Review Mount & Blade sucks

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Mount & Blade

<a href="http://au.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/mountandblade/review.html">GameSpot have dished the dirt on Mount & Blade and it's not pretty</a>. They take it to task for boring quests, lack of RPG structure, poor graphics (what, even after all those improvements?) and a lot of little bugs and oddities. It's a decent 2 pager, so here are a few choice quotes:
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<blockquote>If all you had to do was fight, Mount & Blade might have been a winner. TaleWorlds Entertainment has come up with one of the most innovative and user-friendly re-creations of combat ever seen in a first/third-person RPG, with exciting battles on foot, mounted on horseback, and at the head of a private army. Unfortunately, this derring-do is only one part of a cheaply stitched-together, single-player-only role-playing game that replaces plot with a sandbox world that leaves you without a clue of what to do or where to go. There is something positive to be said for wide-open RPGs that leave the storytelling up to you, but this game is so incomplete that it'll feel as if you're being asked to script a heroic saga without the benefit of pen and paper.
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The backdrop is always busy with various wars, villages being looted, and castles being besieged, although you feel more like a hapless spectator than a wannabe hero with anything at stake during all of this conflict. You tend to have to research your possible destinations through bland text write-ups, or to search around in the documentation in the menus to find out why the king of Swadia is attacking the khanate of Kergit. Even then, you generally don't receive a lot of solid answers.
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Still, it's disappointing that your growing military might is often hidden from view. You can't really control them like an army, either. Orders on the fly are just about nonexistent, which leaves you to simply tell your troops to charge into the fray and help out by cracking a few skulls yourself. Sieges are also scrambly, Keystone Cops-like affairs with too much running around and not enough options for making your way onto castle walls (there's just one ladder, which is absolutely absurd when you've got dozens of men in your army).
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Which brings us back to combat. One-on-one fighting is the one place where Mount & Blade truly shines.</blockquote>
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The final score? 6 out of 10. It's okay, modders will fix it!!11oneone¹
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¹Though in this instance, modders will actually fix it. I hope.
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Thanks <b>The Vanished One</b>!

 

[Fez]

The GameSpot review is actually a good one and worth a read. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[flabbyjack]

RAGE!!!111 6/10 why is the score so damn high?!? Who paid off the Gamespot? Maybe M&B got some extra points for 'trying'

Yeah as a story-based action RPG this could have been more 'A-list' than the sandboxy strategy game Taleworlds churned out. But since when do we give a **** about Lamespot? Hell they rated Titan Test(Cause it friggin' tests my patience) significantly higher at 7.6 than M&B's 6.0.

And look what those jerkoffs at Gamespot told me, using a POP UP nonetheless

Oh the audacity!

Check out what they recommend to people looking at sports games involving orcs

PS - You got bloom in my M&B.

 

[Skankster]

Sums up some of my feelings about the game. Perhaps some of these Journalists can put sentences together when the marketing department is not screwing them in the ass over the big titles.

 

[spacemoose]

M&B is not for people who buy games based on numbers anyhow

 

[Serious_Business]

You could walk out of your house and trip over a more attractive game than Mount & Blade.

DUDE

 

[Shannow]

Now I understand why Bio and other big studios only make high fantasy, EPIC arrPGs where the good races battle the evil races to protect the world from the ancient evil with the PC being the hero, the turning point without which none of the world would change, much less be saved.
They know their audience. Morons too set in their prejudices to accept anything else.

Oh, and redding is teh hard.

At least that is the impression I get from these quotes

 

[Nedrah]

I could just call the review retarded and be done with it, but to be honest, I could not find any real errors or unfair treatment of the game. The reviewer even mentions the games small budget as well as the good developer and (mod-)community support. Then again, I have always felt that M&B somehow transcends the sum of its parts - but I may very well be biased by watching the game improve over the years. If anything, I whish Taleworlds / Paradox had made it a lot clearer that M&B doesn't even try to be a regular RPG and had emphasized the Pirates!'ish Nature of the game.

It's unfortunate that it didn't make 7/10 at least, but in this rare case I think the gamespot review might actually tell the average player pretty well what they're getting into. Then again, this might very well become a different situation when an updated TLD or similar mods are released, so I'm not losing hope just yet.

Edit: Oh, and it seems that the game is still liked by the users - 9,0 at over 500 votes isn't so bad.

