The Matrix Going Massively Multiplayer

Chembro writes "Looks as though Ubi Soft is making a Matrix MMORPG. Everything is still pretty sketchy now that Revolutions has "ended" the series, but so far it seems pretty interesting. I wonder when the game will be placed (i.e. before Revolutions or after) but this could be the way the Wachowski brothers keep the universe going and how it will end. Pretty cool if you ask me."

Comments

1st Post

[Bruha]

You can find more info about the game at http://tmo.warcry.com

YAMMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, great, that's exactly what the world needs.

Re:YAMMORPG

[Uber Banker]

Well, sort of yes.

A MMORPG is what the original Matrix film was all about. It would be hugely self-fulfilling to make into YAMMORPG. The sequels were ultimate examples of nihilism and kitsch and YAMMORPG is an ultimate example of the kitsch and nihilism The Matrix portrayed.

Re:YAMMORPG

[Canadian_Daemon]

Hey, maybe in this MMORPG, we can discard old outdated hardware, like monitors and keyboards, and instead plug directly into the server. I think the best way to do this would be to install a plug in the back of our heads, and......

after

[Satai]

it says explicitly in the FAQ on the website linked that it will take place after revolutions. this was regarded as a spoiler in several communities...

Re:after

[MisterFancypants]

Yeah.

It was actually announced that it would take place after Revolutions way back at this year's E3 (mid-May), so even before Reloaded it was known among anyone who heard the announcements that the Matrix would still be around after the trilogy ended.

Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another horrible sequel. Why not milk this movie some more?

Don't worry, you're buying this game in the matrix, so you're really not spending money on it.

(THANK GOD).

Old News- Even Here...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/23/153422 3&mode=thread&tid=127

Old News

[gorehog]

In fact, this was a major spoiler when the news first came out because it revealed that the VR in the matrix was not dettroyed.

Re:Old News

[Space cowboy]

Must be a slow news day, but they wouldn't take my new free-for-all geolocation project announcement, so I have no pity!

Simon

Re:Old News

[DAldredge]

Your project has a purpose and is tech related. That is why /. won't post it. They would rather post dups and articles about cartoons.

<sigh>
<I miss /. from the before time, from the long, long ago.>

Can i be the one?

[s33l3t]

Maybe you should ask the oricle that question. o magic 8ball can i be the can? all signs point to NO!

Re:Can i be the one?

[s33l3t]

sigh i hate typos o magic 8ball can i be the one? all signs point to NO! i killed it dont mod me down due, cause im drunk at 11am. im not kidding.

Re:Can i be the one?

[Anonymous Coward]

o magic 8ball can i be the can?

No, you can't, spoon.

Although I'm a big fan of The Matrix

[Pingular]

I can't see this being any good. I'm sure it'll all be very nice for a couple days, seeing stuff you recognise from the film etc, but I doubt this will be much fun after the excitement of the novelty has worn off.

does anyone care about the matrix anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point I'd rather see a new Star Trek movie than another Matrix movie...and I don't even really like star trek...

Dying in the matrix

[thryllkill]

as long as my avatar doesn't take as long as trinity to die in the game I'll be happy. Imagine having to wait 20 minutes to respawn...

Re:Dying in the matrix

[AKnightCowboy]

Imagine having to wait 20 minutes to respawn...

What is this "respawn" thing you speak of? Multiplayer online games would be a lot better without players respawning in the same round they die in. Take Counter-Strike. *Excellent* model. You get shot, you're dead until the end of the round. With other games, you get shot, you die, you wait 20 seconds, you respawn, you run back you kill someone in a suicidal move, you die and they die, you wait 20 seconds, you respawn, you run back, etc. Lame. It cheapens the value of your character's life by giving you no real incentive to not get shot.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[dreamchaser]

That depends on the game and how competitive you are. With Quake 3 Arena, most servers keep stats on players, with efficiency (death's vs kills) being a prime indicator of skill.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[Xerithane]

I mostly agree with you, and I think that Battlefield1942 almost achieved perfection. The only problem with that was being able to respawn at any captured point. You should have one main respawn base that you respawn at on re-inforcement waves. My only bitch is that most multi-player servers have the respawns set at 20s (understandable, to keep the game play quick) and that discourages proper teamplay.

You get a lot more teamwork if death is penalized.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[Anonymous Coward]

You also spend more time sitting there bored to death than playing the game when you aren't particularly good.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[Spudley]

Don't forget - if you die in the matrix, you die in real life too! :-o

Re:Dying in the matrix

[danila]

What is that "respawn" you keep talking about? I though Wachowski brothers made it clear enough - you die in the Matrix, you die in the real world.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[bj8rn]

I don't have a life, so it won't affect me :P

Re:Dying in the matrix

[timeOday]

Most people don't like to sit and watch the clock tick. A better approach is just to not put the good weapons and gear right next to the respawn point. Then you're effectively out of the game for a while after you die, yet you still have something to do (gear up). And if you're really impatient you can just jump into battle with nothing but a .45 and your jungle boots. This also keeps a steady supply of cannon-fodder for people who are a more deliberate.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[Dimensio]

I guess that this is Microsoft's chance to show off their new ActiveDeath(R) technology.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[jaysones]

You don't have to imagine, just play Halo online!

Re:Dying in the matrix

[Darth Fredd]

Well,on some servers with weapon stay turned off,or not enough weapons on an overcrowded map my incentive is I finally have a weapon(s).

Re:Dying in the matrix

[placeclicker]

Maybe, but i'm convinced it is this EXACT same thing that drives people to hack in counter-strike.
I see a large reduction in cheaters on games where you respawn within 10 seconds.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[Zach978]

Haha, that scene was entertaining at the theater I went to. The whole theater was silient and it was supposed to be a very emotional scene. During the silence some guy a few rows back ripped a huge one. The whole place was laughing throughout this scene...

Re:Dying in the matrix

[JebusTheImpaler]

nobody had to rip one at my movie theater... 50+ people started laughing based on the scene alone.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[AKnightCowboy]

Maybe, but i'm convinced it is this EXACT same thing that drives people to hack in counter-strike.

No, being a loser with a low self-esteem drives people to hack. I'll never understand people who feel they need to cheat in an online game to feel superior. It's like the epitome of being a complete dork.

Re:Dying in the matrix

[WatertonMan]

Of course you need that optional electric mouse for this. But it does add realism to the games. Even more than those vibrational feedback controllers!

This is a joke, right?

[LeoDV]

Many, many moons ago this was announced, and it explained that it would take place after Revolutions, which ruled out many possible endings of the series...

First the review of nVidia cards that came out weeks ago and now this? What next, an article about leaked rumours that there might be a sequel to Kill Bill : Volume One?

Media

[Space cowboy]

Well, it has to be better than the last film!

Simon

Re:Media

[toriver]

As long as it's better than the atrocity Enter the Matrix I am happy.

Anyway, Revolutions was better than Reloaded in almost all respects.

Re:Media

[Ricwot]

That's like saying dogshit is better than cow shit

Bullet Time?

[sheemwaza]

I wonder if they will try to implement "Bullet Time"... It was a major part of the movie and the games, but in a multiplayer world it could be confusing/disorienting/annoying. No multiplayer in either of the Max Payne games because of this difficulty.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Lehk228]

actually a "bullet time" matrix effect was implemented in a Ut2k3 mutator, i think it was called "monkey matrix", and it worked pretty good. the developers of Max Payne just didn't try hard enough.

Re:Bullet Time?

[gl4ss]

well.. it will just be so laggy that everyone will move slow-motion.

Re:Bullet Time?

[DCowern]

I wonder if they will try to implement "Bullet Time"...

From the FAQ at thematrixonline.com: Yes, BULLET TIME(tm), slow motion interactive gameplay, is an essential part of the Matrix Online experience.

You know they make FAQs for a reason... but don't feel too bad, the original poster didn't bother to read it either.

Re:Bullet Time?

[noname3]

You're right, I doubt bullet time would be feasable. It wasn't in The Opera either. There were stunts and you could bounce off walls, backflip and dodge the occasional bullet, but all at normal speeds.

Remind you of any scenes in the matrix? Slow motion wasn't used in every fight. If the game has stunts and a well designed martial arts system I'll be happy.

Bullet time doesn't need to be slow motion. Speedups for a single character would be much easier to pull off, and that's how someone would see bullet time from the outside. It'd be killer for martial artists and dodging bullets.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Tiny Wolf v3]

True. This game will probably just be YAMMORPG with a sci-fi theme, unfortunately. Maybe they'll try to implement it in a way so a person using "bullet time" will gain extra speed and accuracy for a while, but it's not quite the same.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Tiny Wolf v3]

I don't use Flash, so would you care to enlighten me and the rest of the non-flash using heathens as to what the FAQ says about it? I don't find the question of if and _how_ they will implement it to be redundant, and I don't wish to go on a wild goo[se/gle] chase searching for an answer which isn't answered.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Guppy06]

"From the FAQ at thematrixonline.com: Yes, BULLET TIME(tm), slow motion interactive gameplay, is an essential part of the Matrix Online experience."

That will be a neat trick. If one person uses bullet time, does everybody else in the same zone also experience slowdown? If not, how would they manage to keep the specific character from falling out of synch with the server?

Re:Bullet Time?

[hitmark]

what people forget is that its not the world slowing down pr see but the person speeding up but seen from the view of the person doing the moves everything is slower.

the hl mod "the specialist" have bullet time and it works out quite fine, if you can see someone effected by bullet time then you to are.

when bullet time is triggerd, movementrate stays the same for anyone that can trigger bullet time but anything around that cant (basicly nonagent npcs and traffic) will slow down and so will bullets (obviously) and firerate. as you can still move at normal speed you can per definition outrun bullets:)

Re:Bullet Time?

[ceejayoz]

the developers of Max Payne just didn't try hard enough

Please explain how the developers of Max Payne were supposed to slow down a single character and NOT AFFECT THE OTHERS in a multiplayer game, without the game getting massively out of sync?

Re:Bullet Time?

