It has not been 8 years...

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Most studios have 2000+, and as of right now they have 70ish (and employee counts janitors and other staff as well).

I can't think if any single studio with 2000 staff. Even with 100-150 people like in taleworlds, they can still be split up between different games. Back in 2011 when creative assemply was putting out a new total war game every year they had a similar number of staff.

 

[almightycricket]

I can't think if any single studio with 2000 staff. Even with 100-150 people like in taleworlds, they can still be split up between different games. Back in 2011 when creative assemply was putting out a new total war game every year they had a similar number of staff.

Literally any large studio. Blizzard just laid off 800 employees and they have 9000, a simple google can tell you their employment numbers. Blizzard is a major company, so 2000 employees isn't that much of a reach if you look at lesser developers. Just because you don't know, or can't think of one doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Blizzard is a massive corporation that makes and maintains multiple games, produces masses of merchandise and ancillary artwork, has dealings with the Chinese government, organises huge official tournaments etc etc etc. It's not comparable to any other company which just makes singleplayer games.

Let's look at some well known studios:

Creative Assembly (total war). Currently hires 650, but even as recently as in 2013 when most of their more iconic games had been made, they only had 150 staff total.

IO interactive. Made the Hitman series and Kane&Lynch. Currently hires 160.

Id software. Made the doom games dating back to the early 90s. Hires 200.

SIE Santa monica, the company that made the God of War series including the most recent one, which is probably the most visually ambitious game ever made. Hires 200.

CD Projekt Red, the company that made the witcher series, started developing the witcher 3 with 150 staff and went up to 230 staff.

Colossal Order, the company which made cities skylines and a few other city building games. Currently hires 17 (!!!).

Eugen Systems, the company that made R.U.S.E., the Wargame series and Steel Division. Currently hires 44.

I could go on but you get the idea. More than 300 staff is triple A huge budget game territory.

 

[Adrivan]

Most studios have 2000+, and as of right now they have 70ish (and employee counts janitors and other staff as well).

True, but studios with 2000+ employees are usually working on several projects at the same time. They make several games in parallel, they write whole books for the game lore, they create music videos (league of legends comes to mind), cinematics, animations, etc.

Blizzard for example has like 20 books for the wow universe alone... and dozens if not hundreds of cinematics (also a full length movie), besides their 99 games.

I'm not saying that 100 employees is too much for bannerlord. Not at all. They could hire even more, it's a pretty big project. I was just saying that if they had that many employees for 8 years, they could have put out a bit more stuff. Some short animations to explain the game story would have been nice, for instance.

 

[Brave_Lung]

Most studios have 2000+, and as of right now they have 70ish (and employee counts janitors and other staff as well).

Holly crap!! ? ? ? ? ? ?
Dude!
CDR Project started with 150 when they created The Witcher 3 and reached 250 people! And they created the Game in 6 years?!

TW have 70 ppl? It looks like 10 ppl worked 10 years on it! BTW a guy was right here! It's actually 10 years, not 8.

So what 70 do there? play ping pong, solitaire, stay on facebook? ??

Do you have an idea how long it takes to make the perks work? One moder fixed some perks in no time already!

ONE single person at TW, out of 70(!!!) doesn't have the time one hour to link the perks to the designated functions? Like all bows on horse perk for ex.

It's a joke dudes! A big joke!

True, but studios with 2000+ employees are usually working on several projects at the same time. They make several games in parallel, they write whole books for the game lore, they create music videos (league of legends comes to mind), cinematics, animations, etc.

Blizzard for example has like 20 books for the wow universe alone... and dozens if not hundreds of cinematics (also a full length movie), besides their 99 games.

I'm not saying that 100 employees is too much for bannerlord. Not at all. They could hire even more, it's a pretty big project. I was just saying that if they had that many employees for 8 years, they could have put out a bit more stuff. Some short animations to explain the game story would have been nice, for instance.

Exactly!!! You would have JUST ONE guy/girl to work on story line and quests for 8 years! 8 freaking years! and it would come up with more than 3 copy paste quests from Warband.
If I'm hired for doing anything! Anything! in a game with almost no skills, I have the time to learn the skills and also do the job in 3 years dude!

Like.. write a story in one month challenge? I'm sure I come up with something awesome compared with this! And I'm not pro! What about 5 ppl creating an awesome conquest line for 1 year! Something like a conquest expansion on faraway lands, exploring new lands and discover new factions, establishing new relations and politics with a strong campain! Will they be your enemy or the allies against a greater threat coming from the est?
SEE?? I already did it in just few seconds! Imagine 1 year! or 3 years!! 8???? GTFO! I was making a lot of real building projects in 8 years. They are already built and ppl live in them. And a bunch of nerds can't write a story! Pathetic.

 

[Parachute007]

The whole question of how long TaleWorlds has actually been developing the game is besides the point. It doesn't matter if they've been working on it for one year or ten years. The question is: 'should they have released the game in its current state at full price?,' and the answer is no.

