Jacked back in - my thoughts

Like many people unfortunately, I once played this game and left.  Here are my thoughts on what went wrong, what went right, how i feel after the absence, and if this game has a future.

First my background.  I played this game at launch and enjoyed it immensely.  I left after playing for about 6 months, due to a combination of real life issues and the simple fact (and this one is weighed heavier) that at the time there really wasn't much for a person to do once they hit lvl 50 if nonstop pking wasnt their thing.  This has since been addressed with what seems to be to me anyway a wealth of high level quests to get extremely rare and valuable items, so that is a good change.  In general, I had a very positive experience with the game.  So how is it possible that this game now features at times it seems virtually no one in the game world?  A combination of factors in my opinion...

The most common suspect and mxo fanboys' favorite whipping boy is sony online entertainment.  This is perhaps a little unfair, but I do believe that so many people were still upset over sony's mishandling of star wars galaxies that they were rendered forever tainted in many mmo players' minds.  But Sony is at blame for some of the problems.  The short list:

-Once the subscription base began to falter, Sony did not invest in promoting the game, instead it is now buried on their website, you have to actively search for it to find it.

-Budget cuts.  The dropping of in game rendered cinema for storyboard cinemas was off putting to many.  Don't try to fool yourself that this allowed the story tellers to depict things they couldn't with the game engine, it was money.  Plain and simple.

But let's remember this was originally a monolith productions game.  I've been pleased with offline monolith products in the past.  Monolith productions had some very lofty aims with this game, some of which they delivered and some where they failed short.  Are they to blame?  Is the player community?  Yes and no to both

This games biggest selling point at launch was that u could shape the future of the matrix's ongoing story after the films.  This started out well, but it quickly became apparent that player interaction really had little to do with the direction of the story (according to what i've read paul chadwick had wrote through chapter 9 before game even launched) and this was limited to in event summaries "Our thanks go out to player xyz1337 for landing the killing blow on the assassin and ending his reign of terror!".  The live events themselves were by and large clusterbombs and this was not monolith's fault but rather players.  People really into the story had their experiences ruined by a few who chose to attempt to disrupt the event by starting pvp fights, behaving obnoxiously and spamming the chat so that they turned into huge developer censor fests. 

Another point is the story itself.  Very early on morpheus is killed.  I realize this is supposed to be an OMG moment but sometimes I think there may have been other motives, and that OMG moment could have been achieved in other less off-putting to some ways.  I think the real reason is the limited voice work they got from the original cast, i mean i seriously believe the major players probably sat in a studio for a half hour and said about a dozen lines, thanks see ya later.   My idea for not really an OMG moment but something that would have drove the whole game world wild would have been a race to become the one.  They did this a little bit with neo's code fragment recovery being a quest, but what if they made this into a quest where players from all orgs believed that by completing it they had the potential to gain incredible powers, but in the end find out it was all a nefarious plot orchestrated by a party at that point not in the game (like a human city not zion that had a truce with the machines before the war and was not ravaged by the war, an idea the story later explored) uniting zion, machine, and mero factions temporarily under one banner?  It could all be resolved in a matrix deus ex machina moment, i mean hell have n3o show up and assimilate all the code back into himself only to disappear again?   Fanboys would talk about that for years.  

The story itself got pretty bizarre.  When I type LOL i usually don't mean i laughed out loud, but this time i do.  When watching cinemas around chapter 5, i mean im sorry but giant women who shoot lasers out their eyes?  and then that scene with amone cutting that guy up?  yeah i was lolling.

So with all the negative what is the positive?   Well, I'm happy to report that I've enjoyed my time back.  Though it is small, this game has a great community.  Most players are more than willing to help out new players with any variety of tasks, be it leveling or working their ability trees or what have u.  I did see a few cringe worthy incidents of griefing new players asking legitimate questions a new player would have (and not begging for money or other free stuff or asking someone to power level them), but the guilty party incidentally was all one faction that has a history of not being very kind and thinking very highly of themselves.  Still the community should note that a few bad apples do spoil the pie, or however that saying goes.  This is a game with so much potential that it will be so sad to see the plug pulled.  I've played with some high level players who are still finding tons of stuff to do, if only sony would quit treating this game like its b-tard stepchild.  Will I keep playing.  I'm enjoying myself enough to say I will.  I enjoy the games feel, and although im not a big rp'er if you allow yourself to get immersed in the world it can still be a lot of fun.  I hope this game has a future, jacking out.