The Other Side of the Looking Glass - 04/10/06
I'd like to apologize for not getting this out sooner, but things came up (including an illness) that prevented getting this posted on time. Since we're about to release Update 47, I'm putting this up now to explain some of what's coming to the game.
Update 47 is currently scheduled to go live on Friday, October 6, in the morning. As long as the final pre-release test comes out clean, that should be a solid date. Of course, in this business, we like to keep a large bag of salt handy because we take everything with a grain or two.
Update 47: Large Patch
In order to make the White Hallway doors appear on the mission maps correctly, we have to rebundle each District. Rebundling a District requires a pretty large patch, so we're doing these one at a time. The first will be the largest--Slums/Barrens--and will fix the Zion White Hallway doors. We'll follow up later with International (Merovingian) and Downtown (Machine) rebundles, which will both be large, but not as large as Slums/Barrens.
Organization Construct Enhancements: Correction
In case you missed the announcement, I have a correction regarding the Organization construct enhancements I mentioned a few weeks ago. According to Rarebit, we do not actually need to rebundle the world to add the "trainers" and simulacra to the constructs. Therefore, all three constructs will have trainers as of Update 47.
As you can see from last week's Image Retrieval, not only are you going to get high-level sims to fight, but you're also going to see some familiar faces.
Organization Trainer Available Simulacra
Zion Link The Assassin
Sleepwalker
Veil
Machine Agent Pace A Twin
The Kid
N30 Agent
Merovingian The Merovingian Morpheus
Niobe
Ghost
The simulacrum will be chosen at random when activated and each will be a level-70 NPC. Only one sim can be running in a construct at a time, so make sure you have the firepower to take it down.
Org-Hopping Fix
Players being able to "change" Organizations by leaving a Crew has been a long-time community issue, especially in regards to PvP combat. So, we're making changes to the Crew system to make it much less attractive to do so.
Now when a player joins a Crew, that player's Reputation with both opposing Organizations will drop to -5. If the player's Reputation is already -5 or below with an Organization, there will be no change to that score. Since a player must have a Reputation of at least 0 with an Organization in order to join a Crew, we felt this was just enough to make Org-hopping unattractive.
We're hoping that these changes will make it unattractive to exploit the Crew system to Org hop. We can always adjust the penalties later if it seems that they aren't appropriate.
Other Changes
There are a lot of other changes in Update 47, including fixing Antibiotic pills so they don't stack with each other. The full Update 47 notes will be posted on the website and forums as soon as the final version is complete.
Update 47 is currently scheduled to go live on Friday, October 6, in the morning. As long as the final pre-release test comes out clean, that should be a solid date. Of course, in this business, we like to keep a large bag of salt handy because we take everything with a grain or two.
Update 47: Large Patch
In order to make the White Hallway doors appear on the mission maps correctly, we have to rebundle each District. Rebundling a District requires a pretty large patch, so we're doing these one at a time. The first will be the largest--Slums/Barrens--and will fix the Zion White Hallway doors. We'll follow up later with International (Merovingian) and Downtown (Machine) rebundles, which will both be large, but not as large as Slums/Barrens.
Organization Construct Enhancements: Correction
In case you missed the announcement, I have a correction regarding the Organization construct enhancements I mentioned a few weeks ago. According to Rarebit, we do not actually need to rebundle the world to add the "trainers" and simulacra to the constructs. Therefore, all three constructs will have trainers as of Update 47.
As you can see from last week's Image Retrieval, not only are you going to get high-level sims to fight, but you're also going to see some familiar faces.
Organization Trainer Available Simulacra
Zion Link The Assassin
Sleepwalker
Veil
Machine Agent Pace A Twin
The Kid
N30 Agent
Merovingian The Merovingian Morpheus
Niobe
Ghost
The simulacrum will be chosen at random when activated and each will be a level-70 NPC. Only one sim can be running in a construct at a time, so make sure you have the firepower to take it down.
