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Say Hello to Reconium

Yeah, so, one of my characters in Matrix Online is a female. I don't use her much, but the other day I happened to break her out just as an event was going on.

Remember this thing? Well, a different Organisation got the chance to rehas - er - redo the same mission, with a few little twists. Like I said, I don't use this character much so her extremely low level resulted in me dying about five hundred times before I could get to the (constantly shifting) mission areas.

By the time I turned up, about six hundred people had crammed themselves into the top floor of a building packed with, er, werewolf related creatures (don't ask).

A whole lot of shooty-shooty fun later (coupled with trying to work out where the Hell you were actually standing), and we realised the people we were looking for were up on the roof. I'd love to be able to fill you in on who we were hunting down, but...you know.....low level character, missing the first half of the event etc.

Eventually, I managed to push past lots of people jamming up the stairs and wandered out to see...more carnage (well, a few dead bodies at any rate). Is it just me or am I missing all the fun here? A quick step over to the edge of the building, and there was a Mexican standoff (minus guns or anything remotely Mexican) between Ghost (bald dude, used to be Chinese but now he isn't due to copyright reasons or something) and Ookami (created-for-game character with horrendous posture. I mean, look at her).

They babbled at each other about things I'm sure I don't really care about, and then Quasimodo jumped off the roof, resulting in comical Benny Hill-style chase related fun. In fact, the Benny Hill action went on.....and on......and on.

Just like the last event, we apparently missed the Trainman and were left with nothing but a big pile of people standing round in a train station. I kinda have the sneaking suspicion that the character wasn't actually ingame at all, and this was one of those wild goose chase thingies.

That would be vaguely annoying, but then I didn't spend about three hours getting to this train station in the first place so meh.

Ghost stood around for a bit and babbled about stuff for a while longer, before everybody ran outside to shake his hand or pull faces or offer him a fight. You can see a full summary of this event here. I'm still not entirely sure why he's no longer Chinese, but then I was shooting Werewolves earlier on so what do I know?

Smith: Last Man Standing

If you happened to log into the Matrix Online the other week, you'd have seen it all kick off in fine style as an endless stream of Agent Smith clones ran rampant throughout the city. Cue three hour battle as we tried to kill them all off once and for all. Movie clip thing below, and click here for a nice collection of snaps from the final battle.

We won, by the way.

Attack of the Smiths

Agent Smith popped up again the other night and proceeded to kick everybody's ass for a while in the form of multiple burning dudes in suits. Whoops...

War! What is it good for?

...absolutely nothing, except awesome T-Shirts.

It's not often I go hunting down hobos at 3AM (unless they've stenched up the place or robbed my trainers), but a few nights ago the exception proved the rule (or whatever useless phrase you want to insert, I'm not too bothered).

Remember "Revolutions"?

Yeah, sure you do, it's that film that was kind of okay but sort of sucked a bit. Well, there was that homless dude....the Trainman...and he sort of sucked too. However, he is apparently going to turn up in Matrix Online at some point - we thought this would be the night, and so without further ado, I present.....a bunch of stuff with pictures.

Kicking things off, we had some meeting in a club somewhere.

I say meeting, but it was more like "bunch of people stand round for an hour or so before anything actually happens". Luckily, I got there vaguely late and so only had to make do with twenty minutes of foot tapping boredom.

In fact, I sort of suspected this was going to be all the event consisted of - lucky, then, that I stuck around because BAMMO, up popped a system wide message for my merry little band to go to.....er, another club.

And stand round for a bit.

Thankfully, the waiting wasn't quite as painful this time. At this point, if I happened to be into such things, I'd relay all the chit-chat and banter and general pretending-to-be-other-people stuff that players tend to come out with at these sort of things. Luckily for you I'm not, so I will summarise thusly:

Homeless hobo guy on the run. Find him, bring him in. Maybe some punchy-punchy action. The end.

In case you're wondering, I didn't write the script to Revolutions but it's not far off.

With the objectives set down, it was basically a case of RUN HERE AFTER SOLVING PUZZLE, OH NOES NOBODY HERE NEXT PLACE PLZ K THX BYE.

