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gurugeorge

Just trying the trial - which has literally been one, so far. Just downloading the damn thing was a fiasco, and at the moment I can hardly play it because of the current problems (keep getting disconnected like every half hour).

Having said that, the art design and lore are nice, so far, the music is interesting (not sure whether it's really crap or really brilliant atm tbh, but it's intriguing).  Just the feel of wandering around without a clue is refreshing

What I love most about it, though, is how spartan it is in terms of amenities and hand-holding.  It makes a real change from all the spoonfeeding. 

One might suppose the spartanness is all part of the plan, and to an extent it must be, I think. However, I'm sure the devs and everyone would love to have a few more QOL things, at the very least.  But I think they're just struggling to keep the game up, frankly.

The phrase "bitten off more than they can chew" comes to mind.

And yet I can't find it in my heart to do anything other than cheer them on and wish them well (even though I probably won't be able to go so far as financially supporting them, although I probably would if I were a bit more well-off).  The vision is great; it's just that they need to somehow up their game and get some experienced MMO people and coding geniuses on board.  Maybe someone who's managed an MMO team before?  And maybe some networking genius.

The guy who invented the Cryptic engine is available atm AFAIK.  An experienced guy like that (the Cryptic engine has always reallly impressed me - full 3-d movement with combat, and all that customization, in 2004?  Amazing).  The help of someone like that might be just what they need, someone super-experienced and super-brilliant.

The feel of the whole thing is that they're great at what they do, but they've somehow just underestimated just how vast a job, and how difficult it is to do what they want to do.

Dunno, can't really attribute it to maliciousness and money-grabbing because a lot of love has obviously gone into it.

gurugeorge

OK, managed to get some playtime in, between the disconnects. 

First off, I don't like first person perspective much.  The trouble is, audio isn't good enough in games yet to mimic the sense of situational awareness we have of what's around us; nor is there any way to mimic in-game the way we unconsciously look around to give ourselves a sense of situational awareness.

Hence, 3rd person is IMHO usually more immersive, except when you are in a situation where you are either afraid (corridor shooter) or have an adrenaline rush (normal fps), or any other occasions when you can expect tunnel vision and a slight decrease in situational awareness.

Having gotten that off my chest, I do like the art design and I've decided I do like the music after all

Spent some time moseying down through Toxai, gotten a few of the laughably-termed "tutorials" (basically a guy telling you what you could have already guessed, with no real purpose for them being there except as a standing, in-game help button to remind you). 

UI is a bit fiddly but functions more or less.  Still haven't quite figured out the mystery of the sequence to sheathe and unsheathe things.  I'm guessing you have to "put away" a thing on its slot before being able to "equip" another thing from another slot?  This really needs to be explained.

Managed to kill a few weasels and rabbits! (poor things - well, I guess they're just vermin).

Saw the prices of skillbooks, they seem way beyond my reach at the moment, the cheapest is 10 something that looks like gold, that I haven't got, although the something I've got looks like 1/100th of a silver thing I haven't got, so if 1 gold = 100 silver I'm going to have to kill a lot of weasels to even get the cheapest skill books!

But the comical thing is I may be totally misunderstanding what's going on, because there's no actual information about it.

Now this is the funny thing about sandbox games.  I think EVE works very well as a sandbox because the paradigm of information "at your fingertips" fits with a s-f context.  OTOH in a game like this, the devs seem to deliberately be keeping you in the dark - perhaps hoping for the community to build knowledge and share it, hence emphasising the social aspect.  Not sure if that will work as well as a system where you have information at your fingertips.  OTOH you could do more with NPCs to provide that.

Also, it's not very immersively realistic - unless you were a complete amnesiac, you would have some basic knowledge about the world, things wouldn't be a total mystery.

That's the thing about this game design model - making things a total mystery at the beginning, having this all-inclusive "fog of war" is quite immersive, but it's a strange kind of immersion in a sort of limbo land.  I'd much rather MMOs started you off as moderately accomplished at whatever you are doing, and you just got better so you could fight really difficult monsters.  It just seems more realistic that way unless you're doing the amnesiac trope (like the Oblivion startup, for example).

Another thing: the world is pretty barren.  Toxai is supposed to be some sort of fishing village, I gather, but it's not got any sense of being an alive place.  It's just this prettily-designed empty area with a few scattered NPCs, with not much information to give you, standing around like pillocks.

But for all that, one keeps going back to it, one does want to unravel the mystery, and one puts up with the little bits of unrealism that seem to go along with the way the mystery is presented and sustained.

ange10

toxai doesnt play a important role expect it good location for noobs to start out, you want to at least get some combat skills then fight something stronger then a weasel, also I suggest going to the southern towns, much more nicer area, then the north which is quite violent because of red towns etc.

toxai is like deserted compared to others since theres only (one real way in) not countering the swim to the jungle to toxai (don't do it, takes like an hour :P) as MK is closer and abit populated, but I think only slags and steppe tamers really go to that town.

fab is noobville which gets attacked by reds all the time, stay away, it used to be ok, but its like the town that gets the highest amount of attackers.

vadda is scumville stay away (most people started in vadda ) well I did, it was a ok place, but way 2 many thiefs, and same with meduli, but meduli is quite a good trading town but Bakti and moh ki are where the heart of the community of blues are at.

good trade traffic with butchers and tamers in bakti becasue of the jungle, make alot of money there.

you see the carcass, you need to sell that to a player/butcher, but there are ways to get money but killing creatures, you need to sell the carcass to a butcher.

the server is not so good, but recently its been real bad, and they are trying to fix it.

100 copper= 1 silver= 100 sliver= 1 gold ...you can get like 4 gold in like 15mins average with skilled guy, but again u need a butcher.

being kinda new, your gunna need to build relationships wtih local traders/merchants which is kinda easy.

You don't really need to be a guild, i was solo for a few months, and I am in a guild now, but i still do most of my trade with other mechants/traders which is new story for me, since mostly when i play games with crafting, it was just within the guilds that trade circulated.

Also do not go attacking reds just because they are red, still be wary but if you see a red around a town by himself , chances are hes a freindly red, unless hes obvioulsy like attacking people, also watch out for thiefs everywhere and push them constantly if they are hidden crinimal, they go grey then call guard in chat and they die, also if you see a grey dude, near butcher tables in bakti, thats just tamers slaughtering animals so its kinda pointless to guard people, also guarding randomly will get you a negative repuation since every town kinda has its regulars.

Enjoy your stay at mortal online

Princereaper , if you come to bakti, i will help  you out, (kurozuka,repabutch,kurozukka are my character names)

gurugeorge

Thanks for the tips!

mmoguy43

Starting at Toxai I found that picking up salt crystals along the beach(oceanside) was fairly profitable. I got about 2000c in not much time. Near there you can buy fishing supplies. I tried fishing out but I'm guessing you need bait to actually catch anything which I don't know how to get.