MASSIVELY REVIEWS MORTAL ONLINE: "STAY AWAY. STAY FAR AWAY."

Slapshot1188

http://www.massively.com/2010/09/02/anti-aliased-i-can-finally-stop-playing-mortal-online-now/

 

 

Edited to add the final text from the review to the title.

Slapshot1188

Favorite quote from the review:

 

But Sera, you ask, why are you being so harsh on this game? I'm being harsh on this game because Star Vault feels it's acceptable to charge $40.50 (31.95 in Euros) for this buggy, glitchy, unfinished monstrosity. Above that, they also charge $14.50 (11.40 in Euros) per month to keep playing. You're literally paying to purchase the alpha version of a game. (Game-breaking bugs occur quite frequently, including one right now where buying multiple items, excluding arrows, from a merchant will take the correct amount of money, but only give you one item in return, effectively robbing you of money. Or the one week where the archery animation was completely broken. Or the duplication bug that allowed you to (edited by me so no one can claim we are spreading exploits), glitching the server to think you had a stack of 999 of the former item, like gold coins.)

 

Or of course the final statement:

Stay away. Stay far away.

 

Remember.. this is from a reviewer that fans of MO have called very fair and balanced...

 

Takius

Was just about to post this. It's a good article, definitely recommended for everyone who is thinking of buying MO.

Last line of the article: Stay away. Stay far away.

Cecropia

Ouch.

HerculesSAS

I particularly liked the part where she explained that SV couldn't even write their own patcher, and had to have a fan make it for them. Man, some stuff is just too funny... LOL

BuniontToes

Pretty harsh review. 

 

On the surface looks balanced (I don't play).  At least it weighs the pros and cons and goes into details on the and whee the game excels.

 

I am kinda surprised that the comments haven't been more mixed.

DrGreenbacks

Man, this is a project that really needed money thrown at it. It's all a cool concept, really, but they didn't find enough capital for development. It's like participating in a venture capital game. 

If this is how developers are going to do projects in the future, they should offer players some type of profit sharing. Seriously. If a developer is cash strapped, and people thing it's a decent concept, and are willing to buy a sub to support development, the company should offer those early adopters who are taking a great risk by paying monthly subscriptions some type of long term profit sharing. 

For instance, pay $15 a month, get 1 share of (treasury) stock per month. That way, every month you are getting a piece of ownership in the company. I think this would motivate more people to give the game development money to continue the development of the game.  

 

Anyway you look at it, it would result in lots of publicity.

eyeswideopen

If only mmorpg.com would right REAL reviews like this, we wouldn't have half of the mediocre or worse mmos listed on this site now.

thorppes

Yeah good review, points out most of the pros and the cons of MO.

She recognised some of the annoying bugs and exploits currently in MO.

But she also recognised that the crafting and combat systems are very innovative and well done.

The game is having it's rocky start and us (the players) have been told that many times. Ofcourse the game improves at a rapid weekly rate with large content patches and bug fixes. Plus one or two new bugs.

Joker2240

I am surprised also.... Really this game has some really GREAT positives and is only let down by the errors, glitches and the patcher. Either then that the game is excellent combat that is better than almost any game out in the market and the crafting is also awesome! Which the writer clearly stated and which none of you are paying attention to.

Really this game is a great game when it comes to combat and crafting. If there were half the bugs and errors in game I am positive this game would have better reviews. SV really needs to step down and give this great IP to a more competent company. 

HerculesSAS

Originally posted by DrGreenbacks

Man, this is a project that really needed money thrown at it. It's all a cool concept, really, but they didn't find enough capital for development. It's like participating in a venture capital game. 

If this is how developers are going to do projects in the future, they should offer players some type of profit sharing. Seriously. If a developer is cash strapped, and people thing it's a decent concept, and are willing to buy a sub to support development, the company should offer those early adopters who are taking a great risk by paying monthly subscriptions some type of long term profit sharing. 

