Matrix Discussion

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There's something else about MxO that we need to take into account, too, though. MetaLogic and I had a conversation a few days ago, right before he posted this... about how different MxO was, when compared to the other games out there.

Hell, maybe it's us and not the game that was different. But I know that for a long time, I could go on Facebook or scroll through my Xbox Live friends list, and the people I knew from MxO would be the ones with sunglasses on their avatars, or they'd be the ones wearing the fedora hats in the Facebook photos. Those of us that spent any time at all in the game and took it semi-seriously see things in a different way.

On the rare occurrence that I see a public payphone, I can't help but look at it and chuckle. There was something unique as hell about MxO, hidden under the surface, that none of us could put our fingers on. We were surrounded by an abandoned city, with hundreds of empty buildings, anywhere from 5-50 stories in height, with empty rooms on every floor... and anything could've been hiding in any of them, for us to discover.

We could hyperjump through an abandoned neighborhood, and have a distinct chance of landing next to Seraph, or The Oracle. When we, the players, got together, we couldn't help but go into theological and philosophical debates about who was right and who was wrong. I know that by shutdown, I'd argued every possible angle and layer to those debates.

SOE made a major mistake in NOT putting the mysterious elements to work for them. Those were the elements that captivated most of us.

If you look at MxO today, the graphics are in desperate need of updating. The physics are flawed. The game combat's math is random at best. The whole damn engine needs to be revamped. But there's still something there, damn it. There's still something that's calling out to us, and that's why we're congregating in places like here, Hardline Dreams, MxO Live, Facebook, and... *shudders* ...Rarebit's forums. Because nobody understands it but us.

SOE won't do anything else with MxO, it's not theirs to mess with.

WB won't do anything else with MxO, because the franchise has essentially been put to rest.

All corporately-owned Matrix websites have been shut down.

Amazon and eBay are selling Matrix merchandise for pennies on the dollar, because it's not in demand.

The Wachowskis did V for Vendetta, then Speed Racer, and then sunk back into their world of comics, not giving a damn about what happens to the Matrix franchise, or the fans that spent so much money on that franchise and made them millionaires.

Meanwhile, I don't think that there's a single roleplayer that hasn't thought about where their character's story goes at (and long after) the game's shutdown.

Long story short, we're it, guys and gals. We've all been forsaken by the one thing we all love, and if it has any future at all, it'll be through us... the fans. We're the ones who are going to keep buggering on, and reminding the world of something it would probably prefer to forget. What was it Morpheus said? "We are still here"?