The last time I set foot in the lands of Mortal Online was back during its open beta testing phase where I was ultimately disappointed with the progress of the game and lack of content so near to launch. A little over a year later and after the release of its first expansion, Dawn, I return to see how the game has changed and evolved in our Mortal Online first impressions review.
Starting off with character creation, which has remained relatively unchanged from what I saw in open beta, I created my character selecting a mix of two of the four races available, creating a bit of a hybrid character. After I distributed my stat points, I selected a starting location and logged in. There I was presented with a game intro help menu and a few NPCs standing next to me to help me get started on my journey.
The Dawn expansion was supposed to revamp the intro help menu and provide newbies, like myself, with a lower initial learning curve to get started, however the new tutorial system really gave me no extra info then the old one, which is also still available in game. The new system does however give you pop-up “tips” as you progress, so it’s a little better.
After reading through the tutorial tips, I walked up to the various NPC standing in front of me to see what they have to offer. One was a tutor, so I was able to learn my first crafting skill, teaching me how to use my pick axe to mine and chop trees for wood. One was a “helpful man”, that was actually his title, and basically regurgitated some of the same info from the tutorials, then there were two vendors, which were of no use to me as I had no money.
That was all the guidance I got, so the next move was for me to figure out what I wanted to do. Since my only equipment was a old rusty short sword, a pick axe and rags, I decided I needed to get some money so I can buy some respectable gear to wear. Since my skills were non-existent I knew going out to kill things was out of the picture so I decided to go look for more tutors around the city and acquire additional crafting skills.
As I began to walk around, I quickly noticed my character was slow as if I stepped in gum with both feet and when I tried using my endurance to run, I would only be able to for about 10 feet before becoming completely exhausted. And forget about jumping, even though my guy wasn’t white, I was only able to get about 2 inches off the ground and after two jumps in a row my endurance would be completely drained. I was having issues jumping onto stairs, I could walk on them, but I couldn’t jump up them. Even a minor bump that was 6 inches I couldn’t jump over and would have to find stairs or another entrance to get around.
My character now has about 150 skill points in walking, sprinting, endurance, athletics and jumping, so it’s not that bad anymore, however it’s just a horrible first impression for new players.
Mortal Online contains no archetypes such as a Mage, Paladin, Rogue, etc so players can build their characters anyway they like by simply using those skills. The more often a skill is used, the more it builds up gaining skill points, so as I ran and jumped around, those skill points naturally went up. Players are also able to stop certain skills from progressing and can even subtract skill points from one skill to open up those points for another.
Because of my character’s walking/running speed, it took me about two hours just to explore the city and find where things were, so I got to take in the views. One of Mortal Online’s biggest strengths is its graphics, which run on the Unreal Engine. The game is stunningly beautiful and has tremendous views. The above image isn’t even on the game’s highest settings.
While beautiful, the city was a ghost town in terms of NPCs. There were barely any, maybe around 15-20 in the entire city, so it made it difficult to find useful NPCs. While I don’t expect there to be hundreds, it just gave off a feeling that the city was empty. I would look around, see a huge building in the distance only to see an empty room when I got there. With the game being over a year old, I wasn’t expecting to see as many empty buildings as I did in beta.
As I explored the city I found a extractionist tutor and learned a new crafting skill. I ended up taking the few pieces of rock I had mined earlier and turned it into a powder, which I then sold to a vendor. I couldn’t just sell the mined rock because raw materials are valueless to vendors, so I first had to do something to it such as refine or extract it to give it some value.
I then realized I’m going to have to do a crap load of crafting to get enough money to buy anything, so I decided it was time to head out of the city and see if there was anything near by that was more valuable. I saw a signpost that said “Graveyard” so I figured why not go there. This lead me out of the city by the way of a massive wooden step structure that ran along the cliff, again with a breathtaking view.
As I made my way down, I crossed a bridge where I saw some pigs running around. So I thought it was time to test out my combat skills. I whipped out my short sword and began chasing the pigs around swiping at them, but only connecting one out of three times on average. I ended up killing two of them, which gave me quite a bit of meat. I saw someone approach me, decked out in armor, and since I didn’t want them to kill me and steal my hard earned pig meat, I ran back up the stairs and into the city where I would be protected by the city guards.