Org-Hopping Fix
Players being able to "change" Organizations by leaving a Crew has been a long-time community issue, especially in regards to PvP combat. So, we're making changes to the Crew system to make it much less attractive to do so.
Now when a player joins a Crew, that player's Reputation with both opposing Organizations will drop to -5. If the player's Reputation is already -5 or below with an Organization, there will be no change to that score. Since a player must have a Reputation of at least 0 with an Organization in order to join a Crew, we felt this was just enough to make Org-hopping unattractive.
We're hoping that these changes will make it unattractive to exploit the Crew system to Org hop. We can always adjust the penalties later if it seems that they aren't appropriate.
Other Changes
There are a lot of other changes in Update 47, including fixing Antibiotic pills so they don't stack with each other. The full Update 47 notes will be posted on the website and forums as soon as the final version is complete.
Posted on 05 Oct 2006 by LostProphet
Update 47 – Friday, October 6, 2006
These are the full notes for Update 47, scheduled to release on Friday, October 6, 2006.
Featured Changes
The Matrix Online Story Continues in Episode 6.1!
The 6.1 Storyline missions and cinematic are now available in game.
The first 6.1 critical mission will be available as soon as the patch is live. The remaining four missions will roll out each following Thursday (10/12, 10/19, 10/26, and 11/2) at 1:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (0800 hours GMT).
Org-Construct Training Simulacra
The org-specific White Hallway missions now include combat training simulacra. Activate the marked computer in the area to spawn the simulacra. The simulacra are very powerful, so be careful!
Increased Unlimit Activity
Hostile Unlimit soldiers are now appearing in all districts.
Are the Unlimit cheat codes leaking into the System? We could swear it's a little brighter and greener around the city than it used to be.
Chapter 5 Missions Archived
Tickets for the chapter 5 archive missions are now available from Archivist Vendors. Tokens from the last mission in each subchapter may be turned in to the PDA vendors for a new reward item.
Slums/Barrens Rebundle
The first District rebundle is complete. The Zion white hallway mission door pointers now point to the correct doors in the district.
Construct Boss-Drops Increased
The special-item drop-rates for the Yuki, Ashencourte, Sakura, and Widow's Moor construct bosses have been quadrupled (again). They now drop at an average rate of 1 in 30 times (you should expect to have to kill the Sakura Tengu about thirty times to get one female Ninja Mask, for instance, but it can vary to be more or less than that, since it is a fixed 1 in 30 random chance per kill); the previous drop rate for these items was 1 in 120.
Agents Re-armed
Agents now use the System FM-1500 Magnum as their standard sidearm.
Crew/Reputation System Changes
You may not join a crew unless you have a reputation of at least 0 in that crew's organization. Joining a crew will set your reputation in the other organizations to -5 unless your reputation is already lower than this. You will not lose your crew if your reputation falls below 0, but if you leave or are kicked you won't be able to rejoin until you get your reputation back to 0.
Changes and Improvements
* Story items now show up in the "Items > Tools > Awakened" Marketplace category.
* The code versions of items found on the Prop Vendors now have standard code icons.
* Unique NPCs (Ookami, Morpheus, Argon, etc) now have consistent character levels.
* Level 53+ Unlimit bosses are now loaded with nice loot.
* Patch Daemons now cast buffs as well as heals.
* The wording of the collector Binary Boy's exchange text has been clarified to make it clear that you can sell the Box he gives you for more $info elsewhere. Thanks Styan.
* There is a new yellow-green flavor of laptop computer in missions. Also, the gray laptops are no longer floating, and laptops no longer have ghostly green screen letters emerging from their keyboard.
* Removed the useless "HackComputerAbilityGrant" pills from Zion archive mission 1.3.3.
* Stealth abilities will now break after hacking a computer.
* Increased the buffs on the weaker archive construct loot items so that they should now be competitive, or slightly better than, standard buffed items of the same level.
Bug Fixes
* Players can no longer avoid losing Inventory items by uploading them at a hardline while they are dead.
