So this is one of my 1st attmpts at 3-d Modeling...not all that spectacular, but it looks funny.

Rant on MMO's

Here's somethign I fired off at the developers of Matrix Online. Enough to say I'm leaving the game, but It seems with ever MMO I play, I find the its the simple things that these guys miss.
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"I'm sorry to say, all this is too little too late. I am cancelling soon, but I feel that i must state something. I guess, like most, one must tell their own sad tale. Pandora Box quests sounds like fun, but I'm done and tired with the unique/rare item raids/quests.

As for class changes, I thought someone would notice that the virologist class is the only one that can easily cap out their primary stats of VT and VC. Which to determine if the hack lands successfully, is a die roll plus their VT or VD. Making the chance of a hack working not a percentage base but just i beat out your roll. Though the same can be said about the other classes, the Virologist class is the only one that can cap out these stats with just their abilities. No way I see the MCT, RCT, CT, SAT ever allowing such a thing. Making the Hacking classes just have a natural advantage. Face it, your stat system is broken.

I'd have to say most of the game is poorly engineered based solely on this, but add on top the evade and interlock bugs, the foundation of the game is weak. With the focus on Live Events, it becomes apparent that the story is unfolding in a poor manner. Too many hands in the pot.
If I were to recommend a change, it would be to introduce story and plot through cinematics and let the player deal with the fall out rather than all come together and not feel all that signfigant. I mean it felt great when my org defeated a complete corruptor, until I found out so did the other ones. If you gave each org a different sense of the world around them, it would have made it more interesting. If you gave the players a reason to follow or be inspired by the characters of the story, it would be great. As of now, it feels like I can watch the story from the sidelines. I can watch the cinematics and read the story from the main site and the forums without paying. So what if I never have the chance to be mentioned in the game. It never feels like that kinda focus will ever be pointed at me nor should there be such a feeling. The actions we take should make us feel good enough that we'll stuff the forums with our story telling. But, I sat there spraying a huge thing with a can of bug spray waiting for the joke and the joke ws that I was sitting in front of my computer doing this and paying someone to let me do this.

The idea of Pandora's Boxes is not anymore novel than Dark Ages of Camelot introducing the Master Level Quests. It added content, but it didn't improve the quality of the game...it never made me want to buy the expansion or continue playing. The big focus of the game for Dark Ages was the Realm vs Realm. They failed in that they decided to copy Everquest and focus on dungeons. It wasn't the Everquest like play that interested me, it was the RvR. The same goes for MxO. Your gimmic is the Live Events. It that your telling a story in which the player can interact with the story but not alone. The player gets to be in a grand tale of mystery and adventure with thousands of other players. Its like sitting in a movie theater and watching it with a large audience rather than alone in the dark at home staring at a flickering screen. Right now it feels like i'm doing the later.

You can make all the patches and the fixes you want to the code, but until you correct the problem with the way you tell the story, this game is not going to be anymore interesting than the mmo's that are out there and coming out. The key to all this is the first M in MMO. Massive. This is what the game is Massive not just in player numbers, not just in world size, but in what is expected in it.

It might be too late though. With sales being low and the recent buyout from SOE, I'd have to say this game is dead in the water. With out major revamps, which are really minor in ways, this game won't take off. Imagine this game as a gaint tale that your telling around the fire. A good story teller knows how to entrap their listeners with a good tale. It more than voice acting and more than a well written plot. Its in the way its presented. At this point, its become nothing more than a story being told by a monochrome voice without a face that seems even more bored about the tale than we are.

At times it feels like the game is being played like we, the players, are nothing more than troops on the field waiting for that lasso to come down and send us to our next waypoint. The world is huge and small at times. More than most of the world doesn't even seem to be used. And what ever small part there is I use, its quite usualy the same two floors in the same two buildings.
If I were to go back ans say what I enjoyed about an RPG i've played, it would be the story. I've played FF3 so many times but I've never finished the game. Its the same story everytime I've played it, the same music, the same characters, but i still play it. If I were to talk about the online games i've played, I'd have to talk about the FPS's I've played. CounterStrike for instance made me feel proud abobut my score and the team I was working with. Call of Duty made me feel good about the 88 I saved by sacrificing myself. In all those hours I spent playing, nothing is ever really saved and no one talks of my feats, yet I loved it. I could go back and do it over and over again.

There is no sense in this game that I true felt any of that. Nor can I say that about most of my other MMO experience, maybe that means I'm not a person that should play MMO's. Or is it me, that this genre is calling out to.

You probably have this stuff in the works some where, but it won't be out for another couple years. It'll be too late. I've seen that before. Its now that your numbers should be high rather than later. This game will most likely die a slow and painful death...taking with it a great idea."
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As you can see, I'm rather pissed off at the MMO world. I mean I've seen some great things in games, but I can never really stop seeing MMO's fall flat on their faces. Sure there are numbers of players playing those games. Most are there to try and make money, some are lonely, some are crazy, some just enjoy the company.

But, if I were to say anything to these developers, it'd be stop playing these games as businesmen and play them for fun. Its like a cigarette. Would you smoke it if you knew it was bad for you? Would you stop trying to sell it to people if you knew it was bad for you?

We gamers can always see the potential of these games. yet we also see them fail. What is it about entertainment that keeps us wanting more of it? Answer that and maybe you'll find a solution.