I dont think its right to suggest any real connection between MxO and the Agency, it seems yet another in an incoming barrage of mmo's that want to label themselves 'action mmo's - which seems to translate as mmos that are dumbed down to the basics a series of loosely connected time sink mechanics functioning for their own sake. Consequently they come accross as bland, generic, lacking any real mood, character or depth, Tabula Rasa and Hellgate are good examples, decent gameplay but really with nothing there to make you care about or feel involved. They are about as unlike MxO as its possible to be and not in any posistive way.

If the hype can be believed - more potential lies in the likes of DCUO and SWKoR, they talk of placing story and character to the forefront much like MxO did in the early days (I dont believe SoE ever understood that and hence why they managed to lose so many dedicated fans along the way). If someone had been around to coordinate MxO's content and story, making sure one didn't go off and damage the other or else wander into and leave the players behind, MXO would probably be recognised as the pioneer of such an approach, an intelligent take on the mmo market.

Well I made it to the forums at least...good to see so many of the old names/faces turning up ^^

Input that Euro server hmmm :p

Though I am not a vet...so if its animal surgery you are after I don't give any garantees.

It is nice and surprising to see so many familiar names still around when you pop back for a bit.... The real world doesnt have to be a desolate remnant of some past war to make you want to pop back into the simulation (or at least the forums) now and then I guess ^^

Recently got the Blu-ray version of the Trilogy....its got the trailer for the mmo on it.... so much potential and so many progressive ideas many of which still havent been properly attempted in any other mmo - but ideas and concepts I am sure will become integral to the genre one day.

In the end WoW really brought the evolution of MMO's to a standstill - exchanging imagination for a perpetual refinement of the safe and known, its something we are only just seeing some recovery from, it may have failed to see its true form but MxO was as innovative in its own field as the trilogy was in the definition of the SciFi Action movie =/

Disguise myself as Walrus, walk down the corridor to the Agency room and tell them to spend some time on MxO a decent game with some deeper appeal than the souless run around fps thingy they have wasted their time on :p

Merge the servers and make downtown Hostile

designate a club to each organisation and fill the looby area of each and surround it with a force of high level npcs that only attack the other orgs to create a form of base.

Make other downtown clubs contestable objectives.

Bring the story to a point that establishes a common base for and encourages future player designed stories - a new truce, reinsertion being possible (and indeed enforceble for those more determined cyphs), progress the idea that the Merovingian has ways to encode an RSI into a fully fledged program (immortality at a price etc) ie operative can one day be real exiles.

redesign Zion hallways to be more like real world Zion and provide unique 'zion clothing' options there

Implement the outfit shell idea of Ingus' from way back when, where buffs arise from the first 6/7 slots of the inventory while appearence is delivered by the usual clothing slots.

introduce as many tools as possible for future player led stories to call on... ie luggerbles that can spawn a customisable npc threat force, inserts that can by submitted for inclusion in the sentinel, customisable information npc's that can be placed in the world and have their interactions defined to respond to players (the persist fro a designated time only of course), implement Organisation chat,

Produce items and rewards that are organisation specific (dependent on rep).

Org specific powers

introduce a luggeble that places a player into a fourth pvp state (so cyph and epn can occasionally fight their parent orgs)

Remember this is to please me not the rest of you .......though it might take a little longer than a month!

Possibly more than vaguely off topic, but reading the stuff SoE are putting out about DCUO and its approach to storyteling and making the player a part of the DC Universe...... its a severe case of Deja Vue from those promises made for Matrix Online before its release.

Morpheus and to a much lesser extent the Oracle are key figures that should be in the gameworld if it is to encourage and stimulate new players to involve themselves in rp and storylines....its just marketting potential (and wow factor)  that should not be wasted imo.

Equally we come to the matrix and spend an inordinate amount of time 'jacked in', people party here, plan campaigns here, fight here, its a situation that really only rings true if a shaky truce is in place.

