Mortal Online
Mortal Online is a first-person. Open-world, PVP-focused sandbox MMORPG that mimicks the style of games like The Elder Scrolls series, and seeks to bring back the sense of danger and freedom that came with early MMORPG titles such as Ultima Online. With an open world and strict requirements for survival, Mortal Online aims to be a game for the most hardcore and dedicated. Do you have what it takes to make it?
Publisher: STAR VAULT
Playerbase: Low
Graphics: High
Type: MMORPG
EXP Rate: Low
PvP: Open
Filesize: 2.3GB
Pros: – Open world PVP, – Skill-based leveling system, – Focus on realism
Cons: - Confusing and difficult UI, – Poor tutorials, – Difficult gameplay and open PVP make for a low playerbase, – Limited character customization
Mortal Online Overview
Mortal Online does not use a traditional leveling system, but instead utilizes a skill and attribute-based system similar to those used in games like The Elder Scrolls. Players are able to learn skills from trainer NPCs, and then increase those skills by using them in-game. Mortal Online does not have quests; NPCs exist purely for the purpose of tutorial, vending, and possibly murdering. Everything in Mortal Online is capable of being killed by players at any time, including other players.
The stats in Mortal Online govern how much health one has, how fast they move, and how much stamina or mana they have, in addition to how much they can carry. The maximum stat of any given character is determined by their race.
Mortal Online Screenshots
Mortal Online Featured Video
Mortal Online Review
By B. Olivia
Mortal Online is one of those games that, because of the ambitious design and development, gets a lot of people exicted before release. We might say “Finally, a game that makes sense! A game that tries its best to copy reality! A game that is truly realistic! Oh, how much fun this will be!” Such excitement is understandable; I’ve been guilty of it myself, from time to time. The unfortunate reality of many games like this is that they tend to bite off more than they can chew, and while the goals are admirable, the end result of their labors too often wind up being disappointing to people who were ready to be hardcore advocates of the game. Was my experience with Mortal Online eye-opening and unique? Was I swept away? Read on and find out.
Forget Everything!
That’s right, forget everything you think you know about online games! This is the first thing I was instructed to do by Mortal Online upon logging in. The game proudly proclaimed via tutorial pop-up that this experience would be like nothing I was used to, and that I could really do anything I want in this vast, incredible world. Forge my own empire and become queen of the world? Sure! Tame giant bears? Absolutely. Chop down trees and build a house? You bet. Who wouldn’t be excited about this? A true chance to be immersed in a game unlike any other, a reality existing parellel to our own. Fascinating.
Creating my character was a delight. I could choose from several different factions (hairy humans, elfy humans, human-humans, and half-breed humans), and within those factions I could choose my family tree(?) which determined the caps of my various statistics. I made a nordic-looking woman and put all of my attribute points into constitution, which for some reason raised almost all of her stats (including movement speed). I was then prompted to choose my starting location and get to having my grand, unprecedented adventure.
What a Bunch of Horse #%$&!
After spending a few minutes wrestling the UI into submission (you have to press Z to interact with pop-ups on screen, since you’re locked into first-person, except sometimes you have to hold Z, but other times when you click on something the Z holding doesn’t work… fun), I got around to clumsily putting my harvesting skills onto my action bars. The first thing I noticed was how pretty the game was. Graphically speaking, Mortal Online is a feast – it’s just a shame everything it puts in front of you is so gritty and ugly. Let’s go down a list of the things I saw within the first few minutes of playing:
1) A horse peeing.
2) A naked, mottled man’s penis.
3) THE SUN.
I am not kidding around. The horses in this game just love to let a big stream of frothy horse urine rip every few minutes or so. I almost didn’t believe my eyes, but I admired their dedicated to realism – no game is truly complete without peeing horses. It was shortly after this that I saw a naked man streak past me. I decided to investigate, and fortunately, he decided to just chill out in a nearby longhouse, wherein I could have a long gander at his weird, polygonal man-junk. It didn’t help that he was some kind of weird half-breed race, so he looked like he had warts and freckles all over him. Yummy. After this, I went back to exploring nature, and decided to look at the sky, only to be immediately blinded by the BRIGHT SHINING SUN. Seriously, I don’t know how they did it, but staring at the sun in this game is almost as bad as staring at the real sun. Don’t look at the sun in Mortal Online. Okay?
Oh right, the gameplay. We’ll get to that.
Saga of the Rabbit-Catcher
I decided it was time to begin forging my empire, brick-by-brick. Of course, every empire has humble beginnings, and I decided that mine would begin with killing and skinning a rabbit. I found a rabbit, and chased the terrified creature through the woods for a good five minutes, desperately, pathetically hacking at the air, trying to kill it. After finally giving up on this, I looked up to find myself lost in the woods, with a wolf nearby. Of course, this would be like any other MMORPG, in which wolves are newbie-food, and thus easy prey for me! I moved in to attack the wolf, only to be overwhelmed and torn apart.
Awesome.
Unable to catch rabbits, and unable to kill wolves, I rose again as a ghost to lament my short life. A helpful pop-up came up on the screen, telling me that I was dead, and that to return to life I must find a priest, which would be marked by a pillar of light in the sky. So, I set out to move towards the nearest pillar of light I could see. I was able to watch other players less retarded than myself fight zombies and skeletons in a nearby graveyard. I also saw a spider. Being dead was rather nice, as I could move faster, and my jumping was less pathetic. Unfortunately, the pillar of light I was moving towards was blocked by a mountain range.
It took me about ten minutes to find my way around this mountain range, and back in town, I struggled to locate the priest, who was not very well marked once I got closer to the pillar. After resurrecting, I had about one quarter of my health, and no apparent way to restore it! That’s alright. You can just rest for a while and get HP back… right?
WRONG!
I tried to rest. There was a skill in my skill book that allowed me to sleep. Using this skill, my screen went black, and the combat log frequently told me that I was recovering my strength. Meanwhile, my HP bar remained static. I also noticed that my “rest” skill was steadily going up as I rested. That’s right, Mortal Online is so realistic, that people get better at resting the more they rest. I can certainly appreciate that, given that compared to myself ten years ago, I am now a total pro when it comes to sleeping. Any professional sleeper can tell you that practice makes perfect.
So, since I couldn’t get my HP up again, going after another wolf seemed pointless. I decided to chop down a tree or mine a rock instead. I went to the nearest tree, and tried to use my “harvest” skill, the same one the weird, poorly-translated NPC told me to use on trees to get wood. It didn’t work. I tried many other trees to no avail. I tried… attacking the trees. Nothing. After running around a bit more, I finally gave up, and decided to leave Mortal Online to those far more dedicated than I.
Final Verdict: Poor
Mortal Online is troubled by a clunky, glitchy UI, a sparse population, a terrible starting experience, and a frankly un-fun design, in my opinion. If a PVP-centric, first-person glitchfest is up your alley, by all means, have a go at it. As of July of 2011, the game is still buggy, and many features (such as housing, hunger, etc.) are not functional, or functioning improperly. The game would be much better if it at least TRIED to make itself fun in the first hour of play, but the newbie experience is so confusing and half-assed, few people are going to have the patience to stick around – and people are what make an MMORPG work.
Mortal Online Screenshots
Mortal Online Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows XP / Vista
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3000 MHz / AMD Athlon 64 3000+
RAM: 1 GB
HDD: 4 GB Free
Graphics Card: GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon Х1600
Recommended Specification:
OS: Windows XP / Vista / 7
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3000 MHz / Intel Core Quad 2400 MHz / AMD Athlon 64 6400+ or better
RAM: 2 GB or more
HDD: 4 GB or more
Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 4700 or better