Taleworlds, use your community to grow.

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manekemaan

Sergeant Knight
Being a fervent and long term Mount and Blade player and a Product Manager by trade, an idea came to me about how you could connect with your community and grow the game, together.

The concept is simple, you use and reward the work the community does.

Take a look at all the mods out there. Pick the ones that people seem to enjoy and most importantly, that are coherent within your vision of how you want the game to evolve. Set certain quality standards, and then integrate the mods as toggleable features in the main game.

You don’t let them do it for free. If you want quality, reward the modders. A concept like this might work: Set aside a % of each copy sold of Bannerlord for the modders. Because the player can choose what mods they want to use, you can easily reward modders in a no cure no pay manner. If their mods get used, they get paid. The more you sell, the more they get. Everyone wins, including us, the gamers.

An elaboration on this concept:
You can pay them based on the amount of time their mod has been played, as players often change or add mods. Allow modders to earn 10 cents for every hour someone plays with their mod. If you would set aside 10% of every sale, that would allow modders to earn a total of €5 over 50 hours of gameplay.

Should you want to try a POC:
  • 1000 new players buy Bannerlord because of the first 10 mods you add.
  • Let's say that on average a player activates 5 mods (purely fictional number)
  • A few mods probably are a bit more popular, so earnings will vary.
Taleworlds, would have earned €45.000 and the modding community €5000. Which would be split among the different modders based on gametime.

I’m not saying that a lot of modders will be able to make a living out of this. But as more and more of them start to accept donations for their work, you can also help them to reach more people.

Plus, next to earning you extra sales, the existing players are also rewarded. Which will make us more happy and active etc. As you well know, in gaming, the best advertisement is word of mouth and your community.



I’m not sure if this is the best way to reach the right person, but perhaps others can pitch in and improve upon my ideas or someone can point me in the right direction.

All the best,
Maarten
 
Taleworlds, would have earned €45.000 and the modding community €5000. Which would be split among the different modders based on gametime.
TWs Management would say that they lost 5000€.

The modders are already doing amazing work for free why should TW support them in any way?

Don´t get me wrong, I like your idea but TW will never do this.

They also don´t really listen to the community. You won´t get any reply from TW in this thread from TW not even a "Thanks for your feedback, we´ll think about it." or anything like that.

We´re paying beta testers for them, not more. Also most mods make the game more complex, that´s what most players want but TW isn´t a huge fan of complexibility. Also they need to test each mod they "officialy" add (even as a option). And at the moment they can´t even get the unmodded game stable. So....
 
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Yeah, they wont trust code from other people.

They would look at this as an idea and say that the necessary quality control would take too much time and effort.

Nevertheless, I like your thinking and it IS a good idea.
 
You can also support the modders with donations, most of them have like a paypal link or something like this.

I´ve done it several times for the mods I really enjoy, not only for Bannerlord.

Yeah, they wont trust code from other people.
I´m not even sure if they trust their own code :wink: .
 
They can barely keep their own game together right now and integrating many different player designed mods would probably require a great deal of effort. There would also have to be strict quality control to prevent liability issues. The best case would be for Taleworlds to let modders make a dlc for the game, similar to NW in warband.
 
But... we already have mods as a toggleable feature, thanks to the steam workshop. What I would like to see is full integration into the game, not a curated list of mods.
 
They can barely keep their own game together right now and integrating many different player designed mods would probably require a great deal of effort. There would also have to be strict quality control to prevent liability issues. The best case would be for Taleworlds to let modders make a dlc for the game, similar to NW in warband.
The best thing TW could do is to start listening to their community to see what we want like:

Have control over your allied parties/vassals....as one example....but it´s to complex, best we´ll get is to set them on some kind of stances as I´ve heard....which would even be fine if the AI would work, but it doesn´t.

IF we even get this and it´s not broken as hell as most stuff.

Or placing your troops before an open field battle starts, like the perk offered they silently removed....

They have a strict roadmap (internally) and they just follow it, no matter what, that´s what I think at least.

Even their own devs (not their community manager...their commuity manager can just post patch notes here) have said things like "Yes, your suggestion X makes sense and would improve the game. But I don´t think the management will add it.".

There are so many threads here with well thought out suggestions/feedback and 9/10 of them are just ignored. They don´t care. So don´t waste your time making other good suggestions, it doesn´t matter.
 