* Fixed a typo in the head of security's first message, phase 2, Zion mission 5.3.4 ("Aqua Gulp"). Thanks zeroone506.
* The Anome doppleganger in Machine 5.3.5 (archived version) is now correctly referred to as a "simulacrum" rather than a "simulacra."
* Added a word missing from Agent Gray's text opening the fourth phase of Machine mission 5.3.3, "Blackout" (thanks zeroone506).
* Fixed two typos in Brenda Utley's last message in Zion archive mission 5.3.3, "Sweet Tastee Wheat" (thanks Nicks).
* Fixed a typo in the operator's text when giving the documents to Persephone in phase 3 of Merv 5.3.3, "Persuasion" (thanks zeroone506).
* Fixed a typo in the operator's text in phase 1 of Zion archive mission 4.2.1.
* The final message in Machine archive mission 3.2.4 now comes correctly from the operator rather than from Agent Gray.
* The goal completion message in phase 5 of Zion archive mission 1.2.17, "Bombs and Betrayal," now comes from Tyndall instead of from the operator (thanks zeroone506).
* Fixed typo in second message from Brenda Utley, phase 4, Zion 5.3.1 (thanks personIII).
* Fixed a typo in the Effectuator's text in phase 1 of Zion mission 5.2.4.
* Added some missing lobby security guard groups in Morrell, Lamar, and Rogers Way.
* Movement speed penalties from Invisibility will no longer persist once invisibility is broken.
* Ghost strike will now properly reapply invisibility and will not indirectly trigger self defense.
* Combat Aura 2.0 vendor and crafting costs increased.
* U.I. Lag 2.0 vendor and crafting costs reduced.
* Overheat 1.0 vendor and crafting costs increased.
* Code Freeze 2.0 vendor and crafting costs reduced.
* Coder style vendor and crafting costs reduced.
* The $info cost for writing a code is now shown correctly in the Write Code UI.
* Unequipping abilities no longer removes upgrades or downgrades placed on you by other characters.
* Delete Upgrade 2.0 no longer clears the combat stance (Speed/Power/Grab/Block) on the target.
* Bug causing Delete Upgrade Abilities to only remove parts of a target's enhancements has been fixed. (All of a buff's effects are now cleared when Delete Upgrade is used successfully.)
* Antibiotic pills no longer stack with each other. (They do still stack with Negative Condition Sweep effects.)
* Fixed a punctuation typo in the operator's text in phase 1 of Zion archive mission 5.3.1 (thanks Othinn1 and zeroone506).
Featured Changes
The Matrix Online Story Continues in Episode 6.1!
The 6.1 Storyline missions and cinematic are now available in game.
The first 6.1 critical mission will be available as soon as the patch is live. The remaining four missions will roll out each following Thursday (10/12, 10/19, 10/26, and 11/2) at 1:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (0800 hours GMT).
Org-Construct Training Simulacra
The org-specific White Hallway missions now include combat training simulacra. Activate the marked computer in the area to spawn the simulacra. The simulacra are very powerful, so be careful!
Increased Unlimit Activity
Hostile Unlimit soldiers are now appearing in all districts.
Are the Unlimit cheat codes leaking into the System? We could swear it's a little brighter and greener around the city than it used to be.
Chapter 5 Missions Archived
Tickets for the chapter 5 archive missions are now available from Archivist Vendors. Tokens from the last mission in each subchapter may be turned in to the PDA vendors for a new reward item.
Slums/Barrens Rebundle
The first District rebundle is complete. The Zion white hallway mission door pointers now point to the correct doors in the district.
Construct Boss-Drops Increased
The special-item drop-rates for the Yuki, Ashencourte, Sakura, and Widow's Moor construct bosses have been quadrupled (again). They now drop at an average rate of 1 in 30 times (you should expect to have to kill the Sakura Tengu about thirty times to get one female Ninja Mask, for instance, but it can vary to be more or less than that, since it is a fixed 1 in 30 random chance per kill); the previous drop rate for these items was 1 in 120.