This went on for about an hour and a half.

Gah.

It was fun though, and a lot of the puzzle thingies involved working out co-ordinates from the various subway routes that stretch across the city. My favourite bit was when we encountered the dude in the picture, and sort of bumrushed him in a threatening manner to hand over some information OR ELSE PUNCHY PUNCHY FUN FOR ALL.

As you can imagine, he spilled the beans all over the place.

After that, it was more riding around on subway fun before finding paydirt - in the shape of heavily armed guards that want to kill you. I'm not quite sure why everybody I meet is always trying to kill me, but whatever.

They taste the beatdown stick all the same, and that's what counts, right? Sure, you can discuss the cod-philosophy of the Matrix all you want, but when it comes down to it, everything can be decided by shooting someone in the head or thousand flying fist of Judah-ing them right in the mush.

After taking down a whole bunch of those guys.....and some more.......and some more.......and....well, you get the idea....we stormed the subway and took out the final bunch of punks with guns.....

......and.......

......and.......................

....stood around looking clueless, until someone noticed activity from further inside the abandoned subway system.

I won't bore you with the details, but the system comprises 4 maze like levels of twisty, turny maze like fun and games for all the family. We were looking for some sort of device that did stuff. What sort of stuff, I don't know. But stuff all the same.

Imagine my dismay, then, when it turned out the device we were looking for was apparently sitting AT THE DAMN ENTRANCE.

FORTY MINUTES OF RUNNING ROUND FOR NO POINT AT ALL, BAM. ALSO, LOL.

But mostly gah.

Once we realised someone had already grabbed the device, we all went back to the first floor and saw some Vampire dude giving a speech about chocolate and Matrix-style electronic devices or something. I think.

The end result is that we missed the Trainman completely, but we got to kill a lot of people in the process of looking for him.

Seems like a fair trade to me. We also got to hit a party hosted by the French dude, too but seeing as by this point it was now 3AM, I had more pressing matters to attend to like falling asleep.

You can read a summary of our antics here, and I'll finish up with a bunch more pictures...

Smith will Suffice

Agent Smith has returned to the Matrix (sort of) in the form of horrible agents that are on fire and want to kill you, or turn you into one of them.

Long story, don't ask.

Instead, here's a collection of click-to-enlarge pics, six images ripped from a Fraps recording and (of course) the movie clip itself. Let's start with the film and take it from there...

 

 

He's Back in Black..

Today?

Hey baby, it's all smiles.

Tomorrow? Oy vey. The Smithster is back...in black.

And he's totally on fire, too.

The Matrix Online 2nd Anniversary Party

Yesterday, The Matrix Online was two years old.

In that time, it's gone from a vaguely bug riddled nightmare to a solid, non-crashing-every-five-minutes piece of fun city. They nearly lost me as a returning subscriber because although they'd made a fair amount of changes to the game, there was nothing in game to tell me about any of them. If I hadn't been told of the changes by other players, I probably wouldn't be writing this now.

So.

We all knew there'd be a big, huge party coming up. Generally, you turn up, you talk a bit and you dance. You stick your character on the /dance emote and you dance your little socks off.

Not this time.

For compare and contrast purposes, in the image I'm looking down on the party ten minutes after it kicked off. You will notice some differences in terms of numbers on the dancefloor as this ramble continues.

There's a very good reason for this.

I got bored after about fifteen minutes and started doing handstands. At this point, it's your standard, everyday party - although it's starting to fill up, it needs.....something extra. Something spectacular.

In short, it needs something that promises awesome things ahead, tales of wonder and merriment and things that go boing.

No, not Candy Mountain. Something better than that (if such a thing is humanly possible, of course).

Imagine my surprise, then, when it turned out that the much-needed element missing from this party was.....some dude randomly shimmying his way down a drainpipe.

Then getting stuck.

See, this is no ordinary dude.

