Matrix Online: WarCry Invades the MxO Release Party!

The Matrix Online Release Party was held Thursday, March 17th at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, California. WarCry was there, among a few other video game journalists, and we managed to secure some interesting information about the things to come from The Matrix Online.

Among those in attendance were Toby Ragaini, Jason Hall, William Westwater, and Paul Chadwick. I managed to sit down with each of these gentlemen to discuss a few of the nagging concerns I've heard passed around by the beta testers. While they could not comment on everything I would have liked for them to, I did leave the event with a new appreciation for what the MxO team is trying to accomplish with this project.

Jason Hall

Jason Hall, the Senior Vice President of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, spoke briefly to the assembled journalists about the team, the hard work they've all put into the project, and their hopes for the future.

Among the general topics he raised, Mr. Hall went on to speak about one of the unique aspects of The Matrix Online - Interactive NPCs. He announced that Monolith has employed paid roleplayers whose sole jobs will be interacting with the player base as familiar characters, such as Morpheus, Niobe, Seraph, and the Merovingian, to name a few. They will also be playing lesser characters in order to help progress the current story lines as well help maintain a truly immersive gaming experience.

I asked Mr. Hall about the hiring practices regarding current paid roleplayers as well as how such a thing might be handled in the future. While he did avoid specifics, considering many policies could change between now and then, Mr. Hall hinted that current players could receive consideration as the game progresses. Again, there were no specifics. However, as soon as any news breaks on the issue, MxO WarCry will be sure to bring you the announcement as soon as possible.

On a related note, I also spoke with Mr. Hall more privately regarding community concerns of favoritism. One of the most obvious cases that transpired during the ending days of the beta test was centered on Radio Free Zion, a player run community designed to simulate radio broadcasts from "within the Matrix." Members of Radio Free Zion were "teleported" to positions where in-game events were transpiring in order to provide up-to-date news coverage of the events as they happened.

Mr. Hall is aware of the community's concerns regarding such activity. He expressed that the incidents at the end of beta should not be considered the norm of activity and the decisions that were made during that time were geared toward making the final days of beta as interesting and as enjoyable as it could be. He also assured me that there is currently no professional relationship between WBIE and RFZ and that RFZ would be treated just like any other player group.

Regarding the possibility of in-game recognition for the player's characters, Mr. Hall commented that the primary method of gaining such recognition will come from completing storyline arcs and by using in-game mechanics. His concern was over favoritism and he expressed a deep understanding of keeping these types of perks fair and potentially attainable by anyone.

I also spoke with Mr. Hall concerning world server designations and the potential for specific types of worlds being made available. The overall goal of the Matrix Online team has been to promote a story intensive roleplaying game. When I shared my view of the industry with Mr. Hall, he agreed that it is ultimately the developer's job to provide the players with the tools for roleplay. Ultimately, it is up to the players to decide how to use them. However, the Matrix Online team is taking extra steps to ensure that roleplay is promoted in as positive a way as they can, without appearing to restrict other playstyles.

This is the reason there will be no official roleplay server. To declare a roleplay specific server, in their reasoning, would be to insinuate that the designated server is the only place one should be roleplaying. Since roleplaying is intended to be the standard playstyle within the Matrix Online, given the heavy story development, the team decided a designated roleplay server would be counterproductive to the point of the game.

Player vs. player servers, on the other hand, are planned and one has already been implemented, Enumerator. These servers are called "Hostile" servers to symbolize the inherent combat oriented focus. Since open player vs. player combat is outside of the anticipated scope of the game, not to mention how grief friendly these types of servers typically are, the team decided that player vs. player servers were a viable option.

Of course, there is a Matrix Online twist applies to the player vs. player servers. Calling the Hostile servers open player vs. player is a little misleading. Mr. Hall expressed concern regarding keeping even these combat heavy servers in line with the overall storyline of the Matrix Online. Therefore, the openness of the combat is actually limited more toward Organization vs. Organization combat. In other words, a Zionist could not just run around and jump another Zionist randomly. Players who have characters belonging to the same organization would have to follow the standard procedure for dueling. Also, the level of open hostilities that will be available will depend entirely upon the current story arc of the game. In other words, if there is a tentative peace between the different organizations, then there is a tentative peace among the players of those organizations as well. On the other hand, should open war break out in the game, it would be highly recommended that the traveling redpill watch his back at all times.

Toby Ragaini

My time with Toby Ragaini, the Matrix Online's Lead Designer, was quite short considering everyone at the Release Party was trying to get a piece of him. However, I was bound and determined to at least ask him about one pressing issue I have seen floating about over the past several months: item storage.

Opening this can of worms was enlightening to say the least. I can understand why things are set up the way they are and I am even more convinced that Mr. Ragaini has a firm understanding of the Matrix and it's intricacies.

The first mistake that many people will make revolves around the classical sense of a character's class or profession. In the Matrix Online, there truly are no classes or professions. In fact, one could say that each and every person is an operative. The skill tree is merely a list of available skills, separated by categories that represent the types of skills that are available. Therefore, there are no real hackers, coders, or spies, in and of themselves. There are simply many operatives who have a wide variety of skills.

If you find yourself wondering what this has to do with item storage, then you are one step closer to understanding my "can of worms," reference above.

Since the Coder skill branch is not specifically a character class or profession, it is intended to be used by everyone. Of course, there will be many characters who never delve into these skills and others who will, but may never specialize enough to be great with them. However, the point is that they are available to anyone and item storage is specifically tied to a peripheral use of these skills.

