Well I've never been a man of many words (as indicated by my post count), but I've played MxO since Beta, and I feel the need to say a few words now.
I was amazed by this game when I first saw the trailer on the Matrix dvd and still when I actually started playing it. We had ingame AIM, a MP3 player, Movie character likenesses/voices, awsome cinematics, a very unique combat system, an awsome story, live events, and a very large and vibrant Dev team.
Slowly these things were taken from us. First AIM was removed (no big loss there, thought it would have been a nice tool for story progression), and interlock combat was dumbed down (or rather removed in my opinion, the joined animations were not in my opinion what made interlock). All these things were removed when SOE bought the game from Monolith (who truthfully didn't have a clue as to what they were doing in the first place.). These things were acceptable though because we were told then (like we are now) that these losses would eventually make the game better.
Next to go were the actor likenesses ( Most like Ghost and Niobe were due to other companies already owning the 3D likenesses) Slowly but most unnoticably the voices of the character began to change as well though the new voices were just as good so that was no big issue. Though while this was all going on our Dev team was being "cut back" to an almost unfimiliar shell. Then things like bug fixes and major issues began running rampant without being addressed..(Like floating static objects in the game world, unbalanced classes, broken animations, Vista incompatibility, and 8800 series incompatibility.). Though to be nice the remaining QA dept. Did TRY to fix some of these things, but mostly were relegatated to fixing typos in mission text...Now some will say that there are "work-arounds" for the major issues like the Vista problems and the 8800 lag, but I say to them it is not my hardware that is at fault, we pay for a working game. Players who paid $50 for a game and then $15 a month for service should not have to use a "work-around" for it to funtion, and sadly these issuse have not been address in a timely manner.
Then while our Dev team was being mangled by SOE, the linear evolving story began to suffer..The loss of the Sentinel...the loss of net based puzzels/websites (though the AB team has renewed some of these features), and instead of being linear became a revolving loop of ...This is the new bad guy for the next 6months to a year...He is trying to destroy/harm the Matrix you must stop him, this though was interrupted by the renewing of the war, and then quickly the Matirx returned to buisness as usual... here is your bad guy for the month...But on an upnote we do still have our live events, though they do not sparkle like thay once did, due to the cut backs on our beloved DEV team.All the while we were told by SOE and our DEV teams that these things in the long run would help to make the game better.
Now we lose our cinematics...the only link some of us players had to the story, (because lets face it unless your a high school kid you're not going to be able to make it home at 5pm EST to make it to a live event.). And now we are told as we were back then after losing so much and seeing no real improvements..the loss of the cinematics will in the long run make the game better...
I'd just like to say to the DEV team you guys are some of the best I've ever seen you've been fighting an uphill fight since the beginning. Datamine is proof of that and I salute your work on it...though in my opinion resources could have been directed elsewhere had you just made Downtown a free for all pvp zone, and upped the taps and spawns.
Now on to a fwew summary bullet points..
THINGS REMOVED
-AIM
-INTERLOCK
-UNIQUE CHARACTER/VOICES
-99% OF OUR DEV TEAM (and with it the "feel" of the Matrix in the story and quality.)
-QA TEAM
-CINEMATICS
-95% OR OUR PLAYER BASE
THINGS RETURNED FOR OUR LOSSES
-DATAMINE
-MASSIVE GAME BREAKING BUGS AND LINGERING "SMALL" ISSUES...
It truely makes me sad to look at that list, I love this game or did....It use to be the highlight of my day to get home from work and jack in with the other Broodies, and the large community, but both have disappeared along with most of the games features. I mean if I wanted to play by myself, grinding missions in a nearly empty world, with a mission only driven story. I'd play one of Acclaim's free mmorpg's, atleast there they have regular content updates, large DEV teams, and are nearly bugless. Sure these games make most of their money from adverts, but what does it say about MxO if we can't even keep ingame advertisers?
This brings me to my final topic...What exactly are we paying for? As far as I can see it is this...
-A stagnant game world, reskinned equipment (using the same models over and over), no variety in activities..(either you mission, mine, pvp, or stand around)
Now what does a Free to play MMO offer?
- Reskinned equipment, endless grind with nothing else to do and a vague overall story driven through mission grind.
Those two lists look pretty similar to me, and it saddens me to see how far MxO has fallen, in the beginning the game was 100 times more than what it is now, but still we are told that we must sacrifice what little we now have so that the game can become better...So I ask SOE we have paid our sacrifices in content so when do we "get blessed" with this elusive "better"?
It is rediculous to think that we are paying for a game that has been stripped down to nothing more than a fighting simulation, and we say thank you when they remove even more content with the promise that this is the price we must pay inorder to improve the game.
Now I know it was stated that the story would continue in Live Events and now in the Sentinel, but for those of us that can not attend lives events that leaves us reading one incoherent piece of a short story a month for $15, and that is just NOT acceptable. That would be like authors charging you by the chapter to read their book....And what if we have to unsubscribe for a while and the Sentinel is replaced with a newer version...When we come back are we suppost to jump around asking what happened while we were gone?
And now to the comment that MxO was not shutting down...Do you really believe that if the hand full of active accounts dwindles below 1000 in the next year or so, that SOE will continue to fund (what little they do now) this game....I say no they wont, but they may not shut down the servers, they will just leave players in a DEV-less, broken world with an unfinished story in the hopes that another notch in their game belt will lure some station access players to purchase a "game".
Seriously I don't see MxO making it until its next anniversary, though SOE may be nice enough to allow this little community drama to play out until then if just to give us a nice send off, but I doubt they care that much.
Thanks for reading my novel..
V
/bowhead to you sir....Great post!