This is one of the Game Developers taking the role of one of the...well, not sure if I'd call him "main", but yeah.....whatever. One of the better known characters ("The Effectuator") in the Matrix Online. If I've got my nerd hat on...and it's entirely possible that I have...he's a program styled after a pimp, yo, and can do all sorts of funky, magical code-related things to boot.

Up to this point, I'd not seen any of these so-called funky things but believe me....things are about to get....funky.

After he pulled some guy's butt off of his head (after looking at the picture, I suppose it keeps the rain off) he wandered out onto the (rapidly filling up) dancefloor and in the bumrush proceeded to make everyone forget there was a party going on in a spectacular manner.

How? Oh, I don't know.

Maybe by TURNING SOME GUY INTO A POWER GENERATOR.




Not enough? Okay, then what about when he...

TURNED SOMEONE INTO A PHONEBOX WITH DOORS FOR ARMS.

Still not enough? Okay, then here's a picture of....

RANDOM PEOPLE TURNED INTO VENDING MACHINES AND A PUMPKIN. I've no idea why the pumpkin is positioned where it's, er, positioned either.

There's no need to be rude about it. Pervs.

As you can imagine, things took on a very definite air of "wtf" by this point - and we still haven't got to the big one yet.

Big one?

Yeah, check this out.

DUDE TURNED INTO A SUBWAY CAR FTW.

Have you ever seen a subway car dance? Have you? Have you?!

I have. By this point, there were katana blades, computer desks and stage scaffolding running around. I think we can all agree, the PCP had most definitely kicked in by this point.

There are some sights you'll never forget.

Watching a power generator attempting to climb a drainpipe is one of them.

The madness continued as the crowds gathered and just when you thought things had died down, it turned out the insanity was just getting started.

See, individual transformations into crazy objects are all well and good. But how far could this magical ability extend?

Could he (say) turn a whole bunch of people at the same time into, oh, I don't know - a bunch of hot chicks?

Maybe....Kung Fu chicks and a handful of Goth type efforts?

BAM.

For some reason, I was turned into a goth instead of a Kung Fu chick. I'd have preferred Kung Fu but I guess you can't have everything.

I think we were all supposed to have a big fight at this point, but everybody just stood round looking confused (while losers kept spamming the area with OMG PLZ TURN ME INTO NEO PLZ K THX PLZ etc).

A bit longer, and a  bumrush ensued on our digital Jesus - do more cool stuff, they said. Turn us into toilets, they said. Give me free money, they said.

Then he went and turned everyone into two types of DJ.

Why?

No idea.

But freaking awesome anyway.

A bit more dancing  and he finally left in a puff of smoke or something, and my I decided it was time to depart myself.

Here's a final shot of the scene as I left it:

Note the bouncing pumpkin and the dancing rack of computer terminals.

One day, all our pumpkins will dance and our terminals will jive. On that day, I'll be a very happy man. Until then, we'll just have to make do with really stupid things that take place in online videogames.

Of course, I'm not going to leave you without presenting a badly edited, soundless movieclip. That'd be stupid. So, in the noble tradition of all things Paperghost, I present for your entertainment.....a badly edited, soundless movieclip.

Hey, what can I say, I threw it together this morning in about half an hour.

Don't make me come over there.

Where's Owen Wilson when you need him?

The new star of the Matrix Online has arrived, and he's already kicking ass and taking names, as you can see from the screenshot. Lindsay baby, you're old news...

Seven Soldiers of Victory!

It's been two years since I last sampled the delights of something awesome in the Matrix Online, but I finally stumbled into a Matrix Online Live Event. I was on a top secret mission involving corporate espionage - well, that's my story anyway - when the call came through.

Get thee to a hardline, oh mighty fist-throwing, face-punching maniac! And get thee with haste, or thou shalt surely...er....oh, bugger. Anyway, off I went, my little cotton socks filled with glee (and a lot of rainwater. Whose bloody idea is it to have it raining in the Matrix all the time, anyway?)

About ten minutes of jumping through the air later, and I finally arrived at some horrible, smelly bar. There was a whole bunch of people I'm sure I don't know hanging around, waiting to see what the big fat deal was.

Eventually, some dude turned up and told us the thingy with the stuff.