I found a storage vendor, placed my items in there, and went back out of the city for more. This time I noticed a fog and saw a skeleton walking around. I hesitated for a momemt, but decided to attack and see if I could kill it. It turns out it was a big mistake as I barely got any health off of it before it killed me.
When you die in Mortal Online, your corpse remains on the ground, lootable by anyone, and you enter the neither world. To get back, you need to find a priest which is marked by a giant glowing light from the sky to the ground. There was one in front of me in the distance, so I starting running towards it and as I got near, I fell off a massive cliff and landed next to the priest and into another small city. Since I had nothing on my corpse except a short sword and pick axe, I didn’t need to go back to retrieve anything as you can’t lose those items.
In the new city I found a thief tutor, which taught me some skills to steal from people, but overall it was the same as the previous city. A lot of empty building with only a few NPCs here and there.
Mortal Online still has no map and probably never will, but with the Dawn expansion, they finally added the first piece of navigation to the game, a compass which you can see in the top right. While it’s something, I’d still love to see a rudimentary map that just lays out where the cities, rivers and mountains are. Really anything just to give you an idea of where the major areas of the game are. At lease sign posts to point people in the right direction.
While there have been some improvements since open beta and some noticeable new content, it’s still not what I was expecting from a game that’s over a year old and released their first expansion almost 3 months ago. And it’s definitely not any friendlier to beginners. Between the slow movement speed and the complete lack of navigation, I would suspect most people would quit within the first hour due to frustration. I know that Mortal Online is supposed to be a pure sandbox MMORPG, but that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult for beginners.
Yeah mortal online doesn’t hold your hand, when you start out your like a unskilled dude who can not do anything, after one hour your pretty much skilled in terms of walking,jumping and moving around. the game is friendly enough for new players but it doesn’t hold your hand, exploring is a major part of the game, thats the reason for no ingame map, but the developers said player crafted maps will make it into the game. also just by simply googling “mortal online maps” you will find many accurate player made maps, that will help you along your way.
Mortal online is about getting those players who like this sort of work, it not meant to be friendly in the way it holds your hand, your pushed into a harsh world not one with rainbows and sweeties.
The game is not to play itself for you, mortal online is one of those games that the players actually have to figure things out.
if you don’t like it, then what do you expect the developers to do? change the game into a more world of warcraft experience?
Also there are many player guides on the forums with some in depth players writing their experiences and sharing knowledge with others to make better guides or understanding of better mechanics but many things are hidden and most players do not share their “crafting knowledge” like a armour certain weight, damage protection, the durability etc.
nice first impression :) i would advise anyone who starts out in MO to start in meduli. it is by far the most crowded of the starting cities. and it is much easier to explore
MO is a joke-
Great initial concept with terrible execution and the worst, most shady company I have ever had the misfortune to give money to.
There is no “sandbox” here, what you have is a PVP Deathmatch game in a “persistent” world. The content is lacking but SV always promises and hypes like no other.
AI is non existent, PVE is a broken and boring mess, the economy is lackluster, the population slowly bleeding into nothing- Just too much negative to list.
The game is really beautiful though, I will give it that.
In before angry fans who do not understand that game being user-friendly does not necessarily equals to it being any less hardcore.
While in concept MO is wonderful, the lack of user-friendly interface and good tutorial, together with lack of sandbox tools and endless bugs really ruin the game.
There is nothing hardcore in struggling with UI or yet another glitch, fact. Most people dislike MO not for being “hardcore”, but for being poorly made, fact. Stop making up excuses such as “Its supposed to be hardcore” or “its a sandbox”. Neither of those are an excuse for a poor product. Neither should a good game require you to read lots of walk-through and guides before being able to play it, what’s so hardcore in that, eh?
Now that there are few choices out there, and some diehard fans chose to bite together and still play MO is true too, each one to their own. But to deny this is a poor product is blind faith.
Here is a recent forum post from princereaper.
“Default Mortal online has no real group activities
Mortal online biggest downfall is that it has no content for people to just go and have fun.
There is only really 3 things we can do. Kill,grind and riser dungeon. The AI is horrible as hell, the only real activity to do is to kill other players randomly.
The riser dungeon is ok, but its not that “amazing” it a place with creatures in it like any other place with one strong mob. the strong mob is what makes it fun.
EVERYTHING in mortal online I can kill by myself.
