I'm sorry but I finally give up, what the hell are TW doing? Nothing new in 3 weeks. Whoever is managing this team needs the boot.

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Edit: the choice of engine is a business decision for a serious developer. Has nothing to do (and SHOULD have nothing to do) with passion.

Exactly, engine stuff is basically irrelevant to the player.

Game Engines are basically just bits of code at the end of the day, and I think there's a lot of misinformation about what an engine is or how much it impacts a game. Plenty of games, especially simple ones, are just coded from scratch without the pretense of having a named "engine". The part of the game's code that a developer demarcates as "part of the engine" is almost arbitrary. Unity and Unreal are basically just half-made games which include all the abstract things that most games need anyway, like a rendering pipeline and some basic functions for interacting with data. If Taleworlds doesn't like the way Unreal Engine or Unity handles data or rendering they could just edit and recompile it, which is a pain in the ass because you have to navigate someone else's code, or they could start from scratch and know exactly where everything is and what it does.

People complain about Bethesda's engine but the bugs in their games aren't caused by the engine, they're caused by incompetent, poorly paid, poorly trained, overworked developers and a terrible company structure. If they were working with any other engine their games would be just as bad, if not worse.

 

[Bloc]

Just for the record, saying 8 years of development to criticize this game makes no sense and its based on misinformation. They werent just 8 years of making the game from scratch, since in 2015 they finished their engine and moved completely to it, which means a HUGE stepback, not to talk about the difficulty of building an engine and working on a new one too

What you are claiming is misinformation actually. I will keep this post somewhat long because I start to hear this nonsense too often.

Bannerlord is still using the same graphics engine - RGL. Same as Warband and even Mount&Blade, as far as I know.
Previously game logic and graphics engine was somewhat entangled. And it was C++/C. They changed their codebase from C/C++ to C# for gameplay purpose. However, they kept the main engine and AI still remains at the inner core which is old C++ code. Bannerlord's main gameplay code does lots of callbacks to the core engine. Which I believe is the main reason why sieges are f-up at the moment.

They did significant changes in RGL though. I mean it goes without saying that game looks more promising than Warband for sure - in terms of graphics. The 2015 revolution that you are mentioning actually happened mainly inside the RGL core when they decide to change Warband graphics. By Warband graphics, I really mean Warband graphics. In 2012 they had this

Spoiler

And in 2015-2016 they had this

Spoiler

But your Bethesda example makes no sense because a company doesn't have to announce a new "title" for its improvement. They do that only for PR purpose and that's all. Unless they do full change, they tend not to rebrand it's engine. For example, both of these are using AnvilNext engine

Spoiler

You can probably figure out which one is the newest. But Ubisoft took it's change and started do rebranding on it's game with different names such as Anvil, AnvilNext. AnvilNext 2.0.. Same goes with Frostbite as well but it's an insult to bring Frostbite into this conversation hence I'll spare.

This aside, you can, super easily achieve same and way better graphics in Bannerlord with those game engines you despite by saying "any other indie company", such as Unity or Unreal. Especially nowadays, Unreal has outdone itself and it could bring extremely sweet visuals to Bannerlord if they wanted to go that path. But they didn't and that's their decision. End-user doesn't give a damn about if the game engine is made by you or made by some underpaid dwarves. End-user looks only if it looks good or not, and if it works or not. Currently, Bannerlord looks between good and fine. But game logic is not related to that. You also have to understand that Game Engine Programmer is not same with Gameplay Programmer. So if you praise the graphics, this only shows that Engine team did a remarkable job. Not the others.

 

[Memoefe]

Yes, there's much grey area with these terms, it's not like they're defined by an ISO standard or something.
But look at what else Wikipedia says about Beta:
- A Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs.
- Beta testers tend to volunteer their services free of charge but often receive versions of the product they test, discounts on the release version, or other incentives.
So this game is most accurately described as being in Alpha at the moment, in terms of how far it is in its development cycle.
The fact that the developers already held a closed "Beta" and then started charging players for an Alpha-state game just mixes up things even more.