 

[Brave_Lung]

The whole question of how long TaleWorlds has actually been developing the game is besides the point. It doesn't matter if they've been working on it for one year or ten years. The question is: 'should they have released the game in its current state at full price?,' and the answer is no.

That's a good question. I'm not sure if they hit themselves in the balls with the claw hammer (that's not an english expression lol)
Because it will make bad advertising for the game and it's not sure when it will come out final and how that final will look like. Almost like this, or much more?
What does Early Access mean? Is it a Beta? Or almost final? Or incomplete final? Or Beta incomplete - almost final, but not final.

It's like Star Citizen? Then what about the list with missing features? Is it clear what comes up next and it's not yet done or.....??

Presenting Siege mods that work and come up with unplayable ones 3 years later... not so dandy even for Early Access. I would prefer to have those well done and other stuff missing, than this. It makes a bad image.

 

[Sarapen]

I totally get the argument with the engine, but that being said there's a bunch of things that just don't add up:
-I assume they were still somewhat able to create scenes since very early on even though other parts of the engine was still being worked on, video from 5 years ago:
So what have the level designers been doing all this time since they're not done with all the scenes yet ? I assume they were not just sitting idle by for years so this is quite the mystery.
-Same argument goes for sounds, music. Heck they even bought music from a third party which is used as well in the game Guild 2 if you know that (Kind of weird to hear music you associate with another game in Bannerlord). I'm not against buying licensed music at all, but what was the deal of hiring a composer then? (one of the very first devblogs) Also no simple voice overs is quite weird could be simple sentences like "Greetings milord", when talking to your villagers.
-There's just something that doesn't add up with this, because it looked like years ago they had more or less the core systems worked out and to a certain degree working.We saw combat, battles, campaign map and even the gangs in actions I understand of course they wouldn't show us the buggy parts of these if there were any, but that would still mean they had 3+ years to fix all these and test the campaign which at times it seems no one bothered to do.
I have a theory until very lately they had Co-op included but couldn't really get it to work properly, hence why it feels like stuff is missing/put together last minute.

Yep, that's exactly the thing that I don't get. The had so much stuff working for years (that's at least what the videos Show) and they don't have more than the current EA content?

The scene editor seemed rather advanced and so if even one person had down just one scene/week for the last three years there would be a bootload of scenes.

This really shows their lack of proper management.

 

[Red River]

I'm an Software Architect and it doesn't matter if we restart a project 3 times, the only thing the business people care about is the time we were allotted to complete the project.

So in practical terms, yes, they've been working on it for 8 years. From a business and consumer perspective that's how long it took to get here.

Not really saying anything for or against TW - it's a reality that sometimes you have to scrap your progress and 'restart' - just saying that in the software engineering world all the time/resources spent on a project is considered the cost of that project. Not just from the last time you restart a project.

you are wrong about 8 years because it's more. the work usually starts way before it's officially announced to public otherwise they got nothing to show & talk about.

 

[Tastesslikevictory]

That's a good question. I'm not sure if they hit themselves in the balls with the claw hammer (that's not an english expression lol)

Bannerlord is currently the 3rd most played game on steam, I don’t think they hit themselves in the balls with a claw hammer lol

 

[Brave_Lung]

Bannerlord is currently the 3rd most played game on steam, I don’t think they hit themselves in the balls with a claw hammer lol

Yeah! Probably. I'm not sure!
But I'm sure the community will help them to make the game way better. But let's see.
What I hope is that they improve Vanilla very much and not let things just in the moders hands.

 

[almightycricket]

Holly crap!! ? ? ? ? ? ?
Dude!
CDR Project started with 150 when they created The Witcher 3 and reached 250 people! And they created the Game in 6 years?!

TW have 70 ppl? It looks like 10 ppl worked 10 years on it! BTW a guy was right here! It's actually 10 years, not 8.

So what 70 do there? play ping pong, solitaire, stay on facebook? ??

Do you have an idea how long it takes to make the perks work? One moder fixed some perks in no time already!

ONE single person at TW, out of 70(!!!) doesn't have the time one hour to link the perks to the designated functions? Like all bows on horse perk for ex.

It's a joke dudes! A big joke!




Exactly!!! You would have JUST ONE guy/girl to work on story line and quests for 8 years! 8 freaking years! and it would come up with more than 3 copy paste quests from Warband.
If I'm hired for doing anything! Anything! in a game with almost no skills, I have the time to learn the skills and also do the job in 3 years dude!

Like.. write a story in one month challenge? I'm sure I come up with something awesome compared with this! And I'm not pro! What about 5 ppl creating an awesome conquest line for 1 year! Something like a conquest expansion on faraway lands, exploring new lands and discover new factions, establishing new relations and politics with a strong campain! Will they be your enemy or the allies against a greater threat coming from the est?
SEE?? I already did it in just few seconds! Imagine 1 year! or 3 years!! 8???? GTFO! I was making a lot of real building projects in 8 years. They are already built and ppl live in them. And a bunch of nerds can't write a story! Pathetic.

