MetaLogic wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

- Organization-wide meetings will take place on a single server per organization. Which server hosts which organization's meeting will rotate every update. Meeting time and location will be clearly and publicly announced well in advance. The format will be--as closely as is possible--a roundtable discussion of the concerns and topics most relevant to the organization, in which the story's official organization representatives--Niobe, the Merovingian, Agent Gray, and so on--will need the input of their operatives. The intended model is something akin to the meeting of Zion captains held at the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded. This type of openness and flexibility was simply not possible under the old scheme of pre-planned, pre-scripted, daily and weekly events and missions.

- The small-scale live events that we've been doing on a daily basis will still occur from time to time--in general, when specifically required by the main story

I'd rather have the small-scale LE that happens once a month than the meetings every 3-4 months.  That's a step back Rarebit, not a step foward. 

he said once per update not once every 3-4 months and the small scale events will still occur (I hop more often than once a month)

Level 30's and up only have access to the storyline = bad idea. I have a merv 24 and a mech 25. I don't know if I can do it. How about letting us run the quests w/o rewards? I always hoped following the story would be solo-able.

Will Kid and Simada be around at all? EPN is an idea more than it is an org, especially by game mechanics terms. I expect Cyphs feel similar. Though from what I can see, cyphs and mechs have a larger gap in their ideals than epns and zion, especially since the truce ended. EPN and Zion should be working closer together. It's a WAR again. And if you are a Zion and pro matrix, you are basically a mech. Don't give me that survival crapola.

Everything else seems awesome, contect and such.

I can see why Rare decided to use Cryptos, Veil and Shimada as masks. Wonder if one of the last ones will be Popper?

Vinia wrote:

I can see why Rare decided to use Cryptos, Veil and Shimada as masks. Wonder if one of the last ones will be Popper?

Good insight, Vinia. But, Popper is based on the Kid, which was made by Warner Brothers and was "canon" in the original 4 movies, "The Kid", thus I doubt a canon character will be offered to the public for fear of opening the door for Oracle, Morpheus, and Neo masks requests. "We got other canon masks! I want my TRIN ZOMG".

I wonder what else is in the game which is unique but hasn't been made a mask/disguise but wasn't also canon to the movies yet... I think the Liasons were normal-game made content right?

So what's the big change in 2010? Make this a player-owned MMO-movie editor experience with player-drafted content for review and submission? Heck we might as well shake hands with the Wachowskis at this point and meet once a quarter for drinks and shares conferences.

CyberC0re wrote:

Vinia wrote:

I can see why Rare decided to use Cryptos, Veil and Shimada as masks. Wonder if one of the last ones will be Popper?

Good insight, Vinia. But, Popper is based on the Kid, which was made by Warner Brothers and was "canon" in the original 4 movies, "The Kid", thus I doubt a canon character will be offered to the public for fear of opening the door for Oracle, Morpheus, and Neo masks requests. "We got other canon masks! I want my TRIN ZOMG".

I wonder what else is in the game which is unique but hasn't been made a mask/disguise but wasn't also canon to the movies yet... I think the Liasons were normal-game made content right?

So what's the big change in 2010? Make this a player-owned MMO-movie editor experience with player-drafted content for review and submission? Heck we might as well shake hands with the Wachowskis at this point and meet once a quarter for drinks and shares conferences.

We are getting an Oracle Mask for Halloween, and like someone said earlier in this thread if you want to look like the Kid farm some rsi pills or create a new character to look like him.

Historically, changes in the status quo in MMOs are signs that the game is collapsing or, in our case, going downhilll (from the business perspective, MxO collapsed a while ago).

If you look at SWG it's the CU and the NGE.

If you look at EQ2, there was that whole class revamp thing. And then I think they did it again? (I had cancelled by then)

If you look at MxO it's the SoE acquisition (disbanding of LET), CR2, and likely this.

Now I'm not saying the changes might not be for the best (I don't think they will, but I haven't lived through them yet, so I could be wrong), but major changes generally seem to result in a drop in subscriptions when it comes to MMOs.

ok looking at all the points made i for one am looking forward to about 80% of these changes.  the ones i dont like are:

iradication of the sub orgs these represent peoples choice in game for instance epn do what zion cannot due to their responsibilities to the people living in zion.  what happens to these proactive members now.

 Removal of LESIG i for know lesig had its leaks and a few of the liasons were just plain rubbish for many reasons. but there have been a few things that have hooked me to a story line here and there.  For one the thermal image fragment story and the 01 mainframe with LESIG gone does this mean this will stop becuase i think we still need a long projected mystery to sole to give those willing to delve deeper a chance.  Also with LESIG gone what happens to Scanline and The Sentinall.  A month or two ago now it was adertised that BA 52 was coming yet we have not seen anything since i guess with the disolution of LESIG this will never come now.

I agree with the Live event changes because they were becoming very samey with the go here do this talk to him/her hack a server meet at a club.  so it will be a fresh change but i do think that it should be mixed up a little now and then.

