Mortal Online lifts the NDA
by Eliot Lefebvre 
Nov 23rd 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Previews, News items, Mortal Online
Henrik Nystrom on the official forums explains that while the game is still undergoing more polish, the core features have all been implemented and tested, which means that the developers are comfortable having the game discussed and dissected elsewhere. The post also states that the release date might be pushed back a little, as well as the plans for the game to move into a fully-open free-to-play beta as they move on to the next phase of testing. It's certainly good news for people interested in Mortal Online who didn't want to purchase the game sight-unseen. So, if you've been playing the game in beta so far, what are your thoughts? You can tell us all about it now.
[Thanks Mortal Online Radio!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
vista said on 8:13PM 11-23-2009
the game is coming along good so far, hope they keep the good work up
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Clockwork said on 8:12PM 11-23-2009
Well, I have beta access, but haven't been playing it, so I can't tell you much about the game, but I can give you my impressions of the beta itself, if that makes any sense.
Simply put, it's been a baffling mess. No beta forums (though last I checked about a month ago, those were in the works) and up until recently absolutely no way for beta testers to communicate with the devs. As it stands, there is now an IRC channel (and there may be forums by now, I'm not sure.) which doesn't help much as it's mostly unrelated (and often painfully immature) banter and repeated instances of, "Server up? Server up? Server up?"
Since the beta began, I've yet to see any devs post as to what they want players to be testing; The playtesting lacks focus entirely. Again, all of this may have changed by now, but during the time that I actually attempted to use my beta access, this is how it was. Near the beginning of beta, you were simply dropped into the game world at a random point, entirely naked, no map, no spells, no nothing. While I understand that the game is going for a "fend for yourself," kind of standpoint, that makes for a pretty rubbish beta when people log into the world and do nothing but run around for hours on end trying to figure out what they're supposed to be doing.
That being said, however, the game itself - when I did get to actually do things in it - seems to be coming along well. The graphics are nice, and the action-focused gameplay is refreshing. I can't really say much more than that on the game itself right now since it's been so long since I've even set foot in it. Perhaps I'll change that sometime in the near future.
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bartillo said on 8:19PM 11-23-2009
there is a beta forum, has been for quite a while.
Lachrymose said on 8:27PM 11-23-2009
You obviously didn't look very hard. The MO Beta forums have been up for 2 months now. If you'd read the stickes, you would have seen that all you need to do is link your game and forum accounts to get access. No wonder you didn't see anything regarding what to do during the testing, you couldn't even find the beta forum.
Initially, the beta wasn't handled very well, but once the forums went up with a built in bug tracker on the MO forums, things have been running a lot more smoothly. The initial few months of the beta were very bumpy, but in the last couple months things have been coming along very nicely imo.
I don't think the game will be fully "complete" on release, but for anyone who is interested in a good sandbox game like UO, I think there will be enough there by release for you to have a bit of fun while waiting for other very promising features. I only hope Star Vault can get enough subs to get the revenue they need to continue development.
I think the game is a lot of fun, but that could be because I'm a jaded fanboi who's been waiting for a sandbox MMO with that UO "feel" for years now... but this is by far the closest thing I've seen yet.
Clockwork said on 10:20PM 11-23-2009
As I indicated in my post, it's been a while since I played due to the poor handling of the beta. I acknowledged MULTIPLE times that things may have changed since then. Thanks for the heads up though, despite the underhanded observation on my... well... observation.
Clockwork said on 11:46AM 11-24-2009
I love that I get voted down for telling exactly how the beta was early on. I acknowledged multiple times in my posts that it may have changed, and apparently it has. Doesn't change the fact that what I stated above is precisely how it was in the first however many months up until only recently.
Fanboys are rabid, I tell you.
vista said on 8:15PM 11-23-2009
clockwork your months out of date...
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Nadril said on 8:23PM 11-23-2009
It's good to hear they aren't hiding anything from people by waiting until the last minute to drop NDA, it's always a good sign. I'll probably be interested in the next part of beta testing to see if the game interests me.