For instance, pay $15 a month, get 1 share of (treasury) stock per month. That way, every month you are getting a piece of ownership in the company. I think this would motivate more people to give the game development money to continue the development of the game.  

 

Anyway you look at it, it would result in lots of publicity.

No, it's really not. If you give a lot of money to the current management and expect a different result, you must be smoking something.

 

The reality is that StarVault probably shouldn't be in the business of making games. Every game developer has come from making regular software first, then maybe some web services, THEN making an MMO. The team behind MO has ZERO years of experience in a professional capacity. ZERO. NADA. Nothing. That means that they have never shipped, built, launched, or WROTE a piece of software in their lives. They wear it as a badge of honor, like that's how all the "indy" shops start out. No, it's not.

 

And giving money to a team that has no experience is only going to get you the same horrible results, but the developers might get paid a little bit more.

 

Granted, if the project had enough money behind it, then most of the people working on it would not be a part of it now. They would have hired *real* developers, rather than the guys they are paying peanuts to build a game based on the experience of "Oh, I made an unreal mod once".

Paragus1

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

If only mmorpg.com would right REAL reviews like this, we wouldn't have half of the mediocre or worse mmos listed on this site now.

I was going to write a review for this game.  I'm not really one tp pull punches when it comes to reviewing various aspects of MMOs, but frankly I could not get the game to work.   I think i downloaded it upwards of 6 times during the various stages of the beta process, but no luck.

HerculesSAS

Originally posted by Joker2240

I am surprised also.... Really this game has some really GREAT positives and is only let down by the errors, glitches and the patcher. Either then that the game is excellent combat that is better than almost any game out in the market and the crafting is also awesome! Which the writer clearly stated and which none of you are paying attention to.

Really this game is a great game when it comes to combat and crafting. If there were half the bugs and errors in game I am positive this game would have better reviews. SV really needs to step down and give this great IP to a more competent company. 

I don't think any company would take this on now, after getting such bad press out there, and taking it from a company who can't even make their own launcher for the software. God knows how bad the code is written, and if another company had to take it over, they'd have to fix the code -- which if it's written poorly, would take just as much time as re-writing all of it.

 

Why would they buy anything from SV, when it's a waste of time?

popinjay

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Originally posted by HerculesSAS
I particularly liked the part where she explained that SV couldn't even write their own patcher, and had to have a fan make it for them. Man, some stuff is just too funny... LOL

---

Hehe, yeah that was pretty hilarious. The whole article was pretty much lulz describing this game. It must be a friggin nightmare, especially when you throw in all that forum brewhaha about "player GMs" abusing the system.

This part had me in stitches:

---

"The skills, however, are poorly described in the game's interface, hidden under layers of UI design, and are only revealed by reading books. So, even if you want to raise a skill you don't have, you need to buy the book for it. This is a huge problem, as every book has the same description: "Comming Soon (TM)" It seems that Star Vault didn't have time to actually write in what each skill book in the library actually does, forcing you to use an outside information source like Mortal Wiki.

That's not intelligent, puzzle-solving design that requires experimentation on the player's part. That's just being incredibly lazy. (I can say that when this problem wasn't solved 15 patches later at the time of this post.)"

---

I immediately thought of:

Nizur

It's sad. I had high hopes for this game and was excited about it earlier in the year. Then when I saw the price they were asking and the early reactions to the game, I backed off and waited to see how it would pan out. Looks like it's heading for disaster. I'm glad I didn't click the buy button all those months ago.

thorppes

Focusing on the negatives with the bugs. I understand MO isn't an AAA polished game but I see how it's quiet bad when you expect one.

Joker2240

Originally posted by HerculesSAS

Originally posted by Joker2240

I am surprised also.... Really this game has some really GREAT positives and is only let down by the errors, glitches and the patcher. Either then that the game is excellent combat that is better than almost any game out in the market and the crafting is also awesome! Which the writer clearly stated and which none of you are paying attention to.

Really this game is a great game when it comes to combat and crafting. If there were half the bugs and errors in game I am positive this game would have better reviews. SV really needs to step down and give this great IP to a more competent company. 

I don't think any company would take this on now, after getting such bad press out there, and taking it from a company who can't even make their own launcher for the software. God knows how bad the code is written, and if another company had to take it over, they'd have to fix the code -- which if it's written poorly, would take just as much time as re-writing all of it.

 

Why would they buy anything from SV, when it's a waste of time?

It really is not and I can't believe you don't see it. This game is a great investment if you know what you are doing. With proper meetings, schedules, etc. The game can do a 180 and become one of the greater sandboxes out in the market which again the writer also noticed.

Also if you really know how to work code it will not take a lot of work to fix the problems that made it that way. You could practically go back to a standard launcher then work from there or better yet put in your existing launcher. Really, there are simple fixes that could be made to the codes that could take only a day and already have vast improvements. There are also small fixes to the game that world that could be made such as the placements of objects. 

Bad press of the game is not the issue here. I am fairly positive that the company is the one getting the bad press and not the game. I am fairly positive if an other company came and took it over people would try out the game again. This is one of those cases bad company, EXCELLENT game!

Loke666

Dejah vú...

This review remind me of Eurogamers Darkfall review that also came a few months after it's game released. Less nerdrage here of course but I guess we are getting used to things by now.

Both DF and MO suffers from the same problems: Good ideas, bad coding. You don't need a fully experienced team to make a ok MMO but you'll need at least a good lead programmer or the game will be riddled by bugs and exploits for years to come. I start to wonder where Sigils old programmers went, if the got hired by Aventurin or Star vault many things would be explained.

A for effort, F for the actual program code. Eventually can the game get good but it would have to stay alive for 3-4 years for that, I am not sure it can. The game do have some really good ideas and they should be recognized for that but you just can't release MMOs in this shape.

They learned nothing from earlier games that did the same mistakes.

raff01

HAHAHA, I can't believe this, didn't know about the fact StarVault couldn't even program their own game's launcher and had some of the community guys doing it for them...Kinda like their weather system programmed by an intern...

Makes me wonder who really made the world design...probably several different people who never talked to each other and assembled the pieces together.

popinjay

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Originally posted by Loke666
Dejah vú...
This review remind me of Eurogamers Darkfall review that also came a few months after it's game released.

---

Heh, wonder if someone will bring back that "Order of the White Border" again.

That was an epic thread.

cosy

are you sure this is a review because I dont see a review I see a article

SgtFrog

oh wow lol that bad..good read anyway.

PyrateLV

Originally posted by raff01

HAHAHA, I can't believe this, didn't know about the fact StarVault couldn't even program their own game's launcher and had some of the community guys doing it for them...Kinda like their weather system programmed by an intern...

Makes me wonder who really made the world design...probably several different people who never talked to each other and assembled the pieces together.

 

I dont know why people keep perpetuating this falsehood.

 

Its not that SV couldnt program one. The community guy who made the launcher/patcher (Paratus) volunteered to make it for them so they could do more work on the game itself.

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by cosy

are you sure this is a review because I dont see a review I see a article

 "Let me open up this review with some bad news."

HerculesSAS

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by raff01

HAHAHA, I can't believe this, didn't know about the fact StarVault couldn't even program their own game's launcher and had some of the community guys doing it for them...Kinda like their weather system programmed by an intern...

Makes me wonder who really made the world design...probably several different people who never talked to each other and assembled the pieces together.

 

I dont know why people keep perpetuating this falsehood.

 

Its not that SV couldnt program one. The community guy who made the launcher/patcher (Paratus) volunteered to make it for them so they could do more work on the game itself.

If you don't have that base part of a game created, you really have no business creating the rest of the game either.

 

And he made it because the one they made didn't work -- at all. 

Joker2240

Originally posted by cosy

are you sure this is a review because I dont see a review I see a article

It is a form of a review but at the same time an article. It is as the article says an anti-aliased article.