SOE Pulls the Plug On The Matrix Online 111
Yesterday, Sony Online Entertainment representative Daniel Myers announced that The Matrix Online will be shut down on July 31st. The game launched in 2005 after several delays and false starts, and shortly thereafter SOE bought the rights to operate the game from developer Monolith. Now, four years later, the game will join the ranks of closed MMOs. In a forum post, Myers said, "The team will also be whipping up an end-of-the-world event. It won't be quite the same as having over 100 developers in the game as Agents like when we ended beta, but we have 4 years of tricks up our sleeve. It'll be a chance to revisit all the things that make MxO the memorable experience it is. And how could we pull the plug without crushing everyone's RSI just one more time?"
I'm pissed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm pissed (Score:4, Informative)
You didn't miss much. It was over-priced and buggy. The game seems to have fallen victim to the SWG (Star Wars: Galaxies) syndrome, only right out of the gate.
Re:I'm pissed (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean they killed Morpheus! That didn't even bring in the numbers. Only reason I am going to log in is to see the ending.
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Does that mean there's a DANCER archetype?
Oh joy!
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I didn't know there was a matrix MMO- and I'm pissed to hear it's shutting down, because I would've played it. No point in signing up now though. Shame.
Look at it this way: maybe you'll get lucky, and someone will fork OpenSim [opensimulator.org] to create a clone.
We can rebuild it. We have the technology.
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I didn't know there was a matrix MMO- and I'm pissed to hear it's shutting down, because I would've played it. No point in signing up now though. Shame.
Look at it this way: maybe you'll get lucky, and someone will fork OpenSim [opensimulator.org] to create a clone.
Why would you want to fork it? OpenSim looks like you could build an MMO over the top of it without any adaptation at all.
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We can rebuild it. We have the technology.
But we don't want to spend a lot of money.
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You don't want to play a game in OpenSim. You can't even reasonably navigate structures which have reasonable-scale-doorways, everything has to be built over-sized if you want people to be able to walk through it. OpenSim is interesting and amazing but it's a shame they can't get right what works in every first person shooter every conceived.
Re:I'm pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't know there was a matrix MMO- and I'm pissed to hear it's shutting down, because I would've played it.
The fact you never heard of it kind of proves how good it was. I mean, when was the last time you met someone who was under 50 and never heard of WoW?
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On the contrary, hearing about something doesn't mean it's any good, either.
The contrary would be: "Everyone's heard about WoW precisely because it's so bad."
I played it for a few months, and liked it for the most part. Actually, it's the first computer game I've ever spent money on. Then I got to the raid-scheduling part, and realized my life is worth more than that.
Re:I'm pissed (Score:4, Interesting)
The Matrix Online was _painful_. The information about what widgets were needed in what order to develop what new devices and abilities was far, far too complex and far, far too painful. You had to play it for at least six months, with a a very detailed notebook on hand, to work out enough detail to begin to survive Player versus Player with the people who refused to sleep and exchanged all their information offline or bought guides.
You may enjoy that, but I found it painful.
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I agree, I played WoW for years and raided for the last 2. Bliz has a good product, but the end game content has become time consuming to the point you're playing 20-40 hours a week just to do any of it, if you do not meet those schedules the guilds will ultimately bench or boot you for someone else who can meet the schedules required to master the complexity and beat these bosses.
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Having heard of WoW is very different from actually having time to play it, it seems like it's been featured on several fictional shows, been parodied, and I think I read that some regular talk shows covered it.
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The poster in question may not understand the sheer amount of marketing that went into releasing WoW, or the effect of marketing dollars on him or her.
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It is like McD, but I'd give it another angle. It's one of those "least common denominator" things.
You have a few friends that you played MMOs with and you're looking for a new one. Which one will it be? One will pull towards EvE, but it's too tedious and abstract for some. One will pull towards AoC but some will shy away from heavy PvP content. In the end, they'll end up in WoW. It's not really what anyone wanted, but it's what they can agree on.
