Lost In Mortal Online

Posted by on March 16, 2010 - No Comments »

Trees, mountains, more trees, more mountains and more trees

Normally when I say I’m lost in a game I’m referring to the games atmosphere and gameplay, but this time I literally mean I’m lost.  I’ve wandered out from one of the game’s cities into the wilderness and have been lost for about an hour or so.  I have no idea where in the game I am or how to get back to where I came from.  I haven’t seen a single player, NPC or Mob the entire time other then a few pigs or rabbits, which are scarce at that.   For those of you who haven’t played Mortal Online yet, there is no in-game map, so you never really know where you are or where any city is.  There are no sign posts on trails or at outposts pointing to a cities direction, or at least I haven’t found any.  Considering Mortal Online is set to release this month, within 2 weeks, I’m shocked at the lack of content outside the cities.

I found the end of the world

A few weeks ago I wrote how the Mortal Online open beta was a dud due to the lack of content, however one reader replied back with “I’ve killed minotaurs, lizard men, terror birds, been in giant battles, wear full plate and have steel weapons. Plenty to do in the beta.”  My question to this reader is, where?  I’ve been walking around in all directions for over an hr and I haven’t seen one mob, not one.  I did find two outposts, but they were completely empty.

I now have about 6-8 hrs worth of gameplay in the Mortal Online open beta and while the games mechanics such as fighting, stealing, crafting and other systems are all working very well, I don’t really have anything to do.  I think the main issue I’m having is not having a map.  I don’t know where I am in relation to other cities and I don’t know where any thing is.  Just finding NPCs to buy and sell items takes forever because you have to search the entire city to find where they’re located.  I’m not saying I need a map with NPC icons everywhere, but a map that shows where the market is or where the smiths are located would be helpful.

Mortal Online does have some big content issues, but the game mechanics and rules are a breath of fresh air.  This is the first game where I’ve been able to steal items directly from a players loot bag, yes I’m playing as a thief and love it.  But aside from stealing items from people, I can’t seem to find anything else to do.

Update: I was not offline or desynced, after around 2 hrs I finally ran into a group of people and they pointed me in the direction of  a city.  This is also not a review, we do not review games in beta.