Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Actually in my opinion, many of these MMOGs could have epic endings as part of the game. Then you restart it again (or not if you have the next version ready).
:).
I used to play an online webgame where the ending was part of the game AND inevitable. Players could also do stuff to cause the game to end early - so there would be people who'd choose to try to end the game early, and others who would try to stop them.
While some people might not like the idea of having to regrind to build their chars up again, they could just reduce the amount of grind involved in getting the chars up.
Because it doesn't matter that the players get to heroic levels fast, you need them at heroic levels for the ending. And after the ending they start again from scratch.
I figure the biggest problem is almost everyone might be online for the ending and that'll crash the servers
Yeah they did basically the same thing with planetside too.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Yeah, if only SOE had open sourced the Matrix world...
Where Morpheus makes Neo read the matrix mailing list archives instead of giving him the pill.
And instead of the climactic battle with Agent Smith, watch as Neo instead goes to the Matrix bugzilla and files a dupe bug report of an Agent attempting to kill him that's been open since the first alpha.
In the exciting conclusion, the bug is patched but Neo doesn't have the right version of the new sound library they threw in with the bugfix release.
Will he track down the new library version, compile and install the new dependencies that aren't in his package manager, install the library, and compile the new Matrix in time?!
Stay tuned.
If not, then are they guilty of breach of contract -- especially for those who have bought it recently. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick ?
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.
you pay monthly - i would imagine when you purchase the game you get a month or two free which covers the price you paid for the software.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Or have I got the wrong end of the stick ?
Unless they promised that the service would go on forever, there has been no breach of contract.
Everyone knows that businesses and products fail. You have to make the decision of whether to deal with a vendor based on past performance. I won't buy the average Ford vehicle because Ford makes stupid, unnecessary changes to a given motor every couple years, even if they're still using it, that defeat parts interchange. I have a Ford truck because it has an International motor, and I know I can get parts even if I take the truck to another country.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
most MMORG boxes have fine print that the company reserves the right to end the online features with 30 days notice... this is it!
Of course I still see boxes of Tabula Rasa on shelves... nobody's bothered to tell the stores the game's closed!