Hunting down the beta player of the week is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job here at The Matrix Online. As the Online Community Specialist, I get to find all the things that are going right and celebrate them in front of the entire community. Mind you, choosing the beta player of the week isn't as easy as it sounds. I've combed The Matrix Online message boards, wandered around inside the Matrix and checked the petition reports for people whose submissions rate Very Valuable and above.

One of the things I discovered was that The Matrix Online has an awful lot of people who are more than worthy of being Beta Player of the Week. Unfortunately, only one beta player can be chosen for this honor each week. So The Matrix Online Community Team finally decided on Mendel as our Beta Player of the Week.

We chose Mendel this week because of his ongoing commitment to The Matrix Online community. His support of community endeavors is well documented, and much appreciated by all. We were able to catch up to Mendel to ask him a few questions, and what he had to share with us underscores why he was selected as Beta Player of the Week. Congratulations!

Q:

How long have you been beta testing for The Matrix Online?

A:

I actually had the privilege of entering the test at a very early point, on July 22, 2004. Back in those days, I had to walk up hill both ways to the Mara Central Hardline.

Q:

What's your advice to beta testers on getting involved in community events?

A:

Remember that the community extends outside the game itself. In-game events can be great fun, but I feel that the real community is forged in the forums, on guild sites, fan sites, etc. Participate in those things, communicating with and getting to know your fellow players. It's really neat to run into someone you've conversed with extensively on the forums for the first time in the game.

As far as in-game events, no idea is too crazy. The best things I've seen done are those that use the game in unexpected ways, like the club parties. There's nothing wrong with duels, tourneys and what have you, but the most memorable events are those that create something entirely new while using the game as a sort of backdrop.

Q:

What's been the most enjoyable aspect of being a beta tester for The Matrix Online?

A:

Seeing its progress! When I first started in July, we had three hours of beta, four days a week. We only had access to the Slums, had to enter the Loading Area to load and unload Abilities, and saw lots of rough debugging code. Playing as each of those things has fallen away has been beyond awesome. It's amazing to see the potential of the game grow and grow with each patch.

I also had the unique opportunity to visit Monolith for two days in July and meet the team in person. That wasn't just an enjoyable aspect of being a beta tester, it's definitely in the top 5 experiences of my lifetime.

Q:

Is there a feature of The Matrix Online that you would consider your favorite, or most exciting?

A:

Yes! I hype Ability Code to every person I meet who shows even a passing interest in the game, to people I know who play other MMOs, etc. To me, it is THE selling point of The Matrix Online. The fact that I can change the role of my character with a few mouse clicks without losing the time I've invested in other skills is very exciting to me. Sometimes I like to craft, sometimes I might want to fight with pets, and sometimes I might want to be a healer, sometimes I just want to kick tail. I can switch between all those things with no penalty, and I love that. I also love that I can mix and match Abilities to create a character that's exactly optimized for my play style.

Q:

How does The Matrix Online differ from some of the other MMO titles you've seen?

A:

Well, there are many ways it differs. The biggest, I think, is that it's set in a pseudo-real world. There are just too many high fantasy MMOs (with their orcs, trolls, elves, and so on) out there. The world of The Matrix Online replicates the familiar, real. world that we all know. That's more daring than most people realize.

In a high fantasy universe, people tend not to scrutinize so much, because everything in the game is invented and has no real world analog. In The Matrix Online, the little things are far more important because it's more of a copy of the actual world we live in. You wouldn't give much thought to what an elevator control panel looks like in a high fantasy game. In The Matrix Online you look at it, and if it's a calculator pad, it strikes you as out of place because you've never seen a calculator pad elevator control in your daily life.

The story-driven architecture is also going to be different from what is typically done. Right now a number of MMOs present isolated quests that don't really bind together to tell a unified story, whereas a great deal (if not all) of The Matrix Online's content will tell the story. Along those same lines, some other MMOs are set within already defined time-periods of already written fiction. What that means is they cannot present an unpredictable story. Everyone knows the Rebels win in the end, right? You don't know what will happen next here. And imagine being famous as the player who killed a major character on your server. You really have something to strive for, to be loved or hated by many, many people.

Finally, the mechanics are different. You have Interlock, a combat system that keeps the player engaged as an active participant in a combat encounter, wire-fu, bullet time, ability code, hardlines, $information as both crafting resource AND currency, not having to deal with zoning screens every 5 minutes of walking time... and the list goes on for days.