Taleworlds, where is the Transparency & Communication? :(

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Just to give folks a brief update - we have come across some complex issues with the current beta branch that we want to address before pushing it to live. This is what we sought to clarify for the beta process over here.


Naturally, this doesn't mean that development has halted. We continue to work on the game and look forward to sharing our progress with you as soon as we can.
 
Only thing yall can do big picture wise is get the largest video game publications/magazine/youtubers etc on your side and start demanding a change in practice especially among EA titles. Developers will always take the path of least resistance and status quo when dealing with the public. If publishers are literally shamed by all their advertising tools at once "But why do you utterly ignore your EA paying audience" before letting them indulge in their product -it would force them to develop a new motus operand in dealing and working with an EA crowd.

In short -Media yall
 
This company does the feedback & communication well + roadmap etc.

So does

Both of these companies probably have less devs than TW.... I don't think it would be difficult for them to do at all TBH
 
I do so enjoy reading this nonsense while I am living in quarantine for now.

Yeah, I think this is a big part of what is going on in this thread. Y'all realize you are literally fighting against each other while also agreeing on the main thread topic right?

I feel that quarantine and self isolation are doing a number on people these days (I know I am going a little bananas myself), and people just come here to be unreasonable and aggressive to release frustration (with different degrees of maturity, admittedly).
 
  • Also @JustinTime49 brings an interesting point to the table: his reply to yours (@crimsonfilms) -


  • @JustinTime49, while you bring up an important point about how this forum has been used to test and fix various issues. I do disagree with the statement of forum communication isn't a deciding factor, while I agree it isn't a major deciding factor but to completely discard it, makes the rest of your point moot. So what is then, in your opinion, a deciding factor or better yet factors, in creating a successful product?

  • I find it interesting that you both use this forum, with the idea that your comments and opinions aren't contributing and deciding factors that have no effect on the overall final product. Then why are you both here? Of course, that doesn't mean it will be "your vision" of the game. But it will have IMHO a positive effect on the final product, in some form or way.
I think you misunderstood my message completely. In no way did I ever say that these forums are obsolete, quite the opposite, of course, my point would be strange if that were the case. Truth is, these forums aren't going to decide whether this game is successful or not. Bestseller of 2020 with this buggy mess? Why? Because it still beats most AAA products out there still.

That being said, it is clear the way the devs treat this forum that we are and will be the main source for providing feedback, bug reports, etc. I myself am trying to push the idea of more communication from the devs, all in the hopes that it can be easier to look out for problems by trying to simulate them in-game as opposed to guessing around.
 
I would suggest looking at the posts that the developers are making. Go to their profiles and look at their message history.

This one for example, made yesterday, explains a few things that will definitely be in the next patch.
 
I would suggest looking at the posts that the developers are making. Go to their profiles and look at their message history.

This one for example, made yesterday, explains a few things that will definitely be in the next patch.
I believe this is in part why there are even more wildly different thoughts on how the communication is going. If I had not read that post I'd think "so what are they actually doing?". I read that and it checks off all the boxes I'd want from an update:
It shows hearing a problem in the game. (why are lords bankrupt?)
It shows why it is taken time to address. (generating several spreadsheets looking at several in game years to gather data)
it shows why it is not out yet (They have the data, but now need to put in methods to address this)
It shows what they will work on next (auto calculation with cav)

This post both tides over waiting players and helps develop great feedback for players since they are more likely to pay closer attention to thing changed so can give more specific feedback.

However almost all can agree that these posts need to be more visible because if you didn't look at that one specific thread + page you don't see that post and thus its value is lost. So something that can improve that visibility can be a great plus.
 
However almost all can agree that these posts need to be more visible because if you didn't look at that one specific thread + page you don't see that post and thus its value is lost. So something that can improve that visibility can be a great plus.

Agreed. As a starter for 10, I think a pinned post at the front of the forum should list the profiles of all developers, so that we can quickly snoop on what they are responding to and appreciate their valuable insight!
 
Exactly like when the MP was in beta : TW just don't care about players feedback.
This EA is a joke, like beta was before.

They have the money, now they're going to "end" a few feature and when they'll get bored, they'll let modders end the job for free.

They didn't read what steam called "EA", or they don't care.
 
Every company has a different philosophy for communicating. Apple, for example, is notoriously silent for all of their software and hardware development. Even when patching software they provide the bare minimum. Yes, their customers love them - the highest approval.

I have beta tested several major software before. Some provided constant feedback including road maps, some don't. There was NO correlation between the quality of the software upon release.

I think the demand for constant feedback is caused by a younger crowd expecting immediate gratification (where is the patch today mentality) and having an open forum.

If they decide to host a forum, they should communicate a bit more.

For roadmaps, I'm not sure that is going to help. You will still see posts about "a modder can fix this in 1 day, why can't you?". The roadmap constantly changes. And will only cause more resentment from people expecting X to come out in Y.
errrm Apple isn't a really good example, most apple costumers are kind of fanatical, in a bad way. Anything apple does, it can be utter garbage, they'll pay a million dollars on it. So I would chose another company to express what you were trying to say. At any rate, video-games are barely comparable to companies like apple, and Early Access isn't something a company that has the mind set of apple would do, ever...

Also, I think with my brains not with my age, in fact I'm 31, not that young. Thing is, without any idea of what they are doing, or trying to do, it's impossible to guess what I should be testing and giving feedback upon, it's a mistake on their end, not mine. I don't want "instant" gratification, I just want to be productive towards helping in this EA, since I have nothing better to do atm, and the game just sucks to be played for fun (there's no fun in there, okay, maybe briefly, barely, like 5 minutes out 10 hours playing). Also, to me, and due to many factors accumulated throughout the years, TW is hiding something, again, because they are insecure about something that of which we don't know about just yet. Because generally speaking, if everything was going okay, they wouldn't be so "secretive". KCD for instance has given a pretty decent road map, and they have fulfilled it, with delays, but they did, there we knew what to expect, but it was useless because we were not testing nor playing an EA... Here we are in an EA, testing it, so yeah, shedding crucial information is a must, if they don't, nobody can test this properly, and feedback will always be compromised by redundancy or irrelevancy, which also automatically kills some of the useful feedback because the person sometimes wastes more words on the useless while the useful is ignored because the reader loses patience or assumes everything written is about something that isn't useful. I think I'm being a bit confusing, but I believe you can get what I mean.

They can do a roadmap without set dates or deadlines, nobody who's relevant would care at this point, and it would provide the tools for those of us willing to give a hand to be able to in a more orderly manner so to speak. Without it, it's so ****ing disorganized that I don't even feel like I want to help, it actually annoys me to see such bad logistics. And said bad logistics have been haunting for the entirety of their development, no deadlines what-so-ever, multiple "restarts from scratch", I can't know for sure, but the impression is that they are clueless pertaining logistics specifically...
 
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No, I'm directing this to the community in general, BlackRainZ, and the people who are namecalling and using personal attacks just like him.

Ok, thank you for the clarification. And yes that isn't the most constructive way to help the EA, but if people want to spend their time on that who are we to tell them differently.

I think you misunderstood my message completely.
I might have.

In no way did I ever say that these forums are obsolete, quite the opposite, of course, my point would be strange if that were the case.
Why I pointed it out in the first place. But then you write this

Truth is, these forums aren't going to decide whether this game is successful or not.
Now I'll be honest, English isn't my primary language, but stating that you do not think, this forum is obsolete, while also, clarifying that you do not think of this forum as a defining factor, to the success of a product. You can't see the contradiction here? Or is it because of my limited understanding of the language?

If, that's the case, that the bug fixes, balancing, and performance issues, is not defining factors contributing to the success of a product, Then what happened to Bioware and the Mass Effect failure of 2016-2017 shouldn't have happened. And I can find others, and not just a few, to further validate my point. Because most of them never had or used EA. Even Blizzard, in the making of Diablo IV, is being more transparent than ever before, to get feedback from the fanbase after the complete failure they had with Diablo III's release, simply because these triple-A companies have experienced that the lack of understanding your customer segments, will most likely lead to a less (off varying degrees) successful product and therefore being less profitable.

And a final note on this. You didn't answer my previous question, what do you consider a defining factor that contributes to the success of a product.

1: Bestseller of 2020, 2: with this buggy mess? 3: Why? Because it still beats most AAA products out there still.
1: Can you really consider an unfinished product, as a best-seller? when its actual full release date isn't, in fact of said year?
2: EA. And it has been stated that it will remain so, for one too two years.
3: Ouch, someone should go out and find a bandaid for TW.
Also ouch fans of Cyberpunk 2077 and Vampires - The Masquerade Bloodlines II: thin-bloods

I myself am trying to push the idea of more communication from the devs,
I disagree with that, being the best action, but ok, good luck with that endeavor. And I do actually mean that sincerely.

all in the hopes that it can be easier to look out for problems by trying to simulate them in-game as opposed to guessing around.
Do you even understand the consequences of directly changing the perceived perspective of the masses? Why would you ever change the directions of the unimpeded minds of the masses to a direct and singular hive-like mind? Do you honestly think, the developers have thought out every edge-case play-style scenario, and the best way to test them is simply to have us all test that in unison?

No, I firmly believe that it's better, for the most part, being left in the dark, so each of us is testing the game in our own unique way. Testers don't need direction for what to test for, read the release notes, understand the mechanics of the game, and figure out in what way you can break them.

It's the age of the internet and instant communication, there's no reason any development studio, no matter how small, shouldn't be able to provide us with clear communication. I'm not expecting a reply to every forum thread, but asides from manually searching for one or two posts from Callum/Mexxico, we have no idea what to expect.

We don't need a fully-fledged roadmap, maybe just a weekly post telling us what each department is currently working on? Instead of replying to individual posts with dev updates, why not create one Sticky post so all can see?

Sorry @Wulfrik The Wanderer, I've actually never given my opinion on your original post, so let me rectify that now.

I agree with you to some extent that a little more communication, is not going to hurt them. But that doesn't mean what your asking for can't be in direct conflict with what this part of the EA is about.

And that could be one of the reasons that they don't just put up one sticky post. Simply because it would create too much attention, so most of the forum would then be "blinded" by the angel lights, and they would miss a majority of the diversity that the tester/players have at the moment. This could then lead to oversights that have to be corrected later. Now that argument could also be made for the direct opposite.

Which leads me to my last point, this is also why it should be up to the developers, to make that decision and not fall to some misguided peer-pressure of the masses. Simply because we don't know anything, which also means we would have a very limited understanding of what that decision entails, and what consequences that would have on the end-product.
 
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