1) When have I claimed I considered the game to be in final state? (which I believe is what you're implying here, since the game has definitely been 'released', because ANYONE can have access to it at any time in exchange for money, which is like the definition of 'released')
2) True, but according to my experience, which is in line with what Wikipedia says above, the Beta is a feature-complete product with missing/non-finalized text, textures, cut-scenes and stuff like that (in reasonably small numbers).
3) First, you can't MAKE anyone do s**t, otherwise it's called violence. Second, sure they can set a price for entering the 'testing' phase, but how moral/immoral that is is up for debate. The fact they held a testing and called it "Beta", after which they started charging full price for further testing might lead people to rightfully assume the game is 'almost complete' (see point 2). Third, again, you're quoting me, but who are you really replying to? Where have I said I was surprised the game was incomplete?

As you know my first statement was people are comparing a fully finished and polished game to a beta game. Now you say this game isn't even beta. This only makes my statement stronger. People are comparing a fully finished and polished game to an alpha game.

Also i didn't say they make by using force. They make you want it by making it appealing. You could have waited until release. But you choose to buy it because you couldn't wait. And you pay the prize willingly. Where is the violation?

instead of just grabbing unity like every indie company out there.

With unity there is no way of getting 1000 individual ai to have this kind of battles. Even though many say bannerlord is optimized poorly (which it is atm) fail to see its success. No other game can achive this battle atmosphere, and probably wont be able to for a long time.

 

[Maximum997]

Patches every day
Patches every few days
Patches every week
Patches every month...

I guess we will wait next patch one year.

I hope the next patch will be huge. Or i am just done. I am pretty much done already, i am not playing, but still interested.

 

[Skatan]

There's probably less than 10 games throughout my 30 year gamin history I've played 200 hours or more, and BL is one of them already in EA. IS it perfect? No of course not, far from it, but it's damn good. It's already an amazing game and with only a few mod tweaks it's already near great.

I already foam in the mouth thinking about all the amazing mods that will come later, LoTR, ancient rome, etc etc. And after 200 hours of base EA Vanilla, I'd say TW has delivered. Any ridiculous, childish bullcrap about "cash grabs" etc can safely be ignored and those of you who use those terms should be ashamed or yourselves.

And please stop using the term "we" when stating your own personal opinions. It's sad. You are you, representing your very own personal opinions. Stop thinking you belong to some kind of group of imaginary friends and stand by your opinion and own up to it in person. Just stop.

 

[dukester]

As you know my first statement was people are comparing a fully finished and polished game to a beta game. Now you say this game isn't even beta. This only makes my statement stronger. People are comparing a fully finished and polished game to an alpha game.

My point was about have they honestly represented it as Alpha? I think not, you may feel otherwise. It's fine.

Also i didn't say they make by using force. They make you want it by making it appealing. You could have waited until release. But you choose to buy it because you couldn't wait. And you pay the prize willingly. Where is the violation?

If you choose to reply, please read my words carefully. I said "OTHERWISE it's called violence", which means they DIDN'T make anyone do anything.
Dude, I never played the original game. I heard about Bannerlord by someone's Let's Play showing up in my Recommended feed on YouTube. I liked what I saw and bought it. Never said I regretted the purchase (quite the opposite). This doesn't mean I can't criticize developers' conduct if I think there's something to criticize (which I do, mostly because I would like to enjoy the game even more and I can't fathom some of their actions/non-actions).

With unity there is no way of getting 1000 individual ai to have this kind of battles.

I sense some Dunning-Kruger at play here.
Never mind the outcome of our discussion, I obviously have nothing better to do at the moment, but I'm genuinely curious:
What makes you say these things? Have you worked with Unity? Have you pushed Unity to its max to be able to say this (and how would you know if you've pushed it to its max)? These are not rhetorical questions. I'd really like to know what goes on in your head when you decide to proclaim these things publicly. Do you think no experienced Unity developer (or someone who is familliar with Unity's capabilities) would possibly read your post? Or you're subconsciously aware of this possibility but choose to disregard it anyway because you just don't care? Fascinating.

