Mount and Blade: Warband Day 4

The day where I lose everything, gain it back, lose it, etc..



I began by heading over to Reyvadinpalinkalin. I assessed some prices and had to buy some fish so I could sell them somewhere else for a profit. That somewhere Else? At the bottom of the fecking desert. But I bravely marched on, like a boss.
Apparently you shouldn’t enter villages at night, because bandits will attack you.
…
Bandits attacked me.


Take a note to all of the arrows on the left.
Unfortunately I had no arrows, or… well, anything, really.
I threw my knifes and then my rocks until I ran out. This happened a little too quickly. My only hope was to rush then for some fisticuffs, but, uh, It didn’t work. The bandits took all of my stuff, including my clothes and horse. So Not only do I not have a dress (and the boobs that come with it) I also do not have any dignity.


I will abbreviate what happened next in a few pictures that should sum it up.









2 weeks. 2 fucking weeks. That (in game) is how long I was bitch-handled across the desert by various groups coming to attack me. I had 0 moneys, 0 clothes, 0 dignity, 0…anything.
I had hit in-game rock bottom. It is impossible to do any worse in the game.
Well, FUCK!
I had to do something to get back on track!
I fought in the arena and got myself up to the point where I was able to buy a bow, some arrows, and a club. This took a while, but You got to do what you got to do. When I felt I had enough resources to lay on an attack,  I visited a village, recruited one peasant to fight with me, and then took a hostile action on that very same village.

They did not like it very much.

Who knew there would be so many peasants? There’s like, what? 3 buildings in the whole damn town! They must pack the kids into roofs or something, probably gaining some developmental disorder. I say that because my recruit was very useless when I turned him on his own people after all of 16 seconds of training.

I was fighting them with the same club they were using to fight me. Really? How low can I go?
Apparently pretty low, because they killed me.
As I lay there, dead, in my dress, probably about to get sexually molested (I do have boobs with the dress on), I decided I had to do something to get myself back on track. Again.
One lucky break up out of the desert, and I headed for the training fields. I alternated between the training fields (where I beat all levels of AI) and the arena, where I grinded and earned enough money to hire some more troops and some better weapons.
At the same time I was also recruiting a few volunteers. Once again I took hostile action against a town and – it worked this time! They begrudgingly handed over their supplies!
SUCK IT, PEASANTS!
As a retrospective side note, one is supposed to keep food in their inventory, you know, for something to eat. Just letting all you people know. I found out the hard way.
I sold food for enough money to buy a horse. It is, of course, only a horse in the most technical of senses – 4 legs, neighing noises. Outside of that it is more comparable to an truck without tires, or perhaps a large rock. A large rock with little health, might I add.
While shuttling between villages and training field, I encountered a battle that I might be able to win. It would be my first victory. Challenge motherfucking accepted.


There is some text in the bottom corner that says ‘battle advantage = –1’. I ignored that as I charged my untrained troops on! Huzzah!

The blurry things you see in the above image? Spears headed towards my head. Hundreds of them, I dodged most by strafing circles, letting my peasants get murdered. They killed a few of the enemy (the enemy probably laughing to death), but soon all of my men had died. No wounded. No unconscious. All dead.

I suffered similar a treatment soon after.
So today I did worse than others thought possible. I want to tell you that I actually lightened this up a bit. I excluded a fair amount of lost battles, and I decided not to delve into the 2 weeks I spent in perpetual imprisonment in the desert. Fuck the desert. I need some help!
Stay tuned for tomorrow, where things turn around with some instruction from my friend.

DePauw

My decision on which college to attend next year has been, well, decided.

Mount and Blade: Warband – day 3.

The part where I try multiplayer.

With Goat_Cheese’s help, do I even have a chance of succeeding?

 

 

 

Probably Not!

This is the part where I try multiplayer

 

I had thought I was done with this game, for the day at least, but I received an invitation from my friend Goat_Cheese. Spending most of yesterday (OK, technically earlier today as I write this) in the arena left me with an invigorated feeling of arena-readiness. This feeling was entirely misinformed, as I got my butt served back to me (not even on silver platters, the ungrateful tarts) so many times, I feel I could have easily used them to stack myself a fairly large defense. But My butt-wall wouldn’t have done me any good anyway, I would have died sooner or later.

