Matrix Online Creators Quizzed On MMO Wire-Fu 37
Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with the lead designer of The Matrix Online, featuring new details regarding the PC MMO which recently parted ways with original co-developer UbiSoft, meaning the newly rejuvenated Warner Bros. Interactive "...is now the sole publisher of the title." According to the article, the developers Monolith are utilizing a combat system called Interlock, where "...players have the opportunity to optimize their fighting technique by managing their move-by-move combat tactics, and performing combos and other special maneuvers. This is definitely not 'click and watch.'" There's more information at the official Matrix Online FAQ.
Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad because having a truly digital alternate reality in the context of a game about a digital alternate reality is a pretty cool concept.
Re:Bad timing (Score:2)
I disagree. I think there are a lot of people itching to play this game. A read through the FAQ gets me imagining all kinds of spectacular fights. Three hundred different moves!
Re:Bad timing (Score:2)
What will combat be like?
Combat will be intense and spectacular, with over 300 animations for each martial art and weapons style.
Read it again -- the FAQ states that the game has "over 300 animations for each martial art and weapons style" which seems impressive. However, consider all the annimations that will simply be variations, idle animations, basic movement, and that number sounds a lot less impressive.
Prince of Persia used over 700 animations just for the Prince's very small set o
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Fighting (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I've read, the Bullet-Time option will kick in when you've landed the killing blow on your opponent, wasn't it much more cool if you could activate Bullet-Time during battle, like in Max Payne.
I guess it's really hard to do in an online game, who should be moving in bullet time, who should move in realtime, will spectators outside of the Bullet-Time area be viewing a really slow or really fast fight?
Difficult stuff.
Re:Fighting (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fighting (Score:4, Interesting)
For 'slow' time, the effect is confined to a bubble, so you can have bullet time fights without affecting the whole world. As different characters are differently able to distort time, control speed and physics are changed by different amounts depending on your abilities; but all characters 'see' the bubble as if they were the fastest character (ie you see it the way the movie did).
To avoid discontinuities, intra-world communication (eg speech, phone) with someone in a different timeframe is disrupted, but inter-world communication is unaffected (eg a 'find me an exit' conversation). Constant rain and other effects can be used to constrain line-of-sight so there are no visual discontinuities.
'fast' time can be used for pre-planned actions, eg running along a route. Since you don't need real-time control, a fast character can then be moved at super-speed to their destination, and slow characters see an appropriate visual effect. Encountering a 'slow' bubble while moving along a 'fast' route drops you back into control.
I'm sure this leads to plenty of temporal anomalies, but unless you give they characters wristwatches they won't be annoyingly obvious.
Re:Fighting (Score:2)
So, let me try to understand your vision: Players are running around shooting each other in real time, but someone is engage
Re:Fighting (Score:2)
Anyone who can see into the bubble is part of the bubble, was what I meant. That's why I mentioned the rain; you have to constrain line-of-sight so the effect doesn't spread to the whole MMO world.
Also, what if you're in a team? You have five characters (Team A) who encou
Re:Fighting (Score:2)
So, instead of landing a killing blow by slowing time for greater accuracy and armor-penetration, you get a special viewing of bullet time when you kill someone? Sounds like someone hasn't really understood bullet time at all. Bullet time exists as a side effect of speeding the thought process so quickly that everything seems very slow; and speeding this thought process exists because the characters are indeed working h
"Bullet Time" (Score:2)
Re:Fighting (Score:2)
Re:Fighting (Score:1)
Combat? (Score:4, Interesting)
If the machines and humans are at peace, then who will players fight against? Excluding pvp, I can't imagine that there will be very much combat. In a game like Everquest or Asheron's Call, minor enemies like trolls, orcs, and the like can be churned out over and over again to provide fighting fodder. In a Matrix world, where are the snakes and bats to fight?
Re:Combat? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well...that might be a good thing (tm) (Score:2, Interesting)
There would for all intents and purposes be two teams. The merovingians minions who would be easier to play for newbies. Being able to run over any surface, like a vampire, or be able to take collosall amounts of damage, like a werewolf sans silver, etc. They wouldn't have a bullet-time ability, but they might be naturally faster etc.
