Recently,  information about a hidden forum called the “Champagne Room” was “leaked” to The Matrix Online community. The purpose of this forum was to allow a specific group of players to help provide directed game feedback. These players were asked not to talk about the group outside of that forum, but  the information got out anyway, leading to misunderstandings and hard feelings.

Once the information got out, there was no real reason to hide or deny it,  other than the fact that players had been instructed not to discuss it. Attempts to hush the leak during investigation only made the problem worse, as it appeared there was something that needed to be hidden. Naming the forum “Champagne Room” without providing  information about how players were selected led to protests and cries of favoritism.

Feedback groups are important, however, this was handled poorly. TMO will be having feedback groups in the future, but information on how those will work will be withheld until the moderators decide how these should be run.

Sony Online Entertainment's moderators did issue the following statement on the matter:

"Playing favorites and being unnecessarily harsh are not accusations we take lightly here. It’s not in the interest of the game, the community, or the company to allow these behaviors. I won’t say it never happens, but when it does we act to correct the behaviors.

"We’re human, too; and we make mistakes and poor judgment calls. We do our best to remain professional about situations and try to improve our performance based on the lessons we learn. We also leave channels open to discuss issues with the community and with players who feel they’ve been unfairly treated. It’s in our interest to keep players happy, so when a situation is presented in a bad light, remember there are always at least two sides to every story."

Remember that the first rule of diplomacy and good relations is to keep those communications lines open!

Here's a great job opportunity for those of you who are in-game animators, level designers, motion editors and network programmers:

"We are looking for talented network programmers. Candidates will have considerable experience writing high and low level network code across a variety of systems and be able to demonstrate fluent C++ programming skills."

This announcement by Rockstar North, developers of the Grand Theft Auto series, has led to speculation that their next release, Grand Theft Auto IV, will be an MMORPG. Since Rockstar has a partnership with Washington-based Microsoft, it is apparent that there will be some kind of online aspect to this game, delivering content through the XBox Live service. Extra network programmers may also be involved in delivering this through Sony Online.

Or...maybe it's just going to be like World of Warcraft with car jacking and hookers.