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Mortal Online: NDA Lifted!
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
It's never fun having to slap people on the wrist for wanting to talk about an upcoming game that is under NDA. Today, however, Mortal Online is the latest game to be crossed off that list and be placed firmly into the "open floodgates" category as the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) has been lifted as of yesterday.
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StarVault's Henrik Nystrom explains in the announcement post made to the Mortal Online official forums that the decision was made due to the fact that while polish is still needed on the game, the main features are in the game and working. The decision also ties into the fact StarVault needs to increase their efforts in marketing the game and they believe the best way to explain some of the game's features to players is through testers' word of mouth testimonials.
So get started! You got some 'splainin to do!
What do you think of Mortal Online? Let us know in the comments below!
By the way, even though the NDA is dropped the T&A screenshots are still inappropriate for our forums, so don't post them! 
Comments
Go.
I wanna know!
Woohoo NDA lift finally.
MO is like UO. It will give you the UO feeling if you came from around the first few years of UO's release.
That being said, there are some buggy features in the game still. They are progressing rapidly through each patch...but if you like sandboxes where you can log in and do whatever you want and just "chill" in town or in your house...then this is for you.
Lots will probably focus on the lack of content and/or bugginess currently. If you can see beyond that, this game is very rewarding in fun factor.
Disclaimer: This is not a troll post and is not here to promote any negative energy. Although this may be a criticism, it is not meant to offend anyone. If a moderator feels the post is inappropriate, please remove it immediately before it is subject to consideration for a warning. Thank you.
Well, I bought this game (preorder) and went into beta some months ago due to that.
I can't exactly say, what this games offers right now as I am not willing to actually test it at the moment.
What I saw back then was in horrible state though.
Beginning at the patcher and starting the game, cryptic error messages which force you to investigate and install some other 3rd party programs to actually get MO running. Patching itself didn't run smoothly either. But the last time I logged into the game (and therefore loaded and patched the client) this actually went smoothly still not what I would consider "finalish".
The game itself: The Combat system itself seems fun, but when I tested it, this was basically the only thing besides of running around in an almost empty world you could do. The aiming and blocking seem simple but combined with slower movement speed this actually feels like fighting, like two guys circling around each other to find the ideal moment for a hit. I liked that, though it was not in a state which could be called beta.
Actually that goes for the whole rest: The beta I experienced in MO other game developers would have called a pre-alpha. As besides of very basic game concepts there there was basically nothing to do in the game. I have to say that I actually felt scammed a bit as I expected a game in beta status which I could actually play. But when you don't even know where to start to report bugs because basically NOTHING is there, it didn't didn't really keep my attention. Same goes for a friend of mine. We bought the game, played around for a few hours and never took a second look. Until a few weeks ago at least. But I didn't do much more then start the game, wonder that patching works better now, entering the game with a new character, wondered about how the controls and mouse movement suck (not adjustable), run into some kind of fawn, died and spawned as ghost with no idea where to go before I quit again.
What I also want to mention here is that the world seemed 100% static. Just world and NPCs. This does not really work together with the concepts but maybe this already changed (concepts or world).
The Engine actually looks quite good. Compared to darkfall though it seems like that darkfall is a game with great mechanics but a crappy engine and MO instead has a great engine but the mechanics seem to be crap or non existant when I checked.
Of course this all may have changed. I think the concepts of MO are quite good, but the developers need more time. FAR more time as far as I can say. I am really wondering why they are dropping the NDA yet.
And before you flame me about not being a real beta tester - I checked a lot of games in beta status, played bugged games as AO and Necron (both Beta) and also experienced Sandbox games and PvP games as UO, Darkfall and Shadowbane but I have never seen any game in such an early state as MO was when I actually BOUGHT it.
I am looking forward to some in depth views of players who spent more time with current builds though.
I think in the future it has potential to be a really good game but as of right now its a long ways from being ready to be released. As the previous poster said SV works fairly quickly on adding new stuff and getting stuff fixed but even with that said even if it was released tomorrow my advice is not to touch it for 6 months minimum. Depending on how fast SV works to get things working properly, get the bugs fixed and get content added 6 months from now she could be ready to go.
pretty much what this guy said, there is no content and it is buggy and you have extreme performance/latency/fps issues.