It's like picking a place to eat when you're out with friends
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sounds like you have a very limited pool of easily folding friends. while my friends may not agree on what they do want, none of us want McD, better to skip a meal than ingest a heart attack. same goes for WoW... i'll play no MMO before choosing to play that mind melting fecies... Hulu only claims to melt your brain because its clever advertizing, WoW really does, Blizzard reall _are_ aliens taking over the earth
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I'm under 50. What exactly is WoW? For me it's the acronym for War on Want http://www.waronwant.org/ [waronwant.org] but something tells me that's not what you meant.
Re:I'm pissed (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah its hard for a game to get much word of mouth publicity when you can't tell people what its like because they have to experience it for themselves.
Re:I'm pissed (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there a failed MMO graveyard? Like a wiki where we could post MMOs that have died and analysis of what went wrong?
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In general, what kills most MMOs is releasing too soon. If they release too early and ruin their first impressions with people, there is really no way for them recover. They need subscribers since box sales can only do so much. This is also the key reason why you're seeing fewer MMOs and more delays these days.
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Is there a failed MMO graveyard?
Yeah. It's called "SOE station pass". Matrix Online was already in that fold IIRC.
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You have no idea how pissed off the MxO community has ALWAYS been regarding SOE's refusal to market and adequately support this game. Most players now posting on the official SOE board are refusing to ever spend money on another Sony product, holding them directly accountable for the game's failure.
The game itself is actually quite an achievement. The environment is vast and magnificent even at mid-range video settings, the character models are the best human MMO avatars I've ever seen including lifelike an
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Don't feel too bad, you didn't miss much. It was a failure from the start; that's why it's shutting down.
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We, new players, can't play for free until the end? :(
RSI (Score:5, Informative)
http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/Residual_self_image [wikia.com]
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Thanks, I was going to ask that. I was thought it was weird that they were making one final attempt to give their most loyal players Carpal Tunnel.
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Residual Self-image
My wiki's bigger than yours. [wikipedia.org]
I played for about two years (Score:5, Informative)
One of the few MMOs where basically everyone was looking for bugs.. cause if you were in the matrix, that's what you'd be doing too :)
I think the most fun I ever had was when our little clan would stand around in the park and run into an area that we weren't allowed in... an agent would show up and we'd all kick the shit out of him, not that we had a chance of defeating him, and then run back into the park.. where he wouldn't follow us. Basically bear baiting. :)
But like all MMOs, it eventually became about the grind.
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> all MMOs
There's no grind in guild wars. It's against their philosophy. In fact, when I played, my dude was maxed out way before I ran out of quests. The game has a few problems, but the grind isn't one of them.
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As of the latest WoW expansion, the grind is pretty much gone. They massively sped up leveling through the original content and first expansions (1-70) and the new 70-80 content is well-paced and actually Fun to play.
In fact, the forums are now full of people whining that things are "too easy" and that content is being cleared too fast (by people other than them..lol)
Even if one argues that WOW went from being a million times too grindy to a thousand times too grindy, it still got better by a factor of a t
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What bugs me about WoW is that questing actually is grinding. What's grinding? Well, basically doing the same shit over and over and over 'til you don't want to think about it anymore, and generally don't have to because it's mind numbing, no fun and repetitive to the extreme.
See any similarities with WoW quests? Bring me X of Y, kill X of Y, carry X to Y... From level 1 to level 80.
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This is true - there isn't much grind in WoW, but it still exists. You have to do daily quests for instance to raise reputation or earn tokens to purchase items (like the argent tournament or dungeons/raid badges). The only difference is - games like Lineage 2 where it could actually take years to hit max level playing 24x7 - WoW it only takes weeks or months, but its still grind.
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I was just posting about dailies in the wow forums too - I think these are really interesting.
Personally I have zero interest in repeating the same quest over and over every day. And I don't. You can equip tabards for most rep in LK and get it "incidentally" through going to dungeons/raids. It's also optional, as rep just gives gear that you can get through dungeons/raiding as well.