The backstory to how they arrive there can include all the events of MxO to date or it can seemlessly integrate with the end of revolutions, this is the status the gameworld needs to be set to if there is to be any hope at all of consistent future player developed rp. In the end Rp and story involvement should not just be relegated to a smaller and smaller crowd of elite rp'ers it needs to be accessible to players old and new, returnees and more.

In the absence of a future dev led story we should lobby Walrus for a one off statement/change that puts the matrix in a state that encourages players to be involved and become part of an online city trying to drag itself away from a pointless war and into a mutual future dealing with threats, terrorism and corruption along the way. That would leave us with somewhere to go, the alternative is a sad mis match of threads some resolved some denied, some misunderstood that leaves no one on the same page and worse the game itself is presented in a state that says one thing but does another.

Hmmm no stay puffed marshmallow man anyways.

The community makes the game, the devs can only work with the resources alloted, the resources alloted are goverened by the number of subscribers QED!

I havent been impressed with any MxO content since PB and the story imo has been a series of missed oppertunities and irrelevent blind alleys....but it was carried forward with a dedication and energy that belies the funding the game is likely generating or being paid to any one person, I think that was Rare's real contribution and it is worth celebrating even for those of us unable to stomach the missed potential here......on my travels I have tried many games, the community here is so much better than anything else you come accross and I think there is a direct connection that should not be underestimated.

I think read and accepted by the W bros is likely an acronym for sent to their secretary, checked by the legal dept for IP violations with regard to the original contract and rubberstamped and returned.

But in any event the story was dealing with matters and events outside the simulation, so in the absence of the word of law from some dev level storyteller it is completely inaccesesible on any coherent basis by the players.

If we get another dev storyteller all bets are off, but if we dont we need the Matrix to be presented to players in a form they can immediately recognise and use as a canvas to paint their own stories...... rp and involvement needs to be encouraged by an environment that welcomes both from players new and old and not one that presents a series of profound contradictions and requires a fanatically attention to detail to get anywhere near up to speed.

A matrix that is accessible and recognisable to new and old player alike is one that possibly has a future, a matrix that is remote and contradictory certainly hasn't.

I don't think it matters what parts of what story you like or dislike, what is done is done and the most assured fact is that those particular storylines have no possible way to develop or resolve themselves... even with another dev on board the need for mystery will deny the exposed plotlines Rare released - sad but true.

So what we have to deal with what is left, and that is a beautifully reslised matrix environment, a vast but singual location in which future, smaller-scale, player led stories can develop and one which should finction to actively encourage players to develop, a city brought to life by its citizens etc.

It is the situation/scenario we are left with that has to work to offer this encouragement, to involve and immerse players in the world so they care enough to want to continue..... we either have to abadon everything that has been introduced since the end of Revolutions OR better yet find or lobby for the means to resolve or destroy those links that make Matrix online contradictory or incompatible with what we see each and every time we log in..... for me the war is the biggest problem, people log in to mission, or chat, or party, or plan and that is only a logical eventuality if the Matrix exists at some level of peace....the truce has to be reasserted or the demands of the Matrix online interface are an overt contradiction to every player led event that is ever coordinated within the matrix =/

ShiXinFeng wrote:

There are a few of us who feel that the game can't support a war. It's just not feasible given the fact that nothing changes, no ground can be won or lost, the real damage happens outside the game (Zion/01) and without the One, the Machines would likely crush Zion.

So, to war or not to war? That is the question. 

There are no game mechnics present in MxO that can accomodate war, the official story couldn't do anything with it for a reason, so player led stuff has no hope.

Everything we see when we log in makes sense only in the context of the scenario established at the end of Revolutions, there's still conflict, private agenda's, organisation powermongering, propagander, espionage, terrorism, and murder aplenty going on but it really needs to be at a scale that player events can realise, to encourage them to do so (hopefully with a few new toold to boot).

