Monolith’s Toby Ragaini breaks the code on The Matrix Online MMO world

By Michael Lafferty

“We want to earn long-term, satisfied customers, so we're making a great MMO - that happens to be based on the Matrix”

Unless you have been under a rock, you have heard of The Matrix. The movie series took action special effects to new limits with a disturbing storyline that had players realizing a bleak future scenario coupled with the ultimate online game – a real world simulation. Only after learning about what The Matrix, the computer-generated real world that most of humanity believed itself to be living in, were the rebel heroes able to overcome the system and begin to fight the machines.

The idea to create an online game for this title has been in the works for a while. First Ubisoft had the license, then Atari and in May of this year, SEGA announced that it had undertaken the task of bringing The Matrix Online to life.

What will this world offer? Will it mirror the original movie in the rich effects and what will players be able to accomplish in this world. For the answers to those questions and others, we hooked up with Toby Ragaini, online creative director and lead designer at Monolith Studios.

Question: Creating a game like The Matrix Online is such a huge undertaking, especially considering the scope of the films. How do you start the process of weeding down what you will have in the game and what you will not?

Toby: Movie properties evoke specific expectations and fans are disappointed when a game does not live up to those expectations. In the case of The Matrix, we identified what we thought were four key “themes” that immediately come to mind when thinking about the Matrix films.

First, we needed to depict a huge, dense, cityscape that created the feeling of intimidation that was captured in the movies.

Second, we needed our characters to be able to sport the kinds of badass clothes and weapons similar to those used by the characters from the films. In addition, a certain amount of variety beyond the movie costumes would be needed in order to support player expression.

Third, we absolutely needed to raise the bar on MMO combat visuals. The accepted notion of static “I swing, you swing” combat system would not be accepted by Matrix fans.

And finally, we agreed that simply recreating the environment from the movies would not be enough. In order to be relevant, we knew that fans would want to participate in an ongoing story that actually moved the saga of the Matrix forward.

In the end, only our audience will be able to judge whether or not we achieved these goals. But based on our beta testers’ response, I am very pleased and encouraged by the results of our work.

Q: What types of characters will players have the option of playing?

Toby: Character capabilities are extremely customizable in MxO, more so than any other game of its kind. Every ability that a player can perform is a piece of software that players can load or unload into their head. Just like Neo learned how to instantly perform Kung Fu, players can expect to do the same.

Q: Does this game take place in the Matrix, or will players pilot ships and be involved with that whole aspect of protecting Zion?

Toby: The brothers have told the story of what happened in Zion. The siege is over, and with it, the action in the real world has subsided. With that in mind, MxO takes place exclusively inside the Matrix, and smaller “pocket worlds” called constructs.

Q: How will players level up and as they level, how do they accrue skills?

Toby: Abilities are set up in a dependency tree structure, not unlike a tech-tree in strategy games. Unlike Neo, player characters must gain the mental capacity to contain abilities. At low levels, characters only have memory capacity for a handful of novice abilities. As characters gain more memory capacity, they can advance farther up the ability tree and load more and more fantastic abilities. Finally, individual abilities can be improved, so players have multiple axis of advancement.

Q: Neo had unique talents, as did all those who understood the matrix for what it was. How do you intend to handle some of the unique elements, like slowing time to avoid damaging shots, et cetera, while still keeping the server active for all the other players in the world?

Toby: Bullet-time is part of the MxO combat experience. Like in the movies, bullet-time kicks in during dramatic moments in a fight scene. For example, perhaps you are just about to land the killing blow on an opponent. Suddenly, the familiar slo-mo and dramatic camera angles of bullet-time activate and you watch your character’s knee slowly smash into your opponent’s face with a sickening crunch. Just like the movies, bullet-time is used as a visual signifier that something really cool just happened.

This doesn’t actually take place on the server, though. It’s a client-side event that speeds up part of the animation and then slows it down for bullet-time. This way everything is synched up with the server when the move is over.

Q: Will missions have instanced dungeons? Is this game based on player missions and of what type are they?

Toby: No, missions are not instanced. Each mission area is a distinct place in the world that is reserved by the mission when it starts. We can afford to do this because unlike any other game, all of our building interiors are fully designed and decorated. This gives us an incredible amount of floor space, and so we avoid the necessity of instanced dungeons.