See, there's all these rival factions in the Matrix Online.

They don't like each other. Me? I'm aligned with the French dude. You know the one, wiping his ass with silk and all that jazz. The rest all run around pretending to be Neo or whatever. There's this one group in particular, called E Pluribus Neo. For the purposes of this writeup, we'll just refer to them as losers because they're going to taste some beatdown stick. It makes no difference to me who I'm fighting when I'm doing a Riverdance on someone's head, but at any rate, one crack of the knuckles and a guncheck later (you can tell I love this stuff, right?), and we're off!

At least, that was the plan. It all went a bit tits up when nobody actually knew where we were supposed to be going. All we knew was, there was some meeting going down and we had to disrupt it in the most awesome way possible. And by "awesome", I mean turning up in a totally threatening manner and then shooting the Hell out of stuff. A little bit of jumping from rooftop to rooftop later, and we knew where they were located.

Imagine our dismay, then, when we got there and realised they outnumbered us by about six billion (sort of) to seven.

I mean, yeah, we're totally looking badass standing up above them, making growling noises and stuff. But the overall effect is kind of lost when you realise you just walked into the world's stupidest deathtrap of all time, ever. A lot more of them were hanging round the base of the building too, and within minutes it looked like a case of you're dead, k thx bye.

However!

I didn't call this entry "Seven Soldiers of Victory" purely because I got it mixed up with an entry in the Comics section (although the chick with the red hair is a nice touch). No, I called it that because we did the only thing we could do in this situation - jumped down into the huge crowd below, and KICKED SOME ASS BABY.

Soldiers Seven, Strike!











This guy said he could kill me! He lied! He lied!











This guy tried to fight me! He died! He died!











Can't we just get along instead? Too bad, I just shot you in the head!

Their Big Chief Poppa dude got away, so there was no reason to stick around. A nifty chorus of "Quick, leg it!" and off we went, scattering around the city until it was safe to regroup.

I spent my time wisely, as you can see.

A few more hours of senseless bopping, eating kebabs (probably) and wondering just how much money had been lost down the back of the taxi and it was time to step outside and see if I lasted more than five seconds without being shot right between the eyes by a sniper.

Amazingly enough I wasn't, so I was able to leg it to a phonebox - because all awesome things take place in close proximity to phoneboxes, you fools - and found myself in some sort of weird "mission debrief" by the dude with the 'tache.

'Tache dude reckons their commander-type guy has now got a price on his head...I think...and we need to hunt him down, capture him, work him over a bit and get him to spill some beans. Working him over was all my idea - they just wanted to kill him, but if you can't indulge in some electrified nipple clamp torture-based fun and games first, honestly, what's the point?

I'll upload a short video mashup of the action into this post sometime later in the week. You've had more than enough action and excitement for one day so be off with you, before your head explodes...

A Small yet Profound Change

..not really, but you can now get a haircut in the Matrix Online - CYBERPUNK STYLE!!

This may not seem like the biggest deal in the world ever, but after two years of having the same stupid moptop on my head I'm vaguely excited by this. See, back in the day everyone was trying to run Matrix Online with computers that were decent for, like, two years ago. Sadly, this meant a lot of graphics cards weren't up to scratch so when creating their characters, people were ending up with bright purple aliens and whiter-than-a-tombstone freaks of nature. With beards.

My character design wasn't that bad, but that haircut has always annoyed me. Until now. The lesson here is, ALWAYS pop a strange pill you obtain from the corpse of a homeless person you've just kicked in the face. Strange and magical things might happen. Of course, you might just drop down dead in a big pile o' goo. Let's pump for strange and magical things, because it sounds more awesome...

Day in the Life

24 hours in The Matrix Online condensed into 40 seconds. Yes, I spend most of my time punching things. I'd like to pretend I spend hours discussing "what is real?" with a bunch of nerds, but...meh. Punching ftw.

My First Matrix Online Video

...yeah, it's got lots of punching and stuff in it. After hours of gimping around with codecs, converters and other things beginning with "c", I've finally managed to mash something together. Expect more of these in the future. I might even remember to put some sound in next time...

