Happy Valentine's Day
For Valentine's Day this year, I'm giving everyone my article originally slated for last Friday! (Yeah, I'm cheap.) Valentine's Day, I feel, is best observed by spending time with people you care about or thinking about them if you can't be close. Remember, in The Matrix Online, nothing says love like a boot to the head. Just ask anyone from Vector--they're always spreading that kind of love around.
It's A Long, Long Way to Tipperary
Last week was a long one here in the Seattle studio. The team has been jamming on Combat Revision 2.0 and we finally got Update 5 out the door.
We're happy to see the positive feedback about the new combat effects. We also appreciate everyone keeping an open mind to the removal of Tactics numbers and damage absorption text. Our hope is that the combat effects give enough visual feedback for you to make strategic decisions during combat.
Even though we've come a long way in implementation over the past few months, we still have the final stretch ahead. There are still items we feel must be completed before CR2.0 is released and there's all your feedback to take into consideration. The journey has been a long one since the initial proposal last year, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. (No, it's not a subway car.)
Editutorializing
As some of you noted, the Tutorial isn't automatically available when you create a new character on the External Playtest server. At this time, the client build automatically appends a change that skips the Tutorial.
Now, I was initially going to tell you how to force your way into the Tutorial, but I figured I should check it out beforehand. Let's just say, I'm glad I did. There are currently a few stopper bugs that we need to fix before opening the Tutorial for testing. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to loop back to the Tutorial after skipping it and going to the Loading Area. But what do I know?
Keep in mind that the major changes to the Tutorial are related to combat. Other than checking that and looking for bugs, there's not much new to see there at this time.
A Question of Organization
There have been some questions about new Organizations on the forums recently. Since I'm an expert on Organization (stop laughing), I wanted to address them now.
I know you're all excited about the impending storyline that seems to point at a new splinter Org. However, at this time, there are no plans to implement new player Organizations in The Matrix Online. Given the intricacies of Organization mechanics and the extra content these Orgs would require, we're not prepared to tackle that issue.
Would new Organizations for players be a cool feature? Absolutely, we won't argue that point. But we aren't prepared to go down that road right now and I wanted to give a definitive answer to that topic.
Cinematic Stylin'
I've also seen many comments about the new cinematic style we're moving to, but wanted to set some facts straight.
First, the new cinematics won't be in Flash, they'll be AVIs. Given we already have Windows Media Player as part of the game, it was a fairly simple decision to go with that format. Also, keep in mind we need to convert our old cinematics to the new format, as well. While the new style would work fine in Flash, the current game-engine cinematics would be a bit more complicated.
Second, the new cinematic style will be introduced in Episode 5.1, which is currently scheduled for release in May. So, don't worry that we're keeping you in the dark until the last moment-we'll be doing some features on the new style before they appear in game.
And for those of you who just counted out the episodes, yes I did mean May for Episode 5.1. Episode 4.3 will appear in April. No, we're not taking a month off from the storyline, just the normal introduction of storyline. I told you the Anniversary Event had storyline elements, didn't I? ;)
Understanding Upgraded Abilities
One little discovery I made in my Combat Revision 2.0 testing is how some Abilities are essentially replaced by other ones further down the tree. (No, I'm not talking about Logic Bombs, thank you very much. I figured that out last month.)
In this case, I'm talking about changes and additions to the Ability tree that make some older Abilities somewhat obsolete in different loadouts. One of the most confusing examples, for me at least, is Intensify Damage, Firarms Skill, and Martial Arts Prowess.
You see, Firearms Skill and Martial Arts Prowess are replacement Abilities for Intensify Damage. While Intensify Damage does enhance both Ballistic and Melee Damage, Firearms Skill and Martial Arts Prowess give better bonuses to their respective damage types. If you activate an Ability that is effectively a replacement for another Ability, the other Ability's effect will wear off and you can't reactivate it until the new effect is gone.
While I'm not an expert on all the places this happens, the most obvious case is working down the Operative tree. For example, the Soldier upgrade is a generally improved Operative upgrade. Further down the tree, the upgrades split out more, but work in generally the same way. And, in any case, you can only have one Title Ability upgrade active at a time.
No Sleep till Brooklyn
It's been a long road to CR2.0, but we're getting there. That, along with the upcoming anniversary, is going to make for a busy month ahead. The team is looking forward to finishing both and sharing the fruit of our labors with everyone in The Matrix Online.
Sharing the Love with SOE
Speaking of sharing, option one for sharing the player videos from December has been exercised. In the internal SOE newsletter, we directed everyone to a network folder where they can see all the entries. This was the best opportunity to show off MxO to the company as a whole. As for option two...well, we're still working on that. With luck and some hard work, anyone who didn't see them on the forums will have a chance to see them (or parts of them) in a different way.
Stay tuned to Data Node One for further details. See you on the other side later this week.
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