Gameplay is a combination of missions and free exploration of the environment. It’s really up to the player. We’ve worked very hard to include gameplay that will keep different types of gamers entertained.

Q: Will those from the movie series make cameos in the game?

Toby: Yes, movie characters will certainly make appearances in MxO, but they do not simply wait around for players to come and talk to them. Instead, they’re actively pursuing their own agendas, and may ask certain players to help them from time to time.

Q: Is there a crafting system, or economic system in place? What about guilds, or cells? How will players acquire new weapons and the like?

Toby: Yes, crafting in MxO is based on writing code. To write code, players will need to get access to the proper abilities, equipment, code structures, and code fragments. If you don’t have the code structure for an item you are attempting to build, you can try to decompile a copy of the item and extract the structure that way. If you are successful, you will have learned how to craft the code for that item.

Once you have learned the code structure, you combine the specified code fragments using a special code-writing panel. If your ability check succeeds, you are able to generate the code.

Once you’ve compiled the code into an item, you can sell it on the marketplace, or give it to a friend. It’s completely up to you.

As for social systems, MxO provides a number of different options to players. First, for sharing missions and grouping, players can form a Team, which is a temporary 8-person group that anyone can form.

The next social structure is called a Crew. A Crew represents the crew of a hovercraft. This a permanent group allowing up to 12 people who will eventually be able to share the benefits of having their own hovercraft. Crews are permanently linked with an Organization (Zion, Machines, Merovingian) when they are formed and form the basis for PvP raiding groups. In order to form a Crew, a character must have achieved a rank of Captain (or equivalent) with one of the Orgs.

Finally, Crews of the same Organization can join together to form larger Factions. Factions are MxO’s equivalent to guilds and Faction members benefit by generating bonus XP points that their members share.

Q: What elements do you think will make this game stand out from other online titles?

Toby: The subscription model for massively multiplayer online games allows players to vote with their wallets every month. We understand that you can't simply slap a great license on a lousy MMO. Sure, you may see initial sales, but if your gameplay does not measure up to the appeal of your license, you'll eventually lose your customers.

At Monolith, we're in the MMO business for the long haul. We want to earn long-term, satisfied customers, so we're making a great MMO - that happens to be based on the Matrix. To this end, we identified opportunities to improve the core MMORPG gameplay experience.

First, we've reduced the time requirement. Many people don't have three-hour timeslots to devote to gaming, and they shouldn't need to. We've based missions in The Matrix Online around half-hour experiences that link together to form a story. That means that in a half-hour, you can log in, complete a mission, have a complete narrative experience, and feel like you've made progress in the game.

Other decisions were made to facilitate this reduced time requirement. For instance, why do so many MMOs force players to run everywhere? In the Matrix, you can teleport from hardline to hardline, reducing what would otherwise be several minutes running. Of course you have to find the hardline the first time you use it, so there's still an exploration component. But once you've found them, they allow players a great degree of flexibility in moving around the world.

Second, we've tried to reduce a behavior that I call "character regret". Many MMOs have players make important and irrevocable decisions at the very beginning of the game, before they even understand what the options mean. Often, this leads to a situation where players are unhappy with the choices they've made after several hours (or even days) of playtime. It's a lose / lose situation because their choices are limited to either starting over and losing the time they invested in the first character, or continuing to play with a character they aren't happy with.

In our game, players can reconfigure their character's abilities each time they jack in to the Matrix. As well as being completely consistent with the fiction of the Matrix, this allows players an unprecedented amount of flexibility. Feel like you want to try out a different set of abilities? No problem. Simply acquire the appropriate ability code, load it up, and off you go.

Finally, many MMO gamers are now looking for something a bit more immersive than your typical dungeon spawn camp. To meet these expectations, we've created a mission system that creates a narrative for each individual player. As you progress through your missions, you will be brought into the inner circle of one of three powerful organizations. The missions you take and the decisions you make will have a powerful impact on the kinds of content that will be available to you in the future.

So, this is a high-level overview of some of the ways that we're trying to improve the MMO genre, but these aren't the only aspects of the game. I could talk all day about crafting code, exploring the world for data nodes, the intricacies of the faction social system, and the risk-reward structure of combat, but I've got a game to finish. :)

del.icio.us | Digg This | Glink It

---