Mount & Blade: Expanded Gameplay III

Type:
Mod
Game:
Mount&Blade
Download link:
http://www.mbrepository.com/modules/PDdownloads/singlefile.php?cid=1&lid=576
Forum Thread:
http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,61453.0.html

Looking at customised games can be potentially a daunting task by any means, the sheer number of games which professionals and fans alike have attempted to improve or change the face of completely is phenomenal. But when it comes to it some games have clear potential to be added to. Enter the game Mount&Blade, a personal favourite of mine and fellow reviewers on this blog alike. I however, have only just been accustomed to the world of customised games by viewing the Taleworlds Forum and the candy shop like array of modifications. As a big fan of the original Native game play, I decided to review the v0.95b Mount&Blade mod Expanded Gameplay III released in April 2009. The other reasons for the review of this particular mod is that, as stated before, due to my only recent discovery of the Mount&Blade modifications I completely skipped the release of the highly acclaimed Expanded Gameplay II so it’s interesting to see how far the improvements have come. So, it’s time to load up the new mod and give it a try!

Firstly, one can say that looks are what tends to initially sway the player of a game or customisation Module and this for me this has especially held true, basically games that look good have to be played. Whether the graphics or colour scheme contributes to the game play is a different matter. Fortunately the breathtaking thing when playing the Expanded Gameplay III mod is the overworld map, though it is the same as the one used in the Native Module, it has been highly crafted and lavished with details and foliage making it instantly Native’s more attractive sister in the terms of aesthetics solely. This attention to looks has also been turned to the characters themselves with faction armour being much more detailed and individual to the kingdom it is designed for making troops look radically different on sight especially with the inclusion of an army of the dead which consists of fallen ones appealing to Medieval superstition to give it that traditional/fantasy feel. These undead hordes are surrounded in flaming tendrils of the underworld to illustrate the supernatural point, it’s a scary thing!

Weapons and armour are radically enhanced differing greatly from the Native Module making it an interesting search to find your own preferred arsenal in the terms of looks and performance. Moderator Chel commented on the Taleworlds Forum that he: ‘wanted to replace the old M&B items that I was very used to seeing everywhere (like falchion, leather jerkin, plate armor), add new items and create a new stylish look for all the troops and factions. So the mod contains many great new items created by the community and redesigned factions to give each one more of a unique personality.’ indeed Chel delivered what was promised but what of the game play itself.

The Expanded Gameplay III mod feels defiantly more personalised from the Native version by making the character development questions much more influential to the final culmination of your emerging warrior and creates a sense of involvement with your own character as your choices even affect starting characters granted to you. Limits have even been placed on abilities you can learn based on your decisions which can be seen both as a hindrance and a positive as it provides a feel of classing and customising your character down a certain path.

In the terms of conflict, actual battles feel more consequential as well as the chance of death is now an additional penalty and further motivation than just the loss of items, funds and troops. To further the intensity of fighting common soldiers gravitate towards your more advanced troops to create the feeling of group hierarchy and helping to solve the stray foot-soldier issue that may occur in battles. The only annoying thing I found about the group hierarchy is that during a particular siege my troops clumped together getting stuck in a tower doorway to fight a single archer whilst a larger threat marched by unharmed to attack the cramped troops as they became inescapably vulnerable despite orders to spread out. On the open field however this grouping system is not a problem and in fact a useful tool to prevent troops from stretching themselves too thin and being singled out. Battles have also been improved by a new ability menu that can be accessed by pressing ‘N’ during conflict and I found myself enjoying sprinting and taunting the enemy in a mock Braveheart manner.

One thing I have found to be an issue with this mod is the repetitive ‘popping up’ of code which can be irritating and takes away from the seamless gaming experience. This and a few other niggles occasionally cause the game to lag in battle which fortunately is not too frequent. Bugs in mods are not unusual however and are present in the original Native Module itself, I am mainly pleased that the errors have not crashed my computer or caused the dreaded 'is not responding!' at pivotal points so error scripts are just a minor thing.

Apart from the bugs outlined this mod is uniquely awesome in the fact that so much has been added onto the initial game. I could write pages on other features included such as charms, trophies and healer units but I haven’t spent nearly a long enough time playing this mod to explore everything added, the best thing to do is to play the mod itself or look at the Taleworlds Forum both of which are linked at the top which I recommend you do both. This mod is epic with distinct improvements to the battle system, armour and weapons. In terms of the pure detail added this mod feels genuinely like a loved child which has been given a lot of attention.
Overall I give this Customisation 9/10

screenshots soon to be included....

Mount & Blade: Interview with Sheriff-murder of The Wutai War mod.

We have recently got in touch of the Mount & Blade modder known as Sheriff-murder about the upcoming The Wutai War mod. This mod has a fair amount of hype as it is based on the highly popular video game Final Fantasy VII by Square Enix and even has our own writer Lorven greatly anticipating the final release of this mod..

Link to the Mod discussion thread: http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,59877.0.html

Sheriff-murder kindly answered several questions for me through a pm.

Questions

What was the main reason for picking Final Fantasy 7 over the others to base this mod on?
I am most familiar with Final Fantasy 7, and some of the latest releases has also given a lot of good sources to base the mod on.I also like the specific uniforms all the units have for each rank and class.

What about the Wutai War inspired you to create a mod based on it in Mount & Blade?
It was the most fitting to base a mod for a game like mount & blade from. Several times have people been posting about wanting a mod about old vs modern. Or a mod with the same aspect as the movie "the last samurai". And i liked the idea myself.

What are you currently working on for the mod?
I am currently working with Highelf on a code that is necessary to make the mod even playable.In short, it makes the lords, peasants and caravans able to travel inter-continental.

What sort of difficulties have you encountered while making this mod?
So far it has mostly been the previously mentioned code, it has been a series of two steps forward and one step back.

How did you get into modding in general?
I have always been into game development, in a couple of weeks i am moving to the capital here in Norway to study 3D and game development.I wanted to be prepared, so i started 3d modeling on my own. I also wanted to make use of my models, so i used them for a mod.

Is there anyway we can entice you to use the Final Fantasy 9 chocobo music for when you are travelling around the world map on a chocobo? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZRHix-6WlQ&feature=related We'll see. * Wink*

I'd like to extend thanks from the Customized Games team for Sheriff-murder taking the time to answer our questions. If you want to help with The Wutai War then they currently need
Weapon and Armor modeler
Intermediate/Advanced coder
Scene props modeler
Scene mapper

Screenshots

A Chocobo Mount

An ingame battle

Midgar

CSS: Naruto Model

Title:
Naruto
Type:
Player Model
Authors:
S-LoW
Shounen Jump
Shiban
Deimos
Download Link:
http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/55068
Website Excerpt:
"Finally a Naruto skin!"

If your a fan of Japanese Culture or know someone that is then you are likely to have heard of Naruto. For those that haven't; Naruto is a long running Manga (Japanese comics for those out of the loop) with an anime (Japanese Cartoons) trailing behind; Naruto has a wide fanbase and as of such has a huge amount of fan created goodies on the internet so it was a huge surprise to me that I didn't discover this skin earlier.

Unfortunatly for you players without access to your own server; they is no way to use the skin online but a handy reskin is avaliable here http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/9292 just for you guys. To install the skin you will need mani admin installed on your server. Get it from http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com/ and please note that you will also need the skin manager for mani which is downloaded here http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com/mani_admin_plugin/skins/cstrike_skins.zip.

Gameplay

There is something enticing for the anime fan in me to be shooting that damn annoying Naruto with a Scout so i can certainly say that it enhances my gameplay. There are some minor hitbox issues but nothing too noticable. One problem i found was if too many people were looking at the model then the server would inexplicably crash though this could be a serverside issue. If anyone has more information on this then please post in the comments.

