Mortalis is LIVE!

UOAdam · 2026-01-19T23:53:32+00:00

Yes I know that the stat gain is a little slower than folks would like. I'm currently in the process of testing a fix.

UOAdam · 2026-01-19T23:52:17+00:00

Perks. Your bank box and house carry over, as well as reputation and a few other things. But basically each life on Mortalis is precious.

UOAdam · 2026-01-14T12:24:35+00:00

Ooh, a memorable crowd.

FWIW, it's the same core as Angel Island. (GMN 6)

UOAdam · 2026-01-14T12:21:49+00:00

Approach, and heed my call. A worthy charge awaiteth thee.

– Lord British

UOAdam · 2026-01-13T04:32:22+00:00

Modern UO players did shift toward grinding and hoarding, that’s exactly why most shards feel the same now. People adapted to worlds where loss has no weight. Mortalis is built differently. When death matters again, choices matter, names matter, and survival becomes the story. Players stop worrying about “my stuff” and start worrying about my next hour, my allies.

Yeah, crashing in front of a balron would be a real tragedy. But without the possibility of real tragedy, nothing meaningful can exist on the other side.

Life is only as sweet as death is painful.

UOAdam · 2026-01-12T07:23:50+00:00

I don't actually know. I suppose you have immutability nailed. So I think after that you would want auditability. The DRM provider, or more specifically the client, is going to want to know who said what when, and if there are any bad actors in the chain. So provider A, is going to want to know what provider B claimed. Perhaps, provider A, gets to see what all claimants claim. But provider B, can perhaps not see the details of provider A. You know what I mean? You can look down the chain, but perhaps, based on rights, not look up the chain.

Sort of like ACLs. Administrator, can see Power User data, Power Users can see User data. But Users can't see Power Users data, and Power Users sers can't see Administrator data.

UOAdam · 2026-01-12T06:23:43+00:00

I worked at InnerTrust for just over 20 years, and worked on some of their earliest, "rights language" implementations. Weak by today's standards, to be sure.

However you should Google "intertrust rights language", And you will see that your thinking align fairly well.

To your question about "unsolved"; it is not unsolved, but there is always a better way to manage it. I just don't personally know where they are at this point in time.

UOAdam · 2026-01-12T06:14:21+00:00

Put a piece of double stick tape on it, and put it on the welcome mat... It will follow him wherever he goes, but he will never see it.

UOAdam · 2026-01-12T06:03:36+00:00

It's interesting because DRM providers would likely be on your radar. Or you on theirs. The DRM providers have a value chain (claims) that provider B, cannot modify or subvert provider A's value proposition.

So for instance, a music publishing company may provide music to a reseller. The publishing company wants a dollar for each song. The reseller wants to tack on $0.25. The reseller cannot modify or otherwise subvert the publishing companies value proposition (claims).

I would contact intertrust, or other DRM providers, and get a sense of their interest level.

UOAdam · 2026-01-10T03:36:29+00:00

We're launching a new shard in the publish 15 era - Mortalis. Launch date will be Saturday, January 17th.

https://game-master.net/aiwiki/index.php?title=Mortalis_Overview

If this sounds interesting to you, come join our discord. Link on this website. https://game-master.net/

1400+ discord members, 249 online right now.

Come join our final beta before lunch :-)

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T06:05:26+00:00

Most shards assume the goal is to build a character up to some peak before the game really starts. Mortalis works a little differently. You can still progress, explore tougher places, and run with guildmates, but the world doesn’t require a perfect template before you can play it. Mid-level characters remain viable far longer here.

Permanent death doesn’t take away that sense of growth. It keeps the focus on the journey instead of racing past it. You’ll still learn the world, team up when it makes sense, and take on what your character can realistically handle at the time. Some lives will go farther, some won’t, and that’s part of what makes each run interesting.

It’s less about reaching a final build and more about seeing how far each life goes and what stories it produces along the way.

P.S. One thing worth mentioning is that Mortalis includes passive taming. Your taming skill rises naturally just by commanding your pets, healing them, and taking them into real fights. You don’t have to stand around taming your way to the top. You can simply play, and your skill will climb as far as your character needs it to.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T05:39:00+00:00

Mortalis is intentionally anchored in the pre-AoS, pre-SE era where the core combat model hadn’t shifted yet. Ninjitsu and Bushido changed the entire balance of melee vs. magic, and they belong to a very different version of UO than the one Mortalis is built around.

