Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
my seven day casual gamer review
Rekindle
Member UncommonPosts: 1,206
SV suggests that MO is the spritual successor to Ultima Online so its with that yardstick , and not the one forged from World of Warcraft that I'm trying to access this game.
Let me start off by saying that although this game probably has great potential it is certainly not ready for general consumption. Unless you're willing to be paying for a game that is basically stll in beta then I would wait a while and watch this game mature. A lot of the time people come on these forums and complain about how bad games are when in reality they are often unfinished shells of that they may become. MO is clearly one of those examples and I think it would be a shame to dismiss it wholesale.
Back in the day I was a devout UO player. But I have three kids now and a fulltime job that requires me to sleep. I am part of a demograhpic that SV should look into a bit more.
MO is actualizing one definition of sandbox. It would seem they are more interested in making a virtual world than a game. For that they have my interest. I , however, am learning lessions about what I personally actaully want and do not want from a game.
As I write this my character is dead and has been for several real hours after a very poorly planned exploration attempt. It all started yesterday. I ventured out with my character in search of a dfiferent town. I died, ran around dead for a little while, got very lost and then got a res from a priest only to find it was pitch black dark. So I spend some time in the 'netherword' trying to get my bearings with no sense of direction or indication of direction before going to bed.
Today I wake up and after having some coffee turn on MO to get my character out of this mess and guess what? Its pitch black night again.
Review concept that looks good on paper #1:
Dark nights. UO had the option back in they day but MO gets an F because UO gave players tools to deal with it. All night has been for me personally in MO is a siting on the bench time.
Review concept that looks good on paper #2:
No fast travel besides horses. I'm going to get flammed for this one but I'm trying to think ahead to a time where I want to run a dungeon with 4 guys and we're all in different locations in the game world. Then 1 guy goes link dead and the other three have overlapping and random irl issues.
lesson for me:No fast travel results in lots of idle time. UO had solutions for this it was called gate and recall.
Review concept that looks good on paper #3:
No map, no compass no sextant no directional sense. Debate it all you want but it just annoys me. I'm not saying start off with a full gps map.....but uo had a solution for this: it was called a mini map and it had a point leading north.
the UI:
Is functional but quite terrible. Its my understanding there's a new one in the pipe.
Graphics:
Mixed bag. The game is woefully unoptimized. Collision is a collasal issue, Ive drowned in buggy water many a times 
Sound:
Pretty decent.
Crafting:
I think I like it but its quite complex. It reminds me of the first gen crafting system in eq2. we'll see how that pans out but right now its intricate.
Gameplay:
Other than newbie harvesting and running around the world dead and/or at night I wouldn't really know. All of my time has been spent thus far crafting and dealing with time sinks like running around lost. I did beat on some pigs but that was about it. The world is quite devoid of fauna and wildlife but not completely empty. Finding interesting pve is a challenge.
I guess I'll wait for day time and try to make my way back to civlization. I do have enough basic skills in harvesting to put some silver together if I can ever get time to play when its day time in the game.
Overall
I doubt I'll have time to play this. I see my limited gaming time being spent dealing with the 'hardcore' time sinks instead of doing interesting things. I am however, interested in exploration and this game appears to have lots of that. If the world fills out a bit more and some more tools are given to combat wasted time then this game could fly but they have a looooooooong way to go to be able to feed this casual gamer a couple hours of joy each night.
Comments
Maybe a full moon effect could lessen the harshness of night time... dunno since I have not played since beta.
Nice review!
It took me a long time to come to this realization myself. .the reason new MMOs "suck" for me is because I just don't have the time to do what made the games great in the first place. Games like WoW have come along and made things "too easy" etc. I hate that. . yet. . maybe it is all I have time for.
It is not just the free time though. . it is the type of player. You used to have to be somewhat patient to deal with betas etc and early games. . the "all mine now" FFA PVP crowd was always there in UO but it was the smaller minority. . slowly it has grown to be the majority. The social aspect for a lot of people has become. . aha that was awesome how we ganked that guy lolz.