Equally without an ongoing story lets have the game use the few marketting tools it has left to best effect, let Moprheus resume his place awakening new redpills, represent the orgs by figures know to a wider set of folk than long term MxO players...

Croesis wrote:

Tytanya_MxO wrote:

BTW is it my shaky memory or was there a technical issues section to the forum once?

You mean this section?

Hmm yes thanks, it appears 'collapsed' on my board so I kinda interpreted the title with the development threads .... oh well it has been some time =/

Ah well errr, I guess that explains it

BTW is it my shaky memory or was there a technical issues section to the forum once?

I was hoping to join in but an odd patcher error had different thoughts =/

Anyways looked like a lot of old school fun, grats to those involved and all the best to Mr Rare

I think player led storylines can work as long as they restrain themselves within the confines of the medium they can effect. Material changes and even smaller player understood changes cannot be communicated in the manner that 'one official' story can do (an official story can demand acceptance in the face of these but a personal story cannot), equally come what may, the Matrix as in the simulation has to remain persistent and relevent, mytery, danger, excitement and more all have to be elements that are brought to life here. 

Ultimately I think there is a need to avoid storylines 'about the matrix' and instead focus on storylines 'within the matrix'. The scale of aims and objectives has to reduce to the scale of the player, make them feel the value/worth of getting involved, the nature of the different organisations has to be realised in a more generic or even sterotypical manner so that players can easily get on board, everyday life for the player has to become something consistent and sympthetic with what the over arcing story would expect; in other words welcome players into a story by making the story a part of their world and there's then an automatic opt in. Like gravity, gather enough material/players/factions and you could hit the critical mass that leads everything else.

The key then becomes the mechanism by which you translate the story and communicate it to a wider audience.

I wanted to say thanks to rare, for the many many good times with MxO, so it was worth a resub.

As regards the upcomming event, tbh I can barely remember how to play I find it kinda hard to 'go home again' so I'm not sure I will actually feel able log in again =/

The issue is not where the story could have or should have gone, its a case of delivering a story that works on the canvas that is an mmo. Books, films and games are three different mediums, the manner in which the story is told depends on the tools you have to tell it, if the story goes to a place you cannot follow you lose interest, if it delivers a punch and you see no consequence or effect it destroys involvement, if it offers an inevitable and unavoidable conclusion you're not encouraged to make any contribution.

The story as taken forward has to work in the confines of the gameworld we have, it has to deliver an experience that is enetrtaining, involving and challenging and for that the aspirations, the aims and objectives have to be of a scale and nature that the player can appreciate and considers important. It cannot be all out war, simply because that can never be realised or even simulated here.... massive events like the breakdown of the truce, the destruction of zion, the abuse of Cryptos, and the presence of the oligarchy may offer interest but the game engine comepletely fails to deliver any consequence or resonance, they are effectively irrelevent to the player, they change nothing and go nowhere and never will.

The truce functions firstly to reduce the scale of the problem which brings it closer to the player. It creates excuses and reasons which directly emulate the manner in which players interact inside the matrix, it delvers a credible environment over which other stories of intrigue and terrorism can be played. smaller conflicts with smaller objectives that the player can feel important in involving themselves. If you dont have the truce then there needs to be some other valid story mechanism that emulates these effects but this also has to be in sympathy with the original trilogy or we have discontinuity and it ceases to be the matrix and just becomes city online....something considerably short of its proper potential.

As Fen says we do need a storyteller that actually enjoys the matrix, but we also need one that knows how to make the player feel that what is going on around them actually matters to them, that offers choices that have both consequence and reward. Its not just a story to sit us down and read at us, we need to be a part of it, our character need to feel its effects and have an investment in its future.

Chapter 8 was actually where logic and continuity was sacrificed and any influence and continuity with the original trilogy was lost.

