Shame MO and DF failed to hit the 3d ultima sandbox experience. If someone delivers that, it will be a great game.

Originally posted by marcust

If someone with some courage and funding bought MO and threw some real development effort behind it, it could be the sandbox that many of us are screaming for. There are a lot of good ideas that have been poorly implemented. I dont have the patience (or hope) to deal with the current development team. I will of course read the comments here when the Awakening expansion arrives.

Seriously, it isnt worth it. Just start from scratch and it would be better. There is no foundation of whatsoever, the Epic Unreal Engine was never made for a sandbox game, the concept is well, just that, and there is basicly nothing worth to note. And about the ideas.. come on those ideas are around since forever, there is nothing genuine innovative on that. It is basicly a few UO parts(and hell, not even all what UO is about.. and UO is not that big of a game) + castle/territory control. That is really not "a lot of good ideas", it is just what is around for years and noone ever realized anything like that properly, and in all honestly those ideas alone dont make a game, only if Shadowbane was enough for you, but it isnt. UO got live, UO got detail, and all those indy games(MO or DF pick one) have forgotten details completely and are with a good reason liveless and nowadays empty worlds, if you really want call those worlds.

And with that said, MO will never be anything, just a broken game..

Personally I think you 1-day players sell the game short. Yeah the character models arent great and there isnt much of a tutorial.

But.. the OP mentioned a couple things.

1) Night being dark. I personally like a dark night. Guess its personal opinion. Anyway, the next expansion its supposed to be a little lighter.

2) Character models are being reworked and will be put it after Awakening

3) The game is a learning process. Its not the games fault you looted a blue-flagged corpse and turned criminal because its stealing. Its also not the games fault that you didnt target the player who killed you and called the guards. These are things that you learn through trial and error. Alot of people cant perservere through the learning process and get to the point where they enjoy the game. Each to his own. (In addition, the character who probably killed you was probably "Lictor" which is actually a guard, so it wasnt another character, someone called the guards on you because you were a criminal)

4) The interface is also be redone in the next expansion.

5) Since you probably logged in right before night you probably did not get to see the graphics which are actually pretty good for comparitive sandboxes, and I doubt you went into the launcher options to load premium graphics.

Originally posted by helthros

Shame MO and DF failed to hit the 3d ultima sandbox experience. If someone delivers that, it will be a great game.

Thats what brought me to MO, but SV failed bigtime.

I hope someone gets it right.

Originally posted by xDayx

Personally I think you 1-day players sell the game short. Yeah the character models arent great and there isnt much of a tutorial.

But.. the OP mentioned a couple things.

1) Night being dark. I personally like a dark night. Guess its personal opinion. Anyway, the next expansion its supposed to be a little lighter.

2) Character models are being reworked and will be put it after Awakening

3) The game is a learning process. Its not the games fault you looted a blue-flagged corpse and turned criminal because its stealing. Its also not the games fault that you didnt target the player who killed you and called the guards. These are things that you learn through trial and error. Alot of people cant perservere through the learning process and get to the point where they enjoy the game. Each to his own. (In addition, the character who probably killed you was probably "Lictor" which is actually a guard, so it wasnt another character, someone called the guards on you because you were a criminal)

4) The interface is also be redone in the next expansion.

5) Since you probably logged in right before night you probably did not get to see the graphics which are actually pretty good for comparitive sandboxes, and I doubt you went into the launcher options to load premium graphics.

The 1 day players sell the game exactly as it is. Majority see the game at a first glimpse and they re entitled to have their conclusions without having afiliations with SV, Henrik and the kindergarden crew.

1) No one likes night as it is appart from a few rpk's that do tone their e-peen by getting an advantage against RP'ers (the only people that do refuse to adjust their gamma settings so they can play at nightime) in PVP. MO is a game we all play to have fun and thats the main reason everyone is playing it. Now if the briliant devs  using half playtime as a dark night that no one can see anything out in the wilderness (without changing his gamma settings that is) only to balance the fact that the game itself is bloody empty, the world is small and shallow and that fact is ok by you then forgive me but i dont really have to say anything else here than your argument is invalid.

