Ooh, may have had my names mixed up in my previous post. Regardless, whatever mode it is where you're in charge of a bunch of troops is fucking excellent. I can imagine playing with and against a properly coordinated team will be seriously fun.
Already I'm seeing a bunch of potential counter play around troop classes, but unless your team's in sync then it's tough to work with. Case in point, trying to deal with playing against teams of sand-dude archers is roooooough. But if you manage to make a team push and finally get into choppin' range, sweet mother of mercy that's the good stuff.
The small army mode is called “Captain Mode,” and its awesome, yeah!
Team comp is important and also hard to coordinate at the moment. Like, if your whole team goes archery / light infantry, and a bunch of the enemy goes heavy cav, you are going to have a rough round.
I watched a unit of Huscarls hold off an attacking heavy cav unit by forming a circle around the last flag. The AI did a great job of keeping their spears out, stabbing horses as they closed in, and then axing the downed riders. They’d’ve won the round, too, except the other team had just enough infantry left to make it so the Huscarls couldn’t stay in ring, and the few remaining cavalry units could charge from behind. We lost, but it was awesome.
... also, maybe it's because I'm used to playing Prophecy of Pendor or other large single-player mods, and this is a multiplayer-only beta, but holy cow does this load quickly even on a non-SSD.
The engine itself is nice and snappy to load up, but the wait time for games in the menu continues to be an irritant. However it did benefit me last night, since I had to give up playing and go to bed due to it not finding a game for about 15 minutes. Early morning wake-up Campy was most pleased by this turn of events.
I'm hoping they'll patch in the ability to see the other captain's picks, like in the TDM mode, so you can far easier produce a decent comp.
How do you folk find charging cavalry into archers? I found that I just ended up either stun-locked and unable to swing a weapon or just straight up pin-cushioned before the line got near them.
I'm hoping they'll patch in the ability to see the other captain's picks, like in the TDM mode, so you can far easier produce a decent comp.
You can see an icon next to their name / player icon, but you have to know what they mean / match them to your own choices on the right side of the screen. It'd be nice to have things sorted a bit, maybe?
How do you folk find charging cavalry into archers? I found that I just ended up either stun-locked and unable to swing a weapon or just straight up pin-cushioned before the line got near them.
I end up losing a lot of horses and getting shot a lot, yeah.
The engine itself is nice and snappy to load up, but the wait time for games in the menu continues to be an irritant. However it did benefit me last night, since I had to give up playing and go to bed due to it not finding a game for about 15 minutes. Early morning wake-up Campy was most pleased by this turn of events.
I'm hoping they'll patch in the ability to see the other captain's picks, like in the TDM mode, so you can far easier produce a decent comp.
How do you folk find charging cavalry into archers? I found that I just ended up either stun-locked and unable to swing a weapon or just straight up pin-cushioned before the line got near them.
I think the wait time is just due to them sending out a new batch of invites. When I tried it, most of the servers were empty, but it wasn't hard to find a near full one to play.
The small army mode is called “Captain Mode,” and its awesome, yeah!
Team comp is important and also hard to coordinate at the moment. Like, if your whole team goes archery / light infantry, and a bunch of the enemy goes heavy cav, you are going to have a rough round.
I watched a unit of Huscarls hold off an attacking heavy cav unit by forming a circle around the last flag. The AI did a great job of keeping their spears out, stabbing horses as they closed in, and then axing the downed riders. They’d’ve won the round, too, except the other team had just enough infantry left to make it so the Huscarls couldn’t stay in ring, and the few remaining cavalry units could charge from behind. We lost, but it was awesome.
Oh wow, the AI can switch between melee weapons based on what's appropriate? That's a huge improvement from the pre-existing "a lance is a perfectly viable weapon for an unmounted knight to use in a siege."
Early Access, anyway. I think it's pretty much done, they just want some time to tweak and balance everything, but I could be wrong.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I haven't yet decided how I feel about this yet.
