Mortal Online NDA Dropped and my Beta Review

Leprachaun

http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/27227-lifting-nda.html

I've been in beta a while now and I think it's way better than Darkfall. It's more of a sandbox than just a pvp game. The pvp is certainly better in darkfall but the world,music,community and general feel of the game is much better in mortal. Mortal actually feels like a game instead of a simulator. It's more sparce content wise than darkfall but there's two big patches left before launch so hopefully that'll change.

The world is the best looking (bar age of conan) and most epic feeling in any mmo I've played though the entire map is currently only about a third the size of Darkfalls.

What I like about this over darkfall is that it's not just a big arse gank fest. Although I enjoyed darkfall there isn't really anything to do in the game except kill other players. There's crafting of course,but the only point in that was to give you the edge up on other players. Crafting is pretty poor in mortal at the moment however.

1st person animations in general are great in this game. You can get knocked over and you see your hands lifting yourself up as the screen moves. It's pretty cool to experience and really imerses you.

I'd also say that this lends itself better to roleplaying much better than DF,partly due to a more mature community (for now at least) but partly because of the 'little things' they've put in game. You can destroy and create bridges over rivers, create houses in loads of places in the world ( there's 3 tiers of houses at the moment,and different types for each race). You can store items in your house and use to create guilds. The torches are pretty cool too and a nice touch. I assume they'll be very useful in dungeons.

What's nice about mortal is they seem to have the core game pretty much sorted now,so apart from the usual bugs and some combat tweaking(it's a bit clunky at the moment and I think archery needs a pretty large buff) , the developers should be free to concentrate on adding more big features in the future. Personally I'd like to see naval combat, epic questlines, dragons etc...

The caravan system isn't in yet but supposadly it's on track to be put in game before release. I'm hoping it does make it in as from what I've heard it sounds pretty cool.

PvE is pretty lacking at the moment. All you can really do is kill about 7 or 8 types of mobs. I've heard there's a minotaur guy somewhere but I haven't seen him.

Before I got to play,I thought I'd hate the 1st person only style of play,but since you can see your body parts,the cool 1st person animations etc... it's actually quite enjoyable and immersive although it may take some getting used to.

Anyway,if you're only interested in ganking in a seamless world or enjoy guild vs guild battles over exploration,roleplaying and small skirmishes then I'd say go with darkfall. If you're in the latter camp,I'd point you towards Mortal. Personally, I choose Mortal,not because of features, but mostly because the general 'feel' of the game when I log in. The game has a lot of potential ( how many times have we heard that before hehe) and I'll certainly be playing at launch. Don't expect a game packed full of features right away though, but hopefully they'll come in time.

Leprachaun

Here are some pictures (not mine)


Race Selection

Character Creation

Character Selection

Healing Spell on Horse

Creepy Statue

Bloody Solider

City Ruins

The Steppes

Soldier in Town

Somones house in the desert

Dead Guy

Moh Ki Town

Mining Town

Stream

Leprachaun

A few more points.

- I don't know how true this is but a lot of people seem to be saying the ground and tree textures are placeholders. I seem to remember a dev saying that about the trees but I can't remember them mentioning the ground. Hopefully that's true as the ground/trees are the only graphical complaints I'd have at all. The sky and mountaints and blood amazing and the draw distance is frigging insane.

-Next patch will be including LOD for characters so you'll be able to turn up the graphical quality of them.

-Sieges have said to be in 'shortly' after release. Ditto with land control.

Kiith

Thanks for the info. Been waiting ages for the NDA to be lifted. Can now get some good info about the game from beta testers. Few questions for you...

1. How is the melee combat? And is archery really underpowered at the moment? What about magic?
2. Can you build anywhere? You mentioned building bridges over rivers, so is it free for all on buildings, or are there specific area's set for building?
3. Have they implemented mounts yet? And what sort of things are you able to craft, or is it just weapons and armour so far?
4. Can you do much solo play? Just thinking back to the launch of Darkfall, even killing single mobs was a tough task at first.

Will think of more later

humanji

I forgot about this game. I was in the beta very early on but it was truly horrible at the time. Must remember to try it again and see if it's improved.

Leprachaun

Kiith wrote: »

Thanks for the info. Been waiting ages for the NDA to be lifted. Can now get some good info about the game from beta testers. Few questions for you...

