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Mourning - beta impressions
stav1
Member Posts: 282
OK the NDA has been lifted, so i'll spill the beans 
Firstly, i'd like to say that for all the PR incompetence of the Mourning publisher, the game has not deserved the hysterical "scam" posts written about the game on this site. I'm disappointed that the mmorpg.com mods have moderated the forums better on this point. So i just say to all of you - ignore those posts and judge the game on its own merits.
OK these are my impressions:
1. Graphics/Art style - I've got a top spec machine so wacked up the settings to max. Its no EQ2 but certainly holds it own against other games. The art style is great- darker and more edgy than something like EQ2- it will definitely make for a good PvP environment. Maybe its just me but i found the elven forests quite scary at night!!
2. Sound- Decent enough for a mmorpg. Nothing special though.
3. Gameplay - At the moment incomplete. Loads of bugs to be sorted out. eg. ppl falling through the world, npcs not reacting to you. PvE and PvP combat still needs alot of balancing work. For example the fact it takes an age to regen health between combat encounters is rather tiresome- something the devs have said they are fixing asap. But the potential is slowly being realised - the skill system is looking nice as are the various implements of death and the armour. Game killers like people not being able to log on are being resolved- i haven't had this problem for a few days now. Similarly lag etc has been significantly reduced.
4. Conclusion-The game is not ready for retail release. For the PvP'ers out there that may not matter since there's nothing really out there currently that offers what Mourning does.
Bottom line is if your looking for a PvP game then you may be willing to pay to effectively beta the game for the next couple of months. If you're not so hardcore then my advice is wait for 2/3 months. But if the game survives financially it will definitely be a very good skill-based PvP game.
I'll try and post some screenies when i get home- if that's not too late
Comments
Man, enough with blaming the mods for not deleting every post that has scam and Mourning in the same sentence. Its not their job to be judge and executioner of every opinion on the net and its certainly not their job to make a credibility call on every person posting here.
If the people are smart enough to realize what they are reading is subject to opinion and posibly created from uncreditable sources then they deserve whatever they get from listening to the BS.
And lastly don't blame the mods for the sites policy, you question the policy, not the people upholding it.
PS: I am sorry to be taking this conversation off topic but as far as I see it Stav1 is the one that took it off topic by having to add comments about past issues and not just sticking to his own topic with his post.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
"I'll try and post some screenies when i get home- if that's not too late
"
I bet he gets home to late, or that could translate into "Give me some time to creat some fake screenshots in photoshop"
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
Yes i only provided a brief overview. I'm at work so don't have whole lot of time to disect Mourning in detail. I'll try and get to it tonight.
Fadeus - maybe i'm labouring the point. But i think the game should be judged on its own merits rather than all the BS that's surrounded the game, especially on this site.
I'm hoping that other beta testers will post in this thread and give you all an accurate picture of where Mouring is at present.
What I don't understand is they lift the NDA and rely on beta testers to post information about the game? Why didn't they put up globs of new stuff themselves this morning? Should they not have been ready for this?
Basically they lift the NDA charge pre-orders and still have little info about the game available.
stav1 reminds me of Peter MacNicols characters in Ghostbusters 2 haha!
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
Why? The game exhists, I don't see how anyone can doubt that at this point. The fact that its the most poorly run business I have ever seen and that they have a publisher that apparently is not only unprofessional but also probably in a panic right now because what little player base he had left after his and the Mourning development team staff's mouths is about to leave. So he flagged the CC card transactions a go early and did a no cancelation policy even though they are billing before the product hits the docks to be shipped to the person. Which is not standard policy regardless of what Egomancer says.
And if thats the case then he made a horrible business call and you will probably watch mourning die a rather quick painful death as the development team continues to withdraw from public communication even more. I doubt it will even live a small life like shadowbane or even lesser, I think it will fall flat on its face and die outright.
No public statement was made, no apology to the fans, not even a response on the official forums this weekends other then a comment on life is full of suprises, deal with it.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Originally posted by Fadeus
First off, why play a game that censors its own community, it shows they don't listen to what needs to be done. With all Negative opinions and Developer attitudes, I stray from the game.
Why play a game that has bugs and horrible community relations, bad sound and decent enough graphics. When you can play a stable, sound, competetive game with a great community and at the very least, trustworthy developers?
Some of the people on the boards I will never understand. But then, who am I to try and understand you in the first place?
Fadeus made a great point. The staff here are not Heretics, and are not going to censor all of what the community has to say. If you do have a problem with something, you go to the source, not the people who follow it.
"Dont make me bitch slap you through the force!"
Some screenshots I cannot see whats so amazing in these pics. Also for people on Mourning forums use http://www.imageshack.ws/ so I dont need to see a billion posts with an attachment.
