My whole argument about Hunyadi is that he is both more famous and recognizable AND historically relevant. (Not any straw man you try to pin on me,.) Hunyadi is objectively a better choice for a history game. If you don't recognize this, I don't know what else to say. I brought up Hunyadi as a test for nationalism and you failed it.
I didn't watch your video as those videos are typically full of misleading trash (was it made by reputable historians or fanboys or some random youtubers that did their "research"?). I checked the wiki and read your post and that should be enough.
And my counter-argument is that he's not more famous and recognizable and historically relevant. It's not straw man when you actually made that argument:
"Janos Hunyadi, a much more famous figure, and defeater of Taleworlds' ancestors." - MadVader, 2021.
If you would like John Hunyadi more than Michael the Brave or Dracula, that's perfectly fine, your choice. But don't come up with arguments of why John Hunyadi is better that are equally valid for Michael the Brave and Dracula as well. It's like arguing Ford is better than Dodge because it has 4 wheels.
You can say nothing, you can make an unfounded bold assertion yet again or come up with evidence why John Hunyadi is indeed more famous and unlike Michael the Brave and Dracula, is in fact a defeater of Taleworld's ancestors. My money is on the second one.
Those videos typically full of misleading trash have their sources listed in the description and both channels are about general history. So I would rule the
"fanboys" out (sorry), and given the way they butcher the Romanian pronunciation I'm afraid there's no conspiracy to exaggerate the deeds of Michael the Brave, unless they took it to the next level and pretend they aren't Romanians.
That leaves only reputable historians or random Youtubers that did their "research". Given that they posted sources at the end, they did some research. Either way, they did more research that you since you've never even heard of him, and their sources were books not the wiki.
That's the inferiority complex talking, trying to be a victim. I'm okay with Romanian heroes as I'm okay with Hungarians or others, I don't have preferences or traditional Balkan ethnic hatreds. Bismarck is a poor comparison as he was far more historically significant and successful.
What I object to is nationalist fervor that tries to distort reality and hype their historical figures to create a national myth. In this case, Mike is viewed as a Romanian nation builder by Romanians (just like Bismarck for Germans), so you can expect Romanians to be quite emotional and not very objective about his life and significance.
This line: "I object to is nationalist fervor that tries to distort reality and hype their historical figures to create a national myth" pretty much validates my point.
It's not the inferiority complex talking, it's simply talking to a hater which jumps to the conclusion that quote from myself "it comes from a small country he couldn't possibly be one of history's greatest generals". You didn't even bother to check what he actually did, his battles, but outright reject this possibility because it's not compatible with your views. I'm talking facts you're talking preconceptions.
The point I was making, was not that Bismark and Michael the Brave's situation was similar. But that if I posted a similar topic about Bismark instead, you would never have been like "this is clearly and exaggeration created for propaganda purposes and a national myth".
You are absolutely right, you can expect Romanians to be quite emotional and not very objective about his life and significance. Except those videos were not made by Romanians.
Even if you'd watch the videos and saw his battles, your reaction would probably be trying to find excuses for every victory of his, because he can't be that good, since the idea that he was objectively a brilliant commander would go against your ideas that small counties are full of nationalists that try to distort reality and hype their historical figures to create a national myth.
Which I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying it doesn't always happen, to be narrow-minded on the side of "this can't possibly happen" is not so different from being narrow-minded on the opposite side. Just as you can expect Romanians to be quite emotional and not very objective about his life and significance due to their nationalism, you can expect automatic nay-sayers to be equally emotional and not very objective about his life and significance due to their preconceptions.
It is better to make a mod in which Serbian Empire takes over Calradia (sic, for the sake of not wasting much time on it).
To begin with, the title of this topic explicitly implies that the thread's content will revolve around economical approach to business, aimed to maximize profits. Out of many non-commercial modifications/ modules for M&B franchise, there were only a few elevated to commercial release by TW (a publisher).
