Starvault, Mortal Online’s developers, have hosted a Machinima Contest, abbreviated MMC 2009, over these last few weeks. Dozens of entries were submitted. Most of them showed an impressive amount of work and skill. In fact, SV had so much trouble deciding on just three winners, the original spots for recognition, that they had to take another day just to discuss this and in the end decided to take on two more winners. The winners were announced this week and here they are. The winners of the 1st MMC, 2009.

1st Place

Zomgi – The Fall of the Paladins

The story of the two paladins who travel the beautiful lands of Myrland ending with an “epic” fight against the minotaur. SV liked thid this so much they said they were watching it over and over again in the SV office(s). They believe Zomgi truly captured the feel and spirit of Mortal Online and that this entry is a well deserved 1st place. Zomgi’s winnings include a Nvidia Geforce GTX 295, 3 beta keys, and a custom forum avatar.

2nd Place

Saladin – Awake

According to Starvault, “Saladin’s ‘tour’ through Myrland and his original take on music and editing is more than compelling. Wonderful takes and a great flow ensured him the 2nd place. Well done.” Saladin was awarded 2 beta keys, a custom forum avatar, and a user forum title.

3rd Place

Kopatc – Another Day

Starvault had this to say about Kopatch’s entry. “Kopatch’s entry tells you the story of a slave who tries to escape his captors. A very nice and very well executed RP entry. Congratulations to 3rd place.” The award for third place was 1 beta key, a custom forum avatar, and a user forum title.

4th Place

Udprod – Translucent Downfall

Starvault’s take on Uprod’s entry is the following. “Uprod’s clip starts out slow and calm but then threw us into an action packed PvP scene. Very original take on editing – we loved it.” 4th place’s award was a user forum title.

5th Place

Stewker – Reav’Fros: The Beginning

Lastly, Starvault described Stewker’s entry as such. “Another brilliant PvP/RP video. Watch how the guys from the Frostreaver Clan defend their town against some vicious raiders.” Stewker was awarded a user forum title. Ed. – This is the same Stewker as NNN’s editor.

Final words:

We want to thank all of you who took the time and made an entry video for the competition, we hope you had as much fun making them as we did watching them and we’re looking forward to the next MMC in 2010. Be sure to check out the other entries of the MMC here.

Yesterday the NDA lifted, allowing beta testers to post pictures, talk about the beta, and post videos. So the developers over at SV thought it would be good for marketing and along with showing everyone the game, to have a Machinima Contest. Earlier yesterday Maerlyn posted the rules and the contest deadline. The deadline for the contest is December 14th, with some talk of extending the deadline. The full post can be found below or in the subforum.

The Subforum can be found here, along with some videos that have already been posted. A few of them have been of the combat system, while one has been a walk through of the Morin Khur the Khurite capital. We can only wait for more videos to start poping up. So stay tune for more coverage of the Mortal Machinima Contest 2009.

Update: Thanks for Maerlyn for the update, as there is now a graphics card up for grabs for the first place winner.

Mortal Online Machinima Contest
2009

Show us what you got. Jump into the game, get your mates, make a video and upload it to youtube. Show how you build your house, create an awsome piece of armor, re-enact Braveheart, or explore the wonders of Nave – it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s cool and will impress our judges.
The contest will run from today November 23rd until noon November 30th (GMT+1). As soon as you’ve uploaded your video, make a thread in this subforum, post the link and maybe a short description of what you are going to show us. Make sure you also link back to your thread in the video description on youtube.

Rule of engagement:

• between 3-7 minutes long
• English only
• no nudity or at least blurred/blacked out (meh, youtube… whatcha gonna do)
• no copyrighted music
• you are allowed to dubb (in English)
• make sure you are not breaking youtube’s TOS

The 3 best videos will be awarded not only with the respect of the developers and the community, but also with these cool prizes. They will also be featured on mortalonline.com.
Note that the Avatars are handcrafted and approved by our 2D God, Lord Hannu himself.

Now go get crazy – it’s the Emperor’s will!

