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Matrix MMORPG
An anonymous reader writes "As linked to in this post, Matrix: Online has been announced. The official site for the game describes it as a MMORPG of epic proportions as people will get to feel what it's like to be a part of the matrix realm. Although the details list lots of interesting information, the most important piece I found was in the FAQ section... where they state that the game takes place after Matrix Revolutions... Are they trying to hint at something?"
"D00d! j00r totally cheating, quit dodging my bullets! Oh yeah! I buy that, sure, we can all jump that high. f0x0r j00!"
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
When this Matrix game system bogs down to poor planning for number of users and bandwidth, and everything starts to look like running multi-user Quake IV on a 286 IBM-PC AT with a 300 baud modem, the guys running the game can say "There's nothing wrong here. You are just watching bullet-time effects"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"And someone will try and crash the game to free the people from the matrix, claiming to be The One."
That's a pretty good point. Who is going to blame anyone who hacks and destroys the Matrix MMORPG when the goal in the Matrix universe is to destroy the Matrix computer system?
Some hacker is going to bust into the system, get root access with a Unix command line on the servers, and format all the hard disks. He'll say in his defense "I thought it was another version of that DOS prompt in the MATRIX game"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This is going to be a real boon to the "Get-a-Life's" who like to spend 18 hours a day in MMORPG's.
When someone tells them to go see what the real world looks like for a change, all they have to do is have their Matrix MMORPG avatar jack-in and enter the Matrix inside the Matrix MMORPG.
Secondly, if this is an RPG, doesn't that detract some of the very qualities that made the Matrix a cool movie? I'm having a hard time envisioning a battle with an agent in terms of "attack: 9 damage!" and "Neo misses Agent" or even in terms of a NWN or Diablo style click to attack battle. I by no means claim I am an expert on RPGs, but it seems to me that the most action packed games that seem to fit what the Matrix trilogy is, would be more suited as an FPS or 3rd person view like Enter the Matrix. I'm holding out to see how gameplay actually goes before putting anything into this game.
Three, is hacking the matrix fair game? Seriously, is hacking the system's bugs to your advantage "legal" or frowned upon? One would think that perhaps bugs could be built in waiting for the clever users to exploit like in the movies. I think this would add a level of gameplay never seen before and has serious potential, but again, I'm holding out till I see how smoothly it actually goes.
This game looks damn good in concept, but it's a bit early to make a final judgement on whether this will be a success or small die hard fanbase only game. I hope it does well and they don't muck something significant up.
Brings up alot of implementation questions...say bullet time? (thats if there gonna include it). with MMORPG u usually need to keep sync with whats going on around u, bullet time will slow u down and obviously summat ur fighting.
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Solutions are: 1. Slow the entire server down too, or 2. try to squeeze all the action into the small timeframe but render it slow on the client, this could possibly create artifical lag for everyone else or a huge catchup situation (aka. lag) for the player.
Of course this is IF they implement it
In a fewer words: it will be interesting how they can bring the matrix universe alive while still keeping some of its ethos
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
It's set after Matrix Revolutions. Which indicates that there will still be a Matrix then....
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Then out of the ~10000 ppl who buy subscriptions, only ONE will get cool kungfu powers and everyone else gets to play a game which is every bit as mundane as real life in the '90s! I bags being Mr. Anderson before Trinity finds him! Incidentally, there won't be bullet time clashes either. =P
Mark my words, this game will *never* be released.
I mean, the Matrix essentially is an MMORPG. Who knows, maybe this is how the Matrix got started. Instead of the Matrix Online, it should be called Matrix 0.0.1 (alpha). Let's just hope they don't make the AI too good.
"Hey man, I just got the Matrix Online. It's awesome. They've got this great new interface, too. The surgery wasn't too bad, but it's kinda hard to sleep comfortably with this thing on the back of my neck."
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
Unfortunately, present day MMORPG designers have considerably less creativity than your average banker. Otherwise they would realize how easy bullet time is to implement.
Obviously you can't slow down the whole world for everyone. Which is why you return to the wonderful world of turn based party-only combat! Take the combat system used in the pioneer MMORPG, The Realm, and add features to bring it up to date.
It's a shame that this kind of combat system would deviate too much from the standard MMORPG template. Otherwise we might have a decent game for once.
Come to think of it, the Architect does work for the Warner games division at this time.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm presuming you'd be playing a rebel. The rebels don't really spend much time in the Matrix. They go in, do what they need to do and get out. They don't wander around much because once the agents find out where they are, it just becomes a chase since since no-one except Neo can out-fight them.
Great movies but I have my doubts about its viability as a MMORPG.
Thoughts on stocks, markets and trading
Here I thought we were already in the Matrix MMORPG
Yes, but I've heard that there is this french guy who claims that this kid with the stupiest nickname ever started cheating with an exploit he found, that let him fly and stuff, pretty funny, and they had to reset the server... but i've heard that about a couple of dozen people still have their character from before... and that this is not the first time that it happens. Apparently they just refuse to fix the security hole.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Dammit, it won't let me mod down the main post for spoiler content!
