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[nenjin]

Overall it looks to be mostly Warband But More and Much Better Looking.

Played maybe an hour, did the tutorial, I'm inclined to agree with this statement.

This feels like Mount & Blade. Right down to the sorta classic indie jank that has always hung around this game. While the graphics are much nicer, the menus have that sort of minimalist/we just need a UI feel. It's a little weird to see the overall appearance of the game improve this much while the UIs and various menus still look just kinda frumpy. It sorta worked in Warband but here it looks a little out of place. Likewise, there's just a lot of awkward cut to loading screen going on (more on that later..) just like in M&B where it'd just unceremoniously cut to something.

I'm enjoying combat, trying to do it the hard way this time and learn to manually block with the mouse instead of autoblocking or swing with movement direction. Took a few tries to relearn the old M&B "once you land a hit just keep alternating swing direction and chop their ass to pieces" style of gameplay. Also trying to do a full realism difficulty start too, we'll see how bad it is.

The skill system strikes me as sorta needlessly complex? On the other hand I like learn as you do systems, it just took me a min to figure out what focus points were. The perks are generally underwhelming from what I saw. But M&B isn't a "fruity special move" kinda game so that's forgivable.

Faces look great and I know they showed themselves recreating people from RL in game.....but after hitting the randomize button a few dozen times, people all tend to look the same to me, outrageously shiny specular effects on the cheeks or not. I think it's the huge, expressive eyes everyone has, they all have that same kinda look.

The intro music sounds like someone sat there and listened to all the Conan sound tracks for hours, then dialed it back a notch from there.

Now for the bad. This game is leaking memory like a SOB. After having it up for maybe 3 hours and doing some alt-tabbing, my rig was using 14 _gigs_ of memory. To BL's credit it didn't crash as most games are wont to do when you alt-tab on them or memory gets super tight, but holy shit. No bueno. I'm going to evaluate it some more but I think it's safe to say this thing needs a lot of optimization. In game the frames are....ok, with the default performance settings it shipped with and/or recommended. But there's a lot of hitching right around when combat starts for me, which is a damn inconvenient time to lag. And this was just the tutorial, forget 500 guys on the field.

Lastly loading screens. Omg, loading screens, and the load times are on the edge of "this is taking too long." Maybe that had to do with the above mentioned issue, maybe not. I can't put my finger quite on where there are too many or why just right now, but it's the feeling I had after the last hour or so dinking around with it. Especially when the game just sometimes kinda freezes and I'm like, did it crash? Then it jumps to a loading screen. (Which then loads to an in-engine cutscene.) Between performance and execution, it's a little jank. Classic Taleworlds jank.

So basically, it's exactly what I remember most M&B games starting out like I'm liking it overall and am going back to it now, but if Early Access games make you squeamish for any real reasons, give it some more time to cook. FWIW though the combat, the thing you're mostly there for, seems to work pretty well, feel pretty good to me and looks better than it ever has.

[milo christiansen]

I'm enjoying it, and I'm not even out of the tutorial. It feels like someone took the basic Mount and Blade formula and added a hefty coat of polish... Which is exactly what happened.

Everything just feels... Better. Looks nicer is just the start.

I did get my ass handed to me over and over in the combat tutorial, but my character has *no* melee skills, so I'm not sure if it is me being bad, the AI being good, or just my character's low skills. I was never all that great at Warband's melee combat, so shrug. So long as I can have my dudes kill stuff for me while I ride around picking people off with a bow, I'll be OK.

Edit: One thing that is way better is quests. You visit a village, one of the people has a blue "!" by their picture, you can click it and get a summary of what they want, and then you decide if you want to talk to them from there (the loading screen to talk to people sucks a little, but that is just how M&B is). Also, reputation with prominent people in the village has a concrete and transparent benefit: You can recruit more/better guys from them. Sure, village rep did the same thing in Warband, but it wasn't clear by how much. Here you can see exactly what you could get if your rep was better, and how much more rep you need.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

So I agree with pretty much everything said here: to sum up my feelings, I'll simply say that there are many SMALL changes that go a long way in making the campaign come much more alive--which is very much appreciated. Combat feels as good if not better than Warband. And YES, the loading screens are brutal... honestly the only bad thing I've experienced so far.

Aside from the campaign stuff and graphics and x/y/z little changes, I think the biggest thing for me is how much better/smoother the order system is--I'm still figuring it out a bit, but it's pretty flexible and allows you to actually have your infantry defend competently against other unit types.