There is no arena i can go 2, with a group of guild mates and friends and stake gold and try to win battles and with these battles we can the stuff being staked.
I would like something where you can risk your stuff in battles against other people and they can risk stuff also and the winner take all.
There is just nothing fun to do….to break away from the grind. there no “recreational ingame activities”
The game is horrible plain and simple.
One of the biggest game breaking bugs that has been in the game since release is getting killed by invisible people.
that is hater talk.
The point is, to find out things yourself. and most of the stuff you posted is issues with the game itself which doesn’t necessary make it newbie friendly, it just makes it a buggy game, and if it wasn’t so buggy most of the time, i am sure it would be a better game overall but nothing you said solves the issue and also you make it sound like the game doesn’t help you at all. it has a tutorial, maybe not one where you do a instanced run where some NPC is talking to you and you don’t get to the next room without completing the tutorial, sure it could do that, but you have to understand if people are expecting to be spoon fed just by the tutorial then how can they expect to enjoy the game where players are walking in the dark most of the time and have to find out things themselves. its not like we was told where to go, what to make, we done all this testing ourselves. there are secret locations in nave that not many people know about. should there be a guide to tell them how to get there? should the game just have a guide for everything with all its stats handed down to you? NO it should not. mortal online isn’t friendly full stop, there no point trying to make it something its not, and it never will have a map, its just the design of the game, if you do not like it, then that’s tough luck, the developers already said that we be able to have the tools to create such things in the future, but the developers themselves will never hand down information like whats the best mats whats the best weapon, no the players have to find it out themselves.
You think eve online was harsh? mortal online strives to be harsh, its what makes it mortal online, its got a steep learning curve that makes eve online look like a baby. but the difference is that its not hard to figure out there just alot of things the players need to do themselves, they need to figure things out, in eve online, you can see the stats of a weapon, in mortal online you need to have experience and knowledge on the materials and type of weapon? how can you be friendly to a newbie?
its the mortal online learning process, its done in a way it hard to be friendly because in the end its not friendly and isn’t looking to be friendly.
it tells you how to move about, it explains systems, what more do you want to do? you got tool tips when you do a action, the tutorial is part of the world, you don’t go into a instance.
there’s a newbie channel, where gms/community manager answer peoples questions.
its that type of game, a clunky UI isn’t newbie friendly its just bad, and it bad for vets 2, and its being overhauled, its not even that bad, darkfall is bad, its UI is one of the most terrible in instance, its like a MUD.
Lol reaper… this games easier then a box of cookies. Only low IQ gamers wouldnt see that to figure out refinings you look at real world metals.
Like tephra:
“Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size or emplacement mechanism.[1]
Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground they remain as tephra unless hot enough to fuse together into pyroclastic rock or tuff.”
And for crafting, well… the sliders are still broken for armor crafting, only 2 types of bows are worth using or even use able. Spawns have been bugging out since the last update(not spawning). Server randomly going in offline mode. The memory lack is really bad on this game, if your in an area that has at lest 5 hunting lover players going to and from town you’ll have a lot of “ghost horses” that will really hurt your Frames per second. PvP … the thought they have is nice but… you might see the guy infront of you but they are really behind you(you still see them moving so its not lag switching) Hit boxes are a mess. Theres really less then 20 different weapons, they just nerd sugared it by allowing you to mix and match handles with blades.
You are better off finding another game and leave this one alone
I tried this game on the free trial before the expansion came out, I absolutely loved the concept. I think the idea of skills leveling up the more you use them , and decreasing when you neglect them is a great idea and not implemented enough.
I didnt struggle so much with the slow movement at the start or the lack of map so much – the idea of generating your own map actually appealed to me at first.
It was a bit buggy, and the lack of properly introducing you to the mechanics of the game and how to get started was horrible. The game is touted as hardcore, as such it would be nice if the game tried to give you the basic skills needed to survive such an environment.
In the end it was the emptiness that got me, the lack of players, the lack of NPCs the lack of chat in any of the channels (apparently its mainly because everyone is in one guild or another). The lack any discernable life when you first login doesnt help the first impression, and as I explored a bit I found the emptiness was not just confined to the starting towns. I probably didnt give it a fair whack, if id stuck it out a while I dare say i may have got more into it, but the initial startup experience was such that it just didnt drag me into wanting to go any further.
