Mount & Blade II - Early Access now March 30th

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PCGamesN reports that Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord will be in Early Access a day earlier, meaning March 30th.

In the announcement, TaleWorlds reveals Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord - a prequel to the standalone Mount & Blade expansion Warband - will be available to play in Early Access from 03:00 PT / 06:00 ET / 11:00 BST on March 30. The dev team "has been working hard these last weeks to keep the development process on track, even under the present circumstances that forced the team to switch to remote work two weeks ago", the release explains.

"Thanks to the great effort of the whole team, and hearing the requests of our community to release the game as soon as possible, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord will release in Early Access a day before."

[...]
More information.
 
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What are the multiplayer options in this game? Will it have survival MMO-like mode, in which your tribe builds a castle and fights versus others?
 
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Mount and Blade is a fantastic game. With that being said, I bet this will be in EA for at least three years.
 
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I agree, @Hastar;, this will take a while. But I'll play it regardless (even though I usually stay away from early access). I also played the original Mount & Blade before official release, and it was totally worth it. There's also no kind of real "story", so being spoilered is less of an issue than many other RPGs.
 
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What are the multiplayer options in this game? Will it have survival MMO-like mode, in which your tribe builds a castle and fights versus others?

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.
 
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There's also no kind of real "story", so being spoilered is less of an issue than many other RPGs.

I think there is a bit of a storyline, this time.

"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!"
 
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Any game guide what these are?

I am happy more modes are coming!
No, I'm not sure. All I know is they're all match-based game modes.

Like you, I'd really have liked a long-term multiplayer mode where all the kings were real players. Sure, it sucks to be raided while you're offline, but if you could just arrange your defenses and have a few automation tools to rebuild damaged walls it would work well enough.

I played a little bit of Stronghold Kingdoms, I think it was called, and it was quite enjoyable to log in and watch the attacks that happened while you were away and rebuild your defenses. Plus, there were a huge number of players. People are definitely interested in that kind of thing.

I really doubt MNB2 will live up to its potential and especially not as a multiplayer game but I guess that leaves hope for MNB3, though if they're going to be 10 years apart then launch into EA with missing features I might not live long enough to see it!

Do you expect it to have spoiler potential? ;)

Well, it's entirely subjective but I think the story would be pretty boring without a few classic themes thrown in. There will probably be a betrayal that could be spoiled. Unexpected changes in alliances, the local thieves becoming the good guys, that sort of thing.

With the missing lineage system, they discussed in their blogs, there would be plenty of room for some romantic drama. I always liked winning hearts in Defender of the Crown. Your woman could be kidnapped by rogues and you'd head off raiding to rescue her. Saving a damsel in distress is one of the most noble pursuits, for this sort of game. I think I'll be very protective of my romances and if the lineage system ever appears I'll be protective of my heirs, too. Of course, there are complications when you include children in games. It's a difficult situation because children should be mortal and yet people are sensitive to potential violence against children. Plus the nude mods are never far away. But I do think it was one of the more interesting systems and I'm quite disappointed it won't be in at launch, if ever.

For nostalgias sake!
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Pretty good for a < 700KB game. :)
 
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attacks that happened while you were away

They could easily fix this by introducing 16 hours "safe time" per day allowing the player to allocate it as he likes.

As I heard MB2 servers won't allow for more than 250 players so this serves for really limited multiplayer options. I watched some videos yesterday and it's like CS with arrows and axes - I don't like it. For 10 years development time they could have built incredible sandbox multiplayer modes. Maybe some modders would help improving the game now, who knows?
 
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I was going to post some questions maybe someone knows the answers to, but I think I'll just buy the beta tomorrow. I've had enough fun with a couple of past iterations, I probably owe them that much.

Oh, but this is the full-priced $50 EA with no other incentive, isn't it? *grumble* Maybe I won't and look for my answers in the Steam reviews.
 
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Oh, but this is the full-priced $50 EA with no other incentive, isn't it? *grumble* Maybe I won't and look for my answers in the Steam reviews.

There is a 10% discount for the first two weeks following release, and further 10% if you own any of their previous games (potential 20% discount). There is a full campaign (which is what I am interested in) and then the multiplayer modes in the EA release.

My main grumble is the 60GB download!
 
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I was going to post some questions maybe someone knows the answers to, but I think I'll just buy the beta tomorrow. I've had enough fun with a couple of past iterations, I probably owe them that much.

Oh, but this is the full-priced $50 EA with no other incentive, isn't it? *grumble* Maybe I won't and look for my answers in the Steam reviews.

I'm going to hold back until everyone else play tests for me then maybe buy later.
 
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Downloading now, will let you know.

Played a bit. I think it's pretty much like you'd expect for M&B 2. Nicer character creation for sure but very familiar gameplay except that I have no idea where to go anymore. I feel just slightly disappointed but hope to get over it. Looks like maybe a steeper learning curve than the original. The differences between the starting cultures are substantial and should provide a lot of replay value.
 
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My main grumble is the 60GB download!

Ugh, so … yeah … I guess that means I'll spend a good deal of time on this on the weekend. Rather than right now.

:sniff:

PS: Wait, it seems it's just 31 GB? So that's... errm... well. Still not right now.

:sniff:
 
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First steam reviews (~4k) are surprisingly good.
 
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Reported to be top seller and top played today on Steam. That surprises me a bit but why not? Lots of people like me have been waiting 8 years LOL.
 
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Just played one hour and really up to now it's just as addictive than the first one but with prettier stuff which is good :) Would write more but I have a game to play.
 
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OK, I'll ask my questions here. As I recall from reading stuff prior to dropping out of the development marathon, they weren't really planning all that many changes outside of making it more of an RPG with quests and whatnot. What do y'all think of those RPGesque changes, and are there any mechanical changes?

As I recall, they had a bunch of changes to sieges, such as more ways in and dropping rocks on invaders' heads, etc., but they dropped them. Are sieges and other aspects of the game essentially the same outside of improved graphics?
 
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M&B rough on the edge added to the final picture. Bannerlord is rough on the edge but less. Not the latest graphical wonder but still. It withdraws from the brutality that was oozing from M&B.

What do y'all think of those RPGesque changes, and are there any mechanical changes?

So far, it remains the same on mechanical terms. It is M&B expanded, with additional layers.

The big changes are that things are explicitly put. The basis remains the same but everything is underlined and written in bold. It is all in your face now. It is spelled out to players.

Players come to M&B for various causes.
When playing it to build a character into a role, Bannerlord withdraws.
When in M&B, building a character from their own motivations flows, they were self driven, it came from within, with bannerlord, it feels imposed by an external force.

It is no longer a PC acting that way because they are motivated that way, a PC acts that way because they receive a notification to act that way.

M&B used to define fundamentally through action, Bannerlord still defines through action but heavily supported by words.

It distracts from building a character as it keeps pushing an external influence. Makes it hard to organize the building as somehow pointers keep pointing this or that way.
When M&B lets way more room to players to determine what matters to them, Bannerlord pushes a form of hierarchy on what matters.

One example: in M&B, NPCs in village used to stand at varied locations so when entering a location, a PC could spend a few minutes looking around to find the looked for NPCs. It sort of added as the result of a search was not immediate.

It was uncommon.

Bannerlord arrows any NPC, no more time for a search, it does not matter, there is more mattering things elsewhere (what remains to be seen)

M&B was very open in terms of letting players organizing their own experience, allowing them to loiter on small things as they wish.

Bannerlord brings a sense of hierarchy between things, devs obviously listened to customers as customers wanted keys to rush an experience.
 
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