taleworlds math's legendary
-
If you are reporting a bug, please head over to our Technical Support section for Bannerlord.
The lore of this game is just useless flavor text unless you do something about it.
- Thread starter Goyyyio
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
Yes, it's unbelievable how little effort they had spent on this. Why bother making it a prequel if you won't give a #$@£ about geography. No one would mind if they used a completely different world setting. It feels like they hired some free to try story writers but didn't bother purchasing after trial was expired.
Sadly, you don't get the crowns when you become a ruler. The starting faction rulers don't even have them -- though there's a mod on the nexus that gives all the starting faction rulers the crowns that SHOULD belong to them. I think it's because TW took the time to make unique faction battle and civilian crowns for each faction (and three sets for the Empire factions!), but didn't include them in the lord equipment sets. It's one of those things where there's a disconnect between the lore that went into designing the faction gear and how it's actually seen in-game.
The only way I've been able to get the crowns is just through the cheat mode inventory thing -- so I cheat them to myself whenever I get in charge of a faction. I figure fair is fair at that point.
Someone mentioned earlier all the lore that's buried in settlement entries. I'm glad they added those along the patch process because they fleshed out a lot of the history of the map. But that history isn't reflected in the town scenes very well. For example, Charas and Pravend are the first and second capitals of the Empire but they're Vlandian now. Yet if you visit them, you don't see Vlandian buildings built over Imperial ruins -- they're just generic Vlandian towns.
There just seems to be this weird disconnect between the background lore they have in mind and what actually gets portrayed in the game.
which's why I find the entire shenanigan of encyclopedia entries a total waste of space and time. It's basically a bunch of "ipuslum lorem" we often use to show how cool something would look with actual content, but it's ultimately a gibberish text with absolutely no meaning
I guarantee you, if they actually did that (filled all entries with Ipsum Lorem) most of the player-base wouldn't even notice - nothing makes us want to read the lore, curious about it, or even think there's any meaning behind anything in-game because the actual gameplay doesn't reflect any of it on any shape or form, nor does it flush it at all... Rulers still act like bots under RNG gods at all times...
strawmann
Recruit
i don't actually think this is true - look how many regressions and new bugs they introduce in every patch
mods are nowhere near as buggy as official patches
modders may only do small projects, and they may walk away from the game for long periods, but they can always come back with their knowledge of the code intact
but once a taleworlds employee quits, that code knowledge is gone for good
five bucks
Knight at Arms
If Thing A and Thing B have 100s of similarities that greatly outweigh the differences, they "resemble" each other. Doesn't matter if there are a handful of differences - they still resemble each other. Which is what the question was.
What I said was: "It is real history/life copied directly and then with the names, timeline, and events shifted around a little." @Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James explained it better.
Don't blame me, I wasn't the one who took the discussion off track, and if it wasn't for being @'d I already was ready to stop posting here.
Besides, it gets your thread bumped and more likely to be seen by TW so what's the issue?
Makes me wonder if the lore is so barebones because the intended story is the same "get strong enough unite the squabbling tribes" idea from Warband, as implied by the main quest. Everything exists to be trampled by the Chosen One so they didn't bother fleshing it out. Given that the standard $60 RPG has a single storyline that can be beaten in a week's play it wouldn't surprise me if the SP game was only designed for a single full playthrough.
Plus due to a lack of competition even if this game was just Warband with modern graphics and some QoL it would have still sold well.
Plus due to a lack of competition even if this game was just Warband with modern graphics and some QoL it would have still sold well.
Last edited:
Those settlement entries have been around for a long, long time. Possibly the start of EA, maybe. You can tell because a number of them -- due to rebalancing village resources -- are now wrong as ****.
No, they weren't around at the start of EA. They were added in subsequent patches. First they added settlement entries, then they later added town entries. They also rewrote some of the faction encyclopedia entries (the Northen Empire's was rewritten, and the Western and Southern Empire didn't originally have any encyclopedia entries). A few of the new added characters (extra spouses) also got new encyclopedia entries over time.
