Mortal Online Info Overload

Mounts are always out it seems
Mounts are always out it seems

The Mortal Online team released a very informative presentation to the public today containing a wealth of knowledge for anyone remotely interested in the game to sink their teeth into.   I have to say that the team surprised me significantly when I discovered how much Mortal Online is beginning to shape up like Star Wars Galaxies did in its first years.  I’m also very shocked to see some of the features they’re announcing and fear that it may only lead to disappointment when they make the traditional MMO feature cut pre-launch.

I took some notes from the power point [Download it here] that interested me the most (mostly stuff I didn’t know about) that some of you may find interesting should you choose to forgo downloading the presentation.

– “Skills that deal directly with PvP have a limited cap and are therefore not really affected by play time.  This is because PvP is about your own accumulated skills in the game and not some virtual points.  Instead, there are almost 1000 sub-skills to specialize in and train in the long run.”

– Primary skills unlock secondary skills.  Raising your Sword skills won’t necessarily let you do more damage with that sword in PvP but it may let you use a wider range of swords and increase your ability to repair them, etc.

Hitboxes play a part in MO.  Get hit in the arm and you might drop your weapon.
Hitboxes play a part in MO. Get hit in the arm and you might drop your weapon.

– Limited number of primary skills allowed at a time.  No “masters of everything”.  You can respec to different primary skills and keep your work in secondary skills so that you don’t lose their progress, just the time to retrain primaries.  Essentially, you can only use a certain template of skills and not be a plate wearing sword wielding magic caster who can heal all at the same time.  It sounds like it could work.

– Crafting is done on an algorithm system.  Crafted items are the sum of their parts – multiple components of varying quality – and can be experimented with (sounds like SWG) – 142,662,744 different combinations.

– Housing like SWG.  The world is open and empty to begin with but players start to build their houses to fill it up.  Lock your door and you’re safe inside.

– Expand on your house with workshops, barns, storage, etc.  Turn it into a store for your goods with a vendor just (sounds like SWG).  Houses can even be converted into guild houses and eventually keeps.

– Mix your race at character creation to be even more unique in your starting appearance and stats.

– Mounts appear to be out all the time and can even be stolen or wander off.  They have their own attributes and stats.  You can fight on the mount, cast spells, use bows, etc.  Mounts can be found wandering around and tamed (some form of tradeskill) and can also be bought from NPC’s.

– Big “boss mobs” are one time kills and stay dead.  PvE and PvP combined since some factions will want the “epic mobs” to stay alive and others will want them dead.

– Strategic points in the world such as bridges can be built and ruins restored.

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, you’re thinking it’s too good to be true.  The player housing sounds exactly like SWG with the world being big and open and allowing players to stake their claim.  Setting a house up as a shop or turning it into a hub for your guild/friends to hang out at will be a great way to build communities.  I didn’t make note of this stuff since I already knew about it, but the hit boxes and the first person only combat sounds like it could be very immersive and allow for a new style of animation to be done in MMO’s, but hopefully not overly annoying.

Mortal Online actually boasts a lot of what Darkfall boasted.  That does not mean they will be anything alike though.  It’s all about the implementation of a good idea – if done incorrectly the good idea can be worse than a bad idea implemented well.  We’ll see which side of the fence MO falls on.  If they can keep this list of features going into launch then I’ll definitely be an early adopter.  If nothing else I want to get a house, decorate it, make a shop that people want to visit, and PvE in a PvP world.  Sounds fun.

What do you guys think?  Is the game starting to catch your eye (or continueing to) or will you pass on it after the recent trainwreck of similar design?

  • Yep it sounds like SWG and too good to be true. I am glad to see a developer at least going for something like this. Hopefully the succeed in making a solid base of a game that they can build upon.

  • I think it looks awsome, but we will see if they can keep there promises.

  • “There are no guarantees that the features presented here will be in the game from start. In fact, we are aiming for releasing only the very core features of the game, expanding over time as new players join the game. After all, we are depending on your feedback and support, and we are an independent games company with limited resources.”

    At least they admit to this fact. I like overly ambitious game design. I, however, do not like inept game developers…especially ones who are addicted to opiates.