The Matrix online is a persistent MMO with unavoidable restrainst that the story has to work withing or lose any conviction or resonance. We are forced to go to plan, to go play, to idlly discuss and to act inside the matrix. Given the changes that had to be made to accomadate its game roots it is unequivably the worse possible environment to play out a war scenario...its not that the storyline wasnt good or right it was simply that this place has no credible way to realize a war and further that the presence of war destroyed the credibility of our regular gathering online. Equally a war is a conflict on a scale that diminishes the influence of individuals, unless you are lucky enough to wield god like, world changing powers, ie unless you happen to BE the on, a war simply means you are insignificant. The story and the game setting are set in direct contradiciton by the state of war.

The truce actually made the Matrix important, not for what it is but for the way it then became the logical place to plan for the future; stories should have revolved arouond powerbroking, a cold war, intrigue, espionage, future real world development, alternate power sources, joint ventures, trust, envy, anxiety, impatience, control, faith all these were relevent in the context of a truce and all become irrelvenet as the sides fragment into a war.

Revolutions, love it or loathe it, presented an answer, an alternative to an endless and redundant war, one that permitted a new environment where the influence of an individual, ie a player, could actually have a role to play, in  a future that actually had direction and hope....thats where we need to be placed again, to recover the sensation that we can, however minutely, actually make a difference, and that as players we have worth.

The Official story needs to recreate or restablish the sceanrio that existed at the end of Revolutions (or one very like it) as it created the setting for the PERFECT MMO. At that point the focus of the story was on the Matrix itself (its the only place we can go so it HAS to take centre stage) its the one thing we ALL had a vested interest in, the truce made sense of many of the contrivances enforced by the mmo-gameworld - in that environment working, resting and playing were all credible reasons for a redpill to jack in, exactly analogous to the real world situation of the mmo, equally the characters in place had a presence and purpose that even casual players could get a kick out of meeting them.

MxO needs an official, credible and cohesive storyline even more than it needs an official storyteller, because with the right fuel and the right parameters everything that goes on and everthing that is done by everybody can then be made important and can feel like you have stepped into 'The Matrix'.

Sad news indeed, despite my personal misgivings about the way the story was developing (apologies if I was overly vocal) I never ceased to admire the dedication, ingeniuity and skill you always showed this game and moreover the classy way you handled its diverse community. You have a rare gift in juggling many diifering issues and personalities and I hope it will resurface somewhere else before long, from your announcement it seems the loss isn't just MxO but the gaming world in geneneral.

I had many, many happy experiences here and like many others, some still present and some who have moved on, you are owed a tremendous debt of gratitude for what you did and how you kept it going.

All the very best in whatever you turn your hand to next.

Tytanya

Good post by Neoteny. 

We need to be able to convince ourselves events matter, we need characters we care about, we need to feel our character has some part to play (however minor) and isnt just simply a dialogue foil.

We need both consequence and reward to drive us forward as players but most importantly as characters to give the story resonance. Organisations need identity, there needs to be both benefits and consequence to this choice of who you work for to emphasise this identity.

Charismatic and iconic characters from the movies need to be hyped up, not backgrounded, we already care about most of them, exploit that emotion. The set up from Revolutions was the perfect one for any mmo, take a leaf from that book and build on the foundations we have already had to accept, stop trying to reinvent the wheel as every reinvention undermines our ability to be convinced of the value of the current one.

Story and game are currently out of step and it is badly hurting both. We have content that make no sense in the context of the Matrix franchise and has no connection with story events, we have story events which are incredibly important that the game engine simply cannot credibly reflect. There has to be some consideration and conscession between these elements or the story collapses under a sea of ludicrous contradiction and the game becomes a souless run around.

----------

BTW I think the General and the manner in which we actually got the Sentinels into the Matrix for us to meet was the best thing the story has given us to date...the matrix we know yet presented in a manner that fits the way we interact with the game, an example of just how something like that should be done imo.

I wish him well, his comic work is well worth checking out.