2) Dont use as an argument SV's preannounced future plans cause you know better that this might not work good for you. I can list a shitload of things that where supposed to be ingame shortly after release and now 2 years after no word on them. When i listen people talking about things that Henrik is promising to add in MO i cant help myself about thinking of rainbows nad pots of gold.

3) Well i have to agree on that but you have to agree that ninja lictors animation is poorly designed and sometimes is difficult to see even if you are a vet.

4) Lets wait and see.

5) Graphics are not bad regarding the wilderness but they are awfull as it is concerning most of the models and the towns, villages. Toons and NPC's are extremely uggly and poorly designed exactly as their animations are. Buildings in towns are also poorly designed and give a feeling of emptyness to the user. So i can see where OP's opinion about graphics is coming from. Lets also skip mentioning the music artist and the ampient sounds ingame cause they are simply laughable.  Game as a whole gives the impression that people with bad taste and total lack of imagination and creativity combined their power to create something without having in mind something specific and they simply followed random paths to end up exactly where they are today: in a hopeless place.

No one can argue that this game leaves a bad taste in the majority of the people that testing it and the reasons behind that can be many.

P.S. Just for the lols i did a trial account to see how things are ingame atm since i havent really played much after Dawn and TC fiasco. World is still glitchy and first impression was awfull since after 30 mins of mushroum and coin gathering and a couple random disconnects that didnt had anything to do with my end, i couldnt buy a bloody pickaxe from the utility vendor. After relloging 2 times with no result and running client integrity scan only to realize that scan was disabled, a helpfull guy called Xt in Fabernum replied to me that probably the vndors are bugged again and he gaved me 2 pickaxes from his inventory.

Thats the reason i find it rediculous to make a stand for that game and the awfull company behind it and i cant see any other reason for someone doing so rather than having personal interrest or simply being dumb, unexperienced and with low standards.

I remember when I first logged into this game. It was beta years ago. 100 dudes running around naked. It was pretty funny. Then it hit me how garbage this game actually was. It was horrible. Horrible attempt at modding the Unreal engine and charging 50 bucks for it. lol  I paid via Paypal fortunately, so was able to get a refund. This game had some decent artists on staff, but the programmers were paid hobbiests with next to nothing experience. You need more than mod scripters to pull something like this off...the crafting was a cool concept though I guess.

You know, I had a similar experience with Darkfall the first time I tried. I played it for a grand total of 5 minutes and hated the interface. Well, I tried it six months later and decided I was going to read through the menus and figure things out. Everything feels like 2nd nature now and I really love it.

Terrible starter experience.  Mediocre veteran experience.

It's the CEO's fault more than anything - misprioritized developers.  A couple months with someone else at the reins could turn it around.

There is a 2 page txt file manual they used to distribute with the client...  not sure if they still do or not.

Originally posted by GTwander

First off, Usability =/= Quality, it's akin to Ergonomics (and the game does fine to that respect)

"I'm sorry to inform you that at this time we cannot offer the position of Quality Engineer to you. Thank you for your interest in our company. May I suggest you contact [our worst competitor] as soon as possible for potential employment opportunities?"

Feeling a bit lazy I'll skip the lecture and just quote a part of Wikipedia like any good modern person does: "Software structural quality refers to how it meets non-functional requirements that support the delivery of the functional requirements, such as robustness or maintainability, the degree to which the software was produced correctly."

I.e. when you say usability does not contribute to "meeting non-functional requirements" which in the context of games (as well as many other types of products) means "meeting user expectations" you are in a very small minority when it comes to the concept of quality in contemporary product creation. 

Edit: added the bit about our worst competitor which went missing from the original.

when i played MO for the first time back in beta i played it for about 1 hour before rage quiting and coming to the quick conclusion the game was garbage, unfortunatly at the time i had already pre-paid for the game and so decided to force myself to learn how to play it and 2 years later i have played and enjoyed the game consistently so im glad i actually pre-ordered the game because if i was playing a trial i would of probably quit after that first hour never to return and to discover how awesome the game actually is.

Theres certainly something wrong with the newbie experience and lack of help/tutorial/direction but that does not mean the game isnt great once you know what you are doing.

Originally posted by deathshroud

Theres certainly something wrong with the newbie experience and lack of help/tutorial/direction but that does not mean the game isnt great once you know what you are doing.

