Alot...

(Assuming "SMB" means this site:)

I don't think anyone ever asked me *why* I left MXO, maybe people just assumed I was burnt out. I was certainly not feeling too brisk, but there were other factors--things I learned early in the year, as I mentioned in my "Thank you" post on the MXO boards--that really made me realize it was time to head out. You might be able to take some guesses at them given the subsequent announcement of MXO's impending shutdown, etc, but they're internal SOE stuff so I can't really say; you could try asking Walrus, although I'm not sure he'd feel at liberty to say, either. I will say though--as I've said before on this forum--that my leaving the project did not affect the shut down one way or the other; it would have happened even if I was still working there now. I would not have left if my staying on would have kept the game running.

If there's something else you meant by this then I guess it went over my head. If you want to blame me for not doing a good enough job and causing gradual loss of subscribers, well, I've never tried to argue with that.

If I knew what was going down I would have quit to so touche..

With that said however my only gripe is you treated the sub organizations and your removal of them like a needed improvement to the game and gave little to no fan service to the dedicated fans who went without and paid money every month to be apart of the organization when you took them out. Than you quit right after. Unpreventable sure.. does it change how we went out? Not at all.

It seemed like a move to simply reduce work load and I have to say on a logistical level again.. I may have found myself doing the same thing but in the end the people of those organizations were waiting for something even a farewell party and all we got was Veil and Cryptos sitting there afk for most of the night followed by the person who gutted things quitting two months after doing it.

Although you seem like a good guy as Ben as Rarebit those sub organizations got it the worst out of anybody. It's like telling a tenant your going to tear their house down and rebuild a comparable more energy efficient one than just leaving them without a roof over their head. Sure you had your reasons but that was alot of wasted time for nothing but the middle finger at the end of the tunnel.

Eh I dunno, people didn't seem that keen on the org meetings for the three "main" orgs anyway, so maybe you weren't missing much. ;) I never intended to cut the "splinter" orgs out entirely, for instance one of the last events I got in was with EPN, and Cyphs and EPN figured prominently in the remaining story. But yeah there's no arguing that it wasn't easy being EPN/Cyph at any particular point in the game, I mean at first you didn't have *anything*, then later we at least got you special colored faction tags, but never actual EPN/Cyph critical missions, hostile flags, etc.

No doubt that's why a little bit of interaction and fan service that last night with the party would have gone a long way. We wouldn't have stuck around if we didn't really enjoy the story you came up with.

We had waited for years for something anything and I know alot of people including a couple of the LO's I talked to hosting that party felt like you could have been a little more empathetic.

At that point it felt like you honestly didn't care even though you were fully aware of the impact you were making and I suppose that's what I mean by quitting. You quit on alot of people in those organizations that held out faith however stupid it was.

The reality is the fans that dedicated years deserved interaction with those characters more than say a Machinist or otherwise. In a game build entirely on personal investment and story the idea that people merely lost their stock and the market would continue on rare instances if nothing else was a slap in the face. And lets face it it's not like you didn't remember the few people showing up at your events.

We were told by Dreami in her final meeting as LO that Machinist players would be given as much interaction and senority from that point on as Cypherites.

That was it right there it's why I sold my accounts for 200 bucks. The holdouts the die hards in the end deserved better.

But you know I guess everyone did so in the end I guess it's the journey that counts..

Considering that MXO was a one man show for most of its run, Ben did an amazing job. I spent almost four years of my life playing that game. My main character was (as of this post) in play for over 187 days of playtime... that's about 12 percent of my life during that time - and I loved every minute of it. Its an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life, and I'm grateful for the time I had, and what I gained from it.

Stockholm isn't an overly attractive feature in a consumer.

I appreciate what he did to when he did it. With that said however your personal fondness doesn't take away glaringly obvious mistakes that were made.

And my assertions don't change the fact that Rarebit did some really cool things with very little resources.

I guess Ill leave it with this and be done.

"The more you admire a person the less you understand them"

The game shuts down tomorrow, everyone knows mistakes were made, and we've all seen the various arguments before. I went into what was in effect the live team design lead role knowing that mistakes had been made and would continue to be made, but such is life and game design. There's no need or use for elaborate excuses, the situation was what it was. I didn't have any experience in being a live game design lead (and never asked for or got the pay or title of one :P) but nobody else was there to do the job, so all I could do was try my best. That mode of thinking was a good deal of what kept me working stupid long hours for years with relatively little in the way of support or compensation--but again, I knew the score when I went into it; the real surprise I got in terms of how things stood was at the first Fan Faire, when I found that even some of our worst trolls and griefers were actually really cool people in person; there's some of the magic of the internet for you.

On the whole I did learn a *lot* (you know they say we learn by making mistakes ;) and have some interesting memories to look back on, good and bad. I can definitely say I'm glad it happened, but I don't think I'd want to do it again. I wish I could have done better and kept the game afloat; I don't know how good you'd have had to be at game design to have pulled that off, but I definitely wasn't good enough. I never really imagined that I was some sort of game design rock star, though, and I know I did the best I could with what I had, so, I guess I'm more or less at peace with it now. From what I see on the MXO boards it looks like most of the players there have kind of made their own peace with it too, which actually surprised me, but I'm glad of that as well.

That party *was* fan service, which is probably why I wasn't very good at it. If it had been in character for Cryptos or Veil to be really happy and throw a party at that point, I think it would have been different--but it wasn't. The LOs wanted a party, and it was the last event they could request from me, so I agreed to go, and I was trying the whole time to come up with some character motivation for Cryptos or Veil to "party down," but there really wasn't one--not one I could come up with, anyway, and I was never willing to play MXO personalities out of character. I resorted to tricks like pumpkins and hostile spawns, but the motivation for the org leaders to party and be happy just wasn't there.

Actually now that I think of it more, yeah, it got bad from my IC point of view, especially at the end when some players were like bye, bye, it's the last farewell--when for Veil and Cryptos, it wasn't anything of the sort--just another day in the Matrix, another routine jackout, and I sure as hell wasn't going to break character. The party just wasn't the right scene. I thought going into it that maybe I could find some way to make it work with those characters, but I couldn't.

Sound's like a life lesson man. Good Luck