Even though many say bannerlord is optimized poorly (which it is atm) fail to see its success.

I loudly applaud part of TW's technical team for what they've done. In terms of graphic capabilities and similar parts of the game, even if they stay as-is by final release, I wouldn't complain at all. I don't find enjoyment in flashy graphics, but in deep gameplay (of which there is none at the moment).
I can't praise the other parts of their team at all. In my eyes, they failed and are failing pretty bad.
Game design - poor
Artwork - pretty good (certainly adequate for my requirements)
AI - so-so (much room AND NEED for improvement)
Management - a joke

Revverie above says you can't count 8 years of development because they were making new engine for many years (which, according to Bloc, isn't even completely accurate). Then what were designers doing all those years? They've had plenty of time to come up with and iron out even the smallest aspects of the game (especially considering they already had much from the original game to go by). Doesn't seem like they did that at all.

No other game can achive this battle atmosphere, and probably wont be able to for a long time.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Memoefe]

My point was about have they honestly represented it as Alpha? I think not, you may feel otherwise. It's fine.

I think its at beta stage.

If you choose to reply, please read my words carefully. I said "OTHERWISE it's called violence", which means they DIDN'T make anyone do anything.
Dude, I never played the original game. I heard about Bannerlord by someone's Let's Play showing up in my Recommended feed on YouTube. I liked what I saw and bought it. Never said I regretted the purchase (quite the opposite). This doesn't mean I can't criticize developers' conduct if I think there's something to criticize (which I do, mostly because I would like to enjoy the game even more and I can't fathom some of their actions/non-actions).

They aren't making anyone do anything any you imply they do by saying " you can't MAKE anyone do s**t, otherwise it's called violence." If you didn!t imply that your way of using words is highly wrong.

I sense some Dunning-Kruger at play here.
Never mind the outcome of our discussion, I obviously have nothing better to do at the moment, but I'm genuinely curious:
What makes you say these things? Have you worked with Unity? Have you pushed Unity to its max to be able to say this (and how would you know if you've pushed it to its max)? These are not rhetorical questions. I'd really like to know what goes on in your head when you decide to proclaim these things publicly. Do you think no experienced Unity developer (or someone who is familliar with Unity's capabilities) would possibly read your post? Or you're subconsciously aware of this possibility but choose to disregard it anyway because you just don't care? Fascinating.

You don't need to break atoms by yourself to know about atoms, or you don't need to dissect a human to know where hearth is. Just like these examples I don't need to be gabe newell to know about game development. Other that that I make indie game in my university's game development club, and I didn't pushed it to the limit. If you wonder how I know unity can't handle such battles.

Firstly, in a live Q&A with devs, this question was asked, why make an engine? And one of the reason was other engines are made to create much diverse games with every bit of feature in mind. They support everything a bit. But mb games push some features to limit and some features almost non. Essentially there was no way of getting this massive battles without this engine.

Secondly, in Gamescom 2019, while tw is showcasing multiplayer to public. Dev team of Kindgom Come Deliverence(uses unreal engine), came to booth and asked armagan yavuz how are they managing those massive battles so smoothly, they were shocked. They were trying big battle but its impossible to them. This is a rephrase from that Q&A.

Lastly, simple one, there is no game this massive.

I think you are the one that "subconsciously aware of this possibility but choose to disregard it anyway because you just don't care"

Game design - poor
Artwork - pretty good (certainly adequate for my requirements)
AI - so-so (much room AND NEED for improvement)
Management - a joke

I agree with you.

Revverie above says you can't count 8 years of development because they were making new engine for many years (which, according to Bloc, isn't even completely accurate). Then what were designers doing all those years? They've had plenty of time to come up with and iron out even the smallest aspects of the game (especially considering they already had much from the original game to go by). Doesn't seem like they did that at all.

