Matrix Online how bad is it really?

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I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
(if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
are lucky enough to get through).

Just how bad is this game?
 
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"mike allegretto" <rallegre@stny.rr.com> wrote in message
news:6t6281ho2trh002sqd084nrtg8uln0c0h3@4ax.com...
>I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
> (if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
> of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
> are lucky enough to get through).
>
> Just how bad is this game?
>

Because of the cancel method, I never tried the game. Plus, I read some on the official forums, and
the game didn't sound very stable. It also sounded like it had very little content.
 
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"James_" <_no_@spam.com> wrote in message
news:wPOdnVZZZfGAghzfRVn-iw@midco.net...
> "mike allegretto" <rallegre@stny.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:6t6281ho2trh002sqd084nrtg8uln0c0h3@4ax.com...

>>I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
>> (if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
>> of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
>> are lucky enough to get through).

> Because of the cancel method, I never tried the game.

What's the story here, I hadn't heard about this. You can sign up online but
you can't cancel online?

--
Bob Perez

"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they
quit playing."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
 
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In article <wPOdnVZZZfGAghzfRVn-iw@midco.net>, _no_@spam.com says...
> "mike allegretto" <rallegre@stny.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:6t6281ho2trh002sqd084nrtg8uln0c0h3@4ax.com...
> >I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
> > (if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
> > of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
> > are lucky enough to get through).
> >
> > Just how bad is this game?
> >
>
> Because of the cancel method, I never tried the game. Plus, I read some on the official forums, and
> the game didn't sound very stable. It also sounded like it had very little content.

The open beta was enough for me. I spent less than 4 hours in the game
and I *knew* that it was not for me and offered absolutely NOTHING that
hadn't already been done better by another game before.

--
Rob Berryhill
 
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Bob Perez wrote:
> "James_" <_no_@spam.com> wrote in message
> news:wPOdnVZZZfGAghzfRVn-iw@midco.net...
>
>>"mike allegretto" <rallegre@stny.rr.com> wrote in message
>>news:6t6281ho2trh002sqd084nrtg8uln0c0h3@4ax.com...
>
>
>>>I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
>>>(if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
>>>of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
>>>are lucky enough to get through).
>
>
>>Because of the cancel method, I never tried the game.
>
>
> What's the story here, I hadn't heard about this. You can sign up online but
> you can't cancel online?


Have to either send in a petition or phone up. I sent in a petition and
cancelled in 2 weeks, its dire, no content, lots of lag and other bugs.

--
Byron Hinson
My Photography
http://www.designerdream.co.uk/photography
 
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On 2005-05-10, mike allegretto <rallegre@stny.rr.com> wrote:
> I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
> (if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
> of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
> are lucky enough to get through).
>
> Just how bad is this game?

I played it in beta and it was unplayable. This was a couple of
months before release. In fact they got so desperate for beta
testers they were handing out beta accounts to fan sites who
would hand them out to anyone who would e-mail them.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Had the game come out when Anarchy Online came out, it would have been
a close call between the two, but hmm.. AO came like decades ago.
Granted, I only played beta (close to release) for a few hours, and was
turned off by the simulacra (I think they called it), basically,
everyone at level 1 could have a pet that would grow in level, so
pretty much everyone has a pet. That was just too stupid for me to
digest. Besides, the run to mission to kill 2 guys or click on glowie
didn't break it for me.

If you like urban setting MMORPGs, play CoH, it's an awesome MMORPG
(and the best one I've played so far, including WoW and EQ2)
 
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Despite all the people who seem to want this game to fail, reports from
players indicate that the game is fun if you like the martial arts
arcade game style combat. The only negative thing I have heard
repeatedly is that the missions get repetative.

I played briefly during the beta and it was interesting but not really
to my taste.

I hope this game influences future games, the two great concepts are no
zone lines and making almost every building have a full interior that
can be entered and explored.
 
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Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:

>Just like the film! Extracting energy from humans by sustaining the humans
>with energy, come on.

Yeah, that was damn stupid. If at least they'd used the brainpower of
the captive humans as organic computers, or even as the machine-logic
solution to keeping humans happy and safe in a deteriorating world.


--
A True Hero: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03ALI.html
 
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mike allegretto <rallegre@stny.rr.com> writes:

> I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
> (if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
> of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
> are lucky enough to get through).

I enjoy it a lot - all the horror stories I heard from the beta are
(mostly) absent, though there are still a lot of "issues" - like
broken missions and an unbalanced combat system.

It has somewhat higher hardware requirements than I like, though - I
have the min specs and it often feels sluggish when many people are
playing.
 