[hitmark]

its not so mutch about not trying but storytelling.
max payne are about tellign a story, and guns that balance fine in singel player can be wildly unbalanced in multiplayer (just look at deus ex with the multiplayer patch).

bullettime isnt hard, cut movementspeed by half, but bulletspeed and sounds must be slowed by more to give the feel that you are moveing faster then normal. the difference dont need to be big, just so big that you can sense it...

Re:Bullet Time?

[zeno_2]

Theres a half life mod called The Specialist. They implement "bullet-time" on a multiplayer game, and it works quite well. The URL for the mod is http://www.specialistsmod.net/ (for some reason putting that as a link just showed up as text..?

Re:Bullet Time?

[canajin56]

If you have Half-Life, play "The Specialists" and find out. The answer? Bullet time is a powerup, like, say, Quad Damage in Quake. Every kill you get gets you a single second of it, or you can pick up a powerup to get a full 5 seconds. When you activate it, everybody slows down, including you, but you can aim easier than the people who didn't activate it.

It's quite effective. How would you do it in a MMORPG? Nearly the same way. Have some limit on how often you can use it. When you activate it, it slows down everybody, but you not as much. Obviously not EVERYBODY on the whole sever...maybe there is some radius of effect? Will that make everbody out of sync? Yes, yes it will. But they don't have watches so it doesn't really matter. If you enter their Bullet-Time sphere part way though, you slow down as soon as you cross the threshold. Or maybe a visibility tree? So that you can ensure that nobody moving bullet time is visible to somebody who is not? Since the setting is urban, visibility ranges won't be too high...unless you are on top of a building...At this point you need to sacrifice some realism for some usability. Make it use a graph, but limit the length of the arcs to the range of whatever weapon the person is using. So what if you are moving normal but can see people moving slow-motion in the distance, so long as you can't interact with them?

If they spend a great deal of time tweaking the exact workings of who is in and out, during the beta, I bet it could work pretty damn well. Of course, then you have the problem of assholes who walk into crowded non-combat areas (Which there HAVE to be if the RPG part of the MMORPG is accurate) and use bullet-time to annoy people. The only way I can see to solve that is to make these areas like the towns in UO: No combat, so no bullet time allowed. Or maybe, you know, crowded place, so some agents notice you and kick your ass?

Re:Bullet Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know nothing about MMORPGs.

Anything that can be abused... WILL be abused. If a player can slow everyone down, expect to be slowed down in out-of-town areas CONSTANTLY. And I mean it.

You will not see this in an MMORPG. Nor do you want it.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have Half-Life, play "The Specialists" and find out. The answer? Bullet time is a powerup, like, say, Quad Damage in Quake. Every kill you get gets you a single second of it, or you can pick up a powerup to get a full 5 seconds. When you activate it, everybody slows down, including you, but you can aim easier than the people who didn't activate it.

One thing you forgot to mention: it's terribly frustrating and not in the least bit fun.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they will implement it and actually in a way so that your fellow players see time passing by normally while you, invoking bullet time, will see the same time pass by slower. That way, you will be able to dodge bullets, fight faster etc.

They way they implement it is by creating a temporary time "hole" together with your computer and your joystick, in which time passes slower. "This is the only way we could achieve full consistency within the simulated world", a programmer mentions...

Re:Bullet Time?

[GregThePaladin]

Perhaps people would see what happened like when you try to shoot at an agent. Anyone remember what i'm talking about, where they would move really really fast? I remember in the first one, Trinity said, "You moved like they did", or something.

No? Nevermind, then.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Guppy06]

That would require that player's character be able to react like that. And that's before network latency rears its ugly head.

Re:Bullet Time?

[Kelz]

From the page for those bandwidth challenged:

Will there be BULLET TIME(tm) in The Matrix Online?
Yes. BULLET TIME(tm), slow motion interactive gameplay, is an essential part of The Matrix Online experience.

Wonder how they are going to pull that off. Possibly making a "combat cloud" when you start a battle with a baddie?

Re:Bullet Time?

[balloonhead]

The player wanting to use bullet time takes some speed, possibly mixed with cocaine, and plays as before. He will find that as he is now working quicker than everyone else, they are relatively slow, a la bullet time, but with none of the problems related to sync already mentioned.

Problem solved.

I can see it now

[The-Bus]

* Call to Tech Support.

Caller: Yeah, um, are you guys going to fix the lag issues? I'm having some major problems. The screen refreshes at 10fps, my player barely moves, characters pop in and out of the frame.
Support: What kind of processor are you running?
Caller: Well above the specs you need, and I'm sitting on a DS3 connection.
Support: I see...
Caller: ...
Support: (consulting PR manual) It's not server lag... it's... bullet time!

Re:I can see it now

[DigiShaman]

It's a glitch in the matrix. We are currently working on resolving the issue. Just take the blue pill and all will be fine in a moment. Regards, Agent Smith.

Matrix may be over, but not the games!

[noname3]

C'mon! There are other perspectives the Matrix games can take place from. This time coinciding with the third movie, not the second. Shell manufacturer, oracle, food goop maker, raver, environmental systems specialist... And if you think no one will play these classes, you've never played a MMORPG. Personally, I've always wanted to play as a Smith.

mynuts won: no payper liesense monIE involved?

[Anonymous Coward]

there's never a cover charge to participate in the creators' unbroken winning streak.

So....

[wastaz]

...will there be a linux version of this? or are only the win32 hackers allowed to enter the matrix?

Re:So....

[wastaz]

Seriously? Why are people modding me up as funny?
Im being serious over here, I really want an answer to this question. If there was any game that would really benefit from a linux release it would be something like this, correct?

I propose that we all storm Ubisoft and demand one, motivation "You cant hack on a windows box". And dont you dare mod me funny!

Re:So....

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, they decided Linux is too insecure. (seen how easily Trinity exploits SSH bugs in 'Reloaded'?)

Re:So....

[Nucleon500]

Actually, power plants typically use proprietary Unixes that are sold with waranties. So it was a SCO box she hacked.

Re:So....

[Anonymous Coward]

They figure it's gravy because nmap was ported to Windows.

Re:So....

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

What really bakes my noodle is how they implemented "hacking" in _Enter the Matrix_, where the player has to work with a dummy MS-DOS shell.. I suppose Bash, Csh, Ksh or whatever would just be too difficult for their target audience. Still, it blows moldy goat droppings.. much like the game itself.

Re:So....

[RubiX^3]

front page.
reading is fundamental.

The Matrix Online is currently being developed
for PC only.

Re:So....

[iJosh]

I would also like to see Ubi-Soft and the actual developers of the game Monolith Productions actually work with companies that will do the Macintosh and Linux development so we don't run into the whole deal where one platform is left behind or end up not even having the ability to play with the windows users. If you choose Linux or Mac, I would seriously suggest contacting Monolith and voicing your opinion.

Re:So....

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem, I have a PC. It runs Linux.

Re:So....

[Spudley]

Yes, but Linux runs on PCs...

pah. doesn't matter. I know what they mean. :(

Re:So....

[Minna Kirai]

Yes, and Macs are PCs...

(I too know what they mean, but still)

Re:So....

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote the Linux server port of Aliens vs. Predator 2, and I can tell you that Monolith's code is heavily integrated with Windows and DirectX APIs. Doing a server port (aka "GetTheMFCOut!") was pretty straightforward but still time consuming. Doing a client port would require a rewrite of the renderer and a lot of work.

There are a lot of guys at Monolith who like Linux - don't get me wrong. But they are working on the server team for the Matrix. At least last time I talked with them, the MMP servers were going to be running on Linux. They've been compiling side-by-side on gcc and Visual C++ from the start of the project.

But as for clients, expect Win32 only. The time involved in making a Linux or Mac client would not fit into their schedule. And the relatively small number of customers don't make it profitable either.

Re:So....

[gnu-generation-one]

"will there be a linux version of this? or are only the win32 hackers allowed to enter the matrix?"

Well Trinity was in it, and she was a *nix girl.

Re:So....

[Joe Tie.]

That's a pet peeve of mine as well. If a company means windows, they should just say windows. When I bought my computer it was a 'pc', but removing windows from it and replacing it with linux somehow magically transformed it into 'not-pc' even though it's the exact same hardware?

Re:So....

[srvivn21]

Good joke. But Trinity didn't hack in. The crew of the doomed ship did. She just sat down and ran the shutdown command.

Meh.

Wow, it is so true!

[Maxhrk]

At last! Now I can get out to realty world. good bye matrix world! ...wait a minute, this is just a game. bleh!

Re:Wow, it is so true!

[Spudley]

At last! Now I can get out to realty world. good bye matrix world! ...wait a minute, this is just a game. bleh!

I'm looking forward to seeing the optional self-contained pods for users, so they can play the game while they sleep...

spoiler-riffic

[Griim]

Hey, thanks for hinting to possible endings to the movie right on the damn front page.

Re:spoiler-riffic

[Kenja]

You'r welcome. In addition, both Shane and Old Yeller die.

Re:spoiler-riffic

[holzp]

Shane and Old Yeller...I think we will be seeing them again someday...

Re:spoiler-riffic

[TheFlamingoKing]

Did they die, or just take the Red Pill???

Re:spoiler-riffic

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? He doesn't die. He rides off into the sunset, and that kid says "Come back, Shane!"
- Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson)

Re:spoiler-riffic

[dbIII]

So long as they leave the religeous overtones out of the game. I felt like I was in Sunday school watching the last movie - Neo smites his enemies with the jawbone of an ass - and then that ending. All the more disappointing because of the fantastic work that has gone into the setting.

IMHO it would be better to set it BEFORE the events of the first movie, messiahs really stuff up game balance.

Re:spoiler-riffic

[NanoGator]

"Hey, thanks for hinting to possible endings to the movie right on the damn front page."

Nothing was given away. Go see the damn movie.

Re:spoiler-riffic

[Sacarino]

I do not. You can whack the dog if you want to, though.

Re:spoiler-riffic

[Anonymous Coward]

Trinity dies 3/4 of the way into the movie, she spends like 10-15 mins talking before dying (is this a freaking love story?), and then Neo dies after he lets Agent Smith get into his body, does becoming part of Agent Smith's essense, this kills the orginal Agent Smith, and reverts all those he captured normal, Neo dies in the process and is given a funeral by the machines (in the real world).