Rarebit if you read this can you answe these 3 questions as the future of these items was neglected from your post

 What happens to the Sentinal?

What happens to the 01mainframe?

What happens to Scanline?

Basically i still hold a little faith even though your basically screwing my sub org, i just want to know if these deeper plot lines will continue or if they are being removed with the rest of LESIG

Now that I've had more time to take this all in and put my thoughts into it, I have more input regarding it.

I see a lot of negativity regarding it, to be honest...  but I also see it as one hell of an opportunity.  Specifically where EPN and the Cypherites are concerned.

Our organizations have wanted storyline interaction, and more of an affect on the storyline since day one.  We wanted our own critical missions, and so on.  But thinking about EPN and CYPHs in all seriousness, neither organization was any stronger than they were when they were 100% player controlled.  It wasn't until the introduction of Cryptos into the storyline that the Cypherite organization fell apart, and it wasn't until EPN began becoming so ill-defined by Kid that things turned out the way they did with us.  So I agree that going "underground" is probably the best for our organizations.  This means more player control over what goes on within our ranks, and over time, factions will disappear, leaving only the firm with tags.  This means we can more or less control who is in our organization and who isn't.

We were never better than when the status of our organization was based solely on what we put into it.

And that's what I'm taking away from this.

Phrack wrote:

Now that I've had more time to take this all in and put my thoughts into it, I have more input regarding it.

I see a lot of negativity regarding it, to be honest...  but I also see it as one hell of an opportunity.  Specifically where EPN and the Cypherites are concerned.

Our organizations have wanted storyline interaction, and more of an affect on the storyline since day one.  We wanted our own critical missions, and so on.  But thinking about EPN and CYPHs in all seriousness, neither organization was any stronger than they were when they were 100% player controlled.  It wasn't until the introduction of Cryptos into the storyline that the Cypherite organization fell apart, and it wasn't until EPN began becoming so ill-defined by Kid that things turned out the way they did with us.  So I agree that going "underground" is probably the best for our organizations.  This means more player control over what goes on within our ranks, and over time, factions will disappear, leaving only the firm with tags.  This means we can more or less control who is in our organization and who isn't.

We were never better than when the status of our organization was based solely on what we put into it.

And that's what I'm taking away from this.

Coming from the first person who also made these strides with you back a couple years ago with both Pluribus Neo and Viral Humanity I think in a perfect world you may have a point.

However lets be honest here this isn't a matter of organizational longevity or loyalty or a way to weed out the weak. With no real assurances were even going to get minimal support or interaction with these characters Rarebit simply stated "We cant do justice to them so were taking them underground" It sounds to me like what little were already getting now will be even less in the future.

At fanfaire Rarebit went into detail regarding these characters and their backstories originally planned by Chadwick what I have noticed is that there was never really a sustained effort to ever flesh these characters out over a two year period even with daily live events. I dont want players to have control over the organization believe it or not although I was the first person to get a tag in 06 I have a strong belief that theres a responsibility to the consumer to manage the ability to both pay fan service to veterans here but also provide a quality experience if you have built a businuess model around it like they did with the inclusion of the tags.

Now with that said if Rarebit takes the time to actually make a storyline explination and involve the organizations with it even for one event I would be interested to see that however without it honestly theres no real justification from a fictional sense for this move. The organizational meetings for these organizations don't make a heck of alot of sense from a fictional end I see the move but I dont really see this being done to tell a better story for us I see it being done to tell a better story for the rest of the games population Machine/Zion/Merovingian

From a story based sense which I see as the major excuse from alot of people on why this is a good move lets be honest. You dont invest two years of live events to an organization build it up use it as a subscription incentive than strip mine it over night for the simple reason that you feel you cant do it justice. Than lets go into detail about the true motivations for removing tags. If anything I see this as a move to shift out the population over time naturally. Granted it's going to be impossible without LESIG to get a tag however so I guess by shifting out a corrupt and self entitled player program it's a nessecary evil.

Heres the things however that I really think the Cyph and EPN community really could use some clarification on.

1. When these characters Veil Cryptos Michael Shimada make a live event based apperence will our existing organizational members get dibs on interactive based content with them and will Rarebit use what little time he intends to spend on these characters to attempt to compensate us with a fun interactive experience? '

2. What compensation if any will the "existing underground members" recieve? Will there be any official support of these organizations in any roleplay or interaction based capacity even if on a reduced level?

3. Will there be a story based fictional explination put into place or is this a complete breach of any realistic fluidity to the fiction?

F) You want to get players interested? Follow player events and show up at more of them as dev-controlled characters or assist with items/temporary spawn tools. ESPECIALLY RP events which sorely need assistance. I'm talking code bombs, overrides, CPDs - send Pace to investigate a player-organized Zion operation. Organize a system by which players can PM Rarebit to ask for a timeslot or something. If only this could be done, things could be great.