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I wish the world worked like this but I'd eat my neighbor's hat if TaleWorld even considers this seriously. Besides, the game is still in a rather troubled EA so this is not the time for something like this.
 
It is a very good idea and I'd love to see them even adding it even in a non-toggable way. But as others have also mentioned TW is just not the kind of company to do such a thing.
 
TW already uses modders to make their game playable and they don't have to pay anything at the moment.

I don't see a company like TW ever trying anything like this as incredible as it would be. They already rely completely on the modding community to make up for what they can't do
 
Both Viking Conquest and Napoleonic Wars DLCs to Warband were created by two mod teams. Now again, I don't have any details about economic compensations. However, I think TaleWorlds are clever enough realizing they'd gain more than enough money from just allowing free mods to be created on their platform as there are going to be potential customers who'll buy the game just to be able to play a mod they're interested in. That being said, there's always going to be incentives to make money from anything as a company in a capitalistic society. However, the only experience TaleWorlds has is paywalls and not encouraging the community by throwing money at it since it creates mods nonetheless.
 
Now again, I don't have any details about economic compensations.
After Taleworlds took its cut, expenses and an even split of the profit among the team, one of those teams got what amounted to a minimal monthly salary for the time they worked. Despite their DLC being a massive success.
You really need to love game development to do it for a living.
 
They also don´t really listen to the community. You won´t get any reply from TW in this thread from TW not even a "Thanks for your feedback, we´ll think about it." or anything like that.
TBH, I have received some for this post, but I don't think that will result in any change to the game.
We´re paying beta testers for them, not more. Also most mods make the game more complex, that´s what most players want but TW isn´t a huge fan of complexibility. Also they need to test each mod they "officialy" add (even as a option). And at the moment they can´t even get the unmodded game stable. So....
Despite voice of forum, TW can always convince themselves to not hear by the concept of Slient Majority, those who I doubt their existence.
 
Thanks for your reactions!
Despite voice of forum, TW can always convince themselves to not hear by the concept of Slient Majority, those who I doubt their existence.
That's very possible. But I do hope they realize that for every 1 voice they hear, thousand of others have the same idea/problem/frustration/need, but don't say it.

After Taleworlds took its cut, expenses and an even split of the profit among the team, one of those teams got what amounted to a minimal monthly salary for the time they worked. Despite their DLC being a massive success.
You really need to love game development to do it for a living.
True, thats why I mentioned that the modders won't be able to make a living out of it, but it might increase the amount of donations because more players are appreciating their content.

Such a funny suggestion
Thanks :smile:
Both Viking Conquest and Napoleonic Wars DLCs to Warband were created by two mod teams. Now again, I don't have any details about economic compensations. However, I think TaleWorlds are clever enough realizing they'd gain more than enough money from just allowing free mods to be created on their platform as there are going to be potential customers who'll buy the game just to be able to play a mod they're interested in. That being said, there's always going to be incentives to make money from anything as a company in a capitalistic society. However, the only experience TaleWorlds has is paywalls and not encouraging the community by throwing money at it since it creates mods nonetheless.
I also have no idea about the economics and I agree with your points. But the least I can do is try. I enjoy the game and want to see it evolve.
While it's a nice idea TW won't go for it. They haven't listened to the community in the past 8+ years why would they start now?
Thanks! Never too late to change, let's try anyway.
TW already uses modders to make their game playable and they don't have to pay anything at the moment.

I don't see a company like TW ever trying anything like this as incredible as it would be. They already rely completely on the modding community to make up for what they can't do
That's true, though we indeed have the mentioned examples of Viking Conquest and Napeolonic wars.

The main point I want to make towards them is if they invest even a little into the modding community, the quality and involvement of the modders will increase. This in turn will increase the activity of the communities around the mods, which will lead to more sales and improved positioning on important gaming sites like Nexus Mods.
It is a very good idea and I'd love to see them even adding it even in a non-toggable way. But as others have also mentioned TW is just not the kind of company to do such a thing.
Thanks! Well we can only try and hope they take notice.
I wish the world worked like this but I'd eat my neighbor's hat if TaleWorld even considers this seriously. Besides, the game is still in a rather troubled EA so this is not the time for something like this.
I get your point, but in my opinion it's just the time to do so. It's pretty clear to us, they don't have the resources required to get the game to the point where it has to be, to where we all believe it can be. But those resources are out there in the community. The modders aren't just adding new stuff. They are also improving basic gameplay aspects which will definitly be added to native at some point.