But there are some people who just seem to *love* repeating their dailies every day. I've got one friend who I see on every
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What sucks is when you absolutely have to have the reputation because of guild requirements for raiding.
Aldor/Scryer for Shoulder Enchantment @ 70
Hodir Reputation for Shoulder Enchantment @ 80
At least with Hodir reputation you have the epic fight with the proto-drake daily, but beyond that the rest of the quests were boring, and if you don't have the gold to buy Relic's of Hodir, or the time to spend hunting for crystals to turn in for rep, you can spend a lot of time.
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I surely hope you are jesting. We don't call it BuildWars and GrindWars for nothing you know.
You want that slim-to-none chance of the monthly Everlasting Tonic drop? Go grind in PvP for Balthazar Faction to purchase Zaishen Keys with.
You want that nifty Obsidian Armor set? Go grind for months in the high-end PvE areas for the low-drop-rate Obsidian Shards and Ectos.
Oh? You want to participate in Heroes' Ascent? Go grind in Team Arenas for months to get your Gladiator ranks up high enough so that a semi-dece
Sounds normal to me (Score:2, Interesting)
It won't continue as the game is about a movie only; nobody will interest in the game as nobody will interest in putting more effort in products related to an old movie.
Sure The Matrix trilogy is a good movie (yes I have DVDs of The Matrix trilogy), but once the story ends (The Matrix Revolutions), people won't focus on/ talk about it anymore.
Re:Sounds normal to me (Score:5, Funny)
Revolutions? trilogy?
They only made one Matrix movie. *drags you off screen*
Re:Sounds normal to me (Score:5, Interesting)
They only made one Matrix movie. *drags you off screen*
Too bad they never made any sequels. [xkcd.com]
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And if you like continuous gunfire part three was fine.
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Shame they didn't make the second movie to the early script.
I had the pleasure to read an (alleged) early draft for the 2nd part, which was considerably different from the (not so allegedly) crappy movie. With a lot more philosophic challenges for Neo and delightful puns, and a Morpheus that's revealed as a basically overzealous fanatic who'd gladly make billions of people die (the "sleepers") to save the handful of people who are free outside the Matrix.
I loved the script, I went to the movie... the disapp
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Well it's a trilogy, not a movie. And two of the movies sucked. And one was alright but still overrated.
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Is there a noticeable difference in the weather when you're that far up on your high horse?
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Go back to Shell Beach. Dark City was was good, but it wasn't all that. The Matrix was a great movie. It really summed up the Zeitgeist of the fin de siecle. It came at the end of an era when everyone was looking for meaning, and things were about to change drastically. If you didn't walk out of the theater after seeing The Matrix for the first time wanting to break shit, completely pumped to see it again about 10 or 15 more times, there's something wrong with you. It's easy to hate on it in retrospect beca
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I always thought after Cypher tried to make the deal with Agent Smith to get back to the Matrix that it would have been a damned cool twist if in the third one he went to the machine city and found out that...there simply was NO Zion.
Shit, that's what I thought I saw on-screen when Neo zapped the squiddies out there in the "real world." I thought "Holy shit, he never actually left the matrix!"
The Matrix really should never have had sequels. There simply wasn't any more story that needed telling. But if they had to make a sequel, that's the angle they should have gone with. The only thing that could have possibly been more entertaining would be for them to escape into the real real world and find out that the blackened skies and body far
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The only thing that could have possibly been more entertaining would be for them to escape into the real real world and find out that the blackened skies and body farms was still part of the matrix and that the real world was actually quite nice and pleasant.
Heck, you could even make a whole TV series this way, each episode having the main character popping out into a "real"-er world!
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I enjoyed your four paragraphs far more than I enjoyed the last two movies.
well that's good at least (Score:1)
Re:well that's good at least (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to play an online webgame where the ending was part of the game AND inevitable. Players could also do stuff to cause the game to end early - so there would be people who'd choose to try to end the game early, and others who would try to stop them.
