Finally, a way to justify my lost youth of being in front of Super Mario Bros.

(via solipsism)

I wonder how much HP the iPhone has. LOL

lesmy:

bellavolta:

aibiwashere / think4yourself / moltingredleaves / dinosaurlife

Nintendo family tree

This is like an ancestry of video game systems I’ve owned.

The Matrix Online may have ceased, but you can still delve into the rich history and backstory of the “fourth” film in The Matrix franchise.  This is an updated version of the document I had compiled and previously posted about. I have pulled information from numerous online sources and do not claim to be the originator of most of the material.

It is not complete (grammar / layout still need a serious pass or two, and there are a couple of additional content mission sets that need to be documented), but the main Matrix Online storyline is available in a complete, extensive, chapter-by-chapter summary.  I created this document so that interested parties could maintain a summary of the story in an electronic, portable format, as well as print it out should they desire to do so.

(Updated 08/05/2009)

Download it from here.

This weekend, I finally took the plunge and purchased the Internet Channel for the Nintendo Wii.

Basically, the Internet Channel adds a web browser, powered by Opera, to the Wii, and using the Wii Remote you can enter URLs via an on-screen keyboard and surf the web.  Aside from sites such as Google (which comes as a preloaded bookmark), you can also watch videos on YouTube and use Facebook (I have not done the latter, but know someone who has).  My children had discovered the concept of Wii Channels, and added one for polls / surveys and another for upcoming Nintendo releases (which included video trailers).  When they learned about the Internet Channel, they had been petitioning me to purchase it so they could use it (primarily for YouTube; they don’t really understand that it uses the Wi-Fi in the Wii to open up the ‘Net to them, which is fine by me).  After a lot of thinking, I decided to get it (it’s only the equivalent of $5), since they mainly use the computer for YouTube and this gives us an additional machine in the house that they can use to access it (and not fight over the computer).

The limited experience with the Internet Channel is that it is decent, though I would never use the Wii as my main Internet portal.  YouTube works well enough, although the video quality suffers when you select the option to view “Full Screen”; the frame rate drops, which is disappointing.  Still, audio sounds fine and the children don’t mind.  As the browser is running Opera, I suspect it is very capable; I’ll probably test out GMail and Facebook just for the sake of trying. Thankfully, the input method, while a little clumsy given the Wii Remote, has a competent auto-complete that recommends words as you type.

My children are digging it for YouTube, and that’s what matters.  I wonder how long, however, before the novelty wears off.  But, given its running Opera, there must be other uses for it.  Anyone have this feature and have any suggestions?

As I recently wrote, The Matrix Online is closing.  It was my first online gaming experience, and the one that I returned to the most.  Despite not having played in eight months, when I heard the game was closing I re-subscribed to experience the endgame.  Sony Online Entertainment, who owns the rights to the game, gave Matrix Online subscribers a free 60-day trial to their Station Pass, which is a subscription (for $29.99 a month) that gives you access to all of their online games.  I looked at two of their games; Vanguard:  Saga of Heroes, and Everquest II.  Vanguard sounded like a game with a history too close to The Matrix Online; a failed launch and trouble getting back on its feet.  Everquest II, on the other hand, has a long history, with the original Everquest being one of the earliest successes in the MMO field.  Over ten years ago, I remember my wife’s cousins asking me to play “Evercrack” with them.  At the time, I wasn’t into the whole online game thing, and being a new father, I didn’t have the time.  Now, with The Matrix Online now closing, and having a free pass, I decided to take advantage of it and give Everquest II a try.

My initial experiences have been very positive.  There is variety in the classes and races you can choose at the start; not wanting to play a standard fantasy game character, I chose the martial arts class, Monk.  After getting my character created, I choose to begin on the Island of Refuge, where the “good-aligned” characters start out.

The starting area is very well done.  It allows you to easily get a hang of the game mechanics, quest system, and level at a good pace.  In my first game session, I leveled up to 5 quickly, but wasn’t bored (I did the same with World of Warcraft and couldn’t stand the game afterward).  After reaching level 10, I left the island to the city of Qeynos, where the adventure really begins.

And this is where Everquest II begins to shine.  You don’t, as of yet (and I’ve reached level 21 in a short amount of time, with only casual play), run out of things to do.  Quests are easy to find, and often chain to other quests.  Mobs drop decent loot, and even items that activate quests.  One of the benefits of joining a game that already has several expansion packs under its belt is the land is already filled out with content; this rewards exploration in a rich way.  After obtaining my first house in the game (one-room, nothing crazy) and finishing up the introduction to the city quest, I found myself wondering what to do next (I was level 17 by this point).  I took a ship to one of the zones that I had visited previously and began roaming the highway and finding stuff to do.  This lead me onto a series of quests and exploration of the island that lead me back around to a quest line I had missed several levels back, and fills in the story behind some of the sites I had seen in my travels.  Very cool.

What I am enjoying so far about Everquest II is that, despite being level 21, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of the game.  The content is fun and can be run solo (thus far), giving rise to a casual game style that works for me.  Will I actually subscribe at the end of the 60-day trial?  Perhaps, though only to the game itself, and not for the $30 Station Pass.  I don’t have that much time on my hands.

Anyone else play this, and if so, what did you think?

How is it this thing looks better than a lot of the Prequel Trilogy?  Either way, the trailer for Bioware’s upcoming Star Wars MMO looks amazing.  Considering Bioware’s reputation for high quality games, this will most likely be my next MMO.

More versions of the trailer (including ones in HD) can be found here.

(Found via Geek Tyrant)

As you may have heard across the Internets, The Matrix Online will be shutting down its servers at the end of July.