Lifting the NDA

The last months have been a real rollercoaster ride here at Star Vault, albeit a very positive one. Most of the core features planned for release have been introduced and tested in a controlled manner, and we’ve been extremely eager to see the reception each time. We are now at a point where we feel that although there is still a lot of work to do, it’s time to increase our efforts of marketing the game, and part of this process is the lifting of the NDA.

Mortal Online isn’t easy to market in a very straightforward way. The rules surrounding the game and its design are complex in their nature and sometimes very hard to explain to players with no or little previous experience of concepts such as “full-PvP”, “full-loot”, “sandbox” etc. Therefore we need the help of you, our faithful player-base, to help spread the word and reach places we can’t due to lack of resources and time. The NDA is now lifted so that you can start sharing videos, screenshots, go public with your personal sites full of information (we know they exist ), and of course, be able to freely talk about and discuss the game on our own forums as well as all over the web. This phase will end with an open, free-to-play Beta where we hope that as many players as possible will find and decide for Mortal Online.

We have aimed for Q4 and the last features we promised for launch will be there before the end of the year. Mortal Online is a niche game and we feel certain that these features will make for a great start while we continue the development. However, we would be lying if we didn’t admit we want more before official release. More polish, more tweaking, and of course, be able to walk those couple of extra miles that do make a huge difference, especially in an open-ended game where every new option is multiplied and multiplied again.

With this in mind we are approaching release, but the release date is not written in stone. Cynically speaking, the more people interested in and buying the game, the more time we will be able to invest in tweaking, polishing and even add more features before launching it. In turn, each day working on the game before release will mean more players stay thereafter. This will make the launch more stable, and a good economy base would enable us to progress the game even faster.

We hope you have enjoyed the Beta so far, thank you for your support and dedication. Now go out there and spread the word!

Regards,
the MO Dev Team

As it was monday yesterday, everyone on the MOFO were waiting for the new patch and the new patch notes. Many are disappointed, as it seems that the new patch has yet to be released according to the Mortal Online website. But the patch notes were released earlier today. The patch notes seem like they will be updated tomorrow Wednesday November 18th, and they can be found here

—— FEATURES ——
- The dynamic Skill System is now introduced, new skills to be added soon.
- The placeholder Character Creation has been updated; it’s now entering the final stage.
- First draft of the guild system is implemented.
- Introducing FFA Structures (structures available for all to build or destroy at certain points of interest). Right now several unfinished bridges can be found and built in places around Myrland.
- The Blainn of the Oghmir clade (race family) is now available for play.
- The new hair style system is implemented.
- Torches are introduced.

—— ADDITIONS & CHANGES ——
- The placeholder Player House model and upgrades have been replaced with the real ones.
- More Terrain available south of Morin-Khur.
- More Terrain available west of Moh-Ki.
- New Khurite Village, Bákti, west of Moh-Ki.
- An abandoned bandit camp with fortifications can be found south of Morin-Khur.
- Rebuilt the mount/node system, it should now be almost 100% safe (needs beta-testing to be sure).
- Reduced the damage bonus you get from mounted-combat-speed.
- Improved efficiency for creature spawning.
- Improved efficiency for server side creature movement.
- Creatures should now refrain from running out from cliffs and drops.
- Creatures now have more individual characteristics.
- Changed look of quick bar and quick tab.
- Escape now closes all windows, starting with the latest one opened.
- New Skill Window.
- Chat Window revamped.
- New spell icons.
- Guild Window added.
- Updated character creation music.
- Added sound effects in character creation.
- GUI sounds improved.
- Sound when bodies fall to the ground is lowered.
- Dogs and Wolves have got some new sounds.
- Terror Bird has received an audio overhaul.
- Optimization tweak with world ambience.
- Old world ambience replaced with new shiny one.
- Ambience added in camp outside Gaul’Kor.
- Music implemented into Mortal Online.
- House spots reduced in the area near Meduli for now.
- House spots reduced in the area west of Morin-Khur for now.
- A few new house spots added in different places around Myrland.
- Tweaks made to certain collision meshes to improve performance.
- Several Model LODs added and tweaked.
- Meduli has gotten a small facelift.
- Moh-Ki got a small facelift. *
- The rivers outside Moh-Ki now got the correct texture. *
- GUI sounds added for: clicks, money and keys. *
- GUI has received a new font. *

—— BUG FIXES ——

General:
- You should no longer, again, be able to jump while overweight; this is true for mounts too.

