Game News Mount & Blade goes MMO, ditches RPG

[Carlos' Bitch1]

that's the fastest i've ever seen a company go from "cool" to "shit-list".

Quite remarkable.

There's been rumblings from Codex members on this for some time. From what I remember, promised features didn't arrive despite people pre-ordering the game to help development. Correct me if I'm wrong, as my memory is fuzzy on this.

No need to be corrected. I pre-ordered it on the early promises. Of course, after a while 'RPG' was quietly stricken from the blurb, and everything was changed from 'Mercenary band, combat and storyline' to 'watered down wargame with horse combat, fighting for the lulz'.

Apparently I was the stupid one however. Even though they advertised it as an RPG, and spruiked various RPG tropes to be added, the fanboys all leapt on me, screaming about how it is better that it isn't an RPG, etc, and so on.

Not that I didn't initially get my $6 worth however. Just take it as a lesson to only pay if it is something you enjoy right then. Don't pay on the assumption that the hype will be the end product.

 

[kwanzabot]

Tried the mount and blade demo, it sucked.

 

[spectre]

Because fanbois were right on this one. The game, in my opinion, had a quite clear vision of what it wants to be - a medieval combat themed Pirates! clone.
Turning it into an rpg would be a waste (and I doubt it would make a good one anyways), cause the fun of this game is in the blend of simplistic rpg elements, simplistic strategy, and the 100 on 100 battles.
What it lacks is variety - vanilla map gets boring, factions get boring, etc. You fix this with mods.

Doesn't float your boat? Don't buy, don't rage, find something that does.
Waaaah, the developer won't put my favourite feature into the gaem hardly ever works.

And I would say, don't get your hopes too high, hype will/can ruin any kind of game.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Because fanbois were right on this one. The game, in my opinion, had a quite clear vision of what it wants to be - a medieval combat themed Pirates! clone.
Turning it into an rpg would be a waste (and I doubt it would make a good one anyways), cause the fun of this game is in the blend of simplistic rpg elements, simplistic strategy, and the 100 on 100 battles.
What it lacks is variety - vanilla map gets boring, factions get boring, etc. You fix this with mods.

Doesn't float your boat? Don't buy, don't rage, find something that does.
Waaaah, the developer won't put my favourite feature into the gaem hardly ever works.

And I would say, don't get your hopes too high, hype will/can ruin any kind of game.

Ok then. It would have been much better than the rubbish it turned into. Even as a sandbox game, everything apart from the battles is a joke. The reason it is a joke is because Armagan totally lost the vision he started with for his game and listened to every new fan that popped up screaming 'OMG! Don't worry about that other shit! Just give me battles!!!'.

Consequently, it turned into the undercooked turd it is today, with the same decent battles (though they are easier than they used to be. Get rid of the really hard stuff in case the New Fans (tm) don't like it), and nothing else. It never really went anywhere, and he still doesn't really know what to do with the thing. The latest morons scream out 'Online battles!', so he runs with it, instead of actually finishing the game...

 

[spectre]

I won't pretend that vanilla is anything other than bland. The map gets old fast, so do the factions and items. You can get some fun out of it, but yeah, it all gets repetitive because there's not enough different shit to do.

It may be just me, but I bought it quite early, mainly as a modding platform. Overall, it delivers. I had my money's worth of fun out of vanilla, and now is fun just do drop in casually once every few weeks. Or when some new interesting mod pops up.

About these online battles, can't blame A. for it. He thinks that's where the money is nowadays.
I had a feeling that since the last few releases it became evident that modders are so much better at adding content than he is.

Other than that, I just can't blame the guy that he wanted to try something different. Ever tried to run the same fucking project for... how many years straight? Bugifxing the same damn code gets tiresome.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I won't pretend that vanilla is anything other than bland. The map gets old fast, so do the factions and items. You can get some fun out of it, but yeah, it all gets repetitive because there's not enough different shit to do.

It may be just me, but I bought it quite early, mainly as a modding platform. Overall, it delivers. I had my money's worth of fun out of vanilla, and now is fun just do drop in casually once every few weeks. Or when some new interesting mod pops up.

About these online battles, can't blame A. for it. He thinks that's where the money is nowadays.
I had a feeling that since the last few releases it became evident that modders are so much better at adding content than he is.