Dude the thing is gaming industry is not developed. They may be not best devs but that is due to lack of experienced developers. In that Q&A they said in 2016 they wanted to grow the studio because of lack of experienced developers. And the thing is they can't couldn't bring experienced devs from europe or america because firstly its extremely expensive, its almost 30 times of wage of regular turkish developer.
Secondly, while the was in development a lot happened in turkey. There was the biggest terror attack in history of turkey, at that time turism was almost none think about it, why would an experienced developer come to turkey and risk his/her life? And then there was a coup attemt. which again shook the whole country. And now turkey is getting worse economically.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

I think same about you.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Secondly, in Gamescom 2019, while tw is showcasing multiplayer to public. Dev team of Kindgom Come Deliverence(uses unreal engine), came to booth and asked armagan yavuz how are they managing those massive battles so smoothly, they were shocked. They were trying big battle but its impossible to them. This is a rephrase from that Q&A.

Bannerlord uses a fast rendering technique for animated meshes (i.e. soldiers and horses) which is frankly revolutionary and hasn't been tried anywhere else as far as I know. The thing is, you could potentially jerry-rig something like this into unreal or unity. There is nothing special about the engine taleworlds is using and nothing inherently incompatible about the rendering technique they developed.

Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator on Steam

Here is a sandbox like no other. Create massive battles with absolutely no limits. Want to see 10,000 chickens fight an army of Romans?? Sure, why not. Want to see a company of WW2 U.S soldiers fight 11,000 Medieval soldiers?? There are simply no limits to the carnage you can achieve in UEBS.

store.steampowered.com

Here is a game which supports tens of thousands of troops all pathfinding and colliding individually, and it was made on the Unity Engine. They had to edit the code to get it to work, but practically every game will make changes to the source of an engine to get stuff they want (which might not be implemented in the "vanilla" engine version). Unreal is the same, there are dozens and dozens of code "forks" for different versions of the engine with custom features added.

 

[Wulfsdottir]

This aside, you can, super easily achieve same and way better graphics in Bannerlord with those game engines you despite by saying "any other indie company", such as Unity or Unreal. Especially nowadays, Unreal has outdone itself and it could bring extremely sweet visuals to Bannerlord if they wanted to go that path. But they didn't and that's their decision. End-user doesn't give a damn about if the game engine is made by you or made by some underpaid dwarves. End-user looks only if it looks good or not, and if it works or not. Currently, Bannerlord looks between good and fine. But game logic is not related to that. You also have to understand that Game Engine Programmer is not same with Gameplay Programmer. So if you praise the graphics, this only shows that Engine team did a remarkable job. Not the others.

Talking about how same engine can look totally different... I was amazed when I got to know that Witcher 1 and Neverwinter Nights used the same engine.

 

[Memoefe]

Bannerlord uses a fast rendering technique for animated meshes (i.e. soldiers and horses) which is frankly revolutionary and hasn't been tried anywhere else as far as I know. The thing is, you could potentially jerry-rig something like this into unreal or unity. There is nothing special about the engine taleworlds is using and nothing inherently incompatible about the rendering technique they developed.

Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator on Steam

Here is a sandbox like no other. Create massive battles with absolutely no limits. Want to see 10,000 chickens fight an army of Romans?? Sure, why not. Want to see a company of WW2 U.S soldiers fight 11,000 Medieval soldiers?? There are simply no limits to the carnage you can achieve in UEBS.

store.steampowered.com

Here is a game which supports tens of thousands of troops all pathfinding and colliding individually, and it was made on the Unity Engine. They had to edit the code to get it to work, but practically every game will make changes to the source of an engine to get stuff they want (which might not be implemented in the "vanilla" engine version). Unreal is the same, there are dozens and dozens of code "forks" for different versions of the engine with custom features added.

As far as I know in that game units just attack closest enemy, there is no desicion making. And by attack I mean only play attack animation.

In bannerlord they angage, disangage, split, deside block or attack, which direction to attack or defend, which weapon to use. And bannerlord does this looking damn sweet.

 

[Roaring Mouse]

Here is a game which supports tens of thousands of troops all pathfinding and colliding individually, and it was made on the Unity Engine. They had to edit the code to get it to work, but practically every game will make changes to the source of an engine to get stuff they want (which might not be implemented in the "vanilla" engine version). Unreal is the same, there are dozens and dozens of code "forks" for different versions of the engine with custom features added.