 

[Kingston]

WHAT? THEY GAVE THE GAME A FAIR SCORE? THAT'S BULLSHIT IT SHOULD'VE BEEN A 9!!11

 

[dagorkan]

Disagree with the rating but the Gamespot guy actually have the point...

The 'campaign' element of M&B is completely horrible.

Since a few months after I got the game I never really played it 'the way it's supposed to', I either play a quick battle or a mod or create a character and use the cheat to boost up my skills and buy equipment and men to whatever level and teleport to a place where I can intercept the enemy party I want to fight and do that. Either as a horse archer or heavy knight or lighter mercenary captain or whatever. Whenever I want to play I load up M&B and load that game and teleport to the next place.

Who else does this?

Anyway with 1.03 out I tried to force myself to play 'normally' and have now levelled to 12 and have a semi-OK army... the game sucks, it's slow and utterly boring. Half the quests given to me are to deliver messages or raise X high-level troops which I don't even have, I have to spend a game month or more doing that, then hand over half my company's offensive power in exchange for some measly experience and +1 to relations (which does nothing). Why would I do the quest?

The other quest I've had quite often is that the farmers tell me to go get them some cows. It's a good example of why the game sucks.

Enter village, ride around looking for the Village Elder... takes ~45 seconds
Talk to the Village Elder, click on the exact same options not bothering to read the text you've already read dozens of times ~20 seconds
Exit the village map
Ride around extremely slowly to the next nearest village hoping they'll have some cattle ~1 minute
Enter the village, locate the elusive Village Elder, talk to him to find out if he has cattle ~45 seconds
Probably turns out he doesn't have enough for the order or that they're 5x too expensive for no apparent reason... leave
Ride to the next nearest village ~1 minute
Etc until the third or fourth village has the cattle you want at a "reasonable" price - ~+2-3 minutes
Try to herd the cattle back in the direction of the quest-giving village... I'm now half a kingdom away so it takes almost a game day ~1.5 minutes
Hopefully I haven't lost the cattle on the way, they magically disappear as I approach the village and I get "quest solved" but no reward
Enter the village and ride around looking for the Village Elder again, should know where he is but ever village has him in a different location and with 3 more since you might have forgotten ~1 minute
Talk to him and get +1 relations and some measly XP

Result? I'm about 250-500 denars down (enough for many months worth of food or a new horse), I have wasted two or three game days not making money leaving me four or five days to find enough cash to pay my men's wages, in return I have +1 useless relations with an insignificant village and have spent ~7.5 minutes of real free time 'playing M&B'

Who actually does this?

And why did they take out Town Menus? If I could get quests/buy cattle/collect my reward from the Town Menu I halve the time it takes to lose 300 denars to gain +1 relation with irrelevant an village.

Meanwhile even the 'exciting' stuff like battles is getting very monotonous. Since I'm 'role-playing' being a mercenary for the Nord Kingdom I fight Sea Raiders and bandits and participate in the occasional huge battle in which I have only ~4-5 men to command in each combat round (proportional contribution based on the sizes of the other armies).

The landscape in the region is almost always the same, I have almost always the same troops (experienced ones die just at the right that newer recruits level up), I can never afford to BUY equipment (I scavenge it) and pay wages and buy food and do crappy village quests. The AI has become entirely predictable and there is zero risk unless I actually go looking for it (go and attack an enemy who is capable of killing all my men in one combat round, which would mean if I am knocked unconscious I'll be dragged around the country for 2 days and lose a boot and a quiver of arrows - CHOICE & CONSEQUENCES!).

No fatigue/party management, no need to rest or stop travelling at night and post sentries. Nothing actually interesting or situational or tactical, and the occasional fun action battles are too far apart to make the other filler worthwhile.

What Taleworlds should have done is either:

-Do something like Storymod, a branching story, with semi-interesting background material you want to learn more about, scripted action scenes in interesting locations/specific objectives, unique NPCs and equipment, etc. Introduce player death, real consequences, give a sense of the story advancing

OR

-Make the entire game an Arena type thing, a smaller more stereotyped world, forget all the factions and roaming the world and village quests. You are a young adventurer in Zendar (why was it taken out?) and you play as basically solo with a handful of men or Marnid accompanying you as a side-thought. You don't need to worry about money or having bought enough food or the variety of the diet of your men or about half your top-level troops being killed in the next battle despite all the points you put into surgery. Beat Xerina and Dranton in themed competitions (foot, archery, team battles, last-man-standing free-for-alls), try to stand up to the Dark Knights (why were they taken out?), Put the focus on short, solo or small scale flavorful combats.

