What I Really Think, Part One

Over on my blog, at manifoldmischief.blogspot.com, I've written some thoughts about where we are and how we got this way.  My own feelings on the subject, at least.  They're not here for several reasons, only one of which is their length. 

Sugaree, good blog. You forgot were Brewko banned players for standing on the Awning at the Mara sw hardline. Lest, i think it was Sw...havent been in game awile.

Ic3b3rg wrote:

Sugaree, good blog. You forgot were Brewko banned players for standing on the Awning at the Mara sw hardline. Lest, i think it was Sw...havent been in game awile.

You are absolutely right.  But I just had to stop _some_where...

"Brewko banned"..."Brewko banned"...let me count the ways..is there enough time left in the world?

Ok maybe not the bannings, maybe the Trivia contests? I await part 2.

I know what MXO's been missing

Thank you for the time & thought you placed on this. Yeah I guess there's stuff I sorta overlooked in my love of the game and the memorable, in a good way, people that made it so for me.   

True words. 

The cold, hard truth...

Excellent blog and excellent points.

I cannot add more except it's such a shame games like this one who had such potiential is getting canned yet other crappy games are still floating around cyperspace.

I think the game was over once MXO switched to Sony.

This has to be one of the most balanced reports on What Went Wrong with MxO. It doesn't point fingers, but it does name the issues. Thank you for saying what needed to be said. I'm looking forward to Part 2.

Wow.

I wish i would have known about your blog years ago...thank you for speaking your mind and keeping such a wonderful summary of everything. =)

The way I see it is, if SOE had not bought the Matrix Online, we would of closed down in August of 2005. They took the initiative to buy a game that had already lost 20 million. I don't blame them for not putting a lot of money into the game. No business in their right mind would put money into a product that is not going to give them any profit back. That's like saying Microsoft should continue to update Windows 98 just because a few people still use it. Microsoft moves onto products that make them money like any other business does. SOE chose to keep Rarebit hired to continue development on the game for the past few years. I want to thank SOE for the last four years and I want to thank them for not giving up on us sooner, because I know they very well could have. A first impression lasts forever, and the Matrix Online did not get a good one. We can not blame SOE for what happened to this game, the fate of this game was decided before it was even launched.

ummm someone clue me in what does " Rarebit letting some twerp abuse the administrative console, costing him his job" mean?  What did I miss?

Mathalos wrote:

The way I see it is, if SOE had not bought the Matrix Online, we would of closed down in August of 2005. They took the initiative to buy a game that had already lost 20 million. I don't blame them for not putting a lot of money into the game. No business in their right mind would put money into a product that is not going to give them any profit back. That's like saying Microsoft should continue to update Windows 98 just because a few people still use it. Microsoft moves onto products that make them money like any other business does. SOE chose to keep Rarebit hired to continue development on the game for the past few years. I want to thank SOE for the last four years and I want to thank them for not giving up on us sooner, because I know they very well could have. A first impression lasts forever, and the Matrix Online did not get a good one. We can not blame SOE for what happened to this game, the fate of this game was decided before it was even launched.

kissing SOE's asss wont get you free stuff Seymour no matter how true your statement is.  Jk

Yea thats pretty much it though.  Money is what drives companies.  If for some crazy reason that MxO had gotten tons of people jumping on board to where they had to expand servers it would be a whole different ball game. 

It was fun playing this game but 5 years is a pretty good run for a game taht was "doomed to fail".  Could they have done more? Yea every company could have done more with products that just focus on a niche market if they had unlimited moneys.  SOE learn to sploit some cash next time.

Most of what you've stated is pretty spot on.  As for your remarks about the community, you're very quick to condenscend and point fingers, but fail to recognize that your own clan is also very much part of the fault for the degredation of the community.  Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.  And that's all I gotta say 'bout that.

But yes, SOE could definitely use a course on customer service all around.

Mathalos wrote:

The way I see it is, if SOE had not bought the Matrix Online, we would of closed down in August of 2005. They took the initiative to buy a game that had already lost 20 million. I don't blame them for not putting a lot of money into the game. No business in their right mind would put money into a product that is not going to give them any profit back. That's like saying Microsoft should continue to update Windows 98 just because a few people still use it. Microsoft moves onto products that make them money like any other business does. SOE chose to keep Rarebit hired to continue development on the game for the past few years. I want to thank SOE for the last four years and I want to thank them for not giving up on us sooner, because I know they very well could have. A first impression lasts forever, and the Matrix Online did not get a good one. We can not blame SOE for what happened to this game, the fate of this game was decided before it was even launched.