There is nothing like Mount and Blade out there. If someone took Unity and made something even remotely similar it would be great. I keep waiting on all these modders who have "fixed" the game to make a better one.

 

[eddiemccandless]

I am pretty sure that the main reason they went with a custom made engine is because they wanted to have complete control over everything, which is something that you really can't do with premade engines (yes, theoretically you could modify Unreal's source code, but I doubt that would be any easier than writing your own system). And we all know TW management likes to micromanage (which imo is one of the main reasons why their creation process was so inefficient).

Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator on Steam

Here is a sandbox like no other. Create massive battles with absolutely no limits. Want to see 10,000 chickens fight an army of Romans?? Sure, why not. Want to see a company of WW2 U.S soldiers fight 11,000 Medieval soldiers?? There are simply no limits to the carnage you can achieve in UEBS.

store.steampowered.com

Here is a game which supports tens of thousands of troops all pathfinding and colliding individually, and it was made on the Unity Engine. They had to edit the code to get it to work, but practically every game will make changes to the source of an engine to get stuff they want (which might not be implemented in the "vanilla" engine version). Unreal is the same, there are dozens and dozens of code "forks" for different versions of the engine with custom features added.

Are you sure that they actually edited Unity's source code? Because as far as I know that is not allowed, unless you manage to persuade their sales team to give you a special (and paid) license to enable you to do that. Unreal is open source so I would see the possibility of that happening there. Although I sure as hell would not want to attempt it myself .

 

[Maximum997]

I think its at beta stage.

No. Beta is for finding bugs and tweaking numbers. This game is not even completed yet.

 

[Roaring Mouse]

No. Beta is for finding bugs and tweaking numbers. This game is not even completed yet.

Isn't that what early access is?

This is a genuine question, not a reminder of the game being in early access and it is not a comment to excuse anything because of EA.

 

[dukester]

I think its at beta stage.

As you know my first statement was people are comparing a fully finished and polished game to a beta game. Now you say this game isn't even beta. This only makes my statement stronger. People are comparing a fully finished and polished game to an alpha game.

Here you accepted my claim the game isn't even in beta because you thought it makes your statement stronger. Now it's beta again? Make up your mind.

They aren't making anyone do anything any you imply they do by saying " you can't MAKE anyone do s**t, otherwise it's called violence." If you didn!t imply that your way of using words is highly wrong.

Two non-native speakers discussing intricacies of the English language. Fun!
My sentence means: If you make anyone do anything (which means they didn't want to do it), then it's called violence. Since they CAN'T make anyone do anything, it isn't violence. OTHERWISE (the first case) it WOULD BE called violence.
I can't make it any clearer than this. Could some native speakers help here?

You don't need to break atoms by yourself to know about atoms, or you don't need to dissect a human to know where hearth is. Just like these examples I don't need to be gabe newell to know about game development. Other that that I make indie game in my university's game development club, and I didn't pushed it to the limit. If you wonder how I know unity can't handle such battles.
Firstly, in a live Q&A with devs, this question was asked, why make an engine? And one of the reason was other engines are made to create much diverse games with every bit of feature in mind. They support everything a bit. But mb games push some features to limit and some features almost non. Essentially there was no way of getting this massive battles without this engine.

That's what I said. At the time they started on their engine, other engines couldn't do what they needed them to.

Secondly, in Gamescom 2019, while tw is showcasing multiplayer to public. Dev team of Kindgom Come Deliverence(uses unreal engine), came to booth and asked armagan yavuz how are they managing those massive battles so smoothly, they were shocked. They were trying big battle but its impossible to them. This is a rephrase from that Q&A.

I said I applauded TW's technical proficiency. What does it have to do with other engine's capabilities?
Speaking of Unity's capabilities:

Battle of 80,000 units
(this was in 2017 and playing in Unity Editor (not built for platform); it's not Bannerlord type battle, but it's not Bannerlord numbers either)

4.5M renderers, 100K audio sources, 5K vehicles, 200K unique individual objects @ 60fps
(this was in 2018; and it plays on a frickin' phone!)