I was in beta block B and I had to resub to darkfall because of this letdown, maybe in a year it might be worth calling it a game, but right now it is not even close.
pretty much what this guy said, there is no content and it is buggy and you have extreme performance/latency/fps issues.
I was in beta block B and I had to resub to darkfall because of this letdown, maybe in a year it might be worth calling it a game, but right now it is not even close.
Oh, good, now we can actually talk about what a crappy game this is! Fully agree with the above.
Bla Bla Bla
NDA is lifted , start posting gameplay footage , screens etc cauze i for one am sick and tired of user made reviews on mmorpg , they all stink and that's a fact.
I am in the beta as well.. the combat isn't as fluid as it will be when its all fixed. Game needs about a year more of development and polishing and it will decimate all.
The company is on the right track. Some say a year, some say a few months... that's a personal viewpoint and depends on what you believe a "complete" game to be. Some, like myself, never believe an MMO is complete... there is just always more to do.
I tamed a weasel and had a player attack me... I ran around and did my best to dodge... get in a few hits where I could. I had my weasel on "Protect me" mode....
The weasel landed the final blow killing the guy.
The active skill system reminds me of Darkfall and UO where you can continue spam commands to increase your skill. I'm fairly certain something will be done to limit that shortly... or at least restrict how it is used.
I eventually started taming Gazelles... and worked my way up to buffolo. I had my buffalo pet kill someone who had left himself afk, and seemed to be trying to mine... Soon I was at the skill level needed to train horses, and as I got to learn the controls I realized I needed skills in riding. Not being skilled enough caused me to get thrown off my horse every time I tried to do something I wasn't trained for.
Running through the land I saw a variety of houses, player built, and guild locations with wooden walls/fences. There are the main capitals where players start out, as well as a few other villages/locations...
Some things were definately hard... like drowning in a river because I was too overburdened and the nearest bridge had not been built yet... but I was amused at the system and game as a whole. There are areas I have not gotten to explore yet, and certain activities I wanted to try...
It does seem good... it kind of gives me the same feeling EVE Online does.
It's definitely improved since block A. Servers are up pretty much 24/7, they introduced the massive LOD system so it doesn't crash (although some memory leaks crept back in after last patch).
What they currently have (that they promised):
- melee combat
- skill system complete with primary combat skills
- nearly full continent (about 75%?)
- crafting system (but not UI or skills, see below)
- taming and pets
- mounts
- houses
- guilds (including war declaration)
- basic flagging system (including city guards)
- final character creation system with racial mixing
- FFA PvP
- full loot
Still some bugs with these things, see below.
The main stuff they need to add:
- the crafting UI
- implement crafting abilities as a trainable skill (currently using NPC crafter)
- the rest of the magic skills
- the aiming for magic (currently auto-target)
- secondary skills (e.g. thievery, languages, etc)
- making actions less macroable (e.g. NPCs need to call for guards in towns to prevent players training weapon skills on them, gathering is currently very easy to macro)
- rest of the continent (namely the city of Tindrem, southern marsh jungles)
- more guild functionality
- full flagging system with statloss
- full guild war declaration system
- more mobs (e.g. trolls, ones that provide more challenging PvE)
- more background lore (on the website), hidden lore for players to find (in-game)
- religion system, being able to join NPC guild/factions e.g. assassins guild. Not sure if this comes under the secondary skills or not
They need to improve:
- the prediction system (really bad for melee)
- archery aiming (you currently hit the person you aimed at when you released the bowstring, whether they move in between or not)
- UI interface
- how horses turn (minor point, but important one for me :P)
They need to fix:
- mounted combat does too much damage (essentially 1-shotting when maxed)
- bugs with houses (e.g. incorrect error messages, flagging issues)
- bugs with pets/mounts (mounts dying near water, losing ability to give pets commands, stealing other player mounts without a stealing skill)
- issues with flagging system (guards attack incorrect targets in some locations)
- some exploits e.g. training up resting
There have been problems with lag spikes after last patch, but the devs were implementing fixes for that today.