On one hand the game has been in development for years now and it's still going to be Early Access? And it'll be Early Access for at least a year still? The fuck they been doing this whole time?
On the other hand, I love me Mount & Blade and I bought the original way, way, waaaay back so I've nothing against the idea of playing an Early Access Bannerlord.
Ah well, I'm absolutely buying it and playing the shit out of it come the end of March.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
On one hand the game has been in development for years now and it's still going to be Early Access? And it'll be Early Access for at least a year still? The fuck they been doing this whole time?
On the other hand, I love me Mount & Blade and I bought the original way, way, waaaay back so I've nothing against the idea of playing an Early Access Bannerlord.
Ah well, I'm absolutely buying it and playing the shit out of it come the end of March.
Again, I could be wrong, but I have the feeling the EA mostly pertains to the multiplayer side.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
The steam page lists the stuff missing in action, not working or subject to change.
Unique Maps for Towns, Castles and Village: Although we plan to create unique maps for every town and castle in the game, it is a rather arduous process to create that many well designed maps and as such, different locations may share the same map during early access.
Quest Content: A portion of planned quests may be missing entirely, and those in the game may be using placeholder maps, animations, etc.
Balancing: Various aspects of the game may be poorly balanced. Parts of the game may be too easy or too hard.
Voice overs: Since the game uses a lot of dynamic text and hundreds of NPCs, we are planning to record voice-overs for only a limited subset of the dialog (greetings, companion introductions and main quest). Some of these planned voice overs may be missing or using placeholder versions during EA.
Savegames: We will strive to keep savegame compatibility during EA, however it may be technically infeasible to provide 100% backward compatibility in savegames and you may occasionally have to start a new game after updating to a new version.
Bugs and glitches: Although we strive to create a stable game experience, the game will be actively developed during early access and hence there will be a greater chance of bugs and glitches creeping up. It will of course be a priority to fix these.
Localization: Our current plan is to localize the game into the following languages: French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin American) and Turkish. Other languages may be added later. During EA, localizations for these languages may be missing entirely or may be incomplete.
Multiplayer modes and features: The game currently supports several popular multiplayer modes, but we are planning to add more modes and features, possibly including ranked matchmaking.
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.
While we do not have a set date for a full release at this moment in time, we expect that the game will be in early access for around a year.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I am extremely hype for this. Other than the part where it's coming out smack dab in the middle of a million other awesome games happening, but other than that. Also I love that this thread is 10 years old.
One thing I'd love to see that I don't think we're going to see is co-op for single player campaigns. Teaming up with a friend to fight hordes of AI sounds like a blast. Maybe just a multiplayer horde mode?
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.
Oof.
Yeah, I'll second that notion. "Some Aspects" could cover a whole range of functionality, all the way from "just a few tweaks" all the way to "feature barely exists".
Yeah, I normally hate "pay money to do our beta testing for us" schemes with a passion - especially when they charge major-studio prices for them. On the other hand, Warband spent years as my primary stress-reliever game to the tune of a mildly embarrassing number of hours put into it, so I'm not going to feel too upset putting a few more bucks in the devs' pockets.
If I'm restricted to roaming around the map with a small band of buddies introducing low-level bandits to cavalry sledgehammers for awhile while they develop features, that's ... often a thing I just do recreationally in M&B anyway when I want to screw around for a half hour, sooooo..
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I normally hate "pay money to do our beta testing for us" schemes with a passion - especially when they charge major-studio prices for them. On the other hand, Warband spent years as my primary stress-reliever game to the tune of a mildly embarrassing number of hours put into it, so I'm not going to feel too upset putting a few more bucks in the devs' pockets.
If I'm restricted to roaming around the map with a small band of buddies introducing low-level bandits to cavalry sledgehammers for awhile while they develop features, that's ... often a thing I just do recreationally in M&B anyway when I want to screw around for a half hour, sooooo..
