Another One Bites The Dust: The Matrix Online
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iTZKooPA on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 17 Comments Tags: another one bites the dust, canon, dreamcast, hd dvd, live event, lore, monolith productions, official canon, story, storytelling, tabula rasa, the matrix online, the matrix online closing, the matrix storyline, virtual boy, warhammer online
iTZKooPA on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 17 Comments Tags: another one bites the dust, canon, dreamcast, hd dvd, live event, lore, monolith productions, official canon, story, storytelling, tabula rasa, the matrix online, the matrix online closing, the matrix storyline, virtual boy, warhammer online 
Obvious PunIt's quite sad that we are able to make this a column, but the death of MMOGs is inevitable in the industry. Some games just never meet the company's expectations. Others flounder after launch, and a few are supplanted by follow-ups or sequels. As shocking as it may sound now, there will even come a time when our beloved World of Warcraft is taken offline. Although knowing Blizzard it'll be supported, at least in maintenance mode, for a very, very long time after it loses its massive popularity.
As noted in the original dust biting post, losing an MMOG is never a good thing. As human beings we like to see "our" products succeed in the market for the simple reason that we spent money on them (HD DVD). We supported them (Dreamcast), therefore we want them (Virtual Boy) to last forever so our investment seems sound. The ugly side of this trait is that it causes us to tear down competing products as evidenced by the WoW vs WAR debate. A practice that is both pointless and harmful to the industry at large. Rather than cheer that our MMO "won", let's mourn the loss of someone else's cherished hobby.
The Matrix Online (MxO) had a mix of classic MMOG issues at launch. The title by no means broke sales records or gained a huge following. In many opinions this is thanks to the degradation of the intellectual property before its release. Way to go Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions. Despite this, it kept enough subscribers aboard to stay afloat and support its continued development. After all, it is doubtful that Sega, Monolith, and later Sony, would have kept the game alive for four plus years if it was bleeding money AIG-style.
Enough melancholy, let's get to the good stuff, the single feature that kept MxO alive and well for over four years, story progression. While I didn't get hooked by MxO due to its odd gameplay, I was line and sinkered by the IP the title was based on. The link between the two projects forced me to keep an eye on the game's big events. You see, MxO was given official canon status of Warner Bros.'s The Matrix universe. What this means is that everything that happened in the game officially happened in The Matrix storyline. I've never heard of another video game taking over as a product's main form of progression, but the idea fits perfectly into an MMO.
Monolith Productions took things even further with Live Events, which were carried to Sony Online Entertainment's development as well. In these scenarios crazy stuff could and did happen (ie Machine/Human truce broken). The events and people partaking in them became legends. For example, let's say that by sheer luck and skill your character managed to hold off a passageway leading to the center of Zion during an event. Your act of bravery, if discovered and appreciated by other players, could be added to the story of the event, thus cementing yourself a place in the official story of The Matrix. Forget about having an impact on the game world, you'd have an impact on the official game/movie/comic lore. Forever! How cool would that be?
Check out this post by the lead game designer, Rarebit, if you are interested in finding out what The Matrix Online brought to the overall story. Hopefully a more comprehensive update is made in the near future. Perhaps the silver lining in the closure is that MxO will be going out with one final bang before it shuts down at the end of July.
From the goodbye post:
"The team will also be whipping up an end-of-the-world event. It won’t be quite the same as having over 100 developers in the game as Agents like when we ended beta, but we have 4 years of tricks up our sleeve. It’ll be a chance to revisit all the things that make MxO the memorable experience it is. And how could we pull the plug without crushing everyone’s RSI just one more time?"
Now what am I going to follow for my SyFy (sorry, I mean sci-fi) fix?
Reader Comments (17)
I'm sort of amazed how many MMO's there are out there. I can only even name about 4, but there are soooo many, it seems sort of crazy.
It is unfortunate. Having more MMORPGs is beneficial because it helps maintain competition and keep the field diverse and vibrant. Never heard of there being an online game for The Matrix, but I'm sad to hear it go.
I heard about this game 2 years ago. Unfortunately, I was, and still am, into WoW. So I never got to try it. Now, hearing about its awesome story contribution stuff, I wish I could have tried it. It sounds really fun.
Oh, and Reloaded wasn't too bad. Revolutions sucked the big one though.
I heard about this MMO years ago, didn't think it was still about.
Any links to it? Might subscribe for the last event, would be something special, I know if I was a dev, I'd give my baby the biggest send off possible.
I wonder how long till wow looses its majority of subscribers.
IOLoL it will prob be a long long while :P, unless blizz makes a huge slip-up, which is very doubtful, i see WoW staying the power house even after The Old Republic drops, really the only game that could even begin to compete.
I am not going to lie. I thought this MMO died like right after it came out. I didn't even know you could even play it anymore!
I think the slew of horrible Matrix tie ins kind of ruined any chance this game had with the masses....
@Dan; I think you mean sequels? =P
Everything Matrix related that wasn't the first film was awful. XD
i didnt even knew this game was online..
I personally think the reason that MMORPG's keep dropping is because unlike WOW they released everything at once MxO was sent ouyt their then hardly touched ever by the makers except for occasional updates. You would have to be a hard core matrix fan to stay with this game and the only people who did loved MxO... "follow the white rabbit". lmao
Hands down WoW is the best and it will stay that way because their is still so much they can add to the game.
i give wow 3 years and thats a rough estimate they have maybe one more expenchion in them unless they clean up their act the next patch is going to drop allot of people the wow armagadon has started it wont be the lich king the scourge or the burning legion nor the old gods blizz seems to be tripping on every step only matter time before blizz pushes WOW down the endless abyss that all MMO games fall to blizz needs guide WOW a bit better the only way blizz can save WOW is by adding new content and you can only do that for so long
@cocopuffplease pre-read your posts from now on. i dont think anyone could understand what you just attempted to write.on to the subject at hand.When MxO came out i was very excited for it. I was( and still am) a huge fan of the series. So when the game released,yes i hopped on the ban wagon and checked it out. the gameplay was borderline horrible. But the story and the story progression was amazing. It was enevitable that the game would crash, but i am glad to see that it lasted this long. It is still sad to see it go, the more MMOG's there are the harder ther dev teams have to work to keep up. Thus giving us more and more interesting and fun content.
I played Matrix Online for the month that came with the game (Before I was playing WoW) and it was the biggest waste of my hard earned cash barring the purchase of THQ's Firewarrior!!!!
Oh Dreamcast I MISS YOU SO! no really, its sitting over there...
what was so confusing about my last post
They can do it like Turbine with DDO - Dungeons and Dragons. Release client game for free with some restriction which you would buy for real money. Instead they kill it and now there isn´t game like Matrix Online. So I ask - why SOE kill Matrix Online, there were another ways of resolution.
Great article on the final days of MxO:
http://gamerlimit.com/2009/06/the-matrix-online-unplugged-where-it-all-went-wrong/