I start on the server spectating, wanting to get the lay of the land was my idea. Reality is I didn’t know to hit escape and pick a team. Red or Blue here, standard team colors, but I later learned that’s a coincidence.

I pick some gibberishy name that brings me onto the blue team. (Blue team, moving out! TF2 sound clips playing in my head, a game I don’t drink newbsauce through a straw at)

See those red tickers in the bottom left. Those will inform me every time anyone day, (statistically speaking: every time I die). I stand in this preparation pit before another Blue character spawns behind me, then ungratefully slashes me in the back with what appeared to be a 8 foot long axe [of doom]. “What is this madness?” I screamed into the microphone. “Team kills, or …what?”. Goat_Cheese only laughed at my blatant Newbitude. “No dude, it’s a death match! Kill everyone”

With whatever default weapon load out prepared, I charged the field and got owned. again and again. I believe it was 11 deaths in before I got my first kill, which was not a well deserved kill.

Figuring out how to switch weapons with coin I was somehow earning (I assume mercy points)

One spawn area is connected to the next, and I shot at a bunch of fighting dudes through. Nanananapoopoo! You can’t touch me!

But the guy that spawned behind me? He can touch me. And he did. With a battle axe.

30 more minutes of doing my best on the very bottom of the server rankings, I had figured out the basics of playing, such as how to use all the different weapons, upgrade my equipment, and the like. Then this game ended, I got some Steam achievement for winning

I art Elite Warrior! Fear the magical fact that I am a winner of awesome! Or something.

Confidence restored, I continued on to the next map. (which was the same map). But something was different…

Ah. The bots. The server decided that adding 40 (count it, 40!) bots would be an idea that falls into the ‘good’ category. As it so clearly does not fall into the 'good’ category of ideas, but rather into the ‘craptastic flamwar botfest pwnage sucky’ category. Also the ‘bad’ one.

A vote was called that ended the bot spam pretty quickly, but I actually did the best with all of the bots. I sat back as an archer and killed the armorless bastards from a distance.

Not that it worked well. I was still on bottom. But whatever, I say! Poo on you with your better weapon and horse-riding-ability-manship! I say poo on to all of that! I am going streaking! I esc’d into equipment and removed all my weapons and armor. Only some cheap cloth continued. Raiding the battlefield I ran away from everyone for as long as I could before I got trampled or beaten or sliced.

Surprisingly, I was not declared a troll (eMenace), but rather ignored. This sort of behavior is accepted by small numbers of people. In this case, one. “Let him be an idiot, it means more kills for me” is probably what everyone else said to themselves.

Except for Goat_Cheese. We were voice-chatting (I feel that’s redundant) and he decided to join me. Goat_Cheese! I challenge you to fisticuffs!

What happened next was surprising: Others joined in.

The server’s chaos level escalated, some players really not liking it. Most going along with the all-in-good-spirit of fun in a very serious multiplayer game. Some would still draw swords and gain cheap kills, but we kicked one guy who did it and then the center wring was held as fisticuffs center. Fighting with hands a must. Side note: It’s hard to kill people with just your hands!

Sad but true, the fist only action was short lives. Next round, a fresh host of new players appeared and the ones were to busy being killed to explain the (not actually) fighting rules. This means I went back to sucking. (as opposed to sucking, but equally.)

My spout of multiplayer re-inspired my hopes in this game. I was worried I would have to stop doing these write-ups as I failed continually, and the same thing again and again sucks. But messing with a multiplayer server is always fun (in fun-spirit, no trolling, Fuckers!)

I quit and worked on homework. Bleh Homework! Bleh juggling/unicycling/harmonica practice! I am decided on college (DePauw!), why not spend time playing fun video games!

Also, It’s only $6 now.

I promise I will update other stuff soon, too.

Mount and Blade: Warband–Day 2

The game went on sale for $6 today.
Yesterday, I bought it for $30.
ARG!

Anyway, my adventures continue in this time-consuming game! Read on! I included lots of pictures, and don’t forget the alt-text

 

After my humiliating defeat yesterday, I decided I needed to do some training. So off to the arena, where I learned the arts of kicking ass, taking names.

The Arena is a curious little feature. What you do is arrive and ask the Tournament Master for some dates where one one gets to compete in tournament. He tells you what towns are having them, but this game is complete gibberish, so I opted for the Melee fest.