Also judging by the starting areas I tried it would seem that there are not a lot of new players flocking to the cause either.
Shame on paper it is such a good idea – Darkfall was the same – great idea, but so so empty.
WOW CLONE!
TuKasa
thats not what i mean lol. i am a armour crafer. i just preview some of the stuff i do to figure out stuff.
Secondary weights
Wool weight – 0.33
Tindimic plate -wool secondary- helmet-
Horn wool
weight: [1.37]
dura: [95.00]
Tindimic plate – ironsilk secondary- helmet-
horn ironsilk
weight: [1.37]
dura: [105.50]
And here is some damage migration testing.
Horn wool no defensive stance[25-40]
30
27
34
34
25
40
So yeah this stuff like this, the developers won’t share it, I have to experince it myself and come to conclusions.
Here me coming up with my prices for selling.
Horn/wool armour
VENDOR
4gold horn per 1k stack
11 gold per 1k wool
armour till used up
one 1k of wool = 40gold
one 1k of horn = 4gold
Armour used
30 wool
500 horn
Total weight- 13weight
Selling price.
4 gold
profit
2gold per 500stack
if we was spoon fed, I would not have to do things like this.
Hands down the game has one of the worst new user experiences of any game in recent memory. The sad part is that it doesn’t improve much when you play longer.
There IS a free trial now though, so at least there is no excuse for folks blindly putting down money to realize what they actually bought was a poorly implemented “concept” game. I still feel bad for those folks that pre-ordered the game in 2009 though. No trial, no refunds… oh well. Hope they learned a lesson!
Curious… are you the same PrinceReaper for the Mortal Forums that posted this thread?
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/66595-mortal-online-has-no-real-group-activities.html
if mortal online is poorly implemented then darkfall is extremely poorly implemented.
I disagree about DF remark. DF might not be the most pleasant experience, and went the questionable choice of not having a skill cap (but then again, so did EvE, and it works for them), but it works. AI is well done, and there are no critical bugs which interrupt your game session three times an hour.
Why must MO fans always try to compare their game to DF or EvE? This isn’t a DF review.. it’s a review of Mortal Online via “First Impressions”. As I said above, IMHO MO has one of the worst new players experiences of any game ever released.
Nice Review!!!
MO was a great ides, but will never be much more. Give it 6 months, give it another 6 months, end the end little has changed.
Starting out in this game is painful (sandbox or not) it’s just a mess. Quite possibly the worst concept “game” ever released.
I am going to quote princereaper on the official forums again.
“I agree to disagree about the arena. even a place where you walk in and it flags you grey would be good enough.
The brawling arena in fab, would be cool if it flagged you grey when you entered it.
Something along those lines, I don’t want to spend hours trying to organize something.
I want something where I say to guild mates “hey lets go to the brawling area” and fight there or put up a show.
Just something like that. about the rest of the comments. The reason I am complaining is because the communication in between these “updates” is nearly non existant, we have no idea when the patch is coming, we have no idea how the are progressing and we have not seen any real previews of their work.
We don’t really know what to expect, we can’t get hyped up or just wait, because we don’t know what is coming.
Sometimes SV say something and its not what you expected and the backlash is worse in the long run.
thats my opinion anyway and I started this thread because this issue with the lack of content is getting at me, I reached a boiling point in my frustration with the game.”
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/66595-mortal-online-has-no-real-group-activities.html
Mortal online is one of the best games I played and the starting experience may come off as painful to some people but its just different from other games, does that necessary make it a bad game? no, some people just don’t like games like this.
Wonderful Review…
I also found MO to be the same buggy void it was back in beta. Dawn was a joke !!! I don’t see development improving given Starvault’s financial crisis.
MO sucks, you want good graphics play one of the many craptastic themepark mmo’s, you want what mortal online was supposed to be? Ultima Online free shards.
Hi Guys
I gotta agree with the OP. This is a very tough game to start – there’s no doubt about it and it’s a shame because we lose people that lack the staying power to work through what is a difficult start.
BUT – when you’ve seen moe than 100 people engaged in a huge siege – well there’s nothing else like this out there – I know, I’ve searched, very, very hard.
As to the wrold being empty – you know it does appear that way – but there are no shards/instances here – it’s one hugemungus map – so it’s no suprise it ‘looks’ empty – trust me it’s far from that.