I know what I am saying and I can attest to my words since I am the one who got to know WFaS when it first was released. The standalone (sic) game premiered in 2009 only in Poland and it ran on original M&B engine. In 2010 and after Warband's release, it was ported to Warband engine with an expansion called 'Savage Fields'; bugs were disposed of, the game was accomodated to Warband's modding standards (BRF files, ModSys) and multi-player was added. In 2011, the game and its expansion were released world-wide on digital platforms.
I acquired it in 2011 (the 2009 version) and it was my first game from the franchise. It was so buggy the gameplay was awful. The only thing that was working was combat (on the other hand, it was pre-made and hardcoded by TW and WFaS's developers could not break it even if they wanted to do so). It was hastily released despite it being a semi-finished product (just like M&B was after 3 years of beta in 2008; not to even think about Bannerlord). It corroborates my statement that the game was just meant to capitalize on Polish people's pride, with little actual content but with a great deal of patriotic imagery, be it verbal or visual. You likely got to play the 2011 version, which was improved in comparison to its predecessor. There were many other mods which were better, but served no greater economic interest to be considered good enough to commercialize. WFaS got barely any new innovations, its scripting and assets were terrible. Here is a video I shot more than a decade ago; it sums up the experience.
As I stated before, China is where money is flowing and TW has already prioritized money with Bannerlord instead of filling a niche out. It might be reasonable to anticipate that TW will expand where profits are assured and the Balkans will not satisfy the company's needs. Every nation is rather interested in its own history and actually, any portrayal of a country's history translates into greater profits in that state. Think about marketing and publishing deals as well. Do not force TW to adopt your point of view only because you deem your story good enough to constitute a foundation of a commercial product.
You can take the hasty development as being a small team or as only looking at it for the profit. You choose the latter, but at the end of the day it's a theory.
I don't necessarly see a correlation between being full of bugs early game and wishing to capitalize on Polish nationalism. If anything, I see a correlation between being full of bugs early game and being a small team of developers with not that many resources at their disposal.
Did they do it for money? Yes, the more time in development the bigger the costs. If you release it early, even if the early version is buggy, you can at least get some income to continue the development, therefore the hasty development. And at the end of the day, as it stands right now With Fire and Sword is fairly finished. Not perfect, but I wouldn't call it a game full of bugs either.
Yep, I played the 2011 version, that thing never happened to me, if it did, I would have fallen of the chair laughing.
I'm not trying to force anything, I simply gave a suggestion.
MadVader, an experienced modder, is correct. We both know modding from inside. We also know that ideas are worthless and execution is what really matters. Anyone can give ideas (think of all such posts demanding mods featuring lightsabers, aliens, mutants, anime-like graphics, zombies, ninjas, vikings, Serbian warlords, Polish winged hussars, Turkish janissaries and else), but there is not many people to actually take their time to create something. Ideas can be written in minutes whereas modding takes months.
Me and MadVader are mature enough - I guess - to understand that emotional intelligence is important as well when it comes to discussions about history. We have already encountered many instances of inferiority complex (especially prevalent in Poles, Turks and Serbs and to a lesser extent, members of other nations as well) and we tried to test you. The important lesson in lifetime is not to treat history as a device to derive pride from; it should serve as a lesson. Do not be caught in the spiral of allegations and suspicions towards others only because they challenged you. Words can be written at no cost, so if you make a thread 'for free', expect others to respond 'for free'. It all is a 'free-for-all' (it is an idiom in English, in case you do not know). Companies think in monetary terms, so we should ponder it too.
Concluding, you are free to make such a mod and it will be alright. But please, do not force anyone to adopt your stance in commercial terms. The Deluge is a perfect example of a non-commercial Warband mod made by Poles which was started by people willing to reconcile historical setting with good gameplay experience. Such works are a good way to promote history only if they are good. Quality matters, so if you want to promote Michael the Brave's glorious deeds, you cannot end up as an idea-maker.
Again, I am not denying that it's easier said than done. But I'm not the one who said "go ahead and make this a mod", I simply made a suggestion about a possible DLC. Some users argued that this would work as a mod, an user suggested that I can create a mod myself, and I told him that I don't have the money on the team.
