My main beef with Taleworlds is that they sold something as Early Access, yet did not even bother to establish active communication channels.
That's what "Early Access" is supposed to be, not just "beta you pay for to submit crash reports and feedback you won't even know if anybody reads." Let's even disregard the fact that, contrary to Steam's own EA guidelines, they decided to completely ignore Steam forums. Highly unprofessional in my opinion, it was their choice of a release platform, could throw some of that fresh cash into at least an intern or two to do some basic communication there. Screw that, we got the "official forum."
And so what? There are tons of fantastic ideas floating around here, but without any feedback from the developers, you can't refine them better. Or know what ideas they are looking for, or what their design direction is for the game - nothing. How the rock-throwing-looters is that even considered "early access?"
There is highly limited amount of content within the game. Something the community itself could do most of the work for them, at least in terms of ideas if not detailed design planning. Which is, in all my early access experience (I do pick the projects I back with some care, so YMMV), what "early access" stands for.
Occasional posts from Duh and Mexxico are very welcome, but hardly fulfill that side of things. The fact that the Feedback and Ideas forum has absolutely no official presence (but hey, they dumped it on "community managers" who know about as much as the rest of us, to better avoid having to do any work in that area), for an Early Access game, would've been hilarious if it wasn't so unprofessional (and boding pretty ill of the direction this project is taking).
They could've easily avoided most (because you'll always get people *****ing about anything anytime) negativity simply maintaining open communication and a degree of transparency when it comes to the development.
"Yes, we know AI campaign code requires work, but we first need to fix this, this, and that before we can meaningfully look at it. Sorry about the unpleasant experience in the meantime. But you could help us by providing your ideas about troop balance and loadout, or anything related - this is our current focus, and it would be most welcome." - is this so hard?
Meanwhile all you people defending current state of the project are doing, regardless of how you think you're "helping" Taleworlds, is to tell them they don't need to change, not really. They can keep doing at the same work flow that already took years (however many you want to acknowledge) to get just to this point. That communication is fine as it is, because a blog about some animator or whomever it was, when a LOT of people are already upset about lack of progress or even information about progress, is peachy. That we don't really need actual honest-to-Ravangad gameplay content within the game, certainly not much more than what minimal amount of it was in base Warband, because "mods will fix it."
That's how you "help" prevent Taleworlds from becoming another success story like CDPR or Warhorse Studios, all the while telling every OTHER large studio in existence "you don't need a polished fully-fleshed out product to make money."
That's what "Early Access" is supposed to be, not just "beta you pay for to submit crash reports and feedback you won't even know if anybody reads." Let's even disregard the fact that, contrary to Steam's own EA guidelines, they decided to completely ignore Steam forums. Highly unprofessional in my opinion, it was their choice of a release platform, could throw some of that fresh cash into at least an intern or two to do some basic communication there. Screw that, we got the "official forum."
And so what? There are tons of fantastic ideas floating around here, but without any feedback from the developers, you can't refine them better. Or know what ideas they are looking for, or what their design direction is for the game - nothing. How the rock-throwing-looters is that even considered "early access?"
There is highly limited amount of content within the game. Something the community itself could do most of the work for them, at least in terms of ideas if not detailed design planning. Which is, in all my early access experience (I do pick the projects I back with some care, so YMMV), what "early access" stands for.
Occasional posts from Duh and Mexxico are very welcome, but hardly fulfill that side of things. The fact that the Feedback and Ideas forum has absolutely no official presence (but hey, they dumped it on "community managers" who know about as much as the rest of us, to better avoid having to do any work in that area), for an Early Access game, would've been hilarious if it wasn't so unprofessional (and boding pretty ill of the direction this project is taking).
They could've easily avoided most (because you'll always get people *****ing about anything anytime) negativity simply maintaining open communication and a degree of transparency when it comes to the development.
"Yes, we know AI campaign code requires work, but we first need to fix this, this, and that before we can meaningfully look at it. Sorry about the unpleasant experience in the meantime. But you could help us by providing your ideas about troop balance and loadout, or anything related - this is our current focus, and it would be most welcome." - is this so hard?
Meanwhile all you people defending current state of the project are doing, regardless of how you think you're "helping" Taleworlds, is to tell them they don't need to change, not really. They can keep doing at the same work flow that already took years (however many you want to acknowledge) to get just to this point. That communication is fine as it is, because a blog about some animator or whomever it was, when a LOT of people are already upset about lack of progress or even information about progress, is peachy. That we don't really need actual honest-to-Ravangad gameplay content within the game, certainly not much more than what minimal amount of it was in base Warband, because "mods will fix it."
That's how you "help" prevent Taleworlds from becoming another success story like CDPR or Warhorse Studios, all the while telling every OTHER large studio in existence "you don't need a polished fully-fleshed out product to make money."
