrote:

It sucks to be me because I don't buy into a ridiculous plotline?  I'm sorry if it takes a little more than all-powerful bubblegum and wireframe people who are chasing a resurrected glowing code woman to interest me.

Yes. Yes, it does suck.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's stupid, too (if I were suddenly given charge of the storyline I'd write them out within two sub-chapters). But we're stuck with it. We'll have to deal with what we're given with until we can move on past it.

Fen wrote:

I mean, have you actually watched and enjoyed the Matrix films?  Or are you one of these people that want transforming mecha in the Mega City and vampires in the Real?  Come on.

lolzrage

[This post has been edited upwards of 20 times within 5 minutes. Personal record!]

Alright.  I like you again Zippy. 

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Seriously if an official storyline were to continue it should be set a couple years from now, a while after the whole Oligarch story arc, long after they're gone.  And the whole "Two Matrixes" idea in Ch. 14 should be scrapped.

Either that, or we all go back to Ch. 1, and everyone wakes up and says, "Oh, it was all a crazy dream!"

It would be so easy to jump over this little hump that is the Oligarch story. I'm not going into specifics without turning this into the kind of thread the OP warned against, but suffice it to say there are very simplistic ways to quickly end a storyline and start a new one (see: Unlimit, but this time the remnants stick around a little longer).

Let's say, though, for the sake of the overpowering stench of negativity rotting these boards to the core, that we don't get a new storyline director for a while or ever. Thusly, the developers left over would be remiss if they didn't at least set up our current situation so that it at least sits well.

Let's say... okay, we have a pair of Oligarchs permanently hunting the BIP. We have Cypherites permanently seeking anti-Override weapons. We have Zion searching both for a way to be rid of the Oligarchs and have some advantage over the Machines, and we have Machines doing pretty much the same thing against Zion. Now, I don't know about you, but that smells of Collector potential to me. I don't really know what to  do about the Merv or EPN, but for the sake of argument, let's say the Merv is trying to ally with the Oligarchs and EPN is obsessed with either finding the Oracle, Mauser, recruting the Morpheus Sim, or finding an answer to the Oracle codes, or whatever the hell you want!

If I wanted to say, hypothetically, that we'll never see a good storyline update again, let's set up PvP/PvE/Mish Collectors based on the story we're stuck in now.

Oligarch collector(s) giving away Override codes for doing things,

Cypherite collector giving away anti-Override codes,

EPN collector giving away, hell, I don't know... EPN-themed items like specialised code bombs or synthesised Oracle codes like cookies and s***;

Zion/Machine clothing collectors (think Area K-esque) that are generally opposite each other,

And... Merv does something too, I guess... Override abilities or special Override sims or ... whatever, brain's fizzliez right now.

The war was never concluded. It's still going on. Everyone's distracted by the oligarchs for whatever reason, though.

That whole thing was previously explained away.

Kid and EPN are getting ready to go back into the No-Fly Zone for some reason.

No one knows what's on the encrypted disks.

No one knows where Sati and Seraph are.

No one knows what Mauser was.

No one knows where the Morpheus Simulacrum currently is.

No one knows if Morpheus is really dead.

No one knows if Neo is really dead.

No one knows if Trinity is really dead.

Given the last real event with EPN, no one knows if the Oracle is really dead.

Also, I guess, no one knows if the Trainman is really dead.

No one knows how many oligarchs there are.

There's that thing with the Novalis II that I don't know much about.

No one really knows how Danielle Wright was getting into the Matrix.

No one really knows what the androids were, or where all of the oligarch installations are.

No one really knows what the Trinity thing is, or is going to do, though it's mimicking Trinity.

There's more I could whip up, I'm sure.

Fen wrote:

ShiXinFeng wrote:

There are a few of us who feel that the game can't support a war. It's just not feasible given the fact that nothing changes, no ground can be won or lost, the real damage happens outside the game (Zion/01) and without the One, the Machines would likely crush Zion.

So, to war or not to war? That is the question. 

That's a very good point.  It's just sad that the game really doesn't support war, as chapter eight was by far one of the best and most interesting chapters we've had

Perhaps more evident than before that the war takes place, in essence, within each individual.

Also, if one side or the other were to win the "war" via complete destruction of the other; would not that discount the feasibility of redpills being active within the Simulation?

