background, I was in the beta for the longest time, continued to play after the launch for a year, cancelled, returned
during the first run in live, I assisted morpheus by beating the snot out of agents during an event (agents skinner, and grey) one of the first few to solve voushou's murder, exchanged e-mails with the oracle on weapons to fight off the assassin (hidden way way into the storyline, before it was well known)
the game went to hell after the death of the destroyer event, after that event the game had next to nothing happen for 6 MONTHS!!!!!!! while CR 2.0 was being worked on, YES ALL DEVELOPMENT, BUG FIXES, CONTENT stopped completely for SIX MONTHS
then the TURD came out, you would think something that took 100% of the dev's time for 6 months would be somewhat stable, yet when it came out it was 5,000 times buggier than the old combat system which in the dev's words was too buggy to fix
the TURD did the following things, moved 1/3rd of all combat skills into total shit, NERFED every "uber" item in the game you as a player might have camped an archive for a month to get and item, for your devotion and time you get your uber item turned into shit, hell even the assassin's mask only 9 of them existed in the game, and item given to players that landed final blows on a story character, doesn't matter it all got nerfed into crap
bugs... the game has alot, as of today the game still has over a dozen bugs in the game that were in the game during the BETA
its not like people do not report bugs, its that the devs really could give a crap, you could explain in great detail to what is going on and the why its happening, your reports are just ignored until someone exploits it
exploits goes with the before mentioned bugs point
money duplication, any other game having a bug where a player can exploit the hell out of the system and get unlimited money, would be considered a pressing got to fix bug, in the matrix online the bug was found reported certain players hit the maximum money count, months pass and finally a fix goes live, players that exploited got to keep their ill gotten info, nothing was done to the exploiters
early bug on the pvp server, that happened during a live event (players played by the devs and support staff) a certain faction exploited a bug where no one could attack them and exploited it RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DEVS, nothing was done to the exploiters they reaped full benifits
supernodes, a bug in the game created super nodes, which are a minable resource that gives money, most of the players learned to macro mine, litterally the punishments were so vast and wide it was insane, you have 50 people around a supernode, 20 will get a 3 day ban, 20 will not even get a warning or slap on the wrist, 10 would get perma banned, some of the perma bans were first time offenders, some of those that were not even punished were on 4th 5th 6th warning
took a year off returned hoped everything would change, same items in game as before, few bug fixes, same exploitation and lack of fair enforcement
a certain faction on recursion had over 20 members with a super item, there were only supposted to be 3 server wide, EVERY PLAYER IN THEIR FACTION HAD IT, again they moved in plain view a clear exploit going on, csr's saw it, devs saw it, nothing was done, just a forum post saying "don't do it" had it been another faction that had 4 people with the item, they would have likely banned the entire faction, they have done it before
the game's peak was during the first month of launch
I see people saying SOE is the one reason this game is still on. Is this suppose to be a good thing? Please!!! Guys, this is soe's MO, they have all the crappy games, the games no one wants.
They take games, destroy them then have people pay inorder to play them. Look at Vanguard, look at whats happened there. They forced the release of a game before time. hence, the population has abandoned it for the most part.
I played this one at beta, couldn't wait to leave it. This game has the distinction in my book of being the blandest game of all the many games I've ever played.
For all the games SOE currently has, none of them have a large or even medium population, why? because they all have been downsized by soe, it's their way of doing this. Their M-O.
way too much work went into this game just for it to be shelved and deleted. Dispite it not being very good now it is still te only game of its type out there.