Alleyway Nakedness goes Tragically Wrong...

This is oh so cruel.

The scene: Two dudes, standing round in their undies in an alleyway somewhere. One of them, Donzo, is the unfortunate victim. The other, End0morph, is in on the "gag". There's one final guy (PipecwV2) cloaked in invisibility, hiding round the corner. Remember those TV shows where someone gets set up for a fall and then a camera crew turns up and goes LOL at your expense? Sure you do. Read the chat text and let this be a lesson - never, ever be persuaded to stand around with someone in your undies and "crack whips" in an alleyway if you're playing Matrix Online. Otherwise, a world of forum lols will be yours for the taking...

Let's do this thing, Pimp style

...and when I say pimp, I mean PIMP!

There's been a fair old bit happening in Matrix Online the past week or two, from people having random parties on top of gigantic concrete steps that lead nowhere and me being ignored in a bookstore, to accidental discoveries of gimp parties and cossack dancing behind agents. Ftw.

However, the biggest event of the week was what I believe was the first ever "Gay Pride" party held in the Matrix Online.

Now, I still don't think the best place to hold this was in an alleyway next to some bins, but whatever. We'll get back to the party shortly.

First of all, we need to look at some pictures of people being smacked up. Because smacking things up is what we do.

Smack the first!

Smack the second!

And, as a special bonus prize - someone being PUNCHED THROUGH THE CEILING.

Now that we've got our bloodlust out of the way, it's time to check out how the first ever Matrix Online Gay Pride event went down.

In one word, badly.

I should have known things would go - to coin a phrase - tits up when (en route to the party) I saw this freak of freaking nature, for freaks sake. Once you've finished scooping your eyes out with a spoon, you'll probably want to know that it's a bunch of pigeons apparently stuck together with glue. Why? No idea. But WTF and BBQ anyway.

The second omen of doom was when I arrived to see Lindsay Lohan grooving away in the middle of the....well, I can't call it a dancefloor, not really....in the middle of the thingy (sounds a little better than alleyway, I guess. Not much though).

The final omen of doom?

Well, I guess it was probably when I realised peoples clothes were starting to fall off.

Seriously. Put it away.

You're not going to win any cool points because you danced around naked in an alleyway next to some bins. I Promise.

Even accounting for semi nakedness and Lindsay Lohan, things weren't too bad....but then the fighting kicked off.

I'd like to say it was over something important, like a bag of stolen crisps or maybe even something about hair gel, but sadly, it was just a bunch of losers who turn up at events like this for no other reason than to cause trouble and disrupt events with spam, insults, fighting and extremely eyeball straining special effects.

After about an hour and a half of hardcore party action followed by 40 minutes of LOL YOU ALL SUCK FTW, people started to go elsewhere on the basis that stabbing yourself in the face with a spork would be more entertaining. Eventually, the whole thing was called off and the griefers got their way.

Doh.

Still, it was fun while it lasted and there was a pretty big turn out for the event. It's just a shame - and entirely predictable - that some idiots got to ruin it for everybody else.

On the bright side - I did get to try out my new favourite dance one more time...

Neo Lives FTW

Ah, mighty Neo, Saviour of Humanity, object of fear and awe in the Machines, without whom all would have perished and turned into Hugo Weaving, let us not forget that he bit the big one that we might still live! It was with great surprise that I found out Neos' RSI (the digital projection of his mental self) was still floating about in the Matrix - specifically, in a basement in a fightclub. Wondering whether this was some cruel joke at our expense, I ventured down there and lo! Truly, it was indeed the green, Matrix-code body of Neo! From a distance, you could even hear a strange heartbeat. Could Neo still be alive? Might The One return some day to smite us all with his no-spoon wisdom? Truly, this is a Holy Place, up there with Lourdes and the Sistene Chapel. The utmost respect is called for.

With that in mind, I give you NAKED DANCING!

