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Traceur · 10th May 2008, 16:25

player characters:

Can I have more than one character on my account?
A: Yes. By creating an account you create your own Deva, or “shared soul”, in the game. Your Deva can have several characters connected to it. The Deva grows in power as each of your characters do and can even learn skills that all your characters will benefit from. Read more about skills and the Deva further down.

Will there be different playable races? are races specifically good or evil?
There will be different races in the game. Every race has their own race language. You will be able to speak your race language and also be able to learn other races languages with time. Each with their own unique characteristics, culture and history - resulting in different codex, behavior and hierarchy. If that makes them "evil" or "good" is up to you to decide, and depends on how you and the rest of the players play them.
We will reveal the races one at a time with a proper presentation, & more information will be added as the development progresses.

Revealed races: Half-Orcs.
Mentioned races: Humans & Orcs.

character progression - attributes, skills & classes:

I noticed an attribute called "Size" in the screenshot explaining how skills work, and this got my hopes up that perhaps such brilliantly named attribute would actually have an effect on how large your character is?
yes.

How many character levels are there in Mortal Online?
None. We have no levels and therefore no level restrictions - i.e. certain levels needed to reach an area or to be able to handle a specific sword. You are free to travel the world in any way you like, limited only by the terrain, mode of conveyance or dangers in the environment. In the same way you can use any sword you like, provided you have the necessary skills to wield it.

The skill system itself is very dynamic, meaning attributes and skills are dependent on each other, and that training one of them also improves the other. It also gives you the opportunity to fully customize your character.

how do skills affect the gameplay?
Character skills are very important in Mortal Online, as it is your skills and not any "character level" that define what you can and cannot do in the game, sometimes even what you can and cannot see.

Some areas of the skill tree will be very complex and require a lot of time, and also have great impact on how well you succeed. Crafting is one example.

Some areas of the skill tree are closely tied to PvP and player skill, and therefore cannot have the same range of bonuses. Like weapons and combat. You have to get the skill to be able to use a certain weapon, but having 1% or 100% in the skill doesn't make a HUGE difference in damage. For those kind of skills (the PvP-related), a good example would of course be a fight - a large one. What we're trying to achieve is a skill tree that will give you a small advantage over your opponent in the short run (as you do slightly more damage and are a tiny bit faster, for example), but makes you a much better warrior in the long run (as your weapons and armor will endure much longer and as you can get on with the next fight with a minimum of rest, for example).

will you have “Your skill is too low to climb/wield that weapon/” messages or will skills affect gradually?
MO only uses the "you don't have the skill/your skill is too low to do this" when there's no other possible solution, or when such a solution would take too much time to implement.

the Primary Attributes & Primary skills:

Primary Attributes are attributes such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Psyche, Constitution, Size, etc. These are the attributes that define the core of your character and gives you the possibility to train certain skills, and limits to what extent you can train others. You start the game with a certain amount of points that you distribute on the different attributes, and when playing the game you will slowly improve the attributes by using skills. Also, improving an attribute will give every skill based on that attribute a small boost.

The Primary Skills are the most basic skills in the game and also the foundation for the rest of the skill tree. All characters have these skills, and you start the game with all Primary Skills, but it’s up to you which of them to train. To increase them further may require certain levels of your Primary Attributes to some extent. The different Primary Skills “unlock” different Secondary Skills in the skill tree; for instance you will need to train the Primary Skill “Acrobatics” to a certain value to be able to learn the Secondary Skill “Climbing”.

Both the Primary Attributes & skills each have a common cap, meaning once you have reached a certain number of points in all your attributes, you cannot increase them anymore, & likewise that you can never fully train each and every Primary Skill, at least not in the usual way.
This means that you can never max out on all Primary Attributes or all Primary skills, rather you’ll have to choose what will be the strengths and weaknesses of your character. It’s up to you to find the perfect balance for your character, as you can train and untrain these skills how many times you like.
To decrease a Primary Attribute / Primary Skill you'll have to train another Primary Attribute/Skill, and it can be done only when you've reached the cap. (You set a certain skill/attribute to decrease in favor for another.) The speed of this process is limited to how fast you can train the attribute/skill you want to increase. To increase your Strength for example, you’ll have to obtain those points by decreasing another attribute of your choice.
Training the Primary Skills until you've reached their common cap won't take that long, meaning you can get into the action rather quickly and actually make a difference. However balancing and fine-tuning them will take longer, as this will be based on your evolving play style and experience with the game.

