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Mortal Online: Henrik Nyström Interview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Recently, MMORPG.com writer Adam Tingle had the opportunity to sit down with Star Vault's Henrik Nyström to talk all things Mortal Online. Their discussion ran the gamut from the class system to player interaction to rumors of Star Vault personnel leaving the company. Check out Adam's interview and then leave your comments below!
MMORPG.com There has been a general feeling that many MMORPGs of recent years have become too casual and a little too easy. Does Mortal Online give the player more independence to simply learn the game without the need to be hand lead throughout and if so, how is the learning curve handled?
Henrik Nyström: The learning curve in Mortal Online is pretty tough at the moment; we are expanding ”new player” experience in the game at the moment so we don’t scare off players that may enjoy the game once passed the initial hurdles. The fighting system is very intuitive but other systems, like for example crafting, are extremely complex and require some time learning them.
Read more of our exclusive Mortal Online: Henrik Nyström Interview.
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Comments
i though the server will shut down at the end of the year.
höhöhöhö
This interview is sadly all fluff. There are about a thousand questions I can think of that it would be awesome to see Henrik asked like: You've mentioned one person who left, but the community has pointed out many others, several of whom were rather high profile on forums, etc. what about them? Where are the working CD/DVDs? Do you really have a test server? and if so do you actually test anything on it prior to making it live? etc etc etc. Sadly none of these types of questions are asked.
Steam: Neph
Let us know when the game is done..then we will risk our hard earned cash.
Good try SV with MO. But I wasted good money on it IMO. Tired of the fix this break this etc. yes lots of developers break things but well I will just leave it at that......
I hate the argument that First Person view gives true immersion and that having the ability to look around walls or behind your character that 3rd person gives is considered "cheating". What a crock. In real life I have depth of hearing and peripheral vision to make first person view work. Video games NEVER have this so it's really more beneficial, game wise to have 3rd person view to negate what is missing from the first person view. Plus, I don't feel immersed because I can't even see myself.
Anyway. I've seen this game in action on livestreams and it just looks boring. while I like the idea of sandbox systems I have yet to see one with the polish and FUN factor that a game like WoW has. Maybe some day, a developer will make a sandbox MMO with tons of FUN and polish and smooth controls.
There are quite a lot of people enjoying the game atm, on the other hand, I got burned and gave it a break a while ago, and about to return back. The game is far away from getting discontinued soon, there's a steady progress and patching process going on about the game. This is a game not for everyone for sure, be sure to learn what the game promises before you buy the game as it is a very different MMORPG than the ones on the market.
If you feel playing the circle get a quest, kill something, get your new gear as reward, equip it, level, your gear gets obsolete, rinse and start again is OK with you, than why not, just continue playing the game you're playing, it will be a better game for you, I guarantee that you'll feel lost and lonely in MO if you have no idea what you are jumping into.
Well, ingame, if some1 sneaks up on you from behind, you will here them coming as well, and turn around weapons drawn... So it´s stays somewhat true to it´s vision of being "real" in it´s FPV direction.
OMG I cannot agree with you more on the First person issue. Not only do you have a depth of hearing, but you also have a sense of feeling. You can feel, hear things behind you, that a video game just cannot duplicate. Heh, i can't count how many times that i was fighting a rather large fight and some guy just came up behind me and started swinging. In real life i would have heard him coming at me from behind.
I know i really was looking forward to this game. A lot! I had such high hopes, but 6 months later, it's just not what it should have been should have far more features, should be a lot less buggy, and just generally smoother. Also it is just WAY to immersive. They have made crafting so detailed and thorough, that to me it is just not fun. To make steel you have to go through several processes. You spend 2 hours mining for just a few high grade steel. At some point, as a developer, you have to ask yourself "how much immersion is to much?" IMO they have tried so hard to be different, that it has ruined the game. I bought the game because it is supposed to be a low fantasy GAME, not a low fantasy medieval life simulation.
Well I guess I am still going to be waiting for my next "UO" still.
Yeah you can hear them, but you can't tell how far away they are, and you don't know if they are part of a fight a dozen of yards behind you or not.
Couple of issues here. First of all, when you're fighting someone, you're not going to be able to hear someone sneak up behind you in real life.
The other thing is that just because you don't have a perfect sound system, that doesn't make 3rd person view more immersive. That makes no sense. It makes the first person imperfectly immersive, but to suggest that the same sound system with an over the shoulder, or scroll out view is more immersive is just ridiculous. It just means that you don't know the difference between "Immersive" and "preference".
Really nice job at the interview here. Addressed the main issues while maintaining professionalism. From the comments here, it sounds like you guys expect a Gilbert Godfried interview to be conducted. Both the interviewer and interviewee acknowledge that there are problems, just like grownups.
This is a great game. I'm glad it's being recognized on mmorpg.com.
Never trust a screenshot or a youtube video without a version stamp!
What a bunch of lies. That guy lies through his teeth. Wow, I really don't want to read another thing about Mortal Online ever again. Please MMORPG.com just stop writing about it. It's a dead game. Seriously.
The only major issue with Mortal Online is its development team. They at best seem to be amaturish in their implementation of patches and stability of the over all game client and server. Constant patches with the same bugs cropping up every time is getting (or for me was) getting old. Then the constant fingure pointing out of Henrik Nystrom with some of the great statements "Epic Games didnt give us the propper tools to get the job done..." That is a crock of sh*t. The fact is that the programmers at SV are at best, experienced Unreal Modders.
