[Mats Persson]

Please note that the NDA is not lifted, and that this review is an exception to the NDA rules. The reviewer is not entitled to answer any questions regarding the game until the NDA is lifted.
/Mats

Mortal Online Combat Beta Review
by Lachrymose

Character Creation
Upon entering Mortal Online’s combat beta, I was first prompted to create a new character. The character creation allowed me to first choose a race, and then combine that race with one of the other available races via the blood mix system. I tried out some of the many combinations, and some mixes were clearly more noticeable than others. For instance, mixing a Half-orc with a Tindremene will result in a relatively unique look, but the effects of mixing a Tindremene with a Kallard aren’t quite as noticeable. However, once racial attributes are unlocked, I imagine the less cosmetic mixes will prove useful.

There are many different types of faces, hairstyle, tattoos, etc. to choose from, and several customization options can be used, such as changing the size of the nose, ears, mouth, forehead, etc. Overall, I was impressed with the character customization, as it offers quite a bit to make your character appear unique. In addition, players are able to select from a range of heights. At the moment, I see no reason to choose anything other than the tallest height, as the benefits gained from having a large character greatly outweigh the benefits of choosing a smaller character. Henrik has explained, however, that this is only because attribute points have not yet been unlocked. Increasing your character size will cost attribute points that could be used to increase your dexterity, for example. In addition, you will be able to create a smaller than normal size character to gain more than the default attribute points, which allows for even more variability when creating your character.

First Impressions
The very first thing I noticed after finally logging into the game is that the first person view is absolutely incredible. I think Star Vault has really succeeded at creating a more realistic first person view than any I’ve ever seen. I spent my first couple minutes in game just admiring the unique perspective and the motion blur as I looked around.

The small island we were placed on looks impressive, especially for being a temporary beta test island, and for some reason, I just can’t get over how incredible the sky looks (something I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed in an MMO). Some of the other beta testers and myself had a lot of fun exploring the island and finding a few hidden ruins. Traversing the island is no easy task, so although the island is relatively small, it certainly seems large. Not only are there mountains and other land formations obstructing any straight paths across the island, but navigating the island is very difficult until you’ve walked around it enough to really familiarize yourself with it. At one point, I broke off from the group to do a little solo exploring, and I quickly realized that I had no idea where I was. For me it was a really unique experience in an MMO because there was no radar in the upper corner showing me where I was on the map. There was no arrow pointing the way to go. I was actually lost, which made for a truly immersive experience, and this was only on the tiny test island we were placed on. I can only imagine what the immersion of being lost in a much larger and inhabited world would be like.

Armor & Weapon Creation
Weapon creation at the moment is impressive. Crafting itself hasn’t been unlocked to players, but NPC crafters allow us to choose which type of material to use for each piece of a weapon (handle, core, blade, etc). In addition, when creating armor, not only do you choose which type of material to construct the armor out of, but you also choose how much material to use when creating the armor. Using less material obviously makes the armor lighter and less cumbersome, but it also provides less protection.

Needless to say, there is a seemingly endless amount of combinations to choose from, but the trick is to determine which combinations are most effective, as some combinations just aren’t very practical. For instance, attaching a great blade to a dagger handle will result in a strange looking and ineffective weapon, and although creating a sword made out of pure gold certainly looks fashionable, it will do little damage and require the majority of your stamina to swing it (if you’re able to swing it at all, that is). The amount of options given to the player is incredible and really adds to the involvement of player skill, as players will have to determine the best gear compositions for their particular playstyle.

The only ranged weapon that can be created in the current stage is a recurve short bow. I learned from talking with Henrik that the bow should be constructed realistically to achieve the maximum effectiveness. I began scouring the internet to find instructions on how to create my very own recurve bow, and I found a very useful online guide and applied some of the same construction concepts to my in-game bow. The result was a bow more powerful and stamina efficient than any other bow I had managed to construct up to that point, which I found amazing. I am excited me to see what other realistic concepts like this will be used elsewhere in the game.

Melee Combat
To put it simply, melee combat is a lot of fun. Circle strafing and spamming the left mouse button is definitely not the strategy to use in this game, as you will run out of stamina very quickly and be rendered helpless. Attacks can be “charged” so that you can release at the precise moment to hit your enemy, which adds to the skill based strategy of combat. Furthermore, blocking can be very effective, as achieving a perfect block (aiming directly towards the incoming attack with a block) will mitigate a very significant amount of damage that would have otherwise been dealt by the attack. The current prediction system needs a considerable amount of work to ensure that the client side location of players match up with their server side location. It has been frustrating to attack an opponent directly in front of you, only to have the attack miss him. Fortunately, I’m told that the prediction system has been fixed and the corrected system will be implemented in the next build.

At the moment, weapons are imbalanced, so some weapon types are far more effective than others. However, I imagine weapons and armor will be balanced throughout the remainder of the beta.

Ranged Combat
Again, we only had access to one type of bow, so I have little exposure to all that ranged combat has to offer. At the beginning of the beta, kiting was extremely easy to pull off, but by the second build, that was taken care of. However, I feel that at the moment, archery is a little too underpowered because bows drain a bit too much stamina in my opinion. Again, I expect an appropriate balance will be found during the beta process.

Barring any balancing issues, I think ranged combat is fairly good. There is a circular targeting reticle that gets smaller as you pull back the bow string. The circle indicates where your arrow may fly, so the smaller the circle, the more accurate the shot will be. I’m told that the targeting reticle is still being worked on, however, so this likely won’t be exactly what we see on release.

Overall Conclusion
My overall impression of Mortal Online’s combat is that it still needs a considerable amount of work on gear balancing and the prediction system, but it has a tremendous amount of potential once those things are perfected. However, even with those imperfections, melee combat was still very enjoyable overall. Ranged combat shares that same potential, but again, I feel there is still a bit of balancing to do before it is perfected.

Character creation is better than the majority of MMOs I’ve played, and so far we haven’t even seen all that there is to offer, as attributes have not been added to the beta client thus far, and only cosmetic changes are available.

The aesthetics of the game are very impressive, and again, the first person view is absolutely amazing in my opinion. Despite the graphical settings being locked below the maximum settings (for beta only I’m sure), Mortal Online is definitely one of the most visually appealing MMOs I’ve played.

Other than a few other minor bugs and tweaks, the little amount of gameplay that we were given access to gives me very high hopes for Mortal Online. I’m very excited to see the improvements that are made in the next client and gain access to more features and a large portion of the actual world.