This is exactly the reason I'm leaving.

There is not one single person involved in this game, player or Dev, that can truly continue the Matrix story. The ip lies squarely with Warner Bros., and they will not budge on it now that it's in SOE's hands. When Monolith had the developement rights, they had the backing of Warner, the Wachowskis, and Paul Chadwick's writing. After the SOE transition, the best we could ever hope for is that Rarebit could write really compelling 'side stories' or tangents from the main story. But as to the original content with Neo, Trinity, the Machine war; uh-uh, no touchy-touchy.

So we are left with a snowglobe. A world that we can look at and "marvel over its beauty", but never interact with, never change. A story that we are never going to "get back to" or resolve in any way.

For years, MxO has been propped up by the efforts of the community that loved it so much. But those people are tired of carrying the torch for what is obviously a lost cause. There will never be a continuation of the 'main' story; never be an expansion pack, never be the Live Events that originally sold us on the game, and probably never be any new content in the franchise, thus, there will never be a new player base.

Look back through my posts; I used to be one of those that said "we'll do it ourselves." I hated the term "MxO's on life-support." But that's what's happening right now.

If SOE was smart, they would make MxO their first free-to-play game, with static content in an unchanging world. Unfortunately, they paid to much for the rights and probably can't justify it on paper.

Ballak wrote:

Sphairo wrote:

SOMETING innoventive would be nice, rather than rehashed content.

Everything has been rehashed. It won't be changing any time soon, I'll assure you.

And that is exactly why slowly but surely we will loose more and more players, till eventually they'll pull the plug. Unless somethingggg is done!

Sphairo wrote:

Unless somethingggg is done!

Sensible suggestions pls. I would imagine that it's fairly difficult to introduce something new and innovative in a years old MMO which doesn't have the flexibility of newer MMO's.

I call it a failing on Monolith's side for either making a game with code thats hard to change, or for witholding the methods on how to do so thus preventing SOE from doing what Monolith could have done which really is a large boot in us, the subscribers faces. Plus they built up the emphasis on large benchmark events which wasn't financially viable in the long run. They could have sorted out many of the bugs prior to launch as well as I'm sure that cost a large chunk of the subscriber base right from the start. Shi is quite right too, Warner Bros tie SOE's hands with red tape regarding MxO, the most visible evidence of this is the lack of MxO branding on SOE advertisments.

So yes, SOE aren't putting the funding we would like into MxO, we don't have a great many Devs, but at least it's still going which is more than some MMO's recently. So I'm patiently waiting to see how this new approach can be improved upon and helping to suggest ways how.

I don't think it's so much that the code isn't hard to change, it's more that the people that were around doing it aren't anymore, and possibly little to no documentation and resources to do so were left. I wouldn't think that they would purposefully not pass the methods along, but that they just don't exist anymore, and went away when the staff was let go. (I have to deal with the same situation here at work all the time.. -_-)

The large event thing I think could have held up, because there are still few, if any other games on the market doing it in quite the same way. The problem in this case again, would more likely be due to the loss in staff and functionality.

I think the game suffered from "Bad opening weekend box office" syndrome.  If a movie, tv show, or game doesn't deliver a ton of $$$/viewers/subscribers on its opening weekend / premiere / release, then the big entertainment conglomerates basically write it off as a loss, and no longer promote it, since in their eyes its throwing bad money after good.  Its a horrible trend, because the best movies and tv shows at least, grew their audiences through word of mouth, etc.  Thats not allowed for anymore unfortunately, and I think this same mentality caused WB to try to dump Mxo.

I can agree with that. I honestly believe it was the rallying of players that helped it survive the transition from SOE. That could also explain the near complete absence of advertising since the transition. Though I do admire and appreciate the player-based attempts at it.

It could have been that; I can certainly see the WB kicking something to the curb that doesn't have "cash cow" written all over it in blood. I can remember at launch time feeling like WB was approaching this MMO business as though MxO was going to steal half of WoW's subscriber base overnight. The "big fish" syndrome that all marketing departments can't shake.

And actually, I don't blame SOE at all for the current condition of the game. From what I remember of the various postings over the years by Rarebit and 9mmfu and Walrus, Monolith developers threw a temper tantrum when Warner announced their plans to sell MxO to SOE. They 'took home' (read: stole) storylines (Sarah Edmontons), books of code, and anything else that they felt was proprietary. And later, when MxO devs broached the idea of story changes, Warner shut them down with a fountain o' legalese.

So, we are left with all this potential, wasted.

Very well put Shin, it does sound like the truth.

deffdog wrote:

ArchDuke wrote:

I think what we have now is working because people are still playing.  There's always room for improvement though.

