Mount & Blade: Warband
Game » consists of 3 releases. Released Mar 30, 2010
Warband is a stand-alone expansion for Mount and Blade. It serves an improved and expanded re-release of the original Mount and Blade, a medieval open world RPG by Taleworlds.
Beta Impressions
Just a quick post seeing as no one has said anything about this game yet. Im impressed by how well this game works online, its a ton of fun, defending a breach in a castle wall with 32 other people is great, especially when they communicate and work together. At one point the entire enemy team formed a shield wall and charged my teams position on the hill, that was a problem. Another time the enemy archers all grouped on a bridge overlooking a gorgean slaughtered us as we tried to cross the river. at the bottom. Its moments like that , which make the multiplayer a ton of fun. My only complaint is that the equipment features are still kinda buggy (Its a beta folks.) The new faction is interesting and the combat is still as much fun as it was in the single player , although im horrible at it, and some people are just amazing at killing everything that moves. Lag can be an issue as this is a very melee focused game, so if you swing your sword and it does not register for 20 seconds, it can be very hard to succeed. Understand though, that 90 percent of the people in the beta are in Europe and Russia/Turkey. So the bigger servers are very laggy. There is a big enough North American community so its easy enough to find a good size game on a low ping server. The Graphics aren't too much improved over the previous game (But the addition of HDR and Bloom help alot.) however the gameplay is solid.
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If you want to sign up, head here, they replied to me about 2 weeks after i sent in the application, its a good oppourtunity to try out Mount and Blade, just remember its still pretty early in its development. It will run on almost anything. (People say its coming out in March, I think they are wrong, there has been no such announcement.)
And im wondering, is anyone else already in the beta? If so, what do you think.
Lets hope there are more than 5 people on Giant Bomb who like this game. (You all should like it though, and you would if you gave it a chance.)
I was extremely exited about it, but I've unfortunately recently had to switch to satellite internet, so any prospects of playing Mount&Blade online have been shattered for the foreseeable future.
" @Mikemcn: Oh god I can't ctrl H my way out of this one. Mount and Blade is great and it doesn't get noticed enough. "
Absolutely, people glance at it and don't give it a chance, but its fantastic. I found the demo alone enough to suck me in ( I played it about 8 times over.)
If you get a chance, get in the beta and try it out online.
"Woh; I bought Mount and Blade about 4 months ago and played the hell out of the...alpha? beta? pre-release version?. Maybe it's time to start playing it again....? "
Not sure what you mean by the version haha. But yea, Warband will be out sometime this year so playing the original game may be a good warm up if you have the time.
There's a beta? Awesome stuff! Thanks for the heads up! I liked the first one a lot (despite the flaws) so this hould be interesting.
I played the beta, it's pretty fun, but I wish they had persistent characters or a level up system they basically stripped all the RPG elements out of it. I mean even if the level up system doesn't do anything but gain number I would still be happy.
Anyways here's some beta carnage I experienced earlier today.
@Bobdaman18 said:
" Well I really love Mount and Blade, its pretty much my perfect game. As such, its hurts to say it but i feel this was a missed opportunity. They removed all of the RPG elements from it and replaced it with a counter strike type system where you get money from winning rounds or killing people and use that to buy more equipment for next round. I think it would have been nice to have a system more similar to modern warfare where I could gain more levels and unlock different abilities or equipment. Still having a decent amount of fun with the beta though. "
That would be nice, but then you would have a bunch of level 60 players who's stats are so high that they can just trample through hordes of low level players. As is, there are a ton of players who are stupidly good at this game. A modern Warfare system would be cool but you would also have to insure that all the weapons are balanced, so a sword at level 1 would have positives for using it that a level 60 wouldnt and vice versa. And they are constantly patching this game so maybe they'll change it up. And at least we know the single player will be as good as always.
I'm very disappointed in the beta. They better have a sizable amount of improvements and additions in the single player portion because the multiplayer doesn't cut it. It's way too simplistic when the greatness of the original is how deep it is, within its simple mechanics. They seem to focus on all the wrong things lately (well, the last years), from multiplayer to the superficial graphical improvements, instead of padding the already great game where it needs it the most. Ie in the quest variety and sense of purpose and goals for the player. Mods do a better job at improving the visuals anyway (see polished landscapes etc) so this is wasted resources. They should expand and polish the way you give orders to your troops mid-battle. Expand and polish the kingdom management aspect for those who pursue to rule cities and castles. Expand and polish the little storylines and character interactions found within the claimant tasks. Expand and polish the scoring system upon retirement, perhaps adding gameplay modes that offer forced retirement after a certain period, like in Sid Meier's Pirates. Expand and polish all the game includes basically. It's awesome, but in desperate need of content. Troops, equipment, cities, tactical options, management options. Oh, and let's not forget the trading. There are caravans, why can't I have my own if I want to be a trader? Etc. A co-op (or even adversarial) campaign (Total War style) would be the icing on the cake, but I imagine that is pretty tough to do, and would maybe require everything to run in real time on the map.
" Well I really love Mount and Blade, its pretty much my perfect game. As such, its hurts to say it but i feel this was a missed opportunity. They removed all of the RPG elements from it and replaced it with a counter strike type system where you get money from winning rounds or killing people and use that to buy more equipment for next round. I think it would have been nice to have a system more similar to modern warfare where I could gain more levels and unlock different abilities or equipment. Still having a decent amount of fun with the beta though. "Exactly.
