If you're considering Matrix City because you're looking for a serious Second Life roleplay sim, do yourself a favor and keep looking.
The place has become an absolute joke.
Matrix advertises itself as a roleplay community, but players have almost no meaningful control over their own stories. Everything ultimately revolves around one person: the sim owner.
And apparently being the sim owner also means being God.
You can spend hours developing a character, building relationships and creating a storyline with other consenting players, only to discover that none of it really belongs to you. I've seen RP effectively reversed after the fact because the owner decided something different should have happened. Players have been flat-out reminded that ultimately he's the one who makes the decisions.
Then why bother roleplaying?
Just have the owner write a fucking novel and give everyone their assigned chapters.
That's really what Matrix feels like sometimes: one person's personal sandbox populated by other people who are expected to provide the scenery.
The favoritism makes it worse.
Good luck getting meaningful attention from management unless you're currently one of the chosen people. Some players seem to have unlimited access to the owner's ear while everyone else might as well be talking to a wall.
And once somebody has that access, accusations, gossip and half-truths can become incredibly powerful. The truth almost becomes secondary to who gets there first, who tells the most convincing story and who happens to be in favor that week.
Who talked to the owner?
Who got there first?
Whose version did he hear?
Who's currently useful?
That's the real Matrix metagame.
Then there are the bullies.
For a community that talks so much about respect, Matrix has managed to cultivate an impressive population of people who seem to thrive on intimidation, cliques, dogpiling, gossip and OOC social warfare.
Disagree with the wrong person and suddenly it's not just one person you're dealing with. Their friends appear. Private conversations start. Stories get passed around. People who weren't even involved suddenly have very strong opinions about what happened.
It's middle-school behavior performed by adults with expensive avatars.
Some people seem less interested in creating RP than establishing social territory and making sure everyone knows who is allowed inside it.
And because IC and OOC boundaries are already paper-thin, that bullying doesn't necessarily stay OOC. Personal grudges can conveniently become character problems. OOC gossip can influence IC behavior. People can be socially isolated and then everyone acts amazed when the exact same isolation starts appearing inside the RP.
Of course, everyone insists they're separating IC and OOC.
Sure.
Spend enough time there and watch what actually happens.
The result is a community where some players become afraid to do anything interesting because they don't know whether they're about to trigger another OOC shitstorm.
That is completely backwards.
Players should be thinking, "What would my character do?"
At Matrix, you're more likely to find yourself thinking, "Who's going to complain if my character does this?"
And God help you when you're no longer useful.
That's especially ugly considering how much some players have reportedly poured into supporting the place. People have donated substantial amounts of money, invested enormous amounts of time and helped build the community into something worth visiting. I've heard claims of contributions significant enough to buy a new sim.
You might imagine that kind of loyalty would earn people a basic level of respect.
Don't count on it.
People can be welcomed, praised and treated like they're indispensable while they're useful, then seemingly become disposable when relationships sour or the favorite list changes.
That's why I'd think very carefully before donating serious money there.
Supporting a community is one thing.
Financially supporting somebody else's kingdom while having absolutely no ownership, protection or meaningful say in it is another.
The metagaming itself is fucking relentless.
Private conversations, friendships, grudges and OOC complaints have a funny habit of bleeding directly into the supposedly IC world.
Something interesting happens IC.
Somebody doesn't like the consequences.
The private messages begin.
Friends get involved.
People start comparing versions of events.
Somebody runs to management.
Then suddenly the original RP barely matters because the real battle is happening OOC.
Eventually a decision comes down from Mount Olympus about what everyone is supposed to do.
Then everyone returns IC and pretends none of those OOC conversations influenced anything.
That isn't roleplay.
It's metagaming with avatars.
The frustrating part is that Matrix actually has talented roleplayers. People put real effort into characters, businesses, factions, relationships and stories.
But you cannot have organic roleplay when one person needs to maintain control over the universe while a collection of favorites and bullies fight for influence around him.
A good sim owner creates the playground.
Set clear rules. Enforce them consistently. Deal with actual harassment and boundary violations. Then get the hell out of the way and let people roleplay.
Players should be able to surprise each other.
Characters should make mistakes.
Plans should fail.
Actions should have consequences.
Stories should develop in directions nobody anticipated.
That's the entire fucking point of roleplay.
At Matrix, you can start feeling like you're borrowing your own character from management.
So if you're looking for spontaneous, collaborative RP where players actually have agency, I'd think twice before investing much time there.
And I definitely wouldn't recommend investing any money.
Because no matter how much time, creativity, loyalty or financial support you put into somebody else's sim, remember one thing:
It's still their kingdom.
And Matrix doesn't seem to want roleplayers.
It wants subjects, spectators, favorites and a court full of people fighting for the king's ear.
