Preview Telefragged praises Mount & Blade

[Abernathy]

The MB download is essentially just an engine, I guess - but WOW!

Given the difference in the availabilty of resources to those guys versus the resources available to Bethesda along with the clamour there's been from the fans ever since Daggerfall about horses, it's only sensible to consider mounted combat to have really been a piece of piss to implement for Oblivion - surely?

Not that I'm belittling the achievements of the Mount and Blade folks at all, I'm just wondering how the hell it wasn't possible for Bethesda to do the same for their fans, given that this was something that's been on the wishlist for bloody ages?

 

[Abernathy]

I would daresay that one has to keep in mind that the entire focus of Mount & Blade is solely based on its horse-riding and mounted combat (which it apparently does very well), whereas a game like Oblivion must do many, many more things. "So much less" is a comparison you can make if you're looking only at that one aspect... when even you have to admit that Oblivion obviously does much, much more.

I have to disagree here, mainly because I suck at horse-riding. In combat the first thing I do is get OFF my horse and start laying into the enemy with my sword, which I do passably. I'm also lousy at bows and arrows, which you could equally say are the entire focus, just because they're the default.

Nonetheless, I seem to do okay in the game.

I have to agree that mounted combat IS promoted as the main feauture, but that's a bit like saying that soil erosion is the main fature of Oblivion, isn't it? :wink:

 

[LlamaGod]

the game is an RPG styled version of Pirates, but on land.

Theres more then just horse riding, you can do ground combat, you can play purely as a commander type, you can do trading, questing, capture prisoners and sell them to slavers, etc.

all while improving yourself and gaining levels, and it has a pretty well made character system.

 

[Volourn]

"Mount and Blade has more then just mounted combat, you retards.

Actually play it first."

No. It would be unwise for me to do so. All I've heard about it is how awesome it's horse riding and combat it is. I'm sorry; but as cool as that is, it'll need more than that to impress me.

R00fles!

 

[Chefe]

Every thread must turn into an Oblivion thread. It is the law of the land.

Well, that is essentially the question, isn't it? Assuming that there weren't other issues involved with integrating Mount & Blade-style mounted combat into the rest of the game (and there would be), you'd have to decide if it was worth it to take two members of the team and dedicate them towards that feature and nothing else.

As mentioned previously, there is SO much more to M&B than just mounted combat. Take into mind also that these two people had to create all these other features on their own as well. They had to be the entire development team. So, essentially, Bethesda could dedicate two people to that one feature, nothing else, and get it done within at least half the time it took the M&B team along with less resources.

Being able to "afford" it is as much a question of time and use of skills as it is of money, and even if it weren't I don't know any developer who has extra money lying around that they can throw it at features they don't consider essential. It's not as if the features they already do have couldn't use that time/skill/money just as urgently, after all.

This made me laugh.

You really, really cannot say this when talking about Oblivion. They threw inordinate amounts of money into things like soil erosion and Patrick Stewart. Yes, Patrick Stewart, who is in the game a whole 5 minutes then dies. In Bethy's eyes, Captain Picard is more important than mounted combat, skills, weapons, dialogue, etc. etc. etc...

Need I mention Radiant AI? The system that takes all these resources to tell NPCs when to have lunch? The system that Bethesda admitted doesn't introduce new quests or anything in the way of actual gameplay?

Bethesda isn't your typical developer. They're far more stupid.

That's not to diminish the achievement of the people making Mount & Blade, certainly, as it's impressive and no trivial amount of work. And I wouldn't mind seeing riding and mounted combat being assigned a higher priority in a major release RPG, as well. I suspect at some level that it would need to be about riding before you would see it at more than a superficial level, though.

Oblivion has a huge landscape that would be a chore to simply walk across. Oblivion has horses. That looks like a superb set-up for mounted combat.

 

[Pete]

Mounted Combat is the key feature of Mount and Blade. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has many key features that, when combined together, make for an exciting and epic RPG.

We simply did not have enough time and resources to dedicate to mounted combat. There were many other features that were essential and required more devotion. I know many of you are disappointed by the cut, but I am sure that everyone will enjoy what we have included and updated in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to make a truly engaging roleplaying experience.

 

[Balor]

Bah! Pete strikes back!
"Not convinced!" (c) Stanislavsky.
Try harder.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yay! Pete is back!

