Tag: Henrik Nystrom

Star Vault Reports 50% Increase In Sales


Star Vault could use some good news going for it. After the web hearing just a few days ago where Henrik announced that only five permanent employees remain with the rest filled in by contractors. In an announcement on Aktie Torget, Star Vault has reported an increased interest in Mortal Online. Sales of licenses have increased 50%, and CEO Henrik Nystrom has made the following statement:

“We have the last month, noted a number of interesting positive trends regarding nyköp, gambling activity and to some extent, extensions of subscriptions. Game Activity – players that typically have been logged on Mortal Online per day – has increased significantly by about 83 percent and is an indication that players enjoy the game. The increased activity also makes the game more fun, more vibrant and there are naturally pleased with the increased number nyköp and – albeit marginally – increased subscription renewals.

The positive trend can be explained with our upgrade of the so-called Territory Control, which I think many players have been curious to try while waiting for our next expansion, “The Awakening”. It’s been a good start to 2012 and now we are working on with our future expansion, “The Awakening” that we expect to add further appeal to Mortal Online. “

You can find the entire (short) announcement below.

(Source: Aktie Torget Exchange)

Star Vault Has 5 Employees, Says Henrik At Web Hearing


Sweden’s Aktie Torget Exchange has posted a web hearing with Star Vault CEO Henrik Nystrom, of which you can find the full translated version below. For the sake of brevity, I have compiled some of the more important points.

If you didn’t catch Star Vault’s Q3 2011 finances, the company reported that they had reduced staff without offering an exact figure. In the first question of the hearing, Henrik directly addresses this topic:

5 people are employed by Star Vault, then we have a team that works in the form of project employment/freelance when there is a need for it.

As he has done before, Henrik discusses why the game has faced its population issues, particularly with regard to the experience new players have upon joining, that the existing community must be helpful to new players who seek assistance, otherwise they may not return.

When asked about how long he expects Mortal Online to survive, Henrik likened the game to MMOs that have survived for over a decade. He also notes that Star Vault expects Mortal Online to break even and start profiting in mid 2012. Publishing with LeKool to bring Mortal Online to China should result in some results this summer.

Star Vault’s long term goal is 50,000 subscribers, a goal Henrik sees as reasonable. The average demographic for Mortal Online is the 18-20 male crowd.

(Source: Aktie Torget Exchange)

Thanks to Slapshot1188 for the tip.

Mortal Online: Facebook Discount, Expansion Coming


We have been silent for some time now while working very hard on our first expansion titled Dawn, and we now feel ready to reveal its contents. The expansion will be released in April, and it will not cost anything, all you need is an active subscription.

Mortal Online has gone through some…troubles in its short less-than-a-year on the market. Since its launch last June, the team over at Star Vault have had to deal with ongoing lag and server stability issues, the accidental deletion of an entire city, the realization that their combat system may be unfeasible, a few publicized exaggerations regarding patches, not to mention that the game is still not profiting, and Star Vault is selling stock for five cents a share. Given this, any progress is worth publishing for the fledgling developer, and Star Vault wants nothing more than to make the upcoming expansion go smoothly.

To start, finally a followup on the mount update I wrote about last month. With the new mount system, each horse will carry its own unique stats, as well as the slots to equip with new saddles, armor, headpieces, and horseshoes. By customizing the horse, players will increase their speed, defense, and storage capacity. There are a lot more updates to be seen in the upcoming expansion, which can be read here.

More importantly, however, is the announcement in this month’s newsletter that players will be able to link their Facebook profile with their Mortal Online account, and have updates sent to their wall based on what they do in-game. Why link? Star Vault is offering a discount to your subscription if you do. I do not have any information currently regarding how much the discount is, however I will post more information in the coming month.

In addition, Star Vault is looking to release a system reminiscent of World of Warcraft’s Armory, allowing players to view real-time status updates on the guild territory, wars, and characters. Of course, being a PvP-centric game, displaying your information will be completely optional.

Finally, it appears that Star Vault is making progress on the server stability end of things, recording a 50 hour uptime before the servers were brought down for maintenance. This will surely be a delight to players.

More on Mortal Online as it appears.

Mortal Online: Revolutionizing Mounts In MMOs!


Seeing Henrik Nystrom post on the Mortal Online always reminds me of watching a kid describing his favorite super hero, just because I can’t read Henrik’s description of an impending update and not think “and then Superman flies and, and everyone is like ‘whoa,’ and then he grabs a car with his super strength and he smashes the bad guy like POW, BAM, POW!”

Today’s post comes from the Mortal Online forums, where Henrik has an announcement about an upcoming mount update:

Revolutionize mounts in MMOs you say? Why, that would be even better than an update that was just like Mortal Online 2, or as one deleted post put it:

Technically, MasterCrafter (if that is your real username), you left out the part where Henrik blames Epic Games. Although, if the update is as revolutionary to Mortal Online as Henrik says it is, the mounts may have the power to keep the server running online for more than ten concurrent hours without crashing.

More on Mortal Online, and what is and is not the fault of Epic China, as it appears.

Buy Star Vault Stock! Only 5 Cents A Share!


Let's not lose our heads over this.

Mortal Online has been creeping its way towards success since its launch last year, and not unlike the mass of polyps in my face, removing the problems is going to require a lot of work, time, and perhaps some major surgery. As it stands, however, Star Vault has taken the “no publicity is better than bad publicity” approach, one that I myself have encouraged and several other MMOs featured here are currently using, and Henrik Nystrom is holding off on advertising Mortal Online until the game reaches a marketable state.

Unfortunately, development doesn’t pay the bills, and likely not even Henrik can continue using the family coffers forever. Star Vault, on a Swedish trading website, announced that 9.9 million Class B shares will go up for sale for .36 SEK each, a figure which rounds to about 5 cents USD per share. I don’t think it takes an expert to know that those are extraordinarily low stock prices.

Hopefully this influx of cash will mean faster development toward that era of marketability that Star Vault so greatly desires and likely needs at this point. I mean, it has to get worse before it can get better, right?

More on Mortal Online as it appears.

Isn't Reality A Bitch, Henrik?


Credit goes to Scream112 on the Mortal Online forums for the screenshot.

Any game, and really any concept in any medium, follows the same path. At the early stages, the developers dream up all kinds of stuff they want their players to be able to do in their world. Drunken bar brawls? Awesome! Skill based combat with no lag on an MMO? Brilliant! Full PvP with no restrictions? Blockbuster!

Eventually, either before or after release, the developer hits a brick wall and like any decent sinking ship, some of the furniture must be thrown overboard to keep stable. Thinking players would protect one another in cities, negating the need for NPC guards? Didn’t happen. Player owned housing non-instanced? Not possible under your engine. Epic sword of goat-slaying? Wasn’t as overpowered before someone decided to add half-goat half-human as a player race. Holding a Cataclysm style event? The established community would never accept it.

This week, Star Vault is coming to that basic understanding of reality by publicly announcing their plans to not only have their cake, but preserve it until a later time in which they may eat it. In this case, Star Vault’s own Henrik Nystrom has posted a new thread on the official forums detailing plans for the server lag. He stresses that this is not the desync we once knew, that has been eradicated. This lag, on the other hand, has to do with the way movement and attacks are predicted on the server’s end, namely that the server is not updating said figures fast enough (at least that’s what I got out of it).

On one hand, it appears that this update is going to be a last-ditch effort to fix the lag before less desirable updates have to be considered, either through localizing servers or completely changing the combat so that the current hardware can handle the combat.

“If this doesn’t bring us to an “acceptable” level when it comes to real time combat we may be forced at looking into localizing servers, which we really want to avoid at all means, or we simply have to look at “nerfing” the complex way of fighting, which of course is something we want to avoid.”

This is good news, and hopefully this effort by Star Vault to stamp out desync, or whatever term they call it, will go by without having to resort to splitting up an already small community, or changing the charm that Mortal Online holds to many of its players.

Mortal Online is one of those games I can’t wait to try…when it is finished and as lag free as they’re going to get it. Until then, I’m a college student with 12 grand in college loans, another 6 in my car, and another 15 grand on the way over the next two years for even more collegical goodness. I don’t have any disposable income.

Isn’t Reality A Bitch, Henrik?


Credit goes to Scream112 on the Mortal Online forums for the screenshot.

Any game, and really any concept in any medium, follows the same path. At the early stages, the developers dream up all kinds of stuff they want their players to be able to do in their world. Drunken bar brawls? Awesome! Skill based combat with no lag on an MMO? Brilliant! Full PvP with no restrictions? Blockbuster!

Eventually, either before or after release, the developer hits a brick wall and like any decent sinking ship, some of the furniture must be thrown overboard to keep stable. Thinking players would protect one another in cities, negating the need for NPC guards? Didn’t happen. Player owned housing non-instanced? Not possible under your engine. Epic sword of goat-slaying? Wasn’t as overpowered before someone decided to add half-goat half-human as a player race. Holding a Cataclysm style event? The established community would never accept it.

This week, Star Vault is coming to that basic understanding of reality by publicly announcing their plans to not only have their cake, but preserve it until a later time in which they may eat it. In this case, Star Vault’s own Henrik Nystrom has posted a new thread on the official forums detailing plans for the server lag. He stresses that this is not the desync we once knew, that has been eradicated. This lag, on the other hand, has to do with the way movement and attacks are predicted on the server’s end, namely that the server is not updating said figures fast enough (at least that’s what I got out of it).

On one hand, it appears that this update is going to be a last-ditch effort to fix the lag before less desirable updates have to be considered, either through localizing servers or completely changing the combat so that the current hardware can handle the combat.

“If this doesn’t bring us to an “acceptable” level when it comes to real time combat we may be forced at looking into localizing servers, which we really want to avoid at all means, or we simply have to look at “nerfing” the complex way of fighting, which of course is something we want to avoid.”

This is good news, and hopefully this effort by Star Vault to stamp out desync, or whatever term they call it, will go by without having to resort to splitting up an already small community, or changing the charm that Mortal Online holds to many of its players.

Mortal Online is one of those games I can’t wait to try…when it is finished and as lag free as they’re going to get it. Until then, I’m a college student with 12 grand in college loans, another 6 in my car, and another 15 grand on the way over the next two years for even more collegical goodness. I don’t have any disposable income.