It wouldn't surprise me that the resource descriptions are out of date, though.
The lack of lore and "spice" to NPCs is probably one of the most crucial parts missing or left dead for the game. Improving it would bring so much life to the game, and for some reason they just absolutely ruse to acknowledge its importance. Griding after thirty or forty hours into the game wouldn't be so much torture if the lords and ladies and NPCs, and the world they lived in, weren't shallower than a puddle.
well I said it time and time again, I'm a creative writer and I could do the job, if paid appropriately. Not only that we do have some interesting creative writers lurking within the community that are more absent, not active as I am, who could also do a pretty decent job at it.
My gripe with it, and I say this because I'm not hired so no NDA, is that even if I did a amazing job I'd still perceive it as crap because to me the gameplay must reflect the writing as much as possible, they sort of must work together. And to do so means that they'd need to add a lot of "complexity™" to their existing systems, and time and time again they've deemed even the most simplest of things as too complex™ - in fact it became the new soon™ - it's just a meme now.
That I have knowledge of, there are 5 creative writers besides me, one of which was a personal college friend, that I am 100% certain that if hired to do it would do a pretty decent job - but than again there's that little detail about integrating it properly....
I have no idea how their working policies are nor if they hire outsourced freelancers - which if they don't I'd probably not take the job. The good part is they wouldn't need to hire a translator for Portuguese and Italian - talk about ****ing economizing
Last edited:
Goyyyio
Sergeant
It's useless, we've spoken about this issue for years, the devs just refuse to acknowledge it, they will pretend to ignore it until modders fix it and we finally shut up about it. Check it out @Duh_TaleWorlds @Dejan
Then it is a shame. 99% of Rpg are frozen with NPC that don't do nothing except eating/sleeping (sometimes they travel when they have an advanced schedule like Oblivion) waiting the player to act while in Bannerlord NPC couldn't care less if the player just camp without doing nothing because they have their own agenda and will fight each other, they would even change the border of their kingdoms.
well I said it time and time again, I'm a creative writer and I could do the job, if paid appropriately. Not only that we do have some interesting creative writers lurking within the community that are more absent, not active as I am, who could also do a pretty decent job at it.
My gripe with it, and I say this because I'm not hired so no NDA, is that even if I did a amazing job I'd still perceive it as crap because to me the gameplay must reflect the writing as much as possible, they sort of must work together. And to do so means that they'd need to add a lot of "complexity™" to their existing systems, and time and time again they've deemed even the most simplest of things as too complex™ - in fact it became the new soon™ - it's just a meme now.
That I have knowledge of, there are 5 creative writers besides me, one of which was a personal college friend, that I am 100% certain that if hired to do it would do a pretty decent job - but than again there's that little detail about integrating it properly....
I have no idea how their working policies are nor if they hire outsourced freelancers - which if they don't I'd probably not take the job. The good part is they wouldn't need to hire a translator for Portuguese and Italian - talk about ****ing economizing
I'm also a writer. I'd put in some ideas for free, if it would help the game any and they'd let me.
If not, they have so many to reach out for that would do the job very, very well. Whoever is behind Pendor, for example. It's just really bizarre how they've done nothing on their own and seemingly refuse to reach out into the incredibly talented modding community for more than "make our game sell" mindsets.I really wanted to see a true successor to Warband, but I started seeing the signs around 1.5. I still come back and try to put in comments, even frustration, but now that its dropped on consoles and that community is notorious for accepting or rather forgetting mess-ups for the next big title, we're never going to see improvements. They've made their money.
TW doesn't give a **** about lore in BL because they didn't give a **** about lore in Warband. It was just generic Ye Olde Medieval.
lol no it wouldn't
who the **** would read that **** more than three times?
People only remember characters like Jeremus and Harlaus because of memes. Players created the "lore"; it was essentially like a narrative community mod fuelled by love of the game. The writing in Warband was really barebones, it's just boilerplate for the gameplay, which is fine. Nothing is worse than static writing in a dynamic game, especially when it's not very good.
