Mount & Blade: My humble opinion.

[Multi-headed Cow]

Well I bought it and it seems ok apart from the fact that it looks like it's shallower than Pirates!.

 

[Lightknight]

Mount & Blade: My humble opinion.

I would give you MY humble opinion, if i could actually launch this piece of crap without it crashing after 2 seconds.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

It's stupidly simple and I think every game of it is going to play roughly the same and I can't interact with the world very much but I can't stop playing it help.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

My significant other stayed up until 7:30 this morning playing it. At around 3:30 I was like "ok, it's 3:30, I'm going the fuck to bed." I wake up when he finally arrives, look at the clock, then glare at him like "oh, you stupid fucker." He sheepishly goes "I didn't know what time it was!" and I barked "I FUCKING TOLD YOU" and went promptly back to sleep.

Our landlady is coming over now to help us with the backyard, so the joke is on him, as he needs to get his bitch ass woke up now.

...So yeah. It does seem a very good game. Simple, in need of some refinement, but for the teeny team behind it, it's some quality shit. $7.50 seems almost too paltry a sum for what it offers.

 

[elander_]

It has better larping game play than Oblivion, that is certain.

 

[Imbecile]

Out of curiosity Annie, did you write the dialogue for the gnome hung up on golems in SoZ? The writing (and use of the word "Hee"), seemed vaguely familiar?

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Yes. Yes I did. I basically wrote her as me, if you hyped me up on sugar and caffeine, deprived me of sleep, and asked me about videogames. Also she wears HOLY SHIT BRIGHT stuff, like I tend to. I kinda couldn't resist.

Also, I have been exhorted to try Mount and Blade. It does seem cool, but I'm a little hesitant because I DO tend to like a little more direction in my games. Am I being a giant fucking wuss for wanting that and should I just (wo)man up and get the fuckin game already?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Well, there's a free trial up to level... 8? Definitely stops before it starts coming into its own, and... I hate myself for saying this, but as you get up into double-figure levels and begin waging campaigns and stuff, the direction kind of creates itself for a while. Anyway, yeah, free trial, nothing to lose.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

If a king asks you to be his vassal, say no. You'll think to yourself "Hey, I'll be the ruler of a crappy little village and 20 peasants, that'll be fun", then the damn king will order you to follow him around the map for 2-3 hours, collecting cows to feed his army as he does all the cool things like siege castles. Motherfucker.

 

[Ashery]

If a king asks you to be his vassal, say no. You'll think to yourself "Hey, I'll be the ruler of a crappy little village and 20 peasants, that'll be fun", then the damn king will order you to follow him around the map for 2-3 hours, collecting cows to feed his army as he does all the cool things like siege castles. Motherfucker.

And later on you get appointed as the marshal and you can siege castles with a force many times larger than one you'd be able to muster alone, ;D

 

[Spectacle]

Mount & Blade is a combat game, the fighting is what drives everything else. If you don't love the combat, then I'm sure it will get boring and repetitive after a few hours. If you do love the combat then you might start to get bored after a few hundred hours. You'll know which group you're in after finishing the demo.

Annie, did you find a new job yet? If not, how about spending some time writing up the ultimate storymod for M&B?

 

[Dark Elf]

My infantry specialist now has decked out Strength, Iron Skin and Power Strike, and now I'm on my way to max out Agility so I can get maxed Athletics, Shield and Weapon Master (21 and 7,7,7 currently). Since soloing 50 sea raiders all alone is getting boring I've also begun collecting followers so they're at a decent level when I finally swear allegiance to the kingdom of Nords and conquer the world.

This game is fun.

Of course, everyone carries Nordic shit. Nordic Helmets, Nordic Swords, Huscarls Shields. Viking larping FTW.

Light leather may be slightly homo as far as armours go, but less encumberance = more speed.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Playing infantry is pretty gay when you start fighting Khergits

 

[Dark Elf]

It's the Khergits that are gay, not the other way around. Fucking pansies on fast horses flinging arrows at a safe distance... awful.

On the upside, Khergit armies aren't all that stellar during sieges.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Mount & Blade is a combat game, the fighting is what drives everything else. If you don't love the combat, then I'm sure it will get boring and repetitive after a few hours. If you do love the combat then you might start to get bored after a few hundred hours. You'll know which group you're in after finishing the demo.

Annie, did you find a new job yet? If not, how about spending some time writing up the ultimate storymod for M&B?