MatrixRefugee wrote:

Personally, I'm not keen on bringing back the war, but I think players should be allowed to make that decision for themselves and other should respect that: if people want to bring back the war, they're welcome to it, but if others don't want to they should be given space to carry out their ideas, as long as they're feasible. Sieges might be a self-styled Merovingian Paladin, but she is as much a creator as a warrior, and she's got some huge plans to try and renew the Real. Outpost Segur was a start, and her real dream is to find the way to unscorch the sky or at least part of it...

Also, this.

I think player based roleplay can be a very important method and mechanism to allow us to explore the boundaries of not only our individual and collective creativity and imagination but also that of the Matrix. That is until, such theories and hypothesis as reinsertion are seemingly disproved.

I've watched the Matrix trilogy and played the games, watched the stories etc.. and you know what? It's science fiction... just like whole Oligarch storyline. The concept of a group of 'Humans' having more power than the Machines would like them to have and to look for something within the matrix is completely within the realms of the world the Wachowski's made.

If the only reason why people dislike that part of the story is because of nasty nasty wireframe people and 'bubblegum' people then get over it. We know what the design limits of MxO are and at least these guys were somewhat different to what we usually see in the game.

The concept is excellent, the story itself was pretty good, the implementation of Oligarch and override representation was ok for what was needed.

Perhaps the addition of Trinity actually being the BIP was a little much and seemed to be an attempt at tying up a loose end but the Halborn and Carlyne aspect was a good distraction from the 'war' which has already been pointed out as not really supportable. Unfortunately a large aspect of the overall Oligarch story was also based outside the game world too which may not have been ideal with the 'war' beforehand with the same issue. This lead to a long time where gameplay and story were too independant from each other to keep people engaged. So I believe it would have been better if the restart of the war and the Oligarch storyline were 3 or 4 chapters apart.

But it happened and unless people were thinking of starting the story after the Oligarchs any RP would have to wrap it up convincingly or at least conceed that it's still current.

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Oligarch collector(s) giving away Override codes for doing things,

Cypherite collector giving away anti-Override codes,

Wright drops Accel and Decel bits for sure, and I never got confirmation from Rare on Runtimes. Terminator bits would be cool to get.

We have a Cypherite collector named Neglect with the Anti-Overrides, but he will trade with anyone.

Personally? I would like to take chapters 12-14 has having happened and we're living post-second truce and our main concerns are exiles, renegade redpills and any other external parties that our RP can invent.

Still, I can see the possiblity for RP in any stage of the story, as long as all participating parties are aware of the timeframe.

I take Chapters 1-14 as cannon, and I really like the Oligarchy story. Ultimately, though, what can be considered "cannon" will come down to individual opinion.

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Seriously if an official storyline were to continue it should be set a couple years from now, a while after the whole Oligarch story arc, long after they're gone.  And the whole "Two Matrixes" idea in Ch. 14 should be scrapped.

Either that, or we all go back to Ch. 1, and everyone wakes up and says, "Oh, it was all a crazy dream!"

It would be so easy to jump over this little hump that is the Oligarch story. I'm not going into specifics without turning this into the kind of thread the OP warned against, but suffice it to say there are very simplistic ways to quickly end a storyline and start a new one (see: Unlimit, but this time the remnants stick around a little longer).

Let's say, though, for the sake of the overpowering stench of negativity rotting these boards to the core, that we don't get a new storyline director for a while or ever. Thusly, the developers left over would be remiss if they didn't at least set up our current situation so that it at least sits well.

Let's say... okay, we have a pair of Oligarchs permanently hunting the BIP. We have Cypherites permanently seeking anti-Override weapons. We have Zion searching both for a way to be rid of the Oligarchs and have some advantage over the Machines, and we have Machines doing pretty much the same thing against Zion. Now, I don't know about you, but that smells of Collector potential to me. I don't really know what to  do about the Merv or EPN, but for the sake of argument, let's say the Merv is trying to ally with the Oligarchs and EPN is obsessed with either finding the Oracle, Mauser, recruting the Morpheus Sim, or finding an answer to the Oracle codes, or whatever the hell you want!

If I wanted to say, hypothetically, that we'll never see a good storyline update again, let's set up PvP/PvE/Mish Collectors based on the story we're stuck in now.