They could even go a step further and ask modders to build a specific aspect of the game for them, for a econmical compensation offcourse. But that is a different topic. Let's keep our focus here.

The best thing TW could do is to start listening to their community to see what we want like:

Have control over your allied parties/vassals....as one example....but it´s to complex, best we´ll get is to set them on some kind of stances as I´ve heard....which would even be fine if the AI would work, but it doesn´t.

IF we even get this and it´s not broken as hell as most stuff.

Or placing your troops before an open field battle starts, like the perk offered they silently removed....

They have a strict roadmap (internally) and they just follow it, no matter what, that´s what I think at least.

Even their own devs (not their community manager...their commuity manager can just post patch notes here) have said things like "Yes, your suggestion X makes sense and would improve the game. But I don´t think the management will add it.".

There are so many threads here with well thought out suggestions/feedback and 9/10 of them are just ignored. They don´t care. So don´t waste your time making other good suggestions, it doesn´t matter.
I wouldn't say that the current game is broken. It has met my expectations of what the company we knew would provide. It's simply said a rough diamond that needs refinement.

And I do agree with you that they don't always seem to listen to their community, but we can always try.
But... we already have mods as a toggleable feature, thanks to the steam workshop. What I would like to see is full integration into the game, not a curated list of mods.
True, but they often get out of date and have compatibility issues. My last run was with 35 mods I think, but it's not something that all players have the time of patience for. If we make it easier for them more mods will be used.

The optional part is convenient for Taleworlds as they can easily reward based on usage, which gives them quite some security.

And offcourse the normal mods would remain as they are, free for us to choose and add to our experience.
Game is dead lol
That's definitly not true. They bring out regular updates and new mods are being released daily.
They can barely keep their own game together right now and integrating many different player designed mods would probably require a great deal of effort. There would also have to be strict quality control to prevent liability issues. The best case would be for Taleworlds to let modders make a dlc for the game, similar to NW in warband.
A DLC is a pretty big project to begin with. It's true they did this for Warband, but that was at a later more stable stage.
In the begining you could already support the small mods. There are, as an example a lot of mods that improve things that are most likely on Taleworlds' roadmap as well. They could have access to more resources. Quality control is definitly needed, but there are a lot of mods that already achieve a high stability. As I mentioned earlier, I've had stable runs with about 35 mods, and I'm picky. The potential is huge for them, if we can open their eyes. I'm also quite sure that they if they hire, lets say 1 Q&A guy, he could be able to test quite a bit of mods for errors, balance, etc. Assuring a good experience for us.
You can also support the modders with donations, most of them have like a paypal link or something like this.

I´ve done it several times for the mods I really enjoy, not only for Bannerlord.


I´m not even sure if they trust their own code :wink: .
Indeed, so have I. But i want to increase the awareness of modders. Now mods are something you see a warning message about in most games, telling you they might cause crashes etc. I'm convinced that the first gaming company that really embraces the modding community, wil write gaming industry history.
Yeah, they wont trust code from other people.

They would look at this as an idea and say that the necessary quality control would take too much time and effort.

Nevertheless, I like your thinking and it IS a good idea.
Thanks for the compliments. I don't expect much of this, but by keeping the discussion alive it might work. We can always try.
TWs Management would say that they lost 5000€.

The modders are already doing amazing work for free why should TW support them in any way?

Don´t get me wrong, I like your idea but TW will never do this.

They also don´t really listen to the community. You won´t get any reply from TW in this thread from TW not even a "Thanks for your feedback, we´ll think about it." or anything like that.

We´re paying beta testers for them, not more. Also most mods make the game more complex, that´s what most players want but TW isn´t a huge fan of complexibility. Also they need to test each mod they "officialy" add (even as a option). And at the moment they can´t even get the unmodded game stable. So....
I admit, its less revenue for them. But if you look at this as sales you normally would have had, it's not a cost.

I think i have given my view on most of your points in my previous reactions. But as I said there, I do agree, I just feel like we should definitly just keep trying. The more we keep these kind of discussions alive the more chance that they will take notice. Every post here means hundreds of people might have that same opinion, but don't take the time to give feedback.
 
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