Re:spoiler-riffic

[beady]

Hey, guess what, before the first movie is almost the same as after the 3rd...

Predict 2billion sunglass wearing

[Tagren]

wallrunning the-one's kickin in slow-motion. But hey! It will make the slow graphicscards look good to. FPS not important.

Damn Good Website Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Their website worked perfectly and looked great on a Netscape 4.8 with no ActiveX, no Java Applets, and no JavaScript window.open calls. I like them already.

UbiSoft = Midases of Excrement

[Anonymous Coward]

Expect a terrible, rushed disaster and a majority fall-off in member base within the first three months of going live.

RTFA

[DCowern]

I wonder when the game will be placed (i.e. before Revolutions or after)

From the FAQ: The Matrix Online timeline takes place after The Matrix Revolutions, the third Matrix movie, currently scheduled to release in November 2003.

You know it's getting really bad when the story submitters don't even bother to RTFA... *sigh*.

Re:RTFA

[technix4beos]

You're new here aren't ya...

Re:RTFA

[TheFlamingoKing]

LOL!!!
Parent UserID >= Grandparent UserID

The pot calling the kettle black???

Re:RTFA

[pocketfullofshells]

Your only the third or fourth person to point that out. Ironic eh?

Re:RTFA

[technix4beos]

It's called a joke. Laugh. ;)

Re:RTFA

[Threni]

The answer you gave simply explains when the game will be released, not where in time the game will be set. I would have thought this distinction was obvious.

Re:RTFA

[pizen]

He must be new here, too.

Re:RTFA

[Erasmus Darwin]

"The answer you gave simply explains when the game will be released, not where in time the game will be set."

Reread the quote -- they say that the timeline takes place after the third movie. So they're saying that the in-game story is after Revolutions. I think you're getting confused because they also tacked the real world release date of Revolutions on to the end of the sentence. But they're still talking about when the game takes place, rather than when it'll be available.

Wondering when the game will take place?

[Infernon]

The site specifically says after the 3rd in the trilogy. It also says that the Wachowskis are doing the story line.
I don't agree the the third movie 'ended' the series either. without getting into it, there's much that was left unsaid other than that which was implied.

Re:Wondering when the game will take place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, questions like:

"Will we still be able to haxor your boxors?"

"will agents still try to kill us if we enter the matrix?"

Re:Wondering when the game will take place?

[holzp]

Wachowskis are doing the story line

As of last week I consider this a disincentive.

End?

[SharpFang]

this could be the way the Wachowski brothers keep the universe going and how it will end.

In a massive disk crash on the main game server.
(don't the machines that own Matrix suffer from natural hardware failures anyway?)

Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[toupsie]

Actually this is a good idea. The Wachowski brothers are determined to screw up The Matrix, making a MMORPG based on the Matrix is just going to take it to that next level of suckdom.

Why couldn't they have just left it to the first movie instead ruining it all with these HORRIBLE sequels. Hopefully, Larry will go ahead and get his balls cut off. He deserves it -- it's just too bad he will most likely enjoy it.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

You clod, the Wachowski brothers invented the Matrix, and they have every right to continue to meddle with it. Just because you wish you could be in charge doesn't mean they suck. If you don't like the additions, don't pay attention, but stop whining like you could have done a better job.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[toupsie]

Gee, I'm sorry I can't have an opinion. They must have thrown out the 1st Amendment and forgot to tell me.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[TeknoHog]

Why couldn't they have just left it to the first movie instead ruining it all with these HORRIBLE sequels.

Because they planned it to be a trilogy. A single story divided into three volumes for convenience, much like LOTR.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[arose]

LOTR is *not* a trilogy.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[Kosi]

What then?

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[arose]

One big novel.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[TeknoHog]

Jackson's movie version of LOTR is a trilogy, because it is a single story divided into three volumes. I imagine if The Matrix was ever published as a novel, it would be a single novel. It's just too damn long for a single movie of about two hours.

Re:Could the Matrix suck anymore?

[arose]

Please, why can't you just let me forget about the LOTR movies? :-)

That is quite an ad on the front page...

[ErnstKompressor]

Wow...I am overcome by a desire to buy...can't stop looking at it...please someone...unplug my computer...

Due 2004...

[SkArcher]

Bet you wont see this until 1stQ 2005 at the earliest.

no MMPORPG ever gets finished on time.

Re:Due 2004...

[n0mad6]

Considering how buggy Enter the Matrix was, I would hope that they would take their time on this one rather than adhere to some hyped up release date.

Re:Due 2004...

[JFMulder]

I'd fact, no MMPORPG ever gets finished at all.

Re:Due 2004...

[Shazow]

Bet you wont see this until 1stQ 2005 at the earliest.

no MMPORPG ever gets finished on time.

Finished, yes, but that does not mean we wont see it long before it is finished. :D

- shazow

Re:Due 2004...

[Anonymous Coward]

Monolith started work on the Matrix MMP back when Aliens vs. Predator 2 was still in production. Like mid 2000. Just fyi.

Re:Due 2004...

[Dimensio]

Hey, Star Wars Galaxies wasn't finished on time. In fact, it still hasn't been finished yet, but that didn't stop it from being relieased

I'm sorry

[BCW2]

for everyone that wants this. If it's in the hands of UbiSoft it might never get done. Look at the promised Harpoon 4, 3 years of vaporware later and no game.

Re:I'm sorry

[Scrameustache]

Look at the promised Harpoon 4, 3 years of vaporware later and no game.

They never released that? Wow...

Another SW-like MMORPG?

[vadim_t]

So now I suppose we're going to see news like that there are 300K players in the Matrix game and still no Neo?

It'll be interesting to see what happens when people get there.

Re:Another SW-like MMORPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants to bet that fights over everyone arguing about being "The One" take place 24/7?

Zealot #1: Everybody bow before my l33t spoon-bending psycho-tramatical hackerz skillz! I am THE ONE! W00t!

Zealot #2: Fuckov! I'm THE ONE! My skillz will bend your spoon back and feed yer ass back to ya bit by bit.

Zealot #3: (spraying bullets) IM THE ONE!!!!!!!

No thanks.

Re:Another SW-like MMORPG?

[slycer9]

Actually, the first Force Sensitive Slot was unlocked last week in SWG.

Ho-hum, just in time for the Christmas buying rush too...nice coincidence.

From the FAQ of Matrix Online tho'...NO, you can NOT be the one.
So quit asking.

ROFLMAO....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is funny! Really!

Wow

[carcosa30]

just when I was thinking it was already trivialized as much as it could possibly be...

Nobody ever made a fortune overestimating the taste of the american public.

MMORPG?

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Wait....a Matrix MMORPG...aren't we already in that?

Or are we still in the real world...and this is how it really all begins?

Re:MMORPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no real world.

Re:MMORPG?

[SharpFang]

Well, the way Saddam and Bin Laden "vanished" despite amassed eforts of intelligence agencies, armies, politicians, police and many more, makes you wonder.
And just think, what if THEY are on the GOOD SIDE? (note all the news in Matrix proclaim Morpheus to be the most evil, most dangerous terrorist of the world, just watch computer screen in front of Neo sleeping at the keyboard right before "Wake up Neo!")

Re:MMORPG?

[davesag]

the n;y real difference is that it's millions of windows using kids feeding it, not with their 'bio-energy' but with their money.

Re:MMORPG?

[bj8rn]

Amassed efforts my ass. I don't think they have even really bothered to catch bin Laden or Hussein. They can't afford it -- otherwise, there would be no Enemy. There'd only be this mystical Terrorism -- but how the hell are you going to fight a word? No, they need to have someone who has a face, and Saddam and Osama are just the right persons to be the symbols of the enemy. I don't think there'd even be an enemy if there wasn't someone like Osama to point at.

Whether Saddam and Osama are on the good side or the bad side, depends on where you're standing. For me, they are the OUTside. Stone me to death if you want to, but I just don't care right now.

Re:MMORPG?

[NanoGator]

"And just think, what if THEY are on the GOOD SIDE?"

Quite difficult to imagine there. These aren't people trying to free anybody.

Re:MMORPG?

[Artifakt]

The only reson I doubt that Saddam and UBL are being deliberately left to stand as symbols is that there's also Sheik Omar, the 20th hijacker, and whomever was spreading Anthrax on the east coast, and probably some others who also haven't been caught but would be good for the US government's reputation to catch. It looks more like we are having genuine trouble than pseudo-trouble. Now watch UBL get caught 3 days before the next general election and prove me wrong.

Whee.

[mrseigen]

So what happens when people crack the game server and start modifying it?

Re:Whee.

[Anonymous Coward]

deja vu

Re:Whee.

[holzp]

So what happens when people crack the game server and start modifying it?

Too bad there is not a moderation specifically for a setup line.

Re:Whee.

[NanoGator]

"So what happens when people crack the game server and start modifying it?"

For some people, the game will crash, and they'll find themselves in the real world. Out of anger, they'll rise and try to bring the servers down, thus freeing everybody.

A word from the subsim community

[lone_marauder]

The last big online multiplayer experience they planned was Silent Hunter II and Destroyer Command. The game (really one game, written as two to soak you for two purchases) was, quite simply, the most disastrous bugfest I've ever seen out of any game software company in existence.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but if Ubi has anything to do with it, look carefully before buying.

Irony

[Epistax]

If irony where made of blueberries, we'd all be eating pie.

This game was announced before Revolutions!

[smart.id]

*spolier*

This game was announced even before Revolutions came out. It was also made of note clear that Morpheus's character would return, not mentioning anyone else. This game basically gave away the end of Revolutions; the Matrix still exists, and Neo and Trinity are dead.

Re:This game was announced before Revolutions!

[josevnz]

It is not completely true that Neo 'dies' on the last movie (the Oracle at the end mentions something about Neo returning).

The idea seems to be really cool. If the effects and the technology are half of decent like "Enter the Matrix", then this game will give a lot of people (including me) a compeling reason to play a Online game. Hopefully they will take care of the story line and the quests too.

Just my two cents.

Putting yourself in constructs...

