7. What other games did you look towards in the process of writing for The Matrix Online?

Paul Chadwick: I’ll answer this by taking “you” as the entire team at Monolith. We benefited from Toby Ragaini’s experience on Asheron’s Call, and Geoff Zatkin’s on Everquest. I think the vast clothing/body/skin tone/hair choices we offer in character creation are a reaction to the way players in MMOs who follow similar paths (earning magic swords and cuirasses, for example) often end up looking alike. And the Beta finale to Asheron’s Call, an apocalypse with burning skeletons falling from the sky and giant demons killing players wholesale, inspired our sky-of-eyes Beta-finale apocalypse (which is already passing into legend).

As for my story work, specifically? I’ve never actually played another MMO. There, I said it.