I beta tested the game, was a subscriber for about a year and got my character up to level 50 in beta and in Live. The game was a blast in beta and overall, MxO had a ton of potential going for it... but with the average reviews and lack luster lauch, the game went downhill in a hurry. I wanted this game to be good in the worst way, but its pretty clear now that MxO is going nowhere. Instead of giving the game what it REALLY needs (expansions to get new players interested, end game content, new weapons, etc), all SOE does is tweek the gameplay (making it much worse compared to what it was in beta imo). The developers aren't doing anything to keep they're current subscribers or pull in new ones. Once you hit 50, there is very little to do in the game. And even the few things you do have (Pandora's Boxes) are just as repetitive and boring as the mission grinds. Then there is the community, which like the game itself, used to be really good, but now is dying off aswell. And then theres all of the things that we're supposed to be in the game or be released later that will assuredly never see the light of day. Faction contructs (like SG Bases in CoH/V), the rumored "Freeway" Expansion, drivable vehicles, melee weapons (swords, axes, etc), extra districts (there was originally supposed to be about 10 iirc), and I'm sure there are even more I'm missing... Hell, they still haven't even put in the /afk command yet!
The little tweeks and additions SOE have have done are ok... I guess. But in the end, its like they're putting frosting on a turd and telling me its a cupcake. Unless they fix the REAL problems, its still just gonna be a turd (with frosting on top ofcourse).
I have a gut feeling that if we could get the raw numbers of how many subscribers MxO has and the average population of each server, the numbers would be downright depressing.
So my question is, what keeps this game running? Is it just Sony's need for a few extra bucks in they're pockets?
For someone who is a big Matrix fan and was a fan of MxO, I really wish they would have just cancelled this game instead of limping it along on life support like it currently is.
[/rant]
To bypass the other 80 posts and two hours+ of reading time, I'm going to share my ideas on why MxO is still running.
Station pass and Matrix fans. Seriously. Believe what you will but SoE got MxO as part of a package deal from WB who were looking to dump the cost of running the botched game on somebody else.
Monolith created a wonderful urban landscape (excluding building interiors) but they forgot one thing: static content. They devoted too much time into live events and such that they forgot what really keeps a healthy player base around. So right off the bat, after the first month of release or so after all the players who exploited to 50 and found out that that was all there was to do, MxO lost a decent chunk of its subscribers (I still remember a topic entitled: "So Who's All Sticking Around After the Free 30-day Trial?"). The only ones who were left were mainly Matrix fans (myself included) who were interested in seeing how the story panned out, and so it remains to this day.
Meanwhile, retailers got rid of the game as it was just collecting dust on the shelves (the only way to get it now is via the internet) and WB was losing a lot of money. So SoE stepped in, got it as a package deal, and slapped it under their station access so the game could at least generate enough revenue to keep it running thanks to the $$$ of people who could care less if MxO is there or not.
So there you go. The game is just barely able to float thanks in large part to station access. So yes, SoE can indeed be attributed to why the game is still online, but not for any romantic reasons, just simply b/c it's a cheap resource of cash for other projects they have running.
Sad but true, which is also why I too wish they put this game out of its misery and, like I said on DN1, release the MxO story via a medium like comics. Chadwick is a comic writer after all.
Who would buy an expansion pack for the matrix?..not sure i would tbh i keep meaning to go back and have a look and see how it is now but frankly i was put off by the whole mess at launch
Who would buy an expansion pack for the matrix?..not sure i would tbh i keep meaning to go back and have a look and see how it is now but frankly i was put off by the whole mess at launch
The answer: no one, because this game will be long gone before that ever happens. SoE would have to make a major push in the marketing department to not only pull in some big bucks but interested, potential subscribers. As it looks now, however, SoE is content to leave MxO right where it is: a station access filler.
its too bad really that SOE just treats this game as a station filler, there is so much potential here. If they could muster some funds to make an expansion and bundle it in a new box with the core game, with some marketing i think this could be a much more profitable project. What they are doing right now is just waiting for its slow and painful death.
its too bad really that SOE just treats this game as a station filler, there is so much potential here. If they could muster some funds to make an expansion and bundle it in a new box with the core game, with some marketing i think this could be a much more profitable project. What they are doing right now is just waiting for its slow and painful death.
I'm sure they could, but at this point, I'm content to just let the game die. Tbh, I'm surprised it went on as long as it did, or even that it passed beta. I'm sure this game sounded great at the start, but I can't believe that they went ahead with the intention of the focus being on the story.