Agents Re-armed
Agents now use the System FM-1500 Magnum as their standard sidearm.
Crew/Reputation System Changes
You may not join a crew unless you have a reputation of at least 0 in that crew's organization. Joining a crew will set your reputation in the other organizations to -5 unless your reputation is already lower than this. You will not lose your crew if your reputation falls below 0, but if you leave or are kicked you won't be able to rejoin until you get your reputation back to 0.
Changes and Improvements
* Story items now show up in the "Items > Tools > Awakened" Marketplace category.
* The code versions of items found on the Prop Vendors now have standard code icons.
* Unique NPCs (Ookami, Morpheus, Argon, etc) now have consistent character levels.
* Level 53+ Unlimit bosses are now loaded with nice loot.
* Patch Daemons now cast buffs as well as heals.
* The wording of the collector Binary Boy's exchange text has been clarified to make it clear that you can sell the Box he gives you for more $info elsewhere. Thanks Styan.
* There is a new yellow-green flavor of laptop computer in missions. Also, the gray laptops are no longer floating, and laptops no longer have ghostly green screen letters emerging from their keyboard.
* Removed the useless "HackComputerAbilityGrant" pills from Zion archive mission 1.3.3.
* Stealth abilities will now break after hacking a computer.
* Increased the buffs on the weaker archive construct loot items so that they should now be competitive, or slightly better than, standard buffed items of the same level.
Bug Fixes
* Players can no longer avoid losing Inventory items by uploading them at a hardline while they are dead.
* Fixed a typo in the head of security's first message, phase 2, Zion mission 5.3.4 ("Aqua Gulp"). Thanks zeroone506.
* The Anome doppleganger in Machine 5.3.5 (archived version) is now correctly referred to as a "simulacrum" rather than a "simulacra."
* Added a word missing from Agent Gray's text opening the fourth phase of Machine mission 5.3.3, "Blackout" (thanks zeroone506).
* Fixed two typos in Brenda Utley's last message in Zion archive mission 5.3.3, "Sweet Tastee Wheat" (thanks Nicks).
* Fixed a typo in the operator's text when giving the documents to Persephone in phase 3 of Merv 5.3.3, "Persuasion" (thanks zeroone506).
* Fixed a typo in the operator's text in phase 1 of Zion archive mission 4.2.1.
* The final message in Machine archive mission 3.2.4 now comes correctly from the operator rather than from Agent Gray.
* The goal completion message in phase 5 of Zion archive mission 1.2.17, "Bombs and Betrayal," now comes from Tyndall instead of from the operator (thanks zeroone506).
* Fixed typo in second message from Brenda Utley, phase 4, Zion 5.3.1 (thanks personIII).
* Fixed a typo in the Effectuator's text in phase 1 of Zion mission 5.2.4.
* Added some missing lobby security guard groups in Morrell, Lamar, and Rogers Way.
* Movement speed penalties from Invisibility will no longer persist once invisibility is broken.
* Ghost strike will now properly reapply invisibility and will not indirectly trigger self defense.
* Combat Aura 2.0 vendor and crafting costs increased.
* U.I. Lag 2.0 vendor and crafting costs reduced.
* Overheat 1.0 vendor and crafting costs increased.
* Code Freeze 2.0 vendor and crafting costs reduced.
* Coder style vendor and crafting costs reduced.
* The $info cost for writing a code is now shown correctly in the Write Code UI.
* Unequipping abilities no longer removes upgrades or downgrades placed on you by other characters.
* Delete Upgrade 2.0 no longer clears the combat stance (Speed/Power/Grab/Block) on the target.
* Bug causing Delete Upgrade Abilities to only remove parts of a target's enhancements has been fixed. (All of a buff's effects are now cleared when Delete Upgrade is used successfully.)
* Antibiotic pills no longer stack with each other. (They do still stack with Negative Condition Sweep effects.)
* Fixed a punctuation typo in the operator's text in phase 1 of Zion archive mission 5.3.1 (thanks Othinn1 and zeroone506).