And th
Re:Well...that might be a good thing (tm) (Score:2, Insightful)
And the humans. Who would start out start out basically as pussies, but should they survive could be superbad ass. But when you die, or after a certain number of times, you go
Re:Well...that might be a good thing (tm) (Score:2, Funny)
What the hell? There's some kind of shortage of storm troopers, tusken raiders, twitchy ineffectual bounty hunters, random bar wolves, and jawas as evidenced by the first movie?
No, like all heroes that came before them, they must do mortal battle with invertebrates, then small mammals, then sma
Re:Combat? (Score:2, Interesting)
or maybe you are one who wants the war to start back up.
Re:Combat? (Score:2)
Re:Combat? (Score:1)
Also, with a story line by the Wachowski's, you can be sure that plenty of weirdness will abound.
not real time fighting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it whenever that phrase gets uttered by a designer, it almost always the opposite of the truth? The fighting system he describes sounds like a RPGesque system of clicking buttons to queue up attacks ALA Xenogears. It also sounds like fights will proceed without user input, allowing avatars whose hosts are lagging out to continue with only a moderate effectiveness penalty. It makes sense for a MMPORPG to do it that way, and it is a cut above other games in terms of click-and-watch, but it still isn't the real time fighting that people want.
Describing the fighting system the way they do, people are going to be expecting Planetside, and will be disappointed to receive SW:KOTOR. It sounds like it could be fun, but they need to manage expectations better.
Despite the hype, most people would consider queuing up attacks a form of "click-and-watch."
Re:not real time fighting. (Score:4, Insightful)
(things like adjusting positioning or switching on/off defensive modes, using a 'counter' style to your opponents style, etc).
Queuing is a nice way to mitigate lag or declare intent (so your character isn't sitting there like an idiot during a lag spike), but shouldn't be the best tactic to use for an entire fight.
If you simply don't use the pause functionality in SW:Kotor, it's a decent example of having an action queue, yet being required to adjust it regularly for best results. (I'd personally want for more counters, reactive styles than KOTOR - but it's a decent example.)
If the effectiveness of a character's chooseable combat options are independent of enemy tactics, then surely the gameplay would still amount to 'click and watch', albeit front-loaded with more clicking.
But it ultimately depends on whether you're rewarded more for spamming your 'best' combos, or reacting with the 'appropriate' moves given the situation.
The designers still have an opportunity to avoid 'click and watch'. Whether they will or not is anyone's guess.
Note Uru (Score:2)
From the Faq (Score:5, Funny)
Okay, I'll bite...
"Pistol, rifle, and submachine gun are available in the initial launch of Matrix Online. More weapons will probably be added in later game expansions."
So, I have to wait to probably download a way to pretend to download the ability to use a virtual representation of a virtual representation of more than just 3 standard game guns?
Existentialism aside, that blows. I need guns...lots of guns!
Re:From the Faq (Score:2)
This is why I can never go back to a traditional MMORPG. The online world I now spend most of my time in lets you make anything you want. When I say "make" I mean build it from primitive shapes, link it together, and write one or more programs to model the behavior for the object.
I love how some MMORPGs claim that they have
You have to see it for..oh screw it. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing this has going for it is that it's produced by Monolith, of Shogo/NOLF/Tron fame. It's licensed (strike one), it's the Matrix (should be worth two strikes after ETM but we'll be fair give it one), and Ubisoft dropped it amidst an ever-crowding market of pointless MMOs. Strike three?
The only way I see this title being any fun at all is if Monolith somehow works in their crisp sense of humor. The machines are developing sheep bombs, say, or the game goes into bullet time whenever someone slips on a banana peel. I, for one, would very much like to see a man-cube [gamespy.com] perform martial arts while dodging bullets in slow motion.
Re:You have to see it for..oh screw it. (Score:2)
Their games are almost always filled with good story, interesting bad guys, and generic, poor gameplay. Shogo was an unremarkable FPS whose only interesting feature was the addition of transforming. Tron was not a good game - it suffered from "wouldn't it be neat if we...." design mentality, instead of what would actually be fun.
And one game they were responsible for that
Just one question to the developers: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Just one question to the developers: (Score:2)
I think this game's sales are going to be largely unaffected by the movies' successes and failures. The lag-time between the last movie and the release of this will ensure that word-of-mouth is going to make or break the game unless they market the hell out of it, which i don't see happening. If it plays well it will do well.
bad timing (Score:2)
so... (Score:2, Funny)