Skill Tree:
The Secondary Skills are the bulk of the skill tree. They are of a vast number of skills that are connected to each other in a very complex network. Secondary Skills have to be discovered and learned in the game by books, tutoring and/or to a lesser extent by other means like magic or achievements.
The prerequisite of a Secondary Skill may be another Secondary Skill, a Primary Skill, any Attribute or any combination thereof. For example, learning the Secondary Skill “Advanced Poison Making” may require you to have the Secondary Skills “Beast Lore” which in turn is based on “Zoology”, as well as “Poison Making” that is based on “Basic Herbalism” that is based on “Botany” and so on.

The major difference from the Primary Skills is that Secondary skills don’t have a common cap. There is an individual cap per skill though, and it will most likely be 100/100. You can learn any number of Secondary Skills you like, but the skills you can learn are restricted by your Attributes and Primary Skills. The restrictions also mean that if you “untrain” a Primary Skill or Attribute that is a prerequisite for one of your Secondary Skills, you won’t be able to use that Secondary Skill any more. However, should the prerequisites once again be met it can be used as before (so you don’t have to train it over again). In short, you can explore any area of the skill tree without the fear of getting stuck, as you can always “leave” and “come back to” your Secondary Skills that are already trained with the help of a little time.

Deva-Secondary Skills or "World Skills": To lessen the tedious work of training a character from scratch, if you for example want to alternate your play time between a mage and a blacksmith, Some of the Secondary Skills are World Skills. The World Skills are connected to your Deva - your “shared soul” that connects all your characters on your account - and will improve no matter what type of characters you are playing. This way if one of your characters for example explore the map or learn about history, so does all of the other characters connected to your Deva.
When a World Skill is trained, all your characters will benefit from that training. As all Secondary Skills have prerequisites it does not necessarily mean they can use the skill, but it means it will be there, trained to the same level as for the other characters, and once the prerequisites are met the skill will be active and ready to use.

Two types of skills are Action Skills and Learning Skills. Action Skills will typically be trained by being used in the game, while the majority of Learning Skills are trained in the background and requires some time.
An Action Skill is trained by using it in the game. By using your Arming Sword you train the skill “Arming Sword” (and also, to a lesser extent, the skills and attributes that have a connection to it like “1H Swords”, “Light Weapons”, “Strength” and “Dexterity”).
A Learning Skill is passively trained by “reading a book” or “studying it mentally”. This takes time, and the more difficult the skill, the more time it takes. You can only train one Learning Skill at a time, but during that time you can of course train any number of Action Skills as their training is dependent on your actions in the game. Although most Learning Skills are passively trained, some of them will also benefit from certain “actions” in the game, i.e. the Learning Skill “Zoology” might increase each time you discover a new creature. (In this case, the skill don’t have to be the one “currently studied” to increase). It is not decided whether the Primary Skills can be of the type "Learning Skill" yet. As for now only the Secondary Skills have both types.

Classes:
Classes and Class-Restrictions
Classes in Mortal Online will work rather different than in most other MMORPG’s. You don’t begin the game as a specific Class, although you may choose from different presets to get some help along the way to become one. Classes are managed by special Guilds in the game (meaning “traditional” labor- or profession-guilds like merchant-guilds, blacksmith-guilds, thief-guilds and so on) where you have to apply and get accepted to get the specific Class-title. (You may choose whether to show the title publically or not).

Classes will have prerequisites in the form of skills, attributes or sometimes even things like reputation, social status or wealth. In essence, you will have to give up certain attributes and/or skills in favor for others, meaning your choice of skills will be restricted. In turn, you will benefit from certain Class-bonuses as long as you stay true to your Class by meeting the prerequisites. Whether it’s worth to make that sacrifice or not is of course up to you.

why are there class restrictions?
Mortal Online will have class restrictions for several reasons, the main one being that we want to encourage interaction between players. For instance, forming an independent guild that can manage entirely on its own will require a broad spectrum of characters, not just a few with all the necessary skills. The same goes for the lone wolf warrior – to be really successful in the world you need to interact with other characters by studying for them or at least by purchasing crafted goods you cannot make on your own.

What classes will I be able to play?
You will have many different classes to choose from ranging from the traditional warrior, thief and mage types to some special classes intimately connected to the game world. Also, some classes are reserved for veteran players: e a number of achievements in the game that will determine your official (or unofficial, if you choose to hide it) status. Hopefully there will be enough class variety. It's also a matter of combining Skills. All Classes are somewhat multiclass as it's a matter of what Skills you choose.

You are not limited to one character and one class though. Your Deva (account) can hold several characters that will benefit from each other in different ways.

If the game has a Realistic Combat system, how are you planning to balance classes and skills and more importantly make them diverse?
I really don't know how to answer that. Via excessive testing, testing, and more testing. And eventually, beta-testing.
Also, it's a matter of what you mean by balance and diversity. A warrior-class character is naturally focused on warfare, and won't have a very "balanced" fight against a trader-class character focused on commerce..