Posted on 05 Oct 2006 by LostProphet
The Other Side of the Looking Glass.
Organization Construct Enhancements
If you checked out Image Retrieval this week, you found out that there are some enhancements planned for the Zion Construct. You can use Link's sim to activate a high-level melee combat sim to beat on (or be beat by).
We're going to try and roll this out with Update 47, but that depends on testing. We're also planning on rolling something similar out to the Machine and Merovingian Constructs. However, we won't be doing it in a single patch for one reason.
The Pain of Rebundling
Each of the Organization Constructs is actually part of the larger world. The Zion Construct is built into the Slums/Barrens area, Merovingian in International, and Machine in Downtown. That means that to add to or otherwise significantly change one of the Constructs, the entire District has to be "rebundled". Rebundling a District essentially means rebuilding it from the ground up.
What that means to players is a big download. For example, we rebundled the Slums/Barrens area to make the changes to the Zion Construct and ended up with a 34 MB patch. While the International and Downtown areas are smaller, rebundling them all at once would push the patch up to 80 MB or more. So, we're not going to put everyone through a patch that large just to make these changes.
Rarebit will continue working on the other two Constructs and we'll roll them out as we can.
White Hallway Doors
The mission mapping of white-hallway doors also requires work in each District. So, as we rebundle each of the areas, we'll also be fixing where the white-hallway doors map to. In the meantime, keep using the map coordinates listed in the mission text.
Buddy Keys
By the time you read this, the second round of buddy keys should be on its way to your email inboxes. If you opted-in for emails from The Matrix Online, make sure to check your inbox. And, if you don't see it there, make sure you check to see if your junk-email filter ate it. We hope to see your friends jack-in soon!
In-Game Advertising Contest Ends Sunday!
The in-game advertising contest ends on Sunday, September 24. If you haven't already, send your BMP or PSD advertisement to mxocontest@soe.sony.com. We've got a lot of good entries so far, but can always use more!
Please keep in mind we are not accepting faction recruitment ads for this contest--Organization recruitment only. Check out the contest page for full details.
Get Your Edit On
We've been hesitant to turn on forums editing, as there are no restrictions on how often a post can be edited. However, since this has been one of the largest complaints about the new forums, we've allowed editing on the forums.
While there are no restrictions on editing posts, Administrators can see the edit history. So, if you see someone abusing this function, please make sure to use the Report Abuse link so we can investigate it.
Thanks again for your patience as we work to improve the new forums.
Discuss this article on Broadcast Depth.
If you checked out Image Retrieval this week, you found out that there are some enhancements planned for the Zion Construct. You can use Link's sim to activate a high-level melee combat sim to beat on (or be beat by).
We're going to try and roll this out with Update 47, but that depends on testing. We're also planning on rolling something similar out to the Machine and Merovingian Constructs. However, we won't be doing it in a single patch for one reason.
The Pain of Rebundling
Each of the Organization Constructs is actually part of the larger world. The Zion Construct is built into the Slums/Barrens area, Merovingian in International, and Machine in Downtown. That means that to add to or otherwise significantly change one of the Constructs, the entire District has to be "rebundled". Rebundling a District essentially means rebuilding it from the ground up.
What that means to players is a big download. For example, we rebundled the Slums/Barrens area to make the changes to the Zion Construct and ended up with a 34 MB patch. While the International and Downtown areas are smaller, rebundling them all at once would push the patch up to 80 MB or more. So, we're not going to put everyone through a patch that large just to make these changes.
Rarebit will continue working on the other two Constructs and we'll roll them out as we can.
White Hallway Doors
The mission mapping of white-hallway doors also requires work in each District. So, as we rebundle each of the areas, we'll also be fixing where the white-hallway doors map to. In the meantime, keep using the map coordinates listed in the mission text.
