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SOE Pulls the Plug On The Matrix Online
Yesterday, Sony Online Entertainment representative Daniel Myers announced that The Matrix Online will be shut down on July 31st. The game launched in 2005 after several delays and false starts, and shortly thereafter SOE bought the rights to operate the game from developer Monolith. Now, four years later, the game will join the ranks of closed MMOs. In a forum post, Myers said, "The team will also be whipping up an end-of-the-world event. It won't be quite the same as having over 100 developers in the game as Agents like when we ended beta, but we have 4 years of tricks up our sleeve. It'll be a chance to revisit all the things that make MxO the memorable experience it is. And how could we pull the plug without crushing everyone's RSI just one more time?"
I didn't know there was a matrix MMO- and I'm pissed to hear it's shutting down, because I would've played it. No point in signing up now though. Shame.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Residual Self-image:
http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/Residual_self_image
One of the few MMOs where basically everyone was looking for bugs.. cause if you were in the matrix, that's what you'd be doing too :)
I think the most fun I ever had was when our little clan would stand around in the park and run into an area that we weren't allowed in... an agent would show up and we'd all kick the shit out of him, not that we had a chance of defeating him, and then run back into the park.. where he wouldn't follow us. Basically bear baiting. :)
But like all MMOs, it eventually became about the grind.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It won't continue as the game is about a movie only; nobody will interest in the game as nobody will interest in putting more effort in products related to an old movie.
Sure The Matrix trilogy is a good movie (yes I have DVDs of The Matrix trilogy), but once the story ends (The Matrix Revolutions), people won't focus on/ talk about it anymore.
You gotta hand it to them and some other MMOGs for planning epic endings. Sometimes the game does get kinda boring over time but people keep playing anyway so to just have a boring end date with nothing happening is crap. You gotta at least do SOMETHING. So that's cool that they're not just going all corporate on everyone and setting a date then enforcing it heartlessly without a big ending. Ever since some people started playing the game, they've been fantasizing about some epic event that they knew would never happen and here it is to make all their dreams come true. It's like if you know your car's gotta go, you want to at least see an air force Raptor hit it with a hellfire missile :D
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
It strikes me that an online RPG might begin with a book: a three or four year story arc that has a clear beginning, a middle and an end.
It would be a particularly rewarding experience for those who came in and early and stayed the course.
But you could enter and exit at any point with some sense of achievement - and a unique experience of the game.
Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.
Who knew there was a matrix mmo? This is the first I've heard of it.
Reaching target audience fail.
as with most things, it's all about the money.
One could argue that with compelling story-lines and exciting, climactic endings the fans would drive the money frantically into the pockets of the developers. Who, being businessmen, take the safer approach of just stretching the grind and hanging a new carrot on the stick occasionally. Enjoy!
That's really a shame...Well just like the other MMO that SOE got it hands on, the marvelous jewel that was tarnished by the grimy hands of SOE, you guys know what I'm talking about SWG! I swear it's like SOE had to go ahead and destroy everything that has the potential to be awesome or that was awesome. SWG was the greatest MMO I had ever played and they came along and ruined it!
now "The Matrix" has to suffer because of their evil! I wish I was a billionaire so I could use my money for the greater good, and that's Buying SWG from SOE and pressing the reset button so it would become the Great game that it once was before SOE.
Someone should make a movie of the game, recapping its history from beginning to end (kind of like what was done for Futurama: The Game ). My Matrix DVD collection would be incomplete without it.
Therein lies the problem of proprietary solutions.
Fun fact; the MMORPG was actually considered canon. So when the game ends, that, rather than the third movie, will be the actual end of the story.
The fact that, from what I read at least, it was so story driven in nature was probably what ensured that it only had a finite lifespan. If WoW's devs hadn't screwed the class dynamics to the degree they have since 3.0, that game could have conceivably lasted more or less forever on the basis of the pre-existing content, without any further developer interaction.
MxO, however, was different. It was apparently built around ongoing episodic/developer involvement, and comparitively speaking there apparently wasn't a lot of repetitive/static content at all. As a result, once the devs stopped doing the live stuff, the game itself would die.
The franchise has existed for ten years, and that is a better run than many get; I know the screenplay of the first movie more intimately than Muslims are supposed to know the Qu'ran. Although I've still got it on my hard drive, I also wouldn't have watched it more than probably three times in the last five years; I saw it literally close to 100 times within the first six months of its' release, and I've since got it out of my system.
Adios, Neo. It's been a great ride.
It was also recently announced the Shadowbane is being shut down soon as well.
I really liked the matrix online, at least during it's warner brothers run, that damned combat 'upgrade' and removing almost all the live events (and staff) just farking nurfed a great combat system and game into button mashing grind fest. But it is sad to see, but I figured SOE agreed to keep MxO online for 3-4 years so they could get their hands onto the DC online license (and possibly other things, we'll never really know.) It sad I have been proven correct, hence goes another different(read non-WoW) MMO that could have been something with more support. Enjoy MMO Heaven and tell Auto Assault I said Hi. I just noticed they are suspending billing from 1st June. Does this mean if you haven't pre-paid until the end, you can't go back for the finale ? And the main 'The MAtrix ONline' webpage is going down as of then also.
Reading this and a number of the comments, connected with the question posted to /. a few days ago about severe gaming addiction, I kind of wonder if, at some point, all MMOs need to die? Like a good television show, you get to a point where the show needs to be retired. It's lived it's life and been popular and made money. I think this is probably natural and needed. This gives the creators a great opportunity to move on to another MMO, or a different project entirely - flex their creative muscles in a different way.
Games made to be played on the Internet should be compatible with the whole Internet. The Matrix Online was Windows-only, like today is 1995. Ill-conceived projects die, not because they weren't Linux-compatible; because not being Linux- (or Mac-) compatible is, in year 2009, an evidence of ill-conceiveness.
lux
SOE is pro-rating those who have paid for the game beyond one of the dates mentioned in that letter to subscribers.
By giving the money back they are nullifying the contract and you do not lose anything. Like most MMO's the companies who host them reserves the right to terminate the contract (server, game, etc). That much is in the EULA and therefore by playing the game you agree to those terms.
The Download game button the Matrix game website seems to be disabled, but you can still download the game here: http://pdl.warnerbros.com/thematrixonline/game_client/MxO.exe
Looks like there is no free trial and you can no longer purchase a subscription. Ah-well.
Relax, this is just the Cipher-pulling-the-plug part. You'll be back online as soon as the latino guy in the spaceship recovers from the plasma ray hit.
Oh no, it doesn't.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Thats 2nd after they managed to kill a mega title like Star Wars Galaxies. And the ceo of its parent company still babbles shit about the internet and whatnot, instead of doing his f@cking job. if he spent a fraction of his time overseeing their divisions, instead of babbling sh@t to shape internet to make up for their gross incompetence, those two mega titles wouldnt go down the drain like this.
guy. do your f@cking job. leave internet, to, well, the internet. wisdom of the crowds is much bigger than your 2 cell brain.
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My cousin just had a baby.
i wonder how much longer it will last. i hope i get to CR 5 before they shut down.
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