[Anonymous Coward]

when Mouse offered Neo some quality time with that girl in red, I thought 'bleah'. But that horses from Animatrix were soooo cuddly-cute!

what would be cool..

[gl4ss]

would be that if you could code your own minions and objects(the way merv had done, and how the trainman had done his place). and being free to hack the system as well(to perform insane stunts, without getting you banned).

of course if you chose to go that way there would be some kickassing done by the agents(you would have to be pretty powerful before starting to attract too much attention).

oh well.. too bad it'll probably just end up like everything else and you'll be kicking some rats in the sewers.

Re:what would be cool..

[gad_zuki!]

> would be that if you could code your own minions and objects

That is exactly how the game Second Life works. Its more Matrixy than the Matrix.

Re:what would be cool..

[precogpunk]

I've never played Second Life but I just watched the trailer -- can you hack the flowers like the Merovingian hacks a chocolate tort?

FAQ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Teh link to teh faq is teh b0rken. Plz fix, thks.

Hollywood and the video game industry

[jmerelo]

Since games make more money than movies, movies have just become teasers for the videogames that follow it.

Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Cat9117600]

You won't play a rebel fighting the matrix, ro anything like that. The game will be the matrix! You'll go to work, come home, and manage your life. Just think The Sims, only first person! ^_^

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well, from time to time you will wake up dead, shot by some revolutionist after an agent took over your body. Or get your phone stolen. Or get thrown 3 meters up by a running agent.
And if you happen to play a policeman... Wow, your life sucks! Luckily it's short.

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[moltar77]

As long as there are goth clubs with big dancing orgies and lots of guns, it should be alright.

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Ralph Wiggam]

Apparently Neo only rescues hot slutty freaky chicks from the matrix. Good call.

-B

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't you?

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Anonymous Coward]

HOT??? Are you being subjective? Did you see the size of those chicks from the matrix, I'd say they were just too liberal on the size issue.

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Evil Pete]

Does this mean in the game we will be in Zion and then have to jack into the Matrix (a simulation inside a simulation) ? Or is it just recursive and we end up in a new Zion having to jack into another matrix (simulation in a simulation in a ... errrrr you get the picture).

Re:Not Matrix online...but THE MATRIX

[Ralph Wiggam]

Fat girls need love too.

-B

Re:PC Only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because macs are for pussies and linux is for slack-jawed faggots. Only sexual tyrannosauruses use Windows.

We should change the pills now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I say instead of red pill, blue pill, we change to red suppository, blue suppository.

Sims

[Anonymous Coward]

Matrix MMORPG. can you say Sims?

Um....

[retro128]

But we're already in it!

Re:PC Only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Matrix is for ignorant slaves of an all-encompassing entity.

Microsoft.

there's a certain sense of irony given that ...

[styxlord]

... this was announced before Reloaded was released in theatres.

How well can they expect it to do?

[Tibor the Hun]

seeing as how they alienated lots (not all, but lots) of their hardcore fans, and i'm guessing lots of them are game players. and MMORPGs are not the kind of a thing that massively attracts non-gamers.

does anyone know how many non-star wars fans are playing galaxies?

after the last movie i have no desire to spend a single buck on matrix merchandise (except for maybe a monica belluci poster) and i predict this MMORPG will be a failure from the start.

No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care to voluntarily plug-in this time.

Leaked user manual...

[mackman]

I saw a leaked version of the user manual PDF. Apparently you're supposed to put in the CD, lay naked in a bathtub of strawberry Jello, and have a friend shove a metal spike in the back of your neck. I'm sure real Matrix fans won't have a problem with this, but personally I prefer orange Jello.

planet/population going massively NewClear?

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be the creators' newclear power & planet/population rescue initiatives.

none too soon we say.

at the rate we've been FUDging things up, there's a real possibilty of overheating the main processor, as evidenced by recent pateNTdead eyecon0meter readings

addendumb to previous post titled:

corepirate nazis fear pateNTdead eyecon0meter kode

mynuts won: another whoreabull PostBlock(tm) devise failure..

that's right. we'll see your phonie ?pr? scams, & raise you a private communications system based on the creators' newclear power mandate. gooed luck?

they think everything's always just about payper monIE.

that's not the case here, as yOUR entire planet/population is in crisis mode, due to the confused thinking/poor training of a handful of georgewellian fuddite payper liesense corepirate nazi stock markup fraud execrable. tell 'em robbIE

great...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how you'll distinguish the players--seeing as every geek on the planet will want to call his character "Neo"? ;-)

Re:There's this better Matrix MMORPG...

[Anonymous Coward]

As if the /. community NEEDS a dating service - most of us bag all the chickerinios we want.

Business plan.

[SharpFang]

1) Release the Matrix series.
2) Announce a MMORPG, with monthly changes.
3) Take subscriptions.
4) Charge monthly. "You are already playing it!"
5) Sue everyone alive who didn't subscribe for copyright violation.

Caveat: They may demand process in the Real World.

Re:Business plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Release the Matrix series.
2) Announce a MMORPG, with monthly changes.
3) Take subscriptions.
4) Charge monthly. "You are already playing it!"
5) Sue everyone alive who didn't subscribe for copyright violation.

6) ???
7) Profit.

Courses Available NOW

[hendridm]

> Now I can get out to realty world

If you're looking to get into real estate, there are courses available. I'd be surprised if they didn't offer such courses in the Matrix.

Read the fucking link

[EdMack]

It explicity says yes in the FAQ, how are you being bloody insightful *takes caffine shot* ah, thats better.

Begging for a hack

[joelparker]

PR NEWSWIRE- Warner Brothers announced
that its new online multiplayer Matrix game
has been infected by a malicious computer virus.

The virus changes all player characters
to look and sound like the evil Agent Smith.

Warner executives say they are baffled:
"we certainly didn't see this coming,
and we're not sure yet how to fix it."

Re:Begging for a hack

[hyphz]

You should be so lucky.

More likely, the game will be all about going out and fighting Agent Smiths.

As you level up of course, you can fight Bigger Agent Smith, then Really Big Agent Smith. Oh yea, and some Agent Smiths have guns, and some Agent Smiths have pipes, and some Agent Smiths have can cast Magic^H^H^H^Hatrix Missile and stuff...

Re:Begging for a hack

[danila]

More likely, the game will be all about going out and fighting Agent Smiths.
This is covered in the FAQs and interviews. You will not be fighting agents. Those who meet agents, usualyl die - the rule will be true for the game.

What will be the goal of that game?

[SirLestat]

Go out of the matrix in the real world? Is that some kind of plan to drive mmorpg addicts away from their computer?

Re:What will be the goal of that game?

[Anusien]

It's a system of control, where the system feeds off you and controls you, and then lives off your life's energy.

OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Mackerals, a MMORPG not being created by Verant or Sony?! Cant be!

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, Ultima Online was created by neither of those.

The game is already up.

[MongooseCN]

Just load up your newsreader and goto alt.philosophy. It's just like that last two Matrix movies!

Allow me to introduce myself!

[ScottGant]

Hi, I'm Troy McClure...you may remember me from such MMORPG's as "Pokemon Online" and "Michael Jackson's World of Weasles"

Re:Allow me to introduce myself!

[Anonymous Coward]

I Believe it was Stones and not Beetles, but hey!

This was at E3 in May

[tabacco]

It's not as if this is something new... Ubi was demoing it at E3 this year.

Re:PC Only...

[meta-monkey]

Yeah, it annoys the heck out of me, too. My Mac can beat the crap out of just about anybody's window's PC, but all I can get are year old games. Bah. I wish Apple could increase their market share so more game companies would take us seriously. Or, maybe if somebody could develop a DirectX implementation for OS X, the porting process would be a snap. Oh well...here's to dreaming. In the meantime, I have an Xbox.

PLEASE PEOPLE....

[Anonymous Coward]

JUST LET the MATRIX DIE. DON'T GRAG it OUT OVER 5 YEARS

Conspiracy, and spoilers

[Anonymous Coward]

Old news, but if what everyone has been telling me about the last matrix movie, it looks like they planned to end the movie the way they did, just to continue the univierse through this game.

I don't want to yell conspiracy, but what a way to make sure people play this game, by keeping the end of the 3rd movie open.

A real opportunity to do some cool stuff

[lawpoop]

Imagine a MMORPG where they /encouraged/ you to hack the system. That would be awesome. Or like others have mentioned, you could create agents (like the Merv did the trainman) or get engulfed by agent Smith.

Re:A real opportunity to do some cool stuff

[LittleBigLui]

except that hacking the system of the game would probably be nothing like "hacking" the matrix in the movies (no, not that ssh thingie, that was happening INSIDE the matrix) or even the first game (*puke*)

old news

[Anonymous Coward]

there was a booth at e3 last may...

Website=blankscreen; end of biggest letdown

[lpq]

As far as I'm concerned, matrix 3 was the biggest movie let down since Star Trek: The Movie.

75% of the movie was watching special effects making up a pointless war of man steered machines fighting machine steered machines.

Um...yeah, we _think_ we saw Trinity die.

But there was no evidence, that I saw, that Neo died. He was unconscious and being taken into machine central, but he's been unconscious before.

Little girl even asked if Neo would come back and oracle said yes. Can you tell me why he didn't just go off to machine hospital to have wounds tended?

Can you tell me why he doesn't just realize that the entire scene with Trinity dying was just another construct of the real-world Matrix which is no more real than the machine-world matrix and doesn't just realize that 'time', like the subjective reality of "bullet-time" is just another bendable rule?

Trinity "died" with tons of cable-like devices plugged into her...do you know she wasn't downloaded and her entire consciousness exists in the machine world just like smith's consciousness was able to exist in the 'real' world?

Maybe they all "wake" up and realize the 'real' world is just another simulation within another machine world and death transitory as inserting another quarter?

AFAI am concerned, M3 was not an "ending" of M2 -- it was just a single episode in a series...

For that matter...if it was so trivial for Neo & Trinity to fly up to where the sun was really shining, how difficult would it have been for the machines to build a tower up through the lightening storms to the sunlight area ala the proposed orbital elevator?