Do I really need to list all the shit wrong with the game?  Or can you just take back the "great" part and save me the trouble?

It's a game.  Good concept, poorly implemented, poorly managed.  In 1-2 years it might be ready for release.

Originally posted by psykobilly

Originally posted by deathshroud

Theres certainly something wrong with the newbie experience and lack of help/tutorial/direction but that does not mean the game isnt great once you know what you are doing.

Do I really need to list all the shit wrong with the game?  Or can you just take back the "great" part and save me the trouble?

It's a game.  Good concept, poorly implemented, poorly managed.  In 1-2 years it might be ready for release.

 

You don't need to. It will be a 20 page message, that doesn't fit in a spoiler.

Seriously, the gratest problem of Mortal is the quality.

Secondly, it is the PvP focus combined with a full loot system, that prevents players from doing anything sandbox related.

The combination of that has driven me to draw my Mortal experience in a pic (Already posted it here a while ago):

Sadly, i like the ideas of the game and WANT it to work :-(

For the OP, MO deosnt have a good tutorial. Thats the truth. Same problem as DF.

Sorry man, but if you're not willing to learn, its better to skip it before a full day cuz your brain probably can't handle that kind of learning curve. 

I can only ask you to try and join a clan to learn from the best. You had to do the same in DF and in most sandbox mmo's. 

Originally posted by Realbigdeal

For the OP, MO deosnt have a good tutorial. Thats the truth. Same problem as DF.

Sorry man, but if you're not willing to learn, its better to skip it before a full day cuz your brain probably can't handle that kind of learning curve. 

I can only ask you to try and join a clan to learn from the best. You had to do the same in DF and in most sandbox mmo's. 

It really shouldn't take a full day, half a day, or a work day to learn a game.

You can learn the Sims in an hour. You can learn Minecraft in an hour.  You can learn Skyrim in an hour or two as well.

Do you really think that the simple idea of throwing more players into the world makes the learning curve of a sandbox explode out of control?

Or maybe it's the idea that the companies making the Sandbox MMOs lack the skill in making the new user experience fun and allow players to learn at the same time.

It's a bit ironic actually, they believe they can make a fun video game, but can't even make it fun when you first login.

Originally posted by SHOE788

Originally posted by Realbigdeal

For the OP, MO deosnt have a good tutorial. Thats the truth. Same problem as DF.

Sorry man, but if you're not willing to learn, its better to skip it before a full day cuz your brain probably can't handle that kind of learning curve. 

I can only ask you to try and join a clan to learn from the best. You had to do the same in DF and in most sandbox mmo's. 

It really shouldn't take a full day, half a day, or a work day to learn a game.

You can learn the Sims in an hour. You can learn Minecraft in an hour.  You can learn Skyrim in an hour or two as well.

Do you really think that the simple idea of throwing more players into the world makes the learning curve of a sandbox explode out of control?

Or maybe it's the idea that the companies making the Sandbox MMOs lack the skill in making the new user experience fun and allow players to learn at the same time.

It's a bit ironic actually, they believe they can make a fun video game, but can't even make it fun when you first login.

I would have to agree, its like saying calculus is really fun once you learn it.  A game is supposed to be FUN and interesting from the MOMENT you start playing.  A player should not have to breech some massive learning curve only to find out at that point if indeed the game is any good, or fun.

A well designed game will give a player feedback if they are doing something wrong, or an NPC will communicate with a player on what it takes to buy or sell to them. 

Because of this lack of player feedback the game feels cold,dead and unfinished.

Originally posted by SHOE788

Originally posted by Realbigdeal

For the OP, MO deosnt have a good tutorial. Thats the truth. Same problem as DF.

Sorry man, but if you're not willing to learn, its better to skip it before a full day cuz your brain probably can't handle that kind of learning curve. 

I can only ask you to try and join a clan to learn from the best. You had to do the same in DF and in most sandbox mmo's. 

It really shouldn't take a full day, half a day, or a work day to learn a game.

You can learn the Sims in an hour. You can learn Minecraft in an hour.  You can learn Skyrim in an hour or two as well.

Do you really think that the simple idea of throwing more players into the world makes the learning curve of a sandbox explode out of control?