 

[Naked_Lunch]

It's okay, Pete, you can put away the adspeak when you're here.

 

[AZ]

I won't buy Oblivion, bought Mount&Blade last year.

 

[Blacklung]

the game is an RPG styled version of Pirates, but on land.

Theres more then just horse riding, you can do ground combat, you can play purely as a commander type, you can do trading, questing, capture prisoners and sell them to slavers, etc.

all while improving yourself and gaining levels, and it has a pretty well made character system.

Finally, something to hold me over. *heads over to the website for the trial version*

 

[Sabregirl]

It's okay, Pete, you can put away the adspeak when you're here.

Seriously . . .

Anyway I've enjoyed Mount and Blade quite a bit. There's no story currently but as others have mentioned the combat is very fun. I rather like a bit of twitched based stuff sometimes and even though the models are low poly, the horse animation is excellent. Character design is interesting - ALL of the skills seem to be useful, usable weapons galore. No magic, though, mostly "realism". Only a few random quests at this point - no discernable storyline yet but still the best $14 I've spent in a while.

-S

 

[Azael]

Mount & Blade is pretty damn great as it is, but add a very active modding community and it becomes even better. Right now I'm playing the Lord of the Rings inspired "The Last Days" mod and it's an amazing mod. They've managed to add a (somewhat functional) strategic layer to the day, day and night cycles that affect orc performance, tons of new weapons and armor, orcs, etc. Anyway, for the $12 that I paid for the game, I've received more fun than most full priced games.

 

[Blacklung]

Well I'm just starting to play this and I have to say...thank you someone for finally making directional 2handed weapon blocking. This game could be very very interesting...

 

[LlamaGod]

practice with the trainer often at the beginning, finish all his ranks and then head to the arena for practice.

I was able to get to level 3 before leaving the town and it helped a good deal.

Then do the merchant's quests for awhile to get money and try to build up your soldiers. I got lucky once and I was esorting a caravan and some raiders attacked and turned the caravan guards into prisoners. I turn around and fought the raiders and freed them and then hired the guards, so I had these badass guards and they were upgrading into even stronger ones.

Eventually, though, some really really strong guys can and whipped my ass, so it was back to basics.

 

[Blacklung]

Yeah I did exactly that sort of thing, then set off (cause the lance is a useless piece of crap in the arena and I ended up with it way too much). Whooped ass in my first few fights and then, well I tried fighting some mountain pirates...Needless to say I eating grass. I'm still recovering from it. Did buy the game though. Definitely worth my time. And it's a good game to kill time with between the classes (and kill people :twisted: ).

 

[elander_]

Just tried it and it's a very nice game. It may be a bit hard for those guys that missed the blades master in Morrowind however. These guys are actualy creating innovative gameplay. The game is still very incomplete so im not saying it is an rpg. It lacks roleplaying trough dialog, stealth gameplay, a real economy, bigger towns and more people lifes to mess with and that save system is something people don't use anymore. On the other side it has limited reputation/faction features and a living world that feels like middle age politicis. It can be a great game but it depends on how they finish it. Right now i think they need to put more people and more life into that game.

 

[Spazmo]

Without properly reading everyone else's posts and assuming I've completely grasped everything they're saying, I think the question is which is better: a game that does one thing really well or a game that does a whole bunch of things in a really mediocre fashion?

 

[LlamaGod]

then set off (cause the lance is a useless piece of crap in the arena and I ended up with it way too much).

if you're on a horse with a lance, charge until your guy puts the lance under his arm, then charge towards a unit and just ram the tip into them (dont press any attacks, just aim the tip and spear them).

It does quite a large amount of damage.

 

[Section8]

And jousting lances do non-lethal damage, so you can take prisoners.

 

[MarFish]

I bought the game a few weeks ago. It was a drama

The copy protection they use (Themida / oreans.com) is more a rootkit than a copy protection. It a driver into the system on kernel level and sure as hell it hard crashed my machine when I tried to run the game with a BSDO, the first and only BSOD I had with windows XP sp2.

searching the web quickly turned up other people with the same problem ( http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum ... 2&get=last ), as well as a "technical analysis" of this invasive piece of crap ( http://www.wasm.ru/article.php?article=themida2005 )

Short version is that the copy protection is relying on undocumented functionality in the windows API and hooking the system on kernel level, which doesn't fly very smooth with AMD 64bit CPUs. Crash. Bluescreen. Corruped Partition.