The Devs are working on the new AI – they have been for some time now – and they’ve stated that when they’ve finsihed – then the new monsters (already finished) will go into the game and the dungeons currently closed will be opened.
This is the very next ‘big’ think that we’ll be seeing(tm).
In addition, Mobs. They’ve nerfed the timers as far as I can see as butchery was getting a bit overpowered. But the spawns weren ever supposed to be static – the herds of animals will migrate around the map.
Like Black opal said in a recent post – the gears of MO are quietly turning in the background – they patch on a regular basis and the never tell us everyhting that they’ve put in. In fact players who have discovered secrets in the world.. don’t tell .. anyone – why would they?
Two types of workable bow? No, the recipies are kept quiet – again if you’ve spent months working it out – why would you tell anyone? You won’t get mine out of me!
In-game player made maps are on the dev pathway – and by all accounts close to finished as is the new Flash UI that will remove some of the clunkiness.
Yes first impressions count – but for me joining all those months ago it was a breathj of fresh air that I’ve not experienced ina game in many years. I won’t compare this game to any other because it’s unique, difficult, obsfusicated, frustrating and dangerous – but damn I love getting lost and even after all these months I still find a glade or part of the world that is heart breakingly beautiful — you just have to get ou there and look for it.
Those of you that need quests and a more traditional hand holding type game; there’s nothing wrong with that but you shoulnd’t look to MO to help you through the difficult start, afterall very little that’s easy in lifeis actually worthwhile.
H
Nice review – but could you try a bit harder to experience the real game? Maybe the Support guys could help you a bit, it’s worth asking if you have limited time?
The same old story, “The AI is coming, just wait another 6 months..” it been coming for a year now.
Also it is really funny how people defend MO starting experience as being “different”. Sure it is different, but different in terms of quality as it is very poorly made and designed, and not in terms of innovation or gameplay.
If you are looking for fights with hundreds of people in, DF has them. Sure the game may not be your cup of tea due to lack of skill cap, but it’s a false claim saying only MO got massive PvP. And considering current population I am unsure if I can even call it massive any more.
I just need to point out the logical fallacy of “Horn”. He made the excuse that the game was really NOT empty, but just seemed that way because it’s non-instanced. Anyone who thinks about it can see the obvious flaw with that statement… instances are designed to allow servers to handle large groups of players by dividing them up. If there are two games with the same number of players online, a non-instanced game will seem MUCH more populated than an instanced one. In this case, you have a non-instanced game that is a ghost town.
Keep in mind that the landmass of the game is tiny and after a day or two of playing you can see the majority of the world. There aren’t even any boats/ships to go exploring.
Finally, as to his point about “100 playes involved in a huge siege”… You can count the number of such battles on on hand (15 months after release), due to a horrific bug related to the game being unable to load large number of players on screen aty the same time, and thus “invisible” character attack you and you get hit by “failed”.
As for the AI… it’s been “almost fixed” for way over a year now.
There is a reason that this game has such a miserably low population, and that’s because it’s built on promises that (well over a year after release) aren’t even close to being fulfilled.
Like I said, anyone who buys this game without first trying the free trial get’s what they deserve.
Horn you can not see 100 people fighting in a battle in MO because 50 of them are invisible.
The world is empty because there is a very low population and very little mob spawns.
The DEVS have been working on AI since beta. The game was released 15-16 months ago. I hate it when some fanboy says”oh they are working on AI” like it will be done tomorrow. Did you forget they have been doing that for years?
Horn’s post is why I am here. TO tell the truth. Most of what he says are pipe dreams and hope. That is what Mortal Online runs on Hope and Dreams of what a sandbox could be.
Like Slapshot says do a trial before you buy.
This is a list of the major problems with MO listed by a longtime player named PshycoBilly. There are just the major things there are tons of small things.
Hey guys,
Some of you know my posts from the Mortal forums (cuz I see them copied over here). The last patch came and went and I feel like the SV leadership asks for feedback on the one hand, then completely ignores it on the other. It has been going like this since the beginning.
The game concept has always been great, but the execution has always been terrible. Currently the game is in a state that I consider unplayable. I’d rather people interested in the game not try it at all, then try it in its current state and be utterly disappointed.
