In Development

Phrack wrote:

psilody wrote:

we need some numbers... like, how many trials we get, etc. I think there is still a lot of interest in this game, its just that people try it out, and see it dead as a door-nail, and don't stick around. I think we need to pitch them on the fact that if the game gets some love and attention, more of those trial people would stay.

*looks lovingly in Phluff's general direction*

I do believe our resident MxOSpace administrator has several numbers for us that might be of interest.

/phormalcurtsey 

Numbers?  Yes I have numbers.

I still get requests for trials on MxOSpace on an average of 5 per day (tonight I had 7), and have given out 1350 so far, and will continue to do so.  I currently have about -/+ 600 left... and was told there probably won't be anymore after that, because they are pushing the station launcher for trials.

And yes... we need something to keep these new players around.

Heck.  I'm going to say this here Phrack.  I'll put some cash into bulk buying some "Red Pills" if interested.  Just don't ask me how we would distribute them to everyone.

Archangel wrote:

Well, the way it was done in the Nuts to CBS campaign was by having the vendor (NutsOnline.com) setup an order page for those wishing to contribute. They'd contribute a bit of cash and it would all be pooled into a bulk order that would be shipped off and delivered all in one heaping delivery to CBS in New York.

Hmm.  OhNuts.com I hope you are taking note.  *nudge nudge

signed,

I'm still shocked all these years later and factions still can't own territories, so much unused land in MXO

Wish another company would buy MXO from sony and start making the right  changes

*slowly steps out of the shadows*

I love the fact that this community still tries to get this game noticed, when most others would of given up a long time ago... I'll do whatever I can to help! /sign

Ohhh, you guys are all getting together and fighting for teh matrix? Ohhhh m geeee really I love it, I do believe this was rarebits plan all along, his leaving has sparked the old fire in this community, something I haven't seen in quite sometime.

However, a fire that will never go out is something everyone knows is impossible, not to be negative or anything but letters to SOE with candy? I think someone should do some research and find out where the big wigs at soe live, send the candy and letters directly to them, and someone find rarebit's house and send him a box with a letter tellin him what he's done by leaving us, if this was done right, I think that if the head's of soe were given this gift by the community, it might do more then just sending it to the offices of soe.

IMO, this is a good idea, the way in which you act on the idea will be crutial, and is the real importance of any plan, so like I said, send it directly to the people that matter, not the SOE offices where all you will do is feed a couple mail room idiots and probly make a small mess with the letters.

So yea, I'll leave it on that note, and one more thing, if someone has the time and money to do this, and everyone in different cities around the US and even people in Europe went around and tried their best to get subs, in multiple ways, weither it be making posters and posting them around town, near schools or collages, weither it be going to over 100 other games forums and post about the matrix or just sending the letter and candy to soe, it's the combination of all these things and more that might get some attention, not just 1 single large event planned by a group of community members.

So Good luck to you all, I think it's great that you are all acctually trying "again", really brings a tear to my eye and once again the best of luck to this awsome community.

Ideed, operative, however, harrassment is one way to look at it, another is to look at it like, "we give you candy, joo pull some strings and get us more content and get more attention from soe kthx."

Rofl, are you guys being serious with the candy stuff? Noone will even attempt to open those letters with food in them, lol.

Stylish, but who gives a cr**. Otherwise, the website is a good enough idea, if only people had constructive ideas to post instead of "lolgief spawntools, i wanna rule maytricks". I still stand on my idea as to no story content revival attempt to be made, its pointless. Instead, focus on the things that might have a chance on holding a community together for a longer time period.

Hyperviolent wrote:

 I still stand on my idea as to no story content revival attempt to be made, its pointless. Instead, focus on the things that might have a chance on holding a community together for a longer time period.

The story is what kept most people playing or have you missed whats been happening to the community since Rare's new approach with lack of LE's and his subsequent departure meaning no storyline at all?

Even if a new official (read: story by a dev) storyline went in a different direction to Rare's plans, it's better than none at all.

Hyperviolent wrote:

Rofl, are you guys being serious with the candy stuff? Noone will even attempt to open those letters with food in them, lol.

