The meetings went pretty much the way I thought they would. It felt scripted (rarebit) and unorganized/clueless (us) all at the same time. It felt like a lot of people were afk and others had their own agendas to try and push. We go into the meetings not knowing what particular avenue is going to be discussed because there are so many unanswered questions and stories that have loose ends. But then there are the obvious discussions that are the dull broken record that seem to get rehashed over and over but without any real answers discovered and the ones we truly have questions about don't even get mentioned.
I feel like we came out of this meeting without any more clarity on what is going on than when we went in. I know that its suppose to be an open discussion and that Niobe doesn't know any more than we do and we are to be informing her of activities and then discussing it. But thats not really how it felt. We know that Niobe knows more than we do and we can't pretend that she doesnt. Niobe is not one of us and I dont think we will ever be able to treat her as one of us and see that she only knows as much as we do. The best part about live events was that an objective gets completed. I don't want to stand around and chat unless there is some real progress made on the problems we face. Don't risk all our captains being in one location if there isn't a really good reason for it.
We started the meeting with questions and ended the meeting without answers. Oh, except that EPN withholds information from Zion... huh?? That guy shouldve been booted for disrupting the meeting, starting false rumors about EPN, and disrespecting half the group that was there because they are EPN.
All in all, I am pretty depressed about the matrix online. It's hard to see myself here a year from now.
Agreed with hydra.
Was there for about 2/3rds of the meeting, pushed some ideas, got an IC answer (thanks for that at least) recieved no new incentive, information, orders or even encouragement to do anything, caught myself at beginning to feel sleepy and bored, jacked out, went to bed.
I admire Rarebit for putting up with reading through so much spam to catch the occasional question that he is PREPARED to answer, even though he perferctly realizes that there is no point to it anyway. This is pointless, and i can not believe that this is actually the future of the matrix franchise.
These meetings seem to be basically like corporate board meetings. And about as fun and exciting, too!
Hydrazine wrote:
That guy shouldve been booted for disrupting the meeting, starting false rumors about EPN, and disrespecting half the group that was there because they are EPN.
Why? Unless it was OOC disruption that prevents others from enjoying themselves or prevents people from trying to do something, there is no reason to boot them. If you don't want to listen to them use /ignore as mentioned in the meeting announcement.
Dissent quite often occurs in social groups especially when two groups merge, just because you're all there doesn't mean everyone has to respect everyone else. In fact when that happens it usually creates more discussion then everyone pretending that they are ok with everyone else. Also, unless something happened in the world of Zion and EPN that I'm unaware of (and considering I play from the Machine side, I can be unaware of a lot) EPN still has the data the Oracle gave them and they haven't shared it with Zion yet, could that not be witholding information?
The Machinist meeting had AngelicDream (Self confessed Zion or EPN spy lololol) deriding the Machines and Cyphs and she wasn't booted. Learn to deal with it rather than expect an admin or dev to deal with it for you. I'm sure Rarebit won't allow a meeting to be sent too far down that kind of tangent.
no offense to anyone but if you've been paying 15 bucks a month for years to stand around and talk then you could just join a chat room.
the storyline is fun and all at times,but this game has always gained and lost subs based on gameplay.
Vinia wrote:
Also, unless something happened in the world of Zion and EPN that I'm unaware of (and considering I play from the Machine side, I can be unaware of a lot) EPN still has the data the Oracle gave them and they haven't shared it with Zion yet, could that not be witholding information?
Thats exactly what was brought up, lol.
cloudwolf wrote:
To be honest that data was the only example of witholding info I could think of when I saw what Hydrazine wrote.
Meh, some people have suggested they havn't been fully forthcoming with what they saw out in the no-fly zone as well. But thats just speculation.
One of the problems i see with these meetings are, that they only are on one server. The waiting time until next meeting (witch you'r not even sure is going to be on your main char. server) is way to long. I feel that 2/3 of the zion-epn organization was left out for something that should have happent on all servers!
Shame....
Well, I guess I just have to say that: I feel rather disappointed about the meeting. Not because of the formula itself though - it has every right to exist if you ask me. But the fact that we obtained literally no answer at all, learned nothing new or at least substantial leads me to the question: was the meeting necessary at all? I sure like chatting with Niobe, but given it's practically the only live event we get in one month, I think it should provide at least some story development. That was not the case.