Some games with no writing at all have a lot of "spice" to them. You can tell a story with nothing but aesthetics and game mechanics. Super Mario has about 3 lines of dialogue but a grillion times more character and memorability than MnB. Obviously these are fundamentally different games, but my point is that more dialogue isn't going to make Bannerlord feel less sterile.
Some games with no writing at all have a lot of "spice" to them. You can tell a story with nothing but aesthetics and game mechanics. Super Mario has about 3 lines of dialogue but a grillion times more character and memorability than MnB. Obviously these are fundamentally different games, but my point is that more dialogue isn't going to make Bannerlord feel less sterile.
Yes and no. I agree that Warband lore was mostly elevated by the fans, but I did like that the actual companions were unique and not just "Bobby the Robber because he has rogue skills". People remember their experiences with the Warband companions because they were able to create RP with them. Bannerlord could have really developed the "What was before Warband" experience, but it changed way too much stuff. They did add some city names that come from Warband but it makes no sense because they are not even at the correct place (Sargot).
Lore wasn't big in Warband, but at least there were gameplay elements that allowed you to roleplay, more than Bannerlord.
Some examples of things that just ruin RP in BL (I haven't played it for a while so maybe they finally added some of those):
-Having to scroll through notes to find location of lords
-Can't give tourney victories to ladies
-Can literally marry in a day
-Lords/characters don't seem to care about your actions, unless you go to them. In VC lords can hire people to kill you after you have wronged them, they will target your fiefs, they will chase you and hunt you, I haven't seen that in BL unless I am the one coming close to them.
-Companions are bland, they are just there for stats
-Camp build camps
The only fundamental difference between the dynamic bannerlord companions and the static warband ones is that you get to talk about static ones with other players. But besides that, most warband companions were just as forgettable as the random ones. Besides Jeremus, Borcha and maybe Rolf, i personally couldn't tell you anything about the others if i had a gun to my head, mainly because their backstories didn't tie in to gameplay much.
I think there is room for both dynamic and static NPCs in any rpg. Static npcs can often get by with just good writing, but dynamic ones need good dynamic gameplay and a reason to have some emotional attachment to the characters, even if it's as cynical as "i lost my surgeon". Warband kind of had this, but bannerlord with its byzantine level system and clan system kind of doesn't.
For example Kenshi has both dynamic and static companions, the mdickie games have both, and warband kind of had both if you managed to recruit your wife or husband, or if we're counting other lords as npcs you have some attachment to. In all these cases it's less the static writing and more the emergent gameplay that aids the roleplay aspect. Sure you can have static writing to determine the backstory or general direction of a character, but at the end of the day (most) video games are about change and player agency, and that should take precedence over the writing. I mean you even say it yourself, most of your suggestions have nothing to do with the writing.
Arguable. Bannerlord does have gameplay elements that allow you to roleplay. I haven't counted them, so I can't really comment on whether it's fewer or more than Warband. While it's true that the ones you mentioned are missing, Bannerlord added the following:
- More fief notables who compete with each other (at least only when you interfene)
- More quests that come with them
- Civilian gear restrictions and back alley fights
- Making caravans
- Delegating quests to companions
- Making clan parties
- Childbirth and death
- Smithing and its commissions
- Buying fiefs (although the prequisite is insane on this one)
- Gambling
- More doable hideouts and their boss duels
- The ability to make real armies
- The whole influence system (while still barebone, it's still a thing)
While they're dynamic, Bannerlord companions also have backstories. What's jarring is that they're drawn from a fixed set of backstories. Still, it's pretty much the same level of writing as companions in Warband.
Edit: Don't we also get more writing on the lords? Many of the lords have written dialogues in the banner campaign and backstories in the encyclopedia.
Last edited:
Having baby and educating them Is implemented in gameplay, few people complain abou It. Other things are text only like minor factions (different type of troops but they are always mercenaries open to all factions) or 3 different empire factions that work the same way.