To their credit, I can see where they were coming from, but they needed to create something to keep people around past the first trial month: content. Diehards will argue this, but the nitty gritty of it is that this game just has nothing to offer beyond its unique storytelling, and in the end, it's obvious that this was not a good route. I would have been happy without the live events if that meant I could always have something to do in the city. As much as I loved the events, what's the point if no one is around to experience them?
But yeah, on the surface, one would think that SoE, with as much money as it has, would be able to turn this game around simply by throwing money at it, but as it is right now, this game's a risk, and I agree with them, but that's no reason to abandon the game and leave it to rot.
But eh... It was a good run, but now it's time to move on.
Some of us would disagree and much prefer the story oriented direction of the game.
Heck, its why i and many others are still there and ain't going nowhere. For me at least none of the other MMOs have been gripping or immersive enough for my tastes.
But yeah, its all personal preference. Opinion. Subjection.
And as long as theres enough people with the personal opinion thats kept the game alive this long it'll sure as hell stay alive.
You, me, frei, davis, none of us make any difference. So why bother arguing? Surely people can just agree to disagree and stop it? Oh wait, this is the internet, what am i saying
Some of us would disagree and much prefer the story oriented direction of the game. Heck, its why i and many others are still there and ain't going nowhere. For me at least none of the other MMOs have been gripping or immersive enough for my tastes. But yeah, its all personal preference. Opinion. Subjection. And as long as theres enough people with the personal opinion thats kept the game alive this long it'll sure as hell stay alive. You, me, frei, davis, none of us make any difference. So why bother arguing? Surely people can just agree to disagree and stop it? Oh wait, this is the internet, what am i saying
A cahtroom would serve the same purpose, this is a game, not a chatroom, as a chatroom it's awesome, as a game it's terrible.
Comments
I am shocked the game is still around...
background, I was in the beta for the longest time, continued to play after the launch for a year, cancelled, returned
during the first run in live, I assisted morpheus by beating the snot out of agents during an event (agents skinner, and grey) one of the first few to solve voushou's murder, exchanged e-mails with the oracle on weapons to fight off the assassin (hidden way way into the storyline, before it was well known)
the game went to hell after the death of the destroyer event, after that event the game had next to nothing happen for 6 MONTHS!!!!!!! while CR 2.0 was being worked on, YES ALL DEVELOPMENT, BUG FIXES, CONTENT stopped completely for SIX MONTHS
then the TURD came out, you would think something that took 100% of the dev's time for 6 months would be somewhat stable, yet when it came out it was 5,000 times buggier than the old combat system which in the dev's words was too buggy to fix
the TURD did the following things, moved 1/3rd of all combat skills into total shit, NERFED every "uber" item in the game you as a player might have camped an archive for a month to get and item, for your devotion and time you get your uber item turned into shit, hell even the assassin's mask only 9 of them existed in the game, and item given to players that landed final blows on a story character, doesn't matter it all got nerfed into crap
bugs... the game has alot, as of today the game still has over a dozen bugs in the game that were in the game during the BETA
its not like people do not report bugs, its that the devs really could give a crap, you could explain in great detail to what is going on and the why its happening, your reports are just ignored until someone exploits it
exploits goes with the before mentioned bugs point
money duplication, any other game having a bug where a player can exploit the hell out of the system and get unlimited money, would be considered a pressing got to fix bug, in the matrix online the bug was found reported certain players hit the maximum money count, months pass and finally a fix goes live, players that exploited got to keep their ill gotten info, nothing was done to the exploiters
early bug on the pvp server, that happened during a live event (players played by the devs and support staff) a certain faction exploited a bug where no one could attack them and exploited it RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DEVS, nothing was done to the exploiters they reaped full benifits
supernodes, a bug in the game created super nodes, which are a minable resource that gives money, most of the players learned to macro mine, litterally the punishments were so vast and wide it was insane, you have 50 people around a supernode, 20 will get a 3 day ban, 20 will not even get a warning or slap on the wrist, 10 would get perma banned, some of the perma bans were first time offenders, some of those that were not even punished were on 4th 5th 6th warning
took a year off returned hoped everything would change, same items in game as before, few bug fixes, same exploitation and lack of fair enforcement
a certain faction on recursion had over 20 members with a super item, there were only supposted to be 3 server wide, EVERY PLAYER IN THEIR FACTION HAD IT, again they moved in plain view a clear exploit going on, csr's saw it, devs saw it, nothing was done, just a forum post saying "don't do it" had it been another faction that had 4 people with the item, they would have likely banned the entire faction, they have done it before
the game's peak was during the first month of launch
This sucks.
