Mount&Blade - With Fire and Sword Review @ Gamebanshee
 

Brother None was able to get his hands on a press demo for Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword. Here is his two page preview from playing the demo:
More information.

Not really impressed with this expansion. I was hoping for something with more substance. Plus, I love my bows.

I will not buy it , i am totally uninterested in mount & blade updates where horse archers are not dominating.

I'm sharing the general sentiment. Not impressed at all.
I really like M&B, but I'm thinking this is one to skip…

I'm a big fan of Mount and Blade.. this is probably one of the games I played for the longest period with Dominion 2&3. I would have loved an expansion that made the game feel more alive, with more interaction, more mission. So much could be done to improve the game even more. But changing the period of the game does not appeal to me at all.

Wish someone would use, or imitate, the fighting style and sandbox world of M&B with an RPG style plot. Even a paper thin one would do. Maybe with some Thief type options and a medium sized city. No cutscenes, no voice actors, no saving the world, just gameplay.

After the first expansion I am pretty tired of M&B … have a review copy available, but not sure if I am willing to spend the time …

you know its call fire and sword not just fire. besides there's an entire new world and battlefields to explore. completely different architecture. also just because it has guns in it doesn't mean you have to use them. there's plenty of bow screenshots. for example shogun 2 has guns as well though its an option to get them for the most part as they come very late game unless you let "the west" establish its influence in your clan.

lack of enthusiam is fine towards the larger devs but failing to stand beyond the smaller indie devs despite their flaws will most assureadly lead to you being stuck with al EA games.

mods do not create games by the way
any more than blogs create journalism

remove the funding from both and your left
with ultimate choice—allthewhile meaningless, shallow piles of nothing

I don't know about your second statement (in my vew, it should rather read : "any more than blogs create stories" - from a writer's perspective), but regarding your first statement I must say that I hold a theory for several years now saying that stories are often created by creative writers - not by technicians.

I agree with your overall sentiment Curious, and we need more innovative developers like Taleworlds to achieve success. However, even as a huge M&B fan, I am not very excited about this expansion. It appears to simply be too much of the same thing, and after spending 100+ hours on the original and also in Warband, I don't think I'll be able to get into "more of the same." This is especially true given that there are some aspects of the game that need some fleshing out; going to a new setting without improving the game doesn't seem like it's worth it to me, as much as it pains me to say that about a series that I greatly enjoy. On-foot melee combat needs a serious overhaul as well; the "invincible, unbreakable blocking" (even without a shield!!) and limited feel of realistic swing impact makes fighting while not on horseback extremely dull.

You pretty much do, though. Not personally, but having them in your troop is a good idea. They're too powerful to ignore, and it's not like you can avoid gun-wielding opponents. Even bandits have them.

Man I love TaleWorlds and like with many indies have a stack of articles published on GB for their titles, but they don't get a free ride. WF&S - based on a short demo - underwhelms, and I'm not going to tell people otherwise.

I enjoyed the heck out of M&B but like I said, if you're not a hardcore fan I don't see the draw. There's too little new stuff. The whole process of levelling up, recruiting an army, fulfilling quests is way too similar. The engine could see better use, as suggested in this thread.

maybe not an initial release buy is understandable but with their other two releaseses they've issued countless patches that add significant gameplay to the games. i'm primarily referring to warband where you had the obility to own and operate businesses. for me its been well over six months since playing warband so i guess i'm also biased in that more of the same is further away.

all of the sentimants i can respect it just felt a little too negative that i wanted to chime in…

Talewordls not only releases patches but they add content in them , lots of content other developers would have sell as dlc .
They do care about their product and they are striving to improve it , problem is that #1 thing in the game is the combat , specially mounted combat … multiplayer made it totally shit and now they are adding guns and a main quest ?
There is a pistol and shooting animations in original m&b but very few people like it and most of the mods ignore it , if we liked pistols we would play FO:NV or something.
#2 thing in the game is the sandbox feeling not having to follow stupid quest chains , not to please anyone just siege kill and move forward . The game is enough of an aRPG already , it didn't need more "elements" bullshit .