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On 11 May 2005 18:00:40 +0200, Tor Iver Wilhelmsen
<tor.iver.wilhelmsen@broadpark.no> wrote:

>mike allegretto <rallegre@stny.rr.com> writes:
>
>> I have heard ppl are leaving this game faster than Star Wars Galaxies
>> (if thats possible) plus other things like they got a real shady way
>> of making you cancel your account (cant do it online gotta call if you
>> are lucky enough to get through).
>
>I enjoy it a lot - all the horror stories I heard from the beta are
>(mostly) absent, though there are still a lot of "issues" - like
>broken missions and an unbalanced combat system.
>
>It has somewhat higher hardware requirements than I like, though - I
>have the min specs and it often feels sluggish when many people are
>playing.


Are people truly leaving the game as fast as i have heard? Also have
these broken missions been broken long? If so why haven't they fixed
them?
As for the combat system whats wrong with it?
 
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<wolfing1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115817510.615912.257620@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Had the game come out when Anarchy Online came out, it would have been
> a close call between the two, but hmm.. AO came like decades ago.
> Granted, I only played beta (close to release) for a few hours, and was
> turned off by the simulacra (I think they called it), basically,
> everyone at level 1 could have a pet that would grow in level, so
> pretty much everyone has a pet. That was just too stupid for me to
> digest. Besides, the run to mission to kill 2 guys or click on glowie
> didn't break it for me.
>
> If you like urban setting MMORPGs, play CoH, it's an awesome MMORPG
> (and the best one I've played so far, including WoW and EQ2)
>

Apparently I'm one of a very few on this board actually playing the game and
somewhat enjoying it (though, in all honesty, I do have to take it in small
doses - haven't touched it for two weeks, but haven't given up on it yet
either). Then again, haven't played any games for a week, period, and I've
also got Guild Wars, EQ2, Jade Empire and KoToR 2 on my plate at the moment
to juggle around. So, it's just one I pick up for a few hours at the moment
when the mood strikes me.

It can be a fun diversion, but it certainly has it's problems.

On the simulacra issue, if you only played a few hours you didn't get to the
point where the 'pet' limitations became obvious. Anyone can have any
'class' loaded for their level at a given time, true, but there are only so
many memory slots available. The simulacra 1.0 program you start with maxes
out at level 4, and is pretty much useless once you hit level 7. If you
want to keep a pet on hand, you would need to go down the coder skill branch
to get the next level simulacra program. So the number of simulacra running
around following players thins out rather quickly after the first 6 levels
or so.

Mission-wise, Matrix Online has a mission system that is pretty much a
carbon copy of City of Heros. You pick up contacts as you go along, and you
either call them or go visit them for your missions exactly like in CoH. In
fact, the mission types are very similar to those available in CoH. Patrol
here, pick up an item there, talk to so-and-so over there, escort
redpill/bluepill/program yaddayadda to this point (escort missions being a
huge pain in the neck during live events such as those where agents are
popping out of the woodwork every 60 paces)

The hand to hand combat system is my chief complaint with this game. The
camera does wierd stuff at times, making it easy to lose your view of what's
going on. It's a somewhat turn-based mechanic with serious lag issues.
Darn it, NPCs even pop up off the floor after you've just killed them so
that they may get in their last 'turn'. Not just sometimes, but every time.

I guess I'm definitely not a fan-boy here. The game has its problems and I
can only take so much of it at once. But it can be a fun diversion at the
right time (or an exercise in frustration at the wrong time).

I guess you could say my overall reaction is mixed.
 
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On 2005-05-11, Alex Mars <alexmars@aol.com> wrote:

> I hope this game influences future games, the two great concepts are no
> zone lines and making almost every building have a full interior that
> can be entered and explored.

Actually WoW already does this. There are a few zone lines for
instances and areas like the underground tram but other than that
it's completely free to roam around and go inside buildings.
 
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shadows May 12, 9:08 am show options

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg
From: shadows <shad...@whitefang.com> - Find messages by this author
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 08:08:14 -0500
Local: Thurs,May 12 2005 9:08 am
Subject: Re: Matrix Online how bad is it really?
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On 2005-05-11, Alex Mars <alexm...@aol.com> wrote:



>> I hope this game influences future games, the two great concepts are
no
>> zone lines and making almost every building have a full interior
that
>> can be entered and explored.


>Actually WoW already does this. There are a few zone lines for
>instances and areas like the underground tram but other than that
>it's completely free to roam around and go inside buildings.

True, WoW has done away with zone lines in the countryside. However,
if you go into Stormwind you will see buildings that cannot be entered,
and in the wilderness there are windmills and such with doors that do
not open.

The other things that MxO brings to the genre is transparent windows,
something else I'd like to see in other games.
 
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James Garvin:

jg> Can someone explain the plot of M3 to me? I mean come on....It
jg> didn't fit with 1 or 2 or it fit with 1, but not 2 or it fit with
jg> 2, but not 1. I was just impossible to figure out WHAT the point of
jg> the whole thing was.