This is true as well.  There are many people to blame for what happened with MxO.  It can't all be left at the feet of SOE.

Just check the commentary on the news article at Kotaku for proof.  Disregarding the total idiots, half of the remaining comments are focused on the fact that these people didn't know the game was even still running.. which, as Math pointed out, probably wouldn't be the case without SOE (on both counts, the not knowing and the not still running).  The other half of the comments, however, are generally negative observations about having played or heard about the game back in Beta or shortly thereafter.  These people were disappointed enough by what they experienced or heard about that they never gave the game a chance.  While you can blame SOE for several things, they weren't the ones who created a disappointing game with impossible to live up to bullet points on it's box.

But Monolith isn't entirely to blame either.  Was it their fault that Reloaded was considered a lesser movie than The Matrix and that Revolutions was more or less a total dud in the eyes of the non-Matrix fanatic public?  If the trilogy as a whole had captured the public like the first Matrix film had, MxO may not have been a better product at launch, but it would have had a much bigger audience and more money and support would have been guaranteed.

-- Edited for some sloppy language usage

"And the biggest, baddest decision of _this_ year: Rarebit letting some twerp abuse the administrative console, costing him his job, costing MxO its single developer, and costing us our world. And a big shout out to the addled moron behind “nerfocelot”."

Uhh, what? What are you talking about? No player ever had access to the admin console. Rarebit left voluntarily due to personal issues and wasn't fired. And he already made his leaving announcement BEFORE nerfocelot was running around. Prior to nerfocelot, SOE had no idea of any sort of admin permissions issue.

"And anyone who’s tried to read 9mmfu’s Delphic posts will agree that communications has never been one of the qualities associated with the MxO team."

So if only 9mmfu had opened a spellchecker, MXO would have been saved? Rarebit spent years and literally hundreds of pages with ask the devs explaining nearly every question players had. What was there left for devs to tell us? If after five years you don't know what the buffs on your clothes do, that's not their fault. It's yours.

And the “CSR”s who run amok like Brewko, did little to encourage us. His captious, fractious, and flat-out wrong bannings were so irrational, so misguided, and so whimsical that I was frequently aghast.

When I went to FanFaire, the CSRs there said Brewko doesn't have the authority to actually ban people. Bannings are made through a chain of command and not by any one CSR. I'll take a few bad decisions anyday when you consider the ticket volume they get -- sometimes in the thousands per day.

“The community” was one of the reasons people endlessly trotted about when challenged as to why they stayed in the game. Now, looking back, I wonder what they were smoking. Where’s the community?

Members of your faction had a thriving culture based off of LESIG leaks, so it's baseless to try to take any high ground and spout rhetoric about the degredation of the community. If there's blame to go around for the death of MXO, everyone gets some.

Shinryu wrote:

Mathalos wrote:

The way I see it is, if SOE had not bought the Matrix Online, we would of closed down in August of 2005. They took the initiative to buy a game that had already lost 20 million. I don't blame them for not putting a lot of money into the game. No business in their right mind would put money into a product that is not going to give them any profit back. That's like saying Microsoft should continue to update Windows 98 just because a few people still use it. Microsoft moves onto products that make them money like any other business does. SOE chose to keep Rarebit hired to continue development on the game for the past few years. I want to thank SOE for the last four years and I want to thank them for not giving up on us sooner, because I know they very well could have. A first impression lasts forever, and the Matrix Online did not get a good one. We can not blame SOE for what happened to this game, the fate of this game was decided before it was even launched.

This is true as well.  There are many people to blame for what happened with MxO.  It can't all be left at the feet of SOE.

Just check the commentary on the news article at Kotaku for proof.  Disregarding the total idiots, half of the remaining comments are focused on the fact that these people didn't know the game was even still running.. which, as Math pointed at, probably wouldn't be the case without SOE (on both counts, the not knowing and the not still running).  The other half of the comments, however, are generally negative observations about having played or heard about the game back in Beta or shortly thereafter.  These people were disappointed enough by what they experienced or heard about that they never gave the game a chance.  While you can blame SOE for several things, they weren't the ones who created a disappointing game with impossible to live up to bullet points on it's box.