Creatures & AI:
- You can no longer use all the pet-commands WHILE mounted.
- Jumping while mounted no longer drains stamina from the rider.
- Mounts now also take fall damage when the rider takes fall damage.
- Dismounting and remounting will no longer restore the mounts stamina to full.
- Fleeing creatures should now update their headings to move away from the player during a chase.
- Fleeing creatures should now collide.
- Creatures should now flee again if confronted while they are returning.

Combat:
- Fixed so that you now can aim your melee-attack from mounts up or down rather than just hitting people on the side of you.
- Fixed Shield-Bash hit-detection.
- Fists will no longer sporadically block when moving around.

Skills:
- You should no longer receive skill gain in Mounted Combat when not mounted.
- You should no longer receive skill gain in Bows when shooting at houses.
- You should no longer receive skill gain in Creature Control when attacking your own pet.

Housing:
- House chests will no longer permanently lock themselves when beginning construction of a new tier.
- House chests are no longer accessible from outside the houses and through the walls.

Art & Sound:
- Fixed Collision issues with Nereb Madgulu.
- You no longer hear the “breathing”-sound when you run out of stamina while swimming, or underwater.
- Players and creatures will not be lit by the outside light when deep inside the caves/tunnels anymore.
- Several static torches removed from the caves.
- Fixed mesh errors on the Morin Khur bridge which caused some objects on it to appear transparent.
- Players should no longer get stuck behind the tower near Fabernum.
- Morin-Khur now has its own bank.
- Players should now be able to walk all the way up the doorway stairs in Meduli.
- All the missing priests have now found their way back to their statues.

Notes that get added during the day (Nov 17th) will be marked with *

With a new patch for the beta comes a new patch notes. Here is what is coming in the new beta patch, it can be found http://www.mortalonline.com/downloadbeta later today.

—— FEATURES ——

- Morin Khur, the capital city of the Khurites is now open (Please note that this is a first draft. More objects, details and optimization are to come).
- The Alvarin family consisting of the Sheevra and Veela races are now playable.
- There should now be more creatures wandering around in the world.
- “Razorback” creatures have appeared.

—— ADDITIONS & CHANGES ——

- Some ambience in Vadda has been added.
- Sidoian male has new impact sounds.
- The skills and spells backgrounds have been changed.
- Inventory window has received a makeover.
- Loading screen symbol and layout changes.
- Added a “use”-chat command that will find the closest object and then attempt use it (This includes loot and NPCs)
- New hair styles have been added.
- Added support for helmets that don’t use “helmet effect”.
- Creatures do now have natural long-time health regeneration.
- New skill added: creature control.
- Successful creature commands now reflect on the creature control skill instead of the taming skill.
- Several new creature commands including feeding and bandaging creatures are available for tamers (See the Quick Guide (http://www.mortalonline.com/files/be…_guide_0_5.rtf) for details).
- Tamed creatures do not perform any initial command after being tamed (For example, pets will no longer auto-follow after being tamed)
- Tamers will now have to maintain a level of loyalty on tamed creatures.
- Tamers now need to be within a set distance to their tamed creature to be able to give commands.
- Tamers will not gain taming skill when taming creatures they’ve previously tamed.
- A tamed creatures actions now affect its owners flag and status.
- Impact sounds with wool reimported.
- Weakspot modifiers for weapons have been reduced. Weakspot hits should now be less frequent.
- Stone materials: Have recieved an overview and have had their attributes reduced, to bring them in line with other materials.