Oligarch collector(s) giving away Override codes for doing things,

Cypherite collector giving away anti-Override codes,

EPN collector giving away, hell, I don't know... EPN-themed items like specialised code bombs or synthesised Oracle codes like cookies and s***;

Zion/Machine clothing collectors (think Area K-esque) that are generally opposite each other,

And... Merv does something too, I guess... Override abilities or special Override sims or ... whatever, brain's fizzliez right now.

Oh Hell to the No.    Being stuck forever at 12.1 would be like being stuck forever in 5.2.

The best part about Rare leaving?  No more World of MatrixCraft mindless, pointless quests for crappy clothes with crappy buffs that do nothing besides (in rare cases) look sorta interesting (like Executable Mask or Female Blood Noble Shirt); or just clog up inventory/email space.

Not that I'm opposed to collectors; just not linked to the story.  Especially the middle of the Override story.   And not used as a substitute for dynamic content.  This is what got Rare into trouble IMHO.

Love the guy, hate the direction things took after Nov 2008.

I say move forward on move on beyond Chapter 14.  Let the Oligarchs die off.

So it looks like theres 3 main suggestions popping up:

• Chapter 8, perpetual war, before the Oligarchs.
• Chapter 12.1, perpetual limbo with the current situation.
• Chapter 15, post-Rarebit's outlines.

Now the question is which one should "the devs" mark as "official", because lets be honest, we'll never agree among ourselves.

cloudwolf wrote:

• Chapter 15, post-Rarebit's outlines.

I like this idea

Fen wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Fen wrote:

I've personally written off the entire Oligarch story, as it was utter trash in my opinion.

Sucks to be you. It's there, deal with it.

It sucks to be me because I don't buy into a ridiculous plotline?  I'm sorry if it takes a little more than all-powerful bubblegum and wireframe people who are chasing a resurrected glowing code woman to interest me.

I mean, have you actually watched and enjoyed the Matrix films?  Or are you one of these people that want transforming mecha in the Mega City and vampires in the Real?  Come on.

yes. yes i have. The Movies ended.

Did you miss the part where the Bro's approved of this overall storyline? Get over it. Just because it doesn't interest YOU, doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

That being said, to return to the thread point, I think the discussion so far should answer your question.

There is and will be NO CONCENSUS on what the story situation is. It sucks, but the story is officially limbo'd. It has been dropped dead, at least IN GAME, and there will likely be noone to officially take it over.

I say that people just deal. It happens. Everyone can make up their own ending, and live their happy little dream. In many ways, those people that didn't like the Official story can now make up whatever they want, and this should make them, well, less unhappy I hope. If the story had actually continued thru the proposed chapters, all kinds of people would be griping on and on, about how "da story isn't Matrix-y to meh."

Maybe now we can all move on? It actually sucks more for people like me, because I liked the story overall, and we will not get any of it as content.

So yeah, to sum up, I'll add choice four to Cloud's list:

• The story has no official anything regarding this abrupt transition. It is what it is, and let eveyone make up their own d**n minds what it means and what happens.

I don't think anyone is going to be able to erase what has already passed.  I think the best way to move forward is from 12.1 with Rarebit's notes in mind as 'an alternate future which never happened' or at least hasn't happened yet.  The structure of the world as written by Rarebit is sound enough and there's no point in saying 'oh, it sounds silly, let's make up something else'. 

Chapter 15 FTW.  Set long after the events of Ch. 14, when Oligarchs and Unlimits are a distant memory.    A return to the balance of power back in Chaper 1.  An uneasy stalemate.  With many of the main characters gone or in hiding.   A fresh start.  A new beginning.

cloudwolf wrote:

• Chapter 15, post-Rarebit's outlines.

As Villemar said, a fresh start.

Tough to say where I would personally like things to go from this point as I was generally enjoying the Oligarch storyline and had Rare not decided to leave, I think it would have been quite epic to play through the storyline as he imagined it.  That's not to say that I loved every aspect of the Oligarchs, of course, but the story was set in motion and it was moving well towards an interesting conclusion.

The biggest problem right now is that things are frozen mid action and that may never change. 

In any case, I would like to see the Oligarchs removed from the storyline if not the game world (for several reasons, first of which Chapter 12.1 would break and second it would remove a cool challenge to tackle).  It would be perhaps too difficult to go back in time and pretend the Oligarchs never happened, so we could cook up a quick end to this story arc that doesn't end anywhere near as definitely as Rare's story did.

