Tag: Mortal Online

Star Vault Interim 2011 Report


I apologize for the poor translation. Finances have been translated to USD using rates provided by Google and accurate as of January 25, 2012. All of this information was sourced via official financial documents translated through Google translator. You can view the original document here.

Star Vault has released its combination Q4 and 2011 Interim Report, showing a decrease in subscriptions and a continued drop in profit. In addition, the company has announced an unspecified number of layoffs.

Q4 2011 Points of Interest:
Net Sales: $82,661 (from $103,515 in Q3)
Profit after Finances: $-123,119 (from $-105,623 in Q3)

Subscriber numbers were down in Q4 compared to Q3 (which saw a jump in sales but lull in subscribers). Star Vault attributes this to the game being difficult to new players. The number of forum members increased by about 600.

Interim 2011:
Net Sales: $408812 USD
Profit after financial items: $-505,751

Earlier in 2011, Star Vault voted for the sale of 9.9 million shares, bringing in $528,000 (before transaction fees) to repay a loan. In June, Star Vault announced partnership with LeKool for publishing Mortal Online in China.

In order to reduce costs, Star Vault has reduced its number of employees.

Star Vault has over the past year undergone some changes and we have among other things, forced to revise the previous target to achieve breakeven in 2011. One reason for this was to Mortal Online has not adhered to the players’ high expectations and that Star Vaults cost base has been too great. We have learned lessons from what happened during the journey and is working hard to develop the game in the right direction. One change we have implemented to reduce the above cost base is above all that we have reduced the number of employees and instead will make use of consultants as necessary.

With the release of Dawn and Territory Control expansions, Star Vault hopes to make Mortal Online the most challenging PvP game.

And the moment that we were all waiting for, Henrik’s statement on the state of the game.

With our current cost structure of the Board believes that we are very close to achieving break-even, a goal we hope to achieve during the second quarter of 2012. We have a strong belief in Mortal Online, and still see great opportunities in the market we are.

Star Vault Summons League of Extraordinary Investors For Meeting


The Board proposes that the AGM resolve in order to enable the Board to provide the company with working capital to authorize the Board, during the period until the next AGM, to decide on the issue of a maximum a number of shares and / or convertible bonds and / or warrants entitling to convert to each new subscription, or involves the issuance of a maximum a number of shares to an amount not to exceed 2 million…

Looking to buy stock in Star Vault? They are looking to sell. Announced in an investor’s email, Star Vault will be holding a meeting on January 13th to discuss and vote on the sale of up to 2 million more stocks in order to acquire more “working capital.” The board notes the obvious downside of issuing these stocks, namely that it will dilute the value for existing stockholders.

The measure requires two thirds of the board to vote yes before the new stocks can be sold.

(Source: Translated Release)

Star Vault Q3 Financial Reports


Star Vault today released their third quarterly report for 2011, and the results are rather similar to last quarter. For the first time, Star Vault has reported a loss in subscribers, even though sales of the game client itself are up. In the usual manner, I’ve included the fun facts for you all to enjoy. Do bear in mind that there may be some inconsistencies and poor grammar, as my source is the poor translation of Google from a Swedish document.

  • Star Vault’s Q3 net sales amounted to 706,404 SEK, but the company’s net earnings remains in the red (-720,790 SEK)
  • Subscriber numbers declined in the third quarter, which Star Vault attributes to the delay of Territory Control.
  • Sales of the game itself increased in Q3 over Q2.
  • Territory Control hopes to bring in more players who “really take gaming seriously.” (their words, not mine)
  • Star Vault is still working with OnLegends to bring Mortal Online to a wider audience.
  • Star Vault’s gross profit for the first nine months was 4.3 million SEK ($622 thousand USD).
  • Administrative Expenses ran up 1.3 million while research and development gobbled up 2.1 million.

And because you were waiting for this part of the quarterly update:

Program to reduce our costs are developing well and we expect and that the outcome of this will reflected fully in January 2012. With our current cost structure, we consider that further approximately 500 players to achieve break-even, a goal that we are due to the delay of further expansion expected to achieve first quarter of 2012.

