Mortal Online to launch next month

By Oli Welsh Published 17 May, 2010

Hardcore MMO ready to go live.

Swedish developer StarVault has announced a launch date for its MMO Mortal Online. The game will go live on 9th June.

That's according to the latest newsletter (via Massively), which notes that the technical problems of the beta - notably a "desync" issue - have now been resolved. Mortal Online was delayed from a planned March launch to address these problems.

Mortal Online is a sandbox fantasy MMO focusing on player interaction, with totally unrestricted player-versus-player combat and full looting. You can read more about it in our hands on report from early this year.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (23) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • KDR_11k #1 2 years ago

    Doesn't "hardcore MMORPG" just mean WoW with more grind?

  • 4thVariety #2 2 years ago

    Everybody can kill and loot you? Sounds more like Fail-Core to me and a lot of time wasted by being reset. Haven't developers learned from Too Human? If you see the same thing over and over it makes you toss the game out the window.

  • levitate #3 2 years ago

    Swedish developers doing an MMO? Oh dear oh dear...

  • Hypercube #4 2 years ago

    This sounds like the Darkfall genre of game - some people will love it, and spend hours ganking newbies and stripping their corpses of their hard-earned goods.
    Others will see it for the online fantasy-revenge simulator that it probably is.
    I wonder if they do a 10-day trial?

  • Distributor #5 2 years ago

    Was in the open-beta. The engine, ui, interface, game mechanics are utter poo. Its is almost unplayable.
    Poo....what a lovely word.

  • Bodd #6 2 years ago

    So who gets the honour of reviewing it? Ed Zitron or Quintin Smith?

  • Tyranix #7 2 years ago

    'has announced a launch date'? This is like their fifth launch date they've announced.

    This game has been pushed back and back constantly because the open beta remains completely unplayable for a variety of reasons they seem unable to fix. I was really looking forward to this game, but after these constant catastrophes I have to pass. Sad =(

  • Gylfi #8 2 years ago

    Mortal is not like Darkfall and obviously is not like WoW... that shows your ignorance.

    Unlike Darkfall, Mortal is not a "online game with full loot". The thing about Mortal is its total simulation philosophy, that is, every profession is based on scientific mechanisms taken from reality. Mortal's approach to crafting and every other action is scientific details.

    And obviously it's not just WoW with grind and without babysitting quests, because there's NO linear map progression, the whole world is open and spread with different-levelled critters.

    What you have in mind is DAOC. You have to learn the meaning of sandbox. ;)

    This game has no real grind because it has no levels, what grows is the ability itself, and the more you train the better you become at it. And the thing about sandbox games is that you are supposed to have MANY skills to train, each in a different way and connected to several activities and jobs. You simply have to forget what WoW and its clones taught you because it's misleading, it squares your brain up.
    Edited by 1 at 17/05/10 @ 13:53

  • Psi #9 2 years ago

    Played the beta in Feb. Something about it i really liked actually. The motion blur was a strange effect that was quite marmite. People I know hated it but I quite liked it.

    The game was very very very broken when I played it, mobs were not displaying correctly and I kept getting killed by ghosts basically lol.

    There was a book overkill, everything was learnt by books and it just became a book hunt followed by semi afk grinding. Watch TV while hitting a button over and over.

    Think it had eve like potential but was nowhere near ready for release. Guess publishers are giving them the push to release and it'll last a few months before the death throws kick in. Which is a shame I think this could have been an mmo I'd like to play. I don't like the linear mmo's with level grind to time sink end game. Open world and community guild forming development I always found more entertaining.

  • makariel #10 2 years ago

    @Gylfi: "every profession is based on scientific mechanisms taken from reality."

    I think you are way too loose with the term 'scientific' here. Just because something has a more realistic crafting system than WoW doesn't make it scientific.

  • levitate #11 2 years ago

    -6 just because I'm not swallowing the bullshit fed through this game?!

    Wow, never underestimate the power of the fanbois.