Recently SV has disabled the bug tracker so bugs can no longer be discussed properly in their forums. I’ve decided to take that discussion here so at least potential customers can see what they are really getting into.
The list of game breaking bugs is actually not that long, but SV has demonstrated an inability to fix these bugs for a very long time. This tells me they don’t have the talent to fix them. SV will make the excuse that they don’t have enough resources, but the fact is they just don’t know how to properly fix the bugs in question (the problems are buried so deep in the code – both SV and EPIC games cannot find them in some cases).
So, for the new or potential customers, here is what you are getting into:
1. There is a major memory leak in the code. Players have suspected this is related to exposure to dynamic sound in game. I reported this bug over 1 year ago in beta, and SV denied it even existed. It has been confirmed by large numbers of players since then. This leak manifests as a massive drop in framerate. When this happens during large or long pvp encounters, you can imagine how this is completely game breaking, as everyone and everything around you turns into a slideshow.
2. The FAILED phenomenon. This happens in large scale battles with more than 30 people involved. Players will fail to load, and will be invisible on your screen. They can attack you if they see you, however, and you will be killed. On your side you will see your health bar drop, but no messages of who or what hit you. The problem is obviously game breaking for any kind of large scale pvp. They have known about the problem for over 7 months, and have not yet been able to fix it. Unreal engine was never meant for more than 32 players, and you can see why with this bug.
3. Invisible weapons bug. Every time you switch weapons there is a chance that the weapon will be invisible when you unsheathe it. This happens very often now. I reported the bug over 9 months ago, but they have been unable to find the problem. It is much more difficult to hit someone in a first person game, when you can’t see your weapon – a game breaker.
4. Node line freeze. When you cross a node line in Mortal, you feeze up in the spot where you crossed the boundry. This means players are free to hit you while you are standing in place for a few seconds. Many is the time I’ve ended up dead because I was frozen on someone elses screen, while on mine I was riding away. A game breaking feature. SV has known about this since the beginning, but obviously there is nothing they can do.
5. Loot freeze. When you loot someone you will freeze up such that no attack logs will show up. You can be hit over and over, but you won’t know it. When you stop looting your logs will be spammed with messages and you will instantly die. Another game breaking feature. This was first reported many months ago.
6. Hit box issues. No creature in game has a hit box that is representatve of the size of the creature. I can shoot a horse in the head with an arrow, for example, and the arrow will pass right through. Same thing with the horses hind quarters. SV has made many excuses about unreal hitboxes being difficult to work with. Whether or not that is the case, it is game breaking for me when I hit a creaure on my screen, but the hit does not register. The issue has been around since the beginning.
7. Ghost scouting. In Mortal, there is no such thing as a living scout. Ghosts travel the world to scout areas without any risk of losing anything. Despite massive customer feedback against this mechanic, the devs have done nothing to fix the issue that has been around since release. This mechanic is a favorite of griefers who can ghost scout a particular resource without fear, wait for a miner/woodcutter/crafter to show up, then relog a pvp char to gank them. The griefer risks very little because he always knows the odds, and killing a miner or crafter is trivial as most cannot fight back. For me, any kind of no risk griefing/scouting is game breaking.
8. One of the worst AI’s in the history of 21st century games. I think some 8bit nintendo AI’s were more complex than the one in Mortal – hell some commodore 64 AI’s were definitely more complex. This is game breaking because it is simply not fun whatsoever to participate in PVE. There is no real danger in farming mobs, because simply by jumping a few times you can reset the mob AI to its original position. This spills over into creature control, where players simply jump up and down to send an enemy players pet back to its original starting point. Dungeons are impossible in Mortal, because the AI causes mobs to warp through the different levels involved (no z-axis stability). Mobs will warp right through a player, stand on a players head, etc. The issues have been in game since the beginning, although there were patches where the AI behaved better than it does now. SV claims it will take months to upgrade to the new version of the Unreal AI, which in theory will fix these issues.
9. Restart after reboot issue. There is an issue where if a server reboot happens, and you do not restart your client, strange behavior will occur. For the person that did not restart their client, other players will warp in and out of their location on screen. For someone who did restart their client, it can appear as if the person who did not do a restart is hitting them from very far away (this bug resulted in many accusations of exploits, but it is not an exploit). Any warping, or incorrect position reporting is game breaking for me. This is a relatively recent bug that only popped up a few months ago AFAIK.