Oh, Mighty Neo, without whom our naked dancing is for naught! All hail, he who floats mindlessly above as his subjects below royally cheese up the place with /dance1 Emotes! Cower in mortal dread, as....eh? What? Disrespectful? Not classy enough, you say? Expected more from me, did you?

Okay, okay. I'm sorry. How about this?

A Strange and Terrifying Vision

Someone sent me a bunch of pictures yesterday and I feel it's my moral duty to share them with you, even though what you see might terrify you and cause extreme distress.

For this, I apologise in advance.

Anyone with a weak heart, stomach or bladder, look away now lest you keel over, vomit and pee your pants all at once. For the rest of you, read on, though I make no guarantees as to your mental well being once you've witnessed the below.

There's no easy way to say it, so here goes - numerous people in The Matrix Online have started to report sightings of....well, see for yourself by clicking the picture....running round with a shotgun and dancing at Hardlines scattered across Mega City.

As you can see from the first screenshot I was sent, she's going for the ultra skinny look but it appears she can still totally handle a boomstick. Um.

I witnessed this terrifying, mind bending appearance myself a number of times and am still in rehab. As you can see from the second image, she's totally styling up the place with her awesome outfit and completely rad method of grooving like she's in an expensive nightclub, as opposed a piece of concrete under a bridge.

The horror.

Oh God, the horror.

On its own, that would be bad enough.

But then look who showed up!

New Years Party

Okay, so it's a bit late but whatever. There's not too many events in the Matrix anymore (in this case, the "Chariots of Fire: New Years Party") where this amount of people might potentially show up. Sadly it took place at 3AM so the only way to get there was via six hundred cans of red bull and practicing the art of PUNCHING! MYSELF! IN! THE! FACE!

That, and making sure there's as little chance as possible that your outfit will match someone else's. Cause oh man, that would suck, wouldn't it? In the end I ditched the trenchcoat look in favour of a sort of Bono style leather jacket mash up. You may think these are irrelevant details, but if you're going to go to a party and ponce around, it's important to ponce around stylishly.

Now, I've done this dance before in the Matrix. You sit up, till stupid o'clock, under the impression the whole word is going to show up. Imagine your dismay, then, when the entire turnout consists of you and three guys called Jim.

Things looked more promising here, however, as a bunch of people were already loitering outside the club when I finally got there. Could it be? Might I actually see more than ten people in one place at the same time? Do I dare to dream?

Oh Hell, yeah.

Apart from one of the old live events, I don't think I've ever seen this many people in one place.

Even before the party officially got going, it was flooded with bodies all over the place. As the night...er...morning...went on, it just got more and more jammed in with legs and arms and more legs and maybe a hat in all directions.

I mean, how much fun do you want? Dance offs on the ground floor, a place to sit and talk upstairs and snowball fights. Snowball fights! on the top floor.

Okay, someone stole all the snowball producing snowmen but whatever. That was bound to happen.

It's a great shame events like this don't happen every week - it'd definitely lure fresh people into the game if they did. I mean, many a time I've gone to these things and they're dead. They are dead.

The community at large are definitely out there, and they can all certainly show up to a bash like this. The question is, would people get bored if they got one of these all the time? It's one of those catch 22 things, or something. Or maybe we're all just greedy. Who knows.

Ultimately, it was worth waiting up till 3AM for. I doubt I could manage that every week, but every once in a while is fine by me.

I just hope I don't have to wait until 2008 for the next event on this sort of scale...

Upcoming Events

1) Winter Meltdown Party, Jan 6th - 12AM GMT, 4PM PST

"Greetings ! You are all invited to our Party ! sponsored by The Watchmen and H.A.L. factions. It will be at Tabor Park this Saturday, January 6th at 4pm Megacity Time (( 12:00am night GMT, 4pm PST, 5pm MST, 6pm CST, 7pm East ))

Thank you to 1cecold our DJ and SI Radio. Lets celebrate the New Year."

...in the complete absence of a physical location mentioned that the party would be held in, I'm going to assume they mean the actual park because that would be, you know, hilarious.