 

[mondblut]

And why did they take out Town Menus?

You serious?!

Damn, I'll stick with 960 then. Fuck this running around the streets.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Since a few months after I got the game I never really played it 'the way it's supposed to', I either play a quick battle or a mod or create a character and use the cheat to boost up my skills and buy equipment and men to whatever level and teleport to a place where I can intercept the enemy party I want to fight and do that. Either as a horse archer or heavy knight or lighter mercenary captain or whatever. Whenever I want to play I load up M&B and load that game and teleport to the next place.

Who else does this?

:raises hand:

I played it the right way the first time until I hit level 50 and capped out. Then downloaded the next version which ruined my save game and meant I had to start again. Ever since then, I've never gone through the motions from the start again except when installing a new version to feel any differences at the lower levels.

The last few times, I've been wandering around looking for a story or "something to do". Some point to all the killing. As to be honest, combat is the only decent thing in the game.

 

[Nedrah]

Then again, you may (or may not, depending on your experience) be surprised how brightly the game begins to shine once that purpose to all the killing you speak of is modded in. Really addicting stuff.

 

[Trash]

The best way to play this game is as some version of Atilla the Hun. Fuck the factions and fuck the quests. Just raise an army by taking on recruits in villages and "persuading" prisoners and use these to lay waste to all and everything (well, excluding one faction that I use as shop and recruitment centre) in your path. I usually get ridiculously rich and powerfull in no time and then stop playing because the non stop combat from all the different factions attacking me gets boring.

This game really could use some more content, though even after all this time it's still amazingly fun to chop down poor footsoldiers from my mount.

 

[Fez]

Since a few months after I got the game I never really played it 'the way it's supposed to', I either play a quick battle or a mod or create a character and use the cheat to boost up my skills and buy equipment and men to whatever level and teleport to a place where I can intercept the enemy party I want to fight and do that. Either as a horse archer or heavy knight or lighter mercenary captain or whatever. Whenever I want to play I load up M&B and load that game and teleport to the next place.

Who else does this?

:raises hand:

I played it the right way the first time until I hit level 50 and capped out. Then downloaded the next version which ruined my save game and meant I had to start again. Ever since then, I've never gone through the motions from the start again except when installing a new version to feel any differences at the lower levels.

The last few times, I've been wandering around looking for a story or "something to do". Some point to all the killing. As to be honest, combat is the only decent thing in the game.

Same here.

 

[Zomg]

I think the old Zendar version where the typical RPG player feels directed to run through the training bit, fight in the arena a couple of times and then go slave-hunt river pirates for a while gave the game a much better introduction for a new player.

If the last version had Pirates!-style aging and stronger "possession" mechanics (e.g. by making it seem like fiefs and castles were really *yours*, probably with meaningful development and exploitation mechanics or custom levy troops) it would be a fun bildungsroman generator. Instead it's got this political layer that means almost nothing to your core experience of riding around accumulating troops and buying nicer swords and armors.

Plus, sieges eat shit and were way too ambitious for the engine. Should have gone abstract all the way. When you're playing through some of those excellent castle maps during yet another crappy siege, you have to wince a little for the good work thrown after bad ideas.

 

[Fez]

The upgrading of your properties is also pointless as far as I can see. You wait forever to get it done and then realise that it isn't going to do you any real good when you are out there chopping up one of the endless hordes. May as well just ignore it and continue chopping stuff.

Too many half-assed features.

 

[Nicolai]

Hmm, haven't played this game since, ah.. version .6XX or .7XX or something like that. I probably still have Naked Lunch's key somewhere, so I might just give it another go.

 

[Dire Roach]

Reviewer forgot to include the obligatory phrase: "Still better than 90% of all the other shit released these days."

 

[-Garrett-]

And why did they take out Town Menus?

You serious?! ... I'll stick with 960 then.

Menus are still included and work identically to 0.960, but there are still some things that can't be done from the menu (buying cattle, talking to the Village Elder/Guild Master, etc.) which I think is what dagorkan is referring to. It's strange that this hasn't been resolved--having total Darklands-style interaction is much quicker.

If the last version had ... stronger "possession" mechanics ... it would be a fun bildungsroman generator. Instead it's got this political layer that means almost nothing to your core experience of riding around accumulating troops and buying nicer swords and armors.