The 3rd movie was so full of ****....I was pissed. Second movie setup many questions -- and 3rd movie answered virtually none. Was I the only one who saw this? There's room for an entire run of sequals or even a "X-files" style TV series....which is sorta what the 3rd movie reminded me of...a bunch of unexplained questions that you think they are going to answer...but "that's what life's about: unanswered and unexplained questions". The "W" bros. chimped out and didn't even propose answers.

Gave it a big 5 thumbs down.

Now we need a real writer who could write an ending -- maybe Lucas, though
I think he's going to have trouble finishing his StarW 7-8-9. Do we wanna take bets on him dying before they are finished because he keeps stretching them out because he can't think of an ending of as good as quality as the original 3 (4-5-6).

Hopefully LOTR-III will provide at least 1 movie with some closure this year.

-l

Re:Website=blankscreen; end of biggest letdown

[Have Blue]

The "connection to the source" explanation for the sentinel knockout, however crappy it is, is canon. There's no evidence for any of your other suggestions beyond "what if?".

Also, I believe Lucas has said that he will not even try to do 7, 8, and 9.

And you might want to change your sig, it's a bit late :)

Re:There's this better Matrix MMORPG...

[Anonymous Coward]

Friendster might be interesting if it was ever up. I wonder what POS those servers are running. Let's see.

From www.netcraft.com:
The site friendster.com is running Apache Tomcat/4.1 (Friendster HTTP/1.1 Connector) on Linux.

Cards

[Cobron]

Numerous different 'Matrix' abilities that players can swap out and exchange like trading cards

Because -like everyone knows- in order to save human kind from repressive AI domination one HAS to exchange cards.

Ubi isn't "making" anything

[Anonymous Coward]

They are publishing the game. Monolith is the developer, and they've been working on this MMOG for probably 3 years now. The game itself was announced well over a year ago too.

EverMatrix

[pocketfullofshells]

I can see it now... your level 30, finally getting some good xp hunting agents in China Town, and your group's programmer screwed up the weapons upload before you went in and now your machine gun shoots rubber chickens. > > > > >

Game comes AFTER Revolutions

[SUB7IME]

From the post:
"I wonder when the game will be placed (i.e. before Revolutions or after)"

From the website's FAQ:
"The Matrix online timeline takes place after The Matrix Revolutions..."

I call The One

[dalleboy]

I call The One for my player name.

How it all ends

[wattersa]

"This is the way the [Matrix] world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

Yuhu ! Another level-quest rpg !

[aepervius]

It is already listing the number of weapon and enemy you might encounter showing comba focus even before speaking of what the rest might be. So I would say, this is everquest but in the Matrix. Nothing is said in the FAQ for a game which should be far advanced (release 2004!) about roleplay, quest, impact of online player, etc... etc...

You're kidding, right???

[naztafari]

A MAC GAMER???
We must really be in the Matrix...

Dude, go watch this "Mac Gamer" clip on Red vs Blue. It should pretty much explain everything. Seriously. :)

http://www.redvsblue.com/appleswitch.shtml

Aside from that, can you explain to me what's up with the "1-button only" thing?

It is a big pain gaming-wise, you know.

Cheers. Peace out.

Re:You're kidding, right???

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm... two button mouse... This is the biggest misconception is that a two button mouse doesn't work on Mac. The fact is that Mac is efficient with just 1 button, but two button support is already built in with OS functionality.

I love the one button, but for playing starcraft of D2... a second button is a necessity.

As for the upgrading part... I do believe that ATI has a full-line of video cards and drivers that you can upgrade to.

and... as for the lack of games... that is what we are complaining about.

Re:You're kidding, right???

[Anonymous Coward]

and... as for the lack of games... that is what we are complaining about.

Reminds me of The Formula in Fight Club.

Take the number of vehicles in the field (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement (C).

A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

So in this case, take a Macintosh that doesn't use DirectX, a game engine that was built specifically for DirectX, and figure out how many man hours it's going to take to port it. Now figure you have to hire someone new because no one in the company is a Mac programmer. Plus buy new hardware to work on and test with. Plus relicense 3rd party code that may not be legal to use in said port. Plus assign a tester to the port full-time. Plus get an artist to fix various issues that crop up (and yes, they will crop up). Plus possibly delay the ship date of the game.

Porting to the Mac and Linux is *expensive* and the number of copies sold do not justify it, unless you had an engine that could target those platforms from the start. Blizzard is a good example of this.

Re:You're kidding, right???

[meta-monkey]

Exactly. That's why I was asking for a DirectX implementation for OS X, or something similar, and an increase in Mac market share. That would make the porting a lot easier, and the increased market share would make it more lucrative.

Re:You're kidding, right???

[meta-monkey]

I use a logitech mouse with seven buttons on my Mac. Works fine.

No closure in Revolutions because...

[rufey]

From here, dated May 2003:

"The Wachowski Brothers' vision for The Matrix is one that extends far beyond the theatrical trilogy, and the world they have created is so rich that we've chosen to tell inter-connected Matrix-related stories in multiple mediums," said Joel Silver, producer of the Matrix films. "Our goal in collaborating with Ubi Soft is to create a multiplayer online game that reflects the trilogy's highly stylized storytelling and innovative action, taking fans beyond the boundaries of the movie screen and into a 'persistent world' where they can fully explore the vast realm of the Matrix."

So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that Revolutions didn't bring closure. It wasn't meant to.

Whether tying video/on-line games to a movie series is really going to work, only time will tell.

Only the people actively fighting you[n/t]

[talnkyo]

Only the people actively fighting you[n/t]

Correction...

[artemis67]

They don't want your body to be jacked into the Matrix, just your credit card.

Re:Correction...

[kennylives]

They don't want your body to be jacked into the Matrix, just your credit card.

Well, at least that'll require a helluva lot less jello...

Actually...

[artemis67]

The image replicators work for the Matrix, so anyone playing the game will only see the raw code streaming down their screen.

Re:Actually...

[squiggleslash]

It's "The image replicators work for the construct" ("construct", not "Matrix"), with the emphasis (pron. emp-far-sis) on the word "for" because the actor doesn't understand the line he's been given ;)

Um, hello, submitters?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Do you even read the links you submit?

The TMO website states quite clearly when the RPG takes place (right after Revolutions) and that it will be based on plotlines guided by the Wachowskis.

There are two sides in the game--those who want people to remain in the Matrix (sort of a Cipher mindset), and those who feel everyone should be free because the Matrix is not real (like a Morpheus mindset).

There will be bullet-time and even possibly agents. It'll be everything Enter The Matrix wasn't. Nightclubs, actual traffic, and so forth will all exist in the game. It will be one big urban city, because according to the Wachowskis, the Matrix is one massive urban landscape.

All of that info, I got just from reading the official website the submitter linked to. Clearly, the submitter didn't even bother, instead asking when it takes place and saying how cool it seems if you ask him. Uh, yeah.

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[Artifakt]

Oh Good - If the Matrix is all an urban landscape, I can sit here looking out the window at the rolling mountains covered with glorious fall colors and the geese flying past, and think about how wonderful it is to be in reality. Now how much do they want a month again, for me to plug into a grimy city with extra drive by shootings?

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The TMO website states quite clearly when the RPG takes place (right after Revolutions) and that it will be based on plotlines guided by the Wachowskis." I wonder if the matrix fanatics will claim the Wachowski's had this planned as a key part of the matrix storyline, in the same way they calim the movie was intended to be a trilogy. I'm sure any rational person would realize that "the wachowskis" are trying to milk out every possible dollar possible from the original concept and have no artistic integrity or respect for their fans...

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[Dachannien]

Do you even read the links you submit?

It's okay, because CmdrTaco evidently doesn't read his own website.

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Hey "Overly Critical Guy," do you even watch the movies on which your rants are based? Remember in the Matrix 2 when Neo was suddenly in the mountains? Was that part of one massive urban landscape?

Hey, smart guy? Are you going to criticize me for it or the Wachowski Bros., who are the ones who told this to the game developers?

Do you really think the entire world is simulated in the Matrix? There isn't a continent big enough to hold all the "fields" for that many billions of humans.

Think a little next time.

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There are two sides in the game--those who want people to remain in the Matrix (sort of a Cipher mindset), and those who feel everyone should be free because the Matrix is not real (like a Morpheus mindset)."

Do the good guys win by convincing all their friends to get off the game and go clubbing or what?

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[GlassUser]

You mean space to fit the six billion humans alive today? You could fit the entire world's population in an area just larger than the city limits of washington DC, assuming each person needed two square feet to stand. If everyone needed an eighth acre suburban home/lot, you could fit everyone in the four corners states. tsk tsk.

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[jjhplus9]

"Do you really think the entire world is simulated in the Matrix? There isn't a continent big enough to hold all the 'fields' for that many billions of humans." Actually, In the 1970s, it was calculated that the entire population of the earth could stand, quite comfortably, in an area approximately the size of the Isle of White. Probably need a bigger island now, but COME ON!

Re:Um, hello, submitters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep on modding it down, but it doesn't change the truth: You Are A Turd.

Death

[mindsuck]

If you die in the Matrix MMORPG... do you die in real life as well?

After all... the mind cannot live without the game.

The question that is important to me

[mcc]

Will it suck as hard as Enter the Matrix?

Seriously, this is an important question to be asked. Enter the Matrix had some of the most pre-release excitement for a game in recent memory, but once it was actually released it became probably the most universally loathed game of the year. I have not played this game, but the reports from everyone who has have been remarkably consistent.

What they say is that the game was little more than an excuse. That the cinematic portions and plot were rather cool, but that the game.. well, just wasn't there. Apparently the developers realized they didn't have to put any effort into the game for people to still buy it, and so they did the absolute minimum required in order for this to still be called "a game". The result was a lackluster, uncreative, boring, unplayable Max Payne lookalike.

Is the same developer from Enter the Matrix releasing this? Is this actualy going to be worthwhile as a game, or are we going to get another phoned-in, unplayable mess with no positive qualities except for those which stem wholly from the franchise the game is based in? Enter the Matrix was still a relative success-- probably because the developer banned reviews of the game before it was released, and so many people bought it blind-- but an MMORPG requires customer retention to succeed..

