Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Have been playing the beta a bit on and off, I think I am missing the busier tests with more peopleon at once, but still been having fun with it in smaller settings of just a few people.

The game is pretty smooth and fun. I would say the greatest emphasis is on timing, footwork, and swing range control (as the videos show).  Blocking is just one button, and honestly my biggest problem has been that the swings can come in so slow that I block much too early, but given enough time to learn the animations and weapon speeds it's relatively easy to block compared to m&b.

But, since the swings take so long to swing, and you can't stop yourself from swinging, you can often times see your death a half second before it happens, which is actually really cool. Basically you get the nice meat and potatoes of a good m&b fight without worrying about manual blocking.

I'd recommend it to anybody who likes melee fighting, its pretty visceral and fun, whether or not you will invest years into it like m&b I don't know, but I do know that it's pretty damn fun and worth experiencing if you are a fan of this style of combat.

If there is no manual blocking, does this make everyone overly difficult to kill?

Reapy said:

Have been playing the beta a bit on and off, I think I am missing the busier tests with more peopleon at once, but still been having fun with it in smaller settings of just a few people.

The game is pretty smooth and fun. I would say the greatest emphasis is on timing, footwork, and swing range control (as the videos show).  Blocking is just one button, and honestly my biggest problem has been that the swings can come in so slow that I block much too early, but given enough time to learn the animations and weapon speeds it's relatively easy to block compared to m&b.

But, since the swings take so long to swing, and you can't stop yourself from swinging, you can often times see your death a half second before it happens, which is actually really cool. Basically you get the nice meat and potatoes of a good m&b fight without worrying about manual blocking.

I'd recommend it to anybody who likes melee fighting, its pretty visceral and fun, whether or not you will invest years into it like m&b I don't know, but I do know that it's pretty damn fun and worth experiencing if you are a fan of this style of combat.

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In other words, it takes the basics of M&B, makes them easy, and throws you right into the advanced tactics and combat techniques? Sounds pretty cool.

Actually... that is a great way to put it. Though I will say there is something noticeably missing when you aren't running those mechanics in parallels with the 'advanced' stuff, which is ok I think.

I just tried blocking a bot while letting him face hug me on my lunch break, I still can't do it consistently. Between them feinting (can stop the swing before it starts going forwards) and having to maintain visual contact, it is not super easy.

Some weapons were easier to block than others, a long weapon's overhead attack will sometimes go over top the collision box I guess, so you have to actually look up at the weapon head as it comes in, but that only seemed to happen at face hug range.

Thrusts come out a bit faster, and are harder to see on some weapons, and will hit you about 3x faster from the start of the hit than the other kinds.

All in all it definitely a learning curve to be blocking weapons consistently despite it just being one button. Also the damage done transfers to an amount of stamina drained. When you block on low stamina you get knocked back and go into a stagger. I've seen that you can kind of get your block back in time again a few times in this state, but can't do much else, though in the games I played I didn't really see anybody ever get into this state that often.

Finally, I like 3rd person a lot, but I think it'll be a server switch, and I'm pretty sure most people will set theirs to have it disabled. 3rd has a few problems in that the character is off center of the screen so your aim is kind of skewed, but it really is a ton easier for me to position myself and see what is around me.

Though again I see some neat things you could think about in 1st person like stepping in an area that their weapon obscures their vision of you and starting a thrust, that sorta crazy **** you would do when controlling the game is second nature to you.

I remember reading about directional blocking for this game a while back, did they cut that?

Yeah the controls are basically 3 attack buttons, a right to left swing, an overhead, and a thrust. If you keep pressing it you will combo up to 3 times (this has changed back and forth somewhat), so press one and you get right to left swing, press again, you spend stamina and continue with a left to right swing, back to the right to left.

Some weapons are a bit different like their overhead might be a double overhead swing or some come in an upper cut move on the second swing.

Blocking without a shield is basically hold it down and you go into guard mode, you can hold it about 2 seconds or so, after that it drops and you can't put it back up again until a short half second delay or so. This is plenty of time to mess up the timing on a block, I typically do it way too early and run out of 'block time'.

Also you need to reasonably look at the weapon tip to block too, if people are close they can overhead on top of the block collision box and things like that. It is easy and hard at the same time to block depending on what the other person's doing for timing.

