Game News Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord now available on Early Access

[Black Angel]

Warband was one of the games I simply didn't get. How is this liked by more than 13 people in the world?

For me, while the melee action gameplay mechanics seems rather simplistic (control the direction of the attacks with a swipe of the mouse), it still works for the most part. Even if you don't play the game for its RPG mechanics, there's a subtle but noticeable feelings of progression as you level up, raise your stats, skills, and weapon proficiency. In a way, it's like Gothic, but very slow and in fact grindy due to the fact that they gated the skills progression according to how much points you have in corresponding stats. There's an obscure mechanic added in Warband like chamber blocking which is essentially both parry+riposte executed in one move but can still be blocked/counter chamber blocked.
The horseback mechanics is probably the best implemented out there and very satisfying to play. My only experience of a game with horseback mechanic was Skyrim

so I'm not exactly in the know when it comes to horseback combat gameplay. There's also KCD but it's in first person only, and I'm never truly satisfied with the horseback mechanics there. There's couched lance which is yet another rather obscure mechanics that's very fun to play with. Galloping at 40-50 m/s on horseback then dealing ~500 damage with a couched lance to an enemy's face is very satisfying.
Ranged weapons are straightforward, but Warband added a first-person mode which made ranged combat more comfortable. This is also where RPG progression mechanics is subtly but noticeably shows a degree of progression as you invest more points into corresponding stats, skills, and weapon proficiency.
The siege mechanics is a bit of a clusterfuck especially with the lack of meaningful siege weapon mechanics. It's hoped that vanilla Bannerlord would fix this, but then again people could just go back to Warband and mod it for good siege mechanics.
And finally there's army vs army battlefield mechanics, of which I'm just going to quote this guy right here:

Starts from 0:40

"If you ever wanted to experience being a part of a big battle, charging into enemy lines, cutting down assailants on a city's walls, or leading your men as you storm an enemy's castle, well, no other game does this as well as Mount&Blade. Where other titles might show you battles with a handful of NPCs they try to pass off as major battlefields, or instead take the opposite approach and nail the visuals while providing gameplay that's restrictive and linear, Mount&Blade instead gives you the best of both worlds, with battles of 250 functioning and mostly realistically behaving NPCs, all on screen at once at a very acceptable framerate."

There's also another thing I need to admit; I grew up playing RTS games like Age of Empires 2 and Stronghold: Crusader. In addition to that I also play some multiplayer FPS shooters like Counter Strikes and Battlefield 2. This mixed gaming experience that made the majority of my childhood leads me to daydreaming about playing an FPS real-time games in a medieval-renaissance setting, besieging cities and castles or defending them. Turns out Mount&Blade did most of that and then some, even though the first-person mode was added by Warband. And I only discover these games in 2018.

There's other gameplay elements like trading, fiefs-castles-towns management, and quests you can undertake from various characters including but not limited to the lords, kings, and guildmasters. But they're not exactly the selling points in comparison to the moment-to-moment gameplay I talked about above.
And then there's the matter of AI which aren't the best out there, as the guy in the video put it (functioning and *mostly* realistically behaving NPCs), and couple more problems that's expected to be fixed in Bannerlord. But compared to all that, there's nothing quite like it out there. And depending on what you're looking for, it's very satisfying when playing the bits and pieces of this game.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Warband was one of the games I simply didn't get. How is this liked by more than 13 people in the world?

Reminds me of what I thought about DayZ or PUBG when I first saw those - cheap, ramshackle, bland jank incarnated. Where the fuck is the popularity coming from? Years ago I actually bought M&B (for like 2 bucks) and tried it when Steam recommended it as an "open world RPG". I booted it up and laughed so, so hard.

But clearly M&B, just like DayZ or PUBG, tapped a previous untapped vein, filled some sort of niche. A p. big niche apparently.

You can divide most people into gamers and larpers. Larpers pretend they are gamers, but they are not. They fantasize about worldbuilding, setting, etc., even if the gameplay is shit. In fact, even most gamers will slip from time to time when the shitty game is about some theme that is dear to them. If you look at things from this perspective, the illogical and nonsensical criterion of taste will make sense.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the early access version is very much stable and playable

I also saw some people mention a long time ago that they were taking this long because the Turkish government kept paying them anyway just to keep running.

And you believed that?

 

[Crescent Hawk]

I think people love the idea of the game more than the game. I mean amidst the mess there are solid mechanics sure, But the idea of creating a kingdom, ruling a warband of mercenaries is gaming perfection. The down to earth pseudo historicity of the stuff also helps.
Viking Conquest tapped into this more than Warband. A rpg where you have semi sandbox freedom, while being able to travel and create your own adventures is seriously the appeal. Kenshi is similar.

I sense a good amount of energy from modders here and in the east. If the coding is solid Bannerlords will pump out amazing mods and became a legendary game. Hopefully.

 

[Lycra Suit]

And you believed that?

Because I can't think of a more likely answer as to why it took them 10 years to release a graphic update with a siege module.

Go on and speculate on some other reason but to me the only alternative is that the creator had a burnout and the rest of his team had no coding experience or knowledge whatsoever, nor the will to learn coding during those 10 years. Essentially, like Notch's Mojang.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I have no idea how hard or easy it is to find 3D engine programmers in Turkey, but I can't imagine why the government would have kept a game developer afloat. To maintain Turkey's international prestige among western gamers? If there was some sort of corruption scheme going on, I could see the government helping Taleworlds secure a credit line which they otherwise wouldn't have gotten for example, but direct payments I can't rationalize.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I think people love the idea of the game more than the game.