I never asked anyone to make this a mod. Then MadVader came and pointed out that it's easier said than done. So yeah, he is correct, except I never said otherwise. He's arguing against a point I didn't make.
What exactly was the test? MadVader's half-baked arguments that are equally valid for the ones he tries to argue against as a test? I'd make a Trump joke about the test being rigged like the elections but that would probably spiral in off-topic discussions.
The point is, when you make a test starting from the premise of "this is clearly a distortion of reality and a national myth" it's like scientists starting with confirmation bias. And the argument tests you give don't make sense, in this case for John Hunyadi, you're going to be called out that they don't make sense. Which I did, and MadVader took that as a clear sign of pushing for a nationalist myth.
Maybe this test would have been more accurate if the arguments pushed by MadVader would actually make sense? If he wanted to insist on John Hunyadi to test me, he could have focused on things that aren't equally valid for the ones the tries to argue against: like a John Hunyadi's campaign would include a lot more states, would include game mechanics with the Papacy or would be a campaign focused on coallition of armies form various kingdoms.
But even that would break the test he was trying to make in the first place since John Hunyadi's dynasty was a former Romanian family converted to Catholicism and Wallachia with Vlad II (Dracula's father) was right between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire and participated in the crusades, so even that campaign wouldn't lack Romanians.
Thank you for advice, but be careful that you don't jump on the other side of the extreme yourself. When Poles, Turks and Serbs promote their pride in their history it's inferiority complex. When Russia, UK, France and US promotes their pride in their history it's simply facts. Michael the Brave here is an exaggeration a distortion of reality out of nationalist fervor. On the other hand, Russia single handedly won World War II and saved Europe, nevermind the supplies from US and UK, the fact that they were allies with Germany until they were attacked or that if you would ask Eastern Europe, their "saving" isn't exactly what one would call a saving. UK on the other hand was a protector of Europe who fought the nazi alone in desperate times. Nevermind that before that, they broke their guarantees of independence to Eastern European countries which allowed Germany and USSR to expand and they didn't attack from the West when Germany was fighting Poland as promised, they didn't fight until they had to. I'm not denying Russia or UK's contributions in World War II, I'm just saying things aren't that black & white. But in their case, it's not an inferiority complex because they are big nations.
For example, and I'm saying this as a guy from a country that was oppressed by the Turks. The British and French Empire where quote "the good guys", nowdays colonialism is bad, but there are still plenty of Brits and French who look back with pride at their imperial history, and the rest of the western world is like "yeah, you were a great power". But when a Turk does the exact same thing about the Ottoman Empire "you were an evil empire", "you should be ashamed of yourself", etc. There seems to be a case of double standards here rather than an inferiority complex from one side.
The history we learn in the west is western-centric and everything else is "nationalist bias". While I agree that it's difficult to present a purely unbiased history, especially on a national scale, we shouldn't automatically deem our version as objective simply because it's the status quo and everything else that tries to challenge that as inferiority complex. Yes, there are cases of exaggeration. There are also cases of not exaggerations but truth. For example, US seems to get a bad rep recently for what it did in the Middle East. But does it also get a bad rep for what it did in the Cold War? no, US was a champion of democracy fighting the evil Soviets! And while I agree that US was morally better than USSR, US was far from an angel, looking at South America and Vietnam. Anyway, I think the point was already illustrated.
TL;DR - what's more narrow-minded, to believe that nothing is an exaggeration or that everything is an exaggeration based on where it comes from or who says it? I would argue both are narrow-minded, who is bigger is irrelevant. Best thing to do is take information as it is and be skeptical about it originally, so you can check it's merit and validity later. But to jump to the conclusion that "this is clearly true" or "this is clearly false" for it doesn't fit with something I think about that place is narrow-minded in my opinion.
Huh, when did I gave the impression that I am forcing anyone to adopt my stance? I simply posted a topic, which as you said, it's for free.