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The Matrix Online News - Closing July 31, Game Over Q&A
Posted by Keith Cross on May 29, 2009 | 68 comments in our forums
The folks at the Matrix Online recently announced that players would be jacking out for the last time as the game is set to close down for good at the end of July. To clear up lingering questions about the shut down SOE has posted a Q&A.
As you have recently read in Dan “Walrus” Myers producer letter All Good Things Must End, The Matrix Online service will be discontinued and the servers will go dark on July 31st. After 4 memorable years of sharing amazing stories and epic adventures with a wonderful and dedicated community, we saw how deep the rabbit hole went and it was time to write the final chapter of the story. We understand that there are many questions and will do our best to answer them here.
What happens to all the code/data for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers will retain all of the code and data from The Matrix Online.Can someone open an emulated server for The Matrix Online?
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Brothers hold the copyrights for The Matrix Online stories and data so creating a fan owned and operated emulated MxO server would be against those copyrights.
Read more here.
might want to proofread before posting lol
jacking off eh?
hmmm jacking off
anyway, was this any good to begin with
Obviously it was supposed to say jacking out. I assure you all that humorous typos are in no way related to the fact that this is my second last Friday doing this monkey job.
awww /hugs szark
wow didn't think SOE would ever close a game after they added the station pass.
You gotta admit its a good laugh though. ;)
*coughing fit*
I never thought it would happen. I bet this will worry the Vanguards folks. Its seems SOE WILL cloase down games that do not do well. So much for permenant life support.
I'll do your monkey job, where can I apply?
I'm being dead serious.
Why did this game fail and how come SOE just does this without any recourse for the community?
It was ok, but not good enough to warrent subbing to, imo.
The Matrix Online has, imo, always been one of the most underrated and overlooked MMORPG's out there. It still stands out as one of the best movie licensed video games ever.
Well with the Agency and DC Universe coming out not only does shutting down the Matrix doesn't surprise me but i wouldn't put it past them doing the same thing to SWG. Vanguard seems like it has somewhat of a stronger community than those two had so i see them keeping that game going.
I'll do your monkey job, where can I apply?
I'm being dead serious.
Why did this game fail and how come SOE just does this without any recourse for the community?
You seriously need to ask this question?
Vanguard seems to be going through a bit of a resurgence. People must be getting a bit tired of wow, beause there seem to be a lot of people taking a second look at vanguard now.
Did you perhaps mean underrated and overlooked? It sounds like that may be what you meant.
Monkey job = spanking? Just wondering how the JO reference could have gotten in there...
You seriously need to ask this question?
Yes, I do.
And for once in my natural born life, in my history of playing mmorpg's I would like an intelligent and honest answer.
Is that too much to ask?
My reason, if I decide to play another SOE game, example:VANGUARD that Beauturkey has been talking about. I would like to know what kind of company I am getting involved with.
I never did the EQ or EQ2 thing, I don't know the history of SOE to tough.
Work with me here.
You will not have long to wait for that realization of SWG closing down. As Valeran and I have discussed in another thread Smedley has already put his foot in his mouth by stating in an interview that he cannot wait to play Bioware's version of SWG. He has also stated that if SOE's SWG looses subscribers after SWTOR launches then he will possibly consider closing SWG. Why this idiot is still President of SOE I have no idea.
Sad that yet another MMO is closing down. MxO was my first, since I couldn't get a EU-copy of WoW at the time. And after that I continued to SWG actually, until the NGE hit and it became WoW after all....
Let's not forget, that SOE didn't develop this game, they took over after 2(?) years. Not that they did such a great job keeping it alive of course....
I wonder if we will see more MMO closures in the future, now that the market is starting to get flooded by them.
Start with EQ and SWG. SWG especially will give you enough history on how they feel about their customers via statements from their own pieholes.
I think you mean underrated.
I actually never played this, which is sad because I've seen the movie(the first one) well over 100 times. Literally, best movie ever.
Very sad...MxO had so much potential.
I played MxO for a while, enjoyed it for the most part (the jumping!), but my PC on dialup had horrible, horrible lag and rubberbanding. I remember when the dozens of Neo/Agent Smith clones attacked players near the phone booths, it was so frustrating to not get a usable frame rate, even with every setting turned down. Got tired of the repetitive killing of gang members.
I know much was fixed over time, including an updated fight system, and my PC & connection are better, but I'm on other games now. Thanks for the fun!
im shocked it lasted this long, the game blew in beta and blew once it was released.
So now people are bagging on Smedley for being honest? Whatever.
Matrix Online is very likely just the first to be closed down. SOE needs to get rid of some dead weight and with the success of Free Realms and The Agency and DC Universe on the horizon its a good time to do it.