But Monolith isn't entirely to blame either.  Was it their fault that Reloaded was considered a lesser movie than The Matrix and that Revolutions was more or less a total dud in the eyes of the non-Matrix fanatic public?  If the trilogy as a whole had captured the public like the first Matrix film had, MxO may not have been a better product at launch, it would have had a much bigger audience and more money and support would have been guaranteed.

Agreed.  A lot of peoples' hesitation to play this are due to the common opinion of Reloaded and Revolutions, as well as the Matrix's notorious failures at games (Enter the Matrix, Path of Neo).  I think someone said before, "Who cares about a game that's based on a movie series no one cares about anymore?".  I think had the W Brothers pushed the franchise more (ie, more comics, more animated shorts, etc), we would've had a more successful game.  But the franchise essentially died with Revolutions.

I do hold some blame to SOE, however, at their lack of service and lack of professionalism towards the community.  Also, the lack of marketing.  But, I am thankful that MxO continued on, as I met some of the most important people in my life currently during SOE's reign.

Bayamos wrote:

"And the biggest, baddest decision of _this_ year: Rarebit letting some twerp abuse the administrative console, costing him his job, costing MxO its single developer, and costing us our world. And a big shout out to the addled moron behind “nerfocelot”."

Uhh, what? What are you talking about? No player ever had access to the admin console. Rarebit left voluntarily due to personal issues and wasn't fired. And he already made his leaving announcement BEFORE nerfocelot was running around. Prior to nerfocelot, SOE had no idea of any sort of admin permissions issue.

"And anyone who’s tried to read 9mmfu’s Delphic posts will agree that communications has never been one of the qualities associated with the MxO team."

So if only 9mmfu had opened a spellchecker, MXO would have been saved? Rarebit spent years and literally hundreds of pages with ask the devs explaining nearly every question players had. What was there left for devs to tell us? If after five years you don't know what the buffs on your clothes do, that's not their fault. It's yours.

And the “CSR”s who run amok like Brewko, did little to encourage us. His captious, fractious, and flat-out wrong bannings were so irrational, so misguided, and so whimsical that I was frequently aghast.

When I went to FanFaire, the CSRs there said Brewko doesn't have the authority to actually ban people. Bannings are made through a chain of command and not by any one CSR. I'll take a few bad decisions anyday when you consider the ticket volume they get -- sometimes in the thousands per day.

“The community” was one of the reasons people endlessly trotted about when challenged as to why they stayed in the game. Now, looking back, I wonder what they were smoking. Where’s the community?

Members of your faction had a thriving culture based off of LESIG leaks, so it's baseless to try to take any high ground and spout rhetoric about the degredation of the community. If there's blame to go around for the death of MXO, everyone gets some.

Bayamos, my respect for you, never small, has only grown with the awesome tools you’ve been recently sharing.  Let me respectfully, then, respond to some of your points.

1.  Nerfocelot.  You and I each write in response to accounts we have heard, and these accounts differ.  If Nerf(s) or Rarebit or Walrus would like to set the record straight, excellent!  Until then, I acknowledge your different take on this.  Nonetheless, you are dwelling on a mere supporting example, not the main point, n'est-c pas? 
2. I don’t even remember misspellings in 9mmfu’s posts.  Their terse, laconic quality is undeniable, and others have commented on how they often do not respond to the main point being made.  Obviously they’re as clear to you as USA Today, and this only adds to my respect for you.  As for the “literally hundreds of pages”…well, if the original descriptions were clear and logical, only a few pages would have been necessary.    Nonetheless I respect how clearly these hundreds of pages have spoken to you.  More to the point, are you arguing over a supporting detail only, or are you disagreeing about poor communications, which is, after all, the main point?
3. How interesting that Brewko is now said to not be able to ban people.  So it was all empty bluster and lies about banning people for allegedly robo-data-mining and standing on the awning at Mara.  So I guess the choice is to characterize the behavior as unprofessional, as I have, or merely mendacious, as you have.    I guess we have to make our choices about it, and I respect yours.   
4. Thank you for your compliment about the thriving culture of my clan.  But it was not based on LESIG leaks.  IMHO, it takes way more than leaks to make a clan successful.    And since I made no assertions of superiority for my clan, and was writing solely about how I feel about things, I am puzzled that you project them.  They seem…not germane.