"
I played the beta, it's pretty fun, but I wish they had persistent characters or a level up system they basically stripped all the RPG elements out of it. I mean even if the level up system doesn't do anything but gain number I would still be happy.
Anyways here's some beta carnage I experienced earlier today.
"
I love how by the end of a match there are like 800 corpses on the field, makes it so much more awesome.
@Al3xand3r said:
"Very disapointed in the beta. They better have a sizable amount of improvements and additions in the single player portion because the multiplayer just doesn't cut it. It's way too simplistic when the greatness of the original is how deep it is, within its simple mechanics. They seem to focus on all the wrong things lately (well, the last years), from multiplayer to the superficial graphical improvements, instead of padding the already great game where it needs it the most. Ie in the quest variety and sense of purpose and goals for the player. Mods do a better job at improving the visuals anyway (see polished landscapes etc) so this is wasted resources. They should expand and polish the way you give orders to your troops mid-battle. Expand and polish the kingdom management aspect for those who pursue to rule cities and castles. Expand and polish the little storylines and character interactions found within the claimant tasks. Expand and polish the scoring system upon retirement, perhaps adding gameplay modes that offer forced retirement after a certain period, like in Sid Meier's Pirates. Expand and polish all the game includes basically. It's awesome, but in desperate need of content. Troops, equipment, cities, tactical options, management options. Oh, and let's not forget the trading. There are caravans, why can't I have my own if I want to be a trader? Etc. A co-op (or even adversarial) campaign (Total War style) would be the icing on the cake, but I imagine that is pretty tough to do, and would maybe require everything to run in real time on the map. "
Yep, that about sums up my feelings, although I have enjoyed the multiplayer so far, I think singleplayer should be the focus.
I have to say I'm disappointed with Warband. I put my faith in TW and pre-purchased it and it feels like a waste of money now I've played it enough.
The multiplayer doesn't interest me because it's very, very underdeveloped and in my opinion sloppy with many issues that are fine in SP but when exploited by players online it's real bad. It's very barebones in any case, just a few basic battle modes and constant respawning with no organising in the teams. It would have been cool to be able and run a semi persistent campaign world, similar to Dungeon Siege or Freelancer, with players running about doing their own thing and occasionally interacting if they wish (maybe even competing to be marshals in the same realm or for the heart of the same fair maiden, complete with duels etc) alas they did not attempt any of this and imo took the easy way out.
The single player has some additions but few of them haven't already been done by mods, even if they're ever so slightly better here (like the morale, which in the user made mod causes enemies to run to the edges of the map, while in Warband they actually exit the battle map and form into a new party that tries to flee - though in the mod it seems to happen more often and more realistically, not just when there are too few units left to matter as in Warband).
In any case, it won't last as long as the first game since progression through it feels much the same with the same skills, the same battles, the same armor and weapons aside from a few additions which aren't even top tier items and will therefor see little use (like the Elite armors which have similar stats to the Heraldic mail armors, give or take a point or two, yet are heavier, or the new Sarranid faction's swords).
It's essentially the same game with a few enhancements that aren't beyond the scope of mods (or version numbers), and overall has lesser scope than mods like Sword of Damocles do. It's quite absurd that people are asked to pay more or about as much as they paid for M&B, especially in Europe (I paid $25 which at the time was like less than 20 euros, Warband cost me 26.95 euros with the 10% pre-purchase discount which today is $36 or so), for this thing.
They didn't expand the tactical aspect within battles in any real way (the AI still just rushes to you giving you little time to position your units properly, even though you can now assign troops to custom battle groups, not just infantry, cavalry, archers, etc), and while they did expand the kingdom management aspect it's not beyond fan mod features, while the way some things are currently broken (garrison wages, tax funds, etc) it's not even worthwhile for players to own many fiefs.
The graphical improvements are also minimal at best, the game is still ugly with crude models and low resolution textures, it just has the addition of crude basic normal maps and HDR now, which don't help the overall visual quality. Fan mods like graphical enhancement, polished buildings and hopefully soon polished landscapes did far more to upgrade the visuals of M&B so TW's efforts were a total waste of precious resources that should have been put toward tangible game features and fixes instead of superficial and lackluster visual improvements.
My advice to every owner of M&B is to wait for a price cut, by Christmas it's probably going to be on some Steam deal for $10 or so. It's worth about that much as far as new content goes, unless you really want to play multiplayer or something, but imo that will get old very fast even for those who like it and it will be up to mods to offer actually compelling game modes that go beyond its simple barebones content. I made a mistake, feel free to laugh at me but be warned.
For new users however, Warband is the version they should get, and they'll get their money's worth with the playability of a grand, unique game, though they should still wait a month or two for the bigger issues to be resolved, if they are. It's just a shame long time supporters got fucked over like this. This is essentially Warband v2.0 Beta (there are loads of issues with the new mechanics, as well as issues existing since the original M&B they've yet to fix) sold as a full new stand alone product. I'll not be supporting TW's next project if it's similar (and With Fire And Sword is similar or worse by what I've seen of it, but I suppose that's not strictly TW, though they did whore out their engine and what not and allow them to sell a product that's an M&B mod at best).
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