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Jay said on 8:43PM 11-23-2009
I enjoyed this game despite some early reservations about first person view and ganking.
The first person view is fairly easy to get used to, but with crafting being a large part of it for me the lack of ability to see yourself made armour rather hard to visually imagine. Harvesting wood and stone though was a real shore in First Person. The way the camera bobs up and down... well, it made me feel nauseous.
The beta forums are excellent, although there are a number of people who QQ that the game won't be released or is buggy (like duh, it's a beta).
Crafting is excellent and I am sure will get even better once the materials are made harder to find, right now it's pretty trivial to make something. Mind you... you might not make something good as the materials are still not locked down for effect.
Ganking? Yeah :(
Griefing? Big time :( Exploits of bugs by griefers is shocking
Physics? Weird. Animals and people are solid and have physics which means you see some pretty weird things as your trained pet runs after you down a steep hill.
Graphics? Mindblowingly good. Sort of makes LoTRO look like Leisure Suit Larry.
This is clearly an MMO for people from the FPS genre in my eyes.
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Jay said on 8:46PM 11-23-2009
Oh for an edit.
Chore not shore :/
And I forgot... I hate the death run. Get killed and you make a full frontal nudity run back to your body without a map. If you didn't know where you are then as it stands you are toast.
Hmmm, did I mention full frontal nudity, with all the bits?
Dagonis said on 9:13PM 11-23-2009
I never play as female characters in any game. Simply because I am a male and I don't want others asuming I'm anything other then a male when they play with me.
In this case however I might have to make an exception. I don't want to have to stare at my guy's junk every damn time I die. The dying and the corpse run is punishment enough lol.
Jay said on 9:31PM 11-23-2009
Thing is you can't see /your/ body. So even with exposed nipples and a little hair down there... well you may as well be a guy.
Mind you, the normal way to spot a griefer is they wear nothing or just the starter outfit, less of a penalty if you kill them that way. So, if avoiding the sight of a little dick was your aim... forget it as someone is going to thrust that right in your face.
Like the wonderful (not) MalcolmX a rather (as in very) obnoxious naked black man going around griefing people.
Venekor said on 9:10PM 11-23-2009
The game sucks and my mapping is much better. It's like some kids decided to make a mod.
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Baardok said on 10:08PM 11-23-2009
For the past 4months, MO has been the shell of a game in making. It first started out with the servers so laggy and unstable that you could, maybe, log on for about 5 minutes before it crashed, only to be reset 3 hours later then crash again.
Once they got the servers stable enough, I crafted enough weapons to learn that this crafting system is awesome! You can make literally any weapon that you can think of, out of any metal/material that you want. Before city guards and murder counts were introduced, it was a gankfest in towns. But it was a fun gankfest. ;D
The combat as of now is okay. A few weeks ago, it was a clickfest, and the person with the most stam won. Only until recently did they slow down combat a bit, and I predict it being slowed down a bit more. I fought a naked red today who hit me for 12dmg (Which means he probably has a high-level unarmed skill), and I had a 2h Nyx greatblade, Tungsteel handle, Nyx handle coat that hit for 21-25 dmg (with 28 in swords). I almost lost because I only had 90hp, and the server was lagging at the time, but it was a great deal of fun.
Gathering isn't so much of a chore in MO as it is in a game like Darkfall Online. High level mining gets you about 10+ ore per hit. You have to take the ore to a processor who gives you the metals. You take these metals to the smith, and you can enter the crafting menu. *THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER SYSTEM FOR THE PROFESSIONS*. This is balanced out because a good weapon can take up to 200 units of a material or two, which will take about 5-10 mins of mining, depending on the metals you use. A few suits of armor can be made in about 10-20ish minutes to make from scratch, again, depending on what you make it from. You also get leather, bone material, horns and emalj among other things from animals, which you can also use to craft weapons and armor. You need some type of leather/wool to craft ANY armor, because you have to sew the armor together. I think the gathering system they have now is going to be changed though.