You know I could drag this out or whatever, but same **** different game, here's a thread for diablo 3. It's kinda hilarious you all are giving the same **** to tales as people did to blizzard.

You all are so focused on what YOU (An informed paying adult/consumer, with a brain I hope) think you should of paid, rather than taking responsibility for paying what you did. They put a price on this, told you it wasn't complete by A) saying it wasn't on the store page, and B) leaving it EA.

If the amount of EA games that fail, or flat out steal their customers money wasn't enough of a red flag for you all, then learn your lesson and move on, because what does ****ting on the game's dev team do besides breed negativity and accomplish nothing.

You think it should've be done a certain way? Get up off your ass, and make a game.

Give constructive criticism, not the whiney bull**** I see everywhere on this forum.

 

[Brave_Lung]

You know I could drag this out or whatever, but same **** different game, here's a thread for diablo 3. It's kinda hilarious you all are giving the same **** to tales as people did to blizzard.

You all are so focused on what YOU (An informed paying adult/consumer, with a brain I hope) think you should of paid, rather than taking responsibility for paying what you did. They put a price on this, told you it wasn't complete by A) saying it wasn't on the store page, and B) leaving it EA.

If the amount of EA games that fail, or flat out steal their customers money wasn't enough of a red flag for you all, then learn your lesson and move on, because what does ****ting on the game's dev team do besides breed negativity and accomplish nothing.

You think it should've be done a certain way? Get up off your ass, and make a game.

Give constructive criticism, not the whiney bull**** I see everywhere on this forum.

You can't give constructive criticism all the time! It's impossible. But that doesn't mean we should shut up just because it's not helping (who knows, maybe it helps actually) like you think it should help the game development.

And hey, I supported TW from the day one when was just an alpha with an arena and a horse and I bought the game and now I'm waiting for something, because from this point it's not even fun anymore. I don't have those epic battles because the NPC/Lord AI doesn't create powerful armies and all I do is killing peasants. Not quite a pleasant game play I'd say.

Constructive things is to report and suggest which I also do. I wrote about itemization, npc balance and AI and probably I will do it more in detail.

But in the same time they might have their own list too! Who knows? Maybe we are wasting energy here.

Now what is done is done. I'd say we should move on.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

If the amount of EA games that fail, or flat out steal their customers money wasn't enough of a red flag for you all, then learn your lesson and move on, because what does ****ting on the game's dev team do besides breed negativity and accomplish nothing.

You think it should've be done a certain way? Get up off your ass, and make a game.

I didn't buy bannerlord.
I am actually making my own game.

But both of those are silly arguments. Why are you blaming people for buying a game which is currently pretty bad? Why are you blaming them for getting annoyed at this? Why is taleworlds excluded from all the responsibility, including (as your last sentence suggests) making the game?

 

[burger1113]

There is a way to couch btw

Yes. Just press "G" guys, it's super easy!

Or X...

 

[Rivus]

Regardless of the games current state, I can tell that Bannerlord is a work of love for the developers and I am happy to support them. Almost everyday they release a new patch fixing critical issues and addressing game balance by listening to community feedback.

It is not often early access titles receive this kind of love and support from their development team.

 

[Rungsted93]

I have to agree with @Brave_Lung here, it does really seem like they've done the bare minimum and they're even themselves quite surprised by the amount of sales and positive reviews. I think given they're 70-80 people funded by the Turkish state and a fairly big warchest from Warband we're allowed to have high expectations.


Honestly it's a bit weird because I do enjoy the game but I also feel that it could've been so much more. Like why didn't 1 of the interns spend time doing "daily routines" for the villagers walking around cities and towns? Even Oblivion NPC's had daily routines...
Also once again I don't get how they're not done a long time ago with all the scenes, what have their level designers honestly been doing for 10 years? And as Brave_lung said why is there no epic story or major new features...

 

[Madae]

Holy crap, what a bunch of entitled whiners there are in this thread...
Just mark this up as another "I should have waited before buying" problem (YOUR problem), and stop being so childish.

 

[Rungsted93]

Holy crap, what a bunch of entitled whiners there are in this thread...
Just mark this up as another "I should have waited before buying" problem (YOUR problem), and stop being so childish.

While I do agree there are a few of those, I don't think you otherwise get the point of most of our comments. We're not complaining about the game not being done or having un-finished content, crashes and so forth. But more that there's some parts of the game where they seem to have done pretty much nothing these last 3-4 years of development.

 

[Madae]

While I do agree there are a few of those, I don't think you otherwise get the point of most of our comments. We're not complaining about the game not being done or having un-finished content, crashes and so forth. But more that there's some parts of the game where they seem to have done pretty much nothing these last 3-4 years of development.

Yeah, I didn't read this whole thread, just like TW didn't read all of your concerns during development. Lack of transparency might be an issue for some, but you have no idea what they've been doing, or had to do during these 8 years. Speculation does nothing. If you want to make the game better, make a post in the suggestion forum and just give it some time.