I see people saying SOE is the one reason this game is still on. Is this suppose to be a good thing? Please!!! Guys, this is soe's MO, they have all the crappy games, the games no one wants.
They take games, destroy them then have people pay inorder to play them. Look at Vanguard, look at whats happened there. They forced the release of a game before time. hence, the population has abandoned it for the most part.
I played this one at beta, couldn't wait to leave it. This game has the distinction in my book of being the blandest game of all the many games I've ever played.
For all the games SOE currently has, none of them have a large or even medium population, why? because they all have been downsized by soe, it's their way of doing this. Their M-O.
Station pass and Matrix fans. Seriously. Believe what you will but SoE got MxO as part of a package deal from WB who were looking to dump the cost of running the botched game on somebody else.
Monolith created a wonderful urban landscape (excluding building interiors) but they forgot one thing: static content. They devoted too much time into live events and such that they forgot what really keeps a healthy player base around. So right off the bat, after the first month of release or so after all the players who exploited to 50 and found out that that was all there was to do, MxO lost a decent chunk of its subscribers (I still remember a topic entitled: "So Who's All Sticking Around After the Free 30-day Trial?"). The only ones who were left were mainly Matrix fans (myself included) who were interested in seeing how the story panned out, and so it remains to this day.
Meanwhile, retailers got rid of the game as it was just collecting dust on the shelves (the only way to get it now is via the internet) and WB was losing a lot of money. So SoE stepped in, got it as a package deal, and slapped it under their station access so the game could at least generate enough revenue to keep it running thanks to the $$$ of people who could care less if MxO is there or not.
So there you go. The game is just barely able to float thanks in large part to station access. So yes, SoE can indeed be attributed to why the game is still online, but not for any romantic reasons, just simply b/c it's a cheap resource of cash for other projects they have running.
Sad but true, which is also why I too wish they put this game out of its misery and, like I said on DN1, release the MxO story via a medium like comics. Chadwick is a comic writer after all.
Sinister Savant MMORPG Community
I'm sure they could, but at this point, I'm content to just let the game die. Tbh, I'm surprised it went on as long as it did, or even that it passed beta. I'm sure this game sounded great at the start, but I can't believe that they went ahead with the intention of the focus being on the story.
To their credit, I can see where they were coming from, but they needed to create something to keep people around past the first trial month: content. Diehards will argue this, but the nitty gritty of it is that this game just has nothing to offer beyond its unique storytelling, and in the end, it's obvious that this was not a good route. I would have been happy without the live events if that meant I could always have something to do in the city. As much as I loved the events, what's the point if no one is around to experience them?
But yeah, on the surface, one would think that SoE, with as much money as it has, would be able to turn this game around simply by throwing money at it, but as it is right now, this game's a risk, and I agree with them, but that's no reason to abandon the game and leave it to rot.
But eh... It was a good run, but now it's time to move on.
Some of us would disagree and much prefer the story oriented direction of the game.
Heck, its why i and many others are still there and ain't going nowhere. For me at least none of the other MMOs have been gripping or immersive enough for my tastes.
But yeah, its all personal preference. Opinion. Subjection.
And as long as theres enough people with the personal opinion thats kept the game alive this long it'll sure as hell stay alive.
You, me, frei, davis, none of us make any difference. So why bother arguing? Surely people can just agree to disagree and stop it? Oh wait, this is the internet, what am i saying
A cahtroom would serve the same purpose, this is a game, not a chatroom, as a chatroom it's awesome, as a game it's terrible.