To be honest, I mostly ignore many of the recent additions. Most of the time you can get further ahead by raiding villages than you can by helping them, and I mostly use fiefs as a form of income and a place to store backup troops. The improvements are worth it once you actually get there, but the construction time does not fit the timescale. The upcoming M&B: Realism mod (by the guy who made the Graphical Enhancement mod) intends to make fief ownership a far more significant mechanic and the chief way of recruiting troops, which sounds very promising. Right now, losing control of a fief doesn't really affect anything other than immediate income.

Plus, sieges ... were way too ambitious ... When you're playing through some of those excellent castle maps during yet another crappy siege, you have to wince a little for the good work thrown after bad ideas.

Have you tried 1.003? Sieges work much better now. The attackers will surge up the ramp as soon as they spawn (even the archers) rather than trickling through to their deaths. There's still a bottleneck at the top of the ramp, of course, but that would be difficult to balance with the current mechanics. Also, all troops will now spawn into sieges (whereas in the past you could besiege a huge garrison but only about 150 would spawn into the battle) meaning heavily-defended locations are much harder to attack.

I think there's a fair chance that the next game will recycle the castle scenes in a new engine; TaleWorlds have nailed the combat itself, so if they could introduce meaningful siege mechanics it would be quite something to behold. Alternately, they might release some sort of expansion pack that does all this in the current engine.

 

[Fez]

Sieges in the retail release are still crappy and sometimes even broken on some maps. They are not much better than they were in the past.

 

[JarlFrank]

I love it, but the long travel times really put me off. They're longer than longcat. I started using the teleport cheat too, to remove all the work I have to do before getting to the fun parts. Quests are really stupid, though, I really hoped they'd improve those. When a marshal wants me to join his military campaign, I don't want him to tell me "Go bring me some cows cuz we need f00d!" but much rather "Go slaughter an enemy party, capture a lord or besiege a castle!". Most quests are rather stupid, and of the fetch-and-bring type. There are no real combat quests, even though quests of the "Annihilate an enemy party that is laying siege to our castle!" type would be really awesome.

That said, I'm waiting for some mods to remove the boring parts and add some new fun stuff. There already are some awesome ones, so they just have to port them to 1.003.

 

[Livonya]

The great thing about M&B is that it is a sandbox game.

A lot of the complaints about it are silly.

It is a fun game, and that is all I care about.

It it had a rigid story then the same people that want a story would be complaining that the story was too rigid.

The Witcher is a great game... but people complain that it isn't open ended. It isn't an RPG because the story is forced down your throat.

M&B is a great game... but people complain that it is too open ended. It isn't an RPG because their isn't enough of a story.

The bottom line for me, these games are fun.

Are they perfect, of course not. But damn they are fun.

 

[Xor]

The great thing about Oblivion is that it is a sandbox game.

A lot of the complaints about it are silly.

It is a fun game, and that is all I care about.

It it had a rigid story then the same people that want a story would be complaining that the story was too rigid.

Morrowind is a great game... but people complain that it isn't open ended. It isn't an RPG because the story is forced down your throat.

Oblivion is a great game... but people complain that it is too open ended. It isn't an RPG because their isn't enough of a story.

The bottom line for me, these games are fun.

Are they perfect, of course not. But damn they are fun.

Hmm...

 

[Livonya]

The great thing about Oblivion is that it is a sandbox game.

A lot of the complaints about it are silly.

It is a fun game, and that is all I care about.

It it had a rigid story then the same people that want a story would be complaining that the story was too rigid.

Morrowind is a great game... but people complain that it isn't open ended. It isn't an RPG because the story is forced down your throat.

Oblivion is a great game... but people complain that it is too open ended. It isn't an RPG because their isn't enough of a story.

The bottom line for me, these games are fun.

Are they perfect, of course not. But damn they are fun.

Hmm...

I am not sure how to reply to this. I never played Oblivion.

I think I played the first Morrowind, but didn't like it, and don't remember it very well.

I don't think either of those games are comparable to M&B and The Witcher, but I since I have absolutely no experience with Oblivion and next to none with Morrowind then I could definitely be wrong about that.

In any event, I don't really see how replacing game titles changes my point.

- Livonya

PS: I always, and I mean always, regret posting on the Codex. I read the codex forums every single day, and have for years on end, but every time I post I regret it... which isn't meant as an insult but just as an observation.