—— BUG FIXES ——

General:

- You no longer login with full health and full mana.
- You will now login as dead if you logout as dead.
- You can no longer trigger skills while falling.
- You should now be able to correctly move using the arrow-keys.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Murder counts decreasing if you weren’t flagged as a murderer.
- Fixed so that the “loot”-chat command will find the closest loot rather than “any” loot.
- Fixed an issue that made it impossible to call guards when someone logged into a guard zone.
- Fixed a bug that made players get Murder counts even if it was a really long time since they attacked someone.
- Fixed a timer for chat-commands preventing people from sending out to many commands.
- Destroying items now properly updates your weight.
- Equipping an item from the bank no longer causes the previously equipped item to disappear if you reequip it.
- You should now see weapon durability in the tool-tip when a weapon is equipped.
- Beta suicide now clears your assault list (you can no longer give Murder counts to other players by suiciding).
- Holding down CTRL should no longer prevent you from moving forward or strafing left.
- Multiple instances of one loot bag are no longer possible to be looted.
- Looting underwater should work as intended.
- Line of Sight should now work properly and be cut down to 90 degrees, it was previously 180 degrees.

Creatures & AI:

- The Minotaur’s ability to turn is now limited while it’s charging.
- Players being missed by the Minotaur’s attacks will now get messages about this.
- Roaming creatures should now less often wander into obstacles.
- Creatures in open areas should now wait longer in-between their movements.
- Some important fixes for creatures target handling.
- Numerous stability and performance fixes for the AI.
- There was a bug where players could tame other logged out players tamed creatures. This is now fixed so that tamed creatures cannot be tamed even though their owner is offline.
- Creature name printouts are now fixed, they should output correct names.
- When abandoned, creatures will now go back to their native creature speed.
- Creatures did sometimes go inactive after one battle. This should be fixed.

Combat:

- ALL melee weapons should now take a bit longer to swing.
- Fixed broken block calculation for blocking.
- Reduced a lot of shield/blocking/stamina-drain variables.
- You can no longer start swings while stunned.

- Left swings now hits as intended.
- Line of sight checks for projectiles and magic now work as intended.
- Getting hit by an arrow while in mercy mode will no longer put you out of mercy mode with full health.
- Projectiles should no longer get stuck in a spin around their targets.

Magic:

- Fixed so that you no longer get “Your mind grew too tired to keep your spell.” when dead.
- You can now click spells to pre-cast and release them. Previously you were only able to pre-cast.
- Healing your pet will no longer damage/kill it.
- Spells should no longer start to auto fizzle after some time of casting.
- Self targeted spells should now properly target yourself even with its graphical effect.
- Attempting to heal a target that isCorrupted will now correctly print that the heal had no effect on its target, not on its caster.

Skills:

- You will no longer enter mercy-mode when resting just after getting up from mercy-mode.
- There should be no more trees or mining nodes that can’t be lumber jacked or mined.

Vendors:

- Vendor inventory should no longer be “off by one”.
- The interaction distance to npcs has been tweaked; you should not be able to be too far away from them now when interacting.
- Casting Purify on npcs should no longer give misleading messages.

Crafting:

- Crafting armor with Ironwool now works as intended.
- Tindremic Messing is now useable for shields as intended.
- Refining a Pig Carcass should no longer give you a message that you are processing ore.
- “Processing ore” message changed to “Processing material”.
- Tooltips fixed for Shields and Clubs.

Art & Sound:

- Paper doll now correctly shows your face.
- Character-creation will no longer reset animations each time you change a feature.
- Added even more support for different footstep sounds on materials.
- Fixed a bug that made people who were in combat-mode when you login NOT play combat-animations.
- You should no longer see your character attempting to unsheathe weapons if you press ‘Z’ while resting.
- Weapon shadows should no longer be as visible through your avatar shadow as they previously were. (It might still look odd, but that is an UE3 problem we can’t address).
- Rocks around the world have become proper rocks and won’t let you walk through them.
- Combat animations should now trigger as intended.
- Wisents and Pigs now have accurate footstep sounds.
- All animal creatures have got accurate attenuation.
- Physical materials have been changed on lots of objects in the world, making them play the proper footstep sounds.
- Ambience reimported in Fabernum.
- Fixed a bug that caused the hair to turn black when equipping armor.
- Fixed so that the right arm of characters in character-creation is displayed correctly.
- Arrow release attenuation fixed.

UI:

- UI-debugging is now disabled (GUI/Mouse performance increase).
- Closing the spell book should no longer close other windows.
- Vendor window will no longer overlap other windows.

Misc:

- Fixed typo in murder count message.
- A lot of other minor bug fixes.