I have moved on. . I like MO though. . but it is still a bit of a mess. As soon as new fixes don't introduce new problems I will check it out again. I don't care about keeping up with everyone and I think it is one of the few casual friendly games out there. I know many will disagree with me on that but if you just like to explore and develop a character it can be a tonne of fun.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Thanks for sharing your journey with us. I'm sorry that the game just wasn't a match for you at this time. That's why I STRONGLY suggest potential new players check out the threads on the official forums before buying. When asking here you will often get a response such as " PvE is various and plenty", but if you read the forums you will clearly see that a huge chunk of people have run out of things to do besides PvP for the sake of PvP. Some folks love that... others, not so much. It's really a matter of personal taste.
PS: I find it interesting that we are almost in August and there haven't been any reviews by large gaming sites as opposed to a few by players like this OP. It's strange considering the big marketing campaign focused on Gamespot started in June as well... but they haven't reviewed the game yet either.
/shrug
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I wish I could find a link ot the guy who "invented" all the different kind of speghetti sauce. There was like 2 or 3 kinds. They were all boring and bland but the companies wanted to appeal to as many people as possible. Not too much meat. . not too much spice.. etc etc. He did some studies and found out that there was a large group of people who only wanted spicy . . or bland. . or celery in it or whatever. He got hired by the companies and started making "extra chunky", "extra spicy" etc. and they sold a tonne more speghetti sauce.
So. . yes I agree with that as well.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
I can be who ever I want to be with my $42.00 and freedom of speech
Having said that I appreciate the position but I have to default to the notion that i'm reviewing this game from MY perspective with my time and energy.
Point taken though.
to OP
make yourself a favour and print off a MO map. it helps A LOT in this game trust me.
One annoying feature of this game for me was the point system. you are forced to choose between being a fighter, mage, crafter, etc. wile i undestand why they did it ,to create diversity otherwise everyone would be the same with the same maxed out skills in everything, it only really ends up forcing everyone to have multiple characters. this is very immerison braking when all you hear all day is "let me log onto my crafter".
for a casuall player this means having to spend more and more time for every other alt you must skill up in order to be as usefull as most other players. if you only have 1 character you end up feeling very restricted to what you can do in a game that already has very little to do.
the most annoying thing for me was the sliding. everything that moves in this game ( except galoping horses) "slides" over the landscape. the scenery is already kinda bland and unfinished and on top of that the very little wildlife out there is constantly "sliding" over the landscape. huge immersion braker for me. i just got so sick of looking at things "slide" all over the place. not sure why it looks that way but it's just sloppy coding and it really got to me fast.
Just to make it clear I believe you c an discuss properties of games that aren't wow and suggest they have flaws without necessairly putting myself in the category of a main stream player.
There are varying definitions of what a sandbox means. Some people think having a lack of tools to make a game playable is the perfect definition of a hardcore game. Some people also think that hardcore means time sinks.
Getting stuck in water, and having a lack of things to do besides beat on each other makes not a mmo. If MO evolves to where it needs to be in order to properly call itself a spiritual successor of Ultima Online then the game won't have a problem.
I bought MO a day before release and played for the 35-days given with purchase. I too played UO; actually day of release. Your review is spot on although I'd like you to know there is an option on your paper-doll when dead that allows you to rezz at the nearest shrine so you didn't have to remain in ghost form wondering around.
My review would be more brutal than yours due to a number of other factors such as it taking 2-weeks after release those of us in NA would experience hours of server down-time and offline mode simply because SV was sleeping. It was only after the community had to rage on its forum that SV provided an actual person 24/7 to reboot server when necessary. In addition the manner with which exploits were dealt with and simple "rules" changed reduced my faith in the devs to a point of no-return. So for me personally I found myself with a game not only prematurely released but being developed by a company that lost my confidence.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
I don't agree, MO sucks, but not for the same reasons. No fast travel, no map or compass and realistic looking night is something good, and it should be like this in any MMO.
Problem in MO is by wanting to have a virtual world more than a game, they succeeded. Problem is when its no longer a game, its no longer fun.
Creating a sandbox game doesn't mean counting on players to create content.
Content is truely what this game lacks. World is too small, mobs too few, little variety, graphics and content outside of towns are almost non existent, which makes travel feel useless.
Overall, there isn't much to do in this game and you quickly get bored. You quickly are done exploring the integrity of the map, you quickly are done crafting the best weapons and armors available, and you quickly are done robbing everyone in town of anything valuable, so your bank is full of useless stuff, since your a thief you can't use those nice weapons and armor.
You can always cut wood, cut wood all day...then you realise you pay 15€ a month to cut wood in a virtual world...