The game is the idea. Game mechanics are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether you can larp as a medieval warlord. Do you seriously believe that anyone will play games such as "Mount & Blade" or "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" because of the mechanics? Popamoles flourish because most cRPG players are inveterate larpers. Character system is a mere afterthought that is supposed to reinforce the larping process.

I don’t think that developers and knowledgable players actually understand how thin is the line between cRPG and larping. I see experienced players here praise shitty cRPGs because they have engrossing world building aspects, interesting animations, etc. The justifications they provide are typically presented in terms of game mechanics and systems, but you know that these excuses are rationalizations for desires that are more childish and primitive in nature. I suspect that this is probably more common in cRPGs than in other game genres, because cRPGs have an inherent simulationist vocation. Not only you have character systems with stats and skills that are supposed to be a fictional model of people’s abilities, as you also have an exploration of a game world with quests, choices, and whatnot.

 

[Morality Games]

I have no idea how hard or easy it is to find 3D engine programmers in Turkey, but I can't imagine why the government would have kept a game developer afloat. To maintain Turkey's international prestige among western gamers? If there was some sort of corruption scheme going on, I could see the government helping Taleworlds secure a credit line which they otherwise wouldn't have gotten for example, but direct payments I can't rationalize.

?

Governments subsidize works of art and culture, and increasingly that includes video games. It's how Odd Gods is getting funded in Australia, for example. Pretty sure Logic Artists funded the Expeditions series partially that way too.

I doubt that Erdogan would know what Mount and Blade is, but some bureaucrat who approved the subsidy would.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

Not only you have character systems with stats and skills that are supposed to be a fictional model of people’s abilities, as you also have an exploration of a game world with quests, choices, and whatnot.

Yeah precisely. Still M&B has some solid combat. I dont know if it makes sense but I get a very sid Meyer pirates vibe and I love it wish more games would do it. Game that have a central narrative maybe even with some branching decisions if possible, like the family quest in Pirates!, while at the same time you have total free control to do whatever the fuck you want. M&B delivered the goods no matter how clunky Warband was.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think people love the idea of the game more than the game.

The game is the idea. Game mechanics are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether you can larp as a medieval warlord. Do you seriously believe that anyone will play games such as "Mount & Blade" or "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" because of the mechanics? Popamoles flourish because most cRPG players are inveterate larpers. Character system is a mere afterthought that is supposed to reinforce the larping process.

I don’t think that developers and knowledgable players actually understand how thin is the line between cRPG and larping. I see experienced players here praise shitty cRPGs because they have engrossing world building aspects, interesting animations, etc. The justifications they provide are typically presented in terms of game mechanics and systems, but you know that these excuses are rationalizations for desires that are more childish and primitive in nature. I suspect that this is probably more common in cRPGs than in other game genres, because cRPGs have an inherent simulationist vocation. Not only you have character systems with stats and skills that are supposed to be a fictional model of people’s abilities, as you also have an exploration of a game world with quests, choices, and whatnot.

Ha-ha, sword goes *swoosh!*

 

[baud]

I have no idea how hard or easy it is to find 3D engine programmers in Turkey, but I can't imagine why the government would have kept a game developer afloat. To maintain Turkey's international prestige among western gamers? If there was some sort of corruption scheme going on, I could see the government helping Taleworlds secure a credit line which they otherwise wouldn't have gotten for example, but direct payments I can't rationalize.

?

Governments subsidize works of art and culture, and increasingly that includes video games. It's how Odd Gods is getting funded in Australia, for example. Pretty sure Logic Artists funded the Expeditions series partially that way too.

I doubt that Erdogan would know what Mount and Blade is, but some bureaucrat who approved the subsidy would.

Ceres Games got some money from Bavaria for Realms Beyond

 

[Morality Games]

Sure, why not? Governments subsidize works of art and video games are the version of art that actually have a shot at generating some serious money. Even a graphically non-intensive game like Angry Birds can result in some serious windfall.

Especially Mount and Blade, which sold millions of copies is certainly the most successful game to come out of Turkey.

 

[Lycra Suit]

I have no idea how hard or easy it is to find 3D engine programmers in Turkey, but I can't imagine why the government would have kept a game developer afloat. To maintain Turkey's international prestige among western gamers? If there was some sort of corruption scheme going on, I could see the government helping Taleworlds secure a credit line which they otherwise wouldn't have gotten for example, but direct payments I can't rationalize.

Pretty much because of the first part of your post. Brain drain is real and most developing countries try desperately to get their own local tech industries running.

 

[Junmarko]

Do you seriously believe that anyone will play games such as "Mount & Blade" or "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" because of the mechanics?

 

[Aemar]

I doubt that Erdogan would know what Mount and Blade is, but some bureaucrat who approved the subsidy would.

 

[MicoSelva]

This has been a highly depressing wake up call that my computer is too weak to run this game I've been waiting for for years.

PHEW, I almost lost my entire social life here. Now I can go on to pass university and get a good job/family.

https://happygamer.com/mount-blade-...he-chaos-without-a-hardware-bottleneck-61002/