The Zion meeting is the first "big" thing I'm disappointed with in the whole "New Approach" though. But it's an important point. So I hope Rarebit will find a way to improve this part of the gameplay.
It's probably quite hard to forward a story with just a meeting, it could happen if the LE character was to present new information or if someone says something that suddenly occurs and gets people thinking about a situation in a different way. Of course it depends on the current storyline too and these meetings came at a transitional time in the story Wright has gone and the BIP is wandering around again and there seems to be a build up for a big Merv/General/Android thing portion of the story.
Remember, these meetings also allow others to catch up with the story and clarify any information they may have heard and that clarification is most likely to come from up to speed players themselves rather than Rarebit spoonfeeding them.
The length of time between them is long, I agree. If there were additional, non meeting-esqe LE's between them (which I'm hoping is the plan, even if it doesn't happen this time around and over Christmas) I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem.
@Cloudwolf: Good point, didn't even think of info about the no fly zone!
I agree that there needs to be some sort of action/development which comes from these events. The numbers involved are not massively unmanageable and something closer to the old style of events must be possible.
I understand that Rarebit needs to "take his foot of the gas" from his previous daily LE schedule, but that needs to be reflected by a decent quality event when they do occur: 3 LEs monthly seems quite feasible to me.
May be these first 3 were simply to get us used to the format, but a continuation of this chat-around-the-campfire will result in most players giving-up on the idea entirely.
In terms of his effort, the meetings aren't events, people went and will still go thinking and expecting to see something relevant happen, a meeting is only inclusive of discussion there's no operation involved - at the meeting i attended rarebit said there would still be operations but im inclined to believe that this is the new format of mxo - we meet once a month discuss some random nonsense in his story learn about what operatives should be doing, despite the fact that we have no means to do it - in this case chasing the BIP.
Then the update can drop and include new crit missions and farmable stuff to silence everyone so they can farm tons of gear into their inventory and stop harassing him for 10 minutes, aswell as have to work harder to get the other 2/3's of the story. I don't know if he intends to do side events but i sincerely doubt it, as per usual i hope im wrong, but for a guy whose objective seemed to be lightening the work load to improve quality, he's only really accomplished half of that.
Another annoying concept rests in his continued execution of story, if there's going to be so much hang time between meetings and events it's rediculous to place so much importance on charachters we won't see, what good comes of telling the players to chase someone down or question someone if they don't jack in live event style?
*cue the part where someone says they are jacking in you just haven't seen them.*
The real longevity of this game can be dragged out when happenings in the matrix drive people down different roads and they perpetuate the story by debating it and acting on it, when its something that affects everyone from a belief standpoint rather then a:
"Uh oh 'insert-powerful-entity-here' is trying to destroy the matrix!"
It's clear we can't ask for much in terms of LE's or LEC's, because rarebit is too busy with.....
As such we need the means to further the story as far as our own charachters are concerned, there's no point in even trying to follow a story that we in no way shape or form can connect to or change or even play a part in. If the players have ever been forced into a more audience like role then right now, i'm lost as to think of what it is.
The general rule for mxo these days seems to be - watch and wait.
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Concerning EPN and zion - i understand in concept people are mad that epn operatives haven't been parting with information about either what was seen in the no-fly zone and what the oracle gave them (fairly sure it's the same way on the machine-cyph side) - but people need to sort of figure out that no player has any idea what that data would be since rarebit didn't tell anyone (at least recursion epn side) moreover considering their end of support as an org it's kind of in bad taste to really bust someones balls over information they don't know.
Despite speculation or even solid RP - it's stupid to RP over because no matter what the players say, rarebit can change it at the drop of a hat.
Sort of like the Neo RSI - hologram - which to my knowledge only became a hologram yesterday when rarebit said it was one.
~Darminian
Darminian wrote:
Oh yeah, that part was odd. I wasn't there yet when all the Neo RSI story was going on, but I understood the "body" in Gracy was assembled from his RSI fragments. And all of a sudden I hear Niobe saying it's just a hologram.... *shrug*
Hologram eh? Interesting take... I guess even if it is made up of RSI fragments it's still a 3 dimentional image that is insubstantial apart from code, but then the same could be said for any RSI looking at it in that view. Mind you the Generals hologram is quite different to the Neo RSI 'hologram'...
I suppose it's down to the thoughts, personality and POV of the person saying it.