Smed being honest? LOL
There is no
spoongame.Lots of potential but shafted by Sony. They could have tried selling it to another party. Will miss the storyline.
SOE was, after all, MxO's third publisher. MxO was always the poor stepchild. And everything people say about missed potential, etc, etc, is true, and yes, other games came along and ate MxO's lunch. All true.
But I just have to say that the first time I jacked in, and saw the Matrix materialize around me in green symbols and then slowly fade to "reality," is one of my top 5 MMO moments. I haven't seriously played in a long time, but I'll never be sorry that they made this game.
This means Planetside is next on the chopping block. That stinks =/
im surprised this was cut before planetside was
every time i tried to get planetside to run in the last 3 years, its crashed on launch and no matter of compatibility mode would help me in vista.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by recourse for the community. The game wasn't earning money it was discontinued. What kind of recourse could there be?
Always wanted to try this game out but kept falling to the back of my mind forgetting it even existed....oh well play to many MMOs already.
I wonder with the Station Pass now losing a game, if they'll set the price back down to $25 again? They said they were increasing the subscription price because they were adding a game to the pass, now that they're taking a game away one would think the price would go back down again.
Yeah, I didn't think so either. It's funny how that official MxO Q&A didn't have any mention of that question.
The interlock combat system was an interesting concept, but in practice it was horrible. Sure, it looked cool, but being able to fight only one mob at a time was unrealistic and immersion breaking.
This was yet another attempt to change from the typical mmo combat type system to something else. Combat is integral to gameplay and if you fail the game is doomed.
The game had potential, but like a lot of SOE games that potential was never realized.
THe origional interlock combat system did let you fight multiple mobs, I was regularly jumping into a crowd of 4 - 6 and having a great time. Sadly when SOE took over, they decimated the live events stafff, which basically the game revolved around, and dumbed down the combat and nurfed it to the point of innanity.
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.
P.S. 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 ?
Game had potential, but devs weren't interested in making it a success. Sad to see WB give huge franchise name to company that obviously have no interest in making the game a success.
I was surprised the game lasted as long as it did but with it added to the Station Pass I really did think it had found a way to survive long past it's sell by date.
I gave this game a try a couple of years ago when SoE first got it and I regretted taking the time to DL it, the game play was horrendous at the time and I believe I tried it just as SoE started to work on it, so I was playing something that SoE had not yet meddled with.
The idea was good but the realisation wasn't there, a shame really as the IP should have been fantastic.
So ofc now the other Station Pass games must be getting worried.
Did you perhaps mean underrated and overlooked? It sounds like that may be what you meant.
yeah I fixed it now, thanks!
MxO was horrid at release and $oe did little to improve that. I am surprised at its closure however, i didnt think any game on the pass would be shut down. I think a few other games on the pass may follow.....
If you want to screw up a good concept just get SOE on the job. They are Uwe Boll of gaming industry. MO and SWG... I could have played both for decades based on lore only. And they managed to make them discuisting.
MxO was pretty well done. Great environment. But they just missed out on too much of the Matrix experience.
They added buffs to clothes so right off the bat the Matrix feel was lost cause instead of people dressed as they wanted to be (which is part of what jacking in was all about. constuct anyone?) people were running around in yellow croc jackets, purple cargo pants and cowboy hats. God it was awful. They should have made all clothes avail from a loading screen when 'jacking in' except for a few reward items, and then made buffs and stuff little bits of code you add to your items. Make the bits of code the items people work to get.
Also, being in the matrix was the whole of the game for the most part. Should have made real world communites (zion, machine city, etc) that people could have played in, then jacked into the matrix for action.
Unless they changed how interlock worked, you could agro multiple mobs but only fight one at a time. That's how it was at launch when I played and there were many, many disapointed fans voicing their opinions on the subject.
According to the developers, if you wanted to have the fancy, stylized, choreographed fight scenes that we were accustomed to seeing in the Matrix movies then that's how it had to be. That was the rationalization.
From all the drama I've seen. The horrible press and such, I think Aventurine holds the esteemed honor of being the "Uwe Boll of gaming". XD
Unless they changed how interlock worked, you could agro multiple mobs but only fight one at a time. That's how it was at launch when I played and there were many, many disapointed fans voicing their opinions on the subject.
According to the developers, if you wanted to have the fancy, stylized, choreographed fight scenes that we were accustomed to seeing in the Matrix movies then that's how it had to be. That was the rationalization.
I was trying to find something that would corroborate my memory of how interlock worked at launch, but I couldn't find anything on it to back up what I remember. So maybe I am remembering wrong.
