Mount & Blade - v0.800 Released

A new major version of Mount & Blade has been released.  Here's Armagan's post with all the details and links:

Hi everyone,

The long awaited version 0.800 is finally ready for download. But before going on with introducing it, I'd like to express my thanks to the people who have helped us with it. Firstly, let me thank our dear forum admins and moderators who are doing a great job keeping the forums in shape, allowing us to focus on the development with the knowledge that the discussion forums are in good hands. Also, many players and forum members have contributed to this version with their suggestions, ideas, bug reports, and generally with their support and enthusiasm. I am ashamed for not mentioning everyone individually here, but please know that I am really thankful to you nonethless. Last but not least, I want to thank our team members who have worked really very hard for this version.

I was maintaining a proper changelog for the new version and even maintained it for a few weeks, but then being the lazy old me, I gave up on it. But I am sure you'll do an even better job and discover the changes and list them in a new thread. Whatever, let me list some of the more important new features:

Graphics:
1) New DirectX9 rendering pipeline and better graphics and effects in general.
2) Most of the equipment being carried is now shown on the characters.
3) New Loading and start-up screen, improved character, inventory and face generator screens.
Gameplay:
4) Battles on the map can now involve more than two NPC parties. In other words, NPC parties can join an existing battle just like the player.
5) Party skill level calculation is changed. Now the highest skill level in the party is selected but a penalty is applied if leader's skill is much less than the highest skill level.
The penalty is 1 if the difference is between 3 - 5, 2 if the difference is between 6-8, and 3 if the difference is 9 or higher.
Changes for modders:
6) There are loads of changes for modders, most importantly, the entire party encounter logic is now implemented in the module system. In short the game can be modified in many new and different ways.
(Edit: I don't believe I forgot to mention this one:)
7) Support for multiple languages and localization.

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to thoroughly test the new version and I am sure there are many bugs, problems and glitches. As usual, we are counting on you guys discover the bugs. We'll try to release a bug-fix patch as soon as the major bugs are found and fixed.

One important problem you may run into is that, the new version requires the most recent version of DirectX9c, released in 2006 august. You can download it from the link below:

Directx

You may need to download the latest drivers for your graphics card as well.

That's it for now. I hope you enjoy the new version.

Main Download Link:
http://www.taleworlds.com/download/mountandblade_0800_setup.exe

Mirrors:
(many thanks to Janus for providing these.)
http://www.fenrisoft.com/storage/MnB/mountandblade_0800_setup.exe
http://www.mbrepository.com/temp/mountandblade_0800_setup.exe
Thanks to TitanX for this one:
http://titanx3online.com/public/mountandblade_0800_setup.exe

Please report new bugs encountered with this release here:
http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,18289.0.html

This first impressions thread also reveals new/improved items and might be worth checking out.