We are proud of what we have achieved with Mortal, a game with little in the way of close competition. But technology has moved on and the time has come to upgrade to UE4.with much improved graphics, inclusive vr compatibility and many other advanced features. Doing this will create what is in part a new game. And this makes this a good time to restate our vision for what we want Mortal to be.
We plan to create another world, for adventure and living another life. That this world will be internally consistent and logical, 'realistic' if not in many ways like reality! There will be full pvp and full loot. But this is not because we are creating a combat simulator. This is a reasonable part of the life of the world and we do not plan for pvp to be all or even the most important part of what the game has to offer. We plan to make the game world much larger than it was before to make exploration and discovery more meaningful and to add a greater strategic element to conflict.
We have always been tough on cheating, but it is not enough that justice be done, it must be seen to be done. We plan to name and shame banned characters to improve confidence.
We also plan to continue our policy of justice for players. We will not allow any element of 'pay to win' to enter our game. Fair play will always be our most important guiding principle. Wherever possible we will maintain the rules of the game unchanged, adding content and improvements but letting balance be decided in game. People who succeed will be allowed the fruits of their success. Similarly this is not an entirely new game and people who achieved wealth and success in Mortal will find that transferred to the new game in a new form. Similarly people who paid for lifetime subscriptions to Mortal will see them continue with it's successor.
We would like to restrict all players to one character and one account. We originally wanted to do that, and we will look again into whether this can be done in the new game. This preserves the mystery and magic. If you want to go to far lands you will have to travel there, not just buy a new character. We feel that multiple characters are a version of pay to win and hope to be able to do away with it. Similarly we will remove the free to play element from Mortal 2.
This involved rework of our skill system to fit one char per account.
The lore of the world is a vital part of our game. We plan to publish more and make sure that it is reflected in the layout and nature of the world. Lore is not just a layer of icing on the cake, it is the core of what the world is and why things are as they are.
There will be patches added to MO as we play it today which will move over to MO2 as well. So we will continue to support MO until MO2 goes live.
More info about this step later on.