Maybe there are others out there with better memories than mine that can corroborate or refute whether or not you could be engaged by multiple mobs, but once interlocked you could only fight one mob at time.
I just could not get into this mmo...but it is too good of a franchise to let this be it's swan song. I certainly hope some other Developer obtains a new license for another Matrix MMORPG...and does it justice. Did this game even allow you to go back and forth from the matrix to the "real world" ..with ships and Zion and such? Could you even play an agent?..(although I kinda understand if this was disallowed...perhaps as an unlockable character or setup like LoTRO creep play)
True! THAT was immersion for me.
Wasnt this game made by SEGA? I seem to remember the Sega logo on the box when i bought it.
Played it for about a few hours, hated it, then unistalled it. Tried it again when SOE took it over, still hated it. The combat was horrible, which i think killed this game. The game was dieing when it was given to SOE and they kept it alive even though it should have closed when WB still had it. But its all SOE's fault. They should have thrown their money at a game that probably never would have amounted to anything. Just my thought on the subject.
I played late in beta and at launch. It was a lot of fun but the content never really progressed and the game kind of stagnated. The MxO radio stations, parties, and faction roleplay was a blast though.
This.
I have still yet to play an MMO with the social interaction and immersion that Mxo had.
PvP was different to say the least. I was never really great at pvp but thoroughly enjoyed MA duels. The old school CR1 tournaments were awesome! Chasing ppl through streets and hyperjumping over buildings in a city was cool in itself. Live events are what the game was about and when SOE came along and killed that aspect off the whole game declined imo.
Really is a shame how things turned out.
Get over SWG ..
The game was only a few months old ( If that) when sony took over
With what you are saying it it was only good for a few months
Get over SWG ..
The game was only a few months old ( If that) when sony took over
With what you are saying it it was only good for a few months
Never played SWG, troll!
It was great for the first few months. The live events are what made it great!
When those were canned they just killed one of the best aspects of the game and yes things did go downhill from there. Not to say it was only good for a few mths. I enjoyed it up until the 1st anniversary. Didnt play it much during the 2nd year {other games or something cant remember}. Came back for CR2.0 which was interesting for a while but they way they had changed the storyline missions etc and little incentive to actually do them the game quickly became dull and many vets left. Only the hardcore fans remained and had to endure new players logging in and saying the game sucked without giving it a chance or knowing what it was like in the beginning.
My memory is beginning to fade on the subject. Lucky I have 1000s of screenshots to remember the good times :p
I've been waiting for this to happen for 3 years. The game itself has an ok concept, but is majorly lacking in lots and LOTS of places. Visuals are less than stunning, even for a game made 4 years ago, the combat system is sometimes unresponsive and difficult to grasp at first, let alone master. Most games hook subscribers in the first 30 minutes of game play. This game did not do that. For me, anyway. All in all, it was not for the general populace. It took a special breed of person to play that game for that long. I personally did not enjoy it, but it seems that there were people who did.
The population has been down really low since a few months in. I thought they would have shut it down sooner. Now. THe question is: WHICH IS NEXT?!?!?!??!/!/1/1?!?!/11?!?!?1
Saga of heroes or SWG?
I say saga.
Looks pretty, but doesn't have as rabbid a fanbase as SWG.
Sorry.
Time to usher in sony's new line of well produced MMO's (I hope) like free-realms (best FTP I've played) and the agency (I hope this one is good).
So long Matrix. Maybe Neo can rebuild a better version this time.
When will god damn MMO companys start allowing communities to host free servers when they "perma" shut down their games...
Same goes for Planetside which they abandoned supporting about 3 months ago, this has caused a large drop in the remaining player base. Clocks ticking there too.
SOE seem to be losing the plot accross the board at the moment.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by recourse for the community. The game wasn't earning money it was discontinued. What kind of recourse could there be?
Why can't they at least give a warning and try to rally. No, all they did was charge the same amount of money for the product that obviously didn't warrant it. If it was so bad why can't they make it free?
Well, as a beta MxOer, I'd have to sadly say that MxO failed because, just when the MMO world was getting accustomed to accessible, well-balanced, thoroughly-tested games, Monolith had set its course on making a hardcore-style grind game, and ran out of time and money before being forced to release with bugs galore and no semblance of balance. It did feature a nicely stylized clothing system and plenty of emotes, which drew the mmo-roleplayers.
It probably didn't help that the Matrix franchise's popularity was sagging badly due to the poor reception of the latter two films.
As such MxO sold very badly and from reports at the time managed less than 60k subscribers at its peak.
The 'live' plot, acted out by Monolith employees playing key roles, was the one shining gem in an otherwise sordid tale of MMO development. When Monolith ran out of money from the initial pre-orders and box sales to keep people paid, though, practicality took over.