  • Well the best way to describe what this project of mmorpg makes me feel is somthing like that

    Ageo of conan = one of the biggest dissapoint in my whole gamer life
    Warhammer = Nice but hmmmmm something didnt catch me up to be a customer
    Darkfall= good ideas poorly implemented= big fail for me

    And this game well one of the things i must try but im kinda of scared to hope too much cause iveen really slapped in the face whit those others abobe.

    Well i must wait ive singed on the beta and waiting to get a spot or the game release

    Thx all for reading

    Srry 4 my inglish im from argentina i hope u all get my ideas here! XD

  • I agree with the implementation of a good idea point. But some ideas are extremely hard to balance and implement. Then their is also the problem of people thinking they like ideas but in reality they don’t. There are gonna be a lot of things in MO that are likely to be annoying but purposely.

  • We all know its going to be annoying when an opponent knocks a weapon out of your hand but you know your going to love it when you get to do it to someone else.

  • I’m a little worried that the “boss mobs stay dead” could turn into a degradation of the game in the long run, but i guess it depends on how/if they plan to have new boss mobs spawn … but then, aren’t boss mobs are just regular spawns with a random name generator? Dunno how they’re going to do this one.

    Same thing with guilds. they call them “cults” where the selling point seems to be “they aren’t guilds, you have a religion that unifies you and you try to make your diety powerful”. Is there anything more, or is that just RP fluff to be outside of the guild box that ultimately doesn’t do anything? who knows.

    non-pocketable mounts and tameable as creatures is a BIG step up from darkfall for me, it might sound silly. but i was really really disappointed when i found out how mounts worked in darkfall.

    i think it will come down to if there are things to do.. if those things to do are fun and engaging.

    I could have suffered with darkfall if the combat system was fun, but the world was boring and there was nothing to do and vice versa, but in darkfalls case both were terribad.

    If MO can deliver an interesting combat system (i’m thinking Mount and Blade++ here) or an engaging world with fun stuff to do (take castles, pillage villages, fun & useful crafting) Then this game can be great… any game can be great.

  • I guess there will be random tough mobs like in any other game but The Bosses, creatures that maybe linked somehow to a God or a world event are unique and can be killed only once, and Devs said that they are trying to have GM controlled Bosses.

    Also I would like to warn everyone that this is a low budget project. Devs have stated that this game won`t be at its full potential when released.

    They are trying to implement as many features as they can. For example the world will eventually have 6 continents but at release there will be only one, although a pretty big one. And even if there are 142 million weapons they want them to be craftable and they have 10 million weapons ready to be crafted so you might not see the 142 of them, but just those that can be player made.

    Sorry for my English hope you understand.

  • Sounds like a load of shit to me. They are a long ways off from release. They can’t even have battles with 5 people without major lag and crashes, and they JUST tried to do arrow flights and found it didn’t work. Looks like another Age of Conan.

  • Cus im sure WoW or whatever game you worship worked FLAWLESSY on its FIRST WEEK in beta.

  • “David Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am

    Sounds like a load of shit to me. They are a long ways off from release. They can’t even have battles with 5 people without major lag and crashes, and they JUST tried to do arrow flights and found it didn’t work. Looks like another Age of Conan.”

    Beta is Beta. Chill out, they never said it was releasing anytime soon anyway. So they have plenty of time to work the quirks.

  • I pretty much lost faith in MMORPGs by now – none of the new ones can bring the same level of excitement and freshness of the old ones I used to play. The ones with interesting features don’t have the budget to make a decent game – the ones who have the budget can’t risk putting in lameness into it to protect their investments. MO looks like another low budget game with good ideas on paper…I am getting too old for this shit!

  • Actually they DID say they are releasing soon. In fact they’ve been saying “we’re releasing in a few months” for the past 8 months or so now. AND they’ve been selling t shirts. Company seems very iffy to me. Selling merchandise while pushing the release back farther and farther and not being able to even get the basics of the game down before beta?

    Darkfall’s combat worked perfectly by beta.

  • At least they are being honest about features not being ready at launch. I think its better to start with a base game that works and is enjoyable and then add on additional layers as they go.