Order = You pay & item is shipped
Pre-Order = Order for Mourning dev/pr-guy/goblins/whatever.
I dont remmember paying for my games (in about 10 years of pre-ordering) when doing a pre-order (except for a 3$ fee that is taken off when you buy game).
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
Devil's advocate for a moment, in no way sticking up for the snafus that occured,
but what game in the recent past had a perfectly smooth launch?
All of them had serious launch issues with the exception of Daoc
The fans will support whatever product they choose to support, shoot even blizzards fans are still putting up with server down time server ques.........
Ao had a horrid launch but has survived.
My point is, no we do not have to like what happened, but at the same time do we truely only want choices of blizzard or Soe and no place for the die hard pvp ers to go ???????
i hope in 3-6 months from now the basic problems are resolved folks are happily playing where they want to play and the major problems are smoothed over.......
while we ourselves may not choose to be a part of a pure pvp experaince i sure wouldn't want the choices take away of those that enjoy that genra'..............
Wow, all the screens I've seen in the Mourning forums are just south of hideous.
I mean, if your gonna go for a Sub-DAoC 'Low Poly' approach, at least do it in a classy WoW style, not some kind of poor mans EQ 2 effect...
Yes, actually the Mourning fans are as guilty for taking the term "scam" as far out of hand as the people here. Scam doesn't have to mean "hoax", as many are implicating.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Because some people want something different from the 'safe' world of EQ/AC clones. Mourning's selling points were never going to be super graphics/sound, it's the pvp and bloodline concepts that stand out from the crowd.
I don't wish to play EQ2, WoW, Guild Wars, etc as they have nothing new to offer other than flashy graphics and a few other bells and whistles. If Mourning goes the same way as Dragon Empires and Wish then I'll wait for something similar such as DnL or Darkfall.
By the way, I agree that they've really screwed people around and because of this the game could well sink without trace.
Phew there interface is ugly.
The character models arent to much better either. Of course, they cannt match CoH character models and customizing.
LOL, I read this and thought just one thing. If the NDA is lifted, does that mean they will let people post on the "official forums" what they really think, or is censorship still in place over there.
Actually you know what i'm not going to bother posting in-depth impressions. Since most of you can't actually focus on the game, I can't be bothered to type.
If you actually want to know about the game, PM me.
I'll just say the game ain't ready for primetime at the moment. But will be decent in 3+ months.
Play it if you want now, later or never.
Hey man, relax.. As you're well aware the background behind this game is far more exciting than the game itself. You even said it's not ready for primetime. Don't you find it interesting that they charged all of the pre-orders just before lifting the NDA? If you beta'd this game and you are going around telling people of all of the problems, there probably would have been a mass exodus of pre-order cancellations. So instead they charged people up front, released the NDA and created a nightmare for those people who want to cancel now that the NDA is lifted.
Anyway, thanks for your post on your input to the game. Many people speculated on the current state of it and you re-confirmed those speculations.
Oh where to start.
I don't have a lot of time, but I want to get a post in here.
I started playing the Reals of Torment beta in the first phase, March 2003. Yes, 2003. Why does nobody seem to realize this game has been in beta that long? Not saying that is too long mind you, but people just don't seem to realize by what I read here and there. I was fervent over this game back then. It was going to be the next UO, but 3D and done right!
Along the way the name changed ... and thats not all.
So, my thoughts ....
The flora of this game is unbelievably good. It is one of two things I give them credit for doing extremely well. The detail on the ground, grass, etc. is just awesome. There are even places in the mountains and deep in the forests where it gets so thick you can lose yourself completely.
The other thing they got right was the layout of the towns. You truly feel like you are in a medieval town in most cases. The way they set things up as far as building placement, etc. is very well done.
Well, being fair, thats the good news.
The rest of the game is in shambles.
There have been game-stopping connection issues since the beginning. Things like the server timing out and kicking you off, then taking an hour to reset your character, letting you try looging back in. Things like Authorization Failed errors when putting in your acct name and password. Things like disconnects constantly after typing /release when you die. These have all been problems from the start and still remain prevelant TODAY!
What is the official response to these issues?
"Ok
This is the infamous bug...
Everybody that had this error for the past 1 week and could constantly not connect please post here. I want to make an idea what is the proportion between the ones that can connect and the others that can NOT connect."
-- Egomancer, Saturday, March 9th
-or-
"We are aware there is a problem yet, and are dilligently working on a solution. As a result, it is possible you will see new server and client builds going up again soon. This may mean some additional downtime to update the servers etc."
