Mount & Blade Warband

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Intel_Hydralisk

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 6, 2005
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It's on sale on steam right now for $26.99 ($3 off...), official release date is March 30th. I just found out that if you pre-order it you can play the beta for free... which I think is really just the full game anyway at this point. After I bought it, steam let me download it and launched it with no issues. I think the game I'm playing is the 'beta', but I don't really know if there are any huge differences between the game right now and the march 30th game.

BY THE WAY... "Multiple Monitor Mode Enabled"... epic.
The original game had big issues with eyefinitiy (vert-, stretched menus... just about as bad as it got). This time around, ehehehe. :D
 
How's it compared to the original? I have the game pre-ordered. Amazon told me the release date was postponed.
 
Parmenides said:
How's it compared to the original? I have the game pre-ordered. Amazon told me the release date was postponed.
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The core game is the same as far as I can tell. There are A LOT of small changes I've noticed so far. The map's different, the horse behaves differently when charging into infantry (no more mowing down a line of infantry in one pass), infantry seem faster in general. Melee attack from horseback seems like it's been completely redone... still getting used to it. A LOT of sounds seem to be changed / improved. Of course, there's also multiplayer. I played a little bit of the multiplayer beta since it was free and it was ok... in the end MnB was mainly a single player sandbox game with tons of mods for me anyway.


By the way... triple wide support has no issues thus far and they seem to have everything covered from what I can tell. Even without triple wide, this game has a much higher single screen FOV than most recent titles. Go go indie devs?

warband2.jpg


warband1.jpg
 
I played it for a bit last night, but about an hour into my new game, it started producing a lot of scipt errors on the overview map when informing the player about changes in prosperity, statuses of lords vassals etc.

I don't know how complete some of the features listed on the steam game page are, but it would be nice to see if anyone else knows if these are working. I'd really want to become leader of a faction and then take over the entire world, but seeing as how it requires a significant time investment to get into a position of that sort, it would be nice to know if it's working or not before I bother.
 
I haven't played the beta in about a year back when it was only MP and I have one question for those playing the SP:
Does the unit type limit still exist? I believe it is 32 different troop types per garrison/party in the original M&B game.

Oh, and this game is terrigood. :)
 
The original Mount & Blade is one of the best games i bought this year. I like having the economy mods and all the little extras that other people have made. Would be cool if the incorporated it into M&B 2 on some level. Just the regular game itself proved ridiculously addictive.

Has anyone had a multiplayer game in warband yet.
 
Will get this sometime, have enough fun with the original when I play it. However, graphically it still does not equal the polished landscapes mod from what I have seen. If the guy who made it can get collison working with the trees and it works with warbadn that would make the game infinitely better.
 
kledar586 said:
The word SHOULD have gotten a lot of people in trouble :D
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Well it's been mentioned on the MnB forums that the beta saved games won't work with retail... so I imagine that the release build is different than what you download from steam right now.
 
I am so excited, I LOVE the original.

Just bought this one :D Thank you for the heads up :)
 
Looks like I'll be playing last. Got mine at Amazon. Don't have too much multi-player fun without me. :p
 
If you have your CD key, you should be able to use one of the torrents located on the official forums (Taleworlds download is currently very slow): http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,102754.0.html

I think Steam keys are the same as any other key, at least was the case with the original M&B.

Easy to find torrent links here: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,102806.0.html

Also, for those of us who NEED large battles: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,102823.0.html

The engine is much improved, including behind the scenes, as I can now run massive battles with less chance of CTD.
 
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Just got this game because of a recommendation from a buddy. Only played the tutorial and one MP battle but it looks cool. I can support Indie games with cool concepts, graphics are secondary.
 
Any fan of M&B will very much enjoy Warband. I can't wait to see what mods come out for it. :)

Oh, and it looks like the 32 troop type limit has been removed. Anyone who has played some of the larger mods (PoP, SoD, etc) knows how annoying that limit was.
 