No explanation needed. It was the desperate attempt to stretch a concept
beyond its endurance. The "aha" effect of the first movie already wears
thin at the end of M1. The movie was good because it was timed right: the
audience was not yet done sorting out the "virtual reality" gag when the
thing turned into an action flick. When Neo undergoes his ridiculous
transformation into supermans aenemic little brother, the film mercifully
ends.

At that point people start writing PhD thesises about this stuff and JP2
elevates the Wrothers to sainthood. Unfortunately 'twas all they had to
give, so the next two of the inevitable trilogy were derivative shite.
Action packed shite, to be sure, but shite nonetheless. Trying to figure
out the point of it is like trying to understand the jokes that my 5-year
old daughter starts telling after she cracked us all up with the first one.

Regards, Hartmut "there can be only One" Schmider

--
Hartmut Schmider, Queen's University

We are capable of sacrificing ourselves for sentiment.
Sentimentality exacts the sacrifice of others.
Yoritomo-Tashi
 
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"toolstech" <spam_someone@else.com> writes:

> Mission-wise, Matrix Online has a mission system that is pretty much a
> carbon copy of City of Heros.

As are the cars in the streets, pedestrians, gangs roaming around...
in fact it borrows heavily from CoH in most aspects.

> The hand to hand combat system is my chief complaint with this game. The
> camera does wierd stuff at times, making it easy to lose your view of what's
> going on.

You should go into options and change it from the idiotic default
setting to "scripted", that's far better.

> It's a somewhat turn-based mechanic with serious lag issues.

Yes, especially if you end up defaulting to "defend" - which means in
the 1-3 combat turns worth of lag before you can input combat actions,
you will do no damage.

The big issue is that while you are locked with one opponent in melee
(Interlock), other mobs nearby can happily shoot you full of bullets.
Thankfully, even firearms-oriented builds end up with decent melee
damage so fights can be quickly finished if the random number
generator is on your side.

> Darn it, NPCs even pop up off the floor after you've just killed them so
> that they may get in their last 'turn'. Not just sometimes, but every time.

That appears to be a bug if you and your pet are figting the same mob.
 
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James Garvin <jgarvin2004@comcast.net> writes:

> Can someone explain the plot of M3 to me? I mean come on....It didn't
> fit with 1 or 2 or it fit with 1, but not 2 or it fit with 2, but not
> 1. I was just impossible to figure out WHAT the point of the whole
> thing was.

That was probably the reason for the Deus ex Machina ending when
everything was reset: The Warchowski brothers couldn't figure out the
point, either. :)
 
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In article <uZadnR8zqO5mGh7fRVn-jA@comcast.com>, jgarvin2004
@comcast.net says...

> Can someone explain the plot of M3 to me? I mean come on....It didn't
> fit with 1 or 2 or it fit with 1, but not 2 or it fit with 2, but not 1.
> I was just impossible to figure out WHAT the point of the whole thing was.

My theory:

1. General observation: Everything is the Matrix, even the Matrix. The
machines are being simulated too. God in his white suit watches it all
on telly.

2. The plot: Agent Smith is a defensive program gone wrong, to the
detriment of humans and machines alike. The Oracle gave Neo half of a
two-part Trojan worm designed to destroy Smith. When Smith killed the
Oracle he unwittingly absorbed the first half and passed it to all his
copies. When he absorbed the second part of the Trojan from Neo, the
two parts interacted faster than his defensive systems could counteract
them, and he and all his copies were destroyed.

Well, that's as far as I got, and since I don't intend to watch it
again, that's as far as I will get...

- Gerry Quinn
 
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On Fri, 13 May 2005 11:51:29 +1000, Greg Johnson <greg.gsj@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. They blatantly stole the
>ending from there.

Actually, no: they blatently stole the end from "Third Eye" by Sophia
Stewart, who submitted the story to the Wachowski brothers several
years before and had it rejected. They just didn't understand the
ending, which is why they told it so badly. The subject is currently
in court (and probably will be until the end of time, with a
never-ending string of appeals...)
 
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>>On the simulacra issue, if you only played a few hours you didn't get
to the
point where the 'pet' limitations became obvious. Anyone can have any
'class' loaded for their level at a given time, true, but there are
only so
many memory slots available. The simulacra 1.0 program you start with
maxes
out at level 4, and is pretty much useless once you hit level 7. If
you
want to keep a pet on hand, you would need to go down the coder skill
branch
to get the next level simulacra program. So the number of simulacra
running
around following players thins out rather quickly after the first 6
levels
or so.
>>
It still killed the game for me. See, when I play games based on a
movie (like Matrix Online or Star Wars Galaxies), I expect that when I
play them I somehow feel like I'm in the world(s) depicted in the
movie, that's one of the selling points, as there probably are better
games that are not based on movies but have other strong points. Just
like seeing people walking in Corellia with 2 huge rancors happilly
following them killed my enjoyment of SWG, so did watching everybody
that just 'awoke' in the Matrix with a simulacrum behind them.
It kinda tells me if the developers will make common sense decisions in
the long run or just add things because they look cool, without any
regards to the 'universe' or storyline they created. To me, that's
important.
 