His approach to MxO was very much to rewrite it, and present it as a story for us to read, perhaps that was his remit. Personally I didnt want or expect a new take on the Matrix and I did want to feel my character was a part of what was going on rather than a helpless disconnected observer. We are losing creative input and resources here but hopefully the opportunity is to realign the approach to the story in a manner more sympathetic with its MMO base and grab some of those players who have lost faith in the process.

Fall my moans I always wish the best for MxO but I see the story having less and less significance, being seen and influencing fewer and fewer players.... Live events, these forums and player content are simply not seen by enough players to keep the story in its rightful position, taking away the cinematics removes the attention grabber, the thing that make someone want to get involved (for all the story developments that scream at you you dont matter )

The return of the sentinel is cool of course and perhaps events will scale properly to the player level at last, spend less time reading us stories of places we can never visit and make events in the matrix relevent once more. The player needs to be made to feel there's a point to logging in, we need to feel theres a threat, that we can make a difference and the environment needs to be consistent with the story (or vica versa).

Chadwick wasnt really to blame for the story, what was needed and what is still needed is someone knitting and integrating story and content, someone brave enough to say just because we can do something doesn't mean we should or just because the story could do that doesn't mean it makes sense to do so in this mmo. I believe Rarebit will do something positive in that area with his new level of control, but for many like myself I dont see any way to "believe thats air I'm breathing" ever again. The trend to date has clearly shown damage is easy to cause and difficult to mend.

The first one was just plain bad imo, much like Daredevil you kept waiting for it to get interesting or for it to give you a character you give a toss over.... This one has a better chance with the always classy Edward Norton in the Banner role. I'm sad they didnt get the look right for the Abomination (why even use that character if you dont do it right just make up a new baddie???)  but at least if the spirit is right, there is scope for some action that actually poses some threat for the main character to play off.....

(as for World War Hulk, Marvel seem to have given up on creating credible villians these days and just keep thinking of excuses to have their heroes fight one another over and over....well till the heroes lose credibility and they have nothing left)

The look is consistent with the tone of the Matrix, I'd rather see a screenie of people in any variety of outfits than any amount of, fx leaking out of different body parts or wire frame planets orbiting a scene

They can't attack while jumping, yes, but they jump until people give up, and then run back over in sneak/ E&E for another high damage attack on someone. Rinse and repeat.

And a better way to kill the zerg is to constantly keep attacking them, not jump away. It's more time wasted jumping than it would be to reconstruct.

• Someone who HJ's can't be attacked...almost true of course, if they are quick but on the other hand nor can they attack anyone else....what could be fairer than that?
  
• My wish to kill is more important than someone else's wish to live.....err bollocks in any realistic scenario and any decent pvp system staying alive is at least as important if not moreso
• HJ is a cheap get out of pvp..... yeah it is, sometimes, but there are many cheap tactics out there and conversely there are many valid occasions when hj is very much needed, when facing the zerg for example it becomes vital.....you think life is frustrating now it would be far more frustrating for far more people if the pvp is restricted to reduce a players options when the going gets tough.
  
• someone typing /pvp and hj'ing repeatedly is very frustrating..... indeed it can be but thats really your problem and no one else's - if all they do is hj they aren't going to threaten anyone and if they stop to attack there is a considerable number of roots and slows designed to stop them, changing HJ will negate the need for large sections of the combat system reducing player interactivity, strategy and skill in any pvp situation.

There are many significant similarities between the story here and what would be seen in a film, book or tv series but in each the medium is subtly different, the film of the book is never the same, and tv series have a much longer time to develop characters than any movie etc.

It is nescessary to consider the medium when delveloping the story in order to mine its best potential and/or ensure you don't destroy the validity of some development by virtue of exposing the limit of the medium itself. The perspective of the story is quite different for someone rp'ing within an mmo to someone actually observing the structure from a distance reading/watching etc and this needs some reflection in the way the story is written.

