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danEN said:

WB was made by gamers, BL was made by money men

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I think it's more something like "made by gamers that wanted to become a corporation but failed in project and team management, then decided to make a cash grab to save their asses". But it's less pithy.

Maybe "failed by incompetent management then turned into a cash grab"

I pretty much dropped BL. I only take a look at the boards from tie to time, but I don't see much change. 80% disappointed. (I did play it after all)
Other EA games I picked up feel incomplete but not bungled like this.

I bought a lot of games in EA : Grim Dawn, Valheim, Satisfactory, Shipbreaker, Edera, some others. Most were relatively cheap while in EA.

Outside of Edera, which I didn't get into, all of the others were at the time incomplete or still are, but they were nice to play for what they were. At least, most of their systems seemed to work well together. I don't regret buying them and am willing to wait to replay them when they've progressed a bit. (I already restarted Shipbreaker with their latest update)

What disappoints me with BL is that the rules and mechanics are clunky and don't mesh together, lots of numbers and systems don't make sense and the whole game seem to progress haphazardly at a snail's pace.
Plus, being an M&B enthusiast from the start (waaay back) I'm frankly disappointed. And it was quite expensive for an incomplete EA game.

But the worst part is I don't think it will progress to anything significant. It feels like a zombie project. I only pop from time to time on the boards to check but... Nothing seems to change much.

julijs said:

In they maliciously represented their product and ran away with everyone's money. but hey, at least Taleworld's is pretending to work on the game.

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The saddest thing is that they probably ARE working on the game.

My guess is that they f***ed up their project development, burned a ton of cash while every team was working in different directions (most of the rule mechanics don't seem to fit together or make a coherent whole) and released at this price while promising a complete game because they needed the money to go on.

Most probably, they know they're going nowhere without a complete reorganization, concept rework etc... Which they have neither the money, nor the inclination for. I wouldn't be surprised if people at TW had regular meetings where they go through the motions of developing the game while not achieving much. (And probably getting pissed at one another, plus their customers)

In my eyes, that's just a zombie project.

MadVader said:

The relevant thing is what they are doing now to remedy the situation, if anything? Did they give up on planning and orderly development because they are tired and jaded of all the chaos? Or did they realize they need a fresh and more professional approach and new faces in the leadership team?
The likely answer is neither, Armagan started a fresh unannounced project while probably leaving the Bannerlord team to continue without clear leadership and with the good old daily improvisation.

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That's my guess too. They'll keep puttering with BL while knowing in the back of their minds that it's going nowhere... While Armagan is trying in parallel to relive his previous sucess (and fun, I suppose)
I don't think the situation is salvageable at this point. It would take a complete change of leadership, organization and a massive rework of the project. Things that would be very hard to decide, cost tons of time and money and for very little return on investment.

Actually, more resources don't help if your work organization is crap. A lot of start-ups implode when they reach 50 to 100 people, because you need to transition from "garage" team to fledgling company. Adding more people just leads to more chaos.

And Valheim is nice though limited at this time (I enjoyed it a lot) but it kinda emphasizes the point. The Valheim team is comparable to what TW was in the M&B first years. And they DID get a very good game out with a small team. Project Irongate 10 to 15 years in the future, with a 50+ company, you might very well get a crappy Valheim 2.0...

MadVader said:

He did, but it didn't work out and the manager guy took off a couple of years ago. We don't know about anyone new managing this.
My theory is that the tech/owner guy undermined the manager guy by establishing a laid back, lazy workplace culture where he still makes the major decisions, which should be the manager's prerogative.

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To be honest, it's fairly hard for the original tech/owner to gracefully pass the baton. I have great respect for those I met that did. It was the right move, but not an enjoyable one...
I'm dubious about "laid-back and lazy". Looking back at the previous M&B products, they probably worked hard.
I'd rather suspect a chaotic and conflictual workplace culture, wiith the original owner undercutting the manager, trying to maintain his original way of doing things and a bunch of guys each pursuing their "vision" and pushing their own part... They might very well work quite hard, each pulling the cart in a different direction
A tomcat trying to herd other cats :p

qwerrecd42 said:

I'm a software developer and I can tell you it's not normal. Not in the slightest. Their current roadmap being as vague as it is this late in the process absolutely SCREAMS disfunction from a game design/management standpoint. When half of your points are "improve <x>" then you're almost assuredly flying by the seat of your pants.

Then again I suppose this is more normal for EA than it is for a normal product, not that that's an excuse.

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I was not a software developer, but I spent 15 years troubleshooting and evaluating suppliers projects for a large Telco.
From the outside, this looks suspiciously like several failures I've had to dissect... A small team start-up that gets bigger and fails to organize.
There are organizational pitfalls for developing companies. You can do wonders with a "garage team" of motivated developers with a creative and charismatic leader that orchestrates everything around his/her vision.

Try to do the same with 50 people or more and it frequently implodes... You need documentation, organization, proper roadmaps etc... The guy that was so good at driving 5 or 6 people often gets frustrated at being forced into such chores. Might even call such organization "a load of bull****" (I've heard that from a senior developer in actual audit...) Quite often the more "tech" guy needs to recruit someone else to take the reins.. Or sell the company and start something else. I've seen both scenarios.

That's of course, just a general hypothesis. You never know for sure till you've actually evaluated the situation. But this looks like a falied project and a start-up that failed in its growth.

They can pretty much do what they want.
However, due to how bannerlord turned out, I certainly won't pitch in with EA. I shelled money for BL due to how much I loved the M&B series, but that didn't pay. Nowadays TW doesn't deserve the confidenceI had in the old TW IMHO. Therefore, no money for EA from my part.

StewVader said:

For sure. The game needs way more depth. Its currently a puddle, nothing to do but hack and slash.

The issue I have with the succession system is, it just doesn't make any sense with the game's dynamic or environment. There are not enough fiefs to warrant a succession system, and fiefs are assigned to Clans not individuals. Succession doesn't even make sense given the above.

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Not only that, but the timescale of the game is wrong. Death and succession are crucial in a "strategic" game like CKII where time is measured in seasons and the focus is on dynasty and kingdom building.

In a "tactical" game like BL where the timescale is days or even minutes, it's out of whack. To implement it, TW had to make the character start quite old for the period, despite being a complete rookie and make him/her age unnaturaly fast. Plus, the rapidity of the wars and conquests don't mesh with such a mechanism either.

BL design feels like TW wants it to be a lot of things at the same time. And the parts don't fit together. There's no clear focus to the design, contrarily to WB or VC.

TW can declare it's out of EA at whatever time they wish. They don't even have to finish whatever features they've listed. It's not like when it's considered "Live" there won't be patches and updates... Declaring that the game has left EA is a matter of communication, not a technical decision.

312 hours. Then I stopped and uninstalled the game till it gets better...Or not. I still have Warband and VC installed, though.

Bredd said:

People have a right to feel disappointed and not like the game. That being said, I can see very little evidence of deception by Taleworlds. A few random points below

• The game is clearly stated to be in early access, with a warning on what that means on the storefront.
• You are not guaranteed to like or enjoy the game in it's early access or finished state.
• Price is largely irrelevant, because you determine if you choose to participate in it's current price point. Same as you may have with other early access titles.
• The developers may well fail to deliver what they initially envisioned.
• I have over 100 enjoyable hours played, so I feel I have already received my moneys worth in the game, and I look forward to more playtime in the future after future updates, even if that is a couple years into the future.

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Deception, no. I don't think that they are out to deceive people. But it looks like they have a lot of trouble managing this game development and their current structure. That's what worries me.

zMasterofPie said:

I really hope you are wrong about the cash grab. I too am disappointed, but I still have a bit of hope that the game will be improved. There is no doubt that the project was managed very poorly, I hope Taleworlds will get their **** together and come through to make Bannerlord a good game. It definitely has a lot of cool new features but it's just missing so much. They tried to make new stuff and forgot about what made the game a Mount & Blade game.

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Well.. What I think is that the project was slipping, so they NEEDED to grab cash. I don't think TW wanted to just grab cash and run, it doesn't fit. But this looks like a severe project management problem. That's not something that will resolve on its own.

babelfisch said:

Yes, I meant there are positive and negative examples for early access. M&B is probably somewhere in the middle. It's not as bad as some people want it to be. Which doesn't mean we should shut up and stop criticising. While not everyone or everything can be the best, you should always try to be better and feedback certainly helps with that.

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It's mostly that I'm terribly disappointed. I played an awful lot of M&B, Warband and VC. I used to admire how Armagan had managed to whip up such a game with so few means. With a decent crew, TW seems to be floundering. And they also seem to have tried to rebuild all the basic blocks of M&B from a blank slate... With haphazard and inconvincing results. It makes me quite sad and I don't get a good feeling from where it's going.

babelfisch said:

Compared to some other EA games I've seen the game is far more advanced. Doesn't mean there aren't better examples such as Grim Dawn, but I believe there is no 'standard' when it comes to early access. By the way, Steam even states that a game may get cancelled without the option of refunds AFAIK. Imagine the outrage...

PS
I checked steam price history and it seems like the game was never above 25€. Are you sure about that?

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Including DLCs, yes. The price of the original went up a bit, then they added two DLCs that complement the game very nicely. The whole package goes for that price. We may argue about how the pricing is done, I think that of Crate is much more user-friendly. The DLCs are not cosmetic, they add whole acts.
And ok, some games fail in EA. Should we not comment about the good ones vs the mediocre or very bad ones? I'd very much have liked BL to be one of the good ones (even if it took time) but ATM, it goes into the mediocre/failing category

babelfisch said:

The thing is, Shipbreaker will probably remain at ~25€ after full release, just like Grim Dawn did. TW is aiming for a full release worth 50€, I don't see why they should give you a 50% discount just because you are able to play the game before it's released.

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Yep but the complete Grim Dawn is sold for 55 Euros. They've spread the price all along development, depending on the content available. For BL, you have to fork the price of GD including all DLCs for something that's not even working as well as GD's first EA version.
Based on the price and announcements, you'd expect something alreay quite advanced, if not yet complete. It's not.

Being a fan of the M&B series since the first opus early access, BL is a huge disappointment. That's a pale and very clunky shadow of the original. Only the graphics are (much) better.
It feels like a cash grab coupled to a project management catastrophe. (The cash grab being probably prompted by the catastrophe)

I stopped playing BL weeks ago. Guess what ? I bought into another EA game, Shipbreaker. It's unfinished, it lacks content (only 2 ships and Act 1) but I already clocked in as much hours as in BL. It was priced 20 Euros, not 50. Like Grim Dawn, another game I bought in EA. And both of those games were lacking content, but were quite playable and enjoyable and had a clear roadmap.
BL is full price, claims a lot about features, while most of the mechanics are clunky or not implemented, and has a very vague roadmap.
Well, anyway, I'm out for the foreseeable future.
Cya ! Have fun with the flame wars (which seems to be the most active part of the game)

I don't mind paying for an unfinished game and being part of development. I did so for several games. I understand fully than an EA game will lack a lot of features and content and be subject to rework of some components.
What I DO mind is that BL's existing mechanics are a mess, that instead of introducing systems in a layered fashion, we get a patchwork of buggy unfinished systems. That the roadmap is quite vague and seems mostly about bug-fixing, not reworking borked rules. That communication is sparse and quite opaque.
I don't feel BL is going to get better soon. I just uninstalled, play something else and keep an eye on the boards. So far, I'm not seeing anything that will make me reinstall. Maybe in a year or two, the way it's going. Pity, I love the M&B game. But this is a mess.