RAREBIT has announced his time with MxO is now up. Due to personal reasons ... as it seem the sole person keeping the MxO experience alive I don't like to think of how this will impact on the game as a whole. He's indicated that he'll be posting the storyline he had in place for the rest of the year, that would have tied up loose ends and that it's now in 'our' hands. This screams of a plug pull in the near future.
Will SOE finally kill of a MMO, their first in their history. Without this key developer I can't see how the now struggling MMO can survive. Can I hear the faint songs from a 'fat lady'?
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Thank YouI can't post there, but you'll be deeply missing within the MxO Community, I wish you well "Rarebit" aka Ben Chamberlain.
Things don't always go according to plan. This new year brought me a series of surprises--surprises that have led me to conclude that after ten years in the game industry--seven of those on The Matrix Online--it is time for me to go.
This decision is purely personal, and the responsibility for it rests solely on me. Fortunately, the day-to-day operation of the game servers, aside from maybe a crash here or there, doesn't have anything to do with the coming or going of one small game designer. If things go according to plan this time, then Friday the 13th of February, the day after the release of Update 66, will be my last day here at SOE.
Update 66 is currently scheduled to include critical graphic fixes for Vista users, and a variety of goodies for everyone, including a few little items that will remain secret until the day of release. It will *not* include any advancement of the main story. I'll be posting most of my story documentation, including the outline for the overall story that had been planned through the end of this year--a year that was to wrap up pretty much all of the main story we've had so far--as well as the detailed mission and event plans for each subchapter all the way back to 5.2. These will, I hope, answer some questions. Where the story goes from here, however, will be--finally--up to you.
I'd like to thank the old Monolith team, WB, SOE, the Wachowski brothers, and Paul Chadwick for making the tremendous opportunity I've had here possible. I don't count on ever again having a chance to work on such a cool project, with such devoted fans. It is those fans that I have to thank particularly; even if we drove each other crazy now and then, I think many of us will agree that we had our moments. My regret is that I have been unable to find a way to stretch those moments out into the full-fledged online Matrix experience that you all deserve.
But who knows? The Internet will probably be around for a while, and maybe we'll run into each other somewhere down the line.
Thanks again.
Ben Chamberlain, aka "Rarebit"