Ask the devs an MXO question

**Rarebit**

Talauntiar wrote:
What's been the funnest thing you've designed in the game?

You are my new favorite question-asking-person.

Let's see... Actually this is getting kind of hard to pick.

I think it would still be the Death of the Destroyer event. Neither the character nor the general event concept were mine (the Wachowskis themselves came up with the Assassin's initial concept, or so I have heard through the grapevine, and Paul Chadwick decided that multiples of him would perish in mass bug-spray battles against players), nor were his nasty abilities or nifty loot rewards, but it devolved to Frog and I to design and implement the actual details of his week-long rise and fall.

We designed much of the event, such as the weather changes and corrupted spawns, to be automated, but there was still the matter of playing what were eventually twelve separate live Assassin characters. We decided that there would be a gentle ramp-up in the automated stuff and in the Assassin's live activity (killing players) as the week progressed. This all took a lot of work to prepare for, and unfortunately Frog got sick--OMG the Fly Virus!--somewhere around midweek, I think it was.

So I was the one who had to run around and organize the final big push. Archon and Andy K granted me widespread power over the team to make sure that the event went off, and for those beautiful few days, I was mighty!

Not that I took advantage of that, or anything. Well, okay, I did. I bumped up the severity of the Assassin's depredations. He was only supposed to whip out a stuns and a few lightning bolts and things on Friday, but I ended up staying pretty late and not sparing the damage AOEs and meatwads. Power! Raw, unlimited power!

The schedule that Frog and I had drawn up initially hadn't even called for anyone to play as the Assassin on Saturday. It was to be the lull before the final storm. But somehow I found myself in the office early in the afternoon, jacked in, and killing players right and left. They couldn't seem to get enough of it. I was amazed. It was a win-win situation as far as I was concerned. By late that evening I had ended up doing two long trawls across each of the three servers, first leading players across Slums/Barrens (these were the original names of Richland/Westview--I can't shake three years of habit there, so I'm going to stop trying SMILEY

from East to West on all three servers, then looping through each of them again from North to South, very roughly speaking. I think I pretty much slaughtered players en masse for about eight solid hours.

Then Sunday I had to manage all our team members who came in to play the various event roles (and Frog made it back, yay!). This was exhausting, and there were unexpectedly early Assassin deaths, and client crashes, and other things here and there, but somehow we got through it, and that was very satisfying. The only real downer was that the servers got way chuggier than experience had led us to anticipate. Found out Monday when the server engineers were in that the servers had been running with maximum logging enabled for standard server team crash debug purposes, and under the heightened client activity we had that day, the servers just reached that critical point where they couldn't quite keep up with both running the game and spewing out the extremely detailed logs at the same time. Live and learn.

So that Saturday was still my favorite day as an MXO designer.

The Fly Virus didn't catch up with me until middle of the next Tuesday. =p

**Aquilae**

How difficult would it be to add more hostile npcs in the mission system?

The reason I asked because it obviously seems (to me) is that each one
was created specifically before hand. And as a result, they will
eventually look the same.

I mean, when I do missions they all wear the usual hair styles with
colors, wear the simular clothing, they usually have a white skin tone
etc....

I think it would be cool to mix it around time to time, you know? They
don't have to be fashion designers, just different. Mix it around some
would be cool. Throw some tattoos or some wacky hair styles in there.
Or better yet, an automatic generator to do it for you.

With character rsi customization limited as it is, it's always nice to see someing different for a change.

(The new and improved Demon Army is a breath of fresh air.)

(Oh man this sounds like a suggestion. Sorry for that.)

**Anamodiel**

Rarebit wrote:

You are my new favorite question-asking-person.

Thanks!

**Rarebit**

Aquilae wrote:
How difficult would it be to add more hostile npcs in the mission system?

The reason I asked because it obviously seems (to me) is that each one was created specifically before hand. And as a result, they will eventually look the same.

I mean, when I do missions they all wear the usual hair styles with colors, wear the simular clothing, they usually have a white skin tone etc....

I think it would be cool to mix it around time to time, you know? They don't have to be fashion designers, just different. Mix it around some would be cool. Throw some tattoos or some wacky hair styles in there. Or better yet, an automatic generator to do it for you.

With character rsi customization limited as it is, it's always nice to see someing different for a change.

(The new and improved Demon Army is a breath of fresh air.)

(Oh man this sounds like a suggestion. Sorry for that.)

Holy cow, you like my Demon Army revamp? Wow, that is a relief. I think you're the first person I've heard say that. Thanks.

Adding new NPC types ranges from sorta difficult to ridiculously difficult. But if we're just talking about, say, adding more looks to the redpill opponents you fight on missions, that would actually be relatively doable--gradually, anyway. I will keep that in mind.

Death++

Boxers or briefs... or other...?

**Rarebit**

Death++ wrote:
Boxers or briefs... or other...?

In the Matrix it's all about black briefs, of course. You can thank our old Warner Brothers producer for that. Before they insisted we put *something* there, everyone was barbie-doll naked when they took off their clothes.

Personally, I think this change ended up costing us the chance to be the most popular MMP ever. But what can you do.

Death++

you live in seatle if im not misteaken (mmmm steak... sorry) so do you ever tune into 102.5 and listen to the bob rivers show?

**Rarebit**

Death++ wrote:

you live in seatle if im not misteaken (mmmm steak... sorry) so do you ever tune into 102.5 and listen to the bob rivers show?

Nope. I don't browse the dial very much. The only station I really listen to is 89.5, in fact it's funny that this question came up because I flipped the radio on just before I came back and refreshed this page (not that I mean to use my position here to encourage people to find their streaming music web site and enjoy their ad-free, nonprofit dance music broadcast).

Hey wait, was this about the Matrix? All right then.

EDIT: Oh man, this reminds me how I heard them give a shout-out to Monolith Productions as I fought my way to work one day. That put a stupid grin on my face all morning.

Message Edited by Rarebit on 12-17-2005 05:25 PM
Message edited by Rarebit on 12/17/2005 17:25:14.

Death++

is me f5ing over so often the reason for all this lag and crashing we've been having?

**Symmetric**

Will you ever remove the collectors from The Hunt for Morpheus event?

**Rarebit**

Death++ wrote:
is me f5ing over so often the reason for all this lag and crashing we've been having?

Yeah. Keep up the good work. /thumbsup

**Symmetric**

Will you ever remove the collectors from The Hunt for Morpheus event?

**cloudwolf**

ack, cant think of a question :p

**lokkii**

how can we get iconics to show up at player driven events?

**Rarebit**

Symmetric wrote:
Will you ever remove the collectors from The Hunt for Morpheus event?

Goodness, no. Every time we remove anything you people act like we just axed your grandmother.

Wait, that sounded suspiciously like a future release question...