Hey guys check it out, maybe think of helping these guys reach the goal they need

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1711512107/chivalry-medieval-warfare?ref=home_location

Oh, another Kickstarter. 

Salander said:

Oh, another Kickstarter. 

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Go screw yourself. 

I quite like kickstarter. It legitimately allows developers to make games they wouldn't otherwise be able to make.


If you don't like it, don't support them. 

Llew, why so polite? I think a good "Go **** yourself". Is more appropriate for that kind of asshattery.

Oh jeeze louise, more people going through fan-funding to avoid money hungry publishers which might not even fund their project in the first place? Oh rude. 

Tibertus said:

Llew, why so polite? I think a good "Go **** yourself". Is more appropriate for that kind of asshattery.

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I did write that initially, but I didn't want to beat up the poor defenseless bastard too badly.


But he totally deserves it. 

Chivalry looks bad to the bone. It also looks like its going to take a high end graphics card, otherwise you may face a meltdown of fire extinguisher proportions. 

I think it looks pretty sweet, and I'm gonna buy it and play it.

Is there any accountability with kickstarter? Anything to stop a developer taking way more money than they need to make a game, or simply guessing how much they need and asking for an arbitrary amount, or even not delivering a game after taking the money?

DanAngleland said:

Is there any accountability with kickstarter? Anything to stop a developer taking way more money than they need to make a game, or simply guessing how much they need and asking for an arbitrary amount, or even not delivering a game after taking the money?

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No. Except for total loss of all future credibility ever.

AFAIK, it's quite possible to put together a totally scam project with pretty pictures and then waltz off with the dough after it's funded. I've never heard of it happening though, and if you're smart, you'll look at it as an investment. You go with the guys who've done it before that you trust, like the guys making Wasteland 2 (ala, they already made Wasteland 1). And unless you're filthy rich with a streak of altruism, back it with whatever amount you're comfortable losing.

In my case, $25 bucks is a reasonable bet for this game, since they've been going to trade shows (pretty legit), and folks I know who are in the beta tell me it's good.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when a project is funded, or crazily exceeds funding like Castle Story did, the Devs aren't getting all that money free. They still deliver the game to everyone who bought it. All it means is that a few thousand people bought the game before it was finished, thus helping fund the development. Much like M&B did in the old days. Exactly like M&B, in fact.

If the Devs are smart, they'll use some of the extra money to give the development of the game a little unanticipated boost, thus giving the backers the warm fuzzy feeling that they helped make the game better by their 'extra' funding. But at the end of the day, the backers still played $25, or $50, or whatever they did, and will still receive the rewards for that tier. But they are in no way obligated to go the extra mile if they exceed funding.

Ok, thanks Llew 

Llew said:

[...] AFAIK, it's quite possible to put together a totally scam project with pretty pictures and then waltz off with the dough after it's funded. I've never heard of it happening though, [...]

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Lords of Uberdark was a mayor dissapointment. On top of delivering no updates the developer posts about getting married and buying a house.

some guy said:

"Well, good see the 20k is going somewhere."

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20k won't go very far towards a house though. Sure it is possible he deliberately misled people, but considering he apparently released the game in some form it suggests he did some work on it, and it wouldn't be a very ambitious scam. Maybe he was just a one man show (20k certainly doesn't sound like someone taking on a lot of help or paying for fancy effects) whose programming ability couldn't match the standard of his ideas.

If I were doing a scam kickstarter, I would come up with an idea like this: 'Remember Pong? That revolutionary game from yesteryear.....games like this just don't get made anymore, though we all wish they would. But now I, a man with the talent and vision to remake Pong in 3D, am ready to fulfill your dreams. But without funding for this project, which will require me to hire the use of the Large Hadron Collider for a day, I cannot succeed. So I ask you, the oldschool loving real gamers who know what makes a good game, to help me bring this amazing vision to life.'

Target: £500,000

Donations of £1000+ will receive a free copy! £10,000+ also bags you access to the beta!!

Wurzelmann said:

Lords of Uberdark was a mayor dissapointment. On top of delivering no updates the developer posts about getting married and buying a house.

some guy said:

"Well, good see the 20k is going somewhere."

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Fair enough. It can happen, so take this guy's slap-dash, unprofessional approach as a warning of a scam kickstarter.