Croesis wrote:

Soooo.. Anyone going to show their support? Anyone?

lololololol

yeah considering about the hottest topic the last few weeks has been the Redpill Alliance, I think that seems unlikely.

If they promised us TWO devs, and a new LET, I'd call in sick and vote for them like crazy.

If........

Fen wrote:

If the Matrix were to continue in another medium, I wouldn't mind a tv series similar to Stargate SG-1.  Slightly episodic, maybe centered around a hovercraft crew, with a larger over-arcing storyline.

In my opinion, I think the show could use MxO for ideas, but in general should just disregard the whole MxO story.  The story became so butchered and bastardized towards the end, that I don't think it would translate well to your average viewer or Matrix fan.

I think people will continue to watch the core Matrix movies...  but for all intents and purposes, the franchise is dead.  Where as other franchises (Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings) have continued on in additional movies, tv shows, comics, novels, videogames, etc.  The Matrix franchise has pretty much sat and stagnated.

Yeah, TV series is something I've thought would be cool too. My thought was something more like a mini-series, mini-movies exploring stories implied from the Matrix past. (i.e. I've always wanted to know the story behind that little exchange between Morpheus and Niobe in Revolutions when she suggests piloting a maintenance shaft and he says "that was a long time ago". I could see a whole little mini-movie around that little story.)

I agree that the Franchise may be past its prime but.... How long was it between Star Trek's going off the air and the first movie? How long did it take Lucas to follow up the Star Wars movies? Just because we haven't seen anything yet doesn't mean the Matrix is dead.

K, as stated on the other thread, I'm down for letter writing.

Mind you, I'm slightly LESS hopeful about it succeeding than I am of there being an MxO-2, but I'll throw for the stamps.

Maybe even the Jelly-beans. I am seriously lmao at these oh-nuts people pitching to us. I know times are rough but... heck, maybe we won't save MxO, but we might keep one candy-distributor from folding, and isn't that an accomplishment in itself?

More technically, I'm sorry, but I'l probably write my own letter.

And we need some numbers... like, how many trials we get, etc. I think there is still a lot of interest in this game, its just that people try it out, and see it dead as a door-nail, and don't stick around. I think we need to pitch them on the fact that if the game gets some love and attention, more of those trial people would stay.

will be interested in the details.

and, hey, do you think if we did like the Jericho peeps, and sent nuts to Zippy, he might get the squirrel's to pull for us? or sick them on SOE headquarters. Ya know, "Fix Mxo, or we'll sick the rodents on ya!" Just a thgt, not a very good one either, nvmd...

Edit: /smackforehead... laughing at myself for having a typo in the sentence where I say I'll send my own letter. Guess I need to make sure I spellcheck it.

proportions. The elongated

I find it interesting that the previously linked thread on Mave's effort ends shortly after he sent his first letter.

I presume it failed.

That being said, anyone know if that address he posted is still correct? I will at the very least be writing them when I cancel my subs in a few months.

Not that I expect it to help, I just want to make it clear to them that I will NEVER, EVER subscribe to any other SOE games. That might (might, i said) be of more consequence than my cancelling of the subs.

Anyway, I am willing to send a letter or two, without even seeing anyone else commit.

Paschendale wrote:

was a transformer too

((oop . Ill keep the first three though))

. It's evolution exposed,

Ocular gritted his teeth as the bottled shattered under his foot. But he kept running.

The echo of his dress shoes, slapping against the battered tile floor, reverberated off the walls, guiding his ears down the hallway. His hand brushed against the wall, and when it caught the doorknob, he bolted out into the courtyard.

Immediately the soundscape opened up: traffic, voices, wind, his footsteps now muffled in the struggling grass. He was almost to the street when he heard the spattering of a submachine-gun behind him, and dove across the bus-stop bench. Bullets whined pat and around him, some striking the bench, as he rolled up and let off a burst from his silenced Mac-10.

Not that he expected to hit them, seeing as he could only fire in the general direction of his attacker. He dashed up the sidewalked, straining for details, barely dodging a few bystanders, who protested, and then screamed as the gunfire picked up again from behind. He bolted across the intersection, vaulting the hood of a sedan whose tires were already screeching on the pavement.

Ocular found his heart pounding, the blood-pressure screaming in his ears as he pushed hard down the pavement. Suddenly, his earpiece crackled to life...

"Left, now!" He could feel the air tighten around him as he ducked into the narrow alley. Almost forgot about Mica... He found his Operator's skills re-assuring, started to relax just a little, just as he ran smack into a trashcan. An involuntary barrel roll, and he was back on his feet in time to hear Mica say "Right." before he burst out into the street.

Ocular cursed out loud as he stumbled against a parking meter. FOCUS! Adrenaline surging, feet pounding, ears and skin searching for data. Data... Suddenly he felt his eyes, felt the data stream. Glimmering green characters resolved themselves vaguely, startling at first, but then augmenting his other senses. This time, when Mica shouted "Right, subway!" he could make out the opening, and managed a nice legslide down the banister into the tunnel. The vision faded, but not before Ocular resolved his objective. He vaulted the ticket stalls, to the dismay of the collectors, and scrambled towards the tracks. The vision gone, he hesitated a moment, till he heard a hydrolic hiss, and slipped through the doors just as they were closing.

