I know the game tanked, but I never followed it enough to figure out why. What happened with the game? 

When the game released the combat system was rather clunky and odd. Ive never seen anything like it before, or since then. There were massive changes brought to the game after i quit so i cant comment on those.

In my opinion.. it could have really, really been an awesome game. Weird design and odd mechanics caused me to lose interest. I loved the setting and the "feel" of the environment however. As a huge fan of the matrix.. i was pretty dissapointed to say the least.

Sorry i cant remember much more.

No worries man, thanks for the reminder. And yeah, it's too bad. The Matrix IP has sooooo much potential for an MMO which makes it disappointing that the game was such a fail.  {mod edit}

Oh....where to start.

1: hackers dominated the game, especially the PVP aspect. If you weren't a hacker, you were screwed. It made the game feel nothing like The Matrix, and more like some other random MMO where everyone played a caster.

2: They killed Morpheus. As soon as that happened, the population bombed. A lot of people played for the constant live events and story, and after that it got really dull.

3: WB didn't make the kind of money they were expecting, and sold the game to SOE. SOE put it on a back burner with ONE developer to work on it.

90% of the stuff that was supposed to make it into the game never made it.

I beta tested the game, and played for a while at release. It had great potential, and it was sad to see it bomb like that.

Matrix Online was Monolith's first foray into mmorpgs and they failed miserably. The game was launched way too early as it was full of bugs, performance issues, and extremely repetitive gameplay. The game was handed over to SOE shortly after its launch but like any other mmo that launches too early the damage was already done. SOE improved the game, but it was never enough to draw a more substantial playerbase in.  SOE eventually put a skeleton development crew on the game until they decided to close it up.

Sounds exactly like what happened to Vanguard although SOE has chosen to keep that one running.

The game failed hard.. But for those that did play it ( my self included)  The community aspect of the game was the funnest part.  Its the only reason i played for aslong as I did.  I really wish they could have saved it but oh well.. lots of games go down the toilet  that had great potential.

I have to say I can look past things in games like bugs and people playing the "same" class cause its the it thing or the way to win class.  With that said, I fully enjoyed the Matrix. It had some things in the MMO industry that was a touch different and pulled me in. The world being set "today" I just loved. I loved being able to jump super high and land on a building then have a rooftop chase for enemies and such, very fun.  The combat, abit clunky but for the most it was in a way "innovative".. meaning, group fighting.  Like when you and a friend attacked the same opponent, it took your rolls to hit, added your modifiers and then it became a dance , so to speak , as you fought.. taking turns, you hit them with a fist, your friend would round house them.  I found alot of pleasure in that, it made the fighting (for me) more epic..(more epic then stand still and hit each other in the face hehe)

I played in the beta, (which to me had THE best beta end event I've been a part of) ..and I played a few months after it came out. And I agree with another poster here, the community and sense of world was the best it has ever been and it was a big draw for me..(didnt hurt I was in a fun guild). 

To answer the OP however.."What went wrong with Matrix Online?".. answer is, SOE. 

S.O.E. = "S#!ts On EVERYTHING"

Once SOE decided to take the live events away, the game was over. (For me anyways)

SOE didn't kill this game.  THe game was way too slow, and boring combat.  SOE might of decided to end it, but it was the right thing to do.  They had almost no customers, and even free I didn't want to play it.

I played it in open beta and I was turned off by how clunky it felt.  I tried doing an early quest and it sent me to talk to an NPC in the city.  I found the building and entered the lobby. Loading screen.  I then had to enter the elevator.  Loading screen.  I exited the elevator and then entered the appartment door where the NPC lived.  Loading screen.  I talked to the NPC and he sent me talk to another NPC.  I had to do the entire process in reverse and do it again in the building of the new NPC.  It was all a linear experience with nothing happening but me clicking on doors and watching loading screens.  The only real reason I could think for this proces was that their engine could not handle dynamic scene changes like this and had to create a small instance for every room.

The promised Live Events were superb at the beginning, though plagued by lag.  They had issues with crowd control. After the game started declining in numbers, and especially after SOE, the live vents stuff faded and the event staff playing the iconic characters was dissolved.   Combat was clunky and unbalanced. Some of the combat trees were broken and never made it up to.

One thing that stood out was after you did the monthly content updates (in the beginning, these were very robust and complete with voiced cinematics-- by the end, they were a motion comic that barely moved, in black and white, and extremely short), you were back to the same old same old in terms of missions.

Basically, a lot of wasted potential, but it had some features that I'd love to see in other games. I got spoiled on the mutable classes and wish all games had that.

Originally posted by Torik

I played it in open beta and I was turned off by how clunky it felt.  I tried doing an early quest and it sent me to talk to an NPC in the city.  I found the building and entered the lobby. Loading screen.  I then had to enter the elevator.  Loading screen.  I exited the elevator and then entered the appartment door where the NPC lived.  Loading screen.  I talked to the NPC and he sent me talk to another NPC.  I had to do the entire process in reverse and do it again in the building of the new NPC.  It was all a linear experience with nothing happening but me clicking on doors and watching loading screens.  The only real reason I could think for this proces was that their engine could not handle dynamic scene changes like this and had to create a small instance for every room.

That's exactly how I remember it.  I know they probably thought it would be like Trinity's dilemma in the beginning of the first film, but nothing spells dull more than having your first mission be in some random room in an office building.  the loading was horrendous, and having to click all those doors... if I wanted that, I'd play The Sims. 

It may have been the shortest time I've ever taken to trial a game.

I think part of the problem was in the beginning they failed to let people fulfill their desire to play in the matrix by tying bonuses to clothing so often you ended up looking like an idiot in a yellow trenchcoat, purple aligator skin cowboy hat and brown boots.

I know its a minor thing but it kinda killed a certain part of the game where you were supposed to be able to jack into the world looking how you wanted to look. They should have opened up the entire wardrobe to players at creation and then done something like having bonuses be bits of code you acquire in-game that could add to items.