Define: Newsworthy

I saw a lot of comments this week about the "newsworthiness" of some items touched on in last week's Other Side. There seems to be a feeling that my Friday articles should focus on the big, upcoming changes to the game.

I began The Other Side of the Looking Glass back when my only job on The Matrix Online was community management. While I could generally get tidbits of information from the development team about what's going on in the game, I mostly used the weekly article as an outlet for discussing community issues.

Now that I'm also the producer on the title, I understand why there's an expectation for more dev-related information each week. I do try to make sure a majority of Other Sides talk about dev issues, especially when there are big changes coming to the game.

One thing I'd like everyone to realize, is that The Matrix Online is in a unique position of essentially having a producer's letter every single week. (Yes, except when I don't get the article out. :P) Most other games get that once a month or, more likely, once a quarter. I think it's safe to say that in one month of Other Sides the community gets to hear more about what's going on in the game than most communities get from producer letters.

On the plus side, I have a unique insight into what's going on with the game that other community managers don't. While my team occasionally slips one by me, I usually have a good idea exactly what's going on. That means you get to hear things straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

On the negative side, it also means that I don't always have as much time as I'd like to write up information about the game. And, many times, there's nothing new to report on big issues we're working on--like luggables. Throw in that there are often community issues I feel I need to speak out on, and end up with not every Friday article having big news about the game.

You'll hear as much about ongoing development as is feasible to provide and we'll keep an eye on feedback to try and address the hottest community concerns. That's a fair deal, don't you think?

Now, about one specific topic...

Why AFK?

As Foghorn Leghorn would put it, "It's a joke, son. You're supposed to laugh." When we first started reviewing what we were going to do for Update 48, we ended up with a list of slash commands that added functionality players had been asking for. So, half-jokingly, I asked, "What about AFK?"

Twice during development, I was given information that an AFK command had been added. Twice I put it into the patch notes. As they say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I'll never believe AFK is ever going into the game." Or something like that.

Is it a minor thing to add to the game? Sure. We've survived this long without it. But when it turned out to be both a simple thing to finally implement and something that fit into our "Slash Patch", we decided to throw it in. Dracomet even joked that we shouldn't put it into the patch notes.

So, why mention it? Because it has twice been a source of personal embarassment. And now that I've seen images of players with "AFK" over their heads, I can lay it to rest.

Winter Holiday and Update 49

As I mentioned previously, Update 48 is our last full update scheduled for this year. Update 49 is currently scheduled to release the second week of January.

In the meantime, we're working on our plans for the Winter Holiday event, which will begin in mid-December. We'll be re-releasing everything from last year and hopefully be adding a bit more to it. (No, we won't have zombies in Santa hats.)

The team has tossed around some ideas and we'll be finalizing things soon. There is the potential for our first luggable to be added to the game for the event. We're thinking that an event-related luggable would not only be cool to have, but would be an interesting test case to see how players react to it. That's still up in the air, but definitely under consideration.

Random Simulacra Feedback

One item that made it into Update 48 is that Remote Proxy Abilities now generate random Soldier types. Players can generate simulacra that specialize in any of the three Martial Arts styles or any of the three Ranged Attack styles. In other words: Yes, we think Aikido only is boring, too.

Something to keep in mind about any Remote Proxy sim you're running with: The AI may not make the best choice in tactics to set up it's Special Attacks. You'll want to take a look at the Discipline's best attacks and understand what states they require. That way you can set up your sim by firing into combat with a tactic that will cause the appropriate state.

We're interested in hearing player feedback on how the randomized sims work out. Not only because players always find things we don't once a feature goes live, but also because we're also looking at the other simulacra Abilities, as well. So, all you Coders out there let us know what you think.

A Final Note

I was going to finish off this week's article with a snarky message about the Ohio State vs. Michigan football game this weekend. As many in the community know, I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from The Ohio State University. The game tomorrow is one of the biggest rivalries in American college football and tomorrow's game pits the number 1 and number 2 ranked teams in the nation against each other.

Then a buddy of mine sent me an email to tell me that former Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler died today. Briefly, former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes and Bo essentially made the rivalry what it is today. Whenever the teams played each other, it was as much about the coaches as it was the players.

My unexpected emotional reaction really got me thinking. Overall, football is just a game, the same as The Matrix Online or any other game. There are some who treat the game that way, some who simply don't care, and some who have a passion for the game. It's that group's passion that make a game become something more.

It's the people involved with the game, both directly and indirectly, who matter the most in the end. It's the community that grows around the game that creates legends and stories that stay with us. Sometimes we don't like the people on the "other side", but in the best circumstances we still find something we admire about them.

Will the result of tomorrow's football game or tonight's zerg on Vector change the world? No, not in any significant way. But in the best moments, stories will be created, emotions will explode, and everyone involved will take something away with them. That's what makes games worth playing and being a part of.

I still want the Buckeyes to win tomorrow. But everyone in the stadium will be thinking about legendary moments of the past; memories of great times that two people now gone from our lives were part of. We all should have experiences like that in our lives. That, my friends, is worth more than who walks off the field with another win on their record.

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