Sphere of effect

[Overly Critical Guy]

What's the big deal? I imagine bullet-time will just have sort of a radius of effect. If you're not in the same room, you won't slow down, and if you're watching it from a distance, you will see people moving in slow-motion but the rest of the game is moving normally.

If you try to fire into that radius of effect, your bullets will just slow down, so you can't pick off the bullet-time people. Everything slows down in that bubble. Makes sense to me. Can't wait for the game.

Re:Sphere of effect

[noname3]

I can imagine that too though slowing down bullets would be easier said than done.

If bullets are entities that you can actually dodge a la Max Payne, there's a huge server load because of collision detection. I can only imagine how much power it'll take to run a game with a thousand players, with dozens fighting at any time. And I thought counterstrike was heavy..

If bullet time just gives a bonus to a miss/dodge/evade check a la defensive spells in DaOC (does Anarchy Online work this way too?), the only point to slow motion would be to either target specific extremities or to peg multiple targets. This'd be more feasable although I don't know how useful, they haven't mentioned bodypart specific damage nor how many enemies you're likely to face. Maybe slow mo'd help you with complicated stunts?

Hmm.. I need more info about this game!

Re:Sphere of effect

[Blublu]

Here's why it won't work. Consider this example. There are two people fighting in slow-motion. Far away, some nasty bastard sees the fight and thinks "haha, I'll get me a couple kills now". So he has a machine gun, and fires wildly into the fight. Since he's too far away to become slowed, he can fire at normal rates. When the bullets come into range, they become slowed down, but there are MUCH more bullets than there normally should be! So either the bullet time should slow down everyone in sight (and everyone in THEIR sight, and THEIR sight thus slowing down a huge chunk of the server) or make the bullet-time'd players invulnerable to everyone else and everyone else invulnerable to them. That way, once a battle has started, it's impossible for anyone else to join in.

Re:Sphere of effect

[fraudrogic]

Well, isn't bullet time just a relative perspective? To other players you would be moving very quickly, or at least like in the movie, when the agents moved in that echo-like way when dodging bullets (in M1 at the Rooftop scene). So if someone went into bullet-time, you'd have to as well or else he would be to fast for you.
Problem is, while your relative perspective is changed (and the rate of your time passage compared to real time), it has not in the real world. So if you came out of bullet time, it would seem like 1 second went by, however 30 seconds have actually gone by in the real world.
hard problem...it hurts my brain just explaining it much less trying to solve that problem.

- no fancy sig to see here, keep moving

Re:Sphere of effect

[Pyro226]

What's the big deal? I imagine bullet-time will just have sort of a radius of effect. If you're not in the same room, you won't slow down, and if you're watching it from a distance, you will see people moving in slow-motion but the rest of the game is moving normally.

That would be very hard to implement. My idea is much simpler; just add 500ms to the ping of anyone not using bullet time. Have it be area/zone wide and go away if noone has used bullet-time in a minute or so.

This method would be very easy to implement, and would also be very effective - I grew up using AOL, and it is very hard to shoot anything with a ping >500 (unless you have a BFG9000). This method would be annoying as hell, but I don't see many other solutions that work and aren't annoying.

More news

[QEDog]

"It even took over my avatar!" Said one of the DMs, who calls herself as The Oracle. One game tester, that played in all the 6 beta versions says he is going to get back into the game to use his high level character Da' 0|\|3 to solve the situation.

At Last!

[Tellalian]

So, I'll be able to enter a virtual world, where I'll be able to enter a virtual world?

...

Sign me up!

Bet it will support over 1 million users at once!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And everyone knows if you can make a game that does that you'll totally 0wn the g4m1ng werld!!!!

read the faq to see who's developing

[Anonymous Coward]

Monolith Productions... yikes.

Prepare for another Lithtech bomb.

NeoCheaters

[_Sprocket_]

In any multi-player game you'll find cheaters. They have different excuses for it - lacking time to put in to the game like other "losers", boredom with the existing rules, etc. But whatever the excuse may be, its the same sociopathic behavior. The rules shouldn't apply to this individual so they take great pains to run exploits, proxies, and other cheating tools to remove the restrictions of the game's rules.

This should sound familiar to fans of the Matrix movies. After all, the heroes esentially "cheat" the rules of the Matrix. A large part of this is simply realizing that the rules of the artificial environment only apply if one wishes them to. But there are also other bits such as having a friend directly anylizing Matrix signals and customized, user-controlled load programs. It can all be easily summerized by the fact that The Matrix is really about how Neo cheats.

And everyone wants to be Neo. Woa.

Alright, maybe not everyone. But this Neo complex fits right in with our cheating friends who are incapable of playing multi-player games without going to great lengths to provide themselves with an unfair advantage. They want to be Neo too.

Now they can be. Enter the Matrix MMORPG. Be Neo. Or a Neo-a-like. And cheat. After all, that's what The Matrix is all about. How could anybody object?

I can see it now

[forkboy]

You have entered The Lobby.
neo13594: d00d, this looks jus lkie the movie
butlikr: hey theres a guy coming
A security commando shoots YOU for 13 points of damage!
YOU shoot a security commando for 60 points of damage.
YOU begin to evade.
butlikr shoots a security commando for 85 points of damage.
A security commando has been slain by butlikr!
butlikr: what a puss
neo13594: d00d, my kill. ass.
butlikr: stfu, there no ones kills, its a team game.
An agent has appeared!
Agent Smith shoots YOU for 245 points of damage.
neo13594: sh*t! help me!
butlikr: dam an agent, cya man
YOU try to shoot Agent Smith but miss!
Agent Smith begins to evade.
Agent Smith shoots YOU for 2004 points of damage.
You have been slain by Agent Smith!
LOADING....Please wait.
You tell butlikr "thanks a lot jerk. u suk"
butlikr tells you "stfu n00b. u cant kill agents stupid"

Yeah, this game's gonna be a blast. I can't wait.

I can see it now...

[Snaller]

Thouands of people will be playing like thouands of people, who wake up, brush their teat, eat breakfast, travel to work, put in 8 hours behind a desk, travel home again. Flatten out on the sofa watching big brother. Occasionally do some shopping and go to the toilet(not at the same time). Try to make points with the boss, earn some bucks. And once a year they'll reboot everything and you start all over.

Cool game.

Re:I can see it now...

[tiled_rainbows]

Dude, you brush your teats in the morning?
That's got to chafe.

Re:I can see it now...

[Snaller]

Do you get a spell checker if you subscribe? I really need a spell checker ... :-/

Linux client...

[Anonymous Coward]

if [ -f $linux_client ]; then
consider
else
no $12.95/mo for you
fi

i wanna play

[wisdom_brewing]

ooh, ooh... do you get those funky user input devices from the movies?

Neo

[zCyl]

So what happens when people crack the game server and start modifying it?

Neo: Are you saying I can get a subscription to this MMORPG?
Morpheus: When you're ready, you won't have to...

Bullet time?

[Snaller]

They say the game will have bullet time? How do they implement that?

If they invoke bullet time for everybody, then everybody will be moving at the same speed and the effect will be nullified?

If its just one player who moves like that... well, we've always had that in all games.. its called LAG!

OLD

[PickyH3D]

This is VERY old news.

Don't get this game if...

[vudufixit]

It comes with a special controller that goes from the PC or gaming console straight to "any part of your skin"

Problem.

[Population]

While you and your opponent are playing in "bullet time", your opponent's friends have time to run over and group gank you.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Rosebud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is his sled. It was his sled from when he was a kid.

There, I just saved you two long boobless hours.

Re:Rosebud...

[fenix down]

Well, if you believe Gore Vidal, the better spoiler would be "It's Marion Davies' clit, and I just saved you two hours of mindfucking that was only designed for one specific person in such a way that he couldn't sue them without embarassing himself."

A typical conversation between a couple

[gomel]

How addictive will this game be?:

scene 1
he is sitting at the PC, she is packing her things in order to leave.

"matrix online game" playing boyfriend: Oh God, my God, Girlfriend how could you do this, you are leaving me! There is no cause for this!

leaving Girlfriend: What cause? How about the game you're still playing?

boyfriend: Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai, woman, this is nothing, c'est rien, c'est rien du tout. It's a game, it is only a game.

---

So am I the only one...

[slappyjack]

...who just wants to be the little bald kid that does nothing but bend spoons all day in this hare kirshna outfit and eat cookies baked by The Oracle?

What the hell ever happened to HIM, anyway?

Hacking the Matrix, eh?

[LordK3nn3th]

Yes, I can just imagine... people running around accusing each other of hacking... just like a normal MMORPG. If someone develops trainers, or other similar hacks, will Ubi Soft do anything about it? After all, they are "hacking the matrix". I just can't see myself playing a game that encourages cheating and hacking. ;)

Why I think they're going to mess it up.

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) I want to play as an Agent. None of the other characters in the series are anywhere *near* as cool. It's the same problem with the online Star Wars Galaxies game - the designers just didn't get that people want to play a part of the Empire as a Storm Trooper, etc, when many people (like myself) don't give a damn about the rebel alliance?

This was my halloween "costume" a couple of years ago: black suit, black tie, tie-pin, earpiece, matrix-style sunglasses (and an air-pistol instead of a real gun). I did this with two identically-dressed co-workers. We were seriously effective at scaring people at work by just standing around looking all serious and agent-like. :)

(2) Bullet-time in a MMORPG can't work and will get mightly annoying with time - especially if it causes players to never miss in PvP combat.

The game "Max Payne" did the whole slo-mo thing well, but that was a single player game and - guess what - got really annoying after a couple of hours.

(3) The Warchowski brothers haven't got a very good track record of good *gameplay*. The only point of playing Enter The Matrix was to see the movies - it was otherwise a boring 3rd person action adventure. They need to let somebody who knows games make the decisions.

(4) A couple of other MMOFPS games have had problems. It's unclear if Matrix is an RPG or a FPS? If it's an FPS, they need to study the problems inflicting Planetside - most notably gameplay balance and bugs that are destroying the userbase.

Aren't we already in the Matrix?