2) Chariots of Fire New Years Party, Jan 7th - 3AM GMT, 7PM PST

"Celebrate the new year with friends and all. We've got 3 hours of music, 3 floors of wintery fun to enjoy, and 50 Million $info to be won!

When:
Sunday, January 7 - 10pm-1am EST, 9pm-12am CST, 8pm-11pm MST, 7pm-10pm PST, January 8 3-6am GMT

Where:
Club Duality, Kedemoth Central Hardline (behind the HL on the 21st floor)

What:
A party so big we need 3 floors to contain it all!
First floor: Dance your wicked feet off all night. Jump in on the dance contest and show off your moves!
Middle/bar: Grab a drink on us and chat with friends. We'll be having a clothing competition for a cash prize. Best winter-themed outfit wins.
Top floor: Let the snowballs fly! Bring your festive hats, we'll provide the snow.

DJ and competition judge for this event will be none other than SI Radio's DJ McBain. To tune in ingame, type /radio play http://www.siradio.fm, or mash www.siradio.fm into your favorite music player."

....awesome, yet another party at stupid o'clock. I'll try and make this one, but a lot depends on my alarm clock not being hurled across the room.

3) MxO Gay Pride, Jan 20th - 9PM GMT, 1PM PST

"You're INVITED to the MxO G-A-Y, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transexual Pride Event! Sponsored by Unus Somnium.

WE WELCOME ALL THAT WANT TO CELEBRATE THAT THE MATRIX IS A PLACE FOR EVERYONE..

The world is full of people. All have different beliefs and ways of life.
Though some are forced to live a lie, others are able to be free and be who they wish to be. We want to celebrate who we are, and meet others like us and be free of worry and enjoy a great party as well as showing that The Matrix Online is a mixed community!

So...

Come Young
Come Old
Come Boys
Come Girls
Come Rich
Come Poor

We will greet you all at this event. Party Down with the MxO Pride Parade and be proud of who and what you are!

If you wish to remain unknown from your real RSI, then please come along as an ALT and enjoy the party all the same, oh and of course hetrosexuals are still welcome to come along and enjoy the fun.

There will be dancing, a live DJ, as well as contests and more, OVERALL a place for EVERYONE!

Location: Debir Court on the Syntax Server
Time: 9pm GMT, 5pm EST, 1pm PST the party will be ongoing!"

Is it just me, or are they shunning the amazing clubs scattered throughout the Matrix in favour of.....holding the first "Gay Pride" event in an alleyway next to some trashcans?

Oh well. An interesting idea, although there's bound to be a ton of people going just to cause trouble. And don't get me started on the guys going dressed up as girls to (as they put it) "score with some lesbians".

Disaster of biblical proportions, coming through....!

Death in Venice

Man, talk about unfortunate. My recently re-acquainted friend in The Matrix Online told me a close relative died in a plane crash on New Years Day.

That's the first time I've been told something like that while running around in a virtual world, and the effect was akin to a sledgehammer crunching through my skull and coming out the side. I mean seriously, what the Hell do you say to something like that? It's not your usual "fifty health pills for six thousand dollars" or whatever.

What I can't quite get my head around is that they were running round inside an MMORPG just a day or two after it happened, but who knows what's going through your head at a time like that.

At any rate, I don't think I'll be seeing them for a while, so all I can do is offer my condolences. If you're out there somewhere, feel free to drop me a line.

:(

Whoops, left myself logged in

...doh. On the long road back to a hardline - you need these to exit the Matrix, see - I entered the downtown district and looked at all the pretty billboards.

I guessed with it being New Years Day, nobody would be running round playing this game.

I guessed wrong.

All of a sudden, I'm smack bang in the middle of a group of people dancing round in their underwear. There are stranger ways to spend your New Years celebrations - unfortunately they don't exist in this (or any other) Universe.

I guess you have to admire their dedication, at least. Then again, the weather has been so bad in the UK that most of our New Years events were cancelled, so I guess I can forgive these guys if they're in England or whatever.

At that moment, any thoughts related to being altogether too computer obsessed at New Years evaporated when two chicks started go-go dancing in front of me.