Yeah, I keep telling myself I basically bought the original M&B as an Early Access title, before that was a thing. Taleworlds is a fair amount larger at this point, but I'd still consider them an indie studio, with a proven track record at that, so I don't really have a problem helping them out with this one, too.
Heh yeah, honestly the length of development doesn't give me much hope for this being a full featured and smooth early access. The missing features list looked decent until you got to the end!
I have the feeling I will buy this in EA, play it long enough to miss the complete goodness that is PoP, and go back to PoP until they get it more ironed out.
Which I started playing again recently! Fresh save, though I've played so damn much that I cheated myself up to level 20 to start -- I'm rolling with Ravenstern, and they are getting rocked. It makes sense in hindsight why they asked me to be their vassal so early I guess. We don't even have Ravenstern! I would defect if I didn't love rangers so much, and it's still too early to reliably field silvermist rangers as a substitute.
Fiatil on
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LowHitPointsSword of the AfternoonMichiganRegistered Userregular
The length of development hell Bannerlord has gone through has me worried, but they are absolutely getting my money for the Early Access version. I am just being truthful with myself and my need to mow down peasants with a lance.
The length of development hell Bannerlord has gone through has me worried, but they are absolutely getting my money for the Early Access version. I am just being truthful with myself and my need to mow down peasants with a lance.
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.
Oof.
...Okay, no army and kingdom management means like 90% of the singleplayer game isn't in yet. I feel like I should be assuming now that this is a multiplayer game that happens to have a campaign mode.
While I've been waiting for this game for a long, long time, I'm not going to be rushing to put my money down on this.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.
Oof.
...Okay, no army and kingdom management means like 90% of the singleplayer game isn't in yet. I feel like I should be assuming now that this is a multiplayer game that happens to have a campaign mode.
While I've been waiting for this game for a long, long time, I'm not going to be rushing to put my money down on this.
It's kind of hard to tell, but the way the statement is written, it could just mean that those parts are in the game now, just not "done".
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.
Oof.
...Okay, no army and kingdom management means like 90% of the singleplayer game isn't in yet. I feel like I should be assuming now that this is a multiplayer game that happens to have a campaign mode.
While I've been waiting for this game for a long, long time, I'm not going to be rushing to put my money down on this.
I wouldn't jump tooo strongly on your second sentence. I remember thinking Warband was just a dumb multiplayer version of M&B, before finally realizing it was sweet and tweaked the combat and did lots of cool stuff that made it worthwhile in singleplayer (I'll admit I only realized that after begrudgingly buying it because PoP moved to Warband).
It does sound like multiplayer came first, which sort of makes sense. You need the netcode either way, and aside from that all you really need for multiplayer is a functional and mostly completed combat system. The single player portion can be functional with the combat being ready, but has a bunch of extra mechanical complexity on top of that. I don't think that means they're neglecting the singleplayer mode forever -- I think it will eventually be awesome, but I do think it may take a whiiiiile to get there unfortunately.
Fiatil on
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I imagine it'll have at least as robust of army management as the base version of the old game, going backwards in that respect doesn't make much sense to me, but it would obviously preclude any of the newer army management mechanics, whatever those may be. Maybe they don't consume food yet or something? Who knows! Kingdom management being missing is a bigger blow, I think. I'm also wondering if they have any of their gear customization stuff working or if that's a whole system missing that'll be implemented later cuz I'm a sucker for custo.
So, in preparation for EA M&B2, I've started up yet another Pendor playthrough. I'm totally gonna complete it this time, y'all!
Started off merc'ing with the Fierdsvain, who were proceeding to get their butts kicked, so I was going to switch over to being a Ravenstern merc when Gregory asked me to take Elktrin off his hands. It's in the middle of nowhere, and it's surrounded by Mistmountain Raiding Parties, but whatever, sure.
Now to use it as a base to eventually get my own nation up and running ... Got a whole bunch of heroes waiting to train my eventual CKO.
