Game News Mount & Blade now at .950

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Mount & Blade; TaleWorlds

Mounted horse combat thingy <a href="http://taleworlds.net/">Mount & Blade</a> has been upped to version 0.950. Here's what's been added:
<br>
<blockquote>1. No Zendar
<br>
2. New skill - looting
<br>
3. Training camps
<br>
4. Many new video options
<br>
5. Win favor of ladies
<br>
6. Challenge lords
<br>
7. Actual tournaments in the arena!
<br>
8. Fight in the arena in practice melee - no teams, enemies respawn.
<br>
9. Constant fights in the arena
<br>
10. New character development at the start
<br>
11. Many new animations - when you kill troops, the merchants moving around and not being perfectly still
<br>
12. Ask the citizens how they are doing
<br>
13. Ambient sounds in the towns
<br>
14. Spears seem better now! Thank god.
<br>
15. MANY new options for face creation
<br>
16. Heraldric equipment. Smile
<br>
17. New heroes.
<br>
18. Map is bigger
<br>
19. MANY new towns and cities
<br>
20. Don't say anything bad about the Rhodoks, they have a lot more land now.
<br>
<br>
This is not the final version yet, but we have put in most of the features we are planning to, and after this, our job will mostly be polishing rough corners and fixing bugs and problems. To this end, I hope that you will help us, as you always do, by providing feedback, comments and bug reports. We have the basics here, but there is still a lot to do, especially in terms of long term game balance, but I am sure, together, we'll create a stable and very fun game by the time we have the final release.</blockquote>
<br>
It's not quite an official release yet, meaning it doesn't appear on the main page but <a href="http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,35650.0.htmll">you can find a list of mirrors to download it here</a>.
<br>
<br>
Thanks <b>Szioul</b>!

 

[MisterStone]

I remember that a year or so ago I posted a suggestion about "looting skill", and all the stupid fanboys at Taleworlds.com were like "That's stuuuuuupid! How can a skill affect whether you find stuff after a battle."

WUT UP NOW BITCHIZ!?!?!?

:vindicated:

 

[dagorkan]

It's amazing how Armagan managed to convince so many people agree to buy an unfinished game, he did it and it's funded the rest of the game. They've gone from zero employees to almost ten within a couple of years. Truly a unique indie.

 

[MessiahMan]

Heh! Figures. Right after I JUST got around to installing 9.03. Aah well, since I'm in the installing mood...

 

[Stalin]

If this wasn't an indie you'd be ripping that mediocre piece of crap to shreds but hey that's the codex

 

[Fez]

It's also still in beta.

 

[Thydron]

If this wasn't an indie you'd be ripping that mediocre piece of crap to shreds but hey that's the codex

Yeah, you're right, we should definitely hold games made by a handful of people up to the same standards as those made by hundreds. Nevermind that it is much more fun than most of those big-studio games.

 

[Stalin]

no it's not you can lance charge your way through anything

 

[crakkie]

no it's not you can lance charge your way through anything

Ah, you're just insulted by how much the Nords suck. Footmen < Cavalry, as in real life.

 

[Livonya]

If this wasn't an indie you'd be ripping that mediocre piece of crap to shreds but hey that's the codex

Personally, I have gotten more enjoyment and more bang for my buck out of Mount & Blade then 95% of the more commercial games that I have ever played.

The only other game that I have played for such a long time is Jagged Alliance 2 (which I am still playing due to the great mod community).

Any game that holds my attention for years is a great game.

 

[elander_]

It's a shame this game doesn't have interesting characters and dialogs, more choices and consequences that can influence the world and more ways to interact with the world besides fighting. I agree with Stalin but i don't think it's alright to be severe with an indie game. These guys are doing the game they believe in and they aren't bullshitting anyone.

 

[dagorkan]

It is a lot better. Everything seems to have been improved, quests, the war system (you can now sign contracts as a mercenary captain month-by-month), and even the combat AI is a lot smoother. Your soldiers can actually hit things and enemies use their lances, you no longer feel you can automatically take on any enemy party because you're the human player.

 

[The Dude]

Yeah, I agree with sheek, it's much improved. The gameplay has really started to take shape even outside the actual battles.

Though there is a pervasive crash having to do with shadow texture buffer or some mumbo jumbo like that. I recently had a prolonged epic battle where the Kergits started off with something like a 1000 men and my team (Vaegir) had 700. After something like six or seven hard battles taking maybe two hours in all, the Kergits finally had less then twenty guys left, and my Vaegirs were down to fourty something. The battle loaded fine, and then BAM CTD! Yay... I'll probably wait for a bugfix or two.

 

[Brother None]

It's still a very empty game, but .950 is quite a leap in gameplay design when it comes to things to do, quests, tournaments etc., as opposed to battle design.

Let's be honest, it's just a combat simulator with a bit of a world crafted about it. As an RPG it fails pretty badly, but it's simply not what it's pretending to be anyway.

As such, I'm not sure if it's the "indie" part that gets the most Codex support. I think it might more be "this is an RPG(-esque) designed around combat...and the combat is actually fun!"

Because for ages now we've had combat-centric RPGs pushed on us in which the enjoyment lay in improving your character and to get phat loot, while actual combat design stayed far behind. As such, what Mount & Blade does is fairly impressive.

 

[Jeff Graw]

It's basically Pirates! in a medieval fantasy setting with a lot more stuff to do. And it gets better every version. What's not to love?

 

[Suchy]

How are the town sieges now? Still only ONE ladder and AI getting stuck on it?

 

[Korgan]

You're way behind times. Siege towers are in since .903, and there are trebuchets that will probably start working around 1.00. Storming a castle is hard though, need lots of heavy infantry.

 

[Suchy]

I played .903 and there were a lot of problems with sieges. First of all you couldn't choose if you wanna build a ladder or a siege tower - it depended on what you were attacking. Also often it happened that my troops couldn't climb up the ladder coz they got stuck at the walls, even if there were no defenders at the moment. Also there was only one ladder or only one siege tower.

 

[Virtz]

There still is only one tower, but what would you expect from a 100-man battle?

And while I've only participated in one siege thus far, I haven't seen any path-finding issues. In fact, there were archers set up all around the castle towers and my troops managed to go through some complex paths (down and up stairs) to reach them.

 

[Brother None]

There still is only one tower, but what would you expect from a 100-man battle?

And while I've only participated in one siege thus far, I haven't seen any path-finding issues. In fact, there were archers set up all around the castle towers and my troops managed to go through some complex paths (down and up stairs) to reach them.

I've seen no pathfinding problems (and Suchy didn't say pathfinding problems, either), but a lot of collision detection issues. I spent a minute in one siege just getting over the wall as my char kept getting stuck...in the wall.

 

[Suchy]

Yup, that's what I meant. Pathfinding works sweet, it's the collision detection problem. Not only for my char, but for NPCs too - and they can't jump over an obstacle if they get stuck.

 

[MisterStone]

I finally got the chance to play this version... so far, the steal cattle and tax collection shake-down quests are kind of fun. Recruiting NPCs seems to be better than before too.

As for it being a failure at being a RPG... its not an RPG. Its more of a freelancer game, like Pirates! or Elite or something. You make money and earn fame through trade, banditry or working as a mercenary. The quests are just ways to liven up gameplay a bit. Well, I haven't seen much of .950 yet, but hopefully they aren't trying to make it into a mediocre RPG when it is already a world-class freelancer game.

 

[Fez]

Do you think there is much potential there for it to be a Darklands style game or would you prefer it to stick with the Pirates!/Elite style of gameplay?

 

[MisterStone]

Do you think there is much potential there for it to be a Darklands style game or would you prefer it to stick with the Pirates!/Elite style of gameplay?

The game has been designed from the ground up to be like Pirates!/Elite (just look at the world map, and you can see what I mean), so I think it should stick with what it has been designed for. If you really wanted a Darklands game, it would probably be better to go with a completely different engine (with turn-based combat?) that is more suited to controlling a small micro-managed party than commanding a huge force of (mostly expendable) men on wide open battlefields. Then again, if someone can mod-up a fun Darklands version of the game, then all the power to them.

 

[Fez]

There is a mod in the works that I think is trying to bring some of the Darklands style play to Mount & Blade. We may have the best of both worlds with enough luck.

As it is I would like to see the game concentrate more on building up those armies of expendable troops as well. Before now it's always seemed to be more about having some decoys to distract the enemy while the player goes on a rampage as the one man army. The introduction of basic formations, group movements and improvements to sieges are welcome.