Another option would be to simply start all over again, or at least go far enough back to avoid all of the Real world stuff that has taken over the storyline for quite some time.

Either way, we'd be left in essentially the same place.. a relatively static world braced by the tension of a cold war (or recently broken truce) with the Merv trying to profit as he best see's fit.

- Everything that happened before and leading up to 12.1, has actually happened (whether we like it or not).

- Everything that happens beginning at and following 12.2 hasn't happened, and therefore has not been written in stone.  What Rarebit posted was essentially an "Alternate Ending" to what could happen now... which could very well be much more epic, for all we know.

- Discussion settled.

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Oh Hell to the No.    Being stuck forever at 12.1 would be like being stuck forever in 5.2.

Caution: wall of text below. See tl;dr version below.

What are you going to do about it? Tell me, what? What the f*** are you going to do about it?! What can you do about it?

If we are officially told that there will be no official or recognized continuation of the story, we will always be left at 12.1, there's not a f***ing thing you can do to change that, so being a whiny little b**** isn't going to solve anyone's problems.

You can go ahead and dream that things are peachy and that the story has magically leaped and flew away from its current stopping point, but when you wake up, and trust me, you will wake up, and it will be a crashing sort of feeling, it'll still be there, and then what?

Tell me what you are going to do.

All this bull**** about *mockingly*"let's move on, drag out a bunch of silly little plot holes and just sit somewhere else" is just plain re*****d, and I'm going to start treating everyone who keeps making these stupid little comments and trying to *mockingly* live off in their little happy place as such until you pull your head out of the clouds, take that rusty jack, shove it back into your neck, and go back to this nightmare.

.......

I'm sorry I'm being so rash, but I... can't stand trying to keep a positive outlook on everything when everyone else is intent on throwing all sense and optimism out the window just because we had a little stronger downpour than before.

[instert "this is just a game" comment, random jokes, laughing kitty, etc.]

We need to work through this, not just ignore it. (Now remember that I'm speaking on the hypothetical that we'll never see another story Dev again) We can't just erase the Oligarch stories and jump backwards in time to a forever war, because it's unbelievable. What happened happened, and can't unhappen.

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

And, if we can say that there's not going to be a new story developer, but we still have access to the others, we should work to their strengths and what they can do for us. I'm not bashing any developer, but I don't know how extensive their abilities on story telling are, or what exactly they do for the game, so my suggestions are to simply create updateable collectors that rely on Update Patched new mobs or missions that give pretty little awards that make you look special, can do special things, or help you in PvP.

Do what you can, with what you have, and stop dreaming about what you should have, or what you could do. There's too many "If if ifs" flying about. Until something tangible happens, I'm gonna work with what "is is is."

tl;dr: I strongly disapprove of your attitude regarding handling the storyline and respectfully assert that we need to work with what we have, not what we don't or should.

EDIT:

cloudwolf wrote:

So it looks like theres 3 main suggestions popping up:

• Chapter 8, perpetual war, before the Oligarchs.
• Chapter 12.1, perpetual limbo with the current situation. *shifty eyes*
  
• Chapter 15, post-Rarebit's outlines.

Now the question is which one should "the devs" mark as "official", because lets be honest, we'll never agree among ourselves.

Essentially this, he says with a chuckle.

Phrack wrote:

- Everything that happened before and leading up to 12.1, has actually happened (whether we like it or not).

- Everything that happens beginning at and following 12.2 hasn't happened, and therefore has not been written in stone.  What Rarebit posted was essentially an "Alternate Ending" to what could happen now... which could very well be much more epic, for all we know.

- Discussion settled.

This pretty much sums up what I was trying to say.

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

Says who? Rare's notes on the end of the Oligarchy story seem pretty conclusive to me. With that whole issue out of the way, everybody could get back to the fighting they were doing beforehand.

monkeymanx8 wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

Says who? Rare's notes on the end of the Oligarchy story seem pretty conclusive to me. With that whole issue out of the way, everybody could get back to the fighting they were doing beforehand.

You cannot just dump the storyline we're in now and skip ahead. You just can't. Few people are gonna go for it. Jacking in one day to see a MOTD "Welcome to Chapter 15. It's been several months since blah blah blah and this has happened and now we're doing this" will definitely p*ss people off. Or is it just me? Am I the only one who wouldn't want to see this thing brought to an end in its entirety?