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I don't think I've ever actually finished Pendor. I've come close, but it becomes such a grind that I eventually lose interest. I'm still really curious to see what modders do with the new game, though.
Heh yeah, despite playing a lot I can't say I've beaten PoP either. The closest I came was waaay back in vanilla M&B when it was much easier to recruit renown troops and such, and the game was just mechanically easier in vanilla compared to warband (in vanilla, your weapon wouldn't bounce off a shield unless the person was actively wielding the shield, for example).
I should say, that I'm playing with the new 3.9.5 release, which has a pretty cool questline that you can get by talking to Vorador the Scribe.
I've also tweaked the heck out of it, particularly with regards to XP gains (not interested in a 100-hour game) and loot drops. I've also done my usual trick of just editing my character to max out my Inventory Management and Looting, because I'm not a fan of the way that M&B handles that to begin with.
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Just saw this on GreenManGaming:
I'll probably be getting it from there, because why not, and I'll give the vouchers to anyone that wants one. It's not much of a discount, but it is something.
I should say, that I'm playing with the new 3.9.5 release, which has a pretty cool questline that you can get by talking to Vorador the Scribe.
I've also tweaked the heck out of it, particularly with regards to XP gains (not interested in a 100-hour game) and loot drops. I've also done my usual trick of just editing my character to max out my Inventory Management and Looting, because I'm not a fan of the way that M&B handles that to begin with.
The biggest improvement I made to Pendor was to make the stats of Demonic Magnuses in line with their level. I'd be fine with their absurd stats if I actually got appropriate exp for taking one down.
After eight years of blood, sweat, and tears, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord's Early Access release is finally upon us. In just a few short days you will be able to gird on your sword, don your armour, summon your followers and ride forth to win glory on the battlefields of Calradia!
But before we move on to discuss the release of the game, we want to take a moment to talk about the current coronavirus pandemic. It probably goes without saying, but this certainly isn't the scenario we envisaged for the release of the game. However, we have tried to make the best of a bad situation and thankfully, with the help of our IT team, have been able to continue work on the project from home. This has come with its own challenges of course, but we are still very grateful and lucky to work in an industry where it is possible to work remotely, which we know isn't the case for many of you. It might seem like a pretty ideal time to release a game (after all, everyone is at home right!?), but we know that the current situation has placed a lot of people in a difficult position when it comes to balancing their finances and risking their health.
With that in mind, we have decided to make the game available for 10% off for the first two weeks of sale. In addition to this, anyone who owns any previous Mount & Blade title will be eligible for an additional 10% off in select digital stores. Also, you can breathe a sigh of relief because there won't be a delay... In fact, quite the opposite! We have decided to bring forward the release of the game to 10.00 am UTC, March 30th.
So, you know the release date and the price, but what content is included in the Early Access release?
In singleplayer, you will have access to Custom Battle and Campaign game modes. Campaign is a new and somewhat more structured approach to the Mount & Blade experience that blends a storyline and key events with the traditional sandbox gameplay that our players are familiar with. Campaign aims to provide players with clear goals and missions that can lead to a successful conclusion to a playthrough. However, if you refuse to take any direction and prefer to plot your own rise to power, you can simply ignore the campaign missions and go about your business!
During a campaign playthrough you will do most of the things that you would expect from a Mount & Blade game, including creating your own character with their own backstory; exploring a vast, re-envisioned continent of Calradia; hiring companions to accompany you on your journey; raising warbands and armies to devastate your enemies on the battlefield; conquering towns and castles; progressing your character skills and equipment; learning and mastering the game's much-improved combat mechanics; and commanding and fighting alongside your troops; among a host of other things, many of which have been featured in previous blog posts!
And while there is definitely plenty of content for players to dive into and enjoy, we must be clear in reminding you that this is an Early Access release. There may be bugs and glitches, there will certainly be balancing issues, some features may be missing or currently disabled, and certain aspects of the game might not receive full-support until later down the line. You can expect to see reused scenes (our eventual aim is that each town and castle will have its own unique scene) as well as other types of placeholder content, such as voice lines, animations, quests, etc.