-- Ado/Tiamat, TODAY
Keep in mind as well ... there has never been more than 100 people on these servers at any given time, so if they crash constantly under that stress, you can imagine the fun upon release!
Assuming you are having a good day though, and are in the 50% or so that can connect and stay connected you wil be treated to a wide variety of splendors!
- Mobs, NPC's and other players become invisible at random
- Ground textures get psychadelic or transparent
- You can fall through the ground into an empty void beneath the world
- Your HP's can suddenly stop regenerating, even while sitting. If you're lucky here, they will start back up at 1/5 the intended pace.
- Every time you make an adjustment to your display settings you have to log out, then back in. Of course, it holds your character in limbo and won't let you log back in on that character for an hour or more.
- There is no quest journal, so be sure to have pen and paper handy when doing one of the handful of quests they've managed to get in, because the NPC will not tell you the quest info a second time.
- The character, much to the dismay of the beta testers who have been asking it be changed for a year, look like cmplete idiots running and don;t actually hold weapons in their hands.
- Guards stand around and watch as you get the snot beaten out of you right in front of them by someone they are supposed to flag as an enemy.
- The GUI is a complete joke that we've been told is being changed out for a nice one for over a year.
- As if the pitiful frame-rates you get are not bad enough, you have to be subjected to 1 minute or longer lag spikes as well.
- There is nothing that actually tells you what stat does what or anything at all along those lines, so have fun guessing and hoping the devs used common sense when designing it.
- Poor lighting, horrible shading, really really dumb animations are all in abundance.
- There are no actual spell descriptions, so, again, guess and rely on the devs' common sense.
- Combat is not the joyride they promise. You target, auto attack and hit some special attacks for added damage during the fight. Not very unique lol.
Combine all of this with the incredible customer service you can be sure to have and it is certainly a candidate for game of the year .... if only it were 1982.
They have broken 1/2 the promises they made for what this game is supposed to be and treated their own beta testers like garbage for bringing it up.
This has disaster written all over it ... I'm just glad I know better
__________________________
Malianea
Thank you Malianea, that was a rather informative post. And thats honestly how I suspected it to be right now. Worked on but truly nowhere near ready for release. I beleive the game probably had a ton of potential, but when you are this late in getting it out from original intent your already antiquated in this market and they STILL with all the delays don't have a sellable product, atleast thats how it sounds to me.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
- Combat is not the joyride they promise. You target, auto attack and hit some special attacks for added damage during the fight. Not very unique lol.
------------------------------
Glad to see I'm not actually missing out on anything afterall. Combat was the one thing they were "supposedly" doing right.
Heh, and people said CS:Source was still a beta after it was released. At least all the guns actually shot.
Whoops, fell through the world! Hate when that happens.
-----------------------------
Listen Asmodeeus, seven years ago, Ultima Online didn't even have those pathetic "quests" that you refer to or those "professions" of ninja, samurai, necromancer, and paladin. Nor did it have any of the neon crap, or bug mounts. It didn't even have any "combat moves." You turned on attack and jousted with simplistic swings. It was a better game then. if you can't guess why then just uninstall the thing and move along. - Crabby
For what its worth, Malianea's account is pretty accurate. Only thing i'd disagree on is i get fairly decent fps and haven't suffered any disconnects/log in problems for a while now.
Other than that, you can see why i cancelled the pre-order. There you go, i'm not a fanboi which may come as a suprise to many of you
It doesnt matter whether they lifted NDA. Because 1) Ego said you are going to be paying for Game CDs in a late alpha/beta. 2) They random charaged people.
So-
! This is very different from most reliable companies.
1) You are paying to get a beta/alpha for 30 dollars. All other companies give you a pre-order for about 5-10 dollars, which works for getting the real game at release and at the same time getting a beta. However, for Mourning, theres going to be no real game, only a poor beta/alpha game(w/ updates).
2) You want to trust the company you give your CC number too. When a company unauthorizingly charages you without warning or a major annocment on the site, then refuses to cancel/change/refund orders something is very wrong. This is following after a promise that told everyone "We will not charage until the game is shipped". Now you have to wait for beta cds. Internet Services is also a nice name for a charage.
3) You were promised a game for 30 dollars, not a late alpha w/ login errors.
4) Once you are charaged for the game, for 2 days they give so little info.
! Now- even if it does release soon, ego said you will pay for a beta game. Since it is download only- many are starting to believe that the Beta IS the game. Whats so funny, is the beta is unstable and unplayable right now. 3 Hour Record is HELLY COOL!
>>>>>>>>And yes, you will pay to play a game that still should be in an alpha/beta stage. It should never get to this but this was our limit of competence...Egomancer>>>>>>>>
So its EQ 1 style combat without AA?
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World