Stylish, but who gives a cr**. Otherwise, the website is a good enough idea, if only people had constructive ideas to post instead of "lolgief spawntools, i wanna rule maytricks". I still stand on my idea as to no story content revival attempt to be made, its pointless. Instead, focus on the things that might have a chance on holding a community together for a longer time period.

The Live Events and Storyline is what held the community together this long.  Since it's gone away, a higher rate of people have quit, than ever before.

As it has been said before, and shall be said again...

Its gone. Over. We don't even know what chapter we are in now, some kind of weird metastasis period with agents no longer attacking unauthorized redpills. A new dev will need to begin fresh, and there will be too much confusion and false leads to accept a new unconnected story. People will ask - "What about that wireframe woman, how did she fit in this", the answers are going to be "She doesn't, we had another dev doing that." Utter confusion, old returning vets will have no clue at all. People have grown used to the state of affairs created by Rarebit, something that can naver be repeated, too big shoes to fill.

You know its true. You want evens, some want crits back -on the basis of what? Were left in the nowhere. And as the community has proven once and once again - Rarebit deviated from the main known characters and his work was instantly dubbed un-matrixy. What would a nev dev do? He can't just make gray send machinists to kill ebil zion terrorists again, we need a lead that some people can relate to. And a new lead created by someone just entering the mxo scene has all the potential to be non-matrixy, thus unpopular.

There is an example - there could be an expanding lead from the Valkyrijar story snippet. Some new quests about defuct sexy Agent Pace prototypes - hooray, existing fanbase can relate. Oh but wait where's Pace then? Last she was seen threatening Ghost in the override construct - oshi thats another story. Confusing.

Please, let it die. Lets just have some easy official open-ended closure on the story development. Say the Machines have retracted the weaker (lvl100) agents to save power, rumors are they are building sentinels. The Oligarchs didn't find the BIP and retreated indefinitely, the executables are passively datamining for them, Cyphs and machinists are getting rid of the override traces. Zionites retracted their field officers from the simulation, the thermal images have been scrapped. Merv is... bored, mervlings too. Put it on an official cliffhanger instead of doing nothing and leaving as-is after rarebit left.

Or better yet- extend the Anniversary event. Say Smith is coming back, doing bad stuff to the matrix, so all forgot about their problems with each others species and are fighting the virus. Let it run that way till the servers close, wich sure sounds not far away.

And as I have said before, if some people do try this and you decide for whatever reason not to, what will you lose by it?

I personally don't think anything will come by doing this, but at least I will know that I have tried something, no matter how insignificant. I really don't care if some people aren't going to bother, that's their choice, but why feel the need to dissuade other people from trying?

Might as well go along with it ^.^

Croesis wrote:

Sending the 'bigwigs' letters and some jelly beans at work is one thing, but sending them to where they live, where they lead their personal lives away from work is a bad idea imo. Especially if a good deal of people do it in which case the entire idea could be deemed harrassment or an invasion of privacy etc.. and in fact be detrimental to the desired outcome.

In fact I suggest that a list of actual departments or department heads be compiled and send it to their offices with a FAO tag. Plus I think that sending a few letters and jellybeans to SOE's Podcast department might be enough to get it mentioned on a podcast, it's a s!mall idea I know but attention is attention.

You Sir, are not thinking big enough! If its sent to thier homes, they will be scared I tells ya!, it will get them thinking, their kids and partners will ask questions....Maybe we can get together and protest like the Anom do outside scientology places. Maybe they would even help?

Viva La Revolution

(I coudlnt really be bothered to read the whole thead, but anything to do with getting MxO back on track is good, maybe an edit on the front page explaining where your at now with this Phrack?)

Ebola wrote:

give Player Event Teams and LESIG a chance

Would you like to know why this kind of organized effort wouldn't have worked two years ago?

Because people were screaming "give them a chance."

"Let's wait and see."  "Let's not do anything extreme, yet."  "Quit crying.  It'll get better...  we get another patch in a few days."

Well, we did all that... and look where we've ended up.  We're bitter, angry, and tearing each other apart in every thread that gets posts, because we end up taking it out on each other, purely because we have no idea how to send those feelings up the line to the people who could make a difference, and not have them ignored.