It just seems stupid to me. But hey, if I'm the only one thinking this, I'll back off, completely.

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

monkeymanx8 wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

Says who? Rare's notes on the end of the Oligarchy story seem pretty conclusive to me. With that whole issue out of the way, everybody could get back to the fighting they were doing beforehand.

You cannot just dump the storyline we're in now and skip ahead. You just can't. Few people are gonna go for it. Jacking in one day to see a MOTD "Welcome to Chapter 15. It's been several months since blah blah blah and this has happened and now we're doing this" will definitely p*ss people off. Or is it just me? Am I the only one who wouldn't want to see this thing brought to an end in its entirety?

It just seems stupid to me. But hey, if I'm the only one thinking this, I'll back off, completely.

1.  Remember Rare is the one who threw a complete storyline dump at us and bailed.  Its not our fault we're in the situation we're in.

2.  A good storyteller(s) can provide closure from one era (Chadwick, Chaimberlain) to bring us to another.  For example, provide runthroughs of Chapters 12.2 through 14 via The Sentinal, at a brisk pace; and/or other mechanisms for getting us from here to there fairly quickly.

As far as I see it, everything that's happened post chapter 8 is side story and can be summed up fairly simply. I've done it in my own notes.

The state of war between humanity and the machines, I do not see going away without a considerable deal of grief, agony, and conflict.

I accept that 9-12.1 happened, because it was put into the game. I don't like it, but it happened.

12.2 and beyond never happened, and in my eyes, are disgusting. Gold hallways? Blah. Trinity-Player super fusion-ha super saiyan power go? No. Two Matrices? No way in hell. Peace? I don't buy it.

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

monkeymanx8 wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

Says who? Rare's notes on the end of the Oligarchy story seem pretty conclusive to me. With that whole issue out of the way, everybody could get back to the fighting they were doing beforehand.

You cannot just dump the storyline we're in now and skip ahead. You just can't. Few people are gonna go for it. Jacking in one day to see a MOTD "Welcome to Chapter 15. It's been several months since blah blah blah and this has happened and now we're doing this" will definitely p*ss people off. Or is it just me? Am I the only one who wouldn't want to see this thing brought to an end in its entirety?

It just seems stupid to me. But hey, if I'm the only one thinking this, I'll back off, completely.

You wanna know what I want? I want Rarebit to stay onboard MxO. I want him to stay with the direction the story is going now, and go with that all the way to the end of Chapter 14, because I want to experience the Oligarchy story as best as possible.

Wanting is a wonderful thing, but the reality is that Rarebit's leaving, the story has already been dropped right infront of us, and sh1t is hitting the fan. If we ever want to do anything more with the MxO story, we either need to be given the resources to continue from 12.1 (extremely unlikely), or work with what we have. I don't like the idea of abandoning the story where it is now much more than you do, but I don't think there's much more we can do with it on our own at this point. You're most definitely not the only one thinking the way you are, but we just aren't capable of bringing a proper ending to the Oligarchy story.

Phrack wrote:

- Everything that happened before and leading up to 12.1, has actually happened (whether we like it or not).

- Everything that happens beginning at and following 12.2 hasn't happened, and therefore has not been written in stone.  What Rarebit posted was essentially an "Alternate Ending" to what could happen now... which could very well be much more epic, for all we know.

- Discussion settled.

Rarebit said his "alternate ending" was approved by the Wachowski Bros. Regardless of whether it was truly executed, it's really a matter of opinion on whether you consider 12.2 and on to be canon. A lot of people would consider the W Bros' say-so to be absolute regarding The Matrix's story.

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

monkeymanx8 wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

Says who? Rare's notes on the end of the Oligarchy story seem pretty conclusive to me. With that whole issue out of the way, everybody could get back to the fighting they were doing beforehand.

You cannot just dump the storyline we're in now and skip ahead. You just can't. Few people are gonna go for it. Jacking in one day to see a MOTD "Welcome to Chapter 15. It's been several months since blah blah blah and this has happened and now we're doing this" will definitely p*ss people off. Or is it just me? Am I the only one who wouldn't want to see this thing brought to an end in its entirety?

It just seems stupid to me. But hey, if I'm the only one thinking this, I'll back off, completely.