The inside of the car felt like a tomb, stifling in its lack of echo space. The cars slowly rumbled to life, and Ocular grabbed hold of the ceiling rail. He felt a little trapped. Can't tell ANYTHING over this racket. A static muffled voice announced "Crenshaw Ave" as the next stop. Crenshaw... Blue line, that must have been Hampton station. He strained to pick up details: a newspaper ruffled from the front of the car, someone pressed the buttons on a cell-phone across from him. But the train noise masked the usual heartbeats and breathing that informed him of people. He didn't even know whether his pursuer had missed the train. He tapped his earpiece.

"It's clean, Oc, you beat him. Nice railslide by the way *chuckles*. Get off at Crenshaw, the Red line is right across from it. We've got a new drop set-up."

Ocular relaxed, and reviewed the mission. It had been a bust from the start, he had smelled the fear, the distrust, from the contact. He had feigned confusion to get out of the apartment, found the elevator blocked by the ambusher. The stairs had been the only choice. Good thing he didn't figure on me going up! Nonetheless, it had been close, and he still had the package in his possesion.

He got off at Crenshaw, made his way cautiously to the surface. His pursuer hadn't arrived here, perhaps guessed he would go further. He crossed the street, went up a block, ducked down into the Red line entrance. This time, he took out a faked subway pass, and showed it to the clerk, got casually on board.

"Take the Villa stop. Blackballer will be waiting there with a car. Make the delivery with him, and he'll drop you off at a hardline." Easy enough. To bad it hadn't been in the first place...

Gosh... No way, I still love these films, I still love the whole Matrix concept. I think it ranks among the best Sci-fi visions ever.

One thing that I maybe see differently now is my sense of how this story has been told. I remember seeing some interview where the Bro's claimed that they WANTED to tell this story through many different mediums, artists, etc. I think when I started this game, I felt like MxO was THE Matrix story, whereas now I feel like its A Matrix story. Clearly one of many, and I think its supposed to be that way. Everyone gets something different out of it, and has different ideas about it. I used to think some ideas were just "wrong". But I don't think i can legitimately do that anymore.

but yeah, feeling yer pain, think everyone here is. I WANT to stay, because I still have a lot of story ideas, and only so much time to type them up. But I also want to leave, if for no other reason than to silently object how SOE has handled this game.

Fen wrote:

Villemar_MxO wrote:

psilody wrote:

 

Anyone, I'm sorry if I'm a little sick of every thread on the story being hijacked by haters. I've never said that I agree with everything Rare did, every element of the story, etc. But he was just a human being, the last Dev we had, and I'm sure all the negative feedback from the playerbase made it pretty easy to walk away from this game.

So why don't you guys all go write up your amazing edit of the MxO story and publish it. I'm sure you'll feel great too when half the community sh*t's all over it.

Not our job.  I pay X for Y services.  If I have to do it myself, I shouldn't be charged full price.  End of story.

I agree with both your posts, Villemar.

psilody's really off the deep end here.  He keeps taking criticism for hate.

I do not hate Rarebit.  I don't care for his story, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the work he put in for us.

However, since I'm paying for a service, I have the right to question it if it doesn't meet my expectations.  If you have ever been in any position of sales, you would know that the goal of customer service is to try and exceed their expectations.  Something that SOE has not done, even remotely so.

psilody...  seriously, dude.  You're the one that needs to calm down and take a chill pill.  It's hard to carry on a civil discussion with you flipping out and screaming text in our faces.

And you never addressed my point to begin with.  All you've done is flame and insult.  *shrug*

K first, pill taken.

But second, I want to point out that this is a thread about the previous storyline, NOT the current economics of the Matrix.

My original comment was basically directed towards Foxx, and others who have been bashing the PREVIOUS storyline and its writer, and basically what I said was hes a human and drop it. (and, btw, text in general makes it challenging to infer voice character. In my mind, this was not "screaming", but rather a sarcastic diatribe. My apologies, as I stated in the other post, for being a little peeved.)

 I FULLY agree, that now that we have NO dev, the price we pay for this game is ridiculous.My comments are NOT a defense of SOE. I don't see anywhere in my original post where I indicated I was defending SOE, nor directing any flaming of any sort directly towards Fen.(I will admit that I probably mildly flamed Foxx.Soz) Your comments, Fen, seemed more to indicate displeasure with the work provided by our previous Dev, and to be defending Foxx for bashing his work. Sorry if I took that IN the context of the discussion at hand.

So... really though... again... these threads keep getting way out of hand. What started as people DISCUSSING the story, turned into people bashing the STORYWRITER, turned into me bashing the basher (guilty as charged), turned into other people bashing the basher of the basher, turned into a discussion of what we should be paying.

I personally will be canceling at least one account, as I no longer regard it as worth my money. I may stick around to RP and PvP, as i still regard these activities as fun.

I apologize for my role in derailing the thread.

Croesis wrote:

Fen wrote:

Like you've never gone to a restaurant, gotten a meal that wasn't to your liking or gotten bad service and complained about it?

Customer:  "Hey, I asked to hold the sauce."
Waiter:  "You think it's so easy to cook a meal!?  Well if you're so smart, why don't you go and cook it yourself?!"