I have to admit, this game is a lot livelier now than it was in 2005. If you're wondering what the red thing is in the bottom right hand corner, it's a fez wearing snowman. There were a whole bunch of them at the party.

Please, don't ask. It's been a long night.

Parties and ranting. Mostly ranting.

You can debate the social and psychological merits of going to online parties all you want, but some undeniable truths are evident:

1) No going home stinking of smoke
2) No waking up like grim death the next morning
3) No wondering whether you actually spent that final twenty quid, or if you just dropped it on the floor of the taxi
4) No multiple digs to the face from some skinhead douchebag in a white shirt. I don't know why everyone looking for trouble in town on a Saturday night has a skinhead and a white shirt, they just do.

....sounds like a winner to me.

I finally got to the party after my little run-in, and it was pretty decent. Well, as decent as a pretend party in a virtual world can be at any rate. Not sure of the numbers - between 20 or 25 people there at any one time, but considering the time of year that's not a bad figure. It's weird how these things go down - quite a few people go to these things then immediately flag themselves as AFK. Uh, what's the point? Either start yapping at people or run around naked and shooting things - don't just hog valuable real estate on the dancefloor, dammit! Some others start......shudder....roleplaying. One minute I'm talking to some dude about some stupid thing on TV the other night, the next, you suddenly see something like this fill the area chatbox:

N30_LiVes: Morpheus! Oh noble soul, who is lost to us! He did not die in vain! I bring news from the Pluribus Spankius faction!

Paperghost: Lmfao

I hate roleplaying in videogames. I hate it with a vengeance because, well, it's just stupid. One of my major gripes with this game is that, for the longest time, you were basically paying some company a ton of money each month to create your own content.

Uh no, how about you take some of that dough you're raking in each month and put something in the game yourselves? When this was raised at the time, completely brainwashed idiots would get all sniffy and tell you to get lost, because this was a game "for roleplayers". Funny that, because nowhere on the box did it say anything about it being exclusively for roleplayers. So shove it, nerdalinger. Not everyone paid up to run around play acting, which (by the way) I could do a much better job of with some ActionMan figures and a Castle Greyskull. Or maybe the Real Ghostbusters fire station, who knows. No, some of us paid up because we were promised a storyline carried on from the Matrix films, a bunch of kickass action and guns. Lots of guns.

What we got, was a bunch of missions that, regardless of the type selected (assassination, recruitment, espionage or whatever) all boiled down to this:

1) Run into selected building, usually about six thousand miles away on the map
2) Meet randomly named character, who tells you some stupid stuff about nothing
3) Run to next building, acting on information from previous character. Download useless info from laptop, maybe beat up a guy
4) Act on info from laptop, and run to final building, about six thousand more miles away on the map. Beat up a bunch of guys, mission complete. Repeat six zillion times, cya!

.....blargh. You can see why the roleplaying thing flourished in this kind of environment, but honestly, stick something in the game already or just pull the damn plug. To be fair, there's more stuff ingame now, but the only thing that keeps it alive is the community that's built up around the game. I think ultimately, the game designers couldn't decide whether this was some sort of action game or a storybook - when the game was handed over to Sony, they fired the live events team that ran the big events, and that pretty much put the game development in the hands of the players.

L.M.A.O.

...have you ever heard of anything so stupid? Oh well.

I guess you're wondering why I'm still playing this when all I do is bitch about it. Well despite my whining, I do enjoy catching up with people I haven't spoken to in over a year and the feeling of a living, breathing world at your fingertips is still there. I just hope Sony will continue to populate a slowly stagnating landscape with additional content before I cancel my subscription for the second (and final) time.

Mind you - this should be interesting....

Interlude: Fight Club

Can someone tell me why random ho-bags insist on trying to beat me up outside nightclubs?

I arrived at a much-hyped weekly bash to see if I could get jiggy with it and rock out all over your 15 inch TFT screen, only to find myself accosted by some baldy chicks, a Miss Whiplash clone and some ginger bird.

Imagine their dismay when I proceeded to ROCK OUT ALL OVER THEIR FACES. Observe: