The balance of Mortal Online’s open-PvP relies heavily on its flagging system. Each player and NPC (Non-Player Characters, Creatures etc) in the game has a flag (color) that is visible to you when you highlight or target them. The color will tell you some basic facts about that player, for instance if it’s “ok” to attack him/her or not, although you will never be forbidden to do so by the system because of the full pvp. You too have a flag of course, visible to yourself at all times.

Getting to know the basics of the flagging system is easy when playing the game, but unfortunately rather complex to describe. However, when you first start playing, all you need to know is:

 Neutral/Blue players are innocent (well, as innocent as they get) and it’s not ok for you to damage them. You may not steal from them, or cast suspicious spells on them either. Nor poison them. If you do so, you become Allowed/Grey. Kill enough of them and you will eventually be flagged as a Murderer/Red.

Allowed/Gray players have behaved badly in some way against you or someone else in the last few minutes, meaning you can attack them without becoming Grey for everybody else. But

Warning, Wall of interesting text ahead :)

(click me)

Children of the Steppe

The Myrland steppe is a vast area in the heart of Myrland that borders to the cold Talus Mountains to the north and to the tropical March Jungles in the south. They are barren lands where it hardly ever rains, with a very poor soil and on occasions a high salinity level where only very resistant vegetation can survive. Besides, they are generally lands where salty lagoons form because the accumulated water cannot drain into the sea. Travelling Myrland on foot is not an option due to the vast distances and scarce civilization. Also, the predators are in general fast and adapted to stalk their prey to exhaustion. Among others a number of wolf species, giant wolverines, terror birds and the occasional sabretooth are constantly on the watch for a suitable prey. Though most of the animals on the steppe are mammals or invertebrates, a great number of birds frequent the environment. Of the former, the most abundantly present are rodents, foxes, deer, horses, wisent and mammoths. The animals that inhabit the salty bodies of water are amphibious such as frogs, lizards and salamanders, which feed off the large variety

This month we want to see the community contribute with a creative and interesting creature that fits the Mortal Online universe. As inspiration we have added some new Concept Art. The winning creature will be included in the Mortal Online world.

Read about the contest

Star Vault recently got back from our booth at one of the world’s largest marketing events for games, the Leipzig Game Convention, Germany. The main reason for the trip was to step up our marketing efforts and spread the word about Mortal Online.

The feedback on what was shown in our booth was very positive. A number of Mortal Online followers from our online forum showed up to visit us, and we got to meet a lot of new forum candidates and potential players. We also did quite a few interviews for magazines, radio, TV and web, both on- and offline. What surprised us most was the number of publishers interested in Mortal Online, and although we are still planning to release the game ourselves we look forward to have a closer look at their different offers.

All in all, the trip was over our expectations, but we’re happy to back home to continue working on the game.

For pictures of the Mortal Online booth, check out our new media section here

Interview with the CEO at place:

http://www.mmoszene.de/index.php?/MMO-News/Interview-mit-Henrik-Nystrom-von-Starvault-AB

The Forums!

Hoping to be on the list for the most anticipated MMO here soon ;o)