Blatant self-promotion: Jerek.net
Sounds like SW: Galaxies. Everybody is normal, but some random people are jedis! Ooooh!
Has anyone here ever played Giants: Citizens Kabuto? Remember the reaper Spell which slowed down time in a limited area, akin to a bubble that appeared, I imagine something similar to this for bullet time.
People outside of it would move normal time, while the person on the inside gets to move around and avoid all those nasty bullets once they enter into the sphere of bullet time.. You just create an area where incoming projectiles are slowed for anyone who is using the power.. There would be more to think about like outgoing projectiles, but I imagine firing off 10 shots in slow mode and them suddenly coming out in rapid sucession would work..
Hand to hand fighting.. I imagine a similar situation, where unless you are activating your Focus (ala enter the matrix) you are slowed down and if you are, you remain same speed..
meep!
Thats all they are doing. MMOG's are the hotest thing in the industry right now. Its obviously where all the consoles are stearing towards. Just like "Enter The Matrix", they cashed in on the franchise, and with that hurt any future game based on it. Enter The Matrix will should never have been released. It seems that did not do a bit of tweaking for that game. I had lots of hope for ETM, from the involvement of the brothers, to the hours of ingame footage. It sounded like they were going to banish the movie game image. But Shiny couldn't match what the brothers put in. The story is great, even the cut scenes are decent. But everything game play wise falls far, far short of what it promised. I don't doubt for a second that this new Matrix MMORPG will be released. Without a breakthrough, this game will most likely go the way of MCO, SO, or even AO.
One way to do this, albeit 'cheesily' is that you use 'bullet-time' to do certain attack moves, etc. Basically you hit the bullet time button and kick and jump and you do a crane kick, if you know how to. It's all done in real time so you actually have to be rather fast to do it. Bullet dodging would just be another button to hit to dodge once someone started firing.
I guess my point is they don't HAVE to have everything slow down to do 'bullet time' type effects. Though many, MANY people will be pissed if they don't.
I know the publisher's community guy who's now on the TMO project. Managed to get a private demo of the game while at E3 a couple of weeks ago.
Some of the neat stuff:
* The game world will be freaking HUGE. They illustrated this by pointing at a piece of the wall in the demo room, which was a bunch of square pieces, each about... hmm, 1.5 ft on each side. "This is the size of the game world." Then the fellow uses his finger and draws off one corner of the square wall piece, and says "This is the size of Sydney." i.e. game world city will be at least 20x the square footage of Sydney, Australia.
* "Bullet Time" is in - and beyond that, the multiple-blurry effect as well (i.e. when an agent dodges the gunshots on the roof of the first movie, or when Neo/Smith are fighting). How they'll keep the time continuity between the two chars (the target will experience Bullet Time, the attacking character won't), I'm not sure yet.
* Every damn building in the game world will (so they say) be fully accessable - not just empty boxes for looks. 80-story buildings you see across town will have 80 floors, that you can get up into, rooms, "desks with Coke cans", etc.
How much of all of this they can pull off, we'll see.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
after playing Enter the Matrix, I had hoped they would have given up on any matrix-like games and leave them to the modders out there.
alas, my nightmares are real.
I can imagine it now... after buying the matrix online, you find a shop in the game that sells the matrix online in which you play inside a computer inside the matrix online and each time you always meet the same KFC bearded white guy ready to sell you the same matrix online for all of eternity... untill you do something to change the future... hmm... perhaps actually send the 20$ rebate... in which things go backwards and you start to receive 20$ in the world where you purchased the matrix online and them 20$ for that world and.....
The point being missed is this...
... speeding the user up while leaving everyone the same?
What's the difference between the rest of the world slowing down, which is probably very hard to implement, and
They could purposefully keep people's framerates lower than possible. Say, you're going at 50 frames, AI updates, or whatever per second... you invoke BT and suddenly you're running at 90. Everything reacts faster. Granted, you won't have the increased amount of time to think, but you could enter more commands and such...
umm, this was posted a while ago
0) Go see the E3 trailer.
1) There will be two fractions, pro-Matrix guys and rebels. When the game is started, you will have to select your side. We don't know the story of the Matrix: Revolutions, so the details on this separation are unclear.
2) You will go into separate locations for missions. Bullet-time will only be available in these locales (where there are only a few people) and not in the main city.
3) We will probably not play for bus drivers, but instead we will be able to wear cool clothes. This is one of the main parts of the game - the cooler you are, the more 133t clothes you can get. There is a woman among the developers, whose only job is to design new cool clothes.
4) There will be a special rendering technology employed, where quality of the picture and richness of the world will depend on your hardware. That modular structure will allow the developers to improve the graphics quality when better hardware becomes available (without rewriting the game from scratch like EQ2). If we are lucky, it will be gradually upgraded to movie-like Matrix.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Actually, you'd be suprised. A lot of would-be MMORPGers are looking for that exploration aspect in a game. In fact it's 1/4th of the Bartle test which tells you what sort of MUDder you are, unfortunately I lack a url at this time.
mod parent up!