In terms of multiplayer content, you can expect a continuation of the recent multiplayer beta, which features 4 different game modes: Skirmish, Captain, Team Deathmatch, and Siege. We will continue to work on multiplayer throughout Early Access by introducing new features, game modes, and other additional content. We expect to enable our community to host private servers closer to the full release of the game.
Our current plan is to localize the game into the following languages: French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish and Turkish. However, during EA, localisations for these languages may be missing entirely or may be incomplete. Other languages may be added later.
If you would like to experience everything that Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord has to offer, then we strongly encourage you to hold off on buying the game until the full-release.
Finally, we would like to announce that we are officially drawing a close to this series of blogs. With the game on the verge of release, we would prefer to switch our attention and limited resources to work alongside our community. Of course, if we feel that we have something newsworthy or a new feature that we want to highlight and discuss, we will share a post, but for now, this will be our last scheduled blog post.
We wish you all the best during these difficult times and hope you and your family stay safe. Now go wash your hands!
Important parts:
With that in mind, we have decided to make the game available for 10% off for the first two weeks of sale. In addition to this, anyone who owns any previous Mount & Blade title will be eligible for an additional 10% off in select digital stores. Also, you can breathe a sigh of relief because there won't be a delay... In fact, quite the opposite! We have decided to bring forward the release of the game to 10.00 am UTC, March 30th.
In singleplayer, you will have access to Custom Battle and Campaign game modes. Campaign is a new and somewhat more structured approach to the Mount & Blade experience that blends a storyline and key events with the traditional sandbox gameplay that our players are familiar with. Campaign aims to provide players with clear goals and missions that can lead to a successful conclusion to a playthrough. However, if you refuse to take any direction and prefer to plot your own rise to power, you can simply ignore the campaign missions and go about your business!
During a campaign playthrough you will do most of the things that you would expect from a Mount & Blade game, including creating your own character with their own backstory; exploring a vast, re-envisioned continent of Calradia; hiring companions to accompany you on your journey; raising warbands and armies to devastate your enemies on the battlefield; conquering towns and castles; progressing your character skills and equipment; learning and mastering the game's much-improved combat mechanics; and commanding and fighting alongside your troops; among a host of other things, many of which have been featured in previous blog posts!
Heh yeah, despite playing a lot I can't say I've beaten PoP either. The closest I came was waaay back in vanilla M&B when it was much easier to recruit renown troops and such, and the game was just mechanically easier in vanilla compared to warband (in vanilla, your weapon wouldn't bounce off a shield unless the person was actively wielding the shield, for example).
The closest I got, I stopped when I found out that once you have about 60 or so lords on your side, they just randomly start defecting from you regardless of anything - taking their cities and castles with them. I moved to a policy of only giving lords villages, but the act of having to redo so many conquests sapped my motivation.
However, I also recently restarted a run, and I notice the PoP options now has a checkbox for 'auto-defections', which...I'm hoping means that thing.
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LowHitPointsSword of the AfternoonMichiganRegistered Userregular
Steam has updated the release date from March 31 to 30. Bannerlord will unlock in about 6 hours. Get hyped!
Heh yeah, despite playing a lot I can't say I've beaten PoP either. The closest I came was waaay back in vanilla M&B when it was much easier to recruit renown troops and such, and the game was just mechanically easier in vanilla compared to warband (in vanilla, your weapon wouldn't bounce off a shield unless the person was actively wielding the shield, for example).
The closest I got, I stopped when I found out that once you have about 60 or so lords on your side, they just randomly start defecting from you regardless of anything - taking their cities and castles with them. I moved to a policy of only giving lords villages, but the act of having to redo so many conquests sapped my motivation.
However, I also recently restarted a run, and I notice the PoP options now has a checkbox for 'auto-defections', which...I'm hoping means that thing.
