The Live Events team wanted to address many of the concerns from the community that have appeared on the forums and by emails. This article from Aether will discuss upcomming events, some frequently asked questions, and providesome details on a newly created Events Special Interests and Feedback group for event enthusists.

New Event: Nightfall - Tooth and Nail

Did you catch the introduction to the next live event? You can check it out by clicking this link. Interested parties should take note of the incredible artwork depicting the dangerously gorgeous Ookami. Evisceration never looked so good! Keep a watch on the headlines and be cautious out there… “Nightfall” visits The Mega City in just one day!

Your Live Event Feedback, Digested

The Live Events Team has spent hours upon hours reading and categorizing your feedback relating to events inside The Matrix Online.  Now that we’ve finished, I wanted to give you a glimpse of the final outcome, and encourage everyone to submit more feedback if we missed a critical point of concern. 

So, after exhaustive reflection and dissection, here’s what we’ve come up with:

1. You want to know what’s going on before, during and after an event.

We hear you there.  Some of you were concerned about the way in which we communicated specific rules for a particular event (Shapers anyone?), and you wanted more opportunities for unique, one-on-one interactions.  In addition, you wanted a better understanding of what was going on while you were in the thick of it. 
 
All very valid concerns, and we are working to address those problems now.  Imagine, if you will, an in-game system that stores all event developments, so no matter when you log on, you are immediately caught up with where we are in the story.  Better yet, imagine a system that has a series of private channels, so information that is intended only for a particular organization, could only be viewed by that organization.
 
If that sounds good to you, then you’ll be happy to know that we are currently developing a system just like that, to better communicate our story in a timely manner, directly to players who want to know more, catch up, or dive in to the ever-evolving story of The Matrix Online.
 

2. You don’t like it when Live Events usurp important game systems.

Our event inadvertently replaced gang spawns that dropped loot that was important to the advancement of your character within the Matrix.  From this point on, our event design will take into consideration the impact it will have on existing game systems, and avoid interrupting your gameplay in this manner.  We truly apologize for any frustration this may have caused. Lesson learned!

 
3. You are concerned about the timing of Live Events.

The Matrix Online Live Events Team will coordinate event activities, accessible to all, on a 24 hour schedule.  This event schedule applies to all worlds, with some distinct differences.  Specifically, while some aspects of our events suit a 24/7 production schedule, we will always encounter moments when climactic pieces of the story can only presented once per world.  In addition to a thorough review of your comments and concerns, we have also spent a fair amount of time studying peak traffic for both our American and European customers.  Compiling all of these key considerations, we have come up with a schedule that we think meets the needs of our peak-time populations.
 
Output and Input-Hostile will see climactic, one-time events during the hours of 6:00a - 6:00p, Pacific Standard Time.
 
Iterator, Proxy, Heuristic-Hostile, Regression, Method, Linenoise and Enumerator-Hostile will see their climactic, one-time events during the hours of 12:00p – 12:00a, Pacific Standard Time.  
 
Please note: The Live Events Team fully intends to deliver other unique events outside of the abovementioned schedule.  This particular schedule clarification comes as an attempt to balance the issues of a large, diverse community, with varied play styles, against the finite resources of the Live Events Team. 
 
One of the trickiest aspects of delivering an event schedule to a global audience is assuring an equitable division of opportunity.  Our intention is to tailor our schedule to meet the needs of our players on a worldwide scale.   We believe that the approach outlined above is an aggressive step in the right direction.
 
And while we continue to grow and improve our event delivery tools, be advised that your feedback is priority one in the process of improvement.  We look forward to more of your feedback related to live events, and we thank you for your patience as we grow and develop our live events programming.

 
4. You like it when our event content varies from day to day.

In all honesty, this was a tough one. Some of our events may contain threads that run throughout the life of the particular story we are telling.  It is important that we allow our story to be accessed by many different people from many different time zones.   On the other hand, your concerns regarding the frequency of fresh storyline activities were entirely reasonable. With that being said, I want to assure you that the Live Events Team has some of the most creative minds I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.  As a group, we fully intend on introducing interesting and exciting event activities that run the gamut of preference and play style.   
 
We are working on a system that will help us find the balance between opportunity and monotony, and the most important part of that system is your feedback.  In time, we will have a better understanding of how best to introduce (and say goodbye to) different facets of our events.  Your patience is greatly appreciated as we work to figure those things out.
 

5. Some of you don’t enjoy forced PvP.

Sometimes, participation in our events require a more aggressive approach to conflict management; namely, player versus player combat.  Some of you don’t enjoy that aspect of our game, and I can appreciate that.  Some of you enjoy it very much, and I can appreciate that as well.  While I cannot promise you that every single event we run will be free of PvP encounters, I can say that the Live Events Team is committed to providing several different kinds of opportunities for several different kinds of players.
 
Unless you are on a hostile server, in which case we promise that our event characters won’t spend too much time keeping you from kicking the code out of each other.

That’s Not All, Folks

Send us your feedback!

Live events are tricky, and we continue to refine and improve our methods of delivery.  Do you feel as though we have we missed something here?  If so, you are invited to share your thoughts with the Events Team here on this forums thread.

Request for Submissions: The Live Events Special Interest Group

After reading your comments, ideas and suggestions, the biggest thing we took away from the process was that there are a large number of incredibly talented and creative people in The Matrix Online community. After reading all your suggestions, one thing became clear: We want more feedback!

And so, we’ve created the Live Events Special Interest Group!  What is this, you ask?  Well, it’s an opportunity for a handful of people to contribute thoughts and ideas, participate in Live Event evaluation efforts, consider new event ideas, preview event offerings, and much, much more.   
           
We want as many different kinds of people as possible to participate in the Live Events Team Special Interest Group, because it is very important to us that we have a broad representation of our players. Are you a roleplayer? Great! Like to PvP? Excellent!  Are you a writer? Are you new to the game? Are you an old school MMO player?  Perhaps you are a tiny monkey…er… well, that’s not very likely. The point being, there’s a place for all sorts in this group. 

Now, here’s how you apply to participate!

• Using 50 words or less, outline the reasons you would like to participate in the Live Events Team Special Interest Group. 
• Once you have that part down, you can send it to mxocommunity@lith.com.

We will be accepting submissions until May 15th, so hurry and send in your essay. We’re looking forward to reading your entries!   
           
We can’t wait to show you what we’ve got planned next!