Buddy Keys
By the time you read this, the second round of buddy keys should be on its way to your email inboxes. If you opted-in for emails from The Matrix Online, make sure to check your inbox. And, if you don't see it there, make sure you check to see if your junk-email filter ate it. We hope to see your friends jack-in soon!
In-Game Advertising Contest Ends Sunday!
The in-game advertising contest ends on Sunday, September 24. If you haven't already, send your BMP or PSD advertisement to mxocontest@soe.sony.com. We've got a lot of good entries so far, but can always use more!
Please keep in mind we are not accepting faction recruitment ads for this contest--Organization recruitment only. Check out the contest page for full details.
Get Your Edit On
We've been hesitant to turn on forums editing, as there are no restrictions on how often a post can be edited. However, since this has been one of the largest complaints about the new forums, we've allowed editing on the forums.
While there are no restrictions on editing posts, Administrators can see the edit history. So, if you see someone abusing this function, please make sure to use the Report Abuse link so we can investigate it.
Thanks again for your patience as we work to improve the new forums.
Discuss this article on Broadcast Depth.
Posted on 22 Sep 2006 by PBlade
The Other Side of the Looking Glass.
Sorry it's a bit later - PBlade
Gang Spawn Woes
I'm going to have to keep things short this week, as I'm working with the team to figure out what's going on with the missing gang spawns in the Slums and Barrens Districts. This is one of those unfortunate cases where nothing we did in Update 46 should have affected the spawns, yet that's when reports started coming in. At this time, we don't have any solid leads, but we're keeping at it.
Whatever the resolution is, it's likely we'll have to restart the servers at some point to fix it. This may happen with little notice if we have to do it over the weekend. So, if there's an unexpected downtime, that's likely the cause.
Death Effect Mechanics
As pointed out on the forums, the Death Effect is applied to any Abilities used while under your character is subject to it. When the Death Effect expires, any running Abilities will not automatically update to correct the penalty. Therefore, things like your combat Style and Upgrade Abilities need to be re-applied when the Death Effect expires. Make sure you re-up your buffs after the penalty expires and you should be good to go.
Buddy Key Progress
It seems we've made some progress on re-emailing Buddy Keys this week. I'll hopefully have an announcement for everyone next week on when we will be re-sending them.
A lot of folks have opted-in for emails from The Matrix Online Team and we're looking forward to seeing new faces in the game. If you haven't done it yet, make sure you opt-in for emails from your Account Management page to get in on the next round of Buddy Keys.
Continued Forums Revamp
The current condition of the forums is a major community concern, with good reason. While progress seems slow, the team is doing a lot of work on the backend to improve performance. This is the top issue and, once resolved, they can focus more on functionality.
As you all know, we're not the only SOE game to have the new forums system and, over time, all SOE games will. I'm constantly working with my other Community Relations Managers to make sure the dev team understands our needs and concerns. We have a high standard for what we want out of the new forums and we're holding the dev team to it. It's going to take some time, but we will get there.
I'll also do my best to get update notes from the team when we have updates to the system. Even when nothing seems to change on the front-end, it's better to know that things are improving that aren't as visible. I apologize for not being more diligent about this.
Teaser Time
The team does have some things in the works that I'd love to chat about. However, we're in the initial phases and checking feasibility right now to see if they're possible.
One of the things will be something added to spice up the Halloween event. I think I said this before, but if what the team says is true, we're gonna have some serious fun.
I know a certain number of players don't enjoy our holiday events. They're not meant to be part of the Matrix cannon and have nothing to do with the storyline. That being said, a lot of players do enjoy them, and so do we. It's always fun to do something a little different and it gives our brains a bit of a breather.
Mmm...brains.
Another is a new object type that we'll be able to build some gameplay around. It's something that was started on back in beta, but was never completed. Now, we're seeing if we can finish it up and do some fun stuff with it. (No, it is not melee weapons.) Hopefully, I'll be able to talk more about this in the next few weeks.
Hopefully we'll get the gang-spawn issue fixed soon and I can get back to...er...everything else I have to do.
Discuss this article on Broadcast Depth.