Well, this won't be ignored.  You have my word on that.  This is going to be a legitimate movement of (almost) every player, and every former player we can get our hands on, to get the attention of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment LLC, and any media outlet we can find.  We'll get the attention of the public, even if it's a look of confusion, and make people take notice.

Believe me, I have more of a game plan than just jellybeans and letters.

Sometime tonight, the site will go live.  If you still have contact with players that have left the game, send them a link to this thread.  If you have any skill in photoshop, put together signatures and avatars referencing the Redpill Alliance.  And if it fails, it fails...  but we can stand back and smile, knowing that we didn't go down without a fight.

I'll have letters for you to print, sign, and mail in.  I'll have a system set up, accepting donations for mass amounts of jellybeans to be purchased and shipped to SOE and WBIE.  I'll have contact information for people to write their own letters and send them out, petitions for people to sign, and so on.

If you don't like this effort, make your own...  or don't do anything at all.  But I, for one, would rather do this than continue as I have been.  Wouldn't you?

Mifune said it best, guys and girls.

But what do you want SOE to do exactly? Money matters to them, not people. Everyone cancelling their accounts at the same exact moment would probably have a better effect imo.

Ebola wrote:

But what do you want SOE to do exactly? Money matters to them, not people. Everyone cancelling their accounts at the same exact moment would probably have a better effect imo.

Wait for the site to go live Ebola.  I'm not taking a break from it until it does.

You'll see.

Well okay, it seems the main purpose of something like this is to get noticed. Nothing wrong with that.

There doesn't even have to be any ideas behind it, its just a cry for help, in the light of our powerlessness.

Will sign whatever forms, big deal.. Shouldn't just be a US thing, euro WB office contact info would be nice.

Hyperviolent wrote:

Well okay, it seems the main purpose of something like this is to get noticed. Nothing wrong with that.

There doesn't even have to be any ideas behind it, its just a cry for help, in the light of our powerlessness.

Will sign whatever forms, big deal.. Shouldn't just be a US thing, euro WB office contact info would be nice.

Concentration is good. Deconcentration isn't. 1000 letters to the central office is better than 200 to 5 different affiliated offices. 

In before legal papers telling you to cease and desist, and to have no further affiliation with Sony Online Entertainment?

letters to employees, or mass emails = bad idea. Just ask ininja.

Only option is if by some miracle another company offers to BUY MXO . The SONY corporate executives look at every one as cattle. If more players quit than more developers are fired. 

Investing more into a old game to them is throwing away money ~ yes I know they haven’t a clue

Wonder if CCP would like to buy us ? hehe

Bayamos wrote:

In before legal papers telling you to cease and desist, and to have no further affiliation with Sony Online Entertainment?

letters to employees, or mass emails = bad idea. Just ask ininja.

Another likely scenario. So what, just silence is among the best hopes here anyway.

What happened to the lad? Got in trouble for mail spam?

Oh and lol CCP. Yeah they've grown, but theyve got their hands full with EVE and the vampire mmo, trust me. I'd rather have them stay with EVE, at least that sandbox got potential that is completely in player's hands, which only seems to work with the huge population numbers they have.

You can add this to suggestions, I posted it to filefront:

Increase Population Suggestion

When you get to that point.  Let us know if we can do anything else. 

A year ago I would have said hell yes. A few months ago I could be convinced. Even 3 weeks ago I would be pumped up to do this. Right now, I think you're all delusional and should spend your money more wisely, especially with the economy crashing down around us.

Hell, it would be a better investment if we all pooled some money together and bought lottery tickets in a state with a large reward but small population and then bought MxO from SOE/WB if one of us won.

No amount of red jelly beans will turn this mess around now guys. You've gotta face the truth and either save your money and leave, or enjoy the game while you can. My last day, until the servers shut down for good and I say my goodbyes to the Matrix, is March 15th. If there's some miracle that rejuvenates the game, I'll give it a shot, but I'm not holding my breath and I'm not wasting my money. But I wish more of you would unsubscribe and let our baby die with whatever dignity it may have left.