I really don't think there's much of a community left to need recourse, but for those few fanatics still there here's a salute (/bigtrouble) and take the yellow pill ... there is No Exit. (end obscure reference to tiny Machine faction which probably nobody will remember).
Why can't they at least give a warning and try to rally. No, all they did was charge the same amount of money for the product that obviously didn't warrant it. If it was so bad why can't they make it free?
'Cause bandwidth, support staff, and servers aren't.
Well, as a beta MxOer, I'd have to sadly say that MxO failed because, just when the MMO world was getting accustomed to accessible, well-balanced, thoroughly-tested games, Monolith had set its course on making a hardcore-style grind game, and ran out of time and money before being forced to release with bugs galore and no semblance of balance. It did feature a nicely stylized clothing system and plenty of emotes, which drew the mmo-roleplayers.
It probably didn't help that the Matrix franchise's popularity was sagging badly due to the poor reception of the latter two films.
As such MxO sold very badly and from reports at the time managed less than 60k subscribers at its peak.
The 'live' plot, acted out by Monolith employees playing key roles, was the one shining gem in an otherwise sordid tale of MMO development. When Monolith ran out of money from the initial pre-orders and box sales to keep people paid, though, practicality took over.
I really don't think there's much of a community left to need recourse, but for those few fanatics still there here's a salute (/bigtrouble) and take the yellow pill ... there is No Exit. (end obscure reference to tiny Machine faction which probably nobody will remember).
Hmmm,
No. 6 you are right, it's over when it's over. I guess that MxO was a classic case of good idea + bad execution? However one thing that other studios should take from this is the live content aspect of the game as you mentioned. That's comparable to having a Dungeon Master in D & D, expect the unexpected. Thanks for stepping up and answering my question seriously and honestly.
~Ink
Aw, it's sad to see a game close. I hope that they don't lay off the hard workers.
I played the game a little, but wasn't a huge fan. I feel badly for the loyal fans though. Thankfully, there are many options to choose from these days in casual gaming.
I still havent got to experience this game.
And another one bites the dust. Just shows that a MMO is much more than just the IP.
I feel sad though as I am a huge Matrix fan.
From all the drama I've seen. The horrible press and such, I think Aventurine holds the esteemed honor of being the "Uwe Boll of gaming". XD
Well, yes and no...
Av is a "first time offender" as they've only one game.
SOE, like Uwe Boll, is a repeat offender whose actions, or in-actions, have affected several titles.
What I do not understand is that an IP based on being "Inside a virtual world" has yet to produce a title that is worth its rain of salt!
hope your not referring to SOE becasue if it wasnt for them this game would have closed down several years ago.
"Originally posted by Spiider
If you want to screw up a good concept just get SOE on the job. They are Uwe Boll of gaming industry. MO and SWG... I could have played both for decades based on lore only. And they managed to make them discuisting."
Uh, the game was horrible before SOE was ever involved, so get off your high horse, it if wasnt for them the game would have been long gone.
I would say 'great' idea(s):
- Continuity of plot from the end of the movies
- 'We-go' competitive combat system complete with complex animations, as opposed to the 'I-go, you-go' back-and-forth whacking of standard PnP and MMO games
- Dynamic re-pluggable skill tree system justified by the Matrix mythos
combined with some traditional MMO ideas that really didn't work in conjunction with the above:
- Class 'roles' (nuker, tank, healer) clashed with the dynamic trees, causing min/maxers to find unbalanced combinations and pooching PvP
- Clothing system, while diverse, came with MMO-typical stat or talent buffs, which makes no sense in the mythos and conflicted with the skill-centric play system
and lastly inexperience in the MMO arena and all-too-typical scope creep, project underestimation, and time/money constraints led to:
- Game-killing bugs in critical areas of combat, movement (e.g., being stuck in elevators), and server stability
- Imbalance between character tree choices both in PvE and PvP - being able to select a very large number of build permutations through the tree led to an impossible task of balancing them in the allotted time
- Incomplete development of game content outside of the GM-run events led to a gameplay experience that was wildly fun for an hour or four a week and mindnumbingly dull the rest of the time. The newbie missions and those associated with plot points were well-crafted and everything else was, essentially, kill 10 rats repeated a nearly infinite number of times, with slightly different textures to look at every few levels.
Monolith worked like dogs to deliver but MMO development is a different project entirely than a normal game or IT project.
Lastly, all, leave SOE out of this one. They didn't reinvent MxO as it clearly needed but they didn't create the initial fubar and (unlike some of their other games' overhauls) they didn't do any harm to MxO.