Of course there are awkward concessions to an mmo world (though as technology improves the ability to mask them also improves) I agree that the story either ignores them or else attempts to weave a convincing excuse to cover them up..... sadly in the case of some excuses used by MxO since chapter 7 they damage larger and more important aspects of the game, namely the sensation that anything matters to the player or that any player or character has any purpose or value. Its not the events themselves but rather the mechanisms used by the story to describe them that have faltered imo.

Anyways I won't derail your thread any further I see you have the answers you requested - I believe your needs from the story are exactly what it is delivering atm so enjoy

I am aware it might be a difficult idea to describe but I did try to make it clearer via the example content. In no way am I suggesting no reward should be offered, only that the nature of that reward shouldnt always boil down to item A that you gain and then hoard in your inventory.... The pattern of such content to date is always the same, flurry of activity and then its almost forgotten. If we keep doing more of the same we will just keep getting the same results.

I suggested one alternate route but there are others and the best source is looking deep into the story/concept/theme (whatever term you want to give it since story seems to be a dirty word these days) and think what is going on in the background, what is always needed, how could our rsi be employed within the matrix and how could what we do be made sufficiently important for us to feel we should keep doing it.

(( trying to reword the example for clarity - Make a reward we all would like....a single organisational ability for instance  but rather than just let us gain that from a drop and be done with, go on to say that its continued used can only be sustained for seven days and relies on winning sufficient power from the mechs to use it. For the Mechs perhaps an agent assist ability a one shot get out of trouble move they get it by default but if Zion or merovs steal so many luggerbles from location A and deliver them to location b the mech ability fails to work and for the next seven days the org that gained the most units (per operative to cater for population differences) has their ability function. - we have a cool reward but only by continually fighting for it do we get the oppertunity to fully enjoy it etc......not that I'd like to see something like that wasted on the datamine mind, but hopefully the concept of a two pronged reward is clearer.))

The reason that we never really get any story related quests is becuase the story is always changing and after another update that quest would perhaps seem strange and out of date, irrelevant if you will. Rarebit is only going to work on content that adds end-game value and something that can be put there forever, he simply doesn't have time to keep making quests that become irrelevant after the next patch (Exculding Anniversary, Winter and Halloween events of course). And before you metion the Elite Commando Quest, thats only indirectly related to the story.

The nature of all 'new' content to date has focussed around some kind of personal reward.... by and large no matter what it is once we get it we lose interest, the net worth of the content decreases significantly over time because it does not link to any larger aspect of the game. The effect of increasing the reward or making it easier or harder to get only extends the contents life fractionally, if we want content to last longer an alternative approach has to be made. There are background processes always present in the city and a story connection actually functions to prevent content getting out of date and doesnt have to tie to any particular chapter of the story to remain relevent.

As an example, power...the mechs have a lot and other orgs need it for their hcft or their cities or whatever, suppose the datamine was a conduit - packets of power like photons spawn there for distribution (luggerble) the mechs need to ensure it is safe until it passes to its designated routes, but merov and Zion forces need to steal it or reroute it into their own reserves, a reason to go a pvp arises even for players who rp preferentially, the reward is accumulated over time and normalised for relative populations on a server reset the details transfer into the buffs provided by some org specific ability which for the following week or activates some special ability for the following week for the winning org or perhaps generates an org specific $i boost for the following week..... shifting the nature of the reward from a personal item to something that benefits an org for a specific period of time delivers a smaller personal incentive to go and pvp but compensates by being an incentive that never actually dissapears altogther....individual events can even call on temporal needs to draw more power so players can have the importance of this task reinfoced on a periodic basis through the LET - different reasons, same content - its a more lateral approach to sustaining a greater longevity for content.... not the only one I grant you but one that hasn't yet been tested

PS: Hey, Tytanya! This probably has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I remember reading that discussion about the reinsertion revelation (shortly after I went, so I wasn't that clueless back then), and one thing I wondered about in your arguments: you said it was cool to watch characters getting lost inbetween deceptions and world-view-changing twists, but not to "be that character". I always thought "yea, but actually, you're ROLE PLAYING this character, not being it; if you liked this pattern in the movies, isn't it dope to roleplay someone who's in a tough situation anyway and above all, "can't trust any information" and all?" As a role player, I would have found it cool, I guess.

