Mortal Online

A couple weeks back we heard tell of Mortal Online's territorial control update. Today, Star Vault has elaborated on the new sandbox system via a news bulletin on the game's official website.

It seems that the feature is still fairly early in the development process, as the site says that internal testing is still in full swing. External testing, by way of a specially selected focus group, is planned for next week.

What's that, you want to hear more about mechanics? Very well. Keeps act as a "starting point" for guilds in the territorial control system. Each keep awards control points (CP) that can be spent on towers and "various things." Keeps also feature an overseer NPC who provides extra protection, sells goods and features, and more. Finally there's the prominence system, which involves earning prominence points (PP) through various methods including PvP and PvE. There's more, of course, but we don't want to deprive you of a chance to visit the Mortal Online website, so off you go.

Video game enthusiasts, pay attention. Each week, Gary Gannon and the crew at Gamebreaker.TV bring you the latest MMO news with their weekly show called This Week In MMO. The show rotates through a panel of personalities to bring you the latest news and opinions from MMO gaming. Sometimes these panels include reporters from our very own website, like Editor-in-Chief Shawn Schuster and Community Manager Rubi Bayer; even EVE expert Brendan Drain and SWTOR columnist Larry Everett have made appearances on the show.

This week, Gary is joined by ZAM's Mike B aka Fony and Hillary "Pokket" Nicole to talk about PlanetSide 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, subscription models, WildStar, Lord of the Rings Online, Mortal Online, Astronaut the MMO, and why women don't like voiceover. First up: PlanetSide 2 will be free-to-play, and SWTOR may be the last subscription MMO. Is anyone surprised? The panel weighs in on whether WildStar mechanics are more of the same or maybe this game has something new. Mike B and Pokket discuss how LotRO is making Isengard appear more epic. We also find out why Mortal Online territorial control is not for the faint of heart. Lastly, is anyone interested in being an astronaut anymore?

If you like intelligent, fun discussion about the latest in MMOs (in video format), you should check out the recorded version of This Week In MMO right after the cut, or live every Wednesday evening!

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File this one under better late than never. Mortal Online is looking for a few good testers, and even though the game officially released more than a year ago, Star Vault is opening its doors to 20 individuals willing to roll up their sleeves and get down and dirty with the fantasy sandbox MMO's collection of bugs.

"Because Star Vault is a small, independent developer, we do not have a very large QA department which often means that bugs will slip through the net resulting in many issues on the live server," writes GM Discord on the official forums.

Qualified testers will be 18 years old, be well-versed in Mortal Online, and have a game account that is in good standing. There will also be an NDA involved, and breaching it will not only result in the removal of your testing privileges but also a ban on your in-game characters. Full details are available on the official boards.

Mortal Online's sandbox is about to get a bit sandier if a new territory control update video is any indication. The fantasy title from Star Vault has had a rough time in the court of public opinion since its June 2010 launch, but development continues apace.

The latest patch brings control structures to the table, and according to the video intertitles, said structures can be placed anywhere near territory that you already control. Occupied land then earns taxes and control points for its owners, and control points may be spent "to further increase the area of any of your control structures, increase their abilities, or build more of them."

City control is possible with the new update, as is the collection of guild points after completing "various deeds." Star Vault says that the guild points can be used for a number of actions including outlawing players in your territory or declaring martial law. Check out the video after the break and head to the official Mortal Online website for more details.

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Today's One Shots screenshot comes to us from Richard, a Mortal Online fan. He snapped the image while helping his friend gain a new companion:

Here is a picture of my guildmate Morder trying to find and tame the elusive White Bear above the Northern city of Fabernum. The bear is on a very long respawn timer and resides in a small cave with blood and skeletons all over the ground.

We're revisiting an old favorite theme this week on One Shots: environments. The game world is an area that most developers put a huge amount of effort into, and it shows. Do you have a favorite landscape, particularly eye-catching weather effect, or hidden jewel in an out-of-the-way location? Snap a screenshot of your favorite MMO area, tell us a bit about what and where it is, and send it to oneshots@massively.com. In fact, environment week has been such a big hit that we'll continue it through next week, so keep 'em coming!