10th May 2008, 16:25	#4 (permalink)
Traceur Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 2,926 Rep Power: 8	player characters: Can I have more than one character on my account? A: Yes. By creating an account you create your own Deva, or “shared soul”, in the game. Your Deva can have several characters connected to it. The Deva grows in power as each of your characters do and can even learn skills that all your characters will benefit from. Read more about skills and the Deva further down. Will there be different playable races? are races specifically good or evil? There will be different races in the game. Every race has their own race language. You will be able to speak your race language and also be able to learn other races languages with time. Each with their own unique characteristics, culture and history - resulting in different codex, behavior and hierarchy. If that makes them "evil" or "good" is up to you to decide, and depends on how you and the rest of the players play them. We will reveal the races one at a time with a proper presentation, & more information will be added as the development progresses. Revealed races: Half-Orcs. *Mentioned races: Humans & Orcs. character progression - attributes, skills & classes:* I noticed an attribute called "Size" in the screenshot explaining how skills work, and this got my hopes up that perhaps such brilliantly named attribute would actually have an effect on how large your character is? yes. How many character levels are there in Mortal Online? None. We have no levels and therefore no level restrictions - i.e. certain levels needed to reach an area or to be able to handle a specific sword. You are free to travel the world in any way you like, limited only by the terrain, mode of conveyance or dangers in the environment. In the same way you can use any sword you like, provided you have the necessary skills to wield it. The skill system itself is very dynamic, meaning attributes and skills are dependent on each other, and that training one of them also improves the other. It also gives you the opportunity to fully customize your character. how do skills affect the gameplay? Character skills are very important in Mortal Online, as it is your skills and not any "character level" that define what you can and cannot do in the game, sometimes even what you can and cannot see. Some areas of the skill tree will be very complex and require a lot of time, and also have great impact on how well you succeed. Crafting is one example. Some areas of the skill tree are closely tied to PvP and player skill, and therefore cannot have the same range of bonuses. Like weapons and combat. You have to get the skill to be able to use a certain weapon, but having 1% or 100% in the skill doesn't make a HUGE difference in damage. For those kind of skills (the PvP-related), a good example would of course be a fight - a large one. What we're trying to achieve is a skill tree that will give you a small advantage over your opponent in the short run (as you do slightly more damage and are a tiny bit faster, for example), but makes you a much better warrior in the long run (as your weapons and armor will endure much longer and as you can get on with the next fight with a minimum of rest, for example). will you have “Your skill is too low to climb/wield that weapon/” messages or will skills affect gradually? MO only uses the "you don't have the skill/your skill is too low to do this" when there's no other possible solution, or when such a solution would take too much time to implement. the Primary Attributes & Primary skills: Primary Attributes are attributes such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Psyche, Constitution, Size, etc. These are the attributes that define the core of your character and gives you the possibility to train certain skills, and limits to what extent you can train others. You start the game with a certain amount of points that you distribute on the different attributes, and when playing the game you will slowly improve the attributes by using skills. Also, improving an attribute will give every skill based on that attribute a small boost. The Primary Skills are the most basic skills in the game and also the foundation for the rest of the skill tree. All characters have these skills, and you start the game with all Primary Skills, but it’s up to you which of them to train. To increase them further may require certain levels of your Primary Attributes to some extent. The different Primary Skills “unlock” different Secondary Skills in the skill tree; for instance you will need to train the Primary Skill “Acrobatics” to a certain value to be able to learn the Secondary Skill “Climbing”. Both the Primary Attributes & skills each have a common cap, meaning once you have reached a certain number of points in all your attributes, you cannot increase them anymore, & likewise that you can never fully train each and every Primary Skill, at least not in the usual way. This means that you can never max out on all Primary Attributes or all Primary skills, rather you’ll have to choose what will be the strengths and weaknesses of your character. It’s up to you to find the perfect balance for your character, as you can train and untrain these skills how many times you like. To decrease a Primary Attribute / Primary Skill you'll have to train another Primary Attribute/Skill, and it can be done only when you've reached the cap. (You set a certain skill/attribute to decrease in favor for another.) The speed of this process is limited to how fast you can train the attribute/skill you want to increase. To increase your Strength for example, you’ll have to obtain those points by decreasing another attribute of your choice. Training the Primary Skills until you've reached their common cap won't take that long, meaning you can get into the action rather quickly and actually make a difference. However balancing and fine-tuning them will take longer, as this will be based on your evolving play style and experience with the game. Skill Tree: The Secondary Skills are the bulk of the skill tree. They are of a vast number of skills that are connected to each other in a very complex network. Secondary Skills have to be discovered and learned in the game by books, tutoring and/or to a lesser extent by other means