Morterra - Multiplayer Survival Sandbox Game

[morterra]

Edit:
Here are some more recent pictures, because the game has progressed a ton since this post was originally created! These are all screenshots taken from players live in game. We have built up a small community with usually between 10-30 players online during the day on the main server, and are working on growing!

Original Post:
Hey guys,

Over the past year, a buddy and I have been working on converting our 2D browser game to 3D using Babylon. We finally just got the game to a stable (somewhat) state, and are hosting the game for people to hop on and give us feedback.

Here’s a link to the game: Morterra - Free Multiplayer Browser Survival Game

The premise of the game: You wake up completely naked in the wilderness, and must find foods to eat, water to drink, and resources to survive. The entire world is pvp-enabled - you must make tools to help gather resources, armors to protect yourself from other players, and weapons to fight back. Once you have enough resources, you must build a base to protect you when you sleep (log off) - your player doesn’t vanish when you log off, but sleeps on the ground, vulnerable to enemies. You can claim land and build a base. Make sure your base is sturdy, as players can break in and take it over.

The entire world is a giant competition over land, resources, and life. The name of the game, Morterra, actually comes from the two latin roots: morte (meaning death), and terra (meaning land/earth).

Here is an in-game screenshot of a cool base someone made:

Anyways, please check it out and give us any feedback! We are also building up a community on our discord, if you’re interested in being a part of it: Morterra Discord

Thanks guys!

[Deltakosh]

Hey and welcome!!

Excellent work! (btw welcome to our homepage as well ;0)

[Wingnut]

Beautiful scene (in the pic) and a fine premise. Nice work and welcome to the forum!

Can I give feedback ALREADY?

From your description, the game sounds a bit warring-only. Do you plan on using reputations and sharing/trading? For example, if one player has MUCH food stored, and another is outside the fort, banging on wall, begging or threatening for food… can bountiful player GIVE some food to another, and then receiver can click a LIKE on the giver (and everyone remembers who they LIKE and who they don’t) (reputation)?

Hotels? Sleep-overs? (multiple players using ONE fort)

That way, a sharing community can start… with players having “a good name” in the eyes of others, and thus they might do “neighborhood patrols” and night-watches for each other… and perhaps build a police force/army.

Maybe build a Kiwanis Club of fellowship, or some love-thy-neighbor religion? Loan-out/share your tools and weapons and knowledge? Commune-ism? (whuggle)

Can users take a route to survival that DOESN’T involve combat… where even the hunter-gatherers are also friends-with the wild (tamed) game, and shares the berry patches and the nut groves alongside each other? Can players buy berries from Knott’s Berry Farm… using sparkly rocks and pretty seashells?

Will a pathexist… for the pacifist? If I code it, then will it? heh.

Is the “quest for fire” still happening? I suppose, huh? If player is naked, no place to store matches. Coal/firewood might be in high-demand… as well as fish oil, perhaps. Helps keep fires going. Sugar cane might be hot, too… for calories… and for making smores and maple syrup.

Again, congrats and nice work… on the new game!

[Raggar]

It’s actually quite fun

[withADoveInOneHand]

Very slick.

[morterra]

Thank you!

[Null]

Hey there,

First of all, amazing job! A survival game in the browser? WHAA?!! Much much needed! With that being said, I would love to give some feedback which hopefully might help to improve your game.

I love the idea of low-poly. Games don’t have to over-complicate with the design, less is more and low-poly style is just enough. However, the game feels a little bit dull. The terrain is flat, single color ( which is not particularly a bad thing, maybe not very good in this particular setitng ) and the sky is also single color.

I would suggest to have a look at the heightmap for the terrain, you might need some hills and valleys, also check the gradient sky, I think there was some kind of plugin made for babylon somewhere for the sky. Also, there should more colors in general .

Great choice in having the players login without creating an account. I did not check in detail what you guys are doing in terms of user retention but logging in without an account should be the first hook, you should then offer some incentives for the players to actually create an account. This way you can identify your users and then have them return via push notifications or emails.

The game in general looks fun! I did not play much for time reasons but in general it feels very smooth, btw, HOW CAN WE REACH THE BLOODYYY HORSE?!!! Indeed great job guys!

[morterra]

Thank you!

And yes, it’s not all combat oriented. We currently have a “karma” system similar to what you’re describing. If you go around and attack good players or raid their base, your karma will decrease. If your karma is low, you will be considered an evil player. Evil players can be killed/raided by other players without any penalty to their karma.

We are working on an update for a “bounty-board” where players can place bounties on evil players. This gives other players an incentive to go hunt down that player and kill them. This will be the way we implement a “police” concept into the game, through bounty hunters.

Your trading suggestion is a good idea. We do actually plan to have a trading booth that can be built onto your base, which allows two players to trade safely.

The goal is to not just be a giant warzone, but a self-civilized community where pvp and raiding happens in a more civilized manner. We have seen this happen in other games, but only on specific “role-play” servers. Our goal is to let the players/environment determine the outcome of the game.

A next big step for us is going to be adding voice-chat. This will give players a chance to talk with other players when they see them, and will hopefully encourage positive interactions.

Thank you for the suggestions, it’s good to hear the different perspectives everyone has on gaming, and try to build something that has fun concepts for everyone. If you get a chance, hop on the game and let me know what you think!

[morterra]

Thank you for your feedback and I agree with everything you’ve said!

We are really strong believers in browser games, as they allow everyone to be included (not just hardcore PC gamers with $500 GPUs), and the low-poly design is meant to help with that. We believe gameplay doesn’t stem from graphics, but from the concept, game mechanics, and player interaction. Our goal is to create an environment that is self-governing through player interactions and where players are always feeling a sense of excitement, even when completing the most basic tasks.

The terrain and sky are very flat. I actually had a bumpier terrain originally (as seen in the pic below):

This pic is from December when we were only a couple months into the 3D development. We removed it before launch because we were having some optimization issues and I wanted to do everything I could to decrease the render time. It really doesn’t hurt performance, so once I get some time, I will create a nice terrain to go with the environment.

The sky is very basic - a gradient will be a nice change of pace, and we’re also looking at tweaking lighting. We have low-poly clouds already made that will eventually float across the sky. Birds, grass, flowers, and a much larger variety of plants will eventually be added to spruce up the environment. We know it is very basic right now, but it is solely because of our priority of optimizing the game to be playable by most computers without lag, and the time it will take to add everything. But rest assured it is on our list!

We like having the quick account creation as well, as it helps players get in and play without needing the red tape of most games. In the future we’re actually looking into ways of speeding up the new-user system with a 1-click button that will auto-create a user/pass that can save to the browser.

We do plan on creating an email registration for long-term players, which will include it’s own incentives: friends lists, multiple characters per account (with a screen displaying the characters and their status), clans, and the ability for players to respawn on death (at their base). There will be other perks as well, but these are some of the main ones.

And you can catch animals pretty easily if you build a trap and chase them into it!

Thanks a lot for trying out the game - I really appreciate the feedback! We will be working non-stop to get all of the bugs fixed and then work on improving every aspect of the game and then adding new features. Check back in with us every so often and you’ll see noticeable improvements!

[morterra]

Just wanted to post an update with some progress, we’ve come a long way so far!

We’ve added email registration for dedicated players and a “Play Now” button for anyone just wanting a quick play.

We’ve added foundrys for stockpiling metals, explosives for raiding other player’s bases, and many more feature since we last posted on here.

We’re still mostly working on optimizing the game, although some cool content will be added soon such as farming!

[Richard]

This is really great. Well done! I was only going to play for a minute to see how it runs, but ended up staying and claiming a territory! The only thing that I found tricky was navigating on such a flat terrain. I think it would really be easier to find things and keep track of where things are if there was more height variation and some landmarks. Maybe the occasional large tree, river or hill would help with that.

[morterra]

Thank you for the feedback! We’re in the process of adding hills as we speak. Thanks for trying it out and I hope to see you on some time in the future!

[morterra]

Update:

We’ve cleaned up most of our object models, including our player model, here are some pics:

Let me know what y’all think!

[sebavan]

Looks awesome !!!

[morterra]

Some recent renderings:

[Deltakosh]

This is super cool. I love your art

[withADoveInOneHand]

Plus I love the name

[REX_DUNGEUR]

Wow nice!

[vuxvux]

hey i am trying to join world 1 and it always say conecting

[morterra]

That’s odd, the servers seem to be running smoothly. Try refreshing?