The Matrix Online Interview

Games Fusion has conducted an interview with Monolith's Toby Ragaini, asking the lead designer several questions about their upcoming MMORPG, The Matrix Online. An excerpt to follow:
Q: How have you adapted the in-game effects to closely depict those of the effects seen in the Matrix movies, specifically the bullet-time effects?

A: We worked directly with the film studio and their special effects house in order to insure that the Matrix visual and sound effects are as true to the movies as possible.

Bullet time was of course something that we simply had to accommodate. The problem was that we couldn't slow down the whole game world, simply because one person was in bullet time.

The solution was to slightly speed up the character's animations that were being played on the client, and then dramatically slow them down for bullet time. By speeding up and then slowing down, the individual player can experience bullet time, without other people having their game interrupted.