Mount and Blade

[gregathit]

Well, if you were ever contemplating picking up any of the excellent Mount and Blade games, now might just be the perfect time!

 

Steam is having a sale through the weekend (ends April 23rd). All three games (original, Warband, and With Fire and Sword) can be had separately for $2.50 to $5.00 each or all three as a bundle for $7.50

 

Quite a deal!

[HanPL]

7,50€ Well spent.

Right now playing "vanilla " M&B Warband and just love it.

With HDR enabled fights look really good.

Kinda weird because there are no voice dialogues, 99% of time all you do is fight. textures are low quality (DX7/DX9 ) but M&B have something that makes you forget about those things and enjoy the game I thinks it's "just one more fight... one more "caravan " route, one more arena tournamet syndrome

 

 

[Kashked]

My favourite among the three is Fire and Sword. While I prefer the setting of the first two, the battles just feel much better in WfaS, atleast the "officer" aspect of them. My only "strategy" in Warband tended to be "Follow me, oh there they are, CHARGE!".

 

I gotta agree with HanPL, the graphics honestly sucks at todays standard, but somehow you forget that. I think it has to do with the one, totally unique aspect, that really makes it special... Realistic, or atleast as far as I can tell, cavalery warfare. In your basic strategy game (like Age of Empires or whatever) cavalery is a slightly faster unit that runs up to the bad guys, stops, and starts hitting them. In your somewhat more complex strategy game (like Total War-series), once again cavalery runs up, albeit with a nice charge bonus, and then stands still and fights.

In Mount and Blade the cavalery charge continues through the lines (unless it is beaten back...), wheels around and comes back. The cavalery never stands still. The horses have weight and mass, weapon damage pretty much makes sense, basically it feels pretty realistic, meaning you don't need the pretty graphics to give you a feeling of realism.

[Blackbryre]

I've put a good 80 hours into Warband multiplayer with the mod "cRPG". While the learning curve is somewhat brutal, the leveling system feels pretty rewarding once you get a handle of it. I highly recommend it.

[gregathit]

When the charm of vanilla wears off there are quite a few mods on the tale worlds site. One of the best for Warband is Prophecy of Pendor. It is a total remake of the game. Modding is pretty easy and tools are fairly easy to use as well.

 

Forums link: http://forums.taleworlds.com/

Pendor Mod link: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/board,119.0.html

 

Mods can improve the graphics quite a bit but it doesn't ever come close to being great. Just as you guys have stated the so-so graphics never really bothered me either.

[johneb]

I played M&B 1011 just a few hours ago. There are some really good mods for it.

Wedding Dance

Prophesy of Pendor

Light and Darkness-Heroes of Calradia

1866

and a whole lot more...It's a great game...you can have huge battles.

I recommend

[Guest]

Has anyone tried the new Warband expansion: Napoleonic wars? I've played a bit and the multiplayer can be really fun at times. You can actually use artillery, plant emplacements like barricades and trenches, and since guns are so innacurate the suspense is high. I haven't partaken in any official line battles but the videos that I've seen of them are really cool.

[sen4mi]

I gotta agree with HanPL' date=' the graphics honestly sucks at todays standard, but somehow you forget that. I think it has to do with the one, totally unique aspect, that really makes it special... Realistic, or atleast as far as I can tell, cavalery warfare. In your basic strategy game (like Age of Empires or whatever) cavalery is a slightly faster unit that runs up to the bad guys, stops, and starts hitting them. In your somewhat more complex strategy game (like Total War-series), once again cavalery runs up, albeit with a nice charge bonus, and then stands still and fights.

In Mount and Blade the cavalery charge continues through the lines (unless it is beaten back...), wheels around and comes back. The cavalery never stands still. The horses have weight and mass, weapon damage pretty much makes sense, basically it feels pretty realistic, meaning you don't need the pretty graphics to give you a feeling of realism.

[/quote']

 

Yes!

 

The "low quality graphics" mean that they can put a lot of individuals on screen, and do their game development with just a couple people.

 

But I think another aspect that works is the "dual map" concept -- they are not afraid to take a step back and focus on gameplay that does not fit into their UI. (And in the original game you can play a merchant type or whatever else, though there is enough combat that you cannot ignore that part.)

[Kashked]

The problem with playing the merchant type is that it is really hard to earn XP that way... Sure, you get a little quest XP for transporting ale between towns or other "merchant"-type quests, but although you in theory are free to do something other than fight, in reality, atleast if you want to level, there is no other option than to go to war...

[gregathit]

The problem with playing the merchant type is that it is really hard to earn XP that way... Sure' date=' you get a little quest XP for transporting ale between towns or other "merchant"-type quests, but although you in theory are free to do something other than fight, in reality, atleast if you want to level, there is no other option than to go to war...

[/quote']

 

Well, if you really want to pursue the merchant route you can always mod things a bit to allow it. There are some rather easy to use mod tools over in the taleworld's forums that allow you to tweak up or down pretty much anything. The games are truly mod friendly!

[gregathit]

Once again steam is offering the M&B series for a crazy low price...however it is for today ONLY!

 

MB - WF&S $2.49

MB - Warband $4.99

MB - original $3.74

 

All four (plus MP addon) $8.74

All prices US dollars.

 

Have fun!

[Guest]

Wow, I wonder why M&B goes on sale so often?