The games first person view is not new or original, but it is good. The use of your ears in game would be great if the sounds werent messed up 75% of the time. The idea of "someone sneaking up behind you and stabbing you in the back" is uh, at best wishful thinking, due to the damage system and the "hitpoint bubble". There is no real affects of stabbing someone in the back, no damage boost, no crippling hits, no affect on their speed, or even really stamina use. The game is in its current state a bad rip off of Mount & Blade.
As for any other features in the game, there are none. Sure they say there is player housing, and keeps and crafting. But housing is only for those who REALLY want to grind on Wisents all day for 7 days a week and dont get ganked by the random ganker. Then the houses themselves have no use, they are just that a static display with maybe a guild stone if you buy one with in game money, which means more grinding on wisents. House construction isnt deep or really exciting, its basicly gather a bunch of wood, stone, and some metal, then put it all in the house chest, and hit "R" or set up a "R" macro and go to the movies and come back 3 hours later and your house maybe done if others are helping you, or you could be dead, or the server could have crashed and your stuff in your chest is gone because the server didnt save it. The sad thing is you would think Keeps have more of a use, but no, they dont. There are far too many keep spots in the game world, and they are all useless. They are not really useful for anything other than a show of epene.
The crafting system is haphazard at best. There is no other crafting other than crafting for fighting, you make armour, and weapons, thats it. If your crafting skills, and material lores arent maxed, 100, then you will make crap, or sub par equipment which will put you well behind the pvp powercurve. Then the other problem is there is only a few useful materials in the game. If you use any metal except steal, tungsteal, cronite (Stainless steal) or Oghmium. You are also behind the power curve. Most weapons in game are made of steal or tungsteal because of the cost of refining cronite or oghmium. So then you think, perhaps other metals would be useful for armour? Nope. If you use any metal other than Cronite for your armour it will be too heavy to use. You will litterly walk everywhere, and just be a target, not that it will reduce that much damage either. You are better off using plate scales or even keeled scales from most of the animals with some iron wool as a backing, out of the hundreds of materials in game maybe a half dozen are viable.
Magic... ok, this was a after thought that was thrown in and never really completed. Unfortunately it could have been alot better and at least balanced out the game. But it was either OVERPOWERED, or UNDERPOWERED. There has never been a middle ground with game.
As far as variaty goes or the sandbox that Star Vault promised a year ago, goes. Well there isnt any, its still a long way from being done, a long way from being anything like they promised. Perhaps in a year it could be the begining of a sandbox game. But thats assuming they have no more setbacks like launch.
So much crap, so little quality.
I think we can all pretty much agree that the Devs of Perpetuum Online have done a much better job and actually delivered a very solid game. Just out of the blue. With no hype whatsoever!
10 guys that actually knew what they were doing and what is involved to make a MMO.
Starvault is missing all that. Maybe they should have started out with some FPS games to build up some experience first.
I agree 100% with you about it being a preference issue, and not really one of realism as has been mistakenly argued.
Neither perspective is perfectly realistic - there are advantages and disadvantages to each. It really does come down to personal preference, and how one views immersion.
Personally, I did not think I would like the FPV. It was definitely a departure from the other MMOs I had played. Now that I've gotten used to it, I now prefer it, and appreciate the actual difference the POV makes in game as compared to others. Given the overall design concept of the game, the FPV really fits best as a part of that concept, in my opinion.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
I tried this game on 3 vastly different rigs. It crashed within 5 minutes on 2 of them, and wouldn't even load on the 3rd.
No thanks. Make an article when the game is actually ready to be played.
You should be able to turn your head without moving in that direction, but get up from your computer, look over your shoulder and try to walk straight. Now, try to run straight. Let us know what happens.
What a bunch of fluff questions & answers. Henrick is the best at giving those type of answers, though!
He who keeps his cool best wins.
The game is doomed, break out the pooper scooper
Regardless of how people think this game has been handled until now, I don't see how it benefits the MMO world if MO dies.
People should know the actual current state of the game (in as much as that's possible) including all of the bugs and delays in content release. People should also be aware of why the small but dedicated community still plays this game.
I wouldn't be surprised if it closes soon. But I hope that's not the case.
I really hope this game survives, grows and prospers. I don't play now, but I bought the game and I will keep wishing SV and the current community all the best. I will keep following this game as long as it's around and I would love to come back in future.
Sorry but some of Henrik's answers are downright lies and contradictions. A pretty smooth release??? Thats BS!!!! Their buggy release resulted in free game time beeing given due to the server crashing every 30 odd mins and being down for so long. There are other answers henrik gives that can be challenged too.
Actually you can. And I do. Played football (american) for 4 years as a fullback, and soccer for 9 years as a right half/Midfielder and I often ran looking over a shoulder. You learn how to do it, and you can get quite good at it. Look at the wide recievers in the NFL, do you think they run in circles when they look over their shoulder for a pass, dont think so.
So much crap, so little quality.
MY favorite is the time the server crashed on Friday night at 10PM EST (-5GMT) and it stayed down till sometime saturday evening. It was down almost 20 hours because Star Vault didnt have anyone to restart the server on the weekends or during US prime times.
So much crap, so little quality.
Realism =/= Immersion
Immersion is completely different for different people and is all about how believeable the world is to a viewer. I guess you could consider it the the sum of how real a world is, but I think that would be highly dependent upon a person's preferences.