  • I agree, WAR and Darkfall both were very honest about features not making it for launch. I can see the virtue in that, though many do not, and they crucified WAR for it. Luckily Darkfall made it with virtually all of its major features.

  • Pierre Says:
    “Same thing with guilds. they call them “cults” where the selling point seems to be “they aren’t guilds, you have a religion that unifies you and you try to make your diety powerful”. Is there anything more, or is that just RP fluff to be outside of the guild box that ultimately doesn’t do anything? who knows.”

    Guilds and cults are two seperate things; they will still have normal guilds. Cults are a different kind of social group, you can be in a guild and a cult at the same time.

    “David Says:
    Sounds like a load of shit to me. They are a long ways off from release. They can’t even have battles with 5 people without major lag and crashes, and they JUST tried to do arrow flights and found it didn’t work. Looks like another Age of Conan.”

    Where did you read about the arrow flights and 5 people battle crashes? The latest information I’ve seen from the dev’s has said that they’re pleased with how well the net code and server is working and that they’ve managed to implement a working archery system based on trajectory.

  • I think it’s too early to even talk about “net code” and lag in a game that isn’t even in beta. The best we can do right now is theorycraft and weigh in how we like the proposed features.

  • Damn.

    I feel the difference between Galaxies and Dark Fall is entirely in their main focus. A lot of people have this idea that because a PvP-centric game is based on players, it isn’t as repetitive as PvE. People, after all, can change easily unlike preprogrammed AI!

    The problem is that people always follow the path of least resistance. PvP games start out fun, but as some strategies are simply better. Even though humans are creative and interesting, at the end of the day they all funnel down to the exact same actions.

    PvE is where the REAL potential for excitement is. With a PvE game, developers can control where the path of least resistance is, and change it often within the game. The fact is they rarely have in the past, but that is changing as time progresses. Just look at the progression of wow quests from classic to the first expansion to the second. Developers are starting to learn they can play with the rules.

    I would say that PvP is easier to make exciting, but has a hell of a lot less potential than PvE in the long run, excitementwise. I guess the real benefit here is that a PvP game is much easier and cheaper to make for independent developers simply because you don’t need to fill everything out as much.

  • @ David
    They haven`t pushed the release date, they said a year ago that they are trying to release their game this summer.
    About the combat lag and server crashes, how do you know ? are you betatesting ? I just want to know where did you get your information from

  • They’ve pushed release several times. And you can see on their “promotional video” major lag during the 5 man fights, and those that are in beta do not speak highly of the stability.” It’s no “not in beta yet” it IS in beta and releasing soon (was supposed to release several months ago) and it JUST got arrow flights working? wow…

  • @ David,

    It was my understanding that the beta hasn’t started yet (and that they’re planning to start it in a few weeks), do you have a link or something to where the people who are in the beta are talking? Because it’s not on the offical forums, and I’d be interested to learn more about the game from people experiencing it first-hand.

    The footage they released is early/pre-beta and bugs and things (I doubt it’s lag, as it’s on a local server) are to be expected.

    As Keen said, it’s far too early to be commenting on how laggy and unstable the game is.

    Anyway, I think the game sounds like it will be fantastic if they can pull it off, and at the very least it should be better than DF.

  • Is there some kind of rule now that any new sandboxy-type MMO has to be inherently ugly?

    It’s kind of a first barrier to entry for me, partially because it’s awfully hard to convince any friends to play something when their first reaction to a screenshot is “Eww”.

  • I think it’s some new type of rule that they all have to go for the realism art style which ages very quickly compared to a more stylized approach giving it that ugly look.

  • The art style is one of the things i really like about MO. Anything other than the WoW/cartoon look that makes me feel like i’m playing Loony Toons Online please!!

    I just lose any hope of being immersed in a mmorpg when i feel like my avatar is a cartoon.

  • why does this guy keep comparing it to Star Wars???? Ya it may seem but it has same stuff as Star Wars did but developers are old school UO players. The flagging system points that they got inspiration from UO not SWG. Player housing & vendors that he mentions in SWG, all were in UO before SWG was even made….