This is by no means the complete list of bugs in game. There are major issues with melee combat balancing (particularly axes, maces, polearms), magic balancing (corrupt spell needs major modification), lack of meaningful territory control mechanics, lack of reasonable siege mechanics, thievery issues (it has no risk and no meaningful reward), player housing issues, economy issues, and many, many exploits I will not mention.
However, if Mortal can fix every one of the 9 issues I mention above, I will eat my words and say that the game has finally moved into a 1.0 release state, and officially come out of beta. At that point I will encourage new players to try it out. Currently though, I consider the game unplayable.
i remember a player called pockets getting banned on Mortal online and now spends his time raging on the mmorpg.com forums because he got banned for exploiting/hacking.
-Wow, you remember a “guy named pockets” being banned?
was this before or after the teenager talwin went ban/delete crazy on the official forum and began banning folks for having the audacity to post over at mmorpg.com with the TRUTH.
The TRUTH isnt allowed on the official forum and you can be banned for what you say elsewhere.
SV deserve to fail. =P
-And they are failing in an epic way.
Horn, when you “joined all those months ago” I’m betting that that was about the time the free trials started and there was a big rush of players joining to try the game and the starting areas fairly lively, am I right?
Try starting a new character now im betting its not the same experience you had back then.
Show me some proof I got banned from the game for anything ever.
LOL reaper your such a noob
http://mortaldata.wordpress.com/2010/11/
learn it
read it
you’ll be amazed how simple the crafting is.
yes its 2010 but the numbers havnt changed
Nice read!
I’m rather shocked MO “fans” are getting through the “math” posting requirement.
It is interesting to see people talk about stuff that is not in the game after the latest patch: http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/66682-patch-notes-7-september-2011-a.html
Yes, it has a bit hard learning curve! It is still interesting to read in the write-up about you starting out slow since that is not the case if you choose more dex in the beginning? (also since Dawn )?) you have more att points to use in the start).
But, the funniest things is to see all the MO-haters from mmorpg.com is here as well to bash the game. Great to see they got under your skin that much so you dedicate all your time trash-talking it on the entire internet even though all of you just plaid the trial with restrictions the last 6-12 months!
Haha.. You keep on trash-talking the game, and I keep on playing it!
@Mojo lol well I actually played with my 2 accounts for almost 2 months after dawn. I couldn’t stomach it for more than the 2 free weeks they gave vets. But there was a couple of friends that came back to test and they wanted to give it 2 months. Guess what all of the 6 of us quit. We did not see much of a change since we quit.
With the current bugs we actually thought it was a little worse than before.
@ Mojo:
“Haha.. You keep on trash-talking the game, and I keep on playing it!”
So you openly admit to willingly participating in a paid beta?
If I were you, I wouldn’t share that info with too many people. Food for thought.
Frankly, the game is garbage.
The only people who defend it are the rabid fanboys who get there parents to shell out the fee each month, so they can continue ganking low skilled opponents in an environment that was specifically designed for that very purpose.
Look at all the proof of corruption with the ingame staff, the laundry list of bugs that are still around since beta, the fact that the CM, Black Opal, has been MIA for the better part of the last three weeks and SVs explanation is that he cannot get online?
They have been repeating the same song and dance for over a year, to bilk suckers out of another month of fees over and over and over. The worst part is that, in a matter of speaking, they were successful in that regard – because they have managed to scam a ton of customers out of cash, and convince a small, loyal following that its worth plunking down your hard earned green each month for a broken product that isn’t even one tenth of what it was supposed to be, a year after launch.
How utterly preposterous.
this is a fake princereaper
princereaper says:
September 7, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Nice read!
I’m rather shocked MO “fans” are getting through the “math” posting requirement.
Well, I cant agree more with Kele, I just saw a post where someone decided to try the game again (14 day free) after the expansion, and made the mistake of using there old account, which it says you can. Those snakes started charging his credit card again when he had no intention of paying and cant get any customer service LOL. Word to anyone thinking of trying this game again on the free trial DONT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER, and dont use your old account which will have the card info. They even go as far as to tell you if you want to delete or change the credit card info on your account you have to buy something in the MO shop! Man those guys try every angle they can. Even though i no i shouldent im going to go for the free trial (new account LOL)just to remind my how bad this game is, if im wrong I will eat my own shoe, and be back on here to admit i was wring about starvault but something tells me ill be back here shortly to warn everyone i can.