Other than that, I just can't blame the guy that he wanted to try something different. Ever tried to run the same fucking project for... how many years straight? Bugifxing the same damn code gets tiresome.

Well, that is the real trick, isn't it? Armagan obviously had a certain vision to begin with, otherwise he would never have started the game. Somewhere along the way, he either became bored, became too busy, or perhaps sudden visions of money came around and he chased the dollar instead of his original vision.

I do not feel ripped off by the game, more that the game itself did not reach the potential it could have, nor the potential originally outlined in Armagans original spiels on what the game would contain. I think his vision began to waver around the time of the 'Great Graphical Update'. After this, very little of any meaning was added to the game, apart from some bloating, until the actual full release. And as you can see, the full release itself is really more bloat added again rather than extra depth of gameplay, or things to do in the game.

As for the mods, the last mod I thought really shined was the Sicily mod that was never finished. Most others are basically Mount and Blade with different graphics. Few mods ever really add much more meat to the bones so to speak. The sheer amount of mods around also makes it difficult to find any that might fit the bill.

I certainly got my moneys worth, but in the end the game did not turn out as I had been lead to believe it would which is unfortunate. This addon only shows just how far from the original direction this game is now travelling. RPG - Mercenary band fighting for one of two kingdoms - watered down sandbox/wargame with little depth - fighting on horseback in multiplayer with all allusions of an RPG dropped; this has been the path of Mount and Blade.

 

[thesheeep]

This addon only shows just how far from the original direction this game is now travelling. RPG - Mercenary band fighting for one of two kingdoms - watered down sandbox/wargame with little depth - fighting on horseback in multiplayer with all allusions of an RPG dropped; this has been the path of Mount and Blade.

I think this is kind of true.
But I like the game as it is now. Certainly, adding some more RPG would make it better, but trying to turn it into a "real" RPG would simply destroy it.

What makes this game good is the modding community, the character development and the combat. And all can be applied to MP as well. It's just sad that the light RPG part won't be added to the MP, something along the lines of Enemy Territory (levelling up your character during a number of games) would have been nice.

But now that the addon got another half year to go, I'm quite positive that this time won't do the addon any bad

 

[JarlFrank]

I noticed a pattern in the moments when I begin to get bored of the game. It's when I have to take over enemy towns and castles, because the sieges are just so fucking tiring. Huge clusterfucks, the enemy always has more soldiers than you, and it just ends in your guys (including yourself) running up the ladder and then the gangbang starts. Sieges just aren't fun in this game like the field battles.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

That is because virtually everything but the field battles is totally underdone, or often not even finished. There isn't really much else to do except battles. If Armagan had even a modicum of imagination, there could have been various ways to besiege a castle, but no, we get the current rubbish.

I remember the last suggestion I made on Taleworlds forums was the 'Night Raid' suggestion. If you were athletic enough, you and a small band could opt to infiltrate the Castle at night in order to A) capture the enemy General/Lord, B) Open the gates or C) Infiltrate a force of men that sally from the Inn at an appointed time to throw off the defence.

Of course, like every other suggestion I made, it was shouted down by the rabid moron fanbase because it didn't contain enough mass combat.

 

[spectre]

Definitely, the sieges suck monstrous cock, though I got quite a laugh out of soloing the whole town with just a bow - first clear your way to the ladder, then stand on it, the retarded AI won't know how to get to you and you shoot them in the face from half a meter.

Yep, I was also pissed that you cannot simply choose which side to assault, do you want to use two ladders or four, or maybe the siege tower. It's not that fucking hard, just redo the scene files. Any modder would... oh wait.

@JarlFrank - try different setups here. Keep your guys close to you as meat shields and snipe the archers. If the odds are against you, Tactics helps a lot. This bit of the game is indeed tedious, but you can still try a few different things here.

@ Adder you sound butthurt... and I cannot blame you. This suggestion was good... but there were so many other worthwile bits in the suggestions section that became lost in the sands of time. I remember participating a bit there, then I realised Armagan just doesn't give a fuck about such details. It was as if he left adding depth to the game to the mods, he just wanted to do the bugfixing and add support for big features (like the rebellions)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Yep, I was also pissed that you cannot simply choose which side to assault, do you want to use two ladders or four, or maybe the siege tower. It's not that fucking hard, just redo the scene files. Any modder would... oh wait.

