Demo Delays - and what to expect news - Explorer! mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Good day all!

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, the demo release has been delayed. I am going to officially say it will be out by the 7th of September, however in reality it may be sooner. I'm sorry to anyone that was dying waiting for this, but I promise I'll have a playable version out soon.

So why the delay? I was busier than expected with RL stuff over the past few days. However, in the week preceding that I did get quite a lot done - more than I had anticipated, in fact, so despite the setback, there should be a couple extra features and a couple fewer bugs when the demo does get released.

At the moment, I want to release a testable version as early as possible. With that being said, I also want it to at the very least have a full gameplay loop - it still has to be a game, even if it's light on features. At the moment, this still isn't the case. I still need a way for players to join factions, and a system for player defeat. Even though I am close, there are still some major things that need tying up.

What to expect:

The demo will include all of the features listed in the other article here. But please note that anything not explicitly stated in the list of features, is either going to be placeholder or a reduced implementation. I think I have quite a lot of new content for a demo, but of course there's always more that I want to add!

For the demo, you will have to put up with a few things being incomplete.

First, the economy still needs to be recreated. I may be able to just slap the Native system in for now, but it's possible that there won't be a good trade economy, only flat prices. Prices for all items may be a bit unintuitive, and it might be too hard or too easy to make money from looting/trading.

Second, faction relations are at a complete minimum. Sieges will not be possible in the demo version. This might sound terrible, but this is probably what I'll focus on post-demo release, and sieges are more common in late-game anyway: the patch might be out by the time it becomes a problem. In terms of joining factions, players will be able to join in name but not much else. No quests etc, however players who join a faction are able to recruit their units and will be able to fight their enemies.

Third, dialogues. You could say the entire mod is working up to a system where I can do nothing but create dialogues all day! Everything here is placeholder, functional but without much depth. I have some pretty radical ideas for a completely overhauled dialogue system, but that will take time.

What's new:

And now, I pay my penance for missing a release date. Here's some of the more exciting stuff that's been added since the last update:

First, I don't believe I've shown off the party encounter system.

Parties travel across the world with fixed destinations, but they will go out of their way to slay enemies if they come upon them. Just like the player, AI parties will leave at the border, and can be followed after leaving.

Camps:

While travelling the world, the player can choose to set up camp in order to Save/Exit, sleep (pass the time), and relax with their companions. The number of tents and fires is determined by player party size.

Currently, camps are completely safe from enemies, but this will not always be the case. AI parties can set up camps, too, and those can be attacked by the player.

Unfortunately I am running out of time here! This will be all for now, I hope you enjoyed the read and I hope you're all still looking forward to the mod!

Thanks for all your support,

Ruthven