LOL!!!!

I'm in!!! Just for the sheer epic WIN involved. No sense not trying!

/as

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Foxxdie wrote:

 whatever dignity it may have left.

Absolutely none! That's why "nothing to lose" is such an awesome phrase.

Edit: Oh, and boycotting? HA! Like 40 people (scuse, 39, like hell I'm gonna give up the Agency for you guys) not playing a game is gonna stop the other couple hundred thousand that will be interested at first, then dwindle away slowly like every other MMO out there so that Blizzard staff can stroke their e-peens.

Maybe you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about a boycott. That's silly and won't work. I'm just saying that you all should not waste your money. The economy is collapsing, the dollar is being destroyed, the world is in all likelyhood coming to an end. $15 x 12 months = $180 and that's enough for you to get a really nice hotel room and make sweet love to a fine woman.

But if you guys want to pay for a Matrix chatroom I can set one up and I'd only charge you $5 a month. That's a deal at twice the price.

Boycott will never work, NEVER in a million years. At most more SONY Dev people get fired and MXO is ignored by DEV 100% instead of 99%

I work for software company and I know CORP exec think. 

wish I could win the lotto and buy MXO away from sony. Hire a whole new dev and try to bring back some of the old good ones than follow EVE online and AO business Template. 

< dreams

Heh.  If I win the EuroMillions tonight I could do both.

Phrack wrote:

It is done.

And so it begins, ladies and gentlemen.

I gotta hand it to you, that's one hell of an attention-getter. Nicely done, Phrack.

ShiXinFeng wrote:

Phrack wrote:

It is done.

And so it begins, ladies and gentlemen.

I gotta hand it to you, that's one hell of an attention-getter. Nicely done, Phrack.

Thanks.  It's nothing special, as I'm no major graphic artist, and my html skills are sub-par...   also, the ad at the top gets on my nerves, but it serves its purpose.  Now let's see what we can do with it, shall we?

narfcrow wrote:

3. Bluepills have been pouring out of Uriah NE non-stop, illustrating a large number of players who have dropped their subs and replaced them with trial keys.  (See # 1. above)

Proposal: Eliminate free-trial key subscriptions.  Reduce monthly fees for MxO for those players not using StationPass. 

    Since many MxOers have dropped their subs and replaced them with free trial keys, keys are a revenue-negative venture for SOE.  Eliminating the trial keys altogether and allowing long-time MxOers to pay less per month to continue their RP stories, have an occassional PvP, or even attempt to reassemble their old factions has the possibility of being a revenue-positive move for them.

Incorrect.

The trial key program is for REAL new players, and I don't give out trial keys to people who have requested them before.  Do a few slip through?  Probably.  But 99% are new players.  Period.  So your claim of 'many' is incorrect.

Also, SOE has the station launcher, that also gives free trials of all the online games.  They're not going to discontinue that.  But the trial keys are coming to an end after what I have are gone.  AND, with a trial key OR the Station Launcher trail program, existing players would HAVE to start with a new charactor.  They can not continue with their main RSI.

Ending any type of trial program is the wrong thing to do.  We WANT people to try MxO for free.  Making them pay to even begin would be catastrophic.

That said... I agree with reducing or eliminating the subscription fee, but only if we're not getting any new content.  But taking away free trials would be totally wrong.

ShiXinFeng wrote:

Phrack wrote:

It is done.

And so it begins, ladies and gentlemen.

I gotta hand it to you, that's one hell of an attention-getter. Nicely done, Phrack.

Phantastic stuff!  It's obvious you put a hell of a lot of work into that!

Now.... we have to USE it.  It's up to us.

This is the first time I've felt inspired enough to post on this board.

Something that might be of help is to look to those who have done projects similar to this.

www.starmen.net is a  community for the minor Super Nintendo hit EarthBound and over the past ten years they have organized various campaigns to get Nintendo to give more reconnection to the series and although it was never officially released in America a third game in the series did come out.


Here is a link that gives a list of the various letter campaigns/projects they have tried in the past:

http://starmen.net/stonehenge/


As most of us are I'm not in the best place financially speaking, but who ever said doing the right thing was cheap, time or money wise? Anything worth doing takes an investment and sacrifice.