While some people might not like the idea of having to regrind to build their chars up again, they could just reduce the amount of grind involved in getting the chars up.
Because it doesn't matter that the players get to heroic levels fast, you need them at heroic levels for the ending. And after the ending they start again from scratch.
I figure the biggest problem is almost everyone might be online for the ending and that'll crash the servers
I mean it when I say "The End" (Score:5, Interesting)
It strikes me that an online RPG might begin with a book: a three or four year story arc that has a clear beginning, a middle and an end.
It would be a particularly rewarding experience for those who came in and early and stayed the course.
But you could enter and exit at any point with some sense of achievement - and a unique experience of the game.
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Well, A Tale in the Desert [slashdot.org] has this. They end the game and start another version after a certain period. That game is the exception to a lot of rules, though. If it wasn't so mismanaged it'd be a close second to WoW.
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WoW's 3.0 patch had a fantastic world event. Ok, the random citadels spawning mobs in the most desolate areas was lame but the zombies and the plague made it the most memorable couple of days in the game.
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Sigh... I know they said that's not the reason (well, general outcry anyway) but yeah, the way they ended it was shamefully weak. Just... bam! Everything is fine again. This after steadily increasing populations of zombies throughout the week.
Yeah, it was griefer heaven (oh, the fun in chasing down guildies or infected quest hub areas, horde and alliance alike) but if you WEREN'T trying to get infected, it certainly gave the feeling of the end of civilization. All those Shattered Sun NPCs in Shatt made f
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Not a good idea though. Remember that the ultimate goal of any commercial game is to make lots of money. They cost a lot to develop, you want a big return. Well, you get that if you get a lot of subscribers who stay on a long time. So you don't want to end a game when there's still lots of people playing.
Also you'll likely piss off a lot of people. While there are plenty of people who play a game for a time, get bored, and move on to something new, there are plenty who don't. There are people who really com
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Not a good idea though. Remember that the ultimate goal of any commercial game is to make lots of money. They cost a lot to develop, you want a big return.
"The Matrix" is fundamentally no different from Disney's online "Pirates of the Carribbean." When the big tent comes down and the franchise grows cold you are the last living cell in the dead body.
The franchise product that is solidly anchored is rare.
The iconic DC Comic character exists in recognizable form as early as 1940. He will have a had a long
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It strikes me that an online RPG might begin with a book: a three or four year story arc that has a clear beginning, a middle and an end.
It would be a particularly rewarding experience for those who came in and early and stayed the course.
But you could enter and exit at any point with some sense of achievement - and a unique experience of the game.
Part of the problem is epeen stroking. People want to have something to show for their time in the game, more levels and greater loot, etc.
I know I'm personally sick of mmorpg's because of the content recycling. I play a stand-alone game, there's 20 hours worth of material and then I'm done. I play an mmorpg, the devs only have the budget for 20 hours worth of material so it ends up getting recycled to make four the thousands of hours of lifesucking gameplay. A mechanic that was fun the first time gets old
As the Oracle Once Said... (Score:4, Funny)
Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.
SOE...Always messing things up! (Score:1, Insightful)
That's really a shame...Well just like the other MMO that SOE got it hands on, the marvelous jewel that was tarnished by the grimy hands of SOE, you guys know what I'm talking about SWG! I swear it's like SOE had to go ahead and destroy everything that has the potential to be awesome or that was awesome. SWG was the greatest MMO I had ever played and they came along and ruined it!
now "The Matrix" has to suffer because of their evil! I wish I was a billionaire so I could use my money for the greater good, an
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Yeah they did basically the same thing with planetside too.
More proof (Score:1)
Re:More proof (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, if only SOE had open sourced the Matrix world...
Where Morpheus makes Neo read the matrix mailing list archives instead of giving him the pill.
And instead of the climactic battle with Agent Smith, watch as Neo instead goes to the Matrix bugzilla and files a dupe bug report of an Agent attempting to kill him that's been open since the first alpha.