    Also, I still have enough with my fulltime REAL job. I don't want another one. This will be a game that only basement dwellers and/or jobless people sitting at home munching doughnuts and pushing benefits every month will progress in. The rest of us who actually HAVE a REAL life will get ganked as soon as we step our virtual toe in this so-called "sandbox".

    No matter what you idiot fanbois think, that's how it is, and you can put minus on this all you want. You still need to crawl out of the basement and get a REAL job sooner or later.

  • Sharzam #12 2 years ago

    Dear lord that sounds mental, hell it sounds like how MMOs used to be before they became popular.

    Now i wonder are they popular now because there easier or are they popular because they get more coverag.

  • Gylfi #13 2 years ago

    @levitate: wow, if someone needs to go out of the basement, you need to go out of that mental hospital.

    WoW requires WAY more playtime than any sandbox. But virtually any MMO requires a lot of time. You're blaming the whole genre.

    I choose to play sandbox MMO's only because they're more engaging, because i can decide what to do, and there's more challenge in the PvP aspects. So lemme get this straight, you are against EVERY game that requires too much thinking? Because if a person thinks too much or "give s" too much into a game, it means he has no life. Is that correct? So even tho im a professor and i own a pub/library, the fact that ii like "mature" games in which i can commit my intellectual energies, games i consider engaging like novels and essays, that means i have no life?
    Edited by 3 at 17/05/10 @ 18:08

  • Slabbathepave #14 2 years ago

    @Gylfi

    Yes..?

  • Gylfi #15 2 years ago

    waitwait,

    are you now and that other gay moron above here saying that if a person commits his mind into something that's not just office life and buying cars is a person with no life?

    I wanna see you now having the balls to say ...yeess?...
    Edited by 6 at 17/05/10 @ 19:50

  • djed #16 2 years ago

    Edited 6 times

    ...

  • unacomn #17 2 years ago

    I hope they've actually added content to the game since the beta. Apart from killing weasels to make a bow to kill buffalo to make a suit of armor to kill noobs to make the game less fun for anyone else, there was nothing to actually do in the game.

  • KillerMonkey #18 2 years ago

    @Gylfi

    Wether you have a life or not is now irrelevant. Because you are a dick.

  • Dizz #19 2 years ago

    Crafting is based on 'scientificamawhat' principles. Yea right.

    MO is shite, that's the real issue.
    Edited by 1 at 18/05/10 @ 07:01

  • Psi #20 2 years ago

    the thread is officially over when the snide handbag salesman appears.

  • Gylfi #21 2 years ago

    Have you people lost your minds? Are you insulting me just because i defend MO and try to promote it/invite people to try it?

    It's true, MO has a completely different approach to professions and skills from Darkfall, and even Ultima. Its approach is pseudo-scientific. Suffice to say that i was a slag hauler, for instance one mined a type of rock called Granum, he can extract 6 types of minerals out of the rocks he mined, each mineral "prefers" a certain type of machine, that is, if you use that one machine, you'll get more of that mineral... and it's based on scientific facts because to extract for instance COAL you need appliances that BAKE the rubble you have... or to get other types of stones you have to WASH 'em, or grind 'em... in addition to this each mineral prefers a catalyst...

    As you can see this is not the average WoW recipe/collect/combine scheme, it clearly takes the total sim route, everything in MO is meant to give an extremely "realistic" feel, that's CLEARLY their goal! IT's not advertising, you silly boys.

    Fighting skills are also employed in a scientific way, because every movement of the character needs to be learned and practiced.

    The problem is the rest of the professions are terribly incomplete and shallow. Mages for example don't have much to do, same for thieves... but i haven't said that MO is complete, i just said that MO has a total-simulation approach to all the classes, and that's undeniable.

    Plus, we NEVER get sandbox MMO's, there are like 3 overall(Dawntide), we should support 'em just because they're so rare. Do you really wanna play themepark shit for the rest of your lives? Games that babysit you from lvl 1 to lvl cap?
    Edited by 2 at 18/05/10 @ 12:32

  • djed #22 2 years ago

    That's right, we're craaaaazy!

  • Claypole #23 2 years ago

    Fuck off Gylfi theres a good chap,