Actually, if this happened at a restaurant, I would politely ask the waiter to send it back.

I would give the waiter and the cook the benefit of the doubt. Have you seriously NEVER made a f'n mistake in your life? Who ARE you people? I suppose since you all are perfect, that would justify you belittling and berating the server, the cook, the whole establishment for RUINING YOUR LIFE by bringing you a meal that had sauce. Maybe you'd even have a case to sue them or something...

Actually, we pay to access the game, our subscriptions do not guarantee continuing storyline (either good or poor, depending on users viewpoint, as is immediatly evident) or additional content. If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to pay/play. Simple really.

Now if the servers were inaccessible for more than the necessary time for maintenance, or if some funtionality of the game was broken and not repaired promptly etc. Then you can complain about the service. By not continuing the story they lose custom, but thats their choice to make.

And what Croesis said. I'm sure theres nowhere that our subscription fees demand a storyline, let alone one with every detail in it perfect to the satisfaction of every single player.

Anyone, I'm sorry if I'm a little sick of every thread on the story being hijacked by haters. I've never said that I agree with everything Rare did, every element of the story, etc. But he was just a human being, the last Dev we had, and I'm sure all the negative feedback from the playerbase made it pretty easy to walk away from this game.

So why don't you guys all go write up your amazing edit of the MxO story and publish it. I'm sure you'll feel great too when half the community sh*t's all over it.

meh, bored, desperate, take yer pick, the point stands...

I seriously find myself wishing that I could spawn a series of tangential universes where each person thats been p**sing all over the MxO storyline could be transported back in time and become lead dev, and be responsible for fleshing out the story.

Maybe after they wrote THEIR story, and then had half the community cr*p all over it, they'd get some sense of humility about the challenge of being the storywriter for a game people are obsessed about.

Take it somewhere else Foxx, preferably the toilet...

TheChainer wrote:

 

Also, My one major merv question has always been...

If the twins healed when they went etheral, how did they "Blow apart" when Morpheus blew up the Caddy?  They were plainly seen going etheral as they went skyward... meaning the flames blow through them, and they gain the ability to move through the fire and land safely and healed.  (Bullet wounds are instantly healed when the one went etheral after morpheus lit his arm up, and the twin felt obviously no pain.) Major inconsistancy in the exile story part of it IMO.

Agreed about the inconsistency. I think this aptly illustrates that even the Bro's didnt know exactly what to do with some of their creation. I think They created the Twin's thinking "Dude, those would be cool!" But then they had to find a way for Morpheus to win, cuz, like, hes da good guy. I'm guessing that for the movie, that was meant to be ambigous. Might be that the explosion was so big that it they got "blown away". Not destroyed, mind you, just pushed far enough away that they couldn't catch back up with the action. For MxO, this turned into their being blown to pieces...

Anywho, that might be getting a wee bit off-topic...

Garu wrote:

null

Message edited by Garu on 02/28/2009 08:07:09.

lol, yeah, I think they missed that part where it says message Edited.

Note to others: this can often be assumed to imply that the original message was deemed irrelevant and removed.

Note to Garu: Given how desperate everyone is to respond to SOMETHING, i suggest a more explicit retraction next time

sneakers. The shoe

Ebola wrote:

Im not sure why the Syntax people are complaining about not wanting to have the dramatic people from Recursion transfered/merged to Syntax.... when the majority of the people from Recursion have alts on Syntax... we just want our older characters there Or just give us a free 50 on Syntax, grinding is boring.

ahh, good point.

Objection retracted.

Mind you, I'm sure a server merge actually requires more work than SOE is interested in investing anyway. Prolly actually cheaper to just leave things running the way they are, they try to accomplish this.

that resembled a

((omg, i just read this whole thing, this thread delivers ))

*sigh* egos everywhere... don't know if it's better that the hostilities are now open or not, but it might actually be better than veiled anger and bitterness...

On a note to maybe try to return to this TSR thing, and my already stated disinterest:

My lack of interest in this has more to do with a lack of interest in large scale events period. I used to attend the LE's when I could. I think they were kinda cool, but its not like they were really that interactive, what with 50-100 people potentially yammering away, lagging the deal up. Only real thing was that I kept up on the storyline, so at least I knew what the event was about.

I tried to participate in A:B. I joined the site, I read the forums. At one point, I actually created an alt on Recursion to try and RP from a different angle on it. I sent emails to one of the numbered Operatives (admittedly, not many) but got no response, so I gave up on that. I attended one "Event" but had trouble figuring out what was going on, and found that, like an LE, there were thirty people standing around yammering. Unlike an LE, I didnt know even remotely what it was about. I left. I still overall feel like that event was more or less aimed by a group of people towards a group of people that they wanted to include. I'm not saying it was exclusive, but when you have little clue things where a strange voice lists a bunch of peoples names, and you're not one of them, well, yeah....

My overall point is... Screw anything large scale. I've run an event. I didn't call it an event, I posted it as an RP. I had no more than half-a-dozen participants at a time, sometimes just one or two. And it was great. It was personal. People enjoyed it, without it being some over-the-top production. And it has caused, to date, no drama.

