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The Matrix Online: Interview with Dan Myers
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Dan Myers is the Community Manager for The Matrix Online. Today, we present an interview he did with Garrett Fuller about the status of the movie-themed MMORPG that was recently purchased by Sony Online Entertainment.
;) MMORPG.com: How has The Matrix Online been performing in the current expanding MMORPG market?
Dan Myers: Anyone who tells you they wouldnt like more subscribers is lying. However, we are fortunate in that The Matrix Online is one of the few nontraditional MMOs on the market. Ever since we launched, we have most often been compared to City of Heroes, and were not really doing the same thing. Between the fact that we deliver on continuing the experience of The Matrix movies and the style/interactive nature of our combat system and the unique setting of our game were still in a class all our own. It doesnt look like thats going to change any time soon. So were going into our first anniversary without a direct competitor, which is nice. |
You may read the interview here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
I must say that its a fairly nice interview! Only a shame MxO didn't turned out what it could have been!
At Launch there was a massive community with lots of great succesful MxO community sites (Wich I ran one of them). Beta testers warned the Dev Team not to launch yet as there were too many bugs, exploits in the game for going live! Like any other MMO company (it seems like a regular habbit) they didnt listen and launched anyway! Wich, I think they'll still regret they ever did!, turned out to be one huge dissaster the first 3 months killing the whole MxO community!!!!
- Grind junkies found exploits and reached max level (level50) in a week!!
- PvP servers became a ganking paradise due to the fact that there were already lvl50's running around after a week!! New players logging into these PvP servers had no chance to play or do anything whatsoever! The only thing they could do is dieing at every hardline they tried to spawn!
- Servers were very very instable! Couldnt handle the load! 60 people at a hardline already caused severe lag and when the number went over 100-150 the zone had to be closed down or server crash was imminent!!
- The monthly live events (I experienced 3 of them before I was complety going mad out of frustration and left) were even a bigger dissaster as it was a week of server crashes, continious lag and no way to play during the events!
- All buildings looked the same inside (only 3-4 different layouts for missions!)! Wich made missioning becoming very very repititive very very quick! This was like a deja vu with City of Heroes wich had exactly the same! So I KNOW where they based their comparision at
- The inovative combat interlock system was more a frustration then having fun with it! As very quickly your missions took place in dangerous zones with much higher level mobs walking around! Here comes the flaw in the interlock system! 9 out of 10 times you just didnt made it to the mission building as you constantly got aggroed and combat-locked by much higher level mobs! And hyper-jumping wasnt always an option either as they walked on the rooftops too!
All the above caused the great MxO community to collapse within 3 months after launch! BIG SHAME! Succesful community sites (like mine) closing down because of the collapse that took place!
All in all I heard they only sold about 15.000 copies the first months ..they had 7 servers running. They lost more then 2/3 of the subscribers and when SOE took over (they had to because of the new licence they wanted from WB ROFL) the servers where merged into 2 existing servers!
I just can't bare whats happening in MMO land???? First Star Wars Galaxies (Wich was a huge succes and a blast to play in the first 9 months) got screwed up by a Combat Upgrade and executed with the stupid New Player Experience! Ruining the lives of so many Die Hard Star Wars fans! Players that invested 2 years in advancing their character and got screwed by SOE by degrading the best MMO ever to a stupid FPS console game!!!!!!!
And The Matrix Online never had the chance to become the great game wich we wanted! Only because of bad coding (server instabbility and load issues) and crappy content (only 3-4 different layouts inside buildings total...making missions incredibly repetitive and boring real fast!!)!!!!!!!
When are you Companies gonna learn to listen to your community??????? When???????
Star Wars and The Matrix are 2 of the hottest licences MMO companies would die for to get it!! And what you did with it??? you totally screwed up
Such a waste on 2 of the best licences to obtain!!!!
As a DieHard fan of both Star Wars and Matrix it was a hard pill to swallow! Hurting me a lot to see 2 fantastic MMO concepts going trough the drain!
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Maybe MxO is getting better now with the combat patch (if its not like the one in SWG!!) ...but it's sooo to late! Even if you get the game back together ...more stable en run the Live Events (wich I heard were banned??) smoother! Still you will never get back the great community you had the privelige of having a year ago before launch!!!
You hurted that community just as bad as SOE did with the old faithfull SWG community and in such a way that you need to find a holy grail to get their trust back in you!!
I won't ever return to MxO again! I'm still too pissed! I even don't wanna know how much time and money I invested in setting up the european community site wich was doing so great! And all for nothing as it was all over within 3 months!
With SWG .... I will never return to that game either! Why? Because SOE has such a HUGE FAT EGO and will never admit they screw up with the CU and especially with the NGE!! And so they will never give us classice pre-CU / NGE servers, even if they know they can make a lot of money with it!!
greetings
Hmmm, the guy above me is exaggerating way too much. If you didn't like the game that bad, don't play it, that's it.
Also, why would you take the word of someone who can't spell, which? Even when their is a spell check function. Hah hah.
The live events were great.
The community has been and still is the best out of every other single MMO out there.