OnLegends, a Berlin-based "licensing and internationalization specialist" firm, has entered into a partnership with Star Vault, developers of Mortal Online. A new press release states that OnLegends beat out "many major publishers [...] to secure the global exclusive licensing rights" to the indie sandbox MMORPG, and is now in the process of preparing the title for worldwide distribution.

The release also states that Mortal has attracted over 170,000 players thus far despite the lack of any marketing presence, and OnLegends seems enthusiastic about Mortal's place in the expanding MMORPG pantheon. "We strongly believe that Mortal Online can play an important future role on both PC and console MMO markets and we expect Mortal to be one of the trendsetting next-gen titles," said OnLegends vice president Julian Migura.

Mortal Online's first expansion was announced a while ago now, and players are still waiting on the mammoth patch to make it to the game's live server. Star Vault is no doubt anxious to placate its ravenous PvP-centric customer base, and the company has released a lengthy changelog on the game's official forums.

The listing outlines many of the features forthcoming in the Dawn expansion, but as post author (and Star Vault CEO) Henrik Nystrom writes: "This note may not be final." It's probably a good representation though. As such, let's take a quick look at what Dawn brings to the table. We've got new mechanics including the gene system, task/transport system, and housing friend system. We've also got new mail functionality, dynamic mounts, alchemy and cooking, and a load of bug fixes that we haven't the space to list.

You can check out the full changelog on the Mortal forums, and be sure to watch the one-year anniversary and Dawn preview videos after the cut.

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When Mortal Online first announced its far-reaching expansion, Dawn, it was a little hard to believe. (The day the news first came out didn't help matters, certainly, as it was announced on April 1st.) But it's a very real thing, and players of the game have no doubt been hotly anticipating its release. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the release date of Dawn has now been pushed back to the end of the month at the earliest and the beginning of June at the latest.

So what's behind the delay? The newsletter explains that there was a server issue which required some reworking, with the caveat that the required updates have ensured Dawn will be even better. Mortal Online players can assuage the wait at least a bit by reading the extensive article by Black Opal detailing several of the expansion's features, including explanations of the new gathering system, Task system, and new styles for housing and buildings.

Facebook integration isn't exactly a new thing for MMOs these days, but it's not often that you can use it to outright pay less money for a subscription. But that's what Mortal Online is experimenting with, offering players of the game a discount based upon their friend counts. Of course, there's a slight catch -- said friends can't themselves be players. The integrated application will also announce your major achievements to your friends, making it a clear method for players to show off the game they're enjoying and give it a bit of advertising to boot.

The discounts, naturally, are a nice incentive. A maximum of 1.25 EUR will be deducted from the subscription price if you have 750 non-playing friends, but even five non-playing friends will net you a 0.25 EUR reduction. The discount begins to apply 12 days after you link your account, meaning that new players to the game can enjoy the discount right from the start. It's money off and a chance to show off what you've accomplished, and that should be enough to win over almost any Mortal Online player with a Facebook account.

It's the dawn of a new era -- and considering all of the bloodshed that goes on in Mortal Online, you may even call this a... Red Dawn? Wolverines? OK, sorry, but we had to get past the obvious puns.

Mortal Online's been on the down-low ever since last year's launch, but that doesn't mean that the Star Vault devs were sipping piña coladas on a gore-soaked beach. On the contrary, as the team's been hard at work on a new expansion that was revealed in its full glory earlier this week: Mortal Online: Dawn.

Instead of focusing on a new continent or a higher level cap, Dawn's adding several quality-of-life features to the game. These include an updated mount system that will eventually let you breed your ideal stud or mare, a cooking profession for the gourmet chefs out there, health reserves, a mail system, and a new player tutorial.

Henrik Nyström was on hand for a forum interview about the expansion and the meaning behind the title: "Dawn feels like it's the 'beginning' of us being able to deliver content without struggling with the core mechanics due to the network solution. We can finally enjoy the development in full and start passing the benefits of that onto the community."