On to happier subjects.  Any chance of adding falling snow to the outstanding visual effects you’ve been making available?  It’s always been my happiest time of year in the game.

Fen wrote:

I do hold some blame to SOE, however, at their lack of service and lack of professionalism towards the community.  Also, the lack of marketing. 

Oh, absolutely.  In a world where the war for the fantasy MMO market is oversaturated and, quite frankly, not really a war at al as the winner has long since been decided, the real market is to be found in non-Fantasy MMOs.  Look around, even free MMOs aren't clamouring to compete against WoW anymore.  SOE should have used their existing properties to leverage their strength in this reality.  With PS, MxO, SWG, The Agency and DCU, plus their ability to offer package access to all of their games for a single bargain price, they could have been the anti-WoW all to themselves.  Even if this meant recreating MxO and PS from the ground up, it would have been possible.  Instead.. well, we all saw what happened and I don't doubt it will continue to happen to the other "poorly performing" games they have in their stable.

As soon as I read that you think that Sony owns the Matrix gaming IP I stoped reading.

You obviously do not know what you are talking about so to write a whole opinion on something you do not know about is in my opinion, pointless.

Go grab your MXO box, turn to the back, look at the bottom...

THE MATRIX ONLINE, characters, names and all related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Yikes.

I don't know her but I assume she made an honest mistake/typo.

Known to happen around these parts...and doesn't always necessarily invalidates someone's opinion.

=)

Nintene wrote:

Yikes.

I don't know her but I assume she made an honest mistake/typo.

Known to happen around these parts...and doesn't always necessarily invalidates someone's opinion.

=)

I guess she could have made a honest mistake but when you make 6 other mistakes (just skimming over and picked out the obvious ones) then yea your opinion starts to look a little hazey.

stateing apinion/asumption as fact is a long standing tradition for this forum, come the end it shall not change.

Tseng. wrote:

stateing apinion/asumption as fact is a long standing tradition for this forum, come the end it shall not change.

Bah humbug!

well is true! so much thats posted is either speculation or the wrong end of the stick round here. all it ever takes is a little digging for the real truth ,we have/had a tiny player base so if you want it enough youl get the real picture.

Every large company works on PVT (Purchase vs Turnover), it might be named differently for other companies but it all relates to the same thing.

For the past few weeks the servers have been empty,miniscule pvp at peak times, just looking at server boards 50% of them are made up of farewell threads.

There werent enough subscriptions providing enough turnover after the cost of personnel,Server hosting and other factors, we werent accumalating enough to keep both Rarebit and Virrago, why we ended up with Virrago over a Developer i'll never know, of course not meaning any disrepect to Virrago but i feel a Developer is more important then a Community relations manager.

But after you all unsubbed at Rarebits last changes Familar faces kept vanishing from Mara C on a regular basis, which left the servers next to empty these past few weeks, i would be suprised if there were more then 20 active subscriptions.

I feel the final nail in the coffin was hammered in by us the Players who didnt give Rarebit the chance to see what he had planned.

Oh, this thread.

MXO's been missing people bitching about the same issues, again. Two months left, let's bring it all up again. Just because we're good at it.

Continue.

Things never change...

odj wrote:

As soon as I read that you think that Sony owns the Matrix gaming IP I stoped reading.

You obviously do not know what you are talking about so to write a whole opinion on something you do not know about is in my opinion, pointless.

Go grab your MXO box, turn to the back, look at the bottom...

THE MATRIX ONLINE, characters, names and all related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

odj, what a pleasure, and how I shall miss your insights.  To quote Raijinn:

What happens to all the code/data for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers will retain all of the code and data from The Matrix Online.

Can someone open an emulated server for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers hold the copyrights for The Matrix Online stories and data so creating a fan owned and operated emulated MxO server would be against those copyrights.

SOE and WB own the code and the copyrights and the data for the story.  That's the IP (intellectual property).   For you, I'll append WB next time as well.   However, the above renders irrelevant your citation of the old, old box.   WB is almost never mentioned in these discussions, and is largely a passive (I would suggest passive-aggressive) co-owner. 