And an interesting note on why Star Vault has been in the red:

In June 2011 signed an agreement with Star Vault LeKool (Chinese publisher) when the fast-growing gaming market for English-language games in China is one such market that the company could not reach before. Along with LeKool open this opportunity up and Mortal Online expands thus into this interesting market. The business model means that the cost of operation increases to a much lower rate than revenues, when number of players increases. Star Vault will continually monitor price developments in the industry to offer players market prices. In the longer term, the Star Vault to develop and sell new games.

CCP Responds To Star Vault’s Terms of Service


As a small website operator, I’m always interested in seeing what kind of overwhelming response can be generated when someone far more popular than me links to my story. Last week, I brought up the rather humorous story of Mortal Online’s Terms of Service being stripped directly from Eve Online’s, down to the accidentally placed “Eve Online” (seen above). Massively ran with the story and, unlike myself, they are popular enough to get a joking response out of CCP:

We shot them (the company that makes it) this message.

—
Star Vault:

We here at CCP couldn’t help but notice that our expert wordsmithing, legal poetry and cunning turns of phrase have been emulated with sincerest flattery by your technical writing and/or legal staff. In fact, ardent fans of our EULA have surfaced, themselves noticing your homage to our work. See their assessment here:http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/09/mortal-online-plagiarizes-eve-onlines-terms-of-service/

EVE Online is a notoriously dangerous universe. So we have to caution you — in fact, we demand that you don’t follow our footsteps or use our copyrighted work. After all, internet spaceships are serious business, so probably best to keep our internet spaceship business out of your business language. Please stop using our legal agreements, and kindly remove our name from your website.

—
What are people going to copy next… our spreadsheets?!

CCP Responds To Star Vault's Terms of Service


As a small website operator, I’m always interested in seeing what kind of overwhelming response can be generated when someone far more popular than me links to my story. Last week, I brought up the rather humorous story of Mortal Online’s Terms of Service being stripped directly from Eve Online’s, down to the accidentally placed “Eve Online” (seen above). Massively ran with the story and, unlike myself, they are popular enough to get a joking response out of CCP:

We shot them (the company that makes it) this message.

—
Star Vault:

We here at CCP couldn’t help but notice that our expert wordsmithing, legal poetry and cunning turns of phrase have been emulated with sincerest flattery by your technical writing and/or legal staff. In fact, ardent fans of our EULA have surfaced, themselves noticing your homage to our work. See their assessment here:http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/09/mortal-online-plagiarizes-eve-onlines-terms-of-service/

EVE Online is a notoriously dangerous universe. So we have to caution you — in fact, we demand that you don’t follow our footsteps or use our copyrighted work. After all, internet spaceships are serious business, so probably best to keep our internet spaceship business out of your business language. Please stop using our legal agreements, and kindly remove our name from your website.

—
What are people going to copy next… our spreadsheets?!

Star Vault Crosses Games: Bans Mortal Online Rulebreakers In Eve Online?


The above is a screenshot of the Mortal Online terms of service. You’ll notice that failure to abide by the rules presented in the terms of service (not pictured) will not entitle you to a refund for any fees paid for the use of the Eve Online client, servers, or website, and you will forfeit any unused game time. I sincerely hope Star Vault didn’t pay a lawyer to draft up their terms of service, because it appears to be ripped directly, with a little rearranging, of the Eve Online terms of service.

The Eve Online terms of service can be found here, and the Mortal Online PDF here. Since this has apparently been in the game since launch, does this mean anyone banned from Mortal Online for breaking the rules can fight that they were not punished properly according to the terms of service?

Star Vault has updated their terms of service to ban players from the correct game, and no doubt myself from any future press releases.

Star Vault Publishes Q2 2011 Finances


Star Vault has published their results for the second quarter of 2011. You can read the report in its native Swedish, or poorly translated by Google. For the sake of convenience, I will post some of the more important information here:

  • Mortal Online has seen an increase in subscriptions and box purchases since Q1.
  • In order to reduce costs, the board of directors has cancelled the liquidity guarantee.
  • According to Henrik Nystrom, a rights issue resulted in enough income to pay off earlier loans.
  • Mortal Online needs 500 more subscribers to achieve “break-even.”
  • Star Vault has partnered with Lekool to publish Mortal Online in Asia (we already knew that)
Although Mortal Online is still not breaking even, Star Vault continues to inch toward that goal with what, despite what some people would like you to believe, appears to be growing in terms of sales and subscribers. Who knows? Mortal Online could be a real surprise comeback.

Mortal Online Secures A Publisher!


To be a fly on the wall of the Star Vault offices. Not too long ago, I uploaded a comment by Henrik Nystrom that Star Vault was receiving a large quantity of offers to publish, and even buy Mortal Online from the developer. With the recent announcement that the Unreal 3 MMO will be published in Asia, Star Vault has announced a marketing deal with OnLegends to publish the game worldwide. Oddly enough, the article makes the claim that Mortal Online has attracted over 170 thousand players. Hopefully this partnership will bring forward some much needed attention to Mortal Online.

OnLegends will be showing off Mortal Online at Gamescom, with a hint at that dirty c-word: Console.

“We strongly believe that Mortal Online can play an important future role on both PC and console MMO markets and we expect Mortal to be one of the trendsetting next gen titles.”

That Is Real Roleplaying: A Mortal Online Moment


Here at MMO Fallout, I’ve always said that most of my issues with sandbox games stem from a lack of content. When a company puts out a sandbox title, you have the option of being a crafter or a fighter, and often the choices are a toss up between pressing a button for hours on end or joining a group and kicking some serious ass. So you can see why such games generally devolve into systems where fighting is the main staple, and resource gathering is something done by macros through the safety of your guild.

The story I want to bring up today comes from BubbaJones on the Mortal Online forums. You can make of it what you want, this kind of scenario sounds like something that would keep me subscribed.

The other day (during MO’s night time), in Vadda, i was lounging around the bank and chatting with someone and out of the corner of my eye, i saw Cyde (a Red) proceed to run up to a crafter (by the utility vendor) from out of the bushes, one shot said crafter and promptly disappear into the darkness.

It created a commotion indeed, everyone yelling and running around, people panicked and warning others to huddle for safety.

Fighters were running around in groups of 2 and 3 to find the lurking Red who was hiding somewhere in the city.

It was Awesome, that feeling of danger – and what MO should be about.

Mortal Online: Not Against Selling The Game


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but so is speculation. Ever since the sale of Earth Eternal following its almost invisible launch and shut down, I am convinced that any MMO has a potential buyer as long as the owners are willing to sell. Over on the Mortal Online forums, Henrik Nystrom has posted the type of long, rambling message that only I could beat or fully appreciate, in which he talks leadership, testing, and potential buyers for Mortal Online.

His somewhat frustrated rant can be summed up rather effectively: StarVault would love to have more testers, better tools, and more developers, but they don’t have the resources. You may remember that Mortal Online is running at a loss due to a lack of subscribers, resulting in two cost cutting measures according to the company over the past few financial reports. Henrik then goes on to speculate on selling the game:

If there is not enough resources we will have to adapt and see what options we have… There are plenty of major companies that have their eyes on Mortal, and have had so since the beginning. They know exactly what is needed to develop and release a game such Mortal on your own, and that alone is a huge accomplishment which we are proud for. They know its almost impossible to develop a large scale such MO with such small team and they are very eager to get their hands on both the game and the team.

Henrik then points out that if StarVault does sell the game, the buyer may very well change the core of the game.

If they share the exact same vision with full loot, full pvp, monthly payment however is another question. Which I guess why most of us is here, us the devs as well, but if it means that if some of those core features changes when a company have the rights for it and it gives a bigger player base then that’s what they will go for most likely.

You can read the entire post at the link above, but it sounds like StarVault’s financial troubles are stinging more than they did a few months ago.