There's not much to say about PvE. It sucks right now because the AI they use is just not very smart. There are also only about 10 different mobs right now. Its pretty easy though, yet dangerous because some mobs hit very hard and there isn't a whole lot you can to avoid their attacks, because you can't predict how they will attack.
The PvP is pretty fun, and it definitely gets the blood pumping for me. It's pretty easy to die, and lag can mean that your opponent gets a few hits on you. It's a bit shallow right now, and magic isn't worth it. Archery is really good if you can level it up high enough. Mounted combat is fun as hell.
Overall - Mortal Online has the potential to become the best games around if given time. Starvault is very upfront and honest about MO, and they don't lie about the progress of their game, and it shows because they lifted the NDA. In 3-4 months' progress, they've had some really amazing progress. Keep it up, Starvault!
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nt said on 3:37AM 11-24-2009
When I read "the game has the POTENTIAL", I lost all hope.
Owen-Lars said on 9:13AM 11-24-2009
Thanks for the report. I was wondering how this game was coming along.
maika said on 3:18AM 11-24-2009
i see
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Temko said on 3:54AM 11-24-2009
i dont have beta access to i'm happy to hear on issues my fellow guildmates have been reporting.
- Crafting is awesome, yet gathering takes so much time it's impossible to mass produce anything due to it taken a LONG as time per armour set (15 minutes mining, 5 minutes crafting, 10 minutes running for 1 set!)
- Ganking/Exploiting is worse then Darkfall ever was
- Many, Many system will not be ready for release of the game, making it a empty shell of what it should be.
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Jay said on 5:34AM 11-24-2009
You forgot to mention that right now, crafting like skill gains, is accelerated. The wood and ore nodes are non-depleting. When the game is released these nodes will be quite a bit harder to find and refine into way less materials.
That suit of armour will take many factors of time more to make, and if you get ganked then you lose it.
Death is designed to be very very very expensive but also with the rampant ganking... pretty easy to find yourself in.
Oh for a crafting MMO without this problem. Something that needed skill and effort, something where you could make something secret and unique but without the problems I am seeing in MO.
The game has potential for sure :) Hope they can make ganking undesirable. Maybe instead of Deava they need to make it one toon per account. Get red flagged and you are done.
Brian! said on 11:42AM 11-24-2009
I with developers would realize that in order to balance ganking with fun, there needs to be a toolset to dispense "justice". And I don't mean - oh, police yourselves - because that is proven not to work.
There needs to be some equivalent of jail, or some way to remove an offender from an area once they are caught by someone working for justice.
I always felt that a system of, say, revenge points. Every time someone harms you, steals from you, kills you, loots you, etc... you get revenge points to spend on them. The worse the act they do to you, the more revenge points you can spend. Say they attack you 1pt per damage. They kill you, 1000pts. They loot you - 1000pts x gold value of items taken. They corpse camp you and kill you again within 15 minutes - 5000pts. And so on.
Then, you can spend these points OR transfer them to another player or even a guild. Perhaps transfer them to a town structure too? These points can be spent. Say 10,000pts lets you curse them with a debuff. 50,000 pts curses them so that they cannot fast-travel (summons, steeds, etc...) for a limited time. 100k pts you can instant kill them if you find them. Enough points could even ban a player from an area for a time (a day, a week, whatever).
Oh, points can also be spent by just attacking, killing and looting them. In otherwords, if you have revenge points on someone you sort of spend them instead of them getting revenge to spend on you.
This is just one idea, but it is a TOOL to let players gather together to keep society in order. YET it still allows for the player killer, they just need to keep on the move and spread their targets out. Whatever the tools a developer creates is fine, as long as it allows for a cause effect.
Right now, in a sandbox free PvP game, the effect of ganking = the best loot. There really is no negative incentive. If developers want the "lord of the flies" MMO, great. But don't pretend you are creating a virtual fantasy world with society, economy, etc... and neglect to put in the tools to actually have a viable society.