- The inovative combat interlock system was more a frustration then having fun with it! As very quickly your missions took place in dangerous zones with much higher level mobs walking around! Here comes the flaw in the interlock system! 9 out of 10 times you just didnt made it to the mission building as you constantly got aggroed and combat-locked by much higher level mobs! And hyper-jumping wasnt always an option either as they walked on the rooftops too!
Oh come on your exaggerating again. That was probably just you. What, is fighting and doing a mission supposed to be a walk in the park anyways? They are called games, they are supposed to be challenging to begin with.
All the above caused the great MxO community to collapse within 3 months after launch! BIG SHAME! Succesful community sites (like mine) closing down because of the collapse that took place!
Hah hah! After reading that, I know that is is just your own personal vendetta. Please, again, if you don't like the game and just leave.
Even if you get the game back together ...more stable en run the Live Events (wich I heard were banned??) smoother!
What!? You got to be kidding me, after reading that I began to question if you ever even played this game.
Man, get out of here.
Well I played in the beta and first month of retail and was very disappointed with what Monolith gave us. For example, one early mission bug was that some doors in missions wouldn't open so you couldn't complete them. Also, they had a mission loot bug where I could only get one item out of the two I had to collect. Granted those are fixed now (I hope) but it shows you just why the game failed.
I'm hoping that the CR2.0 can save the game and I'll look forward to playing it after release. At least the dev team is communicating in the right way, which seems strange for a SOE dev team.
(The first comment said the servers were merged into 2 servers, there are still 3)
Woreku what you are all saying is not all true
The Live Events weren't banned, but untill 3 weeks ago or so, there hadn't been a live even for 4/5 months or something.
And yeah, the game is VERY boring without Live events.
What you say about the community is very true, though what I think is stupid, REALLY stupid of mmorpg.com is that they use a screenshot of the FURIOUS ANGELS on the frontpage.
) because it's not fair to give one faction more publicity by posting a picture of them on such a big site, second because FA has allready gotten enough publicity by Monolith and by SOE.
why? (No I'm not going to complain about FA and Tbone, cuz it's a public site
I think there are 2 things very bad in the article.
First, I think when you read this and you haven't played MxO you understand shit of the whole interview
second they never talk about how empty the servers are these days.
couple of months ago when you wanted to fight, you would just go to Mara Central and there were always at least 20 persons there, and most of the time there were big pvp fights at other places, and then you heared a faction mate screaming on TS: 'ALL COME TO SAI KUNG CENTRAL, BIG FIGHT GOING ON'
and then while everyone was going there, there were still lots of ppl hangin around Mara C.
Last weeks everytime I went to Mara C, there were 10 ppl max and there has never been a big pvp fight anywhere last weeks.
That's the reason I quit the game last month...
The Illuminati Gaming Society
Woreku,
Attacking someone on spelling is quite a low and immature gesture! Wich already proves you're the one we shouldn't take seriously maybe!
I have been around with MxO from beta till about 4 months after release! I quited because everyone around me had left! Site went dead! And how do you explain the most succesful and most loved community site Matrixdojo.com (wich was around since early beta) went down after 3 months since release??
I am not on a personal vendetta! I'm just giving the facts! Or do you call MxO wich had a large community wich filled 7 servers to the max at launch and now ended up with 3 (thought 2 ..my bad) nearly empty servers a success??
And what you saying about the early live events being a great success?? LMAO! you telling me that I didnt play the game?? I rather say it about you?? Maybe you started playing after the servers went to SOE?? But the early events were ONE HUGE dissaster!! As I dont call constant server crashes and enduring lag a succesful event?? And when that happens 3 months in a row with all 3 events?? Well, they lost a lot of subscribers by it! And if you are saying thats not true ...well then I think you took the blue pil instead of the red one and living in a dream world LOL!!
Its like Elda is saying above! It's not only the events that didnt run well the first months, but it were also the bugged missions that were frustrating!! Especially when the very first mission couldnt be completed already! nice first day for a new player isnt??
I maybe was a bit heavy reacting on the interlock combat system! Ofcourse the combat moves (Especially Kung Fu wich were my favorite) looked nice! But from lvl3 till lvl10 missions were far from fun! As you needed quite a gang to survive and reach the mission building due to all the aggro by higher level mobs on the streets! HyperJump (without beta) was available from lvl10 !! Don't forget that too! the early mission were already in dangerous zones wich you could only unlock by keys that you needed to be around lvl10 to be able to get the zone keys and unlock the needed zones with it!! After 2 months or so they finally did something about the aggro and constant interlock by these mobs!!
greetings
Guillermo lol no need to get angry
though I must say you are right bout most things
what I think was VERY funny and frustrating at the same time?
you would probably not know it, seeing you quit after 4 months
but as I mentioned earlier there has been a period of like 5 months without live events
The first live event made by SOE was the biggest disaster ever
it could have all gone right but walrus ruined it ^^
at that time they had some system on the website that would automaticly release a summary of the event of that day, on the end of the day. So before the live event started all the summaries had been made and the live event was ready to go.