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Awesome. Just the single player troop limit? I don't think 32 was ever the troop limit. Not the multiplayer limit?
 
dj_2004 said:
Any fan of M&B will very much enjoy Warband. I can't wait to see what mods come out for it. :)

Oh, and it looks like the 32 troop type limit has been removed. Anyone who has played some of the larger mods (PoP, SoD, etc) knows how annoying that limit was.
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Holy cow, that's so welcome. Any idea what the new troop limit is (if there is one)? I always liked to play with all my companions but it severely limited the types of troops I could have.

Awesome. Just the single player troop limit? I don't think 32 was ever the troop limit. Not the multiplayer limit?
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It's the troop type limit, not the troop number limit. You could have as many troops as your army size allowed in the original, but never more than 32 types (including heroes...)

The engine is much improved, including behind the scenes, as I can now run massive battles with less chance of CTD.
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Thank god. Random vertex buffer crashes from the original made large battles frustrating.

Ugggh I'm completely bogged down by work for the next few days, can't even play... can't wait for the weekend :( (need to stop loitering on [H] as well...)
 
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Intel_Hydralisk said:
Holy cow, that's so welcome. Any idea what the new troop limit is (if there is one)? I always liked to play with all my companions but it severely limited the types of troops I could have.


It's the troop type limit, not the troop number limit. You could have as many troops as your army size allowed in the original, but never more than 32 types (including heroes...)


Thank god. Random vertex buffer crashes from the original made large battles frustrating.

Ugggh I'm completely bogged down by work for the next few days, can't even play... can't wait for the weekend :( (need to stop loitering on [H] as well...)
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I think there is no limit now. I know the original 32 limit was caused by the devs only allotting a very small amount of memory for the troop lists.

Warband does have a few quirks that I dislike:
1) Horses no longer easily steer through your fellow army. Instead, each solder (foot and mounted) acts like a brick wall. Enemies are also harder to plow through, which is somewhat a good thing since a mounted army could easily decimate foot solders in M&B.

2) With HDR on, the snow in the game is too bright at night on the strategic map. There is also a pulsating effect going on at night, mainly with the snow and ocean. Besides that, HDR is subtle and implemented well.

3) As those in the beta know, animations have been redone. While they are much better than the jerky animations from the past, I find it to be a chore to fight melee style when mounted. It is difficult to judge the distance your weapon will swing, often resulting in misses.

Besides those dislikes, and maybe a couple more minor dislikes, the game is great, IMO.
 
Hmm, hope they haven't reduced the ability of horses like the chargers to plow through tons of enemies too much. That was always a good thing as a reward I thought.
 
necrophile said:
Hmm, hope they haven't reduced the ability of horses like the chargers to plow through tons of enemies too much. That was always a good thing as a reward I thought.
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From what little I played of the beta... horses and charging were nerfed heavily. The weaker horses do 0 damage a lot of times while charging. When I rode into 3 or 4 looters, my horse lost considerable momentum and almost completely stopped. Granted I didn't play much and this was all with the weaker horses, but I think my days of having rampaging Swadian knights is over.
 
I only have the starter horse so I don't know how much it was nerfed.

Perhaps my biggest dislike is that once you die, the battle ends with your retreat. So the player is now the center of the universe. Maybe there is a setting to change this somewhere...
 
Well, weaker horses always did stop with me when I ran into more than a couple of enemies, but the heavy chargers and warhorses could plow through and deal damage to a fair few.

I really should pick this up as I love mount and blade but am playing dragons age right now and don't have time.
 
necrophile said:
Well, weaker horses always did stop with me when I ran into more than a couple of enemies, but the heavy chargers and warhorses could plow through and deal damage to a fair few.

I really should pick this up as I love mount and blade but am playing dragons age right now and don't have time.
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From what I've seen, even Warhorses used by Swadians do not plow through many troops.

I think this is my last major dislike:
Shields are able to protect way too much of the soldier. I think board shields even cover the troop's feet now, and shields not in block mode still block many of the incoming arrows even when the arrows aren't even close to the shield.
 
Yes, you used to rarely get a "hit shield on back" message but I think I read they have extended that principle. It must be a difficult balancing act as there are so many variables in the game.
 
The problem is when the shield is in the off-hand and not actually being used to actively block.
 
If you're swinging with your right hand, and your shield is facing left, it should sometimes block an arrow coming from the left. Are you saying that it's buggy where sometimes arrows that should go through, magically hit the shield?
 