Thanks for writing!

its not quite as clear cut, you could look at this this way wb will directly own the image rights, ip and anything created pre soe. soe would be charged to use the image rights , anything created post take over id be inclined to say is coowned such as the storyline. soe made it wb approved it and since its based on their ip they retain a large amount of the copyright on it.   theres a strong argument for it being it that way since soe have this tendancy not to shut down sustainable games. i belive this is the 1st thats actually going the whole hog so that says to me the subscriber base can longer maintain the cost of the image rights.

sugaree wrote:

odj, what a pleasure, and how I shall miss your insights.  To quote Raijinn:

What happens to all the code/data for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers will retain all of the code and data from The Matrix Online.

Can someone open an emulated server for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers hold the copyrights for The Matrix Online stories and data so creating a fan owned and operated emulated MxO server would be against those copyrights.

SOE and WB own the code and the copyrights and the data for the story.  That's the IP (intellectual property).   For you, I'll append WB next time as well.   However, the above renders irrelevant your citation of the old, old box.   WB is almost never mentioned in these discussions, and is largely a passive (I would suggest passive-aggressive) co-owner.

On request of access to high-resolution images etc of MxO for use in creating an advertising campaign for MxO I got this responce from Virrago...

Our marketing department isn't allowed to grant you anything since we don't own the MxO brand. It seems you would have to talk to WBIE.

You blamed SOE for not doing anything with the Matrix gaming IP and not letting any of the players do anything with it when in-fact they do not own it at all acording to the marketing department. 

Sugaree is entitled to her opinion and facts are always dependant on who hears them and how (which makes any facts rather a jaded subject here).

I think trying to argue certain points is kinda getting old now, who really cares, are we really trying to score points against each other now? After the servers turn off, these forums dissapear, we will all be in our own forums, communicating with our own friends via various methods.

There are MANY things that made this game head on a down slope from the start and there are MANY things that made this game great.

On the issue of community, you know what makes a community addictive, the positives and the negatives. If we didn't have our battles and wars, then the community wouldn't be what it was, we found our friends through these battles and in part had respect for our enemies from this too. There were people we hated/loved/liked/admired and all the rest, but what matters most now is how we choose to end our time together. I'm sure many of us will run into each other in many places and I welcome anyone who wants to continue to keep in touch with myself or any FH'er.

The past is the past and nothing we can do to change it (could we ever?). I think we should just be thankful for what we had and remember the times we had together, both good and bad.

Aquatium. wrote:

I think trying to argue certain points is kinda getting old now, who really cares, are we really trying to score points against each other now? After the servers turn off, these forums dissapear, we will all be in our own forums, communicating with our own friends via various methods.

Yea so its last chance to voice our opinions on people who we wont see on those forums.

odj wrote:

sugaree wrote:

odj, what a pleasure, and how I shall miss your insights.  To quote Raijinn:

What happens to all the code/data for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers will retain all of the code and data from The Matrix Online.

Can someone open an emulated server for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers hold the copyrights for The Matrix Online stories and data so creating a fan owned and operated emulated MxO server would be against those copyrights.

SOE and WB own the code and the copyrights and the data for the story.  That's the IP (intellectual property).   For you, I'll append WB next time as well.   However, the above renders irrelevant your citation of the old, old box.   WB is almost never mentioned in these discussions, and is largely a passive (I would suggest passive-aggressive) co-owner.

On request of access to high-resolution images etc of MxO for use in creating an advertising campaign for MxO I got this responce from Virrago...

Our marketing department isn't allowed to grant you anything since we don't own the MxO brand. It seems you would have to talk to WBIE.

You blamed SOE for not doing anything with the Matrix gaming IP and not letting any of the players do anything with it when in-fact they do not own it at all acording to the marketing department. 

In fact, according to Raijinn they do.  If you're emailing Virrago about an advertising campaign, then that response pre-dates Raijinn's later, and more up-to-date observations on exactly the same subject.    And even if it were accurate, you would have mentioned it in your first response.   And what a perfect example of my blog's last point about the community.  Many thanks!

sugaree wrote:

And what a perfect example of my blog's last point about the community.  Many thanks!

Always glad to add my special blend of spices to the cesspool!

odj wrote:

sugaree wrote:

And what a perfect example of my blog's last point about the community.  Many thanks!

Always glad to add my special blend of spices to the cesspool!

<3

Yeesh, it's like watching people argue about the will or who started the fight at Cousin Muriel's weddding, while Cousin Muriel is on her deathbed -.-

The MxO Community is the MxO Community is the MxO Community is the MxO Community.