After the first day the first summary should have gotten on the website, but because Walrus had made a mistake the summaries for the total next live event had all been published too.
I was one of the guys who was fast enough to copy everything before they took the info off again (which took them at least 4 hours ROFL)
so after the first day everybody knew exactly what was going to happen, at what time, where the storyline characters would jack in, etc. etc.
It was the Hunt for Morpheus Assassin event, so instead of that the assassin jacked in, ran around and then the zerg would kill, no this time the zerg was waiting for him at the exact place he was coming in...
it had never been so busy on 1 place since SOE took over LOL
The Illuminati Gaming Society
The only problem i have with the matrix online is the lag. Its every where and makes the game almost unplayable!
My pc is top notch and even if i put the graphics down the game still lags for me. Also my internet is 2mb/sec.
This btw, isnt your typical "move slowly" lag, noo this is the, move 20 meters and get pulled back 18 meters. It rele drives me mad.
Also another thing is the combat system not being all as fast pace in range, infact most of the times i just wonder what the hell they are doing.
But anyway keep up the work and maybe the game will get some more subscribers
Played SWG since launch until CU then left for MxO & loved it, okay repetative grind but what MMO isnt combat interlock not disengaging at times was anoying but got on with it.
Then SOE took over i had seen SOE's version of a combat revision before so as soon as i found out SOE were getting MxO I LEFT.
All SOE titles have only 1 generic problem SOE codes for them
I predict SOE's online mugging is soon to come to an end & leave us gamers to play quality games.
.
I played MxO from the Beta up until SOE took over.
The poster near the top hit the nail on the head. Thre were lots' of max level characters running around only days after launch.
No content, missions were very repetitive. all the buildings were the same.
After you got to level 50 there was nothing left to do but go from phone booth to phone booth, hunting other level 50's to fight.
Live events were great, but when SOE took over live events stopped.
There was some big combat imbalance, basically the hackers ruled all. Stun Blast, Blast your dead got old real quick. I don't know if they ever fixed that one, but it was a huge imbalance.
The whole interlock thing was great, I loved jumping up in the air and running on somebodies face, or grabbing them by the arm and throwing them around the room. Best part of the game IMO.
Nothing you did affected the world, i.e. you couldn't take over territory or buildings, basically PvP in this game was very cool, but it had no point or object. (Lot's of games have this flaw not just this one).
I played it to level 50 and then it got even more boring, nothing to do but PvP and no point to that so I moved on to greener pastures.
Still the interlock combat system was one of the most inovative I have seen in an MMO, you could really FEEL the smackdown. Unfortunately killer graphics alone do not a good game make.
Questions I would have liked to seen asked.
1. What have you done to address various combat imbalances like the Hacker?
2. What have you done to address the lack of an end game once you reach level 50?
3. Are there any plans to make the world more interactive, i.e. players have an effect on the world, like taking over areas of the city, buildings, etc.
4. What changes are you making to address the problems of interlock combat, i.e. not being able to get out of an interlock you initiated, or people being able to get out of interlock when they shouldn't?
5. On the main page of thematrixonline.com there is a large graphic that says "Live Events", when you click on it you go to a page that says only " Content is currently being updated." It has been that way ever since SOE took over MxO. There also haven't been any live events since. Being that it was one of the most interesting aspects of the game, why did it go away and are there any plans to bring back live events?
Overall this was another SWG, huge potential to be an awesome MMO, all they had to do was listen to their customers, but failed miserably on the delivery.
Well all in all we can just say its a shame, a pity MxO failed!
I really liked the setting of MxO! they just needed to take at least 6 more months of development investment to make the game as it should have been!
1. Making the missions stable, fun and more diverse!
2. Taking more time in creating more versatile and different internal environments within the buildings! to give each area, each block within the city something unique and with more then 3-4 different layouts!!
3. Tested out the combat interlock more thoroughly!
4. spend more time on combat balancing!
5. organized more weekly mass beta events to get the servers stable at high capacity! Not just one event a week before launch, seeing all the problems that took place ....massive lag, awful bugs, massive complaining and still launch the game anyway!!
6. Took the submitted exploits which gave SUPERFAST leveling possibility DEAD SERIOUS and solved them before launch!! They didn't and within a week the servers were flooded with lvl50's!!!
7. Thought out the Live Events more! Especially when you know that a mass gathering would cause server crashes and / or total unplayability!
Most of the Q&A is stuff you can find on the MxO website. I think you were holding back on a few questions because you didn't want to be rude. Here's a few things I would've asked or would like to know:
- To what do you attribute the less than spectacular popularity of the matrix online?
- Stability seemed to be a sore point of this game. What have you done to improve upon this?
- What aspects of the game do you think players enjoy the most?
- How do you sleep at night?
I loved the game at first. Played almost non-stop. Then I hit 50 in a few days of game time. All of a sudden, I had no urge to ever play the game again. I got every skill, did a little PvP and then quit. I wanted to go back, but SOE took over and it doesn't sound like things have improved while I was gone. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
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Great interview...
Certainly much more interesting than the game....
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