Again, just my thoughts back then. I'm curious to read your opinion on this! (I also realize there are demerits to necessary information distribution [should a Merv or Machinist really ask itself where it's stationed in the Real and make up stories about it on the spot? Please], player influence on the story or, guess what, EJP; seriously, for a target audience purely interested in role playing, storyline and "becoming part of the Matrix universe", the "levelling system" and everything attached to it is rather disturbing; if you could just create a character, act on with it, and in case of death, simply create another one (without having to wine OMG I WAS AT LVL 49), it would be much better in this regard; but this is an MMORPG, things go differently, so 'nuff said.)

Your ability to relate absolutely any thread and topic, no matter how unrelated, back to your ideas on the story continues to astound.

/pvp [ all | friendly | hostile | release | status ]

I've said it before. The pvp command should have additional functions to harbour, e.g. FFA tags.

That would be the ideal/perfect solution but I fear would be the most work to implement (if the devs had specific area controls they could activate it individually for the sub orgs so for those odd times it could be Mech vs Cyph or Zion vs Epn hence expanding the variety of events and allowing for last minute betrayals etc).

In terms of the datamine, it is simply another construct and as with the others no matter what reward or bonus you get there, once you have it the reason to go back diminishes exponentially....with masses of the city already standing empty all we really do is draw people from the city for a while and make it seem more deserted to the lower levels/new players.

We need content that gives us tasks everyday, contentious tasks that demand pvp and actually give reason to others to stop us (rather than just wanting to stop someone else getting the $i) - org bases, luggerble power items that need stockpiling, hunt seek locate style activities over the whole city - things that fit with story and pvp - that involve the all of the population all of the time in a variety of ways, things that accumlate in some larger way over time to ensure there is always a reason to do them, temporal rewards that need work to be gained and more work to be retained.............

Isn't a disenfranchised pessimist an optimist???? :p

An Owl is death on on a Velvety wing, and yet wisdom its words do relentlessly sing!

Seems to me the datamine functioned for a brief time because for that time PvP actually had some purpose and the confines of the datamine also drew together the small population into one place. However it is content that is discontinuous and contradictory to the rest of the story and the rest of the environment, the fate of such content will always be fleeting as after the initial interest you won't go there to do anything other than mess around. I'd rather not see more dev time wasted on it unless it was properly integrated into the environment and story to mean something on an ongoing basis (that the orgs benefit from etc) and move it beyond its current souless 2 dimensional level.... (the ffa aspect was a mistake imo better to have a ffa luggerble on the outside for those that wish it.)

Welcome back.

Yes oh those naughty Mechs, they lied and used the cyphs, so as you might expect they retalliated....oh nope they didn't they err just got more friendly with the mechs errr yeah.....still what the mechs did to Cryptos must be the most extreme abuse any human could suffer their operatives must'av left in droves...err well no they didnt they just carried on...anyways Old Zion was destroyed Zion was in turmoil, you could tell because errr well perhaps you couldnt tell.... anyways WAR is always exciting isn't it....well except for when you make everyone invincible oh err yeah thats right ejp hmmmm...anyways War...... Oh wait a minute a guy made of pipe cleaners just showed up hahaha he killed some agents....what were we doing again....oh hmm forgot..... anyways this guy hes kinda odd bound to be more important....wow he comes from a place I can never go to....

Sadly the story since chapter 7 has 'evolved' beyond the ability of this MMO to follow, disconneting itself from any involvement the player might wish for.