There are a hell of a lot of reasons to love this community, and a hell of a lot of reasons to hate it.  Each of us do our own fair share of whining, complaining, belly-aching, glory-hogging, flaunting, stealing, etc.  And as much as it makes me sick to my stomach to quote someone I personally dislike, Rarebit himself once told me "None of us are angels."

I don't care who you are, if you're a part of what we had here for the last 5 years, you're family.  Whether you're that close brother, sister, father, mother...  or that hateful little punk cousin that likes to be an arse at family outings.

Love us or hate us, we're all part of the same group.  And believe me, I think everyone here could put together a nice long list of people here that make them sick...  but I'd rather not walk away from this game in two months, thinking about that.

It's like going to a loved one's funeral, only to think back on all of the times they made you want to hit them.  It's disrespectful... and I have more respect for MxO than that, even if I don't for a lot of people in this community.

As Bilbo said:  "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

That said, there are quite a number of folks in this community that I will be thrilled to never have to hear from again.  There are some that I'll likely not talk to again that I will miss dearly.  In the end, I'm a member of several great communities, and we'll keep gaming together until the end of time.

MatrixRefugee wrote:

Yeesh, it's like watching people argue about the will or who started the fight at Cousin Muriel's weddding, while Cousin Muriel is on her deathbed -.-

She was a bastard child anyway.

Endomorph wrote:

Every large company works on PVT (Purchase vs Turnover), it might be named differently for other companies but it all relates to the same thing.

For the past few weeks the servers have been empty,miniscule pvp at peak times, just looking at server boards 50% of them are made up of farewell threads.

There werent enough subscriptions providing enough turnover after the cost of personnel,Server hosting and other factors, we werent accumalating enough to keep both Rarebit and Virrago, why we ended up with Virrago over a Developer i'll never know, of course not meaning any disrepect to Virrago but i feel a Developer is more important then a Community relations manager.

But after you all unsubbed at Rarebits last changes Familar faces kept vanishing from Mara C on a regular basis, which left the servers next to empty these past few weeks, i would be suprised if there were more then 20 active subscriptions.

I feel the final nail in the coffin was hammered in by us the Players who didnt give Rarebit the chance to see what he had planned.

i agree with you on that last point  i think we judge i knew i did as well his new storyline plan and all the only thing i really put SOE to blame is the lack of communication after rarebit step down to where the game was heading i do give credit atleast to SOE for geting alot of the monlith bugs pollished out and i just think to that this game was kinda doomed from the start i felt it could have used another month or two in bet.a and if advertise well it could have been beter i rember when the game came out i think i saw commercials for the game for like a month than they kinda droped of the face of the earth. Im just gonna enjoy the last 2 months though of this game and not worry bout just enjoy what we have left

The way I see it, it's SOE's fault the game survived, it's also SOE's fault the game died.

It would of been great had it been given the love and attention is sorely deserved.

sugaree wrote:

Over on my blog, at manifoldmischief.blogspot.com, I've written some thoughts about where we are and how we got this way.  My own feelings on the subject, at least.  They're not here for several reasons, only one of which is their length. 

Finally read it. I was expecting more specific examples. For instance, you mention in the 2nd paragraph about MxO "changed hands several times". I know it went from 'lith to SOE. Did it change hands internally at 'lith?

Also, the qualifications of Chadwick; I know he has done comics for decades. I remember Concrete from elementary school. I'm 30 later this year. He also helped the W bros. conceptualize a lot of the details of the movies. Then there is his Matrix comics in Vol.1 and 2.

Personally, I think he was qualified. However, I didn't like all things he brought into the Matrix Universe. The lazers were just the first things that came to mind.

I look forward to your next post. ETA?

Rarebit and the "hack" thing were seperate, isolated incidents.

Aside from that, this is a classic flamebait.

Thanks for trying to get me banned for a minute joke about the Church of Latter Day Saints. Your contributions to the community have been monumental.

Vesuveus wrote:

sugaree wrote:

Over on my blog, at manifoldmischief.blogspot.com, I've written some thoughts about where we are and how we got this way.  My own feelings on the subject, at least.  They're not here for several reasons, only one of which is their length. 

Finally read it. I was expecting more specific examples. For instance, you mention in the 2nd paragraph about MxO "changed hands several times". I know it went from 'lith to SOE. Did it change hands internally at 'lith?