[eforhan]

Matrizens playing Matrizens playing Matrizens. Ooh. it boggles the mind.

Does this mean there will be (potentially) thousands of super-human players running around defying gravity and time?

The only way I can see this work is to contrast the "norm" with the "above norm" and have thousands of mindless bots walking around.

Sort of like at a RIAA convention, only smarter.

Re:Bet it will support over 1 million users at onc

[eforhan]

I've heard it already supports over six billion.

Poster is mentally retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

This game has been known about since at least when Reloaded comes out. It's based AFTER revolutions.. this is the game that let everyone know the matrix would NOT be destroyed in revolutions.

You have to be retarded not to know this, fucking retard poster

by the way TRINITY DIES AND NEO DIES HAHAH FUCKERS MOVIE SUCKED ASS

Whats wrong with Enter the Matrix?

[extrasolar]

I have that game and its a lot of fun. The nicest thing about the game, in my opinion, is that the game uses authentic kung fu moves. They actually had the actors of Niobe and Ghost (the main characters in the game) with sensors so they could program in the martial arts moves accurately. Additionally, you can focus to do some nifty Matrix effects like walking along walls and dodging bullets. And the game has the same feel as the movies. In fact, the plot to Enter the Matrix runs parallel to Matrix: Reloaded. If you like the movies, then Enter the Matrix gives more background on the other characters and what happens to them before, during, and after the Matrix Reloaded.

Honestly, I don't know what you are expecting from the game--could it be you are suffering from high expectations?

Re:Whats wrong with Enter the Matrix?

[LittleBigLui]

well... the only incentive for me to play that game is the movie tie-in, i.e. to get to know more about some aspects that were touched in Reloaded and Revolutions. But the game tries very hard to prevent this, by offering gameplay that is boring at times, frustrating at other times, but very seldom satisfying in itself.

One of the most horrible aspects of the game is the driving scenes. Playing as ghost, you have to hang out of the window of the driving car and shoot at the enemies (police, the twins, ...) while niobe drives. But the AI for driving the car is done so badly that half of the time it gets stuck somewhere. Not to mention that the opponent's AI isn't Michael Schumacher either, so when Niobe manages to stay on the road, you don't see much of your opponents.

Another frustrating thing is the timing of the save points - theres a map where you have to do a few minutes of stupid running along a path before you meet the bad guys. When you meet them you have to protect another rebel by snipering at the policemen who want to shoot him. Easy to do if you know WHERE they are but you don't know that if you play that sequence for the first time. Your ally dies, you die too (WHY?), back to mindlessly running along the path for a few minutes. And then there's the Merovingian's chateau, where you exit one map, get to save, cross the hall (literally ONE STEP) without anyone in it and get to save again.

Apart from that, the whole environment is looking somewhat boring and nothing like the movies.

The kung-fu is looking relatively good, but later in the game it tends to get boring, beating up yet another vampire for two minutes only to finish him off with a wooden stake (why didn't my character plunge him with that stake RIGHT AT THE START of the fight?)

The hanguns have an auto aiming mode in third person view, and you have a first person view, in which you get a crosshair and can aim for yourself (but you can't run around in first person mode). The auto-aiming is so screwed (even when standing) that you have to switch to manual aiming for everything farther away than 15-20 meters.

Often it isn't made very clear what you are supposed to do in a level - you kill a few SWAT guys who are setting up an ambush for another rebel, then you take a look at the arrow that points you to your new destination, follow it, only to get an interlude of the rebel getting killed by another SWAT guy and you have to start over from the last save point.

Still, i guess it helps in unterstanding WTFs going on in the movies.

The Familiarity Problem

[harlows_monkeys]

I think the Matrix will have a problem as an MMORPG. Let's consider existing MMORPGs and where their backgrounds come from.

Everquest, AC, and AO all use original backgroups set in familiar genres (Fantasy for EQ and AC, SF for AO). Players have some general expectations based on the genre, but no specific characters/story requirements. (Although any fantasy game that has a Ranger class seems to run into some problems for every way that their Rangers differ from Aragorn).

DAoC used Arthurian, Celtic, and Norse mythology for its background, loosely. This was a brilliant move on Mythics part--it gave them background that people would know something of, but because there are few specific characters and stories that most people are overly familiar with in those settings, it doesn't overly focus people's expectation.

Now consider SWG. Although it is doing well, it has had a problem with disappointment for not living up to what many people want from a Star Wars game. The Star Wars universe is too strongly focused on a few characters and stories, and people playing a Star Wars game often want to be those characters. Far more people want to play Han Solo than play the guy Han Solo buys his guns or beer or hairstyling from.

The Matrix, I think, might suffer from this. (As will the upcoming LotR MMORPG, BTW). The focus of the movies is too strongly on a small set of characters, and people will want to play those characters, or at least play with them, doing the the things that were done in the movie.

Also, both The Matrix and the good SW movies were basically about world (galaxy, universe) changing events. If the games don't have that, many people will find them disappointing, compared to their expectation, which will basically be playing the movies.

In light of the above, here are some movies/TV shows I thing would make good MMORPG conversaion.

First, I'm surprised there has not been a Star Trek MMORPG. Sure, in some ways ST suffers from the same problems that SW and LotR have...but because there were several series, focusing on different crews (original, next gen, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise), I think the focus has been diluted enough that it would work. Set it in TNG time, and I think people could accept being on ships other than Enterprise, or space stations other than DS9.

Second movie that comes to mind is either Antz or A Bug's Life. Those would work because there was only one movie for each, and though they focused on basically one character/story each, I don't think one movie is enough to form the strong association between the character and the world.

Re:The Familiarity Problem

[Erasmus Darwin]

"The Star Wars universe is too strongly focused on a few characters and stories, and people playing a Star Wars game often want to be those characters. Far more people want to play Han Solo than play the guy Han Solo buys his guns or beer or hairstyling from."

You make a good point. In the Star Wars universe, the three "coolest" professions have traditionally been Smuggler, Jedi, and Bounty Hunter -- as represented by Han Solo, Luke Skywalker (or Darth Vader for the evil crowd), and Boba Fett respectively. Of these professions in SWG, one seems silly without space ships (which aren't implemented yet), one is artificially rare because the movies say only 4 were around at the time, and one is possible but requires that you dedicate virtually all of your skills to the task and ignore a lot of the extra flavor.

The Matrix, on the other hand, seems like it'll be more conducive to a MMORPG. The important thing is that the world is set up so that anyone who takes the red pill has the potential to be a badass. In essence, it'd be like SWG if the Jedi class were unrestricted. Sure, players wouldn't be able to become comparable to Neo, but they would be able to match the skills of Trinity and Morpheus.

Re:The Familiarity Problem

[Moraelin]

The problem you still can't avoid is: everything's relative.

Movies and books have often just one "super-hero", or at most a very small number, often with different "specializations". (E.g., in the Discworld books, Cohen's expertise doesn't overlap with Granny's, and Rincewind specialty is IMHO basically having blind luck, so again it doesn't overlap with either.)

What makes them such great heroes is precisely the comparison with everyone else. If everyone was as good at everything as Superman is, he'd be nothing special. If everyone could climb walls and shoot webs, Spider Man would be just another average guy.

I.e., it's easy to say "just make everyone a jedi" or "just let everyone be like Neo", but at that point you just ruined the comparison I was mentioning. At that point, jedis or Neo clones are the new Joe Average in that universe.

I.e., there's no way to translate "you're one of the 4 jedis alive" into "oh, we have 100,000 players, and every single one of them runs around with light sabers". Nor is it easy to translate "you're the chosen one" into "oh, we have 100,000 players and they all dodge bullets and do funky kung-fu moves."

Hack the Matrix!...online

[Korona]

The hackers will have a freakin free for all when this game goes live. They'll try to hack into the matrix and get Neo-like powers. Then the 'rebels' will be the hackers and the 'machines' will be the architects (people who designed the matrix).

Agent Smith can't be in the game because all of them were destroyed when the machines had a link to a Smith when Neo was turned into a smith. It wasn't clear that Neo died. Also, I thought they were going to freee the humans in the Matrix. I don't see what there is left to do but enjoy the peace with the machines.

Re:Hack the Matrix!...online

[JebusTheImpaler]

"I don't see what there is left to do
but enjoy the peace with the machines."
1) fix the sky
2) rebuild earth
3) use the matrix to download porn and play counter-strike

If you ruined the movie for me

[Stone316]

i'll hunt you down and kick your ass!!!

A Better Ending would have been (spoilers)

[Joey7F]

Spoiler space
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Okay, you know how the kid announces to all of zion that the war is over? I think a better ending would have been for him to go there but have everyone dead...except for 23 people; 16 women and 7 men. That way it would be clear that humanity will be enslaved forever, because this Neo made a different choice than his predecessors and they still ended up with the same result. It also would bring more power to the statement by the Merovingian that choice is an illusion between people with power and people without it. It would have been extremely dark and definitive but still would have left people scratching their heads. Fwiw I enjoyed the movie :)
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spoiler ended

Re:A Better Ending would have been (spoilers)

[NanoGator]

"It also would bring more power to the statement by the Merovingian that choice is an illusion between people with power and people without it. It would have been extremely dark and definitive but still would have left people scratching their heads."

That would have ruined the movie. The real hero of this movie wasnt Neo, it was the Oracle. She created both Neo and Agent Smith in order to put the Matrix in jeopardy and give both the Machines and the Humans a common problem to solve. Since the humans had the key ingredient (Neo) to fix it, they had a bargaining piece to demand peace with the machines. It was an interesting solution because it meant the Matrix could stay online, and those outside of it could live a peaceful existence, they wouldn't feel the need to try to destroy it.

I personally found this fascinating. I thought it was interesting that it was a machine/program who wanted piece and risked her own existence for it. It meant the machines weren't totally evil. By ending the movie by causing things to be like they planned, it'd destroy what made this ending exciting. And for what, proving the point that shit happens? It's easy to write movies that end on a bad note. It's hard to write movies where problems are solved in engaging ways.

Re:A Better Ending would have been (spoilers)

[cryms0n]

I don't think you fully realized the implications of how the third movie ends.