I’m kind of bummed out about this, even if I haven’t played the game in about 8 months.  MxO (as it was nicknamed) was the first massive multiplayer game I ever participated in.  I’m a huge fan of The Matrix trilogy (yes, I even liked the last two movies).  The very concept for the game seemed (and still is) perfect for an online game:  you assume the identity of an operative jacking into the Matrix, and you play for either one of three factions-  Zion, the Machines, or the Merovingian.  As you leveled up, you gained new abilities, many of which were from the movies and others which extrapolations on the concept which integrated other archetypal MMO classes in their Matrix context, such as Summoners (Coders) or Mages (Hackers).

However, the seeds for the game’s demise were planted a long time ago.  Here are a some things of what went wrong with the game:

1. The game launched too late.  The trilogy concluded in November 2003.  The game launched in March 2005.  The 16-month gap allowed any of the hype around the movies to go to waste.  Since the last movie, The Matrix Revolutions, was not generally well-received, and the backlash to the final two movies was well under way, consumer interest was nil and the potential fanbase for the game had dwindled to only the hardcore fans or curious gamers.


2. Too-short of an open beta.  The game opened up beta to players who pre-ordered the game.  I was one of those who did this and participated starting in November 2004.  This gave us 4 months to beta test the game, and it was not ready for launch in March.  The forums were filled with players vehemently stating that the game still needed lots of work and that it wasn’t ready.  This fell on deaf ears.


3. Failures at launch.  It’s almost typical for an MMO to have issues in the first few weeks after launch.  The Matrix Online was no different.  There were disconnects, lag, “rubber banding” (where you’d be running through the game world and run into an invisible wall in the middle of an area, due to the code for the next region to still be compiling or that region server crashing), and other issues.  On top of that, there were exploits that were discovered that allowed certain players to level up quickly.  Monolith (the original developer of MxO) responded by seriously handicapping the experience gained in missions, which lead to an outcry from community and a number account cancellations.  Enough of an issue was made about it that the developers issued and apology.  The game sold around 30,000 subscriptions at launch, far less than the millions World of Warcraft had, and the game was enough of a disaster that Monolith sold it to Sony within 3 months of launch.  Sony responded by laying off a number of the developers and the entire Live Events team (more on this later).  The summer of 2005 was a strange one for the game as there was little content developed for the game and no Live Events.


4. Live Events.  One of the main attractions for MxO was its Live Events team.  The idea was that there would be a dedicated team of people who would take control of the main NPC, “story” characters from The Matrix Online universe (Morpheus, Niobe, Ghost, the Oracle, etc.) and constantly run live stories and events within the game.  They were basically actors and story writers who would push the MxO story forward in real time and with an ongoing series of events with player involvement which would be chronicled on the website.  These Live Events would be supplemented by the standard “critical missions” that would come out on a weekly basis (your standard MMO quests / missions).  This was one of the main draws; the game was sold on the concept that you, the player, would be able to influence the course of events within The Matrix Online.  The problem, however, was that Sony laid off the entire Live Events team only 3 months after launch when they took over.  So now, one of the main sources of content in the game, the dynamic Live Events, were gone.  And the developers relied so much on the concept of Live Events that the mission system was not a true quest game engine (like most other MMOs), meaning that it was very limited in what it could do or how missions could be developed for the game.  Even worse, missions were originally created to be once-and-done deals; you could not replay them.  It was only a long time later that a mission archive was instituted, and those missions were replayable.  But for a long time, once you were done a mission, there was very little else to do.


5. CR2.  Oh, yes, if you’re a Matrix Online fan, then you know what CR2 means, and it may send you into convulsions.  CR2 stood for “Combat Revision 2,” and it was a major overhaul of the combat system in MxO.  There are a number of problems with this.  First of all, CR2 was on the drawing board shortly after beta ended, which means that the developers knew the combat system in the game was flawed and released it anyway.  CR2 was not a minor patch to the system, it was a major overhaul of combat.  The problem with CR2 is that it took months of development time, before and after the Sony takeover.  And while they were working on this, very little content was being created for the game, and there were no Live Events.  For 10 months.  For a new game, with little content so shortly after launch, this did little to help the game’s reputation for boring grinds and not much else to do.  Granted, CR2 was an improvement in combat, making it faster and smoother, but it took too much time at a critical juncture in the game’s history and the long-term benefits can be debated.


6. One content developer.  After CR2 was completed, MxO’s development staff was reduced to just a handful of people, and with no animator on staff, the stagnation in the game began to set in.  One developer, Rarebit, was eventually left to create all of the missions, bring back Live Events (albeit in a smaller, limited capacity), and add any additional new content to the game.  Despite his Herculean efforts, there was only so much one man can do.  It is amazing he was able to continue the game as long as he did, but eventually the limitations of what he had to work with were beginning to become painfully obvious.  The annual Anniversary, Winter, and Halloween events were the same content after a while, just reactivated for that short period of time.  When Rarebit left the company in February, the writing was on the wall for the game’s demise.

As a bit of a side project, I’ve been compiling from various resources a document that contains the entire story of The Matrix Online, and figured I’d share a still-rough draft of the document (especially since the storyline will no longer be continuing).  I was surprised how much four years of story amounted to, and the intent was for this guide to be for anyone who wanted to play the game but wasn’t sure where to begin with the story.  There’s also a lot of information about the game, locales, characters, and more.  It is by no means complete, and there’s a lot of editing that needs to occur, but hey, if you like it or find it useful, let me know.

LiveJournal-friendly link

Today, the stars aligned. I was able to track down a Wii.

And Wii Play.  And Super Mario Galaxies.  And Trauma Center:  Second Opinion (for Karen).

I’m trying to not have all of my free time sucked up.

Really.

*Sneaks off*