Doesn't seem that way On Recursion these days.

Should move to Syntax then...

GREENCODE *Cough*

I agree that alot of stuff within this MMO is Rehashed so to speak but.... I for one prefer this one to any other...

I have tried alot aswell trust me.

I know people moan about the populations etc... But personally isnt it nice to log in and people say 'HI' and aknowledge your there.

Vector is a good example of this... They fight like cat and dog but at the end of the day they all know each other on a higher level than a chat screen and actually chat about things.

A massive population increase would increase lagg at busy HL's and make the game a little less community like?

Dont get me wrong a bit more pvp would be great but I like our little home.

Whoever mentioned FREE TO PLAY! Thumbs up on the cheapness THUMBS DOWN on even less content we just started to get a decent drip feed. Be it glasses with a different texture or boots that give you 1% more speed! Its something!

But back to my first point! Do something about your player experience then give something back...

Green Code Events Team!

(Wonder how many people make a pretty colourful quotation tree from my post hehe! All personal opinion!)

Zimmermann wrote:

deffdog wrote:

ArchDuke wrote:

I think what we have now is working because people are still playing.  There's always room for improvement though.

Doesn't seem that way On Recursion these days.

Should move to Syntax then...

Yea like that is going to solve the problem of a dying server, move somewhere else.

odj wrote:

Yea like that is going to solve the problem of a dying server, move somewhere else.

It's a complicated problem indeed. Most new players are prone to choose the most populated server (Syntax), and the players that are already here are either going to stay where they are (no server growth) or move to the most populated server (Syntax).

Shin, I understand your grief mate. I'm only surprised it took you this much time to realize it. It's been months since i figured this game has nothing to do with the original Matrix Universe anymore, because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content. I've stated that this has just become a game, tho still nice given its combat system and all, but which has barely anything left of the Matrix itself, really. The replies were : "well, u shouldn't expect otherwise, it's an MMO." i always thought this was not just another MMO but SoE is trying to transform it into one, as you can see with the changes over these past years. This community will moarn your departure, shin, I have no doubt. I can't say I'm really jacked in anymore, except for when i'm needed and for hvcrft battles. But I promised that I'd stay till they unplug, unless i'm forced otherwise by financial issues. I don't know what will become of this game, probably nothing, but I'll be there to see it.

They got a bad box office opening because Lith did barely any beta testing. It's why reviews were so poor, if you check out the gamespot one, you want to cry. I always wanted to ask them to make another review, and it would probably work right now since it's being transformed into a regular MMO and has less bugs, but it would never undo the harm. You want Lith back? I'd want Lith dead, for setting MxO's course to hell. "Turn left in 200 meters"

NX

NeoExcidious wrote:

They got a bad box office opening because Lith did barely any beta testing. It's why reviews were so poor, if you check out the gamespot one, you want to cry. I always wanted to ask them to make another review, and it would probably work right now since it's being transformed into a regular MMO and has less bugs, but it would never undo the harm. You want Lith back? I'd want Lith dead, for setting MxO's course to hell. "Turn left in 200 meters"

NX

I wouldn't put too much on Lith.  As they say, poo rolls downhill.  WB wanted this game out in Fall 2004, as quickly after Revolutions came out as possible (Nov 2003).  Betas didn't even open until early Summer 2004 IIRC.  It was an impossible task considering what they wanted to do at the time.  So it got put back to March 2005, and of course the fickle gaming world didn't immediately go ape for it...this being kind of a nichy game that lends itself better to building a following over time....WB didn't get instant box office success so they dropped it like a hot potato.  SOE picked it up and promptly stuck it in their attic.  I don't hold Lith at fault.  I hold WB and then SOE at fault.  But SOE might have been legally hamstrung in the first place by WB, I don't really know.

NeoExcidious wrote:

 because the devs are not allowed to touch the original content.

This is not the case and never has been. Practically the first thing to happen was the assassination of Morpheus--that should tell you something, if nothing in recent plot developments is giving you any other clues yet. The only thing I've had shot down by the creators since the plotting fell to me was a proposal that the Machines do not in fact use humans as power sources.

So, blame us for not having Neo in every chapter, but not for not having the ability to do that if we thought it was a good idea. Our original writer even told me that the brothers gave him a mandate to tear the Matrix apart and rebuild it. It's tricky to work from an established story in a way that will mean something to its fans without, on the one hand, seeming like you have nothing to do with that previous story, or, on the other, with relying on it so much that you're just reliving the past over and over without actually having it grow in new and interesting directions. We've probably erred more in the former direction than the latter over the years, but I don't really want to fall into the cheap trap of shouting "NEO NEO NEO" every episode.

... Oh, wait.