Here are my thoughts:

The Architect and the Oracle worked together to revolve the Matrix, just as they had 5 times before.

The Architect will let people from the Matrix ... just as he did before (remember Neo, Morpheus, et al.)? They we're released from the Matrix because they did not want to be there.

We are told throughout the second and third movies that the cycle cannot be broken.

The Oracle even says at the end that they will see Neo again.

Neo realizes the truth, and plugs himself back into the Matrix at the end of the third movie (he returns to where he was born, to enter the cycle again).

At first I too thought some sort of hunky dory peace was achieved, but then I came to realize the story is actually quite dark. The humans struggled in futility to break free (and you can argue Agent Smith did too), only to return to slavery once again.

Neo, the humans, they never had a choice.

Re:A Better Ending would have been (spoilers)

[ClubStew]

I agree with NanoGator, but I have to add that "Merv" was a power-monging machine who's underlying purpose - it seems - was to dispell hope. People with power also make sure they keep their power and will do or say anything to sustain that goal. I, for one, took everything he said with a grain of salt. I mean, most people don't trust rich, powerful people in the real world (our time) - why should they be trusted in the Matrix - especially when it is a world created to sustain the self-aware machines. They practically destroyed humanity to sustain themselves.

Re:A Better Ending would have been (spoilers)

[Anonymous Coward]

'they practically destroyed humanity' because humanity discriminated and waged war on them. you best believe if you're gonna segregate me and discriminate me and treat me with such disdain, soley based on my race , creed etc, that i'm gonna retaliate. so expect a self-aware machine to react similiarly.

announced at E3

[Anonymous Coward]

only six months ago was this announced, and the webpage hasnt changed since.

All I want to know is...

[JamesP]

if we get the holes in the skull and the plug-in gear for free...

Re:Tee hee

[Digital11]

Actually there's already been quite a bit of info about when the game takes place. It happens after Revolutions and its about a war between those who want to remain in the Matrix and those that think everyone should be freed.

Old News?

[crashnbur]

Matrix discussion groups have been pondering the implications of this game since soon after Enter the Matrix came out in May. This is six-months-old news. I'm almost tired of discussing it... Almost.

Depends which map you play

[sideshow]

There's a couple with flags that can be caputured but not be used as a respawn point.

Dear Taco, Read Slashdot...

[BiOFH]

This is old old old news!
I miss the days when Taco actually read the site. Makes you wonder what else he's missed out on...

I just have one question..

[Frank of Earth]

.. how many sleepless nights to I have to play before I can meet Monica Bellucci?

One interesting thing I did read about this is that the agents would be the equivalent of Dragons in the AD&D world. If you see one, do like they told Neo and RUN!

Better than Enter the Matrix?

[taernim]

I dunno about you, but I'm interested in this... I just hope they don't ruin it like they did with Enter The Matrix.
There was sooo much hype, yet it failed to deliver. Just a bunch of crawling around in the same repetitive scenes, and then some random tasks
-- quick shoot the tires out and if you fail you'll start all over again.

"Revolutionary" my @$$...

Irony

[specialq]

Doesn't anyone find it ironic that the trilogy is about a massively multi-user network(online) fantasy life that everyone is living simultaneously. This game is just the first step toward the downfall of society. Everyone will buy the game, get so hooked on the game that they would rather live their life in the game than in reality, biotechnology will advance so far that we can physically/mentally connect to our computers just to play the game, and the game will become "The Matrix."

I wonder if we'll find out about Sati...

[Anonymous Coward]

If she is the new One... the one that can change things at will...

I still think that the Oracle used Neo as a pawn to realize her vision of what was to come. The architect was correct in Reloaded, I believe. I think Neo (6th version) is dead. I would like to see what the council had to say about the legends from before--seems like they should have known some of the details of the previous incarnations of Neo. The buffer zone, where the Train Man held folks... seemed like a vault of sorts, to trap programs and keep them from infiltrating other areas.

By the way... Monica Belluci--she's hot!

Re:I wonder if we'll find out about Sati...

[TheLittleJetson]

no, i would prefer to leave the series dead because the dialogue will just get worse. allah be praised.

Uh

[mlylecarlin]

"I'm not a hacker, I'm *The One*!"

mlylecarlin

There is no game...

[scaife]

They can't possibly be making a game of the movie... there is no movie.

You don't have to imagine.

[Gldm]

It's called counterstrike. I can't figure out why it's popular.

So we're dealing with a large matrix?

[jfern]

Are we running sparse matrix algorithms on it?

All well and good, but bring on Wing Commander!

[asdfasdfasdfasdf]

I know Origin more or less doesn't exist, but if there was ever a story/universe that is crying for a MMPORPG It's wing commander. Seriously, space battles and promotions and cap ships and trading. I'm getting misty eyed just thinking about it. In the universe of computer gaming there is no huger a pool of wasted profit than that of a WC franchise game.

Then again, I'm not sure you'll be able to convince people to fly circles around you while you dogfight, making it easier for them to pick you off-- but they can work that out in the beta.

Enter the Matrix ?

[Forth Fiend]

Wait ... after 3 movies about fighting off this aweful Virtual Reality slavery system, the producers are inventing the very product they've been warning us about and expect us to join it ?

Ironic

[use_compress]

Isn't it ironic that fans of a movie that is all about freeing one's self from a computer controlled, alternate reality are paying for a chance to loose themselves in a computer controlled, alternate reality.

Pretty lame if you ask me

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lets milk this cash cow until it's dead"

"Agent Smith" limit reached, film at 11

[HiggsBison]

More likely, the game will be all about going out and fighting Agent Smiths.

No system would ever need more than 640 KiloSmiths.

pics

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamer's hell has some pics of an early build. http://www.gamershell.com/hellzone_MMORPG_Matrix_O nline.shtml

Might not be such a big problem.

[Graelin]

Regardless of how many rounds per second you gun can fire, the delay between each shot is also magnified in the sphere of effect.

So - if bullet-time runs at 1/100th of real-time that 0.01/second delay between rounds turns into one full second when the second round enters the SOE.

That being said, if the bullet-time SOE just slows things down then I will be extremely disappointed. The entire concept of bullet-time and the (IMO) related slow-motion fighting effects was to convey the speed of the characters involved. Max Payne almost got this right with it's Bullet Time implementation (you could aim at normal speed but you couldn't actually move faster)

A perfect implementation would allow for different time ratios for everyone in the system. Higher-level players would move insanely fast to low-level players because their time ratios were different. You wouldn't need SOE at all really, but while time-compression can be easily implemented in a computer it's the inverse that is impossible. In a MMORPG anyway.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

A matrix within a matrix.

Why there are so many holes in the plot..

[f0rt0r]

So that they can be answered in the MMPORG! Seriously though, I doubt this Matrix MMPORG will ever see the light of day.

It's set after the movie

[zoeblade]

Slashdot says:I wonder when the game will be placed (i.e. before Revolutions or after)

The actual site says: Plot lines by the creators of the Matrix, that continues the Matrix story where the movie triology leaves off.

No wonder people don't read the articles if the moderators don't...

Will you be able to be an agent

[Cackmobile]

I don't wanna be some pussy good guy. I wanna be an opresor of the people. I want to be an unstoppable agent who all flee in front of. I want to be able to smite random characters. That would kick arse.

That would explain the ending...

[ProteusQ]

*** SPOILERS ***

There's nothing wrong with MRev... except for the fact the Wach Bros didn't want to include a proper ending. They wanted to keep their options open for some kind of economicly profitable sequel. Movie, TV series, anime, online game, whatever.

MRev is fine to a point. Once Neo & Trinity split up from the others, something goes wrong in the story. The 'Save Zion' fork works just fine, although it's kind of like the climax to Star Wars episode IV with the roles reversed. It's the Neo fork that falls flat. Little about it struck me as authentic: Smith blinding Neo (surely the Wach Bros would have foreshadowed that if they'd planned it from the beginning?), Trinity's death (puh-leese!), the Machines taking pity on Neo... How much better would the movie have been if the "Revolutions" would have been simultaneous human and machine revolutions? Humans & machine fighting together against the Architect! But then, you'd have closed off the possibility of a sequal, and there are Porsches still to buy...

You could call it the "Return of the Jedi" effect. The trilogy is ending, and everyone is starting to think of ways to generate revenue after the movie drops from the public's radar. In "Jedi", it was the Ewoks, which ruined the seriousness of the story (although there were other problems as well). It's no surprise that an Ewoks animated series followed "Jedi", plus toys, posters, and all the usual crap. It was planned from the get-go as a revenue stream, not as something entertaining.

I think the same thing applies to MRev. They could have had a mind-bending, 'the story is OVER now' ending, one that would have kept the legacy of the first film's powerful, uncompromising plotting alive. But they didn't. They killed off the Bad Guy, killed off the one actor who won't look as pretty in five years when they might film a sequel (their thinking, not mine), and put Neo in a sequal-friendly limbo. He can become anything they need now: human ambassador to the machines, a cyborg, interplanetary crusader, of just the gentleman in charge of saying: "Whoa!"

Why end the story decently when you can set everything up to make more money later? All you need to do is find a replacement for the Bad Guy, and you're set. Probably the Morvingian; why else keep him alive when we all wanted to see Trinity waste him?

It's clear "Return of the King" is going to be *the* SF/Fantasy movie of the season, in part because Tolkien didn't write his novels in order to make sure a money-making sequel would follow.

How it will end?

[hesiod]

> this could be the way the Wachowski brothers keep the universe going and how it will end

How could a continuous game be "How it ends?" Unless the game stops, there is no ending. Sheesh.

Sorry, this was the Beatles

[ScottGant]

Beatles...with an "a" in their name.

And it was the last song that all 4 recorded as a group...it was part of the 3 song "Golden Slumbers/Carry that weight/The End"

You can find this on their last recorded Album "Abbey Road". It was the last recorded, even though "Let it Be" was released afterwards.

What games of this sort are available for Linux?

[lvirden]

Are there any of these sorts of games for Linux users? Anyone running something like this at
a pretty low cost - most of the ones for the PC seem to want to charge $10 or more a month, which is more than I can swing for an occasional online
gaming experience.