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MMO Licensing Part 2: The Matrix
In part 1 I discussed what made Star Wars Galaxies fail and the hope that’s on the horizon for the Star Wars license. Today we’re going to discuss a game that should have been insanely easy to design. I mean come on, The Matrix is a movie about a virtual world, how hard can it be to base a virtual world on a movie about a virtual world? Apparently really goddamn hard.
The Matrix Online (MxO) was released in March of 2005, I started beta testing it in September of 2004. I was excited for this game, while the second two movies really spent too much time trying to drive home the Christ analogy, the first film was one of the most impressive and surprising films I’ve ever seen. It’s seldom that I walk out of a movie and go “Wow, I didn’t expect the movie to be like that.” in a good way. Now I had my misgivings, by 2004 I’d spent a lot of time beta testing and a lot of time being disappointed by the games I was playing.
Dells 13″ Inspiron
Dell has finally released a 13″ laptop for people looking to spend less than $900. The starting price on the new 13″ Inspiron is $699. The real trick here is what you’re giving up over the 1330. For that $200 you drop down to a slower processor and you lose the built in webcam. Now both of those are available as options and they’ll run you around $100. You also give up some options. The Inspiron 13 doesn’t give you an LED backlight option, it doesn’t give you a video card upgrade option and it’s not quite as sexy (or svelt) as the 1330. But this little bundle of joy is targeted straight at students.
But really I don’t care about that. I care about how this little laptop fits into my netbook considerations. It falls $200 outside of my budget, but it’s 13″ and has a full blown dual core processor. It’s res is the same as my 2133 (really the 2133 is pretty amazing mostly for its res, that’s a lot of pixels on a tiny little screen). That 13″ screen is so very tempting. But the weight is double, that battery life is going to be considerably less (it ships with a 4 cell battery, most netbooks ship with a 3 cell, my 2133 actually has a 6 cell). So how does this really stack up?
Well weight isn’t as much of a concern as size. The Inspiron 13 is 3 inches wider and 2 inches deeper than the S10. The height is almost exactly the same at 1″. The real kicker though is the Inspiron is only 1.5″ narrower and 1″ shallower than my VX2S and it’s not even a pound lighter. I really keep looking hard for a 13″ that can match the netbook, even with a bit of a price premium. At $250 more than the S10 it’s a great choice for a student, but it’s no competitor for someone who’s looking for something to compete with a netbook. Curses, foiled again.
MMO Licensing Part 1: Star Wars
Existing properties have become big business in MMO’s. Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix just to name a few. The thought being these franchises come with an existing fan base to drive players, new and old, to the game. Sometimes this works, sometimes it fails. The real question is why. What makes a good MMO license and is it enough to carry a game? What does it take to make a licensed MMO successful? In part one of this article we’re going to look at the biggest license of them all, Star Wars.
Let’s start with one of the biggest hyped MMO’s in the history of MMO’s, Star Wars Galaxies. We all know Star Wars is one of the most popular properties ever. This one seems like a no brainer. I mean diverse races, cool technology, iconic characters, what’s not to like? Hell, they even had Sony behind them, at the time that was a big deal with Everquest still ruling the roost. Star Wars Galaxies was one of the first games I followed from day one. I mean I was on the forums and active from very early on, I was in the second group of beta testers, I wanted this game to succeed like you would not believe. I’m a huge Star Wars geek, I know more than anyone should about the movies and I’ve read a LOT of the expanded universe stuff. So what went wrong?
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