To me, this should be the future, is what I'm interested in. Any and all aggrandizement at this point strikes me as ego-stroking, whether it's LESIG or Player or whatever.

Stick with small people... less drama that way...

yeah, just finished reading some threads on some other forum, and they just make me think...

No.

There are just some people I don't want on Syntax. Sorry to the rest of you nice folks, but we seem to need that server as a sort of, well, camp to house some people with way over-inflated egos.

But don't worry, they will eventually fill the space over there with lots of hot air, and that will make it cozy...

Mind- that made me lol for real. thats abotu how Im feeling atm

DucKKeRR wrote:

 

 

This update confirms Rare were out of SOE more than one month ago :/

Ummm... no. It really doesn't. How exactly do you figure that?

so, yesterday, I was really dissapointed by the pantsless Gi's, but that aside...

Look. You suddenly decide its time to quit. You give a months notice. There are many things to do to rapidly phase yourself out of a role you have been filling exclusively for years.

You have ONE, excatly ONE, more update to try and do, like, EVERYTHING, which is impossible. You have to choose what is truly the most important final work on a project.

Rare tried to fix the Vista Issues. Don't know how well he succeeded, but he tried. That is actualy important to the game, far more important than individual players desire for some AWESOMENESS parting content. I would speculate that the Vista fixs WERE NOT originally slated to go through this update, but thats what Rare chose to get done, and it took up his time over the last month. That they had to delay the update so it could be tested and tweaked (and this, possibly, required Rare to stay past his intended departure) should be evidence enough that this update took some work.

So, no, I'm sorry, this is not an "Epic Fail". It just didn't meet people's bloated expectations. What it probably was is rare being professional, trying to make his last contribution a technical fix, rather than some ego padding "OMG heres some AWESOME gewgaw".

Yeah, I hate pantsless Gi's. But thank you Rare, sincerely, Thank you.

ShiXinFeng wrote:

psilody wrote:

How am I going to play it IC at all? That is to say, under what circumstances would i be called upon to have an IC response to story events that are not happening?

Even when we HAD a story, I was never one to stand around Tab W asking people "So, what ya think about them LV's?" If there was a LE going on, then it seemed pertinent what my IC stance on the current situation was, and I played from that. That stance was always based on psi's core character anyway.

I think my point is more, THERE IS NO MORE CONTINUING STORYYLINE, ERGO, I DON"T NEED AN IC RESPONSE. I'm not really worried about character continuity, psi's character can be what it its, without an official storyline.

Ah, I see where you're coming from now. No story = no need for story RP. Got it

( ...)

psilody wrote:

So, ya know, come up with yer idea, start a Player Event thread and say "hey, Our group of people have agreed on this, and we are going to play out a story based on it. participants welcome."

To me, that's what it means for the story to be in our hands. Not, "hey, lets all spend 6 months arguing and debating what did or didn't happen, where it's going to go, who's going to get it there... blah,blah..."

Well, that's the whole idea, as I illustrated a few lines up. But wouldn't it be nice, for veterans and newbies alike, if everyone kind of agreed about what has happened? I mean, this way, a new player could go from RP story to RP story without running into a situation where one person says "that Oligarchs are gone" while another says "nah, the Oligarchs were just here yesterday." I mean, I suppose if people want to RP against the grain, that's fine; they pay to play too. But, some of us feel like it's possible to reach an agreement on this issue.

 

psilody wrote:

Not worth it. Just enjoy what's left and stop worrying about it.

That's your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. But since we, also, pay to play, how about you just let us play the game how we want to? We're not requiring you, or anyone else, to agree with us. We're just saying "for those like-minded individuals, how do you want it to go?"

Fair enough?

yes, defnitely fair. I guess my primary concern still comes from the title of this thread  "Where does this leave us?"

I thought the point of thread was to try and draw a community concensus on where "we" all are.

I guess I'm trying to say that I think the effort to get the community to agree on such a thing is more likely to cause strife, than solve any significant problem.

So, I'm sorry if i misunderstood, but i took the meaning of this thread to be a discussion of where we all are, as players in this community, with the idea of reaching a concensus among basically all players. That is an entirely different objective than saying "Where are we individually, and who wants to group up and go a similar direction?".

I'm just fine with the latter, especially since thats the way its going to in fact be. I'm disturbed by the former, because I don't want to see this community torn apart by trying to achieve a concensus that isn't going to happen.

gah.. for once, I didn't feel like reading EVERY post, so pre-apologies if this is redundant.

I think you raise a valid issue. It used to be that people actually hung around Uriah SW, waiting for the new Red's making their way thru the tutorial Collector's. I even remembeer briefly seeing someone with an actual faction that was something like "Redpill Reception Team" or some such.

Course... that was back when you might encounter more than one new player an hour. I used to sit at Uriah SW myself sometimes, till i found that it was extremely boring.

So, to answer this realistically (if there is such a thing, seeing as we have no dev), I don't think a makeover of Uriah is even remotely possible. You are much better off to get people to the location that most people are hangin out anyway, Mara C.

Obviously, it would be awkward to just drop people at Mara C, that might be a little overwhelming, not to mention the added lag. Some people have suggested directions...