Visuals

The model is well made and the animations seem good but in some cases I found the model wouldn't properly animate when holding certain weapons. The texturing is good but at some times I find the cartoony appearance to be distracting and occasionally a small eyesore when trying to play serious Counter-Strike Source.

Pros

• An excellent quality model that resembles the character it represents.

Cons

• Seems to crash the server occasionally.
• Some animation issues
• Art style may match the source material but doesn't fit in Counter-Strike Source

Score: 5/10

Screenshots (Thanks to Menchi)

M&B Europe 1200

Title:
Europe 1200
Type:
Mod
Game:
Mount & Blade
Download Link:
http://www.mbrepository.com/modules/PDdownloads/singlefile.php?cid=1&lid=1219
Forum:
http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/board,132.0.html
Website Excerpt:
"Europe 1200 is a mod that aims on recreate Europe in the 13th century. A lot of factions are represent in this mod, and they do all have a good variety of items and troops..Please report any bug you find."

A game like Mount & Blade already provides a great base for any Medieval style mod but this mod really goes out of it's way to prove itself. This is shown through the impressive feature list which is shown and expanded on below.

Feature List Expanded:

• Forget Native's mere 5 factions; this mod outdoes itself with 16 historically accurate factions battling over a large realistic map of Europe
• As mentioned before the Mod's map is a realistic and incredibly large map of Europe. While the map feels quite rough at points it still greatly enhances the immersion over other mods which don't stray from the Native map.
• There are plenty of new items to enhance your characters appearance. With 16 new factions comes armour for each faction that greatly improves your armies appearance in battle.
• The Mod's dedication to realism comes across greatly in the nobility where each noble (whether they be Lord or King) are named after real figures that belonged to those factions in the actual time.
• The Mod also expands the banner list so people looking for a new banner to represent their character will be pleasantly surprised by the selection.
• This mod also provides a rudimentary Kingdom Management system which I personally have not encountered much while playing the mod despite renouncing my oaths and keeping my fiefs on more than one occasion but the system sounds promising and I will be sure to give Kingdom Management a go in future releases.
• You can now challenge Lords, Companions and even Kings to friendly duels which provides an extra fun feature for those epic 1v1 battles that this game excels at.
• 16 completely new companions that you can recruit to join your army. So now if you want Robin Hood amongst your fine English Longbowmen laying death upon your enemies you can.
• Every faction has unique troops that relates to the actual historical faction. Whether is be the legendary Teutonic Knights or the feared English Knights you can experience a realistic fighting experience where you carry your French Banners into a long campaign against the Holy Roman Empire.
• You can now speak to Guild Masters and Village Elders through the Village/City menu which veteran Native players will know can be a time consuming experience if you have to walk around the Village/City.
• A new autoloot option which means you can progress even faster to your next battle without spending too much time taking your just rewards.
• Two new combat features are the ability to brace spears in order to halt a cavalry charge which prevents cavalry from dominating infantry too much in open maps and battle morale which gives the chance of either side fleeing from battle if they get badly beaten which adds extra elements of danger in a battle.
• It also adds the popular custom battles mod where from a menu you build two armies and then battle them against each other which is a good way to test out the different units and to provide an interesting side feature to the game. A good option for players that just want to jump into a big battle and discover why Mount & Blade is legendary for it's intense gritty battles.

Pros

• The large detailed map expands the epic scale that Mount & Blade already had and gives the player a large area to explore and conquer.
• With 16 historically accurate factions players get a wide choice of who they want to work with. It also means that war is everywhere and it becomes common to stumble across a large battle between two large factions going on.
• The mod is incredibly accurate in it's portrayal of Europe in 1200. It is obvious that a significant amount of work was put into the research for the Mod.
• A refreshing change from Native; you'll find yourself getting sucked into this mod. Whatever faction you choose to support will throw you into a dangerous world where war can happen anywhere and you closest neighbours can quickly become your worst enemy.

Cons

• While wars occurring between random nations can be a good thing in some cases; having a random nation on the other side of the map randomly declaring war on your faction causing your faction's Marshall to decide he wants you to join him on a long expensive campaign on the other side of the map where anything you take is likely to be retaken quickly because it is too far from your nations main areas.
• Kingdom Management can be a big headache, it is difficult to acquire Lords for your kingdom and you'll find yourself consistently being hounded by other kingdoms Lords.
• Some quest's don't work. For example I was given a quest to meet a Lord's spy in the city of Durham so I successfully sneaked into the city and discovered empty city streets, there were no peasants around so I was unable to complete the quest and lost relation with that Lord. In another case I was asked to eliminate a bandit hiding out in a small Irish village (the name escapes me) and upon arrival at the village I spent a large amount of time scouring the village for the seemingly non-existent villain and ended up losing relation with another Lord.

I would sincerely recommend this mod to any Mount & Blade player as it is a fun mod with a refreshingly new background for long-time players of Native. Just a quick warning when starting out; avoid the damn sea raiders!

Mod Score: 8/10 (Though I expect this will go up in the next release of the Mod)

CSS: Halloween Mappack 2006

Title:
Halloween Mappack 2006
Type:
Mappack
Game:
Counter-Strike: Source
Download Link:
www.fpsbanana.com/maps/18363
Website Excerpt:
""A group of mappers, old and new, from forums.joe.to have come together to make a small mappack for this Halloween.The pack includes a variety of five spooky-themed maps from different people.
Maps Included:
de_nightmare by AlphaKennyOne
pet_sematary_final by Deski
de_hangcastle_s by Dr.Boo
cs_deadhouse by NIPPER
de_paranoid by HomicidalApe ,ayeyah and Mr.Blip"

A fairly old mappack but a must see if you haven't yet given some of these maps a look. I will take a brief look at each map.

de_nightmare by AlphaKennyOne

Type:
Demolition
Filesize (Uncompressed):
BSP: 21,236 KB
Nav: 825 KB
Text Document: 2 KB

A well designed map that has meshed several different map styles together and has a rather warped feel to it. I won't spoil to much as these maps tend to be more about exploring them than actually playing them but this map has still found it's way onto my server's map rotation. The map has several well hidden secrets that the more acute player may discover though if you have access to admin powers you should have no trouble finding the secrets with a little noclipping around though I must admit it wasn't me that discovered the secrets even after some extensive noclipping but the fellow admin of the server who has a rather large fondness of secrets and admin rooms who made the discovery and passed it onto me. The map is well designed and runs smoothly on my server. I have not noticed any map-related issues with any other players on the server.

Gameplay
The actual gameplay of the map seems reasonably solid. Players will not only have to deal with the enemy players but will also have to avoid a plethora of traps that could prove a fatal end to any unsuspecting player. The bombsites are a fair distance apart and mean that the CT team would have to split immediately to secure both bomb sites before the terrorists have a chance for an easy plant. There is a distinct lack of cover in both bombsites so tactical players will have to focus on defending entry routes to the bombsite.

Layout
The map can be quite confusing in the way that the environments quickly change and the players will find themselves rather disorientated when rushing through the map. The map makes use of portals which move the players to new areas which reduces lag and allows for better movement through areas.

Visuals
The map blends a variety of designs such as a graveyard leading into a combine reactor style room. There is a seemingly abandoned apartment, a strange tornado and more. The best way to fully understand this map is to load it up in CSS and have a little explore. There are plenty of small interesting details to keep an exploring player happy.

Map Score
8/10

pet_sematary_final by Deski

Type:
TBC
Filesize (Uncompressed)
BSP: 2,221 KB
Nav: 235 KB

TBC

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