I get really picky about who I recruited to my faction. Even without that limit there are waaaay too many npcs with the jerk personality types. I don't think there are more than 25 npc lords that I could keep happy while still giving them enough holdings to make them effective in a fight. The more self-interested and greedy lords end up either rotting in jail or eventually leave the land when they've defected from every kingdom that was willing to give them a try.
That said, Warband is a kludge of a game and PoP on top of that is a whole mess of spaghetti scripting. I suspect defecting is likely to prevent something from getting bogged down with too many relationship calculations.
Posts
Already I'm seeing a bunch of potential counter play around troop classes, but unless your team's in sync then it's tough to work with. Case in point, trying to deal with playing against teams of sand-dude archers is roooooough. But if you manage to make a team push and finally get into choppin' range, sweet mother of mercy that's the good stuff.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Team comp is important and also hard to coordinate at the moment. Like, if your whole team goes archery / light infantry, and a bunch of the enemy goes heavy cav, you are going to have a rough round.
I watched a unit of Huscarls hold off an attacking heavy cav unit by forming a circle around the last flag. The AI did a great job of keeping their spears out, stabbing horses as they closed in, and then axing the downed riders. They’d’ve won the round, too, except the other team had just enough infantry left to make it so the Huscarls couldn’t stay in ring, and the few remaining cavalry units could charge from behind. We lost, but it was awesome.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I'm hoping they'll patch in the ability to see the other captain's picks, like in the TDM mode, so you can far easier produce a decent comp.
How do you folk find charging cavalry into archers? I found that I just ended up either stun-locked and unable to swing a weapon or just straight up pin-cushioned before the line got near them.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
You can see an icon next to their name / player icon, but you have to know what they mean / match them to your own choices on the right side of the screen. It'd be nice to have things sorted a bit, maybe?
I end up losing a lot of horses and getting shot a lot, yeah.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I think the wait time is just due to them sending out a new batch of invites. When I tried it, most of the servers were empty, but it wasn't hard to find a near full one to play.
Oh wow, the AI can switch between melee weapons based on what's appropriate? That's a huge improvement from the pre-existing "a lance is a perfectly viable weapon for an unmounted knight to use in a siege."
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
March 31st!
Early Access, anyway. I think it's pretty much done, they just want some time to tweak and balance everything, but I could be wrong.
On one hand the game has been in development for years now and it's still going to be Early Access? And it'll be Early Access for at least a year still? The fuck they been doing this whole time?
On the other hand, I love me Mount & Blade and I bought the original way, way, waaaay back so I've nothing against the idea of playing an Early Access Bannerlord.
Ah well, I'm absolutely buying it and playing the shit out of it come the end of March.
Man, fuck what Photobucket became.
Steam | XBL
Again, I could be wrong, but I have the feeling the EA mostly pertains to the multiplayer side.
One thing I'd love to see that I don't think we're going to see is co-op for single player campaigns. Teaming up with a friend to fight hordes of AI sounds like a blast. Maybe just a multiplayer horde mode?
Oof.
Yeah, I'll second that notion. "Some Aspects" could cover a whole range of functionality, all the way from "just a few tweaks" all the way to "feature barely exists".
Still buying day one regardless...
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
If I'm restricted to roaming around the map with a small band of buddies introducing low-level bandits to cavalry sledgehammers for awhile while they develop features, that's ... often a thing I just do recreationally in M&B anyway when I want to screw around for a half hour, sooooo..
Yeah, I keep telling myself I basically bought the original M&B as an Early Access title, before that was a thing. Taleworlds is a fair amount larger at this point, but I'd still consider them an indie studio, with a proven track record at that, so I don't really have a problem helping them out with this one, too.
I have the feeling I will buy this in EA, play it long enough to miss the complete goodness that is PoP, and go back to PoP until they get it more ironed out.