General comments:
The world is beautiful, although some people find the steppeland a little open and bleak, not enough vegetation. Being able to see right to the horizon, with no draw distance, is just amazing. The different areas all have a different atmosphere - Gaul K'or, the cave, Morin Khur, etc. The models and animations that we have are really detailed and realistic. Character creation is beautifully designed (from an artistic perspective) although needs a little work from a usability perspective, as does the rest of the UI. Music is fantastic, they just added that back into the game. I really love all the way it's been designed, everything works off everything else. Guilds are an extension of building a house. Mounts are an extension of the pet training system.
Basically they have the foundations of the game (combat, magic, skill system, houses, guilds, mounts etc), they just need to expand on it, and fix the current bugs. I don't care about minor bugs, it's the big exploity ones that are an issue. And there is a LOT of work to do.
But the great thing with indie teams is they're all young and enthusiastic and working really hard, and you can see from the dev posts on the forum how passionate they are about it. I don't know how long they can continue in beta before they need to release, but I hope they can pull it off.
In summary, I can see a lot of possibilities for really great gameplay, but it's the players who will need to make the most out of it when the game releases. Which is as it should be.
pretty much what this guy said, there is no content and it is buggy and you have extreme performance/latency/fps issues.
I was in beta block B and I had to resub to darkfall because of this letdown, maybe in a year it might be worth calling it a game, but right now it is not even close.
The game has progressed a lot since people were let into beta block B. It's too bad that people will review a Beta testing experience as if they were playing a demo for a finished game.
Personally I am thrilled to see how far Star Vault has come in the last few months and look forward to the games release when I will be able to carve my own little niche out of this daring sandbox that SV is about to release
It doesn't bother me when people post a review that doesn't agree with my take on a MMO. It's kind of annoying to have scan through all of the posts to get to the 'meat' of the beast. But, I believe the people who matter in terms of a game like Mortal are smart enough to interpret the 'meat' from the 'fat'.
Keep the reviews and opinions coming.
Ok, a coule of things about this post. While i can agree that back when you were testing it pretty much sucked, you tested combat and that' was pretty much it. I didn't even log in for like 3 months or something until they introduced housing and taming. So i can agree that when you were testing months ago that the game was pretty much just a combat beta and server stress testing and nothing more.
Now, coming into a forum and posting things about a beta you haven't played in like 4 months is just Lulz. Why in god's name would you do that? It makes absolutely no sense and gives people a bad impression in which something you have no idea about. You shouldn't have even posted this unless you're just trying to troll, if that's the case then gj sir.
Oh, and atm, this game already has more features in it during beta than DFO had at release, so you lied when you say that you have never seen any game in such an early state as MO when you actually bought it. You pre-ordered it, you didn't buy it as a finished product. You bought DFO as a finished product and MO is far ahead of where DF was when it released and SV has done it in less than half the time that DF did it.
Anyways, game is getting to be enjoyable finally. They def. still have things to implement and bugs to fix of course, it's beta. I will say that it is really refreshing to see FPV style combat in an MMO and not this BS spam left click or cool down system. They have said they have 2 more big patches coming to implement more of the main features before release. With what other people have said i'm not gonna list features or bugs or anything since it has been covered but i will say one of the main things that realloy bothers me atm is the fact that they really need to work on PvE. I know it's a FFA PvP game but doesn't mean there should be no PvE content. It's really lacking in this aspect and will hopefully get fixed in one of the big patches that are inc. soon. Other than that, the game has come a long way and i'm actually getting excited again considering i was pretty close to not caring after not playing for like 3 or 4 months. Hopefully in time after release, with free patches and expansions, this game will be great.
MO is certainly worth looking into and perhaps test-driving. The more freedom of player-influenced game-types the better.
Oh, and atm, this game already has more features in it during beta than DFO had at release, so you lied when you say that you have never seen any game in such an early state as MO when you actually bought it. You pre-ordered it, you didn't buy it as a finished product. You bought DFO as a finished product and MO is far ahead of where DF was when it released and SV has done it in less than half the time that DF did it.
