An excellent deal for an excellent game! With the Warband expansion due later this year I expect there will be more deals like this one in the future.

Good deal.
Speaking of Warband, are any of you going to get it? Unless it makes real significant improvements and costs only $15, I'm probably not going to get it. While I still recommend M&B to every other gamer out there, I can't help but feel disappointed with the final release. Somehow, aside from sieging, slightly more interactive towns, a bit of additional party dialog and a few more quests, little has changed for 3 years since 0.751 (first time I played M&B). To me, it sounds like a cop out from laziness, when Armagan suddenly made a public announcement that "M&B, a medieval simulator, will be released in.......", when back then he had plans to make Warrider aka M&B alpha as an RPG eventually.
I can't say that I regret paying only around USD10 back when it was beta. It was definitely worth it. But I also feel the undiscounted price for the commercial version is overmarked, especially when the effort put into the game since beta doesn't justify the price multiplication. Even scarier is that thing modders like Winter, Yoshiboy and Llew2 have outdone the vanilla game, way back during the 0.8 beta period, with mods like The Last Days (<3333), Storymod (<333333333333) and Pirates mod
And now Warband looks to be more like a "hey we're releasing a commercial patch for all of you cuz we didn't manage to patch the game before release lol" product. So, yeah, aside from multiplayer, and probably prettier faces, Warband looks to be more of the same, and if nothing else, a commercial patch. What do the rest of you feel, especially those who have been following M&B's development for a long time?

I've been playing and modding since 0.6** (Talak on the Taleworlds forum). Ive got to admit, the released version wasn't quite up to my expectations, but it is still one of the best games I've played, and worth every cent.
I think some of the features of Warband should have been part of the 1.0 release, such as the AI and diplomacy options, and the others such as multiplayer, improved graphics, and new factions kept for an expansion. I'll be buying it straight away though.
All that said, Mount&Blade is one of the best value games I've ever played. There aren't many games that I can still play fairly consistently for 5 years and not lose interest.

I certainly intend to buy Warband, although it will depend on the price. I bought the original game heavily discounted during the beta (the version at the time was 0.751, I think) and despite it not having all the functionality of the final game I thought it was well worth it; if Warband also has a beta I will certainly buy it then, but if not I may wait until I can get it on special (of course, if it is something like $10 I will just buy it straight away regardless). The multiplayer alone will be well worth it, and the improvements to graphics and gameplay--including one or more new factions!--sound really great.
Overall I think Warband will be well worth the money if it is something like $10-15. The modding community will be able to do amazing things with multiplayer.

was it really that important to bump this?

Warband isn't out yet and the last post was only a week ago. What's the problem?

E3 2009 gameplay trailer of Warband.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-mount/50550

Good God, that looks amazing.

No, it looks exactly how the game's looked for the past few years, only with gratuitous bump-mapping. Bump-mapping that looks hilariously out of place with the game's ridiculous character animation. Put lipstick on a pig, etc.
The devs are lucky they have such a devoted group of followers willing to sing the game's praises, because they obviously have zero interest in expanding the game's audience beyond that group.
...and this is coming from somebody who actually likes the game. I just think their approach to developing it is totally absurd. Yes yes, husband and wife team - but why? That was a valid excuse three years ago. Now it's a commercial product with a lot of paying customers and the backing of a successful publisher. It is long past time they rethought their approach. In my book, they've squandered a massive opportunity.

this thread is about a sale though, got me all excited. D:

I have to agree with that having played it during the .7 something days it doesn't look much different. I find the idea of multiplayer interesting especially since Armagan said it would never be implemented for various reasons. I wish I could say I'm excited about it but I'm not. I love the game but honestly not much has changed since .751 other then a few thingies that were already implemented in mods anyways. I'm still glad I made the purchase but I question why the project has pretty much not really improved like it has in the past.

Saying that it's just a husband-wife team is no longer an excuse for slow development now, especially considering how many modders they've hired over the years - Winter for example. In fact, I think they've made more progress back then, compared to now
Not impressed by the video. The amount of progress they've made is nominal, and that's already giving them a fair amount of credit.