Off I went to battle some half-naked sweaty men in furious one-on-one combat!
I should note that I changed the controls. I switched blocking from auto-the-right-block-direction to be based off of mouse movements, from friends recommendations. I also inverted the attack direction. Now I swing my mouse left, and sword swings left. This is opposed to swing mouse left, attack their left side. It makes more sense and is easier.
It isn’t really 1 on 1. It’s more like 8 of them all attack one sweaty old dude. (me)

Here I am, getting trounced by a large quantity of other people, who decide that fighting each other is no fun, and they should all attack me instead. In that second photo above, I am dying dead passing out from the, well, you know – getting my ass handed to me like a Yankee fan running for mayor of Boston.
Otherwise, the enemies don’t attack you at all. They just sort of, well, ignore you. Here I am about to sneak attack some archer.


I got bored of the melee after going at it for 8 or 9 rounds, and I actually made a fair deal of money. 80 moneys, to be precise. I also leveled up a fair deal, and was able to increase my agility, with which I will use to run away like a screaming tween girl towards a Justin Beiber Concert. (Friends recommendation. Thanks for the confidence, friend)
I left to the village center, and still in the arena mental combat mode, I started attacking the first person I saw.

Did the guards punish me? Was I  Kicked out? Did I lose street cred? Was I flogged?
Nope. The townswomen just kind of ignored me. This sort of male to female beating and brutality must be common in these parts. Speaking of, I still need to find myself a wife. I returned to the arena and fine-tuned my hulk of masculinity as this is what women find attractive, right?

I arrived at peasant-villa looking for a women to beat marry. I found none, as the townswomen continued to ignore me. Well fuck them! I discovered on the options screen the ability to ‘Take Hostile Action’ against the small town. I stole a lot of food from them, and fled back to a major town, my plan for the game, as of the second I realized I could just steal from these people, instead of trade. Hmm, being a heartless, cruel, bastard might be the only way to win!
I glanced away from the monitor to check too see if I had received any texts from the ladies. I hadn’t, but when I turned back, I did see a hunky sea raider preparing to drink from my skull. As I am pretty sure this is a sexual euphemism for some act I shouldn’t describe in any detail, I decided not to give in, but rather, to fight!

12 of them, and 1 of me. But I have spent at least an hour in the arena, I must be some sort of Mongolian legend by now, possibly fit for statues of some kind (preferably stone). Already townspeople around feat my name. “Hunters are coming!” they cry out in fear! Well, maybe they are not referring to me, but I would like to think so. I charged on like Bronson in Death Wish 3, headed right at the other men. Shooting my –oh wait, I am out of bolts-- erm... Throwing my rocks like an looting crack addict. Dramatic music started up and I felt a surge of hope rush through my clicking finger.

My trusty, ‘rusty’ sword at my side, I prepared for a glorious battle where me, on horseback, would slice and dice through these pathetic sea raiders in a similar fashion to the way the slap chop sliced and dices your vegetables.

Approximately 8 seconds later, I was defeated. By an axe thrown to (or more accurately: through) the face. It took out 3/4 of my health with one throw. As it delivered a cheap lobotomy, I thought to my self' ‘I need to get me one of those!’ Apparently this sort of brain-smashing weapon isn’t cheap at all, but maybe I can avoid some taxes due to my new status of ‘deceased’, and save up.

Oh dear.
I was taken prisoner and moneys were stolen, after a few days of being manhandled around by the traveling brutish homosexuals (‘sea raiders’ – think I don’t know?) (Not that there is anything wrong with that, its just no means no) I found a chance to escape.
Back at the map traveling screen, I quickly clicked the nearest town, where I would recover my resources and see what I had lost in the battle.

Oh man. That Did not take long at all! I acted the way my dad does at a restaurant that has messed up his order. I did nothing in my power to cause a scene, and I sold out to the sea raider. 50 moneys stolen! crapenzydouche!! I need that to buy throwing axes! Already I lost my entire days earnings from the arena.
I made it to a town and sold all of the resources from the village-plundering from previous in the day. Well, you can’t sell anything in towns, only buy, because the villages have no money. So I traded for some Iron and left looking for a place to sell it at a higher value.
For the third time I was approached (not in the lets-get-a-drink-later way, but in the I-am-going-to-dismember-you-and-use-the-body-parts-to-feed-the-Siberian-lion-I-keep-in-my-front-pouch-like-a-kangaroo), but this time not by sea raiders, but rather somebody informing my my wallet was too heavy, and he would go about his kind deed of lightening it. At this time I had acquired 6 trusty village idiots, and figured I could take these 12 men! I mean, look at me! I must be 70! Experience is surly on my side.