There are several posts on their support forums with exactly the same issues and no fix that works for everyone, as of version .711 I'm still unable to play the game.

I can totally understand the need for developers to protect their software, but shit like this doesn't make me feel sympathetic for the Indy developer.

 

[Blacklung]

then set off (cause the lance is a useless piece of crap in the arena and I ended up with it way too much).

if you're on a horse with a lance, charge until your guy puts the lance under his arm, then charge towards a unit and just ram the tip into them (dont press any attacks, just aim the tip and spear them).

It does quite a large amount of damage.

Dang no wonder they seemed like a broken weapon, I just kept using attack. Well anyway, I'm more of a sword/shield/bow guy myself. There is something very satisfying about grabbing a corsair horse, the running full steam with my shield up, knocking a bunch of guys down and then just, zip, zip, zip, with arrows to their heads. Mastering the art of headshots with the bow can turn a disadvantaged battle around. Plus it's a nice way to get a horse if you get the rider off with a few nicely placed shots (sometimes it's nice to have an old FPS background :D). Seriously, this game is some of the best fun I've had in a while.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Yes, the two games are very different: one is made by a husband & wife team, another is made by a large team with a budget large enough to pay for celebrities. While we can't expect the first game to be anything more, we shouldn't expect the second game to be so fucking much less.

I would daresay that one has to keep in mind that the entire focus of Mount & Blade is solely based on its horse-riding and mounted combat (which it apparently does very well), whereas a game like Oblivion must do many, many more things. "So much less" is a comparison you can make if you're looking only at that one aspect... when even you have to admit that Oblivion obviously does much, much more.

As it should, being a much larger development team.

The issue is one of resource allotment. A game like Oblivion has far more resources to allot, but also many more features that it is expected to cover as an RPG -- a genre that I would say is more involved, feature-wise, than just about any other. Horses and mounted combat are far from impossible (I don't think anyone's saying that), but it's a very expensive feature to do well. At some level the decision has to be made whether or not such expense can be justified on a feature that isn't necessarily integral to an RPG... and whether or not you think it's a good decision or not, the answer tends more often to be no. Obviously the answer for Mount & Blade's creators is yes... and good for them, but as near as I can tell (not having played it myself) it's the only feature they have.

Not that most of you don't already know this, I'm sure. I just find it interesting that some folks think that there is a mythical RPG that can be created by taking the best elements from other games out there without also considering the trade-offs that each of those individual games had to make in order to do what they did well.

I think that's the problem though Dave. I can call you Dave, can't I? Or are you one of those Dave's that doesn't like being called Dave? I knew such a Dave once. I think he owned some chickens. He said he could commit a whole issue of Sports Illustrated to memory with just one look. He was like Frederick in that children's book collecting colors, just salting images away for a cold, grey day. You'd sit across from him, shivering, cursing your cold, miserable fate, leafing through a copy of Field and Stream and he'd be over there, breathing easy, and this strange, wicked smile of contentment would come across his face and his chest would start to glow all E.T.-like, and you knew, you just knew, he was reading the flippin' magazine in his mind. I tried to master his technique -- spent several weekends concentrating on my "happy place," picturing the soft, white light, trying to bend spoons and intuit shapes and numbers on flash cards and such -- but couldn't do it. If you think you can pull it off, I highly recommend it, because this guy was one of the most peaceful, centered cats I've ever known.

So anyway:

• Mount & Blade: Combat, Gameplay foussed.
• Oblivion: Soil Erosion, Patrick Stewart focussed.

Bethesda's resources are divided along the lines of their priorities. It's just that their priorities suck, from a gaming point of view. From a technology point of view, they're great.

 

[Claw]

All I've heard about it is how awesome it's horse riding and combat it is. I'm sorry; but as cool as that is, it'll need more than that to impress me.

R00fles!

Liar! You like JE, so evidently it takes less to impress you.

R00fles!

 

[elander_]

Without properly reading everyone else's posts and assuming I've completely grasped everything they're saying, I think the question is which is better: a game that does one thing really well or a game that does a whole bunch of things in a really mediocre fashion?

Fallout did a whole bunch of things very well, for example. It raised people expectations on rpgs and people are probably expecting more of rpgs after playing games like Fallout.