like magic or achievements. The prerequisite of a Secondary Skill may be another Secondary Skill, a Primary Skill, any Attribute or any combination thereof. For example, learning the Secondary Skill “Advanced Poison Making” may require you to have the Secondary Skills “Beast Lore” which in turn is based on “Zoology”, as well as “Poison Making” that is based on “Basic Herbalism” that is based on “Botany” and so on. The major difference from the Primary Skills is that Secondary skills don’t have a common cap. There is an individual cap per skill though, and it will most likely be 100/100. You can learn any number of Secondary Skills you like, but the skills you can learn are restricted by your Attributes and Primary Skills. The restrictions also mean that if you “untrain” a Primary Skill or Attribute that is a prerequisite for one of your Secondary Skills, you won’t be able to use that Secondary Skill any more. However, should the prerequisites once again be met it can be used as before (so you don’t have to train it over again). In short, you can explore any area of the skill tree without the fear of getting stuck, as you can always “leave” and “come back to” your Secondary Skills that are already trained with the help of a little time. Deva-Secondary Skills or "World Skills": To lessen the tedious work of training a character from scratch, if you for example want to alternate your play time between a mage and a blacksmith, Some of the Secondary Skills are World Skills. The World Skills are connected to your Deva - your “shared soul” that connects all your characters on your account - and will improve no matter what type of characters you are playing. This way if one of your characters for example explore the map or learn about history, so does all of the other characters connected to your Deva. When a World Skill is trained, all your characters will benefit from that training. As all Secondary Skills have prerequisites it does not necessarily mean they can use the skill, but it means it will be there, trained to the same level as for the other characters, and once the prerequisites are met the skill will be active and ready to use. Two types of skills are Action Skills and Learning Skills. Action Skills will typically be trained by being used in the game, while the majority of Learning Skills are trained in the background and requires some time. An Action Skill is trained by using it in the game. By using your Arming Sword you train the skill “Arming Sword” (and also, to a lesser extent, the skills and attributes that have a connection to it like “1H Swords”, “Light Weapons”, “Strength” and “Dexterity”). A Learning Skill is passively trained by “reading a book” or “studying it mentally”. This takes time, and the more difficult the skill, the more time it takes. You can only train one Learning Skill at a time, but during that time you can of course train any number of Action Skills as their training is dependent on your actions in the game. Although most Learning Skills are passively trained, some of them will also benefit from certain “actions” in the game, i.e. the Learning Skill “Zoology” might increase each time you discover a new creature. (In this case, the skill don’t have to be the one “currently studied” to increase). It is not decided whether the Primary Skills can be of the type "Learning Skill" yet. As for now only the Secondary Skills have both types. *Classes:* Classes and Class-Restrictions Classes in Mortal Online will work rather different than in most other MMORPG’s. You don’t begin the game as a specific Class, although you may choose from different presets to get some help along the way to become one. Classes are managed by special Guilds in the game (meaning “traditional” labor- or profession-guilds like merchant-guilds, blacksmith-guilds, thief-guilds and so on) where you have to apply and get accepted to get the specific Class-title. (You may choose whether to show the title publically or not). Classes will have prerequisites in the form of skills, attributes or sometimes even things like reputation, social status or wealth. In essence, you will have to give up certain attributes and/or skills in favor for others, meaning your choice of skills will be restricted. In turn, you will benefit from certain Class-bonuses as long as you stay true to your Class by meeting the prerequisites. Whether it’s worth to make that sacrifice or not is of course up to you. why are there class restrictions? Mortal Online will have class restrictions for several reasons, the main one being that we want to encourage interaction between players. For instance, forming an independent guild that can manage entirely on its own will require a broad spectrum of characters, not just a few with all the necessary skills. The same goes for the lone wolf warrior – to be really successful in the world you need to interact with other characters by studying for them or at least by purchasing crafted goods you cannot make on your own. What classes will I be able to play? You will have many different classes to choose from ranging from the traditional warrior, thief and mage types to some special classes intimately connected to the game world. Also, some classes are reserved for veteran players: e a number of achievements in the game that will determine your official (or unofficial, if you choose to hide it) status. Hopefully there will be enough class variety. It's also a matter of combining Skills. All Classes are somewhat multiclass as it's a matter of what Skills you choose. You are not limited to one character and one class though. Your Deva (account) can hold several characters that will benefit from each other in different ways. If the game has a Realistic Combat system, how are you planning to balance classes and skills and more importantly make them diverse? I really don't know how to answer that. Via excessive testing, testing, and more testing. And eventually, beta-testing. Also, it's a matter of what you mean by balance and diversity. A warrior-class character is naturally focused on warfare, and won't have a very "balanced" fight against a trader-class character focused on commerce.. __________________ stop looking at my post count!it's not a habit, it's cool, i feel alive.... welcome to the TBC! Last edited by Traceur : 11th September 2008 at 22:11.