Why would you state such idiotic opinions when everyone including the devs have stated otherwise? MO does not have half the features DF had at release and that's how its going to be for awhile now, even the diehard DF haters know this to be true.
AS IS after 2 expansions and patches DF has much more than MO, so why do you need to poke the DF fans hoping someone might agree with you....
Oh, and atm, this game already has more features in it during beta than DFO had at release, so you lied when you say that you have never seen any game in such an early state as MO when you actually bought it. You pre-ordered it, you didn't buy it as a finished product. You bought DFO as a finished product and MO is far ahead of where DF was when it released and SV has done it in less than half the time that DF did it.
Why would you state such idiotic opinions when everyone including the devs have stated otherwise? MO does not have half the features DF had at release and that's how its going to be for awhile now, even the diehard DF haters know this to be true.
AS IS after 2 expansions and patches DF has much more than MO, so why do you need to poke the DF fans hoping someone might agree with you....
First off, i am currently a DFO subscriber and think it's a decent game and i have fun playing it. Now to deny the fact that DFO didn't have half the stuff they said they would at launch is idiotic. The game now is fun and has all it's features but to deny the launch and how much wasn't there is a whole other arugment.
Now, did i exagerate i little on the fact that MO has more than DF at launch yeah but honestly atm it's pretty damn close to what DF had at launch. DF has come along way but was awful at launch and was nothing more than a paid alpha/beta, which is the state of MO atm before release. So yeah i exagerated...a littel but not much.
Meh to bad they had designed a game for a niche of a niche.
After checking out some vids and screenshots I'm intrigued. I'm gonna keep my eye on this one.
Questions:
1. Is it first-person view ONLY? I hated that about DF.
2. Are there penalties ("going red?") for ganking? I like open PvP, but I like there still being rules and consequences to the ganking.
yes first person only (think of oblivion)
as of now I do not think that going red has any penalty other than being red and being able to be guard ganked, but I know they are supposedly making a stat loss for going red and getting killed as a red. who knows what will actually be put in place. They may go the route of UO And have no penalty.
It's FPV only, yes. You can only see your char in paper doll and when swimming backwards for the most part
If you do mining/lumberjacking you can see your arms swing. Also, if you look down...you see your feet. It's done well imo.
There are penalties for ganking. Attacking makes you go gray and killing x amount of people make you go red. Then, if you keep killing carelessly you will suffer stat loss if you die and resurrect.
Disclaimer: This is not a troll post and is not here to promote any negative energy. Although this may be a criticism, it is not meant to offend anyone. If a moderator feels the post is inappropriate, please remove it immediately before it is subject to consideration for a warning. Thank you.
Could we please have a company make a worthy successor to UO and not these pvp-focused, feature-limited, half-assed attempts? DF isn't 1/10 the game UO and Mortal Online looks like it's following in similar footsteps.
Well, screenshots aren't doing them any good either.
As so far all the screenshots that have appeared on the net since yesterday (and that is quite a lot) gave me an instant DeJaVu with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
Pretty scenery shots, but all show empty zones void of any life.
100 % signed!
When I actually "bought" the game I was shocked about the state of the game. Graphics looks quite nice, yeah, except for trees, but there was hardly anything to do! I didn't bother to check out the last few patches, so maybe now - with taming, housing, etc. - integrated - there some content worth to play. But about 2 months ago I really thougt: Well, so much for my 50 bucks. And btw: I promised myself to never buy a game in "Beta" (which really was much more lika Alpha) again.
And honestly, I have no confidence in the Devs to balance the whole shit out. I mean, in my opinion, the game would need YEARS of hard work to even get to release state. When I read that they wanted to release it by the end of the year I could not believe it! I would have some confidence if there was a large dev team working on the game, but that does not seem to be the fact.
I appreciate that finally someone (along with DFO) thought about the fact that you may get better results by copying good MMOs like UO then jump on the WoW-train. But MO is NOT UO and it does not feel like UO. It feels like a copy of UO, without ever reaching the perfection of UO.
But as I said, thats what I experienced two months ago. Maybe I should take another look now, but I prefer to wait if it ever reaches release state before I put any effort in it.