1. How is the melee combat? And is archery really underpowered at the moment? What about magic?
2. Can you build anywhere? You mentioned building bridges over rivers, so is it free for all on buildings, or are there specific area's set for building?
3. Have they implemented mounts yet? And what sort of things are you able to craft, or is it just weapons and armour so far?
4. Can you do much solo play? Just thinking back to the launch of Darkfall, even killing single mobs was a tough task at first.

Will think of more later

1. When you get into combat you kind of slow down a bit. It's very tactical, you've got to time your swings etc... And yeah,archery is pretty poor at the moment. There's a post by someone else on the forums outlining it's various problems. EDIT : Here's the link.

2. Nah,with the bridges you find for example the ruins of a bridge that used to be there. If you have the required materials you can build it up. Anyone can build it,anyone can destroy it. If you destroy it,it goes back to the way it was. Bridges are needed as horses can't go through deep water and if you're wearing heavy armour you'll drown.

3. Yep the mounts came in a patch or two ago,only horses at the moment though. You can tame animals as pets as well. Pretty much just weapons and armour yeh, as well as the bridges and houses. Crafting is only a placeholder, it works by giving the mats to an npc and he gives you the item back.

4. Well since the only mobs (except for the elusive minotaur) in game are basically gazelles,bison etc... you can take them down on your own with relative ease. They had great AI a few patches back, the gazelles would all run off in a herd if you attacked on or got too close,but the last patch kinda bugged it a bit,so hopefully that'll go back to the way it was.

More Pics:

Scenic Lake

Stable

Err...the elusive Suasage Lake(note this is from pretty early beta on low settings but it's famous to beta testers. Not safe for work)


Cave exterior

Cave enterance

Cave tunnel

After coming out of the other end of the cave

neilk32

I think its been a long time since you've played darkfall if you think this is better with all the sloppy features.

Theres plenty to do in darkfall these days but obviously in a pvp game, the main focus is the pvp and you say thats better in darkfall, but mortal online is better?

Leprachaun

neilk32 wrote: »

I think its been a long time since you've played darkfall if you think this is better with all the sloppy features.

Theres plenty to do in darkfall these days but obviously in a pvp game, the main focus is the pvp and you say thats better in darkfall, but mortal online is better?

I was comparing them as sandboxes, not pvp games. A of people seem to think that's the same.

nin2010

Leprachaun wrote: »

I was comparing them as sandboxes, not pvp games. A of people seem to think that's the same.

I have Mortal Online Beta access and I have been playing Darkfall since it released without any breaks. I was pretty dissappointed by what I saw in Mortal Online in early beta but I have downloaded the new client yesterday so I'm gonna have another look at it to see how it is coming along.

AV actually seems to realise that they are lacking a bit on the sandbox elements and things to do besides pvping and there is quite a lot of improvements coming to improve the game on that side aswell as improving pvp by adding more in depth to the combat system and fixing balancing issues with magic.

Check out the unnoffical patch notes which have some info on what they have announced is coming.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=218517

Patch notes and expansion should be incoming this week.

Leprachaun

nin2010 wrote: »

I have Mortal Online Beta access and I have been playing Darkfall since it released without any breaks. I was pretty dissappointed by what I saw in Mortal Online in early beta but I have downloaded the new client yesterday so I'm gonna have another look at it to see how it is coming along.

AV actually seems to realise that they are lacking a bit on the sandbox elements and things to do besides pvping and there is quite a lot of improvements coming to improve the game on that side aswell as improving pvp by adding more in depth to the combat system and fixing balancing issues with magic.

Check out the unnoffical patch notes which have some info on what they have announced is coming.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=218517

Patch notes and expansion should be incoming this week.

I've been playing darkfall since beta with only a three month break in the summer. The simple fact is I enjoy myself more when I log into mortal online beta. I've seen those expansion (patch) notes and while it's great that AV it's aiming to turn Darkfall into a proper sandbox I really can't see myself resubbing for a fair few months,even if Mortal bombs. To me,mortal online seems like the successor to UO while Darkfall seems like the successor to Shadowbane.

neilk32

I'll be checking MO out when it goes open beta, but any past guild mates have always said it was lacking right now but in the future who knows.

Leprachaun

Here's a pretty cool video of the Khurinite capital city(not my video).