Which I started playing again recently! Fresh save, though I've played so damn much that I cheated myself up to level 20 to start -- I'm rolling with Ravenstern, and they are getting rocked. It makes sense in hindsight why they asked me to be their vassal so early I guess. We don't even have Ravenstern! I would defect if I didn't love rangers so much, and it's still too early to reliably field silvermist rangers as a substitute.
Live your truth, man. :bro:
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
...Okay, no army and kingdom management means like 90% of the singleplayer game isn't in yet. I feel like I should be assuming now that this is a multiplayer game that happens to have a campaign mode.
While I've been waiting for this game for a long, long time, I'm not going to be rushing to put my money down on this.
It's kind of hard to tell, but the way the statement is written, it could just mean that those parts are in the game now, just not "done".
I wouldn't jump tooo strongly on your second sentence. I remember thinking Warband was just a dumb multiplayer version of M&B, before finally realizing it was sweet and tweaked the combat and did lots of cool stuff that made it worthwhile in singleplayer (I'll admit I only realized that after begrudgingly buying it because PoP moved to Warband).
It does sound like multiplayer came first, which sort of makes sense. You need the netcode either way, and aside from that all you really need for multiplayer is a functional and mostly completed combat system. The single player portion can be functional with the combat being ready, but has a bunch of extra mechanical complexity on top of that. I don't think that means they're neglecting the singleplayer mode forever -- I think it will eventually be awesome, but I do think it may take a whiiiiile to get there unfortunately.
Started off merc'ing with the Fierdsvain, who were proceeding to get their butts kicked, so I was going to switch over to being a Ravenstern merc when Gregory asked me to take Elktrin off his hands. It's in the middle of nowhere, and it's surrounded by Mistmountain Raiding Parties, but whatever, sure.
Now to use it as a base to eventually get my own nation up and running ... Got a whole bunch of heroes waiting to train my eventual CKO.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I've also tweaked the heck out of it, particularly with regards to XP gains (not interested in a 100-hour game) and loot drops. I've also done my usual trick of just editing my character to max out my Inventory Management and Looting, because I'm not a fan of the way that M&B handles that to begin with.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I'll probably be getting it from there, because why not, and I'll give the vouchers to anyone that wants one. It's not much of a discount, but it is something.
The biggest improvement I made to Pendor was to make the stats of Demonic Magnuses in line with their level. I'd be fine with their absurd stats if I actually got appropriate exp for taking one down.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
https://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/2084544594680066864
Important parts:
If you’re a vassal of Ravenstern when you go to create your CKO, it makes it so that your knights promote from Ravenstern Knight.
If you later form your own faction and pick Pendor, does it automatically update to use Pendor Knights, or does it stay as Ravenstern?
Ed: got an answer on the POP boards: they go with your culture, so would autoupdate to Pendor Knights. Yes!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
The closest I got, I stopped when I found out that once you have about 60 or so lords on your side, they just randomly start defecting from you regardless of anything - taking their cities and castles with them. I moved to a policy of only giving lords villages, but the act of having to redo so many conquests sapped my motivation.
However, I also recently restarted a run, and I notice the PoP options now has a checkbox for 'auto-defections', which...I'm hoping means that thing.
I get really picky about who I recruited to my faction. Even without that limit there are waaaay too many npcs with the jerk personality types. I don't think there are more than 25 npc lords that I could keep happy while still giving them enough holdings to make them effective in a fight. The more self-interested and greedy lords end up either rotting in jail or eventually leave the land when they've defected from every kingdom that was willing to give them a try.
That said, Warband is a kludge of a game and PoP on top of that is a whole mess of spaghetti scripting. I suspect defecting is likely to prevent something from getting bogged down with too many relationship calculations.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Bannerlord NOW!
No really, its out now. Go get it. The store page took a while to process my transaction... I think it might under a lot of strain all of a sudden.
Glad to see it's popular enough to explode Steam for a little while. In the wee hours of the morning, even! (for US users)
... not really.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]