I would suggest moving the tutorial collectors themselves to Mara. Maybe the starting HL could be Mara NW, or Mara S? The tutorial characters could be relocated in such a way that they lead players over to Mara C. With all the people running around the Mara area, this would give new players the sense that there are still some players.

Admittedly, this would require a reworking of the collectors. Obviously, Chopper keys would have to be replaced with Onyx Rings, and possibly the Industrial Vendor who does the Mercury trades would need to be switched with one that points you to Sister Margaret.

These are relatively small changes (although, ANY changes without a Dev are no go), so they might be workable with using existing resources.

Just a possibility...

OMG, thats Hilarious/Wierd. Kinda makes ya wonder if 'ol Hugo intentionally modeled his speech pattern on Sagan. Since Hugo is British, he needed to alter his speech anyway, so...

but yeah, I laughed pretty hard, especially with Morpheus facial expressions at the end.

Sorry X, just gotta say..

SUPER NECRO FTW!!

lol, but i'm game. I'm inclined to think that the "he was too young" part is the answer here. The movies indicate that most people are freed when they are still young. It might have been a decade or more between the time when Morpheus was surreptitiously freed, and he returned to the Matrix as an Operative. The system would know him by his hacker alias. Heck, even if he had an official name as an Orphan, they might not be able to match up the identity of an adult man with his child RSI. So they maybe just don't know.

I think its equally possible thats its just an oversight, that the Bro's didn't yet realize how an*l their legions of fans would become over every little detail of these films.

ShiXinFeng wrote:

So, Psilody, just out of curiosity, how are you going to play it? In character, I mean. You going to ignore the last few chapters? Play as though Rare finished the story?

Just call it like you see it is all I'm asking.

How am I going to play it IC at all? That is to say, under what circumstances would i be called upon to have an IC response to story events that are not happening?

Even when we HAD a story, I was never one to stand around Tab W asking people "So, what ya think about them LV's?" If there was a LE going on, then it seemed pertinent what my IC stance on the current situation was, and I played from that. That stance was always based on psi's core character anyway.

I think my point is more, THERE IS NO MORE CONTINUING STORYYLINE, ERGO, I DON"T NEED AN IC RESPONSE. I'm not really worried about character continuity, psi's character can be what it its, without an official storyline. And theres not anybody playing this game that doesn't know whats (not) going on, so who's going to really see some "discrepancy".

Again, I don't believe for one minute that, as a community of players, even IF we agreed that, say, "the outline is canon, lets start at 15." that such agreement would actually lead to a continuing official story.

So yeah, again, it doesn't matter how I would play a response to the story, because there isn't a story to play at all. What's the point? Who am I going to RP with about an "official" story line that ended and no longer exists? Myself?

So, ya know, come up with yer idea, start a Player Event thread and say "hey, Our group of people have agreed on this, and we are going to play out a story based on it. participants welcome."

To me, that's what it means for the story to be in our hands. Not, "hey, lets all spend 6 months arguing and debating what did or didn't happen, where it's going to go, who's going to get it there... blah,blah..."

Not worth it. Just enjoy what's left and stop worrying about it.

ShiXinFeng wrote:

SampleNow wrote:

Where does this leave us?

It lets you focus on your personal characters and friends backgrounds and to start other stories.

You can never do anything that will involve a storyline character or anything that was requested from them.

Now is the time to find other Role Player and have a feud or hovercraft battles to destory there ship/fleet.

This goes without saying, and is the reason for this thread. This discussion will, hopefully, lead us all to a place where we can begin to develop our characters anew, engage other factions in hostilities, and write our own stories from our own perspectives about the end of the Oligarchs, or critical hovercraft battles, or Matrix raids or whatever.

There must be a foundation first, though. We, as a community, should agree on where the stories will begin. To borrow a phrase from another sci fi epic, "so say we all."

umm.. yeah, this is what we should do. But, uhh, yeah, did you miss the part where its not gonna happen?

Gonna say it again, lonly using different words than I did four pages ago... We got dumped.

And can you blame the man? Look at all the s**t hes had to put up with "ZOMG UR RUINING MY MATRIX!!"

Yeah.. its a game. It even started out cool. However, it is in fact situated in the Real.

In the Real, people have lives and move on.

In the Real, not every story line gets finished to the 100% satisfaction of its fanbase.

In the Real, people do not always all "Come together" in beautiful harmony.

We are in the Real now. Story over. It really doesn't matter that Rarebit said "the story is in our hands", because there is not any mechanism for us to execute the story and too many potential storytellers. Rare was being, as ever, hopefull. I agreed with his ideas and most of the story outline (and, yeah, im sorry, but i dont think he was lieing when he said the Bro's gave their approval for the overall story concept. And i don't believe they just rubber stamped it either. Would you take yer most famous work of art and say, "here ya go, do whatever you like with it."? Maybe they didn't approve every word, but they approved of the general shape of the story. And as far as Canon, I dont think there is one. This was the canon of the Game, nothing more. The comics are something else. And its pretty clear that the Brothers are ok with alternate stories and endings, just look at the other two games.)

However, I think IF Rare believed that, as players, we could take over the "Official" story, he was daead wrong. And he never said that. I just think that where we go from here, is now up to us. Individually. Not as a group, for the simple reason that its impossible, and resulting conflict of attempting to do it would only drive more people away from a game thats in its apparent death-throes already.

We don't need a "concensus" on what happened IC. We need to get over this idea. We need to play the game for whatever reasons we individually have to continue playing. We need to write whatever stories we want, post them, and let people tell us what they think.

We need the "Official" story to become an Open RP, where anyone is free to post and create their own ideas about what the Matrix is.

I'm sorry, but if you have built your Characters around the "current" events of the game, you need to accept that they are gone, and rebuild your character. I alos think we need to accept that there is, now, basically NO CANON. Its gone. How can you have an Official story that has no ending and never will? You can't. So Canon is over. We don't need it any more. Instead, look at the last four years like it was all one big Player event. The event planner(s) quit, so we never get to play it out.

Can I say it one more time?

MOVE ON.

monkeymanx8 wrote:

While I was expecting a bit more than just two shirts, they are still kinda neat nonetheless. Thank Rarebit for atleast doing something. I haven't gotten the RSI Caps I wanted yet, but that's mostly what I'm looking for in this update.

mm.. yes, at least Men got neat shirts, ones that can actually be worn with any number of outfits, whereas women...

Ok, I'm not gonna b**ch, this is minor compared with losing Rare overall, and I'm sure this was kind of a quick "i've decided to leave" slap something together deal anyway. My REAL dissapointment is that the Patcher's trade is for the headgear only, not the hats and 'danas. And to think I had started farming to get a dana, so I could trade it for a black one, seeing as women still don't have any high level black danas . Since hes already done the color work, maybe thats something someone could add down the line. Not gonna hold my breath.

I guess.. yeah.. sad. From my perspective, I've have rather had nothing than a weak last gasp.

Fen wrote:

ZippyTheSquirrel wrote:

Fen wrote:

I've personally written off the entire Oligarch story, as it was utter trash in my opinion.

Sucks to be you. It's there, deal with it.

It sucks to be me because I don't buy into a ridiculous plotline?  I'm sorry if it takes a little more than all-powerful bubblegum and wireframe people who are chasing a resurrected glowing code woman to interest me.

I mean, have you actually watched and enjoyed the Matrix films?  Or are you one of these people that want transforming mecha in the Mega City and vampires in the Real?  Come on.

yes. yes i have. The Movies ended.

Did you miss the part where the Bro's approved of this overall storyline? Get over it. Just because it doesn't interest YOU, doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

That being said, to return to the thread point, I think the discussion so far should answer your question.

There is and will be NO CONCENSUS on what the story situation is. It sucks, but the story is officially limbo'd. It has been dropped dead, at least IN GAME, and there will likely be noone to officially take it over.

I say that people just deal. It happens. Everyone can make up their own ending, and live their happy little dream. In many ways, those people that didn't like the Official story can now make up whatever they want, and this should make them, well, less unhappy I hope. If the story had actually continued thru the proposed chapters, all kinds of people would be griping on and on, about how "da story isn't Matrix-y to meh."

Maybe now we can all move on? It actually sucks more for people like me, because I liked the story overall, and we will not get any of it as content.

So yeah, to sum up, I'll add choice four to Cloud's list:

• The story has no official anything regarding this abrupt transition. It is what it is, and let eveyone make up their own d**n minds what it means and what happens.

Phrack wrote:

Personally, I believe LESIG was a good idea... it was just executed poorly.

It's natural to have problems like the ones we've seen with LESIG, in the past.  The real issues arise when those problems aren't addressed and handled in a timely manner.  Or at all.

Don't get me wrong, I think LESIG was a great idea, and given the fact that SOE gave this game no budget for continuing the LET, it was the only way that we could have continued to have LE's. I think its a testament to how much the Matrix Story means to people, that PLAYERS who were PAYING TO PLAY THE GAME actually volunteered to do this for free. Its both amazing, and also quite sad really. (And, even more so, I think this applies to A:B. That wasn't even official, but people put MAJOR time and effort into it, and it was a bang up event.)

However, I think the problems with LESIG in the past were a result of two things: human nature, and the difficulty in firing people who aren't employees to begin with. I have to assume that virtually everyone who worked in LESIG had their own ideas about the story, and it must have been pretty heady to be able to say "yeah, im part of the official Matrix story." I don't see that stopping, or being a thing of the past.

Furthermore, LESIG always had an "Official" leader to keep things in check. I think there has to be SOME kind of Arbiter, someone who has the authority to say, "yes, this fits", or "no it doesn't". We can go round and round on whether Rare did this well, I think he did, and at the very least, I doubt someone could do it better. He was also an employee, and authorized, at least indirectly, by the Stories originators to fill this role. Trying to plug a player into that role would just be a disaster. I see SO MANY talented people here, it would be tremendously arbitrary to pick one out to be the "Official" story leader. Even a vote would only lead to divisions.

So, personally, I am going to put my own efforts into devloping side-stories based on the Matrix Concept. Whether anyone considers them "official" will be largely irrelevant, and I like it that way.

Personally, I think the "Official" story should be left well enough alone. Its clear that some people didn't like it, including the author of this topic, but Rare did make it clear that the Bro's approved the basic storyline we have been playing, and were going to play up through the planned Chapter 14. As far as I'm concerned, that approval is the closest thing to an official story that we have.

Further, I have to agree with others who have noted that you will not get much agreement on what else the story SHOULD be. This thread alone shows how little concensus there is. Besides that, have any of you ever seen an old Dilbert strip where a team tries to make a sentence by commitee? They can't even agree on the word "the". Stories by commitee are DOOMED to suck, that is just my opinion, but show me an example otherwise. Having people "vote" on the story would just become an ego trip/power struggle/general tear up the community kind of deal.

So, yeah, guess I'm saying I'll pass on having a player run "Official" story. IF someone gets brought in to fill Rare's role, and IF the ideas they have are in some way approved by the Bro's, that will be the new official story to me. Otherwise, I consider it done.

This does not mean I don't think there shouldn't be PE's and RP's, but I think those things are better left as explorations of the Matrix concept, than official storyline.

man, I hate coming to the party late...especially as Rare is now officially gone

but, yeah, I think this story is really pretty d*** awesome overall. There are some things I would have maybe seen differently, but overall, I think this is spot on.

Rarebit wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

Remember the bros supposedably O.K'd the storyline up to and including Chapter 9. That includes the Oligarchs and their background.

The same can't be said for Neo/Trinity though

No, that part was in there too even way back then.

Thank you for clarifying that. Maybe all those "ZOMG, the story isn't Matrix-y" people will clam up now.

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Neoteny wrote:

Oh yeah, I second Othinn's question. I'd almost forgotten about  that.

I also have another one: A while ago, I believe it was in one of the ask a dev threads at least a year if not two years ago, you said that one of the ideas you posed to the brothers (via Chadwick?) was shot down. Do you think you could tell us what it was?

I believe he stated recently that the only idea shot down was the idea that humans were not used as batteries/energy sources for the Machines, that that was a Machine lie (ie. they were being imprisoned for other reasons).

See, that contradicts with this though....

Rarebit wrote:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 9: Intrusion


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


9.1



[Oligarch Backstory:

(...)
The darkening of the skies by humanity was a setback, but one to which the Machines were able to adopt simply by switching from solar to nuclear power. The role of caretaker still deep in their programming from their days as man's helpers, the Machines built the Matrix to house a remnant of humanity--preserving every genetic variety they considered sufficiently efficient, in large enough numbers to avoid the danger of eventual inbreeding. The number of humans preserved in pods is far less than Morpheus' estimate, however--only about five million, the population of the Matrix' simulated city.

This is one thing that I would love to have some further clarification on, seeing as it has always been the weakest point in the whole Matrix Story (I know its Science Fiction, but I usually find stories better when its not the science part that is fictional. Anywho...)

Rarebit wrote:

ZaneZavin wrote:

As far as the genetic thing, I think back to Neo's conversation with The Architect and it wouldn't make sense unless pretty much everything Archy said was a lie. [...] If Neo is an anomaly that was beyond his control, then he wouldn't have been specifically created with that purpose etc.

It was the Oracle who came up with the inherent error scheme. The Architect allowed it, but he did so knowing that that part of it wasn't something over which he had direct control.

Heyyy this is a good opportunity to mention that personally (I wouldn't enforce this on others, mind you, since it's pretty touchy in some ways), I don't think Neo was "the anomaly." The Architect calls him "the eventuality of an anomaly," which is different than actually being the anomaly. If you have to pick a character as the anomaly, it seems to me that it would have been Smith; but I think it's more accurate to say that the "anomaly" he was talking about was the cascading system of errors that inevitably result from the current Matrix program's built-in imperfection that allows for a small percentage of the populace to reject it ("the anomaly is systemic," etc). The tricky part about this interpretation is that one of those knuckleheaded Agents later says "The anomaly" when he finds Neo; I explain this away for myself (whee magic!) by making excuses like "Agents didn't know everything" or "the Agent was simply referring to Neo as one of the primary manifestations of the consequences of the anomaly."

I always took the whole anomaly thing in a slightly different way than this...

In the movies, the Architect claims that he designed two different Matrix's, that both failed. The Third succeeded when the oracle "stumbled upon a solution whereby 99.9% of subjects would accept the program if given a choice, even if only at a subconscious level."

In addition, from other comments made by the Oracle ("that man can't understand any choices..."), I came to the conclusion that the previous versions of the Matrix didn't really allow for choice at all. It was a more scripted experience, and this is what ultimately led it to be incompatible with the human psyche.

so the redesigned Matriz allowed for choice, but this led to problems. The problem was not merely that people would leave, and Zion might get out of hand. The problem was that a system that allowed for choice allowed a human brain to interact directly with the system. Eventually, someone might learn how to hack the system with their brain, or, even worse, become symbiotic with the system.

As a wierd analogy, i think there's a parrallel here with the second Spider-Man movie (I'm going to assume people have seen it... if not, umm, spoilers). Early on, when Doc Oc is first putting on his arms, he explains to the crowd how the arms have AI, and so can do stuff on their own. Someone in the crowd asks, basically, well if the arms have intelligence, whats to stop them sending signals back to your brain? Of course, the Doc explains that he has a little chip that makes commands ONE-WAY, and the remainder of the story explores what happens when that chip breaks.