Also, the qualifications of Chadwick; I know he has done comics for decades. I remember Concrete from elementary school. I'm 30 later this year. He also helped the W bros. conceptualize a lot of the details of the movies. Then there is his Matrix comics in Vol.1 and 2.

Personally, I think he was qualified. However, I didn't like all things he brought into the Matrix Universe. The lazers were just the first things that came to mind.

I look forward to your next post. ETA?

Well I know Sega had something to do with it, and there was some other company i just cant remember its dam name, something like Bioware or Bio something another which was during the very early stages of Beta, then it went to Warner bros then to soe.

Ic3b3rg wrote:

Vesuveus wrote:

sugaree wrote:

Over on my blog, at manifoldmischief.blogspot.com, I've written some thoughts about where we are and how we got this way.  My own feelings on the subject, at least.  They're not here for several reasons, only one of which is their length. 

Finally read it. I was expecting more specific examples. For instance, you mention in the 2nd paragraph about MxO "changed hands several times". I know it went from 'lith to SOE. Did it change hands internally at 'lith?

Also, the qualifications of Chadwick; I know he has done comics for decades. I remember Concrete from elementary school. I'm 30 later this year. He also helped the W bros. conceptualize a lot of the details of the movies. Then there is his Matrix comics in Vol.1 and 2.

Personally, I think he was qualified. However, I didn't like all things he brought into the Matrix Universe. The lazers were just the first things that came to mind.

I look forward to your next post. ETA?

Well I know Sega had something to do with it, and there was some other company i just cant remember its dam name, something like Bioware or Bio something another which was during the very early stages of Beta, then it went to Warner bros then to soe.

   The game was always developed by Monolith, according to all the interviews I've read (including one with Toby Raigaini where he talks about going to Eon in 2001, I believe, to throw their idea of a Matrix MMO past the Wachowskis).  Warner Bros. and Ubisoft were originally going to co-publish the game, but Ubisoft dropped out (some believe this was a reaction to how the sequels were received by the general public, but they dropped Uru Online at around the same time and pretty much pulled out of the MMO market altogether).

   By E3 2004, it was announced that the new co-publisher of the game would be Sega.

Awesome read, sugaree.  Anxiously awaiting Part II...

Endomorph wrote:

But after you all unsubbed at Rarebits last changes Familar faces kept vanishing from Mara C on a regular basis, which left the servers next to empty these past few weeks, i would be suprised if there were more then 20 active subscriptions.

I feel the final nail in the coffin was hammered in by us the Players who didnt give Rarebit the chance to see what he had planned.

The beginning of the end was when Rare decided to reinvent the wheel and change a dynamic, constatly evolving storyline-based game into a static griding-based game.  I understand his problem (overdoing it to the point of burnout), but I feel his cure was worse than the ailment.  He could have just toned things down like doing one weekly event instead of five.  But, he tried to change MxO into World of MatrixCraft overninght.  And thats the antithesis of why most of us became attracted to this game in the first place. 

Big surprise it didn't work out.  When he stopped Live Events alltogether (I dont count the monthly Polyvinyl board meetings), thats when things started to fall apart.

I dont even know if, had Rare stayed on and clung stubbornly to his New Approach, we wouldn't have had the same outcome (albeit the game might have ended a little later).

Rare was a great asset to this community and did some fantastic things for us, but not everything is black and white.

Mathalos wrote:

The way I see it is, if SOE had not bought the Matrix Online, we would of closed down in August of 2005. They took the initiative to buy a game that had already lost 20 million. I don't blame them for not putting a lot of money into the game. No business in their right mind would put money into a product that is not going to give them any profit back. That's like saying Microsoft should continue to update Windows 98 just because a few people still use it. Microsoft moves onto products that make them money like any other business does. SOE chose to keep Rarebit hired to continue development on the game for the past few years. I want to thank SOE for the last four years and I want to thank them for not giving up on us sooner, because I know they very well could have. A first impression lasts forever, and the Matrix Online did not get a good one. We can not blame SOE for what happened to this game, the fate of this game was decided before it was even launched.

I disagree that the fate was decided before it was launched.

Sure, the fickle public and overhyped expectations were terrible but not fatal blows. 

But when it comes to SOE, as Fen said somewhere else, we paid for a service not a favor.

And, you play the hand that's dealt you.  Don't give up before you even start.