This fucking economy is pretty shitballs right now, so sadly yes, still looking. While I think Mount & Blade's got a decently solid setting, I almost wouldn't WANT to change it. Its draw is running around and fighting motherfuckers (and LOTS OF EM) and I feel like story would be... vestigial, sort of. Drawing attention to something the game really isn't meant for. The reason I think I could get away with a writing mod for SoZ is 1) the game has the groundwork for it and 2) I KNOW THE GAME SYSTEM Another thing I give props to M&B for is that it runs on its own engine, which ONE GUY put together. That's pretty insane to me.

Also, I wouldn't wanna presume to add a fuckload of background to a setting that's primarily in the minds of its creators and nobody else - I'm kind of OCD about that shit. Hell, the amount of research I did for even just making ITEMS for MotB amounted to having four PDFs of Forgotten Realms open on my computer at one time and bugging Travis Stout (who helped write The Unapproachable East and conveniently was sharing an office with me) for accuracy points and additional background.

But that being said, I wanna look more at M&B mods and peruse it a little more. While I don't think I could DO it, the idea is intriguing. What would YOU guys do to tweak the game?

 

[Zomg]

It could use as much more Pirates!, Darklands menu-gaming, tactics, and 4X stuff as anyone cares to develop for it. It's just a skeleton that derives 99% of its genuine interest from spiking a charging horseman's brain out with a spetum.

If I had to pick one thing I'd make possessing a village much more interesting and interactive.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

What would YOU guys do to tweak the game?

Permadeath. NPC companions can't die, and - far worse - faction Lords can't die. Even when you destroy an entire faction, the only NPC that disappears is the king - the others just get adopted by other factions. You can't even put Lords out of commision by imprisoning them forever, because they will break out eventually.
It's fucking stupid. And, yes, if you have the patience to take over every castle and city in the game, the last one will be staffed with about ninety Lords, some of whom you've been fighting since the beginning of the game under about three different faction titles.

Why there hasn't been a mod made to change this yet, I have no idea. I... don't think it would be too hard.

 

[Raapys]

It was damn near perfect with the Last Days mod. Can't wait for the mod update so it plays with the latest version of the game.

 

[Shoelip]

When the hell is that coming out? I thought they were holding out on releasing a new version until 1.0 but it's still not out! Where is it!!?!?

 

[wrathofdog]

I believe it's being worked on. You can check their official forums for info.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Important update: God damn this is horrible. I was having a pretty good time until I realized that the PC can't die, named party members can't die, lords can't die and holy shit this is a single player MMO isn't it. I'm grinding level 1 bears to get to level 10 bears to get to level 30 bears and fuck.

Maybe there's a mod somewhere out there to un-suck the game, but it's feeling pretty goddamn pointless un-modded now.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Important update: God damn this is horrible. I was having a pretty good time until I realized that the PC can't die, named party members can't die, lords can't die and holy shit this is a single player MMO isn't it.

Told you.
Seriously, why isn't there a mod for this? I'm almost half-willing to learn how to do it myself, and my actions never speak louder than my words.

 

[Ashery]

Important update: God damn this is horrible. I was having a pretty good time until I realized that the PC can't die, named party members can't die, lords can't die and holy shit this is a single player MMO isn't it. I'm grinding level 1 bears to get to level 10 bears to get to level 30 bears and fuck.

Maybe there's a mod somewhere out there to un-suck the game, but it's feeling pretty goddamn pointless un-modded now.

While the death issue does warrant an analogy to MMO's, the grinding part doesn't, as I'm unaware of any MMO where you can take down a level 30 mob with a level 5 character when the level cap is below the 50 mark.

Damnit, now I have the sudden urge to install it on the new comp and start up another horse archer...

 

[sheek]

I only play Skirmishes (under 'Quick Battles' in the main menu) nowadays.

Maw's Murder Mod is quite good as an alternative change, but the map and scale of the factions are gigantic, and it crashes and it hadn't been updated to v 1.0 last I checked.

Anyone tried WW2 In China?

Kind of fun except that shooting pistols from horseback is messed up, you can only aim so far to the left (since the animation was designed for a bow which is normally held in the left hand). Battles are a huge cluster fuck with machine guns and grenades blowing up all over the place.

 

[sheek]

WW2 in China:

Mounted combat + firearms + fighting japs (and their puppets) = M&B got even better