I interpreted the early Matrixes as having something akin to the Doc's chip, that kept humans from being able to control the simulation. They sensed this blockage, and rejected the program. The Oracle's solution was to take the block out, and most people would be content with living day to day lives. however, this ran the risk that SOMEONE would eventually try to control the system.

As such, Neo was THE Anomaly, the human who learned (really more accurately was in the process of learning) how to control the system. That the Machines found a way to manipulate him was a check mechanism, to make sure that he never totally overan the whole Matrix.

So... thats my idea, doesn't exactly Jive with the version we now have in the account here. I think i still prefer the concept of Neo as a human who became symbiotic with the system, over a program seeded into a human. Maybe the DNA control cloning thing only developed over time? Maybe the First Anomaly was truly an Anomaly, that developed without the architects or Oracles intervention? And then they took and cloned him, so that they could repeat and control the process?

Anyway, again, if you still get the opportunity to read this Rare, I think you've done a bang-up job overall. Thanks for answering so many peoples questions. I think it will be really hard for anyone to come in and one-up this, or for any of us players to come up with a better story line. And while you've stated that this game is meant to have an endless story-line, remember...

"Everything that has a beginning, must also have an end."

awww...

Defnitely a bummer. as ten pages of comments in a few hours suggest, you are well loved here.

Will be interested to see the remainder of your story, as one of the people who liked it quite well all along.

Now I'm ESPECIALLY bummed that I spent two years away from this game, as it seems I will have missed a lot of the best part. But thank you SO MUCH for making the last year an awesome game experience. I never did make as many LE's as I would have wished, but the ones I did made me feel like I had a role in the continuing Matrix Story.

Good luck for all the future!

Welcome back!

I had a similar experience, but cam back over a year ago.

I would check out Omega Syndicates site for good all around information. Some of their lists have flaws, but overall good stuff.

Also check the new MXO Mainframe, and MXO Space. Lotsa good info if ya scope around.

Finally, since you say your not interestewd in PvP, Im assuming you have a more of an interest in the character side of things. Lots of players have profiles posted in the Data-Archive. Also, takle a look through the Next Renaissance section of the forum (including the server specific ones) and also the Player Event sections. These have good storytelling and interactive events.

Syntax is the server with the better population these days, so I would play there. Mara C is generally a party and pvp hangout, Tabor West seems to be favored by RP'rs.

Hope that helps!

I approve heartily.

Can I approve more than once? can I create a bunch of female alts and all have them approve?

While yer at it, you could convert virtually ALL of the standard level 40+ womens headgear to 'danas, especially those d***ed gimp masks!

k thanky!

((hmmm... hard to address this question IC, it seems to me largely a game mechanics question.

The rush to ally is probably exacerbated by the overall lack of population to the game. Factions want members pretty badly, and new players need help, so they readily accept the advances of recruiters without a lot of thought.

From an IC perspective, this does seem to rush the decision. If I thought that most people playing this game thought deeply about it, it might concern me. But I sense even among long-standing players a pre-dominance of people RPing from a self-righteous POV, over the contemplative POV. Lets face it, its easier. Pick a side and fight.

Playing a character who recognizes that all the political groups in this game have their good points and bad points is just too difficult. ))

GreyMountain wrote:

Slight problem with this slowest to 50 nominees. 

No one here can claim it as none of you have actually reached 50 yet.

 

With this comment in mind...

I created psilody the week after launch. I did not level her, nor any other toon, until last Christmas, so thats, what, 2 1/2 years?

I think for this to count it has to be your main, not your alts.

That being said, IF Othinn ever gets to 50, he will almost surely be in prime contention for this title. Kudos for playing you own way dude

MatrixRefugee wrote:

Data Mining in general seems borked: I keep getting the "Out of range of node" error message unless I'm *right under* the node. Very strange....

What kind of tap are you using?

The only taps with any real range are the DM tap and the Data Scrambler 0.4.  These allow you to tap for a considerable distance.

ALL other taps require you to stand right under the node, Including the Extractor 3.0. This is one of the Trade-offs. The Extractor 3.0 gets slightly more info per tap than the Scrambler, but you have to run around to all the nodes to get it.

Defnitely sounds like a bug. You should be able to use any tap in DM, not just the luggable.

In relation to the lvl255, that spawn is a byproduct of using the DM tap itself, or a Data Scrambler 0.4. (If you are using a Scrambler in DT or other districts, you will get 255 spawns, they just drop dead instantly except in DM).

As such, you can avoid the spawn by using a Data Extractor 3.0. Obviously, the DM Tap has a LOT higher payout, but if they happen to be in use and you don't want to jack whoever is using them, its good to know your other options.

Personally, when I can't use the DM tap, I ALWAYS use the Extractor 3.0. It does have a much lower range, but it gets more info than the Scrambler, and, as stated, you don't get the lvl255's.

Croesis wrote:

Zeac wrote:

or and 10 and 15 posts.

fixed

err... while this may be the official story, its defnitely not true. You can have a sig within a coupla weeks. I have an alt with a sig, has way less than ten posts (i think its three atm). I believe sig rights appear after like two to four weeks of paid registration.

I am not sure about avatar, that is longer, but I dont know by how much (as you will notice that I have never bothered with an avatar anyway).

duel or single or both, 6million