I haven't seen a mod that does that yet. I HAVE seen mods that add erect cocks, realistic (read DD) tits, etc. Fucking modders.

 

[SerratedBiz]

There is a Siege mod around, though I believe it's stuck at adding one more ladder so you're just half as stuck trying to get up the damn things.

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor]

Yep, I was also pissed that you cannot simply choose which side to assault, do you want to use two ladders or four, or maybe the siege tower. It's not that fucking hard, just redo the scene files. Any modder would... oh wait.

I haven't seen a mod that does that yet. I HAVE seen mods that add erect cocks, realistic (read DD) tits, etc. Fucking modders.

Try Storymod v1.5

It's for an older version, 2.0 never materialized but it is what I hoped Mount&Blade would become like.

 

[zzenn]

Oh poop. The original game was fun, though sorta boring rinse-and-repeat after a while. Definitely heavy on the action and very light on the story side.

 

[Mojo]

Because fanbois were right on this one. The game, in my opinion, had a quite clear vision of what it wants to be - a medieval combat themed Pirates! clone.

Maybe, but the game was not successful in that regard. It doesn't compare to Pirates! in design quality.

I don't know, I always thought M&B had the potential to be a great sandbox RPG in the vein of Darklands. That would have been simply awesome. Unfortunately they didn't expand on this... and M&B ended up being just a really mediocre sandbox game with a decent combat system.

And now it is a MMO. Oh joy.

 

[Severian Silk]

Additional tactical options would have gone a long way to make this game great. For instance:

1) Have *some* control over your party's initial position on the battle map. In JA2 you had limited control over where your mercs started when invading a sector. +1
2) Add line of sight on the world map. I.e. hide in valleys, get a better view by climbing on top of hills. +1
3) Make it so that the world map geometry is the same (but less detailed) as the battle map geometry. This way you can see where you're about to fight and maybe plan a little ahead of time. Again, using JA2 as an example, you could at least get *some* idea of what you would find when venturing into a sector for the first time. Maybe M&B should have used a tile-based world map?

I mean, why complain about a lack of strategic options? It's the lack of tactical options that is really key.

 

[HardCode]

It's not an MMO. It's multiplayer team deathmatch. Who comes up with this shit?

 

[Saxon1974]

Has anyone confirmed that the RPG elements have been removed in the single player portion of the game?

There aren't very many Medieval themed RPG's out there and I really enjoyed this game with some mods.

If the stats and skills are gone, no interest.

 

[Martin]

Sounds to me that they took an easy ( although ungraceful) way out of alot of bullshit that would arise in MnB played in multiplayer mode.

Cant say that I blame them.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Single-player is still the same.

Stats & skills have been removed from MP. It's just like Quake team deathmatch now - except without rockets.

Also, horses > footmen so badly that there are already "footmen only"-servers, where the true warriors can test their mettle with intricate rules of dueling.

 

[Saxon1974]

Single-player is still the same.

Stats & skills have been removed from MP. It's just like Quake team deathmatch now - except without rockets.

Also, horses > footmen so badly that there are already "footmen only"-servers, where the true warriors can test their mettle with intricate rules of dueling.

Well thats good then, because I dont really care about the online play. I assume the storyline and area content wont be much different in the single player game though...so will have to wait for some mods that have the improved graphics and AI\Sieges I guess.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Warband is supposed to improve siege and graphics for SP too. Dunno though how much love they got for that area since MP is the meat of the expansion.

 

[Saxon1974]

Warband is supposed to improve siege and graphics for SP too. Dunno though how much love they got for that area since MP is the meat of the expansion.

Yea Im not really expecting much. There just aren't many medieval historical RPG's out there.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Shouldn't we clarify first, wether stats were removed from the sp game? It's hard t believe that they would really turn this into a pure deathmatch game.

But I agree with Blackadder and others, I have hardly seen so much wasted potential in another game. Any combination of M&Bs fighting system with a decent story mode (or the promised Pirates! system fully realized) would have turned it probably into one of the best games of all time. The fact that the game was still so enjoyable despite its terrible state should be testimony to this.

 

[Szioul]

It's been in Open Multiplayer Beta for owners of M&B for a couple of days now. Seems like any old FPS, except with swords and bows. A lot of fun though. At least the battles and sieges are.