Gang Spawn Woes
I'm going to have to keep things short this week, as I'm working with the team to figure out what's going on with the missing gang spawns in the Slums and Barrens Districts. This is one of those unfortunate cases where nothing we did in Update 46 should have affected the spawns, yet that's when reports started coming in. At this time, we don't have any solid leads, but we're keeping at it.
Whatever the resolution is, it's likely we'll have to restart the servers at some point to fix it. This may happen with little notice if we have to do it over the weekend. So, if there's an unexpected downtime, that's likely the cause.
Death Effect Mechanics
As pointed out on the forums, the Death Effect is applied to any Abilities used while under your character is subject to it. When the Death Effect expires, any running Abilities will not automatically update to correct the penalty. Therefore, things like your combat Style and Upgrade Abilities need to be re-applied when the Death Effect expires. Make sure you re-up your buffs after the penalty expires and you should be good to go.
Buddy Key Progress
It seems we've made some progress on re-emailing Buddy Keys this week. I'll hopefully have an announcement for everyone next week on when we will be re-sending them.
A lot of folks have opted-in for emails from The Matrix Online Team and we're looking forward to seeing new faces in the game. If you haven't done it yet, make sure you opt-in for emails from your Account Management page to get in on the next round of Buddy Keys.
Continued Forums Revamp
The current condition of the forums is a major community concern, with good reason. While progress seems slow, the team is doing a lot of work on the backend to improve performance. This is the top issue and, once resolved, they can focus more on functionality.
As you all know, we're not the only SOE game to have the new forums system and, over time, all SOE games will. I'm constantly working with my other Community Relations Managers to make sure the dev team understands our needs and concerns. We have a high standard for what we want out of the new forums and we're holding the dev team to it. It's going to take some time, but we will get there.
I'll also do my best to get update notes from the team when we have updates to the system. Even when nothing seems to change on the front-end, it's better to know that things are improving that aren't as visible. I apologize for not being more diligent about this.
Teaser Time
The team does have some things in the works that I'd love to chat about. However, we're in the initial phases and checking feasibility right now to see if they're possible.
One of the things will be something added to spice up the Halloween event. I think I said this before, but if what the team says is true, we're gonna have some serious fun.
I know a certain number of players don't enjoy our holiday events. They're not meant to be part of the Matrix cannon and have nothing to do with the storyline. That being said, a lot of players do enjoy them, and so do we. It's always fun to do something a little different and it gives our brains a bit of a breather.
Mmm...brains.
Another is a new object type that we'll be able to build some gameplay around. It's something that was started on back in beta, but was never completed. Now, we're seeing if we can finish it up and do some fun stuff with it. (No, it is not melee weapons.) Hopefully, I'll be able to talk more about this in the next few weeks.
Hopefully we'll get the gang-spawn issue fixed soon and I can get back to...er...everything else I have to do.
Discuss this article on Broadcast Depth.
Posted on 18 Sep 2006 by PBlade
The Other Side of the Looking Glass.
The Other Side of the Looking Glass - 09/08/2006
Back in the Saddle
It never fails: Vacation always takes forever to arrive and ends way too quickly. But it was good to have the time off, even if I did return to almost 1,000 emails. :P
As you can imagine, most of the week's been spent catching up on what happened while I was gone. Even with the Update 46 delay, things seem to have gone reasonably well. We're currently looking at a hotfix for next week to take care of the Death Effect issues, missing Merv 1.1.1 ticket, the disappearing XYZ coordinates for White Hallway missions, and a Sneak bug.
Hey, I did say reasonably well.
I'd like to thank Raijinn for handling website updates and other community-related tasks in my absence. He's right in saying that I have a lot going on around here. Of course, he failed to mention that this isn't the only game he has responsibilities for, either. You da man, Joel.
In-Game Advertising Contest
If you happened to catch my post on the forums, we know there's a lot of disappointment over the restrictions on the advertising contest. The US-only restriction is due to the real-world prizes we're giving away. Also, as I understand it, the 21-days the ads will be displayed is the minimum we'll leave them up. Hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to use them for a longer period of time.
