The Gamer's Quarter

[ryan]

Mount & Blade is a hybrid title that combines role-playing, strategy, and action elements into a game that I can only describe as Super Duper Awesome.

Newcomers start out at a character creation screen that is fairly basic, consisting of eyes, height, facial hair, etc. There are a few points to allocate to the core elements - Strength, Intelligence, Agility, and Charisma - and how these are allocated affects how many points are given for Skills and Proficiencies. Skills are both solo and party abilities that range from engineering – how fast town facilities and siege machines are built – to tracking – how much information is seen on the world map – with the party abilities not only enhancing your party (naturally), but main non-playable party members party skills also enhances the party as a whole.

What good are these? Well, let’s take a look:



This shot shows my character (the banner isn’t available until after playing for some time) and a caravan that I was following on the world map. I have two main party members that each have a point in tracking and I have a point, so with three points in tracking I get the basic information of arrows showing the direction and color (time) a party was traveling as well as an approximation of their party size.

Skills like healing serious wounds and rate of healing, inventory management, and riding each cover different aspects of the game. The healings are a solo and a party skill, inventory determines how much loot can be carried for the party, and riding determines how good of a horse can be used on the world map and in combat. The screenshot below shows all of the skills. Some are fairly unique to the game, such as prisoner management. Mount & Blade is one of the few games that features chattel. Well, it used to be called slavery, but most references to that have been removed (there is still a unit with the name Slave Driver, though). Whenever a battle concludes, the defeated team’s unconscious members are collected to be either recruited or sold. There is a man in the default neutral city Zendar that buys prisoners, and there is also a traveling broker that purchases them on behalf of their families.



Proficiencies are in regards to the player’s skill with weapons. This is really what makes Mount & Blade so unique, because weapon proficiency dictates how well you handle combat. Combat is handled as an action game with a hint of sim. When two parties engage, there is a screen that gives the option of surrendering, fighting, or leaving (leaving isn’t present if the odds are overwhelming). You will gradually add soldiers to your retinue – this version offers a few at the beginning – that you can control with a handful of commands (e.g. protect this position, follow me, charge, forward ten paces, back ten paces, mount, etc.) during combat. Your troops require food, rest (when wounded), and weekly pay, and they will also desert if party morale gets too low; your main party members do not desert, and they can also be given specific equipment and there is also limited control over how they level up. I tend to have my army stay put until I flank the approaching enemy – I have high archery and high horse archery – and then tell them to charge so that they can get up enough momentum to make a hard impact, and so that I can start to harass the opposing army from afar.

Archery is actually a great way to explain Proficiencies. At the beginning, you will suck with a bow and arrow. As you level up and put points towards archery, the targeting reticule will get tighter, will get tighter faster, and your shot will steady: in the beginning I was firing like a madman, just trying to hit anything, and now I am able to judge an enemy’s distance and speed to the point where I can get a headshot while on horseback half a field away. The screenshots below show me with the troops (note: weather affects performance) and the other shows me aiming a second before I shot a dude in the neck.





You will also note horses, which become increasingly important the more you move away from the low-end brigands (pirates and mountain bandits) and face-off against against faction soldiers after becoming a vassal to one of the local lords of one of the major kingdoms. Fighting on horseback is rad, thanks to the way the game conveys momentum – faster speeds result in additional damage for a weapon strike and damage from ramming a horse into someone’s face. I am a big fan of getting up a good speed, putting my shield up, and ramming into the opponent’s rear archer line, then following that up with a weaving pattern while I slice away. There are all kinds of horses as well, for those that prefer speed over armor (allows horses to do damage and also absorb more).

Combat is the real selling point of Mount & Blade. There are very few games that give such a feeling of importance. It’s one thing to order some knights around from afar, but it’s another to ride alongside them and to know that your performance determines the outcome of the conflict. There are also castle sieges, but with this build there are also town sieges and the ability to garrison castles that the lord hands over as a reward.

So, what is a new player to do? After picking what type of character you want to be – fighting or archer – go ahead and allocate points to the proper Power Whatever, and then to riding and ironflesh for the extra hit points and better weapon usage. Afterwards, accept the troops that are offered at the beginning. Head off to Zendar to talk to the head of the town to accept the mission to hunt down river pirates. Hunting down river pirates and fighting in the arena are the best ways to gain cash and experience, but save the arena for after you get the hang of things. Keep in mind that you aren’t going to be that great at first, but remember to focus on what you want to get better at (i.e. only use a spear if you want to get better at two-hand weapons) as you get additional points as you play for performance. After you get a little time under your belt, venture out into the surrounding lands and hunt down mountain bandits for a while. Killing bandits will get you enough renown for a local lord to take notice and send you an offer, but don’t think that you have to take the first, just go wait it out or accept and start terrorizing their enemies.