Parmenides said:
If you're swinging with your right hand, and your shield is facing left, it should sometimes block an arrow coming from the left. Are you saying that it's buggy where sometimes arrows that should go through, magically hit the shield?
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I shot four or five arrows at a footman (uses a regular heater shield) who was standing still doing nothing. All arrows were aimed at his right shoulder and right leg, yet they all went to his shield. Maybe that was fluke event.
 
dj_2004 said:
I shot four or five arrows at a footman (uses a regular heater shield) who was standing still doing nothing. All arrows were aimed at his right shoulder and right leg, yet they all went to his shield. Maybe that was fluke event.
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The OP of this thread clearly shows how bad this "forcefield" effect is, though I think he only shows a melee example: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,106391.0.html. Also, when someone has his sword in striking position his passive shield should not be able to protect him against projectiles aimed right at his chest. In many cases, the only time an arrow can hit the target rather than the passive shield is if it hits his back or his head.

But still, Warband is amazing, IMO. I already mentioned some of the more larger improvements, such as the optimization and graphics, but so many minor improvements exist that I am still finding new ones after a few dozen hours of gameplay (such as being able to batch upgrade a unit type in the same fashion as one batch garrisons a unit type).

I'm also shocked that I can run 400 player battles, with 40 bodies and 3 ragdolls without crashes or going below 30FPS. One day, when I feel daring, I may try for a higher limit. :)

To any M&B player on the fence: buy Warband!
 
Finally came in the mail (Amazon preorder). Amazon didn't have it in stock right away. Here we go....
Only got a hard copy because I had an expiring $10 Amazon game discount.


edit...

LOL, this game has to activate (CD-key) through Steam. The DVD copy from Amazon? No biggy for me. Surprised though. And it's auto-patching it before I realized the installation was complete.
 
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Parmenides said:
Finally came in the mail (Amazon preorder). Amazon didn't have it in stock right away. Here we go....
Only got a hard copy because I had an expiring $10 Amazon game discount.


edit...

LOL, this game has to activate (CD-key) through Steam. The DVD copy from Amazon? No biggy for me. Surprised though. And it's auto-patching it before I realized the installation was complete.
Click to expand...

I think the only way to avoid Steam is to buy a copy directly from TaleWorlds themselves. Newest patch is 1.105. 1.106 will likely be coming in a week or two judging by how quickly the devs have been squishing bugs.
 
Parmenides said:
Finally came in the mail (Amazon preorder). Amazon didn't have it in stock right away. Here we go....
Only got a hard copy because I had an expiring $10 Amazon game discount.


edit...

LOL, this game has to activate (CD-key) through Steam. The DVD copy from Amazon? No biggy for me. Surprised though. And it's auto-patching it before I realized the installation was complete.
Click to expand...

You can always just download the game from the website and activate it with the key you bought. They're patching like crazy since the SP is still largely buggy.
 
Been having a blast with Warband.

The new animations for mounted combat and manual lancing took a few hours to get used to. It mostly feels awkward because you've spent so many hours honing your skills on the original game.

Nowadays I'm hitting 100% again and the new animations only make you better. There's more possible variety in swing angles so you can guide the hits right into their heads, or arc the swing out for maximum horizontal coverage if your target is far from your horse. Overall it looks much more natural. I'd say within 5-10 hours everyone should be hitting targets just like in original M&B, which is about the same amount of time it took for me to get the hang of original M&B combat anyway.

Couched lancing is slightly harder now that it's manual (automatic is still available if you want it), but it's still highly effective. Just remember that you /must/ keep the target on either the left or right side of the horse's head, never let him go into the center.

Campaign mode has some much needed improvements, can't wait for more of the mods to get ported over. The lord interactions really help with faction wars, since you can influence fellow lords to join you on your strikes into enemy territory. Overall it still feels like there's plenty of room for polish, the balancing and fixes were done by modders in the original M&B, and will be done for Warband as well. There's already one mod that adds a nice batch of balances and fixes.

Multiplayer is fantastic. Really exciting to fight against live players. The mind-games in dueling are so much fun.
 
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