It wasn’t. It took all of 2 minutes for my entire band to be killed (none wounded, all killed). My method of strafing around them and throwing rocks did very little, mostly because throwing rocks is fucking useless. My other strategy of not moving and swinging my sword around-- missing all of them. It too, did not work. I had not practiced horse-top fighting, and I could feel my health dripping away. Or as you see it in the picture, I could feel my health not being there anymore.
For my final act of the day, before closing the game in frustration and typing this up, was to return to a town and to an arena.
Another thing I noticed about the arena mode is that the other people, when not all deciding to just attack me, do sometimes attack each other. Only they attack the other person I am about to kill, stealing my kill. My damage/kill ratio is a little off, and this is causing me not to win the rewards that I should.

I discovered in the menu that the G key will drop weapons, so I figured a little bad-assery was in need to heel my repeatedly mortally wounded ego. This did not fail as hard as you would expect. Or at least not as badly as I anticipated.

Although I am not saying that it succeeded.

Mount & Blade: Warband - Day 1

Go Google some information about this game if you don’t know anything. I didn’t know anything, but I do have two friends, one with 391 hours the other with ‘oh, well over 700’. So I figured with two seasoned pros to get advice, I could enter into what is an open game. My feelings on open games? They don’t work for me. unless pure sandbox, like minecraft, I prefer my stories to be told for me. But whatever, lets start the game.

The first thing I have to do is select my characters Gender. But unlike other games, where this amounts to little more than ‘boobs/no boobs’ for display, this actually means something. It will affect my outcome of the game. Oh dear, I hate this. I played through spore 4 or 5 times, mostly because it’s a fun game but also because I wanted to see all the content. But aside from content loss, choices like these … I usually make the wrong ones. Fuck! I mean, right?
After Deciding my dad was a chief, I had to pick my own profession.

I decided to go with university student, because I felt it would fit. Yes, me, the scholarly one, Yesterday I decided on DePauw as a college!
But why write about interesting college choices when there are video games to be played? Am I right or am I right? I am not right? well go suck an egg, I am doing this anyway.




So after my incorrect choices lead me to more incorrect choices (should have gone with Person Revenge!)  I was thrown into the world.

Wait, no I wasn’t! I had to decide what I looked like!

Character appearance editing Screen

My final look. My goal was a weathered old beaten man who decides, perhaps too late in his life, to complete two items on his bucket list: Get married and become a Vassal. These are elements of the game, mostly becoming a Vassal, which means you own over people and are sub king. I guess you can go from there to being a king, full-fledged, but I don’t know. The other goal is to get married. This is not a major part of the game, and actually it can deter your own character quite a bit, but hey, I already know I don’t want to play through this game ‘the official’ way, so a non-standard goal may just be the thing.
So what is the first thing the game does? Tries to kill me! But I showed that thief, tough him a lesson. I am a stern teacher, preferring the knife-to-jugular over the Socratic method.
Some random ginger saved me, and now I, after agreeing to be his bitch or, wait –- I didn’t agree to that! -- decide to help save his dipshit brother from getting kidnapped by some pillagers, or something. I wasn’t paying much attention to the text bubbles. (My friends told me to stop not paying attention to the bubbles)The end result was a battle with some rebels, me and my 5 hired goons against some angry man throwing rocks.

Really? Rock throwing? After we delivered our ass-pounding message of ‘don’t steal’, I was actually able to acquire some rocks.
Here I played for a bit and forgot to screenshot my adventure, but the rocks came back. They returned as my only range weapon with ammo as a caravan I was supposed to be escorting was getting sorely raped, prison-bitch style. The rocks I was now throwing did little damage as I witnessed my crew (now up to 12 untrained, but surprisingly loyal men) get slaughtered and their intestines removed and used to make condoms that the pillagers would rape our wives with. So I guess there won’t be any bastard children, but still – pretty demoralizing.
After I lost (9 dead men, 3 injured) I quit the game. I will return tomorrow with more screenshots and commentary as I stumble my way through this game.