Well then, picture this:

You're in the middle of a heated PvP battle, one in which your team really needs you. All of sudden, you're hit with an LC2 and that's it; you crumple to the ground. You hit the recon button, and. . .

A cut scene starts. The world flashes to white, you hear voices and the beeping of the EKG monitor from your jack-in station. You can't see anything, but then you hear "CLEAR!" and the whomp of the defibrillator zapping your chest. You can hear someone over you doing chest compressions and trying to get you to wake up. Suddenly, the beep starts on the EKG and slowly, the world comes into focus. You see a nondescript 'doctor' type character from your ship standing over you saying, "Whew! We almost lost you. Now get back in there and finish the job!" Bam! Back to the Loading Area.

The whole scene takes roughly 20 seconds.

 

My discussion in this thread has really been directed to the rp/story justification of EJP rather than the game mechanics involved, its the least demanding to change in terms of dev resource and therefore probably the only thing we can reasonably ask for... The problem MxO is experiencing most acutely at present is that the gameplay mechanic and the story direction are not supporting one another, one or the other has to bend imo, each individual component may appear trivial (as this change does in solation) but it is the cumulative weight of contradictions that provides the biggest burden for RP, and today this is compounded by an apparent lack of interest in maintaining a convincing foundation for the manner in which our world behaves, fuelling more contradictions - we need to reverse this trend as a matter of urgency.

If we move on to the issue of changes to game mechanics on death then other considerations need to be born in mind, the impact on missioning on pve and on pvp. One of the propblems with pvp in particular is the inconsequential nature of death, as you point out in a tight pvp battle its quite normal to be anxious to recon and get back to pvp as soon as the system will allow, this ability to instantly recon means there is no delay whereby one force can bring an end to a battle and more often than not pvp goes on until one side actually gets too bored or too frustrated to recon and it dwindles to a halt. Introducing a delay whereby players cannot return to battle would insert a break which acts as the buffer during which one force can finally steal a victory and send all its opponents to the LA, a scenario like the one you describe could achieve that or perhaps even better is to sample the logged relative population of each org and factor a recon time proportional to org size (recon time=percent org pop*factor)- a degree of org balancing is then introduced which could benefit events and pvp since the larger orgs can only replenish their operatives slightly slower.

An alternate route is to delve into Matrix mythology and prey on the Neo 'death' scenario how about when operatives die they end up at the deserted station awaiting a ride out.... as the spread of available stations is less comprehensive than HL a delay is automatically introduced in your return to any one location but without you being rendered completely immobile etc. This EJP functionality becomes a grant (perhaps via some other agreement between all three orgs, merov to provide the functionality Zion and Mech to provide a suitable recompense) based on a mutual agreement independent of the truce and therefore still vaguely valid in todays environment?

Missioning and Pve become concerns however for these changes, albeit neither suffering to any great degree and perhaps the determination to fight in a manner which avoids death will ultimately lend more serious threat and excitement to these encounters as well???

The problem rests in anyones confidence that the claimed reason for the study and the eventual use of the info gained there will be consistent. Further that once personal data is accumulated that its actually kept secure....coming from the uk the latter is certainly a valid worry in light of recently obscenely inept breaches of security.

As for the former there has been an ongoing trend for governments to gather information personal and otherwise about their populace, have we really seen any benefit from that or has that just exploded the avenues for others to exploit? Again here in the UK we have the largest concentration of video survellance of any country, yet it seems the very crimes those security camera's would catch are the ones that are statistcally going off the scale..... is the increase in big brother style monitoring a geniune attempt to tackle the stated problem, is it an excuse for more devious information gathering and control or are we all just fiddling as Rome burns....

EDIT: I want safety but I also want privacy and freedom one aspect can impact on another - the overall balance is very delicate but also very important, we can all be thankful that we are actually able to ask these questions......when we can't is when we really need to worry.