It is true that every single item within the Matrix, from a handgun to a skyscraper, is entirely made up of code. One of the key skills involved with item storage is the Decompile skill. The use of this skill, with the proper tool, will break the item down into its most basic, code-based components. These components take the form of Code Bits. However, the first time a character successfully decompiles an item, they learn the code structure, or recipe, for recreating the item.

The second skill integral to item storage is the Write Code skill. Once a character knows the basic code structure of an item, they can write the code that allows them to recreate several instances of the item. In other words, once you know the recipe and have the required ingredients, the character can put them all together, resulting in an Item Code.

The third skill that helps item storage come together is the Code Compiler skill. Once the code structure has been assembled, the resulting Item Code can be compiled using this skill and the proper tool. The result, of course, is a working version of the item in question. The key to how this system works is that, each time a character creates an Item Code using the Write Code skill, they are able to create fifteen copies of the item from the same Item Code.

Ultimately, in the Matrix universe, it does not make much sense for a character to store physical objects in a non-physical environment. The inventory space, which is currently in the process of doubling in size, is supposed to literally represent the amount of space on that character's person. Some liberties have been taken, of course, since you're not likely to ever see someone running down the street with 96 jackets slung over their arm. However, a character can store 150 pieces of code within their own central storage from the loading construct.

Therefore, if you have an item that you want to be able to potentially keep forever, you are eventually going to have to break it down into its code format and store it with the rest of your code. Either that or you would have to find a coder who can break it down for you. Given the very nature of the Matrix and the fact that not a single strand of hair within it actually exists, this explanation makes sense. This concept of item storage is a clear cut case of choosing setting and immersion over simplicity.

William Westwater

William Westwater is Monolith's Director of Online Development. He was eager to delve into many of the technical and hardware related aspects of the Matrix Online project. However, he was quite careful when it came to discussing actual numbers, which is what I was after.

For instance, when I inquired about the technical definition of a server load, whether the load be listed as low, medium, or high, he would not budge by giving me any specific numbers or even a broad range of numbers. I had to laugh when the closest I came to receiving specifics were, "more than one and less than a million."

Despite being unable to divulge actual numbers, Mr. Westwater was quite confident with the technical capabilities of the server system that was designed for the Matrix Online. The entire world as a player might see it listed on the server select screen is actually a specific cluster of servers that the world is loaded from. Since, from the player's perspective, the entire world their character interacts with is continuous (that is to say there are no zones and the world loads itself dynamically as the character moves around), there has been a lot of concern regarding the server's capability to keep up with such high demands. At least, the system appears daunting when you consider the potential for twenty thousand, and more, players occupying the same world at the same time.

Mr. Westwater assured me that many precautions have been taken into consideration to ensure that the servers do not become overloaded and there are contingencies in place should one of them decide to throw sparks and take up smoking. The most obvious of these plans for him to talk about was the "multitude," of servers standing by in the "unlikely," event that a server, or even an entire cluster, was to explode. He loosely explained that the architecture of the servers is designed in such a way that, should anything adverse take place or even if more people log into a world than was anticipated, the team can quickly replace or add whatever servers would be needed.

Paul Chadwick

Last, but most certainly not least, I spoke with Paul Chadwick, the Lead Writer for the Matrix Online's continuing storyline. In fact, it would be easy to say that I spent most of my time chatting with Mr. Chadwick off to the side as we might have been labeled the official, "wallflowers," of the party.

My flaw in interviewing Mr. Chadwick was finding him an extremely easy and enjoyable person to chat with. As a result, I would be better equipped to write about his thoughts on topics ranging from movie trailers as spoilers to demographic responses to specific types of media to Keanu Reeves' acting ability. Fear not, however, for it was I who slandered Keanu's marvelous ability to read his lines in the most deadpan of monotones one can imagine. Before you decide to take up your torches and pitchforks, please remember that Keanu is just an actor. He is not really, "The One."

It was difficult to pry any concrete information out of Mr. Chadwick as I watched many try. Trust me when I say that Mr. Chadwick would have gladly spilled many of the coming storylines as he was bursting with well earned pride. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for Mr. Chadwick to have put so much work into something that he absolutely cannot go into detail about. However, if it's spoiler information that you want, Mendel of Stratics did an excellent job of writing up the only things we could find out about a few of the coming story arcs. I would prefer not to slip in potential spoilers unexpectedly as I am one of those people who would prefer to discover the story as it unfolds. Therefore, I would recommend checking out Mendel's well-written depiction, which can be found here.

All in all, I would have to say a great time was had by everyone. It was a tremendous pleasure to meet Paul Chadwick and the others from Monolith and WBIE. I walked away with a greater understanding and respect for the Matrix Online project and the people who have been working diligently to bring this game to us.

I would be remiss, however, if I did not also mention my colleagues from the other networks, whom I have found a new level of respect for: Mendel, Nyneve, and yes, even Sundog. Thanks for the great time, guys.

Due to my own set of problems I had to contend with, thanks to the airlines, I have no pictures of the event. However, Nyneve came through for all of us and her pictures of the event can be found here.

Thanks again to WBIE for flying us out there and Monolith for providing such a good reason to go. I'd also like to thank WarCry for enabling me to participate in this event.

RumblingSky
Acting Site Manager
Matrix Online WarCry