I will be working towards doing more advertising contests without the real-world prizes so we can include everyone. After all, these ads will be available for non-US players.
Also, we've gotten some faction-recruitment advertisements in the mailbox. We don't have that as a category, as faction recruiting essentially breaks the fiction of the world. We included Organization advertisements because it should be possible to create subversive recruitment ads that don't break little bluepill minds. (We've already seen some.)
Buddy Keys
I know you're all waiting anxiously for the next round of buddy key emails. There seems to be an internal delay--probably due to everyone getting ready for and being out at the Austin Games Conference--that is holding things up. I'll keep bugging folks and will put up an announcement when we're ready to email them.
In the meantime, make sure you've opted-in for emails from The Matrix Online!
Upcoming Developments
It's hard to believe it, but we're already working on plans for the Halloween Event. Top priority is making sure we're ready to launch everything we had last year--including turning the old masks back on. But, if what the team thinks is true, there's something new we can add that will make this a year to remember.
We also did a production review today and, as usual, seem to create more work for ourselves whenever we have one. I'm not going into details on what all we discussed, as we're doing some feasibility studies. Things that seem simple have an annoying habit of not turning out to be. As we solidify things, I'll let you know more.
Hopefully, next week will be a bit calmer, being a full week and my having spent this week catching up on things. I'll see you on the other side, then.
Discuss this article on Broadcast Depth.
Back in the Saddle
It never fails: Vacation always takes forever to arrive and ends way too quickly. But it was good to have the time off, even if I did return to almost 1,000 emails. :P
As you can imagine, most of the week's been spent catching up on what happened while I was gone. Even with the Update 46 delay, things seem to have gone reasonably well. We're currently looking at a hotfix for next week to take care of the Death Effect issues, missing Merv 1.1.1 ticket, the disappearing XYZ coordinates for White Hallway missions, and a Sneak bug.
Hey, I did say reasonably well.
I'd like to thank Raijinn for handling website updates and other community-related tasks in my absence. He's right in saying that I have a lot going on around here. Of course, he failed to mention that this isn't the only game he has responsibilities for, either. You da man, Joel.
In-Game Advertising Contest
If you happened to catch my post on the forums, we know there's a lot of disappointment over the restrictions on the advertising contest. The US-only restriction is due to the real-world prizes we're giving away. Also, as I understand it, the 21-days the ads will be displayed is the minimum we'll leave them up. Hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to use them for a longer period of time.
I will be working towards doing more advertising contests without the real-world prizes so we can include everyone. After all, these ads will be available for non-US players.
Also, we've gotten some faction-recruitment advertisements in the mailbox. We don't have that as a category, as faction recruiting essentially breaks the fiction of the world. We included Organization advertisements because it should be possible to create subversive recruitment ads that don't break little bluepill minds. (We've already seen some.)
Buddy Keys
I know you're all waiting anxiously for the next round of buddy key emails. There seems to be an internal delay--probably due to everyone getting ready for and being out at the Austin Games Conference--that is holding things up. I'll keep bugging folks and will put up an announcement when we're ready to email them.
In the meantime, make sure you've opted-in for emails from The Matrix Online!
Upcoming Developments
It's hard to believe it, but we're already working on plans for the Halloween Event. Top priority is making sure we're ready to launch everything we had last year--including turning the old masks back on. But, if what the team thinks is true, there's something new we can add that will make this a year to remember.
We also did a production review today and, as usual, seem to create more work for ourselves whenever we have one. I'm not going into details on what all we discussed, as we're doing some feasibility studies. Things that seem simple have an annoying habit of not turning out to be. As we solidify things, I'll let you know more.
Hopefully, next week will be a bit calmer, being a full week and my having spent this week catching up on things. I'll see you on the other side, then.
Discuss this article on Broadcast Depth.
Posted on 08 Sep 2006 by PBlade
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