Game sucks. Don’t deny it. Spent a day downloading all of these “patches” for what? walking around doing absolutely nothing. I mean, it has potential, but they like making shitty games I guess. There’s no tutorial, just help. It’s not hardcore or a sandbox. If I want to play a sanbox, I should just go play Garry’s Mod or Minecraft. Something that doesn’t suck so bad. All you do is walk around, then get attacked randomly, and die. Then you lose your stuff. The HUD is total shit, it’s like shoving someone off a cliff with a parachute, but no instructions.
-100000000 out of Infinity.
ZSurvivalist, I never used a parachute but im pretty sure there’s a small corde and you most probably have to pull it before the ground hits your face. I mean somethings are just basic knowlage and comon sense, guess some games are not for everyone but imo they should NOT make this game easyer or more user freindly, i personaly enjoy a challenge and have left alot of mmo games that started out good and changed the game so much just to accommodate the less ” determined” or “patient” user.
MO is not for the patient. However, if you like a game where you run around getting lost, finding some people who end up killing you, get a mod to finally show you to the closest populated city, and make some friends, join a guild, and find one of the most random quests ever that the creators never speak of then this game is for you! Most of the time when a game comes out there is a gigantic site dedicated to the many individual quests that one can take. All you have to do is hit map and talk to some officials that tell you about the dragon that must be dealt with or the evil creatures that must be stopped.
MO IS NOT THAT GAME. It’s pretty much find everything yourself or word of mouth. And it’s quite possibly one of the hardest games I’ve ever played. You meet nice people, you meet mean people, and you meet trolls. The whole area is a massive PvP zone and there is nothing that stops one person from killing you and taking everything you have.
It keeps you on your feet. And that’s what I love about this game.
Now, problems:
LOTS OF BUGS. But generally when I get stuck I send out a petition and the mods reset me and I’m not stuck. I was lost and they gave me directions. They were very helpful and they even asked me if I needed help probably from the obvious lack of experience of running into places blindly. I didn’t even ask and they helped me. (Probably from the lack of players playing this game which is sad).
It’s a good game, but very rough and first impressions without friends would throw people from liking it which is very sad.
I honestly don’t see this game surviving for very long if more people don’t join. They give expansions for free which covers the cost of the monthly bills and the surrounding areas are breathtaking.
I hope one day it can finally live to its true potential and more people will play and not be set off by the harsh environment.
inho,
For newbies this game is extremely hard, it is understandable that this is the first impression of the game.
Yes the game is uninviting to new people, as your thrown into the Gruesome world of Mortal online, but thats the whole point of it. It will force you to engage in social activity to Discover how to actually do things.
But by no Means is this game a bad product.
this game by all means is a Sandbox game, its PVP is very intense, very addicting, the Crafting is more of a discovery and personal experience profession than a retarded WOW style “get a magic rock and chuck it in a box – out comes a magical sword”.
In Fact, in PVP, a newbie could beat any player, even though this player was a seasoned veteran.
No, the crafting in this game requires knowledge of different weights, Types of material, Durability of the Sword shield axe etc, the Material itself, … i mean this game is amazing lol.
I love it, Once skilled up, nothing can stop you. except of course a arrow to the knee.
i see nothing wrong tot he game, only the occasional bugs and sometimes clunky movement, but other than that, its an amazing concept and i personally would give this game 9/10.
I would completely Disagree with all First impression Reviews regarding Mortal online.
It is a Game that requires the use of Brain and Skill.
Not just clicking your way to victory.
Hello everyone,
This game is simply the repackaged junk that used to be known as “Age of Mourning”. Prior to “Age of Mourning” it was known as something else. The company that owns the game simply rebrands it at it’s current level and sells it as something new to get a bunch of people to pay money to play a game that isn’t even really ready for beta.
I paid $34.99 to buy a copy of “Age of Mourning” in 2000. In 2001 the company finally issued my refund and went out of business only to pop back up again as “Mortal Online”.
I LOVE the concept of this game, I love the beauty of the art in this game. Unfortunately from everything I have read the same problems exist and the same promises are still being made.
Oh well, so much for a great concept.
By the way, here is a link giving a little more info….
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/240878/WTF.html
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