Or maybe it's the idea that the companies making the Sandbox MMOs lack the skill in making the new user experience fun and allow players to learn at the same time.

It's a bit ironic actually, they believe they can make a fun video game, but can't even make it fun when you first login.

 I dont think its a case of lacking the skill needed to make the newbie experience, but lacking the funds and time to implement a tutorial up to this point. The tutorial in MO isnt poor, there is no tutorial since they have not made any attempt to create one for the game up to now. It hasnt been their priority by the looks of things. So the game has a very difficult learning curve with no tutorial by choice of the devs because they havent focused on that aspect of the game.

When i asked henrik about gaining more subs last year and worknig on easing new players into the game, at the time his response was that trying to get more subs, advertisng and helping new palyers understand the game was not a priority at that time. They were more focused on getting cotnent into the game and core mechanics as well as fulfilling past promises to the community. Seemed to me like they are being funded just enoguh to keep MO going at this level for as long as they need to. Maybe after awakening they will actually focus on making a tutorial or some form of help.

Originally posted by deathshroud

 I dont think its a case of lacking the skill needed to make the newbie experience, but lacking the funds and time to implement a tutorial up to this point. The tutorial in MO isnt poor, there is no tutorial since they have not made any attempt to create one for the game up to now. 

Well, at least they could have implemented written books for example, that describes what the skill that you will learn from that book will do and how you use it. What you get today (or when I have played last year) is books that have a one liner as description or simply NO description. There really is no excuse for things like that, you can't legitimate that 'approach' when on the other hand things like horse pee is implemented. It's just a handfull of text, no way that this can't be accomplished regarding time.

The game does not work without the forum. Basically you are not in game most of the time, because you are looking for some hints somewhere in teh interwebz. Good gamedesign? I don't think so.

It's the same problem with things like in game chat: It's a nice idea dev-wise to say: We want people to talk face to face ingame, but it is a fact, that this is not how it works in reality. People are using IRC or external chat tools, and play the game in windowed mode. No one runs through the wilderness without a map to a town where he thinks his friend COULD be to talk to him IF he is online.

Gameplay and usability is always > realism.

The problem with Mortal is, that you can't say that Starvault learns anything from user behaviours. They have a vision, but not the skills to recognize that there are  changes necessary regarding the user experience. I want to play a funny game, but the game is not fun (but it could be), and no one in the crew seems to realize that.

One of my biggest issues with indie MMOs is you end up with an engineer or 3D programmer designing the UI.  It doesn't matter how in-depth or cool your crafting/farming/taming/combat features are, if the controls for said systems are clunky and unusable it nullifies any innovations or fun factor they should have.

Setting the default move keys to  HPZ' instead of WSAD doesn't make your game more sophisticated or only for "people with patience", it is just stupid.  Same with using any other UI /control scheme that isn't "familiar".

Originally posted by Drevar

One of my biggest issues with indie MMOs is you end up with an engineer or 3D programmer designing the UI.  It doesn't matter how in-depth or cool your crafting/farming/taming/combat features are, if the controls for said systems are clunky and unusable it nullifies any innovations or fun factor they should have.

Setting the default move keys to  HPZ' instead of WSAD doesn't make your game more sophisticated or only for "people with patience", it is just stupid.  Same with using any other UI /control scheme that isn't "familiar".

games controls are pretty straight forward once you know them, move with wasd, jump with space, open cursor mode with z, inventory with i, bring up cursor with tab and sprint with shift. Then o for spell book, p for profile and l for skill window. x to sheeth unsheeth sword, its now more complex than Dayz controls. Quite straight forward really. Its jsut that a new player isnt gonig to know whats what when he starts.

Originally posted by SHOE788

Originally posted by Realbigdeal

For the OP, MO deosnt have a good tutorial. Thats the truth. Same problem as DF.

Sorry man, but if you're not willing to learn, its better to skip it before a full day cuz your brain probably can't handle that kind of learning curve. 

I can only ask you to try and join a clan to learn from the best. You had to do the same in DF and in most sandbox mmo's. 

It really shouldn't take a full day, half a day, or a work day to learn a game.

 

Why not? Because you said so?