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.

Continued…

The first expansion to the medieval MMORPG Mortal Online has finally been released after a few delays. The Dawn expansion went live 3 hrs ago and is ready for download, however it appears there could be some issues with the release.

Mortal Online CEO and game designer, Henrik Nystrom, stated in the forums:

We will launch Dawn shortly, however the next 24 hours ingame might be reverted if anything critical happens. If nothing critical occurs there will be no rollback.

That’s not really much to go on and could just be a general precaution, however if you don’t want to risk losing your daily progress, wait until tomorrow to get back into it.  For more information about the expansion, head over to our Mortal Online: Dawn preview article or the official site.

Not only does Mortal Online turn one today, but we have a short video preview of the upcoming expansion, Dawn.  The expansion was originally supposed to be released in late May early June, however due to delays it has been pushed back to an unknown date, but we expect it to be released within a month.

Starvault also for the first time has released full details as to what the Dawn Expansion will bring.   The full change-log can be found in the Mortal Online forums and the preview trailer is below.

The first expansion to Mortal Online might be delayed, but that’s no reason why we can’t take a look at what the expansion will bring.  Mortal Online: Dawn is the name of this expansion and the release date has been pushed back to late May or early June due to server issues dealing with the Unreal Engine that powers Mortal Online.  Check out our Mortal Online Dawn preview below.

The Dawn expansion introduces many new features and adjustments, one being the new Skill window where every single action will be listed.  Players will no longer have to dig though their skill tree to find the skill they want to perform.

New plants, flowers and herbs will also be added that can be used for cooking and alchemy. However players should beware, not all plants will have positive effects as some will have negative side-effects.  These new harvesting items will become important with the new Cooking system which is implemented in Dawn.  Eating the wrong foods can make you character fat which would produces negative effects on combat.  However fat players can receive bonuses from interacting with NPC’s and even learning special skills, or joining NPC factions.  So their is an advantage to being fat.  Eating certain herbs will also allow players to change their stat-caps, so characters can be customized to fit any archetype.

A new thirst system will be implemented in the Dawn expansion.  Players will have a thirst bar and once it runs out will start to feel negative effects.  Players will have the options to carry around potions or kegs to keep themselves hydrated.  However as with the new cooking system, some potions meant to quench thirst might have negative side-effects depending on what plants were used.

Healing potions will now have 3 stats a player must watch out for, weight, units of liquid and healing effect.  If a player has a low alchemy skill level, they will not be able to see the exact healing effect number and instead will be given an general range of what it might be.   The general use of potions will also be adjusted so that using a potions in a row will not be possible and players will have to use them in a more tactical manner.

In combat the new reserve system will have a large effect on battles in Mortal Online.  While in small and short term fights the reserve system will not come into play, it become more noticeable in long matches or after several deaths.

As an example, a single reserve of stamina will allow you to run from Meduli to Toxai and back, sprinting the entire time. The stamina pools are drained whenever any of the stats are regained, whether be it HP, Stamina, or Mana, and they take a large dip after a single death. During longer sieges or even drawn out marches, the reserves will start becoming an issue to the deployed force, and they must either carry with themselves some extra supplies, or be forced to retreat should they have nothing.

This new system can be used strategically and exploited to defend a position or to ambush a group that are recovering.  However a single effective mean will quickly restore the reserves, if you happen to have one.

Another new feature is the Assault list.  This will list all players that have attacked you which lead to your death.  Players will be able to either forgive or punish the attacker by giving them a murder count.

Transport tasks will allow players to transport good across the continent without any financial risk.  Players will be able to create a transport task and assign a reward to it.  If another player accepts the task, they must give a security deposit first, then if they complete the task will receive the deposit back and the reward.  This allows the creator of the transport task to take no risk.  This new feature will allow players to transport goods while offline because other players will be doing the transporting for them.

Two new house types will be added with the Dawn expansion.  The first is the Tindrem style house, which starts off as a one story, but can be upgraded into a three-story Villa.  The second is a storage house, which will have high starting HP with upgrades that can increase it even higher.    The storage house can be used as a guild bank allowing all members of that guild to use it.  The upkeep is determined by the size of the guild.

All houses will now have a friends list and anyone not on this list will will be considered an intruder and automatically teleported out of the house if they manage to enter.

For more information about the upcoming Mortal Online: Dawn expansion, head over the the official MO site.

Having fixed the last of the major bugs *fingers crossed*, Star Vault is rolling out new content for its first-person sandbox MMO, Mortal Online. The game servers are now able to last a whopping 50 hours before requiring maintenance, and players are able to engage in large-scale warfare with little to no lag issues. The Dawn expansion brings a slew of exciting features to the skill-based title, and is entirely free for current subscribers.

In an effort to gain visibility for their game, Star Vault has added Facebook connectivity to Mortal Online, allowing players to post status updates from the game and receive news & event notifications. On the subject of events, the team has also hired a brand new Community Manager, Black Opal.

Jump past the cut for more details on the expansion…

Continued…

Starting today, players can now try out Mortal Online for free for 14 days.   However trial accounts are restricted to 600 skill points and the maximum for all skills is capped at 60.

I played a bit of Mortal Online during the beta and was not impressed, however that was also a year ago and beta, so perhaps I’ll give this game another go.  I really want to like this game, I’m just hope they fixed all the issues with it over the past year and added some content which it was sorely lacking.

Below we have a promo video for the new free trial.  You can signup to the free trial here.

Mortal Online launch day has arrived! The countdown has finally ticked down to zero, and it’s time to decide whether Mortal Online is the game for you. To aid in that decision, developers Star Vault have created a downloadable presentation explaining what Mortal Online is and isn’t. Helpful! You can also check MMOCrunch’s own mini-preview. If you do try the game for yourself, we’re always interested to hear from those with boots on the ground – let us know if the launch is going to plan, and if the game itself holds up.

The popular MMORPG, by Swedish developer Star Vault,  Mortal Online  is going live on June 9th. The open beta will end today, May 17tj as testing comes to an end and the team make final server changes. Mortal Online has always been much anticipated by the MMOCrunch team, even going as far as making it into our list of most anticipated MMORPG’s for 2010. Anyone interested in purchasing the full game can visit the official website.

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.

Normally when a MMO game reaches the open beta phase of its development cycle, it is pretty close to the version that will be released, minus a few changes and bug fixes.  However it seems that Star Vault, the developers behind Moral Online, have decided to go into open beta while the game is no where near a complete product.  Mortal Online entered the open beta phase a month ago today on Feb 1st 2010.

To me an open beta is that final extra push to get gamers excited about their game, to create buzz and to start lining up pre-order sales.  But when it comes to Mortal Online, not only am I not excited about the game, it completely crushed all my expectations.   Mortal Online was one of the top three games I was looking forward to in 2010, but after about an hr or so in open beta, I don’t think there is a chance in hell this game will even be released this year.

Almost nothing in the game is complete and in the 60-90 mins I spent in game, I couldn’t find one NPC that had any quests. [edit: there are no quests in Mortal Online, which I actually love, so don't flame me for this comment]  The game looks great, but to be in open beta just seems silly to me at this stage of the games development.  I can list all the incomplete features I found just in the short time I played, but even that would be a monster list.

Currently the games release date is stated as the first quarter of 2010 and with only a month left, I seriously hope they push that date way way back to maybe Q1 2011.