I understand people being negative and people just wanting to troll about this idea. That is fine, you have freedom to express yourself. It's just to some of us MXO is more than just a silly game or franchise. It is more than Live Events, PVP or RP...it's a community, a group of friends and a family. I don't want to see that community die through apathy.

My only request for the redpill website is could we have a forum put up there? I have a feeling SOE may react rather...negatively to our actions and I'm afraid people may just get banned or censored outright on here.

Thank you for taking the time to put this together.

-Nintene

Phrack wrote:

ShiXinFeng wrote:

I gotta hand it to you, that's one hell of an attention-getter. Nicely done, Phrack.

Thanks.  It's nothing special, as I'm no major graphic artist, and my html skills are sub-par...   also, the ad at the top gets on my nerves, but it serves its purpose.  Now let's see what we can do with it, shall we?

I agree, it looks excellent. Also, I was about to say I can't see any adverts but found it's Adblock plus on my Firefox blocking it so it looks sweet. Can't wait to see what becomes of the donations page.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the "Boycott...." sigs might cause Black Sony Helicopters to hone in on your signal and drop Sony commandos.

Just saying.....

El_Guapo wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I think the "Boycott...." sigs might cause Black Sony Helicopters to hone in on your signal and drop Sony commandos.

Just saying.....

Who said to boycott?  Who has a boycott sig?  O_O

Garu wrote:

El_Guapo wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I think the "Boycott...." sigs might cause Black Sony Helicopters to hone in on your signal and drop Sony commandos.

Just saying.....

Who said to boycott?  Who has a boycott sig? 

No, he's referring to the "BOYCOTT THE AGENCY" and "BOYCOTT DC UNIVERSE ONLINE" signatures that are available on the Support page of the website.

I like the page, gonna read it through tomorrow. Fetched myself a siggy though!

PhYI:  I'll be spreading the word via MxOSpace too. 

Very nice job on the site.

Phrack wrote:

Garu wrote:

El_Guapo wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I think the "Boycott...." sigs might cause Black Sony Helicopters to hone in on your signal and drop Sony commandos.

Just saying.....

Who said to boycott?  Who has a boycott sig? 

No, he's referring to the "BOYCOTT THE AGENCY" and "BOYCOTT DC UNIVERSE ONLINE" signatures that are available on the Support page of the website.

Yep...oh...gj btw

((Hears choppers in the foreground))

El_Guapo wrote:

Phrack wrote:

Garu wrote:

El_Guapo wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I think the "Boycott...." sigs might cause Black Sony Helicopters to hone in on your signal and drop Sony commandos.

Just saying.....

Who said to boycott?  Who has a boycott sig? 

No, he's referring to the "BOYCOTT THE AGENCY" and "BOYCOTT DC UNIVERSE ONLINE" signatures that are available on the Support page of the website.

Yep...oh...gj btw

((Hears choppers in the foreground))

We're all here to do, what we're all here to do.  

Phrack may your outstanding Web site serve as the mirror goo that, once you look at it, steadily overcomes you until you are sucked in completely!! And may MANY people both inside and outside of SOE and Warner Brothers succumb to its mind-liberating imprimatur!

I have a few suggestions for you. What server do you play on?

/as

P.S. You and Phluff seem like you are cut from the same cloth! or should I say "phabric"? XD

I haven't had a chance to go through the site, but the first page looks great.  I haven't kept up with this thread, so can someone tell me what we're actually asking SOE to do? (if the details are in the site then i will catch up when i get home later)

• Don't use the forums as staging grounds for planning disruptive activities or to promote general unrest in the form of sit-ins, polls, petitions, etc.

pe·ti·tion (p-tshn) n.

Nintene wrote:

I understand people being negative and people just wanting to troll about this idea. That is fine, you have freedom to express yourself. It's just to some of us MXO is more than just a silly game or franchise. It is more than Live Events, PVP or RP...it's a community, a group of friends and a family. I don't want to see that community die through apathy.