In the exciting conclusion, the bug is patched but Neo doesn't have the right version of the new sound library they threw in with the bugfix release.
Will he track down the new library version, compile and install the new dependencies that aren't in his package manager, install the library, and compile the new Matrix in time?!
Stay tuned.
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Why would Sony make an open source MMO game? Someone could just take the code, host it on their own server, and now all the people they are expecting to pay $15 a month are now flocking to the free server instead.
Yeah, it's good for the players because their gameplay can't be cut off by the whims of a single company, but running the server, let alone developing the game (which is more important for MMOs than other types of games), costs money that a virtual "tip jar" isn't gonna cover.
There are open source
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If not, then are they guilty of breach of contract -- especially for those who have bought it recently. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick ?
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Re:More proof (Score:4, Informative)
Or have I got the wrong end of the stick ?
Unless they promised that the service would go on forever, there has been no breach of contract.
Everyone knows that businesses and products fail. You have to make the decision of whether to deal with a vendor based on past performance. I won't buy the average Ford vehicle because Ford makes stupid, unnecessary changes to a given motor every couple years, even if they're still using it, that defeat parts interchange. I have a Ford truck because it has an International motor, and I know I can get parts even if I take the truck to another country.
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most MMORG boxes have fine print that the company reserves the right to end the online features with 30 days notice... this is it!
Of course I still see boxes of Tabula Rasa on shelves... nobody's bothered to tell the stores the game's closed!
The definitive end of The Matrix (Score:3, Insightful)
Fun fact; the MMORPG was actually considered canon. So when the game ends, that, rather than the third movie, will be the actual end of the story.
The fact that, from what I read at least, it was so story driven in nature was probably what ensured that it only had a finite lifespan. If WoW's devs hadn't screwed the class dynamics to the degree they have since 3.0, that game could have conceivably lasted more or less forever on the basis of the pre-existing content, without any further developer interaction.
MxO, however, was different. It was apparently built around ongoing episodic/developer involvement, and comparitively speaking there apparently wasn't a lot of repetitive/static content at all. As a result, once the devs stopped doing the live stuff, the game itself would die.
The franchise has existed for ten years, and that is a better run than many get; I know the screenplay of the first movie more intimately than Muslims are supposed to know the Qu'ran. Although I've still got it on my hard drive, I also wouldn't have watched it more than probably three times in the last five years; I saw it literally close to 100 times within the first six months of its' release, and I've since got it out of my system.
Adios, Neo. It's been a great ride.
Not the only MMO to recently get End of Life'd (Score:3, Informative)
Sad, Very Sad. (Score:1)
Should all MMOs die at some point? (Score:5, Interesting)
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An ill-conceived project (Score:1)
Games made to be played on the Internet should be compatible with the whole Internet. The Matrix Online was Windows-only, like today is 1995. Ill-conceived projects die, not because they weren't Linux-compatible; because not being Linux- (or Mac-) compatible is, in year 2009, an evidence of ill-conceiveness.
lux
Explains WoW then, doesn't it (Score:2)
Oh no, it doesn't.
Last Chance Download (Score:2)
Re:Last Chance Download - NVM (Score:2)
No, not like this... (Score:2)
Relax, this is just the Cipher-pulling-the-plug part. You'll be back online as soon as the latino guy in the spaceship recovers from the plasma ray hit.
Another game killed by Soe. (Score:2)
Thats 2nd after they managed to kill a mega title like Star Wars Galaxies. And the ceo of its parent company still babbles shit about the internet and whatnot, instead of doing his f@cking job. if he spent a fraction of his time overseeing their divisions, instead of babbling sh@t to shape internet to make up for their gross incompetence, those two mega titles wouldnt go down the drain like this.
guy. do your f@cking job. leave internet, to, well, the internet. wisdom of the crowds is much bigger than your 2
Is PlanetSide Next? (Score:2)
i wonder how much longer it will last. i hope i get to CR 5 before they shut down.