It would seem a bit short-changed and little rushed, but that's just me saying it. I like the outline that we have for Chapters 12.2-14, and while it might be a bit spoilery, I'd still like to see it fleshed out. I'd be a litte "huh? What happened? where are we going now?" if we glossed over the next six months or so of storyline. Blacking out for that long is a bit unrealistic (even for science fiction), since that would have to cover the whereabouts of the entire playerbase for that amount of time...

monkeymanx8 wrote:

Wanting is a wonderful thing, but the reality is that Rarebit's leaving, the story has already been dropped right infront of us, and sh1t is hitting the fan. If we ever want to do anything more with the MxO story, we either need to be given the resources to continue from 12.1 (extremely unlikely), or work with what we have. I don't like the idea of abandoning the story where it is now much more than you do, but I don't think there's much more we can do with it on our own at this point. You're most definitely not the only one thinking the way you are, but we just aren't capable of bringing a proper ending to the Oligarchy story.

...

Well first off, don't repeat what I've been saying back to me as an argument.

Secondly, "work with what we have" does not equal "ditch what we have and make something new."

psilody wrote:

Did you miss the part where the Bro's approved of this overall storyline? Get over it. Just because it doesn't interest YOU, doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

Guess what? That was a lie. The Brothers haven't had anything to do with this game since they gave Chadwick an ok on a brief overview. And then Chadwick hasn't had anything to do with the story since he "left." Most of this recent stuff has just been Rarebit, who has a mediocre grasp of the Trilogy at best, making things up, with the occasional input from us in LESIG.

The Bros approve of this storyline as much as Philip K. D1ck(YES SOMEONE HAS THE LAST NAME D1CK STUPID WORD CENSOR) approves of the Next storyline.

MatrixRefugee wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

monkeymanx8 wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Likewise, we can't pretend that everyone blacked out for a year and all the Oligarch mess has been resolved and we're back into a shaky Cold War truce, because it's also extremely unbelievable, and there's too many plot holes that cannot be resolved by a thin recap.

Says who? Rare's notes on the end of the Oligarchy story seem pretty conclusive to me. With that whole issue out of the way, everybody could get back to the fighting they were doing beforehand.

You cannot just dump the storyline we're in now and skip ahead. You just can't. Few people are gonna go for it. Jacking in one day to see a MOTD "Welcome to Chapter 15. It's been several months since blah blah blah and this has happened and now we're doing this" will definitely p*ss people off. Or is it just me? Am I the only one who wouldn't want to see this thing brought to an end in its entirety?

It just seems stupid to me. But hey, if I'm the only one thinking this, I'll back off, completely.

It would seem a bit short-changed and little rushed, but that's just me saying it. I like the outline that we have for Chapters 12.2-14, and while it might be a bit spoilery, I'd still like to see it fleshed out. I'd be a litte "huh? What happened? where are we going now?" if we glossed over the next six months or so of storyline. Blacking out for that long is a bit unrealistic (even for science fiction), since that would have to cover the whereabouts of the entire playerbase for that amount of time...

Player Cinematics and Sentinal articles for 12.2 - 14. 

Oh and I'm sure you can manage to RP that.  You've probably already made up an RP story revolving around Patch Error -15.  

Foxxdie wrote:

psilody wrote:

Did you miss the part where the Bro's approved of this overall storyline? Get over it. Just because it doesn't interest YOU, doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

Guess what? That was a lie. The Brothers haven't had anything to do with this game since they gave Chadwick an ok on a brief overview. And then Chadwick hasn't had anything to do with the story since he "left." Most of this recent stuff has just been Rarebit, who has a mediocre grasp of the Trilogy at best, making things up, with the occasional input from us in LESIG.

So Rarebit decieved us all along.  And your evidence of this would be....? 

I'm sorry, who are you again?

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Foxxdie wrote:

psilody wrote:

Did you miss the part where the Bro's approved of this overall storyline? Get over it. Just because it doesn't interest YOU, doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

Guess what? That was a lie. The Brothers haven't had anything to do with this game since they gave Chadwick an ok on a brief overview. And then Chadwick hasn't had anything to do with the story since he "left." Most of this recent stuff has just been Rarebit, who has a mediocre grasp of the Trilogy at best, making things up, with the occasional input from us in LESIG.

So Rarebit decieved us all along.  And your evidence of this would be....? 

I'm sorry, who are you again? 

He_Who_Knows_And_Spreads_The_Truth_All_Over_The_Ignorant_World