Completely seriously, 95% of the players that made "the community" for me have been gone from this game for a long time. There is no community anymore. There's some people that know each other of course, but without some purpose tying us together (in alliance or as enemies) and something to actually do, there is no community. Trust me man, I felt the same as you... two years ago. It's over. This isn't some symbolic statement, I'm not the Agent Smith to your Neo. This is just a poorly built, poorly marketed, poorly maintained, neglected game based on a franchise I really care about. Plenty of us ignored the signs for a long time, or just put them off to the side and enjoyed what we had. But these latest signs can't be ignored. The last (read: only) full-time developer on the game is gone. The "Producer" of the game has let a month slip by without even popping in to say "hey guys, here's the situation." We've barely even got a "hold on, explanation coming soon." I log on at several different times during the day, different days and it's always population low on all servers except Syntax. As early as this past summer most of the servers would average at population medium in the server browser. This game and the way it's been treated is an embarassment to Matrix fans, and an insult to us who have been here since beta. It needs to end.

Nintene wrote:

We all have to choose our paths or they will choose us.

Regardless of the outcome there is a light ahead for us all, if one chooses to see it.

What matters is the fight.

The battle.

The choice.

Being able to choose.

But thank you for sharing...I do appreciate you trying to help me save money on buying a lot of jelly beans...but I'm still going to do it. =)

Ughhhhh, this kind of faux-righteousness gives me a headache.

This isn't your life. This is a boring video game that's lost everything good about it. We can't do anything about it. Only money talks. 90% of all the people who would ever play this game have either played it and quit (never coming back until the servers are shut down), are currently still subscribed (obviously not many people at all), or have heard so much bad about it that they won't bother.

This is all I ask: Be conscience of what you are doing. Someone explain exactly what enticing features of this game would persuade people to try it at this point. Name one thing that would make someone turn away from WoW or EvE to play this game. I challenge anyone to name 10 features that would perform this miracle. You can't do it if you are honest in your assessment. No amount of marketing, jellybeans, or petitions will change this fact. Let me read off the features that were marketed to new players on the game box when MxO was released:

Continue the saga
Participate in the continuing story of the Matrix and become a part of Matrix history as you play through and experience events directed by the Wachowski Brothers.

Explore every inch of the Matrix: Mega City
Experience the most realistic urban environment of any MMO. The entire city, including every room of every building, is in play.

Master the innovative combat system
Defeat your enemies using devastating martial arts manuevers and gunplay. Breakthrough MMO technology produces rich animations and hyper-kinetic battle sequences.

Retain character flexibility
Escape character regret. Reconfigure your character's abilities and performance on demand.

Always stay connected
Communicate with people in and out of the game in real-time using AOL Instant Messenger technology.

Of those five, two have been REMOVED from the game, and the first two have blatant lies in them. The Bros. never had anything to do with the story or events other than an initial approval of Chadwick's ideas. And we all know that every room of every building is not "in play" even though there are only about 20 unique building structures. Even if they were, who cares, there's nothing to be found there. The only features that could actually be interesting to new players are the combat and ability systems. But without anything to do, they are useless besides PVPing the same 5 people at Mara. And even these systems are still broken. The perfect symbol for this game is to look at the Operative > Soldier ability tree slot for "Multi-fighting." After several years it still says "Ability Description: TBD (To be determined)."

Before you waste your money and time, really try to address why a person would want to pay $15/month and use their time to play a game with barely any current players, no further feature development, no further story development, utter neglect and incompetance by the owners, and where of the 6 letters of MMORPG the only one that consistently applies is Online.

Don't just do something to do something. Phrack, you know I love you man, but you were feeling the same way as me just a week ago. I think you feel like you have to do something because it's expected of you, or because the players have turned towards you. But I think your talents and money can be put to better use.

Phrack wrote:

Tseng. wrote:

• Don't use the forums as staging grounds for planning disruptive activities or to promote general unrest in the form of sit-ins, polls, petitions, etc.

pe·ti·tion (p-tshn) n.

1. A solemn supplication or request to a superior authority

just throwin it out there

Good thing we're not staging it here, then, right?

Just throwin' it out there.

yes just promoting  said staging ground