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drocket wrote:
> On Fri, 13 May 2005 11:51:29 +1000, Greg Johnson <greg.gsj@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. They blatantly stole the
>>ending from there.
>
>
> Actually, no: they blatently stole the end from "Third Eye" by Sophia
> Stewart, who submitted the story to the Wachowski brothers several
> years before and had it rejected. They just didn't understand the
> ending, which is why they told it so badly. The subject is currently
> in court (and probably will be until the end of time, with a
> never-ending string of appeals...)

Ya, Mrs. Steward wrote the story in 1981! She submitted it to the
Wrothers and they rejected it.

I have a feeling she submitted the first script in full and the other 2
were just summaries...The wrothers managed to completely convolute and
destroy what otherwise would have been an excellent story.
 
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On 2005-05-12, Tor Iver Wilhelmsen <tor.iver.wilhelmsen@broadpark.no> wrote:
> James Garvin <jgarvin2004@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Can someone explain the plot of M3 to me? I mean come on....It didn't
>> fit with 1 or 2 or it fit with 1, but not 2 or it fit with 2, but not
>> 1. I was just impossible to figure out WHAT the point of the whole
>> thing was.
>
> That was probably the reason for the Deus ex Machina ending when
> everything was reset: The Warchowski brothers couldn't figure out the
> point, either. :)

Everything wasn't reset. It was reset before but in M3 things
finally changed. Did you see the same movie I did?
 
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On 2005-05-12, Gerry Quinn <gerryq@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote:

> 2. The plot: Agent Smith is a defensive program gone wrong, to the
> detriment of humans and machines alike.

You're getting things mixed up. Agent Smith was a Program, Neo
was a Human, and the machines are completely seperate. Three
different factions.

The irony, which was lost on a lot of people, is that Neo and
Smith wanted, ultimately, the same thing.
 
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Mean_Chlorine wrote:

>Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:
>
>
>
>>Just like the film! Extracting energy from humans by sustaining the humans
>>with energy, come on.
>>
>>
>
>Yeah, that was damn stupid. If at least they'd used the brainpower of
>the captive humans as organic computers, or even as the machine-logic
>solution to keeping humans happy and safe in a deteriorating world.
>

The whole story is purely to provide an excuse for the Matrix, so that
someone can be the special d3wd who can play superman in a computer
sim. The power thing was a poot excuse for all that. These sim-world
stories go back in SF a Long way. Admittedly much of the logic in the
writing was great, especially the dialogue with the Architect, but the
simple fact is, people make lousy batteries. If they wanted
bio-batteries they should have used lichens, or anemones, something
without a tendancy to think for itself.

I would have done the excuse part entirely differently. The machines
were spawned by human AI projects. Obviously the humans would have
programmed a prime directive of protecting the existance of humans. SO,
once things went wrong and the machines started making political
decisions, they would implement this protection (al la "Colossus - The
Forbin Project") by enslaving them in the Matrix. Same overall effect,
but at least we are not asked to accept the human battery (and did
anyone miss the Product Placement advertising by Duracell?) as the
reason for a world of billions of electro-dreaming fools.

Still, it was pretty good, as such things go. The game could have been
one of the best ever. Might still, in a couple three years. But as is,
puke.


--
A sufficiently advanced computer network protective attitude is indistinguishable from paranoia.
 
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<wolfing1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115990149.896816.278900@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>>
> It still killed the game for me. See, when I play games based on a
> movie (like Matrix Online or Star Wars Galaxies), I expect that when I
> play them I somehow feel like I'm in the world(s) depicted in the
> movie, that's one of the selling points, as there probably are better
> games that are not based on movies but have other strong points. Just
> like seeing people walking in Corellia with 2 huge rancors happilly
> following them killed my enjoyment of SWG, so did watching everybody
> that just 'awoke' in the Matrix with a simulacrum behind them.
> It kinda tells me if the developers will make common sense decisions in
> the long run or just add things because they look cool, without any
> regards to the 'universe' or storyline they created. To me, that's
> important.
>

I see what you're saying. But since it's an MMO, it pretty much _had_ to be
in there in some form or another or you'd have a lot of "Duuuuude! Where's
my pet?" complaints at release. Seems to be part of the standard MMORPG
formulae at the moment.