EDIT: Only thing I haven't successfully done yet: is chambering still a feature???

[nenjin]

So yeah, about 20 minutes in, and I've watched the game go from using 6 gigs of memory up to 12 now. Could be a memory leak, or an insanely hungry beast, but it needs some optimization big time.

Also lel, get done with the tutorial, get to Lycaron.....massive town, and literally no one on the streets. Then I go in to Pottery Shop and find the owner pinned in a corner by 3 Notaries.

It's kinda funny how exactly like M&B this feels. I'm not sure where they pulled their demo gameplay they were showing off from, because literally the major city next to the end of the tutorial is practically barren.

[milo christiansen]

I'm pretty sure there is a memory leak somewhere, but that is a pretty obvious bug and so probably soon to be fixed.

The level up mechanic is fairly intuitive. So far I like it at least as much as I ever liked the old one from Warband. It isn't particularly interesting, but it also doesn't seem bad. I give it a solid "eh" out of 10.

In other news: I need to try a character who has smithing. I visited a city and clicked on "visit smithy" just to see what was there, and wow. Custom weapons! You can make your very own sword from a wide selection of bits. Very cool.

[Zangi]

I am really awful without a shield.  It is an indisputable fact.  Maybe the devs will one day relent on the no auto-block change, cause it looks like I won't be using two-handers very often.  Unless I find one with some insane speed.

Anyways, just came here cause I got my first crash.

On a positive note, so far the game is basically M&B++.  Not a bad thing.  Being able to press Alt to find important people is a yuge QoL improvement.  Makes walking around to find things bearable.

[Folly]

Just did a quest to rescue some landlord's daughter from her scuzzy boyfriend. Boyfriend gets mad and attacks, 1-shots my companion and then me before I can even take my weapon out. Fun...

[scriver]

EDIT: Only thing I haven't successfully done yet: is chambering still a feature???

Yes, I managed to do one yesterday (clambering is when you block as part of your strike right). You get a special blue message in the texty field too when you do so it's easy to notice when it happens.

[nenjin]

So after a few hours...

It's fun but man it needs some work. And I feel like there is a really, really big gap between what has been shown in the past and what we're seeing now. Like, I just did some of the gang leader fights....doesn't play out even remotely like was demo'd a while back. It's just like a crappy M&B1 / Warband event, with a small sorta dynamic chat event right before you just slug it out in a small instance the game spins up for you. That takes you two loading screens to get to.

Some of the tech just doesn't look good. The eyes, my god, they are starting to bug the hell out of me. Everyone looks like an inhuman android when they're looking at you. Between that and the semi-random facial animation loops, you get some really bizarre, creeping looking NPCs. It's like beyond a certain distance, the LoD on eyes just turns off so they go from sort of alive looking (as in when you're in super close up during character creation) that move around subtly to soulless dead orbs staring at you robotically. The NPCs look like synths! Especially when you attack a gang of bandits and there's three of them standing there shoulder to shoulder, looking at you with those eyes....*shudder*

Tried to do the tournament but found it's just completely unbalanced? I'm going in wearing like quilted armor while at least half the other opponents wear actual armor. They're hitting me for 70+ damage a swing. A solid connection to their dome gets me....16 damage. I managed to get to the final round multiple times, even completely out leveled and out geared by no-name troops like Imperial Heavy Cavalry. But when I have to land upwards of 10 solid strikes to defeat them and they need just three....yeah. What gives? Are you granted armor based on your level or what? In Warband I remember everyone got the same equipment during tourneys, so it really only came down to your stats versus theirs, and your combat abilities. Not having the stats for good damage I can understand, it's an uphill battle. But cloth armor versus, like, Lamellar? That's just not fair. They have metal helms, I have a cloth hood. Is it really just throwing line troops in their with their battlefield armor while the player and notable NPCs get issued training gear? I don't get it.

Maybe part of this is realistic level settings. It's challenging but I'm enjoying it. "Easy" settings would probably be more enjoyable from a gaming perspective, but I'd worry it'd maybe be just a little too easy.

Anyone figured out how to trade with your companions? Or is it just another feature not yet implemented?

One feature I do super appreciate is price comparisons in the Trade window. There's trade rumors, which are often false, but then it remembers prices of stuff you've scene recently and throws that up on the screen when you're going to buy. Some pretty huge savings / profits to be made there if you're paying attention.

I dunno, there is a lot of work still that needs to go in to the game. This is starting to look a little like "we need people to pay to help finish development." Like, there are no dialog options for practically anyone I've talked to. The shell of it is there, but it's like very little is hooked up in the background.

[scriver]

Quick reaponae: Companions: In the inventory screen, look at your name field, there are arrows beside it, clicking these changes character

[nenjin]

Ah, thanks.

More ponderings:

-Why is a Simple Bastard sword considered a viable weapon for civilian clothes loadout, but a Falchion is not? The whole civilian loadout thing largely seems to be about gang fights and little else. I mean, I get it. It's just weirdly specific.

-I think corpses all use the same basic model once they hit the ground. I looked at myself during a failed tournament match and the face of the body I was looking at where I fell was not my character. I started looking around at all the other fallen combatants, and besides facial hair, everyone seems to have the same face.

[Ozyton]

Not going to write a huge impressions thing but so far I'm enjoying it. I didn't get to play much but I have my first companion and a group of 20-ish newbies. I don't know if I'm just really rusty after having not played in ages or if I'm just used to longer reach weapons but the tiny 1-handers they give you just don't cut it for me. They also seemed to have removed swinging with spear weapons... which is disappointing but understandable. Guess I'll just have to find a polearm that allows swings.

I've mostly hung out in Battania territory and I've noticed that the towns don't sell armor or hats, just peasant clothes. I go over to empire territory and they are selling helmets and body armor so I don't know what the deal is. I had to get a helmet by winning a tournament, which is great for covering up my guy's ugly face.

Speaking of which, on the map screen you can push V to access character appearance FYI. It seems importing/exporting characters is no longer a thing so if you find an appearance you really like you can't just save it for the future.

I booted up multiplayer but there were no empty servers and quick match could not find a match despite over 600 people searching with the same filters as I was.

E: Oh, I will say one of my favorite new feature in the game is that your clothes are automatically dyed the appropriate color. I always just used heraldic mail in Warband because it was the only kind of armor that actually matched all the time.

[nenjin]

Turns out smelting down old weapons is both a great way to learn new part types and make money. Assuming you can actually get your foes to drop weapons, they seem fairly rare. I spent about 100 on two pieces of hardwood, made one piece of charcoal, smelted down a falchion, and made almost 1000 back in sellable metal.

The conversation system for debating people, I like it. Different approaches and arguments, critical successes or failure. They come out a little strange at times though.

"Kidnapped" Woman: No! I love him and will spend the rest of my life with him!

Me: It's your duty and honor to serve the best wishes of your family.

"Kidnapped" Woman: Oh yes, you're right.

Seems like it takes a little while for quests to start percolating out. The first 10 days or so of game, there were not available anywhere, but now things are underway, I'm seeing 2 and 3 quests per location sometimes. I feel like the risk/reward ratio for these are way better than in Warband etc... Occasionally they're tough, but they almost always pay well. (Actually the Gang War quests seem to pay the worst so far and have the highest chance of failure since you have to do them in civilian clothes.)

[A Thing]

I dunno, there is a lot of work still that needs to go in to the game. This is starting to look a little like "we need people to pay to help finish development." Like, there are no dialog options for practically anyone I've talked to. The shell of it is there, but it's like very little is hooked up in the background.

Supposedly once you hit higher ranks/join a faction you can actually ask people stuff like what they're doing, what the realm is doing, etc. I sorta get it, I mean why would a noble tell a random peasant what they're doing? I'm hoping this is true, and that once I get to higher clan rank (which is taking forever btw, best thing to do seems to be fighting looters, since tourneys give about the same renown+are fucking hard now that they run by modded Warband rules where high level troops get high level armor.) the game will open up more politics-wise, otherwise this definitely is only being released in this state because money issues.

I will say I appreciate the little unique boardgames for every kingdom (well, the empire share one game but they also share troops so it makes sense) even though I suck at them and haven't won a single game.

Performance is garbage, and the crash reporter doesn't work for me. Maybe it actually sends the report, but it gives me a huge error when I send submit. I can sort of deal with the bad performance, but it is a bit annoying to have to restart, especially once winter starts and the whole game starts bleeding out (no idea if this is a memory leak related to snow or just my play session ending about the same time I started winter year 1.)

Still enjoying it, but yeah, definitely got problems which I admit I was expecting. Pretty much Warband++ though and that's alright by me, playing as an Aserai with javelins is really satisfying. Dudes have melodramatic animations for getting hit in the neck and everything.

[Folly]

I noticed that both javelins and throwing knives, Tier4 is has less damage than Tier3 while being pretty much identical in every other stat. Is this an oversight, or am I missing something?