[Thanks to everyone who sent in this tip!]

FFA PvP sandboxes are increasing in number, and with Darkfall hogging the spotlight, Earthrise recently releasing, and Xsyon gearing up for launch, it's easy to forget about Mortal Online. The indie title from Star Vault has recently announced a free trial designed to draw more players to the world of Nave, and you can try out the game for 14 days sans payment (or even credit card information).

Signing up is as easy as visiting the official website, and you'll want to note that trial players are limited to 600 skill points and a skill cap of 60. You can also get a leg up on creating your avatar by taking a look at the community-produced character creation tutorial after the cut.

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If you didn't know, today is the head start launch of RIFT and the beginning of many strained household relationships as players finally dive into Telara for real. While we've known for some time that Trion Worlds' creation was going to be a major player in the MMO field, it seems as though RIFT's release has caused other MMO studios to step up and take countermeasures.

In the past 24 hours, there have been a few significant developments that seem suspicious in regard to timing, at least. The first is that Blizzard dropped World of Warcraft's next content update, Patch 4.1, on to the public test server in the middle of the night. Mortal Online's announced that its free 14-day trial program is now active for any interested parties. We've also received numerous tips that EA Mythic disabled the cancel subscription option for Warhammer Online.

Although we obviously can't be certain that all of these events are due to RIFT, timing, as they say, is everything. Have you seen any other MMO studios stepping up their game today as a distraction from the new shiny?

[Update: The Warhammer subscription option was a bug that should be resolved today, according to the devs.]

Love it or hate it, PvP is an important factor in most current-gen MMOs and also features prominently in all of the heavy hitters coming in 2011. PvP also comes in several flavors, whether it be the fast and furious team action in Global Agenda, the siege mechanics in Aion or Warhammer Online, or the solo and small-group variety found in just about every title that allows player vs. player combat. Indie titles like EVE, Darkfall, and Mortal Online ramp up the intensity a notch or two by throwing free-for-all and full-loot variations into the mix, and a case can even be made for the viability of economic PvP as a playstyle, particularly in CCP's New Eden.

Today's breakfast topic deals with PvP playstyles, and more specifically, yours. Are you a lone wolf type, roaming the countryside looking for targets (or PKers, if you're more hero than villain)? Do you PvP in groups? Do you siege? In a nutshell, how do you like your MMO PvP?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Massively's been taking a long, hard look at Aventurine's Darkfall lately, but it's not the only free-for-all-full-loot-PvP-semi-sandbox game vying for the title of heir to Ultima Online's throne. StarVault's Mortal Online is in the running too, and despite a horrific launch and less than stellar reviews over its first few months, Mortal is still around and has nowhere to go but up.

While it's debatable as to whether either of these games will ever achieve the gameplay variety that Ultima boasted in its heyday, the similarities are there, and there aren't a whole lot of additional choices for folks in search of a traditional 3-D fantasy sandbox MMORPG.

So what'll it be this morning, sandbox fans: Darkfall, Mortal, or something else?

Fight!

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

A long time ago, well before Mortal Online launched, I was really looking forward to playing the game. The first-person only perspective made me drool, the Unreal Engine 3 powered graphics engine looked top-notch, the endless amount of customization of weaponry made me giddy, and the sprawling open world made me bow in awe. This was a game that sat at the top of my "WANT NAO" list, and I'm not even a person who's really huge into PvP. I just wanted an Elder Scrolls/Ultima Online inspired sandbox.

Upon finally playing the game, however, all I found was a nightmare of errors, glitches, and missing systems. Mats Persson, one of the developers of Star Vault, was right: this game does lack polish, user friendliness, and many systems that could turn this sandbox into a true sandbox. Instead, all I found was a buggy, glitchy, never-ending, pointless deathmatch in an MMO world. Keep reading, and I'll be more than happy to explain every aspect of my time with Mortal Online.

If you're interested in commenting on this article, then you have to trek all the way to page 3 this week. Just a heads up!

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