And and and … ahh! Out of time! Any questions? I’ll try to get back to this later to clean it up some.

Misc. shots below:

(Right after a battle.)



(Just took a castle.)
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Shapermc]

I keep hearing about this game from different people and sources. Perhaps it's time to check it out now that I have a high functioning PC.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Cycle]

Yeah, I was actually first person IN THE WORLD to cover this game in a magazine! I got a free registration code as thanks!

It's come a long way since then. It's really awesome... the closest thing to it is Sid Mierers (or whatever) Pirates! which is also awesome. CHECK IT OUT, Y'ALL.
_________________

[ryan]

Yeah, I've maxed out 4 or so builds. The last build, there was only one faction left with castles that I hadn't taken. At that point, there was nothing to do. Now you can import your character over, so I started with a high end guy but no land. Still, a lot better than starting over, which I had to do with the previous builds.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[bleak]

my tables are broken itt

edit: to contribute I played this game at a friend's house. It was pretty fun, though horses seemed broken, and it doesn't really seem like there's much to the game either. But it is a good game, I look forward to more content being added to it/improved upon somehow.
_________________

[ryan]

The horses take some getting used to, and you have to buy a good one. I picked one that is heavily armored because I like to ram into the enemy line, but there are also steppe horses that have almost no protection but are much faster. There is a flow to the horses that takes some time to adjust to, including just when to release a strike and at what angle to attack from. At first I used them as a means to get to a spot ahead of my men and harass the enemy with missiles, and now I rarely dismount - often getting back on a roaming horse (they stay on the battlefield if the owner is killed) after mine is struck down.

They also release builds frequently, so the horses were probably a lot clunkier back then. The previous build didn't allow for town sieges, castle garrisons, or all of the quests from the lord (e.g. collecting taxes from towns that may riot, assassinating guild members, collecting money, etc.), nor was the place nearly as big as it is now. They also added books, which can be set to read when camping and slowly read throughout any downtime for experience. The only thing I want them to do that they have yet to implement is allow for management of the castle and to be able to defend castles. The quests are limited now, but considering they didn't exist before, it's a pretty good start. The demo limits your character's level to 6, which isn't high enough to really enjoy yourself, since you're still sluggish and weak, but still enough to try out all the different facets of play.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Worm]

I bought this game in its beta two years ago and it hasn't fucking changed really since. They added some stuff like ryan mentioned. But the main engine has been pretty much fine from the get go(horses weren't ever clunky), and it's annoying that they refuse to add some kind of a story-arc or at least a more fleshed out array of random quests.
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[Cycle]

So hey
_________________

[Worm]

I paid 11 bucks for Mount & Blade two years ago. It's obnoxious that they somehow feel they should get revenue from a product they probably won't finish until 2009. As the game edges closer and closer to 30 dollars (a new annoying indie trend, thank those drawinia scumbags) it becomes more and more apparent that it's still a 10 dollar game. It's still Dopewars, and any ambition they had was robbed by a forum full of yes-men losers who insisted the game was already worth 30 bucks.

It's a great game, and I don't recommend you get as bitter about it as I am. Though there are plenty of other guys who work much harder and charge much less.

Ryan, have any of the mods for it really taken off? I just remember a LOTR one that ended up feeling more barren than the default campaign.
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[The Great Unwashed]

This inter-forum shit is pretty annoying sometimes. I don't post on any of TGQ's hundreds of other "sister boards" or whatever, and the amount of grudges that get carried over have lead to more derailing and bullshit tension that is necessary. I haven't seen Worm doing anything but talking about Mount and Blade here, and seeing this thing take a steep turn to Flamesville USA just cos' some of you may have been pissed at him elsewhere is fairly ruining this thread (as has this phenomenon ruined others, before).
_________________

[Cycle]

I was just playing around in my post, but whatever!

How about that Internet! Serious business!
_________________

[The Great Unwashed]

Yep! I dunno, I don't want to come off like Captain Cares-A-Lot because it doesn't bother me that bad, but I'm sure there are others in my position who have noticed this phenomenon. Anyway, the whole point of the internet is that it's a huge guessing game to tell if people are serious or if they aren't, so you gotta be careful!
_________________

[Harveyjames]

which is exactly what I love about the Gamer's Quarter, that it's so quiet and conflict-free that I don't have to be. So yeah chill the fuck out in other words. It's just words on a screen, bro!

[ryan]

[Worm]

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

I guess the game finally found a publisher...

Strange timing for this thread.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[ryan]

I'm pretty psyched. I've worked on almost everything Paradox has put out the last few years, so my fingers are crossed for this one. Even if it's just a little, I've put more time into Mount & Blade than I have, or will ever, in most games.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Worm]

I'm kind of pissed that they decided to give all the forest bandits bows and arrows in the latest build. Don't these guys fucking play the game between making changes to it?
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT