Devs and "Community" Employees Are Averaging Less than 1 Post Per Day - Where Is The Engagement?

[bm01]

Holy quote war. Sorry, not playing that game.

Now let me ask you: How does it benefit you at all to be whiteknighting for Taleworlds right now? Why are you telling people they shouldn't criticise the game's incomplete state and lack of communication and progress?

- Why aren't devs talking to us anymore, where's the engagement?
- You know, getting insulted on a daily basis...
- Why are you whiteknighting?!

And then people justify their insults and disrespect by saying they've been suggesting improvements for the game for YEARS but they don't listen... The perfect definition of entitled players.

And finally they say that if they listened, maybe the game wouldn't have been such a disaster, not realizing the game isn't a disaster at all and people are enjoying it.

The general negativity on these forums also is also why people slowly stopped coming here over time. Look at the front page, a good third of it is about how the game sucks, how the forums are dead, how devs aren't listening. It also makes people not willing to engage in discussions, ask questions about the game, share their experience. Granted that's also a moderation issue and posts tilted "I've been scammed by the devs" shouldn't be tolerated in the first place. But anyway, a community is shaped by the players, it's always been like that. If you want people to stay and devs to interact with the players again, there needs to be a better atmosphere around here.

 

[Dodgy]

the game isn't a disaster at all and people are enjoying it.

Lots of people being happy with sub par products does not equal to a good/well made product. The world is absolutely overflowing with terrible products/services that easy to please / low standards people are happy to buy (unknowingly due to not enough research on their part / misleading marketing) or to keep buying (puzzling at best).

Good for you if you are happy with your purchase, doesn't change the fact that Bannerlord is an empty husk of a game that rather than improving on a solid base they had created with warband, has pretty much streamlined/removed everything but wars.

It is such a shame to have an engine that can run those massive battles going to waste like this.

 

[five bucks]

- Why are you whiteknighting?!

Fantastic question, now answer it. I bet you can't.

And then people justify their insults and disrespect by saying they've been suggesting improvements for the game for YEARS but they don't listen... The perfect definition of entitled players

Ah, there's that word "entitled".
Yes - you are in fact entitled to a fully functional game if you paid money for it, and Bannerlord is not functional.

The general negativity on these forums also is also why people slowly stopped coming here over time. Look at the front page, a good third of it is about how the game sucks, how the forums are dead, how devs aren't listening.

Have you even stopped to consider that maybe the reason so many people are posting these things, and the forums are half dead, is because the game does suck in many ways, and because TW isn't communicating with us?

Why would people want to come to a forum for an unfun game where the developers don't communicate with the users? Why would so many people be complaining if there was nothing to complain about? The most obvious answer is that there actually is a serious problem with the game and company, not the fanbase. You think you're enlightened and know better than everyone else, but you don't.

But anyway, a community is shaped by the players, it's always been like that. If you want people to stay and devs to interact with the players again, there needs to be a better atmosphere around here.

As was already said:
People have posted constructive criticism here for years and years and it got ignored. TW only replies to people and starts fixing things when they are aggressive and loudly critical. I have seen this happen multiple times. Things which people don't make noise about usually get ignored while Taleworlds does stuff nobody asked for. Perhaps you just haven't been on the forums long enough to see it happen, in which case it's funny you try to tell us otherwise.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease".

So again, why are you whiteknighting? How does it benefit you?

 

[NPC99]

TW only replies to people and starts fixing things when they are aggressive and loudly critical.

I suspect TW listed a limited number of community suggestions, which they agree with, when they were first raised. However, by allocating them low priorities coupled with a slow pace of development, they never turn up in game until after these forums have become "aggressive" on those subjects. Accordingly, I don't believe being loud and aggressive achieves anything more. Some things TW are never going to implement whatever we say and some things will turn up eventually. Who knows which.

 

[bm01]

Fantastic question, now answer it. I bet you can't.

The point you completely fail to understand even though I talked about it in my last paragraph is that I'm not saying this to help or defend them, but because players like me who wish the community wasn't as bad as it is right now are indirectly affected by your entitled behavior. And yes I'm saying it again. It's great to make suggestions and even more so if they implement your ideas, but if not you should just move on or make your own game. Throwing a tantrum because you kept making suggestions for years and they haven't listened once is 100% an entitled behavior. The sooner you realize it the sooner you'll be able to move on from this.

Overall I would prefer if people on these forums were less negative and aggressive (and not just towards devs), and instead worked toward building a community with what they have now. Even bad games, and that's assuming this is indeed a bad game, can have great communities. But it's completely delusional to think the devs will start communicating or taking suggestions more often when it's that bad and they get outright insulted.

Have you even stopped to consider that maybe the reason so many people are posting these things, and the forums are half dead, is because the game does suck in many ways, and because TW isn't communicating with us?

Great theory, but I know deader and worse games with better official forums, X4: Foundations for one.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

It's not caused by the release at all, because it's nothing new. But it used to be better (like a year or two ago). I feel like there's a correlation between the level of involvement community managers and devs (but mostly devs) have in forum discussions and general toxicity. For community managers, well it's their job to handle that, but not for devs. When half of the posts (not really half but it could be perceived that way) are about how incompetent you are, how you should hire modders instead, how you scammed people, no wonder you don't want to read them if you don't have to.

There was almost complete radio silence for a periods of months in about 2013-2015 or therabouts, I can't remember exactly. While some developers have said in the past that they don't like posting here, the lack of communication long predates that. The toxicity is caused primarily by a lack of developer interaction, not the other way round.

 

[five bucks]

I suspect TW listed a limited number of community suggestions, which they agree with, when they were first raised. However, by allocating them low priorities coupled with a slow pace of development, they never turn up in game until after these forums have become "aggressive" on those subjects. Accordingly, I don't believe being loud and aggressive achieves anything more. Some things TW are never going to implement whatever we say and some things will turn up eventually. Who knows which.

I disagree, I think certain features' addition or fixing was suspiciously well timed with the level of complaints reaching a fever pitch. Either way, with the opacity of Taleworlds' inner workings and their lack of communication, we'll never know for sure. But when Mexxico was working there, directly engaging with the community, and telling us what was going on, he would take our suggestions for fixes to meetings and often they would either be rejected quite soon after, or implemented in the next patch or two. Bloc has also made it clear that many types of feature can be added by TW in a day's worth of work, or in some cases even an hour.

I'm not saying this to help or defend them, but because players like me who wish the community wasn't as bad as it is right now are indirectly affected

The community is "bad" (having seen much worse online communities, you're greatly overstating this complaining about a genuinely half-broken game) because Taleworlds' communication and pace of work is bad.

You are not benefiting yourself by telling people to stop complaining. You are only benefiting Taleworlds, and even then not really.

it's completely delusional to think the devs will start communicating or taking suggestions more often when people are negative and aggressive

How many times do I have to tell you I've seen with my own eyes that Taleworlds DOES reply more when people are negative and aggressive? We can go months at a time with no replies to nice, constructive posts. When criticism stops being nice, the community managers finally start replying.

Great theory, but I know deader and worse games with better official forums, X4: Foundations for one.

I'm looking at that game now, they seem to be communicating better than TW. A couple of months ago they did a player survey.

move on from this

Take your own advice and start moving on out of this thread. Let people complain about the broken product they paid for.

 

[NPC99]

Bloc has also made it clear that many types of feature can be added by TW in a day's worth of work, or in some cases even an hour.

Bloc's a great modder. However, even he made clear that his mods were demonstrations of possibilities, not code that had been thoroughly debugged or optimised over 100% of the hardware base. So, take the timescales into perspective. Equally, Bloc is extremely and rarely gifted, a great coder with excellent game design instincts. He's better than average modders or average TW interns.

 

[bm01]

...

Yes, yes, TaleWorlds bad, players good. I get it. Now leave me alone please.

By the way earlier or in another topic someone suggested Reddit was even worse when it comes to negativity and toxicity towards the devs. Generally I would agree that Reddit isn't a great place, but I checked it out anyway. There's a post asking if the game is worth buying, and overall people answer yes (at least at the time I'm writing this), the only negative opinion being downvoted. I'll leave it to you to decide what that means, if it does mean anything; personally I appreciate the irony.

 

[Apocal]

Yes, yes, TaleWorlds bad, players good. I get it. Now leave me alone please.

By the way earlier or in another topic someone suggested Reddit was even worse when it comes to negativity and toxicity towards the devs. Generally I would agree that Reddit isn't a great place, but I checked it out anyway. There's a post asking if the game is worth buying, and overall people answer yes (at least at the time I'm writing this), the only negative opinion being downvoted. I'll leave it to you to decide what that means, if it does mean anything; personally I appreciate the irony.

A game's official forum is almost always full of negativity. That's just the nature of the beast. The exceptions are, ah, let's just call it "curated."

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

By the way earlier or in another topic someone suggested Reddit was even worse when it comes to negativity and toxicity towards the devs. Generally I would agree that Reddit isn't a great place, but I checked it out anyway. There's a post asking if the game is worth buying, and overall people answer yes (at least at the time I'm writing this), the only negative opinion being downvoted.

You answered your own question. Reddit allows community self-censorship. You are very unlikely to see a subreddit where everyone is saying the game is bad because negativity in general gets downvoted.

Also nobody goes to reddit to issue complaints about the game not working, they go there to post le funi memes and stuff that happened to them ingame. It's more like a fanclub while forums (even steamforums) are more like a complaint desk.

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

the only negative opinion being downvoted.

Being able to downvote an opinion without actually writing your counter argument. Wow, what a great place than here.

 

[Mad Vader]

By the way earlier or in another topic someone suggested Reddit was even worse when it comes to negativity and toxicity towards the devs. Generally I would agree that Reddit isn't a great place, but I checked it out anyway. There's a post asking if the game is worth buying, and overall people answer yes (at least at the time I'm writing this), the only negative opinion being downvoted. I'll leave it to you to decide what that means, if it does mean anything; personally I appreciate the irony.

It means squat, there are seven people talking there and the overall tone is not quite positive.
Now try looking at the recent posts if you are going for vox populi, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MB2Bannerlord/
Console player newbie questions, complaints about bugs, crashes, features and asking about mods. Again, you fail to make an argument.

 

[guiskj]

@mexxico leaving was the last ray of hope leaving the building.

 

[five bucks]

Yes, yes, TaleWorlds bad, players good. I get it. Now leave me alone please.

You can leave any time you want. Nobody is forcing you to stay here and tell people they should be polite and happy about a broken game they paid for.

 

[Phantom425]

So did tickets to Woodstock '99.

That's actually average by Steam standards.

AVERAGE AVERAGE SEE!? SEE!? THE GAME IS AVERAGE!!!!!!!!!!!

People have posted constructive criticism here for years and years and it got ignored. TW only replies to people and starts fixing things when they are aggressive and loudly critical. I have seen this happen multiple times. Things which people don't make noise about usually get ignored while Taleworlds does stuff nobody asked for. Perhaps you just haven't been on the forums long enough to see it happen, in which case it's funny you try to tell us otherwise.

It has to be more then one simple thread for it to matter. As stated a year ago, the forum community is the minority. Most players don't really give a **** and are just going to keep playing the game. Unless there is something massive, there isn't going to be massive backlash that will get TW to do something. There has to be widescale backlash for them to really get going, more then just something small like a forum post detailing why armor values suck.

Also, the ****ing entitlement "Taleworlds does stuff nobody asked for". You typically have pretty good takes, but really? Its their game, they can add whatever they want to it, it doesn't fundamentally matter what the forum asks for. If something is broken, they have an obligation to fix it, but they don't have an obligation to add other content to the game that the community wants.

 

[SpartanBG]

We can argue and speculate all we want, I remember the initial early release days - it was God awful game.
I've seen so much progress and potential that i'm still having a hard time believe the common tone of TW not listening and not being active enough.
After all they decide themselves how active and involved in the community they will be. Most game studios lack even this (and i'm not excusing TW), like DICE.

 

[SpartanBG]

AVERAGE AVERAGE SEE!? SEE!? THE GAME IS AVERAGE!!!!!!!!!!!

It has to be more then one simple thread for it to matter. As stated a year ago, the forum community is the minority. Most players don't really give a **** and are just going to keep playing the game. Unless there is something massive, there isn't going to be massive backlash that will get TW to do something. There has to be widescale backlash for them to really get going, more then just something small like a forum post detailing why armor values suck.

Also, the ****ing entitlement "Taleworlds does stuff nobody asked for". You typically have pretty good takes, but really? Its their game, they can add whatever they want to it, it doesn't fundamentally matter what the forum asks for. If something is broken, they have an obligation to fix it, but they don't have an obligation to add other content to the game that the community wants.

You my friend are totally correct, i just dislike how they advertised it when i got in the early release stage, it's a shame if they let it stay "unfinished" by my standards
I'm going to be totally honest in saying there is no other game like Bannerlord (probably there won't be any time soon) For me personally it mixes my favorite parts from my favorite game genres. It just has stuff lacking and the most irritating part is that those stuff are present in the game and just don't do anything (or i haven't reached that point where they start)

 

[five bucks]

AVERAGE AVERAGE SEE!? SEE!? THE GAME IS AVERAGE!!!!!!!!!!!

The game's rating is average. The game's quality in terms of feature-completeness and functionality is below satisfactory (regardless of what is considered average in the industry).

Most players don't really give a **** and are just going to keep playing the game

As said before in this very thread, yes there are plenty of idiots who never complain and consume any crap the industry throws at them, that's why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is still selling.

However that doesn't mean that normal people with standards should just ignore the many flaws of a game. So why do you keep bringing that up? Who does it benefit to say that?

Unless there is something massive, there isn't going to be massive backlash that will get TW to do something. There has to be widescale backlash for them to really get going, more then just something small like a forum post detailing why armor values suck.

Well, the post you were replying to did say that Taleworlds does things when complaining is at its loudest.

Also, the ****ing entitlement "Taleworlds does stuff nobody asked for". You typically have pretty good takes, but really? Its their game, they can add whatever they want to it, it doesn't fundamentally matter what the forum asks for.

It stops being "their game" when they charge money for it, receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the community, and say "we are going to make the game to meet community expectations".

I'm not saying they should be adding any old feature a random community member asks for, but they should certainly not be prioritising stuff nobody asked for over stuff the paying customers were told was going to be in the game when they bought it.

If something is broken, they have an obligation to fix it, but they don't have an obligation to add other content to the game that the community wants.

That's the main thing I was implying should be prioritised over stuff that nobody asked for. That, and advertised features.

 

[FireBlazinCandy]

We can argue and speculate all we want, I remember the initial early release days - it was God awful game.
I've seen so much progress and potential that i'm still having a hard time believe the common tone of TW not listening and not being active enough.
After all they decide themselves how active and involved in the community they will be. Most game studios lack even this (and i'm not excusing TW), like DICE.

People keep saying the game has progressed since release, and that's true..but not two years worth of progression a dedicated, paid team of professionals working on it, nevermind the dozens of people in the forum posting fixed code that TW implemented and free QA from tens of thousands of players.

I bought the game at EA launch and it's basically the exact same game but with more quests that I rarely get involved in, and more armour I skip because I just go from crap armour, to the best armour after a couple hours of gameplay.

All they have really done is tinker with the code over and over and over and over.