Lastly, simple one, there is no game this massive.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Dude the thing is gaming industry is not developed. They may be not best devs but that is due to lack of experienced developers. In that Q&A they said in 2016 they wanted to grow the studio because of lack of experienced developers. And the thing is they can't couldn't bring experienced devs from europe or america because firstly its extremely expensive, its almost 30 times of wage of regular turkish developer.
Secondly, while the was in development a lot happened in turkey. There was the biggest terror attack in history of turkey, at that time turism was almost none think about it, why would an experienced developer come to turkey and risk his/her life? And then there was a coup attemt. which again shook the whole country. And now turkey is getting worse economically.

I think Turkey is a decently sized country (not small by any means). I would have thought it would be more difficult to find a talented engine programmer like that guy you mentioned than game designers. They are usually a dime a dozen. How have they made so successful game in the first place if they didn't have capable designers / other type of developers? Plus they were bound to have learned a lot from that first experience (or multiple experiences, considering expansions). What happened to them afterwards? How have they suddenly lost their newly acquired skills?
So you're saying the reason for the game's current faults are bad events in the country, and then you say the things are getting worse. Then what makes you think the game is going to be fine in the end?

 

[dukester]

Isn't that what early access is?

This is a genuine question, not a reminder of the game being in early access and it is not a comment to excuse anything because of EA.

The way I see it, the terms are not mutually exclusive. Alpha, Beta and so on speak about the game's state of completeness. Early Access designates when players get access to the game (before or after it's 'finished'). So one doesn't exclude the other, nor do they describe the same thing.

 

[froggyluv]

What makes M&B's engine unique is they were the first to pull it off. That being very accurate melee, horseback, archer combat not only for the Player (like a mordhaus) but allowing up to 1000's of bots also fighting in REAL TIME with actual physics -not just a huge cpu animated scrum like total war. Every projectile, attack direction, horseback momentum etc is all calculated in real time. Thats unique and what makes is the hallmark feature of this engine. Can another engine pull it off? Sure -in programming my old coder buddy SnkMn used to always say "everything is possible". Of course, with infinite resources and programmers you could put all of Ultima 7 in Mrs.Pacman -but is it feasible? Not just some lame tech demo -at the end of the day -WHO is pulling it off and delivering is all that matters. Everything else is just pompous chest thrusting bull****e talk.

 

[dukester]

WHO is pulling it off and delivering is all that matters.

It may be all that matters TO YOU, but the original claim was that it can't be done and I disagreed with that claim, not belittling TW's achievement in any way.

Btw, I completely agree with you re Total War. Its battles look just silly next to Bannerlord's where you can see the cause of every bit of damage for every soldier, as opposed to two battle groups waving their weapons in the general direction of each other and soldiers falling dead for no apparent reason.

 

[Roaring Mouse]

It may be all that matters TO YOU, but the original claim was that it can't be done and I disagreed with that claim, not belittling TW's achievement in any way.

How can it be proven that it can be done? Literally no one has done it.

 

[dukester]

How can it be proven that it can be done? Literally no one has done it.

Done what? Made Bannerlord clone? Come on.
I said I disagreed with his statement, not that I have proof contrary to his claim. We both stated what we base our opinions on. My belief is that his opinion is based on his lack of knowledge of various engine's capabilities. I follow that topic with some interest and based on what I gathered, I am confident it can be done. Of course I could be wrong because there's no definitive proof either way. Granted, his claim would be practically impossible to prove because you can't ever prove a negative, so we're basically just talking probabilities here, of which we are differently persuaded.

Edit: take a look at what @Kentucky James VII said above:

Bannerlord uses a fast rendering technique for animated meshes (i.e. soldiers and horses) which is frankly revolutionary and hasn't been tried anywhere else as far as I know. The thing is, you could potentially jerry-rig something like this into unreal or unity. There is nothing special about the engine taleworlds is using and nothing inherently incompatible about the rendering technique they developed.

That is precisely my understanding of the matter.