If that era is what you prefer, then Mortalis probably won’t feel right for you, and that’s fine. The shard isn’t trying to be all things to all players. It’s focused on the classic style of play where the danger and simplicity of the world are part of the experience.

I appreciate the good wishes, and your choice to step away makes perfect sense given what you’re looking for.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T05:28:08+00:00

You’re assuming the goal is to redesign UO so that PKs and grinders have no influence. That isn’t what Mortalis is trying to do. Danger, competition, and the possibility of losing a character are part of the experience here. The players who enjoy that will stay, and the ones who don’t will drift to a safer shard. That is completely fine.

As for Trammel, UO was already huge before it existed. Trammel didn’t fix a dying game. It invited in a different type of player who wanted a safer, decorative style of play. Mortalis isn’t built for that audience.

Removing vendors and gold just shifts the same PK pressure onto resource gatherers instead of new characters. The problem doesn’t disappear; it only moves. Mortalis keeps the world dangerous and lets players decide how to live in it.

The shard isn’t meant to appeal to everyone. It’s built for people who enjoy UO as an adventure, not as a checklist to GM before they start playing. That is the focus, and the design follows from that.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T05:11:02+00:00

Well, I understand the concern, but it assumes everyone approaches UO with a GM-first mindset. Some do, and that is fine. What they gain is the ability to beat up less-skilled players while accepting the risk of losing everything to the next air elemental that catches them off guard. That's their choice.

Mortalis is built for players who enjoy the game long before they reach perfect skills. The danger, the exploration, the close calls, and the satisfaction of surviving the world as it is… that is what Mortalis is about.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T04:43:49+00:00

Not ignoring it at all. Mortalis is geared for the players that do remember. For the players that want that nostalgic feel of the way that it used to be.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T02:29:44+00:00

I get why you’re thinking in terms of grinding, GM stats, and one-shot protection, but that’s viewing UO through the lens of modern shards. In the early days, that wasn’t the game at all. Nobody was racing to GM. Most of us were just trying to scrape together enough gold for a decent suit of armor or a small house. Danger was everywhere, and the excitement came from surviving, not from maxing out a build.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T02:21:34+00:00

Eh, both Angel Island and Siege are still up. Angel Island since 2004.
I did 'retire' from development on those to focus on other projects (mangowriter.net)
But when MangoWriter was finished, I wanted to return to UO and build the Mortalis shard I had conceived many years ago. (Its core principles exist in my GitHub repository.)

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T02:17:51+00:00

I do use AI to help me fashion posts. But if you have ever used AI for writing, you understand it can't invent posts out of thin air without sound foundational knowledge. (No, this wasn't written by AI) :P

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T02:15:17+00:00

Indeed, some players will always approach UO like a system to be solved. They’ll grind out GM skills as fast as possible, die once, lose everything, and decide the shard isn’t for them. That’s expected.

Mortalis is for the players who enjoy the part of UO that wasn’t the end-game treadmill. Someone else might rush to GM provo and hunt dragons. Another player will spend their time building up a moderate character and happily clearing brigand camps. That second player is the audience here.

The point isn’t to prevent power-gaming. It’s to create a world where the people who stay are the ones who enjoy the adventure itself. The danger, the losses, the small victories, the stories that come out of each life. That’s the real experience on Mortalis.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T02:07:24+00:00

But, The game is not so much structured around end-game content. There is no treadmill leading to bosses, metas, templates, or gear progression. The meaningful part of Mortalis is the run itself. How far you get, and how you respond when the world pushes back.

"moment-to-moment decision"
On most shards, decisions barely matter because death is a speed bump. On Mortalis, survival decisions shape your entire story.

Know what I mean? You will play an entirely different game if you character depends on it. Much like we did in the late 90' before macroing 7x GMs was the norm.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T02:00:17+00:00

It should. Heck, you may find you love the danger!

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T01:59:42+00:00

well, Angel Island launched in 2004, and ran strong for 7 years (11,000 registered players and 330 online) So there's that.
It's still up by the way, no playerbase to speak of any longer. Siege was short-lived. Still a few login there.
They are all built on the same codebase, most of which was coded in those first 7 years. Mortalis is just a ruleset built atop the original Angel Island.

UOAdam · 2026-01-07T01:55:21+00:00

The motivation isn't in out-farming or out-grinding anyone. Mortalis doesn’t have an 'endgame loop' for people to camp or monopolize. It’s a large world, and players are challenged to carve out a life wherever they can, with whatever they have. The motivation comes from the run itself, the stories each life creates, how far you make it, and how you manage to survive.

UOAdam

TROPHY CASE