Welcome back. In Part 1 of our interview with William Westwater, we touched on the differences between gunplay and martial arts combat, transportation, missions, and available weaponry. This time around, William gives up the goods on Crews and Factions, PvP, Constructs, player housing and a bit about crafting.

MxOS - How do you envision the interaction between different player Crews and Factions? Will they team up to complete missions? War against each other? Control areas of the game world? Invade or destroy an opposing group's Construct?

WW - After Neo's Peace, the Matrix has entered a state of cold war. Keep your head low, and PVP won't be an issue for you. As you rise in power though, you'll find it difficult to stay off your enemies wanted list; you might even want to make yourself a target. The Matrix holds many routes to power and some require real estate including Constructs. Reaching this level of power is very difficult though; it will take friends and alliances to get there.

MxOS - Speaking of Constructs, we'd like to delve into them a bit deeper. In what ways can a Faction customize its Construct? If a Faction's Construct is destroyed, will the Faction disband? Can a Construct be used for training or dueling?

WW - In the first months after the Peace, operatives are still learning the secrets of the Matrix. Constructs are only purchased from Exiles at this stage or earned as rewards to epic missions. Later, we expect to see player coding of Constructs enter the game along with improved rewards for Construct ownership. As for your Faction, Factions are independent of Constructs. Losing a Construct will suck, but won't destroy your Faction.

MxOS - Some MMOers like to make and customize a home for themselves within the game world. Since red-pills do not live in the Matrix and there is no real world play, how if at all will this be implemented?

WW - The people of Zion visit the Matrix primarily; we have focused on making your Avatar as flexible and unique in game as possible so that you can use yourself as a billboard of individuality. For example, we're not following the armor metaphor because that requires everyone look relatively the same at high level. Instead, players can augment their clothing simulation programs with additional programs - such as reaction boosts. This means that you style separately from your game strategy.

MxOS - We'd like to hear a bit about crafting. What types of items can be crafted? How does experimentation work? How do players market their goods to each other?

WW - The Matrix is code and certain programmers can learn how to disassemble and reassemble the programs. This "hacking" allows you to create the clothing, tools, weapons and abilities needed to advance. While Exiles also sell similar codes, they tend to overcharge - so the most powerful Factions will rely heavily on their own coding.

We thank William very much for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions.

Keep checking back with Matrix Online Stratics. In the